[Deck] Tombstone

[xsockmonkeyx]

what's-his-face

>:

[konsultant]

I prefer Harmonize over Fact simply because you don't have to have Blue mana for this deck to run effectivly. You are going to need to get Green Mana or you are screwed, you can go the entire game without Blue mana and still play a very strong game. The Brainstorms are not meant to be cast in the early game unless you are looking for something. If you switch the draw all to Blue you then make it much easier for your opponent to shut off your draw engine. Honestly I love Harmonize in this deck, after playing it for awhile now I see no need to change it.

I don't mean to sound like I'm contradicting myself about having the colored mana you need so you should play Brainstorm and then not having it so you shouldn't run Fact, my point is that if they waste your blue sources you can easily live without Brainstorm for awhile but if it was shutting off all of your draw effects it would be much more difficult to recover from.

The thread is only on the third page, please read all posts.

I won our local tournament this past weekend running the exact same build that I did in Mass. This should help establish that i'm not winning on luck, the deck plays similar to Thresh, it's just that the dude's are bigger and it runs discard instead of counterspells. The biggest similarity is the abnoxious way that the deck can control the game. The fact that the deck almost never burns out of cards while playing relevent cards almost every single turn is just too much for most decks in Legacy at the moment.

Here's a quick round breakdown:

Round 1 vs Armostill [minus white] 2-0 win

Round 2 vs R/G Rifter 2-0 win

Round 3 vs TES 0-2 loss [play mistakes in a bad matchup aren't a good idea]

Round 4 vs Skies 2-1 win [kept a shaky hand game 1 and it cost me the game]

Top 4 vs White Threshold 2-1 [lost to Shackles late in game 1, much better after SB]

Finals vs Armostill from round 1, 2-0 win

While my build is lacking in it's combo hate, the cards exist to make it a much better match, I just haven't decided whether it is worth it to play them when so much of the field is running Blue aggro-control that can crush combo.

[Peter_Rotten]

I think that this deck has "established" itself to a reasonable degree. It is performing rather well (even though it has a very small player base) and has a set core of cards.

Moved to Established.

[konsultant]

Played in our local Legacy event yesterday, unfortunatly I did not take the win but another Syracuse player has decided to take up playing Tombstone and he did place in 3rd. I'm not sure what his wins were but I know his only loss in the swiss and his loss in top 4 were both to the same person playing White Thresh. That can be a difficult match to play and this was the first time he had ever played the deck so congrat's to Big Brian for making top 4. He was playing my build card for card.

My day at the event was less spectacular,

Round 1
Beat the absolute shit out of the chair

Round 2
0-2 against the only combo player in the room, I swear the round 1 bye give's me bad karma for the day, anyway I was destroyed by TES again.

Round 3
0-1 against RBG "Burning Rock"? All I know is that given more time I believe the match was winnable for me but when my turns take approximatly 10-20 seconds and your opponents take 2-3 minute's it's hard to play out your entire match. I made a number of mistake's in an attempt to play faster to speed up the game. I partially blame Sensie's Top and partially Abold who ironically remarked later that day on how all our match's go to time.

Round 4
Instead of just dropping and going home I decided beating upon some 11 year old kid playing mono white Kithkin beater's would somehow make the day better. Let's just say that after explaining what Swords to Plowshare's did, I reccomended he trade for some.

While I have been perfectly content with the Main Deck, the SB has been alittle bit lacking. My strategy of disacrd + Extirpate as an anti-combo strategy has been far worse than I thought it would be. (I didn't give it much credit but I though I might be able to snag a win atleast sometime's). Also I didn't really have anything relevent for the Burning Rock match.

I have been trying to cram the 4th Harmonize into the MD somewhere but other than that I have found no reason to change anything there. The SB is in need of an entire overhaul. I was thinking of adding Teeg and/or Meddling Mage. Pithing Needle seems like it could be a useful addition as well. Well if anyone else is playing this deck i'm looking for possible SB's if you care to post them.

[Mental]

I've been trying to test out this deck but I can't figure out on the right manabase. You run 7 Fetches, 9 Duals, and 5 Basics, but which duals/basics/fetches do you run and what numbers of each?

[konsultant]

I've been trying to test out this deck but I can't figure out on the right manabase. You run 7 Fetches, 9 Duals, and 5 Basics, but which duals/basics/fetches do you run and what numbers of each?

