Posted this on the Source figured I might as well post it here as well. Events are Monday evenings at 7PM. Entry fee is $10 and all prizes go into a store credit pool which is paid out to the top 4 (sometimes more if turnout is high). Turnout varies between 8 and the mid 20s depending on the week but the events fire consistently.
As someone who has played the Gate a lot I feel like I should answer this. I enjoyed great success in my local tournaments with the deck about a year ago, but when I recently picked it up again I got completely crushed. The Gate is a meta deck which preys on tempo (and certain aggro) strategies. However, it lacks library manipulation and while it plays plenty of 2-for-1s, it can't hope to match the card advantage engines of midrange blue decks (JTMS, SFM, Snapcaster, Ancestral Vision, etc.). It can't match the consistency and card advantage of Jund either, as it lacks cascade and Sylvan Library. Inability to deal with noncreature permanents makes you a dog to pure control decks like Miracles as well. The deck is outclassed by other midrange decks (Jund especially) and just can't keep up with the blue decks nowadays. Don't play it - play Jund instead.
So I played VANT at another local tournament. This time I got crushed 0-3, losing to Stoneblade, Canadian Threshold, and Pox (you may laugh, but mass discard + LD is really bad for this deck lol). It didn't help that the RUG player both boarded in and drew Rough/Tumble despite seeing no sign of ETW (when I had boarded it in thinking myself clever). My hands were quite bad and I mulliganned a lot, but I think I should have mulled more aggressively in several cases as durdly hands just don't do well against discard. The RUG match I didn't really have a chance, mulled a lot and just got overwhelmed with countermagic. Stoneblade I actually could have won G3 if I hadn't boarded out Witness like an idiot (I came up with an extremely convoluted play to win when all I had was Pact and Entomb but was at 1 life). PSA: Never board out Witness.
The conclusion I took from this, as well as some thoughts that were building in my own goldfish testing, is as follows. This deck has too many durdly cards. The Entomb and Pact package are both awesome, but if you draw too many of either (especially duplicate Entombs) your deck doesn't do anything. This happened to me a lot yesterday - I went at least one whole match without seeing LED but drew plenty of Entombs, Pacts, and dudes. Also - and this is key - Past in Flames is quite bad in this deck. Out of TES, ANT, and this build, Past in Flames is by far the worst here despite Entomb, and the reason for that is we lack sufficient rituals to make it good. The other two decks can both cantrip into a stack of rituals which makes PIF insane, we cannot do that and flashing back Culling the Weak is often dodgy because we don't always have that second creature.
There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to play large amounts of red including Burning Wish, Tinder Wall, and Rite of Flame (I assume this is what Direlemming is doing although I haven't seen his list). This would make Past in Flames good as well as make casting Empty the Warrens easier, while alleviating the strain placed on our creature base by playing both CTW and Diabolic Intent (along with Therapy flashbacks). However, we would likely have to axe the Entomb package to make room. The second solution (if we want to stay largely G/B) is Vacrix's worst nightmare: play Cabal Ritual :o. While I'm aware the card is vulnerable to every taxing counter ever, we need another ritual and that's really the only candidate. Threshold is pretty easy to reach in this deck with all the Pacting, Entombing, and sacrificing things. I would suggest cutting an Entomb, an ESG, and one other mystery card (A Pact or a second Entomb maybe) for 3 Cabal Ritual initially. I'd like 4 but making cuts is very difficult. Thoughts?
Nice work man! I'm glad to hear the deck is working.
I've been thinking that the Entomb plan will be good against certain decks post-board. We still have to figure that out. The deck has a lot of inherent complexity because of all the tutor option. Lately I've been thinking if we want to beat bears, we should just transition into a deck that wins because we drop Deed, blow the board, lay down our artifact sources, and then go to town, with a potential back up beats plan (one dude, 7 tutors). Nobody expects you to play Deed, and the basics mean we can crack it for enough quite easily to blow up things. It might even be worth playing in the post-board against control since it blows up things like Jace, Lili, CB, Batterskull, basically we can force a situation where they have to find another win condition, much like we would with Abrupt Decay but Decay isn't quite as good in the aggro matchup because we can't hit multiple targets. This will allow us to blow up as many things as TES would with Burning Wish flexibility. Also, we are way better at slow playing control than the other combo decks because we have more basics, and Explorers for more basics, and that will compliment a boarding plan.
