Just played a tourny with about 15 ppl. Here is the list of decks for the meta:
UGR threshold
UGW threshold
RBG goblins
RG goblins
2 RBW burn aggro decks
42 land.dec
TES
chain of mesphotofdfasofjsdfk whatever deck
stax
rock
white weenie
dragon stompy
and a couple of others that I don't remember
My first 4 rounds went like this.
Rock
He wasteland and extirpated tropical, wastelanded bayou, and extirpated tog. which by this time I was able to then control the board with 2 shackles and countertop and then stalled out. Eventually I had him down to 3 cards in deck with 3 minutes left, and he took the longest fuckin turn in the world and said go as time ran out to become active player to force a draw.
0-0-1
RG goblins
Don't remember much other than I completly owned with shackles
1-0-1
RGB goblins
The same thing as last
2-0-1
chain deck
He left of something and didn't show up for 25 mins and expected me to be ok about it and still play, soo I was nice and only make him take 1 game loss, then smack him hard core for the second.
3-0-1
first playoff game TES
Both games I draw the perfect countertop force blue card and 3 lands both game and he couldn't go off until turn 3, and by this time I was set up and won( he got bad hands and mullugens both games)
Split for top because was to lazy and went to play the cube.
The deck has now won me 4 tournies in a row and has performed more than up to expectations, have only truly lost against 2 players so far in the last 2 tournies, 1 was from belcher which he got 2 first turn kill and I didn't draw shit.(then beat him in top 4) And then against a burn deck which I got horrible countertop reveals(bad luck does happen every once in a while. But came back and beat him in top 2)
That's where you generally get your five extra turns or get the judge to give him a warning/GL for retarded slow play.he took the longest fuckin turn in the world and said go as time ran out to become active player to force a draw
Relevant rules:
*If the match time limit is reached before a winner is determined, the active player (as defined in the Magic game rules) finishes his or her turn and five total additional turns are played. For example, time is called on player A’s turn. Player A finishes his or her turn. Player B takes extra turn #1, Player A takes extra turn #2, Player B takes extra turn #3, player A takes extra turn #4, and player B takes extra turn #5.
*Players who take longer than is reasonably required to complete game actions are engaging in Slow Play. If a judge believes a player is intentionally playing slowly to take advantage of a time limit, the infraction is Cheating — Stalling.
*If Slow Play has significantly affected the result of the match, the Head Judge may upgrade the penalty.
*(Cheating - Stalling) If it is clear that a player is stalling, the integrity of the match is compromised and he or she will face a serious penalty. [DQ without prize]
Game Loss, tardiness.didn't show up for 25 mins
Relevant rules:
*A penalty will not be given if a round started early and a player arrived at his or her seat before the originally announced start time. At Regular and Competitive events, or in tournaments where matches consist of a single game, the tournament organizer may elect to give players the amount of time allotted for the pre-game procedure (3 minutes) before a penalty is issued. Otherwise, the appropriate penalty is issued as soon as the round begins. At any REL, if a player is not in his or her seat 10 minutes into the round, he or she is issued a second Game Loss (or two Game Losses at Regular REL). A player receiving two Game Losses for Tardiness in the same round (or one Game Loss for single-game matches) is dropped from the tournament unless they report to the Head Judge or Scorekeeper before the end of the round.
Yes, having a judge around could be useful at times.
Suddenly! Pints of beer! Thousands of th~ ... Nope. Never mind.
the stalling does not count if the player is actually playing actions during his turn, it doesn't matter if he is stalling or not if he is playing things during his turn, which he played a spell during his main phase, attacked, played a couple of more spells during the second main phase, and then extirpated and did a couple of other things, which in the rules of the game it is not considered stalling even though we both know that he was doing it to waste time....Which Kind of sucks becaus I could have called stalling but Decided against it because it was a friend and nothing would have happened
And on the game loss, I was being nice and only gave him 1 game loss Which if I didn't have complete faith that I would win, I would have just made him take 2 losses. But I also hate the kid with a passion and it always feels better pounding those kind of people in to the ground so I can rub it in his face.
