Spelling nazi...?Originally Posted by HPB_Eggo
DD/Isle/Emrakul has only one advantage: Its better as long, as they don't have Counterbalance, cuz its easier to doge Pierce/Daze.
But I wasn't able to resolve DD in the first 2-3 Turns with protection vs. Daze/Pierce/Fow/Canonist.
I would never cut Grips for Isle/Emrakul especially since I'm plying no Duress, wich means, that I would have zero answers to CB.
I also don't want to sacrifice additional SB slots to CBT, wich isn't that popular in NRW contrary to Fish and Combo.
My first comment was maybe to polemical and Emrakul/Isle is qute good but I think its inferior to Grip.
You should dump your LEDs as soon as possible, if you know that your opponent plays discard, lock decks or Dredge (sometimes even vs Counterbalance).
LED + Top is great vs discard decks.
Use Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox to avoid Daze.
In most other situations, it's better to keep them in your hand. You need the artifacts to build Storm, or should wait for a Brainstorm to shuffle them away. 0 mana artifacts are also a nice way to "test" a blind Counterbalance.
The problem with Grip is that you are far from done when you have destroyed their CB. You have most likely time walked yourself by Mystical Tutoring for the it and now you also need to win through their counterspells, and if they also have other forms of hate in form of Meddling Mage/Canonist, winning becomes impossible. With Doomsday + Emrakul you can ignore everything they have, except their counterspells, and you only have to resolve 1 spell to win.
Thats the reason, why I play 3 Grips and you also have to win through MM/Canonist + Counterspells with DD into Isle/Emrakul, but i admit, that it is easier to win vs. Canonist, as long as they dont have any counterspells left in their hand.The problem with Grip is that you are far from done when you have destroyed their CB. You have most likely time walked yourself by Mystical Tutoring for the it and now you also need to win through their counterspells, and if they also have other forms of hate in form of Meddling Mage/Canonist, winning becomes impossible.
And you don't have any options v.s. a resolved CB.With Doomsday + Emrakul you can ignore everything they have, except their counterspells, and you only have to resolve 1 spell to win.
Except that you don't care? Unless they flip a 3cc the game's over when you cast doomsday.
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK
The main advantage of isle/emrakul is that most CB players just dont expect it. Normally CB decks can just let the dd resolve and counter the card drawing spell. If they do that in case of an isle/emrakul DD pile they have just given the game away.
I like the idea of Shellmakrul, but don't a lot of CB decks play swords? Am I missing something obvious? (it is totally possible I am missing something obvious ;) )
What you're missing: Emrakul has protection from colored spells.
Can Emrakul played via Shelldock Isle be prevented by Gaddock Teeg?
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Don't think so. Teeg specifically says noncreature spells.Can Emrakul played via Shelldock Isle be prevented by Gaddock Teeg?
Tusk up.
That's crazy, I read the card at least a few times, and just couldn't see that... thanks...
Ouch. Owned.
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Would this really work lol?
Woudn't they always wasteland it??
What then?
Since when does CounterTop play Wasteland?
Hi! I'm just learning the ropes on ANT/TES/NLS and still have a few questions after having read the last 5-10 pages or so of this thread. I'll use emidln's curent list as a basis for the discussion:
I'm happy to see that it's possible to cut Ponder and only run Brainstorm and SDT as cantrips. No MD Infernal Tutor/IGG seemed strange at first, but when I thought about it, you might as well go Mystical -> Burning Wish -> IGG as you can go Mystical -> IT -> IGG. Since you probably only want IT as a Mystical target to get IGG as you crack LED, it seems very tight and reasonable to go with IT/IGG in the SB. I love tight and reasonable, so this makes me entirely happy with the first 20 cards of the list.Engine and Win (4)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Doomsday
1 Meditate
Tutors and Draw (16)
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Burning Wish
4 Mystical Tutor
Protection (7)
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
Acceleration (18)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
Land (15)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
//SB (15)
Engine, Win and Draw (9)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grape Shot
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill Gotten Gains
1 Doomsday
1 Infernal Contract
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Balance of Power
//Hate (6)
1 Telemin Performance
1 Thoughtseize
1 Pulverize
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Firespout
1 Echoing Truth
The 7 discard effect seems like a natural result of cutting white, and perhaps that Counterbalance is a bigger threat to the deck than a hand with multiple counters. Since I have no actual play experience with the deck, I reserve judgement if precisely 7 protection cards is optimal, and if it's optimal for all of them to be 1-for-1 discard. Thoughtseize does seem bad MD though, what with AdN, and DD not exactly being the picture of health either. I guess you simply try to cram in as much protection as you can, and optimize the slots for your meta.
