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Thread: Legacy Spirits

  1. #21

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    In my experience (like, three months ago) with spirits Queller was an absolute blast and one of the reasons to play the deck imho.

    Usher seems underwhelming: if the token was a spirit maybe, but a 1/1 human for 1W seems really bad in legacy.

    And yeah, i think you absolutely want a basic plain, for the stp in the sb too against delver.

  2. #22
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Yah the only thing is that murktide is still a massive problem. Do you think adding more geists is a good idea?

    Do you think I will still have enough spirit density if I go -1 Apparition, -2 Geist, -1 Drogskol Captain for 4 plow?

    That leaves 8+8+6 = 22 spirits
    Try -2 Geist, -1 Usher, -1 FoW (4th FoW in SB)
    +4 Plow

    That gives you 1 more Spirit and avoids cutting your great 3s.
    It might be correct to cut the 2nd Usher first, but you can test it out.

    The main thing I like about Usher is it forces opponents to play into Daze + Wasteland + Wanderer instead of just waiting with uncracked fetches while you slowly tick up Vial and attack with 1/xs.

    Edit: This configuration is better against Delver preboard, but worse against combo preboard (0 StP + 4 FoW is better there), so it depends what you're metagaming for.

  3. #23

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Memories of the Time View Post
    In my experience (like, three months ago) with spirits Queller was an absolute blast and one of the reasons to play the deck imho.

    Usher seems underwhelming: if the token was a spirit maybe, but a 1/1 human for 1W seems really bad in legacy.

    And yeah, i think you absolutely want a basic plain, for the stp in the sb too against delver.
    Were you playing daze / wasteland /noble hierarch? I found that by the time I got to 3 mana anything important had already resolved unless it was a big murktide.

  4. #24

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Played some more leagues. The deck feels bonkers good against combo but has a lot of trouble vs other fair decks. Plow was too awkward with 4 cavern and Shacklegeist was not cutting it. Mostly you weren’t quite able to deal with or race big creatures like kaldra or murktide. Usher makes daze live and actually matches well vs ragavan, especially OTP.

    Hanger Executioner could be an option to deal with murktide but It seems clunky.

    I’m thinking of the following:

    4 Tundra
    1 Island
    1 Plains
    4 Flooded Strand
    3 Misty Rainforest
    2 Windswept Heath
    4 Wasteland
    2 Cavern of Souls

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

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


    I think this is a good balance between tribal stuff and good legacy cards. You get 8 of the best cards in delver, and 16 of the best cards in D&T. You get the full 2 colour delver manabase plus a basic plains and 2 caverns.

    Not getting to run the full 4 cavern is annoying but actual white mana is too sketchy otherwise. And cavern can’t daze.

    That leaves 15 “bad cards”. The 8 lords are on rate and you still have 23 spirits. Wanderer and usher aren’t the most insane cards but they do a good job of pushing people into daze.

  5. #25
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Played some more leagues. The deck feels bonkers good against combo but has a lot of trouble vs other fair decks.
    Very good reason to run 0 Spell Queller and 4 Swords to Plowshares main then.

    What "fair" decks are you losing to? Are they fair mana denial? If so, I wonder if the deck is losing to its unreliable manabase.

    2-color UW mana should normally look something like this


    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Prismatic Vista
    2 Tundra
    4 Island
    2 Plains
    other lands

    I wouldn't emulate Delver's mana because they have 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder to fix and their curve is low enough to not care about getting Wastelanded by most other decks. Without Xerox, you need more reliable mana and you can't afford to lose lands to nonbasic hate. 4 Tundra seems like free losses to D&T, Lands, etc. StP is easier to cast when you have 10 ways to get basic Plains. Blue fetches make it too hard to find basic Plains. +4 Vista.

    Fox has written volumes about this. Basically, fair decks try to beat UW by cutting you off white mana. Without white mana, UW can't interact with creatures and loses. The most reliable way to prevent this is by using more basic Plains and relying less on Tundra. Prismatic Vista was a huge boost to UW decks, letting you cheat up the "Plains" count without reducing the "Island" count.

    Vs fair decks I would not fire off Wastelands at decks like Delver, only at special targets like Urza's Saga, Karakas, Field of the Dead, Dark Depths.... Most Xerox decks have more reliable mana (Brainstorm + Ponder & low curves) so they will recover from 1-for-1 land trades faster, while this deck has 3 cmc creatures to play. Maybe that means you want something like 3 Wasteland 2-3 Caverns as lands, instead of 4 Wasteland.

