[Article] The Demigod Deck

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

The offending paragraph and attitude isn't offending just because it's inaccurate. It's offensive because it continues this narrative that the Legacy format doesn't exist as such beyond assholes playing around a kitchen table, and that any schmuck can casually come in and break it. Throwing out an article claiming to have created one of the top decks in the format despite the lack of play or tournament results, with little testing and a lackluster intro to the deck behind it enforces the idea that the Legacy metagame isn't anything to take seriously. And from someone that is, for whatever reason, considered to be an expert on the format makes it especially damaging.

If Anusien had written this crap attached to, "Here's a pet deck I've been working on, I think it could be really good", that would be one thing. But Christ, even Jack Mother Fucking Elgin has the goddamned common sense not to label his own pet decks as being "premier" when no one else is playing them.

I've spoken out against previous frivolous complaints because they were frivolous and they would have exactly this effect; deadening the criticism when it's actually relevant. It's relevant in this case though. Kevin should go back and edit his ego out of this article. It presents a negative stereotype of Legacy.

[herbig]

I didn't intend much with the Demigod of Revenge deck but it became, I think, premier combo-control deck in Legacy.

Shouldn't there also be a "the" in there somewhere as well? Come on now, if you're going to piss the whole community off you might as well have the decency of correct English grammar. I'm outrage.

[Anusien]

I can't believe I didn't stop reading right there. You might as well have said, "I woke with a start, covered in sweat. Peering out my window, I could see the dawn breaking and the dew drops glistened on the lawn. Nestled between two blades of grass, I saw a dumb fucking cliché." Anyway, the rest of the article is a really solid primer.

Wow. I figured that Princess Bride reference was tragically obvious. You know, "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Bad Men. Beautifulest ladies. True love." I did go for the book version of the quote rather than the movie version, so that's what might be tripping you up.

But you know what? It's a cult classic. I'm still not letting you off the hook for that.

P.S., Bardo <3.
<3 <3 <3

No Aggro-Loam testing? It seems like that matchup would be really bad for you because they're playing a deck that can do a lot of what your deck can do, except it's faster and hits harder in a relevant time frame (and can disrupt you along the way).

Aggro Loam has this awkward problem where you both have about the same Loam engine capabilities, but you have trumps in Counterbalance and Demigod and Shackles. Like, sometimes they go turn 2 Loam turn 3 Devastating Dreams, but that isn't often. I feel like it's slightly ahead, but each game is so random that it's hard to tell. Then again I've been massively comfortable against Aggro Loam with just Counterbalance and Force of Will.

Actually, I'm suspicious of the general lack of mention of Loam decks, and the relatively light of mention of control decks like Standstill. In fact, while we're on the subject, that list of test decks looks slightly outdated...not unlike what I used to test against when I last played Legacy seriously - a year ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

Welll, I figured these were the most important. Like, blah blah blah Aggro Loam or UWb Landstill or whatever, but if I omitted any of these decks in the matchup section, things would be bad. The rest are just sort of semi-relevant, and the article was already 5000 words.

Stronghold is nice, but you know what's really retarded with Intuition if you're looking for creature recycling? Genesis. They give you a 4/4 beatstick, or they give you an unlimited creature recursion engine that doesn't eat a draw step.

...They give you Genesis, and then you have a crappy creature in hand. Plus, Stronghold keeps going after they Tormod's Crypt away your Life from the Loam.

Furthermore, I don't buy the argument that you'd win enough after sideboarding to swing a significant number of matches in your favor. If you lose game one, you have to win two more games, whereas they only need to win one. With that kind of math, I'd really want to see "post-board is exceedingly favorable" to "post-board is a total blowout," ESPECIALLY if the first game is so close.

That's because, for the most part, we didn't talk about the other matchups. Let me give you a dozen pages on how versus Fish decks or whatever small aggro decks I barely sideboard at all and just go "lol can you deal with a Pernicious Deed? How about Shackles recursion? GG" I covered the matchups that require sideboard space (Ichorid aside, which I'm not convinced is all that great, so I'm now running Extirpate instead of Yixlid Jailor).

P.S., Why does every article thread with a new deck (not just mine) have a comment on this refrain: "I don't believe you. There's no big finish/big finish was a fluke. I don't think you've done enough testing/I don't believe your testing. I can easily beat that deck with 0 change to mine. I'm going to ignore this deck and continue playing my pet deck."

