This thread is also up at the Source, just figured I'd stick it in both forums.
Updated 1/27/2009
This thread is for discussion of Slide decks in Legacy. There are two basic versions of the deck discussed here. Both are to an extent, aggro control. One is R/W and leans heavily towards the aggressive side of that equation, while the other is GBw and leans towards the control side of things. Both lists are still in development. Any and all feedback/criticism/ideas are welcome.
First we have the GBw "Stompy Chalice Rock Slide" accelerated list.
The current experiment is cutting the fourth Tomb for the second Wasteland. This came about because drawing multiple Tombs sucks, while drawing Wasteland is almost always nice. Second Wasteland could turn into utility like Nomad Stadium, Cabal Pit, or Nantuko Monastery, but probably won't. May turn back into 4th Tomb after more testing.
This deck largely came about because after looking at all the best cards for a Slide list in Legacy I realized they almost all cost 3+ mana. Tombs and Moxes seemed the ideal way to deal with this situation. That led to the inclusion of Chalice as disruption and the elimination of all maindeck 1cc and 2cc spells except for Life from the Loam. This has the side benefit of rendering the deck largely immune to Counterbalance/Top lockdown.
The deck runs three Ancient Tombs and isn't Stompy fast. This means it needs some way to gain back life spent on mana production. Three Loxodon Hierarchs and two Kokusho, the Evening Stars provide that. Koku might get turned into Tombstalker, but it's pretty rare that you have double black before you're up to five or six mana anyways, so I'm not sure that they'd really be any faster. Exalted Angel is pretty, but there are only 10 white sources, and trying to get her flipped early was screwing up the manabase. Angel also tends to die before living long enough to accomplish anything. Tribal Flames and Warren Weirding are mostly to blame for that one. Finally, Angel doesn't trade with either Tombstalker or Mystic Enforcer.
Radiant's Judgement and Expunge both kill Tarmogoyf, and between them hit everything else except small black creatures. Decree of Pain is an instant speed, expensive anti-swarm card. Great for goblins when it hits during their attack step. The eight mana hardcast is easier than you'd think thanks to Tomb and Mox, and a Wrath that simultaneously refills your hand is some good times. Engineered Explosives is just a great way to kill most things that are played in Legacy. Thanks to Mox Diamond, you can run it up to five even though you only play three colors. Great at killing CB, Tokens, or anything else that you're not liking at the moment. Also deals with tiny black critters like Shade and Bob. Also kills Mongeese, which otherwise can be problematic.
Chalice of the Void + seven turn one accelerants = savage beatings vs. most of the format. Against combo, it's the non blue counterbalance. Deals with the burn matchup almost by itself. Amazing card. I'd run six if I could. Only having four slots for disruption is a little light, but Chalice is pretty devastating disruption and there isn't currently a good similar card available to run as a supplement to it.
Elspeth, Knight Errant could be Decree of Justice, but for now, she's the better option I think. Produces chump tokens or makes witnesses into legitimate threats. Second +1 ability is used far more often than the first in this deck as a way to quickly finish off opponents. Provides outs to all sorts of randomness, including both Humility and Moat.
Astral Slide and the cycling lands provide mana (slowly), card drawing, lftl targets and creature tricks. The heart of the deck.
Mox Diamond and Ancient Tomb provide acceleration from turn one onward. Both allow for a turn one Chalice@1, which is one of the strongest plays in the format. The deck is designed to be able to take advantage of both as much as possible. Mox works particularly well with lftl, and the mana fixing is extremely useful. The mix of fetchlands, basics, and duals is fairly standard for a legacy deck. There is no way to fetch/find the lone basic Swamp, but I think four basics is the minimum for a legacy deck and the rarely found Swamp seems to be a better option than a rarely used second Plains.
The sideboard is a mix of utility and hosers. Ethersworn Canonist is the anti-combo slot. Works amazingly well vs. combo, fits into the decks overall strategy, attacks for two. Also plays nicely with Chalice. Krosan Grip is just general format hate. There are an absolutely monstrous number of inimical enchantments and artifacts available right now. Grip deals with all of them and ignores counter magic and activations-in-response-to-destruction. Rapid Decay is an extra cycler for the maindeck to replace dead cards and also provides graveyard hate. Will shut down an Intuition trick/Genesis/Squee. Can somewhat disrupt Ichorid. Not a graveyard shutdown card like Crypt or Relic. Strongly considering replacing this with Extirpate because most of the matches you want gy hate in you side out Chalice anyways. Ghostly Prison is the anti aggro card. Really slows down any type of "rush" deck. Combines very nicely with Astral Slide by removing the limited number of attackers they can throw at you. Often goes in for Chalice of the Void. Great at stopping decks that want to play offense and disrupt you simultaneously. Could be Engineered Plague, but Prison just seems better since it's useful even if you only have one in play and it's synergistic with Slide. Prison makes up the majority of your Ichorid hate. The fourth Expunge is just there for general usefulness.
