Luminarch Ascension or other token makers are one route (storm herd is the closest to an instant win token strategy). I like Mobilization and Sacred Mesa myself, since it allows you to delay via chump blocking and come down cheaper and allow for optimum use of mana (i.e. EOT I make X number of tokens).
Eight and a Half Tails is best served as voltron and win via commander damage. Recommend Trailblazer boots and Whispersilk Cloak to facilitate unblockability, while you can use 8.5 Tails to get through its not the most efficient use of mana. I preferred to use his ability to protect him, not you get damage through. YMMV.
Crystal Ball is cheap, but the higher powered version is Sensi's Divining Top(Trinket Mage also fetches it).
Ponder and Preordain are spell version that rock socks and smooth out your bad mulligans. Not so good versions of this are Sleight of Hand, and Telling Time
Magus of the Future ad Future Sight both allow you Melek's play off the top of your deck for anything, meaning you can stop hitting the lands as necessary.
Merchant Scroll can find you most blue things you want.
Adding the cartographer was more for the finding of the mistviel plains, than the use of it really.
My deck used tithe every white fetch I could afford and expedition map to find the mistviel, relying on power creatures like Serra ascendant and figure of destiny and a bunch of utility white enchantments to keep it powered up. Also don't forget mobilization and sacred Mesa to generate tokens that are white.
My focus was on sunforger, yours on cool stuff. I don't know if you want to use my techniques, but some make it worthwhile.
Don't forget if you have tithe, it's a simple use of sunforger to find your mistveil... That's worth at least a slot if you can chisel it out. My usual play was eot sunforger out the tithe and grab the mistveil, if the opponents don't force you to use sunforger more aggressively
Ive had 2 decks with Sunforger in them, 1 of them Oros.
The biggest addition I would make is to add a mistviel plains, and figure out a way to get non creature white permanent count up...
The ability to recycle chaos warp/ obulation to repeatedly tuck is a force to be reckoned with.
To up your white count I Reccomend putting back the kor cartographer instead of the heart you replaced it with, and find room for prison term and other effects like it. Enchantments are fragile but not as fragile as creatures when you have the boardwipe machines online
Wall o Text incoming: If you want to just skip this post, take this bit of advice: PLAY WITH AT LEAST 2-3 HAMMERS MAINBOARD.
I go on a pretty big rant on the hammer, as it is now my favorite card in the deck after steam augury.
Changed the deck like I mentioned before:
MB
-3 Shock
+2 Hammer
+1 Syncopate
61st Card is a Turn/Burn. Couldn't figure out which card to put in for the 3rd shock: Turn/Burn or Syncopate... So I just added a 61st card. Sloppy, but it felt right.
SB:
Got Some Anger of the Gods, and upped my count of Counterfluxes.
Also decided to start running a few Frostburn Weirds in order to stem the bleeding from quick decks.
I didn't do that well, 3-2 coming in at 8th out of 20 odd people, but sure as **** those hammers gave me games that no other card could have. The deck stumbled on mana, and generally operated as the scalpel it is... Mono-Black killed me twice.
BEGIN RANT ON THE HAMMERS:
The reason I love the hammers so much isn't because of what they have done, but rather how it makes the deck better at what it already does quite well (without being a win-more... just fricking WIN). Every opponent that saw them were either sweating bullets or trying to race me. And after it pretty much by itself killed a Esper player that I came in 2nd to last week, people were talking about the deck, and how I killed the top dog with 6 cards left in my library. This caused everyone in the store to sit up and take notice.
I used the hammer for stemming the bleeding by making tokens so I could stabilize. I used the haste to their EOT Golem, my mainphase golem, then Lightning Strike and a Burn for a win when the opponent was at 11. I used it for the haste for a lethal Big Chimmy. And then there was the play of Burn, Burn, & Lightning Strike when young pyromancer was out creating 3 tokens and swung for the win when the opponent was at 11 at the end of their turn.
