Hmm, i'm not sold on Titania at all, a Crucible of Worlds seems to be better in 90% of the cases...
I think being able to get it with Green Sun and being able to block ground creatures with the 5/3s adds a lot to the card over Crucible of Worlds. Thragtusk tests well against BUG Delver, and Titania getting back a Glimmerpost does a pretty good Thragtusk impression while recovering a Wasteland'ed Glimmerpost on the way down at its most base utility.Originally Posted by Davek
Of course, there always is more testing to be done. So far I've tested against Storm, BUG Delver, UR Delver, and Merfolk. I'd have to imagine that in the midrangey and control matchups it shines moreso than against Lightning Bolts and against Storm you take it out for Gaddock Teeg. Crucible could be better, but I would say Titania is most certainly better more than 10% of the time based on my testing.
Crucible of Worlds can't punch your opponent in the face. I always consider Crucible and I like it a lot, but this is a key difference.
This is the key. I still need to test her more myself. While in a lot of matches she probably is win-more (or just not super-great when she can be wiped out with a single red mana), it's the fact that she gives you a lot of game in grindier matchups and can also win a game by herself. Even being able to cast Crop Rotation aggressively is a huge perk. I tend to be ultra-defensive about my Crop Rotation usage unless I have a Flusterstorm in hand to back it up, in which case I sometimes try to use it in response to something else to try to bait out countermagic.
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And now for something unrelated.
Super excited that I have enough old crap to trade in to acquire The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Can't wait to own one of the most insane cards in Magic's history. Also should be getting my Glimmerpost alters in the next day or so. I may not have foil decks like some of you, but my Posts are prettier :)
Well, two other enourmous difference between Titania and Crucible are color requirements and casting cost, and i'm not saying i'd play crucible at all. I see Titania as a really, really marginal card in the current configurations, that you're unhappy to draw every time you're in trouble against fast decks that are pressuring you, combo decks and control decks too, since you do not really need her help there. Also, double green mana requirement may be an issue, and she dies to Bolt, which is pretty common nowadays. For me, Thragtusk is superior in every aspect.
I'm not unhappy to draw Titania against UR Delver at all - Glimmerposts and Glacial Chasms both help a lot in that matchup and Titania has gotten back both for me. I still sideboard Titania out in that matchup, but she certainly still performs. A bolt for her often means you gain a bit of life and get a 5/3 token to block and kill a swiftspear while also saving 3 damage that would've gome to the dome. Against combo Thragtusk is also about as good as a ham sandwich, so that point is kind of moot. Also, I've haven't found the second green to be a problem.
I'm not just theorycrafting - I've put about 20 hours of pre and post board testing with this list in, a solid 8 of that against UR Delver because that's the deck I want to be sure to beat at Columbus. I'm not saying the card is 100% auto-include by any stretch of the imagination but it certainly warrants a try.
Titania definitely has deck archetype potential. Titania lets you out-grind decks like bug, but still be grindy against u/r. I think you can't just plop her in the current shell of course. She enables concepts that were previously too disadvantageous like darks depths combo and opens up deck ideas like gsz and other forms of ramp.
She's a ramp creature that can be a wincon, abused terribly by karakas, and selectively uses lands. Hard to say no to that. A gift and then some to the deck.
Apologies if this has been asked before (and I'm sure it has), but I'm slowly getting this deck together. I just don't have candlesticks, what's the best replacement for them (if any)?
Thanks in advance.
Don't try the Magus! Maybe you give Cloud of Faeries a try, or try to play without Candelabra.
If you read the thread, which you clearly didn't, you would know this gets asked every 3 pages.
There is no good replacement. the best ones are:
Cloud of Faeries
Green Sun's Zenith
If only there were some kind of search function somewhere in this forum... *sighs*
I'm also thinking about cutting the 3rd Show and Tell for a Snapcaster Mage. Snapcaster really helps against storm's discard effects and makes the matchup feel less crappy. It also is really nice against reanimator to flash back a bounce spell when they Exhume, but my current build isn't as well equipped for that.
I'm frankly not sure how I even feel about Show and Tell in my current 75 at all. I've kept it in because of historical evidence that it is just a good solution to be explosive against faster decks, but I'm not sure if it is necessary. With only a couple days before the event I'm not sure how much experimenting I want to do, however.
