Hi all! After many months absent from the scene of magic tournaments, i've dusted off my beloved deck, but i'd like to have your suggestion about some card choices. This is the list i'm playing at the moment and that i'm pretty happy with:
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
2 Vesuva
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Primeval Titan
2 Oracle of Mul-Daya
2 Trinket Mage
3 Sensei Divining Top
2 Expedition Map
2 Pithing Needle
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Brainstorm
3 Crop Rotation
3 Repeal
3 Warping Wail
2 Show and Tell
SB
3 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
1 Chalice of the Void
3----- empty slots
I have to say that testing against decent players i found to have a good matchup overall against Grixis Delver and BUG Delver. This is my reasoning behind my deck choices:
Why no Candelabra? There's no other way to say, i found it... situational. In my opinion, there's absolutely no need to generate a huge amount of mana so early in the game, for i have all the tools to take down the game at my pace. If you can't find multiple posts or if they get wastelanded, then it's absolutely a mulligan card you'd wish not to see. Don't get me wrong, I may consider bringing it back as a single copy to be found through mage, but if i could find more room would probably take back in the third copy of map or Show and Tell.
Why no Ugin? I played with him 20 or so games and never found him useful. NEVER. He's a beast once in play, no doubts, but against tempo decks it will spend most of its time clogging your hand as an additional overexpensive card you're not able to play. Against combo it simply does nothing, so for me he's out.
Why old Ulamog? At the moment i don't own Nulamog and i didn't test him well, but i love the reshuffling effect the old one provides if discarded or countered. I can remember many games when i could take the luxury to discard him to liliana only to get it back a couple of turn later and nuke that planeswalker together with half of my opponent board with a single attack. As well said by BoozeCube, annihilator is no joke and the Infinite Gyre is much more threatening than the new one if put into play via Show and Tell.
Why Trinket Mage? Are you serious guys? Do you think it's underwhelming? I can't remember a single game where i wasn't happy to draw him. It's a tutor and chumpblocks like a champ. In addition it's a small creature your bug opponents need to take care before using their Liliana's -2 activation to get rid of your Titan. He also tutors for Engineered Explosives, which are simply fantastic to get rid of chalice of the void set to 1 or to eat a couple of tarmogoyfs in a single row.
Why 3 Sensei Tops only? I think it's the card that gets hated the most after sb, so while a pillar of this deck i don't like too see it in multiples. As said before, i can tutor for it with a mage just in case.
Why Maze of Ith? A great card against reanimator, Tarmogoyf and Gurmag Angler, i'm happy to have a way to protect myself from a single threat, without having to tutor for Glacial Chasm.
I need to tune a fine sb against the meta, as you see i've 3 slots left. What would you suggest? I was considering Tabernacle, but it's very situational, Mind Harness, which is VERY nice against Tarmogoyfs, Knights of the Reliquary and Deathrite Shamans, Submerge, or maybe some additional hate against combo decks.
Originally Posted by Davek
Hi Davek, i mostly agree with your opinions especialy with old Eldrazis but about candelabra this card i just side out when i'm on play against decays decks but anyway i never side it out is great to stabilize your colored mana mostly unconsidered to counter it in first or second round for opponent because you still don't have cloudposts so you can quickly ramp after and in many times also in extra turns find candelabra was just only card to win and is good if you have not much removals for enchantment called back to basics that's very bad.. and about Ugin i have him in side just for non-daze decks except merfolks like shardles agent and jund these dekcs are here in my meta in many so ugin is best for them shardless and jund can still do lot of things with titan from show and tell and they have ussualy better card advantage but Ugin what can i say ;) for sb maybe couple of relics could fix your fear from grave groving monsters.. Cau
I believe this is a mistake for a number of reasons, but I'll get back to it.
As a singleton he's usually not great. I think you're greatly underestimating his value, though. A resolved Ugin basically wins the game by himself. Much like how against most stripes of Delver you win if you resolve Show and Tell, against basically every non-combo deck in the format - I count Lands as a combo deck - you win if Ugin resolves.Why no Ugin? I played with him 20 or so games and never found him useful. NEVER. He's a beast once in play, no doubts, but against tempo decks it will spend most of its time clogging your hand as an additional overexpensive card you're not able to play. Against combo it simply does nothing, so for me he's out.
