[Deck] BWR Disruption/Aggro

[FoolofaTook]

How would this fit into the current meta?

Lands - 20

4x Badlands
3x Polluted Delta
4x Scrubland
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Mountain

Creatures - 12

4x Augur of Skulls
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Aven Mindcensor
2x Tombstalker

Other Spells - 28

4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Infernal Tutor
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Hide//Seek
1x Pyrokinesis
1x Armageddon

Sideboard

4x Leyline of the Void
3x Pyroblast
3x Pyroclasm
2x Animate Dead
3x Pithing Needle


The basic concept has shifted to a Discard/Aggro deck that now looks to follow up some early disruption with either a small critter rush or to get the Tombstalker into play. Just fishing the deck shows a pretty consistent turn 4 Tombstalker with 3 or 4 opponent discards by then and them topdecking.

Sideboard has answers for Goblins, Thresh and Flash. Fish seems to be DoA against this except on a very bad draw.

Edit: update #1 - 4 Bane of the Living out and 4 Augur of Skulls in. 2 City of Brass out and 2 Bloodstained Mire in. 2 Disenchant out and 2 Hide//Seek in. 2 Dark Ritual out and 2 Vindicate in. Sideboard - 4 Repentant Blacksmith out and 4 Freewind Falcon in.

Edit: update #2 - Massive changes to a discard format that retains the splash of red to keep small critters under control as discard makes the bigger concepts unworkable.

Edit: update #3 - Took out the 3 Plateaus for 3 Polluted Delta to tighten the mana up a bit. Removed the 2 Nezumi Shortfang for now, they may go back in later, the Augurs are so much better against Goblins and Thresh. Took out two Vindicate for two more Hide/Seek, the search, remove and gain life capability of the Hide/Seek makes them a bit more multi-faceted. Added 1 Armageddon back in because there are situations where it's just too good. It adds something really nasty to go Tutor for. Added 1 Pyrokinesis because having it and a bolt or hide/seek in hand very much makes you want to get hit by Goblin Lackey turn 1 given that the two cards will take out the Lackey at the end of the turn plus whatever he brings in with him, and often it will nail 4 little Goblins.

[Aggro_zombies]

It seems slow, and like it's not packing enough Hulk Flash hate. Why red? Cut it and run BW with Infests, Edicts, more discard, and Wastelands. Bane of the Living also isn't that great, use something like Nantuko Shade or Exalted Angel (especially Shade if you go BW).

[xsockmonkeyx]

4x Repentant Blacksmith

Freewind Falcon is gonna be better here. Just sayin :wink:

Some quick thoughts:

In a 3 color deck Mox Diamond is probably superior to Dark Ritual.

Lightning Bolt and StP are kind of redundant, but good if that's what you are looking for.

On MWS, Earthquake becomes Rolling Earthquake, FYI.

Mindcensor is strong.

Only 2 Duress?

City of Brass is weak in a 3 color deck especially with Duals and Fetches.

Wasteland is usually weak in a 3 color deck unless you are packing Crucibles and can justify the hit to your manabase.

[BreathWeapon]

It seems slow, and like it's not packing enough Hulk Flash hate. Why red? Cut it and run BW with Infests, Edicts, more discard, and Wastelands. Bane of the Living also isn't that great, use something like Nantuko Shade or Exalted Angel (especially Shade if you go BW).

Hide/Seek is GG against the Karmic/Kiki version or at least a counter against a top deck tutor and 7 life against the Disciple version.

[Aggro_zombies]

Hide/Seek is GG against the Karmic/Kiki version or at least a counter against a top deck tutor and 7 life against the Disciple version.
...except for the fact that he's not running it. Also, Seek (the relevant half) is just WB. :)

[eternaldarkness]

The third color is unneeded IMO. You either cut red going for the Deadguy Ale plan and using controlling cards like Vindicate and Swords to Plowshares. Or cut white and going for reach elements Like Lightning Bolt. In that case, you'd want to be faster and more aggressive. Kinda like Red Death with Phyrexian Negator, Nantuko Shade, etc.

As is, the deck is kinda rough and slow. Also why only 2 Duress? Its an invaluable tool against most of the field. I'd suggest going up to four.

[FoolofaTook]

It seems slow, and like it's not packing enough Hulk Flash hate. Why red? Cut it and run BW with Infests, Edicts, more discard, and Wastelands. Bane of the Living also isn't that great, use something like Nantuko Shade or Exalted Angel (especially Shade if you go BW).

The slowness is mainly in the 8 BB2 critters? I can see that given the play by play of some of Turtenwald's matches. I used to run 4 Juzam's and 4 Specters in type 1 fairly successfully and I figured the Scutas were doubling for Juzams and the BotL for the Specters. What do you think about Augur of Skulls replacing 2 Scutas and 2 BotL? Or maybe pumpknights?

Why Nantuko Shade instead of a black pumpknight? I recognize the shade will do a bit more damage but the knight would be unplowable.

Red is for damage. The bolts and quakes double as removal and damage and at least in the old environment that I'm familiar with a 3 color deck that splashed red for cheap damage was almost always better than a two color deck trying to defeat the opponent with damage. A mono-color damage deck is still faster than either. Stripmines used to do what wastelands do now so I'm used to that effect in play. It's manageable most of the time.

[FoolofaTook]

The third color is unneeded IMO. You either cut red going for the Deadguy Ale plan and using controlling cards like Vindicate and Swords to Plowshares. Or cut white and going for reach elements Like Lightning Bolt. In that case, you'd want to be faster and more aggressive. Kinda like Red Death with Phyrexian Negator, Nantuko Shade, etc.

As is, the deck is kinda rough and slow. Also why only 2 Duress? Its an invaluable tool against most of the field. I'd suggest going up to four.

I went with 2 Duress because it's an effect I'd rather have come up before a key event than in the hand at the start. If I have it at the start I'll play it but there are some decks it's not going to create much advantage against. I'd mainly use it to try to get plows out of the opponent's hand before I drop a showstopper critter or look for FoW before an armageddon.

Maybe I should have 2 Duress in the sideboard for the decks with FoW and to try to knock vial out of a goblin's hands turn 1?

Editing: if the deck is too slow as is with 3 colors I want to figure out ways to speed it up and stay 3 colors. Bolts are too good to give up and if I'm not running blue I really need plows and disenchant (or whatever is similar and better at this point.) Other than W/U I've never been happy with 2 color decks in competition and the current meta just seems extremely hostile to W/U.

[BreathWeapon]

...except for the fact that he's not running it. Also, Seek (the relevant half) is just WB. :)

It's not as if he can't run it, and Hide on Aether Vial is just as relevant considering that Goblins hasn't been RFGed from the format.