I like this version a lot, too. Will test it on Thursday, maybe replace the 2 Flusterstorm with 2 TC. Does anyone know what MUs Mr. Fox played?
You could sub fow for DRS to maintain the pressure and potential to block up. I've included map into my build again, letting you keep on colorless mana without top.
Hmm, DRS is an interesting idea. I'll have to test it at my local between rounds tonight. I haven't found I need map again so far, but I also haven't tested the new list with it outside of a couple games with the 75 from the recent top 16.
Did some testing with winglerw28 in our weekly. We're both running more or less the same list, except he was trying Force of Will in the main while I was trying Flusterstorm, with each of us having the opposite card in the board. I suppose there are merits to both. I tend to favor the "it'll probably resolve" aspect of Flusterstorm, but obviously even something like casting Force of Will on a Delver could very well be relevant.
I think we'd both agree though that running Dark Depths/Thespian's Stage combo in the main pretty much necessitates a return of Expedition Map. Trying to Crop Rotation for them is just...ugh. I could be wrong about this, but I think we're trending away from Treasure Cruise as well. I think it's a lot stronger when we're running a bounce/Candelabra bonanza. Even with our ability to float lots of mana, casting it often feels awkward. I think it might be time to revisit our old friend, Sensei's Divining Top.
Show and Tell still belongs in the 75. I'm just not sure about main or side.
I cannot wait for when Titania is legal. The more I go over possibilities, the more insane it seems to get.
And finally, here are the latest alters I was talking about. Some of you have foils, but mine are prettier :)
I'm sorry but i don't get it. Lets say you cast Titania against U/R delver and it resolves. Since they're running no wastelands at all, it's possible that you have almost no lands to get back (fetchlands only) but lets assume you crop rotated earlier for a land, so you get back something more spicy, a Glimmerpost. Then your opponent bolt her. How do you get a 5/3 token?
im agreeing with you. titania is strong but not in this deck. for 5 mana, 2 of which must be green you want something that is going to have a greater impact.
t3 is fastest cast (post, post, forest, candle) BUT thats 7 mana, so gsz for titan, or cast titan is better than titania...
This situation leads me to believe that maybe the deck should run more gsz, for titans 5-8 and/or more candles
GSZ almost seems better because it requires only 1 green mana.
Play 4 Card Blind!
Currently Playing
Legacy: Dark Depths
EDH: 5-Color Hermit Druid
Currently Brewing: [Deck] Sadistic Sacrament / Chalice NO Eldrazi
why cards are so expensive...hoarders
Since the list is so much in flux right now, I might as well chime in with what I've currently been testing, mostly because my conclusions seem to differ from a lot of what has been going on in this topic recently. This is what I took for a spin through our testing session yesterday just to give an idea of what I'm thinking about currently:
//Lands (26)
4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
2 Vesuva
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
1 Forest
3 Tropical Island
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Khalni Garden
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
//Creatures (12)
4 Primeval Titan
1 Ulamog
1 Emrakul
1 Trinket Mage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thragtusk
1 Titania, Priestess of Argoth
1 Phyrexian Revoker
//Spells (22)
4 Brainstorm
4 Repeal
3 Crop Rotation
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Expedition Map
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Misdirection
//Sideboard
3 Show and Tell
3 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog
1 All is Dust
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Wipe Away
What's clearly missing is an Anti-Delver package, but I wanted to see what else I want to run before putting in some cards specifically for that matchup.
Some thoughts:
-No Glacial Chasm maindeck: The card has been very underwhelming for me in the past year or so. Maybe I just don't know how to properly use it, but I just have had a hard time getting good mileage out of it. Often times the setback of essentially losing two lands to play it makes it hard for me to recover out of that slump while locked under glacial chasm, with the situation being no better once I have to let go of it. The Price of Progress issue with Glacial Chasm has already been noted a bit early in this topic, and most of the other beat down decks have access to wasteland, which all current builds don't protect against with Pithing Needle anymore. Most of the time, if I have a boardstate where I can stall out with Glacial Chasm, recover my manabase while under it and then win from there I can also find a better solution instead. Moving the SnT into the sideboard also has a strong influence on this. I've won a couple of games in the last 18 months due to Glacial Chasm, but it certainly feels like I'm losing more to drawing the card at some point in the game, especially the opening hand. If I'm moving it to the SB I might as well just cut it, as the only match where I really want to board it in right now is Elves. Might be decent against U/R, but PoP really scares me there so it might not be good enough anyway. I think I'm just too stupid to play this card, honestly.