Aside: Pretty sure actually caring what you people think is -EV. Not only does it not seem to affect how well my articles are received in the general public, but you people will criticize articles no matter what. Compared to where I was six months ago or more, I've done significant amounts of change in style and content in order to try and make you people happy. And yet it doesn't seem to matter to anyone in terms of feedback received or nasty criticism given. Just food for thought; if you want people to care what you think it's possible you need to change the way you give your feedback.

Edit: Oh my god, I totally forgot.
*scoops to Herbig* What a massive beat. :P

[undone]

Dont hate the player, hate the deck.

It seems bad just so bad because it loses to so many cards. From not having a good landstill or aggroloam matchup, to having a mediocer combo matchup.

That's because, for the most part, we didn't talk about the other matchups. Let me give you a dozen pages on how versus Fish decks or whatever small aggro decks I barely sideboard at all and just go "lol can you deal with a Pernicious Deed? How about Shackles recursion? GG" I covered the matchups that require sideboard space (Ichorid aside, which I'm not convinced is all that great, so I'm now running Extirpate instead of Yixlid Jailor).

"Lol can you beat needles" Honestly I dont believe you tested against good thresh decks good thresh pilots or thresh decks tuned for this. I am betting you tested against threshold designed to beat aggro and combo (See red tempo and black tempo thresh decks) but ones tailored to beat aggro and control (See black CT thresh, White CT thresh and BW counter top thresh) Probably have a better game then you give credit for here.

Because after all every deck beats threshold 80/20 thats why it never top 8s it only rips the best card off the top by luck couldnt be those 10+ cantrips.

Saying "The counter top matchup is largely luck based" isnt true at all its simple numbers lets evaluate.

They have

4 CB
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
Ponder increases thier odds of T2 CB drasticaly by like 25%.

Now lets look at protection packages
you run 4 force
they run 4 force for daze

They have a better chance to counter your T2 balance (especialy with ponder)

This doesnt include thoughtseize or snare which destroy your CT backup plan.

You also fail to mention the fairly obvious problem your deck has with any deck running price of progress, most specificaly burn.

This deck MIGHT be tier 2 or 1.5 at best but the primer combo control deck it is not, both swans thresh and painters servant heck EVER SURVIVAL has more prominant combos then this. I dont see this deck being bigger then angel stompy or any stompy deck its ok but it definately isnt as consistent as threshold or as powerful as its the fear and land still varients.

[Anusien]

It seems bad just so bad because it loses to so many cards. From not having a good landstill or aggroloam matchup, to having a mediocer combo matchup.

You've certainly never tested either of these matchups like I have, right? Like hell, just look at the cards. It has turn 4 Raven's Crime recursion, plus CounterTop + Force + Goyf. It's almost the complete list of cards combo decks hate to face.
And yeah, Force + CounterTop + my own Loam to keep up with theirs with Extirpate and Crypt sideboarded, certainly a walk in the park for Aggro Loam.

Because after all every deck beats threshold 80/20 thats why it never top 8s it only rips the best card off the top by luck couldnt be those 10+ cantrips.

Saying "The counter top matchup is largely luck based" isnt true at all its simple numbers lets evaluate.

They have

4 CB
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
Ponder increases thier odds of T2 CB drasticaly by like 25%.

Now lets look at protection packages
you run 4 force
they run 4 force for daze

They have a better chance to counter your T2 balance (especialy with ponder)

They have a slight edge in actually just getting to Counterbalance first and playing it. Sure, that's fine. But in the meantime, they have virtually irrelevant cards and I have Deeds and Shackles and Demigods. And yeah, you know what's awesome? Playing Intuition and then putting three Demigods on the table through Counterbalance.

You also fail to mention the fairly obvious problem your deck has with any deck running price of progress, most specificaly burn.

Sure, Price of Progress itself is a pain. It's not my favorite matchup, but I have maindeck Counterbalance and sideboarded Blue Elemental Blast (and Thoughtseize).

I dont see this deck being bigger then angel stompy or any stompy deck its ok but it definately isnt as consistent as threshold or as powerful as its the fear and land still varients.

So it's not as powerful as It's the Fear? They share about 50 cards or so in the maindeck, and It's the Fear has more recursion elements and such where I have more raw power in the form of Raven's Crime and Demigod of Revenge?
The problem, to me, with It's the Fear is that you take a slow concept (Loam Recursion board control decks) and makes it even slower with Eternal Witness and Etched Oracle.

