Is there a particular reason that this deck doesn't play any fetches? I'm thinking about testing this deck out to take a break from flipping bugs every week, and the lack of fetches intrigues me. No mention of it in the primer.
By the way, Day's Undoing seems sweet and right at home here. But of course I haven't even sleeved this deck up so I can't say for sure.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
I'd say the potential life loss from Efreets/Tombs/FoWs are already a factor compared to the minimal amount of deck thinning Fetches would provide. In most games you should winning with one of two blue sources and colorless lands, anyway, so without the need of mana fixing (unless your splashing a second color) and/or shuffle effects, Fetches don't really benefit the deck in any way, IMO.
I agree.Originally Posted by KSC
Delvis, I think you are asking the wrong question.
Is there a particular reason that this deck would play any fetches?
Beyond deck thinning and enabling a splash, then perhaps fueling Dig Through Time? I don't see any delve in these lists but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. Also, they play well with Sea Drake when you're forced to resolve his trigger. As a Delver player, paying lots of life to get an advantageous board position doesn't really faze me, so I was curious. I get that you don't play GProbe because of Chalice, but the lack of fetches stood out as odd.
I suppose the general rule of thumb is, it's worth it if you're splashing, but otherwise don't bother. Does that sound right?
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
I believe you hit the nail on the head.
Besides, Stifle is a card. As is Blood Moon. And City of Traitors is already a fragile land.
As far as 'deck-thinning', my understanding is it takes 4 fetches (and therefore 4 life) to raise the probability of top decking a non-land high enough to make it worth it. With 8 Sol Lands and 11 Islands, you can probably only afford 5 or 6 fetches. So how many games are you really going to crack enough fetches in order to gain your 'thinning advantage'?
In cases of paying life for more cards or more mana, absolutely, but in this instance, you won't be gaining anything.
I don't know how long you've been playing, you may have seen this years ago, but in case you haven't....
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096
Hangarback walker? Good with trinked mage and sol lands. Supplies a stream of equipment carriers!
撤h'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Yeah, there's probably some fairly solid Trinket Mage + Hangarback Walker build out there. The card definitely solves a bunch of problems, such as having trouble keeping threats to equip in play and having trouble converting Trinket Mages into sufficient threats when the board doesn't call for Chalices. The blue count will be problematic and it'll probably necessite shaving some of the equipment (also, my old build predates the New Mirrodin swords so there might be some tuning to be done on that front too; at least Feast and Famine looks somewhat interesting). Too bad there's no blue Stoneforge Mystic; such an effect would be right at home here. None of the neo-Trinket Mages get the swords.
With more and more good creatures being 1UU, Sol Lands have the trouble of being needlessly restrictive. There's probably a number of UU cards the deck might want and there's probably also some turbo-beatdown deck out there with a somewhat smaller complement of Sol Lands and few more blue sources to facilitate this. The mana not falling right for e.g. True-Name Nemesis in a blue equipment deck is straight-up miserable. It feels fairly obvious that JTMS is also a card this deck is probably interested in, providing a measure of board control and completely shifting the onus of the game to opponent having to answer it or just losing (and most of the creatures in FS block fairly well). Overall, the shell might have some promise but the recent additions to the format probably warrant reconsideration of the fundamental configuration if the shell is to be used; all the 4/3 and 3/4 Flyers are no longer quite as impressive comparatively, and Show and Tell-type strategies in particular present a problem as this strategy doesn't really interact with them on a meaningful level, and racing them is possible but hard. Venser is the obvious answer but again, a bit of a rough manacost and Glen-Elendra Archmage is a bit slow (if an absolute beating if you ever untap with it).
Really hoping this set can make a revival with a new cards coming out.
Quick question:
Can you imprint a colorless card/eldarazi onto Chrome Mox to have it produce colorless mana?
Nope, Chrome Mox says 'add one mana of any of the exiled card's colors' and colorless cards have no colors. If they were designing the card for a set today they probably woulda worded it differently.
