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That's a variation of Tom's list, tuned a bit further after my taste:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas
1 Scrubland
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Lingering Souls
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
4 Brainstorm
1 Intuition
3 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
You're cutting the Ponders? I feel very uncomfortable with just 22 lands and even fewer cantrips, especially when I draw Jace, Vindicate, Intuition, or Clique.Quote:
Originally Posted by klaus
Everybody's been comparing Lingering Souls to Thopter Foundry and Bitterblossom, but perhaps a more apt comparison is comparing it to Elspeth.
Uninterrupted, on turn 4 this card provides 4 tokens in comparison to Elspeth's first one. And even if it gets countered the first time, it will likely still provide value thanks to flashback. At the earliest, Elspeth would get you 4 tokens on turn 7, which is incredibly slow and may be too little, too late in the matchups where having tokens matters.
Elspeth can be amazing, but Lingering Souls might just be a better card in Legacy for control decks. It provides practically all of the same benefits more cost-effectively and faster. The tokens having flying is further icing on the cake. Ask yourself how often you actually used Elspeth's Jump or Ultimate ability -- generally those games were ones you were winning anyways.
The only disadvantage to running Lingering Souls is that your mana base becomes more vulnerable, and finding room for utility lands is harder.
Well, when it look at it strictly like that, then sure. Souls is definitely better from a tempo perspective vs Elspeth. The thing about Elspeth, though, is even against something like EE, she sticks around to still give you some board presence. She's a one time investment of 4 mana that can make X amount of tokens over X turns.
I think the real question is, why not run Sorin instead of Elspeth, and also run Lingering Souls? They pretty muc printed those two cards purposely to work together if you ask me. Sorin, Lord of Tokens and Lingering Token Maker, right?
Against board sweepers, you can save LS for later rather than flashing it back right away.
Sorin could definitely make an appearance, but I think he may be 'win-more' rather than just 'win'.
Why not run Jace, instead of Elspeth or Sorin?
Think some of you are suffering from new toy syndrome
I wasn't saying that I was going to run Souls and Sorin in Esperblade, I was just pointing out the synergy...
Personally, I still prefer Mother of Runes, Dark Confidant, and Daze over Souls, Jace, and the other slow stuff.
Martell's list has proven very solid compared to previous versions running Dark Confidant : The two cards provide CA but LS is far less disrupted by countermagic and blasts.
I'd like to point out some observations about the list :
Manabase :
- Running a lone Karakas without any real way to get it efficiently seems a little bit ambitious. Though it's cute with Clique in the pack and provides an elegant solution to Iona, Elesh Norn, Thalia, Teeg, and such, it is far too often a random additional plains that will get wasted.
- We intensively tested the former version (Dark Confidant Esperblade) against Martell's and came to the conclusion that the lack of waste in the MD is really hard to come by.
The first deck (packing Wasteland) often puts the second (that don't) in color screw, while fetching bilands in the same time to keep access to its colors.
Tom Martell wished he had cut the Tower of the Magistrate off his list to replace it with a good old Tundra : That's one way to go but it leaves the deck pretty vulnerable to Maze of Ith, Grove/Punishing Fire, opponent Tower or Riptide Laboratory shenanigans.
Active cards :
Geist of Saint Traft put a damper on the deck. It would seem that a constant flow of flying 1/1 or flashed Mages/Clique could be sufficient to keep the tiny 2/2 spirit at bay, but in tests, a wary opponent will not bash your face without due protection (call it disrupt before attack, equipment, STP ready to pounce). And the deck has virtually no efficient way to get rid of the Geist.
Plugs :
We began testing with a miser Unearth to complement the Intuition package. It's been quite interesting so far.
If your strategy goes unharmed, go Intuition to get 3 Lingering Souls.
If something need fixing, you can go :
SCM/Unearth/Swords to Plowshares => Adios pesky Beater
SCM/Unearth/Thoughtseize or SCM/Unearth/Clique => Adios SFM-fetched Batterskull
SCM/Unearth/Vindicate => Adios any non-shroud non-hexproof Permanent (although being quite expensive)
SCM/Unearth/SFM => Need Equipments ?
Unearth is also quite good on its own if you already got a SCM or SFM in the yard, or can simply be cycled for goodies.
It could get replaced by Reanimate but we don't really usually discard CC<4 creatures on our thoughtseize and Inquisition (that's Lingering Souls job to handle those) and life loss could be problematic at times.
2 tokens is all you need to deal with geist. I don't see how that card is problematic for this deck.
I've been toying around a bit, and I'm thinking about this list:
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Karakas
2 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Batterskull
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Intuition
4 Lingering Souls
2 Ponder
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thoughtseize
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Darkblast
2 Disenchant
3 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Perish
Crucible seems good against wasteland decks, and ensures you can academy ruins in the lategame. On the otherhand I'm not sure if it can be used to full potential without wastelands/factories.
I'm not playing spell snare, which may be a mistake, and I kind of want to make room for a 23rd land. Any suggestions?
I can see why Lingering Souls is strong. Jitte+a lot of evasive creatures. But I wouldn't chose it as the main game plan.
