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@danyul
Ya I board the pacts to race combo. I used to run a 4 pact list for a long time and I love how insanely fast it was. There's too much removal (and jitte) around right now for it to be worth it though (tear*). In matchups where your opponent doesnt have much removal though, pact is just too good to not have.
Ah okay. Seems legit.
I forgot to address your concern about what to board out. Usually I'll start with a llanowar and a birchlore. Then if I need more I'll cut viridian shaman and quirion ranger. And if I need the shaman then I'll cut a second birchlore or llanowar. You basically want to cut things that are already redundant in the deck so you keep some consistency as you go into games two and three
Also, I just top 4'd in a 40 man tourney with some pretty competitive players in attendance so I'll try to get a report up soonish.
in my gw list I play 3 Priest of Titania and I often board some of those out, mostly 2 and keep 1 to GSZ for. I like boarding it out because Priest is bad against removal.dec, fast decks & on the draw. I often board out all 3 when I won and board 1 back in when I should be on the play again for game3
Otherwise I start with boarding out Llanowar/Birchlore, too
Ya I think my 3 priests seem like the first things to go.
I only play 2 Priests but I wish I had 3 sometimes. I also feel completely different about it in regards to sideboarding.
Against removal.dec I run it out as Daze bait or let it eat some targeted removal. It's a "slower" mana source than Nettle/Heritage so I don't mind it being killed and people know Priest can get out of hand so they tend to want to zap it first. If it lives to untap I take it as just a nice bonus. I'd rather have them killing Priest than Wirewood Symbiote.
VS fast decks, like Tendrils combo or Show and Tell combo (i.e. decks w/no removal), I really wish I played 3 Priest main. They help you race. The reason being, Priest is part of your most compact way to win (Priest, Wirewood Symbiote, Mirror Entity = win). Lucksacking into that compact combo allows you to win turn 3 with the least amount cards drawn. Especially against Show and Tell, you can just drop a Priest in, take your untap step, and go buckwild on faces.
That's my experience with Priest. Your mileage may vary.
Has anyone fugured out a way to beat Terminus yet? This is the one last issue that I seem to have with the deck.
If you know you're playing a miracle deck, you have to hold as many guys in hand as possible until the turn you combo, and even then, make sure you drop guys like visionary and regal force as early as possible since they make up for themselves if they miracle mid-combo. If you have an active glimpse you can usually keep comboing with the floated mana even if they miracle.
That would work if they didn't play counterbalance also. If you slowroll your men, they aren't going to resolve.Quote:
Originally Posted by k2thej
This is what I would run if I were to play a tournament tomorrow.
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Heritage Druid
3 Birchlore Ranger
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Priest of Titania
2 Quirion Ranger
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Regal Force
2 Mirror Entity
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Crop Rotation
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Forest
7 Fetchlands
2 Gaea's Cradle
1 Pendlehaven/Cavern of Souls
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Savannah
//
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Meekstone
2 Armageddon
2 Absolute Law
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Mortarpod
1 Thalia/Humility
Are you giving up on the Reanimator/Dredge matchups? The one-of Ooze seems a bit slow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrandersen
Chrandersen,
What do you think of a Harmonic Sliver over Qasali? I read your article where it said you preferred the beats, but running the Sliver allows you to beat Enchantress no matter what (make him an Elf, bounce, recast). Do you think that's worth it?
Also, is it worth it to run storm hate over graveyard hate when you already run Ooze? Running 4 Thorns seems like a shot in the dark if you're only bringing it in against storm decks. With gy hate you can capitalize at the fac that you run Ooze and GSZ to tutor it. I even went as far as cutting a Chord of Calling (I still like running some green tutors besides GSZ) for an Eladarmi's Call as it was really functionally the same, but allowed me to tutor Faerie Macabres g2 and g3.
@Terminus; the only way I can beat this card, besides the obvious combo to the face and kill you now, is doing mini-combos where you clog the board up and restock your hand. If CB lands down this obviously isn't an option and things could get hairy. That and Teeg. You need Teeg.
Mortarpod is also quite good against dredge. For the most part though, yeah there just isnt enough slots for everything, and right now, goblins and terminus are bigger players in the metagame than dredge and reanimator. Therefore the faerie macabre's were cut for armageddons and ab laws.
