Congratz with the result!
Will you write a report? I would love to read it.
I am having the same doubts but still I'm finding the card to provide huge flexibility both as a burn spell and a card to (for instance) evade blockers.I'm thinking about cutting them because they are not as useful without daze where you use it as a rishadan port.
Come on chinese, congratz for the results !! very nice, you bring NLT.... to a higher level ;)
I love the card, don't get me wrong. I suggested it and used it in the 4c countertop as well as played the old can threshold lists with 4 fire/ice. It feels underpowered in this deck though. Against aggro, the 4th lavamancer is better, and against midrange/control, the 3rd clique is better. Having the 21st land also helps the deck mull less and be not so dependant on cantrips.
I've been testing this and Team America, the main differences I've noticed is that Team America is more "all in". The deck disrupts early with powerful spells like Hymm etc and tries to get there with stalkers/goyf. But if you get out of the woods and deal with the deck's threats, Team America is not as good in the long game.
NLT on the other hand has the same early game disruption plan but slightly worse bombs (no hymm) and worse threats (stalker ends the game in 4 turns, clique is a weaker finisher). BUT, NLT has a very strong late game. Lavamancer himself can overpower tribal decks, Jace TMS, Trinket Mage and Clique all make the long game a good thing too. IMO NLT is more "balanced" and can play well into the late game.
Team America is much better against "greedy" decks with less land (or lots of colours). It punishes decks like these and totally destroys them. Against safer decks with stable manabases and a better mid range game, Team America cannot compete mid and late game. Also, Team America suffers from the Cantrip into Cantrip problem. The deck has too little threats. I find this very annoying. Wizards needs to print another 2cc finisher that swings for 5 for Team America. That said, Team America is an excellent deck and very good at what it does: punishing weak draws, unstable manabases and "greedy" decks.
NLT abuses the same things, but doesn't put all its eggs in the early game basket. The new tech of Lavamancer + Collar and the Trinket Mage package of EE + Top makes the mid and late game very strong. I won't say one is better than the either, as they are both very different. Also, I am salivating for a report! Looking forward to it and top props to you for taking it to T8!!!
About Fire/Ice: its power level isn't ridiculous most of the time, but it's an extremely flexible card that always does 'something', and when you get to kill two x/1's or port an opponent's land after you stifled his 1st fetch, then the card is really good. One of the main reasons it was included in the original list from GP Madrid was because of its ability to turn on Daze more often, but even in a list without Daze it's still a fine card, although I think it's a somewhat flexible slot.
About Team America: also a good deck. NLT and TA have a few matchup differences where one deck is better and the other is worse. The most important difference for me is the Merfolk pairing (passionate Merfolk hater), because I have always felt NLT could stop even the most broken Merfolk draws. I would hesitate to say the same is true for TA..
Even with recent changes, merefolk is a terrible, terrible matchup for TA. NLT has no trouble however.
I've really been liking the new NLT lists. The factory/crucible was nice, but a bit too 'cute'. The new configuration is definitely very solid. Fire//ice is a great card even though it seems a bit clunky.
Hi all,
I also played the NLT this weekend in edison after some recent success with it in local tournaments (haven't lost). I played the same main deck as chinese but I had cut a fireice for a top (both cards are really good, not sure if I would change to 3 and 0 as chinese had). I'm at work so I don't have time to give a detailed report, but I started out 3-0 beating big zoo (stifle waste won here), elves (turn 1 grim both games plus 2 for 1 with fire/ice seems good-game 2 he boarded in buried alive for vengevines but grim is too good here), 3rd round was vs white stacks (turn 1 supression field followed by turn 3 geddon, turn 4 2nd supression field, luckily I had all the time in the world because I kept ripping fetches I couldn't use but eventually I had e.e. for 2 and the fun began, game 2 he did what staxs does (mull to 5 and have nothing great to stop me from casting jace turn 4).
Then the awfulness started. Lost round 4 to goblins, game 1 mulled to 5 (my 7 had 0 lands, my 6 had 6 lands) my 5 had island, fetch, e.e., goyf, and bolt (pretty good) I blow up his vial with e.e. but I draw nothing great and he hits 4 off of ringleader (next turn I draw stifle). Game 2 he got a nutty hand after I mulled to 6 and he crushed me. Round 5 I play vs pox (yes pox) we play 3 very close games, but game 3 he graws the right cards at the right time and I can't get there. Round 6 vs tendrils (I know what he's playing, saw him earlier) I mull to 6 on the draw and keep with 2 stifle, 1 snare, goyf, and double land. He kills me turn 1. Game 2 he doesn't know what I'm playing with and he has duress turns 1-3 and when he goes off I brainstormed (only card in hand) and needed to hit stifle, blue blast (1 of in board), pierce, or snare, firespout (had 2), or e.e. but I whiffed and he wished for 18 goblins and I died in 2 turns.
All in all I feel this deck is very good and I got very very unlucky to not do better. I mean mulling vs gobs sucks, pox-who plays that lol, and turn 1 losing to combo and game 2 having so many outs. Btw I overheard chinese say he killed an emrakul with the collar/grim combo haha, that's awesome. I did play collar, but didn't get lucky enough to do that.
