Heres the list from PT columbus : 7th place Ryuichi Arita
MD:60 cards
23 Land
16 Creatures
21 Other Spells
----------------
4 city of brass
2 forest
6 plains
4 brushland
3 starlit sanctum
4 windswept heath
------------------
1 academy rector
1 eternal witness
3 daru spiritualist
4 task force
4 shaman en kor
3 nomads en kor
------------------
4 eldamari's call
1 test of endurance
1 animal boneyard
1 parallax wave
1 seal of cleansing
1 rule of law
4 worthy cause
4 living wish
3 enlightened tutor
1 sterling grove
SB:
4 orims chant
1 daru spiritualist
1 eternal witness
1 nomads en kor
1 starlit sanctum
1 academy rector
1 seal of cleansing
1 energy flux
1 ensnaring bridge
1 engineered plague
1 genesis
1 isochron scepter
The main idea behind the deck is to get near infinite life as quickly as possible typically like so:
turn 1: plains, nomads en kor
turn 2: starlit sanctum, daru spiritualist
turn3: untap and let the fun begin
.....so lets go get some discussion started!
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
Just like Oysp says (click here for link), I agree with Osyp, I think Life is a great choice for the PTQ season if your attending one with a Life deck.
Plus, not a whole lot of people SB against life, but its not hugely played, stuff like Gobbos, RDW, Madness, and others are, so you might have the advantage of them not having a great SB against you
I love life, but sadly am not running it. But I do give it props for creativity and such, cos' I love combo decks.
It's also pretty hard to sideboard against this deck...
I guess damping matrix is pretty good, but that's not of much help for u/g or rdw, because they get hurt by it themselves...
Osyp mention crumbling sanctuary in his article, which might be the best option. Cards like biorythm and reverse the sands are not really helping, because they can just combo out again, so you have to get tricky by bouncing/killing a key creature and of their turn, then cast biorythm, then attack for the win, which is kinda hard.
As for the deck itself, I think it's an excellent deck, mostly because of the redundancy in the combo pieces, and the easy to fetch them...
The only thing I wonder is what exactly are you going to do if your Test gets countered/destroyed and the opponent starts casting deep analysis or something like that at you?
yeah right now I'm building this deck and so far its amazingly consistant. I'm not quite sure I get what you mean by deep analysis...am I missing something here? as for the Test of Endurance being destroyed, witness can help you there. Crumbling sanctuary is good against this deck, but I doubt its likely to see much play unless life becomes more of a deck to beat. Against sanctuary a seal of cleansing (2 after SB) should be enough to stall for the win.
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
What he meant was that UG Madness players have been delving into Crumbling Sanctuary versus Life and Deep Analysis helps them deck you, which eliminates the plus of having infinite Life.
actually, i guess it doesnt save you against deep analysis... but it makes sure you dont deck, doubles your life(as if you need it) and is of course an insane beatstick.
I still don't think it will be that big of a problem. They still have to worry about you getting your win condition out, so they can't tap all out lest you outright win, if you use a serra avatar, which I think might be an excellent addition they still have to mill you and then force you to draw which will probably mean 40 + dammage + you have atleast 2 seal of cleansings post sideboard to deal with their sanctuary after which is dealt with you could bring out that serra avatar for a presumably easy win. As for false cure, first game shouldn't be a worry, and second game you have orim's chants.
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
actually, i guess it doesnt save you against deep analysis... but it makes sure you dont deck, doubles your life(as if you need it) and is of course an insane beatstick.
Well if you have to after gaining the 'infinite' life against ug you can just weenie swarm them to death and/or use the sanctum's B ability.
btw guys.... serra avatar isn't a cleric so you can't sac it with starlit sanctum so... maybe thats not as good as was previously thought. You could sac it with worthy cause, and pay the buy back cost I guess over and over, but thats not very effective IMO. I think I'll pass on the avatar for now ;-)
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
If people are trying to deck you with deep analisys that kind of lame, say they have four copies all four with flash back aimed at you, they lose 12 life to make you draw 16 cards even the starlit sanctum could take care of 8 life(hopefully)
There's talk about 4 cards absolutely wrecking Life.