Many people playing standard these days don't know how to play against old school control, the "Draw-Go" archtype. Which is pretty much how I play this deck. It is very unnerving for them, since they don't know what you have in your hand and all they know is that everytime they try and play something, you take care of it.
But they do know now that your threats need time to mature, that Guttersnipe needs a flurry of spells to get its damage in, or Young Pyromancer's tokens can't swarm unless we cast spells at their EOT. They can do the math, and figure out how much damage we can do, and then figure out how much damage they should throw at us in order to kill us without risking their own hides.
When you play the Hammer on the field, your flash-to-bang time drops to nothing, but most people don't realize how much damage you can do.
Now they have to hold blockers back for a threat that you don't have yet. Which means you get more time to solidify your position. Or they race and leave themselves open, because they are worried about giving you more time. And when they are open, you just might have that Big Chimmy...
Or versus control: you draw, say go. They draw and say go. At their EOT, you make a golem, then mainphase a golem and swing 6. At no time did you ever tap more than 3 mana, so you have counter mana available... But you have 6 power on the table and it cost you little. It forces them try and interact.
End Rant....
------------------------------------------
Report:
Esper Control 2-0
Devotion Red/Green 2-1 or 2-0
Mono Black 1-2
Mono Black 0-2
RDW 2-1
Esper Control 2-0
Game 1: Threats come out and we counter back and forth. Eventually I topdeck a Hammer, then start forcing Supreme Verdicts since I have 10 lands and don't mind dragging out a card that he's only allowed to have 4 of out of his hand. I can draw more land if need be.
SB:
Izzet Charms and a Turn/Burn are out for Counterfluxes. Lightning Strikes come out for Frostburn Weird, thought was to overload his removal and Counters... Of which Esper has plenty.
Counters were for his endgame spells, the PWs or Sphinxs revelation...
Game 2:
This was quite a long game, he thoughtseized a hammer, and got the U/B PW out and ticked it a bunch. In a sense he was milling me out, but I got a hammer out in the counterwar and used it force a Verdict, and keep the PW in check. Things looked bleak, since he was using Nightveil Specter to play some of my spells after I gave him a mountain. But out of nowhere (and protected by Counterflux, Big Chimmy hasted and swung for 11. Fun fact: Chimmy has trample. Lots of people don't notice that.
Round 2: G/R Devotion 2-1 or 2-0
I use Hammer to stabilize by blocking and utilize YP to spam tokens, but the high quality creature that come out, drag me to 2 life, then EOT Golem, my mainphase golem, then Lightning Strike and a Burn for the win when she thought I was dead next turn.
I can't remember SBing this round, because she said it was 1-1 at this point. I forget a lot of things, but an entire game of magic is a little much. We gently argue the point, especially since I was running a stock MD which seemed a little weird for G2, but I just ran with it, and play "game 3".
This game was the standard "Heartburn" game, draw, burn profit win.
Round 3:Mono-Black splash red 1-2
Game 1: I thrash him, but its a hollow victory since he can never get above 3 mana.
Game 2: Close game, but Underground Connections buries me in card advantage.
Game 3: I mull to 5 and never see red mana. I miss 3 land drop and die to descration demon x2.
Round 4: Mono Black, full powered. 0-2
Guy was very nice, but stomped me. Like hardcore. Almost not fair hard. Like a resolved and unanswered Pack Rat will kill you hard. Don't really need to know more than that.
Round 5: RDW w/heroic. 2-0
Kinda janky, but got me to 4 each game. I bounced or burned everything and killed him.
Unfortunately last night my in laws came didn't get a chance to test the 2x hammer of Porphos...
Has anyone else tried this out?
Since I'm taking out my shocks, I'm on the fence for the last slot...
Turn/Burn is a versitale answer that is always able to be a burn spell... On the other hand syncopate was the card I most SB in in almost all my matches last fnm...
Tomorrow I'm going to replace my 3x shocks with 2x hammer of Purphos and either a syncopate or turn/burn...
It may be do nothing at first, but being able to to threaten a hasted big chimmy and also do something with the extra lands we have besides keeping them for izzet charm.