-4 Top: I can see playing only 3, I just can't fathom less than that. It's just such an essential tool for me in the list, and I never really got any idea on how to play the top-less treasure cruise builds in the past weeks. It does such a good job of regulating your flow of land drops throughout the game and together with expedition map allows us to keep otherwise strong hands that lack a U/G mana source. I see how it feels very slow against Delver, but I haven't really felt like super powering through cantrips in its place has done a better job for me in that spot so far, so eh, I'm at the point where I'd rather go with what I know and understand.
-Khalni Garden, Tabernacle and Cavern: Wasn't much of a fan of Cavern when we had only Titans to cast off it and 3 SnT main, but recent developments have made be more interested in it by a lot. Just playing more value creatures makes it good enough to run now, and it helps protect Titans now that we can't double up with SnT anymore. Khalni Garden was very meh. There isn't much in the way of ground pounding that the token successfully blocks with Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf being squeezed out of the metagame. Played against a 3 Lilliana deck some and still didn't really ever want to get it with Titan to fend off -2s. Probably not making the cut of my next build. Didn't get to use Tabernacle for anything but black mana (go Urborg) so far. Secretly have a feeling that it actually just does nothing against Elves and U/R Delver, so maybe it's no good. Going to test it further.
-2 Island, 1 Forest, 3 Tropical Islands: 2 Islands are flat out wrong. Never wanted the second island, frequently Vesuva'd my Forest to get a second basic one. Easy swap to make. Just pointing out that I have never played a single game with this deck with 4 Tropicals, and I can't recall an instance where I wished I had played it over the additional fetchland or basic land I played in the slot instead. If you're running a lot of spell/value lands, using the 4th Tropical as a slot for an additional fetch to shuffle or a 3rd basic land seems like something more people should consider. Original duals are quite possibly the most overrated legacy cards ;)
-Courser of Kruphix: Did a fine job, made me painfully aware of how much of not an Oracle of Mul Daya he is. GG1 is rather troublesome for T3 plays, but he blocks just fine and can gain some life, which is nice. Does the same great job as Oracle with Top in play of allowing you to continue to make land drops while drawing actual spells. With Lightning Bolt and Forked Bolt at an all time high and Abrupt Decay in decline in the meta right now, I can understand why a 2/4 body is so much better than Oracle of Mul Daya, but I'm sure I'll swap camps again the moment it seems even remotely sensible to play a 4 mana 2/2 again.
-Snapcaster Mage: Like him a lot, even in a spell sparse build like this. Seems like the perfect 1-off to me. No one sees it coming, always does something useful.
-Thragtusk: Eh, was okay I guess? Not sure yet, might not be worth the slot. Could be SB, but space is tight. Probably a bit too cute.
-Titania: Still lukewarm. Had a game with Courser in play, and it kept floating back to the top of my deck after shuffling, and I never actually wanted to draw it, so that's not a promising sign. There certainly is something to the card, but I've yet to really want it for much, even in the 4 Wasteland matchup. I'm not ready to fully dismiss it as a one of yet, but I'm not nearly as hype as some of you about it yet without making a more dedicated build for that.
-Cyclonic Rift: Not sure how I/we missed this card for so long, but I'm a big fan of having access to one nice reset button in the deck. Being onesided and having cheaper applications makes it super exciting to me, as I no longer feel compelled to squeezing an All is Dust/O-Stone into the starting 60. Not quite as combo-rific as Chain of Vapor, but a very solid card.
-Misdirection: Some people have been running countermagic main deck recently, so I wanted to give it a shot as a miser's card. Not sold on Swan Song/Flusterstorm main, not blue enough to run more than one pitch spell in this build, and a singleton FoW is just bizarre even by my deck building standards (and I've tried a deck that had Brainstorms in the sideboard once!). Offensively Misdirection does essentially the same as FoW, defensively it doesn't protect against a lot of threats, but can do some neat things with redirecting Hymn, Abrupt Decays and the likes but being unable to change a Treasure Cruise (it really isn't Ancestral Recall after all) makes it a bit underwhelming even in theory. Didn't pan out at all in practice and is going straight back to the chopping block. Seemed like a card that could secretly be amazing but nobody tried, but it really wasn't.
