[Deck] Tombstone

[konsultant]

This deck came about as the final result of my team spending 4 months worth of brainstorming trying to find a way to abuse the shit out of Lilliana Vess. We saw the incredible potential the card had from the first time we read about it on one of the spoiler's. The obvious drawback to the card of course is first it's 5 mana casting cost and secondly it really needs to be able to stay in play atleast 2-3 turns to generate enough card advantage to bother playing the card. Tombstone is the deck that we have had the greatest success so far in testing against the broad field that makes up the Legacy Meta currently.

By using mana denial paired with the powerful removal cards found in The Rock we created a deck that was capable of surviving long enough to get to Lilliana's Mana cost and still be able to keep her in play.

This is the original decklist we created, we have since made changes that have helped some of it's matchups without really detracting from any other's. I am posting the original list to see if once other people have looked at the list, perhaps they can come up with some idea's we may have overlooked.

Tombstone - Original Concept List

4x Swords to Plowshare's
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed

4x Sinkhole
4x Rancid Earth
2x Ice Storm

3x Lilliana Vess
3x Harmonize
2x Life from the Loam

4x Tarmogoyf
2x Tombstalker
1x Doran the Siege Tower

4x Polluted Delta
3x Windswept Heath
4x Bayou
2x Scrubland
3x Horizon Canopy
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Forest
3x Wasteland

Explanation of some of the less common card choice's for the deck:

Harmonize was added to the deck originally almost as a joke to stop the deck from stalling out, much to our surprise the card is a perfect fit for the deck. Typically the deck won't really start to stall out until around turn 10 or so, by this time you should be about 17-18 cards into the deck. Unless you have bad luck or poor shuffling habit's you should have drawn either a Harmonize or Lilliana by that point. Drawing 1 Harmonize seems to just keep the deck from ever stalling out since it just leads into either more cards, another Harmonize or finds Lilliana. Atleast as far as this deck is concerned Ancestral is still good even at sorcery speed for 4 Mana.

Horizon Canopy was included into the deck to increase the total land count while still not hindering the deck in games where it gets Mana flooded. The fact that it taps for 2 relevent Mana colors is just another bonus for the deck. Late game 2-3 Horizon Canopy's paired with Life from the Loam allow the deck to almost draw an extra card every turn.

Doran the Siege Tower is actually in the place of the third Tombstalker. While Tombstalker is a far better draw than Doran is for this deck, supporting the Delve for multiple early game Tombstalker's can either be impossible or cost you important cards from the Graveyard for Life from the Loam or cards that are "pumping" your Tarmogoyf's. Doran is definetly one of the weaker cards in the deck, but it also the only creature in the deck that the Graveyard is irrelevent.


Good Match Up's:

Nearly any aggro control deck that isn't running blue is almost an auto win. Decks along the line's of Survival, Death and Tax's, The Rock, or any of the other multi colored, Mana dependent decks that fall into this category, simply fall victim to the excessive land destruction paired with Pernicious Deed.

The various blue aggro control decks are still a very good match for this deck but they have some tools that can make the match more challenging. Daze obviusly can negate any LD spell without even tying up any mana. CounterBalance is usually not enough to stop Tombstone but can make the game a matter of skill paired with some luck. Once again CounterBalance is also effective without using any Mana. Force of Will is typically not game breaking, Tombstone has a very redundent number of removal spells, but without any discard [atleast in the MD], a Force on a Swords and a Stifle on Deed can buy them just enough time to sneak in a win.

The Goblins match up is an interesting one, I have tested nearly 100 games and I don't think the game has played out the same way twice yet. Goblin's obviuosly has Goblin Lackey and Aether Vial, both of these can completly crush Tombstone or be completly irrelevent depending on what is in each player's hand. If Goblin's doesn't open hand either Vial or Lackey, Tombstone almost alway's wins. The only way goblin's seems to really dominate the game is if Vial come's down and then it start's disrupting Tombstone's Mana Base with Wastelands and Port's. I believe my last match count in testing with main deck builds was Tombstone 54, Goblins 41. Regardless of the MD matchup 4 Engineered Plague's should be in the SB for this and Ichorid, plus any of the storm based combo decks that run Empty the Warren's. After boarding in 4 EP the matchup is almost 90% in the favor of Tombstone. {This include's boarding 4 Krosan Grip into the Goblin's deck}

Landstill, 43 Land, Rifter, simply put if you are running 3-4 Extirpate in the SB you should win this round almost every time. Once again the excessive LD paired with the eventual Bomb that Lilliana is, will almost always win you the game. The only game's I have ever lost against any of the heavy land control decks has been because of reacurring wastelands.

The Bad Match Up's

Burn is an enormous pain in the ass. Without SB I don;t think I have ever won a set of 2 out of 3 games. Your few win's really only come when you are able to 100% deny them any lands and you have a creature or 2. The SB give's you a large number of options that could easily win this match for you, it just depends on whether you want to dedicate SB slots to a deck that hasn't been very popular recently.

Storm combo is by far your worst match. Game 1 is almost an auto loss. Pernicious Deed allows you to deal with Empty the Warrens but stopping Tendrils or Belcher is almost impossible game 1. I have found that boarding in 4 Chalice of the Void and 3 Gaddock give's tombstone a reasonable chance. It just depends on how many time's you may have to mulligan inorder to find a SB card. Then of course even if you win game 2 because you were able to play your Chalice for zero, they can just kill you when they go first game 3. I have won this match in actual tournament play, It is not however a match that you want to be sitting across from.


For now those are the only decks I have really been able to test against. With the right SB build Tombstone is capable of beating any deck in the format. The deck's strong point is that it has such a good match against a vast majority of what's being played in legacy currently.

[Fred Bear]

I'm with Sasa on this one, the LD is a little overdone. It does and can work well as a little tempo boost early or to cut off a color, but 17 LD cards (counting Vindicate and Wasteland) is way too much. Not to mention the fact that you are including Loam to recur just Wasteland from the looks of your land list (Canopy and Wasteland are your only utility lands). In a format dominated by 1cc and 2cc spells (thus Counterbalance), you are just asking to wind up with a pile of cards in hand that do not affect the game state. Yes, you will be able to annoy the hell out of your opponent, but with only 7 win conditions, a smart opponent will sit on thier fetches and hold their removal.

Life from the Loam? I understand the dis-synergy between Deed and Crucible, so I can see that if you want to re-cur Wastelands, this is the choice. Why do you want to re-cur Wastelands, though? With the amount of LD you run, a single use of a Wasteland should give you the tempo advantage you need to be able to play a 3cc LD spell. What do you do when you dredge your win conditions? Wait until Lilliana gets enough counters to return all creatures? I would either add Volrath's Stronghold or cut Loam.

Harmonize? Seriously? Why would you not run Skelatal Scrying? It's easier on the mana. It's at least as efficient. It's scalable. It's an instant. With the mana denial you use, you shouldn't have to worry about taking a lot of creature damage making the life loss a minor factor. I do see that there is dissynergy with Tombstalker and possibly Lilliana, but still...

I like the thought of Lilliana (and most of the planeswalkers, honestly) in Legacy, but I would think that Lilliana's true power would be hitting play on turn 3 (Lay 3rd land, Ritual, Liliana, partial demonic tutor). If you went with a frontline disruption package of Thoughtseize, Duress, Hymn, backed it up with a little LD - Sinkhole and threw in the acceleration, I think you could really exploit Vess' power.

4 Thoughtseize
3 Duress (or 2)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual (is there a black-bordered 5th Edition?)
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Vindicate
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Lilliana Vess
23 Lands

I still don't think this is optimal (not to mention it looks like a basic evolution of BW Homebrew) and would actually be inclined to drop creatures and possibly some disruption/removal for a Vess toolbox (the tutor ability is very underrated).

Fred Bear...

[chmoddity]

Well, Skeletal Scrying is going to be hard to pull off with Tombstalkers and Tarmos already in there. Harmonize maybe as good as it gets in that spot. But it is going to be far too slow anyway. This deck is going to be too slow. These three colors have been tried and tried and tried. It is very powerful, but you have to put a lot of effort into keeping pace.

The LD approach has merit. The thing I learned about doing LD in Legacy is that you have to have something better than the typical approach or you can't pull it off. Stuff like Rancid Earth and Ice Storm just won't cut it most of the time.

Vindicate
Devastating Dreams
Cataclysm
Rishidan Port
Wasteland
Stifle

I saw this list somewhere. These are the really good ones. In a dedicated deck, Sinkhole and Pillage can be added I suppose. But remember that LD as a primary strategy is inherently weak. It can only complement the first goal of the deck.

[Cavius The Great]

I think that a single copy of Volrath's Stronghold would be really good in this deck, especially with Life from the Loam.

[Happy Gilmore]

Rancid earth? For serial? That card is awful. And your not even running the full number of Wastlands yet.

-4 rancid earth
-2 Ice Storm

+2 Tombstalker
+2 LFTL
+1 Wasteland
+1 Doran

I'm assuming your anti combo plan is all in the board. Nothing I see gives you game in the slightest against them, except maybe swords.

[Tacosnape]

I like it. What made you decide not to include Thoughtseize?

Also, is this deck named after the Western, the Pizza, an actual Tombstone, or something else?

[Cavius The Great]

This list is very lacking in one drops. @Konsultant - Have you considered Birds of Paradise to accellerate your land destruction spells? Or have you failed to find room for them?

@scrummdog - One Stronghold shouldn't hurt the manabase significantly.

[konsultant]

Alright, I will do my best to answer the slew of questions that has been posted.

First off I did state in the original post that this was the first successful build and that improvements have already been made to the deck. I posted it this way inorder to get advice and idea's from people outside of my team.

With regards to the land destruction spells in the deck. Land destruction is not currently being played in legacy, thats why it works so damn good. Look at it this way, with the amount of land destruction in this deck you cover all land based control decks and all non blue aggro control decks as almost auto wins before even side boarding. The current difficulties in deck construction for legacy lie in the fact that almost any friggin deck somebody can think of can win a tournament. Land destruction is also a very solid strategy against random ass scrubs that you always run into in the first few rounds of any large event that play some wierd deck that is way over metagamed against 2 decks but can't beat anything else. Nobody is really prepared for mana denial. The second major point regarding land destruction is that your side board should allow for you to atleast be able to board out 6 ld spells against any deck where they would be ineffective. Vindicate is capable of destroying lands when needed but is useful against any deck in legacy that I have ever played and shouldn't be grouped in with the ld spells when looking at the decklist.

With regards to Life from the Loam over Crucible it's simple, Crucible is far easier to get rid of. The Life's were actually added to the deck more for regrowing fetchlands and the Horizon Canopy's than they were for the whole Wasteland recurrsion thing. Life plus Waste can and does still easily win games.

I have tested discard heavily both in the MD and in the SB and it really just doesn't seem to be good enough. Your game's become very inconsistant and the deck burns out way too fast. 3-4 Thoughtsieze's do help your anti Threshold game plan but other than that match up they just didn't seem to be strong enough to play. The Thresh match is already in your favor I don't think it's really worth adding a card that after extensive testing just doesn't seem to pull it's wieght.

Other than STP and Extirpate I'm not really sure that there are any other cards you need to be able to play on turn 1 in legacy at the moment. Remember that with LD you should easily be able to deny your opponent the ability to play any cards that cost over 3 mana for the entire game. Don't forget that Chalice for zero also come's out turn 1 against TES or Belcher. Keeping you opponent under 3 or 4 mana and being able to color deny multi colored decks keeps your opponent's from ever doing more than 1-2 things per turn. Anything they do play can usually be taken out with deed easily.

Yes the entire storm combo hate cards are in the SB. Currently I am running 4 Chalice and 3 Teeg. I keep mulling game 2 and 3 until I open hand one or the other. It's by far my worst match but I did win my last match against a TES deck, I was actually playing against Bryant the decks creater and was able to pull out the game 2 and 3 wins.

I agree that the threat count is too low, the current list is minus 2 ld spells in favor of 2 more creature's.

Birds of Paradise looked better in paper than it ever seemed to actually play out in testing. I actually tried Birds, both Mox's, Ritual's and Exploration at various time's during deck construction but once I went to testing they just didn't seem to have good synergy with the rest of the deck.

There is already way too much damage the deck does to itself without any form of life gain to consider playing Skeletol Skrying. Beside's for the same four mana you only get the same 3 cards you could get from Harmonize. I meant it when I said it was initially included as a joke but after testing I found the card to be excellent. The deck runs at sorcery speed, there is no real benefit to adding draw at instant speed.

The name came from my teammate Raiderbob, the idea was "tomb' was for the Tombstalker's and "stone" came becuase half the cards in this deck are played in The Rock, thus Tombstone.

I understand that this decklist looks straight the fuck out of left field and that it's hard to fully realize the intricate synergies within the deck without playing the deck. Shit I look at it and wonder what the hell am I thinking sometime's, but the fact is this, the deck beats almost everything in the current Legacy enviorment and after SB has fairly good odds at beating anything I have ever encountered in the last year or so of tournament play. I am far from some random scrub, at my highest point whitch was only about 2-3 months ago my Legacy rating was at 1988 whitch put me at the 12th highest rated Legacy player in the world at that time. All I ask is that you actually test the deck and see how the cards work together before presuming to know the decks weak spots and claim to know the correct answer to fix things. The deck is definetly still a work in progress but I believe it has some serious potential.

[Shriekmaw]

After looking at the decklist which I do like a lot, here are some of the following changes I would try to help improve the deck.

Geoff’s Tombstone Deck

4 Swords to Plowshare's
4 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Sinkhole
4 Rancid Earth
2 Ice Storm
2 Lilliana Vess
2 Harmonize
2 Life from the Loam
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Doran the Siege Tower
2 Tombstalker
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
3 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath
2 Murmuring Bosk
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Swamp
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Forest


The sideboard is metagame specific, so its hard to put one together that everyone is happy with. By having to access to three different colors, it gives you a lot of solutions for the appropriate metagame.

[Zach Tartell]

For purposes of testing, could you post a Side board? I'd appreciate that greatly.

[Jak]

What 2 creatures have you added to the MD? Stalker? Doran? Have you tried Duress or Thoughtseize SB to go along with Chalice and Teeg? It seems trying to mull into these would be very hard and even then when you get Chalice, you can sometimes lose to EtW. I don't know what your board is but Discard is just never dead and seems to help.

[Raider Bob]

RE: sasa_batora

ON Daze:
I can see your veiw on many of your points. However you are missing the way the deck works. The deck works on the princible of Tempo/Attrition, You go card for card with any deck, if a player Dazes a Rancid Earth they pay 1 card for 1 card and they some tempo with land in play. As far as it being a Time Walk you couldn't be more wrong, there is no cantrip and there is a loss of a land play fitting right into the attrition war (I would rather destroy the land than burn a counterspell but the card attrition is there non the less)

ON FOW:
They lose two cards you lose one, I love to see a LD spell or anyother spell in this deck forced.

ON Lftl:
This is usually a one shot deal, it does get dredged once in awhile but the idea again here is attrition, a +2 card advantage is good coupled with Fetchlands to fix any mana issues, Wastelands to add to Mana denial and Horizon Canopy's to gain card advantage over land parity.