If you are worried about enchantress then go ahead and play a sliver, It really doesn't matter what you do and is more a metagame decision than anything.
You bring in thorns against storm, show and tell, burn, 2 vs bug control, high tide, belcher, enchantress, and probably more things I cant think of right now. Play 4 thorn effects.
Armageddon seems good against counter top in theory, as well as having game against stoneforge and other slow brainstorm decks. Havent gotten to use them yet though, so time will tell.
Tourney report is up here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post667050).
I apologize for the time spent reading it.
Pendelhaven out!
Glad to see someone, who really has made a name for himself piloting the deck, posting in here. As a matter of fact, I picked the deck up for GP Ghent after both Caleb and you made Top8 with it at a SCG event.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrandersen
Due to the recent rise in tribal decks, european Threshold player's have adapted and started playing more Rough//Tumble in their boards to fight through them. I just ordered myself some Absolute Law to fight that. Glad to see, that I'm not alone with that decision.
On the other hand, I have a question concerning the Show and Tell Matchup. I can easily see, why you want to bring in four Thorn of Amethyst against the Omniscience iteration of that deck. When I faced Sneak'n Show in Ghent, I had two copies of Thorn of Amethyst and a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben along with two Humility in my board. I decided, that I didn't want to bring in the Thorn's and settled for the Humility's, because I wanted to still have a fast deck, that can combo them out, if they brick on their cantrips. Can you explain, why you would want to bring in four Thorn of Amethyst in that matchup, because from my point view, they are a bit slow against them and they make the elf deck slower, due to having less business in the deck.
Is Armageddon better than Choke? I'm really not sure which is better. Choke is 1 mana cheaper...but lets them keep potential white sources up for Terminus and any sources they had untapped to begin with. Although, with regard to having sources untapped when you cast Choke...it's going to be very hard to resolve Armageddon against someone with several untapped sources, so that point may be awash.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrandersen
Is a Dismember worth it in the board to deal with Linvala from Maverick (maybe some other applications I'm not thinking of)?
I hate Dryad arbor in the deck. I never want to waste a GSZ to ramp 1 on turn 1 (GSZ is too valuable), and I think having 7 llanowar elves (at least in my list) is fine for turn 1 mana dork. The percentage of time Dryad Arbor bites me in the ass for not being able to tap for mana on the turn you play it has far outweighed any GSZ stuff or Fetchland/Block/Qurion Ranger stuff. I'd rather have a 2nd Horizon Canopy, 3rd Cradle, or another basic forest.
armageddon should end the game when it hits. Choke not so much. I've played with choke before and didnt like it very much.
Ive only lost to a linvala once or twice. Sure it's scary if it hits, but it's not likely that maverick can pull it off twice in a row (you never lose g1). If you feel like it's been a problem for you then sure. Remember if they have a mom then it's a moot point though. Perhaps some other answer to linvala would be better?
Dryad Arbor isnt a land its a spell. If you cut it then cut it for a creature. I would recommend against. If you are never tutoring up an arbor with zenith, you are probably doing it wrong. Between zenith and fetchlands, I tutor for it more than enough to warrant it's inclusion.
Any deck with GSZ should run Arbor.
Geddon is actually really sweet as UW decks will side in Disenchants once they see (or anticipate) Choke. Though t2 Chokes are amazing against decks that don't run Daze they suck when they hit the graveyard. Geddon pretty much forces them to get a miracle Terminus to reset the board completely.
I haven't played with it much so maybe I havent seen full value yet, but when is arbor better than fetching a basic forest or savannah?
When your opponent plays Diabolic Edict and you want all your other creatures to stay. On a more serious note: It's there so you can tutor for it with Green Sun's Zenith for x = 0. It makes Green Sun's Zenith to an additional cc1 mana creature, since fetching Dryad Arbor out with Green Sun's Zenith doesn't count as a land drop.Quote:
Originally Posted by k2thej
Ya I get the green sun thing, but I just never seem to need to use it.
Hello everyone,
I finally decided to join this forum although I've been reading it occasionally for quite some time now.
Most of you might know me as the GP Ghent 2012 finalist.
After that event I got contacted by SCG and was asked to write a tournament report for their site. I actually was already thinking about writing about Ghent anyways so I was stoked and committed an article to them a week or so later.