I know is like "he won the gp, you must be wrong" ... But lingering souls is a nice card, not a godlike card that you will want four, and then you will break legacy.
Maybe i'm wrong, and Lingering souls will be our next Jace TMS (hardly)... But I still think is just a very well positioned deck in this tournament, not the strongest build.
4 Lingering Souls.. .Why not 3? It's 3CMC.
Running a single intuition... and not running ee or unearth or anything to abuse intution's power (besides ls pack).
I would rather use 3 LS, 2 Intution, 1 unearth... Or something like that.
I would definily run 23 lands or 22 lands + 3 ponders. OR at least 4 basics.
----
Still... I would be glad to run 3 or even 4 lingering souls if someone explain to me why you would run 4 of a card that is 3CMC and give you tokens (a reliquary is 3cmc)...cutting one snapcaster for it....Why not just run 2 moorland haunt?
I also don't think 4 spirit token is CA to be compared to Dark Confidant. (assuming that bob is alive for more than 2 turns)
I did this to Tom in game 2 of round 5 day 1 and thought I had a chance for a minute... unfortunately he already resolved one and promptly inquisitioned my out. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by catmint
Played around with his list tonight. It's definitely fun and powerful. I kind of agree with some of you that I would like to expand the Intuition tool box to offer a 2nd option outside trip-LSs.
Considering trying an Unearth over LSs #4 or a Cabal Therapy over IoK #2, just to give a bit more depth to Intuition.
Is it worthwhile to expand the Intuition toolbox? The original list only ran two copies; Martell ran one. I'm not sure it's worth cluttering up the list with stuff like Unearth and Cabal Therapy (both of which are decent cards, but this deck is already very tight) to improve the toolbox capability of a card that is rarely drawn.
I'm kind of hesitant on Intuition overall. It's absolutely absurd if you resolve it early for three Lingering Souls, or if you topdeck it late. But I find that against most decks (outside the pseudo-mirror), you don't really have time to hold open 3 mana.
2 Token makes for a big deal if you cannot use them offensively at any point in the mirror.Intuition is only a 1 of in the list and without it, it won't be till late game that you'll begin to pop out more than 4 spirit tokens on board. When keeping them defensively, you won't be able to pressure your opponent Life points forcing them to rush some plays to stop the onslaught.Quote:
Originally Posted by bruizar
Furthermore, he gives you hard times to protect your Jace (3 Tokens are mandatory at that point), hard times to pressure your opponent Planeswalker and is really hard to manage if your opponent sticks any equipment for him.
Took this deck out to a few tournaments, and I've been really happy with the performance overall.
Some observations:
1) This deck is surprisingly requires quite a bit of mana, and there are only 22 lands to support it. My matches have been mostly against aggressive decks so far, so there's certainly a bit of a bias, but I really want to go to 3 or even 4 Ponders maindeck. I'm leaning towards cutting the Intuition (as cool as it is) and maybe a Jace. I found myself boarding them out a lot.
2) There is no lack of targets for Snapcaster Mage in this deck. Awesome. The card is a 4-of for me in this deck, and I'm often the most vocal critic about how overrated SCM is.
3) The blue count is pretty low. The deck at the Belgian nationals ran 18 blue cards, including FoW; Martell ran 19. I want to cut some of the non-blue cards, but Swords to Plowshares is a mandatory 4-of, and the discard spells and Lingering Souls are a difference maker in this archetype. Vindicate is an awesome and versatile card, but it's a bit clunky to draw early, and you can't necessarily guarantee it in your hand late when you need to hit something.
I'm almost tempted to cut Vindicate for Repeal, which is admittedly a weaker card, but it's one that pitches to Force of Will and does a lot of what you would use Vindicate for anyway (i.e. deal with problematic artifacts, enchantments, and creatures), in conjunction with our discard. It's an awesome tempo play on token creatures, makes for interesting shenanigans with Snapcaster Mage (chump your attacker, Repeal the blocker, draw a card, then reuse Snapcaster later).
4) I really want more than 4 Swords to Plowshares against aggressive decks, which is a large reason why I want to run 7-8 cantrips. Considering adding Path to Exile or Dismember in the sideboard; both have their drawbacks. Opinions? Maybe Ghastly Demise?
5) Sticking the fourth Force of Will back in the maindeck. I'm usually more conservative than most people with Force of Will, and I sideboard them out more often than most, but this deck has an awesome late game but can really use the tempo boost provided by Force (to counter an important spell or to protect Stoneforge on a pivotal turn, for instance).
I think the Ghastly Demise and Darkblast are the next more powerful options.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
// 18
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
// 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
// 12
4 Dark Confidant
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Mother of Runes
// 22
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
This is my take on Esperblade. It even beats Burn by StP → Dreadnought. Mother of Runes has originally been Inquisition of Kozilek, but Mother is actually more powerful if it comes down to protecting dudes. Tell me what you think.
Where is the blade of the Esper? Other than that Noughty Mom is a viable archetype in the past (explored by one of my friends who tested a Bant List with Goyfs/Moms/Noughts). I do think your list is possibly stronger than a Bant version.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iron Buddha