This deck has an uber positive aggro matchup, and a good non-jace control matchup. It's only problem is combo (perhaps storm and painterstone). So, why not shoring up the combo matchup with 4 Chalice of the Void and Sphere of Resistance? As for Jace 2.0, there's Beast Within which is a green vindicate and giving an useless elephant to your foe.Originally Posted by Fuzzy
And Zuran Orb must be in main deck. It's tutorable with Tolaria West and has a great synergy with Clacial Chasm against fast decks.
Another thing I'd like to say, is that Mishra's Factory sucks. Creeping Tar Pit and Treetop Village are the way to go imo.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
First of all, thanks for your reply.
I like both Sphere and Chalice, but Canonist gives me a better edge against Spiral Tide while also providing a (even a little) clock, so I will stick with this.
For Beast Within, I don't like a spell I can't search for. I would just run Oblivion Ring first, but the Landstill deck can just destroy it with Deed. There's no other way to keep Jace in control which don't involve Squadron Hawk?
I could agree for Zuran Orb, but it's only necessary versus Mono Red Burn and MAAAAYBE Zoo, againt anything else it's a dead draw. I could say I can try to beat ANT/TES in Game 1, but who we are trying to foolish?
Someone here told me to run some Factories in the Misstep-Era, because I can't beat Merfolk. Maybe now they are useless, I don't know. Sunday I'll test 3top Village in a large tournament and post the results later.
Hey guys,
I have been gone from these forums for a while. I playtest this deck religiously; it is my second most playtested deck out of the 12 decks I play in sanctioned events. Here is my list:
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Smokestacks
4 Mox Diamond
4 Exploration
2 Manabond
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Life from the Loam
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Forest
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Rishadan Port
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Creeping Tar-pit
1 Academy Ruins
3 Tolaria West
SB
2 Krosan Grip
2 Perish
2 Extirpate
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Null Rod
1 Energy Flux
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Ensnaring Bridge
This is 100% the optimal build for me, but this deck is so personal that some choices might differ depending on the player. High Tide is unwinnable, UB Storm is hard to beat, and TES is unfavored, but certainly beatable. I want to play against pretty much every other matchup in Legacy, as I feel like this deck has a great gameplan against the field.
A few things I noticed in the discussions:
-Jace. You need to be ready for Jace one way or another. I have maindeck Needle with 3 E Tutors and 2 additional Needles in the board. This doesn't mean, however, that Jace is unbeatable. I feel perfectly fine against Jace with this list; you just need the tools to fight him.
-E Tutor. This really is the way to go. It gives the deck so much flexibility, and Intuition is way too slow to be good anymore. I know, I played Intuition at one point. It was awesome, but its time has come and gone. Finding Loam is NOT a problem when you run maindeck Crucible with E Tutor and 2 Tops.
-2 Tops. Please play these or at least try them. They make the deck so much more consistent. They are nuts with Manabond + Loam game 1, and they save Loam from 90% of GY hate game 2.
-Crucible. If you don't have this in your 75, you are doing it wrong. People not playing Crucible are completely cold to Extirpate, and the Hysteria surrounding Extirpate and friend (Surgical Extraction) is probably correct after looking at some of these lists. You also really need it to be maindeck in this modern world of E Tutor, but at least putting it somewhere in your 75 is a good start.
-Storm. We can beat storm, believe it or not. E Tutor, powerful silver bullets, and Wasteland really give us a game. High Tide, however, is certainly what I consider "unbeatable"... But that's OK.
I have to go watch a movie with the wifey, but I will be back to continue this discussion later
Now that Extirpate and Surgical Extraction are probably gonna be widely played (Reanimator, good with and against Snapcaster Mage), are you happy without a Dark Confidant plan from the SB? I'm asking cause I'm considering picking this deck up again, and apart from the lack of confis in the SB it looks great!
Maybe my experience with this is incomplete but I feel that the would-be-Loams just cannot replace/simulate Loam. For example Crucible: For this to work you more or less have to have Wasteland (you can recur fetchlands or a transmuted Tolaria West, sure, but where does that get you against any kind of pressure?). I like Top but am unconformtable with banking on it to find Loam, especially if I have to find it with E.Tutor first.
