I have tried exploration in my GW build with Oracle of Mul Daya and courser of Kruphix and past turn 2 it's usually very underwhelming. If you can go no disruption into turn 2 primeval titan it is sweet otherwise it's not much better than running explore which I tend to stick to since late game it is at least a cantrip to get a little deeper into your deck.
He is fantastics against Shardless and Miracles. I really enjoy him with Veteran Explorer, Oracle of Mul Daya, Gitrog Monster and Primeval Titan. Not to mention Crop Rotation, Knight of the Reliquary, and even Crucible of Worlds.Originally Posted by Lormador
Whelp played in the Columbus SCG Legacy Classic. Finished 9th 5-2 overall...just missed top 8 was kind of a bummer. Posted week or so ago changes I made from the general core.
My deck list:
Lands (27)
4 x Misty Rainforest
2 x Polluted Delta
3 x Tropical island
1 x Island
1 x Forest
1 x Cavern of Souls
1 x Glacial Chasm
1 x Tabernacle
1 x Bojuka Bog
1 x Karakas
1 x Eye of Ugin
4 x Cloudpost
4 x Glimmerpost
2 x Vesuva
Creatures (7)
1 x Emrakul
1 x New Emrakul
1 x Nulamog
4 x PrimeTime
Spells
4 x SDT
4 x Repeal
4 x Brainstorm
4 x Crop Rotation
4 x Show n Tell
2 x Ugin
2 x EE
2 x Candelabra of Tawnos
SB:
4 x Surgical Extraction
2 x FoW
2 x Flusterstorm
2 x Swag Song (May go to 4 Flusters)
2 x Krosen Grip
2 x Pithing Needle
1 x Nephalia Academy
Dice rolls...not good today rolled 1 of the 7 games i won for me just below average.
Matches:
Lands 1-1...won 2-0 and lost 0-2 (1st time there) yep there was a lost to a bye match. no pithing MB was a good test. Didn't need it. SB I brought them in. But with 4 repeals and bog MB...you can slow them enough to do what you need. Brought needle in from SB game 2. Lands loss game I was on draw to play and no lands...mulli then get only 1 to start and didn't see another that game. Next game...no lands, mulli and get my only 2 vesuva to start as my lands. Pretty awful...I'll do the odds for that with 27 MB not likely. Why i upped from 25 when played before I refuse to loose to non land drops in land deck. Won't increase from 27, odds to happen again very low. Die to a 20/20 when have 2 repeals and 2 crops sitting in your hand is just ridiculous. Other game was a joke as always is. Repeal again is uber good.
U/R delver 1-0...won 2-0. Crop rotate instant to cavern crushed Price of prog. Repeal and EE to stabilize EE. The more burn heavy delvers imo are harder than grins type so was happy. Game 2 i dropped to 1 life and scratched back. Only happened from 2 shuffles in a row to top. upping to 6 fetches played huge here.
Storm 1-0...won 2-0. Bog MB with crop rotation crushed him game 1. glimmers getting life to 26+ to make 13 minimum storm triggers and game went long enough. Game 2 the nehalia came in. FoW 1st discard. Had SnT and Emrakul in hand. Next turn...another d/c and crop rotated for Neph academy. It won me the game. Was glad got to test it out. Still needs more. But saved me loosing the combo to finish game. Surgical extraction played big.
Dredge 1-0...won 2-0. Again crop rotation is a life savior here. Get bog. He had a very good turn 1 and I was on draw. Crop rotated for bog. So got rid of like 1/3 his deck and multi dredges. Had 3 creatures out. Next turn SDT found a crop and got tabernacle. GG. Next game SB comes in. 4 surgical extractions are huge.
Omnishow 1-1...yep drew storm and omnishow x 2 for 3 of my 7 games. Lovely. Lost 1-2 and won 2-1. The 1-2 I would of won if my swag song was a fluster. Flustered one SnT but swag got Forced on 2nd. It was sad. Considered running 4 Flusters and prob only change I will make in the deck. The new Emrakual played well here. Almost hard casted him, which against that deck would usually be quite good. laid him down on a SnT (he cast...SB out games 2 and 3). No omni...he dropped emrakul. I had 2 crops in hand. Had them all day upping to 4 with 6 fetches. Made deck so consistent. Got to know how to play around them with counters. Led him with a brainstorm while on stack. He was tapped out. He forced thinking fluster since saw it already. No counter on crop got karakas and new emry prot instants. GG 2 turns later. Still not sold on him though. Another card up in the air, will need to see the groups thoughts in next few month on him.
