I was playing against BUG Landstill last nite, and that was a monster of a matchup. MM to counter any source of card advantage, Deed to reset the board. Ouch.
I almost managed to win a Sb game by decking them; but it was rough. I slow-rolled the Landstills until I made him discard, then followed up with discard to clear the way for a few creatures. Had I drawn a Living Wish earlier, it may have allowed me to gain a few more turns to deck Landstill.
Vengevine, Masked Admirers, and Thrun might be the way to play out this matchup.
EDIT: I also brought in KGrips against Deeds. Those helped a little bit.
Last edited by Koby; 05-27-2011 at 11:14 PM.
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Is an Intuition/Vengevine sideboard worth playtesting?Originally Posted by rukcus
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Anything is worth testing. Whether it fits your style and worth the sideboard space is another matter. Consider if it helps you win matches you otherwise couldn't before.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
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My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Wait, Safety, you don't play with Regal Force? I would go so far to say he's part of the core of the deck.
An Elves deck (12 wins and two losses) was 1 round away from top8 Grand Prix Providence (lost to 2nd place - hive mind)
See on the bottom of the page "Brian Eleyet (Hive Five) vs. Ross Merriam (Elves)"
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...e/gppro11/day2
Can anybody get that list? I can't find it.
Hey guys, this is Ross Merriam. I'd like to share my list and some thoughts after the GP. Had a rough matchup in the last round for top8 where I was turn3ed both games with a counterspell. Almost any other pairing and I think i'd be writing about a top8 or more since I was ranching all weekend (and 10-3ed my die rolls after 2 byes). I finished with the 3rd highest game win percentage in the tournament since 8 of my 10 match wins were 2-0s. Onto the list:
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves (This is essentially just a 4 of but the split is optimal in a world of Phyrexian Revoker, Cabal Therapy, Meddling Mage, etc. It's not a large edge, but it is still an edge)
4 Heritage Druid
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Wirewood Symbiote (Best creature in the deck, not close)
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Priests of Titania (I tend to think of this as a tutor-able cradle)
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Regal Force
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Green Sun's Zenith (Best non-land in the deck, not close)
3 Summoner's Pact (The 4th one here could be better than the Birchlore Rangers unless Hive Mind catches on, as of now it's the 61st card)
4 Glimpse of Nature (Obv)
4 Gaea's Cradle (Best card in the deck, not even remotely close)
4 Wooded Foothills (Can be any green fetchland)
4 Verdant Catacombs (Ditto unless you want the basic swamp which I cut after Vestal)
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Forest
SB:
4 Buried Alive
4 Vengevine (Mostly there for decks with hymn to tourach and perish since they are typically cold to it)
4 Cabal Therapy (Obligatory combo hate)
2 Beast Within (Catch-all that replaced Krosan Grip since I expected very little counterbalance---Peacekeepers were selling out on Friday so I expected to bring these in mainly against UW landstill. I of course never played that matchup)
1 Mortarpod (Alternate win condition with additional utility if you feel it necessary)
Before any further explanation, I'd like to give credit for the majority of this list where it is due, to Matt Sperling. I began preparing for Providence a few months ago since I don't play much legacy and would have to borrow many many cards, thus necessitating my deck choice be made early. In a 15 round event, I reasoned my best shot would be by playing many non-interactive matches where I was making the most powerful play available in the format...hard-casting emrakul. However, I also wanted the ability to grind out games if necessary. While reading through a Sperling article on Channel Fireball I read over his list and it looked very interesting. I was familiar with the deck from it's time in extended and decided to give it a try. Instantly impressed, I locked myself in early and began to tune. I played a few events at Jupiter games to get some tournament practice and the last one went fairly well with me splitting the finals with the eventual winner of the GP. (The first one didn't go as well; I didn't play cradle so my list was embarrassing, as was my play. Turns out when you have all one drops the number of lines of play is staggeringly large.) I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Mental Misstep wasn't even a large problem since most players didn't know what to counter other than glimpse and it was easy to either bait or overwhelm. Once acqiuring the necessary cards (big thanks to Ray Robillard and Paul Serignese for this one) I was ready to make my first day 2.