Alix and I have been working on the deck for a few months now. We have a build that has proven competitive, and we have taken it to a few local tournaments(went 5-2 at the EE Satellite last weekend). But neither of us have had the time to truly grind out the matches needed against the field to know for certain how far along we are. Which is why I'm posting this. I'm hoping someone with a current testing group, or more likely someone who loves the deck and plays online can run it through it's paces. We've been happy so far, but with such a small testing sample, the possible variance in results is too great for any certainty. The main concern is looking for holes in specific matchups we haven't had time enough to run through enough scenarios with. To give an idea, I'm going to list what I consider our best match ups, to our worst.
Storm
Burn
Elves
Infect
Reanimator
RUG
Grixis
BUG Delver
Dredge
MUD
12 Post
Lands
Miracles
Goblins
Death and Taxes
Sneak and Show
Shardless
Blade Control
Aggro Loam
Painter
Aluren
Food Chain
With the 50/50 mark right around DnT.Sneak being 45/55, and Food Chain being 20/80.
I don't have the desire, or see the need to write a detailed work-up. The archetype is well known, and I'll post a link below to assist. But both of us will keep an eye on this thread to answer any questions, and discuss any results or new considerations. I thank you in advance for any assistance in this.
Link to Deck Tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prIMfUECW_E (or just search Sea Stompy Alix Hatfield on YouTube)
Current decklist:
10 Snow-Covered Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
1 Seat of the Synod
4 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sigil of Distinction
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Misthollow Griffin
4 Stratus Dancer
3 Sea Drake
3 Looter il-Kor
3 Trinket Mage
2 Hangarback Walker
4 Force of Will
SB:
3 Back to Basics
3 Misdirection
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Warping Wail
2 Wipe Away
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
~ Team Unicorn Motto
What were your losses? And how was the miracles matchup?
Faerie stompy was my pet deck before, so I'm
interested to take it for a spin again.
I lost to DnT, and Eil's U/R deck. The DnT player is probably the only person in the world who I've played against with this deck more than twice. So he know exactly what was going on, and drew well. Unfortunately, that matchup comes down to who can keep their equipment online the longest, which he did. Vs Eli, I mulled to 4 game one, and game two he beat Chalice, Jitte, TNN, and Wail with double Stormchaser, enough spells to always trigger them, and playing well. I found everything I needed that game but a flier. Weird.
The Miracles matchup is favorable(probably 5%, though that's on our worse draws) mainly due to the 12 main creatures. TNN only dies to Terminus. Griffin effectively only dies to Terminus. Dancer dies to Plow, but only if you don't have Chalice, and don't want to flip. Mainly, Dancer is there to clock, and counter Terminus. Which it does extremely well, especially with Equipment. The addition from the SB of Needle and Revoker to Chalice makes Top difficult for them to get value from. Even Looter is good, since you have lots of turns to dig for the aforementioned cards, and it's difficult for them to "waste" spot removal on them. Can't even use Clique or Snap to chump. Just never overcommit to the board, and it's pretty straightforward. Mana heavy openers are good, since you have time, and want to be hard casting Griffin, and Dancer with mana open. Best common case is Chalice at one, then Dancer, then TNN. Can't Plow or manipulate their library. Can't Terminus. And are taking 5 a turn. Counterbalance is weak against us to begin with due to the high mana curve. Without Top, it's probably not even worth playing.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
I was testing the Misthollow Griffin version a while back online, pretty thoroughly, but came to the rough conclusion that the creatures were simply not impactful enough for modern Legacy anymore.
Sea Drake was still probably the best... Griffin synergies with Mox and Force are definitely worth playing... is there any reason you're not running Phyrexian Revoker MD? He's just too good not to play, imho.
Did you consider trying Serum Powder in this deck as a way to improve consistency AND to combo further with Misthollow Griffin?
