Pyroblast checks on resolution. Therfore you can target a land or whatever to add to your Storm count or to Threshold.Originally Posted by maximumcarnage
You can also Ricochet Trap Pyroblast easier than REB.
Last edited by Link Ramirez; 02-15-2011 at 10:50 AM. Reason: Ricochet Trap interaktion added
I disagree. Having counterspell is huge in any countertop mirror, as they generally have some number of creatures that we care about countering (goyf/Clique/etc.) which is why I like the flexibility of counterspell. I think the need to counter a goyf in these matchups is usually way more relevant than not having UU. You could argue that extra counterspells are unneeded in these matchups and I could agree, but I tend to set myself for as much flexibility, CA, and domination of the lategame that I can, and counterspell matters a lot for this. It also means in the combo MU if they decide to bring in something like Xantid Swarm/Bob that you have another out to them, or if you go against something random like argothian enchantress or painter/stone combo you could potentially have more outs.
I completely agree. Negate is a fine card, but isn't versatile enough in the matchups we want it to fit the bill. Extra CS come in against all control decks and combo decks, in addition to randomness (use your imagination). In the mirror, we often SB out excess removal, so a resolved creature can cause problems. In addition, most creatures in the mirror will have some disruptive effect tagged-on to them (Clique, Predator, Pridemage, Sower), making them an even bigger problem. Not being able to counter them outweighs being castable when we stumble on color T2. For that matter, a majority of decks we SB in CS against don't run any mana-denial (landstill doesn't count) to effectively color-screw us, so the 1U is going to be relevant less often. If we're keeping a hand that only has one blue source, it probably has Force/REB/Pierce/etc. in it anyway. Otherwise, you need to mull.
On REB/Pyroblast, 99.99% of the time, they're the exact same card. But I always do a split if running >1 for the sole reason that against Dredge's Cabal Therapies, having a blast with a different name can be the difference between losing the blast and keeping it. This has actually occurred in a live match for me before, and ever since then I always split the names. It also helps conceal the number of blasts you're running, and is protection against Meddling Mage and Extirpate. I know it sounds ridiculously stupid and nit-picky, but there is pretty much no downside whatsoever to splitting the names up.
"Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk."
"You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?"
"If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from A to B."
@ Mon,Goblin Chief,
You're right about running the 4th STP, instead of a 3-1 split with Punishing Fire. I've tested the deck enough last month to find out that the split didn't work the way I thought it would.
Now there seem to be more (R/G/Zoo) decks sleeving up the Fire/Grove combo, because it's just great against tribal. This is good news, as it says everything about the power of it.
However, Fire/Grove make the deck more graveyard dependent and more vulnerable to Wasteland, so it can be hated out. We play counters, Loam and Intuition. We don't need to abuse Fire/Grove in large numbers; it's just a wrong move to run 3 Groves maindecked in a 4-colored Countertop build with enough library manipulation (Brainstorm, Divining Top, Intuition) to find Grove. I found out that even a 3-3 split is too much as it just gives too much mana issues and the 9th fetch is still by far the best choice. Even without Grove in play, Punishing Fire is still very useful in Countertop because it always has a target.
Maybe we need to change the name of the deck, as it's just a refreshing Countertop build that contains the Fire/Grove combo. Intuition is great in the deck, because it's like a Demonic Tutor for Fire/Grove. However, it's slow, just like the Academy Ruins-EE lock. It's just not fast enough to be worth playing in large numbers in nowadays fast format; that's the biggest problem we face compared to other (more standard) Countertop builds.
Because of all the reasons mentioned above, you'll hopefully understand that Intuition needs to be a luxury, not a need. The deck needs to cut some of her Intuition targets/plans, because it's just too slow and not straightforward enough by itself. Also with 2 Fire and 1 Grove maindecked, I've moved the Firespouts to the board particularly for the Goblin/Merfolk matchup; instead I'm playing with 2 Vendillion Clique, 2 Shackles and a 3rd basic Island, which feels great. I also moved the singleton EE and Academy Ruins to the board (IF I plan to go on with Ruins anyway), to go for a more steady mana base and a more straightforward MD with Punishing Fires.