Anywaze I wish we had an officialy judge around to help rule things but we onl have a judge that has passed the first test but didn't follow up because he went to college instead.
Here is my deck, I am very happy with it….
This is what I have decided to run for my one-of intuition targets:
Genesis/ Gigapede/ Eternal Witness/ Life from the Loam/Ruins./Stronghold
There is no question why this not to run these cards. But If you need something… It forces to get the card you want. Also do not forget about the hot synergy between the recursive land and Counterbalance.
Viridian Zealot:
This is the only card that is reasonable that can destroy artifacts and enchantments with a self-supporting sac-outlet for Genesis/Stronghold. Yes, Capashen Unicorn is easier on the colored mana, and has a bigger “butt.” Yet the tap in the cost makes it less useable.
Shriekmaw:
Same as Zealot, only for creatures.
Morphling:
Amazing! Really. Makes man lands almost useless. Attacking and Blocking in one is awesome. I honestly could go on and on about how good it really is. Also I think that Psychatog does not play well with Tarmogoyf or this deck at all. If Superman is not your style that is fine by me, yet I think it is a great solution for the “I win game” clause in the deck.
Side: Silent Arbiter
It is for the beats, not sure yet if it keeps it place. But for now I am happy for it. I am willing to discuss/advise about this choice.
Here is my list for reference:
Lands
1 Academy Ruins
3 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Island
4 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
Creatures
1 Genesis
1 Gigapede
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Shriekmaw
1 Morphling
1 Eternal Witness
Spells
3 Intuition
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Life from the Loam
3 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
Sideboard
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Krosan Grip
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Duress
1 Silent Arbiter
2 Pernicious Deed
Sidenote:
Faerie Macabre is awesome… It is nothing like crypt or jailer or anything else. It is nuts. Play some in every deck you make
Big Selling points:
Zero mana for effect And Uncounterable
Three mana casting cost
Can Chump if needed.
Duress, I am not sure about this spot… I want to cut it…But can’t. HALP.
Last edited by Giles; 06-16-2008 at 04:34 PM.
Tog is an awful card. It's decent with the loam engine, and only with the loam engine. I'd rather play Shackles for a good late game.
Countebalance is horrible in this deck. It's hits 3cc way to often. You think that's good, but it's bad against most of the tier 1 - Threshold. Protecting balance when it doesn't do shit because it needs to flip 3cc to often to protect itself is, well, awful. Plus, Deed has horrible synergy with it. Sure I like Deed in Landstill - but not here. There are too many important permanents in this deck.
Goyf getting extirpated sucks, sure, but you still have intuition for Academy Ruins/Loam/Shackles. Heirarch isn't for the thresh MU, hes for random other MUs where 4 Life and a body is really good, and even better with Stronghold.
BTW, me and my friends all took turns playing this deck and thrash. So it wasn't "bad ITF player against good thrash player." And ITF did win some games - but the new incarnation won a lot more. I'd bet my version also has a better thresh MU.
There is no content to this part, pls stop blasting this deck for no reason. This card is a good card, if it wasn't there wouldn't be decks build around it duhhh.
Counterbalance is the key in this deck. Without it there is no deck, if you don't like it, stop posting, your just bashing a deck because you can't play it right, This deck wins because of countertop out to keep a soft lock and the recursion of any card you need. This deck is kind a mix of threshold and landstill, and if it not played that way then it wont win, but if piloted right, it can dominate, it wouldn't be here if it didn't win.
By your saying that deed is not good in this deck is practically the same as saying its bad in landstill, there are soo many similarities from this to landstill that you could almost put them in the same thread. Learn to play deed right or go back to playing thrash.
Most decks that life gain is needed are the boros decks and fast red burn aggro decks, which by the time you get heriarch out its to late to matter, and you still lose because you gave up half of the deck to play a completly different deck.
No duh the new incarnation won, you changed it to beat one deck in the format, and you changed it to play more like threshold, no duh you will be able to play it better. If you don't like the deck DON'T PLAY IT, YOU DON'T HAVE TO POST.
