MTG Salvation

Chaam I know you said no to DRS, but if you take SoFaI out add a true name nemesis to main board and switch baleful for drs that would leave you with five powerhouse turn two options. I guess my question is why no love for drs?

I'm biased I know that, so a list of some pros for me are
Pros:
Ability ne: Fetchland / wasteland: dual purpose / doesn't hurt as much
Ability two: Remove targets for enemy snapcaster / win con when you can't swing in.

Otherwise i like it!

@ Tanikaze I would tend to aggree with you, Deathblade is an Aggro/Tempo deck. While setting the tempo early with wastelands and DRS they are looking to pull ahead of you early in the game and put you behind on the resource war. I am working with Deathblade for the first time in a long while and find each deck to be drastically different. I dont think you can really make a hybrid of them.

@ Tanikaze: I ran a list similar to what you are running and have gone even further back to U/W with my TNN's in the board. I find lingering souls to be really good and Strix I felt I wanted more from it but against goyf he is a champ!

What have you found with your version?

I would like to pose this question to the readers of the forum and hopefully we have a few pros reading also. I am looking at potential directions to take my Stoneblade build and I have several ways to go... I want to get different view points on the following question.

Given the direction of the Legacy Meta Game what is the most flexible and/or robust version of Stone Blade (i.e. able to face the field with the best chance)

Esper Stoneblade - Consider this to be a version running Thoughtsieze, TNN, or Lingering Souls
U/W Stoneblade - Lingering Soul (obvious splash black for FB cost)
Bant Stoneblade - This would be Reid Dukes older list with TNN
Deathblade - The most recent lists placing at the SCG events

Really my question can be broken down even more in an attempt to understand the shift in meta game and where each deck fits. We can agree that each for the decks I mentioned U/W, Esper, Bant, Death blade deck occupy a different slot in the meta.

U/W – Is more control based and demonstrates the flaws all control decks have which is in order to reach the point of total control, one needs many resources. If one's opponent can play more spells and threats than one can respond to, pure Control decks can have difficulty recovering. The basic lands in this deck make it less susceptible to the mana denial plans of most decks. Lingering souls is a powerhouse in the deck and well worth the splash of black and this can allow you to put in a few more cantrip options

Esper – Attempts to overcome some of this with the splash of black for cheap discard allowing us in early games to have more of a presence. This build will require a lot of the pilot and knowledge of deck lists key cards and such to maximize the impact of the discard. It also gives us a turn 1 play which U/W does not have. This deck can have a weakness because it wants a lot of lands in play, it is surprisingly vulnerable to Wasteland. The impact of an early wasteland ripples through all your subsequent turns, making your mana either awkward or vulnerable on Turns 2 and 3. Supreme Verdicts may be uncounterable, but they are also nearly uncastable against aggro decks with a solid mana-denial plan.

Bant – Legacy Bant decks are notorious for trying to do too many things at once It features the Stoneforge Mystic package with BatterSkull and Umezawa’s Jitte, adds a Green Sun’s Zenith mini-toolbox on top of that, and still jams a playset of Force of Will. Elements of the deck are pulling in many directions at once, and it’s a tough balancing act to reach the critical number of blue spells for Force, enough green creatures for Zenith, and still find room for the equipment package. However the toolbox aspect of it is nice and running Knight is a bonus that can help you out also

Deathblade – Now we move to the Esper decks pack a Deathrite Shaman, greatly improving the mana, helping against Daze and Spell Pierce, and accelerating out early TNNs. These decks run their own mana denial plan and make maximum use of the fetch lands to power out TNN early on and ratchet up the pressure. This deck is more of a Tempo deck which gains additional options or decreases the options possessed by the opponent by means not directly pertaining to respective numbers of playable cards but it can backfire as it can cause you to over reach. However recently we have seen a shift in this deck to be more consistent with moving BoB out and FoW in, this still does not make up the difference.

