[CaNGD - Finalist] TEC - The EPIC Control

I've tested this deck a little and found it quite nice although you sometimes really have situations in which you only win because your opponent doesn't have stuff and you're applying the pressure. Nothing bad there but a strange feel for a 'control' deck.
I've also found Counterbalance to be not quite as scary as I've imagined it to be. You almost never hit something blindly and only have 4 cantrips (Brainstorm) in comparision to NQGs 8+ to set it up. It's awesome in conjunction with Top, but that's 2 cards and even then with 22 lands and spells you won't really use to counter stuff (cmc3 and cmc4) I've not found it that impressive but maybe that comes from not having tested extensively yet.

Why do people have problems with Standstill? It's still the best draw spell if you're in a semi-good board position and you shouldn't have any problems with starting the game in the late-game so that a competent opponent will always break it as quickly as possible. Decking under this just won't happen and even if, you've still got Academy Ruins to prevent this.
If people are really investigating into some alternative, I once met someone from these boards (sorry, forgott who) on MWS who was playing a Landstill build with Think Twice in the place of Standstill, maybe that'd be an (uncosty) alternative.

Sry but i dont get it.
Its a landstill list without manlands, ok zvi build a very similar decklist and in the LS-Primer Goofy also takes his place in some builds.
You put all the ideas together and build a bad deck [i testet it].

I think the right way to play Jacen is a Moat hardlock with humility for example. :tongue:
And Counterbalance seems to be better in many many decks, its fit not into the decklist.

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Originally Posted by raharu

I would instead sugest Accumulated Knowledge or Ancestral Vision (I think that here I should say I haven't played the deck yet, so I don't know if your deck is too slow for 4x Ancestral Vision). I would advocate AK over Vision because I think it would be the better replacement for Standstill since it doesn't alter your mana curve and it doesn't have any attached delay. The first casting is obviously a little under whelming, but the draw is centered in the late-game, where I would presume you would want/ need it most.

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To abuse AK, he would have to run Intuition as well. That might be good, maybe, but he would have to cut a bunch of things to open slots for it. My bst bet would be FoF. I haven't tested though, it's just my 2,99999999 cents.

I playtested TEC a little bit. Here are my suggestions:

Standstill IS powerful, no doubt about it. Yet it's subpar as part of a starting hand. Counting all threads that potentialy force your opponent to break Standstill, you end up with 8, 6 facing creature-less combo: 4 Goyf, 2 HoftS, {2 Shackles}.
About the same amount of threats goes for a traditional LS lists (4 Factory, 2 Monstery/DoJ/Shriekmaw/Shackles what ever...)
There's a not so slight difference here though. The regular LS player may slip most of his threats in without breaking his own LS - this condition justifies the inclusion of an entire Standstill playset afterall. He may drop blind turn 2 Standstills without even holding a manland, as long as the board is clear. I know all of this sounds completely obvious. Anyway, what I really want to say is that there is a factual imbalance between the amount Standstill copies and the amount of threats in your deck.
Back in the day there have been Madness lists that abused Standstill more efficiently, I would say, due to the fact that they simply ran more creatures+factories and wastelands.

OK here is the thing: I'm not arguing against Standstill in TEC, I would merely cut them down to 3 in favor of another low costed threat + add either 1-2 Wastelands or Factories for the mirror.

Opinions?

The changes I'll be testing throughout the week include the following:

-4 Standstill (the biggest complaint, by far)
+3 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Vedalken Shackles (Need an increased artifact count, and this adds a threat)

With that, the mana curve smooths out, too, which is appealing to me. It leaves 11 at 1cc, 10 at 2cc, and 10 at 3cc. Good luck resolving stuff through Counterbalance now.

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Originally Posted by Nightmare

The changes I'll be testing throughout the week include the following:

-4 Standstill (the biggest complaint, by far)
+3 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Vedalken Shackles (Need an increased artifact count, and this adds a threat)

With that, the mana curve smooths out, too, which is appealing to me. It leaves 11 at 1cc, 10 at 2cc, and 10 at 3cc. Good luck resolving stuff through Counterbalance now.

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Like snuff out and Tombstalker? Will do, thanks!!
To be honest I'm not so sure that Thirst is the right draw spell. I think gifts or FoF would be better. Actually now that I think about it Gifts would be a house in here. You could get swords, wrath or humility if you need to remove something, or hoofprints, goyf or shackles to play a threat. Seems pretty redonka donk actually.

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Originally Posted by zulander

Like snuff out and Tombstalker? Will do, thanks!!
To be honest I'm not so sure that Thirst is the right draw spell. I think gifts or FoF would be better. Actually now that I think about it Gifts would be a house in here. You could get swords, wrath or humility if you need to remove something, or hoofprints, goyf or shackles to play a threat. Seems pretty redonka donk actually.

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The problem with Gifts and FoF is twofold. 1, they cost 4 mana, which is more than I'm willing to invest for 2-3 cards. 2, they don't say "Draw three cards" in the text box, which is the reason I ran Standstill from the get-go. I'm still looking to power up a Hoofprints with the draw engine, so I think for now, Thirst is the best option, although Gearhart runs Meditate (but I think he just wants it to be playable in a deck that doesn't suck nowadays). Thirst has a lot going for it, but I'm always skeptical of the artifact count when using it. Still, 3 Thirst for 8-10 artifacts seems ok, especially with Academy Ruins.


Man, if it didn't suck so much, I'd love a 1-of Mindslaver. GOD do I wish that card was viable in Legacy.

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Originally Posted by Nightmare

The problem with Gifts and FoF is twofold. 1, they cost 4 mana, which is more than I'm willing to invest for 2-3 cards. 2, they don't say "Draw three cards" in the text box, which is the reason I ran Standstill from the get-go. I'm still looking to power up a Hoofprints with the draw engine, so I think for now, Thirst is the best option, although Gearhart runs Meditate (but I think he just wants it to be playable in a deck that doesn't suck nowadays). Thirst has a lot going for it, but I'm always skeptical of the artifact count when using it. Still, 3 Thirst for 8-10 artifacts seems ok, especially with Academy Ruins.


Man, if it didn't suck so much, I'd love a 1-of Mindslaver. GOD do I wish that card was viable in Legacy.

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If you're looking for the word "Draw x Cards" then play sylvan library. Nothing puts counters on your guys like 'drawing' 3 cards.

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Why not run a couple of Tolaria Wests in the manabase, for finding Ruins, EE and potential cards out of the SB? Because it's a U producing land, it gives a lot of utility for essentially 0 deckspace. It also gets around Standstill, so you could use it to tutor for a singleton land win condition (Factory, etc.), forcing your opponent to break it.

After boarding, Crypt, Tabernacle and manlands can all be brought in as 1-ofs, increasing the amount of answers the deck can run for minimal mainboard and sideboard space.

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Sorry to quote myself, but I think this was lost at the end of last page, and I think it could be an interesting option for this deck.

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Originally Posted by Alfred

Sorry to quote myself, but I think this was lost at the end of last page, and I think it could be an interesting option for this deck.

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Nightmare answers this on the first page

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@ Tolaria West - While the idea for tutoring for Ruins/EE is nice in theory, in practice Tolaria West ends up sucking more than being awesome. It's a CItP Tapped land, which is more relevant than you'd imagine, and it still tutors for three mana. I'm sure there is a home for it in some deck, but I don't think this is the one.

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Originally Posted by zulander

If you're looking for the word "Draw x Cards" then play sylvan library. Nothing puts counters on your guys like 'drawing' 3 cards.

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Like I said earlier, it still sucks with Top in the deck. Soooooo redundant. I'm pretty sure Thirst is gonna work. Give me some time to test, for real.

Just as a quick question:

Are 4 Counterbalances really needed?
Wouldn't you rather want to play some tutor/more dig in the place of the 4th (because of multiples being redundant and stuff and because of them hitting blindly being pretty poor)?

Edit: I do also think that if you're going to cut the 4 Standstills, you should add more Explosives over Shackles as they tend to be pretty mana-intensive.
I'm testing:
-4 Standstill
+2 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Fact or Fiction (as that random 1off lategame bomb, I'm sure you don't want more)
+1 Engineered Explosives

With a top you never hit the 2nd unless you want to draw it. Although 2 in your opening hand sucks unless you have a force.

I feel so helpless against decks with this. You don't have enough counters, you don't have enough threats. Your have LOTS of CA. But i find myself wasting the early turns trying to find what i need, only to be dead, by the time i can make a token, or drop a Goyf, or StP that Kavu, or Shackles that Goyf.

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Originally Posted by APriestOfGix

I feel so helpless against decks with this. You don't have enough counters, you don't have enough threats. Your have LOTS of CA. But i find myself wasting the early turns trying to find what i need, only to be dead, by the time i can make a token, or drop a Goyf, or StP that Kavu, or Shackles that Goyf.

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Did you plan to make any suggestions, or just bash the deck and move on?

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Originally Posted by Nightmare

Did you plan to make any suggestions, or just bash the deck and move on?

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Sorry, i was just giving my opinion, and was going to come back and edit after this match (in the middle of testing).

I think the deck needs to drop Hoof. In it's place it can run another threat now, card. that or it needs to drop some CA, and rely on natural draws/brainstorm, and use those slots for ether: more removal, more counters, more threats/blockers.

I could see Dryad being really good in this deck. If you played it like a Legacy version of Gush.

Edit: ok, pull standstill, hoof, and add in something. I'm not quite sure, what the deck really wants, i'm just sure it dosn't have it yet. Maybe Thread's of Disloyality, Manland's, Wasteland's, Dryad's, Counterspell (or mana leak).

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Originally Posted by APriestOfGix

Sorry, i was just giving my opinion, and was going to come back and edit after this match (in the middle of testing).

I think the deck needs to drop Hoof. In it's place it can run another threat now, card. that or it needs to drop some CA, and rely on natural draws/brainstorm, and use those slots for ether: more removal, more counters, more threats/blockers.

I could see Dryad being really good in this deck. If you played it like a Legacy version of Gush.

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I agree. We should take a control deck and make it into GAT. That is the natural progression that control decks take right?

By the way, Meditate is ACTUALLY nuts. In the control/Threshold matchup, it's a ridiculous bomb. Against Goblins, it's ok. I'll grant that it's not stellar in the Goblins matchup, but there are still uses. Seriously though, against Threshold, since they usually try to ride the "one threat" strategy, resolving Meditate is insane. Since the threat is usually Mongoose, you MIGHT take an extra three damage to draw four cards. Which, incidentally, fully powers a Hoofprints token. Seriously, I HIGHLY recommend that card. I can't even begin to describe how nutty it is in the control matchup.

I ran this thing through some basic testing and here are the issues I came up against:

First off, Standstill is awful in this deck. Utterly awful. It was only good when I already had a Goyf or CounterTop in play, and frankly, I like my chances if I have Goyf or CounterTop in play. Because of my irritation with it's total ineffectiveness I replaced with Fact or Fiction. Allow me to impress this upon everyone reading this thread: Fact or Fiction is nuts. One hundred percent nuts. That's right, no fiber, no flakes, no-- Oh wait, this is a MtG deck not a cereal commercial. My bad. At any rate, the deck ran much smoother with FoF in that slot than it ever did with Standstill as the main draw engine.

The next issue I ran into is that Jace sucks. Seriously, that card is not good in any way against anything in Legacy. There was never a single moment I was happy to draw it, or play it, or generally be in the same room as it, so I cut it for 2 Thirst For Knowledge, which seemed to be working out fairly well. However, sometimes they felt really clunky in addition to the Facts, so I tried out Shriekmaw in that slot as well for more utility. I'm unsure as to which I actually prefer, as both serve fairly different roles. Still, I can say with certainty they're both far better than Jace is.

After those changes I decided I wanted to throw this deck through the wringer, so I tested it heavily against Goblins, which I usually use as the benchmark for whether or not a deck is actually any good. The basic issues I ran into are thus: Wrath is awful against Goblins, and this deck doesn't run nearly enough lands. Now, these two conclusions led me to question why Wrath was included at all, considering it's really not good against anything else in Legacy, and if you can't count on it to beat the premier aggro deck in the format is it really worth it at all? The more I thought about it the more I figured I really don't think Wrath is at all necessary, so I cut it for 2 more lands and another Vedalken Shackles.

The version with Shriekmaws instead of Thirsts in the Jace slot did marginally better against Goblins as a whole, but the list without wrath and with more shackles and lands actually did far better against Goblins than the land-light version with Wraths did.

Take the above statements as you will, but I think the following changes would really help this deck:
Out
-4 Standstill
-3 Wrath
-2 Jace Beleren
In
+4 Fact Or Fiction
+2 Shriekmaw/Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Vedalken Shackles
+1 Polluted Delta
+1 Island

Actually, in Nightmare's defense, he did say that this was prepped for his metagame. In Syracuse, apparently only ONE person plays Goblins, and he's fine with taking a game 1 loss to Teeniebopper to beat him with Plagues game 2 and 3. It seems that in Syracuse, everybody and their mother is playing Landstill. The deck is rather customizable, so we may be able to tune it to beat certain metagames. That sounds like a pretty reasonable plan, right Nightmare?