AT JAK:
The creature we have added to the deck is Exaulted Angel, due to it fixes some of the Damage the deck does to itself.

I will do a more indepth Primer for this and help Geoff awnser a lot of the questions that will be posed.

Tombstone
A Team Left Field Creation
Deck Designer: Geoff Smelski

[konsultant]

For purposes of testing, could you post a Side board? I'd appreciate that greatly.


The sideboard is metagame specific, so its hard to put one together that everyone is happy with. By having to access to three different colors, it gives you a lot of solutions for the appropriate metagame.

I agree with Nick about the SB. Unfortunatly this is one of those decks that if your had 30 SB cards you could easily enter into any Meta and expect to do well. We don't have 30 cards so I'll give you some advice about what we have learned from testing.

Creature Removal
The deck does incredible in the attrition war against anythng that isn't capable of really over extending. Some issues come up against decks like Goblin's, Ichorid and Survival. Either Engineered Plague or Tabernacle should be a 3-4 of in the SB. EP is far stronger against Goblins than Tabernacle, but Tabernacle can cripple both Survival and Ichorid. I expcet to see Goblins more than the other 2 so I am running 4 EP in my SB.

Graveyard Removal
Considering that there are opposings Crucibles and Life from the Loams out there graveyard hate should really be considered as a must have. There are numerous options out there but I think Extirpate take's this slot hands down. It's such an incredible card in so many match up's I can't really see running anythnig else. Extirpate can cripple Ichorid, stops Cephalid Breakfast, remove's opposing Wastelands and is an excellent card to board in against control decks for the 4 STP in the MD.

Enchantment/Artifact Removal
I haven't found much need for more removal than the Vindicate's and Deed's. If your meta has numerous decks running Counter Top than 2-3 Krosan Grips could be a good call. Other than the new TEC deck most of the Counter Top decks really don't have much for the 3 mana casting cost so they may not be really needed.

I have changed my SB numerous times in testing, the 4 EP and 4 Extirpate seem to be really good options for the decks that are capable of fighting through the LD. The other half of the SB should really be a meta game call. 3-4 discard spells are helpful against a field full of Counterspells. If you expect to face numerous storm decks through out the day I would recommend dedicating the other half of the SB to fighting Combo. The 3 Teeg and 4 Chalice seems to work the best. You have Empty the Warrens under control with the 4 Deed and 4 EP, Belcher can be tough but they do have to draw it and a turn 1 Chalice can buy you some time. Tendrils is alittle easier, your LD spells are relevent and any disruption you throw at them can limit there ability to get Tendrils for 20 off. The life gain from an Exalted Angel can quickly pull you out of Tendrils range. Decks not running counters or planning to kill you with a storm combo are pretty well dealt with in the MD.

[Zach Tartell]

Not to nit-pick, but I'd like to see the most current list. You just mentioned Exaulted Angel, and I don't see her anywhere in your earlier posts. Also, that'll do for sideboarding.

Also, Eternal Witnesses might be pretty sick in here. I was testing your first post and went to 0 of the :1::b::b: LD spell and 3 Ice Storm and 3 Whitness. this helps greatly to pull back your money spells, I thought.

[konsultant]

Not to nit-pick, but I'd like to see the most current list. You just mentioned Exaulted Angel, and I don't see her anywhere in your earlier posts.

My apologies, I thought Raiderbob had covered it before.

-4 Rancid Earth
-1 Doran
+3 Exalted Angel
+2 Ice Storm

-1 Lilliana
+1 Life from the Loam

At the moment I am trying to determine if Ice Storm is better than Rancid Earth. Ice Storm is much easier to cast but the Rancid Earth damage can be very useful. The other problem with Rancid Earth is that threshold is hard to get to sometime's and even if you get there it can be taken away for a Tombstalker. I'm leaning towards Ice Storm but Bob favors Rancid Earth.

Eternal Witness is something I have been considering, I don't think you will have consistent mana denial if you go below 8 LD spells. I understand that Witness can return LD spells but it's slower than just having the LD in your hand to cast. The deck is slow as it is and there is a very delicate balance to being able to play this deck against some of the faster decks in legacy at the moment. I have not actually tested this deck with Witness yet so if you end up actually playing the deck with Witness in there please let me know how it works out.

[Raider Bob]

The Current Decklist

Mana Base:
3x Polluted Delta
4x Windswept Heath
4x Bayou
1x Scrubland
1x Murmuring Bosk (When the rotation hits)
3x Horizon Canopy
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Forest
3x Wasteland

Creatures:
3x Exaulted Angels
2x TombStalkers
4x Tormogoyf

Land Distruction:
4x Sinkhole
4x Rancid Earth (Possibly Ice Storm with an evaluation of the Mana Base)

Utility
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Life From the Loam

Card Advantage
3x Harmonize
2x Lilliana Vess

SideBoard: Options/All Require testing for problem decks
4x Engineererd Plauge
4x Extirpate
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Hero's Reuinion
1x Lilliana Vess
3x Krosan Grip
1x Exaulted Angel
4 Gaddock Teeg

This deck in its development has seen a few changes the version I personally run runs -1 Angel, -Lftl and +1 Sensei's Top and +1 Wasteland. We are both very happy with the main deck in our playtesting and the events we have run the deck in.

Running 3 Ice Storms and 3 Eternal Witness may be worth testing the only drawback to running the deck that way would seem to be cutting 3ld spells to get a little 'TEKY'. That being said however I would rather draw an Eternal Whitness on turn 10 than another LD spell for option sake. For Tempo sake and disruption sake you really want to Pop a land on turn 3, Turn 4, Turn 5 and statistacally 17 LD sources is requirerd to do so. Actually you want LD turn 2,3,4 but turn 2 isn't always possible.

[konsultant]

This is an alternative list that is still reasonably consistent and has a faster tempo.

Mana
4x Windswept Heath
3x Polluted Delta
4x Scrubland
3x Bayou
1x Murmuring Bosk
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Forest
3x Wasteland
3x Dark Ritual

Land Destruction
4x Sinkhole
4x Rancid Earth
2x Icequake

Removal
4x Swords to Plowshare's
4x Vindicate
2x The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale

Creature's
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Exalted Angel
2x Tombstalker

Card Advantage
3x Harmonize
3x Lilliana Vess

Side Board
3-4 Pernicous Deed
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale
3-4 Extirpate
the rest should be a metagame choices

This version of the deck is considerably faster with the Dark Rituals. Not having Deed in the MD is the only real draw back I have noticed with this build of the deck. The Tabernacle's are amazing and more than make up for not having Deed in the MD as long as you are playing against creatures. When you run into stuff along the line's of Enchantress this build has more trouble with decks along those line's but it can lock down an opponents lands considerably faster and in testing has taken wins that would not have been possible without Dark Ritual. I know that there are only 3 Rituals in here and I think 3 is the right call for this deck because while 1 ritual can speed things up for you having 2 seems to be detrimental to the deck because your hand is spent way too fast.

[crazyroundman]

God, it sucks that I had to dig to find this. I'd really like to see the lists that Raider Bob and Konsultant played at the Mass event (haha, I totally can't spell Massachutsettses).

[konsultant]

God, it sucks that I had to dig to find this. I'd really like to see the lists that Raider Bob and Konsultant played at the Mass event (haha, I totally can't spell Massachutsettses).

Well I'm glad you found it cause it saved me some time of digging through to find it. Unfortunatly I stopped posting all of my modifications to the deck, mostly out of laziness and it didn't seem like anyone else was reading the thread anyway. Since both Bob and I made top 8 at Hadley perhaps people may take a closer look.

First I think I should Re-define Tombstone and what make's up the deck. Me and Bob play very different versions of the deck but I want it to be clear that they both are Tombstone decks based on what we feel Tombstone is.

Any deck that shall fall under the category of Tombstone needs to fall under these requirements.

1. The deck must play Green,White,Black and the newest and most important addition Blue.

2. The deck must utilize card advantage cards, currently in the form of Brainstorm, Harmonize and Eternal Witness. Tombstone is NOT just an aggro multi-colored deck with big dudes. This deck is capable of drawing as many cards as Landstill and Goblins, Card advantage is how this deck wins tournaments.

3. The deck uses creature's that are ridiculously powerful with retardedly cheap mana costs. Currently the best seem to be Tarmogoyf, Doran, Tombstalker and the deck may also include Exalted Angel.

4. The disruption of the deck is not set in stone although Swords and Snuff Out are incredibly good in this deck.

I want to be clear that this is not just some version of the The Rock. Tombstone has considerable card quality and card quantity capablities, where as The Rock has the inevitable win in the late game due to Stronghold.

This is the list I ran at Hadley.

Black
4x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Snuff Out
3x Tombstalker

Green
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Eternal Witness
3x Harmonize

White
4x Swords to Plowshares

Blue
4x Brainstorm

Gold
3x Doran
2x Crime/Punishment

Land
5x Basics
7x Fetch Lands
9x Dual Lands

I do not know Bob's list but it should be posted under the tournament report thread at some point in time. The primary difference in our decks is that he chooses to run Land Destruction over Discard for his disruption. Personally I feel that the discard effects are considerably faster and just as effective where Bob prefers the late game disruption effects of land destruction.

I previously leaned towards the land destruction myself but after the addition of Brainstorm and Birds of Paradise I am very happy with running the discard effects.

[Waikiki]

I do not understand why you want to splash a 4th color so badly just for brainstorm. Could you explain a little more about that?

[Afro]

I do not understand why you want to splash a 4th color so badly just for brainstorm. Could you explain a little more about that?

To quote Nightmare "It's the best card in the format." That about sums it up.

[konsultant]

I do not understand why you want to splash a 4th color so badly just for brainstorm. Could you explain a little more about that?

Brainstorm on top of doing all the cool card finding things it does in the early game, [lands, creature's, removal, SB cards etc...] when paired with one of the 7 fetchlands in the deck it allows you to turn extra lands in the late game into relevent cards. The same is true for discard spells after your opponent has no hand but is beating on you with a dude.

Brainstorm is important because it's Brainstorm, the same reason's every other deck that runs Blue chooses to play it as a 4 of. I agree that it was a bit janky of a choice to add Blue to my already 3 color deck just for 1 card but without it I would not have won the Hadley tournament. I was already running the 4 Birds and I was going to discard over land destruction at the time so I just turned the Wasteland's into Blue Dual Lands. Tombstone needs to play Brainstorm, it's not like The Rock where you can just try to live off your top deck's. The deck needs to have an aggresive card advantage strategy.

[FoolofaTook]

Is there anything in the sideboard to justify the blue splash beyond the Brainstorms in the main deck? Brainstorm is a great card but does it justify making the deck more vulnerable to Blood Moon, Back to Basics and other mana deprival?

[konsultant]

Is there anything in the sideboard to justify the blue splash beyond the Brainstorms in the main deck? Brainstorm is a great card but does it justify making the deck more vulnerable to Blood Moon, Back to Basics and other mana deprival?

I am running 3x Engineered Explosive's in the SB at the moment. The EE are fairly easy to get to 3 color's although Bloodmoon is not a friend to this deck. My best answer for Bloodmoon is the good old fashioned turn 1 Birds of Paradise go. This is all assuming that you weren't able to force the deck to discard the Bloodmoon before they could cast it. As for the Back to Basic's the deck does have 5 basic's in here with the four birds. There are also 7 fetch lands to find the basics. On top of all that I am also running 3x Krosan Grip in the SB.

Yes Brainstorm is completly worth it, I would not have won at Hadley without them.

[FoolofaTook]

I am running 3x Engineered Explosive's in the SB at the moment. The EE are fairly easy to get to 3 color's although Bloodmoon is not a friend to this deck. My best answer for Bloodmoon is the good old fashioned turn 1 Birds of Paradise go. This is all assuming that you weren't able to force the deck to discard the Bloodmoon before they could cast it. As for the Back to Basic's the deck does have 5 basic's in here with the four birds. There are also 7 fetch lands to find the basics. On top of all that I am also running 3x Krosan Grip in the SB.

Yes Brainstorm is completly worth it, I would not have won at Hadley without them.

Well, it's an interesting statement about Brainstorm's effectiveness. I guess there are 4C decks out there splashing green just for Goyf at the moment too.

[Raider Bob]

The history of Brainstorm is well short and to the point but at the Winter Wonderland tourny I went so far as to run Ponder as a splash color, Geoff wasn't sold and I did this for a DIG effect due to the needing to find an anser issue. Ponder worked pretty well but it didn't really make or break the deck. Geoff in testing was running into mid late game issues with to many land in hand and not being able to fix that issue ezily. In went Brainstorm as Geoff and I are both or were avid landstill players it was an ez fit for us to incorporate a crazy landbase for the utility of fixing our hands.

On Magus of the Moon Bloodmoon, Turn 1 Birds/Swamp/Plains seems like it is over simplified but that is the only thing you need. A Turn 1 Bird fixes any of your mana issues and if your holding Snuff Out or STP the Basic Swamp/Plains is the only fix you really need.

On playing LD over Discard? I like to control the board and feel like Deed is a better call along with the stifling of your opponents Tempo. In many of the 'Faster' Thresh based decks your opponent runs fewer and fewer lands(The Deck that won worlds ran 15) A turn 1 Waste a Turn 2 Sinkhole makes those decks cry. That being said with Thresh being a little down latly and other decks on the rise the format shifts a little and makes the Discard route a little more effective.

Creature Choices:
Tarmagoyf: A No brainer as it is probably the one of best card ever printed.
Doran: Doran beats Goblins, and is a huge help in this decks bad matchup Survival, as he is Shriekmaw proof and big game hunter proof.
Eternal Witness: Returning Buisness spells and bouncing a witness is gold, if you have never tried to deal with regrowing a witness off a witness into a STP let me tell you it is some fun.
Birds of Paradise: The card Geoff and I have laughed at and STPed our whole magic life we play this to add speed and fix mana problems that could arise.
Exaulted Angel: Life swings are important, Also you do a lot of damage to yourself as stated earlier You should start your game with three land in play and at 13 life. The power of flight is wonderful too.
Tombstalker: Flight - 5/5 for 2 mana? This guy is crazy good he usually ends up giving you 5 life for 2 mana as he draws a lot of STP's.

as for other creature spells well none have lived up to the ones above.


This deck still runs the same as it did in its conception you trade cards, and you gain card advantage in the form of Harmonize and Eternal witness. This is the basic philosophy that has made many decks over the years very good decks and this deck is no different.

[Jim]

I just want to say I'm a huge fan of this deck. I had watched quite a few testing games that Geoff played a few weeks ago, and watched with glee as he emptied his hand in the first few turns every game, then would spend one turn playing Harmonize and there he was, back in the game with more answers/threats. The inclusion of Brainstorm also seems to be great.

@Geoff: I was just wondering what the board looked like for the last tournament. Also, how did Crime/Punishment work out for you?

@Bob: Does your build still include Lilliana Vess? Or did it gets dropped in your build as well? Actually, I guess I'm just wondering what your deck looks like in general.

[Illissius]

My intuition would be that Brainstorm isn't as good here as it is in base-blue decks, because you end up having to use your fetchland to find a blue source so that you can cast Brainstorm, rather than holding it back to shuffle with afterwards. Am I correct? (Note that this is a separate question from whether or not Brainstorm is, nonetheless, worth splashing for.)

