Allies in Legacy

[Bill Stark]

Andrey Yanyuk narrowly missed the Top 8 of the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Minneapolis playing Allies. Now he's written an article on when he thinks the deck should be played as well as proposing some new lists.

You can read the full article here (http://www.thestarkingtonpost.com/articles/-/Rugvine_in_Standard_and_Allies_in_Legacy).

-Bill

[Phoenix Ignition]

He gets lucky matchups and thinks he's a god for doing well with a crap deck. Happens. He played against U/G madness matches 2-4 and only got matched up against aggro all day long. :Shrugs:

EDIT: Holy shit is that list he posted bad....

[Bryant Cook]

He gets lucky matchups and thinks he's a god for doing well with a crap deck.

I wasn't going to say it but...this.

[martyr]

He's cocky because the deck beats midrange pretty well, and he got matched up against aggro and midrange. He says as much in the article. Why are you surprised?

I mean, he essentially made Slivers, except it doesn't fall apart due to a removal spell on your Muscle/Sinew or whatever. His creatures steadily outsize Tarmogoyf, Lackey, etc...and he threw random good stuff in to take advantage or a more powerful card pool. Seriously, shame on him. What a dick. /rollseyes

EDIT: Actually, after a more careful read of the article, my one criticism is the badmouthing of one of his opponents.


I was 4-0, 8-0 in games, when I punted against Zoo in game one. I got game 2 in a nail-biter, but she drew reeeeaaally well game three. There was nothing I could do with my sub-par build. Nothing personal against my opponent, but it felt terrible losing to a bad player. Had she played correctly in game 2 I probably would have lost. And even in game three she Fireblasted an Ally I double-blocked with, then with a huge grin of accomplishment marked my life total down to 4 from the unblocked Knight of the Reliquary at end of combat. I wasn’t in the mood to say much about it, but sometimes you run well I guess regardless of playskill. She Top 8'ed. THAT is the kind of thing you don’t tend to see in a Standard Open, and it’s one of the reasons I stay away from Legacy as a whole.

This is a terrible thing to put in an article, not because he's pointing out a play mistake, but because I really have no idea what the gamestate was like from this brief, myopic explanation. So he's trashing her play, but not giving us anything to go on to agree/disagree with him. For all we know, she made the right play, and he's just too moronic to understand why it was.

Furthermore, it IS the kind of thing you tend to see in a Standard Open, because this sort of thing happens regardless of format. God forbid a player who understands their tactical limitations choose a deck that values consistency and raw power over clever little interactions and eking out an advantage over multiple turns. Can you really expect someone who KNOWS they're not the greatest ever to shuffle up UW tempo the day of a tournament? Not that I'm saying she's "limited" because of any particular reason, but because it's unlikely the one person he references as his opponent is some Kai Budde/Brad Nelson/Ender Wiggin love-child.

Finally, Andrey himself admits he punted game 1. He badmouths an opponent for play mistakes after admitting that he himself could have put the match away by 1: not being terrible in game one, and 2: playing either a better version of the deck or a different deck entirely. While occasionally, there is an excuse for not playing an optimal version of a deck, he doesn't really have one. He even points it out at the end of the article, saying he would have drastically changed the deck around. There's never an excuse for holding your opponent to a higher standard of play than you, except in testing, where the point is to learn. In play, where the point is to win, understanding and taking advantage of their mistakes is of high importance, but doing so doesn't give you free license to shit all over their achievements.

My advice for Andrey would be: keep the deck going, and work on it. And maybe write a primer article for it after the next tournament, when you've, you know...tested it. As far as I can tell, other than your report, which is fine, but occasionally offensive and douchey, all you managed to come up with was a core of allies + Aether Vial, around which you can shift stuff around depending on what you expect the meta to be. Great, maybe just leave it at that next time?

(My edit is way longer than my initial response, which is not a good sign. Think before I type, I suppose?)

[GGoober]

This is the reason why Standard exists, because they think they know Legacy and badmouth the format but the truth is Standard exists because these people are a little too moronic and unintelligent to understand a much more complicated format.

I'll be waiting for Allies to break Top8s again, and to watch the format warp with Hada Freeblades. It's funny how he says his deck dies to mass removal/firespout. Guess what? A ton of decks in Legacy does, yours isn't the only one budd. And you know what? These decks that die to firespout actually have more decent combo/control matchups than you do (gobs/merfolks). I still find it hard to believe he claims his deck beats Merfolks/Gobs. He probably got really lucky he played bad players since an intelligent legacy player usually outsmarts a standard player, since you know the standard player doesn't really know much beyond turning cards 90degree, which he so openly gloats about in his article. As far as I remembered, Legacy isn't about just turning cards sideways.