Crumblin Sanctuary - succeptable to artifact hate
Sulfuric Vortext - succeptable to enchantment hate
Biorythm - my favorite, but it's you must win that turn kind of thing.
False Cure - sneaky reversal.
My question, of these cards, are you guys worried about any of them?
If people are trying to deck you with deep analisys that kind of lame, say they have four copies all four with flash back aimed at you, they lose 12 life to make you draw 16 cards even the starlit sanctum could take care of 8 life(hopefully)
False cure: Actually, this is the most crippling as it just kills you in the combo, and there isn't anything you can do about it, unless you can combo out again the same turn in response... You could say "who the heck plays false cure anyway", because it's only use is against Life, but that goes for all these cards, except possibly vortex.
Also, it costs :symb::symb:, which is pretty hard for most decks to get available, certainly if you combo out on turn 3-4, meaning they can't spend :symb::symb: in their own turns.. this should give you a pretty clear signal they are holding it
Life has a great post sb answer to false cure, biorhythm, and crumbled sanctuaries or whatever its called lol I'm too lazy to look it up, but orim's chant stops biorhythm and false cure dead while if you are playing with the starlit sanctum you can still combo. As for the crumbled sanctuary seal of removals work along with an energy flux I suppose.
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
Yeah, but all the player has to do is get rid of the lone Test of Endurance in your deck and it's a race for who can deck who. Even if Crumblin Sanctuary only get's 5-7 cards, the might put you in the lead for decking. I like the Hatred idea in the s/b posted earlier.
If you are playing Life, and your opponent has to completely plan their win condition differently then what their deck is originally planned on doing, then you are already in the advantage.
Orims Chant dont stop False cure
Orim's Chant DOES work nicely against False Cure, and its the same way that the deck also deals with anything that says "counter target spell"
If they do respond to the Orim's Chant with a False Cure, this is the plan:
You: I cast Orim's Chant, any responses?
Them: False Cure.
You: I am finished with my turn.
Them: I begin my turn.
You: I go to 1 billion life, do you have a SECOND False Cure?
If they don't respond to the Orim's Chant with the False Cure, then obviously you just win.
Yeah, but all the player has to do is get rid of the lone Test of Endurance in your deck and it's a race for who can deck who.
And why wouldn't you just run a single copy of Serra Avatar in the sideboard of your deck to ensure that if the plan fails around Test of Endurance, that you can have an additional win condition (this excludes the obvious winning by weenie rush, which if anyone who has followed this deck knows is necessary once in a while, and very possible because you essentially have unkillable by damage creatures once you have comboed and you set it up again). The early versions of Life ran a single copy of Serra Avatar, and if the deck became hated enough that there was reasonable hate, they could easily do it again (especially since I don't think that the best version of Life is even being played by most people). The latest versions that I have seen have begun to run a single copy again in their sideboards.
Again, we are talking about completely having to take a deck out of its game by having to totally rethink their plan of attack. The 4 sideboarded cards have only one deck that they are effective against. Generally, most people would love to get more mileage out of their sideboarded cards then just one matchup, and I doubt that unless Life becomes THE deck (doubtful due to its matchup against ScepterChant in its current form, and also its matchup against Desire/Aluren) people are going to be investing 4 slots for one matchup.
Plus, not to mention that those decks that would be most helped by those sideboarded cards would be able to play them without having to totally throw their side of the board out the window (the lone exception would probably be Goblins/RDW, who could reasonably play Sulfuric Vortex, but then still has a serious problem with the fact that once they get the combo creatures out, the Life player has infinite toughness blockers). Could U/G Madness play Biorhythm reasonably? Could SuiBlack or Rock reasonably play False Cure effectively? I do not believe so.
But, I refuse to play the "If you play this, then I play this" game. I am just teling you from tournament experience what I have seen with this deck.
