Originally Posted by Finn
Don't mock me. You weren't "trying", as any attempt at discussing if Path is superior to Swords has resulted in hostility from you. The fact that you yet again dismiss the very real possibility of swords losing you a game continues to show your "respect" (lack of).
Let me ask you this: have you personally tested Path over Swords? If the answer is no, I have nothing further to discuss with you.
The only issue I see with this is what will you do with Gofy standstills.
And I very rarely find myself with enough creatures/burn to deal with a turn 1/2 Dreadnaught.
As far as my list goes, Im going to stick with 4 Swords.
Have you tested Path to Exile?
I can attest that Finn has tested path to exile as it seems that the card is a natural replacement for swords in aggressive decks.
It was in this testing that the discovery was made that path was near uncastable in the early turns of the game. The natural reaction to this is that the deck plays burn spells and Finn quickly learned how inneffective burn is in dealing with a goyf(which is the most popular creature in the format). With out the ability to burn out a goyf, which then pretty much halts the creature rush, then you are forced to path the goyf giving your opp. A free rampant growth. Had the path been a swords the 2-3 life gain would have been negated in an attack step.
Due to the popularity of tarmogoyf the relevance of the downside of the early path to exile is exposed as burn us not enough to remove obsticles in your creatures way.
As much as the example of using burn to clear the way why would you not use your creature removal that doesn't double as reach.
The point in this rant is that early path to exile in the format called legacy will directly lead to a gameloss, whereas a late swords to plowshares might leave you a few damage short of killing the opp.
This whole argument is will vs might and it is very debateable and situational that a late game path is worse than a late game swords.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Actually, I have.
Granted, my meta isnt exactly the best to test things in since its not the most competitive, but I have played in a few higher end tournaments and I would much rather give them life than the chance to get a basic land (which most decks run at least one of each).
This topic has been debated to death in this thread, and honestly there's no right answer. Neither one is better than the other. It depends solely on how you play the deck.
One huge advantage that swords has too, not that this is a good play to say the least but it has saved a friend of mine a couple times. If your in a pinch and need one more turn but facing lethal damage - you can swords your own guy and get that last boost you need.
Again, before you flame the hell out of me for "being a nub" I realize that is a very, very rare instance. However, its one definite advantage swords has over path.
I wasn't asking you.
Yes, that is a nice advantage to swords, especially when facing a burn deck. Though, if that is a problem with life, you may be better off running Lightning Helix.
I'm not saying that swords is bad, but it's not good when it cancels out a Lightning Bolt (which is basically a 2-1 if you think about it) and the point of this deck is to burn + big critters.
That still does not invalidate the arguement.I wasn't asking you.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Actually, it does since I want Finn's knowledge, opinions and experience, not yours.
I actually do run helix's. Heres the list I run, minus SB since Im currently tearing it apart and rebuilding it daily...
Land:
1 Plains
2 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Savammah
3 Taiga
2 Plateau
Creatures:
4 Qasali Pridemage
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Watchwolf
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Figure of Destiny
2 Knight of the Reliquary
Spells:
2 Cursed Scroll
4 Lightning Helix
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
I never once have encountered a situation where I wish a swords wasnt a swords (unless their board was clear). Ive played this deck a lot and against a variety of decks (from jank to Tier 1-2).
Your list is getting me all hot and bothered
Edit: I could see why your list would run STP. It's the same reason i did when i played that almost exact same list. You have more permanent damage sources so your opponent gaining life isn't as bad as you think. You run beaters like Watchwolf and Figure, and you play Cursed Scroll.
I could see both sides of this argument it just comes down to preferability.
Dead or Alive, you're coming with me.
-Robocop-
Then let's pretend in a seperate post I say the same thing I said a minute ago but I say " coming from someone who has tested with both cards" and then said the rest. The points are still valid.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Haha, Im glad you like it. The only slots Im still undecided on are the Figures and KoR's. One of them is going to be the KoR's or Thoctars. But Ive toyed with MD Teeg in place of the Figures too...not sure how viable it is though.Your list is getting me all hot and bothered
Lets not. I wanted to hear from Finn. I'll ask you later.
Won a tournament of 16 people today playing Zoo. This is the list I played:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Plateau
1 Taiga
2 Savannah
1 Stomping Grounds (Still working on getting that second taiga)
1 Snow Covered Mountain
1 Snow Covered Plains
1 Snow Covered Forest
3 Horizon Canopy
22 land
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Kird Ape
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Figure of Destiny
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Watchwolf (Couldn't locate a 4th pridemage. :( )
3 Knight of the Reliquary
24 Creatures
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Path to Exile
14 Spells
Pretty burn-lite list, but I was worried about running into decks with no non-basics since this was just a free tournament at my local store. As it happened, pretty much only good players showed up so price would have been pretty awesome. Oh well.
Round 1 I played against Dragonstompy. Game 1 he mulls to five and has no action while I play ape and beat down with goyf. Game 2 He opens on chalice for 1 but I only draw one 1cc spell (Lightning Bolt) and beat him with triple goyf after killing his pit dragon with a lightning helix.
Round 2 I played against a BW Mana denial deck with smallpox, vindicate, sinkhole, and Tombstalker to finish. Game 1 I keep a 1 lander not realizing what he's playing since I have 5 1 drops in my hand, and while I do draw my second land immediately, he kills my first and I'm stuck playing out 1 drops while he slowly rolls me with smallpox. He plays tombstalker and I lose. Game 2 I play a bunch of creatures really quickly and kill him before he really gets anything going. Game 3 I manage to get in some early beats before he lands a tombstalker to stop my advance. I have him at 10 and I have a pridemage on the board. I play a knight of the reliquary, which is a 6/6. He swings in with his tombstalker to put me on 9 and the following turn I attack with my knight, exalted making him 7/7. He activates his mishra's factory to block but I shoot it with my pridemage and finish him with a lightning bolt.