  6. #26

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Very good reason to run 0 Spell Queller and 4 Swords to Plowshares main then.

    What "fair" decks are you losing to? Are they fair mana denial? If so, I wonder if the deck is losing to its unreliable manabase.

    2-color UW mana should normally look something like this


    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Prismatic Vista
    2 Tundra
    4 Island
    2 Plains
    other lands

    I wouldn't emulate Delver's mana because they have 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder to fix and their curve is low enough to not care about getting Wastelanded by most other decks. Without Xerox, you need more reliable mana and you can't afford to lose lands to nonbasic hate. 4 Tundra seems like free losses to D&T, Lands, etc. StP is easier to cast when you have 10 ways to get basic Plains. Blue fetches make it too hard to find basic Plains. +4 Vista.
    My next 2 leagues I went 4-1 and 3-2. One loss was to mana denial vs standstills, but it was the stifles not the wastelands that got me there. The other 2 losses were entirely to dying to the second murktide after plowing the first.

    Delver has 8 cantrips to find mana sources, but I have 7 actual mana sources in their place: 2 cavern 1 plains 4 vial. That should more than cancel out I believe. Without cantrips I don’t have the need for t1 basic island as much as delver, so based on your “basic plains” strat Mesa might be better than delta in this deck.

    I do want to fit a moorland haunt into the deck as flood insurance but I am not sure how.

    Other notes: Kataki was a house vs various artifact things.
    Rip/relic are decent vs murktide if I don’t want to splash for reb.
    Usher and the tokens were both considered to be worth removing by the opponents which is pretty great for a 1 drop. I think it is worth the slot to turn on daze.

    I really want to keep the vial + daze plan as I think it is a really sound strategy. If you don’t have to play cards as bad as merfolk does.

    Exhibit A:

  7. #27

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Another possible way to beat murktide is MD relic of progenitus and replace usher with StoneBinder’s Familiar

  8. #28
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Another possible way to beat murktide is MD relic of progenitus and replace usher with StoneBinder’s Familiar
    Triple nerf on familiar ("one or more", "only once each turn", and "during your turn") makes it pretty bad and likely not a solution. With relic you have a 2-cards combo for a slow growing doggy.

  9. #29

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by dte View Post
    Triple nerf on familiar ("one or more", "only once each turn", and "during your turn") makes it pretty bad and likely not a solution. With relic you have a 2-cards combo for a slow growing doggy.
    Any card from any person anywhere is a bit of a buff (it counts opponents forces on your turn) but I agree it is probably too bad.

  10. #30
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Stonebinder seems really bad. It's difficult to trigger. As a turn 1 1/1 slow grower (worse than Bloodhall Ooze, which sees no play in any format) it doesn't force the opponent to play into your Dazes or use their Daze. So they can just save their Dazes for your 2-3 mana creatures instead of using Forces on your turn. Forcing a creature is already unlikely with Cavern + Vial. If they somehow do, you get rewarded with an Isamaru that missed early damage? Seems bad.

    Usher seems much better. It's small and unassuming, but unchecked it will snowball and solo kill them faster than most 1-drops can on an empty board, so they're forced to play into it while you can sit back with answers. Stonebinder forces you to play another effect to grow it, forcing you to play into them.


    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Delver has 8 cantrips to find mana sources, but I have 7 actual mana sources in their place: 2 cavern 1 plains 4 vial. That should more than cancel out I believe.
    That only works if those mana sources tap for the colors of mana you need.

    2 Cavern + 4 Vial cannot cast Swords to Plowshares or some SB cards. They only help you play high CMC spirits (quantity of mana vs quality of mana). That's where I could see it running into problems. Lack of access to basic Plains and colorless flood may be where it's stumbling. Changing the fetchland configuration away from 4 Delta or 3 Misty in the above lists (Island-heavy) may help improve the quality of mana sources. You should be able to StP anything when you're only on 2 lands, fast enough to interact with Marit Lage & Murktide, without worrying about mana denial keeping you off it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Without cantrips I don’t have the need for t1 basic island as much as delver, so based on your “basic plains” strat Mesa might be better than delta in this deck.
    Good point. Maybe you don't need as many basic Island then and can run more Tundras there (for Daze). You won't need more than 1 basic Island in play most of the time.

    And if you're losing to Stifle, extra duals are better than off-color fetches. You don't have Brainstorm or Delve or Escape or other payoffs for fetches, so non-UW fetches are much less good for you than for most decks.


