Naw dude, you can fit Goyfs in there. Then maybe splash red for REBs out of the board, maybe some MD Firespouts, and the Saito version of Merfolk becomes a lot easier. Of course, with all those spells the creature count is too low to support Survival, so we might as well throw in Countertop to slow the opponent down more, making up for the loss of explosive starts. Here's a new version of the list
HUGE congrats on the finish and having the darling deck of the GP.
Did you ever feel like your deck was hurting for dig for combo pieces, specifically Survival of the Fittest? The one card I've been testing with your list was adding in Brainstorm for 3 Predators and a Aquamoeba, mainly because the combo is just so much more explosive with Survival than it is without.
@ Reprobate: Thanks and no, I didn't. If you don't see Survival in your opening grip, a mulligan draws you six cards while a brainstorm draws you three. One of those three might be your saving grace, or it might just be more madness crap. Meanwhile, there are a lot of fine hands that get there without Survival, but Brainstorm has the nasty tendency of making crap hands look keepable. While the card can be worked in, I would much rather spend my mana on impacting the board. Also remember that the spell slots are very tight, as the deck needs a critical mass of creatures in order to fuel survival and vengevines.
There are exactly 5 cards in the deck that you played at the GP that do not contribute to that explosive gameplan. Trygon Predator and Umezawa's Jitte. In fact, both of them seem to be doing the opposite then supporting an explosive start.
So, why not goyf instead of either of those - the blue count correct? If so why not +3 goyf and +3 (something out of the blue... lets say brainstorm) instead? Some actual reasoning behind that or was it just really big fear of countertop?
What deck does this pile want Goyf against? If goyf is larger than vengevine, you're playing the deck wrong. It doesn't contribute anything explosive whatsoever. No utility. Nothing larger than your opponent's creatures (also goyf.) No special synergy with any other element of the deck. Meanwhile, when the Survival fails to resolve, I would rather have something with some actual utility than a blank 3/4 on an already crowded two slot.
Noble Hierarch, Trygon Predator, Umezawa's Jitte, Daze, three lands is a perfectly fine hand, and the deck produces many similar ones.
Meanwhile, if I have Trygon Predator, Survival, Stifle, Force of Will, three lands, I'm not exactly wishing that Predator was a Goyf, get my drift?
Just watch the coverage of the round nine feature match. It's the only time I tutored for Predator all day, and simply having it in my hand to drop on turn two would've been much more explosive. I like the pause in the commentating when they realize I don't have goyf in the list (of course he's fetching goyf...,) and an almost silent acknowledgment of how awesome predator was there.
There will be tournaments where Trygon Predator looks really lackluster. This was not one of those tournaments. I expected gobbos, zoo, countertop, and merfolk, and waded through them for two days, but couldn't have done it had I not tweaked the list accordingly.
Same with Saito's deck. In the end, you can bicker about the rightness of maindeck standstills and spellpierces, and the splash of black making the manabase weaker, but in the end he had a finely crafted deck for the metagame, and that's why he won while all the other folk lists got destroyed.
While the card can be worked in, I would much rather spend my mana on impacting the board.
This is what I'm finding out too as I play the list. The opportunity cost in terms of time and mana of playing Brainstorm correctly slows things down. As you mentioned, this is relevant.
One more question-did you have issues with Plows and Paths cutting you off Vengevine recursion? Doesn't seem like a big deal (and hasn't been in testing), just wanted to run it by you.
Same with Saito's deck. In the end, you can bicker about the rightness of maindeck standstills and spellpierces, and the splash of black making the manabase weaker, but in the end he had a finely crafted deck for the metagame, and that's why he won while all the other folk lists got destroyed.
Dude has a crystal ball, I swear.
Not only did he have a tremendous sideboard answer to decks playing mountains, his maindeck spell pierces seemed like a called shot against the board control decks with sweepers or lock pieces like Moat, Firespout or Pernicious Deed. I'm not a huge fan of Standstill in Merfolk right now, but I can actually get behind him leaving it in, because it's one of those cards that people will make huge misplay errors against. In a long tournament with lots of players potentially unfamiliar with the format's nuances, that's a kind of card I can get behind even in the other options (more Lords, Kira Great Glass-Spinner) are probably better.