With all of that being said which deck or direction makes the most sense considering how the meta may be shifting to a speed, burn, combo environment. Myself I am looking to make the deck simpler to run but how far do we go and with out skeleton?

I still don't like TNN

I agree I have played him in my Esper build and I am not found of him... he has won me plenty of games and is great with a Sword of Fire and Ice but when he gets removed it is painful and our back up plans become more limited. Plus there is pressure to drop him on turn 3 when we can at times be trying to bluff him into play with a FoW. Additionally the mirror is bad because you get stuck in counter wars. That being said I have a place for him in my SB right now and if I went a round of U/W I think I would be inclined to try and fit him and Souls in at the cost of Strix...

Concerning TNN, I think it has no equal. Lingering Souls are more "grindy" but definitely don't break open a board like TNN does and that's often what we need. I treat TNN like Jace because they will both run away with games very quickly if left unchecked for a couple of turns. The immediate impact of Lingering Souls is low compared to TNN and they are much more manageable. Even though Souls grant you more card advantage, the card quality is much lower.

I have been using a "Bant" version of UW Stoneblade since Council's Judgment was spoiled and I really appreciate the little edges the splash gives me. I used to play UW (Mishra's) and UWr (REB/Pyro and Blood Moon) mostly and figured that UW already offers all the tools we need to control most games so we no longer need a splash to deal with certain cards. However, even if a splash isn't needed, it brings so much for such a small investment that not having a splash is often a mistake.

Why would you ever run less than 4x Ponder and 4x Brainstorm? The deck needs the cantrips to function. Also, I don't like Spellsnare.

Concerning TNN, I think it has no equal. Lingering Souls are more "grindy" but definitely don't break open a board like TNN does and that's often what we need.

I would have agreed with this early on when TNN was first printed but I have found the amount of resources needed and how this one card causes the deck to be built more around it has cost some of explosivness. Now I would not say that it does not break the board open, it just represents a single threat that must be dealt with. Cards like Council's Judgment, Liliana of the Veil, Golgari Charm[/card], Night of Souls' Betrayal, Toxic Deluge, Zealous Persecution, Wrath FX and any other edict like card while yes they also take care of Lingering Souls tokens they take out TNN. I find it is easier to come back from the set back created by these cards with the tokens over TNN. I do not deny he is a strong card but I find having him in my deck causes me to be a little less flexible in my game plans.


Looking over the list above the ommision of Ponder is obvious this card acts as a 5th Brainstorm allowing you to flush bad draws away. I do like the addition of Libary and see how that can be useful...

So I've recently picked up Esper Stoneblade online as my first non-budget legacy deck. I'm curious what sort of sideboard people would build for an online meta where decks like Burn and Miracles are everywhere.

Quote from genini2 »

So I've recently picked up Esper Stoneblade online as my first non-budget legacy deck. I'm curious what sort of sideboard people would build for an online meta where decks like Burn and Miracles are everywhere.

If you are running against a meta of Burn one of the easiest cards to run is 3-4 Leyline of Sanctitythis card has an added bonus of shutting of some discard in the mirror. I also run more board sweeping when I expect to see Burn, I play tested against burn for several months and pretty much found that mulligan into a leyline is pretty much game over for them.
Miracles is a deck that does not run often in my local paper magic meta games but the few times I have faced it my Man-lands have been champs and I run that main deck. Beyond that I feel the miracles match-up is about smart play baiting counters with cards you can afford to lose. However I will admit my own experience against the deck is limited.

Miracles is a tough match up. You have to be the aggressor. Post sideboard, i bring in meddling mages and i keep my FOWs in, counter top lock is simply the worst and almost impossible to beat. I haven't gone against burn really but obvi stoneforge into batterskull is back breaking against them. StP can function as janky lifegain if need be

I've been playing less competitive version of W/U stoneblade. I dont have cards like jace, snap,or vendilion. I have FoW and I've been looking at changing to patriot delver. It doesn't look that different and really I only have to buy lands to actually have a competitive build.

