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Thread: Legacy Spirits

  1. #41
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    @reeplcheep
    Yes, easier said than done, however, it may be possible with Lingering Souls.

    Dorothea : the front looks ok, imo. The problem is in the back ( enchantment )
    Who do you put this on ?
    You need evasion AND survivability for that creature or it's worthless.

    Just brainstorming here, but if the deck could have more full board hexproof and more lords it might work out.
    say
    4 Captains
    4 Phantoms
    3/4 Phantasmal Illusion. If they can copy a Captain you give both hexproof and both +1/+1 and +2/+2 to any other spirits.

    Not saying this will work but it may be worth trying.

  2. #42
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Millicent seems unplayable. It doesn't boost anything UW spirits was trying to do.
    If you use tokens to help cast it (Lingering Souls, Spectral Procession, Moorland Haunt) then it loses payoff. The ability doesn't trigger with tokens. A vanilla 4/4 flyer isn't worth those hoops.

    Dorothea is interesting. Not sure it's playable but it has potential as a flying deathtouch wall. You can leave it on defense as an early 4/4 flyer to stonewall DRC, Delver, Endurance, most creatures. If they attack into it you trade 1-for-1, then Disturb it before attacks for an advantage. Otherwise it buys tempo to get more threats and disruption online. I like that in a pinch you have a way to send it to the grave (attack for 4) so you can Disturb it. That may not be worth a full card slot, with so many playable 2s, but it's interesting.

    I would not go out of your way distorting the deck to support the Aura side. The payoff is not good enough. But it's good incidental value if you can also get tempo/defense from the front side, maybe as a 2-of.

  3. #43

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    It still has the “go away” problem, but they printed a 3 cmc creature answer to murktide.

    Dreamshackle Geist

    {1}{U}{U}
    Creature — Spirit
    Flying
    At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose up to one —
    • Tap target creature.
    • Target creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.
    3/1

  4. #44

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    I have been doing more testing. The core of the deck seems so good but it’s missing something. Combo and control matchups seem great but against any fair deck I just get out valued or don’t have enough pressure to finish in time. I revisited the delirium idea but it was usually bad.

    SotL/Kataki/Skyclave/vial are all so good right now. The 8 thoughtcast deck is very common and so is URx. Sideboard juke of Court of Grace was decent against the removal.deck piles that control consist of nowadays. The deck really needs a champion of the parish style 1 drop to finish the game quickly as well as some card advantage that works through SotL. Moorland Haunt is quite good in that regard but it is hard to justify more than 2.

    Thoughts on this:

    Cemetery Illuminator
    {1}{U}{U}
    Creature — Spirit

    Flying
    Whenever Cemetery Illuminator enters the battlefield or attacks, exile a card from a graveyard.
    You may look at the top card of your library any time.
    Once each turn, you may cast a spell from the top of your library if it shares a card type with a card exiled with Cemetery Illuminator.

    1. It’s card advantage that works through SotL. The deck is entirely instants or creatures so the chances of drawing are pretty good.
    2. It has a decentish body
    3. In my experience with Kaya Orzhov Usurper and General Kudro, incidental graveyard hate is good.
    4. I believe this would let you alt cast daze or fow from your library on your opponents turn. Since it is not an alt. Cost
    5. It provides more exile effects, so it might make Stonebinder Familiar playable.

    Familiar is the closest thing to a champion of the parish that spirits has. Perhaps with this on tribe way of exiling a card every turn (rather than relic) it can be playable? We have 4 plow 4 Force of Will 2 Mausoleum haunt and 6 of some combinaation of Illuminator and Skyclave. Not to mention opposing forces, solitudes, plows etc.

  5. #45

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Draft exile list.

    4 Stonebinder Familiar
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer
    4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
    4 Supreme Phantom
    3 Skyclave Apparition
    3 Drogskol Captain
    3 Cemetery Illuminator

    3 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Aether Vial

    4 Tundra
    1 Island
    1 Plains
    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Arid Mesa
    2 Scalding Tarn
    2 Moorland Haunt


    20 lands plus 4 vial should compensate for no cantrips.
    Spirit count is 25 which is reasonable.
    11 instants gives makes it not that unreasonable to cast with Illuminator.
    Blue count was helped at tad by Illuminator, now it is 25.
    Things that exile count is 16
    It could be that familiar doesn’t grow enough as mentioned above, but it is worth revisiting imo.

  6. #46
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Soulherder seems to have nice synergy with the Familiar and Illuminator.
    You could even bounce the SotL and get out of the draw restriction at the end of your turn.

  7. #47

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Borg View Post
    Soulherder seems to have nice synergy with the Familiar and Illuminator.
    You could even bounce the SotL and get out of the draw restriction at the end of your turn.
    Soulherder is good but wants to play with strix not supreme phantom. To build around it sufficiently I would be worried it would just be bad Esper Vial.

