If you're cutting the 3rd therapy, I would definitely go with the 4th cabal ritual. Deathrite shaman is only good if you're running unmask too. However, the card disadvantage of unmask really hurts with all of the dead cards in the deck. A second wild cantor for increased mana fixing and serve as a creature to sacrifice (for double narc hands) is a possibility too. Those would be my candidates if I cut the 3rd therapy. Hope this helps.
I don't think Balustrade Spy vs Undercity Informant in the SB makes much of a difference in Legacy vs aggro-control because you're not going to be "slow rolling" Living Wish -> Undericty Informant -> Activate over three turns like you are in Vintage and expecting to win thru' a Lightning Bolt, but Balustrade Spy makes the deck more consistent in terms of having the bodies to sacrifice to Cabal Therapy without playing Bridge from Below. You can always trade places with Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informant post-board when you SB in Angel of Glory's Rise and Fiend Hunter anyway.
I've gone down to a package of 4 Narcomoeba, 1 Dread Return, 1 Sutured Ghoul, 1 Dragon's Breath and 2 Cabal Therapy in the MD as well because Cabal Therapy is not a reliable disruption spell and good opponent's will Force of Will the Dark Ritual instead of risk the Cabal Therapy regardless of how many copies you're playing in your deck (and they can't know for certain anyway)
One of the other things I've noticed is that when you're SBing out the Sutured Ghoul package and SBing in the Angel of Glory's Rise package is that Xantid Swarm is an option for disruption, and vs Esper Blade or decks that primarily rely on Surgical Extraction for their graveyard hate you can just roll over them. It's hands down the most efficient disruption card you can play after Pact of Negation, I've thought a lot about whether or not we should play the Angel of Glory's Rise kill condition in the MD just to be able to play Xantid Swarm and Lion's Eye Diamond MD with Pact of Negation in the SB but you only have like two MD slots for Xantid Swarm with the 3 card kill condition and the 2nd Cabal Therapy has more utility than the extra kill condition piece when drawn so meh.
Regardless, my SBing plan vs anything blue is pretty much + Angel of Glory's Rise, Fiend Hunter and 4x Xantid Swarm, which justifies the use of Angel of Glory's Rise and Fiend Hunter in the SB to me now because for awhile I was just never bothering to SB in the alternate kill because Ghoul got the job done all the same.
I have like 3 open spots in the MD right now and I have no idea what to use them on, Wild Cantors, Tinder Walls and Grim Monoliths seem like the best bet but I think something like 2 Unmask, 1 Deathrite Shaman could be interesting because it increases the black count for Chrome Mox and puts the density of your disruption to like 4 Pact of Negation, 2 Unmask and 2 Cabal Therapy pre-board. I'm really skeptical about the utility of Deathrite Shaman tho' becaust casting it is pretty much bull shit unless you're recurring a Cabal Therapy and I can't really find these hands where imprinting for Black off of a Summoner's Pact does anything that a Wild Cantor wouldn't. Singleton Unmask seems pretty good tho' for filler.
Extending beyond tempo decks like RUG, I think balustrade spy in the sb doesn't make much of a difference in general as far as speed in concerned. I personally like having the extra creature to sacrifice too. Glad to see you've finally taken the leap of faith and dropped bridge as well. :) Maybe I should go ahead and drop the 3rd therapy...
With 4 xantid swarms, fiend hunter kill, and 5 utility lands in the sb, I see only 4 spots left for leyline of sanctity and permanent-based gy hate. This seems kind of thin.
I would definitely go with grim monolith since it's extremely important not to waste chancellor mana on turn 1. The real value of DRS in this deck is finding it with summoner's pact to pitch to unmask. Unless you're running multiple unmask, I agree DRS isn't worth it. A singleton unmask is probably not a bad idea. With the high number of dead cards in the deck and chrome mox, losing further card advantage with multiple unmask hurts a lot.
My SB is usually,
1 Balustrade Spy or Undercity Informer
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Gemstone Mine
1 City of Traitors
1 Peat Bog
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Fiend Hunter
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Leyline of Sanctity
Which I think is optimal until people bring Leyline of the Void to tournaments, most decks are using Surgical Extraction for Snapcaster or Relic of Progenitus vs Tarmogoyf in SBs with Tormod's Crypt only showing up consistently in RUG so I think hedging against counter magic and Surgical Extraction with Pact of Negation and Xantid Swarm, protecting against discard, Storm and Tormod's Crypt with Leyline of Sanctity and relying on speed vs everything else is the most logical way to build your SB.
