I am fairly sure the sorcery speed makes it much much worse. There's very few 3+ toughness creatures that matter beyond the current combat step that would go into that combat step to begin with. Serra Avenger literally being the best such example (which is a fair point), the other one being (temporarily) the Batterskull Germ token.
I will probably try one Orb and see. Just makes me sad that I only have white-boarder ones,Originally Posted by btm10
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
And Goyf; which is going to be everywhere again. It's like the old exalted trick with Goyf (use QPM/Noble to break stalls) while being a card that pumps Goyf in non-green matches. It won't kill him, but it'll turn him into a 2/3 which means you can happily race with your 4/5. If it dies/chumps then you have a nice 5/6 for your troubles
Again, I'm not saying it's genius; but it seems better than Disfigure except the bad-delver-flip thing. How often does that instant speed matter aside from killing a guy before the Equip or going first and saving it for the dude they drop? Normally instant speed for me is only to deal with Vial-dudes, Ambush-viper strategies, and wasting equip mana.
Hi,
the loss of instant speed is more of a problem than you might think. It`s a loss of tempo if the board is clear and your op is putting a creature into play which you cant remove at the eot, then you block your mana a bit for a Hymn, Goyf, Stalker or Lili next turn.
If you plan to handle Serra Avenger, I prefer Dismember or Ulcerate. Sure the damage is a disadvantage but you get it of the board for sure and both are instant speed. Especially Dismember can get everything from the table like Goyf, Stalker, BS etc. and in the mid-/lategame you can cast it for 2-3 without paying life.
By the way, the D&T player has 4 Flickerwhisp in the deck and can just flicker his Avenger and the Enchantment is gone, without having carddisadvantage or anything.
The deck is by the way very low on Delver flip cards (24 with the stock Hymn/Lili list), so adding 2 instant removal after boarding is nice too.
Greetings
Currently playingEldrazi
This is the last list I had run pre-Treasure Cruise. I think that I am going to go back to it as a new starting point of sorts. Current thoughts on alterations would be:
Maindeck:
-1 Hymn to Tourach
-1 Fetchland
+2 Spell Pierce
or
+1 Dismember
+1 Spell Pierce
As I explained in a recent post, I was very impressed with Dismember. It handles opposing Tarmogoyfs and also gives us an instant speed way to deal with Baneslayer Angel. On top of that it basically kills everything in the format. I am also giving some consideration to whether or not this list would want 1-2 copies of Dig Through Time. It seems as we are moving back to a more grindy meta game, that DTT would be great at helping us find exactly what we need at any given point in time. It doesn't play perfectly with Liliana but it certainly isn't a nonbo.
Sideboard:
-1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Surgical Extraction
or
+1 Dismember
or
+1 Krosan Grip
It is hard to say right now for sure what the sideboard should be... I am sure that I do not want Deluge. I have not be particularly impressed with it in the past. So It could really be any viable card and I would be happy. I assume Miracles and BUG are going to be back in a big way. The 75 should more or less reflect this. There are likely going to be UWR Stoneblade/Control decks running DTT as well. I think this list a decent shot at fighting those as well. Anyway those are my thoughts on where this deck should be headed. Please feel free to let me know what you think and thanks for reading!
Legacy
Grixis Delver
Vintage
Mono Mentor
Team Leovold
Wouldn't Ghastly demise be a good spot removal ? now that treasure cruise is gone, the grave is there to stay. Demise don't interfere with tarmogoyf and can kill just about anything except dark confidant and deathrite shaman.
There is no knowledge that it not power.
Ghastly Demise doesn't kill Dark Confidant (which will likely see a rise is popularity), Deathrite Shaman, Tombstalker, and the ever-popular Batterskull Germ token. GD is certainly worth consideration, but the non-black clause limits you from targeting some real heavy hitters in Legacy. Additionally I imagine a there will be a number of games where your graveyard isn't quite big enough to allow you to target the creature you need to kill, due to your own need to canablize it (your own GY) with your own DRS. Also it is pretty bad if an opponent has preemptive graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, and/or Nihil Spellbomb.
Legacy
Vintage
I agree with the earlier comment regarding more Miracles and BUG (Team or BUG Control) will show up, and I think Deathblade type decks will, too. I agree it will be more grindy. That said, I have been trying to figure out how many Lily's or if I want 1 MB Jace. After scouring through decks of past, 2-3 Lily's was the norm, and some included 1 Jace MB.
Furthermore, several decks were running 2 Bob's plus 3 Lily MB. That intrigues me, but at the same time worries me bc I play to play 4 FoW MB, on top of the 2-3 Lily's. Has anyone had good success with Bob's and Lily's, and care to elaborate on that?
Anyone planning on playing Jace, MB or SB?
3 Lili's seems like a lot to me, but I don't see too much tension between Bob and Liliana. The life loss that comes from flipping Force is unfortunate, but having played Bob in Vintage decks, sometimes including 4 Force and 4 Gush and a Blightsteel Colossus, the amount that it will have you lose the game is much lower than the times the extra cards win the game. With 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder, you should definitely be able to mitigate the damage you'll take, regardless of if you chose to run 0-4 Lili.
That being said, I don't have much experience running Bob in TA, but the point should still be somewhat valid. I think you really want that combination if you are seeing a lot of Miracles though, probably.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Aside from Miracles, equipment-based decks are still tough to deal with, so I was thinking that a 3rd Liliana would boost odds against those. I want game against TNN and Batterskull, MB preferably, because so many times in my experience the match is decided by the 3rd game against those.