I don't really have match notes, but very few of my games were close. My only loss day 1 was to sneaky show when he had the sneak attack both games where show and tell would've given me the win, which is really how the matchup was decided in my limited testing. I managed to beat ANT when he fizzled game 2 by brainstorming into thoughtseize at 2 life so he couldn't empty his hand of blanks to hellbent tutor at the end of a ritual chain. He then mulled game 3 and duressed my cabal therapy instead of glimpse so I won on turn 2. Other wins were against merfolk, hive mind, UW stoneforge, mono-black (all I saw was therapy and thoughtseize), and something I cant remember.
Day 2 began well with 6 easy games against 2 goblin decks and Natural Order Bant. Round 13 I was paired with PV, which I knew would be tough since he was on BUG-still. I took a relatively easy game 1 where he mulled and didn't seem to have much in the way of disruption. In game 2 I forced through a buried alive and ended the game with 4 vengevines in the graveyard as I whiffed on drawing creatures for 5-6 turns. I was never really in game 3. I took out a burn deck in the next round where I demonstrated the true power of the combo to a small crowd by regal force-ing down to 1 card in library with 2 active glimpse, and then used zeniths for x=0 to refill my library and continue casting creatures and netting mana off of 2 nettles (other two in the graveyard). After about 10 minutes of this I had enough mana to cast emrakul for the win. Unfortunately Hive Mind got me since I think I had a great chance against the rest of the top8 past PV.
Some remaining thoughts on the deck:
Most players have no idea how to play against it, so it's quite easy to use this to your advantage if you can figure out how they value each of your cards.
Symbiote/Visionary won me more games than anything else.
I used the 2nd regal force much more often than you would think, as the first 1 would pull me ahead in many attrition wars. I used extra glimpses similarly.
Run 4 Gaea's Cradle.
The original list from Sperling had a Viridian Zealot in the main with the shaman in the board. I was unimpressed by zealot as it doesn't kill the 2 most problematic enchantments: Engineered Plague and Humility. Shaman is much better against artifacts given the synergy with symbiote so I made the swap. This is the only change from Sperling's MD that I made.
I had a swamp in the board per Sperling's list but found it was largely unnecessary given that you only needed to resolve buried alive once, wastelands generally targeted arbor and cradle first, and Birchlore Rangers gives you a tutor-able black mana producer.
I expected more Hymn to Tourach than the 0 that were cast against me on the weekend, so I went to 4 Vengevine in the board instead of 3. I'm still not sure about this but I think hardcasting Vengevine is a fine plan in most matchups where the transformation comes in.
Seriously, run 4 Gaea's Cradle.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
thank you theross for your reflection on GP Providence; i enjoyed reading it. I think what you said was very helpful, i couldn't agree more with what you said about gsz and symbiote. I think i will test cradle, you seem to give the impression it won many games. I'm sorry about your pairing against hivemind. I remember playing against it in old extended and you just felt as though there was nothing you could do; it was a horrid feeling. If you went again would you keep the buried alives?
Awesome job with the deck!
Why 4 ? why not 1 or 2 and some crop rotation in the mix?
And 18 lands seems too much and dangerous when comboing
Thanks for posting here! I have been testing a similar list for a while now, but something I would like to know: Did you get perished during the GP? I mean: would you have rather run NO+Prog plan in the sb? That opens up another 3 spots for something like combo hate etc.
I don't like 4 Cradle, and 18 land is far too much. Too much risk of failing to combo, along with the risk of unkeepable hands.
