Printable View
In my view it would be significant if you could reliably have it plus the blue. Being able to stop the top of the deck AFTER the therapy/TS you already run opens up another avenue of attack. Though i think your right that the overall end result probably wouldnt be worth the cost...
No access to Chains :(. I had a spirit of the labyrith in the main before but it really didn't cut it. I tried Fate Unraveler for lol's the last tournament but it was a non factor. I'm still thinking about collective blessing for this week.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom4ik
Playing the folowing 75 tomorrow at the scg open:
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Wood Elves
1 Vexing Shusher
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Burning Wish
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Scapeshift
2 Slaughter Games
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Taiga
2 Stomping Ground
3 Badlands
2 Mountain
2 Bayou
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
SB:
3 REB
3 thoughtseize
1 scapeshift
1 kessig wolf run
1 slaughter games
1 maelstrom pulse
1 pyroclasm
1 toxic deluge
1 innocent blood
1 massacre
1 carpet of flowers
Ive done light testing with shusher vs miracles(has been great) and with all the DRS around i opted to cut ewit for it
kessig is also for the miracles mu just to make everything i play a threat, allows me to use scapeshift early for it before they have control of the game
The biggest problem ive been having with this deck(other than combo) is the rug delver mu just not being able to get footing fast enough,i want to add another carpet but have no idea what to cut, suggestions?
Jbone and firepaw, I'm here. Try to track me down via pairings some round if you get time / see this
Lol. My elves opponent goes from a board state of arbor + ba you on turn 3 and kills me. Real life.
I dont like to play only 3 tops xD 4 its the correct number!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Firepaw3
U dont like 1 Cabal T n the sideboard, just to find it with the BW :/
Good luck today^^
Dead. Convinced that junk isn't good enough anymore. More on Tuesday with my reports. Firepaw is 1-1 after double sneak and show.
With Explorers getting us large amounts of mana and Top being incredibly powerful in Nic Fit builds, has anyone tested Entreat the Angels out much? I've seen Bonfires in a build here or two as well though Deed probably does what Bonfire would do better.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dissection
Unless you are playing blue for brainstorm.
We already struggle big time when we have our big dudes in our starting hands.
Enough muligans already.
I was at a IQ today with Tom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Lost to elves in 3.
Beat solider stompy in 2. (he had a game loss)
Beat ANT in 2.
Lost to burn in 2.
Lost to mud in 3.
The weirdest of matchups.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbone2016
Yeah. The elves guy wasn't happy about facing me again (I played him when I had Moat in the main deck). He turn two natural order for a Ruric Thar but I chumped with a Vet, then chumped with a Rector (he had a DRS out but didn't know the interaction.) Got the fetters to hold of Ruric, then deeded away the rest of the board. Tusk cleaned up. Game 2: I get hoofed. Game 3: I keep a 1 lander on 7 with therapy, gsz, plague and other goodies. He mulls to 6 and blind therapy 2 drs from his hand but I don't rip a 2 land and he still goes off on turn 3...or 4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
I have a small legacy event on Thursday before st. Louis this weekend. Swaping out rector package for sfm package to try it out. More junk rock with vets
ended up going 5-4-1, lost to sneak and show(1-2),punishing maverick(1-2)(with depths) punshing maverick(1-2)(no depths, huntmasters) and death and taxes(0-2)
Played atrociously vs DnT just missing basic stuff, against punishing maverick depths i therapy'd his knight, he to drew another and killed me a turn before lethal scapeshift game three vs punishing huntmaster I got us both into topdeck mode with clear boards and just drew lands while he got a sylvan library up
my games in order were:
Sneak 2-1
Sneak 1-2
Shardless BUG 1-1-1
DnT 2-0
DnT 0-2
Miracles 2-0
Miracles (jeremy Fehon) 2-0
BUG Delver 2-0
punishing depths maverick (Mark Strassmen) 1-2
Punishing huntmaster Maverick 1-2
The miracles matchups felt very easy, kessig wolf run helped tremendously in the match up forcing them to waste more resources on everything I played. Jeremy and I play this match up all the time so to beat him 2-0 convinces me that this is the best way to beat good miracles pilots.
