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I didn't play any turn-1 kill decks, no storm. The only matchups where I feel that FoW is a "must." My new sideboard does add counterspells though. I like Revoker over Fow, and the two fight for space too much to warp the deck otherwise. Revoker comes in for many decks where Fow is just horrid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Postman
Ok, so you knew about the meta? I often face unfair decks like Tin Fins or Spiral Tide, that's why FoW is some kind of resident in my SB.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
Are you going to keep experimenting with bridges?
I made a meta prediction of little-to-no storm. BUG delver is currently stomping storm hard, and combo in general as well. Thus the only combo decks that are viable are blood moon variants, which I played against multiple times that were doing well. Meta prediction was spot on, and I was rewarded for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Postman
Well...great job! :-) Thanks for explaining, and please keep piloting this awesome deck!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
So, grats again, Rock! Great to see you back in action. I have a few questions for you:
Against Shardless BUG in the Top 4, by the sounds of it, you didn't board in your Ensnaring Bridge? Is that what you were alluding to?
How did you board in general? Especially against all your BUG matches, I'm curious what you took out.
And finally, considerably less relevant: who does your alters? I'm in the process of getting some alters done myself and I was curious :)
So I tweaked Rock's list and have been testing the following online tonight.
//Lands: 25
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
2 Vesuva
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Khalni Garden
1 Forest
1 Island
//Creatures: 7
4 Primeval Titan
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Artifacts: 12
2 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Expedition Map
3 Pithing Needle
4 Sensei's Divining Top
//Instants: 13
4 Brainstorm
4 Crop Rotation
4 Repeal
1 Moment's Peace
//Sorceries: 3
3 Show and Tell
//Sideboard: 15
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Force of Will
3 Swan Song
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Karn Liberated
I first played against 2 Storm people in a row. I managed to win 1 game one where he miscalculated by going into Tendrils for exactly 20, and I Crop Rotated into a Glimmerpost to survive at 1. I then Expedition Mapped for Bojuka Bog and that left him with nothing. What I learned, besides siding Force is likely overrated at the moment, is the Phyrexian Revoker helps a lot, but Storm Players have wised up to being shut out of Lion's Eye Diamond. I need more practice against storm though.
I played my first mirror, and boy is it scary. He didn't know the Posts look at all Locus on the battlefield until I played my first Glimmerpost, but regardless of that, I managed to get Candelabra game 1 to pull out Kozilek before he could find his cards to abuse the mirror situation. Game 2, I sided in Revokers and Karn, and locked him out of Candelabra because he 6 Locus while I was stuck 2. That helped a lot and then I locked Sensei's Divining Top with another Revoker to seal the game because I had Titan on Board, and he told me that stuck him with 3 lands he couldn't do anything about.
Other big thing I played was Goblins (3 people played them!). I went toe to toe with them, except one game where I decided mulling to 4 was not worth my time. Glacial Chasm, Needles, and Phyrexian Revoker helped me pin down games. I'll go back and check the replays, but my ratio off the top of my head was about 50-50.
What I learned:
I need practice.
I played Khalni Garden after I rewatched Lee's Top 4 and realized that at three points (each involving Liliana) that token would have served as an out that would have definitely let Rock Lee win with his threat on the next turn. While I don't recall any situations where the token made a huge difference to me tonight other than when I Repealed it once for the cantrip against storm, it was useful to have to test further. Especially against Goblins because it was another blocker.
Goblins apparently play Krenko, Mob Boss. If I hadn't Needled one, I probably wouldn't have won a game I did.
With Cabal Therapy in full force (oh, worst game, a guy forced me to walk into getting 3 Revokers with one in a game because he Duressed my other counter after peeking with Probe), Force will go to Mindbreak Trap. It's a less common blind call, and they have to hit it rather than other blue cards to keep it off balance.
Having 3 Eldrazi: I actually never drew into Ulamog, Kozilek was useful, and Emrakul did what Emrakul always does. I know running 3 Eldrazi is questionable right now, but so far I haven't felt bad about all three still being present in my deck. I've had thoughts of perhaps moving Ulamog to the side because the idea of Vindicate that has to be Stifled instead of countered... then solved again anyway... is something that still seems toolbox-ingly useful enough to warrant space.