@RainbowMaker: I would absolutely run the buried alive plan again, although it may only have 3 vengevine. This transformation helps you dodge things like perish (unlike NO-Prog) and give you a trump postboard. I didn't lose a game to a player with less than 17k names with the vengevine plan in either the vestal event 2 weeks ago or the GP. However, it's important to note that I didn't bring it in very often since I rarely faced decks with hymn to tourachs/perishes. I was perished once in the GP (@1maarten1) by goblins in round 11 and simply recurred my vengevines and won. I normally don't transform against goblins but I saw him play a feature match the previous round and he had perish and pyrokinesis which seemed ugly for my combo plan.
@Godmode: Cradle is powerful enough that running 4 lets you see 1 often enough to make up for the times when you see multiples. I've won plenty of times with dead copies in my hand on the turn I start to go off and seeing 2 is excellent against any deck with wasteland as they must use them aggressively. The deck is also so resilient to wasteland normally that it's easy to bait a waste with the bayou or dryad arbor to try and protect the cradle. I considered a 3/1 split with crop rotation before misstep but since that card is everywhere right now I don't think the risk is worth it.
@1maarten1: As I mentioned above, NO-Progenitus makes their perishes live, so it's not good against most B decks until perish becomes less common (which I don't see happening soon). Against any U deck, turning to a plan that requires you to resolve a key spell with no protection is poor. It's fine against any non-interactive deck but in those matchups, the combo plan is faster/more consistent so NO is just a poor option. I ran it in my first vestal test tournament and it was terrible so I've never played it since. As far as getting more space in the sideboard, that is my main concern with the transformational board. I doubt adding more "hate" for combo would be worth it though as most of them (disregarding belcher and other such all-in combo decks) are not that much faster than you so your best course of action is getting minimal hate over some of the slower cards (I bring out priest and v shaman against almost all of them unless it's obvious not too such as the case of v shaman against painter combo) and trying to race them.
@bakofried: It's hard to refute your claims since you offer no justification so I'll just demonstrate the math which I did before the GP using some simplifying assumptions from my testing data (Those unfamiliar with binomial coefficients should familiarize themselves with the concept first as this part is a bit technical):
Nearly all hands with 1-3 lands are keepable, and the ones that aren't are highly contrived (such as 3x pact, emrakul). Thus I will say that the set of mull-able hands are those that contain no non-cradle lands, or those that have 4+ lands. (Even here we dismiss hands that have cradle and ESG for a 1 drop, but those would be mulls against any deck with misstep or wasteland unless the one drop was a mana elf so I dismiss these as well)
In all of the following calculations, the numerators represent the number of hands with the given condition, and the denominator the number of 7 card hands that are possible.
The odds of getting a no lander are (42 choose 7)/(60 choose 7)=0.0699. Similarly, getting 1 cradle and 6 spells has a probability of 4*(42 choose 6)/(60 choose 7)=0.0543.
2 cradles + 5 spells: (4 choose 2)(42 choose 5)/(60 choose 7)=0.0132
3 cradles + 4 spells: (4 choose 3)(42 choose 4)/(60 choose 7)=0.0012
4 cradles + 3 spells: (4 choose 4)(42 choose 3)/(60 choose 7)=0.00003
4 lands + 3 spells: (18 choose 4)(42 choose 3)/(60 choose 7)=0.0910
5 lands + 2 spells: (18 choose 5)(42 choose 2)/(60 choose 7)=0.0191
6 lands + 1 spell: (18 choose 6)(42 choose 1)/(60 choose 7)=0.0020
7 lands: (18 choose 7)/(60 choose 7)=0.00008
Summing these figures gives 0.2518, saying that we should mull about 1/4 of the time on a 7 card hand. I mulliganed 6 times in 29 games during the GP, a little below average but most likely not statistically significant given the small sample size. I also never went to 5 and kept a few 4 land hands because of matchup considerations. (ie I thought the games would go long so the mana would be an asset rather than a hindrance) To me, lists that i've seen on this forum with 13-15 lands and only 1-2 cradle have more inconsistency since without making consistent land drops you are very dependent on your creatures for mana which makes the deck more vulnerable to removal. Empirically, I have never had a problem drawing too many lands when going off, although I bricked once in testing off of double glimpse then glimpse the next turn. I've even gone off despite drawing 5 lands in 7 regal force cards so I can't understand your position on cradle and 18 lands but I hope this helps you understand mine.