I don't want to try jace or ral zelek because I want to keep my wincins at <3 cc so we can put out stuff and protect them early-ish
If you're looking for more draw, inspiration is probably the way to go.
My playing I noticed either I had issues getting from the 3rd mana to 4th, while still playing the reacting game. After I hit 4, I was cruising from a playing perspective. When I hit 4 mana, I knew that I was golden and had no fear manawise for the rest of the game.
Meaning that by the time I got to thoughtflare and opportunity mana, I was winning since I was dropping a threat and protecting it, or at least getting value out of it.
It gets you the same CA, but doesn't let you filter it...
Ran a near carbon copy of Razerblaze's tonight for 2nd at my FNM, ~22 people.
Sideboard is Somewhat haphazard, it was the only thing I couldn't get by tonight.
I chose this deck after not playing any standard after the prerelease of Gatecrash, and spent the last week reading this forum since this was the cheapest good deck I could get on short notice.
But I may just stay with it. It did well at the shop tonight, obviously. There was a small bit of luck, but mainly did the control/ tempo thing well.
Basically Razerblaze's everything except I had no anger of the gods, and only 1 Mortars as a replacement.
I knew the head table would have Esper Control, so my last 2 slots were Counterflux.
------------------------------------------
Report:
Devotion Red? splash white for chain to rocks 2-1
Boros Jank 2-0
Slivers 2-0
RDW 2-0
Esper Control 0-2
I will start this thing off by apologizing, I may not know the names of some stuff since I've been doing legacy since gatecrash came out. I'm conversant versus big stuff in standard, but I'm not gonna look up weird stuff I haven't drafted yet.
Devotion Red 2-1
Lost the first one, mainly because I couldn't find a Turn/Burn for a reckoner that squeaked through the counterwall and only ever had shock as burn for it.
She SB in the Horse with defender that craps out tokens. I figure she was going to go into ultra burn mode and kill all my creatures again, I SB in Counterflux and Syncopate for the shocks.
G2: We kill each others creatures for a while, mainly just draw and go until someone starts and tries to do something. She squeaks out that stupid horse and it almost goes the distance. I end up turning her flyer and hitting with a 18/3 Big Chimmy.
G3: Stupid horse comes out early, I could turn/burn it into oblivion, but keep it in case the red god makes a visit. Glad I did, but had to let her get devotion via Reckoner to do so. She was removal light this game, so Guttersnipe did the most work.
Kid with Boros Jank 2-0
Boros with heroic pump spells. These weren't really games, more like advanced goldfishing. Considering these were my 4th and 5th games with the deck and 2nd match in standard, I'm ok with this.
Kid was decent, but his deck was bad. All our removal killed his stuff, and card advantage sealed his fate. Big Chimmy was the kill condition in both, but guttersnipe would have gotten there eventually.
Slivers 2-0
Haven't heard anyth9ing about competitive slivers, so wasn't too worried.
G1: He starts out with green find a land spell to fix the mana, and then curves into slivers. Shock the Mana one, burn another and lightning strike the next 2. Think I'm doing good, he's getting trouble hitting 5 mana, and I keep shooting down his things with a guttersnipe on board, so he's gonna be dead soon right?
Then he puts out the green hydra that double each time it attacks, and only have a magma jet and steam Augury.... Awkward. End up augurying out the remaining 3 gutternsipes and 2 lands. I mess up and present 2x guttersnipe and 2x lands and guttersnipe. Should have split the lands. 2x guttersnipe is what I get and I have enough to cast one, but he bounces one in response to my casting. End up casting the remaining, and taking the hit for 8. My last turn I cast 2nd guttersnipe and dome him with drawn lightning strike, for exacties.
G2: Shock the mana sliver, then he scoops to my 7/3 Big Chimmy when he just has 4 forests.
RDW
First real high powered battle tested deck, and I find out I hate the Chandra's phoenix. Syncopate is always the card you draw after they cast that damn bird.