1. Goyf
SB at best, never MD. No synergy as above mentioned. Card for card comparison, of course Goyf is better. However, if you feel that you "need" Goyf to win, then you are Not playing this deck correctly. If you have play-test the GP top 8 list at least 200 games, then you would understand that Goyf simply does not fit the game-plan.
2. Splash White over Black
There is no advantage for splashing Black. Anything Black can do, White can do it as well, and more. Like Above mentioned, Enlightened tutor? Yes, Black has Innocent blood against Sneak Attack/Show and Tell, but White has Wing shard as well.
Overall, I would say staying Blue is the safest bet.
3. More testing
As above mentioned, I like the -2 Predator + 2 Brainstorm. I also -1 Aqua +1 Intuition. So far Intuition has not failed me. I like how much you can gain by running Stifle and Wasteland, tempo advantage is so nice.
Opponent: land, BoP
Me: Island
Opponent: fetchland break
Me: Stifle
Opponent: Goyf
Me: return Island, Daze
Opponent: ...
not to be mean but, that deck list is pretty bad. there is absolutly no reason to run 2 brainstorm, also what does playing less aquamoeba do? it slows down ur slower combo of discard guys and unless your going to dedicate yourself the survival combo or the creature pseudo-combo . I tested 20 games against some legacy decks with the gp top 8 list and my results were pretty shocking. While my opponents were not extremely good at legacy, I still had a very hard time winning without survival. I will go over the matchups, the problems i found, and what i would do to fix it.
Merfolk: I tested against merfolk first because its cheap to build, popular, and was played by the, in my opinion, best magic player in the world right now. My maindeck games (i tested no sideboard, just trying to get a feel for the combo) were 8-12. I won every game where survival resolved and only won 1 when it did not. Wild mongrel was mediocur because racing was very difficult due to islandwalk and hes just too small. Also casting vengevines was often better than pumping mongrel because not drawing rootwallas seems to happen a good amount. I felt that from this i gathered creatures like aquamoeba, wild mongrel, and even something like fauna shaman are not fast enough and dont get enough vines to kill a reasonable legacy deck. Also brainstorm felt missed as seeing less cards meant seeing less survivals, the main way to win the game.
Zoo: This matchup seemed better if you draw survival (another reason to include brainstorm and/or enlightened tutor) and very bad if you didnt. Obviously they die very quickly if u resolve a survival and they dont have a pridemage. I went 7-13. jitte is obviously insane but they arent many good creatures to put it on (aquamoeba and noble hierach are quiet bad). Also it quickly became apparent daze was missed. Often zoo cannot afford to play around daze with 1 drops like wild nactle and loam lion. To improve this matchup i again feel that wild mongrel and aquamoeba should be replaced with more ways to find survival (brainstorm enlightened tutor) and the lack of spot removal was missed (swords to plow, or path to exile).
Based on tested against these decks i feel that cutting clunky cards like jitte, mongrel, aquamoeba, and stifles for cards like brainstorm, enlightened tutor, more daze, and swords to plow. If anyone wants to brew a list or make my earlier one actually playable and test, posting thier results would be very helpful.
My bad list for refrence:
4 vine
4 survival
4 force
4 brainstorm
4 enlightened tutor
4 swords to plows
3 daze
4 noble hierarch
2 ponder
4 rootwala
1 rhox war monk
1 trygon preditor
21 lands
Obviously this deck need ALOT more creatures to support survival (one reason this combo is so hard to assemble with a deck baised on survival) but im sure cutting ponders for more mana creatures (wall of roots?) or effecient creatures to buy time (goyf, war monk) but i feel those arent helping with the combo. Lastly creatures that cantrip can help stitch hands together ( wall of blossoms?) seem also possibly good enough.
also caleb congratz on your gp top 8! i feel like your deck was not the best list (no offence) but i am sure that the combo you found is very powerful when set up. Could u perhaps tell me how wild mongrel and aquamoeba worked for you because i am just not seeing it. Thanks =D
First off, I would like to thank Caleb for dropping some assistance into this thread that I started based on your badass deck.
Secondly, being as I watched all your matches available on ggslive, how useful was Jitte main deck, and is it possible to move them to the board for maybe 2 intuition? (and by possible, I mean at all logical)
Again, much thanks for stopping in, you earned a lot of fans on Saturday, myself obviously included.