Thanks for the mini report, it does seem this deck is great for the modern metagame. Any deck can lose to that sort of luck (bad on your part, good on your opponent's). Can't really blame the deck for those sort of hands.
Ya I wasn't upset I lost to combo because that's what his deck does. I was upset tho mulling to 5 and 6 vs gobs which is a very winnable matchup and then playing vs pox..I haven't played vs pox in 3yrs lol..and I would've won but he ripped therapy to name spell snare (I had 2 cards in hand, which hit and he cast small pox followed next turn by pox lol. But if I counter small pox I would've won..it sucked.
GREAT. JUSTICE.
So now that that's out of the way, I'll answer a few of the question here real quick. First off, yes, I'll be writing a tourney report real soon. As in the next hour soon. I am soooooo happy that I was able to prove this deck in the largest legacy SCG 5k so far. Getting that top 8, and better yet getting to top 4 was awesome. The deck was actually the stone cold nuts all day except for a few losses to variance, both times against combo where I either got nut drawn or got greedy and was punished for it. I was never 2-0'd in either of my losses, and a lot of my win's were 2-0. Fire//ice was also a savage beating all day long. The rise of green sun's zenith has made the card incredible, usually killing two mana sources for very little cost. Also, the basilisk collar tech was the real deal. I got a ton of value out of the card, and won several games that would not have been winnable if it wasn't in my 75. Also, the flooded grove in the decklist was a fuck up by star city, I was running two flooded strand cause I needed blue fetches, and since I have two foil copies I ran them for a little extra powerfulness. Look to the tourney report for answering any other questions.
Edit: Tourney Report link http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...500#post527500
Last edited by chinEsE girl; 03-07-2011 at 09:24 PM.
You can't pull out the RUG from under me, CUZ I AM THE RUG!
This is true. TA struggles mightily against the 'Folk. Pithing Needle helps a little, but bolts/lavamancer are better.Originally Posted by wcm8
Really dislike Starcity's naming of decks. First Dark Horizons, now NLT as Team America?
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
They've fixed it by now, on the site it's been listed as Next Level Thresh. As for the flooded grove typo, they have yet to change that.
Edit: They also fixed the flooded grove/strand typo, it's now flooded strand like it's supposed to be. Now people won't misbuild the deck and think I'm fucking dumb.
Last edited by chinEsE girl; 03-07-2011 at 09:23 PM.
You can't pull out the RUG from under me, CUZ I AM THE RUG!
Cheers Chinese! Love your list. I respect that you find fire/ice very useful. I'll continue testing it and the 4 Grim/3 Clique/21 land configuration. Looking forward to the report. Once again, amazing job!
Its really bad ass when the guy calls it 3 weeks in advance and actually does it. Mad props, Eric.
The Bask Collar seems really gimmicky to me. Regardless, congrats on your finish.
The collar is one of our few ways to deal with things like Knight of the Reliquary, a resolved emrakul, or really anything we cannot race around/mind harness reliably every game or ice down to swing through. In testing and in tournaments it has proven to be an unstoppable machine against most decks that run creatures - mind you, it is of course the first thing to come out when there is nothing big and scary to kill.
Hey, Gratz for the finish. I really like your deck. I just bought grims to test id cause i don't feel really confortable with any deck and yous 75 seem really nice.
Except for thoose dumb flooded ... ;)
Eric,
After reading your tourny report I've worked on a new SB plan that I think might have a much more favorable matchup against straight combo decks while still remaining solid and strong against aggro mid-range/late-game. I think that the board as a whole had to be reworked as it still seem tuned towards our original list (w/out Grims/Trinket Mage package). When it's completely done I'll put up a copy with a complete reasoning behind my choices.
Looking forward to it!
I'm not saying that it isn't a solution to KotR, I just feel like the opposition can focus it down too easily to get value out of it should they know it is coming. Save a bolt for the lavamancer, save a pridemage for the collar, save a vindicate, save a stifle (for trinketmage), hold EE. You lose (albiet a small amount of) tempo setting up the play, which can be thwarted by a more experienced opponent. While I think it is great in a deck that is more of the radar, once the deck gains more popularity b/c Eric English is a the King of Tempo, I think you'll find the equipment package to be more easily played around.
TL;DR: The success of B Collar is more do to the inexperience of the player across from you than how good it is. Am I the only one who worries about this?
I think the issue for this deck is threat count. Basilisk collar is sub-optimal if you just play 3 Grims, 2 Clique, 4 Goyf and 2 Trinkets. I've been loving the 4th Grim and the 3rd Clique. With 2 more threats, even a topdecked Collar on a Clique/Goyf is very powerful. Reading Eric's report made me re-evaluate Fire/Ice and it should not be cut completely. So I've gone -1 Fire/Ice, -1 Spell Snare and + 1 Grim, + 1 Clique.
Spell Snare has been underperforming for me. The spell CC for today's bombs are more varied. Previously most bombs were 2cc, now we see Show and Tell, Jace, KOTR, GSZ etc etc which Snare can't catch. Having said that, Snare is still very useful in conjunction with Stifle.
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