This list in the opening post seems sorta hilarious if you replace Emrakul, Blasting Station, and Sharuum with Laboratory Maniac, Azami, and Angel of Glory's Rise. Cutting something else (thoughtseize?) allows you to play something along the lines of Teferi as an extra human to rise up with Azami and Lab Man. Further, your sb plan can stay roughly the same or switch into multiple copies of Lab Maniac + Thought Lash (ignoring the graveyard requirement).
The best part is that you begin your combo by announcing that you want to mill yourself until you flip Emrakul.
Anyone interested in playing legacy tonight? I really want to play, but dont feel like doing FNM, we can always go to a shop and just do something on the side if that's easiest.
Where abouts? I'm on the North Shore of Chicago near I-94.
you have tundra's and chants? It's a possible way of avoiding playing without thoughtseizes without affecting the mana-base drastically ( yes, it affects the manabase, but within acceptable range, since you'll still be relying on your basics and just got off T3 or T4 with chants.)
Along this line, Silence is generally cheaper than Chant. You might also look into the green splash since Xantid Swarm is generally cheap (avoid Autumn's Veil though, it doesn't affect matchups like you want it to).
Have you ever played Vintage? There is no way the DCI will unban library, its power level is through the roof. A turn 1 unanswered library will win the game 90% of the time, its sheer card advantage is overwhelming. Not to mention the fact that it costs a lot of money, and when everyone will want to put 4 in pretty much every non-aggro deck (I know for sure that I will), they're going to be near impossible to find without selling a vital organ.
Library has a lot of issues in Legacy and is often cut in faster vintage metagames. It gets noticeably worse when the metagame has a boatload of Duress in it since turn 1 library can lead to you wasting a land drop and a turn while you're busy being defenseless outside of Force of Will.
Drawing cards for the sake of drawing cards isn't always (maybe usually isn't) a good idea. If you lead with Library on the draw, the more benign plays you face are Survival of the Fittest, Counterbalance, Hymn, and Standstill while the really busted stuff involves TES or ANT just going Duress you, kill you.
I'm not saying it wouldn't see play and wouldn't dominate control mirrors, but discard is real in legacy and the format is extremely fast. Spending your first turn drawing a card without the option of casting Spell Snare/Spell Pierce/STP is extremely bad. Hoping that your opponent is gracious enough to not play threats so you can make land drops and draw off library in the early game is delusional.
No emidln you're right unbanning gush seems alright I'll call up the DCI right now and suggest it to them. The card seems legit.
Canadian thresh would use gush I can guarantee it. You put it in place of ponder for obvious reasons and you have canadian thresh a tier 1 deck again. Or you stick it in UGB or UGW tempo thresh.
Also gush in DDFT would make it super consistent on turns 2-3. Like unreal consistent. It can't go off turn 1 save a god hand of course but gush is so good in DDFT.
And ANT hates gush. Its like flipping an ad nauseam with an ad nauseam. You don't want that to happen...
Also Belgareth what's Aether Tower? Never heard of that deck but it sounds funny.
While you're there, I could probably find a slot or two for Yawgmoth's Will and a Necropotence or four. If you have time I mean.
Aether Tower was a stax deck I designed a lot time ago as a solution to the goblins metagame. It played Aether Flash, Rolling Earthquake, and Pyroclasm to suppress swarm aggro decks along with Smokestack and Ensnaring Bridge to mop up the fat aggro decks. I used Sylvan Library for consistency and generally killed with Mishra's Factory, Barbarian Ring, and, later, Words of War/Wilding. It had the standard Chalice/3Sphere/Wasteland disruption.
If we want to improve this deck, I'll take any of bazaar, workshop, mana crypt, sol ring, or mana vault. Bazaar would probably be the best since it wouldn't help out anyone else other than dredge (and you can crush dredge with proper boarding and design).
I've been working on a new website, www.DeckDB.com for awhile now to get a good base to build on. We were able to scrape caches to preserve the old deckcheck archive (not as important for standard as Scars has caused a rotation) and are beginning to automatically import decks from mtgo and magic-league as they become available. This is being done in addition to user submissions. The site doesn't look the greatest as I am not a web designer, but it does seem to be reasonably fast and I'm adding features all the time (for example, RSS feeds by Format and by Archetype).
I have a disclosure. I am not a Standard player. I don't have much of an interest in keeping up with Standard (or Block or Extended) formats meaning I'm going to be awful at categorizing Archetypes. I'd like to find a small group of volunteers to use my admin interface for standard (or block or extended) to publish the decks that are submitted to the site. The admin interface lets you sort by unpublished events, view events, and modify archetypes in line. If the appropriate archetype doesn't exist in a drop down box, there is a green plus sign to add a new one (window pops up and you type in a name and select the format).
If anyone is interested in helping out, you can send an email to [email]emidln@gmail.com[/email], find me on AIM (Ace50003), MSN (emidln@hotmail.com), or Google Talk (emidln@gmail.com) as well as send me a private message on these boards.
For what it's worth, I have a backlog of mtgo standard decks from daily and premier events since Oct 19 that is approaching 100.
Also if you have ideas or suggestions, please let me know.
Jimbo... there is nothing wrong with broken cards. It's all part of the game. I dont think Demonic Consultation is that "good" because I've got burned by the card several times in the past and in some games I was Demonic Consultation for a land. Also for ANT or TES to use Demonic Constultation they need to play more then one of each card, the new rules on exile pervents anybody to retrieve any of the exile cards. What made Demonic Constultation so broken before was the wish cards... You cannot use the wish cards on exile anymore.
lol... yesterday it was countertop, today it's survival... who knows what's tomorrow is...
