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Not having access to a real curve is a huge drawback to Chalice. I'm aware of the benefits of the card, but there are better ways to beat decks like that than praying you fan open two to three lands, a Mox Diamond, a Chalice of the Void, and pressure (5-6 card combo, whew!).Quote:
Originally Posted by MtgPhreakin
That's why I sideboard Chalice rather than maindeck it. It comes in against Burn, Sligh, Tempo thresh, and Storm pretty much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
I was considering booting all my grave hate for Chalice, but we always have one dredge player show up, and I always seem to get paired against him. Still, might be worth it to give up that matchup to shore up others.Quote:
Originally Posted by Admiral_Arzar
@ Richard Cheese: Thanks for the research. I had forgotten that Tombfire existed (although I think its days of usefulness are probably beyond it). The only Wishable yard hate target I had seen was Morningtide, but I generally feel that Wishing for an answer is at least one turn too slow in the Dredge matchup.
@ sdematt: If you expect Dredge and you have open sideboard slots, you should have several solid answers, and even then it might not be enough. Leylines are probably best if you have room, since the Manaless version will just scoop on the spot and the others will have to mull for an answer or lose.
@ routlaw: Burn is typically not a matchup you want to see, especially if the deck is maxed out on Price of Progress. If you're seeing a lot of Burn, you might run Chalice of the Void in the board. Or, if this is just a small weekly meta, you could run specific answer cards. Circle of Protection: Red still crushes. I second the Zuran Orb suggestion; that's decent. Sometimes you can just race them with Countryside Crusher or Seismic Assault. (I've been on both sides of this scenario, and it's always a close game, but if you have actual hate cards, you'll be fine.) Against the small, fast Zoo, Engineered Explosives and/or Firespout are what you want. Devastating Dreams can be solid, too, although Tarmogoyf and opposing Knights can mess that up sometimes.
So anyway, I placed 2nd in a 3-round tournament, only beaten by 43 lands.
Round 1: J.I. with NO RUG
Game 1 I keep a super slow hand with no acceleration and no Loam, but all Goyf, Bob, and Crusher. I run out Bob after Bob, only to get bolted. I keep him off green creatures, and I eventually crush him with 2 huge Crushers.
Game 2 I make a serious play error on turn 1. He has t1 Relic, I run out land, Mox, and then Loam, but I decide to bring the lands back. I was hoping to bait the Relic, but I forgot it also has the tap function. Fuck.
We battle it back and forth, but I'm one land short of killing him when he has Progenitus. I had Assault, but a turn too late.
Game 3, I have 3 minutes to win. I put down turn 1 Bob into Turn 2 Assault into Turn 3 Loam. I win as the lady calls turn zero of time. Once Assault was up, the game was over 2 turns later. I love you, Korean Assaults.
Round 2: James with 43 Lands
The matchup I didn't want to see. I keep a super greasy hand with double Mox, 3 lands, Burning Wish, and Assault. I'm on the draw, and go turn 1 Confidant. Not sure if that was the play, or if I should have just rawdogged the t1 Assault, but I wanted cards. Turns out, I should have done t1 Assault followed by T2 Wish for Loam, followed by T3 Loam. Oh well. It's a hard fought, 50-minute game that goes back and forth. He eventually locks me out with Glacial Chasm and Zuran Orb, and I'm on 2 basics and a single Mox Diamond after an EE @ 0 blowout. I get him to two before he stabilizes. I just needed one more land!
Round 3: Nick with Team America
Game 1, He Hymns me three times and drops threats, but I have the answers. I drop Crusher, he doesn't have the answer and dies.
Game 2, he draws fine, but I have Thrun. He doesn't see removal and Thrun does 22 damage (I had Grove as a mana source for a while). If you're not playing Thrun, I have to ask why.
---
Overall, I made an awesome $6 in store credit.
The deck felt pretty good. I missed Terminates/extra removal, but I liked the Wishboard. It was also nice boarding out a Pulse in the Jace matchups to have Wishable Jace killing. Never used Regrowth, but I'm sure it will come up eventually. As of yet, I haven't used Stronghold in any game I've played. I'm considering it being the basic Mountain (or Swamp, which has come up enough times that I'm addressing the issue here). But, probably the mountain. We'll see.