When I side-in the 2nd Grove against Folk/Goblins, I usually go -1 Island as it becomes less relevant in these matchups anyway.
I personally wouldn't call it 'Intuition Countertop' myself...just Supreme Blue or 4-color Countertop with the powerful addition of Fire/Grove and Intuition to tutor for it.
MD:
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
3 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Vedalken Shackles
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB:
3 Firespout
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Punishing Fire
2 Pyroblast
3 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ratchet Bomb
Last edited by Deady; 02-20-2011 at 07:45 PM.
I feel the same about the deck as you do. Maybe you remember my list, it's on the last page. If not, here's the link to my post: *snip*
I still run 3 Firespout because they saved my ass so often, but I don't miss the 3rd Intuition. It makes the deck feel a lot more clunky, that's another reason why I cut the Shackles. Sure, it's great when it sticks and it can turn games around like no other card, but it always required a lot of setup for me and felt somewhat winmore. Also, drawing it when you have 3 lands and need removal kinda blows.
I wanted to minimize the impact of Punishing Fire on my manabase, that's why I only run 1 Grove. Maybe I'm going to include a basic Mountain over the Plains or another Volcanic Island over a basic Island, but that's subtle tuning and a matter of playstyle, so it's kinda moot to discuss this. My point being, I don't think you ever want to draw a Grove when you don't have a Punishing Fire - on the other hand, shuffling it back in with Jace or Brainstorm + Fetch is a bad move because you want to make your landdrops, that's why I think running 1 is correct - you'll tutor for it if needed, otherwise it won't show up.
Finally, I haven't felt the need for other creatures than Goyf MB, but that might be a matter of your Meta. I have 2 V Clique in the SB and am quite happy with them. I sometimes sit there with CounterTop assembled and without a wincondition, but that's rarely the case and thanks to Top and Brainstorm, I'm always able to find one in ample time.
Also, Punishing Fire provides another way to win the game, though I have to admit it's kinda slow.
All in a nutshell, I've never had to draw a match because I lack winconditions.
This looks like a job for me.
Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.
Isn't EE better than Shackles as a singleton maindeck Intuitionable answer?
It's also scientifically proven that resolving Nicol Bolas during a competitive legacy event causes the caster's penis to grow a good two or three inches.
@ Treefolk Master
It depends on your CB curve (do you already run at least six 3-drops?), on the manabase you're running and the strategy you're playing. Both are great in their own way, although I like EE more as a sideboard card together with Academy Ruins. However, if you have room for it, a singleton EE can't hurt.
After playing this deck for quite some time, I agree that 2 Intuitions is the right number, I dislike the deck being too clunky. I'm currently running the EE-loam-ruins pile. I'm forgoing the punishing fires and shackles for more flexibility maindeck. I play a 2/2 split between spell snare and counterspell like most "normal" countertop decks. I only play countertop in a combo infested meta so I really want my countertop deck to beat combo, hence the extra counterspells.
I feel that this deck has inherent problems vs Aether Vial which are difficult to overcome without hurting other matchups. We are trying to address Aether Vial with punishing fire and shackles which are honestly not very good vs combo and decks with big dudes like zoo. Am I the only one who sees this as a problem?
Start packing Nature's Claim in the SB, it has improved my Vial Aggro MU by a ton.
This looks like a job for me.
Most of my posts will be written from my phone, so please excuse the eventual lack of proper typing.
Agreed with Nidd that Claim/Needle are very good SB answers to Vial. The MD has to be more flexible, while the Tribal/Vial bashing cards like shackes/pfire should come out of the board along with hate like Claim/Needle.
