[Article] Unlocking Legacy: One Sick Deck

[hi-val]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/16548.html

It went up a day early!

The word "Tarmogoyf" does not appear until word 2549 of this article, and is mentioned only in passing : )

Hope you like it!

[m03]

[Suggested by Doug Linn on 2008-10-19 as a potential deck for Legacy

Holy crap! Deck suggestions from the future!

[klaus]

Good read.

With a full playset of Mystical Tutors I feel Ponder should get at least 2 slots.

Also M.T. allows us to reduce the number of Ad Nauseam (what's the plural here?) to 3. Your "Ouch..ouch"example illustrates another pro-argument for that move.

[Nihil Credo]

+1 Panglossian

Did you test Orim's Chant as protection? I know it puts some strain on the manabase, but I love how it can Time Walk against aggro to preserve your life total for AN purposes (or against black decks to preserve your hand). Going with the IT/IGG/LED loop is not always possible, since that one is harder to set up (as opposed to Ad Nauseam's "any 5 mana + a card").

Also, 3 Tendrils? I like running two copies for safety, but the third seems to give very little advantages for the Flame Javelin you take when revealing with AN. I've played with Hanni's list, which only runs 1x Tendrils actually, and I haven't had problems finding it post-AN; when you're protected, you can safely fetch it with Tutor+LED in addition to Mystical+Brainstorm (plus just drawing into it with AN's ~15 cards).

[emidln]

The example where you talk about having Chrome Mox for Daze protection actually doesn't have Daze protection if you stop drawing cards there. Assuming a rational opponent doesn't Daze AdN for the hell of it, when you go to cast one of your infinitely many Cabal Rituals you get it Dazed and probably pass the turn at like 4 life.

[socialite]

Very neat, but 4 Mystical Tutor? Really?

[Nihil Credo]

Very neat, but 4 Mystical Tutor? Really?
For whatever my opinion is worth, it might just be the best card in the deck. It's damn hard to get a decent goldfish without the full playset of "EOT UNTAP OH HAI I WIN".

[emidln]

The example where you talk about having Chrome Mox for Daze protection actually doesn't have Daze protection if you stop drawing cards there. Assuming a rational opponent doesn't Daze AdN for the hell of it, when you go to cast one of your infinitely many Cabal Rituals you get it Dazed and probably pass the turn at like 4 life.

In retrospect if you play the AdN leaving Underground Sea up instead of Chrome Mox, you can Chain your moxen to generate mana with spare cards post-AdN to avoid Daze. This is fairly conditional, but seems like the best line of play (for casting AdN) knowing that you might draw blue spells and having blue or black mana is better than just one or the other.

[Omega]

3 Ad nauseum, 2 tendril should be enough for the ouch part.

With sufficient tutoring (mystical) and cantrip (i personnally would run a full set of both ponder and brainstorm), this deck should be consistent enough

It was a good article.

Robert

[hi-val]

Running off to class quickly, so I will answer the rest later:

On that Daze example, I'm guessing I'll be drawing some number of Lotus Petals or Chrome Moxes off of the AN. The Chrome Mox protects AN before and afterwards, I'll have stuff like Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal to work around it later.

Mike Bomholt and Paul Mastriano felt Ponder was ass because they're really hard to get rid of to get Hellbent with.

More to discuss!

[emidln]

On that Daze example, I'm guessing I'll be drawing some number of Lotus Petals or Chrome Moxes off of the AN. The Chrome Mox protects AN before and afterwards, I'll have stuff like Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal to work around it later.

If you're at 4 life, chances are you won't get too much of a later. I know that you're going off assuming that you will draw Dark Rits or Petals, but that seems to be one of the major problems with AdN: you don't always draw those leading to situations where Daze/Spell Snare end up mattering much more than they ever should.



Mike Bomholt and Paul Mastriano felt Ponder was ass because they're really hard to get rid of to get Hellbent with.

Most of the time Ponder seems to either get imprinted on Chrome Mox before AdN or find more acceleration before AdN. Afterwards it doesn't really seem to matter (although, theoretically it increases the likelihood that you can combo off without seeing Tendrils or Infernal Tutor + LED post-AdN). Ponder can also be very good in games where you are trying to go off through multiple hate, set up double Tendrils, or even make that second/third initial mana source drop.