Have you considered Etched Oracle? I've been wanting to put that card into decks the past few days, and this one seems like the perfect fit. It's like a Loxodon Hierarch, except it Ancestral Recalls rather than Healing Salves. (Okay, yeah, not exactly. But close.)

[Raider Bob]

On the Brainstorm splash -

Is it as good in this deck as it is in a blue based deck?
-I guess the awnser is yes it is. You run 7 fetchlands and 4 BoP and it really solves a lot of problems the deck was having pre Brainstorm. If there was a better card that we could play that said draw three cards(The deck does play Harmonize)we would probably run that over Brainstorm. Honestly there isn't an acceptable substitute or we woldn't have splashed blue.

Have we tried Etched Oricle?
-The honest awnser is no, I actually needed to look the card up. The deck if we used that instead of brainstorm would only be a 3 color deck and she would only have 3 counters on it leaving the draw 3 card clause unplayable. Also he is just not the same calibre as the creatures already in this deck.

On My decklist
-Think no discard and add 4 Vindicate and 3 Pernicious deeds.

There were other variations to the list but that is basically the big difference.

On My board choices

3 Orim's Chant
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
3 Engineered Plauge

[Illissius]

I was actually thinking of Oracle in place of Harmonize or so (and a four mana 4/4 who casts Ancestral Recall seems powerful enough to me). Playing it with only three colors as a Hill Giant would obviously be pointless.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Why splash for Brainstorm when you could Run Divining Top instead and maintain a decent manabase.

[Raider Bob]

Top is not Brainstorm. I will grant you top is very good and in my build I actually run 1, however the ability to draw 3 cards and put any two cards in your hand back is just supirior to anything else. if you want to try running top over brainstorm and adjust the manabase a little feel free to do so, in our testing top is nowhere near as good a call.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Top is not Brainstorm. I will grant you top is very good and in my build I actually run 1, however the ability to draw 3 cards and put any two cards in your hand back is just supirior to anything else. if you want to try running top over brainstorm and adjust the manabase a little feel free to do so, in our testing top is nowhere near as good a call.

On the other hand it's reusable (translating into massive late-game CA), pumps Goyf, and saves your manabase a lot of trouble. Honestly, you're already running Therapy and Thoughtseize--I fail to see why you would need to put stuff back on top of your library--ever. Likewise, wasting a fetch on a blue source just to play Brainstorm... not convinced. In all honesty, I think that there are better cards to take up that slot, because I don't think that the tradeoff is either worth it or all that essential.

I'll leave the point well enough alone, however; you're aware that a lot of us are not at all convinced by Brainstorm, and that's good enough for me. If ever you need slots, however...

[Lego]

I was actually thinking of Oracle in place of Harmonize or so (and a four mana 4/4 who casts Ancestral Recall seems powerful enough to me). Playing it with only three colors as a Hill Giant would obviously be pointless.

I don't have a whole lot to offer to the rest of this discussion, but on Oracle: he always costs five. Period. It only takes one time, losing a 4/4 Oracle to a Tin Street Hooligan for no gain, to teach you to never do it again.

[xsockmonkeyx]

On the Brainstorm splash -

Is it as good in this deck as it is in a blue based deck?
-I guess the awnser is yes it is. You run 7 fetchlands and 4 BoP and it really solves a lot of problems the deck was having pre Brainstorm. If there was a better card that we could play that said draw three cards(The deck does play Harmonize)we would probably run that over Brainstorm. Honestly there isn't an acceptable substitute or we woldn't have splashed blue.


Now that you splash Blue, have you considered Fact or Fiction for a few of the Harmonize slots? Seems like FoF would be an overall better play if you could support the stretch in the manabase. Theres also some synergy with Eternal Witness and Cabal Therapy to boot.

[konsultant]

@Geoff: I was just wondering what the board looked like for the last tournament. Also, how did Crime/Punishment work out for you?

The 2 Crime/Punishement worked fairly well. They would be the weakest card in the deck but they are non targeting removal and after SB there are 3 EE that can come in as well. Much to my surprise I found myself casting Crime more than Punishment but in a few games a Punishment out of no where was crippling for my opponent.

The SB should be a meta call, with the colors you have access to, you have SB options to cripple any of the tier one or two decks that are out there. The SB entirely depends on what you are running in the MD, Bob doesn't need EE because he runs Deed in the MD. The core of the deck are the creatures and the card advantage, you can run whatever the hell you want for disruption.

I prefer Harmonize over Fact simply because you don't have to have Blue mana for this deck to run effectivly. You are going to need to get Green Mana or you are screwed, you can go the entire game without Blue mana and still play a very strong game. The Brainstorms are not meant to be cast in the early game unless you are looking for something. If you switch the draw all to Blue you then make it much easier for your opponent to shut off your draw engine. Honestly I love Harmonize in this deck, after playing it for awhile now I see no need to change it.

As far as whether or not Brainstorm belongs in the deck, the only card I know of that has the same effect is Scroll Rack. If I was having problems casting things in this deck I would consider other options, but I have run through a few tourneys now with this build and I haven't had mana or color issues.

I don't mean to sound like I'm contradicting myself about having the colored mana you need so you should play Brainstorm and then not having it so you shouldn't run Fact, my point is that if they waste your blue sources you can easily live without Brainstorm for awhile but if it was shutting off all of your draw effects it would be much more difficult to recover from.

[Michael Keller]

Top is not Brainstorm. I will grant you top is very good and in my build I actually run 1, however the ability to draw 3 cards and put any two cards in your hand back is just supirior to anything else. if you want to try running top over brainstorm and adjust the manabase a little feel free to do so, in our testing top is nowhere near as good a call.

Not to mention, Harmonize is the do-diggity with Witness.

[konsultant]

Not to mention, Harmonize is the do-diggity with Witness.

The Harmonize Witness trick has allowed for some ridiculous card advantage, that paired with the discard on opposing counterspells is how you can crush most control decks.

[Raider Bob]

Typical play,
Turn 1 land bird, go
Turn 2 land thoughtseize, therapy
Turn 3 land Doran
Turn 4 land Harmonize thoughtseize, flashback therapy
Turn 5 Eternal Witness(Harmonize), Therapy
Turn 6 land Harmoize, flashback therapy

Card use 12, Cards in hand 6 if going first

Card count +11 for tombstone. This is not atypical for this deck, this deck can run faster but this is the slow card advantage route it typically runs.

[Zach Tartell]

I think we've unfairly glossed over Fact here - what's-his-face said something about it, and nobody addressed it. If we're gonna make angels cry with our manabase already why not rock Fact too?

[xsockmonkeyx]

what's-his-face

>:

[konsultant]

I prefer Harmonize over Fact simply because you don't have to have Blue mana for this deck to run effectivly. You are going to need to get Green Mana or you are screwed, you can go the entire game without Blue mana and still play a very strong game. The Brainstorms are not meant to be cast in the early game unless you are looking for something. If you switch the draw all to Blue you then make it much easier for your opponent to shut off your draw engine. Honestly I love Harmonize in this deck, after playing it for awhile now I see no need to change it.

I don't mean to sound like I'm contradicting myself about having the colored mana you need so you should play Brainstorm and then not having it so you shouldn't run Fact, my point is that if they waste your blue sources you can easily live without Brainstorm for awhile but if it was shutting off all of your draw effects it would be much more difficult to recover from.

The thread is only on the third page, please read all posts.

I won our local tournament this past weekend running the exact same build that I did in Mass. This should help establish that i'm not winning on luck, the deck plays similar to Thresh, it's just that the dude's are bigger and it runs discard instead of counterspells. The biggest similarity is the abnoxious way that the deck can control the game. The fact that the deck almost never burns out of cards while playing relevent cards almost every single turn is just too much for most decks in Legacy at the moment.

Here's a quick round breakdown:

Round 1 vs Armostill [minus white] 2-0 win

Round 2 vs R/G Rifter 2-0 win

Round 3 vs TES 0-2 loss [play mistakes in a bad matchup aren't a good idea]

Round 4 vs Skies 2-1 win [kept a shaky hand game 1 and it cost me the game]

Top 4 vs White Threshold 2-1 [lost to Shackles late in game 1, much better after SB]

Finals vs Armostill from round 1, 2-0 win

While my build is lacking in it's combo hate, the cards exist to make it a much better match, I just haven't decided whether it is worth it to play them when so much of the field is running Blue aggro-control that can crush combo.

[Peter_Rotten]

I think that this deck has "established" itself to a reasonable degree. It is performing rather well (even though it has a very small player base) and has a set core of cards.

Moved to Established.

[konsultant]

Played in our local Legacy event yesterday, unfortunatly I did not take the win but another Syracuse player has decided to take up playing Tombstone and he did place in 3rd. I'm not sure what his wins were but I know his only loss in the swiss and his loss in top 4 were both to the same person playing White Thresh. That can be a difficult match to play and this was the first time he had ever played the deck so congrat's to Big Brian for making top 4. He was playing my build card for card.

My day at the event was less spectacular,

Round 1
Beat the absolute shit out of the chair

Round 2
0-2 against the only combo player in the room, I swear the round 1 bye give's me bad karma for the day, anyway I was destroyed by TES again.

Round 3
0-1 against RBG "Burning Rock"? All I know is that given more time I believe the match was winnable for me but when my turns take approximatly 10-20 seconds and your opponents take 2-3 minute's it's hard to play out your entire match. I made a number of mistake's in an attempt to play faster to speed up the game. I partially blame Sensie's Top and partially Abold who ironically remarked later that day on how all our match's go to time.

Round 4
Instead of just dropping and going home I decided beating upon some 11 year old kid playing mono white Kithkin beater's would somehow make the day better. Let's just say that after explaining what Swords to Plowshare's did, I reccomended he trade for some.

While I have been perfectly content with the Main Deck, the SB has been alittle bit lacking. My strategy of disacrd + Extirpate as an anti-combo strategy has been far worse than I thought it would be. (I didn't give it much credit but I though I might be able to snag a win atleast sometime's). Also I didn't really have anything relevent for the Burning Rock match.

I have been trying to cram the 4th Harmonize into the MD somewhere but other than that I have found no reason to change anything there. The SB is in need of an entire overhaul. I was thinking of adding Teeg and/or Meddling Mage. Pithing Needle seems like it could be a useful addition as well. Well if anyone else is playing this deck i'm looking for possible SB's if you care to post them.

[Mental]

I've been trying to test out this deck but I can't figure out on the right manabase. You run 7 Fetches, 9 Duals, and 5 Basics, but which duals/basics/fetches do you run and what numbers of each?

[konsultant]

I've been trying to test out this deck but I can't figure out on the right manabase. You run 7 Fetches, 9 Duals, and 5 Basics, but which duals/basics/fetches do you run and what numbers of each?

4x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland

3x Polluted Delta
4x Windswept Heath

2x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Plains

[BiggestLegacyPlayerAlive]

Like Geoff said I played this deck to a top 4 finish at our local event. My Match-ups for the day were:
Round 1 2-0 Adam Phillips playing some URG Thresh, made enough play mistakes to lose game 1 but still won cause Tombstalker is awesome.
Round 2 0-2 Nat playing White Thresh, Vedalken Shackles sucks, and CounterTop is pretty annoying too.
Round 3 2-0 New kid playing Kithkin, stabalized at 2 game 1, then apparently was a dick by sideboarding in 3x Engineered Plague and 3x Engineered Explosives
Round 4 2-1 Nick Patnode playing Control AggroLoam Pile, made what Nick claims was a play mistake that won me the game
Top 4 0-2 Nat again, and surprisingly Vedalken Shackles still sucked and CounterTop was still pretty annoying.

Any deck I can top 4 with has got to be pretty good. Nat I have some super secret tech for your shackles next week. The deck is really fun to play, and harmonize and Tombstalker are amazing.

[darkalucard]

konsultant:

I see you look at this deck as your version of rock. You don't like how the deck is in top deck mode and so design it to play more like Landstill. And so I see you playing Brainstorm and Harmonize. If you absolutely must play Brainstorm you might as well play Standstill over Harmonize. Play Goyf and then Standstill, they will be forced to break it. You do not need man lands. Although in my experience man lands are very good in this type of deck.

Anyways I do not believe you should be playing Brainstorm or Blue at all. This deck is a topdeck deck. It has the best topdecks of any deck. You should be playing Divining Top instead. Top is the best card in the rock deck, I would say it is better than Brainstorm because you get it every turn. This is not as good in a blue deck because they do not need Top every turn because they have other draw cards, this kind of deck does not. You need to trade power for consistency. Design this deck to topdeck well and you will be set. Although I have not tested harmonize, 4 mana seems allot. How is it working out for you?

[Bovinious]

Anyways I do not believe you should be playing Brainstorm or Blue at all. This deck is a topdeck deck. It has the best topdecks of any deck. You should be playing Divining Top instead. Top is the best card in the rock deck, I would say it is better than Brainstorm because you get it every turn. This is not as good in a blue deck because they do not need Top every turn because they have other draw cards, this kind of deck does not. You need to trade power for consistency.

QFT, I immediately thought the same thing when I saw this deck in Nightmare's recent SCG article. Top is basically Brainstorm on a stick, and its not like you need blue cards to dig for counters or remove to FoW, plus you wouldnt have to play USeas...

[Jim]

QFT, I immediately thought the same thing when I saw this deck in Nightmare's recent SCG article. Top is basically Brainstorm on a stick, and its not like you need blue cards to dig for counters or remove to FoW, plus you wouldnt have to play USeas...


The thread is only on the third page, please read all posts.

They've already hashed it out a bit about Top vs. Brainstorm (and Fact Or Fiction).

I think you guys are seriously underestimating how awesome it is to go poof!, and have three new cards in hand, not "looking" at three new cards (Top), but right in your hand. The deck spends the first few turns each game playing birds, discard, LD and cheap threats, an explosion if you will. Now, playing Top at might make it so you could continue to have a steady steam of more discard, LD and threats, but why spread out those threats over turns? Why not just pay four mana and at the very least go nuts next turn (if not starting that turn with extra mana). You know, keep the pressure on.

Bob showed a typical start with the deck..

Typical play,
Turn 1 land bird, go
Turn 2 land thoughtseize, therapy
Turn 3 land Doran
Turn 4 land Harmonize thoughtseize, flashback therapy
Turn 5 Eternal Witness(Harmonize), Therapy
Turn 6 land Harmoize, flashback therapy

Card use 12, Cards in hand 6 if going first

Card count +11 for tombstone. This is not atypical for this deck, this deck can run faster but this is the slow card advantage route it typically runs.

Replace "Harmonize" with "Top", and that example becomes less than spectacular.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Bob showed a typical start with the deck..


Replace "Harmonize" with "Top", and that example becomes less than spectacular.



Irrelevant. The argument against Brainstorm has absolutely nothing to do with Harmonize.

[quicksilver]

Good Match Up's:

Nearly any aggro control deck that isn't running blue is almost an auto win. Decks along the line's of Survival...




Doran: Doran beats Goblins, and is a huge help in this decks bad matchup Survival, as he is Shriekmaw proof and big game hunter proof.