Speaking of Toolboxing, a card I may take up testing soon is Tezzeret the Seeker because fishing artifacts a la Trinket Mage is great, but Tezzeret has repeatable by -1'ing seems like it'll draw attention away from my face while advancing the board heavily in my favor while the possibility of Double Candelabra Tawnos activation seems like a nice bonus. I haven't mustered enough desire to actually test it yet, but after testing tonight, I think the thought is worth mentioning.
Was moments peace strictly better than a sweeper? Any scenarios come up that show that? What about Karn? It's window seems very narrow, especially in 10 post.. You're basically at ulamog mana thereQuote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
Nice wins!!!
can u add what u sideboard in and out of the matchs that u have played? at least tiers pls, im a bit lost trying to sideboard nice ur list. Thank you and gz!! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
Absolutely better than a sweeper. Often used moment's peace as an effective 2/3 mana 5+ life gain on goyfs, or as a response to annihilate 6 board reset on emrakul. The games I used it on its effective health gain would have allowed me additional copies of glacial chasm, something sweepers don't, as they usually hit at the cmc where you're too low health to efficiently multi-copy.Quote:
Originally Posted by TimHarding
I had someone counter the first copy, then I flashed it back and was free to untap and cast titan. I removed it several times on my turn to cast it in response to a DRS, which didn't prevent on my turn but did prevent the 2 life loss. Of course the biggest aspect is giving another chasm-effect against elves, which I didn't play against all day, but did come up against effectively in the top 8 with Eli Kassis and his Natural Order Bug -> Craterhoof list.
TLDR: Odd interplay, but it did work well. The 2/3 CmC slot is perfect when you're just trying to stall, you already have great things to do at higher cmc.
Regardng Karn, I cast him 3 times just during this event off of 5 mountains and 2 basics and activated him multiple times, two things Ulamog couldn't do. One of those 3 times the person just scooped as they realized they were locked out of the game because of karn's one-sided liliana effects. The other time they scooped to me exiling a Painter and Grindstone, which meant I could restart the game and kill them on turn 1. I also side in karn vs most forms of combo to deal with their sideboard answers and to remove their ability to achieve critical mass while I am able to side out high cmc win cons on my part for 2-4 cmc wincons.
THIS is the important part.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
The deck is not short of things to do at and after 6 mana. It's the turns before that must be carefully crafted. Playing around wasteland, hand disruption, craterhoof, etc.
Moment's peace is great at buying time in the early turns and allow us to either setup for a win or hide behind glacial chasm w/o having to sacrifice too much tempo.
But the foilys are so expensive :'(Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
Moments peace does test well though, nice to another instant trick
Gratz for the finish Rock Lee!
I like your list and may try it sometimes, most of all because all the love you gave Karn (I love this guy too).
I know that right now it's not much played, but Gaddock Teeg effectively stops all your removals.
Still, for the UG version the only removal that is not stopped by gaddock is oblivion stone, so it's not that much of a questioning, but I wanted to point it out in case the meta would became friendlier to Gaddock again.
Cheers.
Hey bro. You know what this does to gaddock tegg?Quote:
Originally Posted by kingtk3
http://i.tcgplayer.com/3925.jpg
Sadly I don't have an exact in/out list. I play it by ear, I read their deck, and perceive nuances they have and preferences they have in their play. I can give some general preferences as I have in the past. But I don't have a copy/paste "this is how you play the deck" because that won't work with a responsive control deck that punishes play errors due to lack of countermagic or excessive cantrips.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivan
The deck is designed to be played masterfully. Something that can't be said of any other competitive Legacy deck (perhaps caveat'ing Food Chain). I have played builds in the past that were easier to play, and ultimately they were weaker.
This isn't the most helpful statement to make since I have been playing the deck over 4 years, but experience will tell you the weak cards to side out and if excessive siding in is possible.
That being said, I will give a general "you side these IN vs" list tonight while puttering about work.
Karn tech seems pretty sweet...wonder how you found out about it....:wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
Must have been some guy named catrone...
Updated Round 8, Top 8, and Top 4 with Starcity Videos!
