Oh sorry yeah I forgot about Pulse. Nah, I mean either is fine.
Hey everyone. I'm new to the source but have been playing Legacy for a good while and recently fell in love with this deck. I read Bob's article and was just hooked. Thanks Bob and Dan for all the hard work.
I am planning to run this deck at SCG Seattle (living in Idaho doesn't amount to a lot of big tourneys) and had a few questions for people. Currently running the stock list with a split of Lili and Sylvan.
Pithing Needle? Worth a slot or are there better options? I feel like it can come in against quite a few match ups such as Sneak and Show, Miracles, Affinity, MUD, Painter, the list goes on. I am wondering if it is a worthy sideboard against Stoneforge decks such as UWR and Death and Taxes. Also, is Pithing Needle worth it against Elves?
Sylvan Library? I have played the card in many a Legacy decks before and absolutely love it. I have played it in this deck well and am very happy with it. Recenty though, I read the recommendation of cutting it for the second Liliana. While I dismissed this at first I can see the value of that since we are stacked with two drops already, Hymn must be cast on time, and Liliana is a durable threat that can take over the game-- something that is important in a deck that has no bolts to finish off an opponent. I still think I like library but I don't want to have any sacred cows.
Maelstrom Pulse vs Krosan Grip? I guess they are super similar and fill the same role of killing a Batterskull but I would love to know a little more about the pros and cons. I am currently been playing Grip and have been impressed. Its ability to hit Counterbalance and Top is relevant and being able to guarantee [Batterskull] into yard is very desirable. I also hit an Aluren with it too which was icing on the cake. I could see Pulse being good though too against walkers, angel tokens, and just as an extra removal spell. Thoughts?
I don't play needle myself, but I don't hate it. Against elves you name symbiote and hf. Unless you are losing to something else that is. Be mindfull though, it's only a temporary relief as they should be boarding in decays. Don't get caught with your pants down.
Pulse is a hedge againt jtms.
Mostly it's there as a safety net for an onboard skull is awkward to deal with and they can have a stop or 2 to back it up. It also killing jace has been more important to me than grips split second. In approx. 100ish matches I've played with it I have yet to wish it was grip instead. I have yet to have it unwillingly countered.
I also board it in against decks where removal is good, even bad removal, and games go long. Like against elves f.e.
Better than liliana there.
In the unlikely scenario of a mirror, it kills stalker too :)
But there must be reasons huang and dan have kept faithfull to the krip.
CB is not it though, we already pack 4 decays and get to side in charms there.
Originally Posted by Race War
Nothing throws a wrench in TA's gameplan quite like a resolved Batterskull. Krosan Grip is the the most assured method of dealing with it once it's hit the board. Split Second is especially relevant given that UWR Delver and plays counterspells, though to be fair they may siding quite a few of them out in the post-board games.
Hey all, planning on braving the blizzard to play in SCG Indy this weekend (it's only a 3.5 hour drive, so hopefully it won't be that bad). I'm looking at running the following list:
Maindeck:
58 standard cards (EDIT: It's actually -1 Underground +1 Tropical Island, I had a minor brain fart)
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sylvan Library
Sideboard:
3 Disfigure
3 Golgari Charm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Krosan Grip
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Spell Pierce
2 Thoughtseize
1 Vendilion Clique
One card that I'd like to fit into the sideboard is Engineered Plague, but I'm unsure what to cut for it. My initial instinct is the 3rd Golgari Charm since they're serving mostly the same purpose (good against the tribal decks and True-Name Nemesis), but that's probably not right.
I also have rough sideboarding plans based on reading this thread and Bob's article on CFB. My initial instinct is that my numbers may be slightly off on what categories of cards I have in my sideboard and that I should probably be bringing in Thoughtseize in more matchups:
(Bunch of edits after seeing the responses)
TES:
-2 Tombstalker -4 Abrupt Decay -1 Sylvan Library -1 Tarmogoyf -1 Bayou
+2 Spell Pierce +1 Liliana of the Veil +2 Thoughtseize +1 Vendilion Clique +3 Golgari Charm
ANT:
-2 Tombstalker -2 Abrupt Decay -1 Sylvan Library -2 Tarmogoyf -1 Bayou
+2 Spell Pierce +1 Liliana of the Veil +2 Thoughtseize +1 Vendilion Clique +2 Grafdigger's Cage
(Option to sideboard Golgari Charm if I see Empty the Warrens)
Elves:
-4 Daze -4 Hymn to Tourach -2 Tarmogoyf -1 Bayou
+3 Golgari Charm +3 Disfigure +2 Thoughtseize +1 Vendilion Clique +2 Grafdigger's Cage
I'm going to try Thoughtseize over Spell Pierce and adjust if need be.