I'm just a little confused it sounds like one person saying survival is a buy, and another saying it's a bad matchup. Is this just due to differences in deck lists? Or difference in testing results? Obviously there are many survival builds out there, so maybe you guys were testing against significantly different ones?

[Bovinious]

I think you guys are seriously underestimating how awesome it is to go poof!, and have three new cards in hand, not "looking" at three new cards (Top), but right in your hand. The deck spends the first few turns each game playing birds, discard, LD and cheap threats, an explosion if you will. Now, playing Top at might make it so you could continue to have a steady steam of more discard, LD and threats, but why spread out those threats over turns? Why not just pay four mana and at the very least go nuts next turn (if not starting that turn with extra mana). You know, keep the pressure on.


How many Brainstorms have you turned into Ancestrals? You dont get to keep all 3 cards, so you cant possibly net 3 cards from it unless you really want to ditch 2 lands and its turn like 4+ and you have enough land. You dont need to go "poof" because you dont play countermagic...there is really no reason Top isnt just better that I can see.

[Dilettante]

How many Brainstorms have you turned into Ancestrals? You dont get to keep all 3 cards, so you cant possibly net 3 cards from it unless you really want to ditch 2 lands and its turn like 4+ and you have enough land. You dont need to go "poof" because you dont play countermagic...there is really no reason Top isnt just better that I can see.

Opponent: Turn 1-2 Thoughtseize/Therapy/Duress/Hymm. Do you lose your best card of your top 7... or 3rd best of your top 10?

[Media314r8]

*IF* you fetch your blue source early game, which you say you don't need until late game... the blue splash seems janky to me, IMO you should be playing manlands and landstill in place of harmonize if you're playing blue, or just cut blue for a stronger manabase and top in place of brainstorm.

[Osse]

Opponent: Turn 1-2 Thoughtseize/Therapy/Duress/Hymm. Do you lose your best card of your top 7... or 3rd best of your top 10?

I hate to chime in here, but how many decks play those cards and don't have the Wasteland? I mean, yeah you might save one or two good cards, but then they make three of your cards dead (at least, depending on what else you're playing that's blue). Tbh, I'd much rather the 'stable' manabase of Three colors with Top, or you could even try Phyrexian Arena. Running blue seems like you're asking for trouble, at least with only one blue source.
Also, as I said above, everytime I played the Harmonize, I wanted it to be Survival, which makes Top even better. Just saying.

[Raider Bob]

At Quicksilver

Survival is by far not a bye, in testing Survival 'Diablos's build' is considererd by team left field to be the best deck in the format or right up there anyway. Doran helps that matchup a lot.

At Brainstorm

I personally play Sensei's Divining top over Brainstorm and do not play blue in the version I play. That being said, Geoff believes Brainstorm in this deck is a mid game call where you flush back 2 lands your holding with a fetchland and it does turn into a card quality recall in that situation. As a mid game card you can make the argument that it should be a three of card ,cause you do not want to draw a mid game card early. The debate over Brainstorm basiclly boils down to your play style.

At Harmonize

4 mana is not too much and if we could play 6 harmonizes in the deck we probably would oh wait we play 7 with Eternal witness. Anyway harmonize in a deck with this much early beef is the hammer you really need and makes this deck run at top speed.

[Brushwagg]

@Standstill: Is the WORST suggestion you could make. While I haven't picked up the deck, I've played aganist it enough to know how the deck works (play aganist it every week). Harmonize > Standstill in every way for this deck.

[darkalucard]

Why is Standstill bad in the deck? Does it not do the same thing for 2 mana? Just play it when you have creature advantage on board, even a landstill deck would have to break it. Best reason not to play it would be so that if your cut off on blue your not completely screwed over. I can understand that.

Konsultant:
I will be testing this deck as it is the only different version of rock that I have not tried yet, that is worth trying. I've been playing rock for a long time now, even losing to you at ULTM. Anyways could you provide your current sideboard? I have not seen a complete list yet.

Note:
Why is this thread so popular?

[Brehn]

Why is Standstill bad in the deck? Does it not do the same thing for 2 mana? Just play it when you have creature advantage on board, even a landstill deck would have to break it.

By that logic, Standstill could be played in every noncombo deck. I haven't seen a Tombstone list with more than 10 big creatures (to get a favorable board position), and some of those creatures (Tombstalker, Doran, Exalted Angel) are pretty difficult to cast in the earlygame. Harmonize can be played as soon as you reach 4 mana (or 5 to be Daze-proof), be it in a good or a bad position. Standstill can only be played if you have one of those beaters on the board, i.e. you are in a good position anyway. Also, Standstill is way scarier if the possibility of drawing a counterspell in those three card exists.

[konsultant]

Holy shit there has been alot of posts since I was last on here, I'm not going through the hassle of setting up all the quote's versus answer's but I will try to address all the questions that have been raised.

First off I would like to give prop's to Darkalucard for picking up on all the simularities of playing this deck as to playing Landstill. To those that know me I have had more than alittle success in running Landstill, I had come to the conclusion however that Landstill is not a viable deck to expect to win a tournament with because there are way to many different type's of decks that you must be able to beat. On top of the very open format that Legacy has become the simple power level of the control cards being printed by wizards versus the power of the aggro cards printed has been extremely lopsided for a long time now. When Landstill was king it was hard just to build a deck that could beat Landstill let alone the entire format, now I could build 20 decks atleast that could crush Landstill without even metaegaming for Landstill. As one of the initial pioneers of Landstill in Legacy I am announcing that in my opinion the deck is dying/hibernating currently atleast until the print far more powerful control cards than what currently exist. With that being said if you were to play Standstill you would then still have to deal with all of the problems of running Standstill like Aether Vial means you just can't play the card and you would still have to wait until you had total control of the board before you could play a Standstill. Worse than that though you couldn't play it without already having a threat in play or you wouldn't be able to win since you have zero threats playable under Standstill. If you were looking to play that kind of aggro-control Standstill deck I suggest you check out either Skies or Armostill, as for Tombstone I don't believe Standstill has a place. If you try testing the deck I think you will see that casting the Harmonize's is not ever really an issue.

As to the Top versus Brainstorm issue, They both have there advantage's and disadvantage's. Whitch one is better is entirely a situational decision. I prefer Brainstorm personally. The capability of getting card quality and quantitty is more important to me than getting multiple uses focused only on card quality. Honestly whitchever suite's your playstyle best is what you will probably have the best success with.

Regarding Fact or Fiction, first off it keeps getting compared to Harmonize, this is incorrect, it should be compared to the function of Eternal Witness not Harmonize. Harmonize will always net you 3 cards, part of what makes those mid game Brainstorms so damn powerful are the extra land drawn off of early game Harmonize's. Fact give's you some decent card quality with a shot of getting some card quantity. Let's face the truth regarding Fact, if your opponent doesn't suck you will only be getting two cards or possibly even just one. If you are getting three cards you are either throwing the cards you want into the yard or your opponent is lame. Personally I tend to beat the opponents that would screw up separating a FOF already.

Regarding the Blue Mana in the deck, first off there are three actual lands that produce Blue not just the one Sea as someone mentioned. On top of that there are 4 Birds of Paradise that were already in the deck. I understand that I have a considerable amount of tournament experience running a ridiculous Mana base and that i'm used to wieghing out all of my choices regarding what to fetch for and when to do it, but do people realize that if you go Bayou + Birds of Paradise turn one that you have 100% of the colored Mana you need to cast everything in the entire deck including your Swamp to play Snuffout? To the player's that are having colored Mana issue's I would suggest just running Top and staying away from the Blue. To those of us with considerable control deck experience I don't believe you will have problems running the Blue Mana.

Playing this deck is much closer to Survival than it is The Rock, I built this deck based alot on Colin Chilbert's 4 color Survival deck and the Type 2 deck that won this past worlds event. I didn't like how Survival had so many dead cards in it if you didn't draw Survival. If there was a "mirror match" that you could face I believe Survival would be it. If you can stop them from getting Survival online you will destroy them almost every time, if not... you will get your ass kicked by the sheer card quality and quantity that the deck can generate. This along with some other reasons is why I believe the SB is in need of an overhaul. Both Pithing Needle and Meddling Mage would be incredibly powerful in this match as well as some other's.

Regarding the Survival match it depends alot on what version of Survival they are playing and what version of Tombstone you are playing.

[darkalucard]

I whole heartly believe that the Landstill that had dominated the format in the past... has become reborn as GWB Rock.

These decks will dominate the format.

Also check out this decks primer: We Do Not Sow (GB Loam) (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=204282#post204282)
Also [ATW] The Rock - Adapted to Legacy (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=728)

I would love to refine GWB Rock into it's true calling. Tombstone is one of those decks taking a step in the right direction.

This deck is very promising.

Note:
I notice how you say it plays out like Surival more. I belive this is because Surival decks are basically Rock with a card advatnage engine in the card "Surival of the Fittest". The standard rock decks need something like this, this is in the form of Tops and Wish's, in your case Brainstorms and Harmonize. This is the direction Rock decks should take.

[J.V.]

Since the Hadley tournament I've been doing a little testing with the Tombstone shell and have been having pretty decent results with the following list:

// Lands
2 [CHK] Plains (4)
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [MM] Swamp (2)
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [B] Taiga
1 [R] Savannah
1 [A] Badlands
1 [B] Bayou
4 [RAV] Forest (3)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
4 [4E] Birds of Paradise
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
2 [LRW] Doran, the Siege Tower
3 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
2 [DIS] Crime/Punishment
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
4 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [PLC] Harmonize

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [DIS] Crime/Punishment
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [LRW] Primal Command
SB: 1 [A] Regrowth
SB: 1 [A] Tsunami
SB: 1 [PLC] Rough/Tumble
SB: 1 [TO] Chainer's Edict

[konsultant]

I love the Burning Wish idea! We have been messing around with both Glittering Wish and Living Wish but haven't done enough testing to actually play them yet. The Magus of the Moon seems alittle risky but I can totally see how it could just win games, How has it been working for you?

I'm glad people are playing the deck and having some success with it, I do believe this is the new direction with regards to playing control decks. It's also nice to see people understanding why this isn't a build of The Rock, that the deck is just considerably more explosive and has a better draw engine.

I've created a solid shell to start the deck with, I'm hoping the alternative idea's keep coming in. I am still looking for some solid side board strategy's if people care to post there idea's.

[J.V.]

I love the Burning Wish idea! We have been messing around with both Glittering Wish and Living Wish but haven't done enough testing to actually play them yet. The Magus of the Moon seems alittle risky but I can totally see how it could just win games, How has it been working for you?

I'm glad people are playing the deck and having some success with it, I do believe this is the new direction with regards to playing control decks. It's also nice to see people understanding why this isn't a build of The Rock, that the deck is just considerably more explosive and has a better draw engine.

I've created a solid shell to start the deck with, I'm hoping the alternative idea's keep coming in. I am still looking for some solid side board strategy's if people care to post there idea's.

Magus of the Moon is actually quite good since the only basic you really need to function is a forest and maybe a swamp. Since you can fetch out basics and you have birds the Blood Moon effect really doesn't hurt you. As for Burning Wish, the card is simply too good. I don't think I've lost a game (unless I was mana screwed) where I saw multiple wishes.

[konsultant]

I played in this past weekend's event, I am glad to say that both of the two Tombstone decks in the event made it to top 4. My match's went as such:

Round 1 vs Terravore/Countryside Crusher/Tarmogoyf/Force of Will

I win 2-0, still not sure what the hell he was trying to do with all those cards but my spot removal plus Doran made for 2 easy wins.

Round 2 vs Survival (Di)

I lose 1-2, I believe I both Sideboarded wrong and wasn't playing enough cards relevent to this match in the SB. I begin to think about my consistent losses to various Survival builds and some possible options in the SB. I have tryed to race Survival thinking that my men are just faster and that there are more of them plus my spot removal should clear the way but my opponents have been consistently stabalizing around 4-8 life. Perhaps with the right SB cards going the control route would be more effective.

Round 3 vs R/G Rifter

I win 2-0, Very easy match for this deck.

Round 4 vs Goblins (teeniebopper)

I win 2-1, I still have never lost to Goblins in an event but this match was damn close. My opponent was packing all sorts of disruption for Engineered Plague. Apparently they made a Black Goblin that pumps all your other Goblins +1/+1. That and he was running Shriekmaw and Engineered Explosive's, I actually had to play a Plague on Elementals or I would have died to a Shriekmaw.

Top 4 vs Tombstone (biggest legacy player alive)

This was probably the first ever sanctioned Tombstone mirror match. I utilzed my 7 months extra experience running the deck and claimed an easy 2-0 win. Congrats again to Brian for yet another top 4 with this deck.

Finals vs Survival (Di) again

Since I have almost zero testing against this deck and I have next to zero relevent disruption cards in the SB for his draw engine I decide to try the same theory of going aggro as before to see how it fairs, I lose 0-2. I don't believe this match is unwinnable by any means, I did claim one game against him and he actually lost to Brian in the swiss. This once again returns to my predicament over the appropriate SB. Had I been running the Needle's I had been considering, I would have had a far better chance of trying to go the control route aganst his deck.

I did try cutting one Witness from the MD in favor of the fourth Harmonize, I found that I had Harmonize in almost every single game, my card advantage was much smoother and more consistantly available. I believe I am going to continue running this change.

[Di]

Since I have almost zero testing against this deck and I have next to zero relevent disruption cards in the SB for his draw engine I decide to try the same theory of going aggro as before to see how it fairs, I lose 0-2. I don't believe this match is unwinnable by any means, I did claim one game against him and he actually lost to Brian in the swiss. This once again returns to my predicament over the appropriate SB. Had I been running the Needle's I had been considering, I would have had a far better chance of trying to go the control route aganst his deck.

I did try cutting one Witness from the MD in favor of the fourth Harmonize, I found that I had Harmonize in almost every single game, my card advantage was much smoother and more consistantly available. I believe I am going to continue running this change.

Your primary problem was not boarding in Krosan Grips. I was worried about them the entire time the first time around we played, and after I found out you didn't board them in the finals, I took advantage of it game 2 and played a lot more aggressively.

Another issue for the matchup, as you mention, is your attempt to play the aggro deck against me. Misassignment of role = game loss. That's a universal rule. Remember, I will always be the aggro deck in this scenario. I play more the double the amount of creatures you do. In order to win the matchup, you need to be the control deck and reconfigure the decklist/sideboard to suit that if you want to win, because the primary reason you lost that is because you took an aggro perspective into the match and went aggro v. aggro against a much better aggro deck. Still, despite that, it was all in Krosan Grip. Board them in next time!

I really like the deck though. It's a lot cooler than I thought it was when I first saw it posted on here.

[Raider Bob]

I think it should be mentioned that Di has made a deal with the devil to beat everyone on Team Left Field as long as he is playing a survival deck.

[jasoncsmelski]

Geoff if possible could you post a current Tombstone deck list with possible SB cards. I realize I could piece something together from all the previous posts, but that would take a minute or twenty. This deck looks extremely promising, right now I have Next Level Blue for extended, hate fairies so I don't really play much type two, and was considering making something Legacy just because I can (although NO ONE plays Legacy in Tampa Bay area).

