[Deck] Chalice of the Dark Order [Archive]

apple713

11-18-2014, 05:05 PM

Chalice of the Void / Natural Order / Eldrazi

http://8e8460c4912582c4e519-11fcbfd88ed5b90cfb46edba899033c9.r65.cf1.rackcdn.com/sales/cardscans/MTG/MRD/en/nonfoil/ChaliceOfTheVoid.jpghttp://8e8460c4912582c4e519-11fcbfd88ed5b90cfb46edba899033c9.r65.cf1.rackcdn.com/sales/cardscans/MTG/VIS/en/nonfoil/NaturalOrder.jpghttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=193452&type=card

wtf are these cards doing together?

Why Play This Deck?

This deck is a blend of multiple decks, Sylvan Plug, Turbo Eldrazi, and Maverick. The combination offsets the weaknesses of each individual with the strengths of the others. The deck has a great early game that doesn't get blown out by combo, and an incredibly strong end game.

After lots of testing and outlining the Shell, I was able to identify variable slots that could be adapted to different existing decks to offset the decks weakness. Although I personally prefer Dark depths it appears that the turbo eldrazi inclusion offsets the decks weaknesses almost perfectly. Chalice and NO are great early game plays. GSZ enables a lot of consistency. Eldrazi, is one of the best END games available. Once you get to the critical mass of casting Emrakul, you almost always win. Primeval Titan is perfect for buying time and sustaining life where the dark depths version failed. Getting Glacial chasm / glimmer posts are ideal here.

The deck has access to T1 Chalice of the Void, T2 natural order, T2 KOTR. I'm looking at those T2 plays and thinking that the deck can reasonably cast chalice of the void on t1 or t2 and still has multiple really good plays on T2 without it. Also, the deck isn't hindered by chalice significantly either because of only 3 crop rotations. Even without ancient tomb in opening you can always crop rotate into it since crop will be dead after it hits anyways. It's very nice to have 3 different ways to victory because you never really get shut out by anything.

Card choices

Knight of the reliquary: great GSZ target, great tutor for Eldrazi and dark depths lands, excellent aggro option if necessary. Also utility bojuka, karakas, maze from board
Primeval Titan: GSZ and NO target gets Eldrazi lands or depths combo, or beats
Qasali Pridemage: art/enchant removal although reclamation sage might be better... Pridemage is t2 GSZ target though but slightly harder to cast naturally. ultimately better against omni / sneak because you can cast him preemptively and put pressure on them while they scramble to work around him.

Natural Order Targets

progenitus: great vs decks with blockers / removal such as D&T. Excellent card to race with.
Terrastadon: smashes targets like equipment, ensnaring bridge, planes walkers, and lands depending on your situation.
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: just wins vs combo decks, worst cast it cost them 6 dmg to remove it with a swords... which is unlikely if i have a chalice out.

The Shell

I’ve broken the deck down to the bare minimums required to keep the Chalice of the void aspect reasonably playable T1 and maintain enough consistency through the use of GSZ to warrant playing the deck over others. The reason I did this was to allow other players to get creative with the deck. Clearly here i’ve decided to go with Eldrazi, but have included my older Dark Depths version as well. Feel free to post other variations using this shell that you think might work better.

19 Total Variable Slots

8 Can be anything
4 Creatures
7 Lands

Creatures - 12
4 Variable Slots

1 Artifact / Enchantment removal GSZ target (Qasali Pridemage / Reclamation Sage)
3 Natural Order Targets (Progenitus, Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, Terastodon)
4 Primary Focus Creature (must be tutorable with GSZ like Knight of the Reliquary)

Spells - 16
4 Chalice of the Void (hozes a lot of decks right now)
4 Natural Order (natural inclusion because of ancient tomb and Green creatures)
4 Green Sun's Zenith (creates consistency and accelerates with Dryad Arbor)
2 Sylvan Library (can run up to 4 depending on how effectively you can use those cards)
2 Mox Diamond (likely the best option for acceleration / mana fixing depending on how questionable the mana base is)

Lands - 24
7 Variable Slots

2 Dryad Arbor (for GSZ and Natural Order, 2 in case you draw 1)
7 Fetchlands (shuffle effects for Sylvan library)
4 Colored Mana Producing Lands (the absolute minimum amount with at least 1 basic)
4 Ancient Tomb (enables T1 Chalice T2 NO, and access GSZ)

Sideboard - 15
SB: 9 Variable Slots

Playing with NO and GSZ you are likely to want the following in the board.
SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 Trinisphere

Current Version’s of Deck updated 12/26/14

//Creatures - 13
3 Veteran Explorer
3 Primeval Titan
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Progenitus

//Spells - 19
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Mox Diamond
3 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Crop Rotation
3 Sylvan Library

//Lands - 28
4 Windswept Heath
5 Forest
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Karakas
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Eye of Ugin
4 Ancient Tomb

//Sideboard
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Trinisphere
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Willow Satyr
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 1 Stingerfling Spider
SB: 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 1 Hornet Queen

//Others for Consideration
SB: 1 Bane of Progress
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Stoic Angel
SB: 1 Phantom Nishoba
SB: 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Cards that are being tested
tower of the magistrate
willow satyr
sigarda, host of herons
Bane of Progress

Cards for Consideration
hornet nest
Life from the Loam
Maze of Ith
Choke
Song of the Dryads
for the sideboard
ratchet bomb
ancient grudge
Anafenza, the Foremost

Cards that have been cut
Titania, Protector of Argoth
eternal witness
elderscale wurm
scroll rack
scryb ranger
courser of kruphix

scroll rack was not really generating any card advantage, required mana to use it, and on an empty hand it's terrible. it doesn't allow you to reload your hand fast.
scryb ranger has limited use because there are not enough forests / plains to make use of that many activations of KOTR
titania was so expensive i never searched for her and when i wanted to i had enough to just search for ruric. also ruric is castable under moon more easily.
courser was just lack luster because games don't drag on very long with this deck.
elderscale was too limited and i did not find myself searching for him as much as I thought i would.
eternal witness was lack luster. Unless i wanted to get NO back and cast it the following turn this didn't have many uses.

Past Iterations with changes in bold

//Creatures - 12
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Primeval Titan
1 Progenitus
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

//Spells - 19
4 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Crop Rotation
2 Sylvan Library
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Mox Diamond

//Lands - 29
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Eye of Ugin
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
1 Plains
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Karakas
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
1 Vesuva

First Version

//Creatures - 12
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
2 Primeval Titan
1 Progenitus
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

//Spells - 19
4 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Crop Rotation
2 Sylvan Library
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Mox Diamond

//Lands - 29
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Eye of Ugin
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Karakas
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
2 Vesuva

Older Dark Depths Version

Creatures 13
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Stingerfling Spider
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Progenitus
1 Terastodon
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Vampire Hexmage

Spells - 19
2 Sylvan Library
3 Crop Rotation
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Mox Diamond

Lands - 28
2 Dryad Arbor

1 Karakas
1 Wasteland
1 Sejiri Steppe
4 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Forest
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard -15
SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Willow Satyr
SB: 3 Toxic Deluge
SB: 3 Trinisphere
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog

*Removed matchup analysis and side boarding strategies because it was out of date

FoolofaTook

11-18-2014, 07:01 PM

Turn the 4 Vampire Hexmages into something else would be the first move I think. Yes, great combo with Dark Depths and UToY but also requires 2 black to cast in a list that just doesn't want that kind of commitment. Tarmogoyf, Abrupt Decay, Cabal Therapy?

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 12:52 PM

Mystical_Jackass

11-19-2014, 01:52 PM

OMG teh name of the deck reflects the card choices in it!!zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Okay, a couple things. It's a creative idea but this deck, if this were chemistry, is like a very unstable reaction like nitro glycerin or something. The very things that you're trying to win with I feel like are gonna' be the death of you. Your mana base is so fragile and you're trying to win with Depths so you incorporate Crop Rotation, and you're also trying to run Chalices, but Chalice 1 counters crop so now you're stuck in a situation where you might want to chalice 1 but your stuck with crop in your hand and a crappy mana base trying to work your way out. Some of the other things that would bother me is that Chalice 2 counters 8 cards in your deck, and the general horrible color matching with double black and double green. You do run GSZ but that might be a little nerve racking, if you get spell pierced you might straight up lose the game if you can't produce the mana you need. All I'm saying is I think you might be relying way too much on one card to make your deck even work.

Suggestions, I really think you need Mox Diamond and Life from the Loam for mana fixing and being able to pull off the maneuvers you're trying to do. I also think you just need to do Chalice or crop rotation not both, pick your poison. My 2-cents

apple713

11-19-2014, 04:21 PM

When I played a similar list living wish worked wonders glueing it all together trimming from the knight and hex mage slots. Chalice leaves you with some wonky hands that make life frustrating. Its worth noting that one to two cavern of souls on shaman let you deploy deathrites and hexmage with no fear of your own chalice or counter magic.

The issue with replacing hexmages with living wish is that living wish is slow, and the deck wants to be fast. The beat down plan is mainly a last resort. I do agree cavern would be nice but i wouldn't want to weaken the mana base.

Turn the 4 Vampire Hexmages into something else would be the first move I think. Yes, great combo with Dark Depths and UToY but also requires 2 black to cast in a list that just doesn't want that kind of commitment. Tarmogoyf, Abrupt Decay, Cabal Therapy?

yeah I've considered them. cabal therapy is defiantly out of the question. The deck doesn't really want to add any more 1 mana spells because it prefers chalice.

OMG teh name of the deck reflects the card choices in it!!zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Okay, a couple things. It's a creative idea but this deck, if this were chemistry, is like a very unstable reaction like nitro glycerin or something. The very things that you're trying to win with I feel like are gonna' be the death of you. Your mana base is so fragile and you're trying to win with Depths so you incorporate Crop Rotation, and you're also trying to run Chalices, but Chalice 1 counters crop so now you're stuck in a situation where you might want to chalice 1 but your stuck with crop in your hand and a crappy mana base trying to work your way out. Some of the other things that would bother me is that Chalice 2 counters 8 cards in your deck, and the general horrible color matching with double black and double green. You do run GSZ but that might be a little nerve racking, if you get spell pierced you might straight up lose the game if you can't produce the mana you need. All I'm saying is I think you might be relying way too much on one card to make your deck even work.

Suggestions, I really think you need Mox Diamond and Life from the Loam for mana fixing and being able to pull off the maneuvers you're trying to do. I also think you just need to do Chalice or crop rotation not both, pick your poison. My 2-cents

having crop rotation in hand with a chalice out has not proven to be an issue. Also in the event that opponent destroys chalice, you can use crop to steal a game. Crop rotation is so important i can't really see playing without it.

I could see playing mox diamond useful but how many? Using loam complicates things by flipping natural order or natural order targets into grave. I think the deck can actually make good use of chalice in its place. Although crucible can be destroyed loam gets removed a lot from grave too.

what do you suggest cutting to make room for moxes? lands? maybe 2 fetches?

also, has anyone tried shuffling the deck up or drawing practice hands?

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 05:08 PM

apple713

11-19-2014, 06:29 PM

I can say I have not tested it specifically but when I was heavily developing it about a year ago I ended up concluding that the no package was fragile and offered up a lot of poor unfixable draws and cut it in place of lotv and helm. Youd be surprised how many turn one scoops you get from an angry opponent staring at a turn one leyline and chalice. Ill post the list when I get home for my "voidmage" deck if you're interested. The abundance of art/ enchantments gave people problems with so many dead removal cards game one and so few relevant cards to bring in game two.

ya im not sure how chalice and leyline really go hand in hand...?

although i do find sometimes i get clunky hands because of no i think it ultimately serves its purpose cause of the versatility... I'm running progen, ruric, terrastadon, and elderwurm.

id still be interested in seeing your list tho and maybe how your deck evolved.

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 06:44 PM

They dont go hand in hand but most decks have trouble with one or the other. Reanimator being the only thing that really shits its pants sitting across from both on turn one.

apple713

11-19-2014, 07:09 PM

They dont go hand in hand but most decks have trouble with one or the other. Reanimator being the only thing that really shits its pants sitting across from both on turn one.

yeah but then u have to run 4 helms cause the deck doesn't tutor artifacts... idk id have to see ur list. 4x helm 4x leyline vs 4x no 4 creatures .... i think the no plan results in more victories because it can't be hated against... and S&T can hurt itself with me having beefy creatures too.

I've cut scryb ranger and witness for 2 mox diamonds. I also cut something else and have crucible in the deck. Not really liking the crucible i haven't drawn it much but it seems like it should be a GSZ target instead.

I've tested quite a bit today and being able to fall back on NO really helps when dark depths isn't an option due to swords / karakas.

contrary to what you would think from looking at the list I am not suffering from mana issues.

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 08:05 PM

One thing from my testing that may help you is the inclusion of scroll rack. without brainstorm I found myself wanting a way to put stranded fatties back in the deck and dig for answers.

FoolofaTook

11-19-2014, 08:13 PM

One thing from my testing that may help you is the inclusion of scroll rack. without brainstorm I found myself wanting a way to put stranded fatties back in the deck and dig for answers.

This is a wonderful idea in a list with 4 Green Sun's Zenith, Chalice of the Void and fetchlands. Not sure if it will be too clunky but it's a great idea. The card I always want in this type of list is Brainstorm and it just won't fit as a splash.

