Didn't know what kind of info you're looking for.Originally Posted by FistaCuffSmith
Basically you are playing as a proactive control deck by assembling enchantment combos that take over the game. There's a lot more theory above about why I assembled it this way and picked out certain cards, but the jist of it is you're trying to disrupt the opponent from winning until you can play Helm and activate in the same turn, with counters to protect it.
If they're attacking your life total, you want to set up Rest in Peace + Energy Field and protect it. Then you can't take damage and it doesn't matter how many creatures they have out.
If they're casting dangerous spells, you'll want to use Counterbalance and manipulate the top card of your library to have the right mana costs to counter their spell. Use this to protect your other combos or to disrupt their main win conditions. You don't have to counter every spell with it. Countering a few key cards can be enough to swing the game. The threat of it is often enough to throw the opponent off, without actually using it on everything.
Scroll Rack + Land Tax lets you cheaply dig through a lot of cards in your deck and win by having more cards, usually better as a late game plan because it's too uninteractive in the early turns.
The deck can be complicated to play well if you're new to Legacy. Control decks and card selection engines involve more decision forks that depend on understanding what the opponents decks are trying to do and how to best use your tools to fight that.
Edit: Maverick should be favorable. Prioritize getting Rip+Energy Field online as soon as possible T3 or T4. Don't durdle with Scroll Rack early. Just jam Energy Field defenses. Then their game plan reduces to Green Sun's Zenith into disenchants (Knight of Autumn) or GSZ into Helm hate (Collector Ouphe, Gaddock Teeg). T2 Thalia OTP is probably the most dangerous thing they can do that really costs us tempo. That would be worth Forcing or StPing immediately. Otherwise as a rule in G1 don't bother fighting over random creatures. Save Force for Zeniths X=2+ (unless they're threatening something that wins immediately, unlikely) and that cuts them off their toolbox to answer you. As long as they can't use their Zenith toolbox you stay in control of the game. If they randomly draw into anti-Helm hatebears, Court of Cunning lets you win through them. Postboard bring in Web of Inertia (Energy Field #4), EE, and Detention Spheres (basically answers to permanent-based hate). Keep countering Zenith and be ready to counter SB Force of Vigor-type cards. I need to test this matchup more but I don't expect it to be a bad one.
Last edited by FTW; 05-17-2021 at 09:37 AM.
Looking forwards to hearing your results.
For a UW sideboard, what do you think about a couple copies of Meddling Mage? After G1 they are boarding out all removal slots and boarding in any and all enchantment kill. Meddling Mage on their disenchant of choice (Decay, Force of Vigor) should be an unexpected curveball and GG. This will work a lot better against random opponents at events than in testing with a friend who won't be caught by surprise.
That, being that you mentioned they will likely side out removal, looks to actually be decently effective. I'll add it to my sideboard for Friday and give it a go.
And, yes you are right. Since I usually play against the same opponent (my buddy Schlieb), he does expect stuff. He doesn't come here all to often though, so hopefully he doesn't see this. ;)
I actually need to start considering sideboards more often. I often, and I'm not alone, am so focused on the 60 that I slap together a cheap sb. I'm working on getting better at this.
"WaaaauuugghhhaaaauuugghhhaauuugghhhaaauuugghhhW" -Chewbacca
I am all for getting more information/theory on the deck, so thank you for that. I've played miracles in Modern before they banned mystic sanctuary...so I have a little experience, but definitely not in legacy. I will continue to test and slowly improve. I have everything proxied that I don't have, but I'm considering purchasing some pieces here soon. I really like the manabase with more basics...Do you think two Tundra is a must?
Hi FistaCuff! Welcome! Tundras are expensive. What I do, and I think a lot of Legacy players do, is get a set or a few and then just use proxies of them to fill out the rest of your legacy decks. I don't own 12 Tundras for all of my decks but I have proxies to spread for the 3 that I own.
Of course decks are better with Tundras rather than shock or pain lands but if your just wanting to test decks, which is what I do, I think you'll be fine. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here.
I saw that you were saying that you were new to legacy. IMHO, it is hands down the best format. I play a little Commander and Modern but Commander feels to casual for me and Modern is way to limited. You can do so much more in Legacy.