As much as I like Lion's Eye Diamond, and I like Lion's Eye Diamond a lot, I think the deck's main selling point is its ability to use cost efficient disruption when compared to Belcher so I'm going with Pact of Negation in the MD.
As for the other 3 MD cards, I go back and forth on liking Grim Monolith and disliking Grim Monolith because of the 2cc, colorless mana and being unable to imprint it. I think I'm going to go with 4 Wild Cantor MD for awhile just to see how it will effect turn 2 wins and add to the utility of Cabal Ritual and to a lesser extent Cabal Therapy
Have you tried hickory woodlot? I actually wish for it pretty often in my testing. While I'll agree that the most commonly boarded in gy hate are surgical extraction, tormod's crypt, and relic of progenitus right now, none of your sb cards stop relic. Also, I think it's very risky not to have an answer for DRS and to a lesser extent scavenging ooze. Having speed helps but xantid swarm requires a full turn setup and an additional green mana. This goes against your boarding ideology of trying to get there with speed. Aside from LofV, faerie macabre is unbeatable too if people started using those again.
I like LED too but not so much in this build (useless with balustrade spy in opener) and definitely agree that pact of negation should be MD material (though I only run 3). I've rarely found imprinting something on chrome mox to be a problem in my testing. I ran 4 wild cantor for awhile just to see what kind of improvement it had on mana fixing. The difference was noticeable but so was the drawback of card disadvantage. I'd often be short of mana as a result.
Adding SB cards to address Rest in Peace, Deathrite Shaman and Relic of Progenitus isn't critical compared to addressing counter magic, discard, Surgical Extraction and Tormod's Crypt because counter magic and discard are more abundant than hate and Surgical Extraction and Tormod's Crypt either leave no window to win before they resolve or require you to be on the play. Rest in Peace, Deathrite Shaman and Relic of Progenitus do nothing vs a turn 1 hand on the draw or a turn 2 hand on the play, which makes speed, not answers, the best strategy. I'd sooner have a Lion's Eye Diamond in hand than I would a Nature's Claim or Deathmark vs Relic of Progenitus or Deathrite Shaman.
The only decks that play Relic of Progenitus are decks that don't play Tarmogoyf or Snapcaster Mage as far as I can tell, which is like Goblins, and there's pretty much no way for Goblins to beat you in a 3 game match even if they draw Relic of Progenitus. Deathrite Shaman doesn't scare me as much as Thoughtseize does because at least when the opponent goes Deathrite Shaman, go I have an 8 card hand in order to win the game on my turn.
Vs BUG style decks I think we just lose, you can't really deal with every angle of attack between Force of Will, Thoughtseize and Deathrite Shaman with any boarding plan. I think you either go for sheer speed with Lion's Eye Diamond or you try to pin them with Chancellor of the Annex for a turn and pretty much leave them to a Force or no Force proposition even when you are on the draw.
So, you try to play the control game with Pact of Negation and Xantid Swarm vs decks that use Surgical Extraction, play Leyline of Sanctity vs the decks that use discard and anything that shows up with T2 graveyard disruption just race. If we get into an ugly match up that's like FoW, discard and DRS we really don't have any dominant boarding strategy except maybe 4 Chancellor of the Annex and 4 Lion's Eye Diamond and being fast as hell. That may end up being a better way to go than Leyline of Sanctity, because even tho' you have no answer to potential Tormod's Crypts it seems like the least played hate card next to Leyline of the Void, it's never playing in 4x except for maybe in Affinity and you can still win coin flips against it thru' out the course of a match.
My philosophy is basically deal with the shit that impacts me turn 0 or turn 1 and everything that doesn't do anything until turn 2 you just hope to race with the deck's pretty absurd speed. I definitely think BUG is our worst match up for obvious reasons.
I really don't know what to do with those 3 slots, right now I'm looking at Gitaxian Probe for more pseudo protection or a Xantid Swarm/LED MD and cutting down to a single Cabal Therapy.