Round 3 I ID against a guy playing countertop.
Top 4 I play against the BW guy again but this time I just blow him out both games.
Finals I play against the countertop guy I ID'd with. Game 1 He doesn't really get any action and I play a nacatl (swords'd) Goyf (forced) and then two lavamancers which oddly enough beat down for a while until he plays trygon predator which I kill with a lightning bolt (through coutnerbalance, no top) and finish him with some burn. Game 2 I again open with fast beats from a fig and goyf while he plays two goyfs. The goyfs are three four so I attack with the figure with mana open to make him a 4/4. He double blocks so I trade fig for a goyf and pass the turn. He plays a cantrip and counterbalance before passing the turn back and I drop Knight which leads me to a quick victory.
My sideboard sucked. It looked like this:
4 Volcanic Fallout
2 Krosan Grip
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Exalted Angel
1 Pyrostatic Pillar
Don't ask about the angels... I don't know why they were there.
Anyway, the deck ran pretty smoothly. I must say that playing a list with this many creatures has its advantages, since you don't run into the problem where you start a game with only burn nearly as often. I'm glad I decided to run ape again, even though I sided him out a lot. 13 1 drops was not too many. If I had realized so many good players would show up I would have played price too, though I'm not sure where right now. I'd also like to consider eeking in magma jet, just as an experiment.
Now, I feel like chiming in again on the path discussion, just because I feel like people are over-exaggerating the difficulty of getting past an early goyf.
If they play a t2 goyf, chances are the only things in grave yards are lands and instants. When this is the case, bolt takes it down. When this is not the case, you will often have access to a pridemage or a lavamancer to allow a nacatl to swing past goyf without slowing you down. Other times, particularly with my list, you can just swing with exalted nacatls, exalted goyfs, or KoR's and watch them go right passed the foe's goyf without a problem for the majority of the early game. I hate that I feel like I have to emphasize this again, but it appears I must. I don't have a problem with pathing creatures in the early game.
That is straight up bullshit and I am calling you on it. I've pathed plenty of early goyfs and gone on to win the game. Once again, the land is rarely relevant. Like, what are the situations that make pathing so scary to you? Say they're playing counterbalance and they make a T2 goyf which you path. Then you're scared of them making T3 sower on your 1 drop(On the draw) or your 2 drop you played along with the path(on the play)? Untap and bolt the sower. They don't have counterbalance down so they'd better have force up, and if they did have force up, they woulda just forced the path 9 times out of ten. And that's assuming they didn't force your t1 nacatl.The point in this rant is that early path to exile in the format called legacy will directly lead to a gameloss, whereas a late swords to plowshares might leave you a few damage short of killing the opp.
This whole argument is will vs might and it is very debateable and situational that a late game path is worse than a late game swords.
Like, that's serious the scariest situation I can think of to argue against path. And it's not even that scary. It doesn't even make me cringe.
What are you so scared of accelerating them into? What, specifically?
Anyway, now that that's done, I liked this list a lot and would reccomend trying a similar list to anyone looking for some new tech for their zoo deck. Horizon canopy is awesome.
That is all.
Now that is what a fucking Zoo list should look like. Heavy on creatures, light on burn. People just don't fucking get that nowadays.
And i agree on your points with Path. People are too scared of Sower, Humility, expensive shit, etc. And assuming that you are going to be swording a Goyf or a Tomstalker or some other fat creature is the RIGHT assumption. It just boggles my mind all these arguments made for STP. More likely than none, you will be exiling something fat idc what anyone says. Bob, Hippie shows up occasionally, but most of the time you'll be netting them 4+ life.
And the people arguing against PTE always assume the opponent has like the nuts super good draw that that one extra mana you gave them will let them dominate you. It just doesn't make sense... get a new argument.
Dead or Alive, you're coming with me.
-Robocop-
Its a valid argument to a degree. I'd say its more complementary than just being the only point to make, though.
This is something I was thinking about when I was out shopping a few ago. Back before Conflux, Zoo seemed to be doing just fine running swords over...well nothing to replace it. Decks were winning, fairly consistently and no one was complaining about the life gain of the opponent being an issue. The decks just muscled through. Now granted, Path does provide a nearly identical result but at a different drawback and all of a sudden everyone is up in arms against the life gain. Citing it as some major new drawback.
I don't know, it all seems moot to me. Ill tell you what though, Ill try path again and Ill be sure to figure out if the result would be different if it was swords. I'd be willing to bet I'd win either way.
Yeah, i understand your points, because i used to advocate swords just as much as anybody. It's just gotten to the point in the last few pages, that certain people *cough* have been making the same regurgitated point about PTE. I'd just like to hear some other good point about it, if there is any.
Dead or Alive, you're coming with me.
-Robocop-
It is true that people ran swords and shouldered through the life gain, but I know at least I was never entirely happy with that solution. When path came out the reason people started disliking the life gain from swords was that it was now not mandatory; You now had the option to have a different drawback.
Anyway, for reference:
The smallest creature I Pathed today was...:
Arc Slogger
The largest creature I Pathed today was...:
Tombstalker.
I would have won the game against the guy with the slogger anyway since he played it the last turn before I killed him, but I easily could have lost the race against the BW guy if I'd given him 5 life instead of the extra land (Which, I should add, was not relevant.)
So when I say that I hold my paths for their big creatures, that is exactly what I mean. And it works out fine.
Edit//I'm glad you like my list, LB. I should also throw in that I was very happy with the 3 knights of the reliquary. He's incredible. It's nice when you can answer their tombstalker with something even better.
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