Waterfalls (RUG Cascade!)

[Qweerios]

I find it interesting that you go to time against control. I generally close out both games under 30 minutes. Cascade creatures and TNN are big issues for reactive decks. Sweepers are necessary for them as answers but we overwhelm them easily with AV and endless weenies. Perhaps it is because I play more threats.

We will have to agree to disagree on Jace. I think your combo experience is skewed because proactive 3-4drops that do not provide valuable disruption are considered dead cards vs. notable combo decks (ANT, TES, SnT, Reanimator).

On a different note, I have been tweaking the mainboard trying to find a way to keep the blue count high while also getting rid of Izzet Charm. I have been contemplating a 3rd Decay for a long time but I believe I have found something better. What do you guys think of Crosis's Charm? Like decay it answers most creatures and artifacts with the upside of hitting BSkull. It acts as a Swiss-army knife as it can bounce any permanent as well for a lethal swing. Then again, something like Maelstrom Pulse might just be better...

[eirirlar]

What do you guys think of Crosis's Charm? Like decay it answers most creatures and artifacts with the upside of hitting BSkull. It acts as a Swiss-army knife as it can bounce any permanent as well for a lethal swing. Then again, something like Maelstrom Pulse might just be better...

It's definitely comparable to Maelstrom Pulse, but in my experience Pulse is a bit clunky. However, I wouldn't dismiss Izzet Charm so easily. It's cheaper than Crosis, it removes a lot of creatures, and it's relevant in the combo matchup, it's a removal spell that is a valid cascade target, and it's blue. Sure, it's underwhelming some times as you wrote a few posts ago, but it seems it does more relevant stuff than Crosis for less mana.

[HSCK]

So in the course of my meta analysis I've been finding it's better and better to play rogue decks, and with a meta full of Miracles and TA, I want to give Waterfalls a try (in addition to Noble Fish). I've been using the stock modo list with 3 Jaces, and have found them to always be good. This deck wants to be able to hit a lot of threats and apply pressure in any situation, something Jace is extremely good at doing.

[Scott]

So in the course of my meta analysis I've been finding it's better and better to play rogue decks

That's a happy fact for me if true; I'm curious what led you to that conclusion?

[HSCK]

That's a happy fact for me if true; I'm curious what led you to that conclusion?

Before TNN the top 8s of most tournaments were highly consolidated, up to 85% were the top 9 or 10 decks. Post-November that number's around 65% for the top 10 decks, meaning a greater variety of decks are doing well. If this deck is supposed to be good against TA and Miracles it's definitely a deck to play as those are the two best performing decks by a wide margin. Jund's also on the rise, so I'm curious how this deck deals with it.

[Scott]

Before TNN the top 8s of most tournaments were highly consolidated, up to 85% were the top 9 or 10 decks. Post-November that number's around 65% for the top 10 decks, meaning a greater variety of decks are doing well. If this deck is supposed to be good against TA and Miracles it's definitely a deck to play as those are the two best performing decks by a wide margin. Jund's also on the rise, so I'm curious how this deck deals with it.

Interesting stuff, thanks. Two more things I'm curious about and then I'll end my derailment of Waterfalls :tongue: In terms of the apparent best performing decks within the top decks, TA and Miracles now, have you found that there's more/less of a clear best deck(s) now than before? In other words, are the top 2 decks getting a larger/smaller chunk of the top 10 decks' top 8 than before? And lastly, is this increased/diminished dominance translating to better/worse performance in the knockout rounds? Compared to RUG or whatever pre-November, are the top 8 appearances of TA and Miracles more/less likely to result in 1st place, 2nd place, etc.

[HSCK]

The top 8 shares for TA and Miracles are 8.91% and 8.03% respectively, nothing even close to the crazy 15+% that Jund and RUG at a minimum had pre-November. I think it a wide open meta you want to be proactive but retain enough reactive or disruptive elements to not pack it in to combo.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

A question!
Does the "If you exile a split card this way, check if at least one half of that split card has a converted mana cost that's less than the converted mana cost of the spell with cascade. If so, you can cast either half of that split card" wording really mean that I may cast the busted half of the Boom / Bust of e.g. Shardless Agent?

[carefulmug]

A question!
Does the "If you exile a split card this way, check if at least one half of that split card has a converted mana cost that's less than the converted mana cost of the spell with cascade. If so, you can cast either half of that split card" wording really mean that I may cast the busted half of the Boom / Bust of e.g. Shardless Agent?

Hells yes! I remember seeing a Waterfalls list that ran 4 DRS and 1 Bayou along with 2 copies of Boom//Bust sometime last summer. Additionally, pre-Nacatl and BBE banning in Modern, playing 4 BBE and 4 Boom//Bust in a Big Zoo shell was catching on.

Yo Bed Decks, I hear you like Terrageddon...

[D@N]

yes, ive been running a misers boom/bust in jund for the control matchup for just that reason.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Hells yes! I remember seeing a Waterfalls list that ran 4 DRS and 1 Bayou along with 2 copies of Boom//Bust sometime last summer. Additionally, pre-Nacatl and BBE banning in Modern, playing 4 BBE and 4 Boom//Bust in a Big Zoo shell was catching on.

Yo Bed Decks, I hear you like Terrageddon...

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/ehogg/Animated/dancing_banana.gif

I think I'll try to build this ipl somehow, although I need to lend a few cards here and there.

[Cire]

Would a Rainbow Waterfall list be viable? 8 5 color lands and DRS?

3 TNN
3 Blood Braid Elf
3 Goyf
4 SFM
4 DRS
4 Shardless Agent

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
6 Fetch Lands
6 Dual Lands

Obviously a rough list and adding in white is dubious, but it seems possible?

[HSCK]

It's entirely unnecessary. Cascade provides what you want as far as card advantage and Decay and Bolt are removal.

[kingtk3]

I completely agree: you are trading force of will for the stoneforge package, thus weakining your combo matchup (which is the weakest of the matchups) and ading basically nothing, since most of the time you'll have your hand clogged with high CMC cards.

If you want to try the white route I suggest you to drop black interely and cut goyfs, but I advise you from cutting force since this deck is one of the few fair decks that can run the full set main deck without suffering much from the card disadvantage.

In a white version I can see ethersworn canonist doing well even maindeck

[maCHOOga]

So how is this decks matchup against delver variants? My local metagame is infested with insectile aberration. I figure a deck with both lightning bolt and other removal spell (abrupt decay/punishing fire/Izzet charm) has to be good!

Here is my current waterfalls list. I've just picked this deck and usually have legacy decks on a monthly rotation. Here is my current list:

4 deathrite shamans
4 tarmogoyfs
3 bloodbraid elf
4 shardless agent
2 truename nemesis

4 lightning bolts
4 brainstorms
3 Izzet charm (flex spot)
1 Sylvan library
1 domri rade
4 force of will
4 ancestral vision

4 misty rainforest
4 scalding tarn
2 polluted delta
1 forest
1 island
2 tropical island
2 volcanic island
1 taiga
2 underground sea
1 bayou
3 wasteland

Sideboard
2 golgari charm
1 ancient grudge
1 Krosan grip
4 thoughtseize
2 flusterstorm
1 uwezama's jitte
1 graffdigger's cage
2 boom/bust
1 maelstrom pulse

[Megadeus]

I completely agree: you are trading force of will for the stoneforge package, thus weakining your combo matchup (which is the weakest of the matchups) and ading basically nothing, since most of the time you'll have your hand clogged with high CMC cards.

If you want to try the white route I suggest you to drop black interely and cut goyfs, but I advise you from cutting force since this deck is one of the few fair decks that can run the full set main deck without suffering much from the card disadvantage.

In a white version I can see ethersworn canonist doing well even maindeck

Canonist seems poor in a deck with Bloodbraid Elf

[kingtk3]

Canonist seems poor in a deck with Bloodbraid Elf

True: is not maindeck material, maybe I got a little excited. But it's definitely worth in side since you would bring her in against combo where you want that effect as soon as possible and you probably side out bloodbraid anyway because they are too slow.

[maCHOOga]

So I've seen lists running pyro static pillar in the past. What are people's thoughts on the new pyrostatic pillar creature, edilion of the great revel? It's an enchantment, which grows tarmogoyf, more frail to removal, but it can attack! :-)

[kingtk3]

So I've seen lists running pyro static pillar in the past. What are people's thoughts on the new pyrostatic pillar creature, edilion of the great revel? It's an enchantment, which grows tarmogoyf, more frail to removal, but it can attack! :-)

Definitely something to look in, however it bothers me that costs double red (which is not a priority to achive) and that it hoses effectively only storm and elves, but not other combo like reanimator or show and tell variants.

[OCPunisher]

After reading through this thread, it seems like the majority of lists favor Lightning Bolt over Punishing Fire. Why is that?

[Plm]

My feeling about punishing vs bolt is (after trying both) that if you want to play punishing fire, you weaken considerably your manabase.
Playing non blue/non fetchable lands doesn't feel right.

The power of 4 colors build and the power of wasteland are more alluring than recur-able shock and a shitty manabase (look at jund which plays 3 colors 23 lands and only 2 waste, and sometimes has trouble to cast hymn).

Also your hand is always full of gas, so you would rather play your spell than re-buy P.fire again and again.

Anyway that's my 2 cents, if someone sees an other reason, I'm always eager to learn.

[maCHOOga]

My feeling about punishing vs bolt is (after trying both) that if you want to play punishing fire, you weaken considerably your manabase.
Playing non blue/non fetchable lands doesn't feel right.

The power of 4 colors build and the power of wasteland are more alluring than recur-able shock and a shitty manabase (look at jund which plays 3 colors 23 lands and only 2 waste, and sometimes has trouble to cast hymn).

Also your hand is always full of gas, so you would rather play your spell than re-buy P.fire again and again.

Anyway that's my 2 cents, if someone sees an other reason, I'm always eager to learn.

Playing groves reduces the number of wastelands, fetchlands or basics that you can play. Basics are necessary, it helps hedge against being waste-locked and also allows you to be proactive against blood moon.

Also this is not the kind of deck where you're going to slow roll someone to death with punishing fire like lands does. Your lucky if you can do net 1 damage per turn.

[kingtk3]

I've played two small tournaments recently with this list

3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Fire // Ice
4 Shardless Agent
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Force of Will

SIDE
2 Trygon Predator
1 Pyroclasm
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Counterbalance
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Submerge


In the first tournament pyroclasm and huntemaster were 2 surgical extraction.

I remember that the first tournament went
bye
Elves, 2-0
BUg landstill, 2-0
Elves, 2-1
top4 deathblade, 2-1
split finals with Jund

The second one was
Death and Taxes, 2-1
Bug Delver, 2-0
sneak & show, 1-2
Jund, 1-1 (time went up)
top4 Sneak & Show, 0-2

Sneak & Show seems a poor matchup: even with T1 top, T2 counterbalance you can just loose if the cast Show & tell and you don't have a 3 CC on top.

Since I already play 4 hierarch that gives white mana, I'm contemplating the use of Meddling Mage like some BUG lists already do:

2 Trygon Predator
1 Pyroclasm
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Tundra
1 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Meddling Mage
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Submerge


What do you think?

[maCHOOga]

Has anyone else ran into issues with CounterTop/Micracles? One meta in my area is overflowing with miracles players. In a 4 round tournament, I had to play two rounds against miracles. It seemed pretty abysmal, as I could never apply enough pressure to kill them. At one point counterbalance was counting both my main spell and my cascade spell. Other than abrupt decay, what other silver bullet cards are there against them? I attempted to Krosan grip their counterbalance, and they just happened to have a cmc on top of their deck. I'm playing two sideboard boom/bust which of course I didn't draw and can be countered by counterbalance/terminus anyway. Creeping tar pit, as a spicy one of, seemed very effective against them.

[kingtk3]

I'm quite surprised that you're having troubles with miracle: since the first time I've played the deck miracles has been one of my best matchup (I'm playing the rug version posted above).

That said, it seems most of all that your opponent was very lucky: it's not common to have a top deck of 3cc, nor to have 2 different cc on top in your cc range, which is kind of difficult for them.

My rule of thumb against miracle is to not overextended and put pressure with 2 creatures keeping another 2 in hand, but that's quite standard against them.

Sent from my mobile, forgive me for grammar errors.

[maCHOOga]

How good has trygon predator been for you?

I think my opponents got lucky. Running into Moat sucks lol.

[kingtk3]

Trygon has been very good for me, but keep in mind that is kind of meta choice: it's main purpose is to keep equipment out of the table and it's stellar against blade decks save patriot, against which still it's good.

It's pro are that it's a repeatable removal that flies.
It's cons are that it's a creature, so it can be removed before dealing with any card.

Sometimes I side them in only because they are flying creatures and I need more gas or blockers, against bug for example.

If you're having trouble with miracle I suggest you to play some pithing needle in the side to fight top, which is the key card for miracles. Extra copies may name jace. Just remember that they don't have card advantage save for a couple of snapcaster (for those who play them) and jace (which don't come early), while you're deck is FULL of value: you have to grind them out!

Against miracle I often side
Out: 2 lavamancer, 4 hierarch, 4 bolt
In: 2 blast, 2 trygon, 2 jace, 3 counterbalance, 1 huntmaster

Sent from my mobile, forgive me for grammar errors.

[Megadeus]

Ifeel like miracles should be a positive match up. You can apply a bunch of pressure, and you are getting a lot of card advantage. Similar to jund, you can just cast more spells thanks to cascade than what they can deal with.

Also noticed that not many of you are running Thoughtseize. I feel like that could help shore up combo match ups a bit. Cascading into it isn't ideal most of the time, but it isn't the worst

[maCHOOga]

Ifeel like miracles should be a positive match up. You can apply a bunch of pressure, and you are getting a lot of card advantage. Similar to jund, you can just cast more spells thanks to cascade than what they can deal with.

Also noticed that not many of you are running Thoughtseize. I feel like that could help shore up combo match ups a bit. Cascading into it isn't ideal most of the time, but it isn't the worst

I've been running 4 thoughtseize and 2 flusterstorms in my build and it has won 3 matches against various combo decks (1 sneakNshow, 2 ant decks). There's a chance where you can cascade into them, but against combo I usually go down to just shardless agents.

I've also added a 1x maindeck maelstrom pulse as a universal out card for a lot of matchups.

[hobart]

So I was bored and on Cockatrice last night so I decided to throw this list together:

Creatures: 15

4x Shardless Agent
4x Tarmagoyf
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Bloodbraid Elf

Spells: 16

4x Ancestral Vision
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Hymn to Tourach

Artifacts: 1

1x Umezawa’s Jitte

Enchantments: 1

1x Sylvan Library

PlanesWalkers: 4
4x Liliana of the Veil

Lands: 23

4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Underground Sea
3x Bayou
2x Taiga
2x Badlands
2x Tropical Island
2x Wasteland

Sideboard: 15

3x Thoughtseize
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Grafdigger’s Cage
2x Golgari Charm
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Duress
1x Dread of Night
1x Engineered Plague

It's pretty much just the lovechild of Jund and Shardless BUG. I decided to go a bit more on the Jundy side and the blue is just a splash hence the no Force of Wills. I didn't expect to win much but it looked fun. I got to play around 10 matches and won like 9 of them! Most of my opponents were playing very competitive decks, I ran into Sneak and Show, multiple Reanimator, Junk, Jund, Elves!, miracles and some Stoneblade type decks. I think my only match loss was one of the reanimators, and I pretty much crushed all the fair decks (including miracles). So, I'll probably build this and run it in my local just for the lols. Obviously the combo matchup is weak pre board, but with additional discard and some permanent based hate those get a lot better.

This is a bit philosophical, but one inherent advantage we have over combo decks forever is that fair decks are more consistent in what they do. I can win drawing almost any of my spells and lands and turning them sideways. I have to mulligan less and my mulligans are way better. We know exactly what our opponent is trying to do with his combo, hence almost perfect sideboarding. They don't know what kindof hate that we are bringing in, so they have to guess at hate for our hate (and this always slows them down). I play alot of combo myself, but recently I've been on the fair train (with shardless mostly in tourneys) and my combo opponents mull so often and unless their hands are the nuts they just fold to a discard spell and a wasteland.

Anyhow, what do you guys think of this BGRu version?

[kingtk3]

Nice list! I second almost anything you've said about the fair decks, while I'm a little surprised of your good performance against combo: it's not an impossible matchup but I've always find it difficult.

If I were you, however, I'd find room for 4 brainstorm simply because it's too powerful to pass.
Maybe instead of jitte, one Liliana, library and something else.