You need to try Nulamog. I'm fairly certain that he is the second best Eldrazi titan printed to date, and there actually is a potential argument - to be clear, I am not saying I necessarily agree with it, only that an argument can be made - for him being better than Emrakul. Even ignoring the fact that he's cheaper than the original Ulamog - 1 mana means a lot when it's rotting in your hand - exiling two is infinitely better than destroying one. While losing annihilator is admittedly a shame, as it is Nulamog is still basically a two-turn clock even if he's blocked. Even if 40 cards doesn't completely deck your opponent, that probably means they have seven or fewer cards to work with: which basically means they've already lost. In the mean time, you get a discount and a MUCH deadlier cast trigger while still killing your opponent as fast, if not faster, than the old one. If you are worried about the extra shuffle effect, there's always Kozilek, and his cast trigger is obviously fantastic too.Why old Ulamog? At the moment i don't own Nulamog and i didn't test him well, but i love the reshuffling effect the old one provides if discarded or countered. I can remember many games when i could take the luxury to discard him to liliana only to get it back a couple of turn later and nuke that planeswalker together with half of my opponent board with a single attack. As well said by BoozeCube, annihilator is no joke and the Infinite Gyre is much more threatening than the new one if put into play via Show and Tell.
I like Trinket Mage. It makes your decision to not run at least one Candel even more perplexing. This deck without Candel is like having a Lamborghini but not knowing how to drive stick. Need ramp? Mage gets it.Why Trinket Mage? Are you serious guys? Do you think it's underwhelming? I can't remember a single game where i wasn't happy to draw him. It's a tutor and chumpblocks like a champ. In addition it's a small creature your bug opponents need to take care before using their Liliana's -2 activation to get rid of your Titan. He also tutors for Engineered Explosives, which are simply fantastic to get rid of chalice of the void set to 1 or to eat a couple of tarmogoyfs in a single row.
The only really relevant hate for the card that you'd see is Pithing Needle, and if someone Needles your Top, it just means your Eyes, Maps and Candels still work. That having been said, 3 is perfectly fine with a Trinket Mage package.Why 3 Sensei Tops only? I think it's the card that gets hated the most after sb, so while a pillar of this deck i don't like too see it in multiples. As said before, i can tutor for it with a mage just in case.
I think this is a mistake, especially without Candels. One Maze by itself is a minor inconvenience for the opponent. Either go heavy on a Maze plan or just run something like Tabernacle instead. If reanimator is your concern, why Crop into Maze when you can just Crop into Bog? BoozeCube and I both run multiple Mazes to go along with Candels, which means we can basically hold back entire armies if need be. With a few minor exceptions, you'd probably never want to use Expedition Map to get your Maze, and if one is all you have, you probably would have been better served trying to ramp into Titan to get you out of trouble.Why Maze of Ith? A great card against reanimator, Tarmogoyf and Gurmag Angler, i'm happy to have a way to protect myself from a single threat, without having to tutor for Glacial Chasm.
Relic of Progenitus seems to make the most sense. It fights Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, Deathrite Shaman, graveyard strategies in general, and most importantly, the Trinket Mages you are already running can go get it.I need to tune a fine sb against the meta, as you see i've 3 slots left. What would you suggest? I was considering Tabernacle, but it's very situational, Mind Harness, which is VERY nice against Tarmogoyfs, Knights of the Reliquary and Deathrite Shamans, Submerge, or maybe some additional hate against combo decks.
Yes, you probably need Candelabra if you're running a Cloudpost deck.
Interesting. I am not against the idea, the idea just seems very different than what I usually hope for. I personally love having Titan to cast early in the game. The new Eldrazi could really fill that slot though. Maybe even Oblivion Sower since it can basically ramp us similar to titan minus the post lands and eye. It can certainly get us from 6 mana to a possible 10 mana with a cast.
Agreed. Losing annihilator on new Kozilek was a dealbreaker for me because his new cast trigger is worse and his counter ability isn't worth it because I'm not playing S&T.
Losing annihilator on Newlamog, by contrast, is disappointing but not a big deal because his new cast trigger is SO much more powerful. Previously, I tutored for Ulamog only when I needed to take out a specific problem that needed to be dealt with; otherwise, I'd go for Kozilek and card advantage. Now, I find myself tutoring for Newlamog and Kozilek about equally.
Essentially, the impact of Newlamog's casting trigger is equivalent to one annihilator trigger. While you only hit 2 permanents instead of 5 (counting the original cast trigger), the ability to choose which means that you are guaranteed to hit the right ones. Moreover, you get that extra permanent immediately instead of having to wait until your next attack step.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Enjoy drinking and drafting? Try the booze cube
Follow me on Twitter: @theboozecube
I've been playing around with the Great Distortion, and I disagree with this assessment.