G1: Removal and Race. I bur his stuff, then find out he saved all his removal for my guys. the 3rd guttersnipe finishes the job of 2x young pyromancers and 3x Big Chimmy. I was at 2 for 3 turns, and was straight lucky that he didn't find anything of note.
G2: I board in the voyages end so I can out tempo his after having those stupid birds crap all over the battlefield. Turns out this isn't too necessary, as he mulligans into oblivion and I utilize a playset of steam augury for maximum CA.
Esper: We were both undefeated, so we split and played for fun. He stomped me. I now see what the big deal is for that deck, and seriously wonder what this deck can do against it.
Anyway, liked the deck, but seemed too weak. Or I should say, this sucker is a scapel and everyone else is bringing machetes. Or in case of Esper a freaking handgun. I don't know if this deck can handle the jungle metagame right now, if we were in a hospital, I'd take this scapel any day every day because it is consistant and fun.
But I think we are taking the wrong blade to battle
I built and loved Zenith Hulk. It used to be stickied here, but the deck died to the printing of deathrite shaman, and to a lesser extent RiP... I think it is strongerthan your shell due to pattern of rebirth, and academy rector being the bomb...
If you do want to choose a wincon, don't utilize anything that loops through the graveyard, i.e. the reveilark kill.
Other wincons - Hedron Crab and Dryad Arbors, Blood Artists and Body Snatcher...
I'm a huge fan of innovating and trying to keep the game from suffering inbreeding by brewing.
However, this thread isn't going to do that. This is either someone that
is new to legacy and can't/won't take advice; or is a legacy veteran but loves to troll us with saying the most idiotic things possible legacy related.
For example, here are some people correcting obvious flaws, or quotes that say exactly how wrong he can be:
36 lands is a lot especially for a deck that looks extremly slow and lacking. Firestorm over swords to plowshares? Chain lightning over lightning bolt?
As for Chain Lightning over Lightning Bolt, on that one I solicited the opinion of a buddy who placed in the Top 100 in GTP Providence and regularly receives invites to DCI and Star City events.
Quote from WeaponX »
Tinfins and show decks will have a protected emrakul in play faster then your turn 6 at the earliest.
As a rule of thumb: If you are the only one who is convinced that your deck works in a given environment and you can't provide counter-arguments when someone points out OBVIOUS flaws in your logic (see: using Chain Lightning over Lightning Bolt, especiall in a deck called "draw-go", meaning you only want to do stuff during your opponent's turn, so sorceries in general should be a big no-no), then odds are that you should probably try to listen to others or you won't make any progress. Or you could try it for yourself (some people prefer learning by doing) and return to this thread once you go 0-X or 1-X in a tournament. Which you probably will with the list you provided so far.
I know, this sounds awfully demotivating, but when you come here searching for help, it's usually a good start to be willing to actually take some advice from more experienced players.
I despise fetch lands, it's a waste of a mana slot better filled by a basic land.
1. If he is a newb that is just prideful/won't take advice, he doesn't need advice; he needs to have his deck's teeth kicked in and evolve the same way that others have had their decks evolve into their present archetypes. And if he's actually right, then we have a new archetype to test.
2. If he's a legacy veteran that just delights in messing with people that are trying to help him, he doesn't need advice; he needs to go to 4chan where that type of behavior is considered good sport.
Either way, it does us no good to either argue with him and should just let this thread die a natural death.
And just in case he actually might want to learn something:
Look at flash creatures. You can cast them at Opponent EOT, and will kill someone a lot quicker that hardcasting Eldrazi. Or casting the riptide and activating it.
Vendillion Clique is a $35 card because it disrupts and is a 7 turn clock that has flash.
Vesner also disrupts both the stack and possibly bounces.
Spellstutter Sprite can counter lots of legacy spells.
Snapcaster reuses spells that you previously used and leaves a beater afterward.
And best of all, all these creatures can be bounced and re-used with riptide laboratory.
Yeah, this is mostly the plan - although I'm not sure what you mean by starting off with 'cast a second enter the infinite'? If you've already cast Enter the Infinite and lost the clash to release the ants then you already have your deck in hand and already have Emrakul.