Testing results for GBw Chalice Slide
vs. landstill variants
The more you play this matchup the more in your favor it gets. They have a very hard time getting threats into a threatening position due to your removal and ability to play without breaking Standstill. The fact that you draw more cards than them is also highly in your favor. Like most Landstill builds, Slide is extremely difficult for them to get through and usually forces a destruction of their own Crucible to get rid of it. Chalice is pretty useless here as e.e. and deed are always destroying them as a side effect of destroying something else more important.
vs. threshold variants
Answers to 'Goyf and Enforcer maindeck + bigger dudes than Mongoose are good times. Being out of range of their CB curve + maindeck enchantment destruction=better times. Barring specific build variances, an extremely good matchup. To reiterate: You skip their counterbalance curve and play too much mana to be bothered by Daze. Thresh needs more than four counters to win. Plus they almost auto-lose to a resolved Chalice@1.
vs. goblins
Not the best matchup, though cycling a decree during their attack step usually spells game. Can go either way, but slightly in their favor. Especially if they run a lot of Weirdings.
vs Suicide style decks
Not a good matchup. The LD is very, very damaging, Tombstalker is a nightmare because only Radiant's Judgement and hardcast Decree kill him. Getting an early Slide+Loam is generally your only chance here, though if you do, it's nearly a guaranteed win. The high level of relevant disruption + clock = bad times.
And now the RW "Electric Slide" list originally by BlindMage, modified by me.
The decks creature suite is designed to do two things: beat Threshold and be good on their own but better with Slide. Jotun Grunt and Kitchen Finks were chosen because they beat Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose while still having positive interactions with Slide. Eternal Dragon is there as a recurrable late game win condition and early game mana source. Plus he's somewhat limited card advantage. It is worth noting that it isn't remotely clear whether or not Clear + Scrap is better than Duergar Hedge-Mage. That's more of an experimental choice.
The deck is very versatile, playing as a slowish R/W aggro deck or a fastish R/W board control deck and being able to switch back and forth as needed. It can also use the Chants, Abeyances, and Scepters to play a somewhat Quinn-like lockdown game.
A few other cards and things of note in the deck are:
Starstorm: Starstorm is better than alternatives because of the combination of being instant, having cycling, and being able to kill mongooses. It can kill a bunch of soldier or goblin tokens for 3, or it can wipe a pair of 'gooses for 5. Or you can cycle it. It really is one of the best cards in the deck.
Land Count: 24 lands is really high for an aggro-control deck. However, six of them are cycling lands that mostly function as cantrips and four of them are Wastelands, so the overall mana density isn't as high as it may look on the surface. It's possible the fourth Plains and second Mountain could be cut for the seventh and eighth cycling lands, but that change isn't 100% yet.
Spark Spray: it's true this mostly just cycles for R. But it does provide additional utility vs. Lackey, Bob, and Mana critters, meaning you don't have to "waste" an StP on them to kill them t1.
This deck is still very much a work in progress, and certainly not yet optimized. I think this is pretty clear, but in case it's not, let me say that this is a deck designed to deal with the explosion of aggro-control decks in modern Legacy. I hope this hopes shed some light on the thought processes behind this deck.
Coke, I like the idea of Legacy Slide deck. On that note, I prefer a more stable manabase in 2 colors and better creatures to abuse with Astral Slide. Why not use something more useful overall, like continuous card advantage.....in Wall of Blossoms? Plus, its an awesome 2 drop and blocker against aggro decks, plus the cantrip and Slide synergy. Eternal Witness is more than obvious. I think excluding either Decree of Justice or Exalted Angel is a mistake. DoJ has mad dsynergy with Slide, cycles and makes dudes. Exalted Angel kills in 5 turns, and flies, gains some precious life back as well. I like the Diamnonds as acceleration alot, since setting up is mad slow. Thats why I like WOBlossoms as early defense/cantrip/Slide synergy to fit that role exclusively. Also, why no Swords to Plowshares? Its the best spot removal of all time, and you can recurr it via Eternal Witness......:D
Just out of curiosity, did ANYONE READ THE DAMN POST OR DECKLIST?
Bubblegum wtf. There are a lot of replies to the title of the thread, and absolutely NO replies to its content.
You have a minimum of 12 sources of each color. And Life from the Loam to get back anything that gets Wasted/Sinkholed or just to keep using the same Windswept Heath over and over. Hag is strictly > Wall.
The deck does run 2 mana lands. See the four copies of Ancient Tomb.
What does the deck do without Slide? Really? I dunno, cast cheap recursive, accelerated creatures that are hard to kill and generate card advantage? Goyf is bigger than my guys? I don't care. I can Expunge him, Slide him, or just gang block him to death. Do you not see that Witness, Hag, and Unearth all come into play and return each other to play or my hand? Kind of an endless card drawing wall of dudes in your way. Or the deck gains massive card advantage from repeatedly casting and dredging LftL? Also, there are 15 creatures in this deck, not 11. Maybe the format of the decklist was confusing to you, so I'll repost it here in a nice, simple easy to understand format for you.
I don't care if something gets countered. Notice the Hags, Witnesses, and Unearths? Also, why the hell do you keep insisting the deck can't do anything before turn 3? It can drop Slide on turn one sometimes, and on turn two very reliably. Or any of its creatures for that matter. (Indrik can come down turn 2, but it requires a very specific hand, the rest, pretty easy). How exactly is therapy bad? T1, therapy, t2, finks, flash it back, or t2 witness/mage, cast therapy again t3 and flash it back. Three therapy casts by turn 3. yeah, its HORRIBLE here.
You know, I'd really like to make this deck better by using feedback and different perspectives, unfortunately in your case, that requires actually reading the original post and seeing whats in the decklist, which is something you clearly did not do. Much like you need to RTFC to understand what it does, you need to RTFDecklist.
