ABM port to Legacy, Viable??

[smurphy]

first off lets start with the list.

4 Tundras
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Gemstone Mines
4 mox Diamond

3 Life from the Loam
4 Scroll Rack
1 Trade Routes
1 Zuran Orb

1 Fact or Fiction
2 Mystical Tutor

1 Regrowth
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Moat
1 The Abyss

2 Meddling mage
2 Mystic Enforcer
2 Werebear
1 Whirlpool Warrior
2 Devout Witness

4 Force of Will
2 Back to BAsics
2 Powder Keg
1 Fire/Ice
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Pithing Needles

Well there it is, I think it has alot of strengths, a resiliant draw engine, the controll element down with enough counters to help land your threats and enough threats to kill and control equally. Go ahead and tear it up just trying to open up the format and hopefully get a few people to try something they wouldnt have normally. thank you in advance for any help.

now for some card choices.

powder keg- I chose this over EE basically as a personal preference. I like that it changes each turn so youir not sstuck after you play it.

Back to basics- coulda used blood moon or even magus but I feel sticking mostly blue /white makes it more consistant.

Moat,abyss,tabernacle- I know they all together seem a little redundant but its basically all we got, save one STP.

Creature choices in general--I tried to stick to creatures with good effects as well as decent attack capabilities, and the whirlpool warrior goes well with scroll rack.

Draw engine-- very debatable, I may just switch to brainstorms and ponders but I like the versatility of being able to change up whats in my hand with the top of my deck more than four times a game. its adaquate with the one-ofs.

well thats about it. let me know what you think and I will try to explai what I can.

[Zork]

I am not a fan of all the 1 ofs and 2 ofs. Trying to focus your card choices tends to improve the consistency and strength of a deck. For example, I would cut the meddling mages and/or devout witness, and definately whirlpool warrior. Replace werebear with tarmogoyf. I would clean up the list of instants, as right now you have a huge mystal tutor toolbox with only 2 mystical tutor. My suggestion would be to get rid of the toolbox and just play enough copies of the better spells that you don't need to tutor for them.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

What exactly is this deck trying to do?

That's usually a good place to start. I have no idea what your gameplan here is, and there certainly don't seem to be any real synergies.

[SpikeyMikey]

Has ABM been viable in T1 in the last couple years? I wasn't aware that it was.

The LftL/Rack engine is cute, kind of like an updated Tax/Rack, but I just don't think that it's fast enough to be useful in the current format. Like you said, it's resilient, but it's also very slow to get started.

@Zork: The deck runs so many 1 and 2 of's and runs such a large box because of Whirlpool Warrior and Scroll Rack. The idea here is that it will use LftL/Trade Routes and Scroll Rack/Warrior to cycle through it's deck, thus having access to any card in the deck within a turn or two. If it can reach the point in the game where it's doing this, it can afford to use it's powerful, narrow solutions. You don't need 4 of's at this point, a lot of the cards you're running 4 of in modern decks, you run 4 of so that you can see them consistantly, not because you actually want to see all 4 every game. If you're cycling through your entire library Racking 7-10 cards at a time and fetching every turn, you'll see everything consistantly.

The problem with this model is that it will never make it to the point where it has that kind of opportunity. Force of Will is your only real early defense, and FoW, as you can imagine, has a very negative synergy with the Rack engine. You'll end up expending too much of your hand on early defense while you assemble the engine and be left with 2-3 cards in hand by the time you're ready to start drawing. If you've got LftL and 3 cards in the yard from Moxen or fetches, then you might be OK. If you're missing LftL, if you're missing Rack/Warrior(which you cannot tutor for) or if Rack was countered, you're up that chocolate creek, minus the proverbial paddle.

In the hands of a master, this deck could probably perform passably, but then, that same master would dominate with something better. IMO, this is a tier 3 deck.



Edit: I'm awfully disappointed in you Jack. I would think that you, of all people, as a designer, would be able to see how this deck functions. It actually does have pretty solid synergies, they're just slow and clunky. I'm going to chalk it up to you not taking the time to sit down and puzzle it out.

[Obfuscate Freely]

I'm not sure that filling a deck with narrow, highly-situational cards so that you'll always have a hand of chaff to shuffle back with Scroll Rack deserves to be called "synergy."

Wasn't this deck a joke in Type 1? Five years ago?


That said, trying to build a deck around LftL and Scroll Rack is not a lost cause. David Gearhart toyed with one for a while, but his was based on the Extended Aggro Loam lists. Adding blue does give you some good tools, most notably Brainstorm, which is like an instant-speed Scroll Rack for :u:.

As Zork said, though, the deck needs much more focus as it is.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Edit: I'm awfully disappointed in you Jack. I would think that you, of all people, as a designer, would be able to see how this deck functions. It actually does have pretty solid synergies, they're just slow and clunky. I'm going to chalk it up to you not taking the time to sit down and puzzle it out.


I'm not sure if you're defending the deck or not, or if you're trying to make me feel bad, or if this is an elaborate and sarcastic mockery of decks that have no actual game plan.

[SpikeyMikey]

I wouldn't say I'm defending it; it's pretty much junk. I was just saying that I saw how the deck was intended to work. Mostly I was giving you a hard time for not seeing it.

@ Ob: It's only running about half a dozen narrow, highly situational cards. Again, not defending it, but I think you're blowing it out of proportion. The concept is solid. It's not viable in a format of this speed, but it's got a "Keeperesque" feel to it.

I also think that LftL/Rack is a dead-end as far as engines go. You're not going to be doing any drawing with it until turn 4+, and that's just too slow in this format. It's pretty slow for any format, but for an Eternal format, it's frozen molasses. Both cards are decent on their own, LftL far more than Scroll Rack obviously, but it just doesn't have the power level necessary to compete.