What kinds of hands do you keep with such a deck (against an unknown opponent)? Would you keep Tutor, six lands/moxes? Enchantment, six lands? Enchantment, artifact, 5 lands? Loam, six lands?
(Say the lands are Fetch, Trop, Tabernacle, Maze, Port, (Tolaria West))
Maybe my experience with this is incomplete but I feel that the would-be-Loams just cannot replace/simulate Loam. For example Crucible: For this to work you more or less have to have Wasteland (you can recur fetchlands or a transmuted Tolaria West, sure, but where does that get you against any kind of pressure?). I like Top but am unconformtable with banking on it to find Loam, especially if I have to find it with E.Tutor first.
What kinds of hands do you keep with such a deck (against an unknown opponent)? Would you keep Tutor, six lands/moxes? Enchantment, six lands? Enchantment, artifact, 5 lands? Loam, six lands?
(Say the lands are Fetch, Trop, Tabernacle, Maze, Port, (Tolaria West))
@Philip: Dark Confidant plan in the SB is good; I played it for quite a while. I think it is perfectly fine if that's what you decide to do. I would probably go -2 Perish, -1 Pithing Needle, +3 Confidant if I were to put them back in. I really like Perish though - it's my way of dealing with Knight of the Reliquary, Progenitus, and Elves all in one card.
The reason why I cut Bob was because the matchups where I want it are usually matchups where a more powerful strategy exists with another card. Dark Confidant is too slow against Reanimator, and you need quick answers before you worry about your GY. If you can successfully stop their onslaught and assemble Karakas, you are eventually going to win. The only cards you have to worry about in that matchup are Angel of Despair and Inky, so that's where you need to use your Extirpates and Crypt. Chalice at 1 is very good against them if you can land it early. Against Rock I try to assemble the safer Crucible plan in game 2 followed by Smokestack, which is very powerful. Team America is not happy when you Wasteland a Sea, followed by Extirpate, at which point they only have 3 colored mana-producing lands left in their deck.
I think this deck is so personalized that you can certainly qualify a reason for running Bob if that's how you want to play your game 2's.
@Serbitar: Crucible + Wasteland, Crucible + Horizon Canopy, and Crucible + Fetchlands take over the game quickly, especially with Exploration in play. This is where maindeck Smokestack becomes amazing as well; against Rock-style decks Smokestack + Crucible is often better than the Loam engine, especially for games 2 and 3. The E Tutor package simply allows for more options and greater consistency. Tolaria West allows you to snag your Horizon Canopy so that you can start drawing through your deck. The most important factor is that you can recur Crucible with Academy Ruins, but you can never recur an Intuition. Remember, you are not 'replacing' Loams, you are making the deck more consistent so that you can eventually find Loam or lock your opponent out with powerful artifacts. And Top + Fetchlands go a long way at providing greater consistency... I win plenty of games without Loam due to how powerful some of the artifact locks are, but I found that it was EXTREMELY hard to win without Loam in the Intuition version.
When your Intuition gets Dazed and you have nothing else going on, you are going to lose the game. When you can E Tutor Ensnaring Bridge and completely lock the Fish player out with a card that you can recur with Academy Ruins... Well, you get the picture. You are fine with them Forcing E Tutor when you have Tops, Ensnaring Bridge, Smokestack, mana accel, ect., and it is nice that Daze (and Cursecatcher) are dead against your strategy.
As far as keepable hands, it is going to be similar to any other version of this deck. You just won't be as reliant on resolving an Intuition. Your topdecks are better, and there are more cards that just say 'win' in certain matchups. Some of your sample hands completely depend on what those lands are. For Example, Mox, 5 powerful and diverse lands (Wasteland, Port, Maze, Trop, Canopy), and E Tutor is 100% keepable. With those kinds of hands, E Tutoring for a Top is not terrible, but a Crucible will be amazing against a slower deck. Ensnaring Bridge might be the right answer depending on their turn 1. Say the Maze was a Tolaria West, then you can snag your Academy Ruins which really opens up your options even more for E Tutor.
I have played many versions of this deck, and you really have to try it rather than speculating; it is very fun to play. I won a GP trial with E Tutor Lands without dropping a single round against a pretty diverse field, and it was a blast. Beating Tezz Affinity simply because I had Energy Flux and Null Rod silver bullets was awesome.