[undone]

Honestly I dont like the decks curve. Your options are run that curve or run a curve like .9 with

3 Ad nauseam
1 Tendrils
1 IGG

Ponder rocks because post board you find your anti hate faster, seriously saying ponder is bad is like saying brainstorm is bad, unless your going off litteraly the turn you cast brainstorm (possible) then brainstorm serves only 1 perpose that ponder doesnt and thats pitch cards back. While important Seriously why would you run 3 tendrils O.o just seems god awful.

[hi-val]

To be plainly honest, Ponder never made the final cut based on other teammates' results. I can't speak with authority to whether it's amazing or not, just relaying what other testors found. It was in our preliminary lists but several people independently cut it. I've been seeing some lists running Top and that's kind of interesting too.

Nihil Credo, I'm glad you liked my big P-word in this article : ) Chant sits on the board, if I were deciding to run it. I'm sure it could be slotted in where Thoughtseize is or make other wiggle room for it, too. I like Abeyance since it shuts down Top, but that makes you require soooo much mana.

I explain why I like 3 Tendrils in the article. NC, it's great to have in hand when I go off and it requires a lot less work, work that we might not be able to do, to kill with. I'll say that the three Tendrils are kind of specific to this particular build, in that they're good or bad based on the other cards in the deck.

I found several times that having lots of blue cards in hand post-AN was frustrating because I could only get rid of so many with Chrome Mox and I'd need to Hellbend my Infernal Tutors.

Time to pay attention in class, back later!

[Forbiddian]

Great article. Totally worth procrastinating Ochem studying for it. Now... off to study Ochem :-(.

[AnwarA101]

I found the article interesting, but I was still curious about a couple of choices. Is the lack of synergy between Cabal Ritual and Chrome Mox a problem? I thought that was a significant enough drawback to not run Chrome Mox and Cabal Ritual in the version of Fetchland Tendrils, which was similar to this with some obvious differences. Did your experience show you something different?

Also I found that going Hellbent with Infernal Tutor was difficult after casting an Ad Nauseam. This is why I preferred the TES build because it could draw into Burning Wish and not worry about having to find LED as well. What's the other option for this deck? Does it have Mystical Tutor and then play something like Brainstorm? Or is that why the Tendrils count at 3 so you don't worry about using Infernal Tutor to find Tendrils of Agony?

[hi-val]

That's one of the reasons I like going for 3 Tendrils in here. It's a bit harder to hunt some things down without stuff like Burning Wish, although the manabase is a bit easier to manage.

Cabal Ritual is there basically as a stepping-stone like Grim Monolith is in Belcher decks in Vintage, with the side benefit of being totally nuts after an AN. It's good for those times when you've got two Tendrils in hand and not quite enough to crank up the storm. Practical later-game concerns like attacks on the manabase also make it nice. I haven't found too much non-bo with Chrome Mox because it's rare to hit Threshold before going for the big one anyway.

In the followup article next month, the deck may look substantially different. It's a great time to be tinkering with Legacy decks, for sure!

[Jaiminho]

Patrick Chapin suggested the Innovation of Angel's Grace, which certainly merits further consideration.

Innovation? Yeah, right... so much for his title.

Anyway, it was a very nice article. This is what I was talking about when I laid my opinions about your last one. Still, the Chain of Vapor choice makes me pretty sad. Even thought Chalice will mostly be aiming at your artifacts, a 2nd Chalice will be calling 1 always. I'd rather have something like a 2nd Truth, a Rushing River or, less likely, a Wipe Away. This deck has so few lands it might actually be a bad idea to ask for UU not to win the game.

Is Ad Nauseam going to make Null Rod be a more useful card?

[emidln]

Is Ad Nauseam going to make Null Rod be a more useful card?

Thorn of Amethyst and Sphere of Resistance cost the same but don't turn off your own Sensei's Tops, Jittes, and random Mox Diamonds (from something like Aggro Loam). It appears that with all builds going between 12 and 15 lands, Sphere effects should be nearly as effective for the manacost.

