2nd at Juniper Lotus event with Turbo-Drazi for a Mox Feb 12, 2011

[Rock Lee]

TLDR: Turbo-Eldrazi won a Mox Jet after going 6-0-1 in the swiss

So I've been working on this project for many months now. The basic principle is to build insane advantage from cloudposts. Stomp the bejesus out of anything blue, compete on fair terms with aggro, and mise like a beast against waste recursion.

Tragically I've found MTG the Source to be rather whiny when it comes to innovative decks. There are individuals here, often softly spoken and lurking who are strong players with great ideas, but the majority are trolls. A great example is like here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18146-Wanna-cast-Turn-Three-Emrakul-dec&highlight=cloudpost) where we get great quotes from people on the subject of a tangential form of this deck who have opinions like "if this deck ever T8s any major Legacy tourney, I will be truly shocked."

Well be shocked. Shocked that good innovators who are good players can stomp a field with what you call jank. Recently I've been posting and conversing on Italian mtg/legacy forums here (http://www.tipo1.it/forum/) simply because they're more open minded and less petty than at least the vocal trolls on MTGthesource. With that gripe aside, here's my report for your enjoyment!

// Lands
4 [MR] Cloudpost
4 [TSP] Vesuva
4 [U] Tropical Island
1 [IN] Island (2)
1 [WWK] Eye of Ugin
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [SOM] Glimmerpost
1 [JGC] Flooded Strand

// Creatures
2 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 [M11] Primeval Titan
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

// Spells
3 [ROE] All Is Dust
4 [ZEN] Expedition Map
4 [FNM] Thirst for Knowledge
4 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [GP] Repeal
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [M10] Ponder
3 [UL] Crop Rotation

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 3 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [R] Energy Flux
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle

You'll have to forgive me, but my notes seemed to have been forgotten/lost/trashed/neglected somewhere during top 8. So this is all from memory and without details including names. Sorry to all the folk I forget your names! An interesting quirk is that I lost every die roll that day. Even through the Top 8. I'm glad I wasn't playing Mana Crypt!

Round 1: Zoo

Game 1 has him racing me with a nacatl and a qasali pridemage. I end up having to eot crop rotate for a glimmerpost to stay above the 4 life fireblast range, untap and play Primeval Titan which gains me another 14 and then its just scoop time.

Game 2 Ends up with me gaining 52 life from Glimmerposts, having a turn where I cast 2 Primeval Titans into an Emrakul the next turn.

2-0-0

Round 2: Bant

Game 1 has him playing goyfs into a jace,while I have a glorious turn where I cast Kozilek, All is Dust, and Emrakul in the same turn

Game 2 is similar shenanigans. He tutors a Progenitus into play, but I gain enough health for progenitus to not be lethal in two swings, and then gain 14 life with an emrakul in play.

4-0-0

Round 3: Control Thresh

Game 1 has him land a Crucible with wasteland on turn 4. Scoooop

Game 2 is back to normal business as usual against blue. I think I cast 2 spells this whole game. 1 exploration map, and 1 emrakul.

Game 3 is needle on wasteland being a champ, and on turn 6 I cast emrakul who is delayed seriously through multiple stifles.

6-1-0

Round 4: DnT (later play in Finals)

Game 1 is normal Eldrazi shenanigans against non-blue. I cast an all is dust into emrakul, which is the fastest way to game two ever.

Game 2 He jokes that he just wants to go to game three. I end up getting large amounts of propagandas but he has large amounts of Leonin Arbiters, the only card that annoys me the entire day. I make a rather large misplay of not floating mana of a cloudpost from a rishadan port and am caught helpless against a vial'd leonin arbitor. I have to pay 6 mana to fetch a single cloudpost but it is futile against the wave of white wheenie bees.

Game 3 I am able to power out Ugin through a Primeval Titan into Infinite turns of Emrakuls

8-2-0

Round 5: Belcher

Game 1 I lose without getting a turn. hrmph.

Game 2 I play needle on belcher, to which he goes for warrens, and then I play a tabernacle and say go much to his disappointment.

Game 3 Has him play Xantid Swarm go, me go Pithing Needle on belcher go. He storms to 8 for warrens, holding a pyroblast. 16 guys means 2 turns for me. I have to make a serious gamble about fetches versus glimmerpost life gain. It ends up working out as I'm able to expedition map for tabernacle on the pivotal turn. He explains to me afterwards that if he had just storm'd with the pyroblast he had me lethal as I ended the game with 1 life. I would've played differently of course, but this is very likely the case.

10-3-0

Round 6: Discard B/W

I offer a draw to this guy even though I'm paired down. His breakers go up, and I can still draw in. He's not interested so we play. There are many hymn of tourachs and gerard's verdicts hurled at me and vindicates on cloudposts that make me frowny in the face, but playing straight lands and good use of tops end up with kozilek hitting play just from raw drawing him. When he scoops up for game 1 I offer the draw again and he accepts.

Round 7: ID with guy I never get to play in Top 8 nor find out what he's playing

Top 8. wooo.

Quarterfinals: Michael Caffrey with Lands.dec
This matchup is horrific for me overall. Any loam recursion is just bad bad bad.

Game1:
At this point I think the entire world knows I'm playing Eldrazi in top 8, so Michael keeps a hand of 2 wastelands 1 Ghost Quarter and not much else. Unfortunately I keep a hand of 5 lands, top, and candelabra. and keep drawing mana. I notice he gets extremely upset quite easily as he draws more lands, in a land deck..., and while I don't antagonize him, I take note to take any advantages of self-tilt he puts himself on. The game drags on for 8 turns of me just drawing thirst into lands and more lands while Michael draws lands into more lands. Unfortunately my lands tutor for win conditions, and while I am carefully planning out my winning last turn, Michael angrily scoops up his board.

Game 2:
I keep a hand of Mana, 2 Pithing Needles, and a top. He plays Ghost quarter-go. I play Glimmerpost -> Pithing Needle. He responds and blows up Glimmerpost so I get my glorious island and play Top. 2 mana on turn 1! I never thought it was possible with this deck! The Top finds a 3rd needle and soon there are three needles in play naming Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, and Rishadan Port. This makes Michael go rather ballistic. Primeval Titan ends up making short work of the match. Rather tragically Michael won't shake my hand after the game and storms off. shame.

Semifinals!

Merfolk. Oh Lordie.dec

Game 1:
Has him with an AEther Vial and a standstill down with a wasteland. Normal frown-town situation. However, Vesuva copying Wasteland ends up forcing him to use his Wasteland, a response with crop rotation doesn't find him any forces and I go from 3 mana to 7 quickly. I repeal a Reejery to buy a turn, to which he goes total Merfolk-bonkers and plays 2 reejerys, a lord, and a cursecatcher on the same turn to beat for 10 and a massive lethal next turn. Unfortunately the next turn is All is Dust turn and the Blue men float to the bottom of the sea. Glimmerposts make up the health deficit while I find Kozilek, which ends things quite quickly.

