Most of you should know me.
Anywho, this is the unconventional forum so I decided to try this here.
// Lands
1 [RAV] Swamp
1 [7E] Island
2 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [B] Bayou
3 [B] Underground Sea
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
// Creatures
3 [IA] Ashen Ghoul
2 [OD] Psychatog
4 [TO] Mesmeric Fiend
4 [TO] Ichorid
1 [JU] Wonder
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
// Spells
2 [TO] Deep Analysis
4 [OD] Careful Study
3 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [US] Tolarian Winds
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 4 [OD] Moment's Peace
SB: XXX?
I've been having loads of luck online with this and am undefeated in matches.
Most of my opponents have been dropping, those ******s.
Last edited by john mathias; 03-31-2006 at 04:01 PM.
A fun turn 1.
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
Mattass plays Polluted Delta from Hand
Mattass taps Polluted Delta
Mattass's life total is now 19 (-1)
Mattass puts Polluted Delta to Graveyard from Play
Mattass is looking its Library...
Mattass puts Underground Sea into play from Library
Mattass shuffles library
Mattass stops looking its Library...
Mattass taps Underground Sea
Mattass plays Careful Study from Hand
<Mattass> Ok?
<Parcher> Ok
Mattass draws a card
Mattass draws a card
Mattass puts Careful Study to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Ashen Ghoul to Graveyard from Hand
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Graveyard from Hand
Mattass plays Lotus Petal from Hand
Mattass taps Lotus Petal
Mattass puts Lotus Petal to Graveyard from Play
Mattass plays Breakthrough from Hand
<Mattass> Ok?
<Parcher> Ok
<Mattass> oops
<Mattass> May I play a 0 cc Artifact?
<Mattass> Before I cast it?
<Parcher> Ok
Mattass plays Lion's Eye Diamond from Hand
Mattass plays Lion's Eye Diamond from Hand
Mattass puts Breakthrough to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll into play from Graveyard
Mattass puts Cabal Therapy into play from Library
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll into play from Library
Mattass puts Cabal Therapy into play from Library
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp into play from Library
Mattass puts Ichorid into play from Library
Mattass puts Island into play from Library
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Hand from Play
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Cabal Therapy to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Cabal Therapy to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Ichorid to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Island to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll into play from Graveyard
Mattass puts Swamp into play from Library
Mattass puts Deep Analysis into play from Library
Mattass puts Ichorid into play from Library
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend into play from Library
Mattass puts Careful Study into play from Library
Mattass puts Tolarian Winds into play from Library
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Hand from Play
<Parcher> Ok
Mattass puts Ichorid to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Swamp to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Deep Analysis to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Careful Study to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Tolarian Winds to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp into play from Graveyard
Mattass puts Lotus Petal into play from Library
Mattass puts Polluted Delta into play from Library
Mattass puts Cephalid Coliseum into play from Library
Mattass puts Wonder into play from Library
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend into play from Library
Mattass puts Psychatog into play from Library
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp to Hand from Play
Mattass puts Cephalid Coliseum to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Lotus Petal to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Polluted Delta to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Wonder to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Psychatog to Graveyard from Play
Mattass draws a card
Mattass discards Polluted Delta
Mattass discards Golgari Grave-Troll
Mattass discards Golgari Grave-Troll
Mattass discards Stinkweed Imp
Mattass discards Careful Study
Mattass taps Lion's Eye Diamond
Mattass puts Lion's Eye Diamond to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Deep Analysis into play from Graveyard
<Parcher> Ok
<Mattass> Flash back
<Parcher> Ok
Mattass's life total is now 16 (-3)
Mattass puts Deep Analysis to RFG from Play
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll into play from Graveyard
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend into play from Library
Mattass puts Lion's Eye Diamond into play from Library
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend into play from Library
Mattass puts Ashen Ghoul into play from Library
Mattass puts Cabal Therapy into play from Library
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp into play from Library
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Hand from Play
Mattass puts Ashen Ghoul to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Lion's Eye Diamond to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Mesmeric Fiend to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Cabal Therapy to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll into play from Graveyard
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp into play from Library
Mattass puts Ichorid into play from Library
Mattass puts Polluted Delta into play from Library
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll into play from Library
Mattass puts Tolarian Winds into play from Library
Mattass puts Lion's Eye Diamond into play from Library
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Hand from Play
Mattass puts Tolarian Winds to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Stinkweed Imp to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Ichorid to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Polluted Delta to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Golgari Grave-Troll to Graveyard from Play
Mattass puts Lion's Eye Diamond to Graveyard from Play
Mattass's life total is now 15 (-1)
<Mattass> End my turn
Holy Shit! Your playing 1.5 now?Originally Posted by john mathias
Anyway, why are there 12 Deep Anals?
