We do run Force of Will, you know. And Misdirection is amazing against Pyrokinesis if you only have one threat on the board.Originally Posted by ASSASSIN
Pro-red creatures in my opinion are a bad idea, mostly because all pro-red creatures that Blue has suck. Badly. They might rock against Goblins due to their equipment carrying capabilities, but so what? They're awful in every other matchup.
What else are you going to face that's red and kills your flyers? Let's go down the list:
Lightning Bolt: You have a gameplan involving Chalice for 1. Get it down. Otherwise, Misdirection it. Same applies for Chain Lightning.
Magma Jet: Doesn't kill Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, or Aquamoeba. Not a big deal. Same applies to Fire//Ice.
Devastating Dreams: Don't worry, you lose to Loam anyway.
Flametongue Kavu: Can be problematic as he kills everything in your deck, but with any luck and some Clouds of Faeries you can get SOFI Equipped before he becomes a huge obstacle. You can also Force him.
And...um, not much else. Therefore unless you're planning on facing hordes of Goblin decks, I wouldn't fool with it. The matchup isn't all that bad without the pro-red guys. Post-board you can Needle just about every form of keeping you off an equipped Jitte they have except Pyrokinesis itself, and if you've got a Counter for Pyrokinesis, you're set.
The deck seems very elusive. There are a lot of areas where you think you can improve it, but you are hurting the synergy with chalice whenever I decide to drop in other cards.
The only standard cards I see so far in all versions are:
sea drake
serendib efreet
ancient tomb
weapons of mass destruction (jitte or sofi)
and chalice.
Elusivity isn't so much the deck's problem. Faerie Stompy's biggest problem is that it's a card short. Meaning mostly, if they printed one more amazing blue threat that fit into the curve whose drawback we could similarly circumvent, the deck would be fantastic. The problem is, this isn't likely to happen very soon, as Wizards is super cautious about printing blue cards as the entire Time Spiral block proved. (Seriously, was there a playable blue card in the entire block short of maybe Pact of Negation?)
Extensive testing and theoretical debate from most of us has produced the result that short of Cloud of Faeries, Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, and Trinket Mage, there's no universal godsend for the fifth threat. Let's look at the solutions people have tried.
Weatherseed Faeries / Sea Sprite: Protection from Red is good, especially against Ialvay Oblinsgay. They also fly, which is good. Sea Sprite proved to be too small in most matches, however, and Weatherseed Faeries is thought by many to be too fragile.
Juggernaut: One of the better solutions, as he's enormously big, but he doesn't imprint on the Mox or the Force and takes 4, which can sometimes be a problem for the deck to get consistently due to City of Traitors. A lot of people, including Clark Kant, run anywhere from 2-4 of him for size.
Thought Devourer / Other Weird Blue 4-drops: They're all good sometimes and bad other times. Phantom Monster was one of the more bizarre ones I saw played in this slot.
Looter Il-Kor: Fast and digs for cards, but generally thought to be too small to be part of the core inclusion. A few people on this thread play the Looter staunchly, however.
Sarcomite Myr: Interesting due to being an artifact and being blue, but not generally overwhelming in the awesomeness department.
Aquamoeba: My personal pick for the 5th creature slot due to all his awesomeness I listed above. He's catching on as I've played against him in FS twice on Workstation. He's still the weak link compared to the other four, though.
SOmber Hoverguard: Seen him tried, but he's only decent if you've already nailed Moxes and Chalices and really requires a full quad of Seat of the Synods to be any good.
Color Splashes: Red for Flametongue Kavu, Black for Negator, anything for anything. Color splashes kill your ability to have a remotely functional manabase, as one of FS's strengths is that it has the single most consistent manabase of any major Chalice Aggro deck (Short of like, the colorless 5/3 ones, which have a natural advantage here.) They also kill your Force of Will power and generally don't work unless you go to the extreme of playing Junk Pile, which is a completely different deck altogether.