(PS thanks for finally getting the point across that 'Goyf has no room in this thing)
I don't play much Legacy but this deck looks pretty neat. Obviously, I don't even stand behind my comments, they are just sort of things I think (as a guy with little experience).
The only reason to REALLY play blue is Trygon Predator. I hadn't really thought about it until he mentioned it, but yeah, resolving this guy turn two against Merfolk or a CounterTop variant is crushing. You can get rid of vial, SDT, etc. In fact, enough decks rely on these cheap artifacts that you can repeatedly beat down. Plus it flies and pitches to FoW.
Other than that though, I honestly don't think I'd run blue. Aquamoeba is in there because its the best blue engine, not because its an amazing card. The stifle, FoW, etc gives you a nice edge against combo. But the islandwalk you get on you hurts.
And while Survival helps create a balls on the walls explosion, the turn 2: Wild Mongrel, Discard Vengie, discard Rootwalla is good enough of a play to keep aggro decks on their toes say you pull it off.
I'm not convinced Goyf should be run.
I have my own variant I am tweaking for fun. It is likely garbage, but it is fun nonetheless!
@ Reprobate: Not at all. The ability to fetch out all four Vengevines + a pile of 3/3 wallas makes swords/path not as good. I forced myself to test against Meandeck Countertop before the GP, which runs swords and paths, and this led me to develop a list that is resistant to StP. Also, I found that swords are best used against Noble Hierarch. In Legacy, mana is king.
@ TheKilla: It sounds like you're keeping some pretty gnarly hands. I only keep hands without Survival if they contain turn two Vengevine(s) or multiple instances of disruption: Trygon Predator/Stifle+Waste/Force+Pitch/Daze/Umezawa's Jitte. If your hand has one or less of these things and a pile of madness creatures, it is probably not keepable against an unknown opponent. I played against some of the best zoo (Tom "the boss" ross) and merfolk players in the world with this deck, and only dropped four games to Saito, who is admittedly one of the best players in the world with a list that is much better against me than the lists I was testing vs. Trust me, a brainstorm will not find you Survival often enough. A simple mulligan shows you double the cards, and another chance at the nuts. Also, while a slight splash for, oh, 2 Enlightened Tutors might be good, you're going to need more than 14 critters for a survival deck to function at all.
@twndomn: Yes, it's a metagame call, but 1-what meta doesn't have countertop? and 2-it also serves the purpose of pitching to both force and survival, while keeping the creature count up for jitte and vengevine. If you cut it, I think you have to cut it for another blue creature. If your meta has lots of combo/randomness, then Vendilion Clique is a fine substitute.
@kirk: Thanks for the kind words. Despite its apparent uselessness in the feature matches (I was happy with its presence on the board vs. Tom Ross. The threat of it equipping forced him to leave mana up, slowing him down considerably,) Jitte was pretty sweet most of the time, and did an impressive job of making Aquamoeba look like a good creature. I won two games against zoo and one game against merfolk with it. If you're going into a field with less gobbs/zoo and more countertop/randomness, then sure pull the jittes to the sideboard. At a GP, however, I stand by them in the MD.
@FzGhoul: Don't let garbage get in the way of a good time. I've been winning with crap cards for what seems like forever. Just focus on synergy and what you need to do to win at all times, and the deck will shape up. If you don't care about straight up losing to every combo deck out there, I recommend this GW version that SarcasticRat has been tearing up ML with:
SarcasticRat tried convincing me to switch over right before the GP, and had I done so I never would've top eighted. However, if your metagame doesn't have much combo (like ML's), then this list is pretty sweet.
Another question for you Caleb... And I know that all plays are dependent on the current goings on of whatever game you are in, but around what turn did you typically slam the jittles down? was it after you had the engine going, when it sort of stalled out, or any other conditions that were typically met that made you to run it into play?
@Caleb: Thanks for the response. Yeah I'm not worried about playing just good cards, the synergy is the neat part. I don't care about losing to combo that much, and I've also been testing a GW list, though quite different than the one you posted. Gives me ideas though, thanks!
