Went 2-2 this past weekend with my 4c build. Could have been 3-1 if I'd responded to IoK by bolting him, but against ub snapcaster, I thought I might need the extirpate as well, so I let him choose, then he won at 1 life...sadface at bad playing.
Still really happy with the manabase, but undecided on the removal suite. Also thinking of trying to brew a Jund control list with Liliana, anyone test her out much yet?
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I'm testing her out right now in b/g/w and she's awesome. Knight > Crusher and white still gives you 1cc removal (stp/pte your choice). Also I love maindeck sylvan library, helps give you so much card advantage it's not even funny.Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
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Team Brown & Team Unicorn. Does that make me a Brown Unicorn?
Yep. Our first two games were drawn-out affairs. In the third game, he got a Wheel out on me, and I wasn't drawing an answer to it, which curtailed my development enough that it was looking like we were going to draw, since we didn't have much time going into the game. I had a small Knight out and a Dark Confidant, and he had a larger Knight. Then he topdecked an Elspeth and made his Knight fly over, which put me to 2. I was able to grab a Maze of Ith to stave off the next attack (had to crack a fetch to do so), but I ended up dying to Bob flipping up a Bolt. Good, well-matched games.
Draw two usable non-land cards, pitch two lands. In a loam deck, lands in the yard are virtually lands in the hand, so it's almost like a Thoughtcast with flashback in this build in the sense that you're netting an extra card for 1 mana, but you're actually advancing your "board position" by putting more lands in your yard. Also triggers Crusher's +1/+1 counter ability when pitching lands. Can also be used for loam dredge trigger which seems pretty good. Just a thought.
I agree I have no idea what I would cut for it, though.
This is kind of the problem. Giving Careful Study flashback doesn't make it any more of an effect the deck wants. If you want to pitch useless lands that badly (instead of just, say, recurring cycling lands and doing it naturally), you can dip into blue for Trade Routes and the superior-to-Looting Desperate Ravings. The filtering effect you get from this card isn't very strong; you can get something much more powerful from Sylvan Library or Sensei's Divining Top. I don't think stapling discard onto minor filtering really improves that card all that much, to be honest. The effect is still just very weak.
What do you think of Chalice of the Void for Saint Louis?
I'm thinking of modifying Micah's list with:
-2 Goyf for +2 Scavenging Ooze
-2 Plowshare +2 Explosives
-1 Wurm Harvest +1 Explosives
-2 Devastating Dreams +2 Chalice of the Void
-2 Vindicate +2 Chalice of the Void
Chalice of the Void is just not very good. I mean, if you open with "land, Mox, Chalice, go" it's okay, but if you don't it gets rapidly worse (and of course, the second and third Chalices are blanks). The issue is that the land, Mox, Chalice opener is not very likely to happen unless you have the luck of the gods, and against tempo decks it's pretty risky unless you're on the play. I would be very leery of raising my curve against Canadian Thresh decks; you are pretty soft to tempo decks, especially if they get a fast start, and the upside of Chalice locking them out of their dig spells and flying Nacatls is massively offset by the turn you lose if you try to resolve one and they counter it, or you wait to resolve one to play around Daze and they counter it anyway with Spell Snare or something.
Outside of tempo decks, I don't really see why you would need Chalice.
Cards chalice of the void stops on 1, if it resolves:
reanimate, entomb, stifle, spell snare, careful study, almost everything in elves and burn, noble, mother, swords, vial, nacatl, cabal therapy, top, and thoughtseize.
It also prevents you from folding to storm combo and reanimate, which is relevant in the first six rounds.
If chalice does not resolve, it gives you a significant chance of resolving crusher or reliquary.
I know how dead the card can be when you draw multiples. It is an evil necessity.
Other benefits includes 0 cc for bob, and stopping decks that are for a resolved chalice. I think it might be worth testing again.
Chalice does not stop you from folding to storm. Chalice plus a fast clock does, but this deck's average clock is pretty shitty. Burning Wish for Shattering Spree beats it, Animate Dead and/or Exhume beats it, Elves and burn are terrible, discard still gets you because the chances of you being on the play and having turn one Chalice are laughable, green/white/x decks have Pridemage and GSZ at least and can bring in Grips from the board, any deck running Stifle will have more than enough answers for Chalice, and so on. The card is just bad.
I mean, yes, Mental Misstep showed that Legacy was full of nice one-drops that were fine to counter, but the thing is, MMS still let you run your own one-drops. Chalice doesn't do that unless you are the worst deckbuilder ever. Giving up one-drops to make your Chalice of the Voids better is a huge cost that is not offset by Chalice being ridiculously broken if it resolves. Again, the chances of having it turn one on the play are vanishingly small. Having it turn two on the play (more likely because you don't need to resolve Mox Diamond) is not nearly as good unless the opponent bricks on turn one. Having it turn one on the draw, or turn two on the draw, is so mediocre it hurts. Getting Chalice any later than that virtually blanks the card.
Look, this is not the deck you play if you're paranoid about combo. You can have fifteen anti-combo cards in your sideboard and STILL lose because you sided out a quarter of your deck for cards that are designed to help you "not lose," as opposed to "win." Combo decks are fast and flexible and Aggro Loam is neither. If combo is an issue, play blue.