I agree that addressing counter magic, discard, and t0/t1 hate (surgical, crypt, spellbomb) should be prioritized above the other gy hate cards. If you're going to try to win through non-blue decks with speed, I think chancellor of the annex would be better than leyline of sanctity in the sb and might deserve more consideration than pact of negation for md protection. It still stops t1 discard, spellbomb, and surgical (on the play). However, it gives up beating surgical on the draw and crypt at the expense of fighting through t1 DRS. Because DRS is more prevalent than either surgical or crypt, I believe this is worth it. Furthermore, the MD pact of negations already handle the surgical case. If you're going play LED, I think it has to be main deck and accompanied by chancellor as you indicated.
Against FoW decks, how you tried playing pact of negation in conjunction with chancellor of the annex? If so, do you think the xantid swarm strategy does it better? I'm going to try to craft a new sb gameplan in the next few days and see what your take is on it.
I don't think probe or cutting down to 1 therapy is a good idea. Because of the high density of dead cards in this deck (including non-opener tangles and rogues), probe has a significant chance of drawing into trash. Cutting down to 1 therapy is downright dangerous in my opinion. A hand with therapy and any non-narc combo piece is now unplayable.
I agree on 2xCabal Therapy, I had issues drawing multiple pieces with the MD Angel of Glory's rise combo and the number of black cards for Chrome Mox has become so low that I'm leaning towards Unmask(s) again.
I disagree with Chancellor of the Annex in the MD, it's awful on the draw vs aggro-control and doesn't protect turn 2 wins. Chancellor of the Annex in the SB is reasonable and I think I prefer it to Leyline of Sanctity because it's an answer to Thoughtseize and Deathrite Shaman on the draw and on the play it's an answer to everything. My only hesitation is that Chancellor of the Annex has less utility than Xantid Swarm on the draw vs aggro-control and it doesn't protect turn 2 wins, which become more common after SBing out Lion's Eye Diamond so they aren't directly comparable. Running 4 Chancellor of the Annex and 4 Lion's Eye Diamond on the play is about the most unfair thing you can do in Magic tho', it punishes their mulligans into disruption and hate so incredibly hard.
I'm not worried about Deathrite Shaman, a lot of the time I wonder whether or not the best counter vs Deathrite Shaman is Lion's Eye Diamond and whether or not the deck should just "flip" vs Thoughtseize and dedicate all of its SB vs Force of Will and Surgical Extraction.
I'm really tempted to try something off base like Pact of Negation and Lion's Eye Diamond MD even if they have virtually no synergy together when using Living Wish for the SB space to try out Swarms and Chancellors and Pacts and LEDs in the same deck. It sounds kind of counter intuitive, but considering how much every card has sucked in those 3 open slots I have I think I'm willing to roll the dice on LED and Pact both being in the main.
Using your suggestion of speed to bypass slower graveyard hate, here are my changes. In the main deck, I swapped pact of negations out for chancellor of the annex (dropping down to 2 cabal therapies to complete the play-set). Though worse against blue decks, it is better against everything else and makes it very difficult for you to lose to swamp.dec because it beats t1 thoughtseize/DRS. I also swapped grim monolith for LED and have a 4-3 cabal ritual/LED split. The reason why I didn't want 4 LEDs is because it is far worse than any other mana source in absence of living wish.
Here is my updated sb with a few brief explanations:
1 Swamp - no need to generate non-black mana
1 Peat Bog
1 Hickory Woodlot
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Traitors
1 Balustrade Spy
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Pact of Negation
1 Desecration Demon - hedge against leyline of the void, t1 DRS/crypt/spellbomb on the draw
Boarding plan for game 2:
Blue decks: -3 LED, -1 chancellor of the annex, +4 pact of the negation
Black decks (on the draw): -3 LED, +3 leyline of sanctity
Combo decks with targeted kill (on the draw): -3 LED, -1 chancellor of the annex, +4 leyline of sanctity
Combo decks with targeted kill (on the play): -3 chancellor of the annex, +3 leyline of sanctity
Miscellaneous: none
While on the draw against blue and black decks, this leaves us with 7 free disruption spells post-board. However, we can simply outrace any hate coming out of swamp.dec for game 3 by reverting back to the main deck configuration. The main benefit of playing chancellor is that it improves our BUG matchup. Though they have access to spell pierce, DRS, and thoughtseize, they won't be able to play all of them due to mana. Chancellor negates all of those cards t1 and leaves FoW and surgical extraction (post-board) as their only outs. I would follow the "blue deck" boarding guide against BUG decks simply because counters scare me more than discard. They are most likely going to board into more counters anyways. Desecration demon is by far the weakest card in the sb but I think it's necessary to punish players for mulligans into hate. In those instances, I think a living wish into demon may actually get there. The 4th leyline of sanctity may not be necessary as well but I think it hoses storm enough to warrant the inclusion.