ICBE - We're totally the coolest Anti-Thesis ever.
"The Citrus-God just had a Citrus-Supernova... in your mouth."
Probably because there are 58 cards in the main deck without those 12 Deep Analysis to make it 70, duh.
Or it could just be a typo and actually be only 2 in the main.
Ahem, two Deep.
Thoughts on the deck?
It's been playing quite well.
Why mesmeric fiend? Wouldn't another discard outlet be better in that slot?
Breakthrough seems like a good card, but this deck also seems like it really wants to discard before it casts draw, which is why Tolarian Winds is so good. Flux does the same thing as Tolarian Winds but it costs 3 and says each player.
There should be at least 2 wonder IMO. You absolutely have to dredge into them.
How have you decided to get around problematic cards like Goblin Sharpshooter, and STP, and Tormod's Crypt.
A good friend of mine once said:
>Pron w/sound FTW... Actually, Porn FTW. Yep. Fixed.
I think Zombie Infestation would be much bettter than Mesmeric Fiend in any case. I am intrigued by the inclusion of Lion's Eye Diamond. Dicard outlet, and mana accel? Sounds pretty sexy to me.
EDIT: Has anyone tested Ghastly Demise at all? It seems like mid to late game (and even early game in some cases), it could kill just about anything.
Fiend is very powerful do to being a creature. That is very, very relevant in here.
Breakthrough doesn't hit like winds but for 1 mana you go nuts and if you had LED you probably just won the game.
Crypt isn't a big deal. Dredging put those cards back into your hand. Quite often I'll be gripping a fist of Dredge with LED in play. If they pop Crypt I'll just take a Bolt to go nuts again.
STP is completely irrelevant.
Sharpshooter can be a problem but he is quite slow and you have a lot of possible SB answers. Even more relevantly he won't come down due to Therapies for him and/or Matron.
Would you care to be more specific? What have you been playing against? Are your opponents competent, and are they playing competitive decklists? What are they boarding against you?
Note that Friggorid has been discussed here from within a couple of days of its debut in Extended. The common sentiment has been that it's very fast and aggressive, but that it has severe problems with some of the msot prominent hate in the format. Namely, nearly every competent player is playing Tormod's Crypt or other grave hate as a metagame response to Threshold and myriad other decks which abuse the yard. Crypt is a nightmare for Friggorid, even if you happen to be running Pithing Needle in the board.
On the subject of Pithing Needle, it's also not pleasant for Friggorid, as it shuts down Ashen Ghoul recursion and Cephalid Colliseum activation. Needle is obviously a sideboard staple in this format as well.
Furthermore, unlike Extended, Swords to Plowshares is legal in this format, which lessens the impact of recurring Ghouls and Ichorids.
Next, we have rampant creature hate like Humility, Moat, and Lightning Rift, all of which successfully hate on Ichorid and co.
Further, there's a wide prevalence of Umezawa's Jitte in the format, which, once active, utterly destroys your threats.
To a lesser degree, an active Goblin Sharpshooter can be a real problem for your threats as well, and you'll find that in a great many Vial Goblins builds, as well as RG Survival.
Lastly (and perhaps leastly), we have a high contingent of decks running Engineered Plague as an answer to Goblins. Incidentally, Plague is quite effective when naming Horrors primarily, and Ghouls secondarily.
In short, the metagame is highly prepared for the deck's strategy, even if only incidentally so. It has no board control of its own, so resolved hate is a major roadblock. Further, the deck's greatest strength and advantage over an equally aggressive deck like Goblins is its high resilience to blue-based control, which is almost non-existent in this format, at least for the time being.
