Finally left the casual forum! :smile:
I have almost finished writing the specific matchup section. If you want to know more about some specific matchup, post it here. Also, suggestions are welcome! :wink:
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Finally left the casual forum! :smile:
I have almost finished writing the specific matchup section. If you want to know more about some specific matchup, post it here. Also, suggestions are welcome! :wink:
I've found another deck that ended 2nd in a big Legacy Tournament. I think the decklist is interesting for all those that prefer slower, more controlish builds, because it plays more like traditional Rock builds. I would use Quirion Rangers instead of rituals, tough.
"The Cure" by Enrico Cruz
4 elvish spirit guide
4 bayou
4 forest
4 swamp
4 windswept health
4 berserk
4 pernicious deed
4 summoner's pact (very important!!!, its ESG 5-8 (when going FTW), or free 5 damage from skyshroud cutters 5-8 when going off)
4 thoughseize
4 false cure
4 reverant silence
4 invigorate
4 kavu predator
4 skyshroud cutter
4 tarmogoyf
thoughts: i used to goldfish this deck quite a bit and it was alot of fun. however i disagree with some card choices
mongrel: is a waste, all the cards in this deck are useful and i am not trying to pitch them to him for 1 point more of power (2 with berserk)
Bob: bob is slow and eats removal if the opponent is stupid (if they are smart they let bob kill you) running 8 cards with cc of 4 is bad with bob.
the white splash: garbage the only maindeck card you gain is swords which while good doesn't warrant changing the mana base. heroes reunion does not make the cut as there is no room in the maindeck for it also you need 4 lands out for it to do any damage to the opponent IMHO its too weak. Teeg is solid although only as SB to deal with ANT.
So excuse me for a moment, are you a complete idiot?Quote:
Originally Posted by hwtcharger07
You just said that killing Bob, a card which completely turns the game in your favor, and is probably the best card in this deck, is a horrid idea because you lose life? Drawing two cards a turn is an extremely powerful effect, and at two mana, Bob is in the top 5 creatures ever printed, if not the best.
While I agree that Teeg is a great sideboard card, calling Swords to Plowshares not worthwhile in a deck that wants to give the other dude life is really odd (plus, sending Naught farming with False Cure/Kavu out is the nuts). Going three colours isn't a big deal at all, you just need two Savannahs along with 8 fetches and you're good.
Also in your list, Deed just seems really really bad. Deed is a great control card, or a good sideboard card. In an aggro combo deck, Deed isn't what you want to be doing, those slots would be better as Swords.
Not running Tarmogoyf in this deck is a mistake. If your combo decks disrupted, you always have Tarmogoyf to fall back on, plus him plus Berserk seems awesome.
Pro Tip, Berserk double as psuedo-removal. After damage resolve, just Berserk the dude you want to die.
Unfortunately, this doesn't work like you want.Quote:
Originally Posted by lorddotm
Cast Berserk only before the combat damage step.
Target creature gains trample and gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is its power. At the beginning of the next end step, destroy that creature if it attacked this turn.
But you may choose to take doubledamage in some extraordinary situations (I can't imagine such an occurance when piloting this deck)...
Lame shit.Quote:
Originally Posted by eq.firemind
Please let's keep this thread friendly. As I said on the first post, very innocent-looking variations to the deck can have an huge impact on performance. Dark Confidant can be truly horrendous if your deck is on average a turn and a half or two turns slower than the currently posted decklist. That difference in speed is what makes Dark Confidant bad for him, even though it's so amazing.
The main concern with swords to plowshares is that it strenghtens matchups that are already much in your favor, and also makes the mana base less consistent. In fast builds creatures shouldn't be your main concern, but I don't want to shut the door to an obviously good card with great sinergy.
And about Tarmogoyf, it's not as easy as it looks. Goyf is amazing and makes the late game wonderful (in the same way that Confidant makes the late game horrible), but he's not a good first turn drop to start building pressure (in the sense of 'answer this or you die next turn'). He can't race combo decks as easily as mongrel or leech, and he's much better target for steal effects than those two. There's also the fact that it's quite hard for this deck to make Goyf big, because it doesn't run artifacts and enchantments, and your creatures tend to be exiled (elvish, kavu) rather than destroyed.
But I think I have an interesting idea for an alternate list that might make more people happier. I will try to post it later. :wink:
Hello again.
I spent some hours using the search fuction on many forums to learn more about what other people that had played or faced the deck had to say, to get feedback about 'blind playtesting'. I also asked some testers about what they didn't like about the deck, and that's the information I got.
1. Many people hated to lose to this 'deck that doesn't win any tournament', specially enchantress, heh.
2. People seriously enjoy their Tarmogoyfs.
3. Some people don't like to discard cards to mongrel.
4. Competitive players were unable to get a consistently win ratio against threshold, which I claimed was a really good matchup.
5. Some testers don't enjoy that the 2cc slot is too clogged up (which is why this deck works so well with/against Chalice of the Void). That's a concern because threshold plays 4 Spell Snare, 4 wastelands and 4 stifle.