[FoolofaTook]

Freewind Falcon is gonna be better here. Just sayin :wink:

Some quick thoughts:

In a 3 color deck Mox Diamond is probably superior to Dark Ritual.

Lightning Bolt and StP are kind of redundant, but good if that's what you are looking for.

On MWS, Earthquake becomes Rolling Earthquake, FYI.

Mindcensor is strong.

Only 2 Duress?

City of Brass is weak in a 3 color deck especially with Duals and Fetches.

Wasteland is usually weak in a 3 color deck unless you are packing Crucibles and can justify the hit to your manabase.

Ok, Freewind Falcon is worth looking into. Does red have easy access to any way to do just one point of non-red damage to critters? Do goblins care about doing that kind of disruption? I'm guessing Serrated Arrows doesn't see use in the format.

I'll look at the Mox Diamond but it's an expensive card for not a clear advantage over dark ritual. I guess it would give Wastelands more value against a mono-color deck.

Bolt and StP are definitely what I'm looking for. I don't want a Goblin Lackey or Dark Confidant or any of a myriad of other cheap effective critters to live long enough to have an effect. Bolt doubles as damage and StP as large critter removal so their roles are not all that redundant. Both of them remove most manlands too so they protect against that effect.

Thanks for the heads up on Rolling Earthquake. At $50 a pop that's not happening, although the ability to take down flyers too would rock. SB in Pyroclasm to fill that function if I have to.

Yeah I'm going to have to get some fetchlands. City of Brass kind of fills in until I do that. 13 Black, 12 White and 11 Red at the moment and that's cutting it short.

The Wastelands are not really mana, although they'll fill that role occasionally. I should have put them in under spells because mostly they'll be used that way, especially off of a 2 Wasteland draw.

[FoolofaTook]

Hide/Seek is GG against the Karmic/Kiki version or at least a counter against a top deck tutor and 7 life against the Disciple version.

That's a great idea. I didn't know about the card. Not sure where I fit it but 2 of those definitely need to be somewhere, either MD or SB.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Ok, Freewind Falcon is worth looking into. Does red have easy access to any way to do just one point of non-red damage to critters? Do goblins care about doing that kind of disruption? I'm guessing Serrated Arrows doesn't see use in the format.

Well, I was half kidding about the Falcon. Silver Knight would be better if you can support the WW because it can actually kill a buisiness goblin like warchief or piledriver. All direct damage from goblins is colored: Fanatic, Gempalm Incinerator, and occasionally Siege Gang Commander and Goblin Sharpshooter. Serrated Arrows hasnt seen regular play in a while.

Since you are playing WB maybe you should consider Vindicate over Disenchant as it gives you slightly greater reach.

[FoolofaTook]

Well, I was half kidding about the Falcon. Silver Knight would be better if you can support the WW because it can actually kill a buisiness goblin like warchief or piledriver. All direct damage from goblins is colored: Fanatic, Gempalm Incinerator, and occasionally Siege Gang Commander and Goblin Sharpshooter. Serrated Arrows hasnt seen regular play in a while.

Since you are playing WB maybe you should consider Vindicate over Disenchant as it gives you slightly greater reach.

I can't support WW in the deck and stay 3 colors. I only support BB because of the dark rituals and I'm looking for ways to reduce the BB to give me the option of no rituals.

Vindicate looks really good, no R or U so it's not blastable and it creates card economy. The 1BW casting cost makes me nervous though.

The nice thing about the prot red critters in the sideboard is they can block Ball Lightning also and make a red burn deck miss a beat now and then. I like your flyers better than the Repentant Blacksmith's as long as there are no easily accessible ways for a red deck to to do effective 1 damage or -1 toughness to them.

[FoolofaTook]

Main deck list edited for some suggestions in first post.

[Aggro_zombies]

It's not as if he can't run it, and Hide on Aether Vial is just as relevant considering that Goblins hasn't been RFGed from the format.
He also runs Disenchant. Disenchant on Vial is a stronger play imo because Goblins runs a number of shuffle effects (Matron, fetches), and Ringleader can thin their deck. Disenchant is on-color should he choose to go white-black, and it's not like Gobs suddenly started running Ritual of Restoration or anything.

[FoolofaTook]

He also runs Disenchant. Disenchant on Vial is a stronger play imo because Goblins runs a number of shuffle effects (Matron, fetches), and Ringleader can thin their deck. Disenchant is on-color should he choose to go white-black, and it's not like Gobs suddenly started running Ritual of Restoration or anything.

So if I choose to run a couple of Hide//Seek and a couple of Vindicate is there any need to maintain Disenchant in the deck? I replaced it in the main deck list above with Vindicate on the theory that the higher cost was still not prohibitive and Vindicate provided better card economy in the deck.

Should I pull out one StP and one Disenchant instead for the two Vindicate?

[BreathWeapon]

He also runs Disenchant. Disenchant on Vial is a stronger play imo because Goblins runs a number of shuffle effects (Matron, fetches), and Ringleader can thin their deck. Disenchant is on-color should he choose to go white-black, and it's not like Gobs suddenly started running Ritual of Restoration or anything.

What's the point of running Disenchant when Hide does the same thing and Seek is an answer to Flash? You get two cards for the price of one, in the same sense that Vindicate is being included because its an additional LD spell and spot removal.

[Aggro_zombies]

What's the point of running Disenchant when Hide does the same thing and Seek is an answer to Flash? You get two cards for the price of one, in the same sense that Vindicate is being included because its an additional LD spell and spot removal.
Because it's not worth it to fuck up your mana base by running three colors when you can do basically all the same things in two. In a post-Flash environment, Disenchant-style effects are very narrow and not good against Flash decks and Fish decks (Leylines are irrelevant as he has no dependency on the graveyard). Going to two colors allows him to run things like Hymn to Tourach and Exalted Angel, more powerful both than an extremely narrow card like Hide//Seek.

[FoolofaTook]

Because it's not worth it to fuck up your mana base by running three colors when you can do basically all the same things in two. In a post-Flash environment, Disenchant-style effects are very narrow and not good against Flash decks and Fish decks (Leylines are irrelevant as he has no dependency on the graveyard). Going to two colors allows him to run things like Hymn to Tourach and Exalted Angel, more powerful both than an extremely narrow card like Hide//Seek.

I've had bad luck in the past (deep and distant at this point) running decks that looked for both BB and WW early on. It's too easy to get screwed with 1 B mana and several BB spells or vice-versa and not be able to get off the ground with the speed a non-blue deck needs.

What are the best W1 and B1 spells in terms of disruption and damage potential at this point in the meta? Same question for W2 and B2?

I put Augur of Skulls in mainly because it cast for B1 and had potential both as a blocker and disruption. Are there other B1 critters that help discard or sac for critter removal?