So the situation is:
Put in Omniscience into play with Show and Tell or Dream Halls
Cast Enter the Infinite. Draw your deck. Put copy #2 of Enter the Infinite back on top of your deck
Cunning Wish for Release the Ants.
Cast Release the Ants. Bummer you don't win the clash. Your opponent has Emrakul on top of his library.
So from this situation, here's what you do:
Cast Emrakul. Get an extra turn.
Draw Enter the Infinite #2.
Attack with Emrakul.
If your opponent is still alive, cast Enter the Infinite #2. Put Enter the Infinite #3 on top of your library.
Chaining together Enter the Infinites this way allows you to keep your entire library in hand for multiple turns. This should be enough to handle pretty much everything.
Don't forget to utilize your cunning wishes beforehand to grab rushing river and bounce 2x things to make your anhilihator triggers more profitable...
Some people advocate running a SB Noxious revival as a way to concentrate the anhilihator triggers further, or to string more enter the infinites together so you have more attack phases .
Concession is a good wincon for stax decks.
Luminarch Ascension or other token makers are one route (storm herd is the closest to an instant win token strategy). I like Mobilization and Sacred Mesa myself, since it allows you to delay via chump blocking and come down cheaper and allow for optimum use of mana (i.e. EOT I make X number of tokens).
Eight and a Half Tails is best served as voltron and win via commander damage. Recommend Trailblazer boots and Whispersilk Cloak to facilitate unblockability, while you can use 8.5 Tails to get through its not the most efficient use of mana. I preferred to use his ability to protect him, not you get damage through. YMMV.
Ponder and Preordain are spell version that rock socks and smooth out your bad mulligans. Not so good versions of this are Sleight of Hand, and Telling Time
Magus of the Future ad Future Sight both allow you Melek's play off the top of your deck for anything, meaning you can stop hitting the lands as necessary.
Merchant Scroll can find you most blue things you want.
My deck used tithe every white fetch I could afford and expedition map to find the mistviel, relying on power creatures like Serra ascendant and figure of destiny and a bunch of utility white enchantments to keep it powered up. Also don't forget mobilization and sacred Mesa to generate tokens that are white.
My focus was on sunforger, yours on cool stuff. I don't know if you want to use my techniques, but some make it worthwhile.
Don't forget if you have tithe, it's a simple use of sunforger to find your mistveil... That's worth at least a slot if you can chisel it out. My usual play was eot sunforger out the tithe and grab the mistveil, if the opponents don't force you to use sunforger more aggressively
The biggest addition I would make is to add a mistviel plains, and figure out a way to get non creature white permanent count up...
The ability to recycle chaos warp/ obulation to repeatedly tuck is a force to be reckoned with.
To up your white count I Reccomend putting back the kor cartographer instead of the heart you replaced it with, and find room for prison term and other effects like it. Enchantments are fragile but not as fragile as creatures when you have the boardwipe machines online
I go on a pretty big rant on the hammer, as it is now my favorite card in the deck after steam augury.
Changed the deck like I mentioned before:
MB
-3 Shock
+2 Hammer
+1 Syncopate
61st Card is a Turn/Burn. Couldn't figure out which card to put in for the 3rd shock: Turn/Burn or Syncopate... So I just added a 61st card. Sloppy, but it felt right.
SB:
Got Some Anger of the Gods, and upped my count of Counterfluxes.
Also decided to start running a few Frostburn Weirds in order to stem the bleeding from quick decks.
Deck if you wanted to see it spelled out
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Guttersnipe
4 Spellheart Chimera
SPELLS
4 Izzet Charm
4 Steam Augury
4 Magma Jet
3 Lightning Strike
4 Turn // Burn
4 Syncopate
3 Dissolve
2 Hammer of Purphoros
8 Island
8 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
2 Izzet Guildgate
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Voyage's End
3 Frostburn Weird
2 Essence Scatter
4 Counterflux
1 Mizzium Mortars
I didn't do that well, 3-2 coming in at 8th out of 20 odd people, but sure as **** those hammers gave me games that no other card could have. The deck stumbled on mana, and generally operated as the scalpel it is... Mono-Black killed me twice.