Playing brainstorm also lets you include 3 force of will in the side.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

This is a bit philosophical, but one inherent advantage we have over combo decks forever is that fair decks are more consistent in what they do. I can win drawing almost any of my spells and lands and turning them sideways. I have to mulligan less and my mulligans are way better. We know exactly what our opponent is trying to do with his combo, hence almost perfect sideboarding. They don't know what kindof hate that we are bringing in, so they have to guess at hate for our hate (and this always slows them down). I play alot of combo myself, but recently I've been on the fair train (with shardless mostly in tourneys) and my combo opponents mull so often and unless their hands are the nuts they just fold to a discard spell and a wasteland.
Yes, this is right and it's quite an interesting aspect I never really give enough time to think about it.
Otoh, combo has a potential for those extremely quick wins, so it's not like you're that much above the decks like ANT or SnT that may easily win on turn2 with a brutal backup.



Anyhow, what do you guys think of this BGRu version?
I like it. Really like it. My only question is: why just 2 Wastelands? I'd love to see one more in there. Is the third Bayou necessary?

[HSCK]

Sneak and Show and Elves are extraordinarily consistent, much more consistent than a deck with 7 cascade spells and no Forces, I think that's a really bad way of looking at the game.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Sneak and Show and Elves are extraordinarily consistent, much more consistent than a deck with 7 cascade spells and no Forces, I think that's a really bad way of looking at the game.

Not to derail the thread completely, but what I read was this:
Most of aggro-control decks are more consistent than most of combo decks. And I still think that it's true, although exceptions exist. Elves were the first deck that came to my mind, but I didn't even wrote about it, as I didn't feel like I should start a battle over MtG semantics, as Elves are more like a monogreen Ichorid, a very aggro-ish combo deck. (and far less reliable, imho.)

/ot

[hobart]

My only question is: why just 2 Wastelands? I'd love to see one more in there. Is the third Bayou necessary?
I may try again tonight with another wasteland and one less Bayou. I'm very conservative with my mana and the thought of having a 4 color deck with colorless lands scares me. I NEED 2 black mana by turn 3 and often would like it by turn 2, I NEED green mana by turn 2, and I often NEED blue mana turn 1. My first version of the build had nothing but fetches and duals, but the power level of wasteland is too high to ignore completely, especially in a deck with 4 Deathrite Shamans.



Sneak and Show and Elves are extraordinarily consistent, much more consistent than a deck with 7 cascade spells and no Forces, I think that's a really bad way of looking at the game.
I agree with elves, since even if you don't draw one of many enablers (glimpse, GSZ, NO) your deck still makes dudes that have lots of synergy and they can actually attack if needed. I would not say that Sneak and Show is "extraordinarily consistent". It has nice filters and protection, and it's an incredibly strong deck. But it still just has 8 fatties and 8 enablers. If you don't draw an enabler your deck does NOTHING. If you don't draw a fatty your deck does NOTHING. If I play a cascader and hit something irrelevant at least i'm still pounding the face for 2 each turn after.

[hobart]

So I tweaked my original list slightly and ran this one at my local weekly:

Creatures: 15

4x Shardless Agent
4x Tarmagoyf
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Bloodbraid Elf

Spells: 16

4x Ancestral Vision
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Lightning Bolt
3x Fire/Ice
4x Hymn to Tourach

Artifacts: 1

1x Umezawa’s Jitte

Enchantments: 1

1x Sylvan Library

PlanesWalkers: 4

4x Liliana of the Veil

Lands: 23

4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Underground Sea
3x Bayou
2x Taiga
2x Badlands
2x Tropical Island
2x Wasteland

Sideboard: 15

3x Thoughtseize
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Grafdigger’s Cage
2x Golgari Charm
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Duress
1x Dread of Night
1x Engineered Plague

The main change was the addition of Fire/Ice. Always one of my favorite cards from back in the day, and it just seemed like a much better cascade then Lightning Bolt. I only kept the one bolt in to try lower the curve just a bit.

Round 1 vs BUG delver:
Game 1 - He's on the play, has the delver 1st turn with daze, hymn, fow, and wasteland to back it up, totally tempos me out and by the time I can answer it he has a tombstalker to finish me off.
Sideboard: nothing
Game 2 - Turn 1 suspend visions, he has slow cantrippy start, I attempt to waste a land but see a suprise stifle. But that's ok, I land the first threat with goyf, and then my visions resolves eventually and I draw into all the threats (including Jitte) and removal and he dies.
Game 3 - He gets Turn 1 delver again, but this time I have the Deathrite turn 1 and he has no answer. I am able to get enough mana going to get shardless and bloodbraid cascades going. He misses a land drop, I waste something and then blow him out.
1-0
Round 2 vs Some kindof janky BGW Graveyard deck:
Game 1 - I'm on the play. I get Deathrite down turn 1, he follows with swords. He gets a deathrite down, I abrupt decay. I'm feeling great as I get to cascade into Liliana and all he has is a Putrid Imp and Bloodghast and pretty much no pressure. All off a sudden, he plays Buried alive, gets 3 Vengvines into the graveyard, and then uses madness to cast a few Rootwallas bring back the Vengvines and he beats my face in. He's able to wasteland me off of green which actually kills many of the cards in my hand that can maybe deal with the situation.
Sideboard:
-4 Hymn to tourachs (he has too many cards that seem like they want to be in the graveyard)
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Surgical Extraction
Game 2 - I drop a cage early, and his Bloodghasts and rootwalls and Putrid Imps are no match for my removal and card advantage. I belive I was able to fire a bloodghast and a rootwalla in one turn and it felt awesome!
Game 3 - Similiar to game 2, I drew a hate piece in Spellbomb, made him play fair for a bit, and a wasteland severely backed him up, pretty easy game.
2-0
Round 3 vs Burn: I do not expect to be competitive in this matchup.
Game 1 - I have all the removal for Lavanmancers and Eidelons, I cast a hymn to tourach, and at some point he needs to waste a burn spell on deathrite or it is going to gain me some life. I barely race him with large goyf and win at 2 life as he topdecks a land.
Sideboard: I really have nothing here unfortunately, also, if he didn't have all 4 PoPs mainboard he's certaintly got them now.
-4 Ancestral Visions
-1 Sylvan Library
+2 Duress
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - He leads with Lavamancer turn 1, I pithing needle him. He follows up with Eidelon, I golgari charm him. He burns my face a bit, then I drop a lili. Not even close to enough. He Prices me for 6, then prices me for 8 the next turn, GG.
Game 3 - I decent hand with 2 mana removal, goyf, and hymnn. Unfortunately he hs turn 1 goblin guide, turn 2 Eidelon, so, while stuff gets removed eventually, I'm forced to tap out to do it, and it still all does damage to me. Meanwhile, hes resolving rift bolts and chain lightnings with his mana, PoPs me for 8 and then finishes me with anything in his deck.
2-1
Round 4 vs Elves!:
Game 1 - I am on the play, which is huge, since it enables me to go tit for tat answering his creatures with my removal for a few turns, and this is right where I want to be. I think I fired a Heritage druid and a dryad arbor at one point. Later, we are both low on cards but I drop a bloodbraid elf cascading into Liliana and it takes over the game.
Sidboard:
-4 Ancestral Vision
-1 Sylvan Library
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Engineered Plague
Game 2 - I get the all removal hand with double abupt decay and golgari charm. So, I kill pretty much all his stuff but he's been mini glimpsing so he still has some gas and I'm pretty much out. I topdeck Jitte with a ton of mana and nothing else on board, I decide to play it. I start wishing I can draw a cascader off the top, and BAM my deck loves me as I topdeck the bloodbraid elf, cascade into Lili again, and then equip the Jitte on to my elf and crushinate the board.
3-1
Top 4 vs Burn again (Boo!)
Game 1 - steal this one again somehow. I land some deathrite shamans, he drops a sulfuric vortex hoping to turn off thelife game, but then I drop a goyf and win the race with some help from the shamans.
Sideboard: This time I decide the ancestral vision is slightly better than pithing needle.
-3 Ancestral Vision
-1 Sylvan Library
+2 Duress
+2 Golgari Charm
Game 2 - He starts out with goblin guide beating my face, my removal takes a couple of turns to get going. I hymn to tourach and hit Geurilla Tactics! Wow the technology is right out of 1994. It's a blowout from here.
Game 3 - Similiar blowout, this one with multiple Price of Progress.

Hey at least I cashed! All together I'm really happy with the deck. The Fire/Ice was amazing all day and I'm so glad I had them in the deck. I don't see why this card isn't played more in Legacy these days. It kills almost every creature in the format (see disfigure) for 2 mana, and it sometimes 2 for 1's. The deck was a ton of fun to play, and all the non burn matchups felt real comfortable. The worst matchups for this deck are probably mono red type strategies, namely burn and Bloodmoon decks. I spent some time thinking about decent sideboard cards for this but I really couldn't think of any. If you guys have suggestions let me know.

[kingtk3]

Versus burn I found counterbalance to be very good, granted that I play 3 sensei's divining top main deck.

Versus blood moon decks I play 3 basics, and even krosan grip is viable.

[yaWgnorW]

Have you ever gave Mox Diamond a thought?

Like the list right now, I ran a JUNK colored list that utilized 3 Mox's. I didn't think it would win much but its aggression that the Mox allowed for was pretty outstanding. On the play I don't recall losing, on the draw it just evened out the field. A slightly simpler....without testing....just fun list (my take).

Creatures 15
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman

Spells 16
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Hymn to Tourach

Planeswalkers 4
4 Liliana of the Veil

Artifacts 2
2 Mox Diamond

Lands 23
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Badlands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills

God rid of the Wastelands just to test for pure consistency. Added Mox Diamond in favor of Jitte/Library. Grant it I doubt the diamonds will stick, as if we don't see them in the opener its near pointless..however 3 could be worth a shot. Anyway, its a fun deck, lots of ways to go with it. I think I really like that it steps away from the BUG side of things and goes more into the JUND side of things.

[kingtk3]

Mox diamond is something that I've never thought of and I can see its merits in the starting seven. However seems like a terrible top deck (and your list has many others like tourach when opponent is hellbent or visions when you are in a hurry) and even worst as a cascade target... :-(

[yaWgnorW]

Mox diamond is something that I've never thought of and I can see its merits in the starting seven. However seems like a terrible top deck (and your list has many others like tourach when opponent is hellbent or visions when you are in a hurry) and even worst as a cascade target... :-(

It being a possible cascade target is huge. When I ran it in that fun JUNK build obviously there was no cascading going on. It also gave bonus points for Goyf if I ended up finding the other.

On that note however, Jund typically runs 4 and 4 thoughtseize and Hymn, but that doesn't it from doing its thing.

[hobart]

I ran my Waterfalls deck again at the last local, went 3-1 for Top 4 and split the cash. Same list as before:

Creatures: 15

4x Shardless Agent
4x Tarmagoyf
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Bloodbraid Elf

Spells: 16

4x Ancestral Vision
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Lightning Bolt
3x Fire/Ice
4x Hymn to Tourach

Artifacts: 1

1x Umezawa’s Jitte

Enchantments: 1

1x Sylvan Library

PlanesWalkers: 4

4x Liliana of the Veil

Lands: 23

4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Underground Sea
3x Bayou
2x Taiga
2x Badlands
2x Tropical Island
2x Wasteland

Sideboard: 15

3x Thoughtseize
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Grafdigger’s Cage
2x Golgari Charm
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Duress
1x Dread of Night
1x Engineered Plague

Round 1 beat miracles 2-1: They can't hang with the card advantage and steady beats, just had to not overextend into a terminus ofcourse
Round 2 beat Elves 2-0: Way too much removal md and then in comes grafdiggers and golgari charms and engineered plague after sb, making it even more lopsided
Round 3 lost to a Burning Reanimator type deck 1-2: Both losses were to turn 1 Griselbrand with me on the draw, I'm pretty sure no non-blue decks can ever expect to beat this, so I'm not suprised or upset.
Round 4 was the most compelling, beat RG Lands 2-0: I have no business winning game 1, but I'm able to find a 2nd deathrite soon after I throw my first one away to forgetting a Tabernacle trigger, and I use it to shut down his engine. Game 2 was the luckiest I've probably ever been in tournament Magic - He get's a pretty early Marit Lage in play and even wastes me a turn setting me back. I have fire/ice to stall for one turn tapping the massive flier down. I have no Lilianas in hand but I have multiple Bloodbraid elves (and 3 lands in play). After cycling the Ice to keep me alive I rip the 4th land on my draw step to cast Bloodbraid, it flips a few lands over and then a Liliana! My opponent was stunned and so was I. I get the Marit Lage off the table and with the haste elf I'm able to clock him fast enough to prevent him from resetting the Lage with his engine online.
In the just for fun Top 4 round I played against Death and Taxes. The non sideboard games were real tough as I'm very susceptible to wasteland and THalia. After sideboard I had enough lower curve removal to get the hatebears under control and win easily.

I've disassembled the deck and don't plan on playing it again for a while, but my impressions of it are high. This is a legitimate deck. I don't think I'd ever play it over my Shardless BUG control deck in a serious tournament, simply because I like the safety net of Force of will and I like to run at least one basic to help with a resolved Blood Moon. I do think in terms of raw power this deck is at least as strong as the stock Jund lists, and probably even better at doing what Jund is trying to do. It is, however, shakier on the mana base, as I don't think it can run any basics and it will pretty much always lose to a resolved bloodmoon. Thanks for reading!

[Qweerios]

Is anybody else psyched about the new Dead Drop for this deck? It's a mainboard answer to Nemesis and acts as a 1-sided board wipe for 9B with Delve. It is interesting to note how it cannot be cascaded into and easily splashed (unlike Liliana).

[hovercraft]

Hey All,

I've been toying with 4 colour cascade as well. I was looking into different split cards and came upon Rise//Fall. Fall is worse than hymn since it can't hit lands, but Rise makes it so it isnt a dead draw/cascade later in the game. What do you guys think of it?

[hobart]

I've always liked Rise//Fall and I think it's a good card. It could work in a shell like this.

[maCHOOga]

Everyone,

I think I'm going to get back to playing this deck. I love it too much and it feels like it occasionally just gets free wins and its super awesome fun!

I've noticed the move from Force of Wills to a more targeted discard package (4x hymns). Do you think this is reasonable with treasure cruise/dig through time showing up in a lot of decks? If someone rips a treasure cruise a few turns after they have been hymned, it won't be terribly difficult with them to get right back in the game.

Also, I think that clever impersonator might have a home in this deck as a 1 of. Thoughts? (Too bad he can't copy a bloodbraid elf & trigger cascade. :-(

[hovercraft]

hobart
I've always liked Rise//Fall and I think it's a good card. It could work in a shell like this.

Yeah I gotta say I am really liking it. I think it works better in FoW version since it isnt as good as Hymn early at slowing down your opponent(and it can be pitched to fow too). In a game vs RUG Delver last night, I was at 5 he was at 15 and we both just had a goyf on the field. I top deck'd Rise/Fall, Cast Rise returning his goyf to his hand and my bloodbraid from the graveyard. Cast BBE and cascaded into another Goyf. I ended up winning the game in a couple of turns


Everyone,

I think I'm going to get back to playing this deck. I love it too much and it feels like it occasionally just gets free wins and its super awesome fun!

I've noticed the move from Force of Wills to a more targeted discard package (4x hymns). Do you think this is reasonable with treasure cruise/dig through time showing up in a lot of decks? If someone rips a treasure cruise a few turns after they have been hymned, it won't be terribly difficult with them to get right back in the game.

Also, I think that clever impersonator might have a home in this deck as a 1 of. Thoughts? (Too bad he can't copy a bloodbraid elf & trigger cascade. :-(

Me personally, I play FoWs and Rise/Fall and Hymn, and keep the thoughtseizes in the SB . However, this is mostly due to my other deck being Jund so I play Cascade when I feel I need FoWs (got Belcher and a few other combo decks in my small meta lately). I have been thinking about a 1 or 2 Dig Through Time in this deck too. Fishing for a cascade card seems awesome.

Clever Impersonator is cool, but its too bad you can cascade into him

[Quizzlemanizzle]

I played a deck like this for fun on cockatrice some.

1cmc Ancestral Visions, Deathrite Shaman, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt, Sensei
2cmc Tarmogoyf, Baleful Strix, Coiling Oracle, Sylvan Library
3cmc Shardless Agent, Domri Rade
4cmc Bloodbraid Elf

It was pretty good against other fair decks. The card advantage is insane and Domri does a lot of work with the creature base.

Combo matchups required sideboarding 4 Force of Will which is actually easy to pitch to since Strix, Oracle, Shardless are all blue.

[Qweerios]

Since Waterfalls is an excellent deck against Miracles, Delver decks, and Elves, I think it is well positioned for the current metagame. With everyone on the Treasure Cruise bandwagon, a fair cascade deck sounds devastating. I currently play something very similar to the opening post with some minor tweaks that I am testing before I update the thread.