Stoneblade:
-4 Force of Will -4 Daze -2 Tombstalker -1 Bayou
+3 Disfigure +3 Golgari Charm +1 Vendilion Clique +1 Liliana of the Veil +1 Krosan Grip +2 Thoughtseize
RUG Delver:
-2 Daze -2 Force of Will
+3 Disfigure +1 Liliana of the Veil
Sneak and Show:
-4 Abrupt Decay -2 Tombstalker -1 Bayou
+2 Spell Pierce +1 Liliana of the Veil +2 Thoughtseize +1 Vendilion Clique +1 Krosan Grip
Death and Taxes:
-4 Force of Will -4 Daze
+3 Disfigure +3 Golgari Charm +1 Vendilion Clique +1 Krosan Grip
UWR Delver:
-4 Force of Will -4 Daze -2 Tombstalker
+3 Disfigure +3 Golgari Charm +1 Vendilion Clique +1 Krosan Grip +1 Liliana of the Veil +1 Thoughtseize
Dredge:
-4 Hymn to Tourach -2 Abrupt Decay -1 Liliana of the Veil -1 Bayou
+3 Disfigure +2 Spell Pierce +2 Grafdigger's Cage +1 Vendilion Clique
Reanimator:
EDIT:
-2 Hymn to Tourach -4 Abrupt Decay -1 Bayou
+2 Spell Pierce +2 Grafdigger's Cage +2 Thoughtseize +1 Vendilion Clique
I think this is the plan I'll end up going with.
Last edited by nickmooretol; 01-03-2014 at 10:12 AM.
I'd recommend buying or borrowing the sea if you can, the third Bayou is not very useful (and I often shave the 2nd Bayou when I'm not against Wasteland).
The SB plans you have look solid. I'd side out at least 1 Tombstalker if they play RIP (UWR Delver)
:)
@nickmooretol: How has two Grafdigger's Cage in the board worked out for you?
As for sbing, against Elves I would not bother siding in thoughtseize with your current board plan since: 1. Since you're siding out all your hymns. Not to say that is bad (it's probably for the best), but you need the discard in the early game for it to be good. With only two thoughtseizes to side in and no hymns to complement them you're probably not going to see discard spell as often as you would like for the early game and draw it when it won't matter. 2. If you wanted to try them out the hard part is what else you would side out? You could side out the last two Goyfs, but then you might go too low on threats. Plus Goyf is alright as a threat if you can keep control of the board and deny them their tricksy dudes (Quirion Ranger and Symbiote).
As for Reanimator, I would certainly keep hymn in over Lili since Reanimator is generally a Turn 2 Combo deck. It's still has the potential to wreck their game plan even if it's not as consistent as thoughtseize and just because it's one mana cheaper than lili. You could still keep in one Lili though by siding out a land (I also generally go down to 19 lands against any deck without wasteland).
In regards to Legacy:
Based ona quick look I have this: a fetch or tar pit over the 4th sea is better than a 3rd bayou if that is beyond your means to acquire.
You should be siding the 2nd bayou out more. Mostly against decks that don't waste you.
I like seize against sfm. I don't like dealing with skull once it hits. It also takes jace against the esper variants that run him. I side only one in against uwr though, but that is mostly my numbers there.
I also like seize against elves, as they eventually get enough mana to ignore pierce (try to be mindfull of that) and seize lets you take that NO they have been bagging.
Storm is not a deck. The variants vary quite a bit and you should play and sb differently against them accordingly.
F.e you should side in cage against ant, not tes though. I also like charm against tes more than I like decay. It's debatable against ant which is better; if they go for goblins on you it should be obvious but other than that or other insight on their sb'ing I think decay being able to hit led is key there.
That is all for now - my transit ride is over.