Game 2:
Has him with an AEther Vial again, but no standstill. An early Propaganda keeps his bees off my face for the most part until I hardcast a Kozilek on turn 5. He has squeezed out a Back to Basics which is all sorts of awkward, but I have a big man on campus. I attack with Kozilek and he ends up losing his vial and all his lands, and trades 4 lord'd Silvergill Adepts to trade with Kozilek. We then have a rather long standoff where he can't attack into 2 Propaganda's with anything and I have no mana because of B2B. Vesuva'd Islands end up saving me for several turns of untappable actions, where a top ends up finding me 2 candelabras. The 1st Candelabra gets countered but the 2nd sticks and that's the end of that.

My opponent was a great sport and this game was a nice polar comparative to my previous sour opponent.

Finals! Zomg Lotus and Moxen for all! Rematch with DnT. The only deck in the entire event I really don't want to play again, but I'm still confident I can beat it. He offers to split (He gets the Lotus, I get the invitational points and the Jet) but I want that lotus!

Game 1: There are some fair exchanges, I let a primeval titan and a kozilek get swords'd simply because once the inertia starts rolling on this deck no amount of swords will ever stop it. I end up gaining 26 health from all the swords and glimmerposts and ending the game at 8 health. White beatdown is annoying!

Game 2: The lack of wastes he had in our swiss rounds find their way into game two and three. He has two wastes on cloudposts before they untap in this game. Propaganda's are in hand, but too late to save from mortal death.

Game 3: I end up punting rather subtly but ultimately proves to be my death. I lead with Trop -> Ponder -> pass -> CP -> CP into 2x Candelabra and a Primeval titan without the 2 mana to pay for Leonin Arbiter. If I had led with CP -> CP -> Trop -> Ponder cloudposts I would've had the two extra mana to pay and the game was entirely mine. Unfortunately He swords's my Titan without him able to attack again and my remaining 3 draws are all lands.

Good Games! I get a Mox Jet in the end, and I only miss a Lotus by a misplay on my part. I look forward to my future events at Vestal, NY Jupiter Games and elsewhere!


BONUS ROUND:
Vesuva copy highlights!
* Opponent's Misty Rainforest to get green mana (round against Ning)

*Opponent's Wasteland to force him using his, followed by my own crop rotation on the targeted land, getting a cloudpost, and playing a vesuva from hand to copy it. From zero Cloudposts facing off a wasteland to two in play! =D

*My own Island to get multiple mana under Back to Basics. Hurray copyable attributes!

*Opponent's Creeping Tar Pit of FAIL! I was told by someone I played in the Swiss that my Top 8 Opponent was playing Landstill. I think "great! I'll keep a land heavy hand without any business." Unfortunately, I ended up figuring out that the person who told me my opponent was playing Landstill was actually a friend of my opponent and was giving me complete opposite advice to make me crash and burn. In a large twist of fate though, my opponent who had scouted me kept a 2 wasteland, 1 ghost quarter hand, which NORMALLY would be amazing, but because I had taken the thwartive advice of my opponent's comrade, I had kept a hand with 5 lands. I copied the Creeping Tar Pit with the thought that I would be racing my opponent under Standstill. Whether through miseing lucksackery or karma, I end up pulling off the win though without ever activating my Creeping Tar Pit of fail. A warning boys and girls! Scouting can lead to dangerous results! Use with caution!

I've had a few people request it, so I posted a link to the primer I wrote on Turbo-Drazi (http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22224) on Tipo1.it's website. The deck has been an ongoing project of mine for many months. While it has been often shot down on these forums as being garbage, the Italians have considerable constructive feedback and I suggest channeling positive efforts there.

[I am the brainwasher]

Nice, huge congrats to the finish!
It's good to see that innovation hasnt died out and leads to good results as well, nice work. Tinkered myself often to build such a deck but ended up unsatisifed. Seems like you made a stable list here, even if I dislike that ammount of non-basics, but they are necessary i think.
Well done overall

[FieryBalrog]

Wow. I am blown away. Sweet report. I do have one quibble:


I end up punting rather subtly but ultimately proves to be my death. I lead with Trop -> Ponder -> pass -> CP -> CP into 2x Candelabra and a Primeval titan without the 2 mana to pay for Leonin Arbiter. If I had led with CP -> CP -> Trop -> Ponder cloudposts I would've had the two extra mana to pay and the game was entirely mine.

That's not really a punt, more like second-guessing with the benefit of hindsight. You can't know how the board will develop exactly and leading with trop-> ponder is a perfectly reasonable T1 play instead of delaying that till turn 3 and leading double Cloudpost.

[Rock Lee]

Wow. I am blown away. Sweet report. I do have one quibble:



That's not really a punt, more like second-guessing with the benefit of hindsight. You can't know how the board will develop exactly and leading with trop-> ponder is a perfectly reasonable T1 play instead of delaying that till turn 3 and leading double Cloudpost.

It really wasn't hindsight. Especially against that matchup I'm in zero rush whatsoever, and advancing my mana first and foremost is the top priority. there's nothing ponder could've shown me that would've made my game better. As opposed to say a control matchup with no pressure whatsoever, where digging for 2-3 more lands will essentially ensure the victory.

Its less hindsight and more understanding the underlying feel of the deck. This isn't a deck you can just pick up and win events with. You have to playtest it hard and know your matchups. Knowing how to react and build upto every deck is pivotal.

[OurSerratedDust]

Nice work man. This deck seems really neat. I'll proxy it up and test it out a little bit at some point.

[naarou]

Just a note, not knowing the name of the store you just won power at makes you look really, REALLY bad.

[Rock Lee]

Just a note, not knowing the name of the store you just won power at makes you look really, REALLY bad.

It was 5:30 Am and I had been up for 28 hours on 3 hours of sleep. I'm not changing the post, because I'd like to point out this kind of blockhead comment as being a prime reason why trolling and mtg the source isnt' a place I consider for intelligent mtg conversation.

[Namida]

I can understand your frustration, but being disrespectful to the place that held the tournament isn't the way to change things. I'm not trying to troll you, nor was the person who originally pointed it out.

[Zoomer3989]

I can understand your frustration, but being disrespectful to the place that held the tournament isn't the way to change things. I'm not trying to troll you, nor was the person who originally pointed it out.

I have to agree with this. Jupiter Games is a fine location and one of the premier hosts of Legacy tournaments in the country. You shouldn't disrespect them by purposely botching their name just because you have a grudge with the internets. I'd rather not lose those tournaments because of it.

[Rock Lee]

I have to agree with this. Jupiter Games is a fine location and one of the premier hosts of Legacy tournaments in the country. You shouldn't disrespect them by purposely botching their name just because you have a grudge with the internets. I'd rather not lose those tournaments because of it.

There's no disrespect for Jupiter Games (http://jupitergamesonline.com/) I was simply exhausted while writing up the event report. Eli's events in Vestal, NY are always hoppin and well run. He has extremely minimal downtime between rounds and his location is great. His prize support is always exceedingly generous and he regularly has large sized events. I have gone to 5 events at Jupiter games and enjoyed all of them thoroughly. To imply that I meant any disrespect to Jupiter games is honestly just ignorance.

[Rune]

Congrats on the finish. Beating a lot of (what would seem to be) bad matchups is impressive. I've run into this deck a number of times and it's definitely meni stronk.