The list:


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Bloodbraid Elf

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Izzet Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

4 Ancestral Visions
1 Toxic Deluge

3 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Island
1 Forest
//SB
4 Thoughtseize
2 Flusterstorm
2 Swan Song
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Engineered Plague
1 Flex Slot


What are everyone's thoughts on Izzet Charm as the 17th and 18th blue cards for the main? With our low counterspell count, I find Izzet charm to be a necessity while also being decent removal. The looting effect is very potent in grindy games when lands are piling up in our hand or simply to ditch excessive Visions when we are pressed for time. I played Fire // Ice for the longest time in that slot but I find 4 Bolts, 3 Decays, and 1 Deluge to be a lot of removal already. Nemesis is another blue card I played instead for a while but I ended up cutting them because they often felt win-more. Nemesis also has poor synergy with the -1/-1 effects we use to kill opposing Nemesis. I find it easier to combat Nemesis than to abuse him. The only card left that can be potentially better than Izzet Charm, in my opinion, is Ponder. Ponder is a great card in its own right and is always a safe choice. The questions that remain are: is Izzet Charm's unique combination of abilities mandatory to the deck's fluidity? Would Ponder play a similar or better role?

What do you guys think about Creeping Tar Pit vs. Wasteland? I like Wasteland because It leads to the ocasional blowout, comes into play untapped for maximum tempo plays, and deals with cards we have no other angles of disruption against. Creeping Tar Pit definitely has its merits and can take over the long, grindy games. The little manland is a great mana sink and pressures Planeswalkers like Liliana and Jace but isn't very good in multiples. Since I've gotten rid of the 4th Wasteland and Nemesis altogether in this deck, I feel a little more vulnerable to Punishing Fire and I must rely heavily on Goyf and Wasteland to win against decks like Jund. For these reasons I hesitate to add a singleton Tar Pit instead of the 3rd Wasteland. Perhaps it would be better than the Taiga as I rarely find myself fetching for it. I can definitely imagine scenarios where I would want it though (Island + Udg Sea for example). Bayou is probably the weakest of the bunch because the scenario it fixes doesn't enable Abrupt Decay or Golgari Charm (Island + Volcanic). It is only useful in enabling DRS activations and Toxic Deluge on a land screw or Thoughtseize and EPlague in postboard games. I really like the manabase as it is but I would definitely appreciate the unblockable manland. Are the potential benefits of Creeping Tar Pit worth the potential drawbacks?

What do you think the last SB slot should be? I have been shifting between Sylvan Library, Scavenging Ooze, and Umezawa's Jitte.

-Library is a good card for all occasions. It grabs extra cards, sets up cascades, and filters draws. My issue with the card is that it isn't a "sideboard" card. If anything, it should be played in the main because it is so versatile. However, the deck generates lots of card advantage over the course of a long game and the effects of Library are often not all that necessary. I love the card against Miracles but the matchup is already very good as it is.

-Ooze is great because it is applicable in almost every matchup while also hosing some decks. He can deal with Punishing Fire and gives a really hard time to decks like Lands, Reanimator, Dredge, and Loam decks where Grafdigger's Cage isn't always good. Ooze also has the added benefit of being an incredible mana sink later in the game and a source of life gain against decks like UR Burn. You can be sure he won't let any Treasure Cruises resolve easily either.

-Jitte is Jitte. It does everything if you can swing with it. It is a great card to have in your sideboard because lots of decks only pack artifact destruction in their sideboard and won't be expecting it G2 and/or G3. This card is always good in every fair matchup and will give you a firm grip over decks like Elves and Burn. The only thing I dislike about Jitte is bringing it in against a fair deck using Stoneforge such as Deathblade and DnT because I also like to bring in Null Rod.

I'll be looking forward to your replies!

[hovercraft]

I like Izzet Charm for its versatility. I dont really think you need Ponder, but a 1 of Sylvan Library or Scroll Rack or something might be worth trying.

In terms of SB, I definitely think Jitte needs to be in there. I actually run mine in the mainboard, and am rarely sad to see it. 1-2 Scooze is definitely a good idea as well. I think with the Izzet Charms main, you don't really need both the swan songs and flusterstorms in the sideboard, so you could make room there by reducing one of those.

For Wasteland vs Tarpit, it's hard to say. I actually don't run wastelands right now just because the mana base is so tight and needs a lot of coloured mana. How often do you find yourself colour screwed?

[Qweerios]

Combo decks being our hardest matchups, i highly value what little counterspells we have. Against SnT and Storm in particular I can't afford to rely on an Izzet Charm to prevent them from going off. Charm with Flusterstorm however, is another story.

My current manabase has been treating me well. I have access to 17 blue, 15 green, 14 black, and 14 red sources respectively. Wasteland's colorless mana is useful too because it can used to cast 12 of my spells starting at a CMC of 2.

Not having Jitte greatly troubles me but you have to look at the opportunity cost. Jitte is a lot of added value in a lot of matchups but what it is not is an essential hate piece. Outside of the 8 dedicated combo disruption cards in my SB, you have the following:

Ancient grudge as an out to Batterskull and hoser against artifact decks.

Golgari charm as cascadable TNN removal, and an essential board wipe against Elves and DnT. This versatile card even has other fringe applications.

Engineered plague as a hoser against tribal decks and DnT (humans), TNN answer and prevention tool. Plague is also one of the few cards to fully deal with cards like Argothian Enchantress and Lingering Souls.

Grafdigger's cage as one of my few GY hate cards with the added benefit of hosing every tutor in Elves and various Nat Order decks. Can also be used against Storm decks to prevent Past in Flames.

Pithing needle as one of my only disruption against Dark Depths type decks with the added benefits of shutting down Sneak Attack, Sensei's Divining Top, and any Planeswalker.

Null Rod as one of my only permanent disruption against Storm. Debilitates Stoneforge decks and hoses every artifact based decks. Can also be used to shut down Sensei's Divining Top.

Scavenging Ooze as one of my few GY hate cards. My only answer to Loam decks or any deck with Punishing Fire. He hoses lands and is relevant in nearly every matchup.

The most narrow cards out of all of the above is probably Grafdigger's Cage because it is the most matchup-specific and is only really good against Dredge, Reanimator, and Elves. I wouldn't remove a card like Golgari Charm or EPlague for Jitte because losing cards against cards that shut down Jitte in the first place sounds counterproductive (TNN, Mom, Symbiote). Like Cage, at least Jitte is good against Elves and somewhat acceptable against Dredge (can exiles Bridges).

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[hovercraft]

I need Jitte as there are 2-3 burn decks commonly in my meta. And I'm not saying cut the flusterstorms, im just saying maybe you can afford to cut the Swan Songs. You still have 4 Forces, 2 Izzet charm, 2 flusterstorm and 4 thoughseize for combo decks. You could also cut 1 thoughtseize and 1 swan song instead

[anwei]

In the past, I've really liked Jace and Jitte as maindeck options for strategic versatility. Jitte obviously wouldn't fit the maindeck blue-card slot very well, though it makes Strix much more attractive. Having lots of midrangey value guys can put you in the awkward position of having a big, irrelevant board against 1-2 sizable threats (as you wait to draw Decay or DRS them out). Jitte and Jace both give you a lot of options in these situations, and you're better-able than most to protect Jace with a swarm of cascade guys, can take better advantage of his Brainstorm, etc.

[hobart]

If colored mana is not an issue for you, I think you should run the wastelands. They are too powerful as a answer to utility lands, as well as being a fantastic tempo play when you have a DRS or just some board advantage (which this deck inevitably generates). I don't think this is the right deck for Creeping Tar Pit. It is a tempo loss to play it and it is a tapout situation when it attacks. I feel like we usually have too many spells to cast to tapout for just an attack.

[hovercraft]

If colored mana is not an issue for you, I think you should run the wastelands. They are too powerful as a answer to utility lands, as well as being a fantastic tempo play when you have a DRS or just some board advantage (which this deck inevitably generates). I don't think this is the right deck for Creeping Tar Pit. It is a tempo loss to play it and it is a tapout situation when it attacks. I feel like we usually have too many spells to cast to tapout for just an attack.

I think I'll try to fit at least 2 Wastelands in

[Qweerios]

I agree that Creeping Tar Pit doesn't make the cut. I need to have the Bayou available and Wasteland is always better.

On the topic of Jitte, how about this approach:

-Make Goyf blue by replacing him with TNN
-Ditch Deluge for the 4th Decay
-Replace Izzet Charms with Sylvan Library and Jitte.

However, TNN requires 2 blue mana and slows the deck down quite a bit. Once on the battlefield though, TNN is way more resilient and has more reach than a Goyf. Losing Goyf also makes Shardless Agent's cascades more reliable as there would be less variety to cascade into.

[hovercraft]

I dont like TNN in here since Shardless cant cascade into it. I know you said this was an advantage, but I think it's the opposite. Flooding the field with 2 creatures is super strong. It also means anytime you cascade with shardless and you hit TNN he goes to the bottom of your deck where he cant help you unless you can shuffle

[Qweerios]

Cutting 4 two-drops for 4 three-drops increases the overall chances of a Shardless cascade into Visions from 16% to 18.18%. This is a net amelioration I wouldn't dismiss. Besides, bloodbraid's cascade quality goes up since that goyf you would cascade into is now a Nemesis.

Adopting nemesis diminishes the need for answers to opposing Nemesis. The deck becomes even better in the long run and our opponent's removal spells have very little impact on our main threats.

The deck would also become more blue centric with a higher blue count and a bigger emphasis on blue mana.

As much as I like goyf and his superior mana cost, I dislike how he forces us into including subpar cards (Izzet Charm) in order to support FoW.

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[Qweerios]

Now that I think about it... isn't Dimir Charm absolutely amazing right now? Izzet Charm is nothing compared to Dimir Charm in a metagame filled with Treasure Cruises, Miracles, and Elves... We all know how good the card is against Elves but a hard counter against any miracle trigger or Council's Judgment can go pretty far. Against all the midrange decks packing Treasure Cruise, Dimir Charm is simply great, it even doubles up as removal for DRS, SFM, Pyromancer, Swiftspear, and unflipped Delvers. It kills every creature in Burn and counters Spikes, Chains, Rift Bolts.

[hovercraft]

yeah I hadn't even thought of Dimir Charm. Definitely seems strong

[Qweerios]

If anybody is interested in some promising results, I spent last Saturday grinding out Legacy tournaments. Here is a short report of my two tournaments:


4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 True-Name Nemesis
3 Bloodbraid Elf

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

4 Ancestral Vision
1 Toxic Deluge

1 Sylvan Library

2 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Island
//SB
4 Thoughtseize
2 Flusterstorm
2 Swan Song
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage


My friend decided to choke on the first event so I was missing 2 Goyfs at the beginning of the first tournament. I replaced them with a 3rd Nemesis and the Library.

Monthly Legacy, 25-ish players - Swiss rounds

R1 against MUD: 2-0

G1 is close but I fight my way through with value and manage to deal with all the Golems, Trinispheres and Chalices.

SB: -2 BBE, +1 Null Rod, +1 Grudge

G2 I am losing to 2 Lodestone and a Trini but I luckily cascade into a Null Rod, Decay Trini EoT, and play BBE into Shardless into Bolt.
Overall I was lucky I didn't see any Wurmcoils. This matchup isn't favorable but at least MUD highly suffers from variance.

R2 against DnT: 2-0

G1 my opponent mulls to 4 and curves out with Vial -> Mom -> Crusader. I deal with the Mom but the Crusader stalls for a bit until I find a Nemesis and overwhelm the board.

SB: -4 FoW, +1 Jitte, +1 Plague, +1 Grudge, +1 Golgari Charm

G2 he goes for T1 Mom -> SFM -> Batterskull to which I have no answers. I land a T3 Engineered Plague and eventually cascade into Ancient Grudge for BSkull. His hand is filled with Mom, Thalia, and Mangara so I easily take it from there.

R3 against Miracles with SFM: 2-0

G1 I cascade into AV and overwhelm the board facing a BSkull and a Top. I eventually Decay the BSkull and double FoW two Terminus for lethal.

SB: -4 Bolt, -1 Deluge, +2 Swan Song, +1 Needle, +1 Null Rod, +1 Grudge.

G2 I suspend AV and cascade into another the turn before the suspended one resolved. I drowned my opponent in BBE and let entreat resolve as I have lethal with 2 DRS on the board.

R4 against UR Burn: 1-2

G1 I get double Goyf online and barely win the race.

SB: -4 AV, -1 Deluge, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 Swan Song, +1 Jitte.

G2 I take 2 Guides into 2 Fireblast after I managed to get Nemesis with Jitte online with a Flusterstorm backup at 4 life. The 2nd Blast was too much to handle

G3 I get Priced into double Fireblast and I have no chance.

R5 against BG Hex-Depths: 0-2 (opponent refuses to ID)

G1 my opponent opens up with Urborg into Depths + Hexmage and I don't have FoW.

SB: -3 BBE, -3 Decay, -4 AV, +4 Thoughtseize, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 Swan Song, +1 Plague, +1 Needle

G2 I lose to Petal + Crop Rotation in response to my Wasteland on Depths with a Stage and Urborg already in play. My counters had been Thoughtseized away.

This matchup is atrocious and I choose to live with that.

Top 8

Quarter-finals against Elves: 2-0

G1 my opponent mulls to 5 and I cascade into lots of spot removal and I counter his only NO.

SB: -2 Nemesis, -2 Wasteland, +1 Charm, +1 Plague, +1 Jitte, +1 Cage

G2 I have double FoW for the 2 NO and I cast and cascade into 2 Bolts and 3 Decays.

Split Top4 as I am running late for my next tournament and everybody wants to go home anyway. I quickly make some last minute changes to my SB in anticipation of Goyf #3-4 and based on the results of this tournament:


4 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
2 Swan Song
2 Golgari Charm
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
1 Umezawa's Jitte


I replaced the 4 Thoughtseize with 4 Duress because being able to discard a creature is much less relevant than losing 2 life. At least Duress doubles up as a SB card against another one of my worst matchups (Burn). I swapped out Null Rod for a 2nd Needle because I felt like I needed additional hate against Sneak attack now that I no longer have Thoughtseize for creatures. I replaced EPlague by a 2nd Golgari Charm because Charm is better against Nemesis and more accessible through Cascade than EPlague. Unfortunately for me, my friend forgot my two Goyfs so the maindeck remains the same.

GPT New Jersey 9 players - Swiss
Because we had a 9th player, we had to play 5 rounds with a cut to top4. Long night ahead.

R1 against UWR Delver: 0-2

G1 I run a Goyf into Daze and never draw any other threats. I die to 3 Wastelands, a Treasure Cruise and SFM -> BSkull.

SB: -4 FoW, +2 Golgari Charm, +1 Grudge, +1 Jitte

G2 we trade threats and removal and I eventually BBE -> AV that my opponent Misdirects to himself. I take 3 Wastelands and lose to a BSkull-equiped TNN.

R2 against Burn: 2-1

G1 I Deluge a double Guide + Grim board and stabilize with a DRS and a Goyf.

SB: -1 Tar Pit, -1 Library, -1 Deluge, -4 Visions, +4 Duress, +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Jitte

G2 I get Priced for 6 into Fireblast after a 2 Goblin Guide start and a Searing Blaze on my DRS.

G3 I cast lots of Duress and race with a Goyf. My opponent is holding a Fireblast with 3 Lands in play and draws a Rift Bolt while I am at 7 life. He suspends it to play around the Flusterstorm I am holding but I draw into Brainstorm the following turn and cast brainstorm -> Flusterstorm and counter a burn spell anyway.

R3 against Miracles: 2-0

G1 I get lots of creatures on the board, Bolt 2 Jaces, and FoW a couple of Terminus for the win. Tar Pit swung for lethal.

SB: -1 Deluge, -1 Bolt, -2 Wasteland, +2 Swan Song, +2 Needle

G2 I open up with Needle on Top and cascade into a DRS. My opponent EE's for 1 destroying Needle and DRS. I grind through a couple of StP, Snaps, and I eventually FoW a Terminus. I have a Nemesis in play and my opponent is at 9 life and I'm at 25. He entreats for 3 angels and I draw a Bolt that swings the race in my favor.

R4 against Elves: 2-0

G1 I cascade into AV and cast lots of removal. I managed to FoW both his NO and won with DRS.

SB: -3 BBE, -1 Library, -2 Wasteland, +2 Golgari Charm, +2 Swan Song, +1 Jitte, +1 Cage

G2 my opponent keeps a slow hand and Goyf goes all the way with 3 Bolts.

R5 against Manaless Dredge: 2-1

G1 I keep a removal hand and concede after half his deck was dredged and I had nothing in play.

SB: -2 Wasteland, -1 Library, -3 BBE, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 Swan Song, +1 Jitte, +1 Cage

G2 I Brainstorm into Cage and he has no outs.

G3 I open with Cage and he has no outs

Top 4

Semi-finals against Manaless Dredge with FoW: 2-0

G1 I brainstorm into 2 DRS and slowly grind him to eventually Decay one of my DRS when the 3rd Bridge hit the GY.

SB: -2 Wasteland, -1 Library, -3 BBE, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 Swan Song, +1 Jitte, +1 Cage

G2 I open with a DRS and eventually find a 2nd one. I grind him out while I beat with a Goyf and end the game with 2 Bolts to the face.

