If you are just playing casually, why not run land tax instead of wayfarer?Originally Posted by sco0ter
Scordata:
Thanks for finding a Tundra for me. However I cannot afford to purchase a Tundra by the time the next tournament rolls around. I hate to be suboptimal but in this case I have to be. I hope you can understand.
because I want to play Legacy-legal and don't want to get claimed for playing unfair/banned cards. On a second note I want to see if the decks I build or play work as Legacy decks, since there is no point for anybody to discuss decks which run 4 Demonic Tutor and 4 Land Tax. I mean I'd get better feeback if I share some thoughts here, than in a casual forum where people would suggest suboptimal cards.
All I was getting at is: You are either playing non-competitive legacy OR you are playing kitchen-table casual. If the latter, then they should have no problem with you playing land tax. When I play against casual players, I play against stuff like necropotence, strip mine, demonic tutor, etc often. I find people who play casual magic don't tend to tune their decks so much, and if they have 4 broken cards in it, most of the time it really isn't unfair. Demonic tutor isn't so terrible when it's getting a 10 mana card that you can counterspell for 2 mana. I find that Force of will is probably the one card that upsets casual folks the most, more than anything on the banned list.
Now if you're playing local legacy but just not in tournaments, then I get what you're saying. So to you I ask, first:
Are you playing duels or Multiplayer?
Why does it matter anyway. Actually I don't want to discuss my playing behaviors here.
I don't play tournaments, since here aren't any. Nonetheless I am interested in Legacy and therefore I I play it with friends and discuss it here. So to answer your question, I'd say I play non-competetive Legacy 1v1 usually (no SB). We don't have Tier1 decks, but decks like Welder MUD, Aggro Loam, Sneak Show, GBW Loampox, Mono B Aggro Control, Madness, Elves, Eternal Garden, Rubin Zoo, Slide, GB Rock and some more casual decks.
Multiplayer Legacy doesn't make much sense, since you don't see the decks' real strength and weaknesses.
And playing non-Legacy decks against Legacy feels like playing without (deckbuilding) challenge.
I don't know why you're getting so defensive. I just offered land tax up because when you said kitchen-table I assumed a bunch of casual decks with huge creatures, 4 or 5 card combos, and lots of sub-optimal tribal (zombies, clerics) builds where they wouldn't care if you played it or not. But if you're playing legacy-legal only 1v1 decks then obviously this is a great deck to play.
The warder is a really good card if you need to deal with a lot of stuff that "sticks around." I'm guessing you would have to cut the grunts to fit them in without a sideboard. But without a sideboard your grunts are really valuable against loam. So would you forego countermagic or stoneforges for them?
Also a question for everyone: In the sideboard: 3x Spell Pierce or 3x Meddling Mage? What are the best mage targets, and which should you forego? For instance, which would you name first Jace or Explosives/Deed?
I like Mage better.
You have Daze, FoW and MM to buy a turn or two against combo, having more disruption (Spell Pierce) for the Turn 1 win is less a priority than pre-Mental Misstep. Mage provides a clock, can carry equipment, and it can create virtual card advantage if you can strand multiple cards in hand.
Jace is a great Mage target - Ad Nauseum, Show and Tell, Glimpse of Nature.
I've also found that Mage on the acceleration they have in combo can be priceless. I was testing against a friend and found that mage on Dark Ritual won me every game because he couldn't get started between that, wasteland and countermagic. Adding Jitte to the mix just made things terrible for him. I honestly think that Mage is even better than Sphinx right now since we have MM since it also plays nice with Vial.
One game I vialed in a Mage during the combo player's upkeep naming dark rit and he scooped after I countered his burning wish.
Yeah dark rit is far better than ad nauseum especially because they can go off with an IGG loop or even by raw dogging it. If you manage to get a second one out it should probably name chain of vapor. TES (burning wish versions) may have flame slash in the board so wish is another possible card to name with your second one. If you have them pretty locked down infernal tutor or brainstorm is another option. 90% of the time I would name dark rit then chain of vapor.
Vs Jace decks Jace is probably the way to go because really the only other way to deal with him is beats or maybe o ring if you have them. Then you only have to deal with their removal whereas if you named ee they can play Jace bounce and lock down the game.
EDIT: By the way has this deck done well at any tournaments recently.
? I don't follow results very well but I haven't seen anything on Too Much Information at SCG.
Last edited by rupus; 07-20-2011 at 04:29 PM. Reason: more stuff
I went 3-0-2 (ID into top 8) last month in a small tournament. I don't think many people are playing it, though, and this is the busiest the thread has been in weeks! But with brainstorm, fow, mm, stp, and daze, this deck is a blast to play and can be very competitive.