4x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland

3x Polluted Delta
4x Windswept Heath

2x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Plains

[BiggestLegacyPlayerAlive]

Like Geoff said I played this deck to a top 4 finish at our local event. My Match-ups for the day were:
Round 1 2-0 Adam Phillips playing some URG Thresh, made enough play mistakes to lose game 1 but still won cause Tombstalker is awesome.
Round 2 0-2 Nat playing White Thresh, Vedalken Shackles sucks, and CounterTop is pretty annoying too.
Round 3 2-0 New kid playing Kithkin, stabalized at 2 game 1, then apparently was a dick by sideboarding in 3x Engineered Plague and 3x Engineered Explosives
Round 4 2-1 Nick Patnode playing Control AggroLoam Pile, made what Nick claims was a play mistake that won me the game
Top 4 0-2 Nat again, and surprisingly Vedalken Shackles still sucked and CounterTop was still pretty annoying.

Any deck I can top 4 with has got to be pretty good. Nat I have some super secret tech for your shackles next week. The deck is really fun to play, and harmonize and Tombstalker are amazing.

[darkalucard]

konsultant:

I see you look at this deck as your version of rock. You don't like how the deck is in top deck mode and so design it to play more like Landstill. And so I see you playing Brainstorm and Harmonize. If you absolutely must play Brainstorm you might as well play Standstill over Harmonize. Play Goyf and then Standstill, they will be forced to break it. You do not need man lands. Although in my experience man lands are very good in this type of deck.

Anyways I do not believe you should be playing Brainstorm or Blue at all. This deck is a topdeck deck. It has the best topdecks of any deck. You should be playing Divining Top instead. Top is the best card in the rock deck, I would say it is better than Brainstorm because you get it every turn. This is not as good in a blue deck because they do not need Top every turn because they have other draw cards, this kind of deck does not. You need to trade power for consistency. Design this deck to topdeck well and you will be set. Although I have not tested harmonize, 4 mana seems allot. How is it working out for you?

[Bovinious]

Anyways I do not believe you should be playing Brainstorm or Blue at all. This deck is a topdeck deck. It has the best topdecks of any deck. You should be playing Divining Top instead. Top is the best card in the rock deck, I would say it is better than Brainstorm because you get it every turn. This is not as good in a blue deck because they do not need Top every turn because they have other draw cards, this kind of deck does not. You need to trade power for consistency.

QFT, I immediately thought the same thing when I saw this deck in Nightmare's recent SCG article. Top is basically Brainstorm on a stick, and its not like you need blue cards to dig for counters or remove to FoW, plus you wouldnt have to play USeas...

[Jim]

QFT, I immediately thought the same thing when I saw this deck in Nightmare's recent SCG article. Top is basically Brainstorm on a stick, and its not like you need blue cards to dig for counters or remove to FoW, plus you wouldnt have to play USeas...

The thread is only on the third page, please read all posts.

They've already hashed it out a bit about Top vs. Brainstorm (and Fact Or Fiction).

I think you guys are seriously underestimating how awesome it is to go poof!, and have three new cards in hand, not "looking" at three new cards (Top), but right in your hand. The deck spends the first few turns each game playing birds, discard, LD and cheap threats, an explosion if you will. Now, playing Top at might make it so you could continue to have a steady steam of more discard, LD and threats, but why spread out those threats over turns? Why not just pay four mana and at the very least go nuts next turn (if not starting that turn with extra mana). You know, keep the pressure on.

Bob showed a typical start with the deck..

Typical play,
Turn 1 land bird, go
Turn 2 land thoughtseize, therapy
Turn 3 land Doran
Turn 4 land Harmonize thoughtseize, flashback therapy
Turn 5 Eternal Witness(Harmonize), Therapy
Turn 6 land Harmoize, flashback therapy

Card use 12, Cards in hand 6 if going first

Card count +11 for tombstone. This is not atypical for this deck, this deck can run faster but this is the slow card advantage route it typically runs.

Replace "Harmonize" with "Top", and that example becomes less than spectacular.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Bob showed a typical start with the deck..


Replace "Harmonize" with "Top", and that example becomes less than spectacular.

Irrelevant. The argument against Brainstorm has absolutely nothing to do with Harmonize.

[quicksilver]

Good Match Up's:

Nearly any aggro control deck that isn't running blue is almost an auto win. Decks along the line's of Survival...

Doran: Doran beats Goblins, and is a huge help in this decks bad matchup Survival, as he is Shriekmaw proof and big game hunter proof.

I'm just a little confused it sounds like one person saying survival is a buy, and another saying it's a bad matchup. Is this just due to differences in deck lists? Or difference in testing results? Obviously there are many survival builds out there, so maybe you guys were testing against significantly different ones?