Regarding the White version, I'd love to run white. I really would. But, 4C just seems really greedy. I mean, ideally, I could just fuck the po-lice and rawdog it, but it seems terrible:
27 Lands (the most awkward manabase in ze world)
4 Knight
2 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Burning Wish
3 Life from the Loam
2 Seismic Assault
2 Sylvan Library
2 Punishing Fires
4 Mox Diamond
X Vindicate
X Swords
X firespout
X Dreams
I feel this deck is living the Dream, but isn't really all THAT practical. I could be wrong, I can test it, but it seems like Wastelands crush my testicles in a vise.
This is the version with a white splash that I'm currently testing:
1 Arid Mesa
3 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Plateau
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Wasteland
3 Life from the Loam
4 Dark Confidant
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Mox Diamond
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Seismic Assault
2 Vindicate
3 Burning Wish
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Worm Harvest
3 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Devastating Dreams
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Tariff
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 2 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Pulverize
SB: 1 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Perish
I'm no wizard with manabases, but so far it's working out ok in practice. Most sournces produce red because you really only need to worry about hitting RR and RRR. Wasteland is only a problem if you have no Loam and no Mox or run out a crusher too early. I've tried running Fires/Grove in place of StP, but it's just really mana intensive and having three red sources you can't fetch is tough. Open to suggestions on the list though. It is 61 cards, but I like having a single Harvest main.
In this deck, 61 is just fine. You're running through so many cards, it can be advantageous to run more cards (I've also avoiding decking a few times by having the extra card :p)
-Matt
Since you're running 4C, you want to increase the amount of fetches and hope to rely on Mox Diamond/Forest as the mana stability with Loam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Hence,
-1 Plateau
-1 Taiga
-1 Savannah (weakest land in the deck)
+2 Verdant Catacombs
+1 Windswept Heath
This will still allow you to find the necessary colors, while minimizing the amount of useless duals in the opening hand. All the fetchlands should be able to fetch out your basic forest, which is the most important land in the deck.
If you want to avoid decking with 61, you should first try to not dregde a single time ^^Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
@Anen
I tried not to Dredge, but in this deck, it's so good ^^
If you're running Assault, you also need 1-2 Mountains. Again, but we're assuming you're attempting to live the dream, so I'd say 2-3 basics total.
-Matt
Yeah I realized I should probably do that right after I posted, although I always worry about having too few lands that actually produce mana, since going nuts with Loam/Assault is pretty mana intensive. I actually just noticed that I have two Savannahs in there, I think that's vestigial from an earlier more W intensive version (oh the dangers of Cockatrice). I will probably pull one plus a Plateau for two more fetches and see how that runs. Might also drop the Bayou for another Badlands...I feel like I only draw the Bayou when I need red.Quote:
Originally Posted by rukcus
4c with 3 seismic's seem's like the greediest plan ever. And you can't really afford to run more than one basic in 4c otherwise you face colorscrew (unless you get mox diamond every game and if you do, I envy you). 4c loam can work, but you can't run seismic in that deck and expect to land it against any deck running wasteland's/rishadan ports.
Yeah who wants to dredge life from the loam anyways? The card just isn't that good especially when nothing in the deck synergizes with it. I mean assault + loam is just too cute to be competitive...right? Lol.
Yeah turn 1 assault is pretty sick with access to loam soon thereafter. Turn one assault would have been the play there; lands couldn't possibly recover unless they went ahead and blew up both your diamond's with EE on turn 1.
I really haven't had much of a problem with it, although I haven't played against anything running Ports (Goblins?). If I'm playing something with Waste, just grab those basics which gives you access to Wish and Loam and that's really all you need to turn Wasteland into a worthless card for them. I've had way more trouble getting Assault through counters than through Wasteland.
Vindicate has actually been more of a problem, since black and white are both essentially splash colors. I'm wondering if Beast Within or Chaos Warp aren't better catch-all answers, or maybe just switching back to Pulse. Hitting lands isn't quite as important when you have Waste recursion.
Maelstrom pulse is also better than vindicate for killing EtW tokens. Killing one token with vindicate makes you depressed as soon as you do that you're probably losing that game though lol. Yeah vindicate where your primary colors are none of vindicate's colors is a problem maybe you should switch to pulse. Or engineered explosive's for that matter, EE is a sweet card in general and also deals with pesky EtW tokens. Chaos warp and beast within are both good cards in loam IMO as well. Chaos warp can backfire much harder than beast within though. If they reveal a jace off chaos warp you cringe inside. Same with emrakul, progenitus, or any other fatties. Though beast within and chaos warp have the advantage of being instant speed.