[xsockmonkeyx]

The nice thing about the prot red critters in the sideboard is they can block Ball Lightning also and make a red burn deck miss a beat now and then. I like your flyers better than the Repentant Blacksmith's as long as there are no easily accessible ways for a red deck to to do effective 1 damage or -1 toughness to them.

FYI, Ihavent sen a Ball Lightning staring me down in like forever. Everybody and their mother runs creature removal to deal with lackey, confi, etc. and Ball LIghtning becomes vulnerable that that type of removal. Also, 3 mana for 6 potential damage if awful, if not horribly inefficeint in this format.

[FoolofaTook]

FYI, Ihavent sen a Ball Lightning staring me down in like forever. Everybody and their mother runs creature removal to deal with lackey, confi, etc. and Ball LIghtning becomes vulnerable that that type of removal. Also, 3 mana for 6 potential damage if awful, if not horribly inefficeint in this format.

That's interesting. Mono-red burn used to run Ball Lightning as either 6 damage or 6 life depending on if the other person had a plow in hand by turn 3. It also stopped white decks from tuning the plows out and made black decks tune in terror if they had it in the sideboard.

I guess it's just become a weak card in the new meta.

I'll admit I'm having some trouble adjusting to the amount of deckplay that goes on in the modern game. My opponents and I used to shuffle our decks once or twice a game each and now it feels like every other turn.

[eternaldarkness]

The slowness is mainly in the 8 BB2 critters? I can see that given the play by play of some of Turtenwald's matches. I used to run 4 Juzam's and 4 Specters in type 1 fairly successfully and I figured the Scutas were doubling for Juzams and the BotL for the Specters. What do you think about Augur of Skulls replacing 2 Scutas and 2 BotL? Or maybe pumpknights?

I said it was slow because your disruption is slow. Dwarven Blastminers and Augur of Skulls while only 2 to cast will only come online for disruption on turn three. That is waaay too slow. By that time you could be dead. You need disruption turn one. You could do this by upping your Dark Rituals to four and making use of more copies of Duress/Cabal Therapy/Unmask. This would maximize your turn one disruption, thus speeding the deck up.

Scutas are also too slow. You must have played type one a looong time ago if you remember playing with Juzams successfully in that format. Vintage is much faster now and playing a 4cc spell that doesn't immediately win you the game is suicide. Same in Legacy. Scuta won't make an impact until turn four and even then an opposing Fish/Threshold deck can just counter it or swing past it. Against Goblins or Flash, you will not live to see turn four.


Why Nantuko Shade instead of a black pumpknight? I recognize the shade will do a bit more damage but the knight would be unplowable.

Both are accpetable choices. I'm leaning a little more on Shade but pump knights can be good to, especially with the rise of Fish and his white crits and swords. You should use either one of these over Scuta.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I would start with something like this:

4x Badlands
4x Scrubland
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Polluted Delta
3x Swamp
1x Mountain

4x Dark Ritual

4x Stromgald Crusader
4x Hand of Cruelty/Black Knight
4x Dark Confidant
2x Aven Mindcensor
2x Tombstalker

2x Umezawa's Jitte

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Vindicate

Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Pyroblast
2x Red Elemental Blast
4x Engineered Plague
2x Earthquake/Pyroclasm

Crusader and Hand dodge pro white and beat up on Fish. Tombstalker looks good on paper. Basically any large evader will do for a finisher. I kept the bolts and StP how you want, but i still think they clash a little bit. If it were me I would pick one or pick a combination totaling about 5.

Other cards that might fit: Unmask, Hypnotic Spector, Gerrard's Verdict, Cabal Therapy, Goblin Legionairre, main deck Pyroblast/REB(maybe), Nantuko Shade, more Pump Knights <3, Jotun Grunt, Lightning Helix(life gain to shut out the disciple combo) and so on.

[FoolofaTook]

I like that list. It looks like a fast disruptive deck that wouldn't be DoA versus anything I see in the meta at the moment. Maybe Flash if Duress was not in the opening hand, or even if it was on a bad draw.

Is disruption/landkill really dead in Legacy at the moment?

You used to be able to really dominate with a deck that was just looking to remove an opposing mana source or two early on as an adjunct to the deck's main theme.

How about sinkholes? How often does a deck have problems if it loses a land turn one or two?

[xsockmonkeyx]

Is disruption/landkill really dead in Legacy at the moment?

You used to be able to really dominate with a deck that was just looking to remove an opposing mana source or two early on as an adjunct to the deck's main theme.

How about sinkholes? How often does a deck have problems if it loses a land turn one or two?

I would say that land destruction is not as viable as it used to be. Doesnt mean it is useless just not as good. Goblins laughs at land destuction as it sneaks stuff into play for free and could care less if you waste slots trying to disrupt their manabase. Flash needs 2 mana to go off. They could potentially fetch out a basic and then hold a land until they are ready to go off and effective dodge wasteland. Fish would not like you to mess with it's lands because they run so few of them. However they also run a low curve and daze>sinkhole.

[FoolofaTook]

I would say that land destruction is not as viable as it used to be. Doesnt mean it is useless just not as good. Goblins laughs at land destuction as it sneaks stuff into play for free and could care less if you waste slots trying to disrupt their manabase. Flash needs 2 mana to go off. They could potentially fetch out a basic and then hold a land until they are ready to go off and effective dodge wasteland. Fish would not like you to mess with it's lands because they run so few of them. However they also run a low curve and daze>sinkhole.

Does the open mulligan system contribute to the current extremely low casting cost stable of spells that seem to dominate the format?

The old mulligan system was once only and only when either no land or all land showed up in your hand. Then you redrew 7 and played whatever you got the second time around. The effect of that mulligan rule was that people went a bit heavy on land just to be sure. Having that much land in the deck meant that people were not adverse to having a mix of 2 to 4 mana spells in their deck.

It seems to me that the ability to mulligan a couple of times at will really feeds into people lowering the amount of land and the reasonable casting cost of spells to 1 to 2 mana and emphasizing predictability at that threshold.

I'm starting to think that what Legacy really needs is Black Lotus again because then people would have to worry about what somebody could do with all that mana turn 1.

As an example: turn 1 Aether Flash would absolutely hose every deck in the format that runs cheap creatures at the moment.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I'm starting to think that what Legacy really needs is Black Lotus again because then people would have to worry about what somebody could do with all that mana turn 1.

Umm, I dont think competetive Legacy decks need to cost 3000$ to start. Also Lion's Eye Diamond is already over powered as it is; 4x Lotus would be asinine. See TES or Belcher for what you can accomplish on Turn 1 with the available card pool.