EDIT: As an example of you know, reading the deck and helping with it, someone suggested that Wickerbough Elder would be a good replacement for Indrik Stomphowler since its one mana cheaper and can hold off on its art/enchant destruction until later if no good target is present. They were right, it's a great suggestion, and its been implemented. Woah! Crazyness.
I get that you like your idea, and that you're willing to defend it. That's completely fine. Telling people to RTFC and RTFDecklist, however, is NOT fine and has earned you a general flaming infraction. -AoK
Do you find the Hedge-Mage slows you down by putting the card on top of the library? I understand you can cycle to get around that, but it seems like that might be tying up a lot of your mana. I mean, it's obviously got nice synergy with Unearth, I just haven't ever tested this deck before and on paper it looks like it would be somewhat detrimental to your tempo.
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In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
The reclaim effect of Hag doesn't really slow you down, it won't result in drawing extra cards like sliding witness in and out does (though it will result in your opponent running out of cards, kind of a flip side thing) but it can make sure that you stay stocked with cyclers to keep the sliding action going. The other important thing to remember is that Hag is a "may" ability and doesn't necessarily have to be used if you don't want to. This isn't like actually casting Reclaim or one of the top of the library tutors where you end up with card disadvantage because the effect doesn't cost you a card to get.
Yuan,
So your argument against Slide is basically, "it can be countered, discarded, or destroyed, therefore its crap"? Wow.
Generally speaking its rank newbies who make the argument that cards are bad because answers to them exist, guess someone inflated their post count without learning anything along the way.
Regarding using witness/mage to bring back therapy, why is it bad to re-use early discard? First you said therapy was bad because there weren't enough things to sacrifice to it, now you're arguing that its bad to use it more than once? I'm very confused by your counter-to-itself logic circle here.
Why does it need to be two open mana for cyclers? The deck runs 14 cycling cards, 6 of them cycle for one colored mana, 8 of them cycle for two colorless. The colorless cycling is one of the better things tomb does in this deck as it pays their cycling cost exactly.
What exactly are the other Loam decks filling their yard with that's so much better than what this one does? I don't mean Dredge Combo (ichy, ceph, etc.) I mean other loam decks. They mostly dredge and cast loam for cycling lands and fetchlands.. just like this deck is doing.
You also suggest that in addition to countering/discarding/destroying everything I do that my opponents will be simultaneously killing me. I would appreciate, and I'm sure everyone else would too, if you shared this amazing decklist with the rest of us.
Finally, you say this deck dies to Counterbalance. Threshold, the most common counterbalance deck, doesn't run any cards at three mana except for Krosan Grip in the sideboard. Counterbalance has no effect on the vast majority of cards in this deck because the decks that contain counterbalance generally lack cards at the relevant casting costs.
Your logic is lacking and your arguments are internally inconsistent. Please troll somewhere else. You are not providing helpful suggestions or anything besides rampant negativity when it isn't warranted with a deck you haven't played or tested with or against.
Can you provide matchup breakdown against major decks?
At a first glance, it seems terrible against Thresh, since your deck has very few must-counters and only Therapy as disruption. Thresh will set up faster than you and I'm not seeing apparent answers.
Same thing with Landstill. They'll cast better threats while having more counters than your disruption.
Goblins seems a bit rough also, since that deck will just plow through random stuff, and you don't seem to have dedicated answers for it.
Vs. Goblins, Finks is your best card. A single Finks plus an Unearth is four creatures they have to kill, and each one costs them a Weirding or an attacker. Hedge Mage is also very good here as she comes down on turn two if you get Tomb instead of mox and later on works as a card advantage machine, emptying their hand while giving you good draws. The main use for therapy in this match is to hit their card drawers. Matron is always the card I named blind. Basically you just keep an endless flow of guys coming through witness/hag/finks/unearth tricks while slowly gaining life and emptying their hand. If you get Slide going along with the horde of blockers the process goes even faster. Wort and Mad Auntie were the two most difficult cards to deal with besides the Ringleaders, mainly because Expunge doesn't hit them. Slide can keep Wort off of recurring Ringleaders if you start to achieve board position. Keeping their Vials dead with Elder is hugely important because it slows them down so much. I've played the match enough to know either deck can blow out the other depending on draws. That's one reason Orim's Chant is on the bubble for the Thoughtseize slot in the board, since you can use it to lock them out of the game. If goblins are really big in your meta and you're really having trouble, Batwing Brume is available and pretty much makes it impossible for them to win barring Siege-Gang/Sharpshooter combo - if they run it. But generally, its about 50/50 with a high degree of draw dependence for both decks.
Against thresh the matches were incredibly one sided. Counterbalance stops one and two casting cost spells. You have Unearth and Loam at those points. Basically, they have four relevant cards against you: Swords to Plowshares, Thoughtseize, Mystic Enforcer, and Force of Will. If you don't tap out, Daze is useless, you completely miss their counterbalance curve, and you can trade with Mongoose and Tarmogoyf due to Slide and creature recursion from Witness and Mage. Enforcer doesn't hit that early because four lands is a lot for Thresh. Once he does hit, you have four Slides to slip through against their four Force of Wills, alternatively, you can pump out lots of random dudes and race him. Thresh lacks lifegain and does a fair amount of damage to itself. you can usually win that race. In short, Thresh is nearly an auto win because they have approximately 14 cards that can affect the game state, while you have a whole deck to play with.
YuanTi,
If you have nothing constructive to contribute, please stop trolling and leave the thread. For an explanation of why 'Goyf is bad, read the first post as I've already requested you to do. The explanation is below the decklist and slightly set off from the rest of the post.
