Shardless can suck if they land Liliana in my experience.Originally Posted by Wilkin
Still waiting to see what the new symbol means, but it seens playable.
It means you have to use two "Wastes" mana to cast him. Think of it as the Snow costs in some of the Coldsnap cards. There are Wastes basic lands and non-basic lands that produce "wastes" mana as well.
Not sure either. I looked at mythicspoiler.com and there's a basic land with that mana symbol.Still waiting to see what the new symbol means, but it seens playable.
So, I'm guessing you need to be able to cast the new Kozilek with 2 of that mana symbol which kinda sucks for MUD. I've tried MUD before splashing red and I found it to be very awkward. I imagine it would be the same for this new mana.
If we need the "Wastes" land, it will be awful, but I wonder if it means only colorless mana can be used to pay for it, then it would be castable. I could'nt find a definitive answer yet.
Being able to discard to counter looks sweet, although just looking at it, the other kozilek seens better.
There's a number of interpretations... also, has this been confirmed yet?
The one that would be the most beneficial to the general public is that the symbols mean that colorless mana has to be spent on it (like Snow mana needs to come from snow permanents). The important difference is we could cast Kozilek with Cloudpost/Ancient Tomb/Metalworker/etc. But it couldn't be cast off ten mountains because that's ten red mana.
I'm not sure how much we need this even if it's real. Unlike the Eldrazi run in Rise of Eldrazi, this doesn't eat the battlefield (or the deck if we're looking at Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger). The control aspect is less flexible and more costly than [card]Ugin, the Spirit Dragon[/card], who can also draw 7 cards. The evasion is... there I guess, but it's still not as certain as Blightsteel Colossus, which speaking of him, Kozilek isn't an aritfact.
The improvement over the original Kozilek though is it encourages overextending, which is actually something we need. I'm not sure what I want to discard for the counterbalancing other than spare Trinispheres, but it's something. Like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger though, I am disappointed that the grave trigger is gone.
It's useful, but I think I'd rather just use the original Kozilek to be honest. *Testing is more than welcome to prove me wrong, because Kozilek is my favorite Eldrazi overall with mechanics tied to manipulation*.
"Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void, empty, and become wind."
I must have had a duh moment with the surgical extractions lol. I think you are right about Ugin, I need to procure some of them. With the holidays right around the corner and a wife who is "annoyed" at how much I've spent in cards lately, is gong to be a bit. I have a crucible I'm going to throw in the dude. I also have a few ensnaring bridges, I just don't think they are great for my build. They leave me going for a slooow staff of nin win. Maybe a staff metalworker combo turn, getting bridge off the board with spine. Maybe I just go with a 4th Revoker with the crucible. 4th wurmcoil in the board seems fine too. Thx for noticing the obvious problem with extraction cotv. I'm oblivious to these things sometimes lol. Maybe it's worth gong to a 3rd copy of tormonds crypt? I was also thinking about perilous vault. It can sweep and it is metal worker fuel. Thoughts?
If this is true, this set could be amazing for us. I'm hoping for great cards with low converted mana cost. We'll be the only one's profiting from it in legacy
Quote from rumor mill:"
Wow... it's like.... christmas then...I wouldn't be surprised if <> ends up being evergreen and not a new "snow mana". It solves the existing color-pie bending problem with printing artifacts that do cool things, if going forward <> means "must be paid with colorless", they can use that to make better artifacts. Doesn't hurt the color pie much because you'd need to hurt your manabase to gain access to it.
I'm personally upping my board to 4 Tormod's Crypt, cause I struggle with Reanimator. If you have some Reanimator in your meta, going to 3 might not be the worst idea.
--
Played over at Whose Turn Is It? Games last night. 8 people was enough for 3 rounds, so it was a quick night.
Round I: Stoneblade: 2-1
- I forgot to take notes and my memory is terrible, so I don't have much to say. After Game 1 I had him down as Miracles, but as we were sideboarding he said he was on Blade. The Stoneforges and equipments Game 2 and 3 made that a little more clear, but he just didn't ever have enough of a clock on me. Chalice did some work for me, if I recall.