Overall, a very good day. Been playing 7-8 months and learned a few more tricks with the deck. New updates from old made deck flow so much better and handled ago much better. SB all combo and graveyard hate. Still never play tested against miracles in tourney in 7-8 months. Used the SDT repeal move to draw 2 cards and look at top 3 afterwards 3 times in the tourney. If you don't know what I'm talking about please look it up. Repeals imo is one of the best cards in the deck and crop 2nd. Repeals is great D, card advantage, ridiculous card advantage with SDT, and with 2 candles make turn 3-4 ugins very possible.
Any advice please hit me up. I need more practice with omnishow...today def helped. 3 grips maybe in the future as well and 4 flusters would of made 6-1 even with bad draws on land match and instant top 8...
Best
I've been rocking your list on xmage and it's awesome! Really like it. It's a lot of fun and very versatile. Without Pithing needles I do have trouble beating death and taxes, what's your experience with the matchup?
Regarding Tireless Tracker, I want to play this card very much but I'm just not sure what role it should have. Jarvis Yu, in his Lands episode of Legacy's Allure, explains that this card is primarily intended primarily for Rest In Peace decks that are likely to board out (or reduce) removal, such as the Counterbalance decks that challenge Lands.
As we needn't fear any RIP deck and welcome Miracles matchups, I wonder whether the card is necessary.
I think my next test will be to switch out Warping Wail (as much as I love it) for DRS. Deathrite was incorporated quickly, did well, and was suddenly dropped on a basis that is not clear to me personally. Maybe it is, in fact, good enough. Or maybe I'll simply confirm that Rock was right in the first place.
The curse of my life is never being able to leave well enough alone with a list, I have to experiment (even with known failures) in order to come to the vanilla one on my own.
Last edited by Lormador; 07-25-2016 at 10:50 AM.
In 12 post I don't believe trackers role to be beating rest in peace. However trackers role in 12 post is to provide an early threst that can benefit from what we want to do, play lands, a lot if them. Between cards like crop rotation, primeval titan, map to find more land we should be able to grind out most any match with it. Even against miracles tracker is likely fine as a way to have additional threats early that they need to answer rather than only relying on only our titans.
I saw your list on SCG. Well done, sorry for the salty 9th on breakers.
FYI SCG listed you playing only 3 cloudposts, which I'm glad was a mistake on their part.
Did you have any sweet victories with Mindrakul? Did you ever had any situations where you chose to search for it over Nulamog?
Nephalia Academy seems like an awesome addition if your planning to go with a spell based anti-combo suite.
Nice, it took some time but more and more people come around to my list!
In my personal experience D&T is still a very good matchup - you can lose, and if you do, it often doesn't look close at all, but i'm beating it more often than not (my record now is 25-8). That said, pretty much everybody else who tested my list has problems with D&T.
The key to win this is usually to make a lot of landdrops, so their mana denial is less effective. Sticking an Oracle is the best way to do that (i would play any cheaper creature as bait just to try to stick an Oracle), a Tracker can help too, and if you resolve a Titan it will probably be enough. I like to keep very landheavy hands against D&T, i'd rather have 6 lands than 2 lands. That can go wrong if they just have a very aggressive hand, but we do have some removal (EE is great, Warping Wail has a lot of targets, postboard we have even more options).
Somewhere in this thread i read that D&T was a matchup where your Eldrazi don't matter and just the Titan wins the game. That's not true - the Titan wins the game, but just by giving you enough mana to finally resolve your Eldrazi. I played 4 matches where i boarded out my Eldrazi to test that, and i lost all 4 of them. The Eldrazi are not great in your hand, because it takes so long to cast them, but in this matchup you actually need them to win the game. The board gets usually very cluttered on their side, and they have a lot of ways to defend against your midrange creatures or Marit Lage (very useless here, don't try it unless you absolutely have to, and always board out the Depths), while you can't defend yourself forever against their evasion creatures.
Regarding Tireless Tracker and Lands: I played a lot against Lands lately (and won every match), they always board in Tireless Tracker against me. I actually lost one game to lands just because of their Tracker, it's a very scary card to face. And in the Lands thread they are at least discussing the option to board it in every single time, and some are going up to 4 copies in the board. From the other side of things, whenever i faced a Tracker, against Lands, NicFit or even in the mirror, if you can't kill it, it just forces you to end the game as fast as possible, otherwise you won't come back.