The acceleration department gives me the most twitches. I'd like to cut Chrome Mox entirely. I also note with some surprise that neither Rite of Flame nor Cabal Ritual is in there, but SSG is. I get that SSG has the whole no mana investment thing going for it, but it doesn't build storm and is 3cc for AdN. Cabal Ritual does indeed seem antisynergistic with Mox and SSG not building threshold, but I guess what I'm basically asking is: Could you simply replace the 6 slots of Mox + SSG with a combination of Rite and Cabal? I think I'd prefer that more, but I suppose I'm missing some hidden tech here.
Next I wonder about mana ratios. How was it determined that precisely 15 lands and 18 acceleration was optimal? Play experience and general consensus? Does the 15/18 ratio vary depending on what lands and acceleration you decide to run? Assuming you want to maximize the number of fetches to abuse SDT, going with a 8/7 split of fetches and targets seems unnecessarily "secure". A 10/5 split with 1 each of the duals + island + swamp should be sufficient, no? How often do you need to fetch more than 5 land in a game? If exactly 8 fetches is optimal for another reason, I'd like to know what the rationale is.
Finally some questions re: the sideboard. How much does the lack of green and white hurt when it comes to sideboard choices like Xantid Swarm etc? I assume that it would be simple to change around a couple of the MD duals if it was a big issue.
The "spare engine parts" in the SB seems overly redundant. How important is the extra copy of Tendrils when you could just wish for Infernal Tutor to grab (or IGG to recur) the MD copy, or go for an early EtW instead? How important is Grapeshot as an extra wincon - or is it simply the prefered creature hate over something like Deathmark? Why would you EVER want to run something like Infernal Contract over Meditate? Worrying about REB seems silly when loosing half your life twice against a deck packing red isn't a bit more attractive (the IGG engine seems a better option here) - especially since the deck is obviously not very afriad of throngs of more common blue counters either. Finally, how useful is Diminishing Returns when you could simple IT for the MD AdN instead? Having the opp draw 7 seems more problematic than producing the extra 2 mana for the IT route, when you don't want the IGG/DD engines instead. I also wonder how often one really uses Balance of Power.
A tighter SB engine obviously leaves more room for more situational hate like Sadistic Sacrament etc. that could be really useful on occasion. I have to ask though, why is Pulverize prefered over Shattering Spree, and what's the use of Firespout at all? Doesn't this deck stomp aggro already? Not running a single bounce spell MD seems risky - wouldn't a singe Wipe Away be at least as useful as discard #7 against CounterTop, and more versatile in general too?
Kar bankooer jeg
Personally I would never cut chrome mox. For the simple reason that it's really ideal when you go for AD nauseam, its requires no mana investment, makes any color you want (most of the time) and adds an extra storm.The acceleration department gives me the most twitches. I'd like to cut Chrome Mox entirely. I also note with some surprise that neither Rite of Flame nor Cabal Ritual is in there, but SSG is. I get that SSG has the whole no mana investment thing going for it, but it doesn't build storm and is 3cc for AdN.
Cabal Ritual does indeed seem antisynergistic with Mox and SSG not building threshold, but I guess what I'm basically asking is: Could you simply replace the 6 slots of Mox + SSG with a combination of Rite and Cabal? I think I'd prefer that more, but I suppose I'm missing some hidden tech here.