While we're at it, might as well errata Demonic Contract to RFG a card instead of ante so we can unban that along with Lotus, Will, and Twister. Bazaar and Workshop would probably be pretty fun since we're making this vintage++
Ivory tower? Really? To counteract vise? How about this to counter vise:
Nature's claim G
Instant
Destroy target artifact or enchantment. Its controller gains 4 life.
Or this.
Crumble G
Instant
Destroy target artifact. Its controller gains life equal to its cmc.
Or, god forbid people run this card:
Spell Pierce U
Instant
Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays 2.
Black vise is an okay card that pressures combo decks with ad nauseam to go off sooner and can kill control decks by resolving and sticking too long but at the same time black vise on turn 1 is no more broken than turn 1 nacatl/lynx followed up with 3+ damage on turn 2. Against opposing aggro decks vise is very subpar especially in topdeck mode drawing vise isn't exactly stellar.
I don't think wizards will unban mana drain just because they're so afraid the card will break the format in two. Seriously, they feel this way about way too many cards. When I look at the banned list and see land tax, earthcraft, worldgorger dragon, windfall, frantic search, and mind twist on there I laugh to myself and say "Some day in the future I might be able to play this card, but not today."
The meta right now is still in flux; I'm not sure if aggro will come out on top but combo, aggro, and control all have a chance to come out on top as champions of the format. Right now vengevine survival is the hotness until people adapt and start fighting the deck effectively. Countertop is on the decline true but that's because VV survival crushes countertop. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a resurgence in dreadstill simply because it has a good MU against vengevine.dec and other combo centric decks hate to face dreadstill because a 12/12 on turn 2 makes ad nauseam pretty bad I hear.
You heard wrong. If dreadstill does anything other than play counterbalance or pass the turn on turn 2 they tend to lose.
The best part is that you begin your combo by announcing that you want to mill yourself until you flip Emrakul.
Where abouts? I'm on the North Shore of Chicago near I-94.
Along this line, Silence is generally cheaper than Chant. You might also look into the green splash since Xantid Swarm is generally cheap (avoid Autumn's Veil though, it doesn't affect matchups like you want it to).
Force of Will is the most common thing you want to take with Thoughtseize.
Library has a lot of issues in Legacy and is often cut in faster vintage metagames. It gets noticeably worse when the metagame has a boatload of Duress in it since turn 1 library can lead to you wasting a land drop and a turn while you're busy being defenseless outside of Force of Will.
Drawing cards for the sake of drawing cards isn't always (maybe usually isn't) a good idea. If you lead with Library on the draw, the more benign plays you face are Survival of the Fittest, Counterbalance, Hymn, and Standstill while the really busted stuff involves TES or ANT just going Duress you, kill you.
I'm not saying it wouldn't see play and wouldn't dominate control mirrors, but discard is real in legacy and the format is extremely fast. Spending your first turn drawing a card without the option of casting Spell Snare/Spell Pierce/STP is extremely bad. Hoping that your opponent is gracious enough to not play threats so you can make land drops and draw off library in the early game is delusional.
While you're there, I could probably find a slot or two for Yawgmoth's Will and a Necropotence or four. If you have time I mean.
Aether Tower was a stax deck I designed a lot time ago as a solution to the goblins metagame. It played Aether Flash, Rolling Earthquake, and Pyroclasm to suppress swarm aggro decks along with Smokestack and Ensnaring Bridge to mop up the fat aggro decks. I used Sylvan Library for consistency and generally killed with Mishra's Factory, Barbarian Ring, and, later, Words of War/Wilding. It had the standard Chalice/3Sphere/Wasteland disruption.
If we want to improve this deck, I'll take any of bazaar, workshop, mana crypt, sol ring, or mana vault. Bazaar would probably be the best since it wouldn't help out anyone else other than dredge (and you can crush dredge with proper boarding and design).
I CAN HAZ A GUSH PLZ?
I've been working on a new website, www.DeckDB.com for awhile now to get a good base to build on. We were able to scrape caches to preserve the old deckcheck archive (not as important for standard as Scars has caused a rotation) and are beginning to automatically import decks from mtgo and magic-league as they become available. This is being done in addition to user submissions. The site doesn't look the greatest as I am not a web designer, but it does seem to be reasonably fast and I'm adding features all the time (for example, RSS feeds by Format and by Archetype).
I have a disclosure. I am not a Standard player. I don't have much of an interest in keeping up with Standard (or Block or Extended) formats meaning I'm going to be awful at categorizing Archetypes. I'd like to find a small group of volunteers to use my admin interface for standard (or block or extended) to publish the decks that are submitted to the site. The admin interface lets you sort by unpublished events, view events, and modify archetypes in line. If the appropriate archetype doesn't exist in a drop down box, there is a green plus sign to add a new one (window pops up and you type in a name and select the format).
If anyone is interested in helping out, you can send an email to [email]emidln@gmail.com[/email], find me on AIM (Ace50003), MSN (emidln@hotmail.com), or Google Talk (emidln@gmail.com) as well as send me a private message on these boards.
For what it's worth, I have a backlog of mtgo standard decks from daily and premier events since Oct 19 that is approaching 100.
Also if you have ideas or suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Brandon Adams
emidln on most forums
sba on MTGO
While we're at it, might as well errata Demonic Contract to RFG a card instead of ante so we can unban that along with Lotus, Will, and Twister. Bazaar and Workshop would probably be pretty fun since we're making this vintage++
You heard wrong. If dreadstill does anything other than play counterbalance or pass the turn on turn 2 they tend to lose.
To test:
Visit http://www.deckdb.com/, select a deck, then click the "Download as MTGO Text" link at the bottom. Now try to load the resulting file in mtgo.
Thanks!