BEGIN RANT ON THE HAMMERS:
The reason I love the hammers so much isn't because of what they have done, but rather how it makes the deck better at what it already does quite well (without being a win-more... just fricking WIN). Every opponent that saw them were either sweating bullets or trying to race me. And after it pretty much by itself killed a Esper player that I came in 2nd to last week, people were talking about the deck, and how I killed the top dog with 6 cards left in my library. This caused everyone in the store to sit up and take notice.
I used the hammer for stemming the bleeding by making tokens so I could stabilize. I used the haste to their EOT Golem, my mainphase golem, then Lightning Strike and a Burn for a win when the opponent was at 11. I used it for the haste for a lethal Big Chimmy. And then there was the play of Burn, Burn, & Lightning Strike when young pyromancer was out creating 3 tokens and swung for the win when the opponent was at 11 at the end of their turn.
Many people playing standard these days don't know how to play against old school control, the "Draw-Go" archtype. Which is pretty much how I play this deck. It is very unnerving for them, since they don't know what you have in your hand and all they know is that everytime they try and play something, you take care of it.
But they do know now that your threats need time to mature, that Guttersnipe needs a flurry of spells to get its damage in, or Young Pyromancer's tokens can't swarm unless we cast spells at their EOT. They can do the math, and figure out how much damage we can do, and then figure out how much damage they should throw at us in order to kill us without risking their own hides.
When you play the Hammer on the field, your flash-to-bang time drops to nothing, but most people don't realize how much damage you can do.
Now they have to hold blockers back for a threat that you don't have yet. Which means you get more time to solidify your position. Or they race and leave themselves open, because they are worried about giving you more time. And when they are open, you just might have that Big Chimmy...
Or versus control: you draw, say go. They draw and say go. At their EOT, you make a golem, then mainphase a golem and swing 6. At no time did you ever tap more than 3 mana, so you have counter mana available... But you have 6 power on the table and it cost you little. It forces them try and interact.
End Rant....
------------------------------------------
Report:
Esper Control 2-0
Devotion Red/Green 2-1 or 2-0
Mono Black 1-2
Mono Black 0-2
RDW 2-1
Esper Control 2-0
Game 1: Threats come out and we counter back and forth. Eventually I topdeck a Hammer, then start forcing Supreme Verdicts since I have 10 lands and don't mind dragging out a card that he's only allowed to have 4 of out of his hand. I can draw more land if need be.
SB:
Izzet Charms and a Turn/Burn are out for Counterfluxes. Lightning Strikes come out for Frostburn Weird, thought was to overload his removal and Counters... Of which Esper has plenty.
Counters were for his endgame spells, the PWs or Sphinxs revelation...
Game 2:
This was quite a long game, he thoughtseized a hammer, and got the U/B PW out and ticked it a bunch. In a sense he was milling me out, but I got a hammer out in the counterwar and used it force a Verdict, and keep the PW in check. Things looked bleak, since he was using Nightveil Specter to play some of my spells after I gave him a mountain. But out of nowhere (and protected by Counterflux, Big Chimmy hasted and swung for 11. Fun fact: Chimmy has trample. Lots of people don't notice that.
Round 2: G/R Devotion 2-1 or 2-0
I use Hammer to stabilize by blocking and utilize YP to spam tokens, but the high quality creature that come out, drag me to 2 life, then EOT Golem, my mainphase golem, then Lightning Strike and a Burn for the win when she thought I was dead next turn.
I can't remember SBing this round, because she said it was 1-1 at this point. I forget a lot of things, but an entire game of magic is a little much. We gently argue the point, especially since I was running a stock MD which seemed a little weird for G2, but I just ran with it, and play "game 3".
This game was the standard "Heartburn" game, draw, burn profit win.
Round 3:Mono-Black splash red 1-2
Game 1: I thrash him, but its a hollow victory since he can never get above 3 mana.