Last edited by landstill101; 06-17-2008 at 01:42 AM. Reason: spelling
Jesus, calm down. I'm not allowed to bash a deck? Why not? I'm bringing up intelligent points. If you don't like it, go deal with it.
Tog is a bad card. Here's why:
It's bad in the early game.
It's 3 mana for a 1/2.
Goyf trumps it unless you want to create massive card disadvantage or it's the fairly late game.
Again, if Tog is good, Shackles is probably better.
I agree that Counterbalance is the key to this deck. However, you can't plan on having both Balance and Top in your opening hand every game. So you need Balance to function on its own - that is, blindly countering Goyf, Geese, Cantrips, and other such things. If it can't do that without Top in play, it's not worth playing, IMO.
Deed is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT in this deck than it is in Landstill. Observe:
Landstill runs up to 6 cards that have disynergy with Deed - 4 Goyf, 2 Shackles. Probably never anything more than that.
ITF runs at least 10 cards that have disynergy with Deed - 4 Goyf, 4 Balance, 2 Shackles. I see a difference.
Hierarch is also good against Goblins because it usually takes out a Driver and buys you a turn, which is nice. Against Thresh it trumps Geese. Anyway, it could become Shackles #2.
I changed the deck to play more like Threshold, sure, and to beat THE BEST DECK IN THE FORMAT more consistently. Beating the best deck in the format much more often (I don't see the even MU you guys claim against Thresh) and keeping other MUs good (I think the addition of the cycling land helps the Landstill MU, which is already probably decent based on Loam + Stronghold/Ruins) isn't a sin. Stop talking like innovation is bad.
You do realize that the reason why the three casting cost cards are in the deck is so that you can still function under an opposing Counterbalance, right? As it turns out, if you make a deck that will blindly counter things at 1-2, YOU'LL NEVER RESOLVE THOSE CARDS UNDER AN OPPOSING COUNTERBALANCE.
Do you understand? That's why Counterbalance is the trump card in game 1 of the Threshold mirror. The three cost cards in It's the Fear mean that you can still play Magic under an opposing Counterbalance. Additionally, Threshold is not the ONLY DECK IN THE FORMAT. As it turns out, people play other decks as well. Often, those other decks play cards at three in order to combat Counterbalance as well.
Landstill101 isn't making innovation out to be a sin, he's defending one of the core ideals of the deck, which is to be able to play Magic under an opposing Counterbalance. He probably said it a bit harsher than intended, but whatever, it's the internet, people are mean.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
I've been testing a little ITF these days and I'm really liking the deck, it's incredibly versatile playing both control and aggrocontrol roles. I've played against some Threshold and aggrocontrol players and I have the feeling that this deck is only composed by cards the opponent cannot let resolve. If Counterbalance sticks you can softlock your opponent and win with Goyf. I know CB doesn't hit blindly so often as Threshold does, but you have much more control elements than Threshold. If CB gets handled, then I have Swords (I really think this deck has to run it) or EE to get rid of his stuff. Afterwards, you drop a Deed and blow it all. And of course there are Intuition locks. I mean, I don't want to be redundant, but this deck has too many threats the opponente has to answer.
Deed may blow your own stuff, but, besides you can even get some card advantage, I found that this deck's access to recursion in form of Volrath's Stronghold and Academy Ruins can minimize the effect of this. I mean, if I get a Intuition to resolve I will get access to not only 3 but ten cards in my graveyard.
About Intuition targets, I have tested Tog and Shriekmaw. As many others have stated, Tog is usually just a 1/2 which can't fly or trample, most of time I'd rather have a 6/7. Shriekmaw is nice but a little redundant and many times Intuition for EE does the same job. Now I'm thinking of testing a second Witness, Witness for Pernicious is too good to not abuse of it.
Last edited by godryk; 06-17-2008 at 09:48 AM.
We tried to copy the Source, but then we realized we're spanish
If my post results dumb or offensive, it's probably just me miserably failing at being ironic in a foreign language
@Giles: Why did you cut an Intuition to add more Intuition targets? Also, why the 3 basic Islands?