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 08:35 PM

Its actually really sweet with life from the loam but the scroll is an absolute nightmare to resolve on cockatrice...

apple713

11-19-2014, 09:33 PM

One thing from my testing that may help you is the inclusion of scroll rack. without brainstorm I found myself wanting a way to put stranded fatties back in the deck and dig for answers.

you answered a question I had but forgot to ask on here. I was getting frustrated with ending up with 1-2 fatties in my hand that were kinda pointless. This is a really amazing idea.

It also makes it so you cannot lose to effects that attempt to deck you as long as you have at least 1 card in your hand. JTMS, painter, & helm combo. Even though you need a decent board position sometimes all you need is 1 more attack.

With this inclusion, there has to be ways to fill your hand to really abuse scroll rack. Any suggestions? Land tax is probably out of the question since it cost 1 and the current manabase couldn't support it. Miracles work well with it and so might dark confidant. Loam like you mentioned has potential, but i'd prefer to avoid relying on the grave.

I'd probably also run 1 Courser of Kruphix to compliment scroll rack and because its just good in general.

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 09:54 PM

Confidant is a major no go with all the fatties. Aside from loam I never found anything viable in junk colors for a brief stint I cut white for red for other reasons and the only janky idea I have in red is reforge the soul but that is entirely too cute im sure.

My final takaways from the last list I had were the deck earned a lot of free wins from playing main deck sideboard cards. Plan a was always helm leyline with hiding the depths package as much as possible. The list was very heavey on artifact control with tangle wires and ensaring bridges. Game two most opponent who hadnt seen the depths sided out removal for art/enchantment hate and needle effects which left the NO plan open to run wild on an opponent who unkowingly missboarded vs the transformational plan. Ultimatly i abandoned the deck because variance is a killer.

apple713

11-19-2014, 10:16 PM

uncletiggy

11-19-2014, 10:42 PM

Ill find a list of what I finally settled on but its going to be after the NO package got the ax. All other versions died when a beer decided my motherboard and hard drive were thirsty.

apple713

11-20-2014, 04:50 PM

Did some decent play testing last night. here are the results. the deck needs bojuka bog in sideboard and needs to find a way to fit in courser of kruphix. Considering 5-2-1 losing to dragon stompy with 8 moon effects and all t1-t2 and my other loss was to pretty bad play decisions and opening hand keeps to landstill it faired pretty well. The sideboard could use a lot of work. I'd also like to find a way to include a 2 cmc target for gsz. not sure that tarmogoyf is correct.

here is the list i tested with. slightly diff from OP

4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Qasali Pridemage
4 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Crop Rotation
2 Sylvan Library
3 Vampire Hexmage
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Scroll Rack

1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Elderscale Wurm
1 Progenitus
1 Terastodon

2 Mox Diamond

4 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
3 Dark Depths
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Scrubland
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Bayou
1 Wasteland
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Savannah
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 4 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Rest in Peace

MUD - 2-0

G1: dont know what he's playing, until its too late. h lands kuldotha, i have to tutor for qasali to kill his kultotha. he lands back to back lodestones, and i miss a land drop and cant tutor for KOTR.

side in some +4 thought seizes -4 chalices + reclamation

G2: T1 mox, t2 kotr. he drops wurmcoil. t3 thoughtseize. he attacks, i kotr into a depths, make my token, block, and swing in 2 turns.

G3: mox bayou, t1 hexmage, topdeck Dark depths, make token t3, win T3

ANT - 2-0

G1: t1 gsz for dryad, t2 he probes me and duresses a sylvan library. T2 i see that hes got volcanic island and cast a duress so i put him on ant, which is correct. I top deck a natural order, and crop rotate into an ancient tomb. cast natural order, into ruric. he concedes.

thalia’s thought seizes go in from SB

t1 chalice, t2 thalia, he concedes with a bunch of 1 cmc in hand

Landstill - 0-2

G1: he lands standstill but i think i’ll draw out of it into a depths, but i don’t. 10 turns later i die to mishras.

G2: i keep hand with no colored mana but land t1 chalice. i end up not drawing any colored lands for 6 turns…

LANDS - 2-0

G1: t1 gsz he punishing fires. starts his loam engine with exploration and mana bond. i think he misplays and does tap me down, so i have access to 4 mana and NO into ruric. game over!

G2: t1 he exploratoions, t1 i mox diamond; t2 he play port, depths, loam. i drop a land and wait till dot to crop rotate into thespians stage and copy his depths. Rouge factor victory.

JUND: - 2-0

G1 he gets a slow start, i turn out a t4 marit lage token. even if he had a fast start it wouldn't have changed things

G2 follows in a similar fashion. Jund is pretty much a bye for dark depths combo.

Painter - 1-1-1
G1 : t1 blood moon followed up by t3 activation. sees my progenitus and we go to g2 after the draw.

G2: t1 chalice on 1, he t1 blood moons. no one plays anything for several turns, until he lands jaya and i scoop.

G3 t1 thoughtseize, take a pyro. t2 i fetch up a basic. t3 i stick a kotr, and he plays bridge. He establishes the combo but i abrupt decay. KOTR helps me stick a chalice at 3, and i tutor into dark depths combo and sweep it.

Turbo fog 2-0

chalice out his constant mists and win with Dark depths

g2 aburpt decay his isochron scepter and take the game

Dragon stompy - 0-2

t1 moon followed by magus magus. hatebear beatdown

g2: he goblin settlers my only forest, while im under blood moon. phyrexian revokers, my kotr, and eventually gets my mox diamond. im completely locked out of colored mana and scoop.

1 game vs miracles: he wins because i stack my deck incorrectly with scroll rack while he has a jace out. it cost me the game because he bottoms my thespian stage for the combo. chalice on1 keeps him off of lots of spells.

Here are some random matches i tested 4-2 on the whole group. 1 critical play mistake led to a match loss, and another led to a game loss. It's possible simply adding 1 goyf to either block or aggro can steal games fairly quickly.

Omni 2-0

G1: he show and tells omni with nothing to cast, i make token and swing on my turn.

G2, i stick an early quasi pridemage and beat down. he eventually show’s omni into play,

high tide 2-1

g1 he starts combing and i concede cause i dont care to see if he wiffs. he says he would have in in a tournament i would have had him play it out

g2, stick a chalice on one and walk to victory with dark depths

g3, thoughtseize a spiral, t2 kotr, t3 hexmage but he forces (which i expected). T4 crop rotate into combo, and stick a chalice. make token EOT and he dies.

RDW 2-0

G1 t3 chalice on 1, hexmage depths t4 and win. he's kinda got a slow start, but i play cautiously cause i see volcanic island.
G2 Early chalice on 1 follow up by natural order into ruric t3 seals the game.

RUG 1-2

G1 i lose this cause i make a play error. i have chalice on 1, he abrupt decays and i dont fetch in response. he stifles my fetch and i dont have green mana. i was holding crop rotation and had a stage in play. crop rotation would have won me that one. he closes it out with goyf

g2: early chalice on 1 keeps him off of stifle. t2 KOTR fends off goyfs and tutors depths FTW.

G3: hes on the play so i end up playing into a daze to try and keep up. we go back and forth wasteland stifle shenanigans with no threats out. I end up burning through my black sources so i cant cast hexmage. I end up drawing natural order but he has the force and closes it out with Goyf.

definitely should have won the match cause of g1 player error. it was cause i was playing fast and not thinking before agreeing to the plays. since it was not tournament i was very off guard.

MUD 2-1

G1: t2 no into progenitus, wins me the game
G2: he has early blight steel and im a turn slow on making my depths token
G3: t3 token steals the game as he casts kuldotha.

Enchantress - 0-2 wiff.

G1: i natural order into progenitus because I'm holding the terrastadon i want. terrastadon wins me the game because he's got 2 lands with wild growths. hit both lands, and 1 of my own wins…just didn't work out like htat. he elephant grasses my progenitus and helm combo’s me out.

G2 I player error again and it costs me the game. he casts suppression field with an elephant grass out. I have hexmage depths on board. in response i make my token even though i take note he probably has the oblivion ring with the 3 mana remaining from serra’s sanctum. had i of waited that turn and instead abrupt decay’s the elephant grass then made my token the following turn at end of turn i would have got it. he ends up locking me out and sigil of empty throne after a ton of turns…

FoolofaTook

11-20-2014, 05:59 PM

apple713

11-20-2014, 06:08 PM

Scryb Ranger.

Allows you to use KotR twice in a turn, which can do some interesting ramping for you at times, also allows you to attack with KotR and then untap him to make himself up to 3 bigger by searching for a wasteland that does another of your lands. Saves Dryad Arbor, Bayou and Savannah from Wasteland. If you were playing Deathrite Shaman would be additional tricks there too. Blocks Insectile Aberration and Vendilion Clique until they draw removal.

It's probably worth making the Vampire Hexmages into Deathrite Shamans. Make the Sylvan Library's Scryb Rangers. You have 4 GSZ and 4 Natural Order and neither of those cards plays off of either Vampire Hexmage or Sylvan Library. Both of them play off of DRS and Scryb Ranger.

I don't know if i can justify dropping the hexmages, they are just too valuable. i did end up cutting 1, but i do see that DRS and Scryb play fairly well with gsz and NO. issue with adding more DRS is that its CMC 1 so drawing them sux if i have a chalice out. also, its very rare that you want to gsz into a DRS especially since kotr feeds off of grave.

so how many rangers do you suggest? I had him in the deck originally and didn't like him all that much, but didn't really test a whole lot with him. i found that i didn't want to ever waste a GSZ for him really. I'll have to test with him again. There have been some other changes i've made that may make him more appealing since the last time i used it.

EDIT*** to address Urborg, its a really good card as a 2 of and i've been thinking to up it to 3 because i have never been disappointed to see it and find myself tutoring for it occasionally. Since that land count is actually very low in regards to searchable lands, it provides a way to use fetch lands after i've already searched up my 4 colored mana producing lands. its possible adding more bayous is appropriate but its very early in testing for me to have drawn conclusions about that. I do know that sometimes i wish i had another forest land to search for. but i am also very glad when i draw urborgs.

*** i also added more matches in my previous post.

FoolofaTook

11-20-2014, 06:15 PM

I don't know if i can justify dropping the hexmages, they are just too valuable. i did end up cutting 1, but i do see that DRS and Scryb play fairly well with gsz and NO. issue with adding more DRS is that its CMC 1 so drawing them sux if i have a chalice out. also, its very rare that you want to gsz into a DRS especially since kotr feeds off of grave.

so how many rangers do you suggest? I had him in the deck originally and didn't like him all that much, but didn't really test a whole lot with him. i found that i didn't want to ever waste a GSZ for him really. I'll have to test with him again. There have been some other changes i've made that may make him more appealing since the last time i used it.

*** i also added more matches in my previous post.

I'm thinking 2 Scryb Rangers if you put in the Deathrites and 1 if not. Maybe a 2nd in the SB if you choose not to put in the Deathrites. DRS is probably the 2nd or 3rd best critter in the meta right now. They do so much for so little and if you're playing GSZ you can bring them in even around a Chalice@1.

The other creature I really like as a 1-of right now is Dosan the Falling Leaf. Lots of people will not counter GSZ at 3 because what's the worst thing that could happen at that value? Then Dosan lands and they can't do anything else and you have a turn to work unfettered, particularly if you are playing the DRS, Scryb Ranger, KotR troika, which can ramp in some interesting ways at times.

apple713

11-20-2014, 06:31 PM

I'm thinking 2 Scryb Rangers if you put in the Deathrites and 1 if not. Maybe a 2nd in the SB if you choose not to put in the Deathrites. DRS is probably the 2nd or 3rd best critter in the meta right now. They do so much for so little and if you're playing GSZ you can bring them in even around a Chalice@1.

The other creature I really like as a 1-of right now is Dosan the Falling Leaf. Lots of people will not counter GSZ at 3 because what's the worst thing that could happen at that value? Then Dosan lands and they can't do anything else and you have a turn to work unfettered, particularly if you are playing the DRS, Scryb Ranger, KotR troika, which can ramp in some interesting ways at times.

thanks for reminding me. I did want to add more cards to the board that interact with GSZ. Dosan, scavenging ooze, gaddock teeg, all seem like good options. Teeg seems like it would steal the most games against combo decks and still allow me to win with Dark depths combo. its cartable on t1 although unlikely, with mox tomb gsz.

the thing about dosan is that best case it locks them out of a counterspell. effectively this is that same as if i had just cast a threat on that turn that they needed to counter, unless they are holding multiple counters. The difference is that if they kill dosan, i've just wasted my turn and the same is true if they don't have a counterspell. if its a threat that can win the game, and they don't have a counter, then i just win. so he seems less than optimal.

I've also been less than happy with elder scale wurm. Its possible i just haven't been able to go the natural order route in the games he would have helped.

cards that need to be added to main deck

scryb ranger
courser of kruphix

-1 scroll rack -1 elderscale wurm +1 scryb ranger +1 courser of kruphix

scroll rack has been less than steller because i usually only have 1-2 cards in hand when i draw it. Other than shuffling back NO targets that i draw its been less than stellar. maybe combined with courser it'll prove to generate huge advantage.

cards that need to be added to board

bojuka bog
scavenging ooze
gaddock teeg

Thalia is probably unnecessary and there is a better option somewhere. RIP is ok, but adding bog / loaming in its place are probably better.