After I did get no response by them for quite a long time I emailed them again and asked whether there was any issue with my report. The reply I got was rather discouraging as Lauren Lee, who is in charge of article submissions, told me they messed up their schedule and could not find room for my report.
But SCG was still nice enough to pay me for my efforts plus Lauren apologized for the mistake. So I hold no grudge against SCG.
Lauren advised me to find another place where I can publish the report, so after giving it some thought I decided I would release it through this forum, since I already got paid for it and think here is a fine place for this.
So here is the text I submitted. I hope you can take something away from it. Also feel free to give me feedback on my writing!
Never change a winning green
Although I had planned on going to Ghent I was too busy to organize a trip as July approached. So two weeks before the event I had to realize that I would not be able to go. That fact kinda disappointed me but I thought that after my involvement in the game of Magic had recently vanished a little due to real life tasks I would not regret it too much..
Forward one week I was told that someone from my Munich was trying to fill a car with Magic players and transport them to Belgium. I was quite stoked. Not only would I be able to play the european 2012 Legacy GP, I also didn't have to organize anything for the trip. Awesome!
A couple days later we were on the road. I did not have the time for testing so my decision came down to either playing one of the best decks in the format or one I have a decent amount of experience with. So my choice came down to RUG Delver vs. Combo Elves. I had played a couple of test games against Maverick piloting RUG and I managed to pull out a very good win percentage against it. But that's about all I played with the deck.
Elves on the other hand won me a GP Trial plus I lost my last round in Amsterdam finishing barely out of top 64 last year playing the deck. Also I came to realize that despite having some week points Elves is still one of the best decks right now in my opinion. Now I was content with my deck choice since Elves let me combine both my prerequisites. All I had to do was text my man Marc Vogt, who made an impressive but quite unlucky ninth place, and tell him I needed Meekstones for my sideboard. Luckily Marc was already at the site on Friday and nice enough to get me the cards.
Name of Deck (Combo Elves)
Pilot/Deckbuilder (Lukas Maurer)
Format (Legacy)
Finish (2nd)
City, State, Country (Ghent, Belgium)
Name of Event (Grand Prix Ghent)
Date of Event (7/21/2012)
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Heritage Druid
2 Birchlore Rangers
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Priest of Titania
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Regal Force
1 Crop Rotation
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Horizon Canopy
3 Gaea's Cradle
1 Pendelhaven
6 Forest
5 Snow-Covered Forest
Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Krosan Grip
3 Meekstone
1 Mortarpod
2 Pithing Needle
1 Scattershot Archer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Viridian Shaman
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...nt12/welcome#1
Most card choices are obvious. In the following I will try to give explanations on those less self-explanatory:
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
For a long time Emrakul, the AEons Torn used to be the card to finish your opponents off with after a combo turn. The biggest of the Eldrazi is clunky though. Of course there are games when you untap with a Priest of Titania, play your Gaea's Cradle and just cast the 15 mana spell. But there are also those when you have to mulligan and then see a mediocre six cards one of them being colorless.. The two alternatives to that are splashing white for Mirror Entity, as seen recently in some SCG top eights, or staying mono-green but play Ezuri as your combo kill card. Many people say Mirror Entity is strictly better than Ezuri, which might be true in many ways. But ultimately the Shapeshifter also does not solve the problems the deck has. Neither Storm nor Annihilator triggers care too much about which of the two creatures you have in play when they resolve. Sure you can pull nice infinite loops with Mirror Entity, but when you do that the legendary Elf might win you the game as well in most situations.
Mirror Entity's weak point is the fact that you have to play Savannahs and Fetchlands alongside it. I expected RUG Delver to be the most played deck and even though most people don't run Stifles at the moment, splashing does not seem the way to go for me in this metagame. Most people think Elves has a very good match up against RUG which is true, but if the RUG player knows how to play the match your win percentage goes down drastically. I was not willing to give up that edge by making my manabase attackable even further.
Crop Rotation
This card looked beautiful on paper. Unfortunately I was not able to test it before the GP. Tutoring up Cradles seemed really good plus Pendelhaven is a card you might wanna search for sometimes as well. Worst case scenario for me was getting Horizon Canopy and cycle the card effectively. The notion of tapping a Cradle, then sacrificing it to Crop Rotation, getting a second copy seemed to turn comboing off into a walk in the park. After playing 19 rounds with the list I am not really sure if the Instant is really worth a slot in the deck, though. The main reason to play it appears to be that you also have Karakas in the sideboard, but apart from that I think it's not as great as I hoped it would be.