So, until they print another ungodlythreat or until someone makes a major breakthrough in testing a card we've all somehow overlooked despite extensive testing and gatherer research, the deck's still going to be running a somewhat suboptimal threat in it somewhere. And there's never going to be a consistent list as long as we all have to choose between our least-despised suboptimal guys.
However, I'd tell you to make your list this, as this is getting close to universal among FS players (Or as close as you're going to get):
9 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Trinket Mage
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
3 Mystery Threat!
7 Swordizawa's Jitte of Fire and Ice
4 Force of Will
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
SB:
3 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
Some Misdirections
Some Tormod's Crypts
Possibly some Control Magics or Binding Grasps
Possibly some Winter Orbs
The one card I want to get by testing is Maelstrom Djinn as it looks like 10 damage should be plenty most of the time and it's truly huge, blue and drops at 3. However, I've been taking a hiatus from the deck and the game for a while so I truly cannot say if it's as good as it looks on paper. It has the Exalted Angel-syndrome of being very vulnerable as a Morph, and it happens to be smaller than Threshed Mystic Enforcer (bigger than anything else though), but not being able to hold it back for defense after morphing or swing longer may be a problem. At least it avoids the two most common pitfalls for the last slot:
-It only has single blue in its cost. That means that you can still fetch the Chalice/Needle you really want with that Trinket Mage.
-It's blue. Means that you can pitch it to FoWs and Moxes. Also means it isn't vulnerable to artifact removal for what it's worth (I kinda like having all my creatures immune to artifact removal so if they bring arti removal in, it doesn't complement their normal removal when trying to keep my board clear).
-It's a 3-drop. Now, I'm actually looking for a playable blue 4-drop costing 3U for the deck to go with Cloud of Faeries for a turn 2 play, but Maelstrom Djinn doesn't require any such.
Juggernaut makes the most sense since he either uses Cloud of Faeries mana production or double 2 mana lands to get into the game. Also, MD Pithing Needle over Engineered Explosives is a mistake with Empty the Warrens being the biggest threat to to this deck. I even think you should splash a color even if you don't use it just to be able to set Engineered Explosives on 2.
I sort of like running 4 Seat of the Synod just because they pitch to Thirst for Knowledge after turn 2.
That's pretty ballsy to call that a mistake over one card versus a ton of cards, considering we can already slow ETW with Force and Chalice maindeck and have it in board as a Mage target. ETW combo isn't the only deck in existence.
Besides, Pithing Needle maindeck lets you answer the Belcher itself. And Survival. And 80 billion other things.
I don't think so, the worst case scenario is that the combo deck wins the coin flip and resolves an Empty the Warrens before you knew to mulligan for Force of Will. At that point, you need to be certain that you have a post-emptive, not pre-emptive answer to your opponent's threat. You only really count on using Pithing Needle to disable Aether Vial in the Goblins match up, which Engineered Explosives can already do, and with a splash Engineered Explosives is just as, if not more so, flexible as Pithing Needle.
Pithing Needle really isn't answering any of the format's critical threats, so I definitely think it's a mistake to disclude Engineered Explosives from the MD in favor of Pithing Needle.
I'll still take a card that's solid against 75% of the decks in the format versus one that's amazing against 10%. We can't cast EE for more than 1, if you recall, which makes it somewhere between narrow and horrible.
That rogue Needle will win you random game 1's against Control, which is a far more problematic matchup. Plus it shuts down Belcher. Don't forget most ETW decks run ETW as only a second choice kill.
You're underestimating how much combo decks need ETW against this deck. Belcher alone has almost a 2/1 ETW vs Belcher ratio, so ETW is going to be the predominant threat, and TES can't risk taking the time to assemble the IT chain because of Chalice of the Void, so it's going to default to ETW or Diminishing Returns, the second of which is likely to produce an ETW for a high storm count.
Maybe you run both?
I suppose running both is an option.