This build is a bit different than the classic. The creatures are, individually low power. Excepting for TNN, of course. But like TNN, this creature package has a great deal of resiliency. Griffin dodges Decay and Plow. Dancer dodges most removal. Looter can't be blocked. Trinket into Hangarback lets you go wide, as well as big. Hangar doubles up your creature presence outside of Plow. Nerfing spot removal in conjunction with any Equipment, as well as the previous bane of the deck, forced sacrifice. Now in a straight race situation, we unfortunately need Equipment due to the simple fact that the Power of these creatures is lower than what would be desired. But combined with the generic disruption of Force and Chalice, they are very difficult to remove. And although it is less relevant in Legacy due to the absent component of creature combat, they are also quite difficult to block. This new inherent, and designed resiliency is a function of the deck now. Essentially giving up the monster T1-2 plays common to the archetype to allay the mulligan problem, and to allow continuation of threat against decks that are able to remove or play through our disruption. The drawback with this, which we are slowly phasing out, is against decks such as Aggro Loam. Who can ignore some of our disruption, and still present a clock that is difficult for us to race, and/or affect enough removal for our creature to race with whatever they stick.
For this very reason, Revoker is not included in the main. He is useful against about 50% of the field, and even better vs about 25%. But the fact that he dies to anything, including any combat, means that he is a dead card against half the field. If there were enough effects that required Revoker, I would either revise the entire deck, or drop it.
Yes, I have run Powder. In many different iterations of the deck. I came to the conclusion that it is better to build the deck to avoid mulligans, than to have an out when we need to mulligan. The conclusion came at the realization that with Serum Powder, you were essentially exchanging a mull to six in your opener, for a mull later. Or worse, if drawing multiple over the course of a game. The ability to produce mana did prove useful occasionally. But really only vs LD or my own B2B. And I believe we shored up the manabase, that the current configuration has no significant issues. This goes again with my previous statement regarding a change in philosophy of the deck towards consistency, and away from power. It has, I think, I high enough power level. And to be honest, we are already highly favored against the decks you might want Powder to mull to specific hosers anyway.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
I approve of Misthollow Griffin :)
Is there any way to fit in like 2 Manipulate Fate?
Also, how has Sea Drake been for you?
When I used to play this deck, I didn't like it because of Delvers + Lightning Bolts all over the place.
I really always want Griffin in hand so I can get value on Mox, Force, or MisD. So running an additional card to place them where I can't do that seems unlikely.
I don't disagree about Drake. But there are far less Bolt decks around than other color/removal base. And as initially intended against such decks, Chalice stops both Bolt and Delver. That said, Drake was chosen mainly do to its clock. Serendib doesn't race a Delver, and can be a liability in any race. And Angel, and others like Esperzoa have too much inconsistancy or to large a drawback. With B2B, Mox Diamond, Looter, and City, the drawback can often be helpful. But the main reason is a need for pure racing considerations, and unwillingness to MD more equipment.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
I've been thinking on this one some more.
A few questions:
1) What are the Misdirections in the sideboard for? Primarily Abrupt Decay decks?
2) Have you considered a white splash for SFM? I've messed around with lists before that ran SFM + Chrome Mox and a T1 SFM is often something people rarely expect. It also opens up a lot more sideboard options as well (can't play B2B though).
The MisD are they mainly for Decay, but have other uses. They're excellent vs Burn and most discard. Especially vs Combo. They give you an out to opposing TNN. Second most used mode is simply additional pitch counters to resolve stuff like Chalice and Jitte vs cantrip decks.
I haven't actually done more than a passing consideration of SFM. The weakening if the mana base is a serious concern. As is losing B2B, which how I beat Lands, Post, and MUD so handily post board. Mainly, I'm not sure how important the effect would be. Trinket functions better in the deck, acting as a tutor for far more than equipment. And it would also weaken Dancer, not only to having multiple cards that require holding open mana, but also having those lands be far more vulnerable to LD. And he'd have to replace Trinket since I'm certain this deck can't afford another weenie non flier. While I'd love to be able reliably fetch Jitte and the like vs some decks, this deck functions better taking advantage of its mana base as is, by running out threats and equipment way above curve. I don't think a weak creature that weakens the deck's mana severely while not individually being able to abuse that mana base is worth the additional percentages in getting equipment.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
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