Round II: Reanimator: 2-1
- Game 1: Playing against a buddy of mine I have yet to beat; generally I have poor luck with drawing good prison hands against him. This time, though, I hit a dream hand on the play: it was something like Cloudpost, Glimmerpost, Glimmerpost, Chalice, Trinisphere, Lodestone, and something else. I topdecked a Waste after I had the Chalice and Trinisphere down, so he was totally locked out.
- Game 2: (+1 Spine, +2 Thorn, +2 Tormod's, -2 Ugin, -1 Coercive Portal, -1 Staff of Nin, -1 Emperion.) He Thoughtseizes my Tormod's on turn 1, then gets down a Sire of Insanity turn 2. I can't recover from that.
- Game 3: I get down a Thorn and Crypt right away, and start laying lock pieces. I build up to ~24 mana on the board, but the only threat I ever draw is a Metalworker. However, he's sufficiently locked out, so I just beat him down with Metalworker for the win
Round III: DnT: 0-2
- Game 1: My first time playing DnT with MUD; it's not really around here, but I definitely need some practice for bigger tournaments. Game 1 he has a Stoneforge with a Batterskull, Jitte, and SoFaI on it. I have an Emperion and some Chalices out, but the Jitte makes it impossible to play through.
- Game 2: Things are going OK, and the board quickly becomes 2 Lodestones vs 2 Serra Avengers. I feel fine, but then he puts a Jitte down that I can't really play through. Oh well
2-1 was good enough for $9 store credit, so I grabbed a Torment Grim Lavamancer that I needed for beautifying my Burn deck.
I'm hoping to play at Pat's on Thursday. This weekend I'm visiting a buddy in Houston, so we're gonna play Asgard Games on Saturday. Do any of you play there?
If you're having issues with Reanimator, instead of giving them foreknowledge that you have grave hate, maybe try a split with Faerie Macabre?
Also what's your list look like? I rarely have had problems with Reanimator. It's happened of course, but in my experience Chalice on and 1 and 2 pretty much just wins the game, Shaw and Tell can be annoying, but we have much bigger bombs than they do, Spine, Ensnaring Bridge (from my board), Platinum X, Staff of Domination to tap them down, etc. Also I play 1 Thousand-Year Elixer instead of a 3rd Lightning Greaves, so having that in play and they Show and Tell, Forgemaster can just win the game on the spot.
Cockatrice: EMFry
As promised, played at Pat's Games tonight. 4 Rounds.
Round I: Burn: 2-1
- Game 1: Quick Chalice on 1 & 2, followed by Lodestone and Platinum Emperion.
- Game 2: I mull to 5 and have a Tomb, and he's got a quick Guide and Vortex. I never catch up.
- Game 3: He puts the hurt on me off a Swiftspear and Eidolon (which was weird, but I followed the Eidolon with a Monolith and Grieves). He Smashes my Chalice so he can Bolt my face, putting me at 4. However, that leaves an opening for me to Forgemaster into Blightsteel + Grieves.
Round II: Hedron Crab!!! 1-2
- Game 1: The Crabs are back!!! I lock him out with Chalice & Co and apply quick beats.
- Game 2: He mills me out very quickly.
- Game 3: A very long game that nearly goes to time. Eventually we get to a point where he has a Null Rod, 2 Propagandas, and a Strix. I've got a Platinum Angel with Grieves, plus a bunch of stuff I can't activate. I get him down to 1 through the Propaganda funnel, but he plays a Rebuild and I die to an empty library.
Round III: BUG: 2-0
- Game 1: He quickly beats me down to 1 with Goyf and a pair of Dark Confidants. In response to a lethal swing, I Forgemaster an Emperion. He has no answers and scoops.