I agree when you don't go for ad nauseam it's alot worse, but I still see it as a must. SSG is an awsome card against daze, instant speed mana, can't be countered, no mana investment required, etc. But I agree that somethimes the +4 cards with CC 3 can hurt your ability to succesfully Ad Nauseam.
That's why personally I somethimes play a 2-2 or 3-1 split with cabal. I wouldn't recommend rite of flame in NLS because you need to play atleast 3 of them because of its synergetic effect with copies and it only makes red mana (I would recommend them if you play TES though).
Personally I think the extra copy of tendrils is quite important. It allows you to get to tendrils either by mystical tutoring for it or burning wishing for it.Finally some questions re: the sideboard. How much does the lack of green and white hurt when it comes to sideboard choices like Xantid Swarm etc? I assume that it would be simple to change around a couple of the MD duals if it was a big issue.
The "spare engine parts" in the SB seems overly redundant. How important is the extra copy of Tendrils when you could just wish for Infernal Tutor to grab (or IGG to recur) the MD copy, or go for an early EtW instead? How important is Grapeshot as an extra wincon - or is it simply the prefered creature hate over something like Deathmark? Why would you EVER want to run something like Infernal Contract over Meditate? Worrying about REB seems silly when loosing half your life twice against a deck packing red isn't a bit more attractive (the IGG engine seems a better option here) - especially since the deck is obviously not very afriad of throngs of more common blue counters either. Finally, how useful is Diminishing Returns when you could simple IT for the MD AdN instead? Having the opp draw 7 seems more problematic than producing the extra 2 mana for the IT route, when you don't want the IGG/DD engines instead. I also wonder how often one really uses Balance of Power.
I've also had situations before where I could win by removing one tendrils for chrome mox and still have a tendrils left to win. But those situation come up less frequently.
The nice thing about grapeshot is that it can't be countered and kills hatebears (it can also reduce the amount of storm needed) .Nevertheless I think it's a card that could be removed from the sideboard to make room for other options.
DReturns is the "last out" option, the reason why it's played is because it cost alot less then the IT>AdNauseam option. If you have to burning wish for IT, then IT for Ad Nauseam it will cost you 9 mana 2 for BW, 2 for IT, 5 for AN. you can still win if you only have 6 mana open (and for instance facing lethal damage next turn) going for BW > DReturns. As for Infernal contract, I do believe it's optional. It has it's uses, for instance when you only have black/red mana available you can go for DD>IC, or when like you said you're facing REB. I think it's really up to you if you believe that's worth a sideboard slot or not.
Keep in mind that Burning Wish removes itself from the game. So going through the Igg-Pile with Burning Wish is different than with an Infernal Tutor and the IGG maindeck.you might as well go Mystical -> Burning Wish -> IGG as you can go Mystical -> IT -> IGG
It's not about mana acceleration, it's about having initial mana. What's the use of Rite and cabal if you'll never be able to produce R or B. That's why Chrome Mox and SSG are chosen. Emidln actually ran a list with 4 Rite before and changed it.The acceleration department gives me the most twitches. I'd like to cut Chrome Mox entirely. I also note with some surprise that neither Rite of Flame nor Cabal Ritual is in there, but SSG is. I get that SSG has the whole no mana investment thing going for it, but it doesn't build storm and is 3cc for AdN. Cabal Ritual does indeed seem antisynergistic with Mox and SSG not building threshold, but I guess what I'm basically asking is: Could you simply replace the 6 slots of Mox + SSG with a combination of Rite and Cabal? I think I'd prefer that more, but I suppose I'm missing some hidden tech here.