If you really think that vial is the problem, and that if you can answer vial that you'll win, then you have another thing coming to you. I sincerely doubt that nature's claim in the sideboard improves that matchup significantly. Vial decks, by which I assume people mean merfolk and goblins almost exclusively, win because of their aggresiveness, card advantage, and disruption. Merfolk is going to counter your best answers (firespout, goyf, shackles) while also disrupting your mana and other spells you might want to play, not to mention the card advantage they generate through standstills and sovereigns. Goblins disrupts your mana a lot more but really just grind you out. They have answers to goyf, and matrons/ringleaders/seigegang/mogg war marshal are pure card advantage. In the long run, this is why you lose to these decks. What's important to note is the in the long run part. The only thing claim ever does is make the game go longer (and maybe save you a couple damage because you can use firespout on a guy). But really, if you don't have answers for the long game you're going to lose more often than not. In my opinion, this is what makes fire/grove so strong, because it actually gives you a way to accomplish this.
As for the 3vs2 intuition debate, I'm not really sure where I stand. For a long time I ran only 2 intuitions, because I also felt they were clunky. However, I think that I like 3 a lot more, especially with the addition of punishing fire and grove of the burnwillows. In a lot of ways intuition is your strongest card because we have ways to destroy basically all of the archetypes out there with countertop (combo), EE/ruins (countertop/control), and now punishing fire/grove (aggro). This is general of course, but intuition almost always has a combo to dominate any matchup. I think running 3 gives you a lot more flexibility in how they're used and more consistency in getting these game breaking combos. The problem many people mention is clunkiness, but I have always run the deck with 7 3cc cards and rarely run into problems. In my opinion the "clunkiness" of intuition is outweighed by the fact that it dominates the game, whereas a less clunky card might be better in the short term but not give you game dominance.
Packing extra answers to Vial against Tribal is an acceptable policy if you have an abundance of cards to SB out in the MD, which I feel we do. Counterbalance and FoW are an easy 8 cards instantly out. An unchecked Vial can quickly lead to a game loss, so why not pack hate? Yeah, they're still good decks even with out it and are difficult MU's preboard, but unchecked Vials can give them almost-free wins against us with decent draws. Packing hate for possible inst-loss cards sounds like a good idea to me.
Everyone on the fence about the number of Intuitions MD needs to remember the four main strategies of the deck: 1) Counterbalance disruption and protection, 2) Tarmogoyf defense and beatdown, 3) Jace, the Motherfucking Mindsculptor, and 4) Powerful end-game engines easily assembled and instant-speed tutors for whatever you need provided by Intuition. These things are the focus of the deck. I can't say that this is the best CB deck playable in Legacy, but I can say that this is what our deck does best and are the reasons why we play it. Cutting Jaces or Intuitions or Tarmogoyfs is just downgrading, because these cards are all extremely important. Three Intuitions or zero Intuitions are the correct number of Intuitons to have at any given time between the MD and SB. Three provides the most consistency without constantly clogging your hand before T3-T4. You only need to resolve one to start an engine, but you really want to have one by T4. The EE/Loam/Ruins package is proven to be far and away the most compact and effective "win-soon" package available, with all pieces being individually useful, and will win you the long-game, every single time. And if you're running PFires, Intuition becomes even more useful.
Seriously, just run 3. It's a core card of the deck for a reason, and when you don't need it, SB them out G2.
"Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk."
"You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?"
"If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from A to B."
Good discussion going on here.
Currently digging the following list; 39 spells, 22 lands.
Lands:
1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Trinket Mage
Other Spells:
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Firespout
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Pithing Needle
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Interesting list Deadly. I admit to trying Trinket Mage out and initially being unhappy, but he's extremely versatile for the deck. He's never amazing, but he's always useful for finding either future answers or the missing Top. What worries me is 2 Firespout. I think 4 is pushing it in anything but an extremely Tribal heavy meta but less than 3 is insufficient. Against various aggro hitting that FS on T3-T4 is vital, if only buying a little more time to stabilize. I think the 3rd Counterspell could easily be the 3rd Firespout without messing with the 2-drop curve or blue-count. We're much more likely to need the 3rd FS G1 than the 3rd CS, simply because Firespout is better at stopping aggro than CS, and the addition of Trinket is another great tool against Control.
Also, what's your board for that list? I'm thinking additional Trinkets could be packed in the SB with more Needles to provide a good, consistent hate-engine for a number of problematic cards (PWs, Wasteland, Vial, Equipment, Pridemage) while making the singleton Crypt/Relic even better against the decks we want GY-hate. Also helps maintain blue-count.
"Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk."
"You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?"
"If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from A to B."
I agree with your points, Mana Drain and Valtrix. I'm quite a flexible player in terms of decks I play. I usually rock whatever is suitable for a meta. I have one deck stashed away in my brain for any given meta. I've got 90% of legacy staples (barring some unique ones like ravages of war etc). The 3 intuition, punishing fire lists are better "raw power" all around decks with much better attrition capabilities. This I agree 100%.
The 2 intuition, no punishing lists I play are targeted more towards beating combo, while being pretty good vs the countertop mirror and aggro/tribal. I know that's not a very good argument, but Countertop right now IMO is pretty weak to Zoo and vial decks. It can beat these decks, but only if you include all the specific anti creature cards like the punishing fires combo. This then weakens the combo/control MU, which Countertop is supposed to beat.
I suppose its just a different point of view, I prefer my Countertop deck to wreck combo and be servicable in other MUs. Here's an example of what decks I would play in what metas:
Combo-dominated: Intuition Countertop/ Zenith Bant Aggro
Aggro/Tribal Dominated: Necrotic Ooze/ Tendrils Combo
Control/Countertop/Midrange dominated: Jacestill/Goblins
If I was stuck with Intuition Countertop (like if it was the only deck I brought with me) in an open field with like just 10% combo, I would play the 3 intuition + punishing fire lists. I hope this clears stuff up. Great discussion going on here!
I do agree that sticking to one deck for every metagame is probably a less-than-optimal playstyle decision, but I like to stick to one deck or at least one archtype that I enjoy playing and tune it to the metagame. I only play blue decks, and with Landstill growing weaker and weaker CB decks are pretty much the way to go for blue-control. What I do greatly enjoy about IntuiCB is that while we don't have many (if any) "always win" MUs, I can't think of any single commonly played deck that we can't beat with SB tuning or "always lose" to (excluding random Chalice decks, which we always lose to, but who actually plays those decks anyway?). Goblins is a rough MU, and probably our most difficult, but you take the good with the bad. I'm currently testing 3 Engineered Plague in the board with 1 USea MD just because Goblins is such a common deck and even with Fires they are serious business.
But I don't think that we are any weaker to Zoo/Tribal than other CB decks. Fast Zoo openers can easily blow us out, but not every opener is fast. Most successful Zoo lists I've played all run a reasonably balanced curve banking on just having more game-enders than you have StPs, not a "shit out fast, cheap dudes and burn you out" plan that is most difficult for us to handle. The ones that go for mid/long-game are way more vulnerable to EE-lock and a midgame CB. Path and EE go much farther against these guys. With Choke being played less (according to SCG results), they have even fewer blow out cards and the MU becomes much more attrition oriented, which we have the upper hand with.
"Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk."
"You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?"
"If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from A to B."
@Mana Drain:
I'm currently messing with the 1-off Shackles (3cmc) spot in the maindeck (and I'm entirely cutting the Fire/Grove package...too much mana issues) to see if there's something else that could be more useful for the deck (less clunky/slow), preferably still an artifact and some form of creature removal that can be tutored up with Intuition.
Two candidates:
*Forcefield* 1: Lose only 1 life to an unblocked creature.
*Crawlspace* No more than 2 creatures can attack you each turn.
Both are 3 cmc spells and control-orientated.
Forcefield would probably be most worthwhile to maindeck, especially since it's another tool against combo (it stops Emakrul/Progenitus from doing serious harm), while it's useful against mid-range at the same time (KotR/Tombstalker) when you don't have an STP out...yet it's useful against Islandwalk and of course it's another target for intuition. I'm a happy owner of one (bought the card a couple of years ago in NM condition), but these days Forcefield is very hard to come by and very expensive as well.
Crawlspace is there to slow down decks that rely on a swarm of creatures (with or without vial) like Merfolk, Zoo and especially Goblins, but also on decks that rely on tokens, next to your other forms of removal. I'll probably put this one in the board as a 1-off; needs testing.
