[Article] Unlocking Legacy- Tom Brady, Ice Cauldron, and Lifeforce

[Wallace]

Article is ok, we get some decklists from Gen Con which is nice.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/16272.html

[jazzykat]

I now it's difficult etc., etc. to write a good and original Legacy article. Maybe it should be a bi-monthly column to give authors more time to come up with Bardo type quality articles.

[Bardo]

I now it's difficult etc., etc. to write a good and original Legacy article. Maybe it should be a bi-monthly column to give authors more time to come up with Bardo type quality articles.

That's flattering, but the currenty writers have a month between their slots, so I don't think changing the frequency of articles would make any difference.

[Volt]

.

[Di]

I don't know, but I've got a pretty good hunch, that when you were discussing what the last few cards to put into Threshold were on a messageboard, the Elves player was grinding away with his deck, again and again, against anyone who could stand to see Forest, Elf, go. When his friends are giving him crap for playing a bad deck, he's making sure he can deal with Counterbalance hitting the board. He knows it can happen because he's lost to that card too many times to let it get him again. He's made mistakes already so that when he gets to GenCon, he knows exactly what to do. I'd go so far as to say that this is the case for all the supercilious results in the T8. Former Eternal Champion and teammate Roland Chang played the heck out of UG Madness, even when there were better decks to play. We'd test just about everything against that deck at our kitchen tables, resulting in him getting in a lot of experience knowing when to pump his Wild Mongrel and when to hold back a land for later. As a result, he knew his deck better than anyone else in the room at GenCon and walked away with the win to prove it.


Someone send that to Adam Barnello's inbox.

[Nightmare]

Someone send that to Adam Barnello's inbox.The fuck is that supposed to mean?

"I've been playing this deck forever" does not substitute as rationalization for "this deck is a pile of shit." Just because you fail to realize that your deck is a pile for a few years, doesn't mean it isn't a fucking pile.

[Volt]

.

[Nightmare]

Easily my favorite .gif file.

[Michael Keller]

I laughed hard at it.

[hi-val]

The fuck is that supposed to mean?

"I've been playing this deck forever" does not substitute as rationalization for "this deck is a pile of shit." Just because you fail to realize that your deck is a pile for a few years, doesn't mean it isn't a fucking pile.

At the same time, if you know your pile in and out (and I hate to admit it but Elves does have *some* positive matchups) then you'll get wins against people who don't know to counter your Wirewood Symbiote or whatever. I think in Legacy above lots of other formats, practice with deck > objective strength of deck. However, I'm not committed to that enough to swear off on it completely because someone will be an ass and bring up like, 60island.dec and think it wrecks my argument.

As far as epic articles going in-depth about decks, Anwar does a pretty good job of that already and I find those kinds of articles to be strenuous and unfun to write, so I stay away from them for the most part. I aim to give you the lastest interesting lists, with commentary and suggestions and discussions about why they did what they did. Toss in some big words and juvenile humor and that's basically what my column is. You got four decklists this time, with three being semi-serious, and two solid themes in the article. If you didn't like it, there's no way I can sell it to you.

[Di]

The fuck is that supposed to mean?

"I've been playing this deck forever" does not substitute as rationalization for "this deck is a pile of shit." Just because you fail to realize that your deck is a pile for a few years, doesn't mean it isn't a fucking pile.

It was a little humor that I enjoy constantly poking at you because you switch decks on a daily basis and don't stick to anything. Calm the fuck down.

[T is for TOOL]

At the same time, if you know your pile in and out (and I hate to admit it but Elves does have *some* positive matchups) then you'll get wins against people who don't know to counter your Wirewood Symbiote or whatever. I think in Legacy above lots of other formats, practice with deck > objective strength of deck.
In the context that you use it 'objective strength of deck' means 'the strength of a deck when properly piloted'. What you're saying here is that awful decks put up results because of the low level of player skill in Legacy.