There's always Echoing Truth in sideboard, also. This deck doesn't really have any way to get anything problematic off the board. Bounce is great for tempo in this deck, or at least it was when I ran Man-O-War. Echoing Truth would solve ETW Tokens as well as random annoying crap like multiple Needles, Smokestacks, whatever.
I just moved back to China, so I’ve been away for a week. I am happy to see this thread is active again, but I hardly sagree about many of the last posts.
@coma: you only play 16 threats. TfKs are nice, but maybe more would help. In FS, you usually run 7-8 equipments, with 18 creatures which is a HUGE ratio. Lowering this number does not seem the best move. Draw Spells are good, but you still need a strong creature base. Back to basics perfectly fits the curve, but I don’t believe at all in it: It is very good in monoU, but here, it makes little sense. You already are sensible on your manas, blocking your Tombs/Cities, which is your main acceleration, does not sound nice. You beat Landtill with Orbs. And here you also need 3 Islands in your SB, which look like imo the most useless cards in SB I ever saw in a FS SB.
Propaganda fits the curve, but the only aggro decks you would need it are Gob decks. And without chalice=1, they get Piroblasted for sure. I really tried it, and it only seldom works.
@ Tacosnape: I am really not convinced by Aquamoebas, even if “It might be the single most underrated card in Legacy”. I really avoid 1U cards, they are MUs where you need this Chalice=2 (Pikula, monoB Aggro, Aluren, Life, 43 Lands…). It might be a metagame call, as you will probably answer me that no Life, 43 lands, Aluren in your meta.
What do you worry about Combo MUs? Which ones? In which MUs are you happy to waste (read discard) one card a turn, for an extra 2 damages? Unless there is some MUs Combo deck that does not exist elsewhere
I’ll bask ASSASSIN on his points. Not because he’s French, but because I know him, and played many times irl with him. I faced him 4 times in tournaments, and he is skilled with Gobs, maybe very lucky too, but clearly, I lost to him several times because of his MD Pirokenesis. I agree Gob vs FS usually comes to who wins the die roll, but I cannot believe you won Gobs in tournaments, without proR in your version. I played with up to 3 MD+4 SB, I went back to 3 MD+2 SB. I tried combinations of Cursed Totems, Propagandas, Silent Arbiters, proR, (even Volcanic Eruption, yes I was high that night), and it really comes to win the die roll and play some proR vs Gob. Period.
Pyrokenesis is a very good SB answer for Gob (FS, but Mirror, anything with creatures). I saw ASSASSIN won vs Belcher/EtW in the last tournament I went to before moving to China (he finishes 2nd, me 3rd, him being my only loss of the day). The guy put some 8-10 tokens T2, and Pyrokenesis made the difference. It is very common in European Gob SBs.
I agree proR creatures shine vs Gobs, and are more sucky in the other MUs. But It is very often cards you remove for better ones (Control Magics against nonGobs aggro for instance). They fly, which is very important with all the equipements we play. As you mentioned, if we have chalice=1 online, which is something you try to do almost every game, they are protected from the 2 most common piece of removal (Stp, Bolts) .They fly, and with a SoFI it is a 4 turn clock (just like almost creature, true, unless they crawl (not fly), and gets blocked all days).
I don’t understand your point about DD, and losing to Loams. The most difficult MU with Loams are UGW LoamConfinement, but you face it seldom, and you can win post board with a huge SB (including Moratorium Stone) .I cannot see any single other bad MUs with Loam. Maybe Terrageddon, because of the 4 Null Rod in SB+Krosan Grips SB. 43 Lands is a bye if you know how to play it. Chalice=2>Loam anyway.
I however agree with your universal list of FS. And I agree about all your comments for the mystery 5th creature, but not Weatherseed Faeries.
