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If anything, I'd opt for Karakas in a SB slot. It seems so situational - I'd try to fit in a 4th Wasteland instead. Even then, the list is so tight I don't know what to cut.
On a side note, I finally have all the pieces built for the deck. Played 5-6 practice games against Goblins with no SB, and dropped maybe 1 game. This is a real gem of a deck given that 40% of my meta is Goblins. It's either this deck or ANT, and I much prefer this one.
Following list won legacy tourney past weekend in here finland (40-50 players, dunno exact number).
Creature [21]
4 Fathom Seer
3 Jötun Grunt
4 Mother of Runes
4 Serra Avenger
2 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Weathered Wayfarer
Instant [17]
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
Artifact [5]
3 AEther Vial
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
Land [17]
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
3 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath
Sideboard [15]
1 Aura Flux
1 Aura of Silence
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Path to Exile
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spell Pierce
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
He won against ANT, Merfolk, Merfolk, Zoo and draw against zoo and u/b reanimator. Reanimator player was he's teammate. In quartes he won against zoo (2-1), semifinals against belsker (2-0) and finals against u/b reanimator (2-1,not he's teammate)
If someone like to babel here's link to finnish mtg forum and he's tourney report: http://vaihdetaan.kapsi.fi/forums/in...html#msg243088
I just startet testing this deck after I found a list online and wanted to convince me of Fathom Seer myself.I just finished reading the nice first post of this thread for I was not sure what kind of deck i was dealing with... Now that this is clear I can test further and ponder about some slots and card choices. After the first few test games I made so far, the following questions arose - sorry if these were already discussed in this thread, I did not want to read all 40 pages.
1.) Wayfarer is nice, as is Wasteland. But Wayfarer can get any land. Why would we waste a toolbox like that? Aren't there other Lands that do something? Manlands like Factory or Mutavault, latter of which could add a surprise effect against tribal decks which grant landwalk to their folks. We only have to run one of them since 4 Wayfarers are tutoring enough. In addition, Our Jotun Grunts can put them back into our library to be wayfarer'ed again should they die.(Of course this is meant as a 1-of addition to the wastelands, not as a replacement)
2.) As a friend of toolboxes as I am, why not exploit the advantages of the Stoneforge Mystic a little more? Has anyone conisdered Basilisk Collar? Imagine a mother with a collar, no ground creature will ever survive an attack again. 2 Jittes are minimum for this deck to work, but as with the land-box, we'd only have to add one collar to give us more options to fetch for good equipments if Jitte is already there or has left due to Extirpate or something like that...
3.) What about our Deck if our Jitte does not work? I know it sounds like "Goyf is bad, it can be handled", but reading the first post really made it seem like "stall till Jitte and win - or don't." It surely is not like that, but that chimp bone-club surely does a great deal of work. So what do we do if we play against Extirpate, Pridemage, Needle, Grip - ther are numerous ways to deal with it and people sure know that they have to be able to handle it.
4.) The matchups were displayed really well, as were potential SB plans. Has there anything been said on how this deck's matchups change due to opponent's sideboarding? Can opponents sideboard reasonable things against us (apart from Jitte-hate perhaps)? It would interest me if there is information about that around here...
So far....
Simon
Since all your questions have been answered 30,000 times in the thread, I'll only respond to the specific questions, in order:
1) Because there aren't any lands that are better that we'd want to draw, typically. Read like two posts above yours about a discussion on Karakous.
Of course there are lands that do things.
2) Because Jitte is the best. Would you run a toolbox that can tutor out Teferi's Moat when you could just get the real thing?
Yes.
3) Even without Jitte, you're still as strong as a modern Merfolk deck (that is to say -- not that strong, but still you can win games), except you have a much larger repertoire of tricks and you're facing an opponent who is using up resources to handle Jitte.
4) Yes, all the board plans are adjusted for what opponents are likely to bring in. E.g. we expect Zoo to have Kgrip.
Not really, the new metagame is pretty friendly toward UWT in terms of board hate. There are a lot of cards that could possibly see play: Nature's Claim, Null Rod, Dread of Night. The problem is that those are all bad or very bad against the rest of the field.
Nick, the other guy who played No Goyf at the same tournament finally wrote his report. Since he doesn't have an account here, I sum it up. First things first; here's the decklist:Quote:
Originally Posted by Little Red Riding Hood
//Lands
2 Plains
1 Island
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
2 Windswept Heath
//Creatures
4 Serra Avenger
4 Mother of Runes
4 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Fathom Seer
//Spells
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 AEther Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
//Sideboard:
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Aura of Silence
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 unknown card (probably the 4th Burrenton Forge-Tender)
He decided to play the 4th Wasteland instead of the 7th Fetchland and was satisfied with this decision after the tournament.