- Game 2: Lots of midrangey stuff happens and he's in good shape with 2 Goyfs, a Confidant, and a Null Rod. I cast an Ugin, he doesn't counter it, I wipe his board, he never recovers and scoops shortly therafter.
Round IV: Aluren: 1-2
- Game 1: We trade beats until we're both at 1, but he does some weird Aluren shit and wins. I don't really remember.
- Game 2: I Chalice > Trinisphere > Lodestone and he scoops.
- Game 3: The board gets to be 1 Chalice, 1 Trinisphere and 3 Lodestone vs 2 Strix and a Clique. I don't want to attack into Strixes that will make it easy for him to combo off, while he can whack me for 3 each turn with the Clique. I proceed to draw only mana for the rest of the game, while he draws a Jitte and makes short work of me.
Quick points:
- My report is pretty lame and basic. Sorry.
- I mulled a lot tonight. I went to 4 or 5 at least once per match.
- Jitte has been terrorizing me lately.
- Playing in Houston on Saturday! Let's hope for 3-1 or better.
lol the hedron crab guy is a regular at your store? I remember you wrote a report before and the crab guy was one of your matchups.
Yeah, he is. He's a judge with a very large collection, so he rotates decks all the time.
It's somewhat embarrassing for me to lose to him, what with having Platinum Angel in the board. Although if I remember correctly, he's gone 3-1 or 4-0 both times I've seen him bust out the Crabs . . .
Any list? I'm curious...Yeah, he is. He's a judge with a very large collection, so he rotates decks all the time.
It's somewhat embarrassing for me to lose to him, what with having Platinum Angel in the board. Although if I remember correctly, he's gone 3-1 or 4-0 both times I've seen him bust out the Crabs . . .
I don't have a list, but some components I know are there:
- Force
- Daze
- Brainstorm
- Hedron Crab
- Mesmeric Orb
- Mind Funeral
- Archive Trap
- Visions of Beyond
- Ghost Quarter
- Fetches
- Propaganda, Null Rod, Strix, and Rebuild in the board
I'm sure part of his success is people being caught off guard, but still, it's a pretty sick deck.
So what is the general consensus on Ugin at the moment?
Currently I'm going 1 Ugin, 1 Karn main with Karn being my preferred walker for sniping lands and threats as well as threatening to restart the game.
My list, for reference:
Creature (17)
1x Blightsteel Colossus
3x Kuldotha Forgemaster
4x Lodestone Golem
4x Metalworker
1x Platinum Emperion
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Sundering Titan
2x Wurmcoil Engine
Planeswalker (2)
1x Karn Liberated
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Artifact (17)
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Coercive Portal
4x Grim Monolith
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Spine of Ish Sah
1x Staff of Domination
4x Trinisphere
Land (24)
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Cavern of Souls
4x City of Traitors
4x Cloudpost
4x Glimmerpost
1x Vesuva
4x Wasteland
Sideboard (15)
1x All Is Dust
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Pithing Needle
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Sundering Titan
2x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Tsabo's Web
@LeaPlath: I think the consensus is still around 2 Ugins, and 0-2 Karns in the side. I've recently changed my generic MUD list to only have 1 Ugin main, 1 Karn side, from having 1 Ugin main, 1 Ugin side, and 2 Karns side.
LeaPlath: I'm pretty certain I've never lost a game with Ugin out, and I've heard similar things from other Mud players. I'd recommend 2 maindeck, though as always it depends on your meta.
#
Went down to Houston for the weekend. On Friday I jammed a bunch of games with my buddy; I wanted practice against DnT, and he wanted to try out Jund, so we played both matchups for a while. Jund seems fairly even (unless there's a Lili on the board). DnT is still in their favor, but I'm confident I could get it to the 40:60 range.
On Saturday we went into Asgard Games. I didn't get a headcount, but I'd guess there were 12 or so players. Everyone seemed really nice.