Oh well.

[menace13]

""I was 4-0, 8-0 in games, when I punted against Zoo in game one. I got game 2 in a nail-biter, but she drew reeeeaaally well game three. There was nothing I could do with my sub-par build. Nothing personal against my opponent, but it felt terrible losing to a bad player. Had she played correctly in game 2 I probably would have lost. And even in game three she Fireblasted an Ally I double-blocked with, then with a huge grin of accomplishment marked my life total down to 4 from the unblocked Knight of the Reliquary at end of combat. I wasn’t in the mood to say much about it, but sometimes you run well I guess regardless of playskill. She Top 8'ed. THAT is the kind of thing you don’t tend to see in a Standard Open, and it’s one of the reasons I stay away from Legacy as a whole"" - excerpt from article-

Bill ,are you just trolling us now with really bad decks posted in articles, because if you are you should know this site already has a developmental decks section?

That guy is delusional if he think he can speak of bad players, then proceed to bring Vial fukin Allies .... The guy is a joke, his deck is a more of a joke.(i dont want to hear how it beats Merf,Gobs and Zoo while scooping to anything with a Deed,Show and Tell or a Tendril).

Whoever thinks they are good while playing Alllies in Legacy has lost their mind.

And to top it off he call his Vengevine deck the most powerful deck in std- the guy does a lot of good drugs-

Either way i cant respect or take seriously someone who plays Allies in Legacy. Like, really? Allies and lucky pairings dont make for a good deck.

Allies....... . . . . . .

I would stay away from Legacy too, if i thought Allies was a good deck.

[ReAnimator]

This is the reason why Standard exists, because they think they know Legacy and badmouth the format but the truth is Standard exists because these people are a little too moronic and unintelligent to understand a much more complicated format.

He probably got really lucky he played bad players since an intelligent legacy player usually outsmarts a standard player, since you know the standard player doesn't really know much beyond turning cards 90degree, which he so openly gloats about in his article. As far as I remembered, Legacy isn't about just turning cards sideways.

WAT?

I like the huge blanket statement that everyone who plays T2 is a dribbling moron and doesn't know how to think. Get off your high horse and give some citations cause all of the claims you made are patently absurd. Sure this guy comes off as a moron and his writing is pretty bad and arrogant but why stoop to his level, i could say all sorts of common misconceptions about Legacy too.

Him being arrogant gives a bad rap to standard, and reinforces stereotypes to the uninformed.
but your post is the same sort of thing for Legacy, this is the reason a ton of people think legacy is full of arrogant elitist douches, posts like this.

[AriLax]

The deck seems very good against, Merfolk and the various Bant decks. The Zoo match up is probably close/die roll dependent at worst. Goblins is probably fine against random players, but I think if the Goblins player just shifts into the control role they might be able to fight you.

The deck will never beat a combo though. Actual any combo will do. The Vengevine Survival deck can also probably get you on the Survival draws with Wonder. Landstill decks also seem very heavily favored, though those decks pretty much all suck.

[jamis]

He gets lucky matchups and thinks he's a god for doing well with a crap deck. Happens. He played against U/G madness matches 2-4 and only got matched up against aggro all day long. :Shrugs:

EDIT: Holy shit is that list he posted bad....

If he got paired against UG Madness a lot, it would only serve to reason that Madness was a large portion of the field. He made a good meta call. A good meta call and a good deck are not always the same thing. Sometimes a really good deck can scrub out for being the wrong call for the meta, and in this case a terrible deck can do well if it gets paired against some favorable match-ups. He beat the system, good for him.

[GGoober]

WAT?

I like the huge blanket statement that everyone who plays T2 is a dribbling moron and doesn't know how to think. Get off your high horse and give some citations cause all of the claims you made are patently absurd. Sure this guy comes off as a moron and his writing is pretty bad and arrogant but why stoop to his level, i could say all sorts of common misconceptions about Legacy too.

Him being arrogant gives a bad rap to standard, and reinforces stereotypes to the uninformed.
but your post is the same sort of thing for Legacy, this is the reason a ton of people think legacy is full of arrogant elitist douches, posts like this.

Sorry if I wasn't being specific, by 'they' I meant morons like Bill (probably myself included). I am not saying that you don't need brains to play T2. I am saying T2 MORONS like him exist because he does not know this format well (has a brief idea of the meta, tuned a jank deck to beat it, and rides his high horse around sprouting UWr, UWb Ally lists and claims that he lost to unluck and bad draws). These are the T2 MORONS that I am talking about i.e. people who actually don't spend time in the format they're alien and jump to conclusions.