  8. #48
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    I know it's off color but look at this Spirit.
    Laelia, the Blade Reforged
    Looks like a great combo with SotL

  9. #49

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Borg View Post
    I know it's off color but look at this Spirit.
    Laelia, the Blade Reforged
    Looks like a great combo with SotL
    Laelia is originally what got me thinking about this. I just thought Illuminator would work better with the counter magic and didn’t require splashing. It’s definitely a consideration.

  10. #50

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Usher has been the best 1 drop in practice. I am thinking of trying this again.

    What about Jitte? It helps with fair creature matchups, and it makes good use of all the tokens. It is possible it got power crept out by all the ginormous 2 drops.


    3 Drogskol Captain
    3 Skyclave Apparition
    4 Supreme Phantom
    4 Spirit of the Labrynth
    3 Usher of the Fallen
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer
    2 Shacklegeist

    4 Daze
    3 Force of Will
    4 Aether Vial
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    2 Uwezawa’s Jitte

    4 Tundra
    1 Plains
    1 Island
    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Scalding Tarn
    2 Arid Mesa
    4 Wasteland
    2 Moorland Haunt

  11. #51
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Looks good. What have been the bad matchups so far?

  12. #52

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    SotL and Kataki are a house vs 8cast. And you beat up on combo.

    Bad matchups are anything with big creatures that can’t get hit by Skyclave and/or oodles of white removal. Jesksai saga (murktide), GW depths (lage, endurance), D&T (solitude, kaldra). It irks me that the deck feels bad against most of the tier 1 decks since it gets to play so many good cards for a tribal deck.

    Edit: a possible fix would be to switch moorland for karakas. Moorland has been quite good at smoothing but perhaps my creatures don’t die often enough. Karakas is faster but doesn’t help grind.

  13. #53

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    The Jitte experiment went ok, I got a lucky 4-1 and a 1-4. I still feel frustratingly close to something good. The core feels so good but it is hard to find the right oomph to get it to beat fair decks.

    20 lands
    15 UWx good stuff + vial
    19 spirits (lords plus d&t staples)

    It’s the last 6 slots that are hard.
    Jitte/shackgeist/usher was ok but not impressive.

    One thought I had was revisiting Dorothea, Vengeful Victim in conjunction with spectral sailor. She is basically a Char that lets you save your Plowshares for murktide. Since she dodged bolt it think it is reasonable to consider a removal spell for stuff like Delver and ragavan. You can save her from herself with karakas and she clocks fast on your flying 1 drops. Being a blue spirit “removal spell” helps quite a bit with your blue count and spirit count too. The backside is playable imo at 3 mana. Since it is a spirit not an angel, it ups wanderer plus supreme phantom from 3 damage to 10 damage.

    Sailor lets you start on basic Island more, and is less risky to put an aura on than wanderer. You would need to cut the jaunts for karakas to make her castable, but that also makes Skyclave more castable. And both of the new suggestions have inbuilt flood insurance that works through SotL.

    Overall more flying plus faster clock should hopefully mean we can win races rather than try to control the board ineffectively.


    4 Drogskol Captain
    3 Skyclave Apparition
    3 Dorothea, Vengeful Victim
    4 Supreme Phantom
    4 Spirit of the Labrynth
    2 Spectral Sailor
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer

    4 Daze
    3 Force of Will
    4 Aether Vial
    4 Swords to Plowshares

    4 Tundra
    1 Plains
    2 Island
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Scalding Tarn
    4 Wasteland
    2 Karakas
    Last edited by Reeplcheep; 11-29-2021 at 12:36 PM.

  14. #54
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    What did you go 4-1 and 1-4 against? I think that matters more than the variance between those records.

  15. #55

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Karakas plus Dorothea meant I was winning against URx. They both do a good job of walking ragavan so I can save plow for murktide.

    I was losing against fair non blue and 8cast. Possibly due to the lack of jitte.

  16. #56

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    One of the original spirits guys got a 5-0 this build is more of a “protect the Illuminator” build. Rattle chains was great in my testing since there is so much removal. But Illuminator was pretty bad, so much spot removal makes a 3 cmc creature that needs to untap iffy.

    I am still losing quite a bit. The relic plus Stonebinder’s Familiar build wasn’t too bad. The main problem is that even though spirits has a good core, having to fight through both blue hate and elves hate is really rough. When you have to fight through PE/blazing volley/massacre & carpet/blasts/veil it is really hard to win games. My most successful “clean” build is below.


