What decks I may keep/build with RUG manabase and staples?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

[skip this]Ok, so I'm a little bit bored with Legacy and this might be because of me having only one "real" deck; and this is mostly because I lack duals and fetches. Still, I don't mourn the loss of the many other choices (be it Storm.dec, 8Tomb manabase, non-blue lands and staples, whole UW shell, Vintage stuff, EDH piles, card collection, crap boxes, etc.), because I financed what was necessary to finance. Moreover I limited my deck choices to far more reasonable numbers and thus don't agonize over decisions each time a 12-man tournament is about to start.

On the other hand, playing one deck over and over again gets really old, not to mention I'd love to try some nice cards printed in last four(teen) years. I still want to stay reasonable, and not throw money out of the window just ot realize I don't have a time and will to dick around with hundreds of cards, esp. seeing how I'm completely unable to decide for any EDH/singleton deck (even though I got all the guildgates, signets, painlands and Progenitus necessary to build the garbage); I don't/can't even imagine how I'd be paralyzed if there'd be another round of decisions and stuff with all the rehashed Legacy collection... [/skip this]

tl,dr: Less cards = more fun. More decks = less bore.

Ok, where was I? Oh, so... The question! Here it is:
premise: I got some of the RUG staples, sadly I lack Tarns, Deltas, Seas and Taiga, I don't own neither Jaces, SCMs, Natural Orders nor Groves and then some less expensive crap like Shardless Agents, AVs or (non-japanese) Jittes.
What *cough* tempo *cough* decks I may keep/build with RUG manabase and staples?
Right now I'm knowing about this choices:


1) Canadian Thresh
Solid choice, I play it. But it lost quite some power with recent prints.

2) RUGb Cascade Waterfalls
I need quite some material for this deck. Also, I know nothing about it; how it fares, how to play it, etc. Is it good?

3) Moon/Swan Thresh
I guess it's dead.

4) bUrg
Ok, so this is what I really like. DRS, Decay, etc. Unfortunately, I got zero USeas and Tarns.

5) Vexing Sphinx and Punishing-Burnwillows Thresh
Hm. I test it from time to time and it doesn't seem solid enough. It's slow and lacks punch. What may help?

6) Straight UR
See the Tarns affair. Other than that, it should be fine. Doesn't lose to Waste, so it must be good.

7) Stiflenought
I'm not going to buy Drednoughts. Not after RTR printing.

8) URg Counterbalance?
More control than aggro. Not really powerful compared to UW cousin. A note: may incorporate Grapeshot combo, Moon hate, Painter's Stone, etc.

9) some Natural Order deck
Sadly, this definitely needs Jaces.


So, these are the six to nine tempo choices in RUG I know about. Some of them are not straight RUG, some of them are not straight tempo. I believe the more DRS you play, the better the decks are. Also, I'd expect the decks with black splash to be more powerful, if not for anything else, then for fully utilized DRS, Decay and occasional discard.
I'm not sure I want to invest into Tarns, esp. if WotC reprints them in the near future. (Otoh, before this happens they may rise to 60 euro/piece andthen the reprint won't help in any way). Same goes for U/B lands, these are even more insane. RUG, and no matter the exact build, seems to be the weaker option, frankly. I'm not sure if I have what it takes to vex with the CliqueLftLGrovePFireNO deck when there is far more versatile and stabile choice, bUrg. (Tbh: a choice that sometimes dies to single Bolt targeting the one-mana elvish planeswalker.)

Considering you'd be fine with any of the choice, and got the money/cards to get the needed staples, and were decided to play U-based aggro-control for the rest of your days, and won't be (too) afraid of bubble burst, what deck (if any) of the above ones you'd try to build or keep?

So far I got only the RUG Delver and I culled my staples to these:
4 Volcs
3 or 4 Trops
set of Wastes
4 Rainforests and Foothills
set of FoWs and goyfs
random Misdirection or two
one Jitte
Stifles
a lone Clique... :frown:
...but nine Chain Lightnings! :laugh:
two or three Mae Pulses, Edrics and Anc. Tombs (not that the latter matter)
enough Flusterstorms
set of Lavamancers (is it even expensive anymore?)
sole Gilded Drake
four Burning Wishes
and I'm not exactly lacking in the Sylvan Library department:

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p219/BedDecksPalyer/Sylvan_Libraries_zps83f10f89.jpg


Expensive stables I miss:
Polluted Deltas
Scalding Tarns
Decays
whole cascade boyband
Visions
Jace (TM)
Liliana of TV
Taiga
Seas
any Groves of the BV
CB/Top
TNNs
more Cliques
Natural Orders
DRS and Hierarchs
Confidants

What would you purchase, if anything, and in what order? I got some money in a pocket, some other (but virtual) money in my collection and I got... ahem... sixty Euro on MKM account. :really:
Also, please no advice in kind of a "I'd buy all cards ever printed because I'm insatiable junkie who loves to sneeze at people not having koreeen beta double-signed triple-sleeved foil Lotus."