Okay, listen, maybe he's not being super nice about what he's saying, but you need to listen to WHAT YuanTi is saying.
Your deck is incredibly reliant on Slide, and quite slow from a strategic standpoint, while lacking sufficient disruption. Your only disruption is cabal therapy. This means that combo and hyper aggressive decks, like goblins, are just going to roll you. Even Dragon Stompy is just going roll you over before you can get up a sufficient defense, it seems.
From there, your entire deck is highly vulnerable to counterbalance when wielded by the fear. The fear is just going to drop balance, get a 3cc card on top and watch you squirm. Even if they don't, they're swinging with far faster and more efficient beats in the form of goyf. Yes you have removal, but not really enough, and you have such a low density of actual threats that they'll usually be able to overcome those. And you talk about locking them out or w/e, but decks like the fear are going to get things like academy/ee rolling in the large amount of time you're giving them.
Yes, existance of removal does not make a card back, but when you have a strategy completely centered around one card, and then lack real defenses against answers to that card, you are in trouble. You say your deck is alright without it, but it takes quite a bit of effort for your deck to sum up the resources to get those engines going, and in the mean time, every other deck has an extreemly prevelent threat, much more so than your 2 powered creatures for 3 mana, and those things are going to overwhelm you.
Furthermore, as YuanTi implied, you have no real draw or search engine, save lftl. What if you don't draw it? I mean, you really need to play it asap, or this deck isn't getting off the ground as opponents will be playing all of their cards. I mean, when you can't get a threat down before standstill, I've got to say that it looks like the deck is in trouble.
I mean, I don't want to sound to harsh, but you're really forcing us to by not really listening to our theoretical criticism. It just seems that, on a basic theoretical level, your deck is flawed, if you want us to help you, cut out the belligerent crap and explain your deck on a theoretical and meta based level, so that we can see where you're coming from, because obviously the majority of the responses you've gotten indicate that you either aren't presenting your ideas sufficiently or that there really is an integral flaw that you are ignoring, in either case better analysis is the solution.
EDIT: Having seen your response, you must admit that your testing is extremely limited, and therefore I regard it very skeptically. You've tested against a fraction of the metagame, and even then your analysis indicates incomplete understanding of the matchups. I mean, you act like finks is good agianst goblins, but it doesn't even hit until turn 3. You can't even answer lackey, I mean, they don't need a god hand exactly to kill you before you even start playing relevent spells. If you're using elder to kill vial, its already too late really. And how does slide keep goblins off of wort recurussion exactly? Against thresh, you seem to completely ignore any concept of tempo, which makes me doubt you even fully understand the concept, really. Even then, you're missing testing against large portions of the metagame, many of which probably have an even better matchup against you, when I'm not even convinced of your results so far.
I mean, I don't want to sound to harsh, but you're really forcing us to by not really listening to our theoretical critisizm. It just seems that, on a basic theoretical level, your deck is flawed, if you want us to help you, cut out the beligerent crap and explain your deck on a theoretical and meta based level, so that we can see where you're coming from, because obviously the majority of the responses you've gotten indicate that you either aren't presenting your ideas sufficiently or that there realy is an integral flaw that you are ignoring, in either case better analysis is the solution.
Glix,
I apologize, it is entirely my mistake to rely on my testing results rather than your theoretical concepts and what seems to be the case to you at first glance.
In general, if you think the deck is bad, that's fine, explain why and OFFER SUGGESTIONS. Perhaps try asking about previous builds or considered alternatives. Ask how the deck works or what the results of a player who is more familiar with it than you are have been. You know, just pretend, for a brief second, that I, who've built and tested this deck, MIGHT know slightly more about it and its actual play results than you, who read half a post and decided what was best.
I'm incredibly tired of hearing people say the deck has no draw engine. It's called cycling. It's a draw engine. Slide outdraws Threshold every day of the week and twice on Sunday. No, it isn't blue, no, it doesn't run Brainstorm, yes, it does draw more cards.
EDIT: For Example, Therapy used to be Chalice of the Void, and the sideboarded Thoughtseizes were Trinispheres. When hag got added to the deck, I switched to discard as disruption to go with the Hag's abilities. If you think that's a mistake, say why. Of course, you don't know this happened because you were busy telling me what you already know instead of asking about the deck and how it works.
Time out, guys. I understand that the responses have not been as favorable as you would have hoped, morgan_coke, and I realize that you guys don't like his deck, but do please remember to keep this to the normal subforum rules: If you wish to attack the deck, do so in a respectful manner, and explain why. If you wish to attack the creator or player, then you really need to reconsider that wish. That goes for everyone.
Official warning to keep it cool. Remember, Magic is a game. - AoK
And yes, no incantatrix for you. Or anyone. That class makes puppies cry. Mostly because they are the former Big Bads who have been Baleful Polymorphed into said puppies. By you. Because you're an incantatrix.
Quote from Yukora »
This is Deraxas we're talking about.
Remember, the girl that just killed an aspect of herself before literally consuming her?
Yeah, I don't see her handling a pissing match in any way other than a duel.
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Yes mistress...
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There are only so many epic, psuedonatural barbarian/blackguard half-dragon akutenshai vampire balor paragons they can throw at you, right?
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I suppose it's true. Though the logistics implied in a human/Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon pairing makes me shudder.
...Something tells me that even should all arcane casters in the world unite, that the Grease spell would NOT be sufficient.
