I haven't read the article but I am glad there is some comparison of TE's list to Kurpaska's. I have been playing pask's (it's easier this way) list since he came second. I condescended to pask's list to gather intel to add to any derision and have a private chortle that a "pro" could be so amateur (pronounced with a hard "t", in this case).
The thing is, I have been ripping it up. 8-2 to Jund, 5-0 Elves, 2-0 Shardless BUG, 3-0 Team. I want to stop playing with it so Flickerwisp can make its "I'll be back" moment come true but my wins, my wins! I am so sorry Flickerwisp, I know this betrayal runs deep. Oh strange moth of my heart, please forgive me!!!
Oh, and I agree with the manriki analysis, sweet logic!
1. It's not always a case of Jitte vs Jitte. Sometimes you get Jitte, but then they get their Batterskull to go over the top. In this case, Manriki is much better.
2. I might not be articulating this very well, but we should not value Jitte as highly as our opponent. Jitte is better against D&T than probably any other deck in the format. At least Elves can race or grab Progenitus. So because the card is better against us than it is against them, we have to prioritize our cards differently than they do. Esper or UWR wants to get it online as early as possible, to lock us out. We need to be one step ahead of that, and make them expend more resources to accomplish their goal.
I'm not really defending the card. It's obvious that Manriki is much better in a deck like Deadguy. But I've been on both ends of it, and it seems to me that Manriki is a great way to fight Batterskull while also stalling into a more permanent answer to Jitte. But Relic-Warder is probably better if you just want to fight Jitte straight up.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
With 3x flickerwisps, we essentially have 7x stoneforge mystics if we need them. I honestly think manrikiri is the key to winning the deathblade matchup (or stoneblade). I'd much rather have a slightly buffed creature and no jitte, than an opponent's jitte with counters on it. But of course, I like disenchant much more, for the sake of its flexibility.
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Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
I haven't read the article but I am glad there is some comparison of TE's list to Kurpaska's. I have been playing pask's (it's easier this way) list since he came second. I condescended to pask's list to gather intel to add to any derision and have a private chortle that a "pro" could be so amateur (pronounced with a hard "t", in this case).
The thing is, I have been ripping it up. 8-2 to Jund, 5-0 Elves, 2-0 Shardless BUG, 3-0 Team. I want to stop playing with it so Flickerwisp can make its "I'll be back" moment come true but my wins, my wins! I am so sorry Flickerwisp, I know this betrayal runs deep. Oh strange moth of my heart, please forgive me!!!
Oh, and I agree with the manriki analysis, sweet logic!
8-2 against Jund!?! If that Jund list was running Punishing Fire (which I assume it was), you have my attention. I'll sleeve up that list and give it a go.
Okay, now that this is finally up, I can post this. I talked about this with Brad yesterday (I just moved to Roanoke), and D&T is getting even more hype!
2. I might not be articulating this very well, but we should not value Jitte as highly as our opponent. Jitte is better against D&T than probably any other deck in the format.
does anyone else disagree really strongly with this statement? Phyrexian Revoker, Mother of Runes and first strikers are all perfect against Jitte, and D&T plays more of those cards than any other deck in legacy
I feel sorry for those of you who have yet to buy 1-2 horizon canopies, because now they are expensive as hell.
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Why was there such an increase in the price? I kinda missed that. I'm happy that I already have two ^^.
Bogle.dec !
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I think what a few people are missing about Jitte is Flickerwisp it can bounce their jitte pre combat and if you have two in hand and enough to cast them then you can respond to their response of removing counters. It's a huge 2-1 but it can work. its why i run 4 wisp in my list.
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"You can't stop the signal, Mel." - Mr. Universe
If wizards would print a green, black and white version of Hydroblast and Blue Elemental Blast Painter could be done in every color.
My meta has calmed down on the hate from what I can tell. Partially because I've been running Burn.
I am sleeving up Ol' Faithful in some shiny new Matte Brown KMCs (testing out KMCs, people seem to like them. I've been impressed with them) for the Oakland Grand Prix "win a mox" side event. I am expecting the mirror, so I am playing 61 cards so I can fit in more mirror tech (Avengers and 1x Fiend Hunter). I am seeing about putting a gut shot into my sideboard if I can find room.