Things I like the most are RUG Cascade and bUrg with Natural Order being an interesting choice. Some Moon deck might not hurt, too.

[Tyrio]

Your choices are pretty limited given your current collection ... the easiest deck for you to build would be probably be UR Delver but I can't imagine you'd want to play that after playing RUG for a while.

Maybe you could build Next Level RUG? Has Goyfs, Cliques, maybe some TNN, Lavamancer and/or SCM as dudes, then cantrips, counterspells, Sylvan Library and JTMS, Lightning Bolt, maybe Punishing Fire? Sideboard would probably be pretty similar to Canadian I imagine. I don't think the deck has had any recent showings, but on paper it seems decent. Has a strong counterspell suite and better match-ups against fair decks than Delver has with Lavamancer and PFire.

I envision something like

2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendillion Clique
2 True-Name Nemesis
11

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
2 Sylvan Library
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor
6 Some combination of Spell Snare/Pierce/Counterspell/Mana Leak/Red Blast/Ponder

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain

Here's the old Next Level RUG thread:http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18865-Deck-Next-Level-Threshold&highlight=next+level

[Higgs]

Yea man, who'd have known keeping RUG as your main legacy deck would turn out to be a bad idea due the meta shifts. If I were you I'd probably try to move into the BUG card pool by selling my Volcanics (if you're tight on money of course) and coughing up some more to complete the rest. I think having a single deck is a losing bet in Legacy and what you should do is, if you're looking to downsize your collection, to settle down on a card pool like BG Midrage, UW Control, BUG, Storm decks, Show and Tell decks etc. This way you can at least switch around decks when you get bored and still have that cosy feeling of being an expert in one field (imo).

[GreenShorty]

I would skip any tempo deck if I were you, specially considering that you're getting bored of playing RUG. Most tempo decks are going to "feel" the same, altough the cards change a little bit (but not the "tempo package"). As for RUG, it's solid, always a good choice for whatever event you're attending, be it a 12-man or a SCG open. Why would you want another tempo deck? Go have fun playing different archetypes. :laugh:

I know you said you don't want to invest big time, but my choice would probably be jund, as it's a versatile deck that covers two formats (still a tier 1 in modern).

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Thanks for responses.

Funny thing is that I'm not bored of blue aggro-control at all, or at least not much more than with the Legacy as a whole. Considering any non-tempo choices, I'm already fed up with the Storm and I can't imagine myslef playing any of the less obvious decks like Dredge. Financing Miracles is beyond my capabilities right now, and I'm not a good control player at all.

I think that with a (B)RUG base, there are some posibilities, ranging from Natural Order package, through bUrg and friends, some cascade builds and even the more controlling Countertop or Punishing Fire decks. I'm surprised how was RUG nerfed in the last months, but there's not much new to tell about it.

From all the possibilites I somehow like the RUG Waterfalls and NLT the most. These decks are different enough than RUG Delver while not being completely off-color. I wouldn't need to sell half of my stuff to finance them, although Groves are pretty insane, TNNs still don't want to drop and Clique is reaching the sky. Otoh, JTMS price is not that intimidating as it was even few years ago.

I'll buy the three or four Groves. It's not like the land is bad and it's still pretty much cheaper than Tarns/Deltas/Seas/Deathrites or Tarns/Taiga/NOs or even Deltas/JTMS/SCMs or w/e else. Unfortunately I sold my own Groves not long ago (but long enough to lose some money in the meantime), as I planned to asianize my main decks; silly idea, yeah I know that, and I'm fully English now... but it wasn't without a price.

Looking at the cascade decks, it's not like it's that expensive, so I may slowly build the necessary pool. With Agent below twelve euro, this shouldn't be that troublesome.