-3 thalia +3 trinisphere
-3 rip + bog + scavenging ooze + teeg

currently a second ruric is in board just because drawing him in a combo match really hoses you when you need to natural order him into play.

****Updated OP with current build after edits.

FoolofaTook

11-20-2014, 07:28 PM

the thing about dosan is that best case it locks them out of a counterspell. effectively this is that same as if i had just cast a threat on that turn that they needed to counter, unless they are holding multiple counters. The difference is that if they kill dosan, i've just wasted my turn and the same is true if they don't have a counterspell. if its a threat that can win the game, and they don't have a counter, then i just win. so he seems less than optimal.

Dosan locks them out of all spells on the turn he lands. They can't just kill him unless they have an activated ability way to do that.

So let's say it's turn 4 and you have an Ancient Tomb, a Savannah, a Forest and a Deathrite Shaman in play with another land to drop that turn. So you tap the Ancient Tomb, the Savannah and the Forest to play GSZ at 3. Your opponent either doesn't have a counter or doesn't want to spend one on something he is planning to StP after if lands. Out comes Dosan and you have the turn to play with. You play the land and you tap your DRS to make a mana and you play Chalice@1.

That's a pretty good shot at an unobstructed Natural Order the next turn. He can't bolt or plow Dosan on his turn and as soon as it's your turn again you have the field so to speak. Obviously there are better combos than that available but this is Legacy and we have to assume that Magical Christmas land doesn't happen very often in this type of linear creature-based combo.

Note that if he did Force the GSZ, well then you got to play your Chalice@1 anyway after that happened.

apple713

11-20-2014, 07:37 PM

Dosan locks them out of all spells on the turn he lands. They can't just kill him unless they have an activated ability way to do that.

So let's say it's turn 4 and you have an Ancient Tomb, a Savannah, a Forest and a Deathrite Shaman in play with another land to drop that turn. So you tap the Ancient Tomb, the Savannah and the Forest to play GSZ at 3. Your opponent either doesn't have a counter or doesn't want to spend one on something he is planning to StP after if lands. Out comes Dosan and you have the turn to play with. You play the land and you tap your DRS to make a mana and you play Chalice@1.

That's a pretty good shot at an unobstructed Natural Order the next turn. He can't bolt or plow Dosan on his turn and as soon as it's your turn again you have the field so to speak. Obviously there are better combos than that available but this is Legacy and we have to assume that Magical Christmas land doesn't happen very often in this type of linear creature-based combo.

Note that if he did Force the GSZ, well then you got to play your Chalice@1 anyway after that happened.

most decks given the opportunity counter a GSZ x=3 ... people know that KOTR wrecks shop. Game 2 after they see that's what i would get it'll always get a counterspell so really the strategy is only effective game 1 and in very specific situations.

FoolofaTook

11-20-2014, 07:38 PM

most decks given the opportunity counter a GSZ x=3 ... people know that KOTR wrecks shop. Game 2 after they see that's what i would get it'll always get a counterspell so really the strategy is only effective game 1 and in very specific situations.

You'll still get your Chalice@1 out of it. With KotR if that's what they think you are going for they'll hold the counter for Chalice and plow the knight.

apple713

11-20-2014, 08:05 PM

You'll still get your Chalice@1 out of it. With KotR if that's what they think you are going for they'll hold the counter for Chalice and plow the knight.

i see what your saying now. I still think that its a corner case to justify a slot for him. It also means i can't crop rotate on opponents turn. obviously i won't be crop rotating with a chalice out but his purpose is so limited i feel like there are other cards that would add more to the deck.

FoolofaTook

11-22-2014, 09:40 PM

i see what your saying now. I still think that its a corner case to justify a slot for him. It also means i can't crop rotate on opponents turn. obviously i won't be crop rotating with a chalice out but his purpose is so limited i feel like there are other cards that would add more to the deck.

Once the opponent knows that you are playing Dosan they're going to have to respond to every GSZ at 3+ as though he's going to be the choice. That means you can cut short their ability to see your plays and make decisions on that basis.

Miracles has to either counter GSZ or play their Miracle in response to your GSZ instead of at EoT. By definition if they want to Terminus before your attack phase they're going to have to do it when you cast GSZ, which will leave your fetched creature on the table after the Terminus resolves.

Any list playing 1cc removal is going to have to look at your potential board as Dosan followed by an Ancient Tomb and Chalice@1. They're going to have to blow their bolt or StP in response to GSZ, making your tutored creature that much safer. Your GSZ's will get better and better as the game state progresses because they will be bringing out a larger potential selection of creatures from your list as your mana pool grows. The opponent will always be caught in the trap of having to get rid of what came before because what comes next may limit their options.

StP or bolt dead in the hand as creature removal with two of your creatures on the board or they choose to remove the earlier one blind without knowing what the later one is.

I think Dosan has to be a one of in a GSZ list playing Ancient Tombs and Chalices. He just creates so much uncertainly for the opponent and they can't even probe you on their turn to figure out what their best plays are. They have to live with the knowledge that any GSZ at x=3 or greater could be a game-defining moment that puts them on the downslope with few recovery options.

apple713

11-23-2014, 12:04 AM

Once the opponent knows that you are playing Dosan they're going to have to respond to every GSZ at 3+ as though he's going to be the choice. That means you can cut short their ability to see your plays and make decisions on that basis.

Miracles has to either counter GSZ or play their Miracle in response to your GSZ instead of at EoT. By definition if they want to Terminus before your attack phase they're going to have to do it when you cast GSZ, which will leave your fetched creature on the table after the Terminus resolves.

Any list playing 1cc removal is going to have to look at your potential board as Dosan followed by an Ancient Tomb and Chalice@1. They're going to have to blow their bolt or StP in response to GSZ, making your tutored creature that much safer. Your GSZ's will get better and better as the game state progresses because they will be bringing out a larger potential selection of creatures from your list as your mana pool grows. The opponent will always be caught in the trap of having to get rid of what came before because what comes next may limit their options.

StP or bolt dead in the hand as creature removal with two of your creatures on the board or they choose to remove the earlier one blind without knowing what the later one is.

I think Dosan has to be a one of in a GSZ list playing Ancient Tombs and Chalices. He just creates so much uncertainly for the opponent and they can't even probe you on their turn to figure out what their best plays are. They have to live with the knowledge that any GSZ at x=3 or greater could be a game-defining moment that puts them on the downslope with few recovery options.

what you are proposing requires 6 mana and a spell pierce on GSZ would then require 8 mana to gsz for dosan and chalice at 1. that never happens...I would really like to hear some results from play testing that you have done.

FoolofaTook

11-23-2014, 01:45 AM

what you are proposing requires 6 mana and a spell pierce on GSZ would then require 8 mana to gsz for dosan and chalice at 1. that never happens...I would really like to hear some results from play testing that you have done.

What I'm proposing requires a regular land, a deathrite shaman and an ancient tomb on turn 3 with another ancient tomb, GSZ and Chalice in hand. It requires a 2 lands and 2 ancient tombs and GSZ and a Chalice of the Void on turn 4.

The list you have up top has at least 7 cards that are likely to draw counters early on in Crop Rotation and Natural Order. It's not like the GSZ on 3 or 4 is going to be the first thing the opponent counters most of the time. Overall I count about 18-20 spells in the list that are going to be in the "must-counter" realm when you play them. I don't know any lists right now playing more than 12 counters and most lists are playing 8-10. I think you have a very good chance of seeing the opponent run out of counters before you run out of things to cast. Making GSZ a "must-counter" card for them is a big part of that.

Most people playing 4-8 creature removal and 8-10 counters are going to let the GSZ@3 resolve and kill what it produces. It's the logical way to deal with limited resources against the kind of effect you are putting into play. "Only counter the things that will kill you" is a tried and true control method. Dosan kills them, unlike anything else GSZ produces. Even Vampire Hexmage, assuming you're still going that route, just gives you a very plowable Marit Lage.

apple713

11-23-2014, 08:21 AM

The list you have up top has at least 7 cards that are likely to draw counters early on in Crop Rotation and Natural Order. It's not like the GSZ on 3 or 4 is going to be the first thing the opponent counters most of the time. Overall I count about 18-20 spells in the list that are going to be in the "must-counter" realm when you play them. I don't know any lists right now playing more than 12 counters and most lists are playing 8-10. I think you have a very good chance of seeing the opponent run out of counters before you run out of things to cast. Making GSZ a "must-counter" card for them is a big part of that.

Most people playing 4-8 creature removal and 8-10 counters are going to let the GSZ@3 resolve and kill what it produces. It's the logical way to deal with limited resources against the kind of effect you are putting into play. "Only counter the things that will kill you" is a tried and true control method. Dosan kills them, unlike anything else GSZ produces. Even Vampire Hexmage, assuming you're still going that route, just gives you a very plowable Marit Lage.

because of this comparison, i would consider testing dosan. Just not sure what I cut for it...

apple713

11-28-2014, 06:43 PM

after a lot of testing, this deck has favorable matchup vs ant / burn. it has similar good matchup as the original turbo depths list against decks that do not run Wasteland like UR delver, and decks that don't run answers once the token is created, like BUG. It's ability to NO into Progenitus where Marit Lage would normally get removed is a very good strength. Additionally NO into ruric against combo helps significantly as does NO into Elderscale against decks with no answers where you might get overwhelmed.

I'm liking the diversity of this list to traditional all in depths because sometimes the difficulty in overcoming the shortfalls of dark depths combo are much harder than simply attacking with a KOTR or NO into a better answer like progenitus / ruric.

The consistency of this deck is really impressive. being able to play chalice on t1 when you get it or move on to more aggressive plays really impresses me over other options with chalice of the void main.

one important thing to note is that Elderscale will lose to a DRS or other means of life loss. It's not as powerful as I once thought and should not be relied on. instead it simply buys time.

haven't had any tests against S&T.

despite the way the deck looks mana problems have not been an issue. T1 blood moon is but that is kinda expected since you have no chance to react but other than that i'm not finding that this dead is dead int he water vs anything.

Has anyone else been testing this?

I'm about to remove titania as i've never once wanted to search for her

Also, while I have used Scryb ranger to block against aven minds censor it can't be relied on and aven really does present a problem for this deck. I'm thinking that tarmogoyf might be a better 2 cmc card to GSZ for and abrupt decay might be worth finding a spot main. someone mentioned a person they ran into in italy was playing something similar and they used volrath's stronghold and life from the loam.

apple713

11-29-2014, 07:19 PM

I've added a matchup analysis. It demonstrates the deck being well positioned and flexible in the current meta.

*if you want more details please let me know.

FoolofaTook

11-29-2014, 09:37 PM

What's the plan against S&T? I'm thinking that's the list that's close to impossible for a list without red or blue to beat at this point.

apple713

11-29-2014, 10:29 PM

What's the plan against S&T? I'm thinking that's the list that's close to impossible for a list without red or blue to beat at this point.

not sure what the second half of your sentence is trying to say but I'm trying to make some changes in the flex spots to improve the S&T matchup.

poking around sylvan plug thread suggests that its not a favorable match for the deck in general. However adding stingerflinger spider is an easy way to at least have more game against them. 5 mana is a lot against a deck that can t2 emrakul but it can be GSZ, NO, and S&T into play. It also helps against delver decks and D&T and may earn a main deck slot.

i've got 2-3 variable slots for the main deck (1 titania, 1 scryb ranger, 1 Courser of Cruphix in that order) and am considering the following

teeg - AdNauseum Dredge High Tide
ooze - Reanimator AdNauseum Dredge Lands
Bojuka bog - Reanimator AdNauseum Dredge Lands
stingerfling spider - S&T some D&T Reanimator and Delver
Karakas - S&T Reanimator some D&T

first priority would be to improve S&T, D&T. Then Elves / RUG to make those not so much of a toss up / race.

Other thoughts

I'm considering cutting elder scale warm from sideboard and thought seizes. If I do that and move some SB cards to the main I'll have UP to 6 slots in SB to better adjust for the poor matchups. adding something that works in place of thoughtseize like ethersworn canonist would improve most matches thoughtseize comes in against and provide a threat while not getting locked out from chalice.

The reason for considering cutting courser is because this deck is very fast and doesn't have much time to realize the advantage courser grants. Also, because its a combo based deck, revealing Natural Order or dark depths as your top card completely blows your cover and opponent might be able to adapt.

I've also considered adding 1 more card like qusali because SFM decks usually run 2 equip and if the game drags on to the point where they stick 2 it can become problematic.

FoolofaTook

11-29-2014, 10:58 PM

not sure what the second half of your sentence is trying to say but I'm trying to make some changes in the flex spots to improve the S&T matchup.

What does the list do against T2 or T3 Show and Tell into Hivemind and a pact? I ran a Junk affiliate list against S&T Friday night and other than Cabal Therapy out of the sideboard (Thoughtseize in this list) there was just nothing that had even a remote chance to stand up to that. Emrakul was tough but Hivemind was close to impossible because once Show and Tell resolves it's game over and they use Intuition at end of your turn to set it up if they haven't already assembled the combo through more traditional cantrip related means.

Blue or red lets you prevent Show and Tell (or Intuition if you go that route) from resolving. Junk just doesn't have anything that manages that. The counters and Brainstorm essentially strip us of any likely chance to interact with the S&T list before they do something that we then can't interact with.

apple713

11-29-2014, 11:27 PM

What does the list do against T2 or T3 Show and Tell into Hivemind and a pact? I ran a Junk affiliate list against S&T Friday night and other than Cabal Therapy out of the sideboard (Thoughtseize in this list) there was just nothing that had even a remote chance to stand up to that. Emrakul was tough but Hivemind was close to impossible because once Show and Tell resolves it's game over and they use Intuition at end of your turn to set it up if they haven't already assembled the combo through more traditional cantrip related means.