I was targetting the crowd of people like him, not the general T2 crowd.

Mastering magic involves a couple of concrete elements:
1) Knowing the meta
2) Designing a deck
3) Knowing basic magic rules
4) Practice to be a good player.

Any format falls on these few pillars, so I don't think a T2 player is incompetent than a Legacy player or vice versa. Any pro player would be able to play either format since the above 5 points are independent of the nature of the format. However, there is a subtle issue to be addressed: the Legacy meta is far more diverse and complicated and a wider range of card pool makes it a tougher format to master. I am aiming and spiting the Ally dude because he jumps to conclusions and 'stays away from Legacy' from his so said reasons. He probably just barely touched the iceberg of the format.

Now I don't play a ton of T2, but I follow closely, and decision trees are much less complicated than Legacy, just as Legacy is much less complicated and less dense than Vintage. However, the diversity of the format makes it somewhat more complicated at times than playing Vintage. It's probably his arrogant tone that pisses a lot of the readers off, especially on the source. Teaches for writers to note their tones, which is probably why I can't be a writer for MTG, since I'm insensitive and apparently vague.

[claudio.r]

Despite his arrogant tone and everything else...

I'm one of those guys that likes to see something new coming, some sort of innovation. I actually like the concept of the deck, and was pretty surprised while watching the coverage and saw this deck bashing face. Just like slivers and merfolk, when you have 3 allies on the table things get pretty out of hand pretty quickly.

No, i don't think this will be the next big thing, but it's a cool concept with cards that rarely see any play. I don't understand why people like to bash on new things so much, if we were depending on those people, we would still be playing goblins, tide and threshold with werebear...

Open your minds...

(sorry about the english...)

[dyzzy]

I clicked on his name, saw his picture, and then promptly closed the tab.

[Phoenix Ignition]

If he got paired against UG Madness a lot, it would only serve to reason that Madness was a large portion of the field. He made a good meta call. A good meta call and a good deck are not always the same thing. Sometimes a really good deck can scrub out for being the wrong call for the meta, and in this case a terrible deck can do well if it gets paired against some favorable match-ups. He beat the system, good for him.

Well seeing as he threw this together on the carride there kind of shows there wasn't any forethought before making the deck. There also were far more Jacestill decks there than U/G madness decks, which he dodged. Also I saw a good portion of Show and Tell and belcher, as well as a ton of enchantress. The kid didn't meta, he got lucky. Like I said, it happens. I don't think he could be more douchey in the writing of his article though, that takes talent.

[4eak]

He got 26th place in the tournament. Allies.dec was clearly a good choice for the expected meta. Congratz to him.

I have played against the deck (wasn't impressed), but I will have to try it myself before I'm going to outright call it a fluke (and too much focus on a single tournament).



peace,
4eak

[NesretepNoj]

I clicked on his name, saw his picture, and then promptly closed the tab.

I advice everybody to do the same.

[martyr]

Despite his arrogant tone and everything else...

I'm one of those guys that likes to see something new coming, some sort of innovation. I actually like the concept of the deck, and was pretty surprised while watching the coverage and saw this deck bashing face. Just like slivers and merfolk, when you have 3 allies on the table things get pretty out of hand pretty quickly.

No, i don't think this will be the next big thing, but it's a cool concept with cards that rarely see any play. I don't understand why people like to bash on new things so much, if we were depending on those people, we would still be playing goblins, tide and threshold with werebear...

Open your minds...

(sorry about the english...)

You articulated better than I did what I liked about the deck; it's a solid midrange deck where the entire core has synergy with each other card. Every spell you cast pumps your other ones, or saves them from removal, or gains you life. Allies tend to be aggressively costed enough to work in a slow enough environment, and in aggro-heavy metas that have shifted away from zoo, it would probably flourish (I mean, it did flourish, so...).

It's not a bad idea, as so many people are insisting it is. You're all reacting poorly to the deck not because it's bad, but because playing bad cards can't POSSIBLY be good. It's just dumb. Like...sligh is dumb.

Turn 1 Goblins of the Flarg
opponent: "really?" *mentally ticks off a win in his head*

Turn 1 Hada Freeblade
opponent: "really?" *mentally ticks off a win in his head*

It's the same reason that your tournament viable decks will occasionally lose games to your more casual friends' piles: some strategies are just so internally consistent, and set up for such a different game than yours, that you can get caught with your pants down. This dude basically caught Minneapolis with its pants down.

[alderon666]

Sadly I looked at the lists before actually getting to the picture, what a waste of time.