Finals against UWR Delver (same as R1): 2-1

G1 I open with DRS and my opponent keeps a one-lander with Delver. I Waste and Bolt him on my turn. He never recovered.

SB: -4 FoW, 2 Golgari Charm, +1 Grudge, +1 Jitte

G2 is long and grindy. At one point I set up a T4 BBE cascade into AV with an EoT Brainstorm then my opponent reveals a Misdirection from his Delver trigger. This forces me to jump through hoops and I eventually lose to 2 Nemesis as I am digging for a Charm or a Deluge with Library and never find one.

G3 is another long and grindy match but I manage to resolve a suspended AV and find Grudge for BSkull. In the end I find a Golgari Charm to wrath his board and Jitte + Nemesis goes all the way.

In the end I finally won my two byes for Jersey and I was really impressed with the deck. It is very consistent against Elves and Miracles as it is intended and the deck is very powerful in a fair metagame. Treasure Cruise definitely gives AV a run for its money. Cascade is such a powerful mechanic and most definitely should not be underestimated. With that said, I will probably represent Waterfalls at the GP.

Observations:

-Swan Song was never used and I never wanted to side it in. Going forward I will replace them with either Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Envelop, or Dimir Charm.
-Null Rod is probably better than the 2nd Needle even though Needle is one of my few hate cards against Dark Depths combo, Sneak Attack, and Planeswalkers.
-Duress is strictly superior to Thoughtseize as a SB card when most of our SB should be dedicated to Storm, SnT, Reanimator, and Burn decks.
-Sylvan Library has proven its worth as a maindeck card. I will definitely favor the single Library over BBE.
-Creeping Tar Pit felt weak and having lands come into play tapped was cumbersome. Wasteland, however, played an important role so I will revert back to 3 Wastelands and drop Tar Pit.
-The fetchland combination may not be optimal but that's an entirely different topic with too many components for me to elaborate on right now.

[TLK]

I really like your list, and it seems to perform really well against most of the top decks.

When you obtain the other 2 Goyfs, what will be replaced in the main to make room?

[Qweerios]

1 BBE and 1 Nemesis will have to go. I will definitely miss the 3rd BBE.

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[hovercraft]

Nice Results! Thanks for the write up

[kingtk3]

1 BBE and 1 Nemesis will have to go. I will definitely miss the 3rd BBE.

Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

I played a split of 3 BBE, 3 Goyf and 2 TNN with great satisfaction: I advise you to try the same before cutting the third BBE for the fourth goyf.

[Qweerios]

I don't think you can compare BBE to the 4th Goyf, or even the 4th Decay for that matter. Legacy-defining staples don't really compete with 4CMC uncommons unless budget is an issue or whatever snowflake reason you can muster.

On a different note, I discussed the manabase with a friend after going 2-2 in a weekly tournament. The issue with this deck's landbase is the same as with Deathblade where you have to choose between Basic lands or Wastelands. Even though we can use Wasteland to our advantage, more than one Wasteland from our opponent on our fragile manabase is often enough to heavily cripple us. Considering that my first two rounds were against Blood Moon and Back to Basics, I definitely appreciated the basic lands there and they directly affected the results. The occasional blowout you get from Wasteland is unfortunately not worth the more common blowout Wasteland deals to this deck. Against PFire decks, 4 Goyfs and 2 TNN is sufficient to power through it. As for Dark Depths, Lands, and decks like 12-Post, I guess I'll have to live with it...

So far, Toxic Deluge has been available within the first 3 turns of every game 1 I played against TNN decks. I think luck was on my side because otherwise I am forced to swarm the board and go over the top. Creeping Tar Pit is a great way to counteract Nemesis but it is also very scarce. I think I was also incredibly lucky I didn't face more DnT decks with T1 Mom over the past few weeks either. I think adding a 2nd Deluge to the main would strengthen some of our weaknesses and free up SB space by dismissing Golgari Charm.

Any opinions on Baleful Strix vs. Nemesis? I personally like how Strix blocks Delver and cantrips. This leads to better synergy with Toxic Deluge and allows me to re-incorporate Engineered Plague as a form of TNN hate card. Having more artifacts to pump Goyf is good news as well and it also lowers the curve. Of course Strix isn't nearly as aggressive as TNN but it still a pain to deal with. I often find TNN to be the card I want the least in lots of matchups but that I cannot afford to side out because of the blue count. At least Strix allows me to sift through my deck when TNN isn't particularly relevant.

[hovercraft]

I think he means, the point of the deck is card advantage through cascading, so cutting down to 2 BBE seems counter-intuitive. I still play 4 BBE in my list (0TNN).

On Strix, I usually keep 1 or 2 in the SB for sneak and show matchups

[Qweerios]

What do you cut for the 2 additional BBE? Library? Bolt? Decay? Deluge? I'd love to play 4 BBE but the format simply doesn't allow me to. I value all the non-blue creatures more and the sheer existence of a card like Nemesis necessitates mainboard answers. The best one I've got to offer is Toxic Deluge. BBE is also one of the cards I tend to side out the most.

No offense but Strix is absolutely worthless against SnT. I playtested against Sneak Show with 4 Flusterstorms, 4 Duress, and 1 Pithing Needle out of the board and the matchup is still shaky. I am currently trying 4 Thoughtseize instead of the 4 Flusterstorms for a whopping 8 discard spells against combo postboard.

EDIT: I just looked up an interesting tech from a Shardless BUG Decklist. 1 Savannah and 4 Meddling Mages out of the board sounds amazing.

[Qweerios]

I have tested various configurations lately ranging from a more black heavy list to punishing fire. So far I've settled on a 5 color list for Meddling Mage in the sideboard. Treasure Cruise replaced Sylvan Library and fixed the blue count conundrum.

Does anybody have some interesting techs against burn and ur burn? I thought about Zuran Orb but I don't think it is that good against Delver. Dragon Scale sounds even worst. Maybe Timely Reinforcement would be good. So far I have Jitte and Ooze to gain life in addition to DRS.

Here's what I have settled on:


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

4 Ancestral Vision
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Toxic Deluge

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Forest
//SB
4 Meddling Mage
4 Duress
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scavenging Ooze

[Plm]

I have not tested your list but I wonder about a few things :

The low creature count, the deluge maindeck, the lack of wasteland, the 4th decay.

Why no charm ? dimir or izzet ? they do nice things, are nice to cascade into and fix the blue count.

How is tom cruise doing? without mass cantrip and with deathrite is it reliably castable ?

I liked having nemesis as a 2 of.

Will try this configuration hopefully this week end, otherwise next Thursday with my playgroup.

Thank for keeping the flame alive.

[hovercraft]

I feel like Dig through time might be stronger than TC in waterfalls. Digging for that cascade spell or key removal

[Qweerios]

It might be. I'll have to test it out.

[Plm]

Hi , back after some testing.

the low creature count was OK (I played 19 at my last tournament, so it's a change), it free slots for disruption.

Toxic deluge on the other hand, felt out of place in the main (only goyf survives a reasonable deluge, if it's to deluge at 1 , as well play golgari charm).

Treasure cruise was weak, I didn't feed the grave fast enough and mid/late game our CA engine are already powerful.
I will play ponder instead as it will smooth the manabase (stifle waste decks are a pain) and search for removal/critter latter on.

As I didn't test against combo, I can hardly judge the meddling mage plan, but in the other match up it was wasted sideboard space (whereas regular countermagic/ discard would have been much better).

Izzet charm now as 2 slots in my list, instead of the 4th decay and bolt. It is weaker as removal but does so many things, upping the blue count not the least of.

Deathrite without wasteland felt unrelyable and being able to answer random lands is crucial (burnwillow, dark depth, maze, man lands...) also wastelanding with a ticking vision is a great path to victory.

I played 1 E.plague sideboard and it is nice to drop on human vs viking funeral, so much value :smile:

Hope one of you is going to GP jersey with waterfall, will check the (lousy) coverage!

PS all of the above remarks are made with respect and in the spirit of constructive criticism.

[Hexar]

Have you guys found our deck to be considerably weaker with treasure cruise in the format? Ive been struggling as I've felt strong against the majority of decks that are now jamming cruise and powering through me... I had some questions and I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Can we play our own cruises or are we too weak of a cruise deck?

Should we add more discard to the list or play vendilion cliques as a way to battle the card?

What have you guys been doing to combat the cruise?

Do you think this is still a viable deck?

[Qweerios]

I stopped playing the deck when I couldn't beat burn strategies. Having a horrible combo matchup was manageable but throwing Bolt + PoP into the mix is unbearable.

[eirirlar]

What do you guys think of the white splash right now? Gives access to stoneforge/batterskull/jitte which seems good in the current meta. Here's a list I've been pondering with. It uses a more aggressive ramp than ususal because I often find that I lose on turn 4-5 to agressive decks with my hand still full of expensive stuff. With 8 manadorks I can land jace early enough to matter or get a recursive punishing fire setup in time.


2 Flooded Strand
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

4 Ancestral Vision

1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Shardless Agent
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
3 Punishing Fire

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Sylvan Library

[JPoJohnson]

I've never played this deck, but the concept of it is something that has intrigued me for well over a year. As far as a fun deck, it looks phenomenal, but it hasn't placed in anything of note for a decent amount of time. What is the biggest weakness of this deck in it's current iteration?

[eirirlar]

I've never played this deck, but the concept of it is something that has intrigued me for well over a year. As far as a fun deck, it looks phenomenal, but it hasn't placed in anything of note for a decent amount of time. What is the biggest weakness of this deck in it's current iteration?

I find burn and combo to be problematic matchups, but it's also somewhat weak against tempo / wasteland strategies. I guess anything with the potential to beat you in the early rounds is hard.

[Chaam]

I really don't understand why this deck doesn't just jam countertop. Both sides are fine to cascade into, top sets up cascades and having countertop in your deck makes the combo, burn and delver matchups so much better. You are already going to beat all the other midrange decks due to CA from Cascade.

[eirirlar]

I really don't understand why this deck doesn't just jam countertop. Both sides are fine to cascade into, top sets up cascades and having countertop in your deck makes the combo, burn and delver matchups so much better. You are already going to beat all the other midrange decks due to CA from Cascade.

If you get good results with countertop I'd be interested in your list. I've tried it a few times and found it a bit clunky. Against tempo, I've found that more often than not they manage to get a few fast beaters out before I get countertop on the board.

[kingtk3]

I've never played this deck, but the concept of it is something that has intrigued me for well over a year. As far as a fun deck, it looks phenomenal, but it hasn't placed in anything of note for a decent amount of time. What is the biggest weakness of this deck in it's current iteration?

It depends on what you intend woth "current iteration". I can only talk about the list I used to play, which is the following

3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Fire // Ice
4 Shardless Agent
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Force of Will

SIDE
2 Trygon Predator
1 Pyroclasm
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Counterbalance
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Submerge


With this list the only matchup I was unconfortable was combo, especially S&S and Reanimator. Burn was less than an issue because of the counterbalance in the side, since they have to chain many spells to kill contrary of reanimator and S&S that only need to resolve a single spell and are much faster.

I always felt in good shape against miracle: I just need to play around terminus and always keep a couple of threat in hands, usually the inherent card advantage of the deck is enough (and with so many different CC counterbalance often whiffs).

Against delver decks the mana denial is mitigated by the hierarchs and 4 bolts plus 2 fire/ice plus 2 lavamancer often are enough to kill the first delver or two before we stabilize. Also note that hierarchs and lavamancer help to win goyf wars. Of course this matchup is not an automatic win because they can have nut draws as delver with 3 counters, but we also can have some game where we ramp, cast shardless into goyf, cast bloodbraid into nemesis which they cannot beat.

Against midrange strategies True-name nemesis is the main threat, but sometimes I just overwhelm the board with a couple of cascades. In the end, however, it really depends on what they're playing; in general I think is a fine matchup.

Against elves the full suite of removals makes the difference, especially the lavamancers.

It's been a while since I last played the deck (here's my last report: but I remember that it was very fun and if you like playing good ol' magic this deck is a blast.


Regarding countertop: as you can see I tried tops main and counterbalance in the side and I was very pleased. Many times top helped in setting good cascades; I usually side in counterbalance against combo decks and sometimes against tempo strategies (whose threats are often in the range of CC between 1 and 2). However I found out that is not enough to fight show and tell and reanimator: for the former I could add some venser to the side, for the latter some extra grave hate.

Hope this helps and someone picks up the deck!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

With this list the only matchup I was unconfortable was combo, especially S&S and Reanimator. Burn was less than an issue because of the counterbalance in the side, since they have to chain many spells to kill contrary of reanimator and S&S that only need to resolve a single spell and are much faster.

Is there any way how to play CB in main so that tyou got more chances against combo? Also, I'd love to squeeze Boom/Bust somewhere in there, as it might be funn with all the cascade guys, "nice manabase overthere, now 3/2 haste geddon it away, please."

[kingtk3]

Is there any way how to play CB in main so that tyou got more chances against combo? Also, I'd love to squeeze Boom/Bust somewhere in there, as it might be funn with all the cascade guys, "nice manabase overthere, now 3/2 haste geddon it away, please."

In order to fit counterbalance in the maindeck I think we should analyze the actual CCs in the deck:

CC 0, total = 25
3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Ancestral Vision

CC 1, total = 17
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt

CC 2, total = 5
3 Tarmogoyf
2 Fire // Ice

CC 3, total = 6
4 Shardless Agent
2 True-Name Nemesis

CC 4, total = 3
3 Bloodbraid Elf

CC 5, total = 4
4 Force of Will


The first thing to notice is that there are too few CC 2 spells, although the number is deemed to increase with the addition of counterbalance itself.
There are many CC 0 cards and 4 of them are Ancestral Vision, whose use is to provide card advantage which can compare, to some extent, to counterbalance providing virtual card advantage. My conclusion is that one copy of Ancestral Vision can be switched with a copy of counterbalance.

The other two slots can be picked between grim lavamancer, fire/ice and bloodbraid elf, basically because I don't think the other cards can be touched: I'd probably cut an elf and a fire/ice, mostly because lavamancer has impressed me very much in the past and is a threat itself.

Summing up:

CC 0, total = 24
3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancestral Vision

CC 1, total = 17
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt

CC 2, total = 7
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Fire // Ice
3 Counterbalance

CC 3, total = 6
4 Shardless Agent
2 True-Name Nemesis

CC 4, total = 2
2 Bloodbraid Elf

CC 5, total = 4
4 Force of Will

SIDE
2 Trygon Predator
1 Pyroclasm
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
3 Submerge


What do you think?

EDIT:
what about splashing white for Containment Priest? It should address the S&S and Reanimator matchups

SIDE
2 Trygon Predator
1 Pyroclasm
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Containment Priest
1 Tundra
3 Submerge


DOUBLE EDIT:
I don't think Boom/Boost can be played in this version of the deck (I'm referring to countertop): there are too few flex slots and the card itself doesn't do very much if you draw it. I think that in order to play thos situational split cards we should be playing Jace too.

[hovercraft]

I went 3-0-1 with brUG waterfalls last night at a small LGS tournament.

Decklist:
1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Ancestral Vision
1 Azorius Guildmage
1 Baleful Strix
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Brainstorm
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dig Through Time
1 Fire // Ice
4 Force of Will
1 Izzet Charm
2 Rise // Fall
1 Scroll Rack
4 Shardless Agent
2 Tarmogoyf
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Sideboard:

1 Become Immense
1 Boom // Bust
1 Engineered Plague
1 Far // Away
1 Golgari Charm
1 Izzet Charm
1 Null Rod
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Stifle
1 Swan Song
2 Thoughtseize
1 Surgical Extraction

Round 1 VS: Loam Pox
2-1
G1: I was able to survive 2 different MArit Laige tokens, thanks to Rise//Fall and Azorious Guildmage (Using DRS for white mana). I mainly was experimenting with guildmage as a Stifle type ability that didnt suck to Cascade into.
G2: He combo'd quick and I wasn't able to stop it this time
G3: I held on long enough and "lived the dream" of BBE->Shardless-> value to take over the board

Round 2: Vs Burning Reanimator
2-0
G1: I had enough hate to hold him off, and remove a Sire of Insanity, grinded out a win in the long game
G2: Brought in more SB hate so I always had an answer for whatever was going on.

Round 3: Belcher
2-1
G1: I mulled aggressively for a FOW, but didnt find one. Ended up almost coming back anyway with 3 DRS blocking goblin tokens, but couldn't draw any mana.
G2: I kept a slow hand with DRS and Shardless, but luckily he didn't go off very quick. Eventually he had 12 Goblins, but I was able to race him with DRS activations
G3: I had the FoW to stop his first attempt to combo, and won the game a few turns later.

Round 4: Death and Taxes
We intentionally drew this round, but proceeded to play games anyway, and he won pretty easily in 2 games. 4 Colour manabase is really hard against D&T

[anwei]

Thoughts on the handful of unconventional slots, from testing or playing?