Blue or red lets you prevent Show and Tell (or Intuition if you go that route) from resolving. Junk just doesn't have anything that manages that. The counters and Brainstorm essentially strip us of any likely chance to interact with the S&T list before they do something that we then can't interact with.

are you saying that the deck needs to run red for pyroblast to interact with these decks or blue for other counterspells?

I agree that thought seize isn't the best because cards can be hidden with brainstorm which is 1 reason i don't like thought seize as much and likely to come out of my sb. I don't think red / blue is the only effective way to interact with S&T.

adding karakas to the deck significantly improves the situation against S&T and something like teeg / pithing needle / revoker are good against Sneak attack. I haven't figured out if these are really good options let alone the best but its something i've been trying to figure out.

You made a good point to poke around the Junk thread to see how they deal with these decks. I'll have to find out and get back to you, but currently as my matchup analysis has revealed, these are not good matchups.

EDIT***
sdematt: "Sneak and Show, I have Needle, Teeg, Charm, and Grip. Chainer's could be Diabolic Edict. Here's a match where I'd likely want Thalia just to slow them down." All of that is onto of 6 1cmc discard 3x STP and 1 karakas...

S&T is an amazing deck and this is 1 of the reasons its so damn good... because its really hard to hate against.

i just found the most amazing creature that could solve all of the problems of S&T. its permanent. The'll never expect it and off the S&T they just lose.

Willow Satyr

FoolofaTook

11-30-2014, 12:59 AM

apple713

11-30-2014, 01:36 AM

Here's the problem: How do you interact with this?

T1 - Blue land, Ponder or Preordain.
T2 - City of Traitors or Ancient Tomb, Show and Tell, put Hive Mind into play. Play a Pact of the Titan or play a Lotus Petal and Pact of Negation their own spell.

What can Junk possibly to do to fight that by turn 2 except get lucky to both have Thoughtseize in hand turn 1 and that they don't have a counter to deal with it?

Emrakul there are answers too. The answers to Hive Mind or Omniscience just aren't there. The only answer I had in my Junk build were the 3 Cabal Therapies sideboard and 1 Trinisphere that I put in specifically for Omniscience, only Junk can't find cards like that reliably by turn 2 even when they're on the play and might have a chance to disrupt some.

I just don't see how to deal with that in this archetype at the moment. I was playing 4 Aether Vial, 3 Tidehollow Sculler and 3 Ethersworn Canonist alongside the 3 Cabal Therapy and singleton Trinisphere game 2 and I actually therapied him successfully for Show and Tell on the play. The end of my turn 3 he Intuitioned for the other 3 Show and Tell and I was dead on his turn.

@ omni, this match is incredibly favorable for all the reasons i mentioned in the matchup analysis. You get opening hands like i did tonight, thoughtseize, mox diamond, dark depths, tomb, trinisphere, chalice, natural order. Its a complete blow out.

i hear what you are saying, and the deck doesn't have much. Since Hive mind is played so little i must stop you from discussing it further because until it becomes prevalent i don't see the point in adapting a specific strategy just for that deck. If its in your meta then you'll have to adapt but its not in 99% of anyone else meta.

i think i listed a fair amount of options about what junk can do even though they may not be the best available when compared to other colors.

Are you suggesting the deck gets scrapped because it doesn't run counterspells? This cannot be since by that logic every deck not running counterspells should not be played because of decks like belcher...

whats the point of what you are saying?

You are pointing out a weakness, and i agree. If you are looking to me for an answer i've given options. Make suggestions if my choices are not good enough.

Easy choices would be thalia revoker, and Karakas. I think the best way to approach the situation might actually be to adapt the sideboard to a D&T kind of approach. S&T's Greatest weakness is D&T. Karakas, thalia, phyrexian revoker, swords, spirit of the labrynth, containment priest. if you don't like what i've chosen you can pick a few that benefit your other matches.

keep in mind that S&T brings in blood moon for Karakas, and pyroclasm for revokers. Inspire of this they may buy you enough time to NO or Dark depths. Dark depths is unaffected by Thalia which is nice.

Claymore

12-01-2014, 06:20 PM

Why does there need to be a plan against Hivemind? That deck is terrible. If it's in your weird meta then run 4 Mana Tithe 4 Angel's Grace. Hivemind has fallen out of favor with Show and Tell archetypes because the meta is rampant with soft counters like flusterstorm, daze, and spell pierce, which makes it extremely easy to counter your own pact while pushing your own counter through.

Sorry for responding to the troll!

Have you been testing Courser? I found it very lackluster in GW Maverick in the current meta.

I'd recommend Toxic Deluge for the sideboard against D&T.

Also, what about a 1 of Boseiju for the sideboard? I've sided it in with my GW Maverick deck to push through Armageddon and GSZs, it's a very powerful card that is overlooked these days. I would cut Scooze, as it is very weak right now and it can't get any advantage when you're running Ancient Tombs and Cities.

apple713

12-01-2014, 06:57 PM

i've added a sideboard guide to the primer and made changes to the main deck and sideboard

I am also considering moving all or some of the following from main to SB since i seem to be boarding the decay's and sages in almost 60% of my matches. My reservation is that karakas and singerfling make S&T & D&T & reanimator slightly better g1, and aren't completely dead in other matches.

main
-1 Scavenging Ooze
-1 Wasteland
-1 Stingerfling Spider
-1 Karakas

SB
+1 Reclamation Sage
+3 Abrupt Decay

also considering sigarda and hornet nest - yup mouse over it

although i personally prefer dark depths because its a 20/20, i've also ported this list to 12 post, and it seems to have solved the miracles coin flip match, and turned the unfavorable D&T matchup into a favorable one. It also deals with creatures swarm decks better with the inclusion of Glacial chasm, so elves isn't as iffy. I made a brief post about it here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24848-Deck-Turbo-Eldrazi&p=852858&viewfull=1#post852858)

brief thoughts on it are that ultimately it may be better in the long run because of its matchups vs D&T and miracles...really i just like smashing miracles hard. I think it can have better matchups vs S&T but I haven't developed a sideboard for it or tested enough to really expose any additional weaknesses i've created by dropping the dark depths combo.

Why does there need to be a plan against Hivemind? That deck is terrible. If it's in your weird meta then run 4 Mana Tithe 4 Angel's Grace. Hivemind has fallen out of favor with Show and Tell archetypes because the meta is rampant with soft counters like flusterstorm, daze, and spell pierce, which makes it extremely easy to counter your own pact while pushing your own counter through.

Sorry for responding to the troll!

Have you been testing Courser? I found it very lackluster in GW Maverick in the current meta.

I'd recommend Toxic Deluge for the sideboard against D&T.

Also, what about a 1 of Boseiju for the sideboard? I've sided it in with my GW Maverick deck to push through Armageddon and GSZs, it's a very powerful card that is overlooked these days. I would cut Scooze, as it is very weak right now and it can't get any advantage when you're running Ancient Tombs and Cities.

It seems like your suggestions are on point with the changes i've made to SB and Maindeck.

I don't like courser since i've found him to be lack luster as well. He got cut
toxic deluge made it into SB

I agree with your comment on ooze. Its weird tho because he reads like an all star but in practice just doesn't work out.

im considering Anafenza, the Foremost in his place since it doesn't require an activation cost and can't be responded to since its a replacement effect. drawback is that its a bitch to hardcast, and doesn't do anything against creatures already in the grave.

Boseiju could be added but it doesn't really improve any matches i struggle with.

apple713

12-06-2014, 03:25 PM

I have made a complete overhaul to this deck after significant testing. I've found that the changes are necessary to offset the weaknesses of the old Dark Depths build with the benefits of the new Eldrazi build.

The eldrazi addition improved matchups against miracles, stone forge decks, D&T, S&T, and Reanimator. It weakened it’s matchup vs Shardless / Jund which is acceptable because they were so favorable.

adrieng

12-06-2014, 03:45 PM

apple713

12-06-2014, 04:22 PM

If you go to the post.list. I have tested a bit a Mud.Depth deck which is ok but worse than classic deph against everything that is tempoish which is a big problem to my mind. I also think your deck is weak to delver.decks.

4 Thespian's Stage
4 Dark Depths
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
2 Vesuva
1 Maze of Ith

4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Sundering Titan
4 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Grave Titan
4 Expedition Map
4 Grim Monolith
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
3 Toxic Deluge
1 Blightsteel Colossus

Yeah i can see that the list above is rather weak because it doesn't benefit from the consistency GSZ and Crop rotation bring. GSZ really balances a lot for the deck. It serves as, acceleration with dryad arbor, toolbox / threat with KOTR, pridemage, and Late game its all threats cause you can bring out primeval titan, ruric, progenitus. It's also all artifacts so that leaves it weak to cards like ancient grudge.

The dark depths list i included in the OP is decent. I don't think that it is better than the depths version we are working on. Ultimately i abandon it because i wasn't seeing enough benefit compared to the list you devised. The eldrazi version does have improved matchups vs Miracle/Storm/12Post/LEDDredge/DeathAndTaxes which is ultimately why i adopted it over the dark depths version.

apple713

12-27-2014, 12:44 AM

after ~20 days of testing I have updated the current decklist. I've made adjustments to improve the short game to get to long game. Using veteran explorer as a blocker in matches like UR is perfect because it buys time and ramps so you can cast all the 4+ mana spells in the deck. Having 3x veteran and 4x GSZ almost ensures you get one every game if you want it. Although there is no sacrifice outlet, veteran is still very useful without the traditional cabal therapy nic fit shenanigans, unless you are playing against a deck that uses STP. If you are playing against a STP deck, its no big deal because those are generally your better matchups.

Although it seems strange to have added 3 more 1 drops (veteran explorers) they do not tend to clash with chalice. against decks that you want to stick a chalice at 1 such as ant / elves, veteran is a dead card anyways. Against decks like UR delver, sticking a chalice at 1 is huge, so having up to 3 dead cards really isn't an issue. Normally against UR, i'll play a veteran first if I'm on the draw, and chalice first if I'm on the play. UR is not likely to force a veteran and if they force the chalice, i can play my veterans.

People who have seen this deck in action have responded well however no one on the source seems to have shown much interest or given any feedback.

Changes are at the bottom

//Creatures - 13
3 Veteran Explorer
3 Primeval Titan
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Progenitus

//Spells - 19
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Mox Diamond
3 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Crop Rotation
3 Sylvan Library

//Lands - 28
4 Windswept Heath
4 Forest
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Eye of Ugin
4 Ancient Tomb

//Sideboard
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Trinisphere
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Willow Satyr
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Reclamation Sage
SB: 1 Stingerfling Spider
SB: 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
SB: 1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
SB: 1 Hornet Queen

//Others for Consideration
SB: 1 Bane of Progress
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Stoic Angel
SB: 1 Phantom Nishoba
SB: 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

3 Veteran Explorer - testing 3 v 1
3 Primeval Titan - testing 3 vs 2
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - variable
3 Natural Order - testing 3 v 4
3 Sylvan Library - testing 3 v 2
4 Forest - increased basic count to support veteran
1 Cavern of Souls - surprised i didn't have one in here before
1 Plains - considering switching this to forest since I have reduced the number of white cards to 2 main deck.
1 Knight of the Reliquary - testing 1 v 4 because previous versions did not have enough lands to really support multiple fetches

Lemnear

12-27-2014, 04:43 AM

Isn't this a mono-green Version of 12-post?

apple713

12-27-2014, 11:46 AM

Isn't this a mono-green Version of 12-post?

Originally it didnt start out like that but has proved to be the most efficient. all of the spells except crop rotation are different and nothing that 12 post has ever used. In fact they are signature cards from other decks.bin not trying to revolutionize other versions of existing decks or even create my own but its too different for any of the current deck threads to entertain such a radically different list.

Fatal

12-27-2014, 02:14 PM

Interesting how this deck is similar to posted long time ago - http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28391-Primer-Nic-Feat-8Post&highlight=8post

Lemnear

12-27-2014, 02:35 PM

Originally it didnt start out like that but has proved to be the most efficient. all of the spells except crop rotation are different and nothing that 12 post has ever used. In fact they are signature cards from other decks.bin not trying to revolutionize other versions of existing decks or even create my own but its too different for any of the current deck threads to entertain such a radically different list.

I just asked, because I see strategic similar cards (NO->S&T or Explorer->Exploration Map/Candelabra) in both decks and wonder why there is still a difference after the years we have Cloudpost+Glimmerpost+Vesuva around. The same is true for Post-MUD in some way as well. I have the manabase laying around and opt to tinker with it a bit more in the upcoming months, so I'm looking for input. Thanks so far

ironclad8690

12-27-2014, 11:57 PM

Started testing this deck on cockatrice. Unfortunately people will kick me out of the game pretty often after g1 for some reason. This deck is super fun, and I look forward to playing it in real life.

apple713

12-28-2014, 12:02 AM

Interesting how this deck is similar to posted long time ago - http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28391-Primer-Nic-Feat-8Post&highlight=8post

It is interesting because i have never seen your post. Interesting that you are trying for the same strategies. Your version is weak to the majority of combo matches that this version is not. Main deck chalice helps significantly there. Additionally fetching up a teeg and running trinisphere pretty much cements those matches for this build.