@Topdeck : I disagree, I believe most of the slots in FS are already set. There are at least:
17-18 lands
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sea drakes
4 Efreets
4 Clouds of Faeries
4 Trinket Mages
4 Chalices of the void
1 Pithing Needle
4 SoFI
3 Umezawa Jitte
4 Force of Will
2 TfKs/FoFs
That leaves us 4 open slots. Mine are +1 Jitte, +3 Weatherseed Faeries. Others use Looter il Kor, psy blasts,…
For the SB, it also comes to what meat you have. Generally, you need Orbs vs Control, Misdi vs Combo/Pikula/Burn/many MUs, Grasps/Control Magics vs Aggro, some more proR vs Gob. Explosives should be there too (answers vial, needle, under chalice=1, is an out against tokens such as Landstill’s Decree, or Belcher/TES Gob tokens, …), some Tormod’s crypt helps vs Threshold, some Needles vs Belcher, Afinity, Survival, many other decks….
I tested the Djinns, not extensively I concede, but I have not been impressed.
@Breathweapon : Juggernault is huge but sucks in FS. Okay you might play it T2 out of a CoF, but I‘d rather play Trinket Mage + Needle, or calice=2 if needed, or SoFI equiped, … The fact that it must attack each turn, is not that relevant, as anyway you are an aggro deck, but it can sometimes matter .What matters the most, is that
1) It dies to every piece of removal without chalice. Which is the case for others of our creatures, but:
2) It has no evasion (unless you count cannot be blocked by walls, which imo can only be relevant against Aluren). It gets block by any regenerating creature, killed by any first strike dude with 3+ power, Mongeese, etc…. It might be an impressive T2 play, but it won’t happen all times. And what a dead draw vs Gob! What is the point of playing 4 SoFIs, if you don’t try to have a maximum of creature with evasion???
3) It’s not blue. You cannot pitch it to FoWs , nor Chrome Moxes. Trust me, the blue count is already tight enough, and the numbers of mulligan important enough. Adding some artifact creature hurts the consistency. Another reason why splashes are also a bad idea in FS.
Running 4 Seats of the Synod only improve your already important vulnerability to Wastelands. Between extra drawn moxes, extra Jitte, sometimes extra chalices, or Seat, you run enough artifact. Also, Tfk T2 is cool, but I’d rather play a creature. I also played with up to 4 TfK, but it is too much. Have you seriously ever played against Gob?
Pithing Needle MD is CLEARLY the best alternative MD target for Trinket Mages. The best one being Chalices of course. Tormod’s are nice in some MUs, Explosives in others, but the difference with Needle is that the Needle you fetch will allow you not to lose some g1 in tournament. What do you do g1 vs Maze of Ith? Usually, those decks run severals. How do you handle Survival T2 or Belcher T1? You were praising Juggernault for the T2 trick with CoF. Well, T2, Tomb+City, CoF, Trinket Mage(for Needle), Needle can sometimes give you a win versus some decks. Explosives is a mandatory SB slot, but not worth MD over Needle. Once again, what Combo decks do you fear if you need it as a MD Combo answer?
Game one, Belcher is going to win the game if it wins the coin flip, casts ETW before the opponent knows he has to mulligan into Force of Will and there's no Engineered Explosives in the MD. Game two, Belcher is going to SB in Shattering Spree on the draw and have good odds of destroying Chalice of the Void and winning the match. Game three, if it gets to game three, Belcher is going to SB in 8 Blasts against your Force of Will, and if your Force of Will gets countered and he resolves Goblin Charbelcher or Empty the Warrens, you are very likely going to lose before you can find the Pithing Needle or the Engineered Explosives.
I've played the match literally hundreds of times, if you don't MD an Engineered Explosives your turning a favorable match up into a coin flip. You can play Pithing Needle and Engineered Explosives, and if you find Pithing Needle that vital to the deck's performance, than I suggest you do so.
Juggernaut is the best fat creature in that slot, and against Goblins, which is the only aggro deck that matters, Sword of Fire and Ice gives it evasion. I don't have a problem with the blue count, I played AfFOWnity, and I know when to hold a Force of Will, when to imprint a Force of Will and when to keep the Chrome Mox in hand.