Last edited by theross; 06-05-2011 at 08:15 PM.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
Can you post what did you board in agianst each of the match-ups please? That would be awesome
by the way, what about maelstrom pulse instead of beast within?
@Godmode: I fail to see how pulse is better. It's sorcery speed, requires black mana (thus requiring you expose your lands unnecessarily to wasteland), and doesn't kill lands (the most problematic of which is Tabernacle, although I've played through it with priests and/or cradle). Perhaps if you want an answer to Empty the Warrens tokens but that seems too narrow.
As for a sideboard guide, I would say that I don't think about sideboarding against specific decks. In general I bring in the Vengevine plan against any deck that can't deal with them effectively (Note: Swords is not an effective answer to 3x Vengevine) and/or decks that can deal with the combo plan effectively (Typically with sweepers like perish/pernicious deed but I would also try Vengevine against something such as the UWr Stoneforge decks because the combination of Grim Lavamancer, Jitte, Misstep, FoW, and Plow is too much disruption) Vengevine is also very good against Hymn to Tourach so I always strongly consider them against decks with Hymn. Probably not against an aggressive deck like Deadguy Ale but that could be wrong depending on the build. Typically I will bring out the Emrakul, 3 Pact, the ESG, 1 Regal Force, the Priests, and a floating card depending on what I see. All these card are heavily slanted towards the combo plan and pacts are much riskier against sweepers. I have still played games where glimpse drew most of my deck, I played/recurred 4 Vengevines, attacked and passed with a grip full of 7 guys so you can still effectively combo but in general glimpse is used as an ancestral or thoughtcast in post board games with this plan. I did swap glimpses for therapies against PV for game 2 of our match in an attempt to go all in as I expected him to be unprepared. However, once he went back for game 3 I swapped those 4 cards again, and brought the Emrakul to have a true combo win though. He ended up bringing in Leyline of the Void. I still wanted Vines even against possible Nihil Spellbombs because I knew his deck would have multiple Jaces (he had 4) and vines are my best card against it.
Therapy typically comes in against control decks where the combo plan stays in place like UW landstill. If their clock is slow enough that little beats can get there the vines aren't necessary, so it's best to leave them in the board. Decks like these also typically have more counters for buried alive. Then I bring out the V Shaman (although leave them in if they have shackles), the ESG since it's unnecessary to be that explosive, and 2 floaters. I always leave in Birchlore if black cards come in unless I know for sure they don't have wasteland.
I had beast within as a catch-all but mainly as a way to deal with peacekeeper, humility, and Counterbalance but I never boarded them in so the jury is still out.
The mortarpod is an alternate win condition but I never used it as such and never boarded Emrakul out for it, although I think I should've against mono-red goblins. I think i'd bring it in against natural order bant sometimes, although it might not be necessary and I didn't at the GP, or against Grim Lavamancer out of a deck with other disruption. (and not burn, since you can overcome their one relevant card)
I hope this helps more than just a typical guide, as I've tried to give you archetypal situations for each card to be considered to come in.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
@TheRoss
Did you never wish you had a lord like Joraga Warcaller or Ezuri in the MD? I mean they make the aggro plan so strong with all the cradle effects. Or do you feel like you would want to get Regal Force instead of those lords in every situation?