@landstill101: I see that you smashed Gobs twice on the strength of Shackles. How do/did you answer a t1 Vial? I've found that once they get Vial going with Matron/Ringleader/SGC et al, Shackles is not even close to enough and you're praying for Deed. Has anyone else had trouble with the Goblins matchup?
I agree with godryk 100% about the deck's versatility. Every card is so potent that it usually becomes a must-answer for your opponent. Whatever they don't answer determines how you play the deck. On top of that, ITF packs answers for all their must-answer cards, making it an incredibly fun deck to play.
To me, this deck is easy to play but difficult to play optimally. The Intuition decisions alone have me clicking the "Thinking" button way more often than usual. I'm probably just a poor control player though.
Lastly, someone mentioned before the strength of Bob in the deck. Bob wins games and is one of the biggest 'must-answer' cards in the format. I've been testing Gearhart's list -3 Counterspell +3 Confidant, and so far I have been very pleased with the results.
Deep6er: Thank you, Yes I'm a tad bit harsh but hey whats the internet for if I'm not aloud to shout out a little anger that I'm not aloud to do in public without getting thrown in jail.![]()
Godryk: misplayer already said it.
Misplayer: Well against the goblins players I think I only saw vial once and it was late game and didn't matter. I did see lackey 3 games out of 4 which gives me relief That I was able to stop first turn lackey. I'm planning on meeting with a bunch of buddies for the huge legacy tourny coming up I think next week to do alot of play testing, soo I'll check out how the first turn vial turns out.
It's not a trump against Thresh because it barely does anything against them Blind. And against opposing Counterbalances, you can still Intuition for Ruins, Loam, and EE. It's a paradox that in order to make Counterbalance good against Counterbalance you have to make it bad against Thresh, sure. But I'd rather not play sweepers that, at least in my testing, this deck has trouble supporting and are anti synergistic with it's gameplan, like Pernicious Deed.
Ok Deep6er, what are the cards that cost 3 mana you're afraid of, that are played by other decks in the format?
Matron, Warchief, Cunning Wish, Intuition, Crucible of Worlds, Deed, Countryside Crusher, and Terravore. I could be missing a little bit.
Well, it doesn't seem to me like those cards are a reason to make Counterbalance bad against the best deck in the format unless you're in a heavy Goblins/Landstill meta, which I'm not, and I think most people aren't.
Magus of the Moon, Blood Moon, Krosan Grip, the list goes on and on.
What I think you're missing, is that Threshold is not the ONLY deck in the format. Sure, it's the best deck, but you have solid game against them anyway. My testing has definitely shown that It's the Fear is favored against Threshold. Why warp the deck so badly to get a possible ten percent, when it ACTUALLY just screws you out of playing Magic if they land a Counterbalance before you?
You have a bad case of tunnel vision. Take a look around. The top 8's aren't completely dominated by Threshold. Chill dude. The Threshold match is fine.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
Yup, Threshold matchup is already in our favor, I don't think we have to make heavy adjustments of the maindeck for the sole purpose of raising our winning percentages against it. So far I think that this deck is favored against all kinds of aggro-control and control decks, running on par with pure aggro decks (if properly built) and having problems against decks that don't need non-land permanents to actually win the game (combo, Ichorid, forty-something-land.dec, burn). And against Dragon Stompy, quite obviously, but I don't think we can ever get our matchup against Dragon Stompy to being better than even.
Ichorid: we maindeck some solutions to bridge tokens, this matchup should be addressed primarily by the sideboard (I know I know, I am a genius or something - use your sideboard against Ichorid!! what an idea!!) - I think Extirpate is the best choice because it also has its uses against other decks, disrupting their GY based strategies - LftL recursion, Genesis recursion etc. You almost can't ever hit LftL with Crypt, you know, and Leyline is too narrow. (excess Extirpates may address another threats, while excess Leylines are well ... excess).
Combo: t3h problem, we can't expect to get CB+Top going by the time they try to go off backed up by Orim's Chant, Xantid Swarm or discard. SB Meddling Mage or Thoughtseize/Duress? Discard may give us time to complete CB+Top lock, especially if combined with Extirpates I mentioned in the paragraph right above. Also, Extirpate can pretty much screw IGG based combos.