Game 2: Close game, but Underground Connections buries me in card advantage.
Game 3: I mull to 5 and never see red mana. I miss 3 land drop and die to descration demon x2.
Round 4: Mono Black, full powered. 0-2
Guy was very nice, but stomped me. Like hardcore. Almost not fair hard. Like a resolved and unanswered Pack Rat will kill you hard. Don't really need to know more than that.
Round 5: RDW w/heroic. 2-0
Kinda janky, but got me to 4 each game. I bounced or burned everything and killed him.
Has anyone else tried this out?
Since I'm taking out my shocks, I'm on the fence for the last slot...
Turn/Burn is a versitale answer that is always able to be a burn spell... On the other hand syncopate was the card I most SB in in almost all my matches last fnm...
What's the consensus?
It may be do nothing at first, but being able to to threaten a hasted big chimmy and also do something with the extra lands we have besides keeping them for izzet charm.
I don't want to try jace or ral zelek because I want to keep my wincins at <3 cc so we can put out stuff and protect them early-ish
My playing I noticed either I had issues getting from the 3rd mana to 4th, while still playing the reacting game. After I hit 4, I was cruising from a playing perspective. When I hit 4 mana, I knew that I was golden and had no fear manawise for the rest of the game.
Meaning that by the time I got to thoughtflare and opportunity mana, I was winning since I was dropping a threat and protecting it, or at least getting value out of it.
It gets you the same CA, but doesn't let you filter it...
Sideboard is Somewhat haphazard, it was the only thing I couldn't get by tonight.
I chose this deck after not playing any standard after the prerelease of Gatecrash, and spent the last week reading this forum since this was the cheapest good deck I could get on short notice.
But I may just stay with it. It did well at the shop tonight, obviously. There was a small bit of luck, but mainly did the control/ tempo thing well.
Deck
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Guttersnipe
4 Spellheart Chimera
SPELLS
4 Izzet Charm
4 Steam Augury
4 Magma Jet
3 Lightning Strike
3 Shock
3 Turn // Burn
3 Syncopate
3 Dissolve
8 Island
8 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
2 Izzet Guildgate
1 Syncopate
1 Turn // Burn
4 Voyage's End
3 Negate
3 Essence Scatter
2 Counterflux
1 Mizzium Mortars
I knew the head table would have Esper Control, so my last 2 slots were Counterflux.
------------------------------------------
Report:
Devotion Red? splash white for chain to rocks 2-1
Boros Jank 2-0
Slivers 2-0
RDW 2-0
Esper Control 0-2
I will start this thing off by apologizing, I may not know the names of some stuff since I've been doing legacy since gatecrash came out. I'm conversant versus big stuff in standard, but I'm not gonna look up weird stuff I haven't drafted yet.
Devotion Red 2-1
Lost the first one, mainly because I couldn't find a Turn/Burn for a reckoner that squeaked through the counterwall and only ever had shock as burn for it.
She SB in the Horse with defender that craps out tokens. I figure she was going to go into ultra burn mode and kill all my creatures again, I SB in Counterflux and Syncopate for the shocks.
G2: We kill each others creatures for a while, mainly just draw and go until someone starts and tries to do something. She squeaks out that stupid horse and it almost goes the distance. I end up turning her flyer and hitting with a 18/3 Big Chimmy.
G3: Stupid horse comes out early, I could turn/burn it into oblivion, but keep it in case the red god makes a visit. Glad I did, but had to let her get devotion via Reckoner to do so. She was removal light this game, so Guttersnipe did the most work.
Kid with Boros Jank 2-0
Boros with heroic pump spells. These weren't really games, more like advanced goldfishing. Considering these were my 4th and 5th games with the deck and 2nd match in standard, I'm ok with this.
Kid was decent, but his deck was bad. All our removal killed his stuff, and card advantage sealed his fate. Big Chimmy was the kill condition in both, but guttersnipe would have gotten there eventually.
Slivers 2-0
Haven't heard anyth9ing about competitive slivers, so wasn't too worried.