Deed doesn't kill planeswalkers but otherwise this seems like a good analysis. I'm hesitant to drop Decay because CB is still a thing, but Deed seems like something that needs to be explored regardless. I will be playing this deck more in the near future, so hopefully I'll have some more results to report.
Now we're talking! I really like the idea of playing more on precise threat handling with the help of Entomb. But is it a chance that people will SB in gravehate after seeing Entomb G1?
This has already happened to me because we run Past in Flames as well. But think about it this way - if your opponent is boarding yard hate against an aggressive storm combo deck, you're probably already ahead. You can also pre-empt this by just boarding out PIF for Empty the Warrens. Entomb for Ancient Grudge will solve artifact grave hate as well.
The Wolf/Thallid swap was because I don't own a Wolf, although interestingly, the Thallid can't be screwed by Deathrite Shaman in response to the Undying trigger. The basic Forest is nuts with Veteran Explorer. I played this sideboard:
I decided to experiment with flashback-able removal spells to further abuse Entomb post-board. Grudge deals with Chalice, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist, Lodestone Golem, and Phyrexian Revoker, among other things. Ray is a concession to people playing bad cards like Leyline of Sanctity. Fatigue is a catch-all hatebear answer that I hoped would shore up my lack of Dread of Night. I'm not sure about the respective numbers of my anti-blue cards - perhaps this could be tweaked based on metagame.
I beat Affinity, Hypergenesis, and Shardless BUG (ID'd against the latter but after playing it out I won easily). None of these were overly difficult matchups - although Hypergenesis threatens FOW + Griselbrand (and I did lose to turn 1 Ethersworn Canonist G2 vs. Affinity lol). Regardless, the deck seemed very powerful and much more consistent than any variant of SI that I have played. Culling the Weak sacrificing Veteran Explorer is one of the most powerful plays I have ever seen in Legacy, and allows for some truly absurd early turns. I'll be following the development of this deck eagerly, the maindeck already seems very solid.
Much as we should support your local game store when possible (i.e. their cards or supplies aren't too much higher than a different retailer), we should also try to support Star City Games for what they've done in organizing this tournament circuit.
While I'll certainly still compare prices and while supporting the local stores are still my first priority, I'd be willing to pay slightly more at SCG than I would at another retailer due to their excellent customer service and their support of the Legacy format.
I sometimes think I am single-handedly keeping SCG's foreign card sales going. Their shipping and customer service is always impeccable.
The dichotomy of Canadian Threshold and Storm Combo is pretty representative of the format for me. The incredibly interesting and difficult matchup between the two is also pretty symbolic of how things work.
I have a feeling that Mind's Desire might be a bad idea.
In the initial modern format, I absolutely agree with you. Now that every decent fast mana spell is banned, it seems pretty harmless. You're pretty much never going to cast it without a Lotus Bloom, and that limits you to turn 4 combo (WOTC's rule for Modern) by default. There is a ton of fear and stigma to Mind's Desire, but people tend to forget that it was never banned in Extended and never dominated even when there was a ton of good fast mana.
Full disclosure: Mind's Desire is my favorite card in magic.
Intuition. I don't know what it is, but for some reason I never liked Gifts Ungiven. Probably because it's 4 CMC, which is where I prefer to place my finishers (Just a personal thing with deckbuilding), or whatever. I dunno. I just want Intuition. I wanna have the opportunity to pick 3 of the same card.
Reserved list so this can't happen unfortunately (I would also like to see the card). For me, any of these cards would be sweet:
Also, I would love to see a mass reprint of the Onslaught fetches. They would be good in modern, and I really don't want to pay $$$$$$ to get Japanese ones for Legacy right now.
The list performed well (I have unfortunately forgotten what I played against, but I didn't drop a match), although I will be swapping the main-board Canonists with sideboard Revokers as there is much less combo in my meta than I was expecting. A Sword of Feast and Famine in the board wouldn't be amiss, as the Elves matchup is annoying beyond belief (Wirewood Symbiote > this deck). A second Detention Sphere would also be nice considering the prevalence of Counterbalance.dec in my meta. Thoughts?