I know you and others will disagree but cabal therapy really sucks. Imo its trash. Sure you COULD get value out of it but brainstorm really fudges your plans. Additionally without gitaxian probe its even worse. There is no worse feeling than when you therapy for something and they topdeck it following turn. Furthermore cabal therapy only gets worse as more cards get printed.

I just asked, because I see strategic similar cards (NO->S&T or Explorer->Exploration Map/Candelabra) in both decks and wonder why there is still a difference after the years we have Cloudpost+Glimmerpost+Vesuva around. The same is true for Post-MUD in some way as well. I have the manabase laying around and opt to tinker with it a bit more in the upcoming months, so I'm looking for input. Thanks so far

I prefer NO to S&T because opponent doesnt gain an advantage as they would with s&t. Furthermore you dont need a creature in your hand so it is more of a 1 card combo than S&T. Explorer is better for early game than candle / map imo because it buys time and ramps. Chalice is very strong in the meta right now but decks like sylvan plug destroy their advantage by maindecking cards like choke. Others like stax types have no consistency. Sylvan library, gsz and no provide consistency.

Started testing this deck on cockatrice. Unfortunately people will kick me out of the game pretty often after g1 for some reason. This deck is super fun, and I look forward to playing it in real life.

thats unfortunate, I haven't had the same experience.

Bahra

12-28-2014, 12:40 AM

apple713

12-28-2014, 03:01 AM

So you basically think that every match up is favored or heavily favored for the deck you just came up with? It frankly looks horrible and I can't imagine why you would have so much confidence in it.

This deck has to have a very bad match up against all counterspell decks, with so few haymakers and such a difficult time actually casting eldrazi.

At least try to be a little realistic.

Yes, i do feel it has many favorably matches. When i sit down across from an opponent i do not fear that they have a deck I'm weak to. I am confident that I have at least a fair match up against my worst matches. UR Delver / RUG delver seem to be the most difficult and they are the reason i switched the deck to be more dependent on veteran explorer because he allows the deck to survive until late game.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all" counterspell decks, but miracles is what I would prefer to play against all day with this. Also, when i look at the list i see almost every card being threatening... A resolved titan, NO, or late game GSZ are usually game winners. GSZ also serves to get you to late game in the event you do not have chalice at 1.

Although I am still working on an optimal build, if you look at the shell it that won't change. The shell provides amazing consistency to a chalice based deck. Additionally, the shell enables the deck to easily incorporate early combo victories with NO, and almost guaranteed late game victories with Eldrazi.

The worst thing I want to see is sulfuric vortex (no life gain), price of progress, and humility. Fortunately for me humility is practically nonexistent, sulfuric vortex is a SB card typically, and decks that run it are very susceptible to chalice @ 1 and trinisphere. Additionally, any life gain I do manage to accumulate is often very bad for them. Moreover, price of progress can be played around and I can win without amassing nonbasic lands.

Blood moon does almost nothing to this deck but force me to not use the eldrazi strategy. painter has a hard matchup here and i have time to get to late game because of eldrazi shuffles and progenitus main. Sneak and show runs it in the sideboard which can suck but that matchup gets weird anyways and blood moon isn't much of a factor. As for dragon stompy... I'm not worried about running into it, but generally they have trouble with 6/6's.

Yes it does look terrible, there is no denying that. It looks clunky, and like it would hurt itself significantly with chalice. However, I urge you to pick it up and play with it because that is the only way to understand the beauty of the deck. Please don't come in here and provide speculative criticism without even play testing it. Also, keep in mind that if you are not familiar with all of the lines of play you will most certainly lose matches you should have won.

Lemnear

12-28-2014, 05:06 AM

apple713

12-28-2014, 12:22 PM

Explorer w/o a sac-outlet sucks more than Therapy without Duress/Probe/format Knowledge. It lacks the redundancy of quick ramping it's twin deck has and I don't know why this should be the case after the first few games. Delver/TNN attacking through Explorer is hilarious if this deck needs the ramping to reach the GSZ/Titan/NO/Eldrazi. Plows on VE wasn't also uncommon and then things start to get ugly and the reduced tools for creating redundancy (Map/cantrips/SDT) kick in. Random Chalice is no game-ender either (even for storm) and no reason to cut all good 1cc spells which would help the deck. I'm highly sceptical.

What Marc is talking about in regards to "counterspell" decks are Blade and Delver variants which pressure you while can afford to hold back 1-2 counterspells for your limited number of threats and outs to their clock, which is a problem considering the slower ramping and lacking redundancy for Glimmerposts effects (Vesuvas & Maps)

In short: if your GSZ/Titan/Explorer doesn't work/is countered, the deck falls apart

Thats like saying if a ur deck doesnt stick a delver, pyromancer, or swiftblade it falls apart... The deck is the most played in the format and having only 12 threats with 4 real counterspells.

//Creatures - 7
3 Primeval Titan
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

//Spells - 7
3 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith

As you can see there are a minimum of 14 threats which is greater than ur's 12. 4x chalice can be equatable to 4x force of will, obviously not the same but similar in function. When you add in the veteran explorers you have cards to buy time. Against decks with stp veteran doesnt matter like against stoneblade decks. The match is favorable for me anyways. Sfm is slow and smaller than titan. If they waste the swords on veteran they dont have Have it for titan.

I feel like im spinning my wheels talking to you because you havent played the deck. Take 20 min and plug it into cockatrictlce and test it, or take 30 mins and sleeve it up, i know you have the cards lemnear. Further conversation is speculative vs my experience and thus pointless.

Lemnear

12-28-2014, 02:55 PM

Thats like saying if a ur deck doesnt stick a delver, pyromancer, or swiftblade it falls apart... The deck is the most played in the format and having only 12 threats with 4 real counterspells.

//Creatures - 7
3 Primeval Titan
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

//Spells - 7
3 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith

As you can see there are a minimum of 14 threats which is greater than ur's 12.

You undermine the sheer fact that UR Delver or this decks twin run blue to increase the Virtual density of threats or that we talk about the mere manacosts of those threats and the related pressure on the manabase. U vs 4GG with plenty of colorless lands is relevant.

4x chalice can be equatable to 4x force of will, obviously not the same but similar in function.

I know where you are coming from, but being useless on the draw and requiring a Sol Land on turn 1 to do anything serious against the current metagame structure is very limiting even if we ignore the issue of countered manacosts occuring with Chalice or it being a permanent (Decay). My point was about dismissing useful 1cc tools just because (I suspect) Chalice and I have to question that design decision waging the up- & downsides.

When you add in the veteran explorers you have cards to buy time. Against decks with stp veteran doesnt matter like against stoneblade decks. The match is favorable for me anyways. Sfm is slow and smaller than titan. If they waste the swords on veteran they dont have Have it for titan.

I just mentioned why Explorer does nothing against Delver/TNN and does also not affect the combo matchup. I disagree that you can ignore drawing/playing Explorers and their effect in these matchups. You need tools to either stall Delver or accelerate your ramping. Explorer does neither here without a sac outlet.

I have no clue how you can talk about Titan vs SFM without dropping a word about the manacosts. 6GG or 7G (via GSZ) vs 1W isn't even worth taking serious. If they Plow the Explorer and FoW/Daze/Pierce your GSZ you are out of competition. Not caring for the Plow on Explorer in general is ... questionable. Don't you run Natural Orders, needing a green creature to cast it?

I feel like im spinning my wheels talking to you because you havent played the deck. Take 20 min and plug it into cockatrictlce and test it, or take 30 mins and sleeve it up, i know you have the cards lemnear. Further conversation is speculative vs my experience and thus pointless.

I've slammed quite a few games with 12-Post and MUD variants, so the playlines and chokepoints are familiar. After pure goldfishing, I see strategic and Executive weaknesses, in terms of mana development, stalling against aggro, battling Combo, so I wanted to talk about it.

I'm not interrested in another discussion on this board boiling down to "your experience doesn't support my arguments, so it's invalid" and "this list is a bit different from other decks with the same strategy, so all your experience with the archetype is worthless, because you never played THIS DECK in a tournament" like the Legacy TPS thread ended up.

apple713

12-28-2014, 04:44 PM

You undermine the sheer fact that UR Delver or this decks twin run blue to increase the Virtual density of threats or that we talk about the mere manacosts of those threats and the related pressure on the manabase. U vs 4GG with plenty of colorless lands is relevant.

im not really sure where you are going with this. Delver decks spend a lot of time digging. If they don't stick an early threat they usually lose against me. If they do stick an early threat then obviously their chances are better. I understand that blue is included to create density, but in this deck you have sylvan library and courser to improve draws, and almost every card pulling other cards out of the deck, titan, fetches, KOTR, veteran, and crop rotation all thin lands. If you are flooding on lands, crop rotate for a eye of ugin, or gsz for a KOTR. Sometimes flooding on lands is ok because glimmer posts buy time.

I know where you are coming from, but being useless on the draw and requiring a Sol Land on turn 1 to do anything serious against the current metagame structure is very limiting even if we ignore the issue of countered manacosts occuring with Chalice or it being a permanent (Decay). My point was about dismissing useful 1cc tools just because (I suspect) Chalice and I have to question that design decision waging the up- & downsides.

requiring a sol land isn't as bad as you think because you can crop rotate for an ancient tomb which is about as effective as running 4x COT and 4x Tombs. Additionally chalice on 1 is still good even if you aren't on the play. Decks playing abrupt decay are good matches and so having it decay'ed isn't much of an issue.

I just mentioned why Explorer does nothing against Delver/TNN and does also not affect the combo matchup. I disagree that you can ignore drawing/playing Explorers and their effect in these matchups. You need tools to either stall Delver or accelerate your ramping. Explorer does neither here without a sac outlet.

idk, a quick equip on a TNN can be troublesome if i stall out but it still get stopped by glacial chasm. Yes veteran isn't optimal against those creatures, but TNN is being played less and less, and even if delver is a problem, a 7 turn clock is fine with me. getting multiple flipped delvers becomes a problem but every deck has issues so yes this can be problematic, but it isn't always...

I have no clue how you can talk about Titan vs SFM without dropping a word about the manacosts. 6GG or 7G (via GSZ) vs 1W isn't even worth taking serious. If they Plow the Explorer and FoW/Daze/Pierce your GSZ you are out of competition. Not caring for the Plow on Explorer in general is ... questionable. Don't you run Natural Orders, needing a green creature to cast it?

so Natural order is the best here and you can just fetch for a dryad arbor eot. NO is T2 castable multiple ways. People do stupid things because they don't know the deck, like STP a dryad arbor and then you drop an explorer. You can't argue swords this and swords that... they have 4 in the deck and drawing 2-3 in the first few turns is an uncommon occurrence. Its not the end of the world either because of cards like natural order. Once you reach critical mana, almost any of your threats can stabilize a game / end it.

I've slammed quite a few games with 12-Post and MUD variants, so the playlines and chokepoints are familiar. After pure goldfishing, I see strategic and Executive weaknesses, in terms of mana development, stalling against aggro, battling Combo, so I wanted to talk about it.

GSZ improves mana development at 1 2 4 and 7 mana. dryad arbor, veteran explorer, courser/KOTR, Primeval.

I'm not interrested in another discussion on this board boiling down to "your experience doesn't support my arguments, so it's invalid" and "this list is a bit different from other decks with the same strategy, so all your experience with the archetype is worthless, because you never played THIS DECK in a tournament" like the Legacy TPS thread ended up.

i don't want that either, but i cannot better explain what you want to know. The only way for you to understand is to pick up the deck. Just do it. it would be faster than writing any further uninformed responses. I would be very interested what you have to say once you see how the changes I have made offset the issues you raise.

Lemnear

12-28-2014, 06:02 PM

im not really sure where you are going with this. Delver decks spend a lot of time digging. If they don't stick an early threat they usually lose against me. If they do stick an early threat then obviously their chances are better. I understand that blue is included to create density, but in this deck you have sylvan library and courser to improve draws, and almost every card pulling other cards out of the deck, titan, fetches, KOTR, veteran, and crop rotation all thin lands. If you are flooding on lands, crop rotate for a eye of ugin, or gsz for a KOTR. Sometimes flooding on lands is ok because glimmer posts buy time.

They dig for what? Counterspells and threats. You want so see neither hitting your threats or lifepoints and their threats come down turn 1/2/3. What I was highlighting in the previous posts is that Library or stuff like Courser are clearly inferior setting up defense (digging for Chalice) or a flow on Posts (lifegain & manaboost) compared to options other decks with Post-manabase play. If it wasn't the case, we would see many more Libraries and Co. played in the format, but once more: mana matters. 2cc Libraries and 3-4 mana Coursers can't really compete with variance-reducing tools 100-400% cheaper. Flooding on Posts is fine against aggro; you however play only 8 posts and no Maps. A big difference if you count on Glimmerposts lifegain.

requiring a sol land isn't as bad as you think because you can crop rotate for an ancient tomb which is about as effective as running 4x COT and 4x Tombs. Additionally chalice on 1 is still good even if you aren't on the play. Decks playing abrupt decay are good matches and so having it decay'ed isn't much of an issue.