Just try that card online or wherever you playtest before you make a plan where you want it (and for that purpose, i would really put it in the maindeck, even if you don't plan to do that in your final list). Knowing what a card does and actually seeing it in action are two different things. In my opinion it is good in every single matchup, sometimes as a card drawing engine and big blocker (against fair decks mostly), sometimes as a fast beater (3 hits are often enough, that can be relevant when you want a fast clock for example against combo). And if it dies right away, it's still not that bad, because you will usually have 1-2 clues left over. (Just as you don't mind that much if a Titan dies right away - 1-2 clues are not the same as 2 lands, but Tracker is much easier to cast.) Don't think "if they kill it, it's bad", it's rather "if they don't kill it, they probably lose, and if they kill it, it's still a 2 for 1".
About trying new cards: I finally decided to give Grapple with the Past a try in my deck, and so far i like it. One major issue with the deck is the consistency, some draws just don't work at all, and Grapple should help with that a lot. Not sure what i want to cut for it, but i probably want 2-3 copies in the deck.
Also decided to try out Moment's Peace in the board (for Engineered Plague, that let me down a few times in a row), that did some work too and might stay.
My list is always changing, just the core remains the same. So if anybody trying my list has an idea to improve something, i'm open to suggestions.
Nephalia Academy played well. SB storm is very heavy d/c and how I usually loose to them. It saved me in game 2 on storm by not letting him dump my show n tell. He casted duress turn 2, and I crop rotated for it. Game chging play. I would of had no hand after the 6 times he kept d/c just to prevent 6 turns of emrakul being showed in. Which still happened. Screwed his mana enough to prevent enough storm triggers to kill me. Def most likely will stay. Wasn't sold with swag. Nice if get a moon deck for counters...but fluster seems better. May go to 4 flusters or 3 flusters and 3 FoW for my 6 counters.
Mindrakul was neat and def good. Maindeck worthy...I need to test it more. The protection from instants is better than expected. Beat show deck 2 games in a row. He casted show and I laid it down. He couldn't bounce it. It is there only defense to bridges etc. Old emrakul prot colors I get it, but I replaced him for new kozilek. Unlike, kozilek he is a flying trample 13/13 with prot from instants. Gries' worst nightmare. He couldn't attack and I could trample over. It was very nice. If I laid new kozilek would of lost to him. So he benefited me nicely there. For sweet play. Got him over ula during other Omni show match-up and he countered him but his cast trigger resolved. His turn casted show n tell to use his own force and exile Omni. Was sweet. He had for lands a CoT, ancient tomb, and island. If cast ulamog I would of exiled the blue and other land. If he drew a blue his show was cmon out with his 2 colorless producing land and Omni on the table. He didn't have a great card to play with Omni. So that was neat I felt, but not game changing. Needs more testing though. I still like it over the new kozilkek. If use for him, I think better. Nulamog gets the nod imo right now. Plat emp is gone for me way to easy to bounce or destroy since artifact...So for now he takes spot 3 in my deck list for big guns. Hope that helps.
I'm enjoying it so thanks :). In my limited testing it seems that getting Knight to stick has more impact than getting a tracker to stick. In what type of situations do you prefer one over the other?Nice, it took some time but more and more people come around to my list!
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Chasm has been kind of the stick in the spokes card when I play it. It seems to only really work well against Elves and burn. When used against delver, i end up dying anyways. I ended up putting it into my SB because of this and I run Dark Depths/ Thespian's Stage instead. Has a bit better pairing against burn and elves and also can be dirty against delver since they typically are only running 1-2 vapor snag. You could also go to the Bant version again and remove it completely and run 4 terminus MB that will keep things under control except against burn. But then you just run 4 Leylines in SB and Platinum Emperion.
Knight is better if it sticks in most situations, but does nothing if it doesn't stick, while Tracker should still bring some clues along (usually play it before your landdrop). So when i don't expect it to stick and just want to get a little bit ahead, i like Tracker more. And in some situations you just don't have the lands to find a win with Knight, you need to get ahead on cards instead.
Some examples:
1. Against D&T. Lets say you have 5 lands, 2 of them forests and no cloudposts, they have 2 ports. If you turn your Forests into Cloudposts, they will just port them down, you win nothing. If you play a Tracker instead, the clues you get can ensure you are hitting your landdrop every turn, and eventually you will have too much to port it all down. (And if they StP it, Tracker is better too if you had a landdrop left after you played it.)
2. Against Blood Moon. Knight is pretty much useless, Tracker allows you to make landdrops and/or find answers to Blood Moon (well, RecSage could answer the Blood Moon right away, so lets say you're up against Magus instead).
3. Against Miracles, they have some cards in hand, not used any removal so far. There is no way any creature you play will stick. Just get a Tracker and make a landdrop, a fetchland would be nice to get 2 clues out of it.
Generally, the more removal you expect and the more time you have, the better Tracker gets compared to Knight. Still, 3/4 times i get Knight over Tracker. The reason i still play only 2 Knights, and in some lists up to 3 Trackers, is that sometimes Knight is a little hard to cast on curve. I usually don't keep hands without green mana, but i have to keep a lot of hands without the mana to hardcast Knight. I found i want exactly one backup Knight, in case the first one dies. I rarely lose the second one too, and if i do there are usually better options than to go for a third Knight, so going with just 2 to minimize the situations with an uncastable Knight in hand seems ideal.
Thanks for inspiring me to play repeal again. The list is all business i like it. probably no point asking why you don't like trinketThough, i feel i would be more comfortable with another SnT target over ugin.
Ugin with candle/repeal build has been huge for me. He is fairly easy to cast and crushes so many decks...grixis, shardless, delver, miracles, elves, to name a few just scoop once he is out and goes off (All heavy in meta currently). I do agree the extra show n tell target would increase my 'plan B' chances, but I only show n tell the eldrazi to decks that I know die in 1-2 turns with them and have no way to beat it. My 4 shows are there only for the 4 titans. 1 game had eldrazi show n tell in hand and put eldrazi on top fetched a few times to find the titan. Decks that can deal with big guy out don't help us and their cast trigger is what we want. Tried 3 SnT and felt like I was always searching for it and why I play 4. This is why I don't mind running ugin...I'm always trying to show a titan. I care about the titan land drops to gain control of the game and take it from there.Thanks for inspiring me to play repeal again. The list is all business i like it. probably no point asking why you don't like trinket
Trinket mage I haven't tested enough. Chump blocker is nice, but 4 repeals and 2 EE keep the little dudes away early if needed. Also, crop rotate for tabernacle crushes aggro decks early. So never missed a chump blocker. The tutor ability is nice, but its too slow imo. Legacy is just way to fast. I never felt like trinket mage had the power to keep up. Outside of a needle, its hard to play him turn 3/4 and then cast what you want. Sure it gets a candle, but then u get to wait till next turn to use it. At least how I always felt with it...and a lot times that turn never happened. I prefer to sit back and EoT everything or respond to plays they make and set up the titan show or titan cast...I may of played him too early so this could be my fault and don't deny this. I've tried many variations. You have to play what fits you. In general, this is not an aggro deck...we all know this. My point is I feel playing him too quickly gimped me, and not playing him was a dead card in my hand. Ugin can be a dead card...but with 27 lands and 2 candles 1-2 turns is all it takes and dead card is a finishing card. Deck I play forces me to sit back and play more controlling, which is how it's supposed to be played. I find it amazing how one deck can have so many different variations. Why such a fun deck to play. As I re-try other builds, maybe I'll play them more correctly. I don't deny build could be better with trinket mage...I could never get him to work though.
Trinket is definitely flexibility over power as his 3 mana cost is a gulp.
I do find him subtly useful when it comes to sideboard construction though. Take any given tricky deck to play against and put an artifact into the board for that matchup.... now you needn't board out the Trinkets against that deck. I appreciate him being a Stifle target that tempts the opponent before that killer Titan trigger goes on the stack, but that's a bit daft since I occasionally actually need that Mage trigger to resolve in order to stay alive.
Grats on your finish!
One little trick with OmniShow is utilizing triggers to your advantage. If you put in anything with an ETB trigger - Primeval Titan, Venser, Shaper Savant or Thought-Knot Seer to name a few - you end up with priority since you have a trigger. What this means is that you can immediately Krosan Grip your opponent's Omniscience before he or she has a chance to cast anything. The same thing applies with Sneak and Skill: if you have a trigger, you can answer their Sneak Attack before it can be activated.
Yes, you probably need Candelabra if you're running a Cloudpost deck.
I don't like to be the noob, but what kind of trigger did u have in mind for sneak attack? Obviously it would have to be a triggered ability not activated, since the priority never passes to me in the first place? Am i not seeing an elephant hiding in a strawberry bush?
Great tip. Was unaware of that would of been a 2nd out in the game. I assumed they always had priority, but if I'm only when enter then that makes sense passes to me. So should be solid on match up now. Won't make same misplay twice. Makes Krosen grips that much better against it. More I play and tweak the deck better I get. Appreciate the tip.
It's for any Show and Tell deck. If you put in something with an ETB trigger - like Venser, Primeval Titan, or Thought-Knot Seer - you end up with priority when your trigger goes on the stack. You can then do something like Krosan Grip a Sneak Attack or Omniscience before your opponent has a chance to active Sneak or cast any spells.
Yes, you probably need Candelabra if you're running a Cloudpost deck.
Okay, i have to appologize again 4 the noobish question, but are you reffering to the opponent putting in a sneak attack off of his own SnT in an attempt to activate it that turn?
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