Being an old skool Slide player, I always thought black had some potential, esp with B/W CITP play abilities. There are some very nice ideas here, like Finks and Unearth... I would say I'm not sold on the two eventide additions. Also, I know how much everyone loves Life From The Loam, but I always enjoyed using Cartographer. It's unexpected, has a decent body, and can be Unearthed. I would also agree that it seems to miss something without Angel or Dragon. Angel + Slide was a good trick, and Dragon was a fat body if nothing else. Let's think of better options since we have some neat new options availible...
Divinity Of Pride? He's cheaper and bigger than Dragon, and with Angel could be very impressive early on.
When Witness/Slide first appeared in Standard, Zvi Mowshowitz wrote about the deck, referring to it as "incremental torture". The deck doesn't really have many (if any) knockout punches. It just does lots of little things that leave it in a slightly better position than it was in before. Over time, these little things add up to big results. Hag Hedge-Mage is a perfect example. She forces a discard and gives you the option of dictating your next card draw. It's a small bit of CA, and a small bit of selection + a 2/2 black body (black is relevant as it can block fear and is immune to some removal).
Glix EDIT,
Yeah, the testing is limited. It's a new deck. I put it up here for advice, testing help, and suggestions.
Slide keeps Wort off recursion the same way you use it to keep Confidant from drawing cards. Cycle the offending creature out during your own EOT step, and it won't come back into play until their EOT step, thus missing the upkeep phase and its upkeep trigger. The fact that you didn't know how this works really just makes me think that you aren't familiar with the deck or the cards in it and how they interact with each other.
Against goblins you spend your first one or two turns cycling into the cards you want then just start playing one or two dudes every turn. Each of these dudes has a small amount of card advantage built in, and they keep each other coming back. Once you start getting Unearth, Witness, Hag, and Finks going, they just keep returning each other to your hand and to play in a never ending chain that slowly builds up your life and hand while emptying your opponents'. Slide amplifies all of these effects by making them happen repeatedly each turn.
Please stop insisting that all my 3cc spells don't hit until turn 3. There is a reason there are 8x turn one accelerators in this deck. Yes, the deck rarely does kill a turn one lackey on the play, it's possible, but highly unlikely (mox, tomb, expunge). Killing/blocking Lacky on t2 or when goblins is on the draw is much, much more likely. The reason Finks is good against goblins is they have to kill it twice. And they have to kill it twice every time it comes back. And you gain lots of life while this is going on.
I don't talk about tempo vs. Threshold because it doesn't matter. Tempo is Thresh's game. Good for them, they're better at it than me. I'm not playing it. I'm going to play my game which is long term incremental advantage that makes 75% of their deck completely irrelevant. Thresh has no pure card advantage, and no unbeatable end game plan or insta-out. You're not in a hurry to kill them. They have one threat that matters, and it requires them to tap four mana on their turn. Just run them out of cards, take control of the board, then win.
panda,
I don't think divinity is better than angel. unless pumped (rare if you're running tomb) it has a lower toughness than exalted and its mana cost is extremely difficult in a deck that is primarily G secondary B and splash W.
Cartographer, and Tilling Treefolk both do a worse job of the same thing than eternal witness or life from the loam depending on your perspective. Loam is great because it recurs itself, making it a self fueling one card advantage machine. That is Loams main advantage over the creatures.
If you're looking for a flyer for Slide, might I recommend Reveillark? You can run Aven Riftwatcher in the lifegain slot to take full advantage of the double resurrection.
Some things you might wanna test against are 3 and 4c landstill. It's quickly taking over Thresholds spot as the dtb imo. The fact that Thresh's bad matchups are gaining popularity is helping with this. Also try some limited Stax testing, I'm interested to see how the deck does against a dedicated control deck with very few creatures and LOTS of answers. As for the Lark splash, have you thought about something like Karmic Guide as well? It seems like it would fit well. Though the WW could be very harsh.
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SKRules on Dark Rit art
5th is just a guy snapping his fingers. Maybe Nicol Bolas can get mana that way, but I can't.
updated the first post with deck changes and testing results. also raised the "take xx" number, will be raising that every time I update the first post
Karmic Guide is an idea interesting in a build with Tuskers and Dragons, but it seems like it might just be a little to much work for the result. Especially since 'lark gives you twice as many dudes (though smaller ones) and doesn't have echo. there's probably also some sick combo with both guide and lark, but I think that would deserve its own deck.
long story short, i think cycling a creature to slide out karmic then using karmic to resurrect said creature falls into the category "danger of cool things"
leyline and decay are really for different decks. leyline is for things where you just need to turn off the graveyard, like ichorid, iggy pop, cephalife, etc. Decay is for decks that use the graveyard but not so much that you need to devote four slots to straight-up pure hate for it. Things like Landstill and Survival and Rock.
Being an old skool Slide player, I always thought black had some potential, esp with B/W CITP play abilities. There are some very nice ideas here, like Finks and Unearth... I would say I'm not sold on the two eventide additions. Also, I know how much everyone loves Life From The Loam, but I always enjoyed using Cartographer. It's unexpected, has a decent body, and can be Unearthed. I would also agree that it seems to miss something without Angel or Dragon. Angel + Slide was a good trick, and Dragon was a fat body if nothing else. Let's think of better options since we have some neat new options availible...
Divinity Of Pride? He's cheaper and bigger than Dragon, and with Angel could be very impressive early on.