[hi-val]

Well, PChapin wanted a name drop in the article so I had to deliver : ) Chain was nice because it answers things early and can be a storm enabler. There have been testing games where I've had to chain my own Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal to generate more storm and kill with a Tendrils if I don't have AN or IGG in my hand. I think you want a cheap bounce spell and a good bounce spell split among your two.

[Isamaru]

The Chapin namedrop was stupid.

The article was good otherwise.

[herbig]

The Chapin namedrop was stupid.

Take it back punk.

Great article. Ad Nauseam excites the hell out of me. I only wish I wasn't halfway across the world where they only play with Kithkins and Kitchen Finks.

While there might be debate over disruption suite, number of Tendrils, ect, I really believe that not building your deck around Ad Nauseam is the wrong call. Cramming it into previously established decks like TES or SI doesn't fully utilize its' power.

The card demands a new deck and will be seen to be superior to previous Ritual based Storm decks.

[hi-val]

The Chapin namedrop was stupid.

The article was good otherwise.

Have you ever met PChapin? Are you familiar with the legends and odes that follow him wherever he goes? If you are, you know that you cannot deny his requests, even when they're kind of common knowledge.

That said, Angel's Grace does fall into some legitimate sideboarding strategies I've been bouncing around in my head...

[Bryant Cook]

Take it back punk.

Great article. Ad Nauseam excites the hell out of me. I only wish I wasn't halfway across the world where they only play with Kithkins and Kitchen Finks.

While there might be debate over disruption suite, number of Tendrils, ect, I really believe that not building your deck around Ad Nauseam is the wrong call. Cramming it into previously established decks like TES or SI doesn't fully utilize its' power.

The card demands a new deck and will be seen to be superior to previous Ritual based Storm decks.

Decent article. Mike, I love you man, but... You're wrong. Only if you could see what I've been doing over here.

[Jaiminho]

Have you ever met PChapin? Are you familiar with the legends and odes that follow him wherever he goes? If you are, you know that you cannot deny his requests, even when they're kind of common knowledge.

That said, Angel's Grace does fall into some legitimate sideboarding strategies I've been bouncing around in my head...

He said that because the Internet seems to say Chapin wasn't the first to call that idea. I don't have SCG premium or read anything he writes anywhere, but I've seen this Angel's Grace+AN stuff, which is a pretty obvious and I'd say bad one, by the way, pop everywhere without a mention to his name. The fact that he is who he is has nothing to do with this.

[Roman Candle]

He said that because the Internet seems to say Chapin wasn't the first to call that idea. I don't have SCG premium or read anything he writes anywhere, but I've seen this Angel's Grace+AN stuff, which is a pretty obvious and I'd say bad one, by the way, pop everywhere without a mention to his name. The fact that he is who he is has nothing to do with this.

Next he's going to claim he invented Nourishing Lich.

[Forbiddian]

Next he's going to claim he invented Nourishing Lich.

I invented the internet, but Al Gore took all the credit. :-(.

[hi-val]

He said that because the Internet seems to say Chapin wasn't the first to call that idea. I don't have SCG premium or read anything he writes anywhere, but I've seen this Angel's Grace+AN stuff, which is a pretty obvious and I'd say bad one, by the way, pop everywhere without a mention to his name. The fact that he is who he is has nothing to do with this.

It was all a meta joke because if you've got premium, you'd find that Chapin is namechecked in like half the articles on the site, and after reading my draft, he specifically requested moar of him. If you're familiar with American hiphop these days, it makes more sense too. Not all jokes are funny to all people : \

Forbiddian also invented left and the paper clip.

[BoomChild]

I ran this decklist to a 3-1 finish monday at a 20 man legacy tourny.

3 Ad Nauseum
3 Mystical Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Delta
3 Strand
3 Seas
2 Volcanic
1 Badland

Wish Board

The only changes that I would make to the deck would be to add some number of Chrome Moxen to the deck to drop the mana avg of the deck a little more. I plan on playing this deck until Ad Nauseum gets banned in legacy which should eventually happen.

[Omega]

Allow me to doubt about the banning of Ad nauseum.