There are better answers to Reanimator than Chalice, mostly because of Animate Dead and Exhume getting around it.
The old, "But then I bait all of his counters and resolve my good spells!" argument has never worked for me. Crusher is not a good creature anymore. Knight is a fine creature but can still be answered or raced. Against tempo decks, if you are giving up a turn to try to force through your dorks, you are losing because you are doing exactly what the tempo deck wants you to do: durdle while you get beaten up by 3/2 flying dudes and Tarmogoyf. Yeah, they may be down a counter, but the time you've lost, the mana you've lost, and the card you've lost are all more important to you, the clunky midrange deck, than to them, the fast tempo deck whose cards naturally lose value as the game drags on. You'd be better off bringing in red Blasts and fighting them that way.
Honestly, if you're sold on Chalice, nothing I can say will convince you. The card looks great on paper and in theory does all this great stuff but in practice it is not very good and you will still usually lose to all the same things Chalice is supposed to help you beat (combo, blue). But you're welcome to try it.
I'm not entirely sold on chalice. I havn't played chalice in since 2010, but the meta is entirely simliar to how it was then.
Let's put it this way - chalice is good ONLY if you put it on T1. Imagine a topdeck in midgame: CHALICE OF THE VOID?? NICE!!
Something like this - "damn this delver of secrets attacked me 3 times I need an answer to this, come on, lighning bolt - CotV??" NICE!!
Wait, wait here, is another one - "omg I have to do something with his knight, oh I how I'd like to draw a StP right now, ok, let's see the topdeck - CotV??" NICE!!
Anyway, let's say you kill delver with punishing fire and you vindicate KotR, but what if you land CotV on T2, while you start first:
-(you)land
-land zenith to arbor
-chalice
-land kotr
-??
-(you)land
-land putrid imp
-land chalice
-discard troll dregde land brakthrough for 1 dregde I win
-??
-(you)land
-land delver
-land chalice
-flip delver land goyf attack
-??
-(you)land
-land vial
-land chalice
-land lord of atlantis
-??
Want to see games like this? In every situation above you do NOTHING on T2, it's like you NEVER had it, like you buy a Time Walk for 2 mana but for your opponent. Let flow your imagination in order to see your game while you land CotV on T2 and you are on the draw...oh that story is sooo sad.
So we need 3 factors to make it work:
--Chalice in hand
--Mox in hand
--We start
(--2+ lands in hand)
so this a 3-piece combo that does NOT instantly win the game.
Still want to play it? Good luck=)
Chalice wasn't good then, either, it just took people a while to realize it and come up with a build that took advantage of having access to one-drops.
This is important to remember. I recognize that Chalice can be good, but usually for it to be most effective, you need it Turn 1 on the play, and the odds of that are not great.
Alrightgame, if you are concerned about Reanimator and storm combo for this tournament, then this is not the right deck to run. It IS possible to contort the deck to make it competitive in those matchups, but you lose some strength against the rest of the field.
If you decide to play Chalice, let us know how the tourney goes.
I actually never found reanimator to be that hard to beat if you run a version with white. You play swords to his creatures and if you land a KotR you already won if you run karakas/maze/bojuka/etc. And after sb you have even more options. It's also fun to dredge KotR - I bet he won't play exhume=)
It doesn't seem like it should be that hard for a black version of the deck, either. You have:
Coffin Purge
Diabolic Edict
Extirpate
Pyroblast
Red Elemental Blast
With the latter two as an answer to Jin-Gitaxias. Iona on black could be a problem but I suspect most Reanimator players will reach for Sphinx of the Steel Wind first after Jin, just to blank most of your removal anyway and make it impossible for you to race. Actually, Sphinx is an issue for Naya Loam as well since you can't Karakas it and Maze doesn't keep it from blanking your Knights/Crushers on offense. I guess you can try to Swords it, but I don't want to be in a position where I have to resolve a removal spell against a blue deck with discard in order to attack effectively.
White also has Purify the Grave, for what that's worth.
EDIT: One other thing I've been thinking about recently is the use of Terravore over Crusher. It feels like people are skimping on graveyard hate right now, and when they have it, it's stuff like Extirpate or Surgical Extraction instead of Crypts or Relics (since the former are generally better vs. Snapcaster), which makes Terravore more attractive. Terravore will be bigger than Crusher in the near and medium terms and has trample, making it difficult to blank through chumps or Mother of Runes. Plus, Terravore will almost always be bigger than Knight of the Reliquary.
It might be worth trying, especially in Naya builds.
I totally agree with you, usually they side out Iona, as you play too many colours, so you always have an answer to her. Gin in not such a problem with red blasts, but sphinx can really win the game. Also Blazing Archon can cause problems.
Terravore seems much better now, it would be nice to play it, but I would not know what to take out? Any ideas?
I would want to try some number of Terravore over some number of Countryside Crusher. Crusher doesn't strike me as being particularly good anymore.
Then why not cut red and just rune white for crushers and better removal?
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You mean cut Seismic Assault, Devastating Dreams, Punishing Fire/Bolt and many sideboard options like Pyroblast?
Crusher makes a fine combo with bob and besides, he survives ANY gravehate except the leyline.
But anyway I was talking about RGW bild=)
Yup. Neither of those are 'amazing' and I haven't really missed them in my gbw.
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