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Flickering a facedown Dreadnought, Uro or Eater is bad news. Dreadnought can already go faceup for 1 colorless uncounterably without using the stack or needing a spell to turn it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
So what does it help with? It would trigger Endurance/Subtlety ETB (but why cloak those in the first place?). Emrakul is already better with Drifter or SnT than with Cloak + Flicker, and that's a different deck anyway.
Flickering Dreadnought or Uro is plan C, You're doing it because they paid the ward on a removal spell and you also have a backup stifle effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
What you're using it for is When you cast Coat/Hide and you ended up cloaking any other permanent off the top. Or, because this is also a Drafter/Worldly tutor deck, you have set up the Emrakul on the top and you get to flicker it from a 2/2 into a 15/15. And since you're an Endurence Subtlety deck, having up 1 mana and a 2/2 now represents: Subtlety, Endurence, Stifle, or Dreadnought.
The thing about show and tell is that every build I've seen of it, weather omni tell or sneakNShow is that the deck isn't doing anything when it's not assembling A+B. Here the options begin at Dreadnought on 2, Making several 2/2s of Coat and Hide to always be threatening something better.
You do realize your deck idea doesn't do anything until you assemble A then B (or B then A) right? We're not an A + B combo, we have to follow a sequence, unlike SnT/thing in hand or Painter/Grindstone. Show and Tell is much more threatening when they're not "doing anything" because an opposing deck can lose at any point after the cantripping has united A + B in a hidden zone (hand).Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
Let's contrast this to Hide in Plain Sight: you tapped down 4 mana to cast a sorcery...and then you're out of mana and you pass the turn with 2x 2/2s that cannot be defended except by FoW/FoN. Compare this to SnT (a deck with much more fast mana, which likely has 5 mana when you only have 4): even if they happen to be capped at 4 mana they're leaving behind a Sneak Attack; one of the hardest card types to interact with...and when they untap and activate it, they're going to invalidate all the turns preceding (recall that all 4cmc cards in legacy must do this, particularly if they lack modal costs). In contrast, if by some miracle you untap with one or both 2/2s (the easiest card type to interact with), you don't know what you were hitting in the top 6....and if you're trying to fix that with a Mirage tutor, you would be explicitly telling your opponent what you did with Worldly Tutor...and gave them a perfect understanding of the situation (including the sequence). Even if the opponent can only kill one thing with 50% odds to guess the right 2/2, you still just told them exactly how to stop you.
Legacy is a format of 1 mana kill spells. Ward 2 is pretty meaningless by land drop 4 - it's basically flavor text. It's also important to remember that right now there's a fair amount of Stifle being played by Beanstalk especially, and a lot of flicker effects will try to return to play off an end step trigger. It's also important to remember that your ideas of setting this stuff up are playing heavily into Chalice (BS/Ponder/Tutor). Let us suppose you set up HiPS with Tutor, you went down 2 cards to make 2 objects; so if the opponent answers those with say 2 cards...you didn't pull ahead, despite resolving a 4 mana card...and uh now we're back to the self 2-for-1 deck using 1-for-1 cantrips, which don't add velocity to repeating the multi-card sequential thing.
The competitive assessment is don't do what you're thing about -> build Aeon Bridge -> when going to build Aeon Bridge, just make SnT instead. That's the pathway of increasing winrate. If you really wanted to do this blink and tell via face-down Dreadnought pathway, you should have been doing this once Scroll and Touch the Spirit Realm were printed - everything else in legacy has gotten better since that point in time. HiPS is not going to close that gap, it's going to shut the door on you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
If only that made your bad ideas viable. Alas just more content-bereft personal attacks with colorful language. Don't worry, I'll always be here to shut down crap ideas.
For everyone else, save your money. HiPS is unplayable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
Love the spirit Fourdogs, never lose the enthusiasm. Just work on growing up and thinking critically. Engaging in personal attacks doesn't make your ideas work better.
Here's a list of legacy cards that cost 4 mana and actually change the game: The One Ring, Minsc, Tendrils/Beseech, initiative/monarch dudes, Natural Order, Karn, Humility/Moat-types, endless Uro recasts, Aluren, JTMS (historically), Sneak Attack, Verdict, etc... They all work because they do more than put 2x 2/2s into play and then passing the turn. No amount of personal attacks will change this simple fact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
So I see how the flicker ability can have uses. It's just that all these interactions are very conditional, many moving parts doing too many different things. You'll get high variance draws with "dead cards" - getting mixes of cards that don't interact well together.
These interactions look great for Commander!
For Legacy, there isn't even room to do all those things. Once you settle down to a decklist...