Tragically I've found MTG the Source to be rather whiny when it comes to innovative decks. A Great example is like here where we get great quotes from people like "if this deck ever T8s any major Legacy tourney, I will be truly shocked."

I think that's an overgeneralization. I glanced through the thread and there only seemed to be that one guy bashing the deck. In this random troll's defense, a lot of decks that, at first sight, appear to be terribly bad are posted in the N&D section, and it can sometimes be hard to take those decks seriously before they post some kind of result.

[Rico Suave]

Excellent job. I'm glad to see the hard work has finally paid off.

I'm also glad to see that Glimmerpost has helped shore up what once was a pretty difficult match, and being able to Titan into Glimmerposts seems quite exciting against anything that is trying to be aggressive.

What exactly is Energy Flux for? Is it specifically for the MUD decks?

[Rock Lee]

Excellent job. I'm glad to see the hard work has finally paid off.

I'm also glad to see that Glimmerpost has helped shore up what once was a pretty difficult match, and being able to Titan into Glimmerposts seems quite exciting against anything that is trying to be aggressive.

What exactly is Energy Flux for? Is it specifically for the MUD decks?

I mention flux and other options in my primer, but here's an overview of the three overtly difficult matchups and their relationship with Energy Flux and Hurkyl's Recall.

*Extremely fast aggro verging on the combo variety*
The only decks I would include in this are Affinity, Elves and Dredge. Having answers to any of these decks that don't give you lots of time to accumulate mana is pivotal. You can invest heavily in an All is Dust versus Elves. Dredge can be stopped with Tabernacle and Propaganda. However Affinity dodges All is Dust and can kill you with a single cranial plated dude so you need something sweeping and preferably kill centric. I haven't tested sufficiently against Bomholt.dec to make as confident of an assertation as I can against the other decks, however I feel strongly that it is also a fast tempo based aggro combo deck.

With Propaganda on the side, the only difficult archtype contenders to deal with are the solely artifact based decks. The major differences between Affinity and Bomholt is that you can die to disciple & Energy Flux.Hurkyl's Recall barely does anything against current forms of affinity with even heavier 0 counts, but avoids Disciple and modular triggers. Against Bomholt.dec hurkyl's will completely halt their attacks and avoid welder tricks, however Energy flux will stop them standalone as opposed to Hurkyl's which requires some backup or gas.

*Pure Combo*
Anything that doesn't let you get turns to plant your lands is bad and you don't run daze/stifle/pierce to buy you early turns. There's more to be said here, but not related to flux.

*Waste heavy Chalice @ 1 Decks*
There are several decks that fit this bill. Lands.dec, Stacks, Stompy variants are a few but not the only ones. Although these decks are all outliers, having no plan against Chalice @ 1 while running 22 1-of's is complete suicide. The choice between Hurkyl's or Flux plans change based off what is the strongest perceived meta threat, but ultimately flux overlapped the most with what I deemed more popular and dangerous, which was artifact aggro. Hurkyl's obviously straight removes Chalice @ 1, and if you feel that lands, loams and stacks are heavy in your meta, I would strongly suggest swapping the fluxes to Hurkyl's.

As an aside you can also abuse Hurkyl's Recall with Candelabras and Tops so they aren't straight dead draws. Having them as a 4-of is just as redundantly strong as multiple Flux's. I forsee myself often considering and swapping Fluxes and Hurkyl's depending on meta calls.

All these were already suggested and discussed on the Italian forums, (http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22224) but intelligent questions and discussion is always encouraged!

[GGoober]

This list has developed much more than the Source's post (I wonder why as you pointed out people here on the Source only talk about decks as if every deck has to be played/designed in a certain way to tier decks but fail to see the philosophy and gameplay of a specific strategy).

The list really intrigued me because on first sight it seems way too much ramp/untap, but when you factor in the digging with Top/TfK/Ponders, once you resolve a Titan via force, you will synergistically chain into Eye of Ugin which fetches out win-condition, while at the same time Titan has ramped out more cloudposts to power out the next uncounterable Eldrazi. If you don't draw into Titan, you already have a maindeck heavy on acceleration and digging, so it seems very smooth to draw into the strategy as proposed.

Grats on the list! And I agree that the deck dies to wastelock, but the basis was not to worry about narrow decks playing wastelock, but focusing on the aggro/control matchup that you will trump, while having FoW to not autolose against combo. Trolls will always be trollin, but you do what you need to innovate and win-games. I bet you if blarknob's Meandeck MUD or this list was posted here prior to the competitions, it will receive heavy trolling because people think every deck has to be designed out in theory similar to other existing tier decks, but fail to see how the decks are intended to function. Keep up the good work and glad to see a non Show and Tell Eldrazi deck. In many scenarios, there's the merit on just ramping and hard-casting Eldrazis since it will almost always resolve. Since the decklist is very synergistic in this gameplan, I can see why it has succeeded.

[TeenieBopper]

The only reason I really pay attention to Magic now is to see if anyone is doing bonkers stuff with 8 bajillion mana or slamming down fatties on the table like a big black dick, so it warms the cockles of my heart to see a deck like this win... whatever absurdly expensive prize you won.

Dear 'cuse players,

If someone builds this deck for me, I'll un-retire from this shitstain of a format and play in the next large event within a three hour radius.

[naarou]

It was 5:30 Am and I had been up for 28 hours on 3 hours of sleep. I'm not changing the post, because I'd like to point out this kind of blockhead comment as being a prime reason why trolling and mtg the source isnt' a place I consider for intelligent mtg conversation.
You're calling someone ELSE a blockhead? Why do you even post here if the entire MTGS (note: the premiere internet legacy community) is a bunch of whiny idiots that can't hold intelligent conversation? If you can't see how intentionally misspelling the name of the venue you just received prize structure at could be considered disrespectful, I'm afraid you're beyond help. Grace the store with the proper advertising they deserve.

Congratulations on your finish with an unproven deck, but do us a favour and keep the holier-than-thou shit out of here; nobody wants to hear it.

[voltron00x]

Kinda surprised at the hate for Sourcers. In fact, I didn't even read too much that was overly negative in the thread you linked to, to be honest. I mean, the world is full of dummies and jerks, some of whom have internet connections, and some of those will post on open forums. Such is life.

Anyway, very cool deck. The fact that there's so much unexplored depth to the Legacy card pool is the reason why its my favorite format right now.

[Fry]

I concur with the calling of pretty much everyone on the Source idiots was a really bad move to make. I know that it made myself and several others who have read this rather irritated at you, let alone not even going back and fixing the name of the original post to "Jupiter" instead of "Juniper" once you realized that it was incorrect.


if you recall though two of the three games that we had in the swiss were very close and could have gone either way. and the fact that I only saw two wastelands against you in three full games was you being lucky that and the lack of ports I was getting. They were still all good games and for that I was happy with my loss. I knew that you wanted the 12 points for the invitational which is why I originally offered the split for I remembered how close the swiss games were and figured that it could easily gone either way. what mattered most in the third game of the finals was that I kept a wasteland, wasteland, plains, aether vial, leonin arbiter, mother of runes, serra avenger hand which pretty much I had the first few turns to mess with you and keep you from getting advanced enough in the game to usurp what I was trying to do. I still think that the games we had were all hard fought for and good games.