With starcity suddenly becoming a lot smarter on deck choice (Read: Not Deathblade, and a lot more Death and Taxes), and thus starting to push our deck, we need to figure out anti-mirror shennanigans
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Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
8-2 against Jund!?! If that Jund list was running Punishing Fire (which I assume it was), you have my attention. I'll sleeve up that list and give it a go.
Yes, it's the PF version but it's simply too slow to deal with the aggro. We are not control in this match up we are aggro flooding the board with threat after threat. All the threats overwhelm their tools. (Ok, his tools - mayhaps he wasn't the world's greatest player but one of the wins was because I kept a whiteless hand to see how resilient DnT could be in the match-up...)
One thought that crossed my mind, was possibly a transformational board "Chaos, Control, Chaos, Control."
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Legacy
Death and Taxes
UG Infect
Strawberry Shortcake Imperial Painter
Honestly the mirror is a hilarious thing to play, and it really comes down to whoever has the best experience with playing the deck. It pays off for knowing every single activation and combination the deck can put together.
Vial is indeed the most important thing, as whoever gets one online first has control of the game as it is the closest unfair thing we have in the deck. The most important thing to do is if we don't have a vial, ensure we can get a Mom and revoker in play. The deck does have that issue where since we run so little spot removal and the fact the protection shuts down a lot of combat tricks such as jitte.
does anyone else disagree really strongly with this statement? Phyrexian Revoker, Mother of Runes and first strikers are all perfect against Jitte, and D&T plays more of those cards than any other deck in legacy
But the other Jitte decks have plenty of answers to our first wave if creatures. Deathblade has 2 Decay, 4 STP, and Snapcasters. UWR has 4 STP and 4 Bolt, plus Stifle. And these decks are already gunning to hit Mom and Thalia anyway.
D&T is unique in that it runs 20-some 1 toughness creatures, but uses them for board control purposes. We're vulnerable in a way that no other deck really is. I'm not saying we don't have outs, or that we need to play aggressively. I'm just stating that a colorless source of repeatable removal at no mana investment is about the worst thing we could be staring down.
Also I don't see much of any difference between Manriki and Revoker on Jitte. Both are easy to disrupt.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Btw finn, re-read some match ups in the primer: for merfolks, if you say that only one jitte counter kills phantasmal, you might as well say that mangara is the ultimate phantasmal image killer here.
Are you commenting on how Mangara will cause the Image to pop before he resolves (countering Mangara's ability)? I had never encounter (or thought about before you just mentioned it) doing that. I will add it. But your words seem to indicate that there are errors of commission, rather than just this omission. Please tell me what you mean.
Also...the matchups section is getting old again. There is no information about Deathblade, Shardless, or the mirror. I think the only one I can write is the mirror. Would anyone like to volunteer to write matchup analyses, even the mirror?
**************************************************
Also, only marginally related to anything: My wife works Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday nights which means those nights I am with the kids alone - only a few months longer. The tournaments in my area are Tuesdays and Saturdays. I can finally start going to tournaments again!
pfffft. flickerwisp is the ultimate image killer besides jitte.
If I understood the shardless matchup better, I would. Haven't played against deathblade much, but I can atleast give a few inklings of general impressions:
1) They only play the most powerful cards. Luckily, the only one of these cards we care about is jitte. So, if you can protect revoker on Jitte, you're in pretty good shape
2) post-board, don't be an idiot and overextend into supreme verdict like I do all of the time.
3) Kill Bob immediately. If your opponent starts getting card advantage, locking them off of jace mana is impossible.
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So I think I have the one sentence analysis. Tell me if this works:
Deathblade, by monovfox
-post-board, don't be an idiot and overextend into supreme verdict like I do all of the time.
*******
Oh, and yeah. I have done the Flickerwisp one a few times. I especially like them getting zero life from STP and Oust. So, basically the Merfolk analysis sux.
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I don't think the image's trigger saves mangara from himself. I'll get a ruling on this with the local L3 next time
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I don't think the image's trigger saves mangara from himself. I'll get a ruling on this with the local L3 next time
I am pretty sure it does. it should go like this
-put mangara's ability on the stack, targeting image
-image's triggered ability goes on the stack, and resolves first. image is sacrificed
-mangara's ability is countered on resolution due to no legal target, so he lives
Shardless and Deathblade I've had some good experience against. I think I'll try to grind out a few more matches and can write one of them up.