With that info, I conducted a little experiment today with the following goals:
1. Get a better win/ratio against Thresh
2. Find a good 1cc card that I can side out game 2 to get Chalice.
3. Test Tarmogoyf as a mongrel replacement.
To avoid variability due to pilot skill differences, I played against myself. I took a standard canadian thresh list (the best one, according to many people) and played a lot of matches against a Cure deck to which I had done the following changes.
-4 mongrel -2 Putrid Leech -3 thoughtseize +3 tarmogoyf +3 Hidden Gibbons +3 duress
The results of the test were a bit devastating. 3 Tarmogoyf was one too few and I couldn't put any pressure to the canadian thresh. In the original build, sometimes you get to land a mongrel because it's hard to justify casting FoW on it when holding a hand full of direct damage, but that's not the case of Tarmogoyf which is a magnet for counters. Another problem was that Goyf couldn't just be played turn one and hope for it to survive against direct damage, which gives enough time to the Thresh player to play a land and enable daze. The conclusion is that Goyf cannot replace Mongrel. Sorry pals, I tried and failed. He is at most beater #9-12 on this deck.
Duress was a bit better than Thoughtseize, which is mediocre to say the best. The only card you want to discard is Goyf, and Thresh can protect him with brainstorm or search for more with so many drawing and shuffle effects. Not even losing a FoW hurts, because if it had been a card worth countering instead of Duress, it would have cost FoW, another card, and a life instead. You can't play 1cc discard in this deck and still hope to get a good game 1 against Canadian Thresh, because it just doesn't work.
However, Hiddens Gibbons is an entirely different story. You cast one 1st turn and suddenly the opponent stops stifling your lands or sculpting perfect hands with Brainstorm. They start to miss land drops, too. He thinks twice about using Fire/Ice on your Dark Confidant, and let's not talk about Playing TWO Gibbons first turn out of an ESG/Petal. I saw that from the Thresh side, and I could sense my frozen, tainted heart just falling to the floor, and the panic of totally losing the control of the board in just one moment. And that, my fellows, is the sincere and moving touch that I want all my opponents to feel when they face against me, so I'll be playing Gibbons from now on.
Hidden Herd could another possibility like gibbons could be working off non basic lands. Its hard to find any decks in the format now that dont play non basic lands. It may not be as powerful as gibbons but could be a solid creature. The only problem is that chalice at 1 just hurts the deck alot if both gibbons and herd are in at the same time.
Could you post your latest decklist when you get a chance? I think hidden gibbons is an excellent addition.
Edit: Question answered in the first post. Somehow I missed it. I still think 60 cards is the way to go but that's just one man's opinion. Good luck with the deck!
Also, the current decklist seems to 61 cards. Is that a typo or is there anything that could possibly be cut to bring it down to 60?
You can cut a land if you don't mind doubling your mulligans. Other than that, the safest slots to take out/replace are the ones for Thoughtseize and Leech. But 2 thoughtseizes are too few to be useful, and if you take out both leeches you end with too few beaters (actually, it's still enough, except in that 2 counters/removal spells totally shut you then).
This is totally stupid. I'm testing replacing the leechs with Tarmogoyfs, but when I do that, I get consistently awful hands with no land after three mulligans, or manaflooded. But then I play the old decklist again and the god hands return! O_O
It's totally frustrating. two leechs for two tarmogoyfs shouldn't change the behavior of the deck in MWS at all, let alone this much. I'll try to post the mwsDeck files to see if someone can replicate this, or its just my computer.
Edit: Actually, it's the precise combination of 3 Hidden Gibbons 2 Tarmogoyfs that produces this, using thoughtseizes and/or leeches doesn't have this behavior.
I played today at local legacy tourney and went 2-3 :frown:
List is same as front page, i only replaced leeches with tarmogoyfs. I winned ichorid and top/c.balance ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh and i lost 2 times for merfolk and for tempo ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh.
Both merfolk games i winned first game but then lost round 2/3. Lost three times for my own predator that was taken over with mind harness :eek:
Newer got that Reverent Silence when u need it.
But i got nice time with this deck and next time need to try some new tricks.
Hi, Schembo. From the sounds of it, you were doing pretty well until you got hated out so badly. Good to know you still had fun with the deck! Hope next time you'll have more luck.
I'm right now conducting another experiment to test the MWS randomizer. This time, I played 100 games (50 going first, 50 going second) with a deck with 3 Gibbons and 2 Tarmogoyf, but here's the twist: I'm playing the gibbons as Thoughtseizes and Tarmogoyfs as Putrid Leeches. I'm trying to test if the MWS shuffler is truly random and impervious to user input, or if the "random seed" can be manipulated depending of deck composition.