    //16 colored sources
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Prismatic Vista
    4 Tundra
    2 Island
    2 Plains

    //5-6 colorless sources
    3-4 Wasteland
    2 Cavern of Souls
    0-1 Moorland Haunt


    That seems like more reliable mana. On paper, at least. You could even go below 8 fetches for tier 2 duals (Seachrome Coast, Hallowed Fountain)

  11. #31

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Usher seems much better. It's small and unassuming, but unchecked it will snowball and solo kill them faster than most 1-drops can on an empty board, so they're forced to play into it while you can sit back with answers. Stonebinder forces you to play another effect to grow it, forcing you to play into them.
    Good points.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    That only works if those mana sources tap for the colors of mana you need.

    2 Cavern + 4 Vial cannot cast Swords to Plowshares or some SB cards. They only help you play high CMC spirits (quantity of mana vs quality of mana). That's where I could see it running into problems. Lack of access to basic Plains and colorless flood may be where it's stumbling. Changing the fetchland configuration away from 4 Delta or 3 Misty in the above lists (Island-heavy) may help improve the quality of mana sources. You should be able to StP anything when you're only on 2 lands, fast enough to interact with Marit Lage & Murktide, without worrying about mana denial keeping you off it.

    Good point. Maybe you don't need as many basic Island then and can run more Tundras there (for Daze). You won't need more than 1 basic Island in play most of the time.

    And if you're losing to Stifle, extra duals are better than off-color fetches. You don't have Brainstorm or Delve or Escape or other payoffs for fetches, so non-UW fetches are much less good for you than for most decks.
    I think you are right that from a manabase point of view I need to decide how tribal I am going to be. I can go either UW “merfolk” or cantripless “delver” but somewhere in the middle won’t let me cast my spells.

    UW “Merfolk”


    20 Lands
    4 Tundra
    1 Island
    4 Flooded Strand
    3 Scalding Tarn
    4 Wasteland
    4 Cavern of Souls

    11 Spells
    3 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Aether Vial

    28 Creatures
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer
    3 Usher of the Fallen
    4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
    4 Supreme Phantom
    3 Shacklegeist
    4 Drogskol Captain
    4 Skyclave Apparition
    3 Hanged Exectutioner

    SB
    3 Kataki, War’s Wage
    2 Relic of Progenitus
    2 Remorseful Cleric
    4 Spell Queller
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Nebelghast Herald

    More tribal focus, no spells that costs white, and 6 spirit answers to murktide. Shacklegeist wasn’t enough by itself but with executioner it may be good enough. Daze is being cut to 2-3 copies for the bigger URx delver decks anyways right now.

    Cantrips-less “Delver”

    21 Lands
    4 Tundra
    1 Island
    1 Plains
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Volcanic Island
    3 Arid Mesa
    1 Scalding Tarn
    4 Wasteland
    2 Cavern of Souls

    16 Spells
    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Aether Vial
    4 Swords to Plowshares

    23 Creatures
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer
    3 Usher of the Fallen
    4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
    4 Supreme Phantom
    4 Drogskol Captain
    4 Skyclave Apparition

    SB
    4 Pyroblast
    1 Mountain
    3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
    2 Relic of Progenitus
    2 Rest In Peace
    3 Kataki, War’s Wage


    Less spirits but I get RIP, Blasts, and Plow.
    Last edited by Reeplcheep; 09-28-2021 at 12:59 PM.

  12. #32

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    In my experience playing the deck, as well as the showcase recap from everyday eternal, all that matters right now is answering murktide.

    What is the best solution in people’s opinion?

    Plow plus sideboard REB?

    Shacklegiest plus executioner?

    Topplegeist plus a bunch of mishras baubles?

  13. #33
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Plow + SB something. Could even be Path to Exile. In the matchups where you need it (Murktide, Marit Lage, Griselbrand) Prismatic Ending wouldn't help and you don't care about giving them +1 basic as much as having a 1-cmc answer to their big threat.

    REB is also a 1 cmc answer but splashing red makes the manabase more fragile, and many of those decks play Wasteland/mana denial. They can try to waste you off red or white to remove your answer. Better to play UW with more stable mana (easy access to basic plains) so you can rely on your answer.

    With Shacklegeist you can run into tempo issues where they EOT Bolt a spirit and suddenly you can't tap out their lethal attack, forcing a chump block with Shacklegeist (2-for-1 Bolt).