[Fry]

sorry for the double post, but if anyone wants to know the D&T list here it is:


Main:
4 AEther Vial
3 Flickerwisp
2 goldmeadow harrier
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Leonin Arbiter
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Serra Avenger
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
12 Plains
4 Karakas
3 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland

Side
1 Jotun Grunt
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Wing Shards
3 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sword of Feast and Famine


Major props go to my friend who let me borrow the deck for the first time I got to play it in a tourney and the winnings let me make my own half foil copy of it.

[Rock Lee]

if you recall though two of the three games that we had in the swiss were very close and could have gone either way. and the fact that I only saw two wastelands against you in three full games was you being lucky that and the lack of ports I was getting. They were still all good games and for that I was happy with my loss. I knew that you wanted the 12 points for the invitational which is why I originally offered the split for I remembered how close the swiss games were and figured that it could easily gone either way. what mattered most in the third game of the finals was that I kept a wasteland, wasteland, plains, aether vial, leonin arbiter, mother of runes, serra avenger hand which pretty much I had the first few turns to mess with you and keep you from getting advanced enough in the game to usurp what I was trying to do. I still think that the games we had were all hard fought for and good games.

The split you offered me was "I get the lotus, you get the 6 invitational points and the Jet." That's not a split, that's valuing 6 invitational points at 200$ minimum so I dismissed it immediately.

Its debatable about the status of our first few games as being close. In general if I'm piloting an unknown deck I try to show as little as possible of that deck to my opponent. Both times you ended up Swordsing my Kozilek, once in the swiss and once in game 1 of the finals, I had a force and blue but opted not to counter because kozilek's cards alone will win me the game and often mean an easy win through emrakul, which I did end up doing. I didn't want to show you that I also run primeval titan. If those swords had been path to exiles or we see each other again with my list being known, I will simply forced them.

I also enjoyed our games immensely and look forward to our next matches with whatever decks. You let me reconsider what I thought was a shoe-in matchup and I eagerly await our next games after some practice. With the recorded successes you have in Vestal I'm sure I'll get that opportunity again.

You misread my contempt for the general populace. I am not calling the majority of MTGthesource readers idiots at all. I'm calling them trolls without the ability to think critically. There's a huge difference.

There's a massive difference between http://www.peaceproject.com/graphics/buttons/political/B1047.gif and http://webrulon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/blog-troll.jpg
Basically you guys have a massive Troll Infestation and I'm only here to pop in, stock the library with some classics, and hope that next time I visit there are some people reading the books.

Lastly another reference to not changing the title and what I view as hilarious that people are getting riled up over. Eli knows I greatly enjoy his events and his store and that's the only person's opinion I care about on that subject. I've spoken with him multiple times about how his venue is the mostly cleanly run and efficient location in the Northeast. I advertise his store by going to his events, having a good time, and telling others about it. At this point my spelling error is well known and identified, I have linked to the location in question and expressed my sincere and strong endorsement for future players to attend his events. Fixing a spelling error at this point would only prove one point, that I care about my community image more than I do more morals, which will never happen from my own hand.

[Namida]

There's no disrespect for Jupiter Games (http://jupitergamesonline.com/) I was simply exhausted while writing up the event report. Eli's events in Vestal, NY are always hoppin and well run. He has extremely minimal downtime between rounds and his location is great. His prize support is always exceedingly generous and he regularly has large sized events. I have gone to 5 events at Jupiter games and enjoyed all of them thoroughly. To imply that I meant any disrespect to Jupiter games is honestly just ignorance.

I understand that people make mistakes. The original person to point out your error might be more critical than I am about spelling errors--frankly, you need no excuse for typographical errors so I don't care what state you were in because shit happens. That you have the ability to rectify what was a small error and refuse to do it is the disrespectful thing to me--that you would basically post here only for the purpose of "proving" that you were right and the people here were wrong is childish, but also intentionally continuing to portray the venue that was gracious enough to hold a tournament for you as a different place only for the sake of "proving" that forum goers here are trolls and whiny (because they want you to be more respectful to the places you play) makes you as much of a troll as the people you apparently dislike here. It may be ignorance to believe that you meant to disrespect the venue, but it is also equally as ignorant to assume that you aren't being disrespectful by basically refusing to let people know where you played because of a few "dicks." It's a real shame to me that your deck design and your personality can't be separated, because I can't help but wonder if the reason you weren't being taken as seriously as you had desired was that you were acting like this. Your conduct in this thread you've created would make me a little more than wary of attempting to offer you *any* criticism to such an extent that I can understand why other people would be happy to wash their hands of you and your deck, even if it was the Second Advent of Jesus Christ in cardboard form. That you think that you're merely being a dissenter is something that I find entirely ludicrous when you're resorting to name calling. Especially when you're trying to imply that you're more capable of critical thought than the rest of the people here.

[Fry]

The split I offered was that you get the 12 points, but I get the lotus, I didn't care much about the points since I won in july and was already qualified

[ivanpei]

I like this list and the effort at innovation. Also, congratulations on the win! IMHO, its not that Sourcers are trollers, it's the language that the "innovative idea" is written in. I'm a fairly curious person myself and have posted many threads on the New and Developmental area like the original Intuition-Countertop thread, Zenith-Order deck, Show and Tell-Natural Order, contributed heavily to Necrotic Ooze-Buried Alive combo etc. I have found most Sourcers to be very supportive and helpful in their comments. Perhaps its because I write in a very neutral tone without much extreme bragging and name-calling.

I post here because I seek help and improvement through constructive criticism and discussions. My language when I type my arguments mirror my intents. Perhaps it's the language with how you portray your new decks that attracts the trolls. My advise is to be humble, or at least objective and neutral in the way you construct your arguments. My 2 cents.

[Namida]

I like this list and the effort at innovation. Also, congratulations on the win! IMHO, its not that Sourcers are trollers, it's the language that the "innovative idea" is written in. I'm a fairly curious person myself and have posted many threads on the New and Developmental area like the original Intuition-Countertop thread, Zenith-Order deck, Show and Tell-Natural Order, contributed heavily to Necrotic Ooze-Buried Alive combo etc. I have found most Sourcers to be very supportive and helpful in their comments. Perhaps its because I write in a very neutral tone without much extreme bragging and name-calling.

I post here because I seek help and improvement through constructive criticism and discussions. My language when I type my arguments mirror my intents. Perhaps it's the language with how you portray your new decks that attracts the trolls. My advise is to be humble, or at least objective and neutral in the way you construct your arguments. My 2 cents.

I agree with these sentiments. I apologize if my previous comments were emotionally charged and "whiny" as you might put it, but I disagree with the notion that my personality somehow makes me incapable of being able to to think, much in the way your personality is abrasive to me yet I do not believe that your capacity to be a critical thinker is diminished. I honestly think that this deck is interesting, and I want to respect the time and effort that went into it, but it's hard to feel like someone deserves their proper dues from me when the first thing you've got to say about your deck is basically "Suck it guys, I told you so." There's more than winning in life, man.