[konsultant]

Another issue for the matchup, as you mention, is your attempt to play the aggro deck against me. Misassignment of role = game loss. That's a universal rule. Remember, I will always be the aggro deck in this scenario. I play more the double the amount of creatures you do. In order to win the matchup, you need to be the control deck and reconfigure the decklist/sideboard to suit that if you want to win, because the primary reason you lost that is because you took an aggro perspective into the match and went aggro v. aggro against a much better aggro deck.

I admitted the error in my strategy, like I said with little actual testing and then to play against the best Survival player I have ever met, I didn't expect to win. I decided I was going to use you for some testing, you may have more creature's but they are all smaller. My theory was this, if you don't draw Survival and I go aggro you are screwed, that was how I took the one win from you that I did. To be fair you managed to draw Survival every single one of our games despite the heavy discard I threw at you. I will admit I did not expect to have to deal with Gilded Drake either and that my SB strategy will be much different the next time we meet.

@Jason it's the most recent list posted by me with one change
-1 Witness
+1 Harmonize

I don't have a certain SB, in fact I have asked other's to post thiers a number of times now.

[konsultant]

I made top four once again with the deck this week. Literaly every round was a deck I didn't want to face but with some different Side Boarding strategies the day went well for me.

Round 1 vs Survival
Holy shit if I'm not playing against Di my turn one Thoughtsieze on Survival can actually do something. My opponent failing to top deck additional Survivals when needed and my new SB cards actually made this an easy match. I win 2-0

Round 2 vs Plainswalker+Shackles+Deed/Control-spiderfreak
He has way too many cards that I can't get rid off with only the 2 C+P's in the MD I scoop game 1 to Shackle's plus Lilliana. I SB and take an easy win through game's 2 and 3. I win 2-1

Round 3 vs Survival
Well round one wasn't just luck I take a 2-0 win against another Survival deck.

Round 4 vs Belcher-Legend
Game one he kills me with ETW before I can find a C+P. Games 2 and 3 I am able to force him to discard Belcher's and I had something to kill ETW when needed.

Top 4 vs White Thresh
Game 1 is bad, Damn Shackles are a pain in the ass. I SB heavily for this match but I end up dying to the third Mystic Enforcer, seriously I think he played one turns 7,8 and 9. I stp'd the first 2 but I wasn't able to stop the third one. I lose 0-2.

I seem to be sideboarding the same cards every round, I may try switching some stuff around to see if I can't improve some game 1's.

[kabal]

I made top four once again with the deck this week. Literaly every round was a deck I didn't want to face but with some different Side Boarding strategies the day went well for me.


Can you post your list?

[Raider Bob]

This is Geoff's list for those of you to lazy to scroll

Black
4x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Snuff Out
3x Tombstalker

Green
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Eternal Witness
4x Harmonize

White
4x Swords to Plowshares

Blue
4x Brainstorm

Gold
3x Doran
2x Crime/Punishment

Land
5x Basics
7x Fetch Lands
9x Dual Lands

[kabal]

This is Geoff's list for those of you to lazy to scroll

Just FYI, the list you posted doesn't match the list above.

+ Brainstorm
- Magus of the Moon
- Burning Wish

further more, JanValentine00 posted it not konsultant.

[konsultant]

Just FYI, the list you posted doesn't match the list above.

+ Brainstorm
- Magus of the Moon
- Burning Wish

further more, JanValentine00 posted it not konsultant.

The Burning wish list is an alternative list suggested by JanValentine00. The list posted by Raider Bob is the list I created and am currently running. Any changes I post will be in reference to this list.

Main Deck
Discard
4x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Therapy

Removal
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Snuff Out
2x Crime / Punishment

Creatures
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Eternal Witness
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Doran
3x Tombstalker

Draw
4x Brainstorm
4x Harmonize

Lands
4x Windswept Heath
3x Polluted Delta
4x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Plains

Side Board
4x Engineered Plague
3x Krosan Grip
3x Engineered Explosive's

The other 5 slots are what I've had trouble deciding what to play. Some form of Graveyard removal seems needed along with something to deal with Belcher/Tendrils. Almost everything else is dealt with very well between the MD and those 10 SB cards.

[Jaynel]

Regarding the sideboard, I'd cut EE down to 2 and run a 3/3 split between Extirpate and Orim's Chant. You have solid game against Ichorid postboard (3 Extirpate, 3 Engineered Plague), and combo (3 Orim's Chant + maindeck discard).

[konsultant]

Regarding the sideboard, I'd cut EE down to 2 and run a 3/3 split between Extirpate and Orim's Chant. You have solid game against Ichorid postboard (3 Extirpate, 3 Engineered Plague), and combo (3 Orim's Chant + maindeck discard).

The 3x EE are extremely important. There are only the 2x Crime and Punishment in the MD to deal with artifacts or enchaments after they resolve. Both Shackles and Counterbalance can be problems for this deck. You do have the 3x Krosan Grip in the SB as well but if you run into something like White Stax or Enchantress you need to have an excessive amount of Artifact/Enchantment removal. Not to mention EE is my best way to deal with the Bloodmoon effects that have become so popular. Chalice control decks can create a problem as well. The EE are just to useful to cut, I'd be more likely to add the 4th than to cut one. The Orim's Chant idea for combo has merrit. I think Raider Bob is actually running them in his SB. No one here really runs Ichorid but I have tested against it some. The match is greatly in the favor of Tombstone. Doran does funny things to Ichorids and Ashen Ghouls.

[Illissius]

Is EE an effective way of dealing with Moons, given that the very reason they hurt is they cut you off from mana of colors you want? If you can make three different colors to blow one up, do you really need to? Honest question.

[Jaynel]

Is EE an effective way of dealing with Moons, given that the very reason they hurt is they cut you off from mana of colors you want? If you can make three different colors to blow one up, do you really need to? Honest question.

I can definitely see how Moon effects can be harmful. Two basics + a nonbasic gives you 3 charge counters on Engineered Explosives, and that's easy to come by. The problem is that the deck needs double black (Tombstalker) and double green (Witness and Harmonize), and getting rid of a Moon (even when you can get EE to 3 counters) will open up your game a lot.

However, it does seem like between discard and Krosan Grip coming from the board, it really doesn't seem like EE is truly suited for taking out Moons. I stand by my sideboard choices, but konsultant probably knows the deck better than me.

[Raider Bob]

Blood Moon is much more difficult to deal with than Magus of the moon.

3x Snuff outs is Free Removeal, and the 4x Swords make Magus ez to deal with(If you do not walk into it that is) Blood Moon on the other hand is difficult for the deck to deal with with only 2 C/P and the 3 EE in the board.

[Nihil Credo]

3x Snuff outs is Free Removeal
You can't play Snuff Out unless you already have a basic Swamp in play.

[Raider Bob]

Is why I said as long as you don't walk into it....8)

[Brushwagg]

@Konsultant: Ya your deck still doesn't like Mystic Enforcer. Althought the Quagnoth(sp?) that BFS played on me was kinda techy. I'm not sure how you deal with Enforcer other the STP and C/P. As I told you before I think you should look at Deed in the C/p slot.

[Zach Tartell]

@Konsultant: Ya your deck still doesn't like Mystic Enforcer. Althought the Quagnoth(sp?) that BFS played on me was kinda techy. I'm not sure how you deal with Enforcer other the STP and C/P. As I told you before I think you should look at Deed in the C/p slot.

I think, in an environment where Genesis is a concern, C//P is way better.

[Akasha]

I played in a tourney today, I went 5-1 and ended up 5th due to bad opponent score.... Short report:

Round 1 - Some guy playing WW with weird creatures.
1. He opened with Martyr of Sands for 15 life or so. So I thought I was up against old type 2 life. No sweat, I have discard. O-rings and some swords made my life hard though. He managed to beat me down to 3 life when I got control. I Crime / Punishment his dead Pentarch Paladin, set it on white to get rid of his creatures, so he can't abuse jitte, and managed to pummel him down with Doran and Tombstalker.
2. I sided 2 grips. Easy win.
1-0

Round 2 - 42 lands
1. He just beat me down. Mazes made my creatures look bad. Lost.
2. Here I made some errors, after many turns I forgot about The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and had to sac my goyf. Now he could attack me with 2 factories and an treetop village. I sworded the factories, snuffed the treetop. Now I was at 4. He had 2 rings lying there and a taiga.... Had I just let one factory through, I would have been on 6, and could take it out the next turn. This happened after I Extirpated his burning wishes and Loam. So bad I almost kicked myself for that stupidity... When I draw one of my 4 sided CoV, it was to late, I had already extirpated the shit outta him.
1-1

Round 3 - Burn
1. I managed to race him with 2 goyfs.
2. He killed me with PoP for 6.
3. I had 2 nonbasics, one basic land and a fetch. I feth, get an u-sea, look around, see I have already the blue mana I need, and fetch an Swamp instead, I m at 9, play chalice for one (I just drew), he PoP me twice, putting me on 1. He has a card in hand, so I ask if I am dead. He shows me Lava Spike. I say he should just slam the card he would draw in the middle of the table to see if he can win. He draws... and it is... Chain Lightning! If I had taken the U-Sea, I would have lost...
2-1

Round 4 - Dragon Stompy
1. I start with land bird, not knowing what he plays (I could have played Thoughtseize). He groaned and plays Trinisphere. I land, second bop. He can't kill my birds in time. I remember Swording, Snuffing lots of creatures. Crime / Punishment a bit... He got rid of my birds with jitte after a while, but I still won.
2. He starts with 1st turn blood moon. I have 2 windswept heath and a bird in my hand.... Never draw a basic, lost.
3. I don't quite remember, but I won. Grips hurray I think..?
3-1

Round 5 - Dredge
1. I concede on turn 2 when I only have a bird, and half his library is in his grave.
2. Exterpitate and Eternal win me this game.
3. And this one also. He starts with colluseum Careful Study putting troll into grave. I extirpate, see he has no other dredgers in his hand. 2 turns later I witness my Extirpate back, taking his bridges. He plays Breakthrough sometime, gets nothing but one measly imp into his grave. I draw Extirpate. 2 turns later he scoops...
4-1

Round 6 - landstill
1. Very long game, he wins (Humility/recurring EE/Factories)
2. Also long, I win (Tombstalker)
3. I ask him to concede, since I am 4-1 and he is 3-2. With 4 minutes for the last round it would have been a draw anyway. We agree I give him some boosters and he concedes.
5-1

In the end I got 5th and got me 9 boosters to play with. This (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=14962) is the deck I played with. I just replaced one bayou with an overgrown tomb because a friend needed the bayou, never really a problem though. I never faced belcher, so I didn't side the chants.

Side:
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
3 Orim's Chant
3 Engineered Plague
4 Chalice of the Void

[Brushwagg]

I think, in an environment where Genesis is a concern, C//P is way.

That's what Extirpate is for.

Deed is the better call. Crime only hits the casting cost and there are alot time I know Geoff and BFS want to hit multiple casting casts. Example 1-4.

[konsultant]

@Akasha
I'm glad to see that the deck is successful outside of Syracuse. The deck is really good and a feel that it is only one or two small tweaks away from being capable of winning any tourney you enter. I do strongly favor my build although I do recognize that the Wish version and Raider Bob's have just as much potential.

Regarding Mystic Enforcer you actually have C+P, STP and EE that can kill it. That puts removal up to 9 spells, it is unfortunatly bigger than anything in Tombstone outside of maybe Goyf and the pro black factor with flying hurts your ability to stop it using your own creatures. I never care to see it but even last week when I was killed by one in top 4 it was the third one he played in a row, my having dealt with the previous 2. Also I looked at nine cards with Brainstorm + Fetching and Harmonize, I just didn't find one of the 8 other removal spells in the deck or an Eternal Witness. Statistically speaking I should have been able to deal with it.

The thing about using EE for anti Bloodmoon effects is that it can stop both Magus and Bloodmoon.

I have thought about running Deed in the deck but I honestly haven't been in need of it yet.

[Raider Bob]

@Akasha
42 Land is a tuff matchup but with Extirpates it is winnable.
Turn 1 Magus of the Moon is just bad fr the deck in almost every situation.

Deed or Crime/Punishment
This is really a close call...
Deed - Pro and Con, It is a board Sweeper usually it removes your board also.
C//P - Pro and Con, It targets a lone casting cost saving your creatures usually. You may need to kill more stuff.
C//P - You can regrow opponents crap always fun.

[Akasha]

@Raider Bob: I sided in Chalices and Extirpates. The extirpate on wish and later on loam shoulda won me the game, if I hadn't screwed up. The chalices came to late...

The reason for me to play C/P instead of deed/EE was that It has effect immediately and costs less mana. If it would have been a deed, I could take out more, but it would be a lot slower. Same is for EE. Also it comes a surprise card and is more able to dodge balance. I never regretted that tourney that it wasn't a deed.
Now I can play Doran when I got 3 mana, and next turn C/P for 2, which is the amount for I did most.

Fun thing is, I made the deck the day before the tourney, and I still got far, I love it :) :) :)

EDIT: I forgot to give you credits, konsultant. So props and thanks for the list, though I like witness more then Harmonize :P

EDIT 2: I just saw the deck lists and rankings are online:
http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/siegerdecks.htm
There you can see the 3 top deck lists, you can't see my deck list because I only got 5th :(

[Michael Keller]

C/P is just really good. EE is also great if the mana costs of what your looking to nail are low (you'd have to crack it soon, perhaps), so it's a mild consideration given the circumstances.

[darkalucard]

I remember somebody commenting on the Survival matchup.

Has anyone figured it out? You can't go aggro because there faster so I guess you go control but it is such a tough matchup even with hate etc.

Any ideas on consistantly beating this deck?

[Raider Bob]

I think Di addressed the issue and Kunsultant last time he played him took the control tact to the matchup and beat him.

The main issue with beating Survival is not to walk in to Magus of the Moon and keep surval off the table.

[konsultant]

I remember somebody commenting on the Survival matchup.

Has anyone figured it out? You can't go aggro because there faster so I guess you go control but it is such a tough matchup even with hate etc.

Any ideas on consistantly beating this deck?



I think Di addressed the issue and Kunsultant last time he played him took the control tact to the matchup and beat him.

The main issue with beating Survival is not to walk in to Magus of the Moon and keep surval off the table.

First off I did not beat Di playing Survival I beat two different people playing Survival last week. I'm not saying that my opponents were bad players but Di is by far the most experienced Survival player I know of.

With regards to beating Survival, the same game 1 strategy is in place, you hope to be able to force them to discard it if it's in their opening hand and try to play very aggresivly. With the limited enchantment removal in the deck it's really your only strategy for game 1. If they don't have Survival or if you can keep it from them you should pretty much always win. If they get Survival going there is just too much card advantage to fight through. Another thing to consider about this game 1 is that if it's still in the swiss rounds it is very easy to spend 40 minutes to lose game 1, more or less if Survival hits the board and i'm not staring at C+P in hand it's off to the next game.

Now as part of my Survival hate I was running Tormod's Crypt instead of Extirpate as my Graveyard removal last week. I fully understand what Extirpate is capable of doing but I will point out that it is not capable of removing Genisis and Squee at the same time.