Back to Jitte craziness, opposing removal, etc.: A lot of these situations come from not properly playing defensively. Sure, the temptation to run out that Mystic on turn 2 - especially against decks that play blue and don't play Daze - is very alluring, but we've got to play control right back at them. We go aggro against combo and other aggro decks once we can, but control usually needs to be controlled back, since they have sweeper tools that negate hard gains. We're not Zoo so swarming with only white creatures - already the weakest from a beatdown standpoint - is not the most "efficient" in Legacy. So next time you want to get out that turn 2 Mystic, Wasteland/Port that Tundra instead, and wait for Vial to get her out a turn later. You'll be surprised how much their removal suites fall apart if you take your time to control Control back instead of aggroing back.
That all said, I think we're approaching a point in the meta, coupled with new awareness of the deck, where much of the deck has "flex" spots. The obvious answer is sort of cloudy right now. On the one hand Finn's notion of "I don't want to see two Flickerwisps in my opening grip" rings true against the idea of running 4, but then again a lot of late game come-from-behinds and overall defensive maneuvers against Jitte/Batterskull decks come from him. So it's really a tough call again --
Is Mangara more suited to a 2-of, or are we not realizing the power and stability of the combo-soft-lock because some people have cut it down from 3? Is running Avenger at all smarter because evasive bodies are the key to winning now, or is she just too vanilla for Legacy? Do we preempt hate by getting cards like Fiend Hunter, Relic-Warder, and other non-X/1s available for use, or is that just being too cute and unfocused to our game plan? Many things to ponder...
I kept, drew a Rishadan Port and had mangara-lock online on turn 4.
My Question is:
Would you keep this?
On one hand is seems really strong, Thalia, Stonforge and Mangara+Karakas.
On the other hand you lack Vial(Flickerwisp is weaker) and could only play two cards if you do not draw lands in the following turns.
You have two lands. You have two great turn two plays. This seems like a clear keeper.
I kept, drew a Rishadan Port and had mangara-lock online on turn 4.
My Question is:
Would you keep this?
On one hand is seems really strong, Thalia, Stonforge and Mangara+Karakas.
On the other hand you lack Vial(Flickerwisp is weaker) and could only play two cards if you do not draw lands in the following turns.
I feel like this hand could go either way. It's a bit rough to see 3x 3cc drops in an opener (with a Wasteland-able 2nd mana source), but as mentioned Thalia and Stoneforge Mystic are prime plays against the field.
I could see one assessing the hand as Mangara/Flickerwisp being underpowered in the absence of Vial and the SoFaI being a poor card to rip in one's opener.
What would be better to see in the opener? Aether Vial, Mother of Runes, situationally Revoker, STP, and Mirran - maybe 14 cards that you would like to see off a mulligan.
On the other side, you really don't want to see Batterskull and against some amount of the field, ripping STP or Revoker is lackluster, maybe 5 cards you really don't want to see off a mulligan.
Honestly, I would probably mulligan this hand. There is definitely the possibility that this backfires. As you mentioned your hand played out fine with Mangara lock on turn 4. I don't like seeing Sword of Fire and Ice in my opener versus an unknown deck, and I feel like without Vial the number of 3cc cards in hand feels durdley against an unknown opponent.
That said, the decks you're most worried about being 'durdley' against are combo decks where you have your best card in this hand with Thalia. This is I suppose what makes the choice most difficult.
I kept, drew a Rishadan Port and had mangara-lock online on turn 4.
My Question is:
Would you keep this?
On one hand is seems really strong, Thalia, Stonforge and Mangara+Karakas.
On the other hand you lack Vial(Flickerwisp is weaker) and could only play two cards if you do not draw lands in the following turns.
were you on the play? I'd probably keep the hand either way, but I think it's even stronger if you're on the draw, since that gives you an additional chance to draw a land without interrupting your tempo
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The thing is, I have been ripping it up. 8-2 to Jund, 5-0 Elves, 2-0 Shardless BUG, 3-0 Team. I want to stop playing with it so Flickerwisp can make its "I'll be back" moment come true but my wins, my wins! I am so sorry Flickerwisp, I know this betrayal runs deep. Oh strange moth of my heart, please forgive me!!!
Oh, and I agree with the manriki analysis, sweet logic!
Death and Taxes
UG Infect
Strawberry Shortcake Imperial Painter
EDH
Angus Mackenzie - Enduring Enchantments
Adun Oakenshield - Jund F'ing Good Stuff, "Money Vault"
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails - Captain Crunch
1. It's not always a case of Jitte vs Jitte. Sometimes you get Jitte, but then they get their Batterskull to go over the top. In this case, Manriki is much better.