Wurmcoil is a decent finisher, but it's probably too high on the curve to be your only finisher. I personally really like Phyrexian Oblyterator but other people prefer Abyssal Persecutor. Notice that both have 4cmc.
I like Lashwrithe in mono-black as well, but it's much better with the white splash, as you can equip it to random tokens from Lingering Souls or planeswalker abilities.
So this deck could actualy work? I was informed it couldnt! I would like to try it, how does it do against aggro? Specifcally burn? And is phyrexian obliterator a worthy investment to star with? Thanks!!
MBC is generally excellent against aggro due to large amounts of removal and disruption. It is, however, bad against burn because black decks tend to pay a lot of life - the white splash can help with this as it allows blowout sideboard cards like Leyline of Sanctity and Timely Reinforcements. Obliterator is a fantastic finisher - one of the better ones we have available, so yeah, it's probably worth picking up especially since it's rather cheap nowadays.
So i have 2 questions...
Does this deck do fairly well? I have been told no, but i like this look, could be made on a budget.
Could you splash white for oblivion ring, gideon jura ect.
Thanks!
Actually, I am currently brainstorming the white splash. However, it's more for Path to Exile and Lingering Souls than anything else, although sideboard Oblivion Ring is also nice. It also opens up the potential of using Baneslayer Angel, Sorin, and Elspeth as finishers (all of whom are better than Gideon IMO). Here's my initial list if anyone would like to help with brainstorming:
Yes, the format is absolutely unstable. Look at how many top decks have been banned since the format's inception, and how much upheaval has resulted. I've found the perfect solution to this though - instead of playing whatever the DTB is and getting blown out by bans, I just design mediocre pet decks based on standard decks I used to like. That way, I enjoy the format, win a few matches, and don't have to worry about my deck getting the banhammer. I've been playing control based on the Lorwyn/Alara 5cc and having a blast.
Hi, I live in the US and was wondering if there are any large online stores (other than SCG) that sell foreign (primarily Japanese) single cards. Thanks.
The conclusion I took from this, as well as some thoughts that were building in my own goldfish testing, is as follows. This deck has too many durdly cards. The Entomb and Pact package are both awesome, but if you draw too many of either (especially duplicate Entombs) your deck doesn't do anything. This happened to me a lot yesterday - I went at least one whole match without seeing LED but drew plenty of Entombs, Pacts, and dudes. Also - and this is key - Past in Flames is quite bad in this deck. Out of TES, ANT, and this build, Past in Flames is by far the worst here despite Entomb, and the reason for that is we lack sufficient rituals to make it good. The other two decks can both cantrip into a stack of rituals which makes PIF insane, we cannot do that and flashing back Culling the Weak is often dodgy because we don't always have that second creature.
There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to play large amounts of red including Burning Wish, Tinder Wall, and Rite of Flame (I assume this is what Direlemming is doing although I haven't seen his list). This would make Past in Flames good as well as make casting Empty the Warrens easier, while alleviating the strain placed on our creature base by playing both CTW and Diabolic Intent (along with Therapy flashbacks). However, we would likely have to axe the Entomb package to make room. The second solution (if we want to stay largely G/B) is Vacrix's worst nightmare: play Cabal Ritual :o. While I'm aware the card is vulnerable to every taxing counter ever, we need another ritual and that's really the only candidate. Threshold is pretty easy to reach in this deck with all the Pacting, Entombing, and sacrificing things. I would suggest cutting an Entomb, an ESG, and one other mystery card (A Pact or a second Entomb maybe) for 3 Cabal Ritual initially. I'd like 4 but making cuts is very difficult. Thoughts?
Deed doesn't kill planeswalkers but otherwise this seems like a good analysis. I'm hesitant to drop Decay because CB is still a thing, but Deed seems like something that needs to be explored regardless. I will be playing this deck more in the near future, so hopefully I'll have some more results to report.
This has already happened to me because we run Past in Flames as well. But think about it this way - if your opponent is boarding yard hate against an aggressive storm combo deck, you're probably already ahead. You can also pre-empt this by just boarding out PIF for Empty the Warrens. Entomb for Ancient Grudge will solve artifact grave hate as well.