The slaughtergames continue to be outstanding in the main, they do everything they're supposed to and against most blue decks aren't a completely dead draw because they can clear the way for a scapeshift
There was no time today I missed eternal witness, and shusher was great against miracles and sneak but not as impactful as I had hoped, not sure what it could be thats any better
My final sideboard looked like this:
3 REB
2 thoughtseize
2 carpet of flowers
1 slaughter games
1 innocent blood
1 maelstrom pulse
1 toxic deluge
1 massacre
1 pyroclasm
1 scapeshift
1 kessig wolf run
If I had to play another event today I would change one reb for a thoughtseize to help against sneak attacks everything else was great
If anyone's still interested in BUG pod, I've been testing out a trinket mage package in the SB and I've been liking it quite a bit. Had to cut the aetherling and the 3rd deed to make room but I think it's made up for by adding engineered explosives (kinda replaces deed) and pithing needle (good against miracles, like aetherling, but more widely applicable in other matchups). Trinket mage is also really nice because it provides another blue card for force in the matchups where I'd want that, and I usually want at least 1 of the two targets in those matchups.
4 Force of Will
3 Riptide Pilferer
2 Envelop
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Golgari Charm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
I wanted the last two cards to be good cards against elves. I've asked several elves players what the best cards against them are and have gotten a lot of different responses. These could also be engineered plagues (a card that takes care of true-name as well). Darkblast is another option. I don't know. Anyone have any experience playing against elves? It's worth noting that jitte is a bit better than it might otherwise be since i have some flying creatures to get past wirewood symbiote. Still might be too slow though.
In other news, Reclamation Sage is completely insane in the deck now. Not too much of a surprise, but figured I'd report my results.
Curious to your main.Quote:
Originally Posted by GtF
Reclamation Sage is awefully good. I guess it's a no brainer to include it.
As for Umezewa's Jitte, i think it's to slow against Elves (turn 3 hoof?) and as a one-off to random as i can't find anything to search it with in any BUG pod list. I suppose a combination of Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm and/or Engineered Plague coupled with Deeds and Trinket/Esplosives might be best. Remember they also have Reclemation Sage in their main to GSZ.
Aside from your list the new set has a BUG creature. It looks like it needs to be abused in some way. BUG pod lists are creature heavy, but i can't think of something to abuse it with other then Recurring Nightmare or Unearth.
http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/...9690217576.png
I started testing on a Bug list. It is definitely not a tuned list but I mostly wanted to try out some cards together and see how it played out. The list I played :
2 bayou
1 underground sea
1 tropical island
2 creeping tar pit
2 swamp
2 forest
2 island
1 phyrexian tower
1 volrath's stronghold
4 misty rainforest
3 verdant catacombs
4 veteran explorer
4 baleful strix
2 eternal witness
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxian probe
4 cabal therapy
4 abrubt decay
4 force of will
3 jace, the mind sculptor
3 liliana of the veil
3 pernicious deed
I tested mostly 4 ofs so that I could get most of these cards each game so I am not in love with some of these numbers yet. I really liked the early game this deck. some other thoughts
1. A very low curve, this can be both good (less reliance on vet going off as jace is the most expensive spell) and also means it takes advantage of vet the least. Ideally you chain through your deck, set up the power couple and beat with witness and tarpit
2. No way to really close out the game. with therapy, probe and vet this deck was able to strip hand and have mana very quickly but could sometimes have trouble keeping control without a jace or lily or just in killing them before they get enough stuff to over power.
3. My mana base also could be a problem, this deck is almost using vet not as an accelerant but as a color fixer. In many ways this deck is as greedy as smth like shardless bug or deathblade. It wants to play veteran or cabal turn 1, strix on turn 2, has double green, black and blue spells as well as 2 colorless lands, 2 comes into play tapped lands and 6 basics.
I absolutely thought this deck was rough but it also felt very powerful. I think there is potential here.
Hey guiz, lost my old account info (hymntotourcock) but I have returned. It's been a while!
Is Punishing Fit even a thing anymore? With all the Shardless BUGs and Delver lists popping up, I would think PFire would be on the rise!
@thotcrime - I still play punishing. I played it on sunday at an IQ and went 1-2 drop.