That isn't true and you know it. Crop Rotation is a 2-for-1 trade which requires green mana and is hilarious bad if countered. Chalice w/o a Tomb or City in the draw is bad unless you play against storm. Talking of storm: they play decay and are by no way a good matchup for this deck.

idk, a quick equip on a TNN can be troublesome if i stall out but it still get stopped by glacial chasm. Yes veteran isn't optimal against those creatures, but TNN is being played less and less, and even if delver is a problem, a 7 turn clock is fine with me. getting multiple flipped delvers becomes a problem but every deck has issues so yes this can be problematic, but it isn't always...

I don't want to nicpick in you plan to gain access to Chasm with only Rotation and Titan to tutor for it, but your math on the Delver matchup ignores the fact, that most lists run Burn or other low-costed critters alongside the Bug-man. We're, in fact, not talking about a 7 turn clock, but about a 5 turn clock in average on top of an additional threat in the SB of UR Delver: Bloodmoon. I'm convinced the combination is nothing to sneeze at. I give you the point in regards to Blade decks and TNN which are likely slower, but they also have tools like C.Priest to fuck with your NO's and GSZ' which make about half your threats. Serious headache potential if you ask me. You're taking thing a bit to easy for my taste and testing.

so Natural order is the best here and you can just fetch for a dryad arbor eot. NO is T2 castable multiple ways. People do stupid things because they don't know the deck, like STP a dryad arbor and then you drop an explorer. You can't argue swords this and swords that... they have 4 in the deck and drawing 2-3 in the first few turns is an uncommon occurrence. Its not the end of the world either because of cards like natural order. Once you reach critical mana, almost any of your threats can stabilize a game / end it.

I never ever consider ANY of my opponents an idiot to waste removal here and there. Plowing Explorer if you attack with Batterskull is fine, if you have Delver/TNN there is no need to and they can save their removal. The trick of fetching Arbor eot is nothing new for an Elves pilot like me, but expecting to resolve a hail mary NO against decks with counterspells or containment priests is. NO is boarded out A LOT in Elves because of that. Mind that this is another, potential 2-for-1 play

GSZ improves mana development at 1 2 4 and 7 mana. dryad arbor, veteran explorer, courser/KOTR, Primeval.

Your list has 9(!) green manasources (plus 2 Diamonds) for turn 1 GSZ for Arbor/Explorer. Titan and Courser even cost double green. Are you trying to sell me this as a stable and reliable way to cast your mana-acceleration even if we ignore stuff like Wasteland or Daze?

i don't want that either, but i cannot better explain what you want to know. The only way for you to understand is to pick up the deck. Just do it. it would be faster than writing any further uninformed responses. I would be very interested what you have to say once you see how the changes I have made offset the issues you raise.

As said before: Picked it up ; goldfished; disliked the direction and playout of the Post/Explorer dualism; started discussion on why to keep this GW instead of U/UG, why this deck lacks Maps/Loam/whatever if you want to keep it mono-green instead

apple713

12-29-2014, 02:15 AM

As said before: Picked it up ; goldfished; disliked the direction and playout of the Post/Explorer dualism; started discussion on why to keep this GW instead of U/UG, why this deck lacks Maps/Loam/whatever if you want to keep it mono-green instead

This deck is a blend of multiple decks, Sylvan Plug, Turbo Eldrazi, and Maverick. The combination offsets the weaknesses of each individual with the strengths of the others. The deck has a great early game that doesn't get blown out by combo, and an incredibly strong end game.

GW gives access to Teeg, karakas, quasali, KOTR, and Sigarda. There is no combination of 5 cards that add the utility that these cards provide. If you have suggestions I'm open. You can even look in the sylvan plug thread and find that they splash white for these cards because the value added is unparalleled. Sigarda is probably the only card unique to this deck and its because it just decimates decks that rely on liliana and pox type decks. She has hex proof so she is difficult to remove, and allows survival against an emrakul attack. Unfortunately there isn't a green creature like her that has been printed yet that equalizes delver based decks. If only Stingerfling was cheaper, or had hexpoof / shroud.

UG doesn't offer almost any utility outside of coiling oracle, prime speaker zegana, prophet of kruphix, trygon predator, and stoic angel. None of these really do anything for the deck except stoic angel.

sure blue has S&T but imo Natural order is so much better because it can tutor up a creature not in my hand. It serves as another way to access silver bullets such as Ruric who closes out most combo matches that you seem so skeptical about. He also closes a lot of delver matches too because they'd have to bolt him twice and take 12 damage in the process... He can be uncountable with caverns, and he can be bounced with karakas.

You can look at my approach this way and it might make more sense

Chalice is so strong right now but are weak to itself due to lack of consistency: +GSZ
Sylvan plug plays chalice and GSZ but plays conditional cards: -choke, -trinisphere
make chalice reliably castable t1: + ancient tomb + crop rotation
Develop sure fire win condition: +8 post +eldrazi +titans
12 post's weakness are combo decks, and other fast aggro decks: +NO, +ruric
How can i accelerate mana and get other added benefits: +Dryad arbor, +veteran explorer +courser, +KOTR

*Trinisphere and Choke both suck in multiples and even if you don't get multiples they are dead cards half the time

If you don't like the veteran explorer route, suggest a better way to improve RUG / UR 4-5 card slots (3 explorer, 1 titan, 1 kozelik).

you can try punishing fire and groves by taking out explorers and basics but with no reliable way to tutor for pfire you haven't really solved the problem just created less reliable solution. Maybe choke + tabernacle is best against those decks. Crop, KOTR, prime titan can fetch tabernacle, and choke you'll need to draw into via library or hope that chalice buys you enough time.

The best approach would be if a green creature was printed (likely to be splashed with red) that could get the weenie situation under control.

Lemnear

12-29-2014, 05:59 AM

This deck is a blend of multiple decks, Sylvan Plug, Turbo Eldrazi, and Maverick. The combination offsets the weaknesses of each individual with the strengths of the others. The deck has a great early game that doesn't get blown out by combo, and an incredibly strong end game.

Come on ... chalice doesn't make this Plug; KotR doesn't make this Maverick. Running Explorer (which reauires basics) without sac outlets and Posts in a single deck is a stretch especially if you want to run two colors. 12-Post struggles with this problem even while running more library manipulation. The deck gets blown out by combo. Chalice/3Sphere do nothing against SneakShow or Decay, ergo you are left with Teeg/NO which have the beforementioned consistancy issues by requiring 2 colored mana

GW gives access to Teeg, karakas, quasali, KOTR, and Sigarda. There is no combination of 5 cards that add the utility that these cards provide. If you have suggestions I'm open. You can even look in the sylvan plug thread and find that they splash white for these cards because the value added is unparalleled. Sigarda is probably the only card unique to this deck and its because it just decimates decks that rely on liliana and pox type decks. She has hex proof so she is difficult to remove, and allows survival against an emrakul attack. Unfortunately there isn't a green creature like her that has been printed yet that equalizes delver based decks. If only Stingerfling was cheaper, or had hexpoof / shroud.

You have even less white manasources than green ones and all the creatures listed here require GW and are singletons. We're going in cycles here. It's pointless to discuss effects if you ignore the challenge/issues with gaining access and casting those cards.

UG doesn't offer almost any utility outside of coiling oracle, prime speaker zegana, prophet of kruphix, trygon predator, and stoic angel. None of these really do anything for the deck except stoic angel.

Erm ... Ponder, Preordain, Brainstorm, S&T, Counterspells, Treasure Cruise, etc.? They do nothing for the decks consistancy? Seriously?

sure blue has S&T but imo Natural order is so much better because it can tutor up a creature not in my hand. It serves as another way to access silver bullets such as Ruric who closes out most combo matches that you seem so skeptical about. He also closes a lot of delver matches too because they'd have to bolt him twice and take 12 damage in the process... He can be uncountable with caverns, and he can be bounced with karakas.

Yeah it can tutor IF you have a creature in play. Want to point at your 4 fetches to grab Arbor eot? Hope not. I point at S&T NOT needing 2 colored mana and NO need to expose/drop/tutor an Explorer/Arbor to cast it, but slam your fatty into play you draw naturally or dig for (cantrips?). Less Colors, less manacosts total, less investment if countered ... thats what I care for. I don't care for how good your gamewinner is if resolved, but for how to resolve it in the first place.

If you don't like the veteran explorer route, suggest a better way to improve RUG / UR 4-5 card slots (3 explorer, 1 titan, 1 kozelik).

you can try punishing fire and groves by taking out explorers and basics but with no reliable way to tutor for pfire you haven't really solved the problem just created less reliable solution. Maybe choke + tabernacle is best against those decks. Crop, KOTR, prime titan can fetch tabernacle, and choke you'll need to draw into via library or hope that chalice buys you enough time.

The best approach would be if a green creature was printed (likely to be splashed with red) that could get the weenie situation under control.

There comes my MUD experience into play asking how Burn or UR Delver should win if you drop turn 1 Map into turn 2 Chalice into turn 3 Batterskull? I play Batterskull + Wurmcoil in MUD and the UR matchup is laughable easy. No need to bother with colors either, just riding the strengh of the 12-post manabase crushing all aggro decks in the format and trumping Miracles (terminus against Batterskull?) with Eye of Ugin + Eldrazi

apple713

12-29-2014, 07:28 AM

blah blah blah

Why are you even posting? Maybe your english is so bad you dont realize how worthless your responses are.

Blah blah blah.. Technicalities classifying the deck

Blah blah blah i didnt test the manabase but its not good

Blah blah blah lets pack the deck full of 1 cmc canttips and blow ourselves out of the game with chalice at 1

Everything is so wrong because the numbers dont look right maybe i should test the deck and adjust them

Let bitch about high cmc spells then put more 5 and 6 cmc spells into the deck.

Lemnear

12-29-2014, 09:57 AM

Why are you even posting? Maybe your english is so bad you dont realize how worthless your responses are.

Blah blah blah.. Technicalities classifying the deck

Blah blah blah i didnt test the manabase but its not good

Blah blah blah lets pack the deck full of 1 cmc canttips and blow ourselves out of the game with chalice at 1

Everything is so wrong because the numbers dont look right maybe i should test the deck and adjust them

Let bitch about high cmc spells then put more 5 and 6 cmc spells into the deck.

My english as my third language (not counting bavarian), must be pretty bad if I have to write three fucking times that I tested the crappy abdomination you call a manabase and you still claim I didn't test it because I keep hinting on flaws between running GW cards, Cloudpost manabase but no proper way to fix the mana or draws.

Hard to believe that I seriously have to outline that you might have to switch to other disruption tools than Chalice if you run cantrips. I had hoped that is comprehendable and obvious that we then might want to Ponder about Thorn/FoW/Trinisphere instead, but yeah

You still don't get that there is a difference between Titan for double green or single colored mana spells like Treasure Crusie which you can cast off Post-mana to draw into your bombs if your opponent doesn't attack your hand and board, but becomes cheaper to cast if your opponent disrupts you and helps to recover fom Hymn or Wasteland. It's basically a win-win card in this shell, but you obviously do not bother thinking about options or problems, right?

Zombie

12-29-2014, 11:33 AM

I have to agree with Mr. Killjoy here: This thing looks like an absolute pile, and there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that it actually has positive matchups against most of the field.

You can look at my approach this way and it might make more sense

Chalice is so strong right now but are weak to itself due to lack of consistency: +GSZ
Sylvan plug plays chalice and GSZ but plays conditional cards: -choke, -trinisphere
make chalice reliably castable t1: + ancient tomb + crop rotation
Develop sure fire win condition: +8 post +eldrazi +titans
12 post's weakness are combo decks, and other fast aggro decks: +NO, +ruric
How can i accelerate mana and get other added benefits: +Dryad arbor, +veteran explorer +courser, +KOTR

The reason Plug is consistent is because it doesn't play that many Sol lands and has abandoned the idea of forcing the T1 Chalice/Thorn. As a result it gets many fetches for DRS food and as shuffle effects for Library. It doesn't run "please kill me" cards like Crop Rotation. The fetches and 3DRS+4GSZ give abundant colored mana for his GG and GB bombs and actual removal for Delvers. The ground pounders will die to your ground pounders anyway.

If you look at Lejay's choice of bombs, they're 4cc-5cc, aka stuff you can reasonably cast/GSZ with a single Sol land or a couple manadorks no sweat. You don't need to go Eldrazi big to win surefire, simple Obstinate Baloths are way too big for most of the meta. The lifegain easily compensates for lack of Glimmerposts.

The extra Tombs etc. cut into your colored mana, which cuts into your GSZ for Arbor, further cutting into your colored mana. DRS instead of Explorer is much more guaranteed to work.

NO as a main anti combo card is fucking horrendous. NO=>Ruric is used in Elves because Elves' main plan is NO=>Hoofing you Turn3. Ruric is not there as a main plan, but as a way to turn Turn 2 or awkward Turn3 NOs that Elves can realistically get into de facto kills, basically upping the fundamental turn of the deck by a lot. It's there as convenience, not as a plan you incorporate for combo. And yeah, Ruric wins vs. many combo decks. The catch? You have to do it fast. Which means you want 2GG Turn 2 or Turn 3 WITH a green creature on the field and your pile just doesn't do it with any kind of consistency, period. It might do it if you had consistent T1 mana dorks, but you don't. So the plan is just plain bad.If you're running an Explorer shell and want game vs. combo, Therapy should be your first goto option without a shadow of a doubt. Because it actually does something fast while advancing your own gameplan.

