Great thank you! That is the kind of information I was looking for. I never would have thought of that as a delver player.
My next question. All of the bounce spells are for lock pieces or hate permanents such as chalice, thorn, etc. I know the game plan is to end step bounce, then go off on the turn. But if those hate pieces come down early, how do you can trip to progress your game if they already have you locked out. Decay destroys those permanents so it gives to time to cantrips and find the win. It seems with the bounce spells you need the win already in your hand or you only have 1 turn to cantrips and go off.
Decks that slam Chalice early do so at the cost of deploying their threats a turn later, giving you a card. If you have a Hurkyl's Recall in your hand against a deck like Eldrazi, one reasonable plan is to just wait to do anything until you're dead on board and hope to draw enough gas in the meantime.
"I'm willing to imagine a TES where Past in Flames replaces Ill-Gotten Gains entirely, and we just don't play Diminishing Returns." - me, 29/09/2011
Founding member of Team Scrubbad: Legacy Legends
They've been slowly merging for some time (I've written a few articles on the topic in the last few years), recently though, it's happened at a faster rate.Originally Posted by Lormador
Without Counter/Top the reliance on green isn't there, which allows some flexibility in TES's manabase (couldn't before due to chrome mox). A lot of people are turning to other permanent based disruption to combat combo, which means cards like Chrome Mox and ETW are at a premium.
Empty the Warrens hasn't been as good as it is right now in awhile either, the number of sweepers running around isn't very high.
This is why you cannot rely on just bounce. Sometimes you need to kill it and that's where card like decay, dread, massacre, or push come in vs dnt type decks or ancient grudge, meltdown, decay, and by force for the chalice decks.
I have sort of a history question. I've been reading back through articles from the days of yore. I've been playing Legacy since the days of Maverick and something struck me from the decks dating to the time before I came here. Apparently Silence and Orim's Chant used to be big cards in the deck (or maybe it was just TES, but let's not stand on such frivolities). This was long before green became the splash color du jour thanks to Abrupt Decay and Counterbalance.
My question is what metagame conditions prompted Silence and Orim's Chant to be good (or was it just protecting loops generated by Ill-Gotten Gains)? Could those conditions conceivably come again? Make no mistake, I'm not advocating for anyone to take a tour through yesteryear and sleeve up rainbow lands to even try it out... it's just a thought experiment.
Silence effects are good against stack based interaction, so decks with stifle/spell snare/pierce/force etc, being particularly great if your opponent is holding spell snare and stifle. Besides silencewalking, silence is textless vs decks that are jamming chalices and hatebears down your throat. Discard hits a wide spectrum of hate cards that the format dictates these days. So theoretically, if you're only playing vs counterspell decks, then a white splash for silence can be good, I've definitely played 3-4 silences in the main for kicks. They're also good in the storm mirror, as your opponent can't go off without discarding them, leaving your business spells in hand. Basically, as spell snare became less and less relevant and hate diversified, discard became stronger.
DRS made discard much more prevalent, and the hatebears became really good. People finally figured out that you couldn't beat storm by sitting behind a wall of countermagic. You needed to attack from multiple angles.
Rest in peace, Grandpa Morphling.
Nemeses Slain:4
I've been watching a lot of historical matches, and it seems like the printing of Past In Flames has also played a role in pushing the white disruption spells out of the deck. Spell Snare has been mentioned, but Stifle has been a big threat for most of the format's existence. Nowadays Stifle doesn't have the teeth it used to, we see RUG players (rightfully, I think) snapping them off at whatever fetchland presents a target rather than trying to hit Storm triggers with them. BBD's brief foray into the deck produced a lovely game in that vein, where he blanks enemy Stifles with spare discard post-PiF.
Further, the old school "PiF" was Ill-Gotten Gains, and far from offering similar utility from spent discard to take out offending instants, IGG made the problem worse, to the extent that Leyline of the Void and those white spells were needed to utilize it at all. I suppose more people were playing Goblins back then.
I saw that the second place list from the GP Sydney Win-a-Mox tournament used only Grixis colors and avoiding Green. With Counterbalance less of a presence of the metagame, is it worth stretching the manabase to include the fourth color?
Well, about a third of the pilots with their decklists on mtgtop8.com thought it was worth it splashing green for Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay. One unusual fellow in that crew thought it was worth it not for green, but for white, with two Monastery Mentors in the sideboard alongside two Thing in the Ice! T_Kudo won a Legacy League with that man plan.
I have a huge soft spot in my heart for man plan sideboards, I cannot tell a lie. I was that guy bringing in Death's Shadow, Tomb of Urami, and Thrun, The Last Troll out of SI back in the day.
Just another piece of anecdata; I cut green just to try it, and haven't really missed it. I also haven't played a ton of matches yet, so ymmv. I never really liked xantid swarm either, so I might be biased.
There is no reason to run green right now. You open up a more stable mana base and sb slots. If you want uncountable removal, run Rending Volley. Otherwise, fatal push, echoing truth, chain of vapor, and hurkyl's should be absolutely groovy. Game against chalice decks and hatebear decks is now much better without decay. Your Ad Nauseum's will thank you.
Rest in peace, Grandpa Morphling.
Nemeses Slain:4
If Xiantid is good in your meta, no real reason to cut green either. A "stable mana base" is not a problem the deck has. Its basically a 2 color deck, rarely is the volc needed and your "red" aka PiF is cast off LED. We played greed before AD and with just a trop. If you feel you need more red than you can play the badlands too and just 1 of each basic.
Hope of Ghirapur does a pretty decent Swarm impression for just one colorless.
It does an okay impression, but if you want that effect Xantid is just better. Against show and tell and reanimator, xantid allows you to cast your cantrips freely every turn since you don't need to sac it. Furthermore, if they show and tell a flying fatty then pass, hope does fuck all while xantid can hand you the win. In my opinion, if you want the silence-creature effect, you might as well just splash green for xantid. It really doesn't stretch the manabase as much as you make it out to be, especially because the matchups where you're casting xantid are generally matchups where your opponent isn't attacking your manabase.
Sometimes you also need the swarm effect to sculpt, hope still lets your opponent get value out of their counters but swarm just annihilates them.
Hope's also useless against Delvers.
I don't like Swarm either, but just saying.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
Back on the green splash currently. 5-0'd this league by hook and by crook https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...cyvmv83UAOLjMF
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I'm seeing a lot of 2 copies of past in flames and a 2nd copy of tendrils in the board. What are peoples plans here? I can understand the double pif more then the double tendrils.
Double tendrils makes matchups like burn and UR delver easier. I know some people advocate for it in stoneblade matchups as well. It was previously greta in the old miracles matchup, I've yet to try it personally in the new miracles matchup, however I think it is likely good. I'm sure there are some other matchups I'm missing, these are just the ones I keep one in the board for
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