[hovercraft]

Thoughts on the handful of unconventional slots, from testing or playing?

I like experimenting with new cards, and since it's just small LGS events I don't mind trying them. Sideboard is always changing depending what I have in other sideboards and such.

Yesterday was the first time I tried the Guildmage, and it definitely saved me in 1 game vs Marit Laige, but I didnt see it in any other games. I love Rise/Fall as a pseudo-hymn that is also good in the late game if you cascade into it. Getting a cascader back from the GY is huge card advantage, and it is helpful for bumping Marit Laige or reanimated guys (but you have to a legal target for both parts of the card, in one game vs Pox I Abrupt decayed my own DRS so I could cast it).
I like Scroll Rack in this deck, since you usually draw a lot of cards and its great for setting up cascades. Sylvan Library works too, but mine is in another deck.
Izzet charm is a good 2 mana spell pierce, that can do something if cascaded into.
Become Immense won me 1 game by speeding up my clock. I find my graveyard is usually pretty full so its nice to have a bit of Delve value in that and Dig.

If you have any other thoughts/questions let me know. Very fun deck to play, hardest part is the mana base and fetching

[I_Hate_Counterspells]

Linked from reddit today. Anyone playing this deck?

[anwei]

I've been thinking of picking it back up some recently. It has a bad combo matchup (g1 at least) and can have a pretty rough fast Delver matchup. A solid midrange plan used to be, swarm the board and make their attacks into Goyf/Strix so costly that eventually DRS/walkers/P Fire grind through whatever they had. The printing of TNN made this a pretty bad plan; it may have gotten better now, as that's less-commonly used. The Shardless and Miracles matches should be pretty reasonable, and I'd imagine Team America isn't too bad.

Most recent list:
=23 Lands
2 U Sea
2 Tropical
2 Bayou
1 Volcanic
1 Badlands
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
11 Fetch

=18 Dudes
4 DRS
4 Sharldess Agent
4 Goyf
2 Baleful Strix
3 BBE
1 JTMS

=19 Spells
4 Brainstorm
3 Vision
3 P Fire
3 Decay
4 FoW
2 Thoughtseize

[HSCK]

I saw a version 4-0 with 3 TNN and Tasigur, definitely interested in trying it out.

[hartigan]

I saw a version 4-0 with 3 TNN and Tasigur, definitely interested in trying it out.

Do you have a link to this list?

[jroharo]

Do you have a link to this list?

Anybody find this list perchance?

[HSCK]

Sorry, it's somewhere in the Dailies, I'm a little lazy to do it. It was definitely up in the last week though.

[hartigan]

Sorry, it's somewhere in the Dailies, I'm a little lazy to do it. It was definitely up in the last week though.

Well I guess I'll scour them for the list... if I find it I'll post it here.

EDIT... Here's the list:

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 True-Name Nemesis

4 Ancestral Vision

2 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Lightning Bolt

2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

SIDEBOARD
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Duress
2 Engineered Plague
2 Golgari Charm
1 Krosan Grip
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Thoughtseize

[anwei]

I played this at a small (17) event this weekend and took 3rd. As always, I find this one of the most fun decks in the format, and one of the most powerful fair decks. Here's what I ran:

=22 Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Trop
2 Volc
1 U Sea
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Tar Pit
3 Grove of the Burnwillows

=17 Dudes
4 DRS
4 Sharldess Agent
4 Goyf
1 Baleful Strix
3 BBE
1 JTMS

=21 Spells
4 Brainstorm
3 Vision
2 Bolt
3 Decay
3 Punishing Fire
4 FoW
2 Thoughtseize

Board
2 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Plague
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 G Cage
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Null Rod
1 JTMS
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Maelstrom Pulse

I traveled to play and didn't know quite what to expect, but expected lots of fair blue decks. I think there were 0 Delver/Wasteland decks, 5 Infect, a couple of oddballs (Painter, Junk Depths, Eureka), and 1-3 of other normals like SnT, Reanimator, Miracles, Stoneblade, Burn and Storm. Avoid the SnT and Storm, and it should be a fine pick. After going undefeated in 5 rounds of swiss and (barely) beating Storm in T8, I lost to Miracles in the T4 in a very disheartening fashion. I had a "normal" G1 and quickly blew him out, then what seemed like an unlucky G2 with a good number of running whiffs, before a dreadful G3 where I had literally 12ish turns to hit *anything* and came up with maybe 9 lands and a couple Deathrite/Goyf. Good for a Bayou.

Notes/thoughts:
- I built the deck to win my good matches. I minimally committed to playing against SnT or Storm, and generally with cards that are fine in other matches (Null Rod and Venser). I doubt that 4 more slots for either match would make it good, so I didn't really bother. I'd probably add a second Venser, and do more in a still-more-open meta where I expected Omni-Tell (as I did not, here).
- Graveyard decks are much easier to hate out, and are more common at these sort of events, so I packed hate. In a more-open meta, I'd cut one of these.
- Carpets were mainly for tempo decks, but became my pet tech and I brought them in against Blade and Miracles. Turns out, the dream draws of action into cascading into action and visions and so-much-gas that Carpet-fueled value-trains make them want to quit magic aren't as common as I'd imagined, and I mainly drew it hellbent as a topdeck. I still don't know how good it is. It obviously compares favorably to DRS as an accelerator in my opening hand, and that's a big deal for this deck. It's also very good defense of the otherwise-fragile manabase against tempo, or allows me to capitalize on multiple Groves. I'd probably keep these, but be slower to side them in for grindy matches.
- P. Fire remains one of the hardest questions of building the deck. I never had both together, which wasn't too fun. I'd imagine it's good enough to run.
- You really give up a lot in several matches. You can win Omnitell or Storm games, but you need to draw and play well. Many fair matches are so good, though, that I'd still give the deck a thumbs up in fair metas, or when you're looking to cash but not necessarily T8 an Open, or (best of all) when you want to have fun.

Changes I'll make:
-1 removal (bolt, if I keep P. Fire), +1 JTMS maindeck
Considering -1 Trop, -1 Bayou; +1 Forest, +1 U Sea
Considering cutting P. Fire
SB: -1 JTMS, -1 Surgical Extraction, +1 Venser, +1 Jitte (or 4th Decay, Chill, Pyroblast, Cabal Therapy, Duress, Clique, Lily, etc.)

[HSCK]

Have you still been playing this? It looks like the format's pretty settled and I want try a deck that has some brute force to it but won't fold to combo either.

[anwei]

I played it again at some sort of IQ a few weeks back and opened 0-2 (both close) to TNN and Lands.

I still think it's one of the funnest decks, but, it objectively probably isn't too well-positioned. The best times for the deck are probably when the meta has high concentrations of Shardless, slower (non-RUG) Delver, and Miracles. If (e.g.) BUG Delver and Miracles can keep combo at bay enough for Shardless to thrive, those 3 all seem like fine match-ups. RUG Delver and combo are not particularly good match-ups.
Dig Through Time is an economical enough card that Shardless has seemed pretty outclassed lately (Miracles can outdraw it), and Omni-Tell is tough to beat, even post-board.

[HSCK]

I wonder if it's time to revisit this with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in a slot or two.

[ironclad8690]

So, now that Grixis is gone, I find myself with a bunch of Underground Seas, Tropical Islands, and Volcanic Islands (and 1 Badlands).

What are people playing these days?

According to the post above, it appears this deck will be at least decently positioned again with a rise in BUG based decks and Miracles.

[anwei]

I'd expect that the widespread meta in the next few weeks has the most to do with (a) what people expect to be good now and (b) what people are excited to return to, as anything else. And decks like Miracles, Elves, and Shardless appear to have fans lining up to get Cascaded. So, I think it's a pretty reasonable call for a not-really-Established deck. (And way more fun than any of those 3.)

As always, the mana base is a big weakness of the deck, as Wasteland can really impede your ability to play out such a high curve and costly removal even if they *don't* cut you out of important colors. I'd expect that that's the card this deck will live or die on, if it gets played.

[hartigan]

I wonder if it's time to revisit this with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in a slot or two.

You could cut the two DTT I posted in the list above and give him a try?

I'm seriously considering playing this deck again, at least in my local meta things are probably going to be VERY fair for a little while.

[ironclad8690]

Sup guys, so I went from Jund to Delver during the whole delve debacle and then I grew frustrated with the Miracles matchup (since it feels like it is 50% of the online metagame no joke) so I found myself liking Shardless but with punishing fire and BB elf. Here is the list I arrived on:


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Punishing Fire
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard:
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Flusterstorm
2 Arcane Laboratory
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Life from the Loam
1 Umezawa's Jitte


Obviously the sideboard could use some work, but I have been having pretty good results so far online, where combo seems to have died down a bit since the ban. Anyone have any suggestions?

[HNana]

Hey all, I won a small 9 person weekly using this list:
https://twitter.com/HBSTnipponbashi/status/654278363402493952/photo/1

Round 1 I played vs Bant Slivers:
Game 1 - He gets 3 muscle slivers and then played the flier, giving all his guys flying, i drew no removal.
I side out a goyf, 4 FOW and bring in murderous cut, both engineered plagues, and both null rods.
Game 2 - I drew bolts and decays, so I was able to take care of his early threats, dropping a bunch of shardless agents into goyfs/visions. Won pretty easily.
I side a null rod (there for his vial) and side in the golgari charm.
Game 3 - He mulls to 5, and I drew enough removal to get there, all the while beating with shardless/bbe.

1-0

Round 2 I play vs Mono U Wizards
Game 1 - He plays an early cursecatcher, and anything else either got decayed, bolted, and then i FOWed his opposition and he couldnt do anything.
I side out angler, a goyf, a jace, and a badlands I side in 2 engineered plague, carpet of flowers, and a murderous cut.
Game 2 - He plays out a bunch of X/1 weenie wizards. I resolve an early carpet of flowers that doesn't actually do much. I eventually resolve an engineered plague a couple turns later and he scoops.

Weird deck, the kind of deck that can lock me out of the game if he gets his pieces, but I had enough answers to not let it happen, all while applying a lot of pressure. Cascade gave too much advantage for him to deal with, and the things that could have really hurt me (static orb) didnt come.

2-0

Round 3 I play vs Death and Taxes
game 1 - I'm on the draw, he plays a plains, passes, I fetch for a sea, play DRS, pass. He swords it and then wastes my land and passes. I have plenty of land, and we pretty much do nothing for a few turns. He resolves a couple vials but i resolve a TNN. He can't get around it, and i'm able to kill his creatures or pressure more with BBE/shardless, etc.
I side out 2 FOW, 2 goyf (hes gotta have rips right?), and a jace. I side in both null rods, both plagues, murderous cut.
Game 2 - My opponent mulls to 5. He plays plains, vial, pass. I fow the vial pitching jace. I search for a sea, get DRS and pass. He again, wastes my land and swords my drs. I play another land, he wastes that too. He plays a vial and the next turn I resolve null rod. He passes, i resolve TNN turn 5 and he pretty much all but gives up.

Despite strong "swords your DRS, waste your only land" starts from d/t, I didn't really have too much of a problem with his deck. I drew a lot of lands and nailing a turn 3 TNN vs death and taxes is huge, as they have very little they can do about it.

Thoughts on the deck:
I had weird matchups today. For the mainboard, i tried an angler just to see if it would be good vs decks that run removal like decay, but he's bad against jace, miracles, stp, etc. A lot of cards do end up in my graveyard and being able to delve them is nice, but i think moving murderous cut to the main might be the right choice. Jace never got cast, but I also never went for the long game in any of my matches, I just beat down as fast as I could.
Sylvan Library is really really good. I'm pretty much always happy to see it.

Thoughts on the sideboard: Carpet of flowers isn't good. It never gave me an explosive start like I wanted and the mana rarely even did anything. I replaced it with a maelstrom pulse. I'm lacking artifact hate, so I was thinking a kolghans command might be good. Null Rod is amazing. Engineered plague is great. 4 thoughtseize makes me feel a bit better about terrible combo matchups. Everything else is necessary for anti-combo imo.

Other thoughts: I don't think the punishing fire package is necessary. Bolts were good enough, and the deck is already weak enough to wasteland.
I don't know if 2 jace is necessary, but origins jace is also a consideration. As I said Kolghans command might be good, but also might be too expensive.

The deck is really fun, and while I don't see it winning any large events, it really does beat "fair" decks pretty hard. Any suggestions for mainboard/sideboard cards to add/remove/replace would be welcome! I'm pretty adamant about not wanting to try punishing fire, because I don't like that many RG non fetchable lands in the deck.

[ironclad8690]

I'm pretty adamant about not wanting to try punishing fire, because I don't like that many RG non fetchable lands in the deck.

To each their own. Personally I love to savor that feeling when your Miracles opponent just looks at your grove + p fire and their eyes glaze over.

Anyhow nice True-Blood list. Seems consistent.

[anwei]

Sup guys, so I went from Jund to Delver during the whole delve debacle and then I grew frustrated with the Miracles matchup (since it feels like it is 50% of the online metagame no joke) so I found myself liking Shardless but with punishing fire and BB elf. Here is the list I arrived on:



I'd consider touching up the removal package to lower the curve. Not running Strix helps this, but the deck can often clog up around 2 drops, and Wasteland is already quite strong against us without. Playing like 2 Bolts as removal 7-8 really helps take back some tempo and get to your portion of the game, and 3 Punishing Fire is usually sufficient.



Hey all, I won a small 9 person weekly using this list:
https://twitter.com/HBSTnipponbashi/status/654278363402493952/photo/1


I'd replace Angler with the 4th Goyf. Early cascades into Goyf can mean playing on easy mode, and it's your most reasonable clock for combo.

[HNana]

To each their own. Personally I love to savor that feeling when your Miracles opponent just looks at your grove + p fire and their eyes glaze over.

Anyhow nice True-Blood list. Seems consistent. Yeah grove + pfire absolutely destroys a lot of decks. If I was on 3 colors, I would totally do it, but being on the 4 color list makes me kind of eh about it. Creeping tar pit gives black and blue which actually makes it really important to me otherwise that would probably get the cut too for another fetch or another sea.

Thanks! Yeah, it was very consistent. lots of fetches and all sorts of duals surprisingly gave me no issues. It was kind of funny cracking a wooded foothills and being like "wait I can't grab underground sea!" But if i needed black mana i grabbed a bayou or badlands, and if i needed blue i grabbed a trop or volc. Worked pretty well.


I'd replace Angler with the 4th Goyf. Early cascades into Goyf can mean playing on easy mode, and it's your most reasonable clock for combo.
Thanks! I'll try this! Angler is cool but just not really what this deck is about.

[Qweerios]

At one point you have to realise how much card advantage this deck's core has already and what are its good/bad matchups. If you consider 4 AV, 4 Shardless and 2-3 Bloodbraids as part of your core, I don't think PFire's additional CA/Grind abilities are that appealing considering the core contains more than enough grind for the average midrange/control matchup. Cutting into your Bolts and Decays for PFire and losing some consistency in your manabase makes our favorable matchups slightly more favorable (AKA: win more) while weakening our more swinging matchups (Delver decks) by augmenting our vulnerability to Wasteland, Daze, and aggressive openers.

Moving on to Gurmag Angler, I think Hooting Mandrill being on color, costing slightly less, and providing trample is superior. However, that slot is usually dedicated to smoothing out the blue count for FoW.

[HNana]

I changed the zombie fish to a goyf, and it seems to be working out ok. But yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with pfire. I tried the pfire version and i couldnt get grove and pfire together enough tbh.

I was thinking about trying a single copy of bring to light because it can get a bloodbraid, a decay, a visions, pretty much whatever i need at the moment. I would only be doing that cause it's "cute", not because it seems like the best option for the deck, though.

I played a bunch of matches against my 12post friend. The deck really lacks hate against nonbasics and decks like that. Thankfully nobody really plays the deck and we can race it, but when they start out turn 1 "cloudpost, go", then I think we're in trouble lol.

[Qweerios]

You could always pack some blood moons in the sb.

[HNana]

You could always pack some blood moons in the sb.
I can't tell if you're joking or not. =|

[Qweerios]

I can't tell if you're joking or not. =|

No I am not. We have virtually no avenues against Lands and Dark Depths combo decks (anything packing WasteLoam really). We can cast all of our spells using only a basic forest and a basic island since Abrupt Decay is not very useful against those decks anyway. If the purpose of your sideboard is to improve your worst matchups and blood moon is one of the best cards to play against your worst matchup, then I suggest playing it.

Moreover, with a sb plan containing 3 Blood Moons, playing Wasteland in the main could be substituted by more colored lands, perhaps a Creeping Tar Pit and/or the new GU hexproof land.

Ps: I play a single Blood Moon with my Enlightened Tutor package in my 4 colored bombardment deck with only 1 swamp as basic land and it works great.

