MTG Salvation

Wow. I take a long break from MTG and come back to find Gitaxian Probe is banned. I'm fairly certain that card was unique in what it did so I doubt there is a reasonable direct replacement and if there was WoTC would have probably banned it already for the same reasons Probe got the ban hammer.

How viable are Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble as pseudo replacements? I've done a search and there are no other free blue cards that let you draw a card. I was hoping to find some other blue card to at least be able to keep FoW in there but that doesn't look like it's gonna happen.

Quote from havesome2

I would say play Standard, if nothing else is available. Legacy is certainly more fun in theory, but not always in practice. My store plays Legacy every other week and the same eight or nine people show up with the same decks. Because of this, I play Standard and Modern. At least I occasionally see new brews in these two formats.

That's a shame you only see a handful of decks. The number of viable decks in Legacy is pretty high. However, being able to assemble multiple decks can be expensive.

Quote from jeremylin

Finally won my first serious match with this deck- it's great. a few thoughts

I've opened with chancellor in every game that I've won. 3 is a good number, but I really want 4 even though that might be pushing it.

how about basking rootwalla in here? or Anger?

Running 4 Chancellor of the Annex doesn't appear to be as crazy an idea as you think. I don't personally have much experience with this deck but it made a really good showing at SCG a couple of weeks ago (as posted by someone else earlier in the thread I think). Here's the list:



As you can see he ran 4 Chancellors and placed 7th. Not bad.

I'm going to wild guess that he probably sided out the Chancellors frequently for games 2 and 3 though.

I already own a play set of Dark Confidant and recently traded into a play set of Thoughtseize and now I'm trying to think of competitive decks I could build using them.

What's good in general right now? I have most other Legacy staples as well.

Thanks

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who hasn't had problems with Ultra Pro. Yes, they may not be the highest quality ever but they sure aren't the total garbage everyone is making them out to be. I've literally never had one split and I mash shuffle as much as the next guy.

Regarding seeing through the back of Ultra Pros I've noticed that anything other then black can be seen through slightly. Especially white. For this reason I only use the black sleeves when I buy Ultra Pro.

Quote from Sengir Minion

Rignes's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures (45) 4 Balustrade Spy 3 Chancellor of the Annex 1 Flayer of the Hatebound 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Golgari Thug 4 Ichorid 4 Narcomoeba 4 Nether Shadow 4 Phantasmagorian 4 Shambling Shell 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Street Wraith	Spells (15) 4 Bridge from Below 4 Cabal Therapy 4 Dread Return 4 Gitaxian Probe	Sideboard 4 Leyline of Sanctity 4 Contagion 4 Mindbreak Trap 2 Sickening Shoal

ok so would this be an ideal list ignoring the sideboard? I really liked the idea of fitting in the 4th Therapy maindeck, but it seemed like the only card to cut as others have stated was the 4th Chancellor, which is what had initially caused me to take a second look at that slot.

Interestingly enough I was a hair away form playing this deck at SCG Philly. My sideboard was pretty much 4x Contagionand a bunch of Dread Return targets with various Enter the Battlefield effects. Though I have to say the sideboard with the 4x Leyline of Sanctity seems interesting. I'm not playing much MTG and when I do it hasn't been dredge so I'm agonizing over what a good sideboard is a bit.

I may pick up a 4th Chancellor though as having that opening hand more often seems like an almost necessary thing to compensate for our lost first turn.

Quote from ajfirecracker

I know for sure not everyone agrees with me, but I think 3 Phantastagorian is more than enough - you might playtest with that cut instead.

I think it's good to leave in the 4 of for the first game and side one out for games 2/3 if necessary.

I think Spooky said he thought the Chancellors and 1 Ballustrade Spy were the flex slots but I was also counting one of the Pantasmagorians as a flex as well giving 5 potential slots to side in better things.

Now that this deck made a good showing at a big event how long do you think before it's hated into oblivion?

Quote from Tru3z3rox

But it is contra to the entire point of force of will. It allows us to drop threats and attack while keeping the mana open. I wouldn't suggest running 1, but maybe 3 is okay.

Running counterspell is possible depending on your mana base, but with 8 colorless lands it could prove quite difficult.

I'm trying out a counter package of 4 Force of Will, 3 Daze, 2 Spell Pierce, and 2 Counterspell. I've played a couple of games and it seems to be running OK but I've not played a ton of games with it yet. I've been happy to have a hard counter beyond FoW the times I've gotten the Counterspell plus with it only being a two of chances are there'll be two Islands in play before I get it.

Not sure I'll keep it this way but so far I like it. I'm not quite willing to drop the forces like that guy did in the most recent SCG Philly. As was already said going to 3 may be OK. I thought about dropping to 3 Forces and pumping the Spell Pierce to 3 but haven't tried that yet.

The length of games is exactly who I've been tending away from this deck in big events. I love the deck but I just get so mentally exhausted after a few rounds. Plus I get little to no time between rounds which makes it hard to get lunch in a 9 around event.

It does take the complexity of decision making to an much higher level for the opponent though.

Quote from rujasu

Price of Progress is well-positioned as long as people keep running greedy decks with four-color manabases. I'm running 3 MB and the other SB. It's the MVP of the deck in matchups like Deathblade and BUG.

Goblin Guide was underwhelming in the last Open I played. Not sure if we should be running it.

I sometimes feel the same way. The only time I like seeing Goblin Guide is in my opening hand. If I draw him later I just wish he were a burn card or a counter.

Do you have any thoughts on what to replace him with?

Yeah, Dredge is one of those decks based on what I've researched that you take into a meta that's soft on Graveyard hate. If dredge does well then the next event everyone has more grave hate.

So, it's one of those decks you randomly bring out, kick butt with, then put away for a while until the grave hate slows down.