Again, we are talking about completely having to take a deck out of its game by having to totally rethink their plan of attack. The 4 sideboarded cards have only one deck that they are effective against. Generally, most people would love to get more mileage out of their sideboarded cards then just one matchup, and I doubt that unless Life becomes THE deck (doubtful due to its matchup against ScepterChant in its current form, and also its matchup against Desire/Aluren) people are going to be investing 4 slots for one matchup.
There's always Aether Vial to help out the Scepter Chant Matchup, but Desire/Aluren will always be the 'hope to god you can stall them long enough with rule of law', but I don't think either Desire or Aluren will be played that much this season.
There's always Aether Vial to help out the Scepter Chant Matchup, but Desire/Aluren will always be the 'hope to god you can stall them long enough with rule of law', but I don't think either Desire or Aluren will be played that much this season.
For those curious:
Aether Vial takes the U/G Madness matchup and makes it almost unwinnable for them (even if they have the naturalize, they have to do it early, which takes them off the counterspells which have a chance of disrupting the combo).
It makes Scepter Chant and Tog go from "unwinnable" to only "slightly unfavorable".
And finally, it doesn't do anything for Desire/Aluren at all.
I have been the lead proponent for Aether Vial for a long time now, and I insist that it makes for the best version of Life. I think that Life is probably the best deck to play (caveat: provided that you are anticipating less then 10% of the field being Aluren/Desire).
Aether Vial takes the U/G Madness matchup and makes it almost unwinnable for them (even if they have the naturalize, they have to do it early, which takes them off the counterspells which have a chance of disrupting the combo).
It makes Scepter Chant and Tog go from "unwinnable" to only "slightly unfavorable".
And finally, it doesn't do anything for Desire/Aluren at all.
I have been the lead proponent for Aether Vial for a long time now, and I insist that it makes for the best version of Life. I think that Life is probably the best deck to play (caveat: provided that you are anticipating less then 10% of the field being Aluren/Desire).
kashmyr I would be interested in seeing what you would play in life, would you be kind enough to post a decklist, or pm me?
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
About Face has a couple advatages over Fling, though both could work. About Face is cheaper and allows you to sac one of your Spiritualists or Task Force with the Starlit Sanctum. It also is much cheaper than Living Wish/Avatar/Fling (11 mana). With that said, both are very good possibilities, as is Rancor. I will have to test thee ideas.
Adding Red would not hurt the consistancy of the deck if one were to use Forbidden Orchards. What do you care if you give them a 1/1 Spirit Token as you are at 1,000,000 life. Forbidden Orchards would, in some ways, improve thr consistancy of the deck.
Why is Chrome Mox not in this deck? (This is not a comment, but a question)
Do you need all the cards you get in this deck? Or can't you imprint some of the enchantments on Chrome Mox. Or is it totally useless (I know that in turn one it doesn't do anything, but in turn two?)
Does anyone know other (mana)exceleration, without wasting the consistancy of this deck?
I like the deck, but i don't like making a exact copy of a deck.
I think Ghostly Prison might have a spot in this deck or side-deck, but only if it does not affect the combo...
EDIT> Or what about AEther Vial or Sensei's Divining Top?
AEther Vail looks interesting to me... i'm going to study the possebilities.
AEther Vial can be a nice addition as it helps get around some of the harder matchups such as U/W scepter control, I think thats about the only one worth playing for "accelleration" so to speak. Prison shouldn't affect the combo, but I'm not sure it does a whole lot more for you than act as a bad ensnaring bridge... but I may be wrong...looks like I'm off to go study some cards too
i played in a tournament on fridcay. i played affintiy to a sedond place finish. vial lis broken i wonws many games son th3e poever oif it.
Unless i am mistaken Oxidize, V Shaman and E Witness are showing up in just as many decks and warping the metagame as much as Affinity. They should just ban all of Mirrodin block. Onslaught was always the best block ever. I had a U/W Cleric wizard deck that couldnt be beat.
As I have jumped up and down and screamed from the rooftops, Life is SO much better with the inclusion of Aether Vial:
1. It makes the combo faster by at least a turn.
2. It makes your combo nearly immune to countermagic
3. It gives you the ability to Wish/Tutor up your creature and play it, same turn.
4. It gives more reliability against removal (you always seem to have double of one part of the combo, and being able to drop it in response is nice).
