I asked a while back about Mirror Entity. I'm guessing its been ruled out because you don't to move vial to 3 counters? Despite that fact, its seems really strong, especially since you can swing with your dudes, then vial in entity before damage and pump all your guys. THAT seems like a pretty good singleton.
The thing with Mirror Entity is that he only gets 'good' when you have a bunch of free mana available. This deck isn't really designed to have an abundance of mana.
But yeah, if the deck could support him, I'd agree that he'd be a solid singleton - never want more than one, but can be game-changing when you draw him.
Sorry but this reply is:With Landstill, you never get that option. You have to come up with the answer because you can't win until the late-late-late game. Landstill therefore needs a specific answer to every conceivable spell that could come up, and so it packs a specific answer to every conceivable spell that could come up. Your question seems to be, "How come UW Tempo doesn't do the same?"
With UW Tempo, you can race some threats and win the game before other threats or answers become relevant. It's not always Rocky I, sometimes you can just Rocky III to their face. If you're not skilled enough as a pilot to identify those situations, then you should definitely play something simpler like Landstill.
1) a bit silly: landstill is not "a simpler deck", though on this point we may diverge and in fact we do
2) a lot arrogant: this is a strategy topic. I mean, this deck is not self-evident or autopiloting. If I'm not skilled as a player and this could be true, maybe you should give me some insight on the strategy or on better ways to pilot it, since you claim to win so many game on MWS, instead of just saying "you can do it, if you can't you're a noob".
Now, it's true I didn't got in the pilosophy of the deck yet. Though, if I'm still testing the deck, this probably should mean I have some positive considerations on it. And true again, I'm very close-minded on landstill's views for a control deck. I'm then asking for better ways to play the deck, for the way I play it it's evidently not right. begginning with the use of wayfarer and fathom seer, card which I really don't uderstand besides having many synergies on paper. I'm not saying this deck is shit, I'm saying the deck is good but I can't get into the philosophy deeply because of my landstill experience, and I'm asking you and other guys to help me understand better, since you tested and tested. peace.
Originally Posted by mossivo1986
He's terrible.
Too slow for combo (costs 3, does nothing until the next turn, still requires a tap-down, also it's tough to get enough creatures on the table to be fatal early, since at least Serra Avenger, Fathom Seer, and Jotun Grunt are very hard to cast early), requires too many creatures out to be good against control (if your board is Mom, Mirror Entity, Wayfarer, and you have four land out, what do you want to do and how would Mirror Entitiy be better than anything else in the deck? And that's basically an ideal situation for Mirror Entity, against control they might wipe your board and then you're playing a Frozen Shade), and not defensive against aggro/too costly on tempo (cast him, untap, then you can activate it, so you give up a full attack step trying to get it out).
If you want a beater like Mirror Entity, then there's this 1UW that turns your guys into 3/1 flyers that seems strictly better, but that card is still not as good as the rest of the spells in the deck.
Mirror Entity is basically a wannabe Jitte. You're trying to turn a small body into a big body, but Jitte does this a thousand times better than Mirror Entity or even the feather engine.
The brief discussion of Mirror Entity took place in magical christmas land where nogoyf actually wanted to have a bunch of land out. I never said he was a good fit for the deck - in fact I said just the opposite, that the deck couldn't support him. Beyond that, the deck wouldn't want to play him even if it had the manabase.
What I was trying to convey, is that this is they _type_ of card that would be a singleton traditionally - bad in multiples, but if he shows up as a singleton, he can swing the game in the right conditions.
I didn't mean random was bad, I didn't mean that the developers of this deck don't know what they are talking about, I only meant that 1 knight is RANDOM...
If I play a card, I normally play it on purpose, mostly because I want to play it, or I need it in my graveyard, or whatever reason. Just playing one card, which you cannot tutor results in 1 chance in 60 of drawing that card ... that's all I meant
Also, stating that the testers of this deck have tested it for 2 years is correct, but they CANNOT have been testing the new setup with stoneforge mystic and only 1 knight for 2 years ...
anyway, I'm a huge fan of the deck, but I really don't like the way some people react on posts.