Round I: DnT: 1-2
- Game 1: I didn't know this guy, but he starts off with a Waste and Vial. I'm willing to bet it's not Merfolk or Goblins, and a turn 2 Thalia proves me right. Thalia, Waste, and a Revoker lock me out of the game.
- Game 2: I get an Ugin down turn 2, then an Emperion with Grieves turn 3.
- Game 3: It's a very long game. I have an awesome board state with Needle on Vial, Chalice on 1, Trinisphere, 2 Metalworkers, and a Forgemaster. However, I play conservatively and don't activate the Forgemaster, cause I'm concerned that if I do, he'll kill whatever I tutor and then use Council's Judgement or Cataclysm to take control. Unfortunately, he Oblivion Rings my Needle, then Vials in 3 consecutive Flickerwisps and gets there.
Round II: ANT: 1-2
- Game 1: New Legacy player, who oddly chose ANT as his starting point. I saw he was on ANT, so I mull looking for prison pieces. I keep Chalice, Trinisphere, Monolith, Metalworker, a threat, and Glimmerpost. For some reason, I think the odds are good that I'll scry/draw into a land and start off with Chalice. Instead, I never draw another land and he kills me after a few turns.
- Game 2: I draw a nuts prison hand and win.
- Game 3: I keep an opener of Ancient Tomb, 2 City of Traitors, 2 Chalice, and something (Metalworker and Monolith, maybe?). I feel great. He does a turn 1 blind Cabal Therapy on Chalice, and I'm left with nothing. He combos off turn 2.
Round III: Pox: 2-1
- Game 1: I'm feeling a little deflated, and knowing he's on Pox doesn't help. However, he's a nice guy, so it seems like we'll have some fun. Cursed Scroll and Lili lock me out of the game quickly.
- Game 2: I land a turn 2 Crucible followed by a turn 3 Coercive Portal. I'm able to pull way ahead and stick an Ugin, which does it.
- Game 3: The exact same thing happens. I fall deeply in love with Portal and Crucible.
Round IV: 12-Post: 2-0
- Game 1: Again, I know what he's on! A turn 1 Chalice shuts off a lot of his hand. A little while later I Metalworker + Staff for the win.
- Game 2: I get a very quick Grieves to Forgemaster to Blightsteel.
Thoughts:
- I might add a 2nd Coercive Portal to the board. It was an all-star in every grindy DnT, Jund, and Pox matchup I played this weekend, and has been great in the past as well.
- I was disappointed with the DnT loss. However, I understand the logic behind my misplay, so whatever.
- This weekend put me at exactly 50 tournament matches on MUD since I built it in September. So far I'm 30-18-2.
- Before and after the tournament, I jammed some Vintage. I played my Legacy Belcher vs TPS and Shops, respectively. The matchups were close or even slightly in my favor, so I think I'm gonna toss some Moxen etc into Belcher and make it my Vintage deck
I don't know if anyone else has been championing Faerie Macabre, I know I have mentioned him in earlier posts, and in terms of just reanimator I think that Macabre is better...they can't counter it, and they don't have time to respond to it, plus you never have to worry about sphere or chalice interaction, AND you can prevent them from reanimating on their T1 on the play, which is nice. Plus, you generally need to run out crypt preemptively against reanimator, which just gives them a chance to play around it. Also, no one, in a million years, is going to expect the faerie. Reanimator will be focused on chalice, or cage, or crypt, or relic, obvious stuff that they can see.
I will say that if you are facing a lot more lands decks, that you may be able to get more use out of crypt. Macabre is still reasonable against lands, stripping out two targets is generally going to be good, but as the game goes later you will get more value out of a crypt. Lands is so slow and grindy that hitting a card like crypt in the mid to late game is going to have a ton of value, way more than Faerie, and you are much more likely to hit this game state against lands.
I have seen less reanimator at the big events these days, and if you are planning on making a deep run, there is surely an argument for gearing towards beating the lands deck, because they are always representing at the top.
I am not going to be running MUD this weekend in jersey, I am sticking with a retooled Miracles after a disastrous EE3. But I am planning on picking up MUD again, and I've been breweing.