Menace + Disrupting Shoal are a much better combined ability than I've imagined in my testing because it means they're on a fast and evasive and you have back-up (and if they're blocking, it's a war of attrition instead of chumping). And the cast trigger has been great for me in your style build because I often find myself trying to get out of topdecking... which is why instead of taking one of the two Kozileks out, I squeezed in a Great Distortion in addition to them.
Then there's the biggest selling point for Kozilek 2.o: In Legacy, he often counters Swords to Plowshares. And gets to hit his fair share of 2 costs as well.
I suspect if Legacy mid-range falls out of favor, KtGD has the chance to actually fill the roll as a cheaper alternative to Emrakul. The idea is being thrown around in Modern because the format is expected to pick up speed without Splinter Twin, and the argument runs similar in Legacy. Emrakul is an evasive giant that costs 15 mana and is essentially unblockable, crippling everyone that survives while protecting herself. Kozilek is similar. The only difference is counter magic is viable in the Legacy format. How much of a difference does that make? I dunno, I'll have to get back to you on that. More testing required.
"Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void, empty, and become wind."
What did you cut to make room for him?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Enjoy drinking and drafting? Try the booze cube
Follow me on Twitter: @theboozecube
This is a bit of a random aside. But seriously, the summer bloom / splinter twin banning is why I don't play Modern. In Legacy, the value of your cards could ebb and wane, but for the most part, go up. In Modern, your entire deck could drop catastrophically on the whim of bad statistics. No deck builder wants to play in that format.
The banning of splinter twin sets a precedent not previously in place in any other format: Nothing is Sacred. Bloom was a menace to some degree and splinter twin diluted the format but was not a necessary ban in most opinions. The format is wotc's pet experiment to some degree whereas legacy is the child they just don't care about. Ideally, this eternal set supposedly coming in the fall will reignite passion for legacy but if that is the case, I know the prices will sky rocket like those of modern currently leading into the pro tour and modern pptq season. Get everything you will or may need now and brace yourselves. Additionally, I forsee modern becoming more of a joke with all these eldrazi. Ride the wave down or hop off onto the beach and watch the catastrophe with a beer in hand.
Ok, i’ve read your comments, here are my considerations:
Candelabra: in the version I’ve developed, it’s not a very important card. I’m pretty sure that in mono-green versions it pulls his weight, but in my U-G one I rarely tutored for it. That said, I may include it again, but what would you cut? Don’t say Explosives, for they are amazing in almost every game (and yes, I keep in a single copy against storm in case of EtW plan and also against sneak&show to occasionally get rid of Needles, Defense Grid or Blood Moon).
Ugin: when I have reached the amount of mana in order to play it, I can usually close the game. The main problem of this deck is being pressured on the very first turns of the game so I’m not sold on the idea of filling my deck with so many mana-hungry cards. It doesn’t help against the decks that could cause problems in early turns like Burn or Infect and it exposes itself easily to taxing counterspells of tempo decks, for you may be forced to play it as soon as you reach the exact or so amount of mana because you’re facing a little army that’s dangerously lowering your life total. Against BUG Shardless or other black based decks, it’s a card hightly in risk of being discarded before you have the occasion to cast it, since it will probably stay in your hand for a considerable number of turns. You can’t even SnT him… nah. Tested as a 2-of, not going back. My Ugins are Engineered Explosives.
Nulamog: I’ll test him instead of the old one and will let you know. The only thing that didn’t sound right to me is the idea that with 2 attacks your opponent is dead, because it’s not. If they can handle Nulamog in some way, 6-7 remaining cards in their deck means that he still has plenty of time to kill you.
Maze of Ith: I took it out and brought it in from the deck countless times, but lately I’ve decided it has to stay. If you look at my version of the deck, between Repeals, Warping Wails and Explosives I can usually take care of many early threats, so the fact that maze can handle just one is perfectly fine. It’s a pesky land the opponent may be tempted to destroy with wasteland, saving other mana-producing lands and it’s pretty good against infect too. Regarding the reanimator example, i usually do not tutor for it, but it’s an additional card that prevents them to go nuts with Griselbrand or stops things like Ashen Rider/Sire of Insanity.
SB choices: Relic of Progenitus is a nice suggestion, thank you! But then what? Tabernacle is another card I continuously take in and out from sb, as sometimes is amazing and sometimes horrid. I can remember one of the last games against grixis where I put my Tabernacle while he already had 3 lands in play. 3 turns later he had 5 lands into play, a pyromancer and 4 tokens and was happily smashing my face while I couldn’t find anything to stop the bleeding. So, while a good card, we sometimes are so slow that the malus it provides isn’t enough.