Just because someone has not been on the source for 10 years does not mean he doesn't play magic (competitively) for 10 years.
Well, next week is Valentine's Day/PT SD, but I have a three day weekend. I dunno sometime next week or so, I'll try to release an annotated video series on youtube demonstrating how to play the deck, probably recorded MWS games that I talk over explaining situations and the correct plays to make. I've been kinda meaning to do it for a while.
Would be much appreciated, thanks :)
Agreed. I believe I have a pretty solid grasp on how things work but hearing it from the actual designers would be awesome.
indeed, just hope the other decks don't discover all UW Tempo's tech :o)
(I don't think there are a lot (even some?) of UW Tempo players around)
That would be very interesting, thanks :-)
A video would certainly be supportive, thanks for that
Consider this: competing for the knight's slot are a handful of alternatives, all of which were suggested and addressed.
An 18th land sounds good because that's how much other mana-light decks run like TThresh. You already have 4 wayfarers, 4 brainstorms and 3 vials, all of which cost only 1 and either tutor for or replace mana. The 18th, then, would lead to higher incidence of mana flood and is thus undesirable.
Another Jitte or Mystic sounds good because you want to see one every game if possible. If they're interchangeable (i.e. Mystic finds Jitte and Jitte is Jitte), then the deck runs 4. Mystic will even find you a new one if the old one's gripped, but since it's legendary, 4 copies is already pushing it. It remains to be seen if 2/2 is the right split for these cards though, as the creators have mentioned.
A 4th Daze or 3rd Spell Pierce sounds good because either strengthens your counterspell suite. But Daze is dead late game and Spell Pierce probably is too and you've already got 5 between them. Both are worse when your opponent knows you have them (EV of opponent playing around it is almost definitely < EV of opponent running into it unexpectedly) and neither is a particularly useful topdeck.
Those are probably the most relevant options for Knight's slot, but then consider what you get from Knight: he's an extra body for Jitte, can be vialed in @2 like most of the rest of your threats and has his own land-tutoring ability. It's not that you especially want or need to see him or that it matters whether you do or not, but he's almost always relevant when he does come up and he's better than the alternatives. Maybe an extra one in the board like Parcher suggested would be nice, but just because he's a singleton doesn't make him "bad" or "random." After all, the difference between 0 and 1 is the largest % increase in incidence for any given card. None of the above is new information, it's all been mentioned by the deck's creators at great length earlier in this thread, but just because the same question was asked and answered yesterday doesn't mean the answer will change today.
Great success!
I sleeved the deck half a week ago after testing it online for in about 20 games, and took it to its first tournament in my hands today. I went 1-1-2, and will follow up with a short matchup report and a few impressions. I hope this is considered at least marginally useful, if you don't agree, please feel free to just skip this post's content.
We were 20+ people, due to many players dropping after round 3 the tournament didn't see a round #5 though. Considering rating as a measure for playskill, with ~1730 Eternal I'm at the lower end of the people who have a marginal clue of how to play this game and format around here. I've been playing Death and Taxes for a few months now, and decided to try something new that still didn't seem _completely_ unfamiliar
First match was versus a rather janky, non-legacy soldier aggro without vial. Many exalted critters, and creature-bolstering enchantments like that new Crusade that only boosts its controller's creatures (pardon my ignorance; I still consider all cards printed past 1999 as "new"). As he began playing creatures game 1, I was anxious if NoGoyf would actually hold up - it's not uncommon for a deck that's designed to beat established top-tier decks to be crushed by casual jank-aggro in my experience. He didn't run any nonbasics, so my first turn Wayfarer wasn't as tech as it should have been. I quickly drew into Umezawa's Jitte and Serra Avenger though, and managed to fend off an Oblivion Ring on Jitte with Spell Pierce (awesome card, it really shined for me today on numerous occasions!). That made a rather quickly decided game one.