I think you are going to really like this deck too. There's not too many decks sporting 3 two card combos so there's a lot of games here that go different ways and I think that's what drew me in with it. Also, I was working an a Lantern deck that had some of the combos and saw that FTW was working on this so of course I got suckered in. You're gonna love this! And it is certainly competitive.
"WaaaauuugghhhaaaauuugghhhaauuugghhhaaauuugghhhW" -Chewbacca
2 Tundra are not a must. This deck has good mana. 2 colors. 8 fetches get either color. 8 cantrips. Land Tax fixes colored basics. Very few double color requirements.
You could cut down to just 1 Tundra. If that's out of budget, 1 Hallowed Fountain is an option. Most games you can fetch basics anyway. Tundra is mostly there as a back-up, to leave the door open to sequences of plays that would not be possible if you fetched a basic that turn (due to the order of color mana requirements, e.g. you want to pay W this turn and UU next turn). In those scenarios losing 2 life for no reason is not something people who already own Tundra want to do. But the 2 life for Hallowed Fountain won't necessarily lose you the game.
A lot of us run duals not because the deck can't work without them but because we already own them from back when they were affordable, so why not use them for better mana? It's a small advantage that may not be worth $1000 to you, which is fine.
@FTW and anyone interested in helping develop this deck:
So I had a chance to play this again. This time the results were not as good but I only played against 2 decks and both were fitted with the tools to beat it. We were purposely choosing our bad match ups. One of which was another Chalice deck. If you remember my Eldrazi match ups were 50/50 pre-board.
One such deck is Urza Echoes. I think we played 4 games and all in all I went 1-3. There was no sideboards here. Game one I smashed face by countering his explosive (glass cannon) hand. He essentially dumped a hand full of free 0cc artifacts including LED then tried to go off with Echo which got countered. This game was easy. The next few games were not as easy. That deck packs a lot of threats. Chalice set at 1 is bad but between Urza, Emry and Karn I simply just got overwhelmed.
Speaking of which, Karn is a major thorn in my side as well as all resolved planeswalkers. Another game it was Jace, the Mind Sculptor who eventually received his 12 counters enabling his "ultimate". So there are a few tweaks I think we should make. More on that later.
Next I actually got to continue my testing against Sharkstill and this time I DID have a sb. Game one I almost always beat Sharkstill. After we sideboard though my opponent sides out all creature removal which ends up being around 8 cards. Can't remember everything he sides out but a few cards are Moat, STP etc.. and he sides in 3x Court of Cunning and a slew of counter magic including Spell Pierce and more. Court of Cunning kicked my ass for the same reason that planeswalkers do. I can't remember which deck he was playing Teferi but Teferi is a bitch to deal with. Like planeswalkers I'm limited on ways to deal with CoC. I did remove one of his CoC with Detention Sphere but my opponent was still in possession of the Monarch token which garnered him an engine to eventually win the game. These games were close though and I feel that if I was more experienced with this deck I could have won several times. This leads me to a series of points I want to make.
1). This deck is amazing!! That is my main point. It is F-ing amazing!! One thing though, it takes a "Beautiful Mind" to pilot it. It is complex and there are a lot of decisions at your disposal. This deck in the hands of a skilled and experienced pilot could very well be unstoppable. Not sure if any of you remember the old Vintage deck Keeper, but this deck is very much like Keeper in that it can be unstoppable in the right hands. There were a lot of mistakes that I made. Because there are so many 2 card combos you have to pick and choose how you want to line up your next turn based on the tools that you have at that moment. An example of this is often I would be so concentrated on establishing my lock that I'd forget that I could just win on the spot by tutoring up Helm of Obedience. So many decisions!
2). The deck needs a way to deal with planeswalkers outside of counter magic. This imho is it's biggest down fall. I do have some ideas for the sb. A Vampire Hexmage type card such as Hex Parasite could not only be useful against planeswalkers but also Chalice. I'm sure there is something better though.
3). Meddling Mage was really good in the sb. So good that if I had been running more on the side I would have sided them in and they would have won me multiple games. (The idea is to side them in after your opponent has sided out all of their creature removal.) @FTW: This was a good call btw!