[Nydaeli]

Also, plenty of decks (e.g. Faerie Stompy, Stax variants) use Ancient Tomb plus Chrome Mox or Mox Diamond to potentially ramp up to three mana on turn one. Now that I think about it, B/W Chalice Aggro would be pretty interesting (splashing red if you must).

[FoolofaTook]

Umm, I dont think competetive Legacy decks need to cost 3000$ to start. Also Lion's Eye Diamond is already over powered as it is; 4x Lotus would be asinine. See TES or Belcher for what you can accomplish on Turn 1 with the available card pool.

I actually miscommunicated in a kind of silly and predictable way there. What I meant was that having a larger potential pool of early mana available might break the 1 and 2 casting cost paradigm that seems to rule at the moment.

Then again that might just be a way to cast a lot of smaller spells all at once, although that would empty the hand pretty quickly and give up control.

[BreathWeapon]

Because it's not worth it to fuck up your mana base by running three colors when you can do basically all the same things in two. In a post-Flash environment, Disenchant-style effects are very narrow and not good against Flash decks and Fish decks (Leylines are irrelevant as he has no dependency on the graveyard). Going to two colors allows him to run things like Hymn to Tourach and Exalted Angel, more powerful both than an extremely narrow card like Hide//Seek.

It's B/w/r, not B/w, if that were the case, then it would be better just to point him to the B/w thread and be done with it. I'm not convinced that B/w/r isn't worth persuing, dropping the Sinkholes and Wastelands and replacing them with MD Magus of the Moon and/or SB Blood Moon is an approach that is worth considering.

[thefreakaccident]

I ran something like this in the old goblin meta (this had a pretty good goblin MU, was pretty resiliant to conrol, had a poor combo MU though)... my list..

lands// 23
4 wasteland
3 badlands
3 plateau
3 scrubland
3 bloodstained mire
3 windswept heath
2 plains
1 swamp
1 mountain

spells// 16
3 umezawa's jitte
4 duress
2 hide/seek
3 hymm to tourach
4 lightning bolt

creatures// 21
4 dark confidant
2 savannah lions
2 Isamaru, hound of konda
3 mother of runes
3 mogg fanatic
4 silver knight
3 goblin legionaire


now if the meta truely goes to hell and starts to become hulk based instead of goblin based, then I would suggest running more discard and the like (probably sui would be a better choice at that point though).

[xsockmonkeyx]

I actually miscommunicated in a kind of silly and predictable way there. What I meant was that having a larger potential pool of early mana available might break the 1 and 2 casting cost paradigm that seems to rule at the moment.

No, I got that point. Killing on turn 1 would be good in this meta. I just thought 4 Lotus would be quite degenerate.

[eternaldarkness]

Does the open mulligan system contribute to the current extremely low casting cost stable of spells that seem to dominate the format?

The old mulligan system was once only and only when either no land or all land showed up in your hand. Then you redrew 7 and played whatever you got the second time around. The effect of that mulligan rule was that people went a bit heavy on land just to be sure. Having that much land in the deck meant that people were not adverse to having a mix of 2 to 4 mana spells in their deck.

It seems to me that the ability to mulligan a couple of times at will really feeds into people lowering the amount of land and the reasonable casting cost of spells to 1 to 2 mana and emphasizing predictability at that threshold.

I'm starting to think that what Legacy really needs is Black Lotus again because then people would have to worry about what somebody could do with all that mana turn 1.

As an example: turn 1 Aether Flash would absolutely hose every deck in the format that runs cheap creatures at the moment.

If they legalize 4 Black Lotus in Legacy then cheap creatures will be the LAST THING in everyone's minds.

First turn Aether Flash off Black Lotus? So basically use the single most powerful mana acceleration to power out a subpar creature hate card that will most likely be rendered even more obsolete due to the fall of aggro decks brought by the legalization of 4x Black Lotus? Ummm, no.


I actually miscommunicated in a kind of silly and predictable way there. What I meant was that having a larger potential pool of early mana available might break the 1 and 2 casting cost paradigm that seems to rule at the moment.

Then again that might just be a way to cast a lot of smaller spells all at once, although that would empty the hand pretty quickly and give up control.

1 and 2 costing paradigm you keep talking about doesn't exist. At least pre-Flash. Decks like Stax (using 4 cc Smokestack), Faeirie Stompy (lots of 3cc spells) and Angel Stompy (Exalted Angel!) use cards that cost more than 2. This is because they have mana acceleration. Decks that don't have mana acceleration needs to be just as fast and thus the lower curve. It isn't about the low land counts and the availability of mana. Its about speed and tempo. Legacy is a fast format and in order to compete, you have to be fast.

Post-Flash, speed has become even more of a necessity. Note, though that a card is acceptable even if it costs more than 2 if it can come down fast. Hence Leyline of the Void and Protean Hulk.

If you increase the amount of mana acceleration in the format, then storm combo decks are the ones who will most likely benefit. This will further speed up the format thus making the use of 1-2cc spells even more necessary.

Not paying attention to your mana curve and your tempo relative to other decks is just asking for a game loss.

[Nihil Credo]

Smmenen noted on SCG that in Vintage, due to Moxes and Workshop, almost all spells cost 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4.

In (post-Flash) Legacy, almost all spells cost 1 or 2.

[FoolofaTook]

Smmenen noted on SCG that in Vintage, due to Moxes and Workshop, almost all spells cost 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4.

In (post-Flash) Legacy, almost all spells cost 1 or 2.

This is exactly how it was a decade ago in the original format. There were a couple of 5 casting cost spells that saw regular use (Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire) an occasional deck making use of Mahamoti Djinns and Mirror Universe at 6 mana, and some X based madness like Mind Twist that people used as a finisher after gaining tempo.

The 4 casting spells were all over the place: Nevy's Disk, Armageddon, Wrath of God, Moat, The Abyss, Erhnam and Juzam Djinns, Nethervoid, Jayemdae Tome, Juggernaut, etc.

You would think that given a decade's worth of cards added to the list that some really significant 4 casting cards would be in play in the eternal formats. A fairly large selection in fact, given the number of potential candidates.

There were zero cards in the MD of the top 8 at Columbus that cast for 4 or more with an intent to actually pay that casting cost. That's just broken.

[eternaldarkness]

I think that's a natural trend as you increase the card pool. The format becomes faster and higher cc cards become disused. The presence of cheap answers (REB, Stp, Force) are also a big detriment to playing with big cc threats.

[Nihil Credo]

(All of the following refers to a Legacy format where Flash either hasn't been errataed yet or has already been banned)

I guess we can thank ubiquitous Chalice of the Void that there is actually an incentive to play with higher-cc spells (and mana acceleration), much like we can thank Wasteland that there is an incentive to not go overboard with the dual lands. Funny how powerful hosers actually widen the metagame.