[Bovinious]

I think you guys are seriously underestimating how awesome it is to go poof!, and have three new cards in hand, not "looking" at three new cards (Top), but right in your hand. The deck spends the first few turns each game playing birds, discard, LD and cheap threats, an explosion if you will. Now, playing Top at might make it so you could continue to have a steady steam of more discard, LD and threats, but why spread out those threats over turns? Why not just pay four mana and at the very least go nuts next turn (if not starting that turn with extra mana). You know, keep the pressure on.

How many Brainstorms have you turned into Ancestrals? You dont get to keep all 3 cards, so you cant possibly net 3 cards from it unless you really want to ditch 2 lands and its turn like 4+ and you have enough land. You dont need to go "poof" because you dont play countermagic...there is really no reason Top isnt just better that I can see.

[Dilettante]

How many Brainstorms have you turned into Ancestrals? You dont get to keep all 3 cards, so you cant possibly net 3 cards from it unless you really want to ditch 2 lands and its turn like 4+ and you have enough land. You dont need to go "poof" because you dont play countermagic...there is really no reason Top isnt just better that I can see.

Opponent: Turn 1-2 Thoughtseize/Therapy/Duress/Hymm. Do you lose your best card of your top 7... or 3rd best of your top 10?

[Media314r8]

*IF* you fetch your blue source early game, which you say you don't need until late game... the blue splash seems janky to me, IMO you should be playing manlands and landstill in place of harmonize if you're playing blue, or just cut blue for a stronger manabase and top in place of brainstorm.

[Osse]

Opponent: Turn 1-2 Thoughtseize/Therapy/Duress/Hymm. Do you lose your best card of your top 7... or 3rd best of your top 10?

I hate to chime in here, but how many decks play those cards and don't have the Wasteland? I mean, yeah you might save one or two good cards, but then they make three of your cards dead (at least, depending on what else you're playing that's blue). Tbh, I'd much rather the 'stable' manabase of Three colors with Top, or you could even try Phyrexian Arena. Running blue seems like you're asking for trouble, at least with only one blue source.
Also, as I said above, everytime I played the Harmonize, I wanted it to be Survival, which makes Top even better. Just saying.

[Raider Bob]

At Quicksilver

Survival is by far not a bye, in testing Survival 'Diablos's build' is considererd by team left field to be the best deck in the format or right up there anyway. Doran helps that matchup a lot.

At Brainstorm

I personally play Sensei's Divining top over Brainstorm and do not play blue in the version I play. That being said, Geoff believes Brainstorm in this deck is a mid game call where you flush back 2 lands your holding with a fetchland and it does turn into a card quality recall in that situation. As a mid game card you can make the argument that it should be a three of card ,cause you do not want to draw a mid game card early. The debate over Brainstorm basiclly boils down to your play style.

At Harmonize

4 mana is not too much and if we could play 6 harmonizes in the deck we probably would oh wait we play 7 with Eternal witness. Anyway harmonize in a deck with this much early beef is the hammer you really need and makes this deck run at top speed.

[Brushwagg]

@Standstill: Is the WORST suggestion you could make. While I haven't picked up the deck, I've played aganist it enough to know how the deck works (play aganist it every week). Harmonize > Standstill in every way for this deck.

[darkalucard]

Why is Standstill bad in the deck? Does it not do the same thing for 2 mana? Just play it when you have creature advantage on board, even a landstill deck would have to break it. Best reason not to play it would be so that if your cut off on blue your not completely screwed over. I can understand that.

Konsultant:
I will be testing this deck as it is the only different version of rock that I have not tried yet, that is worth trying. I've been playing rock for a long time now, even losing to you at ULTM. Anyways could you provide your current sideboard? I have not seen a complete list yet.

Note:
Why is this thread so popular?

[Brehn]

Why is Standstill bad in the deck? Does it not do the same thing for 2 mana? Just play it when you have creature advantage on board, even a landstill deck would have to break it.

By that logic, Standstill could be played in every noncombo deck. I haven't seen a Tombstone list with more than 10 big creatures (to get a favorable board position), and some of those creatures (Tombstalker, Doran, Exalted Angel) are pretty difficult to cast in the earlygame. Harmonize can be played as soon as you reach 4 mana (or 5 to be Daze-proof), be it in a good or a bad position. Standstill can only be played if you have one of those beaters on the board, i.e. you are in a good position anyway. Also, Standstill is way scarier if the possibility of drawing a counterspell in those three card exists.