I'd like to hear your take on it, particularly in terms of specificity with regards to the matchups you've been testing; how are your opponents sideboarding against you, and how are you overcoming the hate?
Last edited by Zilla; 03-31-2006 at 06:57 PM.
Wow, Zilla, that's harsh...but true, too true.
The targeted graveyard hate can be generally dealt with by Ground Seal, I guess, although it's not a fabulous option given that this deck wants to go balls to the wall aggro and every card in it is either a creature or a card that fills up your 'yard so you can get creatures back. Ground Seal doesn't necessarily help either of those strategies, but in this case I suppose "not dying to a zero cc artifact" > "synergy," so...
As for the creature hate, most of the permanent stuff you mention consists of enchantments, which can be dealt with by Ray of Revelation.
This still doesn't solve the issues of: non-targeted graveyard hate (stuff like Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, etc), creature removal (like StP), nasty artifacts (Needle and Jitte), and being generally easier to disrupt than Goblins and Threshold. Sure, this deck can be pretty explosive, but as Zilla said, you're playing it in a format that's primarily hostile to what you're trying to accomplish, alongside other aggro decks that are much better than it, imo.
My advice? Play Goblins.
Last edited by Zilla; 04-01-2006 at 03:58 PM.
All Rift does is put creatures in the graveyard...yeah. And Moat...well, Wonder. And all of these...Ray of Revelation. And in this deck, yes, you CAN be sure of seeing Ray every time you need to, because you're going to regularly be seeing half your deck by turn five.Next, we have rampant creature hate like Humility, Moat, and Lightning Rift, all of which successfully hate on Ichorid and co.
(And I'm not really sure about the layers of static abilities and +1/+1 counters, , but Golgari Grave-Troll I think happens to take a huge shit on Humility.)
Crypt and Leyline, on the other hand, are pretty hardcore problems, since not only are they devastating and hard to answer, but they also come down immediately, and Leyline even happens to shut off Ray. But the creature sanction - even StP - is not really a problem.
Granted. It doesn't mean these aren't hinderances to the deck's gameplan. They're stall tactics which exist primarily in control decks which only need a stall to get it to the lategame. I agree that these types of enchantments are the least of the decks problems, but in my experience, they have been problems.
I guess what I'm saying is, Figgorid, in my mind, falls into the same category as Ravager Affinity and to a lesser extent UG Madness; they're lightning fast aggro decks with a lot of synergy but with little to no board control to speak of. They're great against unprepared opponents, but have a tendency to roll over and die in a prepared metagame, because they have few ways to answer significant roadbloacks to their respective strategies. It just happens that the metagame is largely prepared right now, and has been for several months. Should the metagame make a massive shift towards blue-based control, then I could see Friggorid being an excellent choice. In the meanwhile, I'm not seeing a lot of reason to play it over Goblins, because despite the fact that everyone is gunning for Goblins, it has a strong tendency to win through concentrated hate.
I'm open to the discussion to the contrary, but with all due respect to Senor Mathias, the "I smashed a bunch of nubs on MWS" argument doesn't make for a particularly compelling thesis with regards to the deck's viability, in my opinion.
With that said, understand that I want the archetype to be good. It's a blast to play, I'm an aggro player at heart, and Cabal Therapy is my favorite card ever. I just keep shelving the deck because it keeps running into hate that stops it cold. I like some of John's innovations. The LED's are an interesting choice, and the Breakthroughs are golden (I've been testing them since Josh Sylvestri suggested them to me a couple weeks back).
John, my questions and observations before weren't rhetorical, so please don't take them as such. I'm just pointing out what have been the harsh realities in my experience, and I'm wondering if you were having similar difficulties. If so, how specifically has your build been doing against the hate?
Last edited by Zilla; 04-01-2006 at 04:49 AM.
I know I should, but who are you?
The deck looks interesting and fun. I can't see it being competitive, but LED is a grea addition. I would up the number of Ashen Ghouls and cut 'Tog, cause he sux in a format with StP and the like. I would be really worried about the Rifter match up - they will beat you every game with STP, so maybe add something to combat that - not sure what, though.