I made these couple of posts in the format discussion thread, but since it's about this deck i might as well post it here
Unburial Rites 4B (5)
Sorcery, U
Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Flashback {3}{W} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
Why do I think this card has potential? --> Intuition. With Intuition you can make a pile of Unburial Rites, Gigapede and Any Big Creature Appropriate for the situation. It fits the curve perfectly... EOT 2U --> Untap pay 3W --> profit. It's a one card synergy to get a game ending card out onto the battlefield (Anything that reanimator runs).
-34 lands
4 Fetches
3 Tropical Island
3 Savannah
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Maze of Ith
2 Tolaria West
1 Tabernacle
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Karakas
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Secluded steppe
1 Nantuko Monastery
-4 Creatures
2 Gigapede
2 Jin-Gitaxias
-22 Spells
4 Mox Diamond
4 LFTL
4 Intuition
4 exploration
3 manabond
2 Unburial Rites
1 Engineered Explosives
Now as far the Land to Spell Ratio is concerned, i'm not a lands player so i wouldn't know if it is truly effective, but! The game plan of accel into a whole bunch of lands --> control is still there... if not more so. Additionally when you have 3 lands if you intuition into the "combo" you land Jin-Git into play and pretty much win. Or you can intuition into a wasteland lock, and slowly dredge into a Unburial --> Jin-Git win. What this combo adds to the deck is a reliable quick win condition, which only takes up 6 spots {I think you can actually decrease the amount of unburial + Jin-Git by one so even if you draw into them both you can intuition for 2 gigapede --> which allows you two more lands...} , which is a welcome change over it's usually slow game play.
(obviously you can replace Jin-Git with anything.... i simply love the card)
-As i mentioned briefly you can take out 1 Unburial and 1 Jin-Git for whatever you want
Every time a set comes out somebody tries to cram in some kind of weird 'tech'. It's a good effort to be thinking outside the box, but this is not where the deck wants to be going. Also, Gin is pretty terrible as a reanimation target when Lands plays absolutely nothing reactive to protect him off the draw. Something cute like Worm Harvest would be a lot better, but that's still pretty bad.
Hi guys!
As I said before here in this thread, last sunday I have played a 104-man tournament here in Brazil, and ended with a really nice score: 4-2-1 (W-L-D).
I started 3-0 winning against a rogue mono black reanimator deck, Burn (!) and TES (!!!). In round 4, I was paired with my friend and teammate Leandro Barion (Lebarion on Source) playing Death and Taxes (MonoW). This tournament offers a National Legacy Championship as additional prize. I was already qualified, so I concede to him (All our team was splited and he wons the whole thing, congratz man!).
Next round I won versus TES again (!!!!!!!!!!!), and played in round 6 against another friend/teammate Marcelo Scatena (ScatmanX) playing Goblins. I lost the first game for a main deck Blood Moon (Of course) and the second one for a questionable play (which we talk about later and we found out that was the right play) involving an Enlightened Tutor and the choice between Bridge vs. Crucible. In the final round, I ended drawing against UW StoneCaster-Blade, where I "easily" won game 1, then lost the second game to triple Surgical Extraction, double Relic and Jace TMS. I was drawing really bad cards in the last game but it still was a tied one, in the end we can't finish the game in time.
I don't know if D+T is a bad matchup, but I think it would be favorable if we ended playing. I'm morally a 5-1-1 player, and winning two matchs against TES made my day.
THe list was the same I posted last friday, with Factorys (can't find 3tops) and with 3 Canonist, 1 Mana Maze on board (Losing do Elves in the event prior made me feel bad). I wasn't that happy since I first played Survival Madness, and I'm loving my list so much (EXCEPT FOR THE MINDSLAVER!).
Well, just sharing a feel thoughts.
Last edited by Fuzzy; 10-18-2011 at 01:33 PM. Reason: Typo
I was playtesting today, and maverick was a much harder matchup than it seems on paper. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to beat such a deck? I was about 50-50 game one, with game 2 ranging from 1 win, 4 losses when I boarded in extirpates on top of bobs and to back to around in 50-50 when I stopped bringing in extirpate. It just seems abnormally bad for us against a deck that's pretty much fair bears with only 3 basics.