Some of you may consider this heresy, but I am strongly considering cutting 4 maindeck chalice of the void, and dropping to 2 or 3 trinispheres (from 4).
I used to really like chalice, but against all the delver decks running around, it's just been absolutely horrific on the draw. On the play, sticking it turn 1, thats great news. Even if they countered it they had to force it, so card advantage. But if it isn't turn 1 on the play, it's a huge liability. Even running it turn 1 on the draw is rough because of all the dazes, and delver can get by off of sticking a single turn 1 delver and flipping it anyways. If they have wasteland it's even easier. Having to wait until turn 2 or later to cast chalice against delver gives the deck plenty of time to do what it needs to do.
But rikter, with our chalice at 1 we can shut off all of their cantrips! We can slow them down and lock them out, shouldn't we be playing to that? I say no, we should not care at all about locking delver out. Why? Card quality. We play big mana stuff that far outclasses crappy ass delver of secrets, or anything else they are going to dig for. When you have a wurmcoil engine in play, do you really care if delver can brainstorm and ponder? What exactly are they going to hit that you are at all concerned with? We really just need to land one threat...preboard a card like sundering titan is going to usually be, at MINIMUM, a 5 for 1. Resolving Ugin ends games. The list goes on.
What am I proposing to fill the 6 slots with? (-4 chalice, -2+ trinisphere) Right now I am strongly considering running pithing needle main in place of the chalices. A summary of needle targets against the popular decks:
RUG Delver - Wasteland, Fetches
BUG Delver - Wasteland, Liliana, Jace
Death and Taxes - Wasteland, Port, Vial, Stoneforge Mystic, Jitte, Batterskull, SoFI, Managara, Karakas
Elves - Wirewood Symbiote, Deathrite Shaman, Quirion Ranger
Miracles - Jace the Mindsculptor, Sensei's Top
Lands - Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Rishadan Port, Thespian's Stage
Of the above decks, elves has the weakest interactions, but basically the needle hits a lot of cards. It also hits Sneak Attack, Grisselbrand and some other random stuff.
What decks does running needle main over chalice really hurt us against?
Storm - Weak targets for needle, you basically have to guess at fetch lands.
Reanimator - Won't actually stop them from going off like chalice does.
Burn - Chalice and Trinisphere kind of break burn, and it is really hard to keep something like metalworker against them.
There are other decks where the lack of 3sphere and chalice will cause problems, and as you can maybe deduce from the above list, it's pretty much the combo decks. Elves has good targets for needle, but chalice is where you want to be there, plus 3sphere, no doubt about it. Chalice is also good vs lands, but you want it at 2 anyways, so you can really improve your lands matchup because you can run both chalice AND needle side by side.
As for the other two slots, the considerations are either 2x Coercive Portal/Hedron Archive for more card drawing, which is helpful, or more lightning greaves, to help protect threats and combo faster. Since I play cavern of souls, one of the worst moves you can make is to tap out against a turn 1 greaves, it's just so dangerous. Voltaic key is another consideration for explosive ramping. I could also just leave the 3spheres in at 4, but that card is boarded out so often I am inclined to just trim it. Another option from the board is to add in removal (either clasp or dismember), so that I have the SB slots for chalice, which I do want as a 4x in my 75, just not main deck.
Ultimately, the philosophy behind this is to get away from the prison aspects of the deck, and instead just go deeper on making sure our threats resolve and our mana is stable, while also making sure that we are not playing 6-8 copies of cards whose value in most matchups drops precipitously when on the play. I am willing to sacrifice some points vs. storm, reanimator and burn to make them up against delver decks, which I feel are a bigger percentage of the field. Elves and DnT are a little interesting, but I think we get better vs. DnT and slightly worse against elves game 1.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, its an idea that kind of goes against what this deck represents, but ultimately I think it is worth exploring non chalice options, even if it ultimately isn't maindeck needle.
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