4). Scroll Rack is powerful in this deck! It's even better in multiples. Without it I wouldn't have won so many of the games that I've won. Paired with Land Tax to out draw my opponent it was clutch. Getting multiple in play allows you to to either counter two spells in the same turn with Counterbalance all the while drawing cards with Land Tax.
5). I feel like the deck at 19 land is a bit much. I got mana flooded a few times. At one point I cut a land for a lone Spell Pierce which seemed to help.
6). This deck beats a large chunk of the gauntlet. The reason we chose to test it against Urza Echoes is because we wanted to play it against decks that looked like bad match ups. Before we decided on Urza Echoes though we were essentially rolling dice to randomly select decks to test against it. A few decks came up that we just literally skipped because we already knew that they'd get stomped. It seems combo and aggro are our better match ups. Decks like Reanimator, Hogaack, Vial decks and aggro are fairly easy to beat.
My sideboard was lacking though so some of the games I lost I'm wondering if I could have one. It would also help if I was a better control player. I often forget EoT triggers etc..
That being said, here's the list I was running after I cut a land:
RiP / Helm Miracles: 60
Lock / Synergies: 15
4x Rest in Peace
3x Energy Field
3x Counterbalance
3x Scroll Rack
2x Land Tax
Win: 2
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Court of Cunning
Control / Removal: 14
4x Force of Will
2x Force of Negation
1x Spell Pierce
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Terminus
1x Detention Sphere
Search / Draw: 11
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Enlightened Tutor
Land: 18
4x Flooded Strand
4x Prismatic Vista
3x Tundra
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Karakas
Sideboard: 13 (my sideboard not only wasn't complete it wasn't up to par because I was missing stuff like Engineered Explosives etc.. which I substituted Ratchet Bomb etc..)
1x Detention Sphere
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Meddling Mage (I'd like to run at least 3 main maybe 4)
1x Narset, Parter of Veils
1x Cursed Totem
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Web of Inertia
1x Dovin's Veto
2x Deafening Silence
2x Spell Pierce
1x Helm of Obedience
EDIT: Here's the break down. Mostly pre-board. The only real bad match ups I've had are Urza Echoes and Enchantress. Eldrazi and BuG Threshold (I don't have UR Delver or Canadian to test it against) seem to be 50/50. The Sharkstill losses were only post sb. Pre-sb it is my game almost always. It pretty much, in my testing, beats everything else and that in itself is amazing.
Also, I feel that this deck could/should deserve it's own thread. Maybe even a new name.
"WaaaauuugghhhaaaauuugghhhaauuugghhhaaauuugghhhW" -Chewbacca
Thanks for posting your testing results! Glad you're enjoying the deck.
Yeah, in my experience the best matchups are aggro and combo and the worst matchups preboard are control and Chalice. The SB is mostly dedicated to slots to help those last 2. It might need more adjustment.
Urza Echo is a bad matchup. Rest in Peace naturally fights both Emry and Echo. Narset, Parter of Veils hates on their draw engine. But getting Mind Twist-comboed is hard to come back from.
Karn is game-ending. Must-counter. Detention Spheres and 6x Force is the best I could come up with. Also Court of Cunning as a secondary wincon that wins through Karn (even if they fetch Lattice after) and Pithing Needle @ Karn in the SB. It will be a bad matchup though.
That was true when I brewed and extensively tested Jeskai Breach too. Breach was degenerate enough to get banned in a month, and a resolved Karn was still practically GG. We never found good answers for it. Burning Wish for Consign // Oblivion and try to win before they recast it? Cantrip into Chain of Vapor? Enlightened Tutor for Detention Sphere? SB into more counters? Karn is fundamentally very strong against UWx control-combo, especially when the win condition is an artifact activated ability. We could SB more aggressively around Karn but I think ultimately it's OK to accept some cards are bad matchups.
There is one neat trick I picked up from Breach days. If they -2 for Lattice and cast it, you can float 1R and then Wear//Tear Karn after Lattice resolves (Karn will be an artifact!). Lattice is useless without Karn and then Helm is unlocked again too. That's something only instant removal can do. UW does have Cast Out, which may be worth a look over one of the Detention Spheres. There's always Disenchant too.