Priest of Titania
Many lists don't run her anymore or only one to tutor for her turn two via Green Sun's Zenith. In fact Priest was the card I boarded out the most that weekend. There are a few reasons I played the card as a four-of. First they can be quite strong in the mirror which I expected to play at least once. Then there are matches against fair creature based decks that you can win just by playing Ezuri and win without a combo turn. Obviously Priest plays well alongside Ezuri. Finally I like that Priest diversifies your curve, helping a tiny bit against cards like e.g. Counterbalance or Engineered Explosives.
Scattershot Archer
This card should not have been in the 75. I included it since it is great against Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom. I was having a little trouble with Deadguy Ale and this was my tech against them. But since Esper decks don't seem to just run four Lingering Souls anymore and BW is not played at the moment the card is not worth the slot right now. If the meta changes though Scattershot Archer might come back in since it really is great against those Archetypes. Not only can you Green Sun's Zenith for it, it also survives Zealous Persecution and Engineered Plague.
Grand Prix are always fun. In fact traveling is always part of that fun. I will never forget the good laughs we got out of our navigational system trying to pronounce the street of the venue every morning: 'Turn right onto Bovel Hovel.'
Of course playing Magic in a 1345 person tournament is great fun as well. Especially when wielding a powerful deck that is as much fun to play as Elves truly is.
As you can see in my match up break down below I was getting positive match ups most of the time. But there is one point I'd like to emphasize about match ups and win percentages in general. People love to make statements in the vein of archetype x cannot lose to archetype y. In Legacy games often come down to which part of your deck you see against an opponent. Also knowing what's important in the match-up and playing accordingly has a big influence on the results of a match. My quarter finals opponent stated he chose his deck amongst other things because it specifically crushes Elves. I still beat him 2-0. I'm not trying to make a fool out of him, my point is that people make statements without having the facts to back them up. Still I would say my chances of winig the finals where converging against zero.
Round 01: 2-1 Maverick
Round 02: 2-1 Maverick
Round 03: 2-0 Rb Goblins
Round 04: 1-2 Maverick
Round 05: 2-1 Maverick
Round 06: 2-1 UW Miracle
Round 07: 2-0 Ad Nauseam
Round 08: 2-0 RUG Delver
Round 09: 2-1 RUG Delver
Round 10: 2-1 Hypergenesis
Round 11: 2-0 RUG Delver
Round 12: 2-0 BUG
Round 13: 2-0 UWB Stoneblade
Round 14: 0-2 UBr Ad Nauseam
Round 15: 2-1 Death & Taxes
Round 16: i.d. Show and Tell
Quarter: 2-0 UW Miracle
Semi: 2-1 UWB Stoneblade
Final: 1-2 UBr Ad Nauseam
I won't go into too much detail about the matches I played but I want to highlight two games that where symptomatic on what it took for me to top eight a Legacy GP.
In round seven I was up a game and had to sideboard, albeit I only had seen basic Island, a Fetchland plus some blue cantrips. I figured that my opponent was either playing some kind of combo deck or he must be on Miracle control. Both don't like Gaddock Teeg too much so I brought him in since I was certain he would serve me well. Game two I was able to put the legendary Kithkin on the battlefield as soon as turn two via Green Sun's Zenith and was immediately satisfied by my opponent's reaction: 'How do you know what I am playing?', he doubtfully asked. I told him my reasoning behind the play and after he drew for his turn he scooped up his cards.
The other game I'd like to talk about was how I got a little lucky in round 13. It is game one and my side of the board consist of a Quirion Ranger, an Elvish Visionary and some Forests. My hand yields more blanks and I start thinking about which cards I could draw to get out of this, after my opponent resolved Stoneforge Mystic immediately announcing 'Jitte'. After some searching he tells me that he must have forgotten to bring the maindeck Umezawa's Jitte back in and calls for a judge. Of course he gets a game loss and I win the match 2-0 after I was certainly losing game one. I even peeked what my draws would have been and I don't think I could have won that game.
In conclusion I'd like to congratulate Timo for his awesome run and also thank my car mates for being patient and making this trip very enjoyable for me.