I crushed rug delver 2-0
lost in 3 to elves. won game 1 at 1 life until I made an 11 ooze. Game 2 I mulled to 5 with a golgari charm but he turn 2 progged me. Game 3 was terrible, got us both topdecking, him with 2 land no board, me with land plus grove (about 7 land out) and draw 4! land in a row...uhhh.
Lost 0-2 to reanimator. turn 2 Gbrand followed by a game 2 of turn 1 study binning iona & Gbrand -> reanimate Gbrand, petal exume Iona on black... and that was the end of that.
I feel like your lacking threats in planeswalkers or big creatures, Not having any real way to close the game other than jace and tar pits seems roughQuote:
Originally Posted by Tom4ik
I would lean the deck somewhere towards Tao's old BUG list, its been great for me in the past:
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Island
2 Phyrexian Tower
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Cabal Therapy
//Sideboard
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Damnation
SB: 4 Force of Will
SB: 3 Negate
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
Okay, report(s) time. I'll then have some theory followup, and then I'll close with spoiler chatter.
------------------------
The list I played for Legacy for the Invitational:
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Selvala, Explorer Returned
1 Eternal Witness
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Spike Feeder
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Academy Rector
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Spike Weaver
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Thragtusk
1 Sun Titan
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Council's Judgment
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Whip of Erebos
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Karakas
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Gavony Township
sb::
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Tsunami
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Pithing Needle
The list I played for Standard for the Invitational:
2 Blood Crypt
3 Forest
2 Llanowar Wastes
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
3 Temple of Abandon
3 Temple of Malice
2 Mana Confluence
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Ultimate Price
1 Doom Blade
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Dreadbore
2 Rakdos's Return
2 Golgari Charm
1 Putrefy
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Underworld Connections
1 Whip of Erebos
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
2 Vraska the Unseen
//sb
3 Nylea's Disciple
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Mind Rot
2 Slaughter Games
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Ultimate Price
1 Dark Betrayal
[standard aside]
For standard, my deck selection was pretty simple: find the most NicFitish deck in the format, and go nuts. I don't play a lot of standard, and when I do, I'm usually trolling FNMs with some random terrible deck idea that entertains me and offends everyone else when I kill them with it. For this event, though, I obviously had to be a bit more serious. Jundwalkers was the obvious selection choice looking at the metagame, although I briefly considered monoblack devotion as well. The problem I had with monoB was that everyone had had months to play the matchup and tune their decks vs it, whereas Jundwalkers was "the new kid on the block." Since it was a deck which is very much in my wheelhouse, I elected to go with the deck that hasn't been around for forever.
I fervently hate Elvish Mystic in this deck. Entirely too often games come down to both players in topdeck mode (except UW, obviously....fucking sphinx's rev). If we're topdecking, I want to be the guy without a 1/1 dork in his deck. I liked the idea of hybridizing in some monsters -- Stormbreath being the best of these. Stormbreath punishes UW decks while also improving threat density for vs monoB's infinite discard and also acting as an extra "removal spell" for opposing walkers in the mirror. Connections is better than Read the Bones in my humble opinion, because it represents a lot more card draw over time and it also gives opponents something to kill other than our walkers or Coursers. Singleton Whip goes well with Xenagos, Stormbreaths, and Nissa, and in general the card is dam near unbeatable if the opponent doesn't have an immediate answer to it.
The rest of the maindeck is pretty stock, although I did opt in to the 2x Confluence + 1x Urborg tech that I saw in someone's article...I think it was GerryT's, maybe? Either way, I liked the idea of smoothing out the manabase and being able to curve better without infinite scryduals getting in the way.
The sideboard is basically completely different from stock lists, with the exception of the Mistcutters (which I think every green deck in the format runs). Nylea's Disciple helps vs RW Burn, Rabble, and other random aggro decks. I prefer this option to something like Duress because it can help with the beatdown. In testing, I found that RW Burn often turned into a race, and Nylea's Disciple undoing a couple burn spells while still leaving behind a 3/3 was relevant. Besides, I can't resist a Thragtusk. Mind Rot was extra help for Burn, good in the mirror, and also acted as Rakdos Returns 3 and 4 for vs control. Slaughter Games says no to Sphinx's Rev, and also comes in vs monoB to take their Grey Merchants. Angers were for GW aggro, Rabble, and monoU, while the extra removal spells helped tune my package for whatever I was playing vs.
