[Article]Eternal Europe: Innovation Spotlight

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I decided it was time to check out the fringes of the format again.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28507_Eternal-Europe-Innovation-Spotlight.html

Let me know what you think.

PS: Will finally get around to answering last week's comments throughout the day. Sorry about the delay!

[afb0032]

I really liked the article. I've been enjoying Drew Levin's poll/build articles and this seems like a great complement to those. Since prices are not astronomical on some of these decks, they seem like good suggestions to newer players or decks that could be fun to build and play every now and then.

[Ellomdian]

"we need to look back in time to when the now essentially defunct Extended format was still awesome"

^This is why Carsten is awesome! I remember playing every iteration of Trix - people look surprised when I tell them Extended used to have Dual Lands and Mana Vault!

[Zombie]

Word.

I started just after Future Sight, but once looked up Megrim-Jar to proxy it up for lulz. Then I read the deck list and laughed maniacally for a while. That deck IS a banned list in one deck XD

[PendelSteven]

In all honesty? First of all I am European. Now my gut reactions:

Illusions Donate was a great control finisher, but nowadays Splinter Twin - Deceiver Exarch is faster to finish your opponent. I'd try U/R Splinter Twin Control with Forces and such first.

There is nothing wrong with Burning Reanimator, but two people at (one of) my LGS('s) convinced a friend of theirs who wanted to play it to play Blue/Black instead.

I also remember LSV trying a Rack deck when it was recently unbanned an I think he concluded it just was too slow and weak to do well in a Legacy tournament nowadays.

Nice try, Carsten, but even I know better. :)

[lordofthepit]

Definitely planning to try out Parfait some time.

[Ellomdian]

Illusions Donate was a great control finisher, but nowadays Splinter Twin - Deceiver Exarch is faster to finish your opponent. I'd try U/R Splinter Twin Control with Forces and such first.
...
Nice try, Carsten, but even I know better. :)

Illusions Donate was a straight Combo originally, and while the Intuition/AK version had more control elements, it's still a 2-card combo at heart. While Splinter Twin is cute, and involves an element that can be cast at instant speed, it is dependent on a creature surviving, and it cannot actually win at instant speed. Also, the Donate combo is mono-u; nice Wastelands and Blood Moons. We have a local player who's had some success with UR Twin, but I don't think it's the strict upgrade you seem to indicate.

For that matter, have you actually tried to kill a 4-mana enchantment in Legacy lately? Watch decks bend over backwards to deal with Leylines - ignoring Decay is huge.

[Spigore]

Hey Carsten,

Thanks again for the nice read.
I'm kind of surprised that I didn't see that sweet CAB-Jace list and perhaps a way to adjust it to the current Legacy meta.
I remember playing that deck and man did that feel awesome.

Also Caw Cartel (during Mental Misstep era) was kinda broken...

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@afb0032: While I didn't think about the price issue while writing the article, that's a good observation. Nice coincidence, that :)

@Elomdian & Zombie: Thanks :) Concerning the Jar deck, a couple of years back someone on SCG did a series about the "ultimate Extended tournament", pitting the best old Extended decks against one another, including the Jar deck. In his matches the deck lost to two non-blue decks. After a forum uproar, a couple of players (me included) redid the match ourselves and there was essentially no way Jar should have lost given correct play. What that little session of two-fisting the only deck to ever trigger an emergency ban told me was that, in spite of the weird mechanics of the kill, Jar is one of the few old-school broken decks I'd still be happy to bring to a modern Legacy tournament (High Tide and obviously Trix being others). The power level of Saga-Extended was really busted as hell. The deck is also incredibly elegant for a design as old as that, with 59 cards engine and just a single kill spell akin to Tendrils in Storm.