Game two was decidedly longer, as he managed to O-Ring a Jitte and an Ęther Vial of mine. My crew consisted of Mother of Runes, a Wayfarer and (in the end) two Serra Avengers, and with the help of Mother (who saw a Path to Exile two turns before I won), I managed to fend off his single, exalted 7/8 (or something like that) attacker for quite some time - long enough, as it turned out in the end.
For the second match I was up against UGw-CounterTop-Goyf. Being on the play, I really, really crushed my opponent game 1 - he immediately got what was going on when my first turn wayfarer hit the board, and he fetched for basics (Islands, mostly) whenever he could afford. Avenger and a Jotun Grunt staring down at his 7 life with two lands and no other permanents in play on his side made him concede around turn 10 or so. By that time, I hadn't seen anything non-blue in his deck, and couldn't decide on what he could actually be running. I didn't board anything, and we went on to game 2. He won that one due to Dreadnought+Trickbind which I could not deal with, after having used up 3 of my Swords to Plowshares on other threats he was running. Game 3 was cruel, since I had severe, real card advantage in terms of quantity, yet all I managed to have in hand or draw were either Spell Pierce, Daze or land for six consecutive turns of the game, while he beat my face with a 3/4 Tarmogoyf that I didn't find an answer to. That's why they call it a game of chance, I suppose :)
For my third match, I was paired against Bant Survial fueled by the Loyal Retainers/Iona-combo. The match actually ended in a draw in its extra-turns. When playtesting online, I always had problems winning against Bant (the aggro-variant though!). I missed a full playset of Jotun Grunt during that match, my opponent (who's running Grunts due to its Genesis-like effect) had one game 1 and game 2, and boy, did they give me trouble. Of course, Rhox War Monk and Tarmogoyf were problematic as well. I lost the first game, but managed to turn the tide game 2 when a Jitte-charged Serra Avenger came online, with Mother of Runes as backup and neutralizing a double-Hierarch-exalted Rhox War Monk. Game three quickly saw us over time, and while he actually got Survival online this time (I managed to not let him do that games one and two), getting his Loyal Retainers into play in the third of five extra-turns wasn't enough. I'd have lost this game and match if it hadn't been for that however.
The fourth and final match was against Bant Survival with Natural Order+Progenitus. My opponent had watched some of my earlier games and brought enough basic lands to the table to render my mana denial plan useless. I was hit kinda off-guard by the NOProg-part of his list game one, and not even my trustworthy Serra Avenger carrying Umezawa's Jitte could save me from that two turn clock of his. I decided not to let that happen the next game, and carried it home on the shoulders of two Avengers, a Mother of Runes and a Jotun Grunt munching both our graveyards. FoW took care of an attempt at getting Progenitus into play. Game 3 was rather harsh once more, and NoGoyf once again decided to let me down in a topdeck war. Not even a flipped-up Fathom Seer and a really thinned deck at the time (I had about 3 lands or so left in my library, all fetches) would grant me the much needed solution for a 4/5 Tarmogoyf and a Rhox War Monk widening the gap in life totals between us, and my sole Avenger couldn't do anything but watch me lose in the end. I ended up with something like 3 land, Daze, Spell Pierce and FoW in hand, and 0 life left.
Lessons learned:
Playing this deck is original and truly fun. I really like how it plays, and I guess I'll keep playing it at least for the next tournaments to come. I def. made some gross play mistakes today (and hope to have identified at least some of them ;)), and I firmly believe that I can do a lot better with this deck than how I did today once I know the ins and outs of it somewhat more. Proper sideboarding seems even more of a key factor than with other decks, and the versatility of the suggested sideboard in this thread is tough to master.
When sideboarding, I often grabbed that third Jotun Grunt that NoGoyf's creators suggested in the board, and took out a copy of Knight of the White Orchid. I'm pretty positive I'll be going to 3 or maybe even 4 Grunts mainboard. While Knight is nice when yielding Plains from the library (and even nicer with Jitte), it doesn't do a lot on its own, while Grunt is serious business against a lot of established Legacy decks.
I consider Progenitus a problem. Maybe meekstone isn't that bad as a tutorable one-of in the sideboard. This could also help stop Iona naming white, if she really hits the battlefield.