All I know is that people originally ran 14 lands and 3 Chrome Mox. The 15th land got added and the 3rd Chrome Mox got shipped.Next I wonder about mana ratios. How was it determined that precisely 15 lands and 18 acceleration was optimal? Play experience and general consensus? Does the 15/18 ratio vary depending on what lands and acceleration you decide to run? Assuming you want to maximize the number of fetches to abuse SDT, going with a 8/7 split of fetches and targets seems unnecessarily "secure". A 10/5 split with 1 each of the duals + island + swamp should be sufficient, no? How often do you need to fetch more than 5 land in a game? If exactly 8 fetches is optimal for another reason, I'd like to know what the rationale is.
As for fetches. There's no real consensus. I run 9 while other run 7. But seeing that there are a lot of Wastelands I wouldn't count on having 1 dual of each being sufficient.
Tendrils can be Wished for. Sometimes you just don't have the mana for the Wish - Infernal - Tendrils.The "spare engine parts" in the SB seems overly redundant. How important is the extra copy of Tendrils when you could just wish for Infernal Tutor to grab (or IGG to recur) the MD copy, or go for an early EtW instead? How important is Grapeshot as an extra wincon - or is it simply the prefered creature hate over something like Deathmark? Why would you EVER want to run something like Infernal Contract over Meditate? Worrying about REB seems silly when loosing half your life twice against a deck packing red isn't a bit more attractive (the IGG engine seems a better option here) - especially since the deck is obviously not very afriad of throngs of more common blue counters either. Finally, how useful is Diminishing Returns when you could simple IT for the MD AdN instead? Having the opp draw 7 seems more problematic than producing the extra 2 mana for the IT route, when you don't want the IGG/DD engines instead. I also wonder how often one really uses Balance of Power.
Grapeshot is used to kill hatebears by Wish -> Grapeshot. But it adds another benefit. With Helm of Awakening you can go infinite with a Doomsday pile which can win you games against life gain combos.
I've never played with Diminishing returns so can't tell.
Thanks for the informative replies.
Ouch! Didn't realize that. This makes me think that IGG should be MD anyway. Or rather, it awakens a bigger questions: what engines to run.Keep in mind that Burning Wish removes itself from the game. So going through the Igg-Pile with Burning Wish is different than with an Infernal Tutor and the IGG maindeck.
Doomsday: This seems to be the Soviet tank of engines. It's resilient against blue, useable against most aggro scenarios and you can build piles to defeat pretty much anything. You'd probably want to abuse SDT anyway, so I'm not counting that as an opportunity cost. The only downside seems to be that it can be a tad slow.
IGG: Costs no life at all but relies on the GY and bad against blue. Still so versatile as to deserve its slot IMO.
Ad Nauseam: My general impression from reading storm threads is that AdN is the default option in MUs that aren't actually that difficult. If you're pressed for life against non-blue, better to IGG. If you're up against blue, better to Doomsday. So when does AdN actually trump the other engines? Because if the tight spots can be won without it, it seems like the easy games could be won as well. And of course, the gain of cutting it would be much greater than freeing up a slot - it would mean never worrying about the cmc of a card, and being able to optimize the other engines accordingly instead.
Diminishing Returns: If this is used much in the same way as AdN, with similar effectiveness, no life cost, without taking up any space MD, and most importantly with no deck building opportunity cost, why use AdN at all? If it's not anywhere near as good as AdN, aren't people just kidding themselves devoting a precious SB slot to it then?
No "engine": Many of the lists I've seen are perfectly capable of just playing out some acceleration, cantrips and fetching EtW, Belcher-style. That's yet another option that sometimes presents itself. How many do we realistically need?
Maybe I'm being to hard on Ad Nauseam. After all, it seems AdN Tendrils has made a bigger impact on the meta than IGG and DD-FT did in their day. I'm not sure that necessarily signifies that Ad Nauseam is a better engine. I also get a feeling that it's easy to get carried away, wanting a storm list to able to "do everything", rather than having a solid plan against everything (another amibition entirely). Does Ad Nauseam really bring that much to the table here? Because the opportunity cost of running it sure is something to consider.