    3 Drogskol Captain
    3 Skyclave Apparition
    3 Rattlechains
    4 Supreme Phantom
    4 Spirit of the Labrynth
    3 Usher of the Fallen
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer

    4 Daze
    3 Force of Will
    4 Aether Vial
    4 Swords to Plowshares

    4 Tundra
    2 Plains
    2 Island
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Scalding Tarn
    1 Arid Mesa
    2 Prismatic Vista
    4 Wasteland
    1 Moorland Haunt

  17. #57

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Some notes from lots of leagues on this below. This deck is maddening, it feels so close. You get to play so many good cards that all have synergy with each other. But it never feels like it quite gets there, I definitely had a sub 40% winrate.

    White spot removal is everywhere so any of the graveyard value options aren’t amazing. Daze to protect your vial from counterspells and ending did feel great.

    Delver and Elves are the best decks. So you get thrashed post-board fighting through blue AND x/1 hate. Trying to beat end the festivities + pyroblast or carpet + Plague Engineer is really hard on top of the 7+ maindeck removal spells everyone is running.

    Dorothea was great as a removal spell/clock but very colour intensive.

    The other guy on spirits, utopia mycon, swears by cemetery Illuminator. But as a 3 mana creature that dies to everything i never got to cast a card off of it. With so much white removal right now your creatures aren’t dying much anyways.

    Laelia is good but screws up your blue count and mana.

    Stonebinder Familiar + relic wasn’t bad but wasn’t amazing. The other gy exile effects like cemetery Illuminator or moorland haunt improve the familiar but hurt each other.

    Rattlechains is good vs spot removal but increases your vulnerability to boardwipes considerably (since it usually is replacing a lord)

    Fow plus vial makes it very likely to flood out, but when you don’t have either of those cards you can often be land screwed. Smoothing options are limited: cantrips don’t work with SotL, Once Upon a Time makes your mana shakey, and the utility lands aren’t super powerful.

    Murktide is still a big problem since even if you plow it you lose the race.

  18. #58

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    My possible solutions:
    • Hanged executioner is a way to beat targeted removal that doesn’t rely on the graveyard and can answer murktide. Kira is similar but is vulnerable to blast on the stack and karakas.
    • Glasspool Mimic is a way to smooth draws that plays well with vial, FoW and SotL. It also can be pseudo-card selection by copying the most relevant effect. Double Drogskol is also very powerful so I think it is not that much below rate on the front side. 4 vial + 4 mimic +18 lands is actually more reliable mana than 18 lands + 8 cantrips.
    • Shacklegeist is a decent but fragile answer to murktide. The hope is with glasspool Mimic and hanged executioner it will be more consistent. It is less vulnerable to wipes than Rattlechains and easier to cast than Dorothea.
    • Trimmed counterspells for a better vial density.



    4 Wasteland
    4 Tundra
    1 Island
    1 Plains
    4 Flooded Strand
    3 Marsh Flats (least likely white dual to play around daze imo)
    1 Misty Rainforest
    4 Glasspool Mimic

    4 Vial
    4 Plow
    3 Daze
    3 Fow

    2 Usher of the Fallen
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer
    4 Spirit of the Labrynth
    3 Supreme Phantom
    3 Shacklegeist
    3 Skyclave Apparition
    3 Drogskol Captain
    3 Hanged Executioner

  19. #59
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    If you're losing to X/1 hate + blue hate, does it make sense to max out on lords? You really don't want to lose to Blazing Volley effects, and shouldn't have to. 4 Captain also helps insulate you against spot removal, especially if you can flash it or Rattlechains in response to removal. Is that enough to make a difference?

    As good value as Usher is, I wonder if it's baiting you into tapping out too much, giving opponent openings to safely resolve removal without bluff factor. Especially with Rattlechains in the deck, holding up 2 mana has value once you already have an attacker.

    Going harder on 1/1 tokens main seems risky if you're losing to X/1 hate. Or is the plan to make tokens main (to beat spot removal), then board out some for lords vs the X/1 hate?

  20. #60

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    If you're losing to X/1 hate + blue hate, does it make sense to max out on lords? You really don't want to lose to Blazing Volley effects, and shouldn't have to. 4 Captain also helps insulate you against spot removal, especially if you can flash it or Rattlechains in response to removal. Is that enough to make a difference?
    Drogskol is the worst card in the deck vs pyroblast though. Rattlechains did help vs the targeted removal but hurt vs the board wipes.

    My thought was that mirrorpool was a way to increase lord density without losing interaction. Perhaps I should go back up to 8 lords and trim the executioner and shacklegeist to 2 ofs. Now that I am more disciplined on saving my plows and accepting ragavan hits, murktide isn’t quite as much of a problem as boardwipes and blast.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    As good value as Usher is, I wonder if it's baiting you into tapping out too much, giving opponent openings to safely resolve removal without bluff factor. Especially with Rattlechains in the deck, holding up 2 mana has value once you already have an attacker.
    When I ran Rattlechains I changed to Ascendant Spirit for that reason. It wasn’t super impressive vs white removal and losing utility lands to play 4 basics lead to flooding out.

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