5. It improves U/G Matchup to almost unwinnable for them, and improves Tog and ScepterChant from nearly unwinnable to slightly unfavorable.
Chrome Mox forces you to give up any redundancy you do have. I believe that Aether Vial is a much more solid choice.
MD:60 cards
23 Land
16 Creatures
21 Other Spells
----------------
4 city of brass
2 forest
6 plains
4 brushland
3 starlit sanctum
4 windswept heath
------------------
1 academy rector
1 eternal witness
3 daru spiritualist
4 task force
4 shaman en kor
3 nomads en kor
------------------
4 eldamari's call
1 test of endurance
1 animal boneyard
1 parallax wave
1 seal of cleansing
1 rule of law
4 worthy cause
4 living wish
3 enlightened tutor
1 sterling grove
SB:
4 orims chant
1 daru spiritualist
1 eternal witness
1 nomads en kor
1 starlit sanctum
1 academy rector
1 seal of cleansing
1 energy flux
1 ensnaring bridge
1 engineered plague
1 genesis
1 isochron scepter
The main idea behind the deck is to get near infinite life as quickly as possible typically like so:
turn 1: plains, nomads en kor
turn 2: starlit sanctum, daru spiritualist
turn3: untap and let the fun begin
.....so lets go get some discussion started!
behold the wisdom of slidegob
Plus, not a whole lot of people SB against life, but its not hugely played, stuff like Gobbos, RDW, Madness, and others are, so you might have the advantage of them not having a great SB against you
I love life, but sadly am not running it. But I do give it props for creativity and such, cos' I love combo decks.
Truly,
- Ixi v2
ex-Moderator
Legacy love.
yeah right now I'm building this deck and so far its amazingly consistant. I'm not quite sure I get what you mean by deep analysis...am I missing something here? as for the Test of Endurance being destroyed, witness can help you there. Crumbling sanctuary is good against this deck, but I doubt its likely to see much play unless life becomes more of a deck to beat. Against sanctuary a seal of cleansing (2 after SB) should be enough to stall for the win.
behold the wisdom of slidegob
[KalmWave] [Last.FM]
Ubuntu Linux
4th place at CCC&G Pro Tour
Chances of bad hands (<2 or >4 land):
21: 28.9%
22: 27.5%
23: 26.3%
24: 25.5%
25: 25.1%
26: 25.3%
4th place at CCC&G Pro Tour
Chances of bad hands (<2 or >4 land):
21: 28.9%
22: 27.5%
23: 26.3%
24: 25.5%
25: 25.1%
26: 25.3%
behold the wisdom of slidegob
Well if you have to after gaining the 'infinite' life against ug you can just weenie swarm them to death and/or use the sanctum's B ability.
The bullet of justice caps evil's a$$.
behold the wisdom of slidegob
Crumblin Sanctuary - succeptable to artifact hate
Sulfuric Vortext - succeptable to enchantment hate
Biorythm - my favorite, but it's you must win that turn kind of thing.
False Cure - sneaky reversal.
My question, of these cards, are you guys worried about any of them?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
or a darksteel colossus...
The bullet of justice caps evil's a$$.
Life has a great post sb answer to false cure, biorhythm, and crumbled sanctuaries or whatever its called lol I'm too lazy to look it up, but orim's chant stops biorhythm and false cure dead while if you are playing with the starlit sanctum you can still combo. As for the crumbled sanctuary seal of removals work along with an energy flux I suppose.
behold the wisdom of slidegob
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
Orim's Chant DOES work nicely against False Cure, and its the same way that the deck also deals with anything that says "counter target spell"
If they do respond to the Orim's Chant with a False Cure, this is the plan:
You: I cast Orim's Chant, any responses?
Them: False Cure.
You: I am finished with my turn.
Them: I begin my turn.
You: I go to 1 billion life, do you have a SECOND False Cure?
If they don't respond to the Orim's Chant with the False Cure, then obviously you just win.