We'll probably agree to disagree on the rest, so I'll just address this.
My actual thought on just suggesting Relics was based on what you said: I would have envisioned you running 3 in the board, which was perhaps the wrong assumption. The rest of the slots are basically meta calls, but I'll give you some ideas.
Grafdigger's Cage does a good job of slowing down Reanimator and Dredge. It forces a sideboard answer or an alternate plan of attack from Storm. It slows down Elves until they naturally draw Reclamation Sage or just manage to nut draw through it. It slows down Maverick until they naturally draw Qasali Pridemage, which increases the chances of your Pithing Needle sticking if you manage to play one. Mage finds it.
Chalice of the Void is very strong against Storm if they can't find a bounce spell or Abrupt Decay. Depending on what you board out or what CMC you name, it has some level of use against almost everything. Mage finds it as well.
Orbs of Warding is a pretty cool answer to Storm and Grixis as well as having a bit of play against Burn, as it makes you immune to 1-power idiots, discard, burn spells, and Tendrils of Agony. Though it's 5 mana and Mage can't get it, pairing it with other cards you bring in can make it much more likely you live long enough to cast it.
Yes, you probably need Candelabra if you're running a Cloudpost deck.
I run only 3 Crop Rotations because Miracles is still prevalent.
Considering my favorite decks in Modern are G(r) Tron and the new Bx Eldrazi decks, the ban is actually quite helpful to me... this time. Anyway, A Legacy thread isn't the place to get too in depth with Modern politics. We can take up the discussion either in the Source's Modern ban thread or in PMing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But here's something that grabbed my attention today, and I spent the better part of the day playtesting it. There's a new branch off of MUD-Post that I've affectionally named Legends of Colorless. The basic idea is to artifact ramp through the Sol Lands and 12-Post to get a Turn 3 or 4 Karn Liberated/Ugin, the Spirit Dragon/Kozilek, the Great Distortion/Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger/Wurmcoil Engine. And yes, I've done it with all of them (except Wurmcoil Engine, but that's because it's not in my initial list).
Here's a tournament List
Here's the list I'm playing (I pulled it from the MUD thread)
//Lands: 24
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
3 Karakas
4 Vesuva
1 Eye of Ugin
//Creatures: 5
3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
//Artifacts: 24
4 Basalt Monolith
4 Grim Monolith
4 Thran Dynamo
1 Hedron Archive
4 Coercive Portal
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
//Planeswalkers: 7
4 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Karn Liberated
//Sideboard
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere
1 Duplicant
I'll probably go -1 Ugin, +1 Karn because multiple Ugins are less useful than multiple Karns (something I should have remembered learning back when Ugin was fresh released). And there's always room to more artifact-y with Sundering Titan and Wurmcoil Engine, although five Eldrazi triggers (or more depending on Karakas) seems more enticing to me than MUD finishers at the moment. I may also try to find room somewhere in the 75 for an Emrakul since I get into range... semi-regularly (although not regularly enough, which is why I haven't done it yet).
"Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void, empty, and become wind."
Hi guys, some help.
I want to discuss Sphere of resistance in sideboard. In particular how this card works against burn, elves, storm, infect.
As we all know, it's very good on the play, but on the draw is annoying: opponent has already played 2 turn with no resistance, and I consider this a lot (that's why I don't like trinisphere). And sometimes (rarely indeed) sphere hits also us: in general we have a lot of CMC1 spells, instant or not, we lose the speed of that part of the deck.
So I thought this: let's try the opposite way, not slow them but accelerate us a little. Elvish Spirit Guide it's nice: it's a turn 2 S&T, turn 1 pyroclasm, turn 2 kozilek's return, turn 3/4 titan. And against infect it's a nice suprise when he plays daze.
Does anyone try this?
Seems questionable. ESG is only good on the first couple turns, then it's basically just a dead card. Sphere isn't terrible on the draw, especially against Storm. And Elves isn't going to Glimpse on T2, so you've got time to drop it.
Besides, we just got a powerful new weapon against Elves and Infect (along with most decks). Warping Wail's first mode hits almost every creature in either deck, and its second mode counters Natural Order, Glimpse, and GSZ. It's colorless, so Apostle's Blessing doesn't effect it. And if you do it in response to Infect's first pump spell, you have the possibility of a 2-for-1.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Enjoy drinking and drafting? Try the booze cube
Follow me on Twitter: @theboozecube
probably you are right, in fact I already have a lot of responses against those decks, I can rely less on spheres. My only concern with ESG is that it's useless if you don't have something else in hand....
hands like glimmer, sensei, fecth, needle, titan, ESG, eldrazi would be much much better if there were a sphere in place of the ESG.