I'm Curious too see what an old skool slide player thinks would be in a good B/W slide deck.
i love slide its been one of my favorite decks since it came out. although with the 2 mana lands you could throw in Fluctuator and go
t1: Fluctuator" target="blank">Fluctuator
t2:slide
(there turn, fog until not needed)
updated first post, added some more matchups. Also, I'm wrong about the Indrik/Humility interaction.
The main thing I don't like about the deck right now is that it only has four pieces of disruption maindeck. (I guess you could count the Vindicates as LD, but with no other support for them it doesn't work out so well unless you're casting one every turn, at which point it doesn't matter that much since you're winning anyways) I mean, Chalice@1 is amazing and all, and the deck can easily run Chalice@2 also since you only lose one spell doing so, but still. More disruption would be nice. Post board you only have seven pieces of disruption for combo, which I have the feeling isn't quite enough given the decks kill speed. Need to do more combo testing.
Disruption level is fine for control and aggro decks given how much this deck can play around the common strategies of both control and aggro. Namely, Decrees and Monasterys and Slides give you lots of effects that don't require casting spells, which is tough on counterbased control. Vs. board control you have lots more card draw and better recursion. In a basic sense, Slide should beat decks that try to interact with it and lose to decks that don't. This version is pretty close to that.
Just one thing to mention as far as testing. 5c thresh is not indicative of all thresh decks, it is greatly different from UGw thresh, UGr thresh, and even UGb.
Looking at your testing I agree that your few games are indicitave of your 5c thresh match up, but I do think you are translating that to cover your entire thresh match up, which I feel is a mistake.
Personally, I have been running UGw thresh steadily for about 2 years, and I find that the following cards can lock you out of the game:
Engineered Explosives set to 3
Krosan Grip on slide
Swords to Plowshares, before slide or when youre tapped out
Meddling Mage naming expunge/slide/witness
Pithing Needle naming Slide
isochron scepter imprinted with StP/counterspell/Lightning bolt/fire//ice
properly timed Force of Will + Daze
My build runs 2-4 of all of these and everything but the mages main deck (lbolt isn't in mine but fire//ice is)
Basically, I'm not certain that your threshold match up is as favorable as you indicate, and if you'd like to try it I'm willing to test a few games with you. I would love to find a deck that can steadily and consitently beat thresh, because that would change the legacy meta-game.
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T2: Solar Flare
Modern: Jund
T1: Remora Gush
MTGS Legacy Tournament #7 2nd
2009 NY States Top 8, 2010 NY States 2nd, 2011 NY States 2nd
NYSE V Top 8, NYSE X Top 4, NYSE XVIII Top 4
Blue Bell X Top 4
Pro Tour: Philadelphia Day 2
NEV 4 1st, NEV 6 2nd, NEV 7 Top 4, NEV 9 Top 8, NEV 11 Top 8, NEV 13 Top 8
Yeah, to be honest I've never even seen someone play slide, and I didn't look at the card. I just know the basic interactions of what it does, I guess in theory I could name one of the cyclers, preventing the trigger.
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T2: Solar Flare
Modern: Jund
T1: Remora Gush
MTGS Legacy Tournament #7 2nd
2009 NY States Top 8, 2010 NY States 2nd, 2011 NY States 2nd
NYSE V Top 8, NYSE X Top 4, NYSE XVIII Top 4
Blue Bell X Top 4
Pro Tour: Philadelphia Day 2
NEV 4 1st, NEV 6 2nd, NEV 7 Top 4, NEV 9 Top 8, NEV 11 Top 8, NEV 13 Top 8
actually samoht, you'd be a lot better off setting e.e. at zero (for diamonds and chalices) rather than three.
mage on cards with cycling doesn't really do much since the card can simply be.. cycled out. Honestly, I wouldn't bring Mage in against Slide, there are way too many relevant cards to name, kind of like vs. an aggro deck.
But hey, always looking to playtest :D. I'm traveling probably until saturday, but maybe we can set something up on PM for a few games on MWS after that?
Also started testing against UGb Thrash builds, pretty much the same story except they also have Stifle, which is useful.
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Updated 1/27/2009
This thread is for discussion of Slide decks in Legacy. There are two basic versions of the deck discussed here. Both are to an extent, aggro control. One is R/W and leans heavily towards the aggressive side of that equation, while the other is GBw and leans towards the control side of things. Both lists are still in development. Any and all feedback/criticism/ideas are welcome.
First we have the GBw "Stompy Chalice Rock Slide" accelerated list.
3x Loxodon Hierarch
2x Kokusho, the Evening Star
Recursion
4x Eternal Witness
3x Life from the Loam
1x Volrath's Stronghold
Removal
3x Radiant's Judgement
3x Expunge
3x Decree of Pain
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Wasteland
Disruption
4x Chalice of the Void
Planeswalkers
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant
4x Tranquil Thicket
2x Barren Moor
2x Secluded Steppe
3x Astral Slide
Acceleration
4x Mox Diamond
3x Ancient Tomb
Lands
3x Windswept Heath
2x Bayou
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
1x Plains
2x Forest
1x Swamp
4x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Krosan Grip
4x Ghostly Prison
3x Extirpate
1x Expunge
The current experiment is cutting the fourth Tomb for the second Wasteland. This came about because drawing multiple Tombs sucks, while drawing Wasteland is almost always nice. Second Wasteland could turn into utility like Nomad Stadium, Cabal Pit, or Nantuko Monastery, but probably won't. May turn back into 4th Tomb after more testing.