Courser again suffers from GG in the casting cost, wanting to land early, and your early colored production being shite.

You have a bunch of cool, good cards. You don't have a plan. You need one. Get one.

Fatal

12-29-2014, 01:26 PM

I also agree with Zombie - running so many 2-for-1 cards:
- Crop
- NO
- Mox
with so many desynergies - Crop <-> Chalice, Veteran <-> Chalice, mean your hand will be blanked very fast. Without any targets your sylvan library shouldn't stand enough long to get a value from it.
Add to this no real removal mean any tempo deck will just eat you.

I also not sure about your mana base -adding Sol lands is wrong IMO - sure it bring you very nice start as turn 1 chalice, but with so little colored sources you would have problems with GG in costs, without real sacrafice outlet you can't say that veteran will resolve and trigger.
8 colored mana source + 2 moxes is quite little - don't count dryad - it won't survive summoning sickness. Similar I add to my B/G Post list Solemn's as a fixer and additonal ramp/card advantage to stabilize mana base and getting more bodies to survive to casting bombs, don't forgot that my list was running 7 removal, 3 uncounterable, 4 Deeds which was always to counter spell + 2 Karns as answer to problematic permanents as humility/plainswalkers etc..

Good question is what you want to sacrafice via Natural Order ? Since you running really low count of creatures which you can cast before turn 4:
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Dryad Arbors

That's really low count. Interesting how your tests vs any tempo/tempo-control decks ? It looks abyssal but maybe I'm wrong, since you can't attack his hand you must overload with threads (like Maverick) but with so many 2-for-1 your hand is probably very fast ending.

IMO you should consider more mana dorks and some defensive creatures - maybe goyfs (looks rather bad without any way to feed them) if you want to support Natural Order, or go other route like ramp by lands.

Lemnear

12-29-2014, 03:41 PM

Guys, I can imagine stuff like Exploration, Explore and Ancient Stirrings providing a decent option for ramp and cardselection. Maybe even dredging Posts/Vesuvas with Loam and playing two lands a turn can provide a base for cardadvantage and ramp which is worthwile. Who knows.

Fatal

12-30-2014, 10:42 AM

Tested Loam road - its good if you don't run Eldrazi - with them - its senseless.

Explore works not bad - but you must run minimum 24+ Lands to be consistant (also tested), anyway it's most time first card to cut.

apple713

12-31-2014, 12:33 AM

My english as my third language (not counting bavarian), must be pretty bad if I have to write three fucking times that I tested the crappy abdomination you call a manabase and you still claim I didn't test it because I keep hinting on flaws between running GW cards, Cloudpost manabase but no proper way to fix the mana or draws.

Hard to believe that I seriously have to outline that you might have to switch to other disruption tools than Chalice if you run cantrips. I had hoped that is comprehendable and obvious that we then might want to Ponder about Thorn/FoW/Trinisphere instead, but yeah

You still don't get that there is a difference between Titan for double green or single colored mana spells like Treasure Crusie which you can cast off Post-mana to draw into your bombs if your opponent doesn't attack your hand and board, but becomes cheaper to cast if your opponent disrupts you and helps to recover fom Hymn or Wasteland. It's basically a win-win card in this shell, but you obviously do not bother thinking about options or problems, right?

i really don't know what you want. It sounds like you just need to play traditional 12 post... You like the blue cantrips, you don't like chalice, you think S&T is superior. Either you are a biased blue player or a troll. You have literally shot down every card and aspect of the deck. If you feel so strongly against this deck why are you even in this thread? I don't come to the storm thread and trash that deck even though i think its a POS because there are better combo decks available.

The only semi useful comment that you have made in an entire page of comments is reminded me to test a handful of SFM with Batterskulls to blow out delver decks from the life gain.

I have to agree with Mr. Killjoy here: This thing looks like an absolute pile, and there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that it actually has positive matchups against most of the field.

The reason Plug is consistent is because it doesn't play that many Sol lands and has abandoned the idea of forcing the T1 Chalice/Thorn. As a result it gets many fetches for DRS food and as shuffle effects for Library. It doesn't run "please kill me" cards like Crop Rotation. The fetches and 3DRS+4GSZ give abundant colored mana for his GG and GB bombs and actual removal for Delvers. The ground pounders will die to your ground pounders anyway.

i agree it looks like a pile, there’s no denying that, but it plays differently. This isn't belcher, you can’t goldfish it and say “ok i got it its a POS.” Sylvan plug looks like a pile also, who plays obstinate baloth, other than that deck? No one, because the card is actually pretty bad. If you look at what ledgy has done, he’s cut the number of baloths over his testing. Baloth dies to batterskull, goyf, primtimes, doesn't block delvers, doesn't have trample, its literally good for nothing. siege rhino is better in every way.

DRS isn't a great addition. getting 1 mana conditionally isn't great. its only 1 mana. I need a green mana to cast it anyways. The deck is 99% mono green. there are only 2 cards that are white. DRS does nothing against delver decks since he gets killed by ALL of their removal. Veteran explorer at least gets me lands against those decks and forces them to waste removal or attack into it. even if i have a chalice out, i can gsz into him.

Dont get me started on please kill me cards. Choke and Trinisphere are dead in so many matches. Choke is good if you are ahead and defiantly shitty when you are behind. Both suck in multiples. Some lists run 4 main when 3 is more than enough.

If you look at Lejay's choice of bombs, they're 4cc-5cc, aka stuff you can reasonably cast/GSZ with a single Sol land or a couple manadorks no sweat. You don't need to go Eldrazi big to win surefire, simple Obstinate Baloths are way too big for most of the meta. The lifegain easily compensates for lack of Glimmerposts.

The extra Tombs etc. cut into your colored mana, which cuts into your GSZ for Arbor, further cutting into your colored mana. DRS instead of Explorer is much more guaranteed to work.

Looking at green’s options for 3/4/5 CMC creatures, its pitiful that other colors have better creatures. Green should have the clear winners but it doesnt. Titania is easily removed buy almost every removal. Good against bug cause its out of decay’s range.

previous iterations of the deck have played DRS and he gets cut every time because i almost never want him. This comes from playing experience. I’ve added him many times and cut him many times as I change builds and such. If I had trouble getting colored mana he might be worth it but i dont.

you are right, you don’t need eldrazi to win, but id rather take 2 hits from a baloth, then cast my titan and just completely blow out sylvan plug 1 turn later after my posts allow me to stabilize and cast that eldrazi. Sylvan plug is designed to be heavily geared against delver decks and it does well against them. it does poorly against many other decks, like elves, non blue decks, and ANYTHING with bigger threats over cmc 3 because it cant abrupt decay them.

IDK what extra tombs you think I'm running but I only have 4 and lejay runs at least three but most play a set of 4.

NO as a main anti combo card is fucking horrendous. NO=>Ruric is used in Elves because Elves' main plan is NO=>Hoofing you Turn3. Ruric is not there as a main plan, but as a way to turn Turn 2 or awkward Turn3 NOs that Elves can realistically get into de facto kills, basically upping the fundamental turn of the deck by a lot. It's there as convenience, not as a plan you incorporate for combo. And yeah, Ruric wins vs. many combo decks. The catch? You have to do it fast. Which means you want 2GG Turn 2 or Turn 3 WITH a green creature on the field and your pile just doesn't do it with any kind of consistency, period. It might do it if you had consistent T1 mana dorks, but you don't. So the plan is just plain bad.If you're running an Explorer shell and want game vs. combo, Therapy should be your first goto option without a shadow of a doubt. Because it actually does something fast while advancing your own gameplan.

Courser again suffers from GG in the casting cost, wanting to land early, and your early colored production being shite.

You have a bunch of cool, good cards. You don't have a plan. You need one. Get one.

NO as a main anti combo card does seem weak, but its not anti combo, its actually a win con. NO into progenitus dominates a lot of decks if its early enough such as D&T, Merfolk, and other fair decks. NO into ruric dominates a different group of decks and hes also castable, and a GSZ target.

In addition to NO, you have Chalice of the void. Post board you have Teeg, and Trinisphere. The only game I got wrecked when playing storm is when he the opponent hurkyll recalled and thats not common SB card for them.

I’ve addressed cabal therapy in previous posts. Its really terrible without gitaxian probe.

The plan is to play what the deck gives you…Ultimately you are trying to get titan into play or eldrazi mana unless you get NO then maybe you go progenitus / Ruric depending on matches, its fairly simple plan.

I also agree with Zombie - running so many 2-for-1 cards:
- Crop
- NO
- Mox
with so many desynergies - Crop <-> Chalice, Veteran <-> Chalice, mean your hand will be blanked very fast. Without any targets your sylvan library shouldn't stand enough long to get a value from it.
Add to this no real removal mean any tempo deck will just eat you.

I also not sure about your mana base -adding Sol lands is wrong IMO - sure it bring you very nice start as turn 1 chalice, but with so little colored sources you would have problems with GG in costs, without real sacrafice outlet you can't say that veteran will resolve and trigger.
8 colored mana source + 2 moxes is quite little - don't count dryad - it won't survive summoning sickness. Similar I add to my B/G Post list Solemn's as a fixer and additonal ramp/card advantage to stabilize mana base and getting more bodies to survive to casting bombs, don't forgot that my list was running 7 removal, 3 uncounterable, 4 Deeds which was always to counter spell + 2 Karns as answer to problematic permanents as humility/plainswalkers etc.

Good question is what you want to sacrifice via Natural Order ? Since you running really low count of creatures which you can cast before turn 4:
3 Veteran Explorer
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Dryad Arbors

That's really low count. Interesting how your tests vs any tempo/tempo-control decks ? It looks abyssal but maybe I'm wrong, since you can't attack his hand you must overload with threads (like Maverick) but with so many 2-for-1 your hand is probably very fast ending.

IMO you should consider more mana dorks and some defensive creatures - maybe goyfs (looks rather bad without any way to feed them) if you want to support Natural Order, or go other route like ramp by lands.

crop rotation does not usually get force of will’d and because its an instant you can play it selectively around spell pierce and daze so it’s not a 2-4-1. NO is a 2-4-1 or it just wins the game so its clearly an appropriate trade off. Mox diamond is only a 2 of and with ~28 lands in the deck id hardly say its even an issue worth mentioning considering it provides any color mana and helps under blood moon. Running 4 is an issue which is why 2 is appropriate.

Sometimes you play veteran first and chalice the following turn depending on the deck you are playing against. Sometimes chalice on 1 even if you are holding 3x cmc1 cards is fine cause its more detrimental against them.

it doesn't matter what you sacrifice to natural order, progenitus or primeval titan is almost 100% of the time going to be better than one of those creatures.

as i have repeated at ad nauseum, delver decks are currently the worst matches, and hence why I have resorted to testing the explorer build.

I have included the version i have done the most testing with below. I ended up cutting fetch lands for basic lands as I decided to add more veteran explorers. I also found it more advantageous to have more lands to be able to fetch lands with KOTR. While the mana base looks incredibly weak in this list it was managable. having 29 lands in the deck doesn't really make it weak to wasteland unless there is a fast clock on you.

//Creatures - 12
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Primeval Titan
1 Progenitus
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

//Spells - 19
4 Natural Order
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Crop Rotation
2 Sylvan Library
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Mox Diamond

//Lands - 29
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Eye of Ugin
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
1 Plains
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Karakas
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
1 Vesuva

Bahra

12-31-2014, 02:44 AM

Yes, i do feel it has many favorably matches. When i sit down across from an opponent i do not fear that they have a deck I'm weak to. I am confident that I have at least a fair match up against my worst matches. UR Delver / RUG delver seem to be the most difficult and they are the reason i switched the deck to be more dependent on veteran explorer because he allows the deck to survive until late game.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all" counterspell decks, but miracles is what I would prefer to play against all day with this. Also, when i look at the list i see almost every card being threatening... A resolved titan, NO, or late game GSZ are usually game winners. GSZ also serves to get you to late game in the event you do not have chalice at 1.

Although I am still working on an optimal build, if you look at the shell it that won't change. The shell provides amazing consistency to a chalice based deck. Additionally, the shell enables the deck to easily incorporate early combo victories with NO, and almost guaranteed late game victories with Eldrazi.

The worst thing I want to see is sulfuric vortex (no life gain), price of progress, and humility. Fortunately for me humility is practically nonexistent, sulfuric vortex is a SB card typically, and decks that run it are very susceptible to chalice @ 1 and trinisphere. Additionally, any life gain I do manage to accumulate is often very bad for them. Moreover, price of progress can be played around and I can win without amassing nonbasic lands.

Blood moon does almost nothing to this deck but force me to not use the eldrazi strategy. painter has a hard matchup here and i have time to get to late game because of eldrazi shuffles and progenitus main. Sneak and show runs it in the sideboard which can suck but that matchup gets weird anyways and blood moon isn't much of a factor. As for dragon stompy... I'm not worried about running into it, but generally they have trouble with 6/6's.

Yes it does look terrible, there is no denying that. It looks clunky, and like it would hurt itself significantly with chalice. However, I urge you to pick it up and play with it because that is the only way to understand the beauty of the deck. Please don't come in here and provide speculative criticism without even play testing it. Also, keep in mind that if you are not familiar with all of the lines of play you will most certainly lose matches you should have won.

I don't need to playtest with a turd to realize it's a turd.

