[Primer] Legacy Living End

[oxaciano]

The Living End was first succesfully played by Travis Woo, and continued it success in the modern format.

THE MAIN PLAN

LIVING END IS AN AGGRO/COMBO DECK (AS DREDGE) THAT CYCLES GUYS INTO THE GRAVEYARD USING THE CYCLE MECHANIC MAINLY, FINDING ON THE DRAW IT PROVIDES THE 3 CMC CASCADERS. THIS CAN FIND ONLY ONE VALID OBJECTIVE (LIVING END) WIPING THE BOARD AND BRINGING BACK ALL THE DUDES FROM THE GRAVEYARD.

THE SIDE PLAN

AS THE CYCLING MECHANIC MAKES YOU SEE MANY CARDS OF YOUR DECK, THE HIDDEN JEWEL OF THIS DECK ARE THE SIDE CARDS YOU CAN INCLUDE. WHEN THE DECK IS NOT TRYING TO ENABLE THE COMBO, IT WORKS AS A MIDRANGE DECK.

PROS
- VERY RESILENT AGAINST ALL AGGRO DECKS EXCEPT MERFOLKS. IT'S INSTANT WRATH OF GOD OBTAINED BY THE COMBO (CASCADE+LIVING END) MAKE IT VERY GOOD IN AGGRO/MIDRANGE MATCHUPS.
- GOOD VS TRUE-NAME NEMESIS AS YOU CAN KILL IT BY ENABLING THE COMBO.

CONS
- WEAK AGAINST GRAVEYARD HATE,IF PLAYED FULL COMBO.
- WEAK AGAINST BLUE-BASED DECKS, WITH TONS OF COUNTERMAGIC.
- WEAK AGAINST MULTIPLE WRATH EFFECTS.

GOLD BULLETS AGAINST LE

Deathrite Shaman
Chalice of The Void
Trinisphere
Relic of Progenitus
Tormod's Crypt
Leyline of The Void
Blood Moon
Humility


SILVER BULLETS AGAINST LE

Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben


THE COMBO PARTS

SHARDLESS AGENT
DEMONIC DREAD
VIOLENT OUTBURST
ARDENT PLEA
+
LIVING END


Cyclers:


SUPPORT CARDS
-PONZA:
[cards]
AVALANCHE RIDERS
BEAST WITHIN
STONE RAIN
DESTRUCTIVE FLOW


LAND DENIAL PLAN: MAGUS OF THE MOON, BLOOD MOON, BACK TO BASICS
-FULL COMBO PLAN: ADD MORE CYCLERS(see below), ELVISH SPIRIT GUIDE, SIMIAN SPIRIT GUIDE
-SOME REMOVAL: DISMEMBER,SNUFF OUT
-ENCHANTMENT AND ARTIFACT HATE: INGOT CHEWER, WISPMARE, KROSAN GRIP
-ANTI COMBO CARDS: FAERIE MACABRE, LEYLINE OF THE VOID,FORCE OF WILL
-PROTECTION:UNMASK, RICOCHET TRAP

Sample Decklist (Pre-Amonkhet)

Creature (30)
4x Architects of Will
4x Deadshot Minotaur
1x Elvish Aberration
2x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Faerie Macabre
4x Glassdust Hulk
2x Monstrous Carabid
4x Shardless Agent
2x Shoreline Ranger
1x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Street Wraith
1x Vendilion Clique
Land (16)
1x Badlands
1x Forest
1x Island
3x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Taiga
3x Tropical Island
4x Wooded Foothills
Instant (11)
2x Beast Within
4x Force of Will
1x Misdirection
4x Violent Outburst
Sorcery (3)
3x Living End

Sideboard (15)
1x Dismember
1x Fulminator Mage
1x Gurmag Angler
3x Ingot Chewer
2x Krosan Grip
3x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Leyline of the Void
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang

[Chatto]

WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE YOU WERE SCREAMING WHILE WRITING THIS?

Other than that, cool combo. Have you already tried it in a real tournament?

[TokenMaster]

Neat, but I'm not sure if you have enough speed or disruption to fight legacy's combo decks or to get through combo hate. Wasteland is also a silver bullet when you're at 16 lands.

[Eldariel]

This combo feels like it just falls woefully short in Legacy - it feels kinda like trying to play Illusions/Donate. It just feels like the deck building constraints it places on you are too tight for it to flourish in Legacy. I don't see any good match-ups in the top tier: Eldrazi has Chalice/TKS (potential Spheres too), D&T's mana denial plan seems quite efficient vs. you, and Delver-decks full of disruption and fast threats feel like very hard match-ups. Both Storm and Show and Tell outrace you. Living End gains very little beyond Force of Will transitioning from Modern to Legacy, and thus it still has to wait until turn 2-3 to do anything. While the combo is also a wrath, something like Show and Tell is rarely losing after casting its namesake and it gets to play the full array of permission. Wrath doesn't feel as good in Legacy; even getting the combo off might do nothing vs. a significant number of adversaries (something like Storm or OmniTell).

This deck has cycling instead of Brainstorm/Ponder-levels of card selection and a vulnerable manabase without the explosiveness of Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, not to mention a combo that dies to multiple ubiquitous cards (both DRS and Chalice are too common for me to be comfortable playing a deck that can't really beat either) - and countermagic like Force of Will, Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce and Daze is also excellent and it's fully possible that you run out of Living Ends vs. Legacy-levels of permission. Not to mention, most opposing combo-decks are faster than this and Reanimator feels like the better graveyard deck. Hypergenesis feels better but it doesn't appear to be very competitive either.

[Deisss]

Maybe going back to the original of living end (living death) will give you little bit more room for decreasing the bad point raised above?

Will probably need a dedicated building thread as its quite a different card due to mana cost...

How about As Foretold to at least remove the cascade engine and -again- have more slots for other cards...

[iatee]

"WEAK AGAINST BLUE-BASED DECKS, WITH TONS OF COUNTERMAGIC."

Weak against the constructed format 'legacy'?