[Discussion] Life.deck

[Zappa]

We could discuss this for very long, but I think people reading this board now have enough material to make their own choice.

Yes, I've been reading what was being discussed and I learned quite a great deal between your arguments. I have no experienced playing this deck yet, but from your arguments back and forth, between the players that has alot of experience with the deck, I have learned alot.

[Lejay]

Imho, Aether vial is incredibly overrated and should be cut. Sure, it speeds you up, but if that slot could add more consistency.

This is a translation of what I wrote in the 2007 primer about vial :
"Unquestionable. Without it the deck would probably not be viable and if I could play only one card in 5 copies it would be this one."
This was before counterbalance become a format defining card, and chalice of the void a major threat.
Vial speeds up, ADDS MORE CONSISTENCY, protects from countermagic and protects from mana denial.
I'm sorry but I really don't see how -4vial + 1 colossus +1 test of endurance +1 kor haven +1 flagstone can bring more consistency.
You have no reason to play colossus main deck, it will bother you so often. I don't like playing kills in main deck that can only kill when you are in a winning situation already, doran is superior to test in most games you are going to draw it, because the number of non conceding opponents after gaining life is very limited, and at least doran can help either kill the opponent or block. I also cannot understand playing test main deck and not playing academy rector sideboard or mainboard. Eternal dragon is really really weak. You can just side out a plain against dragon stompy and it is a very slow+vulnerable kill. Soltari visionnary is completely inferior to harmonic sliver. What's the point of kor haven when you have infinite blockers and maze of ith in the board. 4 condemn + 4 worthy cause is also something i don't understand. You can bring flexibility to your deck with a tool box thanks to wordly tutor (please play calls with vial instead) and prefer to run cards that you don't want to see in several copies.

To Kuma : By the way, with so much black in the mana base, i'd run withered wretchs in the board. It should improve both threshold match-up and decks with engines relying on the grave like eternal garden and ichorid.

[Kuma]

To Kuma : By the way, with so much black in the mana base, i'd run withered wretchs in the board. It should improve both threshold match-up and decks with engines relying on the grave like eternal garden and ichorid.

The problem with Threshold isn't their creatures -- it's their counters and removal. I'm running four Tarmogoyf in my list, so zapping the graveyard against Thresh seems weak.

It would improve Loam matchups, but they are already pretty good. The notable exception is Eternal Garden, but that deck sees almost no play stateside.

The problem with running a wishable creature against Dredge is that you often can't afford to wait 3+ turns for your answer. Samurai of the Pale Curtain is better against Dredge even though it's not a Cleric.

If I expected to face a lot of Dredge and Loam, I'd board four Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus. You can't rely on having the time to wish for all your answers.

I disagree here. Prison decks have a primary goal of locking the opponent, killing him is secondary since often it occurs quite quickly after the lock and/or is optional because of opponent's concession.
Life is a prison deck.

Semantics. What I meant by "primary goal" is that all decks need to kill their opponent and that locking the opponent, or whatever else, is a means to that end. A deck without a strong kill condition(s) is a deck that forgets the goal of the game of Magic.

I guess I should have been more clear.

I didn't want to improve most match-ups. I wanted to improve the worst match-ups. That's why I decided to run meddling mage. Had I chosen the other strategy, I would run tarmogoyfs as you do right now.

To me the most fearful match-up is combo wether it is tendrills, ichorid or combos ignoring infinite life.

I guess this is where you and I differ. I'd rather run cards that turn a number of poor matchups into solid matchups than run cards that make individual terrible matchups better. I think it's more important to improve from 40/60 to 55/45 against two decks than to go from 30/70 to 60/40 against one deck. This of course assumes all three decks are equally common. Whenever combo is a deck's worst matchup, I think it's best to let it go, as it's not that common and it takes too many cards to improve the matchup.

I suggest you just try 2 or 3 games against combo. You are not waiting for the opponent to answer them. They give you a clock, every tutor can be the second hate bear, and in most cases they will loose to the life combo. It is a nightmare for the combo deck.