And why wouldn't you just run a single copy of Serra Avatar in the sideboard of your deck to ensure that if the plan fails around Test of Endurance, that you can have an additional win condition (this excludes the obvious winning by weenie rush, which if anyone who has followed this deck knows is necessary once in a while, and very possible because you essentially have unkillable by damage creatures once you have comboed and you set it up again). The early versions of Life ran a single copy of Serra Avatar, and if the deck became hated enough that there was reasonable hate, they could easily do it again (especially since I don't think that the best version of Life is even being played by most people). The latest versions that I have seen have begun to run a single copy again in their sideboards.
Again, we are talking about completely having to take a deck out of its game by having to totally rethink their plan of attack. The 4 sideboarded cards have only one deck that they are effective against. Generally, most people would love to get more mileage out of their sideboarded cards then just one matchup, and I doubt that unless Life becomes THE deck (doubtful due to its matchup against ScepterChant in its current form, and also its matchup against Desire/Aluren) people are going to be investing 4 slots for one matchup.
Plus, not to mention that those decks that would be most helped by those sideboarded cards would be able to play them without having to totally throw their side of the board out the window (the lone exception would probably be Goblins/RDW, who could reasonably play Sulfuric Vortex, but then still has a serious problem with the fact that once they get the combo creatures out, the Life player has infinite toughness blockers). Could U/G Madness play Biorhythm reasonably? Could SuiBlack or Rock reasonably play False Cure effectively? I do not believe so.
But, I refuse to play the "If you play this, then I play this" game. I am just teling you from tournament experience what I have seen with this deck.
Northern Ohio Gamers Forums
There's always Aether Vial to help out the Scepter Chant Matchup, but Desire/Aluren will always be the 'hope to god you can stall them long enough with rule of law', but I don't think either Desire or Aluren will be played that much this season.
The bullet of justice caps evil's a$$.
For those curious:
Aether Vial takes the U/G Madness matchup and makes it almost unwinnable for them (even if they have the naturalize, they have to do it early, which takes them off the counterspells which have a chance of disrupting the combo).
It makes Scepter Chant and Tog go from "unwinnable" to only "slightly unfavorable".
And finally, it doesn't do anything for Desire/Aluren at all.
I have been the lead proponent for Aether Vial for a long time now, and I insist that it makes for the best version of Life. I think that Life is probably the best deck to play (caveat: provided that you are anticipating less then 10% of the field being Aluren/Desire).
Northern Ohio Gamers Forums
kashmyr I would be interested in seeing what you would play in life, would you be kind enough to post a decklist, or pm me?
behold the wisdom of slidegob
Well there's always the option of splashing alittle red for About Face.
I don't see Aluren and Desire combined as taking anymore than 5% of the field, then again about 75%+ of that will be Desire.
You can just about face a spiritualist and use the sanctum to throw 1,000,002 of damage at your opponent.
The bullet of justice caps evil's a$$.
Adding Red would not hurt the consistancy of the deck if one were to use Forbidden Orchards. What do you care if you give them a 1/1 Spirit Token as you are at 1,000,000 life. Forbidden Orchards would, in some ways, improve thr consistancy of the deck.
What about adding Worship and Blurred Mongoose to the deck? Also, Dueling Grounds and Voice of All might be fun...
AEther Vial can be a nice addition as it helps get around some of the harder matchups such as U/W scepter control, I think thats about the only one worth playing for "accelleration" so to speak. Prison shouldn't affect the combo, but I'm not sure it does a whole lot more for you than act as a bad ensnaring bridge... but I may be wrong...looks like I'm off to go study some cards too
behold the wisdom of slidegob
1. It makes the combo faster by at least a turn.
2. It makes your combo nearly immune to countermagic
3. It gives you the ability to Wish/Tutor up your creature and play it, same turn.
4. It gives more reliability against removal (you always seem to have double of one part of the combo, and being able to drop it in response is nice).
5. It improves U/G Matchup to almost unwinnable for them, and improves Tog and ScepterChant from nearly unwinnable to slightly unfavorable.
Chrome Mox forces you to give up any redundancy you do have. I believe that Aether Vial is a much more solid choice.
Northern Ohio Gamers Forums