  14. #34

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Plow is good, but giving them 8 life gives them a lot of time to find a new one. UR delver gets delirium quite quickly, perhaps we could copy the UR list and make topplegeist work. We don’t have the surveil but have more enchantments/artifacts/creatures in the first place.

    Taking the challenge 2 delver list:

    Red lands -> white lands
    Ponder -> portent (because of SotL)
    6 removal spells -> 6 3 cmc spirits
    Brainstorm -> vial (because of SotL)
    4 iteration + 10 1 mana threats + 4 2 mana threats -> 8 1 mana threats 8 2 mana threats 2 more baubles.


    18 Lands
    4 Tundra
    1 Island
    1 Plains
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Arid Mesa
    3 Scalding Tarn
    4 Wasteland

    20 Spells
    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Aether Vial
    4 Portent
    4 Bauble

    24 Creatures
    4 Mausoleum Wanderer
    4 Topplegeist
    4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
    4 Supreme Phantom
    3 Drogskol Captain
    3 Skyclave Apparition

    SB
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Spell Queller
    2 Relic of Progenitus
    2 Rest In Peace
    3 Kataki, War’s Wage


    Overall you trade card quality for the mana advantage of Vial, but the core remains pretty similar.

    This avoids the tempo issues of shacklegeist and gives the deck some card velocity/selection.

  15. #35
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Delirium will be hard. Just adding random Baubles isn't enough because you're not also playing 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder (fast cantrips to fill yard) or Surveil creatures. You won't get Delirium as easily. Also Baubles are bad and don't really count as velocity/selection.

    Even if you can force Delirium, Topplegeist has a similar problem to Shacklegeist. With Plow/Path you spend W to permanently answer a problem. With Topplegeist you spend W to temporarily lock it down and think you have an answer. Then they EOT Bolt your creature or attack your graveyard, and suddenly they "unlocked" the Murktide you thought you answered, while you have no tempo to search for another answer. If Murktide is a big problem for this deck, why use an unreliable answer? It just gives the UR Delver player more outs to outplay you. You can just spend W to end it for good.

    If 8 life is too much time for a tribal deck, maybe the clock is the problem. Do you find the deck slow to finish games? How good is Supreme Phantom? On a wide board lords are great, but on an empty board (more common vs fair blue) a 1/3 flyer is bad. Maybe some Phantoms should be other 2/x 2cc spirits (Shacklegeist?). Or at least boarded out vs UR?

    Remorseful Cleric could be boarded in vs UR Delver. The ability attacks both DRC and Murktide. The body trades with Delver and Ragavan. Seems good.

  16. #36

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Delirium will be hard. Just adding random Baubles isn't enough because you're not also playing 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder (fast cantrips to fill yard) or Surveil creatures. You won't get Delirium as easily. Also Baubles are bad and don't really count as velocity/selection.

    Even if you can force Delirium, Topplegeist has a similar problem to Shacklegeist. With Plow/Path you spend W to permanently answer a problem. With Topplegeist you spend W to temporarily lock it down and think you have an answer. Then they EOT Bolt your creature or attack your graveyard, and suddenly they "unlocked" the Murktide you thought you answered, while you have no tempo to search for another answer. If Murktide is a big problem for this deck, why use an unreliable answer? It just gives the UR Delver player more outs to outplay you. You can just spend W to end it for good.
    Tested a league with it. Everything you said was correct, I just thought it was worth testing.

    In the end I am having the most success with the “fuck it, play 4 path SB 4 Plow main” approach. Path helps with the lifegain problem and unlike gy hate lets me take advantage of moorland haunt. Going up to 2 haunts has felt good as we don’t have brainstorm to mitigate screw.

    Both Spirit of the Labrynth and Kataki, War’s wage are very very good in the meta right now. Daze feels very strong with both vial and mausoleum wanderer. I still think the shell has a lot of power it just needs tuning. It’s possible a few Nebelgast Herald could help the murktide problem, especially in conjunction with haunt.

  17. #37
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    Re: Legacy Spirits

    The latest Challenge meta, with so few basics, is even more reason to run maindeck Path to Exile here. There's anti-synergy with Daze, but in the scenarios you need PtE most the extra land doesn't matter much.

  18. #38

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    If I try the delirium idea again Oust could be good. It and topplegeist are both murktide answers that make the other better. It also has less of a lifegain problem.

  19. #39
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    Re: Legacy Spirits


  20. #40

    Re: Legacy Spirits

    Quote Originally Posted by Borg View Post
    How reliably do you think we can get 3-5 spirits on the battlefield?

    What do you think of Dorothea, Vengeful Victim?

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