Vacrix I top-4d my local playing this list with two small changes:
-1 Young Wolf
-1 Swamp
+1 Tukatongue Thallid
+1 Forest
The Wolf/Thallid swap was because I don't own a Wolf, although interestingly, the Thallid can't be screwed by Deathrite Shaman in response to the Undying trigger. The basic Forest is nuts with Veteran Explorer. I played this sideboard:
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Autumn's Veil
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Crippling Fatigue
1 Empty the Warrens
I decided to experiment with flashback-able removal spells to further abuse Entomb post-board. Grudge deals with Chalice, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist, Lodestone Golem, and Phyrexian Revoker, among other things. Ray is a concession to people playing bad cards like Leyline of Sanctity. Fatigue is a catch-all hatebear answer that I hoped would shore up my lack of Dread of Night. I'm not sure about the respective numbers of my anti-blue cards - perhaps this could be tweaked based on metagame.
I beat Affinity, Hypergenesis, and Shardless BUG (ID'd against the latter but after playing it out I won easily). None of these were overly difficult matchups - although Hypergenesis threatens FOW + Griselbrand (and I did lose to turn 1 Ethersworn Canonist G2 vs. Affinity lol). Regardless, the deck seemed very powerful and much more consistent than any variant of SI that I have played. Culling the Weak sacrificing Veteran Explorer is one of the most powerful plays I have ever seen in Legacy, and allows for some truly absurd early turns. I'll be following the development of this deck eagerly, the maindeck already seems very solid.
I sometimes think I am single-handedly keeping SCG's foreign card sales going. Their shipping and customer service is always impeccable.
In the initial modern format, I absolutely agree with you. Now that every decent fast mana spell is banned, it seems pretty harmless. You're pretty much never going to cast it without a Lotus Bloom, and that limits you to turn 4 combo (WOTC's rule for Modern) by default. There is a ton of fear and stigma to Mind's Desire, but people tend to forget that it was never banned in Extended and never dominated even when there was a ton of good fast mana.
Full disclosure: Mind's Desire is my favorite card in magic.
Reserved list so this can't happen unfortunately (I would also like to see the card). For me, any of these cards would be sweet:
Cabal Coffers
Pernicious Deed
Mind's Desire
Astral Slide
Also, I would love to see a mass reprint of the Onslaught fetches. They would be good in modern, and I really don't want to pay $$$$$$ to get Japanese ones for Legacy right now.
EDIT: I forgot, would definitely like to see Baleful Strix and Shardless Agent. Playing those two with Glissa, the Traitor would be a ton of fun.
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Spellskite
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
3 Mox Opal
2 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Cranial Plating
1 Batterskull
4 Thoughtcast
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Ancient Den
2 Darksteel Citadel
2 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Tundra
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Detention Sphere
The list performed well (I have unfortunately forgotten what I played against, but I didn't drop a match), although I will be swapping the main-board Canonists with sideboard Revokers as there is much less combo in my meta than I was expecting. A Sword of Feast and Famine in the board wouldn't be amiss, as the Elves matchup is annoying beyond belief (Wirewood Symbiote > this deck). A second Detention Sphere would also be nice considering the prevalence of Counterbalance.dec in my meta. Thoughts?
I like Lashwrithe in mono-black as well, but it's much better with the white splash, as you can equip it to random tokens from Lingering Souls or planeswalker abilities.
MBC is generally excellent against aggro due to large amounts of removal and disruption. It is, however, bad against burn because black decks tend to pay a lot of life - the white splash can help with this as it allows blowout sideboard cards like Leyline of Sanctity and Timely Reinforcements. Obliterator is a fantastic finisher - one of the better ones we have available, so yeah, it's probably worth picking up especially since it's rather cheap nowadays.
Actually, I am currently brainstorming the white splash. However, it's more for Path to Exile and Lingering Souls than anything else, although sideboard Oblivion Ring is also nice. It also opens up the potential of using Baneslayer Angel, Sorin, and Elspeth as finishers (all of whom are better than Gideon IMO). Here's my initial list if anyone would like to help with brainstorming:
2 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mortify
3 Damnation
2 Tendrils of Corruption
3 Dimir House Guard
4 Lashwrithe
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2 Baneslayer Angel
4 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Isolated Chapel
1 Plains
1 Vault of the Archangel
5 Swamp