[FoolofaTook]

I think that's a natural trend as you increase the card pool. The format becomes faster and higher cc cards become disused. The presence of cheap answers (REB, Stp, Force) are also a big detriment to playing with big cc threats.

What it tells me is that the card creation decisions of the last decade have not been consistent in terms of their probable effect on the metagame.

As more and better cheap removal options become available, particularly as the color wheel is spun a bit off axis by creating off-color solutions that did not exist before, the more expensive spells have not similarly increased in value. That's not to say they have not increased in value, but they have not increased *enough* in value to make them particularly valuable in the metagame.

Cheap threats appear to have increased in value proportional both to their expense and to the ease of removing them. Aether Vial is an excellent expense of 1 colorless mana early in the game. Chalice of the Void can be cast for 0 to 2 mana and have an enormous effect in play. Nantuko Shade, Nezumi Shortfang, Dark Confidant and other small critters are clearly much more powerful than their counterparts of past eras.

The 4 and 5 cost effects don't seem to have kept pace with the power inflation curve of the last decade. Exhalted Angel might be an exception, but she'd be a rare one.

If a 2 casting cost critter can have the effect on a game that the Dark Confidant can then a 4 casting cost critter would probably need to be more than 2x as good to make up the difference. Admittedly I'm very 1996 centric but I just don't see a huge payoff for investing in bigger critters like there used to be. Most of the decks that use a big stomper to finish use one that starts out very small and cheap and then grows in power (Ravager) as the game progresses.



(All of the following refers to a Legacy format where Flash either hasn't been errataed yet or has already been banned)

I guess we can thank ubiquitous Chalice of the Void that there is actually an incentive to play with higher-cc spells (and mana acceleration), much like we can thank Wasteland that there is an incentive to not go overboard with the dual lands. Funny how powerful hosers actually widen the metagame.

Wouldn't Chalice just encourage people to play with decks that feature solutions at slightly lower or higher mana costs than the average casting cost in the deck?

As an example, if I'm running B/w discard with Hymn to Tourach and Nantuko Shade and Nezumi Shortfang then I'm more likely to play Vindicate as my removal than Disenchant because if they shut down the 2 point spells I can still remove the Chalice. Same thing for critter removal, I'm more likely to run Swords to Plowshares than Diabolic Edict, despite the fact that StP cannot target some critters.

It seems to me that what Chalice does is just force a little variability in the mana costs in a deck as opposed to providing incentive to play 4 and 5 cost spells. The reason being that those big spells still are not going to payoff enough to compensate for the possible inability to get them into play in a context in which they matter.

I could be off on this of course because my argument is all theoretical from my point of view. All I have to go on is a top 8 at Columbus that was just viciously dominated by decks full of very cheap casting cost spells. If that's the case then Flash really needs to go because I feel like I just watched the equivalent of a weenie tourney with everybody else disinvited.

[MattH]

This is exactly how it was a decade ago in the original format. There were a couple of 5 casting cost spells that saw regular use (Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire) an occasional deck making use of Mahamoti Djinns and Mirror Universe at 6 mana, and some X based madness like Mind Twist that people used as a finisher after gaining tempo.

The 4 casting spells were all over the place: Nevy's Disk, Armageddon, Wrath of God, Moat, The Abyss, Erhnam and Juzam Djinns, Nethervoid, Jayemdae Tome, Juggernaut, etc.

You would think that given a decade's worth of cards added to the list that some really significant 4 casting cards would be in play in the eternal formats. A fairly large selection in fact, given the number of potential candidates.

There were zero cards in the MD of the top 8 at Columbus that cast for 4 or more with an intent to actually pay that casting cost. That's just broken.
Oh, this format has its share of 4cc cards too. They're called Empty the Warrens, Tendrils of Agony, Goblin Charbelcher, Diminishing Returns, Ill-Gotten Gains, and Aluren and Gamekeeper I guess.

Also Goblin Ringeleader and Siege-Gang Commander, though those are often cheated into play.

People are not going to be breaking Lotus to pay for a creature when they could be using it to pay for eighteen creatures, or 20+ points of direct damage. There are just better things to do with four mana than play a creature which doesn't even get to attack until next turn. Part of the reason that expensive cards aren't played is because they just do less than equally expensive alternatives.

Oh, and large creatures have been getting MUCH MUCH better than they used to be. Loxodon Hierarch is way the fuck better than Erhnam Djinn ever was. See also Blastoderm, Morphling, Exalted Angel, Masticore, Kokusho and Keiga, Teferi, Spiritmonger, Flametongue Kavu. Any of these guys would have been one of, if not THE best creature ever printed from 1994 through 1997. The reason you don't see these guys is that, as good as creatures have become, they're still not good enough to keep pace with the cheap cards from old days like Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, and Force of Will.

[FoolofaTook]

Oh, this format has its share of 4cc cards too. They're called Empty the Warrens, Tendrils of Agony, Goblin Charbelcher, Diminishing Returns, Ill-Gotten Gains, and Gamekeeper I guess.

People are not going to be breaking Lotus to pay for a creature when they could be using it to pay for eighteen creatures, or 20+ points of direct damage.

What would happen to the format if the following artifact was created?

Hogwild Lotus: 0 casting cost, sac for 3 mana of any color, this mana may only be used to pay for the casting cost of a single creature.

[FoolofaTook]

Major changes in the main deck in first post. Basically reworked for discard instead of landkill as fundamentally more sound at this point.

Lots of good suggestions so far. Let me know what you think of the new thing.

[MattH]

What would happen to the format if the following artifact was created?

Hogwild Lotus: 0 casting cost, sac for 3 mana of any color, this mana may only be used to pay for the casting cost of a single creature.
Gamekeeper/Salvagers would be extremely good, or Bomberman (Salvagers+Trinket Mage), and Goblins just as good or better. Some sort of creature-based combo deck will probably dominate.

Nothing is going to pull 4+ mana creatures up to "playable" until they ban all combos and maybe force of will and STP with them. It's just too much mana to invest in something that can be taken care of for 0 or 1 mana.

If you're going to spend 4+ mana on a card, that card generally needs to win you the game. It's just too many resources to invest in something that can be answered by your opponent for so much less. For this not to be so, you have to lower the power level at least to Type 2, maybe further.

[FoolofaTook]

Gamekeeper/Salvagers would be extremely good, or Bomberman (Salvagers+Trinket Mage), and Goblins just as good or better. Some sort of creature-based combo deck will probably dominate.

Nothing is going to pull 4+ mana creatures up to "playable" until they ban all combos and maybe force of will and STP with them. It's just too much mana to invest in something that can be taken care of for 0 or 1 mana.