I can understand this need when you only have 5 mana and use AdN, having dropped land for the turn. And I assume 4 Lotus Petal aren't enough in that situation, and that LEDs are sometimes hard to use if you AdN? Without AdN, it seems just having a couple of lands on the board would be sufficient to get the ritual effects going, especially with LEDs and petals.It's not about mana acceleration, it's about having initial mana. What's the use of Rite and cabal if you'll never be able to produce R or B. That's why Chrome Mox and SSG are chosen.
How much initial mana is enough though? Because I've seen lists with no SSG and 2 Chrome Mox, as well as lists with 4 SSG (4 petals and leds in all of course). ALL your acceleration certainly doesn't have to be initial mana, and you can't play Dark Ritual of an SSG either. 2x Chrome Mox only seems useful as Petals #5-6 when you AdN - is it really that necessary to run them?
Kar bankooer jeg
In my experience Ad Nauseam is the best engine against decks packing heavy discard and against random hate other than Chalice/Canonist/Teeg. It needs the least setup amongst all engines, essentially only requiring five mana to win, and drawing you into the bounce to hit that Meddling Mage or Runed Halo or what have you.
You don't really have to run Chrome Mox, but foregoing it makes Ad Nauseam quite a bit worse. You either have to go in with mana floating or accept that a decent percentage of the time you won't hit enough initial sources to win that turn. I'm with you on the Chrome Mox sucks bandwagon, but there's really not anything else to play there.
How do you guys handle Reanimator? I seem to have no luck against the deck. When I have fast hands, they have a fist full of disruption for it; when I have slow hands with Duress effects and bounce, they drop Iona turn two with Force backup through it. It is very similar to Counterbalance decks, in that it plays Force and Daze (and Thoughtseize) and can lock you out of the game as early as turn two. I tried running TES instead of NLS in an effort to race it in a tournament this afternoon, and got crushed by back to back turn two Iona. Is it worth running Faerie Macabre or going with a more extreme transformational board to Helm/Leyline?
Hi all. I'm getting back into Legacy (and Magic in general) after a bit of an absence and I'm looking to find myself a new Legacy deck. I'm really liking the look of this kind of deck, but I've been tinkering with it some and for the life of me can't figure out what the deck is trying to do sometimes.
I've played Iggy Pop in Legacy a decent bit, enough to be familiar with the interactions among LED, IGG, and Infernal Tutor (though more with IGG chains than a singleton in that deck), and I'm familiar with some of the other more obvious strengths of this deck (interaction of Brainstorm/Ponder/Top with Fetches and the general I-win-ness of Ad Nauseam).
But I cannot for the life of me figure out what makes Doomsday such a win card. Could someone give me a couple pointers on what the deck wants to set up with DD for the win? I've been pouring over the cards and honestly I just feel like I'm missing something with the interactions.
For reference, this is the build I was tinkering with (lifted from about 2 pages back):
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meditate
1 Doomsday
1 Wipe Away
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
Sideboard
2 Doomsday
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Krosan Grip
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Bayou
1 Extirpate
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Deathmark
So for something like this, what does a winning DD pile look like? What are the situations where you want to fire off the one IGG (other than the obvious one where the Tendrils ends up in the yard or something)? What is the one random Meditate for? My guess on Meditate is that it's to be the top card of the DD stack, but again, I'm just having trouble picturing what the DD stack looks like.
And finally, a question more about the playstyle of the deck. Given the following opening hand, what the opening play look like?
Brainstorm
Top
Lotus Petal
Duress
Underground Sea
Polluted Delta
Dark Ritual
Does the deck want to drop the Top turn one to go ahead and get it online? If so, does it activate the Top before the next draw? Do you wait to pop the fetch land until after the Brainstorm? Do you just hit them with Duress? Do you blow the Rit to drop Duress followed by Top with activation, possibly using the Petal to Brainstorm depending on what you find? I'm trying to figure out how the deck likes to balance out efficiency with explosiveness.
I realize it's a lot of big questions, but thanks to anyone who responds! I'm really looking forward to trying to get into the intricacies of the deck.
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