My side boarding for Survival went like this
-4 Thoughtsieze
-3 Cabal Therapy
-2 Snuffout

+3 Krosan Grip
+3 Engineered Explosive's
+2 Tormod's Crypt
+1 Eternal Witness

I wasn't certain about taking out 100% of the discard effects but in the couple games I played last week it wasn't really an issue. Grip is huge against the deck, thanks Di. Plus good old Tormod's Crypt won me a game by taking out Genisis and Squee. I understand that your better opponents aren't going to walk into that but Crypt paired with some removal for Survival allows you to blow up Survival and be able to deal with the Witness effects. I was thinking of running a split of 2 Extirpate and 2 Tormod's Crypt in the SB. I had been running 4 Extirpate. Either way i'm still not 100% happy with my SB choice's but the control route does fair considerably better against Survival.

Regarding Magus, it's not really what's going to beat you, Survival of the Fittest is what's going to beat you. You should be aware that the deck probably has it in there so fetching basics when possible is probably a good idea. Gaddock Teag can also be alittle annoying, it shuts off C+P,EE,Harmonize and Snuffout, effectivly only leaving you with STP to get rid of him. Just try to put the basic Plains in play and hold onto an STP and you should be fine in this match.

[konsultant]

I had an outstanding day yesterday with Tombstone 12-1 in games.

Round 1 vs Elves
I take an easy win 2-0, my opponent was obviously a new player.

Round 2 vs Red Thresh
I take the 2-0 win, I figured his burn effects would have been more relevent than they turned out to be.

Round 3 vs Tombstone
I take a slightly difficult 2-0 in the mirror, there are numerous whispers among Syracuse player's about building my deck but only one other person is actually running the deck in Syracuse.

Round 4 vs Skie's (with meta game for Tombstone)
This deck give's me my only game loss for the day but I take the 2-1 win for the round. I also saw my first attempt at meta-gaming against Tombstone as my opponent was running Empyrial Plate in his Skies deck to deal with the size of my men.

Top 4 vs Treefolk? (Jim)
Yes my opponent was running treefolk, I don't know if everybody realizes this but they printed some fuckin retarded tree's. I don't know the name of any of them but there was one that made all other tree's indestructable and then some other one that with power and toughness equal to the number of forest's and treefolk, he trampled over my Doran for 6 at one point. Jim you are obviously a candidate for Team Left Field running decks like that. I was able to take the win mostly due to my card drawing capabilities and the excessive removal in Tombstone. I would also like to note that during this match I cast EE with 5 charge counter's on it for the first time ever.

Finals vs Tombstone
This match went the same as it did in the swiss, we trade cards for awhile but I ended out on top.

Overall it was an awesome tournament for Tombstone, I went undefeated for the day and big brian played me in the finals, his only losses for the day were to me.

As a side note I have switched EE into the MD and put Cabal Therapy into the SB.

[Jim]

Top 4 vs Treefolk? (Jim)
Yes my opponent was running treefolk, I don't know if everybody realizes this but they printed some fuckin retarded tree's. I don't know the name of any of them but there was one that made all other tree's indestructable and then some other one that with power and toughness equal to the number of forest's and treefolk, he trampled over my Doran for 6 at one point. Jim you are obviously a candidate for Team Left Field running decks like that. I was able to take the win mostly due to my card drawing capabilities and the excessive removal in Tombstone. I would also like to note that during this match I cast EE with 5 charge counter's on it for the first time ever.


It was a hell of a night, and a damn good way to relax after work. Thanks, everyone that came out.

Geoff, I got a huge kick out of the fact that every time you read one of my cards you laughed and exclaimed "that's just retard." Actually, I think that's pretty much what happened every round. There's a possibility I could have been 4-0 in the swiss, but Mike got crazy lucky with belcher. Oh well, I'll play another week and we'll see if we meet again, but I know there not much I can do to combat your crazy 20+ card advantage or whatever crazy number it is most games.

Tournament sidenote: Trample is a bitch.

[godryk]

Hi! I just tested this deck a bit last night in a little online tournament and after finishing 2-2 after 4 rounds of swiss I have to say that I like the deck but I sometimes find it a little slow against fast decks like Burn (I could win this matchup, but games were all very tight and had to remove my own Goyf more than once to gain life, Price of Progress destroyed me) and fast aggro like Goyf Sligh and Zoo that were present. Even Red Trash won me the last game of three thanks to topdecking burn when I had clear board superiority.

I just wanted a little bit more of removal. Am I piloting this deck wrong, maybe, but I found it to be more slow than it seems. I felt like I should have included more removal, maybe just in the SB, because EE was just slow. If I can get to stay alive until turn 4-5 with enoguh life, my bigger critters and card advantage can dominate the board. I may include some Smother/Vendetta in the SB for such a meta.

I really liked Harmonize, Eternal witness and Doran. Hitting with the bird while Doran blocks is nice.

[konsultant]

There are absolutly no burn decks in the Syracuse area. I was considering Heroe's Reunion or Loxodon Hierarch if it ever became an issue, Possibly even the white plainswalker Ajani. This is one of the greatest powers of Tmobstone, the Side Board cards exist to crush any match up you could possibly face and they fit into the deck fairly easily from the SB. The MD should be a fairly good shell for Legacy as a whole but you have numerous meta game options for local meta's in the SB. The last deck with this kind of versatility for answer's was Landstill. Hell you could even run Blue Elemental Blast in the SB if you were running my version with Brainstorm. If price of Progress is very popular you could run Intervention Pact or even Honorable Passage. This is part of the reason that I don't post my list with a SB is that you really need to run a SB for what you expect to face in your area.

Assuming that Thresh is the deck to beat and that it runs Counterbalance, Burn seems like a risky choice to enter a tourney with if you plan on trying to win it.

[godryk]

Well, here counterbalance decks are getting less played in favor of Thrash as we have some kind of fetish of wasteland. I tested and played your Brainstorm version and it seemed pretty powerful, but I just found it very upset to loose to a bunch of five 2/2 in turn four. I really think that a good Legacy deck has to be able to face those random decks you may find in a Legacy event, I mean, random decks do exist, and you'll face some, maybe not in the higher tables, but you have to be able to do something against them.

I may have not played it correctly, whatever, you can't always win, I just was testing the deck. Many of these matchups could have been easily won with a little bit of lifegain, so I'll throw some Hierarchs or maybe Pulse of the Fields in my SB.

[Raider Bob]

This actually sounds a lot like the issues we are/were having. The deck doesn't play itself, it plays out like aggro control so making the right desicions is important. Geoff had gone 2-2 many weeks before he started dominatiing tournaments again piloting this deck. As for the burn matchup Price of Progress is retarded, but walking into a price for 6-12 isn't nessasary. You can run on 3 basics and a bird, the discard and possibly Chalice o f the void can shut the problem down. As for Thresh right now it is a little in Tombstones favor and that is being addressed daily to make the matchup a little better.

[konsultant]

Well, here counterbalance decks are getting less played in favor of Thrash as we have some kind of fetish of wasteland. I tested and played your Brainstorm version and it seemed pretty powerful, but I just found it very upset to loose to a bunch of five 2/2 in turn four. I really think that a good Legacy deck has to be able to face those random decks you may find in a Legacy event, I mean, random decks do exist, and you'll face some, maybe not in the higher tables, but you have to be able to do something against them.

I may have not played it correctly, whatever, you can't always win, I just was testing the deck. Many of these matchups could have been easily won with a little bit of lifegain, so I'll throw some Hierarchs or maybe Pulse of the Fields in my SB.

I completlly agree that you need to be able to beat random decks, for the most part random decks are the one's tooled to crush tier one decks. The problem lie's in the fact that we only get 15 cards for the SB. You may have noticed my numerous posts regarding my unsatisfactory attitude towards the current SB. The more I play the deck the more i'll be able to make the correct tweaks. Life gain is something I would like to incorparate into the deck, the problem however is that it is only relevent against Burn effects and possibly Tendrils if the effect only increases your life total. To spend critical cards on a match I have yet to face, not to mention that decks like burn can always just win off crazy draws, it hasn't been needed as of yet. I would like to play Ajani but have yet to find the room. To a certain point you do need to assume the meta, the fact is this, in a big event Counterbalance Thresh will be there and in multiple's. Surviving the first few rounds of randoms can be far more difficult than winning the last few of tier one decks.

Like I stated before, one of the greatest parts of this deck is that you can tool the SB to include whatever the hell you want. If you expect to see Mountains all day, then fuck it and run BEB and COP Red. Unfortunatly your SB will either give you what you need to own the tourney or if you are unprepared will let you get ass raped. Atleast at this point I don't have the "perfect" SB. The best advice I have is to run Krosan Grip and some kind of graveyard removal. The rest of the SB is fairly open.

As a side note I'm not losing to Threshold in general, actually I have done very well against numerous builds of Thresh, Mystic Enforcer has been my problem. Enforcer and Shackle's are the primary reason I put EE into the MD over Therapy.

[Raider Bob]

1CC
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Birds of Paradise

2CC
4 Tarmogoyf

3CC
3 Doran
3 Eternal Witness
2 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed

4CC
3 Harmonize
2 Snuff out

5CC
3 Lilliana Vess

8CC
2 Tombstalker


Land
7 Fetchlands
4 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savanah
5 Basics
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Round 1
Dreadstill
He played a very tight game, he played slow and made sure he didn't make any play mistakes.
Game 1
I open hand 6 lands and a Top, I keep tho in hind sight my turn 1 play should have been different.
He go's land go, I draw a STP, go Land top and it is Dazed. I draw enough diruption to pake it a game but never recover from the daze I walked into. I have 12 land in play never missing a land drop and lost to 2 trinket mages and a Factory.
Game 2
Aggitated I shuffle some more and open 2 land and some nice control/aggro cards and keep.
I never get off 2 land and he hits a wasteland right before I get land 3 so I lose round 1.

0-1 0-2

On a Side note Geoff played the exact same deck and had baiscally the exact smae games.

Round 2
Some Aggro deck, did not see enough of it to see what it was.
Game 1
I am sitting next to Geoff and we talk a little and both win the die roll and play. I resolve a turn 2 doran, turn 3 goyf kill him turn 5.
Game 2
See game 1
Geoffs game played out much the same we are both done look over and Hollywood is still playing so we go over and ask him why he is holding up the tournament? Hollywood wins quickly thereafter.

1-1 2-2

Round 3
Affinity
Game 1
He mulls to 5 I win the die roll, go Fetch-> Bayou-> Bop say go he gos Ornithopter->Go I go Tarmogoyf Scrubland->Thoughtseize (Frogmite) Goyf is a 3/4, he gos land, go, I go Snuff out on Ornithopter/doran swing for 5, he gos land cranial plating. I swing for 10, play vindicate on his land and he scoops.
Game 2
This was a little more stressfull. He gos, land-> Disciple of the Vault go, I go Land->Bop he gos land ornithopter a modular guy go, I go land deed, he go's land ornithopter, I go land Deed, he gos land something, I go land go, he gos land EOT I deed taking 5 off of the Diciple and with Disciple beats I am at 12 or something. He has 1 land in play and I play Doran he gos land modular guy. I go witness bring back deed I have 4 land in play. he gos ravager I go ok. I play deed 1 mana open. he swings I block he makes Ravager a 6/6 and kills doran, he casts cranial plating at some point. I deed next turn drop Tombstalker and just fly over for the win.

2-1 4-2

Round 4
Burn (Goyf Sligh)
Game 1 takes a long time, he drops me down to 1 for a long time and I regrow Witness and do some witness STP tricks with my creatures as he has no cards In hand to stay alive, I stabalize and am swinging with Tombstalker/Goyf/Witness for 11 a turn he topdecks 2 burn spells and I can not survive I die with him at 1(HUGE MISTAKE, I recount Goyf after I scoop and he was a 5/6 and I would have won if I would have checked Goyf count)
Game 2
Pissed off I play I go land go he plays grim lavamancer I stp it, he says go I go land Chalice for 1, he grumbles and drops a mountain says go this gos for awhile till he gets a green mana and drops goyf I vindicate the goyf and drop Lillina shortly there after make him discard he tosses a fanatic a chain lightning, a bolt and I use lilianas living death he doesn't know how it works and puts his critters on his side and I say no I get them and is aggitated due to having a crypt on his side. He scoops shortly afterwards.
Game 3
I draw into 3 goyfs and proceed a beat down quickly I am at 13, he does Price of Progress I fetch out a basic and take 6, I swing getting him to 5 life, he draws drops goyf, I swing out and kill him with Tombstalker.

3-1 6-3

Round 5
Faerie/Wizard Control
This kid Beat Geoff in the round before so I am a little concerned.
He plays some Faries and says something about a 10 turn clock and I am a little confused untill I find out he beat Geoff that way with like 7 counters in a row. I stp a Faerie and drop a goyf he plays a Jitte at some point I get deed to resolve start the major beatdown and he gets another Jitte with Mutavault and I need to over extend into more critters and he survives for awhil till I just over oper him due to Jitte not staing on Muta Vault.
Game 2 He does a lot of the same stuff draws the Wizard bounce land and does some combat tricks that are annoying, I oper power him in the end but he could have bounced a flash wizard and jitted me out at one point.

4-1 8-3

Top 8
MUC
Game 1
I walk into Back to Basics and grumble about it and lose soon after.
Game 2
I have Shackle hate come in wait till I see some of it get 1 in the yard off a Fact or Fiction looking for an extirpate or a Krosan grip I resolve a deed only to have in needled before I can blow it. He drops Meluku and I need to topdeck a Grip to stabalize and get back into the game, I dont and lose 0-2

I use the credit I win and some cash to get a goyf.

Props
Another great tourny thank you Over the Edge games
Team Left Field for having two reps in the top 8
Hollywood for taking Belcher too second place.
Geoff for driving the whole way out there.

Slops
The guy who scooped after his dread naught was echoing truthed not realising it bounced his opponents naught also.
Geoff for losing to Wizard Faerie gayness.

[konsultant]

Slops
Geoff for losing to Wizard Faerie gayness.

In hindsight I have discovered the error in my sideboarding idea's. Seems to be a trend with me, for some reason this deck doesn't sideboard the same as Landstill did. Oh well, i'll get used to the concept of it sooner or later. Unfortunatly both my losses were to Blue aggro control decks I had never faced before, lessons learned.

On a side note my round 4 opponent that was playing faerie's seemed to be a faerie himself, he kept trying to call me Ted and then laughing at himself like there was some joke in calling me Ted, Freak. Hadley Mass, whole bunch of hot women and some friggin wierd ass magic players. Great store though, definetly reccomended.

[Bryant Cook]

Geoff did you give up on this? I'm asking because you were playing Landstill on Saturday. What do the newer lists look like?

[konsultant]

No I haven't given up on it but the previous week at comic zone was 1/2 mountain decks [goyf sligh and dragon stompy] and the other half was combo [fetchland tendrils and belcher]. My "easy" round was against black thresh. Me and big Brian have been doing way to good down there, people had to start to adapt at somepoint. Tombstone however is not 2005 Landstill and can be beaton by just playing a bunch of burn spells or using that whole storm mechanic. I have some alterations in the works but nothing I am 100% on yet.