If you're going to spend 4+ mana on a card, that card generally needs to win you the game. It's just too many resources to invest in something that can be answered by your opponent for so much less. For this not to be so, you have to lower the power level at least to Type 2, maybe further.

Assuming you could find a way to handle many combos, whatever the predominant ones were, then how would a Quagnoth on turn 1 look?

In the original format with Black Lotus big creatures were also inherently weak, however they won a lot of games until people found the 4 StP/4 Balance deck. I spent about a year running a deck that was designed just to get a big critter up early, twice in a row if necessary, and then disrupt aggressively until it won the game on turn 4 or 5. That deck top-8'd every thing it was in and won a lot of 32 and 64 person tourneys. It would pretty predictably eventually find a bad match in the large tourneys and it seconded in a 128 and top 16'd in a 512 which were it's best performances.

The weakness of the meta at the time was that Control decks were just a bit too slow and weenie decks couldn't handle a deck with a lot of spot removal to dampen their initial surge and combo decks really wanted 5 turns to go fish a win. That kind of let the big critter deck drive the game for 4 to 5 turns and get just a silly number of wins compared to the supposed weakness (and it was weak in some ways) of big aggro critter turn 1.

I can see a potential matchup against FoW with 4 of the "Hogwild Lotus" in the deck that would make the FoW and StP combo a lot less of a force that it is now. That would be the multiple Quagnoth's in a deck and multiple ways to get them up. They'd wind up FoW'ing your Hogwild Lotus as it dropped with no idea of what lay behind it and no idea if you had drawn two. End of a staple in Legacy, although FoW and StP would still be used they would not be dominant in a Fish/Control scenario anymore.

I look at Flash/Hulk and it's pretty clear that the problem posed for the meta isn't that higher casting cost spells are hosed, it's that all aggressive decks except for discard are hosed.

[Cavius The Great]

Here's a decklist I tested a while back but didn't pursue tweaking it all that much.

Fists of Cavius.DEC

// Lands
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [TE] Plains (3)
4 [A] Scrubland
4 [R] Plateau
4 [R] Badlands

// Creatures
2 [AT] Mogg Fanatic
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
2 [CS] Ronom Unicorn
3 [9E] Savannah Lions
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
1 [CHK] Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 [RAV] Boros Swiftblade

// Spells
3 [U] Lightning Bolt
3 [R] Swords to Plowshares
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
3 [US] Duress
4 [MR] Fists of the Anvil
1 [SH] Fling
2 [LG] Blood Lust
1 [AP] Fervent Charge

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [R] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 [TE] Perish
SB: 3 [TSB] Disenchant
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 4 [TSB] Withered Wretch

It's essentially a BRW weenie deck with disruption and creatures that serve dual purpose. The only real questionable card is Fervent Charge. Why I chose to run that card? Don't ask. It's been a year since I even looked at this list. I think I tweaked the deck a bit but never actually played against anything. Boros Swiftblade + Fists of Anvil = Fun. I'll get back to you guys once I test it a bit more. :tongue:

[FoolofaTook]

Nice weenie list there. I used Bloodlust (and/or Spirit Link and Unholy Strength) in an aggro deck back in the day. I found all of them to be a bit hinky because they played off of other cards and promoted draw issues at times in a 3 color deck. Unholy Strength in the one I eventually stuck with because it worked so well with rituals at the start and the low casting cost black critters in the deck. Even then I was always looking at the card and trying to figure out what stand-alone solution would be better in it's slot.

One of the things that's really nice about the Legacy of today is that the single card solutions abound and other than Jitte I'm having a hard time imagining a creature aura or equipment that is better in a deck than another of the amazingly versatile creatures and spells that exist.

Of course I don't know a lot of the cards so again I could be reaching here.

What creature auras and equipment are available that clearly are better than another creature or solution in an aggro deck?

[outsideangel]

Why all the random 1- and 2-ofs with no way to tutor for them? That doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess it's for testing, ya? Eventually you outta decide which cards are better than others. I'd lean towards 4/2 Bolt/Swords, and cut the Fling, Blood Lust, and Charge for 3x Jitte and probably another Duress or Therapy.

Also, what's up with all these lists running tiny ass creatures? Get a little fat in there!

I like this idea, though. I'll probably toss up a list when I get home from work. It'll likely look something like a cross between Death and Pikula. Could be saucy.

[Cavius The Great]

Why all the random 1- and 2-ofs with no way to tutor for them? That doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess it's for testing, ya? Eventually you outta decide which cards are better than others. I'd lean towards 4/2 Bolt/Swords, and cut the Fling, Blood Lust, and Charge for 3x Jitte and probably another Duress or Therapy.

Also, what's up with all these lists running tiny ass creatures? Get a little fat in there!

I like this idea, though. I'll probably toss up a list when I get home from work. It'll likely look something like a cross between Death and Pikula. Could be saucy.

Like I said, I have no idea why I chose to run the cards I ran. I haven't looked at the list in almost a year. I agree with you though, the deck looks kind of awkward. I felt like making some last minute changes before I posted the list but I said, fuck it, I'll just leave it as is and prepare for the ridicule. :wink:

[FoolofaTook]

Main deck in first post updated again. Testing against Goblins and Flash the deck is doing very well. Nobody local seems to be running anything but those however.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Well, it certainly looks much better now than when it started. :smile:

[Cavius The Great]

Infernal Tutor and Pyrokinesis is just bad imo. I suggest running a better 'one of' that's actually effective when you tutor for it. Maybe something like Pyroclasm or Engineered Plague would be a better choice.

[TheCramp]

What creature auras and equipment are available that clearly are better than another creature or solution in an aggro deck?

The Swords (Fire/Ice > Light/Shadow) and Rancor. Situationaly Cranial Plating. I don't think Auger is on the money. Mesmeric Fiend is better. Aether Vial makes Auger dope though. Uncounterable Hymns are sweet.

I think B/w/r is gnarly even if it isn't tech. I like the idea of the "evil" colors diping into their colective enemys bag of tricks to be even more evil. This train of thought may be less then usefull though.

[FoolofaTook]

Well, it certainly looks much better now than when it started. :smile:

Thanks for the help. Lots of good ideas so far. :)

The 4th plow is going to go away for something, just not sure what yet and not sure if the plow is going to the SB or not.

[FoolofaTook]

Infernal Tutor and Pyrokinesis is just bad imo. I suggest running a better 'one of' that's actually effective when you tutor for it. Maybe something like Pyroclasm or Engineered Plague would be a better choice.

The only reason that Pyrokinesis is the card at the moment is that it's the only cast for no mana card I can find that can kill multiple weenies and a 4/4 flyer.

I agree it's weak except in the opening hand with another red source. Is there a black option that would handle both 3 goblins and a 4/4 flyer?