It's a shame that your more detailed notes disappeared, because I currently don't have access to a way to test anything out, and I'm very curious about how the deck plays out. I see that you've added the primer to your original post, and I think I'll enjoy reading it.

[Rood]

That being said, this mans a beast at Vintage. Jeremiah I give you props, you know how to build unique decks and slay with them. Good job on the finish.

[unicoerner]

Why Ponder over Brainstorm?

[Rock Lee]

Why Ponder over Brainstorm?

Ponder digs deeper and gives you yet another shuffle affect to bury your tops.

The deck doesn't try to constantly maximize its hand quality so it doesn't need brainstorm. Instead the deck is always looking for one thing, whether that be mana, removal or dudes. But very rarely are you seeking multiple of those categories at once. Ponder is the best card for that role.

[nitewolf9]

This deck is fucking awesome. Nice work.

[Tammit67]

Congrats on your Finish!!!

Note: The lands player's name is Michael Caffrey, not Cassley

[Rock Lee]

Congrats on your Finish!!!

Note: The lands player's name is Michael Caffrey, not Cassley

Thanks, will edit the note. I'm terrible with names, if it hasn't already been proven ad nauseum already. =D

[Izor]

Seeing the fact that there are probably thousands of Legacy players out there who look through all the cards this entire game offers, trying to find something completely new to build a really good and competitive Legacy deck around, I guess one can only congratulate you for finding that little something: Locuses !

It makes me really happy to see that there's space for innovation in Legacy.

Really nice work ! Many people that hate on you are just jealous that it wasn't them who invented this.

[4eak]

@ Rock Lee

Gratz on your performance.


Tragically I've found MTG the Source to be rather whiny when it comes to innovative decks. There are individuals here, often softly spoken and lurking who are strong players with great ideas, but the majority are trolls. A great example is like here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18146-Wanna-cast-Turn-Three-Emrakul-dec&highlight=cloudpost) where we get great quotes from people on the subject of a tangential form of this deck who have opinions like "if this deck ever T8s any major Legacy tourney, I will be truly shocked.

I'm not saying there aren't trolls here on the source (this is the internet). But, I think your example isn't very good at all. Read that thread again. Most of those posts are kind, encouraging, and/or constructive. I hope you aren't making the mistake of conflating the 'way in which something is argued' with 'what is being argued' (they are related, but still distinguishable). Far from the majority, I'd say almost none of those posts were truly trolling. I'm sure you must have better reasons and examples for claiming that 'the majority [of sourcers] are trolls' -- your rant, however, seems misguided and comes off as ironic (or perhaps even hypocritical) with this example.

Admittedly, I tend to think The Source has its own rhetoric and perhaps even aggressive approach. I also think it has the highest probability of being right, among the many venues, when it comes to Legacy. I'm unaware of a site which has historically had as much completeness about Legacy as this one either.


Edit:

I actually took your criticism seriously. After further thought, I think you're not being honest.


I've had a few people request it, so I posted a link to the primer I wrote on Turbo-Drazi on Tipo1.it's website. The deck has been an ongoing project of mine for many months. While it has been often shot down on these forums as being garbage, the Italians have considerable constructive feedback and I suggest channeling positive efforts there.

I realize you said you've only 'recently been posting and conversing' on tipo1. That makes me question how much experience you really have to make the comparison you did in the OP (I have no idea how long you've been lurking there, obv.).

Considering you only have 9 posts on that site, and all 9 of them are in the 17-post long thread on this deck (meaning, only 8 posts are not yours), I think you're exaggerating the sort of "constructive feedback" you've received and your experience with channelling positive efforts there.


-------------------------------

All that aside, I'm enjoying the deck. Thx for the list. Btw, Maze singleton has been outstanding.



peace,
4eak

[bruizar]

It´s a shame that this thread is more about trolls than anything else. It´s also typical that people in this thread feel so offended by the author´s claim. If you´re not a troll, you know it doesn´t apply to you. By showing you take offense in what he´s saying, you're only strengthening his claim.


The problem is that there are 3 types of players in Magic, and you need all these properties to proof a new deck´s viability.

Technical players
Refiners
Innovator


The Technical Troll
Technical players are the biggest trolls. They take tier one stock lists, test them into the grave and discard any card, deck or strategy that doesn´t fit the framework of an existing tier one deck. These players are decent and will top 8. This gives them the illusion that they actually know what they are talking about, which they don´t. They will never be able to surprise a meta and will only win a tournament if there´s a clear difference between the best deck, and the runner up. Survival is a good example I think. Perhaps jaded by their own lack of skill as a deckbuilder, they believe making a new competitive deck is like winning the lottery. An analogy for these people are´trained monkeys´. They are the assembly workers in the factory.

Refiners
Call them refiners, two-slot innovators, or tech-artists. Refiners are players that tweak existing tier builds, by changing 1 or 2 slots. They don´t overhaul a strategy, but they try to come up with some tech to throw their expected meta from its pedestal. These people understand the game much better than technical players. They know some theory and have an appreciation of the working forces are in magic. These players are good in tactics. They are the managers of the assembly workers. These guy can frequently win tournaments, because they know how to play the game well and can take advantage of their sideboard much better than the trained monkey.

Innovators
Innovators are players that come up with new ways to disrupt the game with a new angle on magic. They are strategists at the core. They master all areas of magic and can make cards that look bad, very good in the right context. The ability to place cards in the context of their decks is something that you start learning as a refiner, but master as an innovator. The innovators shape the game and are most likely to win tournaments. These are the rock stars of magic. They decide what the strategy should be. They are the entrepreneurs.

Why are innovators not winning magic tournaments then?? Because most innovators aren´t technical players or refiners. The problem is, everyone wants to be a rock star straight out of high school, and they don´t want to spend the time to go to college and university. (Going from assembly worker to manager to entrepreneur). Usually, innovators are ´stupid´ for even trying to innovate. They dream of designing that break out deck, but they often lack the skill to pilot their own decks, so they can´t proof if its good enough. Once they find out their deck sucks, they don´t have the skills to evolve the deck from its raw, potentially great form to a more focused form. They usually don´t have a well developed sense of what makes the game tick. This is why innovators clash with technical trolls.

The true innovator masters all these 3 levels of understanding and is miles ahead of the technical player. The false innovator fails to identify even the most basic concepts of magic. Because technical players find it so difficult to place magic concepts in their context, they find it hard to separate the rockstar from the charlatan.

There are a lot of technical players on mtgthesource, so Rock Lee is correct in his statement about trolls on this forum.

[pippo84]

Congratz on the finish and on the decklist!

I was reading the thread on Tipo1.it before you posted the report here and wanted to try building the deck to see how it works..

[Sims]

There are a lot of technical players on mtgthesource, so Rock Lee is correct in his statement about trolls on this forum.

The tone of the opening post was written in a way that certain paragraphs were inflammatory to the Source community, so I understand where people might be getting upset about the OP calling everyone here trolls. There was 1 person in that thread who actually got down on the deck, everyone else was offering help and suggestions... even if they weren't great suggestions in the end.

As with any forum on the internet you have to wade through the noise and find the posts and threads worth following and commenting in. Sometimes decks and innovation get missed, sometimes the trolls get there and ruin the thread. In The Sources defense, there has been significantly less trolling and a lot more productive posts in the past 2 years than when i started posting here 7 years ago.