I don't dispute that we need some kind of disruption to compete with combo. They're faster than we are, and so we have to slow them down. The best cards we can run against combo are Duress, Thoughtseize, and Orim's Chant. Duress and Thoughtseize are useful against nearly every deck in the format. A well placed Chant spells doom for combo, and Chant will always buy you at least a turn against any deck. Hate bears are limited in their usefulness. Meddling Mage is iffy against the meta at large, because most decks aren't significantly hurt by being denied access to a single spell and/or they run creature removal. True Believer might buy you a turn or two against combo, but you're also spending a turn or two to wish for him and/or cast him. He's only really a house against Burn and he's not more than a Grizzly Bears versus the rest of the format. Teeg is only worth running against Storm and maybe Faerie Stompy. And he's not godly against either.

I think you overvalue cards being Clerics. It makes them hard to burn if you have a Daru Spiritualist out, and it can help you mass attackers for the Doran kill, but I wouldn't run an otherwise inferior card just because it's a Cleric.

I don't consider doomsday fast. It wins generally on turn 3. One hate bear will buy me generally 2 turns.
Also I have no reason to combo before doomsday except if the opponent keeps UU1 open.

Doomsday is the combo deck that cares the least about hate bears. They're set up so that they can pick a Doomsday stack that ignores whatever problem cards are on the board. Most Doomsday lists also run Ad Nauseum for a speed kill, making it tough to combo first or choose a good Meddling Mage name.

Lategame is also helped by the fact your opponent can draw a lot of irrelevant spells. Also removing genesis from the game isn't game winning with living wish.

This is one of the problems with Living Wish in general. The deck has too many things it wants to wish for and not enough wishes. Sometimes you need to wish for a combo piece to get the life. Later, you need to wish for a kill condition or lock piece. Sometimes you need two or more wishboard targets to win. A smart player will counter all your Living Wishes after you've gained infinite life. I wish I could run six or seven Living Wishes.

However thresh is less played now and I find that the more diverse is the field the more a wishboard is better than classic sideboard cards.

The DTB forum would like a word with you.

I think running cards that are strong in numerous matchups, i.e. Krosan Grip is better than running wishboard targets for narrow matchups. Every time I built a huge wishboard, I found that many of the cards in it were never wished for.

I guess this is another irreconcilable difference of opinion.

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy , and vial.

This helps, but we still have problems with heavy removal/counterspell decks.

To finish with defending my case i'll say that i've been working on the life deck continuously for about 6 years and am sure of every choice I made.

This is about how long I've been working on the deck. I first threw together a White/Red list around the time Nemesis was released, but for a few years I gave up on the deck. But I've always had a soft spot for Life.dec

[Lejay]

No time for a full answer. Most important thing : name doomsday with meddling. Especially post sideboard.
I played doomsday a lot myself, although never in tournaments.

[Tangle.Wire]

So how about the Planeswalker Elspeth as alternate win condition for the Colossus, it sucks imo because you need to pay so u just could play 1 millstone as well i think the best win options for life are:

- Elspeth
- Test of Endurance
- Doran
- Pyrexian Processor

[Maveric78f]

So how about the Planeswalker Elspeth as alternate win condition for the Colossus, it sucks imo because you need to pay so u just could play 1 millstone as well i think the best win options for life are:

- Elspeth
- Test of Endurance
- Doran
- Pyrexian Processor

Have you even read what have been said before? All the cards you propose are completely useless alone or off-color or non-tutorable. At some stage, Lejay splashed B and he obviously played Doran (1 MD and 1 in SB).

Colossus is a wish target exclusively, so that it's never a dead draw. Colossus cannot be played, it can only be vialed in, which is somehow not that difficult. But most of all, Colossus is a lock element, preventing from being decked (which complements the infinite life). It isn't only a kill.