[/end standard aside]
As for legacy, how I came at that list is a bit more complicated.
I knew that I didn't want to be on Scapewish. In retrospect I would've been fine, but there's a few issues with Scapewish that give me pause at the moment. First, Scape is simultaneously the most consistent and the least consistent version. Sometimes you just die to your own manabase as you draw Mountains and Valakuts -- and shy of putting in Prismatic Omens, there isn't really any way to fix this problem. The constraints of the scapeshifts and the Veterans and Top and trying to be a functional deck are very, very hard to balance. I think that we've all done as good as we're going to be able to do on that, sadly. It's just always going to have some of that inherent instability.
This weakens the deck to Delver variants. Unlike most 'normal' Nic Fit decks, Scapewish's Achilles Heel is its manabase. If the Delver opponent correctly identifies this fact, they can bring the deck to its knees with pairing mana disruption (stifle and waste) with counterspells on the creature-based fetchlands (Sakura-Tribe and Wood Elves). I'll talk more about this in the theory section, since there's some interesting discussion to be had here.
Delver can be shored up via using the two floater slots for Abrupt Decays and potentially putting some Carpet of Flowers in the sideboard. However, the list overall is still fairly weak to 3/2s. Furthermore, if you strengthen your deck vs Delver, you weaken it vs Miracles and combo, because then you don't have the maindeck Slaughter Games for those matchups (where they really shine).
Then, there's another issue: Scapewish has no effective lategame, at all. Scape is a midgame deck -- if the opponent isn't dead by turn 5-6, you're probably going to start losing. Now, Scape is very good at hanging on as long as possible to find the kill -- Huntmasters, Thrags, Deeds, etc all do a good job of buying time, which is a concept that I've talked about at length. However, spending all of those slots to buy time means that you aren't really left with any kind of meaningful lategame power. It's gotten increasingly hard to deal with some of the engines that the current generation of fair decks (especially blue ones) can represent. Venser + Karakas or Clique + Karakas is one that is particularly obnoxious, and Scape doesn't have any way to either break that up or go over the top of it. If they aren't dead by the time they assemble that, we just lose.
Since I knew I didn't want to be on Scape, that left me with either Junk or BUG as options. Of the two, I've definitely played a lot more Junk and am typically more comfortable with it. Furthermore, you get Council's Judgment, which is a hell of a drug -- it answers literally anything, regardless of what the problem is. I did put some time into theoretical BUG lists, but I couldn't find any that that I was comfortable with. BUG basically needs to be Pod to be successful, it seems, which I don't want to do because having to run Pod means you have to run a ton of creatures, which reduces your interaction by quite a bit...not really where I wanted to be for the invitational.
At the point at which I was decided on junk, I had to decide which subversion I wanted. I opted to go for Thune, because it still let me run the Rector package while bumping my threat density a lot, and having a combo is nearly always better than not having a combo in Nic Fit. Furthermore, the Thune package overall got two very potent new toys in the form of Selvala and Courser, both of which trigger Archangel and enable it to be better while not comboing.
A couple of specific list notes:
-) Master of the Wild Hunt is back. The old, old Rector lists didn't run enough creatures that needed to be removed for Master to do its job -- he'd come down and they'd always have a removal spell for him. This isn't true anymore, and Master is back to being quite threatening.
-) I've discussed Selvala in the past, but I haven't said much about Courser. It's pretty insane, especially with Top.
-) Maindeck Deluge helps out with Delver, 'Blade, and Elves. I expected Elves to be the most popular combo deck of the room, so moving the Deluge maindeck made sense.
-) Whip of Erebos over Recurring Nightmare -- having the board-wide lifelink helps trigger Archangel the fair way, and I knew that I didn't want to run a Nightmare loop package. No Doom Engines for this list -- I didn't want to take up the slot with the Fierce Empath. Whip was fantastic in testing -- multiple times I killed my opponent by whipping back Archangel with Spike Feeder in play to go infinite and swing with a hasty infi/infi flyer out of seemingly nowhere.