Personal opinion? If the OP feels that the Source is full of Trolls, instead of posting his tournament report here with inflammatory remarks that appear to only have been there with the intent of riling up people (i.e, like the trolls he claims are rampant here)... then he shouldn't have bothered. He could and likely should have either kept it to himself, or only posted it on the italian forum he spent time developing the deck on.

TL:DR; If the Source isn't worth your time because we're all trolls, then why should you be worth our time?

[Rock Lee]

It´s a shame that this thread is more about trolls than anything else. It´s also typical that people in this thread feel so offended by the author´s claim. If you´re not a troll, you know it doesn´t apply to you. By showing you take offense in what he´s saying, you're only strengthening his claim.


The problem is that there are 3 types of players in Magic, and you need all these properties to proof a new deck´s viability.

Technical players
Refiners
Innovator


The Technical Troll
Technical players are the biggest trolls. They take tier one stock lists, test them into the grave and discard any card, deck or strategy that doesn´t fit the framework of an existing tier one deck. These players are decent and will top 8. This gives them the illusion that they actually know what they are talking about, which they don´t. They will never be able to surprise a meta and will only win a tournament if there´s a clear difference between the best deck, and the runner up. Survival is a good example I think. Perhaps jaded by their own lack of skill as a deckbuilder, they believe making a new competitive deck is like winning the lottery. An analogy for these people are´trained monkeys´. They are the assembly workers in the factory.

Refiners
Call them refiners, two-slot innovators, or tech-artists. Refiners are players that tweak existing tier builds, by changing 1 or 2 slots. They don´t overhaul a strategy, but they try to come up with some tech to throw their expected meta from its pedestal. These people understand the game much better than technical players. They know some theory and have an appreciation of the working forces are in magic. These players are good in tactics. They are the managers of the assembly workers. These guy can frequently win tournaments, because they know how to play the game well and can take advantage of their sideboard much better than the trained monkey.

Innovators
Innovators are players that come up with new ways to disrupt the game with a new angle on magic. They are strategists at the core. They master all areas of magic and can make cards that look bad, very good in the right context. The ability to place cards in the context of their decks is something that you start learning as a refiner, but master as an innovator. The innovators shape the game and are most likely to win tournaments. These are the rock stars of magic. They decide what the strategy should be. They are the entrepreneurs.

Why are innovators not winning magic tournaments then?? Because most innovators aren´t technical players or refiners. The problem is, everyone wants to be a rock star straight out of high school, and they don´t want to spend the time to go to college and university. (Going from assembly worker to manager to entrepreneur). Usually, innovators are ´stupid´ for even trying to innovate. They dream of designing that break out deck, but they often lack the skill to pilot their own decks, so they can´t proof if its good enough. Once they find out their deck sucks, they don´t have the skills to evolve the deck from its raw, potentially great form to a more focused form. They usually don´t have a well developed sense of what makes the game tick. This is why innovators clash with technical trolls.

The true innovator masters all these 3 levels of understanding and is miles ahead of the technical player. The false innovator fails to identify even the most basic concepts of magic. Because technical players find it so difficult to place magic concepts in their context, they find it hard to separate the rockstar from the charlatan.

There are a lot of technical players on mtgthesource, so Rock Lee is correct in his statement about trolls on this forum.


Couldn't have put it better myself. Entirely how I feel. I post lists solely for the benefit of those refiners and innovators, and try to avoid the Technical Trolls as much as possible, with the exception of throwing a passing barrage of conflagatory wake from a flamethrower every once in awhile for the sake of humanity.

[chinEsE girl]

First off, good job on the finish. I was the guy who you got to draw with in round 7, and I would have played against you in the semi's if I had beaten the merfolk player. After seeing the deck in action, plus getting to see the actual list, it looks like an awesome concept and execution, though I wonder what kind of numbers the deck has against stuff like zoo and combo in the long run (I'm not sure how far you can get with only 4 force of will), but since you made the deck I'd trust your judgement and construction over anyone else. My one suggestion is have you tried runnin preordain instead of ponder? Or maybe running both preordain and ponder while cutting the thirst for knowledges? You said earlier that you didn't run brainstorm due to wanting to look for the right cards rather than spice up the strength of your hand. Idk which is the better 1 mana sorcery cantrip, I was just curious if you've tried out preordain at all.

[Rock Lee]

First off, good job on the finish. I was the guy who you got to draw with in round 7, and I would have played against you in the semi's if I had beaten the merfolk player. After seeing the deck in action, plus getting to see the actual list, it looks like an awesome concept and execution, though I wonder what kind of numbers the deck has against stuff like zoo and combo in the long run (I'm not sure how far you can get with only 4 force of will), but since you made the deck I'd trust your judgement and construction over anyone else. My one suggestion is have you tried runnin preordain instead of ponder? Or maybe running both preordain and ponder while cutting the thirst for knowledges? You said earlier that you didn't run brainstorm due to wanting to look for the right cards rather than spice up the strength of your hand. Idk which is the better 1 mana sorcery cantrip, I was just curious if you've tried out preordain at all.

The deck already is running 22 1 CMC spells, as if asking to be ruined to Chalice wasn't enough. Sofar as preordain, I consider it inferior to Ponder and Thirst both at a per-casting cost ratio and for overall result. As I mentioned, the theme of the deck is finding what you need at the right time, when you're running three major themes: Lands (the right lands at the right time), Removal, Monsters. Ponder and Thirst both have a strong ability to glean the top of your library. While preordain does a similar function, Ponder simply looks one card deeper. And while preordain does increase the total card quality of your one draw if you scry both away, with so many shuffle affects in this deck, the value of that temporarily increased card quality is quickly dissolved. Additionally, Thirst gives you important options during your opponent's EOT step that you can't substitute with sorceries. Lastly, while you are often seeking out different themes of immediate need, that theme can and often does change with the swing of a single card, so looking deeper with ponder and cutting deeper with Thirst enable you to have stronger transitions between search modes.

But to answer your question, I did test preordain months back before the Glimmerpost version. I tried it both as a substitute for TFK and for Ponder. Both were underwhelming. I often found myself hoping for that 3rd card and being frustrated knowing that if Preordain was ponder I would have already seen that third card and had that much more information to make an educated opinion with before risking random.

Sofar as my Zoo and Combo matchups, I mentioned already that Pure combo is a bad matchup. The sideboard at the moment has 7 cards to bring in against belcher, but only 3 against ANT. This is a weakness I have been investigating recently to see if I can find larger synergies between differing matchups for a more representative anti ANT sideboard (I prefer having 11 cards on the main against fast combo post side). With the printing of Glimmerpost, the Zoo matchup is quite strong while it was previously one of the deck's worst matchups. As I mentioned I played against zoo in the swiss and gained 50+ health in one of my games. You obviously play differently against Zoo than you do against thresh, but that's part of the greatness of the general control package.

