Legacy (and Vintage) are becoming defined by the graveyard.
In these formats, it is acting almost as a second hand, or a library, where you can play cards from, and do many neat things.
It has become less of a discarded cards pile, and more of a oh, lets store cards that don't fit in my hand, and let me use them over and over pile.
However, along with Legacy's share of grave friendly cards (Ichorid, Crucible of Worlds, Life from the Loam, Tarmogoyf, Threshold critters, Squee, Goblin Welder, Reanimate, Exhume, Academy Ruins) more and more answers are being printed.
Tormod's Crypt, Leyline of the Void, Planer Void, Yixlid Jailer, and many other cards, are becoming low costed, and effective answers to the graveyard strategies running a-muck.
The question: Is the graveyard still viable. It gives deck amazing amounts of power and flexibility, yet at the same time makes them fragile from the many new sources of hate. Is it still possible to develop a deck based entirely on the graveyard and still be viable? Must a deck be able to function w/o a yard, in order to fight hate, yet lose to the powered up grave decks. Or should decks forgo the grave entirely, and focuse on winning "above ground"?
If you think you need to be a mix of above and below, what are the best options?
If your going to be hating the grave, what you you use?
Are decks that don't use the grave at all at a disadvantage to deck that care if graveyards exist?
(If a mod would like, they remove this topic, and post it in the Legacy Adept forums, but i would like to see what everyone has to say about this...)
(also can they please remove this last comment, and more this to the correct forum, i miss clicked...)
The graveyard has become such a valuable resource nowadyas that packing hate for it is needed. No, not packing hate for Thresh, nor Ichorid, nor Breakfast, nor Iggy Pop... Packing hate for the graveyard per se.
And the scary thing about it is that even with all the hate, these graveyard decks are still making T8's. Personally, I welcome this dimension of the game. It makes the game much more flexible and presnts so many new options.
I don't see how you can possibly question the viability of graveyard based strats when some of the best decks in the format include Threshold, Breakfast, Loam decks, Survival decks, and Ichorid.
Kronicler
Team Info-Ninjas: Catchphrases so secret, I don't even know what they are!
Easy. I have a deck that is currently killing almost every deck it plays. It runs Leyline, Jailer, and Planer Void...Originally Posted by Kronicler
I'd like to play Devil's Advocate: what does this deck do when it runs up against a deck in which the yard is of no importance?
To be more general, how much yard hate should a deck pack?
Well, Vintage has always had many decks that depended on their graveyard (Yawgmoth's Will) even when Hate is involved.
Isn't Ichorid a deck that is build depending entirely on graveyard?
While there are many tiered decks that depends on graveyard, there are also many decks that don't depend on it. (Goblins, Burn, Mono black control, Deadguy Ale, Mono blue control, Solarity (That reset/brain freeze deck) for example)
Of course, there are many other decks like those. The amount of possible decks in Legacy is enormous, but just people focused on the really good ones, which often relied on graveyard.
Personally, I think that the most effective use of the graveyard (i.e., in relation to the other aspects of the game) is the approach that uses it as a toolbox rather than as a library. Part of the reason for this is that such decks are less vulnerable to hate; the other part is that such decks are effectively using two libraries instead of one. As I see it, there are three types of graveyard-based decks running around at the moment:
1.) The graveyard is used as a library. Examples would be Ichorid and Breakfast. Essentially, the idea is to put as much of your library as possible into the graveyard so that it can become a library itself--just a wholly accessible one.
2.) Static graveyard decks. The leading example here is Threshold: it doesn't actually use the graveyard, it just depends on it to give its creatures some fat.
3.) Toolbox decks. An example of these would (usually) be decks centred on Psychatog (or even some Loam-based decks): while their main asset is still the library, there is a large amount of interaction between the graveyard and other zones of the game (through cards such as Genesis, Wonder, Life from the Loam, Psychatog, Eternal Witness, etc.). Essentially, the deck plays spells and in so doing creates a toolbox that it can actively access. I guess that even IggyPop would sort of fit in here, to my great chagrin.
Like I said, I think that the third option makes the best use of the graveyard and is harder to hate out than the other two. Obviously that's not much of a blanket statement since it will depend on a few factors, but I think that it's generally accurate. I also think that the categories are pretty accurate descriptions of the way in which we've been using the graveyard. Are they totalizing? Hellzno. They're just (I think) a good way of thinking about the situation.
What does your deck do when it Vs graveyard-less decks? Burn? Sui-Black? Stax? Belcher? TES? etc.
If you run a deck with almost nothing but creature removal and you go up against a burn deck which normally runs 4 creatures at most, you will get thrashed so hard every game.