The deck has not broken the format yet. I know locally it has done quite good. But again, the pilot hasnt met any REAL control deck. If the deck can perform through landstill, through ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh and through discard, then yes it will be a good deck. Winning against goblin or other random aggro is not a good thing to brag about.

onto your list. How do you find the burning wish? What is your wishboard? Because 4 burning is quite alot.

Cabal therapy? Like why? 4 dress imo is better than 4 cabal.

How do you feel playing the deck without any draw : Brainstorm/ponder? I havent tested your list obviously. I play mine with 8 cantrip 4 bs and 4 ponder and 4 MT. This allows me to play very consistenly. 13 lands can be low, especially with mox diamond that are pretty much useless unless you are comboing. Chrome mox sounds better to me

Robert

[BoomChild]

The above list is streamlined into the idea that you will resolve the Ad Nasuem turn 1 or two and win that turn. This means a few things that I have found during testing.

1. You must have access to the mana that you need that turn to win.
2. Minimize the ammount of dead draws possible. (No Bstorm/Ponder)
3. No access to Force of Will. Cabal Therapy is capable of taking multiple cards out of someone's hand. Always name Force of Will turn 1.

The idea of the deck is to take turn 1 stripping the opponent's hand. Duress/Therapy are the best for this as they do not require the cost of life and Therapy can take all the Force of Will's out of someone's hand. Burning wish is found via Ad Nauseum and is a win condition to get Tendrils out of the board. The board also has some defensive spells such as the 4th Duress, Clasm, etc. The idea is to Ad Nausem until you find spells 3-10 and have a Tendrill, Wish, or Tutor & LED.

This deck is not fancy. It is not designed to do fun stuff with Angel's Grace and drawing your whole deck yippee!!! It is designed to Mystical Tutor up what you are missing turn 1, and kill turn 2.

Decisions made:

Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox - I prefer Diamond in this situation because it allows you to up your storm count if you don't have land in hand, if you do have land it lets you have a rainbow mox for the Rite of Flame, Burning Wish, Chain of Vapor, or Black Rits you may want to cast. Chrome mox allows you to remove a spell.... spells add to storm. Lands do not. Just a thought.

I would also have played 4 Orim's Chant in the deck had my brother not been using them in his Terrageddon Deck. Oh well, can't have it all.

[Apex]

Just FYI, Chrome Mox can also up storm count if you don't have anything to imprint (or don't want to imprint anything), it just doesn't produce mana (but neither does Mox Diamond without a land). It also produces mana a heck alot more consistent than Mox Diamond with only 13 lands in your list.

[BoomChild]

My arguement was based more on the fact that the Diamond takes cards that don't add storm and lets them produce mana over cards that could add to storm being used to create mana. In a perfect world I would play 4 of each card to allow the curve to be so low in the deck that it would be nearly impossible to lose.

[Forbiddian]

While it doesn't seem to be as distorting as Flash Hulk was, it's still an unbelievably strong decklist that requires extremely specific cards to stop. It's harder and harder to get those cards in a format that requires 6+ graveyard hate spells just to survive to your second untap step against Ichorid.

It's less vulnerable to hate (than Ichorid) and is more consistent AND faster.

TES was already very strong before AdN and now it's just off the charts. Against a deck that mains 4x Meddling Mage, 4x FoW and 3x Daze with 4x Orim's Chants coming in from the board, I went like 5-2 (for games, 3-0 game 1s 2-2 game 2s) and that's with some horrible play mistakes that I'm sure cost me the two games that I lost (I'd never played TES before). I was also playing a probably suboptimal list, but whatever.

The fact of the matter is that AdN decks all over are putting up wins and second places like crazy, and there's almost nothing that stops them. They race hate that goes down turn 2 or 3, they run 10+ discards and chants for counters, and they have bounce to deal with Meddling Mages and such.

I can't think of a single deck that goes more than 50% against TES. Given the TES lists are suboptimal (I'm sure they'll improve) and people haven't adjusted SBs yet, I 1) can't see any deck that beats TES even after SB adjustments and 2) I don't think there's any shot in hell that any other deck could beat TES and Ichorid and still have as high as 30% against blue based control.