[Clark Kant]

Regarding the opening post, I think this deck is dying to run 4 Smallpox and go up to 3-4 Tombstalkers with it. It's LD + Removal for a bargain basement price. If any of your creatures are in play, you should be winning anyways. But if they are not, you get a great advantage off of Smallpox.

Goyfs aren't quite as good as Tombstalker since they don't have evasion. But Doran is crap compared to either. Doran costs three mana as opposed to Tombstalker's 2cc and it actually costs 4 since you can't use your wastelands to play it, so running it as a singleton is pretty much useless.

I would honestly run Phyrexian Arena or something over Harmonize. Draw 3 cards for four mana is a lot. Arena gives you a greater advantage over the longer games you will undoubtedly be playing.

And for the love of god, please run 4 Wasteland in this deck. You should be able to support it if you cut Doran.

Honestly I would run a modified version of Vaka Pox running 4 Ghostly Prison (a one sided Deed that lasts forever thanks to your land destruction) with Liliana Vess.

[konsultant]

Regarding the opening post, I think this deck is dying to run 4 Smallpox and go up to 3-4 Tombstalkers with it. It's LD + Removal for a bargain basement price. If any of your creatures are in play, you should be winning anyways. But if they are not, you get a great advantage off of Smallpox.

Goyfs aren't quite as good as Tombstalker since they don't have evasion. And Doran costs three mana as opposed to Tombstalker's 2cc, so running it as a singleton is pretty much useless.

I would honestly run Phyrexian Arena or something over Harmonize. Draw 3 cards for four mana is a lot. Arena gives you a greater advantage over the longer games you will undoubtedly be playing.

And for the love of god, please run 4 Wasteland in this deck. You should be able to support it if you cut Doran.

Well... you see the current version of this deck doesn't play any land destruction effects it has been switched to discard. In this deck Harmonize is an absolute bomb and since it is the top of the curve you have usually played out all your cards by the time you need to cast it and 4 Mana isn't that big of a deal. Turn 2 Doran wins games, it's as simple as that. The deck does run 3 Tombstalker's, perhap's you should scroll up and take a look at the current list that is posted?


The Burning wish list is an alternative list suggested by JanValentine00. The list posted by Raider Bob is the list I created and am currently running. Any changes I post will be in reference to this list.

Main Deck
Discard
4x Thoughtseize

Removal
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Snuff Out
2x Crime / Punishment
2x Engineered Explosives

Creatures
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Eternal Witness
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Doran
3x Tombstalker

Draw
4x Brainstorm
4x Harmonize

Lands
4x Windswept Heath
3x Polluted Delta
4x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Plains

Side Board
4x Engineered Plague
3x Krosan Grip

The other 5 slots are what I've had trouble deciding what to play. Some form of Graveyard removal seems needed along with something to deal with Belcher/Tendrils. Almost everything else is dealt with very well between the MD and those 10 SB cards.

Edit: I guess I won't be lazy and I'll copy the list over again.

[Clark Kant]

I liked the old build better, just because it was something new. Abusing LD and Liliana Vess.

The recent list you posted is basically The Rock.

"Well... you see the current version of this deck doesn't play any land destruction effects it has been switched to discard. "

Umm... you play a grand total of 4 discard spells. It hasn't switched over to discard as the strategy.

The deck is basically, decent creatures + creature kill.

The one and only tool that it has against the entire combo archeatype is a grandtotal of 4 Thoughtseize.

But it seems very solid against aggro.

I would honestly just prefer to play Eva Green (playing Duress or Smother + Reanimate in place of Seal of Primordium) over this deck though. It's pretty similar but it's faster, and gets to run broken stuff like Dark Ritual and Hymn to Tourach.

[konsultant]

I liked the old build better, just because it was something new. Abusing LD and Liliana Vess.

The recent list you posted is basically The Rock.

"Well... you see the current version of this deck doesn't play any land destruction effects it has been switched to discard. "

Umm... you play a grand total of 4 discard spells. It hasn't switched over to discard as the strategy.

The deck is basically, decent creatures + creature kill.

The one and only tool that it has against the entire combo archeatype is a grandtotal of 4 Thoughtseize.

But it seems very solid against aggro.

I would honestly just prefer to play Eva Green (playing Duress or Smother + Reanimate in place of Seal of Primordium) over this deck though. It's pretty similar but it's faster, and gets to run broken stuff like Dark Ritual and Hymn to Tourach.

I also run Cabal Therapy in my SB. This deck also has considerable card quality and quantity, things The Rock does not have. Also unlike Eva Green this deck doesn't burn out in the first few turns, and I assure you the deck can propel large threats into play with a considerable amount of speed. Turn 2 Doran hasn't exactly been a bad play in legacy at the moment.

[Raider Bob]

I have played this deck in 3 Tournys of 36, 31, and 49 people in the past 4 months and top eighted each of those times. The deck plays very well.

[konsultant]

Umm so I went 7-0-2 with this deck in the second prelim event for worlds at gencon running the exact list posted above. I can go over some new SB strategies if there is any interest in the deck.

[Brushwagg]

Well I thought this deck was almost dead. Congrats on the finish, but you are GEOFF fucking Smelski!!!!!! Anyrate if you want to post the SB I'm interested.

[Waikiki]

You never wanted to cut the list down to 60 cards? 61 just looks weird to me.

[Raider Bob]

I went 6-2 At the Legacy Championship with this deck running into Enchantress and Tendrils as my only 2 lossess on the day. and I went 3-0-1 at the event day 3 so all in all the deck was 16-2-3 on the Gen-Con Weekend.


@Running 61 cards I play only 2 Snuff outs dropping it to 60 Cards.

[Waikiki]

thnx I will be trying that!

[konsultant]

Well I thought this deck was almost dead. Congrats on the finish, but you are GEOFF fucking Smelski!!!!!! Anyrate if you want to post the SB I'm interested.

4x Krosan Grip
4x Engineered Plague
4x Extirpate
3x Cabal Therapy

Combo is and will always be the decks week spot but discard plus Extirpate seems to be the most relevent disruption I can come up with without hating out on particular decks, ie running 4x Teeg and 4x Chant for storm.

[Brushwagg]

You could probably go with 2-3 Teeg in the board. That should help out the combo match some. Considering you do have more then a few dead cards in that match.

What are the numbers on Ichorid?? I would have to say it's probably your better combo match.

[konsultant]

You could probably go with 2-3 Teeg in the board. That should help out the combo match some. Considering you do have more then a few dead cards in that match.

What are the numbers on Ichorid?? I would have to say it's probably your better combo match.

Teeg is dangerous as it shuts off Harmonize, EE, Crime and Punishment and Snuff Out. I was running Mage at Gencon. I have yet to lose a round to Ichorid with the deck but alot of my wins were in game 3. The cards exist to beat combo easily but after testing it needs to be about 7 relevent cards to get the winning percentage high enough to expect to win. The problem is that they almost always take game one and can beat you game 3 before you even play a card. Not 100% sure on many slots are worth trying to salvage a bad match up.

[Brushwagg]

I totaally forgot about Harmonize. I'm not sure the other cards are really relevent in like the TES match-up though. I mean they have to kill Teeg or try to Grapeshot you out. But basically what your saying is to punt the combo match, but if you win that's good also?

[SuckerPunch]

konsultant, that's really cool you did well with the list.

But as for the current definitive Tombstone list here...

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=221642#post221642

splashing blue to run 4 Brainstorm maindeck just seems not worthwhile. But though I generally prefer Deed, I do love Crime / Punishment though. How often do you end up using the reanimate ability? It seems to be to mana intensive to ever see use, but I could be wrong.

But as for throwing in blue to the list for Brainstorm, I mean, why do that to the decks manabase. You run enough colors already without having to splash blue as well. Brainstorm isn't a broken card, not in the manner that Goyf or StP/Vindicate are, enough to justify a splash.

Anyways, over at the Eva Green thread, I was testing a 3 color version and am now testing this list...

4 tarmogoyf
4 hypnotic specter
4 tombstalker
3 doran, the siege tower (this is the card now being tested. it's a slot that used to be occupied by either phyrexian negator, nantuko shade, or ashenmoor gouger)

4 dark ritual
4 thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
4 sinkhole
3 vindicate
3 snuff out
2 swords to plowshares/reanimate

4 wasteland
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
3 bayou
3 scrubland
2 swamp
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth

If I was to stick with Doran, I'm considering the merits of Birds of Paradise in place of dark ritual. I will have to switch up the manabase though, but I really liked having a manabase that supports Hypnotic Specter, Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole.

Hypnotic Specter could easily be swapped for either Skyshroud Elite or Eternal Witness.

Basically, if I do that and replace the manabase and Hymn and Sinkhole, I wind up with this deck. But I wonder if Eva Green is just plain better though. Does Doran offer enough of an advantage over Ashenmoor Gouger/Phyrexian Negator/Nantuko Shade as to justify reworking the manabase to the point that it may no longer be able to support Hymn and Sinkhole? I think not. Another option is to go with a transformational sideboard just for kicks.

What do you guys think? Can anyone give me a frank assessment of what matchups this deck shines in that Eva Green has difficulty with and what matchups this has a toughtime with that Eva Green shines in.

You can see the similarities. I figured it was better to just ask here as you guys already are playing the deck that I would be transforming Eva Green into.

Thank you so much for any help or advise you have to offer.

[Raider Bob]

@The Blue Splash for Brainstorm

I will be the first to admit that I felt this was a bad Idea, I had tried this route earlier with Ponder and it fell flat. That being said Going to GenCon this year I had the opportunity to watch Geoff play 7 rounds with the brainstorm version and Brainstorm is really just that good in this deck. I then played the brainstorm version for the championship and went 6-2 on the day losing to Enchantress and Tendrils two of the decks poor matchups.

@The ManaBase

The Brainstorm Splash is really just that a Splash and if you resolve one Brainstorm your one source of blue mana has done its job.

The Trop, Underground sea, Tundra We were running two trops at GenCon replace a Swamp a Forest and a Plains. Other than being Wasteland targets(AND they are the first target anyone hits) and more apt to Magus of the Moon beats, you really do not lose anything by playing the blue splash. Brainstorm if held and not used as soon as you see it in your hand(IE using it when you need an specific card) becomes an Ancestral Recall in this deck. You find yourself more often than with a full grip of cards running into Harmonize/Witness Chains and Brainstorm really just digs the 3 cards deeper and allows you to flush away cards you do not need.

As far as Eva Green go's: We looked at Eva Green long and Hard as it was just better than the original build we had made. Eva Green is an Aggro deck and Tombstone plays more as a control deck beating you with Card advantage and not early disruption coupled with beats. Eva Greens bad matchups are any game that makes it past turn 5, Tombstones best matchups are anygame that makes it to turn 5. They are really very different decks and a lot of the reason people have a hard time winning with Tombstone if they are having issues is they Take the Aggro Role in the Matchup and do not take the role they need to take to actually win the matchup.

@Your propsosed list: You are trying to add more control elements to Eva Green, The issue you will most likely run into is your not running a draw engine and that is the same place Eva Green run short, You around turn 6 will be in top deck mode if the game lasts that long of course. Any deck that has a compitent draw engine will jump on that opening and just beat you.

A common play that makes Tombstone dominate games are

Turn 1: Winswept Heath -> Bayou. Play Birds of Paradise
Turn 2: Polluted Delta -> Scrubland. Play Doran, the Seige Tower
Turn 3: Forest, Attack with Doran, Play Harmonize
Turn 4: Windswept heath, Attack with Doran, Play Eteral Witness Regrow Harmonize Say go Play Brainstorm on opp turn Flush away some of the bad cards in your hand
Turn 5: Play whatever you need to play to win the game.

[SuckerPunch]

Seeing as how this is a control deck, if you do want to splash a fourth color for one card, which I still think is streching the manabase too thin, why not play Ancestral Visions instead of Brainstorm.

It gives you a solid turn one play that gives you actual card advantage by turn 5 which is indeed superior to just higher card quality imo.

[Raider Bob]

@Ancestral Visions

Yes it is more more actual cards, no it is not better.

A Turn 1 Ancestral Visions to gain +3 Cards on turn 5 is Great. a Turn 5 Top deck of Visions to get +3 Cards is not so Great.

Brainstorm actually fixes bad draws or unfortunate draws and keeps the quality in your hand, digging 3 deeper imediatly is better than digging 3 deeper in 4 turns.

[konsultant]

Really this is a Black Green deck, It splash's both white and blue and yes I feel that both color's merit inclusion in this deck. Far too many people look at this list and try to make change's without actually playing the deck as it is first. The deck is no more or no less vulnerable to Land Destruction/Moon effects than any other deck that is winning in legacy currently.

We looked at Eva Green when building this deck and quickly decided other than Snuff Out the deck had nothing to offer to this deck. It is built on the type 2 Doran Deck that won a Standard Championship and built off of Colin Chilbert's Survival deck. We took the principle's that were winning with those two decks and incorparated a draw engine that wasn't as disruptable as Survival and we ended up with Tombstone.

Oh and this exact list made it into Top 8 at the Beta Trop event yesterday while being piloted by someone not even in Team Left Field.

[Ramptoniin]

What is your guys feeling about reassessing the mana base, taking out the Brainstorms, and adding Top? I really love this deck, but have been looking for possible improvements. Let me know what you guys think

Whoops EDIT : I see the testing of Top over brainstorm has been done before, what are your guys feelings on it? Is brainstorm better because you can just use it when you need it and dont have to always screw with the mana toying for it or what?

[krevett62]

Hello I don't know if it's really the place for it but this deck make me think about a deck i sometimes play for fun wich is only B/W and runs ajani instead of liliana a mix between pox and tombstone without any creatures :smile:
Anyway here's the list to give you an idea :
24 lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
4 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Quicksand
1 Cabal Pit
1 Nomad Stadium
3 Swamp
1 Plains

36 Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Thoughtseize
4 Smallpox
4 Vindicate
4 Mox Diamond
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's crypt
2 Ajani Goldmane


Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Smokestack
3 Pithing Needle
3 Infest
3 Extirpate
4 Duress

I use mox as an early acceleration and enlightened tutor give acces to almost half of the deck, crucible for land recursion (waste and mishra but also some utility land)
Nomad stadium and ajani were good for this deck because you hurt yourself in the early game with thoughtseize and fetches, and they allow you not to die to phyrexian arena
I wanted to play no creature at all even tombstalker in order to maximize the effect of smallpox (you also have six mana producing artifacts)

For sure this list is far from the tombstone originally posted but I didn't know where to post it and it's the first time I see a place where it could fit :tongue:

[Holo_rip]

This is clearly not Tombstone.

But if you run ajani, decre of justice anyone ?

Holo.

[konsultant]

For the sake of getting into this forum we did set up some guidelines as to what constituted a Tombstone deck list and i'm afraid your list seems to be too far off the path to be considered Tombstone. We initially tried that route as you will see if you start at the beginning of the thread and continue reading you will see how and why the deck evolved into it's current form.

Regarding Brainstorm and the inclusion of Blue Mana:

Alright this is the nnumber one question I am asked so i'm going to throw some math out there for people who haven't tried my exact list.