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Worldly Tutor
3 Stifle
4 Dress Down
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3 Endurance
1 Subtlety
2 Cryptic Cloak
That's already 35 nonlands + 20ish lands.
Curve:
1 - 18
2 - 4
3 - 8
4 - 1
5/0 - 4
There isn't really room to make space for this Vesuvan Drifter + Emrakul stuff, let alone the cloak + flicker stuff. You're better off doing all that in a completely separate deck and using the remaining 5 slots to help fill in the curve at 2 cmc
Examples
Brazen Borrower
Sylvan Library
Once Upon A Time
Questing Druid
Tarmogoyf
Shark Typhoon
Impulse
Scavenging Ooze
Ice-Fang Coatl
Ledger Shredder
Unfortunately Coatl is bad in the Bowmaster meta. Questing Druid may be possible with a splash land. Or you could play some toolbox singletons to get with Worldly Tutor.
Any of those options seems better than cramming in more 3-4 cmc plays.
Imo there's always room to do two things, esp when the two things compliment each other can can be used as parts for the other plan.
Cryptic Coat is a good card that's going to see legacy play. It also works with Dreadnought. Then it's about finding the other cards that work in this plan, and I think there's enough to do it
Your list has 5 slots open, two more if we're willing to go to 18 lands. That's at least two more cars
Cutting to 18 lands while adding 4cmc combo pieces is probably a bad idea.
There's room to do 2 things or even 3 things. The question is if you can do them well or end up diluting the strategy.
A few pages back we looked at combining Scam & Dreadnought. You CAN do it but both plans get too diluted - win % goes up splitting them into 2 different decks.
The 35ish cards above look like a decent start. But if you cut some to make room for things like Vesuvan Drifter + Emrakul + Hide in Plain Sight + flicker effect + Eater of Days.... You could force it all together, but are you just watering down all the strategies and losing interaction? The mana curve would be a mess too.
Those 5-7 slots could go to "good cards" instead:
2 Legolas's Quick Reflexes
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Brazen Borrower
1 Sylvan Library
2 Once Upon A Time
Reflexes + Dreadnought is kind of hilarious. Precombat Legolas - too late to respond! -> - 12 target creature -> -12 target player
None of those cards are very interesting to be honest
What would you run instead?Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
The splits right now are 35% odds of Bowmaster, 34% chance of Tomb. Let's say 50% of Tomb decks have Chalice, you've got huge problems every other match. What you're doing is much less important than what *is* going to happen to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
OUaT and Lorien would be better positioned. Mana isn't good enough to support Otawara so Brazen x2 also a forced move (however more is needed vs Chalice). Notably these forced moves do not deal with a Bowmancer.
Didn't post a manabase. In UG I was picturing something like thisQuote:
Originally Posted by Fox
//20 Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Tropical Island
4 Island
2 Forest
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Otawara, Soaring City
+ 2 Wasteland / other utility land
2 Boseiju + at least 1 Borrower MD are outs to Chalice and Bridge, then FoV postboard.
There seems to be room for 1 Otawara vs 2nd Trop.
OuaT & Lorien are probably a better use of those slots. But if the deck has MD Worldly Tutor then there could be singleton targets. Need something to justify the Tutor (otherwise cut them, make more space).
2 Legolas seems very strong, something unique green can offer Dreadnought. Split Second + Hexproof + removal (ambush attacker or ping while attacking) solves all sorts of problems at once.
Another interesting lategame option is to have 1 Academy Ruins in the deck with Cryptic Coat. Can move Dreadnought from graveyard zone to top of library and cloak it (no draw step lost). Coat can repeat as often as needed. Ruins brings back Coat too. Grinds out all non-exile removal without needing much space.
This works a little better in UG Dreadstill, where you could use Elvish Reclaimer to tutor Academy Ruins (loop Dreadnought + Coat) and Karn to tutor Crucible (Ruins + Crucible + Wasteland inevitability) and have 1-of Wasteland 1-of Saga to loop with Crucible, maybe 1 Expedition Map too. But white exile removal is still a problem.
Legolas also gets better with Reclaimer: double activate in one turn, can tap to Bolt something at any time.
If cloaking/Manifesting cards and running creature tutors, Den Protector might be worth a look. Traverse the Ulvenwald would be easy to turn on with Dreadnought & Dress Down in the deck.
Start with coat and work from thereQuote:
Originally Posted by FTW
You posted 18 or 20 lands total which means 8x U Fetch and 6x U sources. This is implicit in either scenario, 18 or 20.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
In either case you're running at a 13.9% fail rate to obtain U in an opening hand (this %age does not mean you have a second land, a Ponder, or are willing to keep with a 1-land Brainstorm hand; this is the fail rate of the most optimal conditions). This is a rate worth attacking with off-color finds right color (Lorien) and/or OUaT, particularly when pairing such a mana base with high mana costs.