-) Sideboard Baneslayers were my adaptation to a poor Shardless matchup. Realistically I should've realized what having a poor Shardless matchup meant, but more on that later. Some of the Shardless matchup was fixed by testing, wherein I realized that Shardless is very weak to just zerg rushing out as many Veterans as possible because they need to deal with them -- they can't actually effectively race 3 1/1s by turn 3, and if they develop their board state that they can, they have to punch through them. The Baneslayers fixed the rest of it, because First Strike matters vs Baleful Strix, and having 4 huge flying lifelinking angels is just too much for Shardless to handle. Likewise, they give you something better than Sigarda or Sun Titan to ramp into vs Delver, letting you tweak your top-end threat package for the opponent.
-) Pair of Tsunamis for Miracles. They come in vs other decks, too, but they're explicitly for Miracles.
-) The full 4 Decays split between main and side. I didn't feel like losing to Delver, as I expected a lot of the standard players to have found / built / borrowed Delver decks for the invitational because, as GerryT said, Delver is the monoblack devotion of legacy. It's always good, and it allows players to leverage their mechanical skill regardless of format knowledge. Obviously it gets a lot better in the hands of a true Eternal Wizard, but it's strong regardless.
-) 5-pack of hateful dudes. I've had tremendous success fighting combo with the 2 Canonist/2 Mindcensor/1 Teeg package.
-) 2 Pithing Needles were the last additions to my sideboard. I was originally thinking that nobody would play Sneak and Show because the deck is so wildly inconsistent, and the top 8 is played in best-of-5 legacy format -- S&S will just implode if you do make it to top 8. However, the more I thought about it, the more I decided that I was wrong. Coupled with Delver and Burn, Sneak and Show is the other "legacy noob" deck. It also enjoys a curious amount of popularity among the semipro community -- probably because of its raw power. When people aren't actively hating on it // when D&T isn't very popular, Sneak and Show is -still- the most powerful deck in the format. Since I de-emphasized the Rector package, I didn't want to run the Humility. Humility is getting worse in Nic Fit for the same reason that Moat has -- it's just not profitable for us to shoot ourselves that hard in the dick anymore. Our creatures are getting dramatically better with time, and while we don't have a lot of things that can out punch a Griselbrand, it's better to shut Sneak and Show down with other hate and leave our creatures powerful. I decided that most opponents wouldn't Show and Tell vs my deck because that can very easily go poorly for them, and that Sneak Attack is the real threat. Ergo, Pithing Needle. Needle also helps vs Elves, Painters, and other random threats.
Alright, I think that pretty well covers deck selection. Here's what happened:
----------------------
Rd 1: Mitchell with RUG Delver (stifles and g.probes).
Game one is probably weirdest game vs RUG I've ever had. He wastes me into oblivion while I therapy him into oblivion. The end result is probably 10 turns of draw-go with me having like 2 basics and a Top vs his 6ish lands, soft counters, and no threats. Eventually my Top starts seeing lands again, and I grind him out pretty quickly once I am able to actually cast things in my hand.
Game two he has "the delver draws" with double Delver, Stifle, double Waste, Force, etc. We've all been there.
Game three I mull an unkeepable 7 to the following 6: Veteran, Baneslayer, PhyTower, Bayou, Forest, Heath. I lead with Veteran, and make a turn 2 Baneslayer (which resolves). He cantrips with a Brainstorm, shuffle, Ponder, and passes back. I swing with the Baneslayer, and pass back -- I've just drawn lands. He double Bolts my Baneslayer, and then plays a Monguise. Over the next 6 or so turns, I draw a land for literally every draw step except for one where I drew a Cabal Therapy instead. At some point he deploys a Sulfuric Vortex to join his Goose. I finally draw a Zenith when I'm at 3 life, but he has double Pierce + Daze for when I try to resolve it. He ends the game at 5 life -- if I'd gotten 1 more swing with Baneslayer, I would've actually won the race against his Vortex. Or, you know, if I'd drawn literally anything over my 10 or so draw steps that game.
Salty.
Rd 2: Adam with Sneak and Show
I disrupt him a bit and he floods out hard. He finally Shows a Griselbrand, but I have a Judgment and he's too low to draw7 to protect it.