I'm also planning to go to Indy for the Legacy Open this weekend. I'm playing a stock list with Lili and Sylvan in the flex slots. Here's my board currently:
SB: 3 Golgari Charm
SB: 3 Disfigure
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Creeping Tar Pit
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 1 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
My SB's also pretty similar to everyone else's really. The Engineered Plague is mostly a nod to Elves, the only tier deck match-up I'm genuinely terrified to play against. Maybe I shouldn't have plague in the board just for that match-up but I feel like I need some extra push against that deck. Let me know what you guys think on my board.
Since Elves is the match-up I've been trying to test against recently here's the board plan I've come up with:
On the play: -1 Bayou -2 Goyf -1 Lili -4 Hymn -1 Daze +3 Disfigure +3 Golgari Charm +1 Engineered plague +1 Grafdigger's Cage +1 Vendilion Clique
On the draw: Same plan except I swap out the rest of my Dazes for Spell Pierces. My friend that I've been testing with recently thinks I should keep Dazes in on the play since it has more targets than Spell Pierce. This could be wrong but I haven't done enough testing to know if it's worth keeping any amount of Dazes in when I'm on the play.
General Observations on the Elves Matchup after some Testing:
-G1 is so bad unless I get lucky or they get unlucky and stumble.
- Postboard is more even but can still be tough. I feel like I NEED to tempo them out because they can out grind you and/or even just aggro you out if they can't combo you out. In general, I'm hoping to dodge this match-up when I play at Indy this weekend. But I know there's a decent chance of me facing it so I've been testing this matchup in particular as much I could recently. Let me know if you guys have anything to say in response to what I've posted.
In regards to Legacy:
Yup, just won my 2 byes for gp paris playing the same md as before, with the same sb as before -1 cage +1 submerge.
Still like the deck, hopefully people in the open and other gpt's do well also!
Congrats!
Any chance of a report here or in the reports forum?
Currently playing:
Canadian Threshold Primer!
My blog about Legacy, limited, EDH and stuff!
No, not really. I don't really have any interest in writing one nor do I see a point in it.
Had some bad luck, had some good luck. People played horribly and lost to that. Nothing to see here.
Tombstalker overperformed as expected (if that makes any sense) and the submerge got cast once promptly winning the game out of nowhere near a winnable game state. The deck is still insanely hard to play, and very good if you manage to do so in a somewhat unshameful fashion.
Sided out lots of counters and sided in lots of removals.
I guess that covers most of it?
Hi all,
I'm currently playing a pretty standard Shardless BUG list, after long time spend with ANT after deciding to play a fair deck, but the deck seems to miss something, and i don't know what...
From your experience of BUG players what are the pros & cons of a more tempo approach vs a card-advantage/control approach, in the meta right now (set aside style of play, in which i miss with both as an old storm/combo player).
Thanks for all!
- L
I came to this deck after playing Shardless BUG for a while so I have experience with both decks. My opinion: Shardless BUG is the better deck in a metagame of fair decks (by that I mean mostly fair blue decks like blade and delver decks, though it's not near impossible to be able to beat non-blue fair strategies like death and taxes and goblins if you're good enough with the deck). However, Team America also has game against blade variants (these matchups can be difficult but tight play can get you there as long as you aren't too unlucky) and other delver decks while having a MUCH stronger combo match up than Shardless BUG (Combo is pretty good actually). Thus, the way I see it, Team has more good to even matchups in the current tier 1-1.5 metagame than Shardless BUG. Shardless BUG's card-advantage approach is stronger against fair decks than Team's tempo approach, but Team's Tempo approach is still pretty strong even against fair decks, and it only gets better postboard when you can emphasize your G/B elements even more. All and all, which deck you choose comes down to a combination of the metagame you're playing in and play style. I think the metagame matters even less and experience with your deck for a big tournament like a GP or Open since the meta can be rather unpredictable in that field, at least in the first three rounds (unless of course you deck is particularly poorly positioned, like when Shardless BUG was being hated out by all the blood moon decks).
Went 3-1 at the Legacy Open Trial in Indy yesterday. Unfortunately, the results were skewed since I faced budget non-tier decks in the first three rounds and didn't play a tier deck till the last round (a Stoneblade player who I made work for it in three games). If anything else, I found out I can play the deck well enough to think on my feet when I get paired up against a deck I haven't thought about playing against. Wish me luck today. Hoping to at least cash but ideally win of course.
In regards to Legacy:
Thanks for the very exhaustive reply and gl hf!
Your explanation is very enlightening and partially sustain my initial feels.