[AnwarA101]

At the same time, if you know your pile in and out (and I hate to admit it but Elves does have *some* positive matchups) then you'll get wins against people who don't know to counter your Wirewood Symbiote or whatever. I think in Legacy above lots of other formats, practice with deck > objective strength of deck. However, I'm not committed to that enough to swear off on it completely because someone will be an ass and bring up like, 60island.dec and think it wrecks my argument.


Well isn't it just a combination of both. Sure if you know your deck in and out and it still isn't competitive then you still have no real chance to make Top8 at a given tournament. But if your deck is somewhat competitive even if its not the best deck or one of the best decks you can make Top8 based on play skill and possibly getting a bit lucky with your matchups. I think the real thing in Legacy is that the best decks are only somewhat ahead of the other decks so something like CounterSlivers can a win tournament both based on matchups and play skill. That still doesn't make something like CounterSlivers the best deck or even one of the best decks. It only shows that CounterSlivers was good enough to win one tournament. If it can continue to make Top8s then it might prove itself to be one of the better decks of Legacy, but one tournament doesn't do that.



As far as epic articles going in-depth about decks, Anwar does a pretty good job of that already and I find those kinds of articles to be strenuous and unfun to write, so I stay away from them for the most part. I aim to give you the lastest interesting lists, with commentary and suggestions and discussions about why they did what they did. Toss in some big words and juvenile humor and that's basically what my column is. You got four decklists this time, with three being semi-serious, and two solid themes in the article. If you didn't like it, there's no way I can sell it to you.

Thank you for the compliment. I had the feeling you try to go for the bizarre looking lists in your article. I don't think you are saying these are the best lists, but rather the ones you found interesting. Am I right?

[Isamaru]

This was probably one of the best articles I've ever read on Star City Games. I hope as many people read this as possible, because it's about time people started taking this into consideration.

I've played with my own personal deck for over 2 years and I do very well because I've come across a huge amount of different situations. Even people that try to copy the deck do horrible, and the ones that insult the deck probably would do horrible too for the same reason. Knowing your own deck is a lot more important than playing "gaod deckz" that other people threw up on the internet for you. And yes, your deck still has to be competitive for this argument to work, but if you purposely make the changes throughout the process of losing to each different situation, it will become that way during the process.

Great point about MWS testing for Legacy as opposed to other formats. Good article, overall.

[hi-val]

Thank you for the compliment. I had the feeling you try to go for the bizarre looking lists in your article. I don't think you are saying these are the best lists, but rather the ones you found interesting. Am I right?

Oh yeah : ) I look for ones that look fun and good, especially ones that fulfill a niche in certain metagames. I love cleverness and I try to show off clever lists to my readers. I mean, Merfolk did really well in PT: Academy, so I think looking at its strengths in Legacy is a worthwhile endeavor. Starting with 4 FOW Daze is a good start for any aggro-control deck.


In the context that you use it 'objective strength of deck' means 'the strength of a deck when properly piloted'. What you're saying here is that awful decks put up results because of the low level of player skill in Legacy.

Man, this is such a boondoggle to answer diplomatically. Due to the infrequency of Legacy tournaments and its relatively casual nature at times drawing in casual players, I've seen some really bad in-game skill and really good in-game skill. There's a tangential discussion somewhere in here about playing a rogue deck really well that people are unprepared for vs. playing a known quantity deck really well.

[rleader]

(and I hate to admit it but Elves does have *some* positive matchups)

Well, even the STD version of elves has an incredible number of threats, threats that even have death touch, so just toss in goyfs and you can probably overwhelm threshold with pure density. Until they engineered explosives your ass in game two.

As I said on SCG, I'd love to hear a play by play of how that dragon stompy match went down. I've never played it against elves myself, but my brother had a wildly fun beatdown against it once(first turn arc slogger, zap zap zap). He then later lost to Demon Stompy. The irony.

It would be an interesting article to read about dragon stompy vs. several mono color decks. (elves, burn, pox, MUC, merfolk, etc., though I think the ichorid matchup has been done sufficiently already, but maybe not for general audiences)

OTOH, I'm not a big believer in the power of the pile: I think most of the unexpected wins out there have more to do with bad luck in opening hands on the side of the good decks than piloting skill on the bad.