One of the issues discussed many times is that borrowing classic Delver mana base (18 lands) is that you need to match their cmc splits (you're overcosted vs what this manabase can provide).
The 20 land approach you've submitted is more correct given how heavily you're trying to hang around 3cmc. However you're still asking too much out of cantrip cartel vs every Chalice or Bowmaster [50% odds] with little counterplay (the consequence of playing UG). While the mana reliability is there (basics), you're still locked under "I can't draw cards" vs [insert effect]....which would be fine if you were like UG EurekaTell and could just win on the spot.
On the Dreadnought specialization stuff, you're going to get Surgical'd. It is important to avoid being left with enablers that enable nothing). The Surgical threat is another reason why larger mana builds of Nought use Karn.
LQR is fine, but Veil would be better vs combo. In either case however, you had to first do the big guy thing. The hard part here is that you did nothing to exhaust opposing resources before this point. Den Protector is a sweet card, but slow/expensive. The skulk-like text is relevant vs initiative (as long as you counter the 2/3 flying hippogriff thing), but the floor of this card maxes you out at 1x copy.
Concerning UG Dreadstill, we wouldn't run Standstill due to the removal issues of UG (particularly with Ice-Fang pseudo-removal matching up poorly vs Bowmancer). Reclaimer would be in there, but as previously discussed, it's a little too much to do all this stuff to make a Lotus Field so that we can have 2x Verdict without really adding a 3rd color. While the deck is quite fun, it is not good sadly. It's pretty telling when bending over backwards for Verdict has to be considered.
^Throwing Uro around Stiflenought-style, even with suspect mana was better than this, but now you have to deviate much more from Dreadnought things to unlock yourself from Bowmaster passive (and these builds never had a good plan for Tomb). Minimizing the Bowman passive damage before the Uro phase (Lorien/OUaT) is an improvement. The treecycler guy is fine at 1-2x.
While the games are unlikely to go up to 6 mana (7 vs Daze) very often, Veil would be better at avoiding the passive during Lorien hardcasts. Veil also better at lower cmcs with Brainstorm in deck vs passive....still, Veil has issues vs Tomb and you're still trying to reverse an advantage bar/playing from behind.
We can go around and around with different UG ideas, but they all end up in the same place where you can't navigate Bowman passive and Tomb. Add color 3 + higher cmc plans and the mana crumbles under the pressure. Add cantrip cartel and the sequence in inescapable.
Better matchup profiles are needed vs Tomb, Bowman, Beans, removal-based fair, Loam/mana denial. These builds can't rely on farming Delver and Thassa to top16s finishes anymore. This all starts with getting off cantrip cartel and flipping bad matchups.
I posted "20ish lands", then advised against going to 18. 4Dogs wanted to cut to 18. Clark wanted to cut lands/Lorien earlier too.
You say UG can't handle Chalice. 2 Boseiju + 1 Borrower = 3 MD 2-mana answers. Could add 2nd Borrower. SB can support Force of Vigor. Uro, Endurance & Coat can all win through Chalice @ 1 & Chalice @ 2 & 3ball. If opening hand really needs cantrips, could Force it. Between 4 FoW + 2 Boseiju + 1-2 Borrower, you're twice as likely to have an answer as they are to open T1 Chalice. Chalice should be OK.
Boseiju + Borrower + FoV answer Beans too.
Mana denial should be fine with 6 basics.
Bowmasters is a much bigger problem.
Deck could diversify draw effects: OuaT, Lorien, Brainstorm, Ponder, Worldly Tutor/Traverse the Ulvenwald (fix colors from G, Dreadnought + Dress Down deck gets easy Delirium). Could consider replacing some Brainstorm with Preordain for better T1 fixing and less Bowmasters risk.
Dress Down & Borrower stop Bowmaster passive better than Veil (army still grows under Veil). Could have Veils SB. It's dead in many matches. LQR kills Bowmaster.
Could consider playing more Subtlety (+Stifle combo) to answer dangerous accelerated creatures: Initiative, Turbo Muxus, scammed Grief. It also slows down Bowman and diversifies wincons.
LQR protects against white & red removal, Veil doesn't. LQR even protects Uro from Karakas. Split Second is big because you can cast proactively, not only reactively, and you always win (Veil is reactive and loses to 2nd answer in response). LQR works with small guys too (Endurance, Borrower).
How many answers can they afford when Ward is taxing each one?
If your cloak enabler costs 3-4 mana and their removal costs 1-2 mana then they can afford to pay the tax.Quote:
Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit
Edit: It also loses Ward when you flip. Much less reliable protection than Cloudform