[undone]

They have a slight edge in actually just getting to Counterbalance first and playing it. Sure, that's fine. But in the meantime, they have virtually irrelevant cards and I have Deeds and Shackles and Demigods. And yeah, you know what's awesome? Playing Intuition and then putting three Demigods on the table through Counterbalance.

Its actualy not a slight edge so much as a huge one, made more distance by snares if ran.

1) under the assumption they get counterbalance your only answer is Deed/ee shackles does not answer goose.

2) Both deed and EE cant deal with needle/stifle.

I have more raw power in the form of Raven's Crime and Demigod of Revenge?

3) Ravens crime resolves 0 times though a counterbalance.

4) stifle + CT toping a force or swords, or daze or whatever deals with demigods.

5) you still seem unable to deal with relic...

6) How the heck can you beat team america they run 12 LD you arent likely to reach 3 land to fetch loam much less resolve it if you do.

Basicaly my problems with the deck come down to

1) Why arent you just dropping demigods and playing better creatures as these are nearly dead if you draw them.

2) Seems like your less flexable then landstill, and less consistent then threshold.

3) How is this better then its the fear or landstill?

[Volt]

Wow! I didn't know Threshold players always started with Pithing Needle and Counterbalance and Top in play. Looks like it's time to go back to the drawing board, boys.

[Anusien]

@undone: I'm glad that everyone else always gets the nuts and I get the worst. Try out the deck next time?

[Forbiddian]

Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles. I didn't intend much with the Demigod of Revenge deck but it became, [a good] deck in Legacy because of the multiple avenues of both attack and defense.

Wow. I figured that Princess Bride reference was tragically obvious. You know, "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Bad Men. Beautifulest ladies. True love."

Words in common with opening paragraph: 0.
Number of people who read the Princess Bride book: 1.
Number of people who read, "... multiple avenues of both attack and defense" in a Combo/Control deck and immediately thought, "No shit, srsly? Intuition Control has MULTIPLE options?": 1,029.

I'm not letting you off the hook, nobody would have gotten that reference. If you had thrown in words like "true love" or something to clue the reader in, then you'd have more of a case.

But even then, taking your hook from a children's book is pretty sad. Your primer is not a story, let alone a story about any of the words that you said. In TPB it made sense. Even now that I get you were trying to make a reference, it's just sad.


Unrelated words. Spurious logic. Obscure reference. Questionable writing.

[Nightmare]

Unrelated words. Spurious logic. Obscure reference. Questionable writing.

I got the reference.

And to be clear, and perhaps help save a small amount of face, I did like the article, and the deck is interesting. I think the combination of Intuition and Demigod is pretty powerful, but the hoops you need to jump through to make it castable are iffy to me. Not saying it wouldn't work - I just haven't honestly put the time or effort into it that Kevin has, so I can't say. Nonetheless, with the exception of the hyperbole in the opener and the title, I found myself enjoying this article. It's obvious that he's excited about this deck, and it shows.

[Anusien]

The Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?
Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...
The Grandson: Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake.
Grandpa: Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.

Has it got any sports in it?"
"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."

Tarmogoyf. Counterbalance. Intuition. Life from the Loam. Pernicious Deed. Demigod of Revenge. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.

Honestly, if you don't get obvious The Princess Bride references, why bother existing?

[Forbiddian]

Oh, I didn't realize the full quotation. The section you quoted earlier had nothing in common with your reference, but now it makes more sense.

I apologize, I retract that part of my criticism.


The main part of my criticism was always that you said, "It's a combo control deck with MULTIPLE ways to both combo AND control!" Which is a no-shit-sherlock sandwich. But whatever. Time to go watch a bunch of children's movies so that I'm qualified to post here.

[Brehn]

• Step 1: Stop working those references in. Nobody cares anyway.
  • Or has anybody ever complained "y dosn't ur article hav random references *whine* *whine*"
  • You'll also notice an increase of free time.
• Step 2: Use the time you've gained this way to proof-read your article so it doesn't contain such ridiculous statements.
• Step 3: +EV

Thank you.

[Jaiminho]

Honestly, if you don't get obvious The Princess Bride references, why bother existing?

Publishing articles with inside jokes makes no sense. You should write some jokes only you and your closest friends can understand. Then, you could show it to them and you would all laugh in unison for the joy of mankind.

[frogboy]

Step 1: Stop working those references in. Nobody cares anyway.

Honestly, if you don't get obvious The Princess Bride references, why bother existing?