Speaking of sales...
I definitely won't sell my Volcs, not after I decided to remain forever in the blue, but also because I got pretty nice UNL ones with well-painted borders. (I guess that next time I need to ask the alterer to keep the tiny white dots to further bewilder my friends). But I got lots of stupid cards from old decks, piles of wannabe "collectables", remnants of decks long dead, etc. I guess that the biggest burden are all those casual decks that I keep for the totally impossible eventuality of our old group's ressurection. We've never met, albeit we've already spoke about it for several times. If we cannot get together - not even for a single evening! - in more than a year, something tells me there's no need to keep a box of cat litter cardboard.
It'll be a bit painful to sell the completely japanese Terrageddon, or the many other "creatures, geddons and swords to plowshares" decks, not to speak of the EDH and Vintage stuff, yet stuck betwen the choices of (a) sitting on a pile of cardboard that no one uses and (b) building the decks that I may play every other Thursday, the latter seems more appropriate.


Ok, saving for the Groves.

[Sloshthedark]

Thanks for responses.
(I guess that next time I need to ask the alterer to keep the tiny white dots to further bewilder my friends).


Well on Volcs it would...



It'll be a bit painful to sell the completely japanese Terrageddon, or the many other "creatures, geddons and swords to plowshares"


simply do not... you won't sell all of it and end up in loss anyway... already having Savannahs, 1-2 tundra opens you to Bant stuff if you still have Kotr and friends...
Imo you need 2 Sea+DRS/+Liliana, Jace or 2 Tundra +Clique/Jace, green dudes ... I'd eschew modern stuff like Groves, Clique... Waterfalls would be very entertaining 2-2 deck don't doubt it... I'm not sure I head you any better way by my recommendations...

but ony thing is sure - cardboard crack won't let you/me/us be - you know just let me finish this deck.... and this is gonna be good bro... and maybe for SB/memories/pimp/wtf... sure bet that will go up I'm buying 8 of those... the game aside from game itself is endless spending and after x-xx years of buzz, trades, minor goals and going up a sudden "I'm done" leaves one restless... those are the days you're thinking your lunch was too expensive and show up with 4 fetches in the evening... people are selling decks and collections just to buy into them half year latter half more expesive, quiting and you still see them every other thursday around just to have a peek...

one does not simply leave, it's good to be reminded of that time to time...

[JPoJohnson]

As a completely different direction, what about something like RUG combo lands that goes mostly control with the dark depths combo? Gamble/Life from the Loam for digging and tutoring?

Dark Depths would be an expensive one that you are lacking, but beyond that I think you have most of the expensive aspects of what this type of deck would want?

[Tormod]

"4) bUrg
Ok, so this is what I really like. DRS, Decay, etc. Unfortunately, I got zero USeas and Tarns."

So this sounds like the deck you want to play but its a question of resources.
I think you could move a tropical and a volcanic towards 2 underground sea to get you started in this direction.
Tarns seem to dropping in price since the $100 hype and I'm seeing them for $65+/-
So move some of those excess Sylvans and get yourself some Tarns.

I know it sounds lousy to not turn optimal duals but you could play a Watery Grave for now.

In my experience, its better to go to the deck you want and put resources in to allocating than, rather than going something a little more budget friendly. At the end of the day, You're still going to want to play the deck you "really like" AND you're going to end up spending some money building "any deck" picking up $10-$40 cards that all add up to what could have been the deck you really want to play.

[Megadeus]

I would go water falls cascade. It is a deck that will feel so much different from what you currently play compared to other choices you have listed which seem to essentially be watered down thresh

[Bed Decks Palyer]

but ony thing is sure - cardboard crack won't let you/me/us be - you know just let me finish this deck.... and this is gonna be good bro... and maybe for SB/memories/pimp/wtf... sure bet that will go up I'm buying 8 of those... the game aside from game itself is endless spending and after x-xx years of buzz, trades, minor goals and going up a sudden "I'm done" leaves one restless... those are the days you're thinking your lunch was too expensive and show up with 4 fetches in the evening... people are selling decks and collections just to buy into them half year latter half more expesive, quiting and you still see them every other thursday around just to have a peek...

one does not simply leave, it's good to be reminded of that time to time...

This is so true! :-D
Btw, daughter's got a variola, moreover my wife needs to go somewhere, so we won't meet tonight. A sad, sad day. I hope you'll be doing well.

Sepaking of Modern stuff: well, I like the Grove-PFire interaction and both the Waterfalls and Vexing Thresh decks are funny. Sadly, twiddling around with 1dmg/turn/3mana engine is not the best tactic in a world of SnT and such. Moreover RiP kills this deck and it makes Vexing Sphinx even more crappy compared to TNN, if it's even possible.



As a completely different direction, what about something like RUG combo lands that goes mostly control with the dark depths combo? Gamble/Life from the Loam for digging and tutoring?