Maybe it's just me, I still find it considerably more difficult to determine what to side out as opposed to what to side in...then again, I've only been playing the deck at "full strength" for a couple of months.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
Pulled out my RUG bonfire list for a side event last weekend because I was too tired to figure out something more appropriate to play and had no idea where my O-Stones are stashed away anyway. 5 round event, beat Esper (aka *** BYE ***) and 4 color Delver, had a narrow 2-1 loss to UR Delver (kept a tricky hand and his Gitaxian Probe dissected it completely, Stifle is such a monstrous card against us), lost 2-1 to the 5 lord draw from Merfolk (which conveniently kept everything one toughness ahead of my Bonfire =( ) and got demolished by ANT despite the old 12 card sideboard. If anything this cemented my previous uneasy feeling about FoW in this deck.
Not a strong result, but it felt alright for not having played in a while and having an unadjusted list to the post-TNN meta. Came home to Rock Lee's SCG feature match and was pleasantly surprised. Moment's Peace seems to do exactly what Bonfire has failed to properly accomplish in the last 4 events I played in. As much as I love miracling people for 20 to the face it just felt a tad too awkward a tad too frequently. Really liking the look of the new UG list, and enjoyed the couple of test games I played with it last night.
In any case, I've got a couple of questions on it and the recent development of the deck in general:
-It looks like most people are down to 25 lands, including a Glacial Chasm, and the awkward Bojuka Bog being back in the main deck as well. Do you ever feel like this is too low of a count or have you been doing just fine with it? A part of me just wants to squeeze in a 26th land somehow.
-In a similar vein, is the 4th Tropical Island absolutely necessary? I don't currently have access to one so it's a moot point for me anyway, but even if I did I'd feel like I'd want another fetchland in that slot, especially now that we don't have Trinket Mage to shuffle anymore. The top of my library tends to aggregate a lot of junk fairly frequently, and I'm usually rather happy about any shuffling opportunity that is presented to me. I also just like the ability to blind fetch for a basic land on non Crop Rotation opening hands.
-On a related note, are the 4 Brainstorms really all that important? I know this might come close to blasphemy, but I'm very frequently not all that excited by them. As far as Brainstorm decks go I just don't feel like we're quite up there, mostly because the deck already relies quite heavily on Top (or at least, I do, not sure if that's just me being completely rubbish). I cut one of the Brainstorms for a Ponder for testing yesterday and have been quite pleased with the swap so far.
-I have no idea how to feel about the full set of Revokers in the board besides the 3 Needles in the main. Do we really need access to a full 7 of this effect? I honestly don't know, I haven't tested against a wide enough variety of decks yet to answer for myself, but I somehow want to make room for a Venser or two. I've grown really fond of that card as a universal catchall for the midgame. Might just be an unnecessary crutch though.
-Am I the only one that has an unreasonable love for Mox Diamond in this deck? It's another relatively stable source of green mana against a non BG deck, it allows you to convert some of these awkward utility lands into colored mana where necessary and importantly, speeds up your game significantly in the matches where you just want to jam Show and Tells in their face as quickly as possible. Not requiring a third color of mana, not having Engineered Explosives anymore and lacking Trinket Mage in the current build makes it a rather questionable 1-of, but the card's done some good work for me in the past. Just wondering if I'm alone in that assessment, even if it has no real slot in the current build.
-Is there any merit to running Ulamog over Kozilek? I assume the one mana difference is probably more relevant than I would assume right now, but the destroy trigger has been a really useful crutch for me in the past. Then again, drawing 4 cards is also quite the thing. Unless you have to cast him into a Notion Thief... I'm still shivering.
I probably still have a lot to learn about the deck but I'm enjoying playing it as much as when I got it first a year ago. Moment's Peace really seems to be the missing piece I've been looking for, I hope it actually tests as well as I think it will currently, but it seems to have done remarkable work last weekend already, so that's a good start.
I have some questions about ur list compare to my list http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=13154&iddeck=96523. Why not cavern of souls? Why not ulamog? And in sideboard, why not Tabernacle? Why not Venser? Why not Baloth? I will wait for ur post about what to side in in ur list. I want to play a big tournament with this deck in 2 weeks and I want to update my list similar to ur list maybe the same. I expect a lot of Miracles there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rock Lee
...Quote:
Originally Posted by Togores
FACEPALM...
I completely forgot about karakas... I guess that until maverick will see more play it will be enough.
Sent from my mobile, forgive me for grammar errors.