Its that little fact called "Virtual Card Advantage" that burn uses. It doesn't run anything that can be answered to except by counterspells and the few burn-based hate cards [Chill, etc]. All your destory-target removal and various other cards are now dead and do nothing for you vs burn. All your Leylines, Jailers, Crypts and Voids are nothing but free time walks for the burn player to simply ignore or just burn away while they pummel you in the face with burn after boring-burn spell.
Its almost always better to have threats as opposed to having answers. You can never have a wrong "threat" [well, Goyf IS wrong, but not an incorrect threat] but you can have wrong answers.
Its because of this little fact that graveyard based decks are used a great deal: most graveyard decks are very powerful.
It's my suggestion that you keep your threats in your main-deck and your answers in your sideboard.
I plays Chalice for 1, 3sphere, turn 1, drops a Masticore, Wasteland locks them.
(Buy the way, it's stax)
Also i only run Leyline Main, everything else is SB.
But the point is,when i got to build deck these days, i have stopped thinking of grave decks. However powerful they might be, there is too much hate for me to even want to try.
And of those, only Gobos is actually a viable deck, and even that has seen a major drop off in power lately.
Team Info-Ninjas: Catchphrases so secret, I don't even know what they are!
Hence, the lines after what I said:
Like I said before, not everyone plays with the same few graveyard-based decks, and Legacy is a huge format, which allows for many different deck types.
Also, some of those decks do make it to Top 8 sometimes. (At least in some of the European/non-American results)
Lets not discuses the viability of Goblins, but of the graveyard.
Is goblins falling due to it's lack of Graveyard related answers?
I believ yes, all other decks could reuse their cards, while goblins was playing 1 shot effects...
While Threshold (and its variations) do rely on graveyard, they can't reuse their cards. CRET belcher don't really use their graveyard either.
Then, if Goblins is falling due to its lack of answers, should Goblins maindeck graveyard answers if they know their metagame consist of decks using the graveyard?
i would say yes...
I only play decks that ether combo (don't interact with other player) or have maindeck answeres to the grave...
Yep. Gob-lines, a Legacy Goblin deck fitted with Mox mana and maindeck Leyline of the Voids, has been performing pretty well in Vintage. Granted that the Legacy field is much more diverse (so MD Leylines might not affect the opponent too much as it does in Vintage), it still might be a viable idea in a meta full of graveyard decks.
Until Legacy tournaments become about 12 times more cutthroat than they currently are, focusing on beating exclusively Tier 1 decks is a very very bad metagame plan.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
QFT. Graveyard hate definitely deserves consideration when building a sideboard, but it'll often be dead if you run it maindeck. We haven't hit a critical mass of graveyard dependent decks (nor do we have a cohesive enough metagame) for it to be worth maindecking hate.
The right maindeck graveyard hate can be worth it if you know you will be facing a multitude of graveyard based decks. Like any significant Legacy event in the Northeastern US, for example...
Historically, my favorite has been Withered Wretch. Since so many decks make use of their graveyard nowadays, the Wretch is like a big cheap target, pulling removal away from what really matters. It is reusable (unlike Tormod's Crypt), it has a permanent effect on the graveyard (unlike Yixlid Jailer), and it attacks or blocks (unlike Leyline). Of course, it is more fragile and more expensive than these other options as well, so it is really about what you intend to use it for - if you don't win or lose in the combat phase, then it suddenly isn't as versatile.If your going to be hating the grave, what you you use?
I suspect it also won't be as good in a deck without swamps...
I use Leyline. It comes down turn zero, and it answers every kind of grave use. Jailer only stops Ichorid, and not Crucible, Wethc, is too slow on ichorid, and Crypt is one time only.
A single instance of 4 answers is hardly something to be enough, in my opinion. Vintage Ichorid packs sideboard answers to Needle, Jailer, Leyline, and Crypt/Furnace, etc at the same time. Legacy is starting to adapt to the same idea, hitting a combination of artifact, enchantment, and creature is going to become key soon.
As far as hating the graveyard, though, it seems that it's only good against the decks that are based on them, and multiples are necessary. Sure, Thresh doesn't like it's graveyard being gone, but Goyf's are just as happy with yours sticking around. Ichorid doesn't like Leyline, etc, but it'll draw into whatever answer it has for a single card, hit it, THEN go off as quick as possible. Breakfast can attempt to counter or bounce, or just play threats if it's got the ability to. You have to be able to balance hitting them with 2 anti-graveyard permanents, THEN produce a clock at the same time. They kinda contradict each other.
Everything else, though, really doesn't care. Your plans to stop them aren't going to hinder them, they'll just play like normal. I say right now the graveyard is acting like a second hand to some decks, but it's still irrelevant overall to a lot of the field. Pack hate according to your metagame, and then in a few months, MAYBE this discussion will become valid, once we see what sticks around.
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