Furthermore, I really want the ability T2 a Liliana more consistently.
I think it was ESG who described the "Jace Fallacy" - he doesn't belong in tempo builds of TA, especially maindeck. He's only good if you're grinding, and your preboard card quality - while the highest of any Delver deck - is still lowered by the presence of Daze preboard and discard against a hellbent opponent or when you have an active Liliana. I really like MD Sylvan, especially if you want to run Bob. I agree with H that 3 Liliana seems like a lot.
Is your local meta really heavy on stuff like D&T, Maverick, and Blade? Turn 2 Liliana is fine, but I'd almost always rather have Goyf + Spell Pierce (or Goyf through Daze), Hymn into Delver, cantrip into Decay, etc. unless I had protection for Liliana. This is especially true against another Delver deck, a Blade deck, or Miracles. She's something you really want to make sure connects, and I'm not a fan of just running her out and seeing what happens.
I think the incidental damage tends to matter a little less in Vintage than it does in Legacy because legacy has more decks like Fish that nickel-and-dime your life total, and flipping Hymn (for instance) is like giving them a free swing with Thalia or their own Bob. I don't think this invalidates Bob (I'm going to test him too), but it is something to think about, and he is indeed great against Miracles, even though I'm not 100% sure he's better than Sylvan Library.
Is stifle not a consideration? I was thinking of incorporating it into my BUG list for the mana denial plan. I mean we already run Wasteland and Daze so it just seems like the natural response.
My meta is not heavy on certain decks, rather it's pretty diverse, especially since I travel to different locations to play. I had previously ran 2 MB Liliana's with 1 SB, and more often than not I was siding in the 3rd, so I thought why not include it in the MB.
I agree that T2 Goyf/Hymn backed by Daze or Pierce is crazy good, but if I don't get that option I would take a T2 Lily backed by Daze too. Just trying to make sure that T1-3 are as consistent as possible for an ugly start for opponent.
At the same time I'd like to try to boost my blue count for FoW, and boost spell count for Delver, so now I'm talking myself back into 1-2 MB Pierce and abandoning the Bob plan. I had to ask about Bob, since I didn't give him much play in Legacy but played a lot of him in Modern.
Hey, it's nice to see this forum lively again!
I believe before Cruise it was generally dropped in favor of discard, and because the curve in BUG is generally higher than RUG. It's a deck where you almost always want to tap out the first several turns.
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."
It is. John Wiley is the person who's had the most success with Stifle builds. His most recent list is here; I'd probably start building from his list, -3 Cruise and turning the 3 MD 3-ofs into 4-ofs.
I absolutely agree that your life total is definitely more under more pressure in Legacy. However, versus Miracles, your life total is probably not very important and that is really why you would be playing Confidant. Library is probably better in the sense that it gets to stick around, but the fact that Confidant attacks and nets you cards (generally for less that 4 life each), it means you are putting them in a bad spot on the top-deck war.
That being said, I am not sure we should even be running Confidant in anything but heavily saturated Miracle metas.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Agreed. I've tried Bob before and never been very happy with it. It's just not a relevant beater most of the time. It gets brickwalled too easily in the creature matchups where the life loss actually is relevant, and killed too easily against control. This isn't Jund where we have more threats than they can handle. It's obviously great against Miracles if it sticks, but overall Sylvan Library is much better.
About Jace - I've been outspokenly against it in this deck for a long time. It just doesn't belong in a deck with Daze and 4 Wastelands. Other factors that make it bad include not being able to defend it well - only 4-5 expensive removal spells, no Baleful Strix or True Name.
I'm torn if Dig actually has a place in this deck. It puts a pretty big strain on the manabase to have to support double black for Hymn and Lili as well as double blue for Dig. I strongly believe that Hymn is worth making the manabase black-heavy.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
Is it possible that we consider Murderous Cut now? It does hurt our DRS/Goyf plan, as did Treasure Cruise, but it's often just a single black for a "kill any creature" spell.
Maybe. While Murderous Cut hits just about creature, I don't like that it can't be cast in the early game.
The stock Team America list looks like this:
20 Lands (9 fetch, 4 sea, 2 bayou, 1 trop, 4 waste)
4 bstorm
4 ponder
4 fow
4 daze
4 hymn
4 delver
4 DRS
4 goyf
4 decay
2 lili
2 [flex]
I see a fair amount of UWr Miracles and RUG locally, so I am running a Sylvan Library and a Tombstalker.
I am going to try out Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Depending on how he performs I might even end up running 2 copies. Having 5-6 Tarmogoyf seems pretty good, and even better is the fact that he dodges Abrupt Decay. I'd like to also find out if his ability is as good as it seems on paper in the late game.
I'm going to second this. I definitely prefer Sylvan to Bob, but I think it might be worth stretching for at least a singleton Dig. We still need staying power against Miracles, Shardless, and UWx Blade and are strong enough against RUG that we shouldn't get punished too badly for getting a little greedy. I really like the 2/2 Bayou/Trop split for this, though there's a reasonable argument for just running the 4th Sea.
I think Tasigur might be better in a more midrange/control oriented deck. I'm actually planning on doing a lot of testing with non-Shardless BUG midrange/control in the coming weeks because I think it might just be better than Delver.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