-Dig through Time: Loving this card so far. Done some amazing things, and significantly more powerful than Treasure Cruise, especially in a list like this with so many 1-ofs. Not sure if I want a second yet, but am totally sold on the first one.
-No Treasure Cruise: The more I play the new Legacy format, the more I have a feeling that this card is actually just a complement to Delver + Young Pyromancer. Those decks actively reward you for aggressively cycling through cheap spells to enable TC (and to enable TC INTO casting something reasonable, most of all) at a steady and reasonable pace. It's okay-ish in the UWR Delver lists without Pyromancer, but not nearly as strong, and has been testing heavily unfavorably in the BUG lists for us so far. Playing it in a spell heavy, no top build of this deck makes some sense, although the conclusion to get there was a different one (TC is amazing, therefore let's just play spells) anyway. The TC focused builds have always felt like I was going nowhere in particular and digging out of a hole from the get go (which is the exact opposite of the top builds I favor, where I feel much more in control even in at first glance terrifying board states). It certainly doesn't seem to have a place in a build like what I am trying for right now, if I wanted another delver spell I'd certainly go for a second dig first.
-Repeal: Still the most compelling reason for me to play blue in the deck. Totally in love with it.
-Glimmerpost: Still the best land in the deck by a mile. Sole reason I want to squeeze in a third Vesuva somehow.
-Cards I want to try: Thespian Stage protecting Karakas/Eye of Ugin from Wasteland by being able to copy them seems like a neat enough trick to make me reconsider running a copy of it again. Not sure I want to make room for the Dark Depths combo though. Couldn't find a GSZ, but it seems like a reasonable enough card to run. Not a fan of a Dryad Arbor in this list, but having additional Titans and access to Gaddok Teeg from the board seems reasonable enough.
So yeah, next step of business is trying to figure a way to approach the Delver match with this shell for me and then getting a sideboard that doesn't look like a complete pile.
So after reading the November legacy analysis and polling my local community, a lot of people are moving to BUG delver; mainly because it can trump U/R delver. They are also running a number of stifles, abrupt decays and a dimir charm. It's kind of obnoxious for UG post. That being said, as seeing the recent developments in the decklists, I tried 2x thragtusks in the SB for my local event.
My conclusion, Swagtusk is silly!
I cast it against death and takes, brick walled their batterskull and the remainder of the 2/1's. So after hardcast emrakul and they died. They don't want to swords it, because you get 5 more life and still get the token.
It got cast against BUG delver, brick walled a goyf and paved the way for a prime time.
Also, I'm maindecking 3 FoWs and twice I force of willed a delver of secrets on turn 1 and the delver decks proceeded to go into draw-ponder-go. Their threat count is so light, that I almost want to leave FoW's in.
This was wingler's argument for keeping them in as well. I thought I'd try Flusterstorm both because I really fear combo decks (especially Storm), because Fluster is more likely to resolve successfully, and because you can play tricks with it against careless players. But I can't deny the potential impact of something like "turn 1 Force your only real threat", so it totally wouldn't surprise me if Force was the better card to run in the main between the two.
I am actually doing the same: maindecking the FOW and am happy with it. As you said, FOWing the 1st threat is really strong, especially the 1st game.
Concerning S&T, I don't know for you guys but I went down to 2 but I am back with 3 main and 1 SB. I am contemplating going back to 4 main as resolving 1 is most of the time game over against any variety of Delvers deck. Here is my list for reference:
2 Candelabra Of Tawnos
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
4 Primeval Titan
4 Brainstorm
4 Crop Rotation
4 Force of Will
4 Repeal
4 Ponder
3 Show And Tell
3 Treasure Cruise
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
2 Vesuva
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
2 Island
1 Forest
4 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Flusterstorm
4 Hydroblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Wipe Away (-> I think I want the 2nd Krosan Grip here)
1 Show And Tell
2 Moment's Peace (-> Maybe 2 Tusks here is better, these slots are mainly for Elves but with 4 Force Of Will, 4 Flusterstorm and 4 Show And Tell in the 75 I don't have a lot of trouble with Elves)
1 Bojuka Bog
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
I am also testing +3 DTT, +1 Island, -1 Forest, -3 TC. DTT has the potential to be insane in this deck, sombody has to build the correct deck with it!
Also I think Titania is very interesting but I don't think it is appropriate with the posts manabase. I see it more in a stompy shell + Zeniths, Crucible and/or Loam...
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