The deck just looks bad, there aren't enough allies so the just had a bunch of fillers. I fail to see how this is much better than slivers, Crystaline Sliver > any ally.

[TsumiBand]

In fairness not every Ally sucks. The 0/1 for W gets a counter when he or other Allys ETB - in this respect he's better than Plated Sliver. The 1/1 with first strike, vigilance and "gets a counter" is honestly good enough that I'd consider it in a non-Ally deck, as by itself it's a 2/2 and if you draw mutiples, so much the better. It's pretty much the most perfect aggressive bear White Weenie would play, if it didn't have to like worry about being good against combo and maindecking weirds like Ethersworn Canonist.

Maybe if they come back to Allies in some other block they will be worth a second look, because they are a unique tribe wherein there is no real Lord to speak of - yet unlike Slivers they do not lose anything by losing a member of the tribe. For now, schlocky deck is schlocky and I agree with the people who have said that the victories obtaining by this kid playing this deck were probably all about the 'ego factor', where people see a shit deck and let their guard down. Always a bad call.

[cuthbertthecat]

Andrey and I are buddies in real life, and let me start this off by saying that he is a cool guy, regardless of what the tone of this article would have you believe. Granted, the decks look pretty sub-par and untested, but hey, at least he's innovating. In standard, it seems to have worked out nicely for him. This deck is pretty much just a fierce metagame deck, it's not like he's claiming it's the dtb of legacy. Just let him have his moment in the sun. He did, after all, crush 3 vengevine survival, some merfolk, and others playing allies.

[freakish777]

I fail to see a misplay in the Fireblast play (and I doubt that's what he's complaining about, it's a bad beat story).

He's saying he has 2 creatures, and is double blocking 1 creature, and letting Knight of the Reliquary through right?

Playing a removal spell that 2 for 1's your opponent, and +2/+2's your Knight seems like it's always the right play. Maybe if he'd played a non sub par deck he'd have had the opportunity to draw reeeeaaally well also.

Calling someone else a bad player is really mature though, instead of questioning why you're losing matches.

[freakish777]

at least he's innovating

As opposed to winning?

[cuthbertthecat]

As opposed to winning?

It's certainly more fun to watch him do ok with allies than to watch him win with merfolk or vengevine survival.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I fail to see a misplay in the Fireblast play (and I doubt that's what he's complaining about, it's a bad beat story).

He's saying he has 2 creatures, and is double blocking 1 creature, and letting Knight of the Reliquary through right?

Playing a removal spell that 2 for 1's your opponent, and +2/+2's your Knight seems like it's always the right play. Maybe if he'd played a non sub par deck he'd have had the opportunity to draw reeeeaaally well also.


Not to mention he can vial in a dude to gain life. I mean if he would explain this better rather than throwing insults at his opponent (whom I happen to play against frequently and she's actually much better than 95% of players I know) and claiming she's bad because she may have missed a single play, we might not be so upset.

Frankly he doesn't say if he had mana open to Path the Knight (making the fireblast to the face a horrible, horrible play), he didn't say anything about whether he had a vial open and able to put a life gain ally into play, he fails to mention everything and thinks he's a genius, after admitting he punted a game.

He obviously just was a sore loser to losing to a girl, and it's obvious to me that people like him are the reason less girls actually play magic. It's a terrible deck, he got lucky, any losses he has he is going to be a bitch about. He wasn't even a good winner, he beat me round 2 and was a complete dick about it.

[cuthbertthecat]

Not to mention he can vial in a dude to gain life. I mean if he would explain this better rather than throwing insults at his opponent (whom I happen to play against frequently and she's actually much better than 95% of players I know) and claiming she's bad because she may have missed a single play, we might not be so upset.

Frankly he doesn't say if he had mana open to Path the Knight (making the fireblast to the face a horrible, horrible play), he didn't say anything about whether he had a vial open and able to put a life gain ally into play, he fails to mention everything and thinks he's a genius, after admitting he punted a game.

He obviously just was a sore loser to losing to a girl, and it's obvious to me that people like him are the reason less girls actually play magic. It's a terrible deck, he got lucky, any losses he has he is going to be a bitch about. He wasn't even a good winner, he beat me round 2 and was a complete dick about it.

The first two paragraphs are 100% true. I played against her in top 8, and she played her deck optimally. However, he isn't one of those guys, the ones who keep girls out of magic. He is just upset because he lost to what he percieved as a misplay, nothing more. He would be just as pissed if he had lost to the god hand. If you're gonna shit-talk him, shit talk how he comes off as pompous, not about some concieved sexism

[CorpT]

For being such a traveler and obviously interested in promoting his site, Bill really picks some terrible, terrible people to write for him. First Ari and now this. At least on SCG and CF you get mostly decent folk. This is becoming a pattern though.