2. I might not be articulating this very well, but we should not value Jitte as highly as our opponent. Jitte is better against D&T than probably any other deck in the format. At least Elves can race or grab Progenitus. So because the card is better against us than it is against them, we have to prioritize our cards differently than they do. Esper or UWR wants to get it online as early as possible, to lock us out. We need to be one step ahead of that, and make them expend more resources to accomplish their goal.
I'm not really defending the card. It's obvious that Manriki is much better in a deck like Deadguy. But I've been on both ends of it, and it seems to me that Manriki is a great way to fight Batterskull while also stalling into a more permanent answer to Jitte. But Relic-Warder is probably better if you just want to fight Jitte straight up.
With 3x flickerwisps, we essentially have 7x stoneforge mystics if we need them. I honestly think manrikiri is the key to winning the deathblade matchup (or stoneblade). I'd much rather have a slightly buffed creature and no jitte, than an opponent's jitte with counters on it. But of course, I like disenchant much more, for the sake of its flexibility.
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
8-2 against Jund!?! If that Jund list was running Punishing Fire (which I assume it was), you have my attention. I'll sleeve up that list and give it a go.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26666_Video-Death-And-Taxes-In-Legacy.html
Edit: double post, I'm a bad person.
does anyone else disagree really strongly with this statement? Phyrexian Revoker, Mother of Runes and first strikers are all perfect against Jitte, and D&T plays more of those cards than any other deck in legacy
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
Bogle.dec !
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
If wizards would print a green, black and white version of Hydroblast and Blue Elemental Blast Painter could be done in every color.
RRImperial PainterRR
UUUUMonoOmniTellUUUU
BGURWDredgeWRUGB
I am sleeving up Ol' Faithful in some shiny new Matte Brown KMCs (testing out KMCs, people seem to like them. I've been impressed with them) for the Oakland Grand Prix "win a mox" side event. I am expecting the mirror, so I am playing 61 cards so I can fit in more mirror tech (Avengers and 1x Fiend Hunter). I am seeing about putting a gut shot into my sideboard if I can find room.
With starcity suddenly becoming a lot smarter on deck choice (Read: Not Deathblade, and a lot more Death and Taxes), and thus starting to push our deck, we need to figure out anti-mirror shennanigans
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
Yes, it's the PF version but it's simply too slow to deal with the aggro. We are not control in this match up we are aggro flooding the board with threat after threat. All the threats overwhelm their tools. (Ok, his tools - mayhaps he wasn't the world's greatest player but one of the wins was because I kept a whiteless hand to see how resilient DnT could be in the match-up...)
One thought that crossed my mind, was possibly a transformational board "Chaos, Control, Chaos, Control."
Death and Taxes
UG Infect
Strawberry Shortcake Imperial Painter
EDH
Angus Mackenzie - Enduring Enchantments
Adun Oakenshield - Jund F'ing Good Stuff, "Money Vault"
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails - Captain Crunch
Vial is indeed the most important thing, as whoever gets one online first has control of the game as it is the closest unfair thing we have in the deck. The most important thing to do is if we don't have a vial, ensure we can get a Mom and revoker in play. The deck does have that issue where since we run so little spot removal and the fact the protection shuts down a lot of combat tricks such as jitte.
RBW Mardu Pyro
X Eldrazi
Pauper:
X Affinity
G Stompy
But the other Jitte decks have plenty of answers to our first wave if creatures. Deathblade has 2 Decay, 4 STP, and Snapcasters. UWR has 4 STP and 4 Bolt, plus Stifle. And these decks are already gunning to hit Mom and Thalia anyway.
D&T is unique in that it runs 20-some 1 toughness creatures, but uses them for board control purposes. We're vulnerable in a way that no other deck really is. I'm not saying we don't have outs, or that we need to play aggressively. I'm just stating that a colorless source of repeatable removal at no mana investment is about the worst thing we could be staring down.
Also I don't see much of any difference between Manriki and Revoker on Jitte. Both are easy to disrupt.
Also...the matchups section is getting old again. There is no information about Deathblade, Shardless, or the mirror. I think the only one I can write is the mirror. Would anyone like to volunteer to write matchup analyses, even the mirror?
**************************************************
Also, only marginally related to anything: My wife works Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday nights which means those nights I am with the kids alone - only a few months longer. The tournaments in my area are Tuesdays and Saturdays. I can finally start going to tournaments again!