Man, you need to come down and spend some time in Seattle. Last Monday, the weekly I went to had $50 in credit for first, the same for second (they split), and, like, $25 and $15 for third and fourth. Then again, I don't know if you need any more coin to put toward pimp stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
Was this at CK on Monday?Quote:
Originally Posted by ESG
I can always use more coin.
-Matt
It was. Ninety percent of the entry fees goes toward prizes (store credit). Quality store.
This is quite a long post...
Won 2nd in our countries legacy open tournament with 104ish players...(legacy open was just a side event for our countries nationals standard event)
Although I haven't played for months and never really got to test the deck at all,I am not new to the decks goals and objectives and still managed to take 2nd.
The deck is more like a Loam, Junk hybrid. It started out with different win cons and land configurations, and by theory I managed to make it work with what I could borrow from my team.
Still thinking of what to call it however, it is not so unique and people might actually say its Junk...which a lot of people do and insist on.but I think it plays more like loam in certain extents..
List (oh, and I always play with 61 cards, so don't bother asking)
29 MAna
4 mox
3 bayou
1 scrub
1 savannah
4 verdant catacombs
2 marsh flats
1 plains
1 swamp
1 forest
4 wasteland
1 karakas
1 horizon canopy
1 urborg
1 maze of ith
1 volraths stronghold
2 dark depths
14 creatures
4 dark confidant
4 knight of reliquary
3 tarmogoyf
3 vampire hexmage
4 chalice of the void
2 smother
2 go for the throat
3 vindicate
2 engineered explosives
3 loam
1 sylvan library
1 worm harvest
sb: I was expecting tons of blue hence the 3 chokes in the sb
3 stp
2 pernicious deed
1 enlightened tutor
3 extirpate
3 choke
3 thorn of amethyst
So for the quick tourney report: 7 rounds plus top 4 eliminations
Round 1 vs Manaless dredge
Game 1 =loss
I managed to put Kotr down. (thinking of sb I decided not to go with bogs)
Game 2 =win
Kotr and hexmage in hand.. I go for quick depths
Game 3 =loss
I mulled to 6, and extirpated his bridge, but I guess they had more win cons... (never really played this version of drege yet)
0-1
Round 2 vs Affinty
Game 1= win
win I drop chalice at zero just to be able to delay him a little, I waste a few lands but he still managed to beat me down to one with a flying ornithopter(came in before my chalice) with Kotr hexmage to depths..I win from then on...close game
Game 2=
win with a dark confidant in place...Im down to 3 and the player attacks even with signal pest and ornithopter and that flying phyrexia lifelink creature even if I already have a flying 20/20 token,hoping I would die to bob, I go down to 1 again.. Flipped canopy.. and won from then on...
1-1
Round 3 Merfolk
Game 1 =loss
He goes too fast and I can't do much
Game 2 =win
He got beat down by 2 Kotr. He made a play mistake as I fetched, as he used sumberge..yet I had no forest.. I was actually planning to fetch a forest... but when I saw his submerge, I decided not to..lol.
Game 3 =win
I kill most of his creatures, and go depths for the win. I do not fetch into forest, and just relied on Mox D. for green. He didn't see depths coming.
2-1
Round 4-No show
ROund 5 Bant
Game 1=win
I swords his noble,and waste his land... I wasteland lock with loam.beat down with confidant and soon after, worm tokens win the game.
Game 2 = win
, I set chalice at 1.He calls meddling mages for go for the throat, and hexmage, as I had depths in play.I actually had 2 go for the throat in hand and a hexmage.He beats down with meddling mage 2 mages and a warmonk. I have maze of ith and delay monk lifelink. Soon after a trygon predator joins the cause,and a batterskull...I draw into smother and explosives... However I am pressed for mana and couldn't use both at the same time.He pushes hard, and goes up to 35, as I blocked those liflink creatures,mazed trygon, and killed mage(that named go for the throat) with smother. THen I killed predator and went down to 1...managed to finally pop explosives. and get a Marit Lage into play.. Took 2 turns ..