[eq.firemind]

Why the hell green for Oran-Rief Survivalist instead of red for Akoum Battlesinger!?
Also, UWx probably loses to Lord of Atlantis, but Mirror Entity does a trick: pay :1: to turn all your allies into fish and alpha-strike with his own islandwalking.
The concept is still not better than slivers (or even worse), but at least there are normal humanoids instead of slippery aliens.
IMHO UWR is the way to go. Something like this:

19 lands
4 Aether Vial
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Ondu Cleric
4 Akoum Battlesinger
3 Jwari Shapeshifter
4 Kabira Evangel
2 Mirror Entity

4 Lightning Bolt - for Tribal and Zoo to replace Daze
4 Spell Pierce - for combo and control to replace StP
Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Submerge, Faerie Macabre, Divert,...

And no Force of Will 'cause all allies except Jwari Shapeshifter are awful, so you just can't put enough blue cards in the deck.

[Dark Ritual]

He got lucky in his MUs. Really, when his deck runs into a deck packing decent removal like zoo or even canadian thresh he will get steamrolled. Zoo destroys that deck. His deck, if he can stabilize, is good against vengevine survival due to the stupid ondu cleric lifegain shenanigans and due to vengevine survival's lack of removal save jitte counters.

The deck is awful IMO sure he started out 4-0 but then he lost the rest of the day and won probably 1 more match to 5-3. Getting lucky in your pairings is the only way to win with that crappy allies deck. Allies are terrible in legacy. Period.

[freakish777]

It's certainly more fun to watch him do ok with allies than to watch him win with merfolk or vengevine survival.

This is a competitive Legacy forum. Not a fun Legacy forum.


Bill Stark: Post it in Casual next time.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

This is a competitive Legacy forum. Not a fun Legacy forum.


Bill Stark: Post it in Casual next time.

This thread dosen't seem like either it's just a bunch of babies crying about how they can't win with their good decks but some kid did well with his shitty allies deck. I have played his list at a local tournament (minus a few fetches, add more basics, and changed the sideboard) it is not half bad. Maybe you guys should get a tissue and try out the deck.

[freakish777]

This thread dosen't seem like either it's just a bunch of babies crying about how they can't win with their good decks but some kid did well with his shitty allies deck. I have played his list at a local tournament (minus a few fetches, add more basics, and changed the sideboard) it is not half bad. Maybe you guys should get a tissue and try out the deck.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18414-62nd-at-GP-Columbus

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18351-North-American-Legacy-Championship-Qualifier-RIT-2-Moxes-2-Moats-Guaranteed&p=488938&viewfull=1#post488938

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1d_6-UuO49-wCgnRKKbU2z99N3qB-l6P9z0QAmFjDB_8


Those are the last 3 large tournaments I've played in (6 or more swiss rounds). Why should I, as a competitive player, care about a list that took it's pilot to a 5 and 3 record at a large tournament?

Posting articles about interesting decks is a waste of the reader's time, when the audience is competitively minded. They don't want to read articles about decks that go 5 and 3. If they did, and they instead cared about interesting decks, the responses would have been better.

26 out of 170 is 84.7 percentile of all competitors (Yanyak's placement).

62 out of 1296 is 95.21 percentile of all competitors (my GP placement)
7 out of 53 is 86.79 percentile of all competitors (my Jupiter Games tournament placement)
4 out of 45 is 91.11 percentile of all competitors (my RIT tournament placement)


Let me be clear. I'm not upset in the slightest that "some kid did well with his shitty allies deck" in the slightest. Good for him! I mean it. I would hope no one else here is either, maybe someone is.

Here's what I'm annoyed with: Bill Stark wasting people's time by linking to it here on the Source. If it doesn't do well, people here don't care.

[perm]

Oh my god, someone get this guy a xanax. I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart to try to relax a little bit. This is a game. You might want to take a few seconds to screw your head on straight.

[Aggro_zombies]

Oh my god, someone get this guy a xanax. I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart to try to relax a little bit. This is a game. You might want to take a few seconds to screw your head on straight.
And some people take it more seriously than you. If you don't want to play Legacy seriously, go post on MTGSalvation's Legacy forums.

This deck is clearly a joke/metagame deck. It "narrowly misses top 8" by going 5-3 after getting its best possible matchups all day, and the pilot of the deck pretty clearly doesn't care about the format and only played Allies to be obnoxious about it. It does not merit the sort of serious discussion Bill Stark wants us to have about it. Therefore, people are irritated about it.