[HNana]

Ah, I'm playing the 4 color version, I run 6 different types of dual lands (any nonwhite ones), 0 basics, and 0 wastelands. A blood moon would def mess me up more than it would help against lands/12post. I play each color about even, so unless i have one island, one swamp, and one forest, I would be in trouble. Even stuff like crumble to dust isn't any good because they can crop rotate in response. Maybe some maindeck wastelands might be the key for my build...

[Qweerios]

You should have a basic forest and a basic island in your deck so you dont lose to blood moon(and also play it if you desire) or price of progress. I don't know how black heavy you are but Deathrite is perfectly fine under blood moon without a black source and, as mentioned in my last post, decays shouldnt be missed too much. Do you play thoughtseize mainboard or something? If you are, it's an unecessary stretch of the manabase and the card is hideous against loam decks anyway. Other than that, I fail to see what black cards you need to play so much in your UGrb deck.

[HNana]

Yeah, I might try to get rid of black and run the punishing fire package (and a basic forest/island). I have a lot of weeklies so I can definitely tune the deck in a bunch of different ways. Thanks for the tips!

[ironclad8690]

Due to some poor decisions this is all I have on magic online now:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
4 Baleful Strix
3 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Disfigure
2 Duress
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Notion Thief
1 Golgari Charm

Testing has been going well so far, with victories over esper mentor and merfolk. I am going to try and work my way back up to a better list, but this is what ive got in the meantime.

It basically plays like a Zoo list that operates by completely overwhelming the opponent with 1 for 1s, moreso than jund or shardless. The basic lands are nice but I miss wasteland.

[ironclad8690]

This deck is so much fun

http://i.imgur.com/cXFT6th.png

[guybrush3]

Has anyone tested x4 Sarkhan Unbroken in a less creature deck and more control shell, keeping only the x8 cascade creatures? maybe leaving also the shamans to ramp.
Since he has the super ability to create 4 4 flying dragons I see him both as a finisher and also as a cute draw engine Planewalker? He fits the card advantage style of the deck and his tremendously cool :tongue:


ps: Anyone thought about playing http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=126218&type=card&options=rotate90 to armageddon all lands with cascade for free? Maybe trying a hard pack of x3 life from the loam and x4 boom/bust without forces of will? Might be cool?

A LIST OF THE DECK I WILL TEST TOMORROW:

http://www.essentialmagic.com/Decks/View.asp?ID=1040596

3 View Picture Bloodbraid Elf Buy You don't own this card
4 View Picture Deathrite Shaman Buy You don't own this card
4 View Picture Shardless Agent Buy You don't own this card


Spells
4 View Picture Ancestral Vision Buy You don't own this card
1 View Picture Boom Buy You don't own this card
4 View Picture Brainstorm Buy You don't own this card
1 View Picture Bust Buy You don't own this card
4 View Picture Force of Will Buy You don't own this card
1 View Picture Life from the Loam Buy You don't own this card
3 View Picture Lightning Bolt Buy You don't own this card
1 View Picture Misdirection Buy You don't own this card
3 View Picture Punishing Fire Buy You don't own this card


Enchantments
2 View Picture Sylvan Library Buy You don't own this card

Lands
1 View Picture Bayou Buy You don't own this card
1 View Picture Forest Buy You don't own this card
3 View Picture Grove of the Burnwillows Buy You don't own this card
3 View Picture Misty Rainforest Buy You don't own this card
1 View Picture Taiga Buy You don't own this card
2 View Picture Tropical Island Buy You don't own this card
2 View Picture Volcanic Island Buy You don't own this card
4 View Picture Wasteland Buy You don't own this card
4 View Picture Wooded Foothills Buy You don't own this card
1 island

Planeswalkers
3 View Picture Sarkhan Unbroken Buy You don't own this card

About boom/bust: i think it goes well with cascade of course but also with most of the deck cards. Shaman give u one mana even after armageddon effect. You will probably have lands to play due to and visions drawing machine (if cascade them or even if played them in the first turns normally) . Life from the loam helps you get lands back to move faster that your opponent. You have 1 cmanacost spells to deal with small creatures if they are in play after Bust. Pun Fire is also a good mechanic to go on with with 1 grove in play (life loam helps u).

Apart from boom bust (that is just an idea that needs testing) I would like to know what do you think of the whole deck build, with the x3 planes walkers of course (that to me, will work better in a certain way than tarmogoyf). I'm in love with unbroken, sorry:cool: so in love that i don't care about his useless third ability in this deck.

[Plm]

guybrush3 the formatting of your list makes my eyes bleed :tongue:

Why play 1 loam if you only have 2 boom // bust ? why not a third boom ?

I found that punishing fire is hard to include in a list that plays gueddon (why not replace them with izzet charm? Kills those manadorks, counter those spells, fixes your draws, not the worst cascade for a counterspell), also removing the grove help a lot with the manabase stability.

Also sarkhan is 5cc , in a deck with gueddon and waste ... and just he's 5cc in legacy, he should win the game now (and he doesn't).
you could switch him with 3 TNN (because it's awesome) or with some mindsculptors (controlling their draws is so good after a gueddon).

If you go the jace route, you might cut a sylvan library.

Also why the misdirection?

keep in mind that boom is a sinkhole if you control a fetch or a waste :smile:

[guybrush3]

guybrush3 the formatting of your list makes my eyes bleed

Why play 1 loam if you only have 2 boom // bust ? why not a third boom ?

I found that punishing fire is hard to include in a list that plays gueddon (why not replace them with izzet charm? Kills those manadorks, counter those spells, fixes your draws, not the worst cascade for a counterspell), also removing the grove help a lot with the manabase stability.

Also sarkhan is 5cc , in a deck with gueddon and waste ... and just he's 5cc in legacy, he should win the game now (and he doesn't).
you could switch him with 3 TNN (because it's awesome) or with some mindsculptors (controlling their draws is so good after a gueddon).

If you go the jace route, you might cut a sylvan library.

Also why the misdirection?

keep in mind that boom is a sinkhole if you control a fetch or a waste

Yeah you are right on most of the things u said. I will try a x3/4 boom maybe and take out the punshfire package. The dragon man costs a lot indeed for boom package. Have u ever played it?

QUESTION 1:
Why instead of jace dont try to use deck fayden planeswalker? He works with cascade and allows you to play with the deck. Plus they will attack him cuz they dont want u to activate his last ab. That is bad considered all the targetting spelle we have... bolts ,charms, boom

...

New list :

:cool:Creatures:

:rg::ug:
3 Bloodbraid Elf core
4 Shardless Agent core
:g:
4 Deathrite Shaman (or 4 nobles?)

2 Tarmogoyf killers
2 Nimble Mongoose good synergy with gueddon and waste - killers (or 4 goyfs or 2 tnn)

...

Spells:

:r:
2 Izzet charm or Fire//ice or ( read below) 2 stifle
3 Lightning Bolt essential

3 Bust Boom u don't sac if fetching or waste landing , good if anc. recall is suspended
:g:
1 Life from the Loam to recover from bust and card advantage
:u:
4 Ancestral Vision core
4 Brainstorm core
4 Force of Will or... read below

QUESTION 2:
I want to open a discussion about this x4 cards in this kind of deck: is it worth to play force of will? I know it doesn't cascade and you have one of the strongest cards ever..but... only 4 counters in a deck..does this make sense? Shouldn't we put some x4 permanent removal or some permanent bouncing, maybe?
-I'll rather put x2 maelstrom pulse and x2 abrupt decay to play with shamans black mana.

-If we are going in the land disruption way (even if in this format it really never worked) I actually thought of this card Æther Tradewinds that bounces their lands and your cascade spells... Might work x4 instead of the FotW?( we can stille SB them) Chain of Vapor ,, Turbulent Dreams and Boomerang are also pretty good stuff and they both always cascade.
(if we are going in a x4 bouncing land spells maybe 2 stifle will be nice instead of the charms)

-A list of other stuff I found, most of them r crap or fun:
powder keg or Beast Within or dismember or Bramblecrush or or Wild Swing or Filigree Fracture (to side) or Pure (to side)?

Just an idea to discuss with u all.

...



:0:Lands:

1 Forest
1 island

4 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

4 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest

3 Wasteland

QUESTION 3: (quite stupid):cry:
(would be nice to play a few flagstone of trokair perhaps any lands that helps with the afterboom? or maybe just add some flagstones and 1 or 2 double lands to fetch plain/island plain/mountain plain/forest .however the mana curve doesn't help this. Knights of reliquary in this case x2 ( instead of the mongoose will be nice since u can also use nobles to cast them) . Still don't know if cutting to x2 tarmo is smart or not.


Planeswalkers:

2 Jace, the mind sculptor (best thing after Booming)
or
2 sylvan library
or
2 Jace, the Living Guildpact


QUESTION 4:
PS:has anyone ever considered this?
http://essentialmagicimages.com/93/50167.jpg

[Plm]

@ sarkhan : never tried him, he cost 5 that's too much for something which isn't auto win.

@ dack : how does he work with cascade ? do you mean that you can cascade into it ? I'd rather have my jace setting nice cascades (and lock them out of lands after a bust). I won't play dack without a way to profit from his +1 (either grave shenanigans or punishing fire).

@ 4 beaters : tarmo is still a great dumb fatty (and playing a 4/5 before a gueddon have a nice nostalgic feeling), I can get the point of goose having shroud but the points in favor of nemesis are : less likely to cascade into (so more likely to flip a recall), solid clock, protects jace , its downside being 3cc is a lot more than 2 after a bust.

@ force : I think it still is a necessity, you have the card advantage to use it, just target the spells that would wreck you :smile:

@ 4 Taiga : I don't get your colors repartition, blue is more important than red , isn't it ?

@ splash white : not enough space to splach white and play the bust package, the deck is real tight

@ beck // call : I don't know if you can cast it with fuse when cascading into, if yes is could be interesting, if not it hadn't enough power to be in the deck.

[guybrush3]

@ 4 beaters
with boom and bust nemesis is quite expensive for an after cast. He is good however i'm not sure its better than a 1cmc like goose. I'll leave him out for now since he doesn't work with the cascade sharpless.
@ beck // call : I don't know if you can cast it with fuse when cascading into, if yes is could be interesting, if not it hadn't enough power to be in the deck.[/QUOTE]
no u can't fuse

quickupdatedlist:
:rg::ug:
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Shardless Agent
:g:
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 noble hierarch
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Nimble Mongoose
:r::ur:
2 Fire // Ice
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Bust Boom
:g:
1 Life from the Loam
:u:
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
:0:
1 Forest
1 island
2 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Wasteland
Planeswalkers:
1 Jace, the mind sculptor
1 Jace, the Living Guildpact
I'll proxy some cards and test it this week

[Whitefaces]

Due to some poor decisions this is all I have on magic online now:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
4 Baleful Strix
3 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Disfigure
2 Duress
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Notion Thief
1 Golgari Charm

Testing has been going well so far, with victories over esper mentor and merfolk. I am going to try and work my way back up to a better list, but this is what ive got in the meantime.

It basically plays like a Zoo list that operates by completely overwhelming the opponent with 1 for 1s, moreso than jund or shardless. The basic lands are nice but I miss wasteland.

This looks like so much fun. I'll try it at my LGS next week I think (summoning Griselbrand and Emrakul tonight!), if I do I'll let you know how it goes.

[guybrush3]

playing like this tonight at a local friendly tournament with 6 ppl , if u wonder why of some cards is cuz i don't own jace and force ( I lost my merfolk deck 1 year ago :cry: )
creatures
:rg::ug:
3 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Shardless Agent
:g:
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 noble hierarch
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
spells
:r::ur:
4 Izzet charm
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Bust Boom
:g:
1 Life from the Loam
1 Sylnvan Library
:u:
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm

:0:
1 Forest
1 island
2 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Wasteland
Planeswalkers:

1 Jace, the Living Guildpact

sideboard to decide this afternoon

[Plm]

Guybrush3, how did it went ?

I have a few questions about your list :
Why the split hierarch / drs ?

How did clique perform ? would you play 4 goyf / 2 clique instead of 3/3 ? (better cascade, no legendary issue)

Did you miss force ?

Why 3 wasteland in an ernhamgueddon deck ?
And what was your sideboard ?

[guybrush3]

Guybrush3, how did it went ?

I have a few questions about your list :
Why the split hierarch / drs ?

How did clique perform ? would you play 4 goyf / 2 clique instead of 3/3 ? (better cascade, no legendary issue)

Did you miss force ?

Why 3 wasteland in an ernhamgueddon deck ?
And what was your sideboard ?

mm it was bad. I played against a BG pox and a Whitegreen with Natural and Eureka . Don't have time right now to write down the details (i played like 5 games per deck) but i can say that boom doesn't work. It's too risky and if you are not controlling the board it's completely useless.
Shaman and Hierarch were good. Different solutions but same results. Very good in different situations.
3/3 clique were very good. Always a super solution to have them in your hand. Yes, i missed force. The sigil wasn't good at all. To control i will go x4 force and x3 clique. best solution i think. x2 jace would be better than1 , sylvan can can stay out of the deck to help cascade into other stuff too.

However i thing that Red is not that good and even if blood braid is red/green this deck will perform much better with BLACK instead of red.
that's all.

[HNana]

However i thing that Red is not that good and even if blood braid is red/green this deck will perform much better with BLACK instead of red.
that's all. So...shardless bug?

[Plm]

@ guybrush , sigil? you mean izzet charm ? How bad was it ?

boom/bust being bad is no surprise, for harmaguedon effects to be playable, you need to pair them with trinisphere (which you can't do here).

if you remove the boom package you've got 4 slots, either for the black splash and decay or for punishing fire.

@ black better than red, yeah it seems that a lot of players think that shardless is the better deck :tongue:

I like the GUrb version but the manabase is so frail, and I hate losing to waste.

Staying three colors we could explore the punishing fire plan, it goes well with the grinding plan, overwelming them with CA. (and it plays well with izzet charm).

temptative list :

4 shardless
3 bloodbraid elf
4 goyf
4 mana dork (bear with me for a second, will go back to that latter)
2 vendilion clique (could have been nemesis but I like the ambushing and the interaction vs combo and miracle)

4 force of will
4 brainstorm
3 ancestral vison (yeah I slay the sacred cow)
3 punishing fire
3 lightning bolt
4 izzet charm

22 lands, with basics, grove, no more than 2 wasteland if any

So we've got 4 force 4 cham and 2 clique as stack interaction.
10 spot removal, 3 of them recuring should keep the board clear of small critter.

3 ancestral vision ??? WTF ?:eek: vision is a bad card to draw, it is just for cascading into. with 7 cascading guys and the 3 punishing fire we have enough CA so we can pass on one of the vision. (also nice interaction between izzet charm and punishing fire :wink:)

So what about that mana dork ?
The options are DRS (but he is unreliable, and beg for a black dual, butchering the manabase).
Noble hierarch (but don't produce red, and we plan to clog the board so no exaltation).
Bird (but it is a plain mana dork, the best to produce mana of any color, with no other upside).
And honored hierarch (What? but he isn't a mana dork !!! yeah but with 10 removal we can ensure he connects on turn 2, and then he becomes a bear that also produce mana thanks to vigilance) I'm testing that and It 's not reliable as a mana dork but when you "flip" it that's the dream :smile:

Also if you stay 3 colors you can emulate Lejay and play the meddling mage splash in the board (with the tundra either main or side). (I didn't try that in the 4 colors build , going wit hthe 6 discards sideboard plan )

Temptative sideboard would be :

4 meddling mage
1 tundra
2 pithing needle
2 krosan gripp
1 scavenging ooze
1 grafdigger's cage
1 surgical extraction
1 izzet staticaster
2 forked bolt

[HSCK]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-constructed-league-2016-02-20

Really interesting variant of Waterfalls popped up on the second Legacy League today.

[anwei]

That is interesting. I've tried Guided Passage before and been underwhelmed. I guess cutting Agent solves the 3-drop crowding that made TNN a tough addition before? I wonder what his/her matchups were.

[maCHOOga]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-constructed-league-2016-02-20

Really interesting variant of Waterfalls popped up on the second Legacy League today.

This deck peaked my curiosity as well. I play tested it some and did some minor updates to that list:
-2 Grim Lavamancers
+1 Sylvan Library
+1 Domri Rade (it's one of my pet cards!)
-1 Tropical / Volcanic Island
+1 Island / Forest
I didn't like Grim Lavamancer in a deck that's running Tarmogoyf and Deathrite Shaman. I also know that every guided passage would yield a grim lavamancer.
I didn't want to be stone cold dead to Bloodmoon, back to basics, etc: hence the inclusion of basics.

I was coerced to play it at my weekly local. (I didn't even have time to take my playtest cards out). Went 3-0 on the night including a camera match against lands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnQ8rn95PMA
Also squeaked wins by against Burn and Elves. I'll post a link when it shows up on youtube. Regardless, I was impressed by guided passage. The end result is usually the same though: You get +1 Deathrite Shaman, +1 Forest, +1 Ponder.