So this is what I'd like to playtest:
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
3 Tundra
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Firespout
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Forcefield
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB:
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
2 Pyroblast
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Path to Exile
1 Crawlspace
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's crypt
1 Ratchet Bomb
Last edited by Deady; 02-27-2011 at 07:54 PM.
First of all: much, much thanks to Mana Drain, Valtrix, ivanpei, and Mon Goblin Chieftan. This is hands down the best thread I have ever read on this site, mostly thanks to you guys!
The rest of my ranting should probably be in a different thread, but this deck was the closest list I found, and baring me having a brewing break through in the next 24 hours I'll probally end up playing this list.
I actually started on my path to this thread via my interest in Intuition/P Fires/Exploration brew GerryT posted in his article on Starcity last week. I brewed up a list with a few elements borrowed from CAB Jace, and with some quick testing was doing great vs tribal and Junk style decks. Game one vs combo was pretty atrocious, but I had the remainder of Counter-Top in the board. It was impossible to have Counter balances main with so many zero drops in the deck, but boarding into a good curve of counters while removing dead removal and Mazes made games 2 and 3 much easier. The deck was basically set up to destroy creature decks all day, and then board in he entire board to crush spell decks.
This worked pretty well until I started testing the Zoo matchup. 1 drips that can't be fired, disenchants on a stick, and the biggest pain in the ass, Knight of the Reliquary- he comes down too big to be fired, and tutors up Wastelands to break Maze of Iths. And Green Suns Zenith searches up whichever they need.
At the very least the deck needed to splash white for Swords to Plowsheares, and I was thinking about some number of Ensnaring Bridges, possibly Tarmogoyf. I came to The Source for some inspiration, and have spent hours studying this thread. Reading through the primer, a lot of the times you described a whole in a matchups gameplan, I kept thinking "The Punishing Fire engine would help there enormously". Not thinking you guys would come to the same conclusion a few pages later! The pro-goyf arguments won me over in the meantime.
I guess my long winded post boils down to this: Is there any merit in playing an Exploration game plan with this style of deck? Some engine would have to leave the maindeck to live in the sideboard (as mentioned earlier I have Couterbalanace living their). But being able to develop super quickly allows you outresource control decks, and more importantly, allows the deck to get the board control engines online before Vial decks can get thief engines running.
If nothing else, I suppose this is a decent thought experiment.
Thanks for the praise of the thread, we try our best.
As for exploration, I think it is a poor choice in a deck like this, because you're effectively giving up a card to (poorly) accelerate your gameplay. You have to ask yourself how much having a land out sooner is really going to help you. I think the curve of the deck is already built with this constraint in mind, so having access to mana sooner is not going to be that helpful. My major complaint with exploration is that its dead after turn 3 because it doesn't provide any mana itself, and having a card that's dead (at any point in time) is against what this deck wants to do.
Now, if you want something to enable you "more access to land," then frankly you're probably better off running an extra land instead of exploration, since that'll decrease the hands where you get manascrewed a lot. Additionally, two land hands are very keepable, and a two land hand with exploration is just horrible.
If you want to speed up your gameplan to be faster than other decks, then just play cheaper answers. In this format extra path to exiles can effectively be timewalks against a lot of decks. Likewise, spell snare is an cheap and efficient answer.
So, I apologize for not arguing the best in this post, but what exactly do you want exploration to do? What kind of engine could possibly abuse it? Life from the loam is not enough. I think almost always your "faster development" is far outweighed by your lack of resources when exploration just sits in play and does nothing, since people able to answer a card and then get your engines online seems infinitely better than getting your engines online a turn sooner. Plus, there's no guarantee that you'll even have an engine right away, in which case you'd rather just have more answers to control the board until you do have an engine up.
Yeah, after doing some actual testing I came to the same conclusions.
Exploration requires a deck built entirely around it, and I was trying to fit way too many different strategies into a single archetype. The result was an incoherent hodge-podge. I should have been able to see this earlier, but I really wanted to have my cake and eat it too…
Anyways, thanks for the thoughtful reply, and again for this thread.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