Game two basically the same thing happens. He floods super hard and basically just folds without every doing anything of note. What was I saying earlier about the deck's inconsistencies?
After our match, we played 3 games of standard for the lulz, which I think did both of our mental states wonders -- he was tilted from flooding, and I was still tilted about my round 1 loss despite turn 2 Baneslayer vs RUG. He had a sweet Slivers standard deck which he got a Deck Tech on, and we had very enjoyable games. He got me 2-1, although obviously we weren't playing very seriously and we also didn't sideboard. I made a misplay in the first game where I should've killed his flying sliver instead of his +1/+1 sliver, because then I could've Whipped back a Stormbreath, monstroused it, and swung with both of my dragons to kill him. Instead he played the indestructible silver and I just died. Games were still definitely sweet, though, and they cleared my head nicely.
Rd 3: Phillip with Death and Taxes
He looks exactly like a friend of Joey Manner's who was talking to him about Miracles before the event started, so I put him on Miracles before the match started. Whoops. It ended up not really mattering.
Game 1 I should've mulled to 5 and didn't, and got punished super hard. Gavony bit me in the ass for not being a colored source, and I died pretty quick. Upside is that I confused the fuck out of my opponent, who saw Swamp, Swamp, Gavony, and nothing else.
Game 2 he displays that he's not good at legacy as he sees Pernicious Deed coming off of Courser and names Top with his Revoker instead. Deed clears his board and I kill him summarily.
Game 3 we got into a really tense situation wherein I had to deal with his Batterskull multiple times while Sigarda flew overhead with Varolz scavenge backup. I pulled out ahead, though, and took it down.
Rd 4: Bernie with UW Blade
I mull to 6 again (for like the 4 or 5th time at this point), and he has a really weird draw that actually confuses the hell out of me. I forgot what it was like to be confused about what my opponent was doing, but this reminded me -- he had a double Mishra's Factory double Restoration Angel (!!) draw, and backed it up with double Force of Will to just flat aggro me down. I pegged him as a vintage player who was trying to adapt Blue Angels to legacy, and misboarded as a result.
Game two he shows me much more typical UW Blade stuff, and I can't recover from his flurry of Snapcasters and Council's Judgments backed up with Jace, Forces, and Batterskull. Everything I put into play is countered or exiled. This sets the stage for Sunday.
So, I escape legacy at 2-2. Very much not where I wanted to be, but still alive.
Rd 5: Collin with jundwalkers
Ours was a closer mirror than most lists I've seen, although he didn't have my dragons. I took down game 1 with my higher threat density. Game two was a close game, but he edged me out with a Rakdos's Return that emptied me on at a critical point.
Game 3. Holy shit, game 3. He goes basically all-in on Nissa making 4/4s and pressuring me as hard as he can. I have a Connections out and am digging as hard as I can for Mortars. I finally hit it at like 4 life, and nuke his entire board. He ultimates Nissa (!!), killing her off for a pair of 4/4s. I trade a Stormbreath for one of them, and throw a Caryatid in front of the other, dropping to 2. I draw off Connections looking for a removal spell, and don't get there. I'm pretty sure that I forgot details of this game, but I remember it being a fantastic one.
Of note: he was on 1 Vraska and 1 Liliana Vess, and the Vess won him game 2, as it tutored up the Return that blew me out. I stole his Vess tech for Saturday, where it also won me a game and could've won me another if I'd played it smarter.
Rd 6: AJ Kerrigan with Jund Aggro (he got a deck tech if you want to see his list)
Aggro is usually rough for jundwalkers, but my list is a bit better than most vs it. I played this match pretty well, I feel -- being careful about when I was blocking because he had a bunch of bloodrush creatures to pump and kill Caryatids and Coursers. I eventually 1-for-1'd him out, despite having to deal with multiple bestow creatures and Crippling Blights on my Coursers so they couldn't block. Game two he tore my face off, and game three he mulled harshly and had a 2-creature hand which I just killed everything.
Rd 7: Billy with UW (Spheres build)
Game one I get punished for my Confluences and Llanowar Wastes, as he has like double Mutavault + Elspeth. I Return him for a million and kill his Elspeth + empty him, but I'm so low on life that he just kills me before I can recover -- which is a shame because if you can empty UW's hand, you usually win. Just cost me so much to get there.