I've beaten some STD tourney caliber decks on MTGO in the casual room with my el cheapo piles, but that's mostly because the other player was on complete autopilot, given that they fully expect to win 99% of their matchups with $400 faerie decks. When I win, it's not because of my playskill but because they're asses in the first place and don't take anyone seriously.

[Spectör]

The first thing I thought of when I saw the strange survivalhighlandersomethinglist was actually Tainted Pact and wtf.

Anyways, good article. I love to see the merfolk being mentioned.

[Atwa]

Man, I really loved this article, good work!


and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray

Just genius :)

[mercenarybdu]

Welly written indeed, now if he only had the accurate deck plans from the judges to support it all.

[Bardo]

Great fucking article, Doug. You've got great style, you keep to what you know and you're the only Legacy writer that has me saying, "Sweet, I learned something in this article." (Not to dig on anyone.) Yesterday, for instance, I spent 20 or so unnecessary minutes digging for quality/baseline Merfolk and Faeries lists, and today, I read your article and there they were. Thanks for reading my mind or something.

Anyway, I like the niche you've carved out. Well done and thanks. :)

[xsockmonkeyx]

Counterslivers won GenCon?

http://failurecasca.de/wp-content/uploads/awesome_med.png

[dahcmai]

I was reading that and was hoping someone actually found a use for Ice Cauldron. I would have been so happy. I've always got a kick out of that card.

The last list is pretty amazing.

[hi-val]

I was reading that and was hoping someone actually found a use for Ice Cauldron. I would have been so happy. I've always got a kick out of that card.

The last list is pretty amazing.

From what I understand, Ice Cauldron kind of lets you suspend a spell for a turn... I guess?

I physically built that last list; I find in goldfishing that I go for Recurring Nightmare as much as I can and kill by looping Palinchron into something else and then finding Trike to kill. All this makes me think that a Recurring Nightmare deck with Gifts and 4 Witness might be able to recur stuff like Swords or Therapy or Vindicate enough to actually matter.

[Eldariel]

Here's what Ice Cauldron does: It allows you to store up a spell along with any amount of the mana you plan on using to cast it. You don't need to store up to its whole cost and heck, you can store over the card's cost if you want to. Basically, it stores up a card and mana to be used on that card for whenever you wanna use it in the future. Handy for...casual X-spell decks, probably. Except it kinda costs too much for those.

[Ebinsugewa]

Great article, Doug. Giving us interesting things to talk about > regurgitation about Threshold et al.

[ParkerLewis]

Here's what Ice Cauldron does: It allows you to store up a spell along with any amount of the mana you plan on using to cast it. You don't need to store up to its whole cost and heck, you can store over the card's cost if you want to. Basically, it stores up a card and mana to be used on that card for whenever you wanna use it in the future. Handy for...casual X-spell decks, probably. Except it kinda costs too much for those.

Yeah, I remember first opening this card in an Ice Age starter. I was like 11 at the time. These kinds of cards were a real challenge to understand back then :) I remember putting it on my desk and reading it veeeeery slowly to make sure I could fully comprehend each detail so that the end result (and the cards goal and usefulness) would become clear.

Great times ! :laugh:

[Anusien]

I saw the Gifts Survival deck on deckcheck some number of weeks ago and though of you. That said, I didn't even bother to load it on Workstation, however sexy it looks.

In most cases, the gap between the best decks and the mediocre pet decks in Legacy isn't so high. You match TEPS up against Elves and it's a complete slaughter. But many of the pet decks are ports from Extended or Standard of reasonable decks. There are a ton of aggro-controllish decks with Jitte in them that might not even run Tarmogoyf. Are they optimal? Probably not. Can they still pick up a Jitte and beat Threshold occasionally? Probably not. It's not like Vintage where you're just going to get blown away because you can't roll with Long or CS. While Elves is generally thought of to be bad, it's not so bad that it can't ever win.

Elves also picked up at least one and probably more GPT wins during the Philly season, although I can't find my list atm.