Going forward, I want to make some tweaks to the SB, but I think this deck has legs. I suspect this deck will just keel over to Storm and Eldrazi though.

[ironclad8690]

I just can't put this deck down

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix
2 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard
4 Envelop
4 Meddling Mage
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Scrubland

I took it into a league and got really unlucky vs eldrazi, bricking my 4th land drop for several turns (and had him at 2 with no blockers for a bloodbraid in hand), but I feel the deck is both strong and well positioned for mtgo. Miracles MU feels unloseable.

[Esper3k]

I've been playing that list from the league except with -1 BBE, +1 Shardless to push the curve down a little and give me another blue card.

The deck has been hilarious to play, especially the first time you cast Guided Passage and your opponent goes "wtf!"

[ironclad8690]

So I took the list above into a league and went 1-4, but then I switched out -1 Ancestral + 1 Sylvan Library and -1 FOW +1 Strix, it worked much better and I went 4-1 losing to UR Painter, beating UR Painter, Miracles, Grixis Delver, and Maverick.

[ironclad8690]

4-1 in another league.

Cephalid Breakfast: 1-0 (he timed out in g1)
Miracles: 2-0
Elves: 0-2
Enchantress: 2-0
Miracles: 2-1 (timed out g3)

I am having great success beating Miracle game 1, losing game 2 in like 15 minutes, and then boarding in all removal for game 3 to stop a fast Mentor/Clique. Obviously the strategy only works online where the clock is a big factor, and I wouldn't recommend that strategy in paper, but it has been working out pretty well for me.

[CovenantElite30]

4-1 in another league.

Cephalid Breakfast: 1-0 (he timed out in g1)
Miracles: 2-0
Elves: 0-2
Enchantress: 2-0
Miracles: 2-1 (timed out g3)

I am having great success beating Miracle game 1, losing game 2 in like 15 minutes, and then boarding in all removal for game 3 to stop a fast Mentor/Clique. Obviously the strategy only works online where the clock is a big factor, and I wouldn't recommend that strategy in paper, but it has been working out pretty well for me.

My buddy saw your list online so I'm going to put the cards together for him this week to play at our FNM.

What is your latest and greatest list?

My local meta is mostly stoneforge decks (D&T, Mavrick, Esper Stoneblade), some elves and burn.

[ironclad8690]

In your metagame I would play this:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix
2 Bloodbraid Elf
16

4 Brainstorm
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Force of Will
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
21

2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
10 Fetchlands
3 Wasteland
23

Sideboard:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Null Rod
1 Golgari Charm
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Force of Will
1 Life from the Loam
1 Pithing Needle
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Duress
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Thoughtseize
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Zuran Orb

[maCHOOga]

For all those that play this deck, has anyone else had amazing success with a singleton Arlinn Kord. I have the opportunity to play Guided Jund Saturday at a legacy challenge event and Arlinn turned out to be better than I thought it was going to be.

- Miracles conceded when it landed in play: made a wolf, bolted them, made a wolf.
- With a TNN in play the turn before, I was able to reduce the time to kill using Arlinn by 2 turns.
- I haven't lived the dream yet, but you should be able to set up a bloodbraid into tarmogyf, plus Arlinn on goyf and swing for around 9-12 damage out of nowhere. It also keeps the goyf back on defense to protect her.

I was prepared to go to Sunday's SCG Classic, but got stuck in traffic due to a marathon/walk outside the event. Made it there 10 minutes after then event started. Arghhh....

[grahilah]

If the deck looks like I went through a trade binder and pulled out things that looking fun and that I wanted to play, that's because I did that exact thing. I know the list isn't optimal, but I just wanted to have fun riding the train to value town!

Creatures
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Baleful Strix
1 Jori En, Ruin Diver
1 Tireless Tracker

Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Punishing Fire
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Standstill
1 Kolagahn's Command

Lands
1x Treetop Village
1x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Raging Ravine
1x River of Tears
2x Grove of the Burnwillows
2x Volcanic Island
2x Tropical Island
2x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
1x Bayou
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest

Went 3-0-1 in a local event, beating Miracles, Grixis Delver, and Eldrazi, drawing due to time with Jund. Deck is really fun. Highlights include Toxic Deluge to wipe the board and then turn after went Bloodbraid into Shardless into Goyf. Other times BBE into Shardless into Deathrite.

I'm sure I'd just auto-lose to Storm and Belcher, but those decks are rare in the local meta. Going to try the Meddling Mage sideboard for a GPT this weekend.

I'm pulling out some suboptimal pieces, like Treetop Village, Kolagahn's Command, and Tireless Tracker, going up to full 4 each of Abrupt Decay and Ancestral Vision.

[mistercakes]

For all those that play this deck, has anyone else had amazing success with a singleton Arlinn Kord. I have the opportunity to play Guided Jund Saturday at a legacy challenge event and Arlinn turned out to be better than I thought it was going to be.

- Miracles conceded when it landed in play: made a wolf, bolted them, made a wolf.
- With a TNN in play the turn before, I was able to reduce the time to kill using Arlinn by 2 turns.
- I haven't lived the dream yet, but you should be able to set up a bloodbraid into tarmogyf, plus Arlinn on goyf and swing for around 9-12 damage out of nowhere. It also keeps the goyf back on defense to protect her.

I was prepared to go to Sunday's SCG Classic, but got stuck in traffic due to a marathon/walk outside the event. Made it there 10 minutes after then event started. Arghhh....

does this mean with the planeswalker when it landed in play you did this all in 1 turn? or this was over the course of 3 turns?

[HSCK]

In your metagame I would play this:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix
2 Bloodbraid Elf
16

4 Brainstorm
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Force of Will
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
21

2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
10 Fetchlands
3 Wasteland
23

Sideboard:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Null Rod
1 Golgari Charm
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Force of Will
1 Life from the Loam
1 Pithing Needle
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Duress
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Thoughtseize
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Zuran Orb

What are you playing now? It seems well positioned for the current metagame.

[HSCK]

So my friend spiked an IQ with this:

Waterfalls

Creatures: 18
2 Baleful Strix
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent

Planeswalkers: 1
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Spells: 19
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Punishing Fire
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

Lands: 22
1 Forest
1 Island
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Bayou
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard: 15
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Life from the Loam
1 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Blood Moon

Not sure on the sideboard though, it was literally things I just had on me. I want to fit 3 Thoughtseize in probably?

[anwei]

So my friend spiked an IQ with this:

Waterfalls

Not sure on the sideboard though, it was literally things I just had on me. I want to fit 3 Thoughtseize in probably?

I boarded 6 discard (3 thoughtseize, 2 duress, and a cabal therapy) last time I played the deck and liked it pretty well, especially over the counters, since they play into the tap-out style better.

Maindeck looks very solid. I would probably cut the 3rd Sea for a Badlands - half your black cards are UB, so Sea can make for awkward early fetching/drops, and Badlands is really nice to fetch opposite Trop or basics to have all your colors. It doesn't come up too often that you get mana-constrained with Grove, but access to more red sources are nice when it does happen.

[HSCK]

I've definitely thought of more red sources. I think I actually switched out a Trop for a Taiga and forgot to update my decklist before posting. I'm going to play 3 Thoughtseize and a Toxic Deluge over 2 Flusterstorm, Loam, and one Clique. You should stop by the Bant thread too.

[HateKnuckle]

What do you guys think about Guided Passage? It's almost like the second Ancestral.

Thoughts on Temur Charm? It seems that if the deck wants to play cheaper counter magic it only has Izzet Charm and Temur Charm as it's possible spells.

Should the deck play a Raging Ravine or Lumbering Falls? Considering the density of creatures I doubt it would need help in that department but if the removal is heavy then I could imagine that they could act as back up after getting Terminused.

[HSCK]

There's a Guided Passage version I've tried that was just a bit too clunky, no Shardless, no AV, 4 BBE, 3 Ponder, 3 Passage. I would never want to cascade into Temur Charm with BBE and it's just too expensive for what you get.

[ironclad8690]

Just went 4-1 in a league with this list:

Food Chain: 2-1
Death and Taxes: 1-2
Grixis Delver: 2-0
UR Delver: 2-1
BR Reanimator: 2-0

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Baleful Strix
2 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Ancestral Vision
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard
3 Meddling Mage
2 Thoughtseize
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Golgari Charm
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Scrubland
2 Pyroblast

I think cascade is well positioned now because of it's strength vs both Miracles and Eldrazi, and Delver being close to 50/50 (maybe slightly more favorable). Combo matchups are generally weak, but GY based are always beatable with Shaman.

[Qweerios]

Anybody appreciates Clique over TNN/Strix? I like how Clique adds to our disruption while also fitting the Cascade and beatdown plan. I also really like Strix for Eldrazi but I find it difficult to splash that much Black as to force UB on T2. I would be comfortable running something like 3 Thoughtseize, 4 FoW, and 2 Cliques as mainboard disruption if the manabase allows.

@Ironclad,

How is your manabase with 2 Bayou? Is the lack of basic lands a concession to Strix? I play as many black cards as you but I managed to keep the two basics in against Lands and Price.

My list is very similar to yours since the printing of Leovold. I find Leovold to be the Meddling Mage we needed to pair with discard spells. Discard + no cantrip is a strong way to disrupt every combo deck we struggle with (Elves, Storm, SnT). The biggest difference between our lists I think is that I play 3 Thoughtseize main over Strix, and 2 Nemesis over 4th Decay and Pulse. I can see how these differences force you to play more dual lands as the color requirements of your cards are higher.

I have also moved away from Null Rod in favor of Jitte now that I have more hatebears against combo. Rakdos Charm has replaced Ancient Grudge for me as well because having more GY hate was more important than doubling up on artifact removal.

Combo decks have improved but Lands is still terrible...

Here's what I've been up to:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Bloodbraid Elf

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Abrupt Decay

3 Thoughtseize
3 Ancestral Visions

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Forest
//SB
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Meddling Mage
3 Duress
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Tundra

[ironclad8690]

I dunno, I have just always liked bayou and the "full greed route". Speaking of which:

http://media.wizards.com/2016/bn8f9t2zc_C16/FoPg1n2Tr8_EN.png

Maybe in the 3rd strix or 2nd bloodbraid slot

[HSCK]

I definitely want to try that as a one-of.

[Qweerios]

Unfortunately I don't think Yidris is remotely as good as bloodbraid.

[anwei]

Anyone been playing this lately? I'm considering running it at the Louisville GP and am interested in any initial thoughts on how it's positioned at the moment (and P. Fire vs. without).
I'm going in assuming that (1) in longer tournaments, later rounds will see fewer fast combo decks, so if you can start off okay (or get byes), fair trump decks do well, (2) the deck isn't one of the very best, but is reasonably strong in most fair match-ups, but (3) it's super fun, and I'd rather lose than be bored at a long tournament...

[EunB]

Anyone been playing this lately? I'm considering running it at the Louisville GP and am interested in any initial thoughts on how it's positioned at the moment (and P. Fire vs. without).
I'm going in assuming that (1) in longer tournaments, later rounds will see fewer fast combo decks, so if you can start off okay (or get byes), fair trump decks do well, (2) the deck isn't one of the very best, but is reasonably strong in most fair match-ups, but (3) it's super fun, and I'd rather lose than be bored at a long tournament...

No matter how far into the tournament you get you'll still face the blisteringly fast BR Reanimator. I would be surprised if at least one copy didn't make top 8. I would not recommend this deck if you want to reasonably try to do well. If you just want to have fun, though, go for it. No better choice.

[anwei]

No matter how far into the tournament you get you'll still face the blisteringly fast BR Reanimator. I would be surprised if at least one copy didn't make top 8. I would not recommend this deck if you want to reasonably try to do well. If you just want to have fun, though, go for it. No better choice.

Yea, I would intend to board 4 Leyline. That has strategic problems overall, but the combo match-ups are generally bad enough that over-committing to the GY ones (which isn't really possible to do in the same way with Storm or Elves or SnT) puts me in a position to hit some lucky match-ups and do okay.

[Seraphix]

Yea, I would intend to board 4 Leyline. That has strategic problems overall, but the combo match-ups are generally bad enough that over-committing to the GY ones (which isn't really possible to do in the same way with Storm or Elves or SnT) puts me in a position to hit some lucky match-ups and do okay.

What does your list look like?

Leyline isn't only a good call for Griselbrand, but for Lands too (which I imagine is a disaster for this deck).

It may be worth jamming all the Mindbreak Traps alongside Leylines for a GP. All sorts or random stuff goes down in the first few rounds.

[HSCK]

Anyone been playing this lately? I'm considering running it at the Louisville GP and am interested in any initial thoughts on how it's positioned at the moment (and P. Fire vs. without).
I'm going in assuming that (1) in longer tournaments, later rounds will see fewer fast combo decks, so if you can start off okay (or get byes), fair trump decks do well, (2) the deck isn't one of the very best, but is reasonably strong in most fair match-ups, but (3) it's super fun, and I'd rather lose than be bored at a long tournament...

I think there's an uptick in Aluren and Sneak and Show, so I'm not sure where this deck fits against that. I've really wanted to try this deck with Leovolds because it helps in a lot of match-ups.

[anwei]

What does your list look like?


Stockish Something like:
22 lands (probably 2 basics, either 3 Grove or 2-3 wasteland)
4 drs, goyf, shardless
2 TNN, bbe, strix
1 Jace, leovold
4 brainstorm, 4 for, 3 visions
2 bolt, 3 decay, 3 p fire (or like bolt, jitte, k command)

Flexing on the p. fires, 4th agent (if too many 3-drops), 0-2 TNN, 0-2 Leovold, 0-2 main deck jitte, 3rd strix, removal

[brohannesjahms]

Hello y'all, I've been working on some changes to my list in the post-Miracles world and have done pretty well at my local Legacy nights (3-1s and a 4-0 here and there). This is what I've got:

3x Baleful Strix
2x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Deathrite Shaman
2x Leovold, Emmisary of Trest
4x Shardless Agent
3x Tarmogoyf

3x Abrupt Decay
3x Ancestral Vision
4x Brainstorm
1x Collective Brutality
4x Force of Will
1x Kolaghan's Command
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Punishing Fire

1x Badlands
1x Bayou
1x Forest
3x Grove of the Burnwillowsfoil icon
1x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
2x Volcanic Island

SB:

1x Collective Brutality
2x Echoing Truth
2x Flusterstorm
1x Golgari Charm
4x Leyline of the Void
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Toxic Deluge

I'm trying to find a spot to jam a second Pithing Needle into my board since I'm stone cold to a lot of Marit Lage decks, any thoughts?

[hovercraft]

Echoing Truth hits ML too. Otherwise, could you swap Leylines for different grave hate and only play 3 Grave Hate cards instead of 4? Surgical Extraction or something?

[brohannesjahms]

I've definitely considered Surgical, but it's significantly less of a beating against decks like Storm (very popular in my meta) and 4c loam. Might be worth trying out for a night or two.

[wcm8]

I would highly, highly recommend Kolaghan's Command. I've been jamming 2 copies of the card in a Grixis Delver list, and it's pretty much always been nuts in a wide variety of matchups. Even against combo decks with no good targets, it at least Shocks for 2 and forces a discard.

I would start testing something along these lines:

22 lands:
10 Fetches (4 VCatacombs; 4 MRainforest; 2 PDelta)
3 Basics: Island, Swamp, Forest
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Badlands

14 creatures:
4 DRS
4 Shardless Agent
2 Blood-Braid Elf
2 Leovold
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

24 spells:
4 FoW
4 Brainstorm
4 LBolt
4 AVision
2 KCommand
3 As Foretold
1 Sylvan Library
1 Jace TMS
1 Wheel of Fate

Blue count = 23

I think the main 60 should be designed to beat up on fair decks -- you win by simple virtue of card advantage. Almost everything is a 2-for-1 and/or yields a high return for its relative mana cost. The advantage this has over Jund is access to Force of Will and the various Blue cards; the advantage over straight BUG Cascade is that you can use Burn to win quickly and/or against a stalled board position. BBElf and KCommand alone practically make the Red splash worth it for this style of deck.

An example of a 'singleton' sideboard (a work in progress, to be adjusted further as the metagame develops):
1 REB
1 Pyroblast
1 BEB
1 Hydroblast
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Fire Covenant
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal

As Foretold helps solve the problem inherent with playing 4 colors as well as combos with Suspend cards. Early testing is promising. Along with the cascade creatures, the deck is fairly good at being able to chain together draw spells in order to continuously chuck more cards at the opponent than they can deal with. I definitely want to tweak it some more, but I think there's a valid strategy here.

[drekonja]

I see no posts already for a year here, but I wondered if banning of Deathrite shaman changes anything. I was brainstorming (pun not intended) a build without black. Did not work on sideboard

Waterfalls

Main:
2 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
2 True-Name Nemesis

3 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
1 Dack Fayden
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder

1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Punishing Fire
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Flusterstorm
1 Naturalize
3 Surgical Extraction

[chezJacques]

I have not played this deck but it seems ... ambitious to hope to land shardless agents (much less bloodbraid) early enough to matter (or at all if RUG Delver is as prevalent as it seems it might be) without replacing DRS with some kind of dork.