Game two I have Slaughter Games your Revs into Mind Rot you into Stormbreath chain and he dies really hard.
Game three I brick a crucial land drop when he taps out on turn 5 for Archangel of Thune. If I'd made my land drop, I could've slammed Vraska to nuke it and taken over the game, but instead his Archangel got to go nuts with Mutavault and I was vastly too far behind by the time I made some land drops. Of amusing note: Stormbreath brickwalled his Angel to the point where he had to Verdict to get rid of it. Unfortunately he had a counterspell for my Golgari Charm that was going to attempt to regen my dragon for ultimate blowout.
I dropped at 3-4 rather than play the last round for glory. I'm still actually pretty content in my performance at the invitational. Most of the games I lost were razor's edge losses and could've gone either way -- I feel I did about the best I could with what was given me. I'm still salty about the round one loss to RUG, but realistically that karma balanced itself out after my effortless victory over Sneak. The only match that I feel I straight up lost hard was vs UW Blade -- everything else was slight errors on my part or just variance.
I will note that I'm definitely hungry to get back to the invitational next year.
------------------
I'm not going to talk about the standard open, because I think I've talked about that enough as is. If you want my thoughts on it, or if you have a major standard event coming up and you want my list, I'll be happy to share -- just PM me. I went 5-1, and then lost 2 in a row to good matchups to go 5-3, at which point I didn't feel it was worth 2 hours of my time to try to win $50, so I dropped and headed out to relax a bit before Sunday.
------------------
Sunday report will be pretty quick.
Rd 1: Abe with Elves
He flashes me a Symbiote while he's shuffling, so I know what he's on. It doesn't matter, as he wins the die roll and I mull to a 6 that's strong but has no Therapy and only 1 land. I don't draw lands to go with the Toxic Deluge in my hand, and I die with my opponent only seeing Forest + Top. I opted not to play the Explorer in my hand to deny him information. As a result, he puts me on UG 12post.
Game two I mull to 6 again, I have a Deed, Top, Council's Judgment, something else, and two lands. Good enough. He makes a Nettle Sentinel on turn 1. I just play a land and ship back. He Thoughtseizes me, takes my Deed, and plays a Dryad Arbor. I top, find my third land, and Judgment his Sentinel. He goes into his third turn with Bayou + Dryad Arbor, and kills me. Glimpse into double Quirion Ranger + Cradle into Heritage into bullshit. He actually screws up and gives me a draw step when he could've just NO'd for Hoof and straight killed me, but he passed turn for some godforsaken reason. I guess he got confused because none of his creatures could attack and forgot Hoof had haste or something. Anyway, Toxic Deluge is not the top card of my deck and I am not able to punish him. It is, however, the 4th card down -- immediately under my Top. Fuck.
So I'm hilarious degrees of tilted after that.
Rd 2: Tom with UW Blade
This time I know exactly what my opponent is doing. He has typical UW Blade stuff, and I correctly identify him immediately. I'll spare all of the gory details of game one, but suffice to say the grind is real. I have him dead on board to Sigarda at one point, until he Brainstorms, shuffles, Ponders, shuffles, and Ponders again to hit a Council's Judgment. He then Snaps the Judgment back to deal with something else and stabilizes to win game 1.
Game two he Dust Bowls me out of the game, since I sideboarded out 3 of my Veterans and he StP'd the one that I had left. Top couldn't find me either a Carpet or any of my other lands. I Therapy him a couple of times throughout the game and he's always completely loaded with multiple Judgments, Snapcasters, Verdicts, StP, Counterspells, Jaces, you name it -- he had it.
0-2, drop, because good god am I disgusted with magic at this point.
This leads me into: theory talk time!
------------------------------
So, Junk has a problem. It's called blue superiority.
I correctly identified that Scapewish has no lategame, as mentioned earlier. The problem is, Junk is built entirely on going long and out-attritioning the blue decks -- which, don't get me wrong -- it's always been able to do before. It plays a lot of very hard to deal with threats, spread across a variety of card types, and has generally been able to fulfill its mission statement: smash delver, outgrind fair blue / jund, and sideboard into a combo deck's nightmare.