Dark Depths would be an expensive one that you are lacking, but beyond that I think you have most of the expensive aspects of what this type of deck would want?
Frankly, I find Dark Depths just a little less disgusting than SnT/Emrakul. And... I dislike the strategy. But yeah,it's definitely a solid choice, moreover one that makes it very unpredictable for the opponents, who won't have easy time guessing what I'm playing - should they fear Stifle, or should they fear 20/20 dude?
IDK. It's definitely interesting, but again, I'm quite diffident about the whole thing. :really:



"4) bUrg
Ok, so this is what I really like. DRS, Decay, etc. Unfortunately, I got zero USeas and Tarns."

So this sounds like the deck you want to play but its a question of resources.
I think you could move a tropical and a volcanic towards 2 underground sea to get you started in this direction.
Tarns seem to dropping in price since the $100 hype and I'm seeing them for $65+/-
So move some of those excess Sylvans and get yourself some Tarns.

I know it sounds lousy to not turn optimal duals but you could play a Watery Grave for now.

In my experience, its better to go to the deck you want and put resources in to allocating than, rather than going something a little more budget friendly. At the end of the day, You're still going to want to play the deck you "really like" AND you're going to end up spending some money building "any deck" picking up $10-$40 cards that all add up to what could have been the deck you really want to play.
Pretty much this, you're really right. All those crap decks and stuff that just collects dust could be easily turned - well, maybe just "turned" - into the two Seas. Btw, the Sylvans... they simply happened. :)


Btw, on the EDH/casual decks matter:
It's nice to have some decks to fiddle with while drinking beer with friends, but once you'll quit drinking beer and got three to four friends that have about one spare hour per week, it really loses all appeal quite fast. E.g., I'd love to play some kind of WG stuff in Legacy, but there's Maverick which I'm not really thrilled about (might be I suck at piloting it) and all the other possible creature/combat based decks (yep, Enchantress is WG, ofc it is, yet it's kinda different type of deck than any usual StP+dude+dude+Geddon pile) are weak as the Legacy field is too fast and dangerous. There's no time to gambol with Enforcers when there are those 7s/7s, 15s/15s or 20s/20s flying around on turn3... That, or hordes of 1s/1s swinging a turn sooner.

I tried to go over the top (is the idiom right?) with a Savannah.dec full of 6/6 goodies, basically inspired by Beast Crackers. But it didn't work as I expected, maybe because MWS shuffler sucks, maybe because I'm too used to Brainstorm-unmulligans; no matter what, I lost game after game due to inconsistency/mull issues. Not where I want to be... if you stand the jargon. Aftr two days of bitter experiences I simply gave up.

Hm.

[Tyrio]

As a completely different direction, what about something like RUG combo lands that goes mostly control with the dark depths combo? Gamble/Life from the Loam for digging and tutoring?

Dark Depths would be an expensive one that you are lacking, but beyond that I think you have most of the expensive aspects of what this type of deck would want?

Lol RG Combo Lands would require a Tabernacle, 4 Rishadan Ports, 2/3 Taigas, 2-4 Dark Depths, 4 Grove of the Burnwillows, 4 Maze of Ith 4 Explorations, 4 Mox Diamonds, 4 Gambles which off the top of my head is approx $1950.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Lol RG Combo Lands would require a Tabernacle, 4 Rishadan Ports, 2/3 Taigas, 2-4 Dark Depths, 4 Grove of the Burnwillows, 4 Maze of Ith 4 Explorations, 4 Mox Diamonds, 4 Gambles which off the top of my head is approx $1950.

Crap. I think I missed some of the price changes. :cry:

[Machahiko]

I think you should play ANT with 0 basics, I've heard it's pretty good. :wink:

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I think you should play ANT with 0 basics, I've heard it's pretty good. :wink:

Bah, no thx, no ANT. Esp. as I got like set of Petals for the deck.

I played zero-basics ANT for three months and I even 6-0ed some tournament with it. It used some other strange choices like double Pif and eight creatures in board and three Virtue's Ruin. But it was quite some time back, when Wasteland decks weren't 80 % of meta. I used the same approach later (sometime around when I joined Source), but the RUG/DnT/RUG/DnT field wasn't exactly user's friendly.

EDIT: The old deck had one Island from Chinese Odyssey.

[JPoJohnson]

Lol RG Combo Lands would require a Tabernacle, 4 Rishadan Ports, 2/3 Taigas, 2-4 Dark Depths, 4 Grove of the Burnwillows, 4 Maze of Ith 4 Explorations, 4 Mox Diamonds, 4 Gambles which off the top of my head is approx $1950.