Overall, I believe this boarding strategy improves our BUG and discard matchup. Furthermore, though chancellor doesn't protect turn 2 wins, slowing your opponent by a full turn may be enough against cards like DRS, RiP, relic, and general discard. I also like it better than xantid swarm because it doesn't require mana and your opponent may leave in their StP anyways.
I still don't get in which situation you would want to wish for Woodlot. Could you explain it a bit more?
I want to share some experience:
I've been playing with Stephens list last Saturday and it has been my worst Legacy experience so far.
Everything felt so bad and wrong, hands were aweful, topdeck was equally worthless.
A short summary of what has happened:
Match 1 BUG:
Game 1: Turn 1 Combo into FoW, couldn't find cards for a second try, got everything but mana
Game 2: Mulled to 4 and loss
Match 2 Enchantress:
Two easy turn one wins
Match 3 white Miracle:
Game 1: He wins the roll, mulled to 5, I'm am unable to combo turn 1 and he puts down a Rest in Peace turn two
Game 2: Mulled to 4, he tutors a Rest in Peace
Match 4 Maverick:
Game 1: He wins the roll and plays a Dryad turn 1
Game 2: Turn 3 Belcher win
Game 3: He plays a Revoker naming Belcher and one round before I've got enough mana to wish me a rogue he plays a Dryad
Match 5 U-Control:
Game 1: Mulled to 4, Combo into FoW, can't recover against Counterbalance and Jace
Game 2: Turn 1 Combo win, he had no FoW
Game 3: Lost a turn one City of Traitors to a Wasteland, turn 6 or 7 Belcher try with Pact ready but it fails to the stupid amount of counters on his hand
Had only two games without Mulligan...
Stephen's list isn't optimized so I would play either my list or Final Fortune's. Even then, both of us haven't worked out all the kinks in the deck yet either. Hickory woodlot is in the sb for double living wish hands with black mana (i.e. lotus petal or chrome mox). You can use tangle/ESG/SSG/chrome mox mana during your first turn to wish for woodlot. This allows you to t2 wish for balustrade spy off the woodlot mana, setting up a t3 kill. Furthermore, in a mana starved hand with double wish and 1 rogue. You can t1 wish for woodlot + t2 wish for peat bog to set up t3 kill.
Success for this deck in a larger tournament setting: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=4795&d=227708
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
4 Street Wraith
4 Narcomoeba
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Pact of Negation
4 Manamorphose
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Worldly Tutor
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
1 Grim Monolith
SIDEBOARD
4 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Seething Song
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Rite of Flame
I would definitely run the full play-set of EtW and switch to the sutured ghoul kill in the 8 win-con build. That said, hard to nit-pick a top4 finish. Congrats to Tonio!
So I'm becoming a big, big fan of MD Chancellor of the Annex in turn 1 combo decks after facing UBx aggro-control decks, because if you win the coin flip then you can counter the opponent's Force of Will and play with Lion's Eye Diamond or if you lose the coin flip you can restrict them to Force of Will as their only out and delay Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek/Duress until turn 2 and Deathrite Shaman until turn 2. It has a lot of advantges, namely it's disruption vs Force of Will decks, Thoughtseize decks and Force of Will and Thoughtseize decks that doesn't require you to cast it, pay for it, remove another card from your hand for it and you can use it with the Sutured Ghoul kill condition.