My initial thought was that, for an unexperienced fair player like me, sideboarding against storm would be a little easier, so i started with a deck with a MD more suited for fair MU and a SB for storm/combo deck; this worked because only good storm players can play around much specific hate.
I think i will continue on the Shardless route mainly, while taking some practice also with Team America, and with time i hope i would be able to switch between the two based on the meta or the feels of the moment. So i think i'll be around this thread times to times.
- L
After playing for a while, I noticed that I sideboard out a lot FoW and tombstalker and bring in a lot of removal. I've tried 3 FoWs and it worked well (I beated combo anyway), but I'm still a bit scared of doing so. I'm also dropping tombstalker completely from the list as I never want to draw it early game, it's another graveyard-dependant card, it can be submerged on g2, and so on. It won me few unwinnable games, but I'm not convinced. I will bringing some disfigures to MD, which are winning lots of games.
About SB:
Stoneblade / UWR Delver: Why -4 Daze (specially on the play), ? I saw that Bob does that too, but with daze you can cut Stoneforge, nemesis, jace, and other random stuff that they can't afford to hold for one turn. I'd like to hear the idea behind that. I would not sideboard out bayou, as they have wastelands.
Elves: I don't sideboard out hymn to tourach on 2nd or 3rd turn is a very good way to disrupt their game plan. Elves needs some amount of creatures to do dangerous stuff, if you can 2x1 them fast, it's easier to win. Not to mention, that they will still be holding natural order, glimpse or zenith. Later they will be dead cards...but against elves, I look for an aggressive start.
Thats why you run 2 tombstalkers. What are you replacing it with?
FOW is a meta call.
So I went X-3 today and finished 31st to cash $100 since my Tiebreaks were that good. I was X-1 going into the second-to-last-round, which if I had won and not punted I probably would have Top 8'ed. Then I lost the last round to miss Top 16. Overall the deck was sick and I'm 90% sure I'll play it in SCG Columbus. My list was stock with Disfigure and Lili in the two flex slots. My sideboard was the following:
3x Golgari Charm
3x Spell Pierce
2x Disfigure
1x Sylvan Library
2x Pithing Needle
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Creeping Tarpit
1x Krosan Grip
1x Liliana of the Veil
I don't think I'll change too much with the deck. Maybe some sideboard slots depending on any meta changes between now and SCG Columbus, but even then I doubt it since the format doesn't change as fast as standard. Also, anyone thinking of cutting Tombstalker should re-evalute their play or change to a different deck. That card got me out of many sticky situations today. I feel like this deck would lack the punch it has without the hymnstalker duo. Plus as a two-of you can just brainstorm tombstalker away if doesn't fit into your game plan for a particular game.
In regards to Legacy:
Went top 4 in GPT trial with 45 people. This time I played the deck better than last time so it performed very well for me. Standard list with Sylvan library. SB no thoughtseize but 2 Surgical extraction. Was very good in a lot of match ups.
I was surprised how many different decks TA can handle. I have not played any other decks so far that were this good.
The games I lost was against MUD first round and RUG delver in semifinal.
Won against:
TES, RUG Delver, ANT, Sneak and show, Punishing Blade.
Overall very pleased so I will probably stick to this deck for now.
I was to focused to make any proper notes this time, and I have no standard SB plan. It all depends on my opponent.
A lot of opponents expected me to run True name nemisis and told me the card would be very good in this deck. This was quite good for me. Them Cabal therapy naming TNN , failing, me Surgical Bye bye Cabal so this was very usefull.
I will continue to run the deck without them. It doesn't need them.
Currently Playing: Scapefit , Shardless BUG, Team America,
I would still argue that this is not the right home for TNN, but the shell has proven strong enough to carry it.
Personally, I still see this deck as an "anti-TNN" deck, which is the reason I started testing bug in the first place. My testing took me more and more in this direction and at some point I realized I have arrived at TA. Fine by me.
The mud and painter mu's are unfortunately very rough, as is burn, and this can prove to be an issue in smaller tournaments like GPT's.
I wouldn't overreact however - natural selection has proven to make these tier 2.X decks less of an issue in the later rounds of bigger tournaments.
I like how we have atm real game vs every significant tier deck, with probably elves being the biggest offender.
How does everyone feel about these mu's?
I'm afraid I'm being overconfident but winning close to 80% of my last ~50ish tournament matches (irl & mtgo) kinda distorts my view :/
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