G1: He starts out with green find a land spell to fix the mana, and then curves into slivers. Shock the Mana one, burn another and lightning strike the next 2. Think I'm doing good, he's getting trouble hitting 5 mana, and I keep shooting down his things with a guttersnipe on board, so he's gonna be dead soon right?
Then he puts out the green hydra that double each time it attacks, and only have a magma jet and steam Augury.... Awkward. End up augurying out the remaining 3 gutternsipes and 2 lands. I mess up and present 2x guttersnipe and 2x lands and guttersnipe. Should have split the lands. 2x guttersnipe is what I get and I have enough to cast one, but he bounces one in response to my casting. End up casting the remaining, and taking the hit for 8. My last turn I cast 2nd guttersnipe and dome him with drawn lightning strike, for exacties.
G2: Shock the mana sliver, then he scoops to my 7/3 Big Chimmy when he just has 4 forests.
RDW
First real high powered battle tested deck, and I find out I hate the Chandra's phoenix. Syncopate is always the card you draw after they cast that damn bird.
G1: Removal and Race. I bur his stuff, then find out he saved all his removal for my guys. the 3rd guttersnipe finishes the job of 2x young pyromancers and 3x Big Chimmy. I was at 2 for 3 turns, and was straight lucky that he didn't find anything of note.
G2: I board in the voyages end so I can out tempo his after having those stupid birds crap all over the battlefield. Turns out this isn't too necessary, as he mulligans into oblivion and I utilize a playset of steam augury for maximum CA.
Esper: We were both undefeated, so we split and played for fun. He stomped me. I now see what the big deal is for that deck, and seriously wonder what this deck can do against it.
Anyway, liked the deck, but seemed too weak. Or I should say, this sucker is a scapel and everyone else is bringing machetes. Or in case of Esper a freaking handgun. I don't know if this deck can handle the jungle metagame right now, if we were in a hospital, I'd take this scapel any day every day because it is consistant and fun.
But I think we are taking the wrong blade to battle
If you do want to choose a wincon, don't utilize anything that loops through the graveyard, i.e. the reveilark kill.
Other wincons - Hedron Crab and Dryad Arbors, Blood Artists and Body Snatcher...
If you're interested...
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=333355&highlight=hulk
There was also a thread on the source, but it wasn't as good. Its established over there I think.
I know some people had dark confidant in the SB, but this is also a zombie...
However, this thread isn't going to do that. This is either someone that
is new to legacy and can't/won't take advice; or is a legacy veteran but loves to troll us with saying the most idiotic things possible legacy related.
For example, here are some people correcting obvious flaws, or quotes that say exactly how wrong he can be:
1. If he is a newb that is just prideful/won't take advice, he doesn't need advice; he needs to have his deck's teeth kicked in and evolve the same way that others have had their decks evolve into their present archetypes. And if he's actually right, then we have a new archetype to test.
2. If he's a legacy veteran that just delights in messing with people that are trying to help him, he doesn't need advice; he needs to go to 4chan where that type of behavior is considered good sport.
Either way, it does us no good to either argue with him and should just let this thread die a natural death.
And just in case he actually might want to learn something:
Vendillion Clique is a $35 card because it disrupts and is a 7 turn clock that has flash.
Vesner also disrupts both the stack and possibly bounces.
Spellstutter Sprite can counter lots of legacy spells.
Snapcaster reuses spells that you previously used and leaves a beater afterward.
And best of all, all these creatures can be bounced and re-used with riptide laboratory.
It utilized Young Pyromancer and Lingering souls to power out the Opposition fodder / Beatdown (with Intangable Virtue).
Should that mean I go closer to dark maverick or just utilize sylvan library as my card advantage of choice?
Don't forget to utilize your cunning wishes beforehand to grab rushing river and bounce 2x things to make your anhilihator triggers more profitable...
Some people advocate running a SB Noxious revival as a way to concentrate the anhilihator triggers further, or to string more enter the infinites together so you have more attack phases .