I've been using it MD in Belcher, SI and now Hermit and I think it has been the most consistent form of disruption/protection that I've played so far, and while it's obviously frustrating to play Chancellor of the Annex on the draw, see an Island and then cast your combo into a Force of Will compared to discarding your opponent pre-emptively or countering your opponent reactively, it's the only card that can protect you from Thoughtseize, which is often just as devastating, and helps reduce the odds of the opponent being able to Force of Will you on the draw because they can't Brainstorm or Ponder into one. Also vs aggro-control, it frees up the SB for a full 4 Pact of Negation, Xantid Swarm package in order to grind out opponents on the draw and on the play we can either go for it with Chancellor of the Annex and Lion's Eye Diamond or Chancellor of the Annex and Pact of Negation.
I've been using Chancellor of the Annex in Belcher, SI and Hermit MD for about a week and I think the card is the real deal for any combo deck that wants to go off turn 1 or bust.
Reprint of U & G pacts made this deck more budget-attractive.![]()
It seems that there are two different versions of this deck. One with Living Wish sb and one that is posted two posts up. Is there a way to play the deck without LED? LED is 130tix online and I can't currently afford it but I have about 98% of all the cards that I have seen in other lists. What do I need to take into account when building the deck if I drop LED completely from the 75?
a) This is the forum for budget decks: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/f...d-Budget-Forum
b) I believe Menendian posted a list that cut LEDs at some point. His article here was an earlier version of that: http://www.eternalcentral.com/?p=3745
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
First and foremost, I haven't worked on the deck since my last thread post. Driving home from work yesterday, I was thinking if only there was a way to get rid of all the dead cards in the deck (4x narc, cabal therapy, dread return, win-con package). Any engine would have to work from the grave yard after dumping the library with one of the rogues. As I pondered, I realized that there have been some important printings since cephalid breakfast went away. It hit me there was already a card in legacy that could serve as the primary engine: Past in Flames. However, generating 5+ mana in addition to the initial 4 is unpractical. There needed to be a way to shrink the initial investment. Playing around with Memory's Journey, I realized 3x LED could be shuffled back into the library to provide the extra boost. Going one step further, I threw in Deep Analysis to complete the combo.
1. Mill deck with rogue. (4 mana)
2. Sacrifice balustrade spy to cabal therapy to name FoW, thalia, gsz->gaddock teeg, canonist, etc. (4 mana)
3. Target 3 LEDs with memory's journey. (5 mana)
4. Draw LED next turn and crack for blue mana
5. Flashback deep analysis to draw 2 LEDs (7 mana, 1 blue floating)
6. Crack LEDs for red and black mana (1 blue, 3 red, and 3 black floating)
7. Flashback PiF (2 black floating)
8. Flashback dark and cabal rituals for large storm count
9. Flashback tendrils ftw
Here is the decklist I've come up with on short notice:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
2 Grim Monolith
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
4 Manamorphose
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Memory's Journey
1 Deep Analysis
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
Though unlikely, it's possible to go off all in 1 turn as well if you can generate 7 mana (including blue). This will most likely require using LED in conjunction of undercity informer. The package requires 5 cards (cabal therapy -> tendrils). This reduces 4+ dead cards and makes goblin charbelcher main deck much more viable. My list is definitely sub-optimal as the protection package hasn't been incorporated yet and summoner's pact is sometimes awkward. However, I think this avenue has some potential and is worth exploring.
Cool development. It's starting to remind me of Doomsday Tendrils lists. On that note it almost certainly needs Gitaxian Probe; with Probe in hand the combo cost goes down to a very manageable 5 in a single turn (even if you need LED to pay for Informer, you can do the whole sequence in response to Probe).
Thanks for pointing out the probe trick. I've actually moved towards probe already in my testing since chancellor of the tangle is so inconsistent and I want to abuse mox opal. That said, I think you'll still have to cycle probe/wraith most of the time in order to dig for what you need. Here's my updated list:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal
4 Grim Monolith
4 Dark Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Memory's Journey
1 Deep Analysis
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
Edit: Just wanted to point out that you can win in 2 turns with 4 mana if mox opal/chrome mox are in play (generating green) and summoner's pact wasn't used.
I was just going to post that this deck really wants to have Opals.
You might consider replacing the Tendrils with a Burning Wish. Wish-> EtW is a viable option, and you can still do Journey ->3 LED in deck, Probe, LED, Analysis, 2 LEDS -> 7 mana, use 4 for PiF and 1 to cast all your rituals. You have the required red always available. It also allows you to board into an Empty the Warrens plan postboard a little easier, which I think is a consideration to make this deck must more potent.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
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