My question then is: How different is it playing w/u/r delver as opposed to w/u stoneblade? Probably need my list for both decks

w/u


patriot delver

Quote from GodofConfusion »

Has anyon seen the Bant Blade deck that Paul Lynch made top 4 at SCG open with? Would it be appropriate to discuss it within the context of this thread?

I've been playing a deck like that for a few months now. Live in NZ so no huge tournaments but regular play testing with friends/small tournaments.



Been looking for sideboard cards to be honest. Most of the meta around here is Jund and UWR delver, Jund game 1 isn't so bad loam and Garruk make it a whole lot better but wondering about some input maybe to improve this, I liked the guys deck from SCG but I didn't really want to be that all in on an artifact strategy and I'm used to play a Maverick deck so I made it from that kind of base.

Personally I just really like Lingering Souls/Vendillion Clique too much not to run at least 3/1 in my 60. Particularly since you are running an equipment heavy package and a Liliana on top of that.

So I began magic in return to ravnica and was an avid standard player for quite some time followed by a stint being a modern fanatic, but my favorite format to watch was legacy. most of this reason was that stoneforge mystic and jace were always my favorite cards. So I've finally decided to take the plunge into buying into a legacy deck. My big thing is I would like to keep in two colors because dual lands are not easy to come by, and i was wondering if just straight U/W stoneblade was still a viable deck?

This is the decklist I've been working on any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm sure it's viable.

BBD piloted a straight UW Stoneforge list at the most recent SCG, and it contained numerous innovations in an effort (I think) to take advantage of Treasure Cruise. He had Back to Basics, Gitaxian Probe, and Meddling Mage in the MD.

It looked pretty sweet. I'm sure if it's as viable as a straight UW Miracles though.

Funny, just like the guy two posts up, I started in Return to Ravnica, quickly got bored of Standard, have been playing UW Gifts Tron in Modern for a while, and have been wanting to play Legacy for a while. Esper Stoneblade is the deck I've always wanted to play, and I just put it together on MTGO.

Then it occurred to me...Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time could be good in the deck in small numbers, but more than that they are apparently making a big impact on the metagame. This means more graveyard hate. This means our Snapcasters and Lingering Souls will be worse.

Anybody else worried about losing value of key cards due to splash damage from the two new delve cards?

I don't know about all this.

The most successful deck with Treasure Cruise was Bob Huang's UR Delver list... and trying to fight that thing with graveyard hate is a really bad idea. "Here, I think I'll just ignore the 5-10 power on the table. Fear my Rest In Peace!"

Esper has plenty of win cons available that don't rely on the graveyard at all, most notably True-Name Nemesis. There are loads of options, from hedging numbers of souls/TNNs, playing planeswalkers, etc. I think Esper is in a pretty good sweet spot of being able to benefit from the graveyard without making GY hate good against it. Except for the odd DRS, of course.

After reading and trying to get into Deathblade what worries me a lot is the manabase.

Dual lands and wastelands are not cheap here, what I have right now is:

2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Jitte

My idea is to have the following configuration:


Lands: 22
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas

Creatures: 8
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 True-Name Nemesis

Planeswalkers: 5

2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace The Mind Sculptor

Spells: 25

3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Council's Judgement
1 Detention Sphere
1 Supreme Veredict
2 Spell Snare


What worries me is the manabase and the blue-card ratio in order to make Forces effective. Any changes, as radical as you might think, will be appreciated. I'd like to make some space both for basics and Hymns to Tourach and Lingering Souls and which 4 cards to cut in order to fit in DeathRite Shaman, but I don't know which lands to cut.

Thanks in advance

has there been a version of stone blade that relys on cascading into stoneforge mystic via shardless agentand/or ardent plea?

possibly skiping on 1cc and 2cc spells so the cascade goes directly to stoneforge.