+1

[Phoenix Ignition]

Maybe it's just me, but I have no idea how this deck is better than the normal aggro control decks out there. Lets look at creatures. This deck runs Goyf and demigods, with minimal counters to back either up. Right now, the largest beaters in legacy are Goyf, Tombstalker, and possibly Doran. These are 2 mana, 2 mana, and 3 mana respectively, and all as powerful if not more powerful than the Demigod.

The 5 mana set-up of getting out a Demigod is almost laughable, and haste is no way to get around it. Tombstalker comes out through land-hate much much earlier than Demigod does, meaning you'll probably get in 2-3 swings before the average Demigod gets in play.

Assuming every deck runs Goyfs (true story), lets just see him for what he is. A big dumb wall. Sure if your demigod trick doesn't work out you'll still get a chance to go goyf control, but you're lacking on control parts, and you're playing far too much for the late game, where recursions will actually matter. Goyf usually won't swing for the win when he's getting blocked by other big dumb goyfs.

The other point I'd love to mention is that drawing the Demigod is going to make your other demigods even worse, as you don't get to reanimate 2 of them anymore. Then when you intuition for the other 2 and they put 1 in your hand, you get to watch your 2 dead cards eat away your hand. Lets face it, 10 damage isn't all that much of a combo when it takes 8+ mana to set up. Couldn't you just rely on a Tombstalker swinging much sooner for that flying damage?

Lastly, when you get the demigod or 2 out, I have to imagine your life is low and that you probably need to chump with one off them just to stop from dying.

I just can't see how such a slow tempo, not very controlling deck would win against every matchup it goes against. "Premier" or not, I don't see this as a consistent competing deck, I just see it as another cool idea pitfall that won't last much longer than a tournament or two, when everyone notices how little meat the deck has and how it's so built around surprise.

Publishing an article on it might ruin the surprise a bit too.

[Anusien]

@Phoenix Ignition: If it's a deck that relies so much on surprise and doesn't actually compete, then prove it. Which one of my testing results are you disputing? Let's stop arguing over semantics and get down to details.

[Phoenix Ignition]

@Phoenix Ignition: If it's a deck that relies so much on surprise and doesn't actually compete, then prove it. Which one of my testing results are you disputing? Let's stop arguing over semantics and get down to details.

Rather than being offended by my comment, could you just respond to my specific examples? I'm not going to argue your testing results because testing results are so incredibly variable that the smallest things (like the crappyness of a shuffling system) can throw them off. How is running the 3 Demigods going to be better, unless you run into absolutely no land disruption or counters, than just running the slightly larger Tombstalker, who's drawback is irrelevant and comes out without any fuss? Trying to combo anything is less consistent than just playing solid cards because you don't need to set solid cards up to do well, they just do.

I'm not writing this to jump on the bandwagon (although that claim in your article was pretty damn terrible), I'm really just amazed that this is the deck that is being highlighted to new legacy players instead of an actual competing deck. I don't really care about people being misled as long as they join the format though, so who knows, maybe your article will do some good?

If you took offense to any of that then please don't even bother responding, I'm not trying to stoke the flame war that has almost broken out of this thread.

[juventus]

Uhhm...whoa. I would like to think that part of the issue lies in the fact that legacy is notably more diverse than standard and extended have been in an excruciatingly long time and as a result a lot more issues fall into the category of conjecture.

...

Maybe all of this is just me because I consider most of the people on this site and the legacy format in general to be a better overall class of person and player than enthusiasts of Standard and [the more recent] Extended.

What I am getting at is that if you give some dipshit something simple to debate, chances are he will be more apt at it...

The point is that legacy has less professional tournaments, so it has less professional players, so it has worse players, it's really that simple (how do you think I have such a high rating in eternal?). If you think that legacy players are better at magic you are deeply mistaken. If you need an opinion on standard or extended or limited or whatever, you can read articles from players that are among the highest rated in the world and have multiple top 8's in tournaments that have won them thousands of dollars. There is simply nothing like that in legacy. There is no way to prove you know what you are talking about.

[Mordel]

You mean, there are few varifiable ways to prove you know what you are talking about.

My qualm with the standard and extended scene is that there is very little to prove as far as kmost things are concerned because the pros are the people that make the decks that everyone plays. What the fuck is there to discuss or prove when everybody is playing a variant of Quick and Toast or NLB?

Yes, the legacy format's players are generally too far-flung to give quantifiable results in tangible tournaments, yes. Keep in mind that the whole proving yourself by playing actual cards was but a part of your grossly self-defamatory statement. Why would you even bother to have over two hundred posts if you seem to think so little of the format and the people that play it?