[FoolofaTook]

The Swords (Fire/Ice > Light/Shadow) and Rancor. Situationaly Cranial Plating. I don't think Auger is on the money. Mesmeric Fiend is better. Aether Vial makes Auger dope though. Uncounterable Hymns are sweet.

I think B/w/r is gnarly even if it isn't tech. I like the idea of the "evil" colors diping into their colective enemys bag of tricks to be even more evil. This train of thought may be less then usefull though.

The thing about Dark Augur that I find attractive is it is both a Goblin blocker, a magnet for cheap removal the turn before I want to put a Hyppie out, and a hand sweeper that has to be countered or removed after turn 3 when weenies are often bad draws and the opponent's hand is dwindling to just a few cards. I also love the fact that it works so well with Dark Ritual and Duress.

I looked at Aether Vial for the Armageddon deck on the theory it could be abusive set to 2 with a bunch of Knights, Augurs, Nezumi Shortfangs, etc. The problem is that I mostly want flyers and they're more expensive than that. Aether Vial - Avan Mindcensor could be amazing though. Dig denial and uncounterable.

The whole deck is still a work in progress. It has draws that can beat anything out there and it has offdraws that will lose to Flash and Fish without even putting up a fight.

When it's done I'm going to call it Risky Business, because it's all business but every call you make early on is a calculated risk and you frequently need to mulligan to 6 to win.

[TheCramp]

The thing about Dark Augur that I find attractive is it is both a Goblin blocker...

As a blocker Auger is just as bad as Mesmeric Fiend. You lose you man and fail to do any hand damage, if you want to block with a black discard outlet ravanous rats is superior. (and thats a crap option...) Because you will not have the mana availibull to cast and regenarate auger on goblins clock. And if you did have that kinda of mana You would spend it on something better than a delayed blast Hymn to Fog.

[FoolofaTook]

As a blocker Auger is just as bad as Mesmeric Fiend. You lose you man and fail to do any hand damage, if you want to block with a black discard outlet ravanous rats is superior. (and thats a crap option...) Because you will not have the mana availibull to cast and regenarate auger on goblins clock. And if you did have that kinda of mana You would spend it on something better than a delayed blast Hymn to Fog.

What the Augur does against goblins is to make them decide whether or not they can race you losing a goblin a turn to the regenerating defender. Obviously you're going to have to decide whether or not to maintain the blocker, trade-off, or hymn a couple of goblins out of their hand.

Combined with 4 bolts and 4 plows and the 2/2 Hyppies that spring up turn 3 or earlier goblin decks just lose to this with regularity. Given that it has Seek to go find the terminators in the deck it almost does not need to tune against a goblin. The regenerating blocker is a definite part of the equation.

[Nihil Credo]

Goblins laugh in the face of a 1-power blocker. Now, if it were a 2/1 regenerator, that'd be completely different. But they probably won't even bother to try and remove it, unless it's to allow a Lackey to connect.

[FoolofaTook]

Goblins laugh in the face of a 1-power blocker. Now, if it were a 2/1 regenerator, that'd be completely different. But they probably won't even bother to try and remove it, unless it's to allow a Lackey to connect.

Nearly half the goblins in Turtenwald's deck were 1 toughness critters, including ones that are most likely to be on the board early. Maybe I should have assembled a different goblin deck to look at? The decks I'm seeing played around here at the moment seem very similar to his though.

[Nihil Credo]

What I meant is that Goblins are more than happy to have you spend 2 mana just to kill a Matron, Fanatic, or Hooligan. It's an incredible tempo trade on their part, especially since they already get the main effect from the blocked Goblin (plus pumping a Piledriver).

The most dangerous cards in a Goblin deck are Vial, Lackey, Warchief, Piledriver and Ringleader. Of those, Augur of Skulls only answers Lackey, and badly at that (if he gets shot with Fanatic/Incinerator, even if he regenerates, he becomes tapped and unable to block).

[Phantom]

Yeah, I'm not buying what you're selling about the Goblins matchup at all. All your creatures are terrible against them except Tombstalker, which is a conditionally good 2 of and costs at least BB.

Augur of Skulls is just plain awful. You need 4 mana to cast it safely, or they have 8-12 outs for it (Fanatic, Incinerator, Pyrokenisis) and plow can take care of it any time. After that, you have to hope they let you keep 1B open through waste and port, and you will probably be barred from casting during this time, as you will be eating up 1B every turn. If you do ALL this, you get a regenerating blocker that kills a whopping 1 goblin that they care about (often by the time Augur of Skulls is online, they don't even care about Lackey).

The rest of your deck can best be described as mediocre against Goblins. Duress is dead most of the time, and Infernal tutor sucks until you board in the clasms (and even then it's not fantastic unless you're holding one of have Hellbent). Bolt and plow are good, but trading 1 for 1 never won anyone their Goblin matchup. Hymn is good until you start losing board position. The one card I actually like here is Hide/Seek since Hide can stop a Vial, but seek seems pretty crappy (Goblins is just way too redundant).

[FoolofaTook]

Yeah, I'm not buying what you're selling about the Goblins matchup at all. All your creatures are terrible against them except Tombstalker, which is a conditionally good 2 of and costs at least BB.

Augur of Skulls is just plain awful. You need 4 mana to cast it safely, or they have 8-12 outs for it (Fanatic, Incinerator, Pyrokenisis) and plow can take care of it any time. After that, you have to hope they let you keep 1B open through waste and port, and you will probably be barred from casting during this time, as you will be eating up 1B every turn. If you do ALL this, you get a regenerating blocker that kills a whopping 1 goblin that they care about (often by the time Augur of Skulls is online, they don't even care about Lackey).

The rest of your deck can best be described as mediocre against Goblins. Duress is dead most of the time, and Infernal tutor sucks until you board in the clasms (and even then it's not fantastic unless you're holding one of have Hellbent). Bolt and plow are good, but trading 1 for 1 never won anyone their Goblin matchup. Hymn is good until you start losing board position. The one card I actually like here is Hide/Seek since Hide can stop a Vial, but seek seems pretty crappy (Goblins is just way too redundant).

Seek goes to get Siege Gang Commanders for the life. At least that's how I've been using it. Duress does suck against the deck and it's the main tuneout at this point along with the Armageddon. Put the deck together and try playing it against Goblins. I think you'll be surprised at how quickly they run out of steam and go to draw and drop mode. Typically a Tombstalker hits the board about turn 4 or 5 for just BB and then the Augurs provide some cover while the Tombstalker wins.

Before tuning the two really hard decisions are whether or not to block the Lackey if you've ritualed out an Augur and don't know if a Siege Gang Commander is in the hand, and on turn 2 trying to figure out if it's worth ripping up an Augur to make them discard 2 cards of their choice.