I think that AdN should be banned. I thought Goyf should not have been banned, but AdN will definitely drastically change the face of Legacy for the worse.

While Goyf was strong, he promoted interactive play. Creature kill like StP was effective again and you could always play your own Goyf and block. Goyf also allows players to play defensive decks and still go offensive (and he made green useful again). AdN promotes one-sided play where one player sits AFK and the other player counts gas every turn, occasionally passing, or occasionally killing the other player in a boredom marathon. Type 1 is where you can go to play out your combo decks and go for T1 kills or T1 Trinispheres.

Type 1.5 is the balanced format where combo still exists alongside aggro, aggro control, combo control, control, and aggro combo. If AdN stays, I don't see how the format stays differentiated from Type 1 Solitaire. Even if AdNTES is reasonably balanced, I just don't want to play in a format that's 95% combo and 5% combo hate.

[Omega]

I have yet to see ad taking over all my local tournaments

Dont get me wrong though, im sure it will be a good deck. Im just not convinced it will break the format. Im still testing it, when ill pass mid-terms, i should be able to say if its that broken

Robert

[Forbiddian]

I don't think it's broken, but I think that the deck is strong enough (and relatively inexpensive enough) to make it the most common deck in the format.

And that's enough to make a lot of players stop playing Legacy (or not get involved at all).


I don't know why other people aren't concerned about the sheer boredom involved with playing against a combo player and what that will do to the format (a format that has, since the start, survived by being a medium between the solitaire of Vintage and the lame creature beats or land-go of Type 2). Now that Extended has fallen to being barely more powerful than Type 2 (after Saga and later Invasion rotated), there should be a huge demand for an interactive but still powerful format.

I mean, why do you guys play Legacy? It might be because you got involved with it due to local tournaments (that's how I started, actually), but a lot of players made a conscious decision about which format(s) they would pursue.

[hi-val]

Yes, I think it's a good deck that's probably fair (at this point). I really like that it's pretty cheap to build, especially if you have a friend who plays Vintage or Extended. That said, playing against combo decks is more boring than watching presidential debates.

[Ebinsugewa]

That said, playing against combo decks is more boring than watching presidential debates.

I don't think that's true of any activity recently.

[Omega]

Im still going to wait and test ad more before deciding whether the card is ban worthy or not. But from my limited goldfishing, although the deck does kill fast (double d.ritual + ad nauseum), im not sure if it can survive through some hate.

edit : The reason why i play legacy over all other format :
Vintage is lame, cards keep getting restricted, power level is just too high. When i feel bored of ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh, i can play a non control deck in legacy and still win.
T2 : I hate rotation. I hate rotation, i feel like losing money. I pity people who spent 40$ on mutavault (they dropped i think), who spent 40$ on tarmogoyf, who spent 30$ en bitter blossom. Look at the cards now... and its been what? 2-3 years? 1 year?
Extended : The format is still somewhat enjoyable. LEgacy however is a better extended, more diverse. Once the fetchland rotate out, im probably not going to bother about extended. I still have my affinity ready to play if im going to an extended tourny, but that's it.

so yes, i think legacy is a better investment. Wizard needs to figure a way to fix the dual land issue. I think shocklands are fine replacement for many people. But when you think about it, money isnt an issue neither. If you can afford T2, certainly you can afford legacy. Legacy top chased rare (duals, i dont count ravage of wars/rolling earthquake/sea drake/grim tutor/tabernacle to be high chased rare since they are limited to certain decks)
Robert

[bruno_tiete]

Last sunday a friend of mine played a very similar list, maybe 6 cards away from the list in the article to a top4 split in a 41-man tournament. He did it after losing round one to a triple AN reveal (he was running 4) and double FoW on turn 1, and with little training.

While we were playing a few sample matches the night before, I beat 2-1 threshold and 2-0 Stiflenaught. In one game, I comboed on turn4, over a triple FoW draw. Whats somewhat terrifying is that all hate we ran was 4 Duress. When a combo deck can beat FOWs, Dazes and Stifles like that and can race all else it's time to worry.