4-1
Round 6 vs MUD
Game 1 = win
Chalice at 1 does really give them a headache, he gets calculation problems and forgot I had chalice at 1, which cost him his sensei and voltaic key. Missing that crucial mana.He puts metal worker into play 2 of them. He has wurmcoil engine in play later on. I get an ith to delay a few turns, block with goyf a few turns.Vindicate his metal workers 2x.. vindicate his land.3 vindicates in hand. He goes up to 44 however. I get a kotr, and have a hexmage in hand. I block and fetch depths with kotr.. and win with Depths from then on.
Game 2 =win
I have nothing in my notes,but Kotr and that he went up to 40 again. So I am guessing I won with Kotr. killed most of his creatures like steel hellkite, with stp and smother for those wurmcoil babies..
5-1
Round 7 vs Merfolk (crucial game)
Game 1=win
I go down to 6 but managed to dark depths hexmage..
Game 2=loss
Lost to kira, as I couldn't kill anything
Game 3=win
we both mull to 6.
I win with wurm tokens...
6-1
Semifinals
Round 1 vs Sliver
Game 1=loss
He turn 2 crystaline , and Im already in trouble. He goes really fast and die soon after
Game 2=win
I am more confident with game 2 since I bring in more creature control.
He didn't really see my deck, and has no idea what it was. He gets greedy and I think he plays with 1 land hand with 2 vials.I have loam however and wastelock... I wastelock and EE for 1.. Its soon over.
Game 3 =win
He delays me with 3 jotun grunts, as my goyfs constantly were 0/1 or 1/2. My kotrs were 2/2 most of the time, I had to wait the jotun grunts out, which was quite long...He wastes depths but I am able to recur with loam.I drop EE at 2 for insurance, and he uses harmonic sliver on it. I had sylvan library and was constantly looking and fetching with KOTR to find hexmage. ANd finnally got a dark depths and won.I also had a chalice for 1.
Finals vs Mav
Game 1 I was overwhelmed with creatures and had almost no chance.He drops garuk v2..
Game 2 I was more comfortable, and was quite ok to see 2 hexmage, stp vindicate, wasteland a few lands and loam in hand. He goes for a first turn basic into Gsz.. I play maverick as well and know its very mana hungry.. I waste arbor.. and vindicate his land... I waste a few more duals...kill a few creatures.. He drops a mother.. then top decks into more lands... I drop goyf, kotr which eventually gets killed.I draw into more lands, I get land flooded , 3 lands in hand and 1 stp.. I already have 6 lands in play and I am getting beatdown by 2 pridemages .I am still waiting for deed or EE or even my tutor... but more lands come up, used loam and canopy 2x to try and get something relevant, but alas.. just more lands.. My mistake here was not to fetch... I was thinking with the amount of lands I drew, I didn't want to speed up my death, and would draw something relevant eventually. A single EE, would have wiped his board, as it was full of 2cc creatures along with stoneforge... A deed would have reset the board.. but these things happen.. Its better to get land flooded in the finals rather than the early rounds and not be able to get into the finals..
So 2nd place..
Things Ive learned on the deck.
Depths is a very good win condition, specially with chalice in play..Its a 1 turn win con, that can steal games ...It wasn't really hard to assemble with Kotr.
My mana base kinda sucks, I have to work on it..
VOlrath is good at times as I am able to rinse and repeat hexmage.
Hexmage isn't so dead as he also works for planeswalkers..
Tarmogoyf didn't really have an impact. He was more of a blocker.
Worm harvest wasn't really a great win con.. but still wins games.
Vindicate was ok.. Might replace these with pulses.And remove 1 for an extra EE which helps the early on.
Need more draw, or mana fix at least.
Chalice was great.
Im thinking of somethng to replace goyfs, or maybe even wurm harvest.
Also It would be great if I could put crusher in it, but I think the double red and double black with hexmage and crusher would be... crushing.. However I never really play hexmage early on.Going 4 colors..hmmmm
man i really love your list, it looks just awesome, the only thing i would change is chalice to thoughtseize, and smother+GftT to Swords to Plowshares, and adapt the sideboard to my meta.... really awesome list
i have tested Dark Dephts in a rock-shell with living wishes, and found the win-con really nice, specially with recursion
in your deck this win-con more seems on paper like a plan B but with knight usable at wish, which is really nice
i definitely like your dephts- list way better than anyone i have seen before, and maybe i will switch my rock-build to your list, as they are alike
congratz for the nice finish as well