[menace13]

What Freakish said +1
It is the whole point of this thread, no one wants to see fluke decks on the source.

I own Allies.dek (from it's short stint as Naya alllies in Std), and it still sux...

My apologies to the author of the article, i jumped the gun. Didnt know he wasnt old enough to drink and if you are reading this my earlier comments were out of line, but that article had some of the most smugg and self exalting tone i have read in a while.

Here is how it read out to me

- " I dont even play this format full of misplayers who are bad but can still go 5-3 and to show it i built a deck in 20 minutes on the car ride there because i knew most Legacy player suck. And i can go 5-3 and brag about going 5-3 and then call out some poor girl on my article for being a bad player, then go on to say i beat her deck she just drew amazingly well while i didnt and this is why i dont play Legacy. And my deck is the most powerful deck in Std"-

[TooCloseToTheSun]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18414-62nd-at-GP-Columbus

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18351-North-American-Legacy-Championship-Qualifier-RIT-2-Moxes-2-Moats-Guaranteed&p=488938&viewfull=1#post488938

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1d_6-UuO49-wCgnRKKbU2z99N3qB-l6P9z0QAmFjDB_8


Those are the last 3 large tournaments I've played in (6 or more swiss rounds). Why should I, as a competitive player, care about a list that took it's pilot to a 5 and 3 record at a large tournament?

Posting articles about interesting decks is a waste of the reader's time, when the audience is competitively minded. They don't want to read articles about decks that go 5 and 3. If they did, and they instead cared about interesting decks, the responses would have been better.

26 out of 170 is 84.7 percentile of all competitors (Yanyak's placement).

62 out of 1296 is 95.21 percentile of all competitors (my GP placement)
7 out of 53 is 86.79 percentile of all competitors (my Jupiter Games tournament placement)
4 out of 45 is 91.11 percentile of all competitors (my RIT tournament placement)


Let me be clear. I'm not upset in the slightest that "some kid did well with his shitty allies deck" in the slightest. Good for him! I mean it. I would hope no one else here is either, maybe someone is.

Here's what I'm annoyed with: Bill Stark wasting people's time by linking to it here on the Source. If it doesn't do well, people here don't care.

I am still not getting it, you can clearly tell what the article is about without reading it so if you don't want to read about it don't read about it. But instead you come here and bitch about someone writing an article and posting it here on this sacred forum, that is just stupid.

[GGoober]

What Freakish said

- " I dont even play this format full of misplayers who are bad but can still go 5-3 and to show it i built a deck in 20 minutes on the car ride there because i knew most Legacy player suck. And i can go 5-3 and brag about going 5-3 and then call out some poor girl on my article for being a bad player, then go on to say i beat her deck she just drew amazingly well while i didnt and this is why i dont play Legacy. And my deck is the most powerful deck in Std"-

I Lol'd.

[SpikeyMikey]

Despite his arrogant tone and everything else...

I'm one of those guys that likes to see something new coming, some sort of innovation. I actually like the concept of the deck, and was pretty surprised while watching the coverage and saw this deck bashing face. Just like slivers and merfolk, when you have 3 allies on the table things get pretty out of hand pretty quickly.

No, i don't think this will be the next big thing, but it's a cool concept with cards that rarely see any play. I don't understand why people like to bash on new things so much, if we were depending on those people, we would still be playing goblins, tide and threshold with werebear...

Open your minds...

(sorry about the english...)

What aggro deck doesn't get gross with 3 creatures on the board? How ugly is fish with LoA/Reej/Adept? That's half your life on the next swing. How about Nacatl/Goyf/Mancer? That's 6-10, depending on board state. Let's not even start on Piledriver. Allies don't do anything useful. It's like a slightly tuned up Relentless Rats.

[GGoober]

The inherent problem with Allies (as observed in Standard/block/limited is:

It is only nuts when you have a couple of Allies out in play, then they all get pumped up. Imagine a position where you are just putting a few allies in play, and a couple of them are constantly getting removed, then all the new allies are fairly weak. The deck only works if: you happen to keep playing them and they stick in play, then it becomes a formidable force (hence the design name Allies).

Given that this applies the same for all tribes/aggro deck i.e. big numbers become more deadly, Allies depend on their previous friends staying in play more than the other aggro decks of Legacy (Goblins can recover with just a ringleader, Merfolk has Coral-helm and LoA that are solid on their own), Zoo just has fatties. When I compare Allies, it's akin to looking back at the same flaws as Slivers i.e. they need to coexist to function effectively. It's not too much of a surprise he went 4-0 initially (good MUs and no one nuking his board since he played against fucking UG Vengevines with no burn/removal). After soon he gets paired up against Zoo (guess what, DTB and a common deck) he starts losing and whining.