This deck largely came about because after looking at all the best cards for a Slide list in Legacy I realized they almost all cost 3+ mana. Tombs and Moxes seemed the ideal way to deal with this situation. That led to the inclusion of Chalice as disruption and the elimination of all maindeck 1cc and 2cc spells except for Life from the Loam. This has the side benefit of rendering the deck largely immune to Counterbalance/Top lockdown.
The deck runs three Ancient Tombs and isn't Stompy fast. This means it needs some way to gain back life spent on mana production. Three Loxodon Hierarchs and two Kokusho, the Evening Stars provide that. Koku might get turned into Tombstalker, but it's pretty rare that you have double black before you're up to five or six mana anyways, so I'm not sure that they'd really be any faster. Exalted Angel is pretty, but there are only 10 white sources, and trying to get her flipped early was screwing up the manabase. Angel also tends to die before living long enough to accomplish anything. Tribal Flames and Warren Weirding are mostly to blame for that one. Finally, Angel doesn't trade with either Tombstalker or Mystic Enforcer.
Radiant's Judgement and Expunge both kill Tarmogoyf, and between them hit everything else except small black creatures. Decree of Pain is an instant speed, expensive anti-swarm card. Great for goblins when it hits during their attack step. The eight mana hardcast is easier than you'd think thanks to Tomb and Mox, and a Wrath that simultaneously refills your hand is some good times. Engineered Explosives is just a great way to kill most things that are played in Legacy. Thanks to Mox Diamond, you can run it up to five even though you only play three colors. Great at killing CB, Tokens, or anything else that you're not liking at the moment. Also deals with tiny black critters like Shade and Bob. Also kills Mongeese, which otherwise can be problematic.
Chalice of the Void + seven turn one accelerants = savage beatings vs. most of the format. Against combo, it's the non blue counterbalance. Deals with the burn matchup almost by itself. Amazing card. I'd run six if I could. Only having four slots for disruption is a little light, but Chalice is pretty devastating disruption and there isn't currently a good similar card available to run as a supplement to it.
Elspeth, Knight Errant could be Decree of Justice, but for now, she's the better option I think. Produces chump tokens or makes witnesses into legitimate threats. Second +1 ability is used far more often than the first in this deck as a way to quickly finish off opponents. Provides outs to all sorts of randomness, including both Humility and Moat.
Astral Slide and the cycling lands provide mana (slowly), card drawing, lftl targets and creature tricks. The heart of the deck.
Mox Diamond and Ancient Tomb provide acceleration from turn one onward. Both allow for a turn one Chalice@1, which is one of the strongest plays in the format. The deck is designed to be able to take advantage of both as much as possible. Mox works particularly well with lftl, and the mana fixing is extremely useful. The mix of fetchlands, basics, and duals is fairly standard for a legacy deck. There is no way to fetch/find the lone basic Swamp, but I think four basics is the minimum for a legacy deck and the rarely found Swamp seems to be a better option than a rarely used second Plains.
The sideboard is a mix of utility and hosers. Ethersworn Canonist is the anti-combo slot. Works amazingly well vs. combo, fits into the decks overall strategy, attacks for two. Also plays nicely with Chalice. Krosan Grip is just general format hate. There are an absolutely monstrous number of inimical enchantments and artifacts available right now. Grip deals with all of them and ignores counter magic and activations-in-response-to-destruction. Rapid Decay is an extra cycler for the maindeck to replace dead cards and also provides graveyard hate. Will shut down an Intuition trick/Genesis/Squee. Can somewhat disrupt Ichorid. Not a graveyard shutdown card like Crypt or Relic. Strongly considering replacing this with Extirpate because most of the matches you want gy hate in you side out Chalice anyways. Ghostly Prison is the anti aggro card. Really slows down any type of "rush" deck. Combines very nicely with Astral Slide by removing the limited number of attackers they can throw at you. Often goes in for Chalice of the Void. Great at stopping decks that want to play offense and disrupt you simultaneously. Could be Engineered Plague, but Prison just seems better since it's useful even if you only have one in play and it's synergistic with Slide. Prison makes up the majority of your Ichorid hate. The fourth Expunge is just there for general usefulness.
Testing results for GBw Chalice Slide
vs. landstill variants
The more you play this matchup the more in your favor it gets. They have a very hard time getting threats into a threatening position due to your removal and ability to play without breaking Standstill. The fact that you draw more cards than them is also highly in your favor. Like most Landstill builds, Slide is extremely difficult for them to get through and usually forces a destruction of their own Crucible to get rid of it. Chalice is pretty useless here as e.e. and deed are always destroying them as a side effect of destroying something else more important.
vs. threshold variants
Answers to 'Goyf and Enforcer maindeck + bigger dudes than Mongoose are good times. Being out of range of their CB curve + maindeck enchantment destruction=better times. Barring specific build variances, an extremely good matchup. To reiterate: You skip their counterbalance curve and play too much mana to be bothered by Daze. Thresh needs more than four counters to win. Plus they almost auto-lose to a resolved Chalice@1.
vs. goblins
Not the best matchup, though cycling a decree during their attack step usually spells game. Can go either way, but slightly in their favor. Especially if they run a lot of Weirdings.
vs Suicide style decks
Not a good matchup. The LD is very, very damaging, Tombstalker is a nightmare because only Radiant's Judgement and hardcast Decree kill him. Getting an early Slide+Loam is generally your only chance here, though if you do, it's nearly a guaranteed win. The high level of relevant disruption + clock = bad times.