Jace, Teferi, Court of Cunning, Sharknado, Urza, Emry, Echo... these are all things that die to Red Elemental Blast. Your testing has me convinced the red splash may still be worth it.
REB was originally in there (over Spell Pierce) to blow up resolved blue threats like Oko, Teferi, Urza. Without creatures, answering planeswalkers is hard. Getting back the Monarch is hard too. You don't want to expend too many resources fighting over these things. 1-mana Vindicate/Counterspell is a clean answer.
ETutorable Pithing Needle also fights Jace, Teferi, Urza, Emry, Karn...
Good to hear. It could be good as a 3x. It consumes SB space but may be a neat trick. It also helps proactively prevent things like Karn, Jace, Court...
SB space is limited so we'll need to decide what to prioritize. We might need to be more limited with the ETutor SB, cutting cards with niche cases, to make room for multiples of generically strong cards like Meddling Mage and REB.
Very good point. This deck is hard to pilot well. Many decision forks and multi-turn sequences. Blue control is always decision-heavy. Control-combo can come with even tougher decision forks because you have to decide when to defend and when to be proactive. With multiple combos in the deck, each serving different roles, there are even more decisions about when to prioritize each and which ones to fight over. Your experience with Parfait must help a lot with all your Scroll Rack tricks. They're not as intuitive for a new player picking up the deck.
@FistaCuffSmith: That's something I meant to point out earlier. This deck is hard to play well and can be unforgiving to pilot error. If you curve T1 Land Tax T2 Scroll Rack against Burn, you will lose. If you're new to Legacy, you may be better off starting with an aggro strategy like your monoblack deck. Playing control well involves understanding how the other decks work, what they're trying to accomplish, what axes to pick fights over, and which of your tools in the 75 can help with that. If you bring a rake when you need a hammer, it's going to end poorly.
Earlier I mentioned vague instructions like "play out Rip-Field early" against Maverick. That must sound like getting lucky with topdecks as you just play out random combo pieces in your hand. It's not. It's quite deliberate and involves sequencing across multiple turns, and adapting that sequence to your draws and the opponent's plays.
Here's what a "fast RiP/Field" sequence looks like against aggro decks
T1 land, cantrip or EOT ETutor
T2 land, Rest in Peace (ideally you want basic Island + basic Plains at this point)
T3 upkeep ETutor or mainphase cantrip. 3rd land. Energy Field
That gets your shields up by turn 3, very fast, while still letting you hold up free counters to interact with problems or protect the combo! Very good tempo and mana utilization. But fetching the wrong lands, cantripping poorly, or getting distracted StPing something that doesn't really need to die could slow you down a full turn for no reason.
Now you won't always have the cards to do it that quickly. If your opening hand and T1 sculpting shows you won't be able to set it up in time for turn 3, you have to shift courses. Don't cast RiP turn 2! Instead spend turns 2-3 sculpting and interacting, aiming to drop both RiP + Energy Field on turn 4. Or turn 5. With some interaction, that should still be fast enough to get shields up. If their clock is slow enough, evaluate whether to shift to deploying Helm directly (go aggressive) instead of Energy Field (defense). This is another reason why you normally get RiP first over Energy Field. It leaves you open to either line.
If you just brick on cantrips and draws, you can try to set up a Terminus to clear the board and stall for time. Normally aggro decks play few threats at a time to avoid Terminus blowouts. Racing towards Rip/Field creates this conflicting tension forcing them to play out their hand and race you before your lock gets up, which can walk them into a big Terminus blowout if you fail to assemble the lock in time. Going for the lock is usually better, but Terminus can really set them back and buy you time. You can also play out naked Energy Fields to buy time. Keeping them guessing between which line you're going for can also steal advantages. T3 curve out is the ideal play, but there's also a lot of room for adjustments and counter play.