[Kuma]

- Elspeth

Too slow and unreliable. After gaining infinite life, your board position is usually weaker than your opponent because you had to sacrifice a creature. Often you won't have both an en-Kor and a toughness pumper after gaining life which can leave Elspeth wide open to attack. Also people will board in Needles against you all the time.

- Test of Endurance

Not bad, but your opponent has a full turn to deal with it. It's also does nothing if you draw it without infinite life.

- Doran

This is the best kill condition IMO. It can win the game by itself, it makes most of your other creatures better, and you can Vial it in for a surprise kill.

- Phyrexian Processor

Too mana intensive. And it's rarely good by itself. Certain strategies like Moat and recurring EE stop it.

About Darksteel Colossus:

1. Progenitus is better

2. You don't need either

3. Not only does killing an opponent off a Vialed in Colossus/Progenitus take time you don't have in a tournament setting, you'll never pull it off against a good player. Once you get those Vial counters beyond five or so, any competent player will figure out what you're up to and stop it.

@Maveric78f

WGb is the best color combination for Life.dec. You get Doran, better disruption (Thoughtseize) better card advantage (Dark Confidant) and better wishboard targets (Shriekmaw, Volrath's Stronghold). Plus you can kill people with Starlit Sanctum if need be.

[GoldenCid]

I saw a mmono white version of life deck which looked interesting to me:

Lands (19)

2 Diamond Valley
2 Flagstone of trokair
13 Plains
2 Starlit sanctum

Creature StuFF (18)

4 Nomad's en-kor
2 Shaman en-kor
4 Daru spiritualist
4 Task force
1 Doran the siege tower
1 Emrakul, the aeons torn???
2 Mother of runes

Spells (23)

4 Orim's chant
3 Silence
2 Isochron scepter
2 Enlightned tutor
2 Test of endurance
4 Condemn
2 Worthy cause
4 Aether vial

I think it could work, indeed it made top 3. Maybe it run chrome mox somewhere but i'm not sure. Has anybody tested a similar version??

[Pastorofmuppets]

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Because the life combo is worlds harder to disrupt, and Life.deck runs a more stable manabase.

3-card creature-based combo that also uses a nonbasic land as its cornerstone?
Oh man, this deck is so hard to disrupt.

[Kuma]

3-card creature-based combo that also uses a nonbasic land as its cornerstone?
Oh man, this deck is so hard to disrupt.

Because the life combo is worlds harder to disrupt [than Cephalid Breakfast], and Life.deck runs a more stable manabase.

Way to not read what I wrote.

I didn't say life combo was hard to disrupt, only that it was harder to disrupt than Cephalid Breakfast. Cephalid Breakfast is hurt by creature removal, burn, activated ability hate, graveyard hate, artifact hate (if they run Shuko), and enchantment hate (for Dragon's Breath). Life.dec is hurt by creature removal, activated ability hate (although not as much) and land destruction (sometimes).

[Pastorofmuppets]

Way to not read what I wrote.

I didn't say life combo was hard to disrupt, only that it was harder to disrupt than Cephalid Breakfast. Cephalid Breakfast is hurt by creature removal, burn, activated ability hate, graveyard hate, artifact hate (if they run Shuko), and enchantment hate (for Dragon's Breath). Life.dec is hurt by creature removal, activated ability hate (although not as much) and land destruction (sometimes).

But you're still looking at
A) A 3-card combo that relies on creatures (with less than 3 toughness) and nonbasic lands, two of the most vulnerable things in Legacy
B) Something that doesn't outright win you the game
C) Is easier to disrupt than Storm (most of the time, at least)

[Kuma]

Exactly. There's no reason to run Life.dec in Legacy right now. There's a reason I hadn't posted in this thread since early 2009.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Exactly. There's no reason to run Life.dec in Legacy right now. There's a reason I hadn't posted in this thread since early 2009.

I hadn't realized this was a necro.

There HAVE been a lot of those lately.