[K_Rot_T]

Only read this thread but not the original Deck discussion, but i have a question about the cantrips. Did you considered Ancient Stirrings?
Cons:
- Can't take Force of Will, Primeval Titan, Repeal (which is really bad and probably the reason you didn't play it) and the draw/cantrip/search spells (which isn't that much of a drawback).
- might not find anything at all (which is very unlikely but possible after all)
- you have to reveal the card (for the rare case you don't play the card right away)
- you can't keep good piles on top of library

Pros:
- diggs effectifly 1 card deeper than ponder
- you know what you get as card Nr. 4 or 5
- you won't get the cards you just shuffled in (so slightly higher percentage of good cards)
With the pros you have a higher chance to find Tabernacle and Neelde after Bording and you have a better chance to work with Top than you have with Ponder.

[bruizar]

I just bought 4 foil vesuva 4 foil glimmerpost and 4 foil cloudpost so when they arrive I'll have a go with this list. How much mana and how much life do you end up making with this deck and at what turn? Is Rolling Earthquake perhaps a better win condition than the Kozilek? It can serve as a big Firespout when it isn't lethal, and from what I read you gain quiet a lot of life from the Glimmerposts, right? Why do you run 2 Emrakul instead of just 1 (is Expedition Map into Eye of Ugin into Emrakul too hard to pull off?).

Also, Root Maze seems like a very strong turn 1 play to punish fetch and make your comes into play tapped lands more fair. Have you tested it? The drawback of having your candelabra come into play tapped may be too much though.

[Rock Lee]

Only read this thread but not the original Deck discussion, but i have a question about the cantrips. Did you considered Ancient Stirrings?
Cons:
- Can't take Force of Will, Primeval Titan, Repeal (which is really bad and probably the reason you didn't play it) and the draw/cantrip/search spells (which isn't that much of a drawback).
- might not find anything at all (which is very unlikely but possible after all)
- you have to reveal the card (for the rare case you don't play the card right away)
- you can't keep good piles on top of library

Pros:
- diggs effectifly 1 card deeper than ponder
- you know what you get as card Nr. 4 or 5
- you won't get the cards you just shuffled in (so slightly higher percentage of good cards)
With the pros you have a higher chance to find Tabernacle and Neelde after Bording and you have a better chance to work with Top than you have with Ponder.

Ancient Stirrings was the first card my teammate Jeff Carpenter suggested. It ultimately was shot down after about 5 seconds of consideration.

You gain essentially nothing over ponder. You can't get force or repeal, doesn't pitch to force, and can't stack the top of your deck, all of the important things ponder needs.



I just bought 4 foil vesuva 4 foil glimmerpost and 4 foil cloudpost so when they arrive I'll have a go with this list. How much mana and how much life do you end up making with this deck and at what turn? Is Rolling Earthquake perhaps a better win condition than the Kozilek? It can serve as a big Firespout when it isn't lethal, and from what I read you gain quiet a lot of life from the Glimmerposts, right? Why do you run 2 Emrakul instead of just 1 (is Expedition Map into Eye of Ugin into Emrakul too hard to pull off?).

Also, Root Maze seems like a very strong turn 1 play to punish fetch and make your comes into play tapped lands more fair. Have you tested it? The drawback of having your candelabra come into play tapped may be too much though.

You guys... and your not reading the primer.. The only substitute for Kozilek (which isn't really a win condition somuch as it is draw4 for 8-10 mana), would have to be another colorless creature. As of current, the Eldrazi creatures blow the pants off any other colorless creature options per-casting-cost. Root maze is interesting but I can't think of a matchup I would want it in. My troublesome matches are aggro, combo, and waste lock type decks, all of which can play around root maze easily. I would greatly prefer Winter's Orb over Root Maze if I was looking for something to slow my opponents, but this has been considered, and is just bad. The plan isn't to gain life off Glimmerpost. Just because a deck can do something doesn't mean it is essential that it does. This is a normal concept flaw of deck designers. Rich Shay summarized quite well how to evaluate cards when tweaking control decks, which is his personal strength; look at a card and assume you are drawing it while losing and ask yourself it it will help you start winning. All of the cards suggested don't do this.

Not answering the Emrakul question as I already made a hand-holding post/primer regarding the deck. I'll gladly answer questions of folk who read that and have further questions, but I'm not going to repeat myself for lazy people.

[That nice guy]

Congrates to the best inovator i know even after leaving dead vintage for legacy. Hats off.

Before I invest any time into this deck I need to ask; after playing in this tourney are you still sure 4 is the optimal number of Candelabra. Also, do you think this deck can function with less???

it's just sooooo expensive.

[Rock Lee]

Congrates to the best inovator i know even after leaving dead vintage for legacy. Hats off.

Before I invest any time into this deck I need to ask; after playing in this tourney are you still sure 4 is the optimal number of Candelabra. Also, do you think this deck can function with less???

it's just sooooo expensive.

If I could run 8 candelabras in this deck I would. Its by far the most dangerous card. The only card that lets you pull off turn 3 wins.

[bruizar]

@RockLee

http://www.tipo1.it/forum/ doesn't link to your thread and the other thread doesn't handle the topic (I read that one). It would help if you could post a direct link to your primer.

[frolll]

If I could run 8 candelabras in this deck I would. Its by far the most dangerous card. The only card that lets you pull off turn 3 wins.

Hey, since you run Green already, have you considered playing some Magus of the Candelabra ? Sure, it got summoning sickness, but it would be extra candelabras nonetheless... nope ?

[Estanak]

What about some Hibernation\Wash Out against various Elves and\or Zoo?
Elves are just too fast, both Natural Order-version and Elfball, and reaching 4 mana for the Hibernation-like actions are much easier than reaching 7 for All Is Dust
Besides, there's a problem with an opponent's Gaddock Teeg. He basically means no Repeal or All Is Dust for us and all we can do is try to outrace him. I suggest trying Trinket Mage together with Brittle Effigy. And the Mage himself seems just so versatile here!

[practical joke]

vs elfball,

Just drop a chalice at 1 and you'll buy enough time to get there. Same goes for zoo, a chalice on one buys you a lot of time.

You could play cards like ratched bomb, crawlspace, weekstone/meekstone and random 0/6 walls for 2

[Rock Lee]

@RockLee

http://www.tipo1.it/forum/ doesn't link to your thread and the other thread doesn't handle the topic (I read that one). It would help if you could post a direct link to your primer.

Its at the end. please read.


Hey, since you run Green already, have you considered playing some Magus of the Candelabra ? Sure, it got summoning sickness, but it would be extra candelabras nonetheless... nope ?

Candealbra's most important qualities are being an artifact and being immediately usable


What about some Hibernation\Wash Out against various Elves and\or Zoo?
Elves are just too fast, both Natural Order-version and Elfball, and reaching 4 mana for the Hibernation-like actions are much easier than reaching 7 for All Is Dust
Besides, there's a problem with an opponent's Gaddock Teeg. He basically means no Repeal or All Is Dust for us and all we can do is try to outrace him. I suggest trying Trinket Mage together with Brittle Effigy. And the Mage himself seems just so versatile here!

Elves is the easiest of your combo matchups. Natural Order doesn't beat you at all.


vs elfball,

Just drop a chalice at 1 and you'll buy enough time to get there. Same goes for zoo, a chalice on one buys you a lot of time.