There seem to be a plethora of horror stories about mana floods, and not so many about mana screws.
In my poorest finish ever with the deck, which was 2-2, I also ate a few floods.
Unfortunately, it's simply impractical to cut any more lands. We shall forever ere on the side of floods. Especially since people play wastelands and w/e else.
If you're interested, I will play some games with me on UW tempo and you on whatever you please, and you can observe plays and ask questions. I'll leave the video shooting to Matt, though.
By the way, for those who are interested, I used to be a landstill player. This is particularly directed at the claim that landstill is not simpler than UW tempo. Landstill was an incredibly easy deck to play, with essentially no real decisions to be made during play. Maybe I just got so used to playing control, but the actual issue seems to be that you don't have to "decide" if you're going to answer something, or how you'll answer something. You always answer everything, and then there's a clear best card suited for the given situation.
My landstill days took me from 1600 rating up to 1810 ish, and then the latest tournament in which I played bridged the remaining difference between 1810 and 1844.
Lastly, I'll note that unless your metagame is extremely weird (say 100% tempo thresh) I don't recommend more grunts maindeck.
We're running 2 because it's the best in most reasonable metagames. 1 is kind of a bad idea, and we used to run 3 so I won't say it's retarded to run 3, but 4 is absolutely a mistake. I generally hope you see Matt and I as smart enough that our numbers are about right, unless of course you play in an incredibly awkward metagame.
Yeah, I've released some other demo videos on other stuff. I used to do some work on Starcraft and Age of Mythology, and hopefully the same software is still available (or improved-upon, ideally).
I'll try to keep it entertaining and whatever else, although I'll need some sparring partners to shoot footage (sparring partners who don't totally suck so that the games are close).
I've got some scenes in my head that I want to shoot. Situations that come up over and over again that I think most people are fucking up (based on what they say here, the fact that it's complicated, etc.). So I think at least the first set of footage that I shoot is mainly going to focus on, "What should I do in this situation?"-type plays and I won't shoot full games until later. Basically tactical decisions and little tricks you can use to get ahead.
I don't know if that makes sense, I'll try to have something out by next weekend so you can see what I'm talking about.
After I've gone through the individual cards, I can take requests for matchups that people want to see analyzed. People seem to have trouble with Counterbalance-type decks and in general decks where UW Tempo plays aggro or a weird semi-hybrid where you play control for the first few turns and then aggro from then on, with the ability to switch back and forth depending on land counts and cards in hand. I always just play the tactically-best decision. Rarely ever in a game do I think "who's the aggro/who's the control?" When it's relevant is not in a game, especially in Legacy where even the fastest combo deck can have to play defensive draw+go and even the most ponderous control deck can draw 4 Tarmogoyfs and go beatdown.
So it makes me think that the real problem is not knowing some important tricks.
@colo: Nice tournament report.
You mentioned wanting to add more Grunts. Definitely third grunt MD is a powerful option (replaced in the board with e.g. Energy Flux or Propaganda/GP), and you identified the viable cut. I recommend not making the change until you're more familiar with how he is in the different matchups, though.
The decks you went up against were all Goyf decks and a jank size-based midrange deck. Grunt obviously shines against enemy Tarmogoyfs where even if he just lasts 2 turns, he did the damage by moving the Artifacts, Enchantments, and Sorceries under, returning Goyf to 3/4 or less, and removing their Threshold. Also the U-based Goyf decks typically run a lot of cantrips and cheap spells, filling the yard with Grunt food.
He's also extremely good against Zoo for similar reasons: he eats all of their creatures, takes two removal to dump, and shuts down Goyf and Lavamancer. Zoo also dumps a lot of cards into the yard early, so his drawback isn't too bad.
The reason why we cut him down to 2 copies is the existence of matchups like Goblins and particularly Merfolk. Merfolk never puts stuff in the yard, and never uses the graveyard. Against decks that don't fill up the yard, it's harder to get a third turn out of him and he really goes downhill.