Lol reading threads is tech. I just saw that there's 2 reports of small tournies on this page.
Anyways I do love this deck. Gush on a stick, back to back to back wastelands from wayfarer, etc. Kinda feels like an old school vintage fish deck. This is my deck of choice number 2 but I feel pretty locked into playing solidarity right now after buying 4 commander decks to get my set of flusterstorm (seriously I wanted chaos warp and flusterstorm and buying the whole decks was cheaper).
Speaking of old school fish decks maybe maindecking meddling mages is a good idea right now. Seems like most people are boarding them in vs most matchups anyway and within the first few turns its pretty easy to put you opp on a deck. I guess it leads to less G2 blowouts though. Relic warder is super hot tech. I've been blown out by that guy when I was playing MUD. IDK about how good he would be vs a mystic deck but with mom or some counters he's could be beast. Not to mention he is ridiculous with vial.
Another thought I had was neurok commando but he is probably too cute. Still vs creatureless decks (BUG still, etc) or with a mom on the table he could be pretty good. From the lists I've seen he would probably replace the 2 flex slots where I've seen cliques, Jace, mimeomancer, etc. Does he solve any problems not fixed by those guys? Probably not.
Last bad idea for this post: Armageddon. I played a white weenie deck that slowly transformed into a UW tempo-ish deck but I kept a pair of geddons in. I would play this over Jace if you want a 4 cc I win card. I've never (honest) lost a game vs control decks after resolving one. This was before UW mystic decks though so IDK if it still instawins vs those decks.
Well what do you board out for the mages usually? Grunt seems to be the weakest link, I think, personally, but it's our only real "power" and I kinda like not losing to dredge, servant, etc game 1. On the other hand, though, mages do up the blue count.
commando seems bad because of the power and casting cost. Also I don't think there are any flex slots any more after mm was printed. How many are you running?
Was playing on MWS yesterday against UB ANT
Ethersworn canonist + meddling mage set to chain of vapor = "hahaha noob - player lost"
Lol gotta love mwsplay scrubs. Anyways, commando sucks. He just ends up trading or chumping. Not enough removal for him to generate enough advantage. I would rather max out on seers first. Geddon on the other hand is infinitely better than Jace in this deck but both are too expensive. I'm going back to cliques I think. List:
Land
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wasteland
2 Plain
1 Island
Creature
4 Weather Wayfarer
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Fathom Seer
2 Jotun Grunt
2 Serra Avenger
Instant
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
Artifact
3 Aether Vial
1 Umezewa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
Sideboard
3 Meddling Mage
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Leonin Relic Warder
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Karakas
2 Grand Abolisher
2 Tormod's Crypt
I don't like the e tutor boards. Karakas and abolishers are tests. So is revoker #3. Everything else has been solid. Let me know if you want to know about how I board vs anything.
EDIT: I should probably say that I'm testing playing mystic into batterskull as my main beater instead of avenger. I haven't decided what I like better though. Also, right now I feel like a lot of decks are adapting to beat misstep which is why I'm at 3 misstep 4 daze but I'm considering cutting a daze for a clique. If I had to play in something major tomorrow I would play a more standard list of -1 mystic -1 daze +1 avenger and either +1 more avenger or +1 clique. Body and mind would go main and batterskull would go to the board. I think the board is solid as it is but the abolishers are untested so I would probably do -2 abolishers +1 misstep +1 relic of progenitus.
Last edited by rupus; 07-22-2011 at 08:39 PM.
Rupis, can you explain some of your choices? 1 clique, body and mind over fire and ice, and crypt over wheel? I find wheel to be gg against many gy strategies where crypt is just 1 use.
Sure. Clique could easily be misstep 4, a maindeck sword, or another avenger or grunt. I just like clique. It does a bit of everything, pseudo discard, flying beats, kills other cliques. SoBaM is a bit of a meta choice as it provides better protections vs zoo, team America and Bant. Card advantage from SoFaI is definitely good and I would run it if there was lots of NO RUG or control decks splashing red (for firespout and lavamancer). In general though I like feast and famine better vs control decks than fire and ice and body and mind mind vs creature decks. Also fire add ice is huge vs Merfolk but no one plays it here and its on the decline in general. Crypt is kind of personal preference and so I might be running it when I shouldn't be but here's the best I can do to justify it. Vs Dredge turn 2 can be too late and I find wasteland to be one of the best cards vs them which sets wheel back even farther. Same goes for reanimator but they also play daze so to play around you either need to use a counter or wait until turn 3. Also on the draw if they go first turn entomb wheel is a lot less relevant. Vs graveyard combo (4 horsemen, cephalid breakfast, even welded mud or painter to an extent) wheel is much better but Dredge and reanimator tend to be more popular. Still, take everything I say with a grain of salt because this is deck number 2 for me so I don't play as much as I should to draw definite conclusions.