I dont know about that list.it lacks elvish archdruid which is a strong aggro plan in this much slower mental misstep legacy era.(also its good vs engineered plague)and 18 lands i dont know.even if u want to play 4 cradles u should cut at least 2 fetches and go to 16.i mean David Ho's list played 11 forests and 1 cradle 3 esg.and made top 4 at an SCG.that means 16 landds 12 +4 cradles is more than enough
maybe cut some lands to add elvish arcdruids
and i dont know about that buried alive+vengevine.
it is so easy to counter buried alive and then waste your land(easy to do if u are team america)
The list produced good results. That means it has consistency and a high win potential in it. It's a bit hard to argue with results. Perhaps Elf Combo should be looking more towards lowering forest counts for ESG and increasing Gaea's Cradles at the same time?
lists with 12 lands made top 4 of scg open.
Making top 16 of a grand prix is close to top4 of an scg (even if i strongly believe that Ross could have won the tournament if he had dodged that hive mind)
Tbh playing elves in this meta is very strong and non- perfect lists can make good positions
That does not mean the lists are perfect
I have a feeling that the creators of the list went:
4 cradles 4 of this fetch 4 of this fetch 1 bayou 1 dryad arbor and well...
4 forests. Cos u cant go to 2 forests.many games u will need more than 2 forests total in the deck
so they made a 18 land deck.
The logical misstep there was: "4 of this fetch 4 of this fetch..."THATS the wrong deckbuilding
IMHO they should play 6 fetches 4 cradles 4 forests 1 bayou 1 drayd arbor(total 16 lands)
and they could include more creatures to tutor for (like elvish archdruid-who is another cradle as the Ross said for titania enables strong aggro plan and helps vs plagues)
Anyway big congrats to Ross for that position!
Not quite.
Making T16 of a 1,200 person tournament means playing out all 15 rounds, and still coming out at 13-2 or 12-2-1.
Making T4 of a SCG Open (which never reaches above 200) means playing 7-8 rounds of Swiss (X-2 minimum), then winning one more round before losing in Semi's. This means 9-10 rounds max.
The competition is also on a completely different scale, and the players are alot better after Round 6 onward. I value the T16 @ GP result much higher than a T4 @ SCG Open, based solely on the facts mentioned above.
EDIT: RE - manabase
There is no disadvantage in running 8 Fetch and 4 Forest. I've done this before and WON a 50+ man tournament. I typically play 7 Fetch 6 fetch-ables, and still don't run out of lands. The point is to minimize the amount of lands you will draw, not reach 4-5 forests in play. If you take the latter approach, you're playing the deck incorrectly. Invariably those situations will happen, such as against Landstill - but that is not where you want to be with this deck.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
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I did not take into consideration playing with 4 forests minimum.Or better i was not the only one taking that into consideration-obiously Ross took it too.(and i agree with him)
My point is he should play 16 lands and cut the 2 fetches.
I tried to imagine the thoughts on deckbuilder's mind and his concerns for his mana base.And i found a flaw(always assuming) his urge to play so many fetces.I think the correct is 6 fetches and 16 lands total
Dont take me wrong the only change i would make is cut 2 fetches and add 2 archdruids who are tbh highly abusable with the 4 quirions and 4 wirewood Ross plays!!(remember cradle cant untap)
EDIT:Re make top16
we should take into consideration the fact that an scg meta is more specific wheras a legacy meta is much wider.that may be good or maybe bad.
But my whole point was that u can top 16 or top 8 or even win with a non-perfect list because the deck was tbh a surprise factor to most ppl.
Anyways dont want to argue about the achievement.I congratulated Ross and i really think and i am the first to say that he could have won the whole GP if he could dodge that hive mind deck!
For the record, I finished 12-3, 2 byes and starting 11-1 allowed for high enough breakers to get to top16. I think that bracket went down to 26 or so. Having my two opponents to beat me on day 2 make top8 also helped, as well as getting a pair up in round 11 to the undefeated goblins player. (even if he had 3 perish, 3 pyrokinesis, 3 chalice, and a sharpshooter in his board)
The mana is currently 8 fetches and 6 fetch-able lands if you include bayou and arbor, the latter of which is very commonly found and protected with q ranger. (even PV ran his wasteland into this trick game 1) If you were to simply cut two fetches then the odds of hitting a hand without a forest or fetch would be (48 choose 7)/(60 choose 7)=0.1906 and this includes hands with just dryad arbor, which in general are mulligans from a 7 card hand due to vulnerability to wasteland and removal. Compare this to the current list which has the probability (46 choose 7)/(60 choose 7)=0.1385 of hitting no forests or fetches. This is a very significant gap over the course over the 29+ games of a GP, although perhaps not a large difference at a small local tournament or even a 9-10 round SCG event.