Hierarch seems like the obvious candidate here, although inferior to DRS in many matchups.

[Qweerios]

The original list in the OP was pre-deathrite and pre-TNN. It played Nobles, Cliques, and Fire // Ice. DRS allowed the deck to be competitively viable with discard spells and Deluge. Without discard, the deck suffers a lot against combo. Izzet Charm was played in the original RUG versions as added disruption and some splashed white for Meddling Mages in the side.

I am afraid that without DRS, Waterfall loses all of its competitive tools (Thoughtseize, Decay, Leo) and BoP or Noble won't cut it either.

[syntaxbad]

So with the printing of both Dreadhorde Arcanist and Crashing Footfalls, is anyone here taking a second look at the archetype? I just saw Hoogland play a pretty sweet looking version and I'm considering picking this archetype up. But I'd love to see a discussion of what it might look like these days.

Here's the link to the stream and his list:

Games: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/441665548

List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2028123#paper

[pow22]

So with the printing of both Dreadhorde Arcanist and Crashing Footfalls, is anyone here taking a second look at the archetype? I just saw Hoogland play a pretty sweet looking version and I'm considering picking this archetype up. But I'd love to see a discussion of what it might look like these days.

Here's the link to the stream and his list:

Games: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/441665548

List: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2028123#paper

Oh, that's my list. (Also, the link is to Ethan's stream -- did Hoogland also give it a whirl?)

A couple of other folks have been messing around with the archetype. I got the original idea from Maraxus_of_NL/@PVDH_magic and a Japanese player, DJIZMA, 5-0ed with a similar build before Ethan did. The deck has felt pretty competitive to me, mostly getting 4-1s in leagues online. Like most RUG decks you're weak to stuff that dodges Lightning Bolt. Gurmag Angler and big Eldrazi are problems. TNN isn't as much of an issue since your rhinos can trample over it.

I'm not sure how well positioned the deck will be now that the London mull is active online. You're a dog to combo game one with only Forces for interaction. The deck basically preys on Grixis Control, so if the meta transforms into an uncontrolled mess of combo it might be better to play something else.

The main differences I've noticed between the various builds:

- Whether to run Force of Negation main. If you do this you obviously can't play BBE. I think you want as many cascaders as possible just to give you more opportunities to hit your suspend cards and BBE is the best option after Shardless Agent.

- Land count: 20 lands is on the greedy side even with two Wrenn and Six. I think I've seen lists with as many as 23 lands. 21 is more usual.

- Punishing Fire and/or Dack. Four Lightning Bolts is pretty important right now to answer Dreadhorde Arcanist, but you can easily run P Fire as additional removal. However, Wrenn and Six sort-of takes the Punishing Fire slot -- a lot of the things you want to P Fire have one toughness -- and is a lot easier on the mana. Dack is hard to protect and the deck doesn't really need to eek out value through a slow engine like Dack/P Fire when it can just Shardless into Ancestral Vision.

- Snow package with the UG strix. I'd personally just rather play a Goyf to answer my opponents' Goyfs.

- As Foretold. I prefer this to Dack -- both are ways to put late-drawn suspend cards into the graveyard for Arcanist, but As Foretold does so via the stack and doesn't need an Arcanist in play to generate value. (On the other hand, AF frequently does nothing.)

- Most people run 4 Arcanists. I like three because it's a bad cascade, there aren't that many low CMC spells to feed multiple Arcanists, and it's a removal-magnet in a deck that spot removal is otherwise poor against. The upside of flashing back a suspend card is insane, though, and it's a great late-game threat when you have a stocked graveyard and both players are low on gas.

[syntaxbad]

Wow! Thanks for the comprehensive response. Sorry I mislabeled the link.

Fortunately I (a) play in paper where combo is a little less rampant, and (b) I’m primarily concerned with what is the most fun to play vs which deck has the best win %. So this deck looks fantastic to me! I like your list a lot compared to other lists I’ve seen and I think I’m going to start with it as a baseline to see how it feels. It’s only thin I’m lacking is a Jace; any thoughts on a placeholder til I pick one up?

[CovenantElite30]

I’m looking for some thoughts and feedback on my list.

Thank guys.

Waterfall Cascade:

Maindeck (61)
3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Bloodbraid Elf

2 Wrenn and Six
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Crashing Footfalls
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
1 Sylvan Library
1 As Foretold

1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Prismatic Vista
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard (15)
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Abrade
2 Fry
3 Force of Negation
1 Magmatic Sinkhole
1 Pithing Needle
2 Cindervines
4 Leyline of the Void

[TTX]

I propose a better name for this deck archetype: Dreadhorde Agents
It better sums up the nexus of the deck's mechanics and this deck is the real deal, not chasing waterfalls.

Here's a list I've been enjoying. The Force of Negation seems necessary to maintain interaction when you're not smashing with rhinos.
I really like the 1 As Foretold for the narrow set of circumstances in which you get suspend cards stranded in your hand or other mana constraints or when in topdeck mode.
Wrenn and Six is really good, most of the time. The emblem is crazy strong in this deck, and no, you cannot cast Ancestral Visions or Crashing Footfalls with retrace, but you can cast everything else.
This deck needs to be low to the ground in order to compete. I have a strong game against Delver and Burn. Card advantage buries Miracles, while the 7 zero mana costs counterspells are needed to shore
up the potential terrible combo matchups such as Storm and Reanimator variants. Watch out for Narset, Leovold, and Notion Thief though!

// 60 Maindeck

3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Shardless Agent
2 Tarmogoyf

1 Sylvan Library
1 As Foretold
2 Wrenn and Six

4 Ancestral Vision
3 Crashing Footfalls
4 Ponder

4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Negation

// 21 Land
2 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Cindervines
SB: 1 Force of Vigor
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Magmatic Sinkhole
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Abrade
SB: 1 Dead // Gone
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Life from the Loam

[syntaxbad]

Any reason for not going full 4 Rhinos? Also, do you find the full set of wastelands crimps your manabase? This deck looks like it actually regularly uses all 3 colors, so it could get awkward when you have a wasteland instead of something that produces colored mana. Have you felt that 3 FoN is the right amount? Seems like a lot for the maindeck. Sorry for all the questions scattershot.

Separate note - is there something to be said for trying a weird 4 color variant of this that plays a little more midrange and splashes black to have discard and abrupt decay? It would be a different kind of deck at that point, but given that 4 color delver monstrosities that W6 is enabling, and the fact the W6 is already great in this deck, I could imaging going up to 3 of them and dropping a few thoughtseizes and decays in the maindeck and having access to more black cards in the board. The fact that we have the ability to As Foretold or cascade into the black spells means that a single Sea might be good enough (and with W6 to be resilient to opposing wastelands). Maybe?

[Jarik]

Hi.
I'm testing with this deck. Curently I get at this point:

4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Shardless Agent

1 Search for Azcanta
1 Sylvan Library
2 As Foretold
3 Wrenn and Six
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (this one is going to be changed for something else - Tarmogoyf/Ponder/A. Vision/Narset)

3 Ancestral Vision
4 Crashing Footfalls
3 Ponder

4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
2 Force of Negation

// 20 Land
2 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
2 Volcanic Island
1 Fiery Islet
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Cindervines
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
+3 more

As Foretold is incredible good. Dreadhorde Arcanist is the bomb. It's ncessary to be played in 4 copies - Bolt is everywhere and is annoying.
Sideboard is for me little bit clunky.
Honestly I'm not sure how to sideboard correctly and beat the Miracle match up.
Any suggestions?

[Kobra_D]

I know how attractive of a mechanic cascade is but it feels like a trap.

Playing it means we lose on quality blue interaction, spell pierce, daze, stifle.

Up to 8 forces is nice but it you don't want to 2 for 1 yourself at every decision point.

If miracles is a hard match up try more walkers. Narset or pfire/dack are hard to answer.

You could also try the cephalis coliseum lock with Narset and W6. Those 3 are lights out for most decks if you can make it to the late game stage of things.

[KobeBryan]

I know how attractive of a mechanic cascade is but it feels like a trap.

Playing it means we lose on quality blue interaction, spell pierce, daze, stifle.

Up to 8 forces is nice but it you don't want to 2 for 1 yourself at every decision point.

If miracles is a hard match up try more walkers. Narset or pfire/dack are hard to answer.

You could also try the cephalis coliseum lock with Narset and W6. Those 3 are lights out for most decks if you can make it to the late game stage of things.

This deck has so much card value and advantage that doing a 2 for 1 on a back breaking spell is worth it.

[Kobra_D]

The fact that the deck can recover from 8 forces isn't reason to play them. To be fair, I'm not sure what your local meta is like, whether you play online or in paper.

In a room full of mono belcher, yes play 8 forces. In a room full of 4C pile and delver, force of will will put you too much behind in the early game that your opponents resources will come online before you can really stabilize.

Often (not always), will you find yourself boarding out force of will in midrange match ups, and if that is what you can expect to face, g1 with 8 force of wills will probably put you on the play game 2. But to be fair, it will depend heavily on what type of decks you expect to play against.

[KobeBryan]

The fact that the deck can recover from 8 forces isn't reason to play them. To be fair, I'm not sure what your local meta is like, whether you play online or in paper.

In a room full of mono belcher, yes play 8 forces. In a room full of 4C pile and delver, force of will will put you too much behind in the early game that your opponents resources will come online before you can really stabilize.

Often (not always), will you find yourself boarding out force of will in midrange match ups, and if that is what you can expect to face, g1 with 8 force of wills will probably put you on the play game 2. But to be fair, it will depend heavily on what type of decks you expect to play against.

You'd be foolish to jam 8 forces in the deck on game 1. but if game 2 hits and you play against combo, I see nothing wrong with going up in the count. I wouldn't play 8...but i will do 6 plus pierces, flusters and such.

[Kobra_D]

I know how attractive of a mechanic cascade is but it feels like a trap.

Playing it means we lose on quality blue interaction, spell pierce, daze, stifle.

Up to 8 forces is nice but it you don't want to 2 for 1 yourself at every decision point.

If miracles is a hard match up try more walkers. Narset or pfire/dack are hard to answer.

You could also try the cephalis coliseum lock with Narset and W6. Those 3 are lights out for most decks if you can make it to the late game stage of things.


You'd be foolish to jam 8 forces in the deck on game 1. but if game 2 hits and you play against combo, I see nothing wrong with going up in the count. I wouldn't play 8...but i will do 6 plus pierces, flusters and such.

Spell pierce sounds pretty good, smart and insightful conclusion.

~Edit~
To clarify, my original statement was meant to be read as such:
"Currently a cursory search will show blue decks playing between 4 and 8 pieces of counter magic. Combo decks going to 4 or less, Tempo decks playing the full 8 pieces and with midrange and control playing 5/6. Although this deck can play 8 forces, simpler solutions to counter magic such as spell pierce, daze, and flusterstorm (with my preference in that order) become playable if cascade is not a mechanic played in the deck. "

[wcm8]

Here’s a rough draft. The cards that we definitely want to be utilizing are Wrenn and Six and Dreadhorde Arcanist.

20 Lands
4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 FoW
2 Force of Negation
4 Shardless Agent
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
3 Wrenn and Six
1 As Foretold
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Crashing Footfalls
2 Jace, TMS
2 Faithless Looting (to get stuff in the bin for Dreadhorde; combos to some extent with Wrenn via extra lands)

Initial SB:
4 Leyline of the Void (given the new mulligan rules, you’re very likely to find one and be able to protect it with Force of W/N)
2 Force of Negation
2 Mindbreak Trap
X Chill (or just a bunch of Hydroblasts)

Tarmogoyf is likely the least interesting card, but he serves a purpose in being a threat and a wall to buy some time as needed.

Some other cards to consider:
-Icefang Coatl: provides a possible defense against creatures while you assemble your combo
-Bloodbraid Elf: more options of cascading into your bombs
-Ramp: DRS will be greatly missed, but alas there aren’t really any alternatives that fit the bill. The closest option is maybe Noble Hierarch, but this deck can mostly work off of 2-3 mana.

The point with this deck is to play a control deck that can go over the top via its busted Cascade spells. Sometimes even just suspending a Vision on turn 1 will be enough to push you ahead in the mid game.

[wcm8]

Thinking more about the deck, I’m thinking that a template we could draw from is the Shardless BUG lists played back in the Deathrite Shaman era. Obviously we don’t have DRS anymore, but Wrenn and Six fills a somewhat similar role. I think Red is probably just going to be a small splash, with BUG being the main colors.

Here’s a historical list:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=9439&d=254114&f=LE

Abrupt Decay helps out a lot vs the Red Moon decks seeing play, and we could also adjust the list to be favored against the current top tier lists. In particular, Baleful Strix seems pretty good against Marit Lage and fairly good against Delver and Goyfs. There’s plenty of other new cards that could bring this deck back into competition. I just think this would be a more competitive direction to take the deck, rather than being in danger of cool things by emphasizing the suspend spells too much.

[FTW]

So 1 Mystic Sanctuary might be good here for MOAR RHINOS.

[Cire]

Necro for this card:

"See the Truth" 1U
Sorcery (Rare)
Look at the top three cards of your library. Choose one to put in your hand and others under your library in any order. If you cast this spell from anywhere else than your hand, put all cards in your hand.

Acts like ancestral visions off cascade and can be FBed with Snapcaster/Dreadhorde Arcanist

[Mr. Safety]

Nice catch! Agent and Bloodbraid into this will be nuts. Would it be Visions 5+, some sort of mix, or would you drop Visions entirely?

[Cire]

Nice catch! Agent and Bloodbraid into this will be nuts. Would it be Visions 5+, some sort of mix, or would you drop Visions entirely?

I mean the heretic in me would want to play Yorion Waterfall and then just include all 8 :tongue:

[Mr. Safety]

I mean the heretic in me would want to play Yorion Waterfall and then just include all 8 :tongue:

http://p3.no/filmpolitiet/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/cocky2-750x422.jpg

[FTW]

Nice catch! Agent and Bloodbraid into this will be nuts. Would it be Visions 5+, some sort of mix, or would you drop Visions entirely?

Isn't this worse than Visions in most situations?
- Agent and Bloodbraid into this is no better than Visions. Both draw 3.
- Can't be cast with Arcanist without other enablers (2 cmc)
- From your hand it's just a sorcery-speed Anticipate, no Suspend mode
- Snapcaster does FB but doesn't fit in cascade (no FB with Visions or Footfalls), so the Snap-Truth interaction is probably better in UWx

[Mr. Safety]

Isn't this worse than Visions in most situations?
- Agent and Bloodbraid into this is no better than Visions. Both draw 3.
- Can't be cast with Arcanist without other enablers (2 cmc)
- From your hand it's just a sorcery-speed Anticipate, no Suspend mode
- Snapcaster does FB but doesn't fit in cascade (no FB with Visions or Footfalls), so the Snap-Truth interaction is probably better in UWx

When cascading it's the same. I was thinking it's better than Visions if played 'fairly'. Top-decking a visions is terrible in the late game, unless you genuinely have the time to wait the turns to get the 3 cards. See the Truth can be cast at any point for small value, then Snap it back for full value. Not saying it's good, it's just interesting.

[FTW]

It's interesting. Just not necessarily worth replacing Visions. You can't cast it with Dreadhorde Arcanist (2 cmc instead of 0 cmc). Snapcaster is not a Waterfalls card.

You can cast it off the topdeck, but tapping out for sorcery speed Anticipate is not something you want to do in Legacy anyway.... In the opening hand, I would rather suspend Visions than have Anticipate.

See the Truth + Snapcaster seems better in UWx control, where Snapcaster already shines.

[FTW]

Waterfalls made Top 4 of the last Legacy Challenge: https://www.mtgo.com/en/mtgo/decklist/legacy-challenge-2023-07-2312568081

Notice the decklist has
0 Orcish Bowmasters
0 The One Ring
0 Samwise the Stouthearted
0 Sauron's Ransom
0 Troll of Kazad-dum

It hasn't even heard of Tolkien!


//Mana: 30
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
4 Sea Gate Restoration

//Combo: 11
4 Shardless Agent
4 Violent Outburst
3 Crashing Footfalls

//Support Spells: 19
4 Force of Will
4 Force of Negation
4 Brazen Borrower
4 Fire // Ice
3 Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes

//Sideboard: 15
4 Force of Vigor
4 Endurance
3 Fury
2 Mystical Dispute
2 Inevitable Betrayal


Look at all these "HIGH CMC" cards that cost 0-2 mana:
Force of Will, Force of Negation, Force of Vigor, Endurance, Fury, Mystical Dispute, Petty Theft, Fire // Ice

Look at all these "mana sources" that topdeck as spells:
ESG, SSG, Sea Gate Restoration, Boseiju