Depending on the meta, third MD Grunt can be justified easily, but note that he's not great in a lot of matchups even as a singleton, and drawing double of him in virtually any matchup isn't good.
intersting thoughts! I can't wait for the video :o)
I think the most important part of the video's will be the 'specific' situations. I guess that most players who are 'decent' players, will make the right decisions in 'regular' situations, but the bizar/weird situations where you maybe have to make a weird decision (just because it fits the deck's strategy better) can be really game turning (or game losing if you don't make those decisions).
Thanks!
Just played a little 4-rounder last night, went 2-1-1.
Round 1 - Played some janky W/B Pestilence deck. Both games played out pretty much the same - whittle down life with mom+dork until I can stick a jitte and destroy things. 2-0
Round 2 - Played against Eva Green with a white splash. Game one was a pretty epic battle back and forth, ultimately I couldn't do anything about two tombstalkers (only had 1 mom+serra avenger to block with). Game two, he mulls to 5, keeps a one land hand, I drop a waste, followed by an avenger + jitte, he scoops. Game three, he's able to stick a fairly early tombstalker. I'm able to keep him off lands (burning all 3 wastes), but I don't topdeck the brainstorm or swords I need to deal with his threat within the 4 turns I needed it. In retrospect, I should have mulled quite a bit more aggressively, until I either had some dig or a swords. It also seems like this would be one of the more rough matchups, as the white splash eva runs 12 land destruction effects (sinkholes + vindicate + wasteland). 1-2
Round 3 - Goblins. This is filled with a ridiculous number of play mistakes by me. I do win game one, despite me ignoring the aether vial I have in play to hard cast dudes. Game two, it's a fairly close match, but I make quite a few key mistakes that lose it for me - the two biggest being swords-ing a piledriver after his +2/+0 ability trigger rather than before, and using my jitte counters way too soon (nerfing piledrivers on spot instead of saving them up to nerf his goblin chiefton - had two BFTs out. Not a pretty game. Game 3, we start with about 2-3 minutes left in round time - and as expected, we end up drawing. I really feel like with more experience (read: less play mistakes), this would have easily been in my favor and I could have won game two.
Round 4 - Opponent concedes 2-0 to me before even sitting down. While I don't mind the free win, I generally go out to a shop to _play_ cards, but as it is a wed night, I can't really blame the guy if he wants to get going home.
I ran with the singleton Knight in my build last night, defering to the deckbuilders. I'll probably stick with the standard build until I get a bit more experience under my belt - I can definately see the merit of him, but running a third stoneforge is also pretty attractive too.
The cool thing with this deck though is that I never really felt out of any game, and it certainly seems like this deck is very, very solid.
You know that's funny... I used to always compulsively use my jitte counters for some irrational fear of split second spells, and Matt would always laugh at me as I proceeded to lose to his 3/3 that brings things back, or an SGC where now I can never get jitte counters again etc. You learn not to do that.
On the flip side, sometimes I get kgripped and waste more than 2 jitte counters.
For a while I thought that decks running tombstalker were reasonably threatening because they might just draw more TS than you have swords/jitte. Now you also have mom+avenger, and an extra jitte relative to our previous setup, so I don't think it'll be an issue. I think you were really unlucky to lose twice to that trick. Especially once when you already had one answer, and he had two tombstalkers, and you were able to counter neither?
I'm surprised he got the 10+ cards in graveyard needed to do this before you got a grunt as well. I generally don't think of eva green as one of our great matchups because they can still stochastically win with land destruction spells (Any deck deciding the game rather early has the opportunity to fluctuate to the winning side more than decks that play a slower strategy.)
but I wouldn't put eva green at worse than 55-60%.
Yeah, I put the loss to Eva at me not mulling like I should have. I didn't see more than one swords the entire matchup, and the two games I lost I was fighting through land D and discard. I didn't see a single Grunt - but then again I'm pretty sure I didn't side correctly either - ah well. I'll have to do my homework more for next week.
It was very close though - an enjoyable match and I learned a few things, so all in all, good.
I'm happy I built the deck, I can see it doing very well against a lot of the field - and it's fun to play as well.
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