The thing with Maverick is that turn two Knight (and access to eight Knights) is trouble. Them having access to Wasteland at will and Pridemage at will is hard. Also, they are quite hard to cut off of their mana due to Hierach. Still, the matchup is about 50/50, maybe a bit in favor of lands. I had some success with Cursed Totem, which basically blanks their deck.
Exactly where the SB Perish's shine! :D But seriously KotR is definitely the issue here. You unfortunately need at least Pithing Needle on Knight to deal with him.
And Fuzzy, congrats with the tourney! It always feels good to beat TES, especially since they probably feel a little overconfident about the matchup. D+T is definitely a great matchup, you woulda crushed him.
Yeah, after more testing I've made the matchup a bit better in my favor. Doing things like porting their fetches to keep them off 3 for mindcensor to sneak a fetch/tutor in response to their fetch, etc.
Also, I played your list with a different board in a 45-man tournament yesterday, went 4-2, losing to reanimator (my deck didn't show me a tolaria west, glacial chasm, or academy ruins for bridge game one in around 30 cards) and nic fit (heavy basic manabase with ooze and thrun) and beating rock/junk, zoo sligh, reanimator, and doomsday. I've noticed that the reanimator matchup is actually quite positive for us between maze for their non-shroud fatties and chasm and bridge for the shrouded ones. On the deck itself, it feels very solid. The tops are incredible, they almost fill the role of intuition while being much less clunky.
I played Lands at Grand Prix Amsterdam. (1,878 Players)
I had 0 byes and was 7-0-2 on Day one and 3-3-1 on day two. I lost the last round, had i won, i would have ended in 32 place (and won 400 dollars, yay) - instead if finished in meh position.
I love this deck, and have played this in all kinds of silly variations for the past 2 years. (Even the valakut version and the one with 14 artifacts in the sideboard)
I had originally intended to play Either High tide or UB Snapcaster, But since we figured the metagame would be Heavy with snapcasters(and team america+gw), playing combo was out - and playing snapcaster vs snapcaster would be silly grinding.
The day before the event my buddy said: "Well, now you can play our lands.dec then!" And after seeing how many decks with 0 basic lands finished in the top 16 at the last two starcity games events, so i did.
Final Changes to my previous builds was removing a maindeck Pithing needle, and cutting 3 Krosan Grip+1 Tormods Crypt from the sideboard.
Decklist:
Artifacts:
4 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mindslaver
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 SmokeStack
Creatures:
1 EtherSworn Canonist
Instants:
4 Intuition
Sorceries:
4 Life from the Loam
Enchantments:
1 Manabond
4 Exploration
Lands:
1 Tabernacle at pendrell vale
1 Riftstone portal
1 Celestial Collonade
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ghost quarter
1 Karakas
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Forest
1 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Mishras Factory
3 Tolaria West
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Maze of Ith
1 Bayou
2 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
Sideboard:
1 Crucible of Worlds (against everything that isnt combo-trades w. 1 life from loam)
1 Oblivion Stone (vs everything w. nonland permanents that isnt 0 cost artifacts)
2 Chalice of the Void (vs combo, thresh, anything w. delver of secrets, elves, burn, zoo, and more)
3 Canonist (Vs all combo, exept painter, where u just go "GG" and run)
4 Leyline of Sanctity(vs all combo, burn and zoo)(only vs zoo because utakeout:bog,æthers,karakas+bond
4 Dark Confident: Whenever u can! (not against red decks, obviously)
I lost to Elves and UR Delver of screts tempo deck + one last deck i simply forgot (very long days)
I played against Storm combo twice, and won both times. Once 2-0 (lucky maindeck canonist) and once 2-1 (losing the horrible game 1) -Due to my monster sideboard, i take in 13 cards in this matchup, becomming the beatdown player and having a quite favorable matchup post-board.
I lost to elves 2-0. Game one he plays turn 3 Emrakul through my Tabernacle, and game 2 he manually beats me down with 12 1/1 creatues. Maze of ith sucks here :()
General lucK: i completly dodged reanimator, wich is the worst mathup, due to only having bridge, bog and karakas to avoid losing - and if they reanimate a shrouded creature your hard pressed.