If I say something dumb, I'm drunk. Trust me.
Hmmm...well, one thing you could consider would be some sort of sacrifice outlet, preferably of the enchantment or artifact type. Unfortunately, the only things coming to my addled, sleep-deprived mind right now are Plagued Rusalka and Spawning Pool...or is it Spawning Pit? Whichever one it is, it probably isn't appropriate for this deck. But if you can find some sort of sacrifice outlet that generates a useful effect, it would be something to consider to beat StP - because if you sacrifice your creatures, you can at least get them back at some later point, as opposed to not seeing them again this game.
Is there some sort of Goblin Bombardment-like card in black that makes players lose life? I keep thinking there is, but I can't remember what it's called...if there is such a card, that might be something to consider, as a way to both push through the final points of damage and to save your creatures from "remove from the game" effects.
EDIT: I say consider quite a bit, don't I? Ah well, perhaps I should consider changing that...
Actually, StP is one of the lesser problems for the deck. I brought it up before because it is an issue, but it's more of a roadblock than a total foil. I don't think it's worth adding more cards to answer StP; Cabal Therapy does a pretty good job of that most of the time.
The main thing the deck needs to focus on are finding a consistent way to beat grave hate. Needle alone hasn't been enough, in my experience.
Tog may die to StP but will never take your graveyard with him, because of Therapy. Therapy THEN pump.
I've been away due to life stuff and I had a Team Standard Tournament(8th place).
Now that I am back I'll address some of this.
I test using MWS since I don't have a dedicated group of playtesters for Legacy nor know where to find them. Randoms are sadly the best I can do.
Crypt isn't nearly as game ending as you all seem to think. If they cast it you have many Dredge cards in hand and it is only a matter of time before you go nuts again.
Leyline/Planar are a lot worse and would involve Rawdogging a SB Ray.
Needle is kind of irrelevant. You can just smash through it.
StP slows you down a bit but at the end doesn't matter.
Against Humity you just Recur a Troll.
Flying>Moat.
To stop Plague you have Ray. Game One you can just play fat.
The deck needs a lot of small tweaks. Probably a Moxen split and definately a second Wonder. A Loam/Portal seems light it could be quality as well, and the additional Ghoul seems quite good. Would a solo Nether Spirit work if you stacked your upkeep correctly?
Also, it may need more DA's.
Last edited by john mathias; 04-02-2006 at 07:22 PM.
Whenever I've played the deck, this has not been the case. I've found the best plan is to go all out, meaning by turn 3 or 4, sometimes earlier, you'll have no hand at all, meaning you really can't recover from Crypt. Are you saying that you're normally maintaining a large hand size, or that you simply slow-play when Crypt is involved? How quickly are you killing with this deck?
I think this because I've tested with and against the deck quite a bit and it has, by and large, been true. In most cases, you simply let the Friggorid player beat you down to ~5 life or so, and then decimate their yard, which by that time tends to have the majority of their threats in it. It's also been my experience that the deck tends not to maintain a significant hand size, if any at all, once they get their dredge on. Particularly with LED in the mix, I'm surprised you're finding any opportunity to recover from an activated Crypt. If your opponent foolishly blows it very early on, then it's certainly less threatening, but it's been a very large roadblock in testing.
As for testing partners, a large percentage of the people on this site test regularly on MWS, and are always happy to have more partners. Myself, LegoSpaceMan, frogboy, TheInfamousBearAssassin, Peter_Rotten, Artowis, Evil Roopey, and many others are available via AIM, play on MWS, and a have a solid grip on the format. That's only naming the few that I play with regularly; there are plenty of others. If you're serious about testing against competent players, I suggest sending out a few PM's or IM's - you won't lack testing partners for long. You'll still have the misfortune of dealing with the MWS shuffler, but I guess that's a necessary evil. Congrats on your recent T8.
Soooo... he should run 8 Therapies then? There are already 4 in that list.
Seriously though, I'd drop the Fiends for Wonder #2, Ghoul #4, Tog #3, and 1 more Breakthrough or Deep A.
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