If I understood the shardless matchup better, I would. Haven't played against deathblade much, but I can atleast give a few inklings of general impressions:
1) They only play the most powerful cards. Luckily, the only one of these cards we care about is jitte. So, if you can protect revoker on Jitte, you're in pretty good shape
2) post-board, don't be an idiot and overextend into supreme verdict like I do all of the time.
3) Kill Bob immediately. If your opponent starts getting card advantage, locking them off of jace mana is impossible.
Shardless BUG:
1) ****. (The F word)
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
So I think I have the one sentence analysis. Tell me if this works:
Deathblade, by monovfox
-post-board, don't be an idiot and overextend into supreme verdict like I do all of the time.
*******
Oh, and yeah. I have done the Flickerwisp one a few times. I especially like them getting zero life from STP and Oust. So, basically the Merfolk analysis sux.
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
Legacy:WDeath and TaxesW W45-L16-D11 8 Top 8s 15th Scg Oakland
Current Kiln Fiend Count: 153 Please message me if you want to trade me or give me some.
Commission Rezombied to alter some cards, he's awesome!
I am pretty sure it does. it should go like this
-put mangara's ability on the stack, targeting image
-image's triggered ability goes on the stack, and resolves first. image is sacrificed
-mangara's ability is countered on resolution due to no legal target, so he lives
Shardless and Deathblade I've had some good experience against. I think I'll try to grind out a few more matches and can write one of them up.
Back to Jitte craziness, opposing removal, etc.: A lot of these situations come from not properly playing defensively. Sure, the temptation to run out that Mystic on turn 2 - especially against decks that play blue and don't play Daze - is very alluring, but we've got to play control right back at them. We go aggro against combo and other aggro decks once we can, but control usually needs to be controlled back, since they have sweeper tools that negate hard gains. We're not Zoo so swarming with only white creatures - already the weakest from a beatdown standpoint - is not the most "efficient" in Legacy. So next time you want to get out that turn 2 Mystic, Wasteland/Port that Tundra instead, and wait for Vial to get her out a turn later. You'll be surprised how much their removal suites fall apart if you take your time to control Control back instead of aggroing back.
That all said, I think we're approaching a point in the meta, coupled with new awareness of the deck, where much of the deck has "flex" spots. The obvious answer is sort of cloudy right now. On the one hand Finn's notion of "I don't want to see two Flickerwisps in my opening grip" rings true against the idea of running 4, but then again a lot of late game come-from-behinds and overall defensive maneuvers against Jitte/Batterskull decks come from him. So it's really a tough call again --
Is Mangara more suited to a 2-of, or are we not realizing the power and stability of the combo-soft-lock because some people have cut it down from 3? Is running Avenger at all smarter because evasive bodies are the key to winning now, or is she just too vanilla for Legacy? Do we preempt hate by getting cards like Fiend Hunter, Relic-Warder, and other non-X/1s available for use, or is that just being too cute and unfocused to our game plan? Many things to ponder...
You have two lands. You have two great turn two plays. This seems like a clear keeper.
I feel like this hand could go either way. It's a bit rough to see 3x 3cc drops in an opener (with a Wasteland-able 2nd mana source), but as mentioned Thalia and Stoneforge Mystic are prime plays against the field.
I could see one assessing the hand as Mangara/Flickerwisp being underpowered in the absence of Vial and the SoFaI being a poor card to rip in one's opener.
What would be better to see in the opener? Aether Vial, Mother of Runes, situationally Revoker, STP, and Mirran - maybe 14 cards that you would like to see off a mulligan.
On the other side, you really don't want to see Batterskull and against some amount of the field, ripping STP or Revoker is lackluster, maybe 5 cards you really don't want to see off a mulligan.
Honestly, I would probably mulligan this hand. There is definitely the possibility that this backfires. As you mentioned your hand played out fine with Mangara lock on turn 4. I don't like seeing Sword of Fire and Ice in my opener versus an unknown deck, and I feel like without Vial the number of 3cc cards in hand feels durdley against an unknown opponent.
That said, the decks you're most worried about being 'durdley' against are combo decks where you have your best card in this hand with Thalia. This is I suppose what makes the choice most difficult.
were you on the play? I'd probably keep the hand either way, but I think it's even stronger if you're on the draw, since that gives you an additional chance to draw a land without interrupting your tempo