Another question for you Caleb... And I know that all plays are dependent on the current goings on of whatever game you are in, but around what turn did you typically slam the jittles down? was it after you had the engine going, when it sort of stalled out, or any other conditions that were typically met that made you to run it into play?
Awesome input, thanks.
Naw. If you have a Survival online, then there are better things to be doing with your mana, with the exception of if the opponent is running multiple hate cards, again like in the second game against Tom Ross. The best time to play-equip Jitte is on turn three when the aggro deck has tapped out for some random dorks so that your guy isn't exposed to path or bolt, and the jitte just swings the game. It's a fantastic use for extra Gaea's Cradle mana, too.
It seems like folks are debating about how to fit more viable blue in for Force of Will. Personally I can see valid reasons for testing a few Vendilion Clique.
(from weakest to strongest)
1 - Gives you an air beater outside of Wonder
2 - Blue to Fow
3 - Versatility, if you need control hit your opponent, if you need Survival of the Fittest, dig
Disadvantages
1 - UU
2 - Doesn't give discard outlet
Seems like it could very viably be a strong SB card, or good meta game call.
EDIT
I see:
Quote from CalebD »
@twndomn: Yes, it's a metagame call, but 1-what meta doesn't have countertop? and 2-it also serves the purpose of pitching to both force and survival, while keeping the creature count up for jitte and vengevine. If you cut it, I think you have to cut it for another blue creature. If your meta has lots of combo/randomness, then Vendilion Clique is a fine substitute.
totally agree
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On the topic of single Gaea's Cradle, have you guys considered a single of Pendelhaven? It would turn rootwalla into 2/3; with exalted it would be a 3/4 with the possibility to become 5/6. Better yet, with enough mana and a madness outlet, this could be done as a surprising instant blocker.
As I believe Caleb mentioned earlier this deck is really mana hungry, and the potential extra added mana is more useful than randomly sparking up your rootwallas.
Well.., his list runs One Gaea's cradle, so it's not like you would get extra Mana every time. Also, doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, One Pendelhaven and One Gaea's cradle won't dilute the base too much, would it?
Also, how about Oboro, palace in the cloud? The justification: 1. Provides blue source Without worrying about Islandwalk. 2. A blue source that can dodge Wasteland by itself. 3. Can be discarded to Mongrel/Aqua to boost that extra damage.
On a separate note, I really dislike the UU in Vendilion clique. From my testing, it's kinda difficult to be able to produce UU until mid game. Even if you have UU early, it's most likely because of the dual land, which usually becomes a target for opponent's Wasteland. I doubt you would promptly have your Stifle for it every time.
If you insist on running creature, perhaps Coiling oracle? I don't really like it, but it would be 1) be a creature 2) source for FoW to pitch to 3) possibility to speed up the land drop, which as he put it, vital to this deck's plan.
The thing with oboro, is that its not searchable with fetches, it gets counted in Price of Progress, and it cant be returned to the hand for a daze. Plus for mana base purposes it would sub in the place of the basic island. which as I just mentioned is relevant.
Just my immediate thoughts.
Also, Coiling Oracle is another 2 CC that in this case you would rather be slamming into play an aquamoeaba or mongrel, both things that enable the madness outlet.
what about the sideboard? any updates to it or suggestions? I'm interested in the deck and came up with this side:
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 Krosan Grip
4 Force Spike/Spell Pierce (reason i say for spike is it hits all spells)
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Submerge
1 Stifle
u use emarkul against painter/stone and to reshuffle ur deck/gy to get back pieces. its allso good against show and tell decks.
That's the crappiest tech usage I've ever seen on such an awesome card.=.=
Sideboard must be designed according to your meta. I don't believe that anyone would have a need to shuffle their graveyard back to his/her library unless you are facing a meta filled with Mighty Quinn or Any deck that run Painter-Grindstone combo.
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i dont think its crappy tech. i have tested again painter/stone and show n tell. the emarkul is the only thing i could think of to help those match ups. there is probably better cards suited for those match ups, i was only offering my suggestion of a side board.
I've actually been messing around with Caleb's list as well. My version is a bit different though because it has emrakul and loyal retainers in the maindeck. It's nice to have the ability to step it up a notch and having a choice to go even more broken. Considering, I felt this deck was a one trick pony sometimes and so survival into loyal retainers and emrakul can give this deck a huge change in pace. Also, with all of the show and tell decks out there it's just fun to survival up a emrakul in response.