Allies suffers the same problem as Slivers, dying to mass sweepers or pinpoint removal when they don't have a swarm position. The only advantage of Allies over slivers is that previously pumped allies stay big, so that's the main selling point over slivers. However, slivers can grow much faster without in board position since Allies require an already good board position to develop it further whereas slivers just statically grow bigger by playing Muscle/Sinew.

[SpikeyMikey]

This thread dosen't seem like either it's just a bunch of babies crying about how they can't win with their good decks but some kid did well with his shitty allies deck. I have played his list at a local tournament (minus a few fetches, add more basics, and changed the sideboard) it is not half bad. Maybe you guys should get a tissue and try out the deck.

Local Platteville? Exciting...

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Local Platteville? Exciting...

Yeah actually it is. Almost everyone plays tier 1 or tier 2 decks at our bi-monthly tournaments (our fnm legacy is another mater, more casual, way less competitive) and we get 10 to 20 people.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Yeah actually it is. Almost everyone plays tier 1 or tier 2 decks at our bi-monthly tournaments (our fnm legacy is another mater, more casual, way less competitive) and we get 10 to 20 people.

So I guess the take away message is: If you play in 10 person Legacy metagames, Allies might be the choice for you to maybe top 8.

Anyway, Slivers are so much better since they have a permanent shroud creature, making everything but sweepers bad, as well as Hibernation Sliver, making mass removal not as much of a problem. The best allies can do is rely heavily on vial + Kabira Evangel or Mother of Runes, but if it runs into literally any deck that plays EE or Deeds or Firespout or Wrath the deck loses. Also it loses to any form of combo. It isn't even a meta deck, it's a "I want to show you legacy sucks and try to rub it in your face" deck.

A problem I have is this is the type of player who is going to go into a legacy tournament, probably lose every other one he goes into, and is going to complain about how Belcher and Enchantress are broken and Legacy sucks because of it.

[freakish777]

I am still not getting it, you can clearly tell what the article is about without reading it so if you don't want to read about it don't read about it. But instead you come here and bitch about someone writing an article and posting it here on this sacred forum, that is just stupid.

Make less assumptions please. I never said anything about not reading the article. I, as an active member of these message boards, have every right to express my concern that an article linked to in this thread lacks anything useful to competitive players.

If that makes me a crotchety old man, Sweet! My point remains, I fail to see how this article was useful to competitive players, and I will continue to tell Bill Stark to post in the casual forum until articles on his site have decks that have a legitimate shot at taking their pilot to first place.

If that means that Bill decides not to share some "hot new innovative tech" with MTGTheSource because he feels slighted, and people get blindsided by it at the next SCG 5K/GP/etc, so much the better for him. What is more likely to happen though by him not posting links to decks like Allies, is we'll have a stronger signal to noise ratio here on the Source, and less crap to wade through to get what we want out of this message board.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

So I guess the take away message is: If you play in 10 person Legacy metagames, Allies might be the choice for you to maybe top 8.

Apparently when you play it at an SCG open you make top 32. How did you do at the Minneapolis open?

[menace13]

Apparently when you play it at an SCG open you make top 32. How did you do at the Minneapolis open?

Yes, I am sure this completely invalidates any arguements as to wether or not Allies is a good deck.
I mean, beating up on removal-less Madness with a full on aggro deck means it is great.
Makes me think maybe UWb Lark could have won that whole event.

going 5-3 when more than 3/4ths of your MUS were favorable is so terrible it makes me puke inside my mouth.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Apparently when you play it at an SCG open you make top 32. How did you do at the Minneapolis open?

Also went X-3 with U/G madness. Not gonna write an article on my unusually abysmal performance though.

[frogboy]

This thread should probably settle down some before I get home. Y'all are lucky that operating the mod panel from a phone is a huge pain

[martyr]

going 5-3 when more than 3/4ths of your MUS were favorable is so terrible it makes me puke inside my mouth.

That's kind of unfair. Plenty of people go 5-3 with more favorable matchups than not. Interesting, given his deck choice? Maybe. Groundbreaking or noteworthy? Eh...probably not.

[Captain_Morgan]

Very rough draft, and I've found allies to be very similar to rebels. Its a tier 2 deck with a shallow card pool that got irked at the third set, and it shows. The other support characters are okay, but I just feel that rebels has the skeleton while allies has the meat and the slivers have everything with their much larger card pool.

The actual decks look and feel very rough draft, and the sheer lack of spells also doesn't help either. Considering most tribal decks out there run a lot more on the spell front, I'm just thinking the ally builds here would fold like a cheap suit. I've seen enough heavy creature decks like this fold as well to see how they function.