Matchups:
Round 1: LoamControl (not quite T21, but similar) 2-0
Round 2: LoamRock 2-1
Round 3: BantSurvival: 2-0
Round 4: NLS 2-1
Round 5: Ichorid 2-0
Round 6: ANT 1-1
Round 7: Ub Faeries 1-1
Both draws were unintentional. His opponent in R6 played really slow, in R7 game 1&2 took forever.
You can find a more detailed report here (Hippie = me, The Hunted = Nick), but beware; it's German. :laugh:
Fun fact; the Top8 had more Fathom Seers (8) than Tarmogoyfs (4).
Yeah, it was me. I already posted a small report here. Just to clear that this wont mess up with the data gathered. (No two tournament wins or something like that :) )Quote:
Originally Posted by Schembo
I have to say the final was quite juicy. He won the first game with a quick Iona. In second game he played Blazing Archon and I played Wheel of sun and Moon targeting him. I had Vial, mother and Avenger so he couldn't attack, neither could I. Turns pass and he gets a wipe away and plays it on the end of my turn returning wheel back. Then he entombs Iona and tries to exhume. I have Force. Next turn I figure out that wheel is pretty useless, so I play it out, targeting myself. He exhumes Iona again next turn and the game is pretty much locked. I start building my hand of 7 counterspells he tries to find his final outs. The game takes more than an hour. Finally he bounces my wheel, tries to thoughtseize. (if I have mother, he can reanimate it and win) Counter war begins and I would have won the game I had let the seize resolve (he was at 4 life) But because the seize don't resolve, he scoops because he has no outs left. I win the last one pretty quickly with counter back ups. Really nice game :D
The last few posts have shown that people are interested in using the toolbox "potential" of the deck.
Many laymen know of the sunk cost fallacy, where one "reasons" that he should use what he has already invested into. It stems from an illogical human desire to not waste things.
Logically, though, here we have the opportunity to use a toolbox, and we simply won't unless the cost outweighs the benefit. We're not automatically compelled to use it just because we happened to make it available to ourselves.
Anyway, as you can see our matchup against zoo is ~50%, and even less against some of the most anti-UW Tempo builds.
Matt and I will work to resolve this problem. We hadn't been as active, but Caltech just let out, and soon UCSD will let out as well. We'll work on it this spring break. Engineered explosives is looking like a possible solution. We've tested threads of disloyalty and perimeter captain, and found both to be terrible. Some modest theorizing reveals that submerge, harm's way, and the control magic for U with a cumulative upkeep won't work either.
Indeed we've actually tested the last one, though I forget what it's called.
Engineered explosives looks like it promises to handle sylvan library, unlucky draws where he just gets more business than we do, and from other decks empty the warrens, free artifact mana, elves, and counterbalance.
I believe that EE will earn 3 slots, and the rest will be dedicated to reanimator/control hate.
Mind Harness.Quote:
Originally Posted by pi4meterftw
Since cutting Weathered Wayfarer is the plan against Zoo, then being able to Wastelock them seems harder, so playing Path to Exile against them would be effective. It would also be effective against Merfolk, as cutting them off of their lords is definitely this deck's strategy against Merfolk. Engineered Explosives seems a little annoying when all of the deck's permanents would be susceptible to it. Even if you are trying to play around it, it can make for awkward hands.
The way the zoo matchup goes is they invest resources to actively remove our guys, so EE breaks the symmetry quite well.
Path to exile is terrible. We wouldn't run as sideboard "hate" more copies of swords to plowshares, and path's drawback is still as bad as ever.
I'd rather see my opponent gain even 12 life than hand him over the game. In fact, we still have wastelands.
I'll actually go as far as to say PTE is always bad. It doesn't "depend on the situation" or whatever. You wouldn't run the card if it worked in reverse, because damn, sacrificing a land is too steep of a cost. But giving your opponent one... that's okay.
I don't get why anybody would ever run PTE, especially before even maxing out swords. Even the most aggressive of decks suffer more from giving your opponent extra land than from giving like 2-4 life.
I've actually tested EE against Zoo. From every angle it sucked. They never had enough drops to make at least an even trade; I always had a vial, or mom, or any of the 2cc drops, so whatever cost I played it at, I would take away my own stuff. It also stayed useless when I was winning. The one time where it worked I EEd away Lavamancer with my own Vial for the win. Maybe I was doing something wrong?
Almost certainly you're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinefol
EE is just one of the cards we haven't tested, yet, so we like to try everything out. I'm kinda on the fence. Condemn was pretty decent, it turns Merfolk into a bye (if it wasn't already).
I can see why Path to Exile would be bad against Zoo, not because Path to Exile in general is a bad card, but because Zoo can make use of that extra land via Sylvan Library. If Zoo never ran Sylvan Library, I could see Path to Exile being a great card against them.
If Sylvan Library is what makes path bad, it also makes swords and codemn equally as bad. Short of lavamancer, you'll almost certainly be giving them between .75 to 1.5 of a card, and I can't see that being any better. For non-step lynx zoo varients, what you need to beat them is more guys that they need to path to trade effectively. Perhaps Loxodon Peacekeeper, I don't know, the pool of cheap fat blue/white creatures is kind of limited. Submerge is actually pretty decent against the step lynx builds as it helps to run them out of fetch lands.