Again, maybe I'm testing against the wrong deck. I'm not seeing any white at all in the goblin decks.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I really dont like the Augers. If you want them to stick to the board you often have to wait for 4 mana and by that time you can play something better. If you want a creature that will give you card advantage then run Bob (Dark Confidant). He is much more threatening to a control or combo opponent and just a better all around card.

The Infernal Tutors are just awful here. They are too situational to be thought of as a universal tutor effect like Demonic Tutor probably was for you. If you want a silver bullet strategy that has a bit more consistancy you could try Burning Wish and some good targets for it in your sideboard (this is called your "Wish-Board"). They printed plenty of sorceries over the years and you have 3 colors to work with as well.

[FoolofaTook]

I really dont like the Augers. If you want them to stick to the board you often have to wait for 4 mana and by that time you can play something better. If you want a creature that will give you card advantage then run Bob (Dark Confidant). He is much more threatening to a control or combo opponent and just a better all around card.

The Infernal Tutors are just awful here. They are too situational to be thought of as a universal tutor effect like Demonic Tutor probably was for you. If you want a silver bullet strategy that has a bit more consistancy you could try Burning Wish and some good targets for it in your sideboard (this is called your "Wish-Board"). They printed plenty of sorceries over the years and you have 3 colors to work with as well.

I'm going back and forth on the Augurs. They're about the only small critter that has some relevancy against virtually any deck.

The ability to let the Lackey by against goblins, then kill the thing he brings out and rip up the Augur to make them drop two more cards on the following turn is just such a tempo creator. Ripping the Augur up and then pyroclasming after tuning is just a flatout win against goblins, they never regain tempo at that point and Seek has undone some of their initial damage.

Against a control deck that wants to hold cards the Augurs are like an extra Hymn that thins the hand selectively from their point of view making other hand disruption more effective when it shows up. Of course what really happens with Augurs and control is they'll find some way to make the Augur go away before your next upkeep. So it's a Hyppie protector as it draws any small critter removal they have in hand. Later on they'd just discard two lands but they don't have that luxury early on.

I have no clue if the tutors are worth anything in the deck. They go to get Hymns when I cast them with a Hymn in hand and they go to get Tombstalkers otherwise. The only cards that get clogged up in hand to stop a tutor are the Swords to Plowshares and almost everybody seems to have a target for those early. When I was not playing them an early Tombstalker was kind of an iffy thing, now it seems to happen by turn 5 about 90% of the time, which is it's relevant timeframe.

I'm going to go play some today and I'm hoping to see Goblins and Threshold. It's getting depressing watching all the Flash decks proliferate.

[FoolofaTook]

Beat Mono-Goblins today and lost to them. Beat Flash and lost to it. Nobody else was playing anything like a tourney ready deck.

Played 5 games against Goblins:

Game 1 - Had 3 bolts, a Ritual and Tombstalker in the opening hand along with a Bloodstained Mire. Went first and he landed on the board turn 3 and won.

Game 2 - Absolute dreck draw with 5 land a Plow and a Ritual. I mulliganed into 2 Hymns and 1 black mana source and died very quickly.

Game 3 - Had two Pyroclasms, 2 Rituals, Infernal Tutor and red and black mana in the opening hand. Took 5 damage making sure he had 4 goblins on the board before I clasmed the first time turn 2. He held a goblin back that could have gone on the board the turn before and I had to clasm the next turn again to get 3. The following turn I ritualed twice dropped an Augur and plowed it so I could then go get a tombstalker. He won again.

The second deck was also Mono-red but he had Lightning bolt and Incinerate both in the deck. He just walked all over me in two games flat. The first game he just kept knocking down my blockers including a turn 1 Hyppie that died to a bolt. The second game was another dreck draw and I scooped on turn 4 when he showed me a bolt in his hand and I was at 8 life. I figured drawing the Pyroclasm would have just delayed the inevitable. I was holding 4 land and a ritual at that point and had drawn about 50% mana.

In between the two goblin matches I played a Flash deck that just did not handle the discard at all. I got a chance to look at his hand turn 1 both games and he went 0-fer-Brainstorm on his two draws which basically sealed it for him because I had Hymns to spare. I went and got a Tombstalker after I had cleared out his hand and he basically needed to draw his combo in 4 turns or draw and do some very fancy tutoring and it just didn't work out for him.

My basic take on the deck right now is that it is way too draw dependent and is going to be a 3rd round knockout in any major tourney. 4th at the latest. Basically there are just not enough actors and too much removal in it. The 4 Hide/Seeks literally did not come into play at all in the 7 games I played and would not have altered the outcome of any of the 3 losses if they had. The 4 Plows is too much in a deck that features other ways to remove creatures, as some of you have said, and I would replace them with two MD Pyroclasm at this point to have some removal that spans as well as points.

The fundamental problem though is the lack of actors. When I got a Tombstalker in play I went 4-0 and when I didn't I went 0-3. And the first guy said he was tuning 4 Stingscourger's into his deck from now on to handle big early creatures, so I think the Tombstalker is going to be less effective once people out there understand that something that big and flying can land on turn 3 easily.

The Flash deck I beat in round 2 slaughtered me after the fact without tuning. He just had Brainstorm in his hand early on and the discard was not effective.

[xsockmonkeyx]

The ability to let the Lackey by against goblins, then kill the thing he brings out and rip up the Augur to make them drop two more cards on the following turn is just such a tempo creator. Ripping the Augur up and then pyroclasming after tuning is just a flatout win against goblins, they never regain tempo at that point and Seek has undone some of their initial damage.

I would advise that you not try this play too often. If you are counting on them dropping something like Siege Gang Commander or Warchief off of Lackey then it is a good play. However they can just as easily drop a Ringleader or a Matron and set the ball in motion. The amount of card advantage that goblins packs can race your x for 1's if you give them the opportunity. Its usually best to nip Lackey in the bud and never give them the chance to outplay you.

[FoolofaTook]

I would advise that you not try this play too often. If you are counting on them dropping something like Siege Gang Commander or Warchief off of Lackey then it is a good play. However they can just as easily drop a Ringleader or a Matron and set the ball in motion. The amount of card advantage that goblins packs can race your x for 1's if you give them the opportunity. Its usually best to nip Lackey in the bud and never give them the chance to outplay you.

Ringleader would be the problem there I guess.

The typical way to deal with weenie based attacks is to get them to commit enough to the board that a sweeper takes tempo from them. Lackey seems to be a double-edged sword all around since, assuming you have a castable sweeper, he can kill them or you depending on how they play it.

I'm having this really hard time coming back to a Magic meta in which Goblins need to think like Control. It just doesn't seem natural somehow.