The tough part with this deck is you won't always want to go for a fast Rip/Field. It's usually the best line against aggro, but against other decks establishing Tax/Rack or Counter/Rack first is more important. You have to start planning for this several turns before actually sticking the combo. How do you know when to do that against a random opponent on an unknown deck? In my experience, aggro decks usually reveal themselves to be aggro decks by their turn 1 play (Hierarch, Mom, Vial, Cavern, Lackey, Swiftspear, Lava Spike, etc). After they've taken their turn 1 (your turn 1 or their turn 1 EOT), you should have a hint and can start sequencing. If their next play shows you guessed wrong, you may need to adjust lines.
This is the tough part about playing control in Legacy. There have been tons of articles written just about how to cast Brainstorm well. More on when to time fetchland activations and which order to fetch lands. These subtle nuances in Legacy can be the difference between a win and a loss, in a way that doesn't really happen in Modern. As a new Legacy player, it's a lot easier and more rewarding to pick up some aggro or linear combo deck first and get a feel for the format. Blue control, especially a deck like this, has more decisions and can be less forgiving for players new to the format.
I like to design decks where I can use an increased set of decisions, careful sequencing, format knowledge, or stack tricks to gain incremental advantages and outplay the opponent. That's how a lot of old school Legacy players liked to play but it's not for everyone, and it's very different from the play patterns in Modern, Standard and Hearthstone.
That's actually pretty great. According to MtgTop8 only 18% of decks are control the other 82% is aggro and combo.
I agree. Too bad Karn's ability shuts off Hex Parasite's activated ability. It's nice against other planeswalkers though. It can be tutored with ETutor and you don't have to sac it like you do with Vampire Hexmage. You can munch Chalice all day and then still munch planeswalker counters and then even attack the planeswalker to finish it off. Honestly though, if Karn is our biggest threat we're not doing too bad. We can just counter him and/or side Helm out for an addition Court of Cunning.
Bad ass! Good to know! I actually played a game where Karn was resolved and my opponent tutored for Teferi's Puzzle Box while he had Hullbreacher in play. That was F-ing brutal!
Again, I'm thinking a lone Hex Parasite on the sideboard might not suck after opponent has sided out creature hate. But I agree, Pithing Needle is tight here. I'm considering main-decking it as a one of to tutor for in the Spell Pierce slot that I have open. I do want red for REB though. Just not sure if it warrants a splash. Maybe with more testing. The mana base is tight. The whole deck is tight actually.
Yeah, Meddling Mage actually really took my opponent by surprise. My only gripe was that there wasn't enough of them. The pro-active strategy left him with some dead Standstills. Three Mage feels correct since he can't be tutored. Otherwise we are depending on getting lucky and top decking him.
That's why I love this deck so much. It feels like a classic Vintage style control deck along the lines of Keeper and Parfait. In the right hands and a sideboard tuned to the current meta it can/should be unstoppable. It feels like a classic.
I'm going to get the right sideboard together for my next session and keep you posted. I wasn't even running Pithing Needle.
"WaaaauuugghhhaaaauuugghhhaauuugghhhaaauuugghhhW" -Chewbacca
Have you played this lately?
Unfortunately I think the deck is dead post-MH2. It capitalized on most fair decks' inability to interact with a large number of enchantments. Now Prismatic Ending means an increase in MD enchantment kill, Urza's Saga gives decks uncounterable tutors into hate like Pithing Needle, and anti-Saga decks are getting more creative with their enchantment and artifact kill to go beyond the usual 1-for-1s we can overload.
When the opponent isn't sitting on a stack of dead cards and only few counterable outs, this deck starts to feel clunky compared to other control options like Bant.
I actually put this deck down for a bit, but I certainly have beat up on a variety decks with it. MH2 has brought a lot to the table though and I've already encountered Prismatic Ending (super annoying card). I've also already heard rumors of Urza's Saga being banned in Modern and it will certainly see a lot of play in Legacy. I guess we shall see.
I've got the deck together in paper though so I'm hoping it doesn't get hated out. I've been working on other decks at the moment, have you noticed if MH2 brought any new juicy cards to this deck? I can't think of anything off the top of my head.
"WaaaauuugghhhaaaauuugghhhaauuugghhhaaauuugghhhW" -Chewbacca
The best addition is probably that we get to play Prismatic Ending too. Then we get to play a more flexible card over disenchants/Abrade/Wear-Tear in the SB to answer Chalice, and we don't need as many copies of Detention Sphere either (slower and loses to opposing Prismatic Ending removing it). Detention Sphere is still better vs Karn and Jace but Ending is better against most other things.
We can also better hate out some of these decks since ETutor finds silver bullets like Energy Flux or Alpine Moon without costing much SB space. Energy Flux wrecks Affinity, Esper Sentinel decks, and random Urza's Saga decks. Alpine Moon conveniently handles Urza's Saga, Dark Depths, Wasteland, Field of the Dead, and Karakas so it comes in for many matchups. Amazing 1-of to tutor for.
We could consider boarding in some kind of Sterling Grove effect to protect our pieces from the increased enchantment hate and also tutor for silver bullets. Sterling Grove makes the green splash more interesting than the red splash, both protecting us from removal and increasing the ability to find silver bullets. We would also get Veil of Summer instead of Red Elemental Blast, which can potentially 2-for-1 counter wars (instead of 1-for-1) and also protects enchantments from Abrupt Decay/Assassin's Trophy and our hand from discard.
We could potentially run 1 Dress Down as a tutorable trick that cantrips, but it's probably worse than just running Humility if we really need to turn off creature abilities.
This is what I'm on post-MH2.
//Lands: 19
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Tundra
5 Island
3 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
//Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
1 Terminus
//Enchantments: 13
2 Land Tax
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
3 Counterbalance
1 Court of Cunning
//Artifacts: 4
3 Scroll Rack
1 Helm of Obedience
//Sideboard: 15
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Web of Inertia
1 Back to Basics
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Detention Sphere
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Flusterstorm
3 Meddling Mage
Counterbalance Curve
0 - 19
1 - 19
2 - 13
3 - 3
4 - 1
5 - 4
6 - 1
Library manipulation: 14 + Heliod's
Prismatic Ending is the biggest change for this deck, both for and against.
Gaining Ending means we have 6 1 cmc removals, which can be important in Ragavan.format (7 turn 1 answers including Karakas). But we can also blank Ragavan with Energy Field or put back blanks with Scroll Rack, so it isn't necessary to blow all our resources on the monkey. Often he can be ignored for proactive development. UR Delver really struggles to interact with our prison once on the board, so it's more important to prioritize that. Them cutting Borrowers for more 1 cmc beatz means they walk even harder to our prisons. Counterbalance @ 1 & Energy Field both wreck UR Delver.
Stp on Monkey with 1 open -> Opponent Forces -> Ignore it and resolve blue enchantment with Force backup -> win the game
Gaining Ending also means there's no more need for so many Detention Sphere. Sphere was our main out to problematic permanents (Chalice, Karn, Needles, etc). Multiple copies were required to have enough interaction, despite how bad it is on tempo. Ending now handles a lot of those issues while SB Sphere can still deal with high cmc problems like Karn.
Opponents (e.g. Bant, RagaStill) having access to Ending is a problem, though. It means more MD enchantment kill. But we can still fight with counters and try to overwhelm their few answers. Overall Bant should be a good matchup, because Uro is just 3-mana Explore and Endurance is just some textless Trained Armadon aggro creature.
Urza's Saga cheese is not really an issue. Most of their targets don't interact with our game plan. Pithing Needle @ Helm is a thing, but Prismatic Ending gives us more answers to that.
I'm not 100% sure on the numbers of FoN, Terminus, Ending and StP. It may be correct to have a 3-3 split of StP & Ending instead of 4-2. It may also be correct to have 2 Terminus 1 FoN instead of 2 FoN 1 Terminus. These small changes are meta-dependent and need testing.
I'm liking all of this a lot! Got some Prismatic Endings coming in the mail now. Just ordered them. Hall of Heliod's looks great.
I actually like -1 FoN and +1 Terminus. 4x StP seems correct but you're right, I'd like to see another Prismatic Ending in there. Not sure what to cut. Maybe 61 cards doesn't suck here.
Can't wait to get back to playing this and see how it holds up!
"WaaaauuugghhhaaaauuugghhhaauuugghhhaaauuugghhhW" -Chewbacca
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