You could play cards like ratched bomb, crawlspace, weekstone/meekstone and random 0/6 walls for 2

Have you even seen the decklist? or read these comments? Posters like these that make me tear my hair out. The only assumption that makes sense is they're trolling.

[lorddotm]

The fact of the matter is that this deck still sucks. I can luck sack my way to 2nd too if you give me enough time. Please start playing real decks.

[Scordata]

Imo op is trolling the metagame =-)

Gratz on catching everyone with their pants down.

I'm always glad to see innovation in this format. I'm hoping that this trend continues because I'm getting
Tired playing against cbtop.

[Michael Keller]

Congrates to the best inovator i know even after leaving dead vintage for legacy. Hats off.

Before I invest any time into this deck I need to ask; after playing in this tourney are you still sure 4 is the optimal number of Candelabra. Also, do you think this deck can function with less???

it's just sooooo expensive.

Novelty is really the only reason I feel the deck made its way up the ranks in this event. With all due respect, while it wasn't necessarily your fault, I think you benefited from a tournament featuring good players but also many new players borrowing their friends' decks and playing sub-standard variations of higher-tier archetypes in addition to side-stepping some of your absolute worst match-ups.

You ended up never playing Goblins (the front-runner in Legacy at the moment), lucked out against Combo, played ten Blue cards in a deck with Force of Will (which is God-awful), and played against some very, very favorable match-ups - all the way through Top Eight.

You did a good job, but the deck is far too clunky at the moment and I am flabbergasted it ended up nabbing Power in a 90+ person event.

[Koby]

I agree with Hollywood here. I even built the deck and tested it out, being unsatisfied with simply the report. Results so far: fun, but inconsistent.

For instance, what happens when you lose the singleton Eye of Ugin to a miser's Wasteland?

I chalk this result to Beginner's Luck.


The only assumption that makes sense is they're trolling.

If everyone is disagreeing with you, maybe you're the one that's in the wrong.

[death]

For instance, what happens when you lose the singleton Eye of Ugin to a miser's Wasteland?

With all due respect sir, if that's the case the card has served its purpose, he would have probably by then grabbed an Eldrazi and ready to smash face. Besides, i would consisder the post-lands as bigger threats here than the Eye of Ugin.

[Rock Lee]

I agree with Hollywood here. I even built the deck and tested it out, being unsatisfied with simply the report. Results so far: fun, but inconsistent.

For instance, what happens when you lose the singleton Eye of Ugin to a miser's Wasteland?

I chalk this result to Beginner's Luck.



If everyone is disagreeing with you, maybe you're the one that's in the wrong.

If you had tested you would realize a wasteland on Eye of Ugin doesn't mean the eye is gone even in the slightest. The trolling derails even further.

[death]

Right. there's Tfk + Eldrazi.

[Rico Suave]

Novelty is really the only reason I feel the deck made its way up the ranks in this event. With all due respect, while it wasn't necessarily your fault, I think you benefited from a tournament featuring good players but also many new players borrowing their friends' decks and playing sub-standard variations of higher-tier archetypes in addition to side-stepping some of your absolute worst match-ups.

You ended up never playing Goblins (the front-runner in Legacy at the moment), lucked out against Combo, played ten Blue cards in a deck with Force of Will (which is God-awful), and played against some very, very favorable match-ups - all the way through Top Eight.

You did a good job, but the deck is far too clunky at the moment and I am flabbergasted it ended up nabbing Power in a 90+ person event.

What would you even consider a good or bad matchup for this deck?

[Fatal]

I tested this deck for a while here are conclusions:

Good MU:
CB
Landstill
Any Middle Tempo without wastelands

50-50 MU:
Zoo
Merfolks
Sneak Attack
GBW Rock
Grindstone/Painter

Bad MU:
Combo any kind killing before turn 4
Goblins
Aggro Loam
Any Loam / waste lock
Dragon Stompy
Stax
Dredge

Worst MU ever met:
Mind Hive

Cloudposts/Eldrazi has potential but focused on CA in such slow deck isn't good. I would think about Exploration/Manabond axceleration

[jrw1985]

This is definitely the most entertaining tournament report thread I've read in a while.

As far as Trolling is concerned, yeah there are plenty of times when people just don't get what you're doing but they want to express an opinion about it anyway. That's the double-edged sword of posting in an open forum.

As far as misspelling the store name, who gives a shit? There's a dozen other threads about tournaments at Jupiter Games. It's pretty obvious that it was just a typo and the people that tried to label you as disrespectful because of it are being assholes.

As far as commenting on the quality of your deck, I like it. It's weird and hard to play, no doubt, and it's certainly not becoming a major player in the metagame anytime soon (how many other decks feature playsets of Antiquities rares?), but it clearly works well enough to slip past a field unprepared to play against it. And sometimes that's all a deck needs to be. You don't have to invent Survival/Vengevine to break the format. you just need to make something new and unique that actually works that opponents will be confused by.

Thanks for sharing your results.

[Dark Ritual]

You play emrakul as a 2 of to take infinite turns with eye of ugin you fetch one up, cast it, next turn fetch up the other one, cast it, take another turn, rinse, repeat.

Ancient stirrings < Repeal. Repeal pitches to FoW which is important to maintain a high blue count. Stirrings does not. And repeal buys time again aggro decks, which is this decks worst MU IMO other than combo unless you have a god hand and they don't disrupt you.

Interesting deck, but I'll have to see it put up more results before I believe it's a real deck. Right now it has top 8'ed once. If it never top 8's again then I'll chalk this tournament result up to luck on your end.

Sigh, I can't build this deck because candelabra is hella expensive now...just need 3 more candelabra's/$240 minimum. Which I won't have lol.

[Rock Lee]

Sigh, I can't build this deck because candelabra is hella expensive now...just need 3 more candelabra's/$240 minimum. Which I won't have lol.

When I first started building this deck months back, candelabras were 25$ apiece. Sofar as I know noone else is using them in decks atm. So take that info for what you want about the rising price of them. Now magiccards.info (http://magiccards.info/query?q=candelabra+of+tawnos&v=card&s=cname) shows them at 64 with a STD of 15.

[Avatara]

Congratulations with your finish Rock Lee. Tons of respect for your deck list!

[death]

When I first started building this deck months back, candelabras were 25$ apiece. Sofar as I know noone else is using them in decks atm.

High Tide decks can rock them btw. I wasn't aware they fell under $40 a piece so I was very hesitant acquiring a set. I bought mine ~$45 a piece. I have 6 pieces now.

Taking a look back, here's what people thought when I posted on this thread:

Raise, raise, raise. The price of cardboard (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16162-Raise-raise-raise-The-price-of-cardboard&p=513500&viewfull=1#post513500)

[jrw1985]

BWA-HA-HA!

You're being trolled by SCG!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21194_Building_A_Legacy_Mooning_Your_Opponent_For_Fun_And_Profit.html

[Rock Lee]

BWA-HA-HA!

You're being trolled by SCG!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21194_Building_A_Legacy_Mooning_Your_Opponent_For_Fun_And_Profit.html

Let 'em think what they want, All the less people who think of the deck seriously is better for me.