[Brainstorming] LIFE.DEC

[Bane of the Living]

I recently came upon this list played by Tobias Bringmann to a 4-1-0 record. Sounds reasonable. We dont have much discussion on The Source about Life. Seeing as Aluren and Enchantress have both seen alot of success recently, I figured their cousin should get a bit of attention.

4 Aether Vial
1 Eternal Witness
4 Living Wish
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Academy Rector
4 Daru Spiritualist
2 Eternal Dragon
4 Nomads en-Kor
1 Seal of Cleansing
3 Shaman en-Kor
3 Task Force
1 Test of Endurance
4 Worthy Cause

Lands (20):
3 Forest
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
5 Plains
4 Savannah
3 Starlit Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath

3 City of Solitude
1 Dark Depths
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Jotun Grunt
1 Kami of Ancient Law
3 Sacred Ground
1 Shaman en-Kor
1 Starlit Sanctum
1 Task Force
1 Uktabi Orangutan

What I like most about this is the SoTF plan implimented. You have 3 core engines going between it, vial, and living wish. That gives you alot of tutor power. I also love combo decks that can win legit with creature beats. Altho its creatures arent power houses, it can certainly hit you for a couple points a turn while your trying to hold off the combo aspect.

I know theres some land from maybe Legends that you can tap to get the sacrificing effect, I forget the name of it. Has anyone tried this deck out in Legacy?

[Tacosnape]

I know theres some land from maybe Legends that you can tap to get the sacrificing effect, I forget the name of it. Has anyone tried this deck out in Legacy?

I have! Or a variant of it. I actually started out running Life Plunge, the B/W variant with Plunge into Darkness and Transmutation. I went through the G/W version awhile afterwards, and my final incarnation was a 4-color build running Death Wish (don't ask.)

The land you're looking for is Diamond Valley (Or the enchantment, Animal Boneyard.) I had a Valley as a Living Wish target in the G/W Build. It's excellent, as it lets Living Wish tutor for any of your combo pieces.

The other thing I can't recommend enough for a kill is Phyrexian Processor. The beauty of this card is that in the right build, you can kill your opponent with it without ever actually comboing off. If you aren't under too much assault to afford the life, a Processor for 7 is not uncommon for a 3-turn clock (Next turn you make a 7/7, next turn swing for 7 make another, next turn swing for 14.)

[outsideangel]

There are traditionally two problems with Life.dec.

1) You still have to win after you combo of. Going 0-0-2 drop isn't the best of records. 1x Test of Endurance and some fairly mediocre beaters really isn't a reliable path to victory against most good decks.

2) Solidarity, and other infinite combo decks like Aluren and Salvagers. These decks can basically just ignore your combo and set up their own, with plenty of time to do so because you have a crappy clock and little disruption.

Basically, to make Life viable, you really need to answer at least one, and probably both, of these points.

[Atwa]

True.

However, I've been fishing around with Phyrexian Processor lately. The card provided huge beaters, and tutoring for a singleton Children of Korlis nullifies the lifeloss if you haven't already got your combo online.

If you can find a way to accel into a turn 3 Processor, it might even give you a change against combo.

You could even try to run Ramosian Sergeant or other rebel recruters in this deck, since every creature piece of the combo is a rebel (if you go for the 4 Daru, 4 Shaman, 2 Children config).

[DoctorWombat]

I would definitely recommend running Condemn over swords in this deck. The fact that it doubles as removal and a combo piece makes it an auto-include IMHO. Also, you may want to consider splashing black for Therapy and possibly Confidant. It would definitely improve your combo matchup and would also let you use Sanctum as an unblockable kill condition.

[Moczoc]

I'm playing Life with some success at the moment. Two times i played at the big Legacy tourney in Dülmen (germany). My results were 4-1-1 and 4-2-1
For the details i've listed the games

R1: Rw-Sligh (2:0)
R2: CrossroadsElves (0:2)
R3: Affinity (2:0)
R4: Marco mit IGGyPop (2:1)
R5: UWb Fish (1:1:1)
R6: fishy Angelstompy (2:0)


R1: R/G Aggro (2:0)
R2: Solidary (2:0)
R3: Hanni Fish (1:1)
R4: Knights Sui (2:0)
R5: Landstill (0:1:1)
R6: NQG (0:2)
R7: TES (2:0)

Many people think that the matchup against Solidary and Spring Tide must be terrible, but i can constantly drop a Glowrider turn 3 because of the 8 tutors.
Aggro is easy in most case. Don't fear Meddling and Needle, there is too much to name for them :laugh:
Something i hate is playing against decks with stp AND counters. Facing UWB fish you can often combo through their defense after some time, but then the game is not yet won. I'm thinking about Silhana Ledgewalker because she is less fragile than Test of Endurance.
Here is my most actual decklist:

MD
4 Task Force
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Daru Spiritualist
1 Warrior en-Kor
1 Academy Rector
1 True Believer (cut for Silhana?)
1 Shaman en-Kor
1 Glowrider
4 Worthy Cause
2 Condemn
3 Shuko
2 Test of Endurance
4 Living Wish
4 AEther Vial
4 Eladamri's Call
2 Miren, the Moaning Well
3 Starlit Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
2 Forest
6 Plains
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Flooded Strand

SB
1 Nomads en-Kor
1 Daru Spiritualist
1 Warrior en-Kor
1 Academy Rector
3 Glowrider
1 Diamond Valley
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Xantid Swarm (cut for green leylines?)
1 Harmonic Sliver

[diffy]

I recently came upon this list played by Tobias Bringmann to a 4-1-0 record.


You got that list from here http://morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=523 right :laugh: I played at that tournament in which top 8 was not played out and ended up taking 7th with HanniFish. I saw the Life.dec guy playing and he was really lucky because the solidarity player he played against scrubbed out (loosing to a single >Blessing because he absolutely wanted to combo out on turn 5) and because the other Fish player (6th) didn't know how to play against the deck and made like so many play mistakes...

Anyways, I worked on a modified version of life.dec too, this is where I got to:

2x Survival of the Fittest
1x Eladamris Call
3x Living Wish
2x Sylvan Library

4x Aether Vial
3x Enlightened Tutor

1x Worthy Cause
4x Condemn (more polyvalant than worthy cause because can act as removal)
1x Animal Boneyard

1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
2x Jotun Grunt
3x Wall of Blossoms
1x Eternal Witness

1x Warrior en Kor
2x Shamans en kor
3x Nomads en Kor

3x Daru Spiritualist
3x Task Force

4x Starlit Sanctum
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
4x Windswepth Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Flooded Strand
1x Temple Garden
4x Savannah
2x Plains
2x Forest

With a sideboard consisting mainly of the tutor targets:

1 Task Force
1 Nomands en Kor
1 Diamond Valley

1 Jotun Grunt

And some storm combo hate (special tech against Tendrils based combo: Children of Korlis).

3 Glowrider
3 Children of Korlis
2 City of Solitude
1 Rule of Law

2 Gaeas Blessing

But that board is probably far from optimal.

The Deck is quite fun to play and can even have an at least even matchup against storm combo post board (boarding out the combo and taking hate+clock in (Grunts+Glowriders) as well as being very redundat and hard to hate.

The main points I would like to put up is wether the Sylvan Library tech which ensures a constant stream of threats Post Combo as well as helping to assemble the combo is supperior to the Rector/Test Plan and wether Shuko is tech. Another poit that I'm currently testing is a single Genesis to fight control (if needed) to keep bringing back every creature or just any card (with witness). I would also like to ask wether Sakura Tribe Elders or Chrome Moxen (or Mox Diamonds) are needed or just superfluous.

Also, I disagree with the dragons Tobias put in because this deck has vial to cheat on mana and doesn't need alot of mana to function. Dragon also is no threat to the opponent after combo because it can't come back from swords.

I have no really opportunity to test this deck atm because I'm cut of MWS, but I'll proxy it up and post some results when I'm back from our local testing session on Friday.

Please comment

[ForceofWill]

I might suggest running a city of solitude in the main deck as a tutor target. I think it would help both the solidarity match up as well as the fish/thresh matches.

[ACE]

(special tech against Tendrils based combo: Children of Korlis).

You do realize that, unless you do it right, you would be dead by the time the trigger on korlis resolves right? Due to state based effects, your life loss will trigger first, leaving you dead. Korlis trigger on the stack, you are no longer in the game, it fizzles.

The one trickey part is, that if you sac the children in response to the halfway mark storm count, you will live with the other storm triggers still on the stack. The problem is, they will have a way to have killed it before they combo off.

They run darkblasts often times, and more and more are running 3 sudden death.

[Eldariel]

You do realize that, unless you do it right, you would be dead by the time the trigger on korlis resolves right? Due to state based effects, your life loss will trigger first, leaving you dead. Korlis trigger on the stack, you are no longer in the game, it fizzles.

The one trickey part is, that if you sac the children in response to the halfway mark storm count, you will live with the other storm triggers still on the stack. The problem is, they will have a way to have killed it before they combo off.

Err, you simply sac it in response to the lethal copy of Tendrils, thus leaving you somewhere around 16 or so after your average Tendrils. And of course it can be removed, but forcing them to remove it means they aren't removing your other disruption pieces, they aren't tutoring for business-cards with their tutors and they're spending mana on answers instead of winning, so it slows them down a lot, long enough to cast that Glowrider/True Believer for more disruption.