So here is the list I have been testing for a little while.
Edit: Basically I put jittes in the sideboard while adding retainer and emrakul to the maindeck. I definitely want to put another fetchland somwhere probably another windswept heath or a flooded strand. Most likely another heath though.
Cecilia, with your list, seems like when you are able to get Survival to resolve, you would almost always go for the Retainer-Emrakul first. In that case, you would rarely abuse or use Vengevine.
I feel like you want to go for another direction. You might as well play Enlightened tutor to concentrate on your Plan A. Your Plan B, which is the madness part, seems less important.
I agree and disagree. The madness plan actually makes it so you don't always need survival in your opening hand. However, with survival you have some more options at your disposal. Of course, after some more preliminary testing I am moving the emrakul-retainer plan to the board just to catch your opponents off guard.
When Emrakul goes to the graveyard from a discard effect, you can return emrakul to play with the ability of loyal retainers on the stack.
Also, I think people are missing the point on why I am playing retainer-emrakul. The purpose of the combo is to abuse survival of the fittest even further. As the deck doesn't really depend on the combo to win, it's just another axis that you can use to just win you games. Which is why I moved it to the board instead of leaving it in the maindeck.
As for arrogant wurm, vengevine is miles better especially with survival and wild mongrel. I am fairly certain that vengevines is in the slots where arrogant wurm suppose to be.
Also, what do you think about Arrogant Wurm? Could he make his way into the deck again?
the "three"manabeaters are equal or larger than 4/4s. you'd rather be vengevining your opponent by then. The madness on rootwallas is useful just for the vengvine activation.
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If your plan b is madness, I feel like there are much better options considering the madness package requires a lot of card commitment to make it work. That's just me..
Tarmogoyf isn't going to out beast a 4/3 Haste that recurs most the time, in this deck. You can get vengevines out on turn 2 (with a little help) The biggest Goyf you can possibly get on that turn is likely a 2/3, a 3/4 if your opponent played a first turn creature and you could send it to graveyard (if you are Zoo bolting).
Now playing Tarmogoyf turn 3 or 4, when he is bigger... Do-able, but I sincerely doubt Tarmo will ever be bigger than a 4/5 in this deck.
On the other hand, playing against say Zoo, you get to go two routes:
-Play your vengevine quick if you are lucky
-You aren't lucky, that means you got stifle/FoW/Daze to slow them down
If you do drop a vengevine earlier, they have to take the time to StP it. Then you'll probably be able to slow them down enough with the aforementioned blue spells to get your engine out, then you simply crank out more creatures than them. You pitch a vengie for a rootwalla, madness in two rootwallas, get your vengie, etc. After you've blown your load you just attach Jitte.
Edit:
My question is why Wheel of Sun and Moon instead of Jotun Grunt?
Edit:
My question is why Wheel of Sun and Moon instead of Jotun Grunt?
Although not searchable with survival, wheel of sun and moon is just plain faster at stopping your opponent i'm their tracks. Not to mention that enchantments are stereotypically more difficult to get rid of then creatures.
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HUGE congrats on the finish and having the darling deck of the GP.
Did you ever feel like your deck was hurting for dig for combo pieces, specifically Survival of the Fittest? The one card I've been testing with your list was adding in Brainstorm for 3 Predators and a Aquamoeba, mainly because the combo is just so much more explosive with Survival than it is without.
What deck does this pile want Goyf against? If goyf is larger than vengevine, you're playing the deck wrong. It doesn't contribute anything explosive whatsoever. No utility. Nothing larger than your opponent's creatures (also goyf.) No special synergy with any other element of the deck. Meanwhile, when the Survival fails to resolve, I would rather have something with some actual utility than a blank 3/4 on an already crowded two slot.
Noble Hierarch, Trygon Predator, Umezawa's Jitte, Daze, three lands is a perfectly fine hand, and the deck produces many similar ones.
Meanwhile, if I have Trygon Predator, Survival, Stifle, Force of Will, three lands, I'm not exactly wishing that Predator was a Goyf, get my drift?
Just watch the coverage of the round nine feature match. It's the only time I tutored for Predator all day, and simply having it in my hand to drop on turn two would've been much more explosive. I like the pause in the commentating when they realize I don't have goyf in the list (of course he's fetching goyf...,) and an almost silent acknowledgment of how awesome predator was there.
http://ggslive.blip.tv/file/3950638/
There will be tournaments where Trygon Predator looks really lackluster. This was not one of those tournaments. I expected gobbos, zoo, countertop, and merfolk, and waded through them for two days, but couldn't have done it had I not tweaked the list accordingly.
Same with Saito's deck. In the end, you can bicker about the rightness of maindeck standstills and spellpierces, and the splash of black making the manabase weaker, but in the end he had a finely crafted deck for the metagame, and that's why he won while all the other folk lists got destroyed.
This is what I'm finding out too as I play the list. The opportunity cost in terms of time and mana of playing Brainstorm correctly slows things down. As you mentioned, this is relevant.
One more question-did you have issues with Plows and Paths cutting you off Vengevine recursion? Doesn't seem like a big deal (and hasn't been in testing), just wanted to run it by you.
Dude has a crystal ball, I swear.
Not only did he have a tremendous sideboard answer to decks playing mountains, his maindeck spell pierces seemed like a called shot against the board control decks with sweepers or lock pieces like Moat, Firespout or Pernicious Deed. I'm not a huge fan of Standstill in Merfolk right now, but I can actually get behind him leaving it in, because it's one of those cards that people will make huge misplay errors against. In a long tournament with lots of players potentially unfamiliar with the format's nuances, that's a kind of card I can get behind even in the other options (more Lords, Kira Great Glass-Spinner) are probably better.
not to be mean but, that deck list is pretty bad. there is absolutly no reason to run 2 brainstorm, also what does playing less aquamoeba do? it slows down ur slower combo of discard guys and unless your going to dedicate yourself the survival combo or the creature pseudo-combo . I tested 20 games against some legacy decks with the gp top 8 list and my results were pretty shocking. While my opponents were not extremely good at legacy, I still had a very hard time winning without survival. I will go over the matchups, the problems i found, and what i would do to fix it.
Merfolk: I tested against merfolk first because its cheap to build, popular, and was played by the, in my opinion, best magic player in the world right now. My maindeck games (i tested no sideboard, just trying to get a feel for the combo) were 8-12. I won every game where survival resolved and only won 1 when it did not. Wild mongrel was mediocur because racing was very difficult due to islandwalk and hes just too small. Also casting vengevines was often better than pumping mongrel because not drawing rootwallas seems to happen a good amount. I felt that from this i gathered creatures like aquamoeba, wild mongrel, and even something like fauna shaman are not fast enough and dont get enough vines to kill a reasonable legacy deck. Also brainstorm felt missed as seeing less cards meant seeing less survivals, the main way to win the game.
Zoo: This matchup seemed better if you draw survival (another reason to include brainstorm and/or enlightened tutor) and very bad if you didnt. Obviously they die very quickly if u resolve a survival and they dont have a pridemage. I went 7-13. jitte is obviously insane but they arent many good creatures to put it on (aquamoeba and noble hierach are quiet bad). Also it quickly became apparent daze was missed. Often zoo cannot afford to play around daze with 1 drops like wild nactle and loam lion. To improve this matchup i again feel that wild mongrel and aquamoeba should be replaced with more ways to find survival (brainstorm enlightened tutor) and the lack of spot removal was missed (swords to plow, or path to exile).
Based on tested against these decks i feel that cutting clunky cards like jitte, mongrel, aquamoeba, and stifles for cards like brainstorm, enlightened tutor, more daze, and swords to plow. If anyone wants to brew a list or make my earlier one actually playable and test, posting thier results would be very helpful.
My bad list for refrence:
4 vine
4 survival
4 force
4 brainstorm
4 enlightened tutor
4 swords to plows
3 daze
4 noble hierarch
2 ponder
4 rootwala
1 rhox war monk
1 trygon preditor
21 lands
Obviously this deck need ALOT more creatures to support survival (one reason this combo is so hard to assemble with a deck baised on survival) but im sure cutting ponders for more mana creatures (wall of roots?) or effecient creatures to buy time (goyf, war monk) but i feel those arent helping with the combo. Lastly creatures that cantrip can help stitch hands together ( wall of blossoms?) seem also possibly good enough.
also caleb congratz on your gp top 8! i feel like your deck was not the best list (no offence) but i am sure that the combo you found is very powerful when set up. Could u perhaps tell me how wild mongrel and aquamoeba worked for you because i am just not seeing it. Thanks =D
Thanks to Theismisacrime for this beautiful signature over at damnation studios
Secondly, being as I watched all your matches available on ggslive, how useful was Jitte main deck, and is it possible to move them to the board for maybe 2 intuition? (and by possible, I mean at all logical)
Again, much thanks for stopping in, you earned a lot of fans on Saturday, myself obviously included.
(PS thanks for finally getting the point across that 'Goyf has no room in this thing)
I don't play much Legacy but this deck looks pretty neat. Obviously, I don't even stand behind my comments, they are just sort of things I think (as a guy with little experience).
The only reason to REALLY play blue is Trygon Predator. I hadn't really thought about it until he mentioned it, but yeah, resolving this guy turn two against Merfolk or a CounterTop variant is crushing. You can get rid of vial, SDT, etc. In fact, enough decks rely on these cheap artifacts that you can repeatedly beat down. Plus it flies and pitches to FoW.
Other than that though, I honestly don't think I'd run blue. Aquamoeba is in there because its the best blue engine, not because its an amazing card. The stifle, FoW, etc gives you a nice edge against combo. But the islandwalk you get on you hurts.
And while Survival helps create a balls on the walls explosion, the turn 2: Wild Mongrel, Discard Vengie, discard Rootwalla is good enough of a play to keep aggro decks on their toes say you pull it off.
I'm not convinced Goyf should be run.
I have my own variant I am tweaking for fun. It is likely garbage, but it is fun nonetheless!
@ TheKilla: It sounds like you're keeping some pretty gnarly hands. I only keep hands without Survival if they contain turn two Vengevine(s) or multiple instances of disruption: Trygon Predator/Stifle+Waste/Force+Pitch/Daze/Umezawa's Jitte. If your hand has one or less of these things and a pile of madness creatures, it is probably not keepable against an unknown opponent. I played against some of the best zoo (Tom "the boss" ross) and merfolk players in the world with this deck, and only dropped four games to Saito, who is admittedly one of the best players in the world with a list that is much better against me than the lists I was testing vs. Trust me, a brainstorm will not find you Survival often enough. A simple mulligan shows you double the cards, and another chance at the nuts. Also, while a slight splash for, oh, 2 Enlightened Tutors might be good, you're going to need more than 14 critters for a survival deck to function at all.
@twndomn: Yes, it's a metagame call, but 1-what meta doesn't have countertop? and 2-it also serves the purpose of pitching to both force and survival, while keeping the creature count up for jitte and vengevine. If you cut it, I think you have to cut it for another blue creature. If your meta has lots of combo/randomness, then Vendilion Clique is a fine substitute.
@kirk: Thanks for the kind words. Despite its apparent uselessness in the feature matches (I was happy with its presence on the board vs. Tom Ross. The threat of it equipping forced him to leave mana up, slowing him down considerably,) Jitte was pretty sweet most of the time, and did an impressive job of making Aquamoeba look like a good creature. I won two games against zoo and one game against merfolk with it. If you're going into a field with less gobbs/zoo and more countertop/randomness, then sure pull the jittes to the sideboard. At a GP, however, I stand by them in the MD.
@FzGhoul: Don't let garbage get in the way of a good time. I've been winning with crap cards for what seems like forever. Just focus on synergy and what you need to do to win at all times, and the deck will shape up. If you don't care about straight up losing to every combo deck out there, I recommend this GW version that SarcasticRat has been tearing up ML with:
http://www.magic-league.com/deck/63087/legacy_t15.html#Vengevine%20Survival11913
SarcasticRat tried convincing me to switch over right before the GP, and had I done so I never would've top eighted. However, if your metagame doesn't have much combo (like ML's), then this list is pretty sweet.
Awesome input, thanks.
Naw. If you have a Survival online, then there are better things to be doing with your mana, with the exception of if the opponent is running multiple hate cards, again like in the second game against Tom Ross. The best time to play-equip Jitte is on turn three when the aggro deck has tapped out for some random dorks so that your guy isn't exposed to path or bolt, and the jitte just swings the game. It's a fantastic use for extra Gaea's Cradle mana, too.
(from weakest to strongest)
1 - Gives you an air beater outside of Wonder
2 - Blue to Fow
3 - Versatility, if you need control hit your opponent, if you need Survival of the Fittest, dig
Disadvantages
1 - UU
2 - Doesn't give discard outlet
Seems like it could very viably be a strong SB card, or good meta game call.
EDIT
I see:
totally agree
Maverick -- Storm
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Because you can't spell slaughter without laughter.
As I believe Caleb mentioned earlier this deck is really mana hungry, and the potential extra added mana is more useful than randomly sparking up your rootwallas.
The thing with oboro, is that its not searchable with fetches, it gets counted in Price of Progress, and it cant be returned to the hand for a daze. Plus for mana base purposes it would sub in the place of the basic island. which as I just mentioned is relevant.
Just my immediate thoughts.
Also, Coiling Oracle is another 2 CC that in this case you would rather be slamming into play an aquamoeaba or mongrel, both things that enable the madness outlet.
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 Krosan Grip
4 Force Spike/Spell Pierce (reason i say for spike is it hits all spells)
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Submerge
1 Stifle
Please let me know.
That's the crappiest tech usage I've ever seen on such an awesome card.=.=
Sideboard must be designed according to your meta. I don't believe that anyone would have a need to shuffle their graveyard back to his/her library unless you are facing a meta filled with Mighty Quinn or Any deck that run Painter-Grindstone combo.
On the works:
Leyline Deck Wins:symbu:Null 'n Void:symbu:
Decks built:
:symg::symb::symr::symw::symu:ChangelingsUWRBG
:symru:16 land Ignite Memories Combo:symru:
:symbu:Hunted Singularity:symbu:
So here is the list I have been testing for a little while.
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Tundra
3 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
1 Island
3 Windswept Heath
Creatures
3 Trygon Predator
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Vengevine
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Loyal Retainers
4 Aquamoeba
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
1 Wonder
3 Stifle
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
3 Submerge
3 Krosan Grip
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Spell Pierce
Edit: Basically I put jittes in the sideboard while adding retainer and emrakul to the maindeck. I definitely want to put another fetchland somwhere probably another windswept heath or a flooded strand. Most likely another heath though.
I agree and disagree. The madness plan actually makes it so you don't always need survival in your opening hand. However, with survival you have some more options at your disposal. Of course, after some more preliminary testing I am moving the emrakul-retainer plan to the board just to catch your opponents off guard.
Also, I think people are missing the point on why I am playing retainer-emrakul. The purpose of the combo is to abuse survival of the fittest even further. As the deck doesn't really depend on the combo to win, it's just another axis that you can use to just win you games. Which is why I moved it to the board instead of leaving it in the maindeck.
As for arrogant wurm, vengevine is miles better especially with survival and wild mongrel. I am fairly certain that vengevines is in the slots where arrogant wurm suppose to be.
the "three" mana beaters are equal or larger than 4/4s. you'd rather be vengevining your opponent by then. The madness on rootwallas is useful just for the vengvine activation.
EDHCommanderWUBSharuum the HegemonBUW
UGRRiku of the Two ReflectionsRGU
Clan Limited
Now playing Tarmogoyf turn 3 or 4, when he is bigger... Do-able, but I sincerely doubt Tarmo will ever be bigger than a 4/5 in this deck.
On the other hand, playing against say Zoo, you get to go two routes:
-Play your vengevine quick if you are lucky
-You aren't lucky, that means you got stifle/FoW/Daze to slow them down
If you do drop a vengevine earlier, they have to take the time to StP it. Then you'll probably be able to slow them down enough with the aforementioned blue spells to get your engine out, then you simply crank out more creatures than them. You pitch a vengie for a rootwalla, madness in two rootwallas, get your vengie, etc. After you've blown your load you just attach Jitte.
Edit:
My question is why Wheel of Sun and Moon instead of Jotun Grunt?
Although not searchable with survival, wheel of sun and moon is just plain faster at stopping your opponent i'm their tracks. Not to mention that enchantments are stereotypically more difficult to get rid of then creatures.