Possible future changes:
Crop rotation:
I think id play that. Having 5 karakas and 5 bojuka bog vs the worst matchup seem good. I might go even further and playing 1 flagstones of trokair - this also works fine with both your smokestack and your zuran orb, fetching the desired land. (But id have to test a flagstone first)
Colored Mana Sources:
A few times i was lacking colored mana, especially double blue/or even single blue for intuition/transmute. Maybe Crop rotation helps here, but id like to look for a fix. Maybe another fetchland.
Tormods Crypt(or similar effect)
Ive played this before, even maindeck for a brief period of time - And looking at the current meta having one in the sideboard is a must.
Dark Confidant in sb:
Vs combo: having the extra beats is quite nice. Drawing extra cards seem slightly less important, since u mulligan for canonist anyway, and having this guy is just gravy. You dont keep a hand without canonist in most cases.
Vs Control: Sooo awesome here. Forces them to keep in spot removal for futures games(if you didnt win game 2) and draws you a bunch of cards risk free
Vs all the tempo decks: Sucks. Pretty much.
Im still not decided on this card-and if its a 4 of. (or if playing 3 makes sense at all)
Thats my list and my thoughts.
Please let me know how you feel about the list and my comments. Thank you!
Last edited by Phelix; 10-26-2011 at 05:38 AM.
@Phelix: Congratz on your finish! When the coverage announces that was a Land deck on Day2, I started hoping the guy crush all that 3-Color Tempo decks...
Some questions about your list: First, tell me about the Riftstone Portal, Somkestack and Colonnade, second, how do you feel about cuting Mindslaver in your deck and third, the lack of Manabonds affected you along the GP?
@Thread: I was still thinking about the Deedstill matchup and everything, so I had a question - Is Dust Bowl hot or not? If we can Transmute it, it's like Wastelocking your opponent every turn...
Riftstone Portal:First, tell me about the Riftstone Portal, Somkestack and Colonnade, second, how do you feel about cuting Mindslaver in your deck and third, the lack of Manabonds affected you along the GP?
Well as i mentioned, i often feel that i lack colored mana. Riftstone helps here. Either by being dredged, discarded by mox, sacrificed to zuran orb or to glacial chasm, wastelanded or killed w. ghost quarter.
Especially in combination w mindslaver:
When controlling the board with tabernacle and a couple of maze of ith and perhaps chasm - getting portal in the yard explosivly adds to the amount of mana you can generate - and goin from 7 to 10 mana is critical in getting active slaver. (og from 10 to 13=slaver lock)
Cutting Slaver:
I feel that slaver can be quite important. In game one its just ok. In later games it seems important to have a (reasonably fast) win condition - especiallly if your loams/wastelands are removed by surgical extraction/extirpate. At the GP i only slavered once - but having slaver without even playing it, lead to several opponents conceeding.
Manabond:
Long ago i started playing 4 bonds. Then 2. Now 1. Its probably the card i side out the most, that and Canonist+Bog. Often the cards you sideboard in, are not synergetic with bonds, leading to you resolving bonds, but not wanting to use it.
I never felt like not having bonds was bad. I do feel that in the landstill or even the mirror (gah) the ability to play more than 1 land per turn is the key to winning.
I think 1-2 bonds is fine. How do you feel about it? I think with the relative low land count (36-37) having more bonds isnt that great. When sideboarding, resolving the sideborded cards is more important than playing 4 lands on turn 1. imo.
Smokestack:
Long ago i played a lands version that had 4 smokestack in the sideboard(and trinisphere) -silly. From this i started playing one smokestack main. And its been fanastic. It kills basic lands, jaces, clears the way for attacking jace w. manlands, and locks opponents out of the game. Im a huge fan of somestack, and i keep it in against almost anything but storm combo/elves. -its just an awesome problem solver. I win alot more games with this, than with mindslaver. It also has good synergy with your entire deck, especially tabernacle.
Last edited by Phelix; 10-24-2011 at 11:57 AM. Reason: forgot smokestack
Protip: if you control another player's turn, you are allowed to look at (and takes notes of) said player's sideboard. That gets concessions pretty fast.
10/1/2009: Controlling a player won't let you look at that player's sideboard under any circumstances. During a tournament, if you have that player cast a card such as Glittering Wish that lets that player choose a card with certain characteristics from outside the game, no card can be chosen.
local judges have a lot of explaining to do...
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