@lordofthepit: Go for it - and make sure to let all of us know how it does :)

@PendelSteven: Being mono-blue is rather big, as is dodging Swords to Plowshares and, more importantly, Abrupt Decay. I don't think Twin has any significant advantages compared to the Trix combo other than the redundancy given by having eight+ copies of your combo pieces. At that point, however, you might as well just abuse the consistency of having mass enablers in the (imo) clearly superior Sneak and Show engine. Trix built this way offers a very different angle of attack - drawing a million cards only two finish them with a swift 1-2 punch.
As for Tax Rack, LSV isn't the only one who tried before. Actually most ideas have been tried by someone somewhere before but with build-around-mes like Land Tax, it can take a long time and a lot of experimenting by different players to actually find a shell that makes the best use of the card. I'm reasonably sure LSVs build was UW (as have been most of mine, Brainstorm plus Land Tax just looks so nice). However, Tax-Rack might well be superflous in a U-shell and still be exactly the draw engine needed to enable a monoW deck to function.

@Spigore: Thanks :) As for CAB Jace, I think it's time has largely come and gone because Miracles exists. If you plan on running a UW hard control deck, you probably want to chose the one with more combo hate in the current format, sadly. A full-on redesign might be in order, though. I'll see if I can find something similar to CAB Jace for the next one. :)

Also, man how much I miss Misstep Cartel. That deck was soooooooo good. :D

[Hopo]

Regarding Trix, some years ago a friend tried to port it to legacy but we deemed that it will pretty much lose to the card Krosan Grip. You would expect Grip to be played more if Trix ever was to make a comeback and there's not much you can do outside boarding in Counterbalance and overloading with 3cc cards or never, ever trying to combo when the opponent has 3 mana up. Also, a single Swords to Plowshares usually is enough to counter the first combo attempt. 20 extra life might still give you enough time to try it again but it' still a bit awkward.

[Megadeus]

Someone did well with 8 rack at the modern pro tour ifI remember. His pod opponent ripped triple runners to get there unfortunately on camera

[Richard Cheese]

Can someone explain to me why that Burning Reanimator list isn't just strictly worse than regular Reanimator or TinFins? It runs barely any disruption, no protection for Grizzlebees, and really nothing worth drawing into off him.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Omg Carsten I blame you for the hole in my bank account that happened when I saw that Trix list :P. I can't resist the siren call of building fringe combo decks!


Regarding Trix, some years ago a friend tried to port it to legacy but we deemed that it will pretty much lose to the card Krosan Grip. You would expect Grip to be played more if Trix ever was to make a comeback and there's not much you can do outside boarding in Counterbalance and overloading with 3cc cards or never, ever trying to combo when the opponent has 3 mana up. Also, a single Swords to Plowshares usually is enough to counter the first combo attempt. 20 extra life might still give you enough time to try it again but it' still a bit awkward.

I think Vendilion Clique is actually the tech you want against Krosan Grip (seems like a solid board card in general for a deck with one million islands and Sapphire Medallion). Chalice is already there for the STP issue.

[davelin]

Can someone explain to me why that Burning Reanimator list isn't just strictly worse than regular Reanimator or TinFins? It runs barely any disruption, no protection for Grizzlebees, and really nothing worth drawing into off him.

It probably is but it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. It has seven main discard spells which is what Storm decks are packing these days. I'd probably think about swapping the Gambles for Faithless Lootings, but it seems to have all of the makings of a pretty explosive deck.

Post Grisel, it looks like it has the ability to put away the game with a Tendrils. Otherwise I guess this lifelinking, flying 7/7 demon will just have to be good enough :wink:

[Richard Cheese]

It probably is but it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. It has seven main discard spells which is what Storm decks are packing these days. I'd probably think about swapping the Gambles for Faithless Lootings, but it seems to have all of the makings of a pretty explosive deck.

Post Grisel, it looks like it has the ability to put away the game with a Tendrils. Otherwise I guess this lifelinking, flying 7/7 demon will just have to be good enough :wink:

Ah, I was looking at the first list and completely missed Unmask, which honestly seems pretty terrible pre-reanimation anyway. I guess it's making more mana than TinFins because of LED, but that also opens you up to blowouts from countermagic, and all the wincons live in the board so you need 1R+4 to insta-kill instead of BBB to Entomb and reanimate Emrakul.