It completely depends on the direction you build it. A deck doesn't HAVE to have anything in it.


*Note* Unless you're building a deck that Bryant Cook worked on in which case he'll cut you in half and burn your corpse if you don't.

[Tyrio]

It completely depends on the direction you build it. A deck doesn't HAVE to have anything in it.


Sure, I was just pulling the cards from the most successful RG shell. You can build Lands in a lot of different ways; either more control oriented or more combo oriented. Control variants will probably want the aforementioned cards, while you can probably build a cheaper combo BG version with Crop Rotations, Into the Norths, Entombs and Hexmages.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Sure, I was just pulling the cards from the most successful RG shell. You can build Lands in a lot of different ways; either more control oriented or more combo oriented. Control variants will probably want the aforementioned cards, while you can probably build a cheaper combo BG version with Crop Rotations, Into the Norths, Entombs and Hexmages.
And with Grim Discoveries plus Living Wishes. Still, it's nothing I'd love to play, but yeah, this one is pretty cheaper, much more elegant, has interesting sb choices and can fall back on aggro plan.
In fact I'd build this deck, it might be funny, but the price of Dark Depths is insane, and I got like zero G/B lands unless we count guildgates as a Legacy material. ;)

Is there any chance to build something completely stupid for Legacy in RGW? I think of a heavy ComeTroll deck with heaps of removal and some Geddons, Jokulhaupses, Balances and stuff thrown in the mix. Might be funny, alas it dies to combo. Although... with some combo hate in sb. But will it be better than Geddon Stax? I guess it won't, and even Stax is awful, unless something happened in the past three years or so since I sold the Cities, Tombs and Moats.

[humppa]

Sell some card from edh (they are stupidly expensive these days), print proxies so you can still play with friends and buy playset of USeas - maybe I can sell one to you ;-)

[datanaga]

IMHO there is one more option, what about infect? Only expensive cards You dont have are 4x noble hierarch and 2x berserk, rest is cheap and playing this deck could be fun.

sample decklist: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65488

BTW Nobles are also useful in decks like bant, GW maverick, big zoo etc. With your savannahs that makes sense to me.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

IMHO there is one more option, what about infect? Only expensive cards You dont have are 4x noble hierarch and 2x berserk, rest is cheap and playing this deck could be fun.

sample decklist: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65488

BTW Nobles are also useful in decks like bant, GW maverick, big zoo etc. With your savannahs that makes sense to me.

Infect? Not in fact... :laugh:
I'll try to do something about the horrible amount of useless chaff I got, then I'll see what I can build from the remnants. I think that my Savannahs are collecting dust for no good reason. I won't sell them, no way, but I may build some GW stupidity.

[Lemnear]

Is there any chance to build something completely stupid for Legacy in RGW? I think of a heavy ComeTroll deck with heaps of removal and some Geddons, Jokulhaupses, Balances and stuff thrown in the mix. Might be funny, alas it dies to combo. Although... with some combo hate in sb. But will it be better than Geddon Stax? I guess it won't, and even Stax is awful, unless something happened in the past three years or so since I sold the Cities, Tombs and Moats.

Just for the sake of completion: Staxx (control) became MUD (Aggro) since the whole 12-post concept was adapted which made the mana-delevopment more powerful and stable turn 3 and ongoing. I'm personally thrilled to build that deck one day just to play several Batterskulls attached to a Wurmcoil Engine xD

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Just for the sake of completion: Staxx (control) became MUD (Aggro) since the whole 12-post concept was adapted which made the mana-delevopment more powerful and stable turn 3 and ongoing. I'm personally thrilled to build that deck one day just to play several Batterskulls attached to a Wurmcoil Engine xD

You're my man. Attacking with an Armadillo Cloaked 6/6 dudes was always my favourite play! :laugh:

[Lemnear]

You're my man. Attacking with an Armadillo Cloaked 6/6 dudes was always my favourite play! :laugh:

Triple Lifelink - the 60 inch flatscreen of timmy magic

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Triple Lifelink - the 60 inch flatscreen of timmy magic

702.15e Multiple instances of lifelink on the same object are redundant. :frown:
That's why you need to read Armadillo cloak really carefully... :wink:

[Lemnear]

702.15e Multiple instances of lifelink on the same object are redundant. :frown:
That's why you need to read Armadillo cloak really carefully... :wink:

I'm aware that this is unnecessary and over the top. That's why I took the TV example to make it clear. You give Wurmcoil "triple lifelink" because you can, not because it does anything ;)