Are allies interesting? Yes. Should they be tested? Yes, they're still rather new and good tribe. However, I just agree that the runs on these are preliminary, and the admission of "expected meta" draws more doubt. I like the tactical strategies possible with it, but until there's more testing there's not going to be "early adoption."

[Blitzbold]

The Fireblast play was bad if it really happened the way he described, as he went down to 4 after combat damage. Directing the Fireblast right at his head after declaring blockers would have ended the game right there.

Allies as a deck for legacy sounds interesting, as there are some nice synergies between them. However I do think that other tribes - namely Goblins and Merfolk - at least are on a comparable powerlevel, if not above. Additionally, in contrast to the aforementioned decks, 3-4 colored decks obv. will have mana / color issues from time to time, and this is without any opponent playing wastelands and stifle. Finally, Gobs and Folks are better in the CA business and provide a quicker kill. Conclusion: Interesting, but very vulnerable (he already mentioned Spout and EE). There is a reason Slivers aren't played widely anymore, and in my view that tribe would offer more for a viable deck than Allies do at the moment.

[freakish777]

The Fireblast play was bad if it really happened the way he described, as he went down to 4 after combat damage. Directing the Fireblast right at his head after declaring blockers would have ended the game right there.

Not if he was holding Path to Exile/Swords. If there's any doubt in your mind as to whether your opponent has PtE/StP and your Goyf is going to take lethal, and the resulting board position is tremendously in your favor (ie, they don't have the PtE/StP in hand, but afterwards you're on Goyf + Knight against a clear board), there's no point in taking the risk that they have it.

Let's assume they do have the removal spell. You attack. They tag team the Goyf. You Fireblast their face, making Knight lethal. They StP/PtE the Knight. Then damage happens, and Goyf and one of their creatures die. Now you're on an empty board against a single creature, against an opponent somewhere between 4 and 10 life (Knight was obviously at least a 4/4). Oh. And you're down 2 lands. Looks like you just let a single removal spell blow you out in g3 when you were in contention for the elimination rounds.

Another possibility is the two of you are racing, they have Aether Vial in play, and potentially have Ondu Cleric in hand. If you go for the kill, and before damage they put Ondo Cleric into play to gain 3 life, and then crack back for lethal, again, you just got blown out by not accounting for the possibilities.

[jrw1985]

The Fireblast play was bad if it really happened the way he described, as he went down to 4 after combat damage. Directing the Fireblast right at his head after declaring blockers would have ended the game right there.


I like that everyone is upset over his bashing of her misplay. The thing is, if you're going to mock an opponent's misplay, it should probably be a game that your opponent LOST. I mean, right? "Man, my opponent was terrible, couldn't play for shit, had no idea how to pilot her deck... Yeah, I still lost to her though....."

That right there about sums it up.

[Nihil Credo]

I like that everyone is upset over his bashing of her misplay. The thing is, if you're going to mock an opponent's misplay, it should probably be a game that your opponent LOST. I mean, right? "Man, my opponent was terrible, couldn't play for shit, had no idea how to pilot her deck... Yeah, I still lost to her though.....".
If someone bets on two dice giving a sum of 12, and wins, you should still criticise them for not betting on 7.

That's not to say that the Fireblast play was as clearly wrong as betting on 12 is, of course (see freakish's response).

[GGoober]

I like that everyone is upset over his bashing of her misplay. The thing is, if you're going to mock an opponent's misplay, it should probably be a game that your opponent LOST. I mean, right? "Man, my opponent was terrible, couldn't play for shit, had no idea how to pilot her deck... Yeah, I still lost to her though....."

That right there about sums it up.

Actually last Friday, there was a guy at my FNM that bashed an opponent for misplaying yada yada even though he won. And he went on to complain that sometimes you just can't beat hands that are bad and opposing hands that are good despite being a good player yada yada. All in all, he was saying that the opponent could have played better and was upset he didn't draw as well etc.

He's a 'pro' drafter, but these kind of people, that tend to think highly of themselves and get bitter losing to less 'pro' players (the opponent was an old player getting back into magic and apparently Top2'd and beat this regular person who drafts alot). I think the same scenario applies to this Allies-player. He's just not happy that he lost, because he felt his deck was good, but was underwhelmed by weak draws and a strong opponent's draw.

However, a win is a win, a loss is a loss. Pack up and learn that. That's coming from me who have been scrubbed out of big events matches 1-2 getting paired up with Belcher and Enchantress (bad matchups for Landstill expecting an aggro metagame).