ETW as a backup is nice though, as is just having Griselbrand in play, so maybe it's better than I'm giving it credit for, just looks like trash on paper. I guess I should reserve judgement until I've at least goldfished some games.

[Finn]

The problem I have with Lions Eye Diamond in anything other than storm is that storm is a simpler combo to execute than all the others. Since you have all the same deficiencies that accompany Lion's Eye Diamond (no countermagic primarily), you are inexorably drawn to the same design. Then have to quite simply look at your combo only because the other cards are all essentially the same. Is it more agile than just casting fast mana, drawing cards, and using search spells like ANT does? No? Very well. Move on. With these Reanimator decks in particular, if your hand has a diamond in it and a reanimation spell, but no creatures, you have probably lost that game unless you are facing one of those decks/opponents that any crappy version of Reanimator can beat. See those four copies of Exhume and Reanimate and then another 8-ish creatures? That tells me right there that this deck can not support LED. Storm is far more versatile. It has something like three or four cards that are awkward when you get them at the wrong time, and then Brainstorm to cheat its way out of it from time to time. This deck has about sixteen. Past in Flames might go a long way to retrieving this mess, but neither deck has it for some reason. I honestly don't know why. Unburial Rights helps some with this, but at 4 mana in a third color, it is kinda meh.

This is what prevents me from building LOTS of decks. Don't we all do this? It can be good sometimes, but if it's a bad "something else", why bother?

Hopo's bit on Krosan Grip is of great significance. The Illusions decks win by burying its opponent in cards advantage, so getting the combo off twice in a game is not a huge problem if you can get it off once. You did just gain 20 life, after all. But a well timed Flickerwisp, Echoing Truth, or yeah Krosan Grip will kill you outright with your own spell (you lose the life before you gain it). It is a big issue. Yes, Cliques and Duress can solve it, but it is already a two-card combo. Not to mention the fact that you just crapped all over your mana supply if you try to splash. Even in 2007, the guys in my local shop were having trouble assembling in time, and the format is way faster now. Finally, I'm quite sure that uncounterable Abrupt Decay in the main deck of a huge chunk of the field makes this deck impossible.

That Tax-Rack deck can be built about 50 different ways to a degree of success. It's issues are with opposing counterspells mostly. If they counter two key spells, all you can do is durdle while you get nibbled to death. Even if they get Humility out, the 1/1s will still kill you sometimes. It is a goddamned beating against nonblue decks though. What that deck DOES have going for it is being a chameleon. It can literally run any number of colors without significantly complicating its mana supply. And the cmc of its spells can be higher than most Legacy decks. I think that this one has remarkable potential, and is the real winner of this bunch. There just aren't enough people tinkering with it.

[Ellomdian]

Hopo's bit on Krosan Grip is of great significance.

Look at the number of people actually playing that card. Just because a great answer exists does not mean that a deck is unplayable. See: Dredge...


Finally, I'm quite sure that uncounterable Abrupt Decay in the main deck of a huge chunk of the field makes this deck impossible.

What are you decaying? The Medallions? Because casting Decay on Illusions is going to be hard...

[Richard Cheese]

Look at the number of people actually playing that card. Just because a great answer exists does not mean that a deck is unplayable. See: Dredge...


I still run Grip in the board basically any time I'm running green. Nothing else really deals with Top or Batterskull as well. From the sound of things I'm in the minority though, which I don't really understand.


What are you decaying? The Medallions? Because casting Decay on Illusions is going to be hard...

I'm assuming he's talking about Chalice there. Without it you're just running a bunch of overcosted draw spells in a...16 land deck. Not saying Donate/Illusions can't be competitive, just not sure that's the way to go about it.

[(nameless one)]

I've tried building a Parfait list before. I even came second on one of the MTG Salvation tournaments (I lost to Finn) and a course of top4s at the local store. I do agree that permission hurts if you're playing that deck. Someone suggested splashing blue then I realized that if I am playing blue, I might as well play Jace + Fetchlands.

I wish there was another way to build the deck. I am thinking of Stax-like or a list that abuses Cataclysm in the main (since Balance isn't legal).