Manaless just scoops to Leyline of the Void unfortunately.

Quote from LandBoySteve

I don't know one deck that plays Birds in Legacy. All the more reason for it to not be so much money. But yet, there it is. $300.

That's why this whole "Kill the RL and reprint cards will kill Magic" is a load of crap.

There is no evidence in this game to support this other than Chronicles, which was a blatant mistake. A Legacy Masters would be perfectly fine.

This whole argument against it is just Legacy haters and sour grapes.

The problem with Chronicles is they printed a ton of them... And I mean lots. If it had a limited print run like MM then the prices for the in demand cards would likely drop a bit and then climb back up.

The trick would be to print under the amount needed to meet the demand. In other words, if demand is at level X then reprint at X - 1 which leaved demand for the card. If you flood the market with so much that it exceeds demand like Chronicles did then it wrecks the card prices. This is exactly what they did in Modern Masters.

I still contend that MM may be a test by WotC to see how the market reacts to reprints with the long term to either modify how the RL works, remove cards from it, or abolish it all together.

WotC will not suddenly do anything. They are a smart company overall and will make sets like MM to gather data and once they have enough to make a decision then they will decide on how to handle the RL.

That is if it's even anything they are thinking about. The motivation for MM may (and probably does) have nothing to do with the RL.

Quote from Tybalt

What would happen if 10,000 underground seas got put up for auction today on eBay? You know the answer to that, pretending you don't doesn't change the truth.

I'd buy a load of them and wait for the market to recover. Then sell them off.

Just for giggles I did a quick Google search for the number of words the average person knows. I came up with the following:

An estimate of how many English language words does the average person know/use is typically in the realm of 12,000 - 20,000 words, varying with the level of education achieved. Some say college/university graduates use upwards of 20-25,000 words. These estimates apply to natives of the English language.

Now let's all take the test at Test Your Vocabulary (Google it to get the URL) and post our results. I think we'll find that most of us are average to above average here.

I came in at 23,900 words. Not bad I guess.

Wow, what a fun heated debate!

So, I'm not an expert, but markets are kept in check with regulation as I understand it. Over long periods of time regulations change to meet what the needs of the current times are. The Reserve List is in a sense a regulation keeping card prices for select cards from dropping dramatically. If I remember my Magic history correctly this was due to outcry from the flooding of reprints of old cards when Chronicles was printed.

I find myself wondering if things like Modern Masters aren't a part of a larger experiment in seeing how the market reacts when older expensive cards are reprinted in the correct way. One example as I've said before is Tarmogoyf. It's value has gone up since the reprinting in Modern Masters. Now, this is one data point only and may just be an anomaly but I contend that over time as WotC does more Modern Masters like sets they will eventually learn the best way to do reprints and will eventually lead to the Reserve List being revoked.

In fact, over time, if WotC does the MM reprints correctly and shows over and over again that card values are not negatively impacted with such reprints players and collectors will see this and gain confidence in knowing the Reserve List isn't necessary.

Like any other market FUD causes volatility and WotC can eliminate that doubt if they play their cards right (pun totally intended!).

Quote from chainedcurses

Ok, so I'm currently running the list from the "Lands are for Losers" Squandered Resources article. I have no sideboard and I have no idea how to not just auto-lose when my opponent mulligans down to Leyline or RIP. Can anyone provide me with any assistance? This is the first legacy deck I've actually finished and I love the deck. I plan on trying to take it to my local weekly legacy event, but I just don't have a good enough SB plan to want to do that. "Local" for me is near 50 miles away and it requires alot of pre-planning on my part in order to go, so I would like to try to not make such a long trip for nothing. Help please?

I've agonized over the sideboard as well. Trouble is what I've come up with has not been tested and I have little experience with the deck. I've previously posted it but I've tweaked it since so I'll post the current form again along with my logic (flawed though it may be) on why I chose the card.

4x Contagion - I chose this for creature removal obviously. I'm thinking any of the creatures that are popular now like Deathrite Shaman, Dark Confidant, Delver of Secrets, and Stoneforge Mystic. I've seen seen Sickening Shoal used in place of or in addition to this one I guess depending on meta.

1x Blightsteel Colossus - Just so I don't end up decking myself with a Balustrade Spy. I read somewhere that even if you do deck yourself out you can still bring back Ichorid and Nether Shadow during your upkeep which may be enough to kill your opponent before you get to your draw step and loose so I'm not sure Blightsteel is 100% necessary.

1x Flame-Kin Zealot - An alternate wincon. If the opponent would have a to stop you from targeting them then it lets you kill them with hasty zombies. Maybe should be in the main deck.

1x Terastodon - For troublesome card removal. Maybe better as an Angel of Despair?

1x Ancestor's Chosen - Can put you out of range of a storm spell or burn buying you a few extra turns to go off and win.

1x Stormtide Leviathan - A creature control option, obviously not good against Merfolk.

1x Blazing Archon - Stops creature attacks.

1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress - For Merfolk mostly.

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - More creature control. I'm thinking Dread Return this after you've made a handful of tokens and it wipes out some or all of their creatures while making your zombies 4/4. Of course, it will probably exile all your Bridge from Below but I imagine that if done right it rocks. Never got it going myself though.

1x Iona, Shield of Emeria - Really puts the hurt on Mono Colored decks or locks a multi-color deck out of a key color if you know which one to choose.

1x Sphinx of the Steal Wind and 1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath - Mostly just because they are big beaters with tons of abilities that may be relevant.

That's it. Like I said, it's untested. I've only played in one event and that was a small one where I went 2 - 2. If anyone who is a regular on this thread comments you'd probably do better to listen to them, though there really hasn't been much action here lately.