Okay, so (it appears from SCG) Hive Mind is a real deck. So is NO Rug. Can we discuss the strategy we would use to deal with these decks?
One card that can pull double duty is spellstutter sprite. It's at vial's sweet-spot, doesn't cost UU, and not only will it counter any pacts, but can also protect our mages against most r/w removal. Against hive mind you can easily take out avengers since vigilance and the 2 extra power don't really matter. Against NO decks I'm not as sure.
As for their backup plan of emrakul, o-ring seems decent, but can't hit prog too. Metamorph can hit both, but needs to be found and hard-cast. Phantasmal image can be vialed in, but it can't be found with e. tutor and I'm not sure it deserves 3-4 slots in the sb.
A single karakas in the sideboard can help against emrakul, and we can find it easily enough with wayfarer. Against prog we really need to stop the Natural Order or hope to race with an avenger and a jitte.
Last edited by Star|Scream; 07-25-2011 at 11:22 PM.
NO RUG doesn't have tons of basics. Wayfarer fetching wastes can keep them off 4 mana for NO. Sprite seems ok but I've played him in other Legacy decks and always been underwhelmed. Daze also beats pacts as long as you have 1 mana open to pay for their copy. If you are playing an E tutor board ensnaring bridges is an option, altough IDK if it's any better than Metamorph. Meddling mage does work vs. Hive Mind. If you name Show and Tell that basically shuts them down. Hardcasting Hive Mind doesn't happen often. Boarding in relic warders is also a possibility to hit monoliths, making it even harder to hardcast it. In testing karakas in the board is pretty solid. It does a lot vs. Reanimator and even dredge to an extent. I haven't done tons (read: any) testing vs NO RUG but I would be more worried about their beatdown plan than NO which is a good reason to keep avenger in. SFM -> batterskull seems like it would do work vs them. SoBaM is probably the best sword vs them. If you can equip one they are out of bolt range anyways and that will give you protection vs their cliques and goyfs.
Good points. I have a feeling revoker would work better than warder because it can turn off more than one monolith. Yeah it's easier to kill but it's also easier to cast and tutorable, and also deals with mana dorks.
That's true. I'll test him out. Anyway, I have some things to say about my last list. Playing SFM into batterskull as the main beater over avenger is definitely wrong. I would cut a mystic for another avenger and possibly even something else for avenger 4. Also, I'm not sure about batterskull over a sword in the main, it's something I still need to test more.
I'm convinced that it is correct to play 4 daze right now. Most decks have adapted to beat misstep (goblins with mox and instigators, combo players switching to hive mind, etc) and daze can still randomly blowout your opponent. I'm not sure if misstep needs to be a 4 of as well. On SCG Drew Levin (I think) wrote about how spellstutter sprite is good right now so if pros are talking about him maybe I've been too quick to judge. I don't know where he would belong though. I think he needs to either be in place of the missteps or the dazes. Or maybe a 3/3/3/3 split of Force, Daze, Sprite, and Misstep. Lastly, grunt is underperforming all the time. This is my current list:
Land
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wasteland
2 Plain
1 Island
Creature
4 Weather Wayfarer
4 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Fathom Seer
4 Serra Avenger
3 Spellstutter Sprite
Instant
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Mental Misstep
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
Artifact
3 Aether Vial
1 Umezewa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
Sideboard
3 Meddling Mage
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Jotun Grunt
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Karakas
2 Grand Abolisher
2 Tormod's Crypt
Abolishers in the board still haven't proven themselves but I've never really boarded them in so I want to keep then in for now. Grunt is good vs dredge and friends so I put him in the board but that might be better as relics. I cut the relic warders for the grunts and so I don't know if I'm relying too heavily on revoker (and I guess mage if need be) to shut down artifacts now. I cut the Feast and Famine for Manriki because I never really wanted it and I've seen manriki around before so I figured I'd try him. Karakas is pro tech. Try one in your board. You will love it. I might even move it main (probably for avenger #4).
If you really wanted the space for FoW #4, I would cut a weathered wayfarer or a vial. Personally I don't ever see going below four forces unless I don't own a set. But personally I'm also not a fan of three SFM or batterskull in this deck. I would probably go 2 and have SoFaI/LaS instead of the skull. Otherwise I think it is an interesting take on the usual 60 main.
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