It seems like you think there are decks that can't use the extra land. Look, path is bad. It would be more obvious to you if the cost of running it were made in reverse, but it's not.
The WORST case with swords is that you get like a -1 off Sylvan library because you gave him 4 life. (And this doesn't happen if you swords the two strongest cards against you: Lavamancer, QPM.)
And even then, it's only a regular -1. It's not a put a land into play tapped -1. And this worst case requires all the stars to align: you have to have swords, you have to have swordsed Tarmogoyf, he has to have sylvan library...
I don't know how to make it obvious that path is absolutely horrendous, but I only need to argue that it's not worth a sideboard slot to at least put this case away. It turns out that nobody should be running it, but I don't actually need that claim. It seems quite obvious it's not sideboard material though. (I.e. I don't know why the merfolk players with white are running it. Actually, I don't know why anybody runs merfolk with white. If you add white, you might as well be UW tempo.)
You misunderstand my post. I was not advocating the use of path in the sideboard or the main for that matter, but rather to point out to Citrus-God the major reason path being bad against zoo is not that libary lets them make use of that mana. I do this by demonstrating that swords allows pretty much the same thing, but there is no debate that swords is a good card against zoo. The problem with path is that you cannot use it early without fear of them getting way ahead, and when you can 'safely' use path you have probably allready taken enough damage to put you into burn range.
Congrats on the tourney result Matt, I'm that probant player that you saw playing the mirror and I had amassed an army of RWMs. One of my playtest guys built U/W tempo and I finally got to use it yesterday and it's impressive, almost makes me want to not use my goyfs and build this deck, almost :tongue:
I've only tested UW tempo a few games against Zoo, but those few games didn't seem like a problem with mother and stoneforge/jitte. The Zoo I played against didn't run Sylvan though so that's probably the difference.
Pi4meterftw, I'm by the Pasadena area, so if you're still around here we should playtest.
@Matt - I noticed at Knight Ware you kept the miser KOTWO maindeck and Clarence and I decided to listen to one of your previous suggestions by cutting it and taking the 3rd grunt out of the sb and into the md. Do you guys still support this change?
I'm no longer in Pasadena, because I have gone home to spend some time with family etc.
Matt didn't have the cards to support the change he suggested, although my understanding is he still supports not running KOTWO in some way.
As for myself, I'm not sure grunt is actually great to have as #3. The results its been putting up against zoo lately are not impressive. As much as you may think otherwise, grim lavamancer beats it, not the other way around. Qasali pridemage also causes it problems in blocking. With most zoo builds eschewing KOTR, and lavamancer beating it, grunt really only hurts goyf and the creature it blocks. This isn't terrible, but it wasn't the Godsend we had been hoping for.
I may still choose to run 3 maindeck, but it probably won't be motivated by how "great" it is vs. zoo, but rather that it completely shuts down other strategies, and it also lets me lock enchantress and stax.
I'm also cutting the 3rd vial, which I've been drawing doubles of way too much, for a 4th wasteland; now that everybody is playing multicolor in fear of iona, I haven't seen a deck without like 8+ wasteland targets in ages. Well merfolk, and even that has 4 targets, and another 4 targets sometimes if you don't control basics. I'm contemplating some changes right now, I'll write it in here when I figure stuff out.
I made a video similar to the ones Forbiddian has made and uploaded it to youtube. Goofed the editing tho cuz I had to do it twice and forgot to cut off the 2nd time, you can watch what I described that happens for the last 40secs-1min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaKYl3RheJw
Sorry if the audios not great on this one, I mumble alot. I will speak more clearly in later ones. I thought it was interesting tho how wayfarer destroyed this guy.
I hope to do some more so let me know what you think. I'm sure forbiddian is more entertaining though haha.
Hi, I will be commenting more now that I am on break. I'll also perhaps post some videos. (Or Matt will post them for me, if Youtube difficulties persist.)Quote:
Originally Posted by markbris
I'm going to comment this as I go through your video, so you can see what I think as the information becomes available.
You should not have wayfarered the first time you activate it during your main phase. This is one of those situations where an upkeep activation is appropriate.
Given that you topdecked arid mesa, you ought to have played that to threaten additional uses of wayfarer even if he did nothing. It also allows spell pierce.
At 5:20 you don't play jitte. You most definitely should've played jitte. This both guarantees your next wayfarer activation and avoids the cleanup step. Also, it stops the bleeding from vampire nighthawk. True that you're not desperate to stop the bleeding, but I can't see why you wouldn't start applying the pressure already. It's obvious you win this game. In a tournament, you'd be interested in finishing it as quickly as possible.
I stopped watching at 6 minutes. You clearly win. Nothing more needs to be said. (Wait, you didn't punt and lose right? Just checking.)