This is beautifully written . Keep it up mate !Originally Posted by Jonathan Alexander
Hello!
After taking a year and a half off from any competitive play due to life getting in the way of Magic. I played at my local FNM legacy event though this past Friday and I came away with a official record of 3-0-1. Good enough get me a tie for first place.
Here is my list:
Mainboard
x4 Wasteland
x3 Volcanic Island
x3 Tropical Island
x4 Wooded Foothills
x4 Flooded Strand
x4 Tarmogoyf
x4 Delver of Secrets
x4 Nimble Mongoose
x4 Brainstorm
x4 Ponder
x4 Daze
x4 Force of Will
x4 Stifle
x2 Spell Pierce
x2 Spell Snare
x4 Lightning Bolt
x2 Forked Bolt
Sideboard
x2 Flusterstorm
x2 Rough
x2 Pyroblast
x1 Sulfur Elemental
x1 Ancient Grudge
x1 Destructive Revelry
x1 Vendilion Clique
x3 Submerge
x2 Grafdigger's Cage
Matchups
Round 1: 2-0 against Miracles. Big all star in game one was Nimble Mongoose. The Goose is so good in this matchup as I landed him early and chipped away at his life. My opponent was able to Terminus away the Goose at one point, but I held up a backup in hand that I stuck a new Goose the next turn. Game 2 was a similar story. Early Mongoose and not over committing to the board for a blowout Terminus. Pyroblast was an all star from the sideboard and I did get to Flusterstorm a Flusterstorm
Sideboarding: -1 Goyf, -2 Daze, -2 Forked Bolt, -2 Lightning Bolt | +2 Pyroblast, +1 Vendilion Clique, +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Destructive Revelry, +2 Flusterstorm
Round 2: 2-1 against B/R Re-animator. I lost the first game because of a weak hand to Reanimator and he killed me turn 3 or something. The other two games I landed Grafdigger's Cage on both of my turn ones after mulligans to find Cage. My opponent had no response to Cage and I beat him down with a threat eventually.
Sideboarding: -2 Forked Bolt, -2 Lightning Bolt, -2 Goyf | +2 Grafdigger's Cage, +1 Vendilion Clique, +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Destructive Revelry
Round 3: 2-0 against Charbelcher Not too much of interest to report here. I landed a Goose and had too much counter magic backup in both games. Other then that I should have brought in the Grafdigger's Cage as well as my opponent also was playing the Angel of Glory Rise graveyard combo from his sideboard.
Sideboarding: -2 Goyf, -2 Forked Bolt, -1 Lightning Bolt | +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Destructive Revelry, +1 Ancient Grudge, +1 Vendilion Clique
Round 4: Final round and we are the only players at 3-0, so, we choose to draw. We still play a casual game though and my opponent is on Miracles and I end up winning 2-0. Game one I tempo'd my opponent out of the game. I Stifle a land, play Goose, Waste them once, and kept up counter magic. Minor note, but I did Snare a Counter Balance at one point. Round 2 was a much slower start as Top and Terminus kept me from applying too much pressure. While at the same time I was able to be the control deck and prevent my opponent from getting anything going. Eventually I am able to keep a Goose on the board and prevent a Terminus with a Stifle on the Miracle trigger. Goose kicked butt again. Afterwards my opponent noted that his StP were useless and it made his Snapcasters much less potent.
Sideboarding: Same as round 1.
I spoke with a couple other players present and realized that my deck was pretty out of date (especially my sideboard). I have since made the following changes:
MD:
-2 Forked Bolt
2 Dismember
SB:
-1 Destructive Revelry
-1 Submerge
-1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pyroblast
1 Sulfuric Vortex
Worth noting that maybe 1/3 of my local meta is miracles and that influenced my choice of moving all three of these cards in. Any thoughts my new list now?
Thanks!
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Any thoughts on what Fatal Push will do to RUG? More True-Name Nemesis, less Tarmogoyf?
Need more context on this question. I don't think anything will change, the card can get spell pierced just fine.
3 week grind will start here in Portugal.
tournament trials today, sunday and saturday. And then A big tournament(portugal standards) on February(50-60 people).
Going to give Jonathan's list a spin with the following SB:
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Pyroblast
2x Rough/Tumble
1x Spell Pierce
2x Submerge
1x Sulfur Elemental
1x Tarmogoyf
2x True-Name Nemesis
2x Winter Orb
Known meta is:
1 4color loam
4-6 delvers(BUGs and Grixis)
2 Miracles
1 D&T
1 Turbo Depths
1 S&S
1 Shardless BUG
1 Enchantress
1 Infect
1 Elves
1 BR Reanimator
1 Goblins
1 Jund
1 Bant
1 Eldrazi
Any comments on the side are appreciated.
First off, thanks for the feedback everybody, it means a lot! I'm not making any promises, but after my move this weekend, I will have a bit of downtime and I might finally be able to make some video content.
I don't like Sulfuric Vortex nor Krosan Grip (disclaimer: I feel very strongly about my list and disagree with almost everything that's different barring a few slots). Sulfuric Vortex just isn't great. Miracles players are boarding Wear//Tear or Disenchant against Canadian anyway and if you only have one target, that's not going to stick around for long. I tried Eidolon of the Great Revel a while back and had a similar experience. Further, Vortex simply isn't high impact enough, nor is it efficient. I definitely wouldn't want it at two mana, and even at one mana I'm not sure I would want to have against Miracles.
Krosan Grip is in a group of cards that do things that I'm not looking to do when playing Canadian. And that thing is trying to salvage games that went terribly wrong. I think if you're at the point where you need/want Krosan Grip against Counterbalance, you have already lost. Your number one goal should be to prevent your opponent from doing meaningful things. If that's not working, it means your deck is falling apart; one Krosan Grip is not going to make a difference with that kind of draw.
If it actually is going to have impact, I am going to try putting together a list that only has creatures that don't die to Bolt, Push or Dismember. Not sure if that's possible. Outside of that, I don't think it changes much.
First off, I don't like Rough // Tumble right now. I used to think it's good against Grixis, but I have come to realise that I prefer additional spot removal against them (Seal of Fire). I also think Rough is bad vs. Death & Taxes, which many players seem to disagree with. I think Rough plays out similar to Krosan Grip vs. Miracles in that matchup (see first quote). That being said, my deck isn't set up to beat Elves, so if you expect more of that, maybe you should keep Rough // Tumble.
Sulfur Elemental is a reasonable inclusion if you expect to play Death & Taxes multiple times, but it should not come at the cost of an Ancient Grudge. The number one goal in the matchup is to attack their mana and stunt their board development; you really can't allow Vial to stick around.
Maybe Cage should be Surgical? You don't seem to expect a real presence of graveyard decks though, so maybe you can just get by playing neither. I do not mind the splash damage vs. Elves though.
Don't mind me, i'm just writing about Pauper these days: theweeklywars.wordpress.com
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The Rough/Tumble vs seal of fire intrigued me when you posted it but I never tested it. Maybe I should give it a try in the trials and take some conclusion from it.
Sulfur elemental was my tryout slot for this first tournament, I never played it on RUG and saw Kai's list with 2 so I thought to give it a go.
Maybe going for -2 Rough/Tumble +1 Grudge +1 Seal might give a more stable package.
I prefer Surgical over Cage but since so many players in Portugal don't have legacy cards, we(legacy core 4-5 players) ended up making 15+ decks and surgicals were hard to come by.
Taking Rough/tumble out might make Cage better though.
In your SB Guide you take Goyfs against D&T, do you just don't like the card in the matchup or is it to open space in the deck for the TNN?
Mongoose always seemed a bit lackluster in the MU but I always played a more reactive match against D&T with the tumbles
By all means, try out your ideas. Just don't change cards prematurely. I have spend a lot of time working out my list and my configuration isn't random. Not saying I can't be wrong and the list probably needs to be slightly adjusted now, but I generally think you should always stick to the list you want to try without making changes (this goes for every deck). In most decks there are things going on that are very hard to see without playing the list yourself. (I really hope this doesn't come off as condescending. When I picked up Miracles after Prague I also stuck to lists my friend gave me.)
Fair enough haha
Say hi to Joao Alveirinho if you run into him!
Both. Mongoose I think is great for not dying and being efficient. Mongoose things.
Don't mind me, i'm just writing about Pauper these days: theweeklywars.wordpress.com
deckstats.net archive
The great thing about this experiments is that I know I always have a list to go back to in case things don't work out or work out but worse.
Thanks for the help
Well, trial gone.
14 people at a Wednesday night is really good around here.
Meta was:
2x D&T
1x BUG Delver(Hymns)
1x BUG Delver(Stifles)
1x S&S
2x Turbo Depths
1x Elves
1x Eldrazi
1x 4C Midrange?(Noah Walker list from GP)
1x Miracles
1x Burn
1x Shardless BUG
1x RUG Delver <- ME
Can't get much more diverse than that.
List: Jonathan's Main
SB:
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Pyroblast
1x Seal of Fire
1x Spell Pierce
2x Submerge
1x Sulfur Elemental
1x Tarmogoyf
2x True-Name Nemesis
2x Winter Orb
Matchups(Borrowed cartothemax' formatting)
Round 1: Turbo Depths
Won first Game by putting a quick delver in play while countering a couple of hexmages.
Game 2 he goes for a turn 1 Needle on Wasteland and combo out on turn 3 after 2 Thoughtseizes.
Game 3 I missplay by not leaving submerge on top. I had submerge with 4 lands in play, and in the following turn was going to force the token(bolt hexmage) to submerge his marit lage, he had no forest in play. He duress me and took submerge, after a turn blocking with delver and digging for the second he had Not of this World so I was dead.
Sideboarding: -1 Counterspell, -2 Dismember, -1 Winter Orb | +2 Submerge, +1 Goyf, +1 Ancient Grudge
Sideboarding G3: -1 Counterspell, -2 Dismember, -1 Winter Orb, -1 Goose | +2 Submerge, +1 Goyf, +2 Ancient Grudge
(maybe should have brought Grudge in both play and draw. A bit lost in the sideboard for this mu)
0-1(1-2)
Round 2: Elves
Won both games in the back of a goose/delver and killing all creatures while taxing the mana. Pretty much RUG things.
We mulled to 6 on first game and in the second he mulled to 5 and I mulled to 6.
Sideboarding: -4 Stifles | +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +Seal of Fire, +2 Submerge
1-1(3-2)
Round 3: Death and Taxes
Game 1 he mulled to 5 and I started with a quick delver. He tried to swords it and I FoW and ran with it.
Game 2 I goes for mother t1, my hand is 1fetch,2volcs, fow, bs, 2delver, I am not sure on this play but I let it resolve since it doesn't affect my plan. I go for delver and he tries to play thalia next turn, I fow that. my turn flip delver to ponder and casted it. I find a daze and fow and I kept the fow. That way I can fow next play if relevant without getting my TNN 1 turn behind.
He goes for thalia again, I fow play TNN and ran with bot creatures.
Sideboarding: -2 Goyf, -4 Stifles, -1 Spell Pierce, -1 Counterspell | +2 Grudge, +2 TNN, +1 Seal of Fire, +1 Sulfuric Elemental, +2 Orb(maybe brought 1 to many?)
2-1(5-2)
Round 4: Shardless BUG
If I win this match I go to the top 4. SPOILER ALERT, I won't.
Game 1 I mulled to an uneventful 5 and he just shardless me out. I really think I should have kept my 6 cards no lander (2 goose, 1 daze,1 delver, 1 bolt, 1 bs). Opinions?
Game 2 I go for a quick Orb and attack his mana. He flooded out so mana was not an issue. However I missplayed by not submerging a goyf in response to a fetch, he had fow for it but then my double bolt would have killed it. Any creature in this +12 turn game would have stabilized since he bought nothing but lands.
Sideboarding: -4 Goose, -4 Force of Will | +2 Submerge, +2 TNN, +2 Orb, +1 Goyf +1 Seal of Fire
I really think I messed up in the Sb for this game. As soon as the match ended I checked the sb guide and It seems I got to far with it.
2-2(5-4)
In terms of the sideboard, the seal of fire was only relevant to my oponent(grew his goyf after a ts), did not miss rough/tumble against elves(albeit he mulled both games), grafdiggers gave me a safety net against elves, sulfur did not appear so I think I will play with it 1 more time to see if it impacts any game.
Any suggestions in the sb of the games please do.
And thanks for the help so far.
In case anyone wants to go to the 2nd edition of the big legacy tournament in Portugal(the event I am preparing to): http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-(2nd-Edition)
Thanks for the feedback on my sideboard changes Jonathan Alexander!
Sulfuric Vortex can definitely be hard to pay for. It's something that I have played in the past and have had the pleasure of watching it rot in my hand. It is a decent alternative threat though. It gets around all of the traditional removal of Miracles, so, I am bit surprised by how negative you are on it (even at one mana you wouldn't play it?!I don't like Sulfuric Vortex nor Krosan Grip (disclaimer: I feel very strongly about my list and disagree with almost everything that's different barring a few slots). Sulfuric Vortex just isn't great. Miracles players are boarding Wear//Tear or Disenchant against Canadian anyway and if you only have one target, that's not going to stick around for long. I tried Eidolon of the Great Revel a while back and had a similar experience. Further, Vortex simply isn't high impact enough, nor is it efficient. I definitely wouldn't want it at two mana, and even at one mana I'm not sure I would want to have against Miracles.
Krosan Grip is in a group of cards that do things that I'm not looking to do when playing Canadian. And that thing is trying to salvage games that went terribly wrong. I think if you're at the point where you need/want Krosan Grip against Counterbalance, you have already lost. Your number one goal should be to prevent your opponent from doing meaningful things. If that's not working, it means your deck is falling apart; one Krosan Grip is not going to make a difference with that kind of draw.) I am going to remove it for a Surgical Extraction though. Extraction has a lot of good utility along with being a third answer to re-animate from my sideboard.
Yeah, Krosan Grip is also a card that I have played in the past and had decent success with, but again the cost has been a problem. I do like it for the Miracles matchup, but it's great against Batterskull too (or any equipment for that matter). I did notice the lack of enchantment removal in you sideboard Jonathan Alexander. Do you just handle enchantments on the stack then? I am wondering if I should just move towards the double Ancient Grudge and move away from any enchantment removal out of the SB.
Thanks again!
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Jon can correct me if I'm wrong but I think he fully plans on dealing with enchantments with the 3 copies of spell snare and 1/2 copies of spell pierce. The relevant enchantments in legacy are CB (2), RIP (2), Sylvan (2), Animate Dead (2), Food Chain (3), Blood Moon (3), Aluren (4), and Sneak Attack (4). I used to run Krosan Grip but if you have to cast it it usually means something has already gone wrong. Theres something to be said about making the deck run better vs running average to bad cards in case things go wrong. If you really want a way to kill enchantments I would check out Seal of Primordium, grows goyf, can be played proactively, and I actually have had nice "gotcha" moments against SnT players with it.
What rlesko said.
Don't mind me, i'm just writing about Pauper these days: theweeklywars.wordpress.com
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Hey Jon,
If you expected a meta low on Miracles would you cut the 3rd Orb? If so, would you cut a sb slot or the maindeck one.... And for what?(meta compromises of mostly shaman decks)
That's hard to say. I like a card advantage / threat split card on the slot currently occupied by Orb (Sylvan Library is another example). There isn't really any single one card that's good against all the Deathrite decks either. That being said, I do think cutting one Orb is reasonable if you don't expect to face much Miracles. Maybe you can go back to the black splash for Painful Truths I had early last year? That could also be a reasonable maindeck card.
Don't mind me, i'm just writing about Pauper these days: theweeklywars.wordpress.com
deckstats.net archive
Jonathan, what are your thoughts on dropping Red entirely in favor of Black, I.e. Volcanic Island -> Underground Sea, Bolt -> Push, sideboard slots swapped for corresponding options (including potentially Abrupt Decay)?
Is Red still a major and necessary component of the deck, or is it possible that the advantages that Black present are better? Or is really just a matter of circumstance?
When I play RUG, Lightning Bolt is either directed at small creatures (and thus interchangeable with Fatal Push), or it often gets sided out against decks with few/no creatures in which case the Red part of the deck is mostly irrelevant aside from a few potent sideboard options.
I don't think I can get comfortable playing the black splash in time for the tournament. Probably going to try sylvan library on that slot(not super happy with it)
My buddy HJ is working on it, but I have yet to play a game with such a list. I want to try it, but really the only black cards I like are Painful Truths and Dismember. My big issue with the black lists is how extremely bad the removal is - you are forced to run Decay because of Chalice and Counterbalance (you don't get Grudge/Pyroblast) and then you need to split your slots between one-mana removal for turn one Delver/Deathrite/Mother of Runes and removal for Gurmag Angler / True-Name.
Maybe you can largely relegate Decay to the sideboard (which might be what you're suggesting anyway?) and then it's somewhat reasonable. Miracles does seem to be on the decline though, so maybe the Pyroblast / Orb package is not that important anymore. I'll see if I can throw together a list to play in my local(s) on the weekend.
It really doesn't change how the deck works. Just jam a few games vs. Sultai decks and see if you like Painful Truths (I think it's really good there, but I can only speak for myself).
Don't mind me, i'm just writing about Pauper these days: theweeklywars.wordpress.com
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Jonathan is reffering to this list i think:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/HJ_Kaiser
and it looks failry interesting though. obv. you change Disfigue to Fatal Pushes. I don't see a problem with Splitting the Removal. Payin 4 Life for killing DRS or Mom is totally fine i think. The biggest Problem is the obvious one. It doesnt go to the face
Right, the lack of direct damage (and occasional killing of Planeswalkers) is a major part of why Red still has a solid place in Legacy.... but then this list is replacing Tarmogoyf for Deathrite Shaman, meaning you have a creature that can do a sort of 'direct damage' regardless of your opponent's defenses. (I would opt to cut a card for a 4th DRS by the way, possibly the second maindeck copy of Painful Truths). So you're not entirely screwed even if your opponent lands something like a, say, Moat.
And as you mentioned, you could split Fatal Push with Dismember if you felt that you still needed a way to kill Gurmag Anglers and Tombstalkers, as well as being able to kill threats withinstead of specifically
I've been testing Team America with 4 Push/3 Decay, and aside from Hymn to Tourach, lack of Stifle and a different mixture of creatures, the deck is basically the same as RUG Delver and has games play out fairly similarly. I have been *loving* Fatal Push. Having reliable turn 1 removal makes the deck so, so much better against any deck running creatures, which were typically the most difficult matchups Game 1. With a decent sideboard, all major archetypes are handled quite soundly. (Leovold, Emissary of Trest is another great boost for BUG, and could just as easily fit in the sideboard of this deck).
RUG Delver is one matchup that proves to remain rather difficult for Team America, but it's made quite a bit easier and still slightly in my favor since my Tarmogoyfs remain mostly impervious to removal and can just brick-wall RUG's non-Delver threats. But if RUG drops Bolt for Push, that dynamic is going to change in a MAJOR way, and it's entirely possible that a BUG Thresh deck might be the best way of preying on the current format.
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