Aggro: that's why I changed Counterspells to Spell Snares in my version of this deck, aggro should be handled by the maindeck. There's almost no place to address it in the SB, other than omnipresent BEB.
Well, this is the SB:
3 Extirpate
1 Tormod's Crypt (Intuition into crypt+Academy Ruins+LftL)
4 Thoughtseize
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Engineered Plague
Yes, no Krosan Grip. It doesn't solve any of our bad matchups, and we already have 3 Deeds + 2 EE + sexy Intuition into EE recursion. My sideboard against combo is quite heavily "black" based, but I don't expect combo decks to disrupt my manabase.
Maindeck I use is still the same as I posted 2 pages or so ago (the one I won with, if someone still does remember my little tourney report back there).
All this "It's the Fear" deck is somebody figuring out that Threshold is too tempo based and Landstill needs a better early game and so he merges the strategies, makes some personal card choices according to his experience and plays the deck. This is the natural evolution of control.
This is what happened:
-Somebody was brave enough to use his brain and make a good metagame control deck.
-He had the skill to play it.
-He did well at a tournament.
-Everyone flocks to the "new deck" because they think it's some kind of new tech to help them.
-Everybody sucks and cant take advantage of the tech because they didn't personal come up with it themselves and do not understand it so they show there version of tech and like allot of control deck everybody ignored eachother and just rambles pointless opinions hoping people agree but they dont because they have there own decklist and opinions and everyone is stubborn and nobody understands eachother and most players on here suck or cannot learn new things and blah blah blah.
I just cannot understand why this deck has its own thread.
I have made many decks that are a pile of good cards like this and perform just as good or better.
For example "The Rock" thread is practically 50 different decks and if they gave them a new name and people on this forum liked them enough and they top 8ed they would get there own decklist for a variant of something else that is nothing new but supposable some newly defined tech.
BTW This includes "Eva Green" as all it is, is Sui with Goyf. Oh but they didn't play Tombstalker, Thoughtseize, and Goyf! Ummm thats because they werent printed! Decks evolve as the format changes and there are new playable cards. "Eva Green" is somebody trying to make a new deck realizing it was bad and slowly realizing it to the point they take the bad cards out and it becomes somebody aknowledging that the format changes.
The only reason why there are so many decks in legacy is because people dont realize certain decks are bad or don't test enough to have there version refined so the format is a billion variants of 20 different decks. People dont follow the format and people are stubborn and keep playing outdated decks untill somebody figures out Legacy does change and makes the "new list" with a "new name" to go get people to realize that there deck changed.
The fact is though there are no set decks and any good player can throw together a pile of good cards after taking a look at the format and then outplay everyone with the pile and win.
People lose because:
- They don't know the format.
- They choose a bad deck.
- They play a deck thats bad in the metagame.
- They don't know how to play there deck.
- They don't know how to play there match ups.
- They just plain suck.
Excuse my rant but I thought I had some very good point running through my head and this thread seemed like a good place to vent it and start a healthy disscusion.
Sooo Is this post ment for everyone on here, or are you just venting off and just randomly choose this one. Anywaze I think more or less he is perfectly right, As it has been talked about a couple of times and has a thread soley to talk about it, almost every deck says it has a favorable matchup against threshold and in almost every case that is completly wrong, the decks actually have a good matchup against bad threshold players, Right now I have not lost to threshold yet with this deck, but many of the people that play it around me do not play it well at all.(Yawg is starting to play threshold soo we will have a good player soon.) But it also works the same the other way around, a great threshold player can easily beat any good player no matter the deck, it doesn't matter if the play dragon stompy or this deck, they will still win from shear skill. Ok back to the deck....
I played in a 12 man tourny last night and split first place by going 3-1 for swiss. I beat Thrash, chain of mepho deck, and white stax and lost to enchantress, then beat a eva green deck for playoffs and split with the enchantress deck, which then we left and played cube the rest of the night. Right now the deck is still performing.
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