As for the original genesis of the list, I simply trusted Matt Sperling (who I assume consulted with Matt Nass) and never found a reason to change in testing. Sperling's article mentioned that 14 non-cradle lands was the number he found necessary to avoid hitting too many no-landers or mono-cradle hands. Note that fetching 2-3 times in a game also helps reduce the number of lands in the deck when you start to go off, so I would not advocate cutting fetch lands. Being able to make consistent land drops also helps a lot against removal-heavy decks to land a natural regal force for 3-5 and win the game from there. If you have trouble combo-ing with 18 lands, I would offer you a piece of advice from Matt Nass on elves: when faced with the option of generating more cards or more mana, it's almost invariably correct to chose cards.
On Archdruid: I've actually never played with him, so perhaps I'm wrong but I don't think he's necessary. I'm not a fan of tying so much mana production into a single creature since I think it makes the deck more vulnerable to spot removal. My goal for the MD was to be as consistent combo-ing as possible and I think I achieved that. I was 12-3 in game 1s on the weekend (All wins from casting Emrakul), losing to Sneaky Show, ANT, and Hive Mind, all of whom simply raced my combo. As far as defense against E Plague goes, my metagame analysis was that in general the card was not good and would not be played very often and against most of the decks that would have it I would be sidestepping it with Vengevine expecting Perish.
@Astrix: While I applaud your skepticism, I disagree with your logic that since one list from an SCG played 12 lands and 3 ESG, that a more robust mana base is unnecessary. The goal is not to find the number of lands that is "enough," but to find the number that is optimal. The answer to this question is also dependent on other choices, such as number of mana creatures. David Vo was playing 8 lords and thus depended largely on getting mana from them. To feed this plan, he needed a higher density of creatures and was less reliant on actual lands. This makes ESG especially good as they allow for turn 1 Priests and even Archdruid on occasion, (A strong play against Misstep but very weak to Plow) while also feeding the two later in the game when the mana is unnecessary. My list relies more on lands for early mana and accelerates with Llanowar/Fyndhorn or Zenith into Arbor--giving the deck a virtual 8 mana elves. If you look at Nicholas Malatesta's list from a more recent SCG, he plays 18 lands with 4 cradles and a similar curve, especially when compared to my post-board configuration with the Vengevine plan.
To address your concerns about the Buried Alives I would note that FoW is the only commonly played counter for it, so you're playing on an even field there, Bayou is protected by Quirion Ranger, and Birchlore Rangers can give you black mana. Additionally, you play an attrition strategy in these games, and given the number of cards Glimpse and Visionary can draw it's not uncommon to draw 1-2 vines naturally and simply cast them and beat face. (the 18 lands help a lot with this)
@1maarten1: I played Joraga Warcaller in my first test tournament and it was ok, although I only cast it with kicker once and proceeded to punt that game by not knowing how to play with my own Symbiotes to infinitely block is Goyfs. I would certainly play 1 in my board (I prefer it over Ezuri since it only costs 1 to fuel your other elves and can be bounced in the late-game with Symbiote if necesssary) if I did not have the Vengevine transformation but with that I don't think it's necessary. I've never had much trouble going on the aggro plan when necessary with 1/1s since they have typically used many resources to stop my combo and my goal becomes to aggressively assembe Visionary-Symbiote. 3-5 damage a turn is quite a clock when they have to worry about your ability to combo.
No Excuses, Play Like a Champion
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