I think that IGG is orthogonal to the draw4. IGG gives you fast pass the turn storm piles via variations of 1 spare card + BS/SDT/LED in hand + 1U for BS, SDT, LED, LED, IGG, ToA.
I'd further disagree about TS vs Therapy in the sb. The reason you want Therapy in the board is that by the time you can succesfully Wish+cast discard+combo, you should know what your opponent has in their hand (either via deduction or via other hand checking spells). If they're sitting on a stacked grip of 6 or 7 cards as a control deck, a single discard spell likely isn't beating them anyway, but even then Therapy maybe being able to deal with 2 cards is the best bet.
Re: 3 LED. I play 3 LED sometimes as that's the number necessary to pull off double cantrip piles (LED, IU, LED, LED, BW), but I'm usually looking to replace the 4th LED with some sort of draw spell. Most recently, it was replaced by Dig Through Time and, before that, Treasure Cruise. In the past, I've tried out things like Preordain and Street Wraith there.
The deck felt fine. LDV is a different animal than DTT, but I don't know that it's actually worse. LDV makes you a much more consistent turn 3 deck. You're worse at recovering from attrition, but that hasn't historically been an issue in 2 card combo decks that are heavy on cantrips. I played Esper in St. Louis, but I didn't feel like Mentors were needed and have since cut them. I'm at
since St. Louis. It's arguable that with Miracles being such a high percentage of the metagame, the deck should find room for the 2nd Boseiju maindeck, as well as consider Spell Pierces over Flusterstorms (despite how good Flusterstorm is vs the field). It's also possible that (given I didn't play against much miracles at St. Louis), that Mentor + Pierces is actually where we want to be.
In any event, the deck is still very good. LDV is sometimes tricky to play correctly (it requires you to know what cards you need to find ahead of time and do some basic math to figure out how to stack to get multiple cards), but getting you 1-3 cards that you want is very good. It's obviously worse post-Omni than Dig Through Time (doesn't put a card in your hand), but you have enough other business to not be stuck with just LDV in hand post-SnT very often. In the one instance that happened to me in St. Louis, it didn't matter as my opponent couldn't remove Omni from the table in one turn.
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++
I'd further disagree about TS vs Therapy in the sb. The reason you want Therapy in the board is that by the time you can succesfully Wish+cast discard+combo, you should know what your opponent has in their hand (either via deduction or via other hand checking spells). If they're sitting on a stacked grip of 6 or 7 cards as a control deck, a single discard spell likely isn't beating them anyway, but even then Therapy maybe being able to deal with 2 cards is the best bet.
Re: 3 LED. I play 3 LED sometimes as that's the number necessary to pull off double cantrip piles (LED, IU, LED, LED, BW), but I'm usually looking to replace the 4th LED with some sort of draw spell. Most recently, it was replaced by Dig Through Time and, before that, Treasure Cruise. In the past, I've tried out things like Preordain and Street Wraith there.
// Esper Omni 2015Q4
// 17 Business
4 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience
4 Cunning Wish
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
// 13 Draw
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
// 11 Disruption
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
3 Thoughtseize
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
// 19 Mana
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
4 Island
1 Swamp
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 1 Firemind's Foresight
SB: 1 Release the Ants
SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Rushing River
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 4 Monastery Mentor
SB: 2 Massacre
The deck felt fine. LDV is a different animal than DTT, but I don't know that it's actually worse. LDV makes you a much more consistent turn 3 deck. You're worse at recovering from attrition, but that hasn't historically been an issue in 2 card combo decks that are heavy on cantrips. I played Esper in St. Louis, but I didn't feel like Mentors were needed and have since cut them. I'm at
-2 Tundra
+1 Island
+1 Blue Fetchalnd
-4 Monastery Mentor
+1 Noxious Revival
+2 Repeal
+1 Toxic Deluge
since St. Louis. It's arguable that with Miracles being such a high percentage of the metagame, the deck should find room for the 2nd Boseiju maindeck, as well as consider Spell Pierces over Flusterstorms (despite how good Flusterstorm is vs the field). It's also possible that (given I didn't play against much miracles at St. Louis), that Mentor + Pierces is actually where we want to be.
In any event, the deck is still very good. LDV is sometimes tricky to play correctly (it requires you to know what cards you need to find ahead of time and do some basic math to figure out how to stack to get multiple cards), but getting you 1-3 cards that you want is very good. It's obviously worse post-Omni than Dig Through Time (doesn't put a card in your hand), but you have enough other business to not be stuck with just LDV in hand post-SnT very often. In the one instance that happened to me in St. Louis, it didn't matter as my opponent couldn't remove Omni from the table in one turn.
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++