One of the creatures I have been evaluating in the last threat slot is Raven Familiar, because Raven Familiar is a Sorcery speed Impulse that chump blocks, and you can pay the Echo for the card advantage and another flyer for your equipment. I've seen Aluren use Raven Familiar to good effect as a tempo tool/catrip, and it does the same thing here, except you get the option of keeping it as a threat or letting it die. The deck benefits from both another threat and another draw spell, so it's the best creature this deck could ask for.
After some testing, I found that running 1 Needle and 1 EE let's me handle most things I need to deal with.
As for the Mystery Threat, I've tried Djinns, Gathan Raiders and the Zombie Cutthroat.
Out of the 3, I found the Raiders most promising, although they are not blue. They do have the additional drawback of not being evasive, however, since I usually like to keep the pressure on, rather than keeping things in my hand, they are ususally big enough.
The Djinn is just too evasive for my liking, as he evades from play usually when I would need him most.
The lifeloss of the cutthroat just seemed too much in most games, combined with efreet and tomb. And it's not blue either.
Imaginary Pet. The deck practices so much anti card advantage that it could be worth a try.
Raven Familiar has been awesome in testing, between the additional threat and the additional draw spell he just pulls the deck together and makes it so much more consistent.
So far it's the best non-Juggernaut creature I've used.
This is an awful idea, as this deck already tends to get things like Chrome Mox and Jitte and Chalice stuck in its hand.
This is also an awful idea, as Legacy isn't a format where we pay six mana to swing for one.
Impulse + chump block is more than good enough, Echo just gives the option of keeping the Raven Familar on the board.
Therein lies the problem. Faerie Stompy does not chump block. If you are on the defensive, you are in most likely in topdeck mode anyway, and I would certainly NOT want to topdeck a Raven Familiar to chump block in that situation.
But top decking a Raven Familiar, choosing one of the three cards it reveals, adding it to your hand and then choosing whether or not to keep Raven Familiar on the board is still good. Faerie Stompy is going to black with any creature it cast on its summoning sickness turn against Goblins, so it's like getting to play with Impulse (which is a really underrated card any way) and prevent one of their Goblins from attacking.
You get an Impulse, a chump block and the option of keeping the creature, even a 3cc Impulse is worth considering in that slot since there's no other 2/3cc draw spell that is as good as that draw spell other than the actual Impulse which conflicts with Chalice of the Void at 2.
If you actually bother to try it, you'll see that it's way better than it looks.
I agree. I would go so far as to say if you are on the defensive, you probably lost.
Breathweapon, you're falling into the "Danger of Cool Things" category. A card that does no more than cantrip and chump block is not a good card for us to have here.
So let's clear up a few things about Raven Familiar.
1. Raven Familiar doesn't Impulse. Impulse picks one of the top four. Raven Familiar picks one of the top three. The difference in this changes your chances from above 50% to below 50% of Raven Familiaring into another threat.
2. The 2U you spend to cast Raven Familiar may very well cost you two life off of an Ancient Tomb. In many circumstances, this is no better than the chump block.
3. Raven Familiar costs
4. Raven Familiar, because of its Echo cost, doesn't curve into equipment. If you drop a fast Raven Familiar, you aren't going to be able to play an equipment, equip it, and swing next turn.
So, in conclusion, Raven Familiar is an incredibly bad threat with a moderately bad ability, and this in no way adds up to making it a decent option in this deck. Short of Imaginary Pet, it's one of the worst ideas I've seen.
EDIT:
Also, for what it's worth, and this applies to everyone, not just Breathweapon: Don't say this. It's ridiculous. I could say that Burrowing is super tech in Vial Goblins and that none of you could disagree until you tried it, but that would be ridiculous. So is every statement like this. The mark of a skilled, experienced deck designer is being able to visualize how a card would work in a deck. So back up your suggestions with more than a "Test it yourself" throwdown.
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