I have been testing ESG actually, and enjoying it. still banging down a list with OGW though.
No regrets on Warping Wail so far. Still trying to fit Kozilek, the Great Distortion in mono-G, although I'm less certain it works there. I'm really liking two Nulamogs as well the more I run two.
Yes, you probably need Candelabra if you're running a Cloudpost deck.
The Summer Bloom banning was not particularly unreasonable, and it was seen coming by most players. Even if one could claim that, objectively speaking, the deck was okay, there was a whole lot of dislike against it, and even a lot of players of the deck said it was a problem. When the guy who wins an SCG Open with it decides to give a speech about why the deck needs a banning, that's an indication that there could be something wrong with it. At any rate, it's a ban that people saw coming and there was a fair amount of support for.
Twin, on the other hand, committed the terrible, awful, inexcusable offense of being... a good deck. Not an overpowered deck. Not a deck that won too fast. Just a good deck. That's what caused the uproar; it's rather inconsistent with their previous bannings, it's blatantly just to shake things up, and there wasn't much sentiment it was coming. And even if Twin was seen as overpowered, the proper ban would have been Deceiver Exarch, not Splinter Twin (this makes the deck more vulnerable to creature removal without neutering it too much). Not only did they ban a deck that needed no ban, they banned the wrong card from it! Even worse, Twin was a deck that encouraged interaction in the format (the best way to beat it is to have disruption!), so with it gone, the floodgates are open for the format to be populated by a bunch of decks that just want to ignore their opponent. Fun, fun, fun. It's fine for a format to have such decks, probably even a good thing, but a lot of people complained about Modern having too many of them, and Splinter Twin's banning is only going to exacerbate the issue.
Though this did have the effect of getting me interested in Legacy again and wanting to play some more with my 12-Post deck (as I greatly fear for my GR Tron deck getting banned now). I wonder if I should sell my Tron deck so I can finally pick up those Candelabras.
Now this is actually where I disagree. I don't think it's a good thing that the value of your cards "for the most part go up" in Legacy. That's the thing that's making the format incapable of growth. Price decreases in Legacy would be a good thing for the formaIn Legacy, the value of your cards could ebb and wane, but for the most part, go up. In Modern, your entire deck could drop catastrophically on the whim of bad statistics. No deck builder wants to play in that format.
The problem with bannings is not sudden price decreases (which is the effect reprints have, which would be good). It's that your deck is no longer playable and is worth a lot less. I don't care if my Legacy's deck value drops in half if I can continue to play the thing.
All that said, in terms of value loss, the banning actually left the value of a Splinter Twin deck mostly intact. Things like the shocklands and fetchlands are still highly valuable. The only "exclusive" card to the deck that was worth much was Splinter Twin and even that still has some value to it. The bigger issue isn't the monetary loss (which really isn't that big, as noted the expensive stuff in the deck can go into other decks and thus loses little value), but the loss of time putting together the deck and gaining experience with it as well as the increased worry that a deck that depends more on cards exclusive to it (e.g. GR Tron as noted above) could eat a ban just because.
@Lord Seth & Rock Lee
I wouldn't worry too much about modern value, take a hypothetical RG tron ban. The ramp creatures are played in Bx Eldrazi and legacy Turbo Eldrazi. Ugin is played in MUD. Ancient Stirrings is played in Lantern control. Oblivion Stone is an EDH staple that won't be going down any time soon either. Grove of the Burnwillows is the best RG land available in modern and its even better in legacy. Karn Liberated will probably go down, but EDH will keep it high.
There are now 2 good ramp mana bases in modern, so ramp is here to stay (Eye of Ugin + Urborg + Eldrazi temple and UrzaTron)
I was wondering if we could combine several of the thought leaders of legacy (nicfit/mud/turboeldrazi) and modern ramp decks (Bx Eldrazi/Eldrazi Processors/RG Tron) on a Facebook group (or some other place) to share insights across archetypes.
Small sample size so far, but early returns on Warping Wail are extremely promising. In four games of streaming tonight, I've already cast it for each mode. So far I've exiled a Vendilion Clique and a Delver of Secrets, countered a Life from the Loam, and put down an idiot to block a Tarmogoyf and one to ramp into a Karn Liberated.
Only two casts of Kozilek, the Great Distortion so far. First time, he drew three cards and got countered. Second time, he drew five and countered a Swords to Plowshares, prompting a concession. Not enough information to really say either way yet.
Yes, you probably need Candelabra if you're running a Cloudpost deck.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote