Most decks that run Emrakul are perfectly capable of hardcasting her if the game gets drawn out. Even if your opponent cheats Emrakul into play, Karakas is just delaying it a turn or two.
Someone mentioned Mangara of Corondor. Mangara + Karakas is a pretty good answer to Emrakul (of course, it's a pretty good answer to any creature that doesn't have protection from Mangara in some way).
Are we talking about the same Legacy format here? I don't think we're on the same page. The only time Emrakul in Legacy gets cast is through a Shelldock Isle, and that's still cheating the 15 mana casting cost. In Legacy, given the speed of the format, Karakas is typically a fine answer to Emrakul.
Hell, I don't think any decks other than Hive Mind run enough fetchable lands to hardcast Emrakul... and I doubt even most Hive Mind players have hard cast Emrakuls with their Grim Monoliths and Sol lands. Even if those decks did run enough fetchable lands, it would take an extremely long game to get that 15 lands out. And by then, time would already have been called. Closest I've seen my brother get with Hive Mind was 11 mana.
I don't know much about 12-post, but it seems like the kind of deck that might play Emrakul.
Elves certainly has enough mana to cast an Emrakul, and It's perfectly viable for elves to run 1 in the 75 if you're expecting grindstone decks.
Enchantress doesn't see much play nowadays, but some versions of that play Emrakul, and play their own karakas to bounce it as a win con.
Yes, Legacy has certainly changed in four years. The 12post thread (at least, the most popular thread) on The Source wasn't created until October 2012, well over a year after my post. In addition, the most popular way to cast Emrakul nowadays is via Omniscience. For a time, Emrakul was the choice for winning with Elves but it turns out Craterhoof Behemoth is just better.
Sorry I'm not sure what replying to a four year old post and correcting it accomplishes. Even though Legacy is an Eternal format, it changes a lot.
Keep in mind that my post was made when Innistrad wasn't even out. This means that Delver of Secrets and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben wasn't even legal. Even Mental Misstep was legal when I posted that. How much has Legacy changed since then?
Was (slightly) better when Survival of the Fittest was legal so you could put Iona (or in rare cases Emrakul) into the graveyard and fetch Retainers to get Iona into play for three mana. The thing is, since you need the combo early game, you don't have access to a lot of mana, so the combo itself takes about two turns to assemble (At EOT discard a creature card, fetch Iona, discard Iona, fetch Retainers, then untap, cast Retainers, put Iona into play), meaning that Deathrite Shaman would most likely be active during that time and eat Iona before you could put it into play. The fact that Fauna Shaman is the only "way" to get the combo out reliably means that all of your graveyard targets will be eaten by Deathrite before you can put it into play.
I watched the tournament on the live stream last night. It was past midnight if I remember correctly (or just before) and it seemed that there was like 15 or so people in the hall. To me it looks like everyone including the judge at the table was tired and with the fetchland revealed they just got ahead of themselves even though it would have played out the same (aside for the brainstorm seeing different cards [cards neither player had knowledge that were on top of the deck, and were in random order]).
Sam Black's match before the guy was tired and forgot Gravecrawler couldn't block, so he passed turn instead of attacking for lethal.
When it's really late and after that many rounds, I am sure most people are susceptible to play mistakes. I highly doubt it was intentional.
This is probably the most likely answer. On stream it will always look like every action a player takes is deliberate, but most of the time it's simply sloppy play. Especially if it's the finals of the Legacy Open, keep in mind they've been playing Magic for more than 12 hours. If you guys have ever played at an event like this, hopefully you'd understand how tired they likely are at this point.
Keep in mind, this is the Invitational weekend. Many Magic players have been playing since noon on Friday, getting out at 8pm each night. It's a great experience, as I've done it twice so far, but it's very exhausting! So while I'm not going to discount the possibility that it's cheating, but hopefully you guys would understand that these players are likely very tired.
Cause after 14 hours of magic people miss things. Being coherent after playing that long is pretty hard spoken from experience.
I doubt this was intentional, very minor gain at finals with everyone watching. Likely just an oversight that just got caught from the video feed because people can watch it and not be brain dead from a days worth of competative magic.
Not just 14 hours of Magic, it's been the whole weekend, especially since it looks like Jack played in the Invitational as well.
At a competitive REL: If my opponent has a Chalice of the Void with one counter out, casts a Grim Monolith, and I Spell Snare it (say, to get more cards in my graveyard for a Nimble Mongoose), and my opponent places the Monolith in the graveyard, is the Chalice considered a lapsing trigger and thus the Monolith is countered? What would happen if the person casting a one mana spell is the one that controls a Chalice with one counter?
Aren't any decks that don't have 60x of a copy of a card bad? Because even with the Surging Flames + Simian Spirit Guide deck, there's still the entire possibility of drawing 7 Simian Spirit Guides or 7 Surging Flames. Or even 1 Simian Spirit Guide and 6 Surging Flames. So the Chancellor of the Dross x 60 is the most consistent deck. If we're just talking about god hands then why are we even discussing card quantities?
Even if Magic died, people would still play it for some time afterwards. People still play Versus System even though it officially died years ago (playing with a cube is especially popular) and a group of people even took it upon themselves to create their own sets and release them (they also got some prominent VS players to test their set to ensure that it wasn't broken I think).
So even if it does die officially, it will live on.
Eh, BUG is probably one of our toughest matchups anyway. The whole point of the deck is to beat decks like ours. There's enough burn in my area to scare away any BUG players anyway so it's a matchup I don't concern myself with. Your best bet against BUG is to have all of your friends at a Legacy tournament play burn to beat all of the BUG players first
Looks like we may have another tool for Maverick... and I'm not talking about Cavern of Souls.
Ulvenwald Tracker G 1G, T: Target creature you control fights another target creature.
1/1
Pretty good, no? Seems good with Knight. Add Mom to the mix and it gets better. Add Scryb Ranger and machine gunning two creatures a turn seems pretty awesome. It also gives us a way to fight the mirror match by killing opposing Moms without losing too many cards.
How does that work? My understanding is that the card goes on the stack without ever going to your hand...
Might be confused on this though.
No, because you actually draw the card, it's technically in your hand -- it just has to physically remain separate and revealed from the other cards in your hand.
I just want to say that I've tried Gut Shot a while back and I didn't like it. It's true it's good at killing moms, but it doesn't deal with big creatures. What bugged me about it was that it's too narrow. in a big event, I want versatile Sideboard cards and Gut shot just doesn't cut it. If I had the room for it, I'd defenetely play it with the sole intent of killing mothers (it'd be worth it), but as it turns out, if you want a competitive deck, every slot must drag it's own weight and having cards in the sideboard that are answers to a specific card in a specific matchup just doesn't cut it for me...
Personally I felt that Gut Shot was pretty versatile. It really does depend on the metagame though. There was a LOT of Maverick at SCG Open: Phoenix that wasn't present in the top 16. Hell, I had three mirror matches there and two of the matches were against pilots who are far more competent than I am (Jacob Kory and Jon Kassari). Gut Shot helped out in both of those cases.
I'd rather not give the mirror match or Combo Elves an extra land with Path to Exile, and also waste an entire turn. Against Combo Elves I was able to safely pass the first turn with Dryad Arbor and still have the ability to kill one of their elves. I can still keep tempo with Gut Shot. It even has its fringe use against Dredge when I can shoot one of my own guys to get rid of Bridges; Path to Exile can't do that. It also kills Delver without being susceptible to Daze.
Having the Gut Shots also allowed me to save my Swords to Plowshares for the Knight of the Reliquary instead of the Mom against Kassari.
For me, I felt that Maverick has decent game against most of the field so that having specific answers in your sideboard isn't such a bad idea. And I predicted that there would be a lot of Maverick so I think it was a good call.
Plus with Knight + Scavenging Ooze, it's difficult for other decks to have bigger creatures than yours. And with Mom and Scryb Ranger, it's nearly impossible for them to get through on their own.
I've been trying out Gut shot for a few days. Im a bit mixed over it. Sometimes u have before Mom goes bonkers and its a house. Sometimes u draw it dead and I learned quickly to hate that. What it comes down to is you need 3 to have a chance of it in your opener because you have to kill Noble Heriarchs/Moms before they go online. Otherwise its a dead draw. Sure you can hit a Mom after they tap it, and that can be useful. Wanna know what else is more useful? Linvala. Elesh Norn. Wanna know who gets them? Faina Shaman. Wanna know who else eats the mirror? More Jittes. Gideon. Parallax Wave. These are all better than Gut Shot if your gunning to absolutley destroy the mirror and do it more definitivley.
Sometimes card availability the night before and hours before the tournament do affect your card choices. I don't like to change my deck significantly before a big tournament. Before this tournament I hadn't been able to test much Magic (maybe a weekly Legacy here or there) and I've stuck with a similar build the whole time.
How relevant was Eternal Witness? I cut her as of two weeks ago, since I felt the best she did was turn Green Sun'z Zenith into a spent Swords to Plowshares for 5 and 2 cards. That's decent utility but in all honesty I was happy with just another Pridemage.
I have to agree with razefire. Even I underestimated her like you did, but in matches where it boils down to attrition wars, she is amazing and acts like a Demonic Tutor pretty much. I was an idiot and boarded her out against Punishing Maverick but if I had her I would have been able to win game 2 against him instead of drawing it. I don't think I'll be boarding her out except in fringe cases; I've found she is almost always relevant. I also used her to fetch back a previously countered Sword of Light and Shadow against UW Stoneblade.
Eternal Witness is amazing. Your thinking of it too narrowly. She recurs any card once. Then you think about sideboard games where she can recur sideboard cards too. Its amazing versatility.
I have to try Gut Shot for the mirror, just to try it. Like 2 copies. Right now Im still enjoying 3 Fauna Shamans maindeck with Elesh Norn. Im also considering a singleton Aven Mindscensor as a bullet maindeck. I really suggest at least trying Fauna Shaman, she's another must deal with threat in the deck and compliments the tutoring engine well since she grabs any nongreenzenithable dude in the deck. Its even better sideboard when you want Linvala asap. I think Fauna Shaman is where this deck needs to be moving towards.
Elesh Norn + Fauna Shamans may be better than Gut Shot in the mirror since you're running it main deck, actually. May not need to run Gut Shot until you really want to improve the mirror match's win percentage. I used to have a Loyal Retainers from my Bant Survival days but with the Cradle this deck hits 7 mana so easy so I might try to pick up some Shamans to try that out. I don't know if you haven't posted it already but can I see your list?
If you have any questions feel free to ask. The build wasn't perfect but I liked it; maindeck Thrun was awkward since there wasn't much Stoneblade.
I'm not sure if it's been discussed to death here so I'm sorry if it has, but Gut Shot was amazing in the mirror. Let me repeat that. Gut. Shot. Was. Amazing. It kills Moms so easy. I used to run Path to Exile in its place (Gut Shot was a last minute replacement) but I didn't miss it at all. I was planning to play different decks from now on, but I just want to play Maverick more simply because I want to Gut Shot some more Moms.
I have my tournament report typed up for my website and it's set to publish tomorrow or so when it gets proofread; I'll edit my post later when it's ready, but here were my matchups and some random tidbits.
Round 1 - Won, Burn. Won both games at like 1 life. 2-0
Round 2 - Won, G/W Maverick mirror. 2-0
Round 3 - Won, Miracle Gro + Delver (Quirion Dryad), 2-1
Round 4 - Lost, Elf Combo (the guy top 8'd). Mulled to 4 game 2 with a Gut Shot and Gut Shotted him at a crucial moment and won. 1-2
Round 5 - Lost, Dredge. Mulled to five game 2 and won. Mulled to 3 game 3 and lost. 1-2
Round 6 - Won. G/W Maverick mirror. Gut Shot was awesome here, for both players. Wasteland too. 2-0.
Round 7 - Won. U/W Stoneblade. Almost lost the match due to a crucial misplay that left him at 1 life instead of dead. 2-1.
Round 8 - Won. Punishing Maverick. Mulled to 5 game 1 and won; game 2 was a draw. 1-0.
Yes, Legacy has certainly changed in four years. The 12post thread (at least, the most popular thread) on The Source wasn't created until October 2012, well over a year after my post. In addition, the most popular way to cast Emrakul nowadays is via Omniscience. For a time, Emrakul was the choice for winning with Elves but it turns out Craterhoof Behemoth is just better.
Sorry I'm not sure what replying to a four year old post and correcting it accomplishes. Even though Legacy is an Eternal format, it changes a lot.
Keep in mind that my post was made when Innistrad wasn't even out. This means that Delver of Secrets and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben wasn't even legal. Even Mental Misstep was legal when I posted that. How much has Legacy changed since then?
This is probably the most likely answer. On stream it will always look like every action a player takes is deliberate, but most of the time it's simply sloppy play. Especially if it's the finals of the Legacy Open, keep in mind they've been playing Magic for more than 12 hours. If you guys have ever played at an event like this, hopefully you'd understand how tired they likely are at this point.
Keep in mind, this is the Invitational weekend. Many Magic players have been playing since noon on Friday, getting out at 8pm each night. It's a great experience, as I've done it twice so far, but it's very exhausting! So while I'm not going to discount the possibility that it's cheating, but hopefully you guys would understand that these players are likely very tired.
Not just 14 hours of Magic, it's been the whole weekend, especially since it looks like Jack played in the Invitational as well.
Grim Monolith
Spell Snare
At a competitive REL: If my opponent has a Chalice of the Void with one counter out, casts a Grim Monolith, and I Spell Snare it (say, to get more cards in my graveyard for a Nimble Mongoose), and my opponent places the Monolith in the graveyard, is the Chalice considered a lapsing trigger and thus the Monolith is countered? What would happen if the person casting a one mana spell is the one that controls a Chalice with one counter?
So even if it does die officially, it will live on.
Ulvenwald Tracker G
1G, T: Target creature you control fights another target creature.
1/1
Pretty good, no? Seems good with Knight. Add Mom to the mix and it gets better. Add Scryb Ranger and machine gunning two creatures a turn seems pretty awesome. It also gives us a way to fight the mirror match by killing opposing Moms without losing too many cards.
No, because you actually draw the card, it's technically in your hand -- it just has to physically remain separate and revealed from the other cards in your hand.
Personally I felt that Gut Shot was pretty versatile. It really does depend on the metagame though. There was a LOT of Maverick at SCG Open: Phoenix that wasn't present in the top 16. Hell, I had three mirror matches there and two of the matches were against pilots who are far more competent than I am (Jacob Kory and Jon Kassari). Gut Shot helped out in both of those cases.
I'd rather not give the mirror match or Combo Elves an extra land with Path to Exile, and also waste an entire turn. Against Combo Elves I was able to safely pass the first turn with Dryad Arbor and still have the ability to kill one of their elves. I can still keep tempo with Gut Shot. It even has its fringe use against Dredge when I can shoot one of my own guys to get rid of Bridges; Path to Exile can't do that. It also kills Delver without being susceptible to Daze.
Having the Gut Shots also allowed me to save my Swords to Plowshares for the Knight of the Reliquary instead of the Mom against Kassari.
For me, I felt that Maverick has decent game against most of the field so that having specific answers in your sideboard isn't such a bad idea. And I predicted that there would be a lot of Maverick so I think it was a good call.
Plus with Knight + Scavenging Ooze, it's difficult for other decks to have bigger creatures than yours. And with Mom and Scryb Ranger, it's nearly impossible for them to get through on their own.
Sometimes card availability the night before and hours before the tournament do affect your card choices. I don't like to change my deck significantly before a big tournament. Before this tournament I hadn't been able to test much Magic (maybe a weekly Legacy here or there) and I've stuck with a similar build the whole time.
I have to agree with razefire. Even I underestimated her like you did, but in matches where it boils down to attrition wars, she is amazing and acts like a Demonic Tutor pretty much. I was an idiot and boarded her out against Punishing Maverick but if I had her I would have been able to win game 2 against him instead of drawing it. I don't think I'll be boarding her out except in fringe cases; I've found she is almost always relevant. I also used her to fetch back a previously countered Sword of Light and Shadow against UW Stoneblade.
Elesh Norn + Fauna Shamans may be better than Gut Shot in the mirror since you're running it main deck, actually. May not need to run Gut Shot until you really want to improve the mirror match's win percentage. I used to have a Loyal Retainers from my Bant Survival days but with the Cradle this deck hits 7 mana so easy so I might try to pick up some Shamans to try that out. I don't know if you haven't posted it already but can I see your list?
If you have any questions feel free to ask. The build wasn't perfect but I liked it; maindeck Thrun was awkward since there wasn't much Stoneblade.
I'm not sure if it's been discussed to death here so I'm sorry if it has, but Gut Shot was amazing in the mirror. Let me repeat that. Gut. Shot. Was. Amazing. It kills Moms so easy. I used to run Path to Exile in its place (Gut Shot was a last minute replacement) but I didn't miss it at all. I was planning to play different decks from now on, but I just want to play Maverick more simply because I want to Gut Shot some more Moms.
I have my tournament report typed up for my website and it's set to publish tomorrow or so when it gets proofread; I'll edit my post later when it's ready, but here were my matchups and some random tidbits.
Round 1 - Won, Burn. Won both games at like 1 life. 2-0
Round 2 - Won, G/W Maverick mirror. 2-0
Round 3 - Won, Miracle Gro + Delver (Quirion Dryad), 2-1
Round 4 - Lost, Elf Combo (the guy top 8'd). Mulled to 4 game 2 with a Gut Shot and Gut Shotted him at a crucial moment and won. 1-2
Round 5 - Lost, Dredge. Mulled to five game 2 and won. Mulled to 3 game 3 and lost. 1-2
Round 6 - Won. G/W Maverick mirror. Gut Shot was awesome here, for both players. Wasteland too. 2-0.
Round 7 - Won. U/W Stoneblade. Almost lost the match due to a crucial misplay that left him at 1 life instead of dead. 2-1.
Round 8 - Won. Punishing Maverick. Mulled to 5 game 1 and won; game 2 was a draw. 1-0.