4 Blue cards in the deck, none of them needing to be cast at any point during the early game but when cast have a signifigant impact on the quality of your hand whether early game or late game. You don't need to cast them turn one, this isn't thresh you aren't trying to rifle through your deck at top speed in most match's. They are there to keep consistancy with the deck in the mid game, potentially fix light mana hands early game and shuffle back irrelevent cards with fetchlands in the late game. There are 7 fetchlands, 3 source's of Blue Mana and 4 Birds of Paradise. In probably a hundred games of actual tournament play I have never been unhappy to see Brainstorm in my hand or been unable to cast it when needed because I didn't have access to Blue Mana. The deck has a very high land count and you need to be able to gain card advantage late game by shuffling backs lands whitch cannot be done with Top. Pay attention to what you are fetching for and you shouldn't really ever have signifigant color issue's.

I don't want to sound cocky by any means but the MD is extremely solid and doesn't really need tampering. The match's the deck loses to Storm, Burn and Enchantress are all SB match ups anyway. The problem with this deck is we can't seem to build the ideal SB as of yet.

All I ask is actually try the list as it is and then see if you feel there are improvements that can be made.

[manugl84]

What about adding Fact or fiction instead of harmonizes? I saw yesterday a guy playing them and I thought it was good.

I´ve even seen a list using gifts ungiven adding to the deck a genesis for a tombstalker and also adding one profane command to combine with witness. I think that in the mid game can be very very nice. This is the list:

3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Tombstalker
1 Genesis

4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Crime / Punishment
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Snuff Out
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Profane Command

4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Savannah

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the void
2 Extirpate
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Krosan Grip
1 Trygon predator
1 Shriekmaw
1 Gilded Drake
1 Engeenered Explosives

I know it´s 61 cards, but I don´t know what I´d cut.
I like very much the silver bullets in the board, but i´d move the shriekmaw to the main for maybe a snuff out.

Thoughts?

[Raider Bob]

This seems very intersting, the issue with dropping Harmonize, I do understand I didn't like it for a long ass time. Is You lose your card advantage. If you watch your land base closely and don't just drop Brainstorm whenever you get it and stay at around 4-5 land in play you will almost in every situation have 7 cards in hand. Now the Gifts Engine allows you to do a silver bullet approach to a lot of decks, but the force of Tombstone is already its huge threats and its excessive removal. Adding 3 Blue cards to the main deck seems a little rough and the board is not taking Storm or goblins very seriously.

There are a bunch of sideboard thoughts out there. Generally the solid part is something like this.

4 E Plauge
3 Extirpate
3 Krosan Gip
3 Meddling Mage
2 Lilianna Vess(Ajani)

A lot of varients have been tried here I do mean a lot for 15 cards...

[manugl84]

I don´t really think you lose card advantage taking out harmonizes. I think that gifts provide lots of advantage in different situations.

Examples:

- Therapy, thoughtseize, witness and genesis vs control.
- Witness, snuff out, swords and profane command vs aggro.
- Doran, tombstalker, goyf and genesis if you need a threat.

And post-sideboard we have trygon predator vs dreadstill, stax and others, gilded drake vs dreadstill and so on.

Also the detail of instant speed of gifts is quite important.

[konsultant]

With the 4 colors that you have access to with the core of this deck alot of things are possable. I prefer Harmonize because it fits into the mana base better. In our build you can live without Blue mana the entire game and it wouldn't be very relevent, by adding things like FOF or Gifts you are making it required to hit the Blue mana. Either way that's how I see it but I haven't actually tested that approach any. Try it out and let us know how it works.

[Ramptoniin]

I absolutely love this deck, i agree the only tweaking that needs to be done is the SB. Im wrestling with the idea of Yixlid Jailer in SB for Ichorid matchup, and I have been using warmth for the local tourney because of Burn being so prevalent.

I love this deck more than any deck ive played in a long time

I decided to play the version that Maindecks Cabal, but I may go back to Maining EE's instead and the 3rd witness. Not really sure, maybe a 3rd Crime/Punishment over the Witness since it seems to be a card i hope for too frequently

Ive also been thinking of the possibility of main decking Extirpate, but who knows

[konsultant]

Glad to see somebody is actually trying out the deck!! One of the sb's I have built was
3x Jailer
3x Crypt
3x Lilliana
3x Grip
3x Plague

That's the one I ran in the prelim event at Gencon that I won but I was lucky and skirted around combo and burn all day.

It is agreed that the EE are the weak spot in the deck, I'd like to hear what you come up with.

[Raider Bob]

Depending on your meta game and with the rise in popularity of Goyf-Sligh, Warmth and Honorable Passage have been a strong addition to several different sideboRDS That I have seen.

The real issue with the deck is the Main deck is super tight. You can really only Board in 4 cards efectivly. So lets look at the match-ups we need to make better.

Burn
Storm
Tribal

This was submitted to me

4 Stifle
4 Honorable Passage
4 Engineererd Plauge
3 Lilianna Vess

Not sure if it is the perfect solution, but it is fun when a Goyf Sligh player plays Price and you have 7 Duals in play.

[konsultant]

4 Stifle
4 Honorable Passage
4 Engineererd Plauge
3 Lilianna Vess


No Krosan Grip or Graveyard removal? We would be sacrificing match-ups that we should be winning.

4x Chalice
3x Teeg
3x Grip
3x Extirpate
2x Tividar's Crusade

I would run my original SB if I really expected to see combo.

[Finn]

Well, I was going to impart some pearls of wisdom about this topic. I worked for a long time on Dirt which followed a similar path of land and hand destruction with massive card advantage via Deed and Eternal Dragon. I was going to mention that after a lot of time, I figured out that Hypnotic Specter was no good and Loxodon Hierarch was very good. I found out that graveyard hate was essential, and that the manabase was the hardest part to get right. I was going to say all these things. But this discussion is truly all over the place. I can't make heads or tails of where it is going.

Good luck to you, konsultant.

[konsultant]

Well, I was going to impart some pearls of wisdom about this topic. I worked for a long time on Dirt which followed a similar path of land and hand destruction with massive card advantage via Deed and Eternal Dragon. I was going to mention that after a lot of time, I figured out that Hypnotic Specter was no good and Loxodon Hierarch was very good. I found out that graveyard hate was essential, and that the manabase was the hardest part to get right. I was going to say all these things. But this discussion is truly all over the place. I can't make heads or tails of where it is going.

Good luck to you, konsultant.

Thanks, there are alot of possabilities with the base of this deck. We have tried an number of different avenue's. The most current one is the one we aer having the most success with.

[The Pharmacist]

I just went 3-1 last Sunday at my loco tournament.

[B is for Big Job]

So is there an updated list at all with the addition of the new set, maybe the addition of pulse to the deck. Also what has the sbs looked like, i know it depends on your meta but its good to colaborate on it and get things thrown out there

[jeanbathez]

is nobody playing the deck anymore ?
Thought of taking it to the next tournament.

What do you think of "Thorn of Amethyst" in the SB against Combo ?

[The Pharmacist]

So over the last few weeks Konsultant and I have been doing some work on Tombstone. The deck has changed alot. We feel that men with exalted are really good in this deck. We also tryed to speed the deck up some. This is what we have.
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Eternal Witness
4 Qasali Pridemage
2 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Kitchen Finks

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
4 Thoughtseize
4 Harmonize
4 Brainstorm

4 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground sea
1 Tundra
1 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Forest
3 Polluted Delta
4 Windswept Heath


3 Diabolic Edict
3 Propaganda
3 Krosan Grip
3 Duress
3 tsunami

[The Pharmacist]

is nobody playing the deck anymore ?
Thought of taking it to the next tournament.

What do you think of "Thorn of Amethyst" in the SB against Combo ?

I use to have it in my sb. It worked out good, but I really just didnt like it that much

[coraz86]

4 Noble Hierarch
3 Eternal Witness
4 Qasali Pridemage
2 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Kitchen Finks

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
4 Thoughtseize
4 Harmonize
4 Brainstorm

4 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground sea
1 Tundra
1 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Forest
3 Polluted Delta
4 Windswept Heath


3 Diabolic Edict
3 Propaganda
3 Krosan Grip
3 Duress
3 tsunami

If you're splashing blue, may I ask why Brainstorm over something like Fact or Fiction? My problem with Rock-esque builds is usually that I can't finish the game once I've taken control, and it seems to me that a late-game hit of three or four cards seems better than Brainstorm. Also, if you're playing blue anyway, I'm not sure I understand spending a turn on Harmonize instead of any similar instant (FoF, Gifts/Intuition, etc.)

Come to that, if you have the time and are willing (I hate to make you reveal much tech with GenCon coming up as it is), I'd be really interested in a primer if either of you would write one.

[The Pharmacist]

The Brainstorm is in the deck to make sure you hit all the land drops. If you miss a turn 3 or 4 land, it`s going to be hard for you to win. As for the late game you have Harmonize. Late game Harmonize and Witness = win. You really should never play Witness early in the game.

[jeanbathez]

@jap_foil : thanks for the list !!!
On the first view (without testing !), the deck has changed and it looks good !
One question about the SB, are the Duress enough for combo ?
Speaking about combo, whats about Ethersworn Canonist for SB, not perfect but interesting ?
It still seems that combo is the weakest matchups for this deck ?

[The Pharmacist]

@jap_foil : thanks for the list !!!
On the first view (without testing !), the deck has changed and it looks good !
One question about the SB, are the Duress enough for combo ?
Speaking about combo, whats about Ethersworn Canonist for SB, not perfect but interesting ?
It still seems that combo is the weakest matchups for this deck ?

You really never want to see combo, but after the first game you have 4 Thoughtseize and the 3 Duress. Combo decks now don`t really go off till turn 3 or 4 now. The men I play in this deck are fast, and any damage you do to combo is good. If you can somehow get 5 or 6 damage in b4 they play Ad Nauseam thats really good for you. You really shouldn`t see to much combo anymore anyways, because of all the Merfolk around. They just can`t win vs 8 Daze in a deck. If you want drop the 3 Tsunami and add 3 Orim`s chant.

[johanessen]

It's not better to use Cabal Therapies instead of Duresses since we have Witness and Finks?

BTW, I really like this list.

[The Pharmacist]

It's not better to use Cabal Therapies instead of Duresses since we have Witness and Finks?

BTW, I really like this list.

When you play vs combo Duress is better. You have to make sure you get a card out of there hand. When you play Cabal Therapie, the first time you play it. You may not get any cards out of there hand. It`s better to take the sure thing in this case. Plus you really don`t want to sacrifice any of your men. The more fast damage you do to them the better. It makes there Ad Nauseam not as good.

[johanessen]

That being true, Cabal threapy can be reused also with Noble Hierarch, and in some cases is a change to take 2x rituals or moxes or whatever. With Duress the success is assured, with therapys it can be devastating. Anyway, I'll try Duress, since it seems that t1 duress is better at preventing t1 combo for them in g2.

And, hasn't this deck evolved to a Deedless rock with inclusion of blue for Brainstorm plus sb-and Harmonize as the perfect carddrawer for the deck- ?

[The Pharmacist]

That being true, Cabal threapy can be reused also with Noble Hierarch, and in some cases is a change to take 2x rituals or moxes or whatever. With Duress the success is assured, with therapys it can be devastating. Anyway, I'll try Duress, since it seems that t1 duress is better at preventing t1 combo for them in g2.

And, hasn't this deck evolved to a Deedless rock with inclusion of blue for Brainstorm plus sb-and Harmonize as the perfect carddrawer for the deck- ?

If you could hit 2cards everytime you played threapy then it would be better. We use to have 4 Threapy main deck along with the 4 Thoughtseize. If you want to go back to that, then I would take out the Hierarch and put Birds in there place.

[true story]

And, hasn't this deck evolved to a Deedless rock with inclusion of blue for Brainstorm plus sb-and Harmonize as the perfect carddrawer for the deck- ?

True story

[johanessen]

As for the sideboard, i'd like to have extirpate in the tsunami/propaganda slot. Why did you choose them in priority to graveyard hate jap_foil?

[Elfrago]

Considering that you're playing far more white than blue, ghostly prison is better than propaganda in the SB. Also it can't be destroyed by REB.

[johanessen]

I don't thing anyone's bringing reb postside. But true, I also thought Ghoslty Prison was better. Anyway I'm almost sure to replacing em by extirpates

[The Pharmacist]

As for the sideboard, i'd like to have extirpate in the tsunami/propaganda slot. Why did you choose them in priority to graveyard hate jap_foil?

Were I play I just don`t need the graveyard hate. There`s alot Merfolk, Landstill, Thersh out there. If you can get Tsunami to hit, you win the game. If I think I`m going to need graveyard hate I would play Crypt or Relic over Extirpate.

[The Pharmacist]

Considering that you're playing far more white than blue, ghostly prison is better than propaganda in the SB. Also it can't be destroyed by REB.

The last time I played I forgot my Ghostly Prison at home. It`s in the sb now.

[The Pharmacist]

I will have a new deck list up after the 22nd of this month. I been play testing with it, and I like it alot more. It`s a little faster, and it`s better for when you face burn and goyf sligh.

[johanessen]

Could you post the list? I have a tournament on 22th and i'd like to bring tombstone.

In terms of graveyard hate I've been loving Extirpate thanks to discard. Furthermore, relics hurts us in some way

[The Pharmacist]

I been also thinking about going back to Yixlid Jailer.

[Mystical_Jackass]

When I saw this deck I was like, "finally a deck with TombStone STAIRWELL"!!!

I was so disappointed :[ I've never been more disappointed in my life, Rofl!


Without any sorta types of disruption, how do you deal with decks.. like burn, if they just keep bolting you each turn, fireblast, etc. The deck seems very defensive. There's goyf, but can this deck do anything or is it sorta a sitting duck in those matches?

[The Pharmacist]

When I saw this deck I was like, "finally a deck with TombStone STAIRWELL"!!!

I was so disappointed :[ I've never been more disappointed in my life, Rofl!


What does this deck do if someone lightning bolts you... then lightning bolts you again, then chain lightnings you.. then fireblasts you... + etc

I played vs burn and my record is like 8 out of 10. If your playing burn your just stupid anyways. You also have Kitchen Finks and swords. Sometimes you have to kill something of yours to gain life. The 2 times i lost to burn, they had the nuts and there was nothing I could do about it.

[Raider Bob]

Ran a version of the new list at GenCon made top 8 in the 50 man Prelim. I was doing very well in the main event until I got a Pimp Loss(Humidity+Foils=a game loss apparently)

This deck rolls the Decks to beat, it has some issues with Burn and Tendrils both are addressed in the new sideboard.

JapFoil is going to run Team: LeftFields new version of this list in Vestal this week so we will have him post the list and his thoughts after Saturdays tournament run.

[johanessen]

I'm currently with this list, but I'd like to increase the land count by one or two.

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Eternal Witness
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Progenitus

4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Vindicate
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Natural Order

Sideboard
3 Extirpate
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Krosan Grip
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Gaddock Teeg

i switched harmonize/fact or fiction and tombstalkers for natural order and elspeth, I think that are the most feared 4cc in the format in these kind of decks.

I'm kinda happy with the sb, but i'm not sure if needs moar duress, but against nauseam the plan is: - 2 NO -2 Elspeth -1 Prog -1 Finks +3 Extirpate +3 Gaddock