One specific leg of this trifecta is gone now. Junk can no longer outgrind fair blue decks. I was under the impression that I could -- but it's just too hard now. Most of the fair blue decks are running 2 copies of Council's Judgment between main and side, but they have the added advantage of Snapcaster alongside their traditional card advantage (which they've always had) to just outpace us. Rector's enchantments aren't capable of carrying games, because they just hit a Judgment. Or, you know, the Rector itself will eat a Judgment -- because -more- playable exile removal. This also makes graveyard recursion even worse. Sigarda used to be untouchable, to the extent where I wanted to cut every non-Sigarda threat in the deck and just ride her to victory while controlling the rest of the game. Instead, she's extremely touchable now. Reaper of the Wilds was another powerful 4-drop that I was experimenting with before shifting back to Master of the Wild Hunt. Hexproof? Doesn't matter. Nom it anyway.
The only potential saving grace for junk colored lists would be to cut the entire Rector package in exchange for more power -- essentially a move back to the old "Big Rock" style lists. Cut both Rectors, cut the Whip (or Nightmare, or whatever). Put in powerful 3-drops and 4-drops and just try to overload their Council's Judgments and Swords to Plowshares.
Still, this isn't a style that I personally want to play. Some power is good, but I personally prefer recursion, attrition, and toolboxing to raw power.
This basically means I need to either fix Scapewish somehow, or actively work on getting a BUG list running. I think that BUG is probably the correct call, but I want to wait and see what Khans has to offer before making any real movement there. I do know that there will be at least 2 Notion Thieves in any BUG list that I play. Thief is criminally underplayed in legacy as a whole, and Nic Fit is a perfect home for him. Notion Thief also partially solves the problem that Junk is having -- if they can't cantrip/Jace their way to more Snapcasters and removal and etc, the fair blue decks should pretty much fold. I also know that there will be a copy of Future Sight somewhere in the 76. If the fair blue decks want card advantage, I'll show 'em card advantage. Shardless BUG hasn't got anything on that.
--------------------------
Spoiler talk:
The Sultai legend (1bug 3/3 mill 3 + makes a zombie when CiP or attacks if a creature in those cards milled) is so close to being good enough that it's not even funny. The problem is that you only get a SINGLE zombie despite how many creatures you might mill. If you could mill 2 Explorers and get a pair of 2/2s, I would be 100% on board. As it is, though, you only get one guy -- and short of going heavy on graveyard interaction (dangerous), his value probably isn't worth it. It is worth remembering, though, that he perfectly resets Top, even though he probably dies if he attacks into most board states in legacy.
The Abzan legend (wbg 4/4 any time an opp creature is put into grave from anywhere, exile it; whenever it attacks put a +1/+1 counter on another attacking creature) is pretty insane. 4/4 for 3 mana (zenithable) is really strong, plus it's potent maindeckable graveyard hate, plus it has a lot of synergy with Spikes of various types. Too bad Junk has all of the above lists problems. I'll definitely be getting a foil copy for my playable legacy creatures binder, though. This thing is good.
End Hostilities is an amusing sweeper which is conditionally playable in some versions. It's awfully good at killing Stoneblade. I can't see ever running more than one or two copies, and it would have to be a specific, sweeper-oriented list -- I think that most versions would rather run Deluge / K-Grip / etc.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor is powerful. I'm not sure which of him or Lord of Innistrad is more powerful for the shell, but he's definitely worthy of consideration. Perma-lifelink is pretty sweet, plus he can protect himself against Delvers by making 2/2 flyers. The emblem is ridiculous against most fair decks -- it's a 1-sided Abyss.
Sultai Charm is pretty sweet. It kills basically any non-planeswalker, and if you don't need it to kill something, it at least draws 2 cards to help you find something relevant. I'm not sure if it'll be good enough to see play in legacy, but I could see it as a 1- or 2-of. It's worse removal than Abrupt Decay, but it's so much more flexible -- and it can kill Batterskull in response to a bounce, which is very relevant.
Sarkhan is good but probably not good enough. He has no way to ramp to his ultimate without becoming a dragon and thus opening himself to Swords, and if he ever has to kill anything with his -3, good luck ever getting to ultimate.
That concludes this mega-post.