These are the statistics after 100 games:
Going first:
Average Winning Turn: 3.6
% 2nd turn kills: 10%
% 3rd turn kills: 40%
% 4th turn kills: 36%
% 5th turn kills: 8%
% Fizzles: 6%
Mulligans required: 0 (78%) 1 (16%) 2 (2%) too many (4%)
Mana floods: single (18%) double (2%)
Mana screws: single (20%) double (2%)
Going second:
Average Winning Turn: 3.46
% 2nd turn kills: 12%
% 3rd turn kills: 50%
% 4th turn kills: 22%
% 5th turn kills: 8%
% fizzles: 6%
Mulligans required: 0 (84%) 1 (10%) 2 (0%) too many (6%)
Mana Floods: single (10%) double (2%)
Mana Screws: single (14%) double (0%) triple (4%)
Mana screw is defined as no lands. Mana flood is defined as 5 or more lands+accelerators. Double means getting the same problem right after mulliganing. Most goldfishes were won on turns 3 to 5 despite mana troubles due to taking risks and lucking out. Others weren't as lucky and are included as "fizzles". Fizzling is penalized the same as a sixth turn win in the above calculation.
Some numbers are better than the ones on the first post, due to random variation. I'll test another 100 games later with the other decklist and see what happens.
That's some odd logic, saying Mongrel is better because the opponent won't counter it as he's not afraid of it. It's GOOD to play stuff that your opponent wants to counter because it means that the card is a threat to him, otherwise you could replace Mongrels with Grizzly Bears which I assure you are never going to get countered by anyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
I'm not saying that Mongrel is good because he is not a threat. I'm saying that he is good because he is deceiving. He doesn't seem as dangerous as he truly is. Let's say that you are a Thresh player, and you have the following hand:Quote:
Originally Posted by georgjorge
Force of Will, daze, Lightning Bolt, fetchland, fire/ice, volcanic island, trygon predator
Then, your opponent plays Wild Mongrel.
You can counter it with FoW and take away spell snare/trygon, OR you may let it pass because you kep FoW and Daze against other threats, and lightning plus predator plus fire/ice to stop the mongrel.
You let it pass, then on your turn cast lightning on it, and he casts invigorate, you play daze and he removes an ESG. Ok, so then you have either to waste another 2 cards on FoW, or let the dog enter. This example costs you 4 cards if you want to get rid of the dog, and you are left in very bad position against the rest of threats that will come after him. Or, you let the dog survive, but you no longer have cards that can deal with him.
Of course, you can simply FoW the dog from the start, but that's not obvious. :wink:
Now, suppose that instead of a Mongrel you see a 3/4 Tarmogoyf, then the obvious thing would be using FoW, because killing him with bolt is not an option.
Ok. Here's the second part. Another 100 games but with the original decklist this time:
Going first:
Average Winning Turn: 3.75
% 2nd turn kills: 4%
% 3rd turn kills: 36%
% 4th turn kills: 42%
% 5th turn kills: 18%
% Fizzles: 0%
Mulligans required: 0 (76%) 1 (20%) 2 (4%) too many (0%)
Mana floods: single (8%) double (0%)
Mana screws: single (18%) double (4%)
Going second:
Average Winning Turn: 3.34
% 2nd turn kills: 10%
% 3rd turn kills: 54%
% 4th turn kills: 30%
% 5th turn kills: 4%
% fizzles: 2%
Mulligans required: 0 (86%) 1 (12%) 2 (0%) too many (2%)
Mana Floods: single (6%) double (0%)
Mana Screws: single (16%) double (0%) triple (0%)
The first ten games were really atypic and account for half of the mulligans, half the mana screws and a third of the mana floods of the entire 100 tests; I put two statistics (including and excluding them from the calculations). I fizzled a single game in which I kept a hand with 5 lands thinking I would draw soon a beater or a combo piece, but instead got even more lands and an elvish spirit guide.
The data size is maybe too small to prove something, but the data I got was:
"bad hands" (either too many mana sources or too few)
Untouched decklist: 32% (23.75% not counting first 10 games)
Proxied decklist: 43%
fizzles
Untouched decklist: 1%
Proxied decklist: 4%
Average winning turn
Untouched decklist: 3.545 (3.5125 not counting first 10 games)
Proxied decklist: 3.53
The consistency felt much worse. Twice the number of bad hands, which prompted 4 times as many fizzles, which in turn slowered the clock due to the penalty I used on the calculations. Could this prove that MWS shuffler sucks? Do bad hands happen in bursts? Was this caused by random variance, or can you mold the "random seed" in your favor? I just got more skilled after 200 games? Can someone pass the same test?
Having just got a couple of Berserks due to FTV: Exiled I have been looking at decks to use them in and I really like the False Cure style.
I realised it does not work with Ranger but would having a couple of Overgrown Tomb's not help with getting the double Black & Forest on turn two? Did a search and could not see it having been discussed anywhere.
Overgrown Tomb kind of works, but you never want one and it can deal a ton of damage to you in this deck. I tested them and hated them so much. I was really hoping for better suited duals on M10 but there was no such luck.
The deck doesn't need a full set of Bayous to work, though, and if rumors are true, Zendikar will provide the much needed enemy fetchlands. Fortunately, 2x Berserks plus 2x Rite of Consumption is almost as good as a full set of Berserks. It's almost as if the designers were trying to attract more people to play this deck, heh.
Hope you enjoy it!