Lemnear

12-31-2014, 06:21 AM

i really don't know what you want. It sounds like you just need to play traditional 12 post... You like the blue cantrips, you don't like chalice, you think S&T is superior. Either you are a biased blue player or a troll. You have literally shot down every card and aspect of the deck. If you feel so strongly against this deck why are you even in this thread?

I'm looking for the best surounding for the 12-Post manabase. It has nothing to do with being biased or a troll if I stumbled over consistancy issues in testing with your deck, grounded on the double colored mana costs and lacking threat redundancy/Manipulation or stable tools to stall the game. There are several options available (even in mono green) to improve in the named categories, but you choose to drag it on a personal level instead while claiming there is no issue with stalling and manaquantity in your GW 8-Post while it's obvious that the Glimmerposts lifegain and ramping is no way near the level of it's twin because it lacks Vesuvas and Maps. You don't even consider lowering the color-requirements an improvement, which I cannot understand.

crop rotation does not usually get force of will’d and because its an instant you can play it selectively around spell pierce and daze so it’s not a 2-4-1. NO is a 2-4-1 or it just wins the game so its clearly an appropriate trade off.

Why shouldn't anyone counter your offer for a 2-for-1 AND deny your mana-acceleration at the same time with Rotation? Sure it's no FoW Magnet, but Is it a given discussion Standard that we consider our opponents idiots? 2-for-1 with NO is fine IF IT RESOLVES and you CAN EVEN CAST IT. Both can considered an issue here and even Elves, which have many more creatures to sacrifice AND Cradle producing multiple green mana, tend to cut it postboard.

apple713

12-31-2014, 08:49 AM

I'm looking for the best surounding for the 12-Post manabase. It has nothing to do with being biased or a troll if I stumbled over consistancy issues in testing with your deck, grounded on the double colored mana costs and lacking threat redundancy/Manipulation or stable tools to stall the game. There are several options available (even in mono green) to improve in the named categories, but you choose to drag it on a personal level instead while claiming there is no issue with stalling and manaquantity in your GW 8-Post while it's obvious that the Glimmerposts lifegain and ramping is no way near the level of it's twin because it lacks Vesuvas and Maps. You don't even consider lowering the color-requirements an improvement, which I cannot understand.

Why shouldn't anyone counter your offer for a 2-for-1 AND deny your mana-acceleration at the same time with Rotation? Sure it's no FoW Magnet, but Is it a given discussion Standard that we consider our opponents idiots? 2-for-1 with NO is fine IF IT RESOLVES and you CAN EVEN CAST IT. Both can considered an issue here and even Elves, which have many more creatures to sacrifice AND Cradle producing multiple green mana, tend to cut it postboard.

If you are looking for the best deck type surrounding the 12 post manabase you are going to settle on a variant of this list and here's why.

Lets assume the traditional 12 post deck is UG and is optimized. It doesn't run chalice so it gets cantrips. Even with all of the cantrips and bounce spells it has access to it still is pretty bad vs delver / tempo strategies. Furthermore, it has absolutely nothing against combo decks game 1. Some lists have started running FOW main and that might be ok but unlikely to be sufficient. Post board is obviously better be its not great. The deck has issues with mana even running crop and expedition map. It can get the colored mana it needs but often not fast enough...the deck is just slow and durdle heavy.

Now that we know that version doesn't work, lets explore other options. The deck HAS to contain green for primeval titan. So if we are not playing mono green what color do we add to it? We need to improve combo matchups, and tempo/delver matchups. More consistency would be nice too.

To improve combo matches: Black can discard their hand; Blue can counter their spells or try and race with show and tell; Red can add pyrostatic pillar; White can add tax effects like Thalia; and green... well it can race with NO or GSZ for silver bullets; MUD can add chalice / trinisphere

If we want to improve consistency: Black can draw cards with confidant / phyrexian arena which are not good here, it has limited tutors because all the good ones have been banned; Blue has cantrips which have proven in the traditional version to be unsuccessful; Red has absolutely nothing which is why dragon stompy isn't tier 1; White has absolutely nothing which is why stax isn't tier 1; and green has GSZ and NO to tutor for silver bullets, and sylvan library; MUD has nothing which is why it isn't tier 1

Improve delver matchups: Black can pair with green for abrupt decay and toxic deluge; Blue doesn't have anything very effective or traditional versions would be running it; red can use punishing fires / groves, sudden shocks and the like, but how many slots do you devote to it? white has SFM and batter skull for life gain; green has choke / tutor for tabernacle and the veteran explorer plan; MUD has Batterskull / wurmcoil... still suffers from high cmc and daze effects, Metalworker is easily removed with just about everything.

So with all of that laid out what do you build? If there is something i'm missing, please point it out. Maybe there is a configuration I haven't tried but I've tried almost everything listed. I haven't tried SFM. I tried ramping into cards like Elesh Norn which are just about 100% win against delver decks but its not consistent enough. It can be uncountable with caverns but still the early game is the issue. maybe it needs to be more devoted to white and less to green? Maybe you just run black heavy on removal, cut the chalice and pray not to play play combo g1... is that strategy better than just playing blue? You could stick heavy with green and just play a strict adaptation of sylvan plug...list below...

from lejay's current list (to my knowledge) i made the following 12 card changes

-1 obstinate baloth
-1 trinisphere
-1 chalice of the void
-1 choke
-2 sylvan library
-2 rolling spoil
-3 wasteland
-1 taiga

+1 emrakul
+1 primeval titan
+1 Karakas
+1 Eye of Ugin
+4 cloudpost
+4 glimerpost

modified list here - untested

//Creatures - 10
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Primeval Titan
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
2 Courser of Kruphix
2 Obstinate Baloth

//Spells - 20
2 Mox Diamond
2 Trinisphere
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Choke
2 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Green Sun's Zenith

//Lands - 30
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Dryad Arbor
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Karakas

//sideboard
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Spike Weaver
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Kalonian Hydra
SB: 1 Giant Solifuge
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Ravenous Trap
SB: 3 Toxic Deluge

test it see if it comes out better? Would you have modified it a different way?

Lemnear

01-03-2015, 10:02 AM

If you are looking for the best deck type surrounding the 12 post manabase you are going to settle on a variant of this list and here's why.

Lets assume the traditional 12 post deck is UG and is optimized. It doesn't run chalice so it gets cantrips. Even with all of the cantrips and bounce spells it has access to it still is pretty bad vs delver / tempo strategies. Furthermore, it has absolutely nothing against combo decks game 1. Some lists have started running FOW main and that might be ok but unlikely to be sufficient. Post board is obviously better be its not great. The deck has issues with mana even running crop and expedition map. It can get the colored mana it needs but often not fast enough...the deck is just slow and durdle heavy.

I have absolutely no clue why you consider the mono-green list to be better against Delver especially with the lacking redundancy within Glimmerposts provided by Map and Vesuva. Given that Chalice is mediocre effective against SneakShow and the like and the quantity of defense between Chalice and FoW is the same MB and all decks board in additional combo hate anyways, I don't see much of a difference. Claiming that mana is an issue in UG despite the Maps and Vesuvas, but not in your GW multi-colored-mana-version with Explorers but lacking sac-outlets is nonsense, which was apparant in testing. The inital colored mana sources are about even, but needing either U or G is totally different to needing GW.

Now that we know that version doesn't work, lets explore other options. The deck HAS to contain green for primeval titan. So if we are not playing mono green what color do we add to it? We need to improve combo matchups, and tempo/delver matchups. More consistency would be nice too.

To improve combo matches: Black can discard their hand; Blue can counter their spells or try and race with show and tell; Red can add pyrostatic pillar; White can add tax effects like Thalia; and green... well it can race with NO or GSZ for silver bullets; MUD can add chalice / trinisphere

If we want to improve consistency: Black can draw cards with confidant / phyrexian arena which are not good here, it has limited tutors because all the good ones have been banned; Blue has cantrips which have proven in the traditional version to be unsuccessful; Red has absolutely nothing which is why dragon stompy isn't tier 1; White has absolutely nothing which is why stax isn't tier 1; and green has GSZ and NO to tutor for silver bullets, and sylvan library; MUD has nothing which is why it isn't tier 1

Improve delver matchups: Black can pair with green for abrupt decay and toxic deluge; Blue doesn't have anything very effective or traditional versions would be running it; red can use punishing fires / groves, sudden shocks and the like, but how many slots do you devote to it? white has SFM and batter skull for life gain; green has choke / tutor for tabernacle and the veteran explorer plan; MUD has Batterskull / wurmcoil... still suffers from high cmc and daze effects, Metalworker is easily removed with just about everything.

Punishing Fire, Bonfire of the Damned, Thragtusks, Batterskulls, Wurmcoils, etc. all double as kill conditions and as anti-Delver approaches like piling up Glimmerposts do. You can even consider Propaganda or its white twin for that. I refuse to keep commenting on the bolded nonsense. You prove nothing. You claimed it does not work, despite Jerry Rudolphs documented success with the UG version. Your claims vs. data. No contest; no offense. You can create consistancy via redundancy even in green starting with stuff like Map or Sylvan Scrying if your top end plan is to drag out the game with lifegain/Glacial chasm and finish with an Eldrazi, but you prefer adding a third color for your example list and play GWB for KotR, Teeg and Decay instead and weaken your cores strengh even more? You even reduced your Tombs and Chalices but remain part of your argumentation. This all isn't sound. Why are you refusing to build the deck around the quantity of colorless mana but keep adding colors for cards (which have colorless alternatives) just to have the option to NO/GSZ for them? You sacrifice too much consistancy in terms of mana compared to your gain via the option to tutor for hatecard x.

Fatal

01-03-2015, 11:28 AM

from lejay's current list (to my knowledge) i made the following 12 card changes

-1 obstinate baloth
-1 trinisphere
-1 chalice of the void
-1 choke
-2 sylvan library
-2 rolling spoil
-3 wasteland
-1 taiga

+1 emrakul
+1 primeval titan
+1 Karakas
+1 Eye of Ugin
+4 cloudpost
+4 glimerpost

modified list here - untested

//Creatures - 10
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Primeval Titan
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
2 Courser of Kruphix
2 Obstinate Baloth

//Spells - 20
2 Mox Diamond
2 Trinisphere
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Choke
2 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Green Sun's Zenith

//Lands - 30
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Dryad Arbor
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Karakas

//sideboard
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Spike Weaver
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Kalonian Hydra
SB: 1 Giant Solifuge
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Ravenous Trap
SB: 3 Toxic Deluge

test it see if it comes out better? Would you have modified it a different way?

List looks better but if you test it you will find - that Ancient Tomb isn't needed most time, since you run two colors you need more mana sources, decreasing number of lands with more buisness spells would be much better at the end I would change:
-3 Ancient Tomb
+2 Bombs / 1 mass removal - Deed would be best but since you running chalice and Trini it would be desynergy so maybe Toxic Deluge 1 MD - still depends on meta. You can also think about Ugin as mass removal and win con. I can see this deck lack of game ending cards which aren't 2 for 1 (NO before).

apple713

01-03-2015, 12:18 PM

I have absolutely no clue why you consider the mono-green list to be better against Delver especially with the lacking redundancy within Glimmerposts provided by Map and Vesuva. Given that Chalice is mediocre effective against SneakShow and the like and the quantity of defense between Chalice and FoW is the same MB and all decks board in additional combo hate anyways, I don't see much of a difference. Claiming that mana is an issue in UG despite the Maps and Vesuvas, but not in your GW multi-colored-mana-version with Explorers but lacking sac-outlets is nonsense, which was apparant in testing. The inital colored mana sources are about even, but needing either U or G is totally different to needing GW.

Punishing Fire, Bonfire of the Damned, Thragtusks, Batterskulls, Wurmcoils, etc. all double as kill conditions and as anti-Delver approaches like piling up Glimmerposts do. You can even consider Propaganda or its white twin for that. I refuse to keep commenting on the bolded nonsense. You prove nothing. You claimed it does not work, despite Jerry Rudolphs documented success with the UG version. Your claims vs. data. No contest; no offense. You can create consistancy via redundancy even in green starting with stuff like Map or Sylvan Scrying if your top end plan is to drag out the game with lifegain/Glacial chasm and finish with an Eldrazi, but you prefer adding a third color for your example list and play GWB for KotR, Teeg and Decay instead and weaken your cores strengh even more? You even reduced your Tombs and Chalices but remain part of your argumentation. This all isn't sound. Why are you refusing to build the deck around the quantity of colorless mana but keep adding colors for cards (which have colorless alternatives) just to have the option to NO/GSZ for them? You sacrifice too much consistancy in terms of mana compared to your gain via the option to tutor for hatecard x.

why don't you suggest a list... all of your criticism amounts to nothing because you simply just tell me that my suggestions and ideas are wrong. Additionally you continue to defend the UG list which seems like what you want to play... it seems so perfect in your eyes why change it at all?

List looks better but if you test it you will find - that Ancient Tomb isn't needed most time, since you run two colors you need more mana sources, decreasing number of lands with more buisness spells would be much better at the end I would change:
-3 Ancient Tomb
+2 Bombs / 1 mass removal - Deed would be best but since you running chalice and Trini it would be desynergy so maybe Toxic Deluge 1 MD - still depends on meta. You can also think about Ugin as mass removal and win con. I can see this deck lack of game ending cards which aren't 2 for 1 (NO before).

-3 ancient tombs +2 primeval titans +1 deluge then. cavern would be nice but no tutors for it so its kinda pointless to have 1 with no way to tutor for it.