[nitewolf9]

Can they still pick up a Jitte and beat Threshold occasionally? Probably not.

QFT.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

In this month's Esquire, there's an interview with Tom Brady. I thought he was Greg, Marsha and Cindy's brother, but apparently he's a football quarterback, and a damn good one at that.

....


Come on, really? This is tomato-to-the-face material.

The article was fine.

By the by, when and if you write a follow up Enchantress article, how about a little credit?

[TopGun]

I'm not sure where to post this, but I'd really love to see...

A match-up breakdown of most of the major decks.

It would be a lot of work I know, but I think it could be done.

You could recruit the best pilot (or pilots...say 1 for UWx Landstill, and 1 for Ubgx Landstill, etc.) for each archetype, agree on a list (probably sideboard for a random meta), and have them play matches against each other (enough to get a sufficient sampling...maybe 10ish per matchup?), and come up with real world %'s for game 1's and sideboarded games. If we do 20 archetypes...pilots could easily play 1 matchup per week (2 matches/day or 10 in 1 day is not too much work imo)...and have the results in 5 months. Less time if we can find some really gung-ho pilots...or more if using more archetypes.

Again, I know this would be a colossal undertaking, but one of my favorite articles ever was something similar. I think it was by an author from here written for starcity...and I think they maybe just went by t8 results (for what beat what). It turned out being Threshold having the best % against the field. The article was a couple years ago IIRC.

You could then tailor your deck choice to your expected meta.

I could just do it myself, but I don't consider myself 1)to be an expert with any of the archetypes, 2)would not trust myself to come up with the ideal lists and boards, and 3)to sideboard correctly.

I'd be happy to volunteer to help though...if I can be useful somehow.

-TG

[Nihil Credo]

By the by, when and if you write a follow up Enchantress article, how about a little credit?

No, no, no, no, no. Everybody knows it was Zach Tartell who made the modern Enchantress. This has long been established as the Source shadow-truth; deckbuilding credit the Road Runner to your Wile E. Coyote.

[hi-val]

....


Come on, really? This is tomato-to-the-face material.

The article was fine.

By the by, when and if you write a follow up Enchantress article, how about a little credit?

I actually had no idea who Tom Brady was before reading the article. Yikes!

You'll definitely get some shoutouts when that article comes down the pike.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Fuck Spatula. Zach Tartell smote the ground, and out sprang Enchantress, fully formed and sleeved in purest adamite. And men didst look on in wonder, yae, and question that such a deck should be; but verily were they smoten by the one named Zach, crying, "Fools! Behold the Seal of Ground and the Grass of Packaderms; and verily I shall show until ye the method of their playing." And it was good.

Thus sayeth the Book of Baritone, chapters 9-17.

[Anusien]

QFT.
What a typo!

[nitewolf9]

What a typo!

I gotcha! *snap and point

[edgewalker]

I have nothing to say about this article other than you're the man for reading Esquire.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Fuck Spatula. Zach Tartell smote the ground, and out sprang Enchantress, fully formed and sleeved in purest adamite. And men didst look on in wonder, yae, and question that such a deck should be; but verily were they smoten by the one named Zach, crying, "Fools! Behold the Seal of Ground and the Grass of Packaderms; and verily I shall show until ye the method of their playing." And it was good.

Thus sayeth the Book of Baritone, chapters 9-17.


No, no, no, no, no. Everybody knows it was Zach Tartell who made the modern Enchantress. This has long been established as the Source shadow-truth; deckbuilding credit the Road Runner to your Wile E. Coyote.

....

I hate you guys.








P.S., Tom Brady is a raging ass hole. I'm glad the Giants smashed his face in.

[Citrus-God]

....

I hate you guys.




Apparently, they haven't seen the true light of Mattlism yet. They also didn't know that Baritone was only a prophet, not the son of Argothian Enchantress.

[Deep6er]

We are a fucked up group of people.

However, I do like all the misspellings in Jack's post. Makes it sound a lot more drunken. :)

Approve.

[Ebinsugewa]

Approve.

BEATINGS