And now the RW "Electric Slide" list originally by BlindMage, modified by me.
4x Jotun Grunt
4x Kitchen Finks
1x Eternal Dragon
Disruption
4x Wasteland
3x Orim's Chant
4x Abeyance
Card Advantage
3x Astral Slide
2x Lightning Rift
2x Isochron Scepter
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Spark Spray
3x Starstorm
Cycling Lands
3x Secluded Steppe
3x Forgotten Cave
Lands
2x Windswept Heath
2x Wooded Foothills
4x Plateau
4x Plains
2x Mountain
1x Orim's Chant
1x Starstorm
2x Isochron Scepter
4x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Banefire
3x Scrap
2x Clear
The decks creature suite is designed to do two things: beat Threshold and be good on their own but better with Slide. Jotun Grunt and Kitchen Finks were chosen because they beat Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose while still having positive interactions with Slide. Eternal Dragon is there as a recurrable late game win condition and early game mana source. Plus he's somewhat limited card advantage. It is worth noting that it isn't remotely clear whether or not Clear + Scrap is better than Duergar Hedge-Mage. That's more of an experimental choice.
The deck is very versatile, playing as a slowish R/W aggro deck or a fastish R/W board control deck and being able to switch back and forth as needed. It can also use the Chants, Abeyances, and Scepters to play a somewhat Quinn-like lockdown game.
A few other cards and things of note in the deck are:
Starstorm: Starstorm is better than alternatives because of the combination of being instant, having cycling, and being able to kill mongooses. It can kill a bunch of soldier or goblin tokens for 3, or it can wipe a pair of 'gooses for 5. Or you can cycle it. It really is one of the best cards in the deck.
Land Count: 24 lands is really high for an aggro-control deck. However, six of them are cycling lands that mostly function as cantrips and four of them are Wastelands, so the overall mana density isn't as high as it may look on the surface. It's possible the fourth Plains and second Mountain could be cut for the seventh and eighth cycling lands, but that change isn't 100% yet.
Spark Spray: it's true this mostly just cycles for R. But it does provide additional utility vs. Lackey, Bob, and Mana critters, meaning you don't have to "waste" an StP on them to kill them t1.
This deck is still very much a work in progress, and certainly not yet optimized. I think this is pretty clear, but in case it's not, let me say that this is a deck designed to deal with the explosion of aggro-control decks in modern Legacy. I hope this hopes shed some light on the thought processes behind this deck.
Bubblegum wtf. There are a lot of replies to the title of the thread, and absolutely NO replies to its content.
You have a minimum of 12 sources of each color. And Life from the Loam to get back anything that gets Wasted/Sinkholed or just to keep using the same Windswept Heath over and over. Hag is strictly > Wall.
The deck does run 2 mana lands. See the four copies of Ancient Tomb.
What does the deck do without Slide? Really? I dunno, cast cheap recursive, accelerated creatures that are hard to kill and generate card advantage? Goyf is bigger than my guys? I don't care. I can Expunge him, Slide him, or just gang block him to death. Do you not see that Witness, Hag, and Unearth all come into play and return each other to play or my hand? Kind of an endless card drawing wall of dudes in your way. Or the deck gains massive card advantage from repeatedly casting and dredging LftL? Also, there are 15 creatures in this deck, not 11. Maybe the format of the decklist was confusing to you, so I'll repost it here in a nice, simple easy to understand format for you.
4x Kitchen Finks
4x Hag Hedge-Mage
4x Eternal Witness
3x Wickerbough Elder
Enchantments
4x Astral Slide
Artifacts
4x Mox Diamond
Instants
3x Expunge
Sorceries
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Life from the Loam
3x Unearth
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Windswept Heath
4x Bayou
2x Forest
2x Plains
3x Secluded Steppe
3x Tranquil Thicket
1x Slippery Karst
1x Drifting Meadow
4x Thoughtseize
4x Extirpate
4x Wheel of Sun and Moon
3x Gaddock Teeg
I don't care if something gets countered. Notice the Hags, Witnesses, and Unearths? Also, why the hell do you keep insisting the deck can't do anything before turn 3? It can drop Slide on turn one sometimes, and on turn two very reliably. Or any of its creatures for that matter. (Indrik can come down turn 2, but it requires a very specific hand, the rest, pretty easy). How exactly is therapy bad? T1, therapy, t2, finks, flash it back, or t2 witness/mage, cast therapy again t3 and flash it back. Three therapy casts by turn 3. yeah, its HORRIBLE here.
You know, I'd really like to make this deck better by using feedback and different perspectives, unfortunately in your case, that requires actually reading the original post and seeing whats in the decklist, which is something you clearly did not do. Much like you need to RTFC to understand what it does, you need to RTFDecklist.
EDIT: As an example of you know, reading the deck and helping with it, someone suggested that Wickerbough Elder would be a good replacement for Indrik Stomphowler since its one mana cheaper and can hold off on its art/enchant destruction until later if no good target is present. They were right, it's a great suggestion, and its been implemented. Woah! Crazyness.
I get that you like your idea, and that you're willing to defend it. That's completely fine. Telling people to RTFC and RTFDecklist, however, is NOT fine and has earned you a general flaming infraction. -AoK
The reclaim effect of Hag doesn't really slow you down, it won't result in drawing extra cards like sliding witness in and out does (though it will result in your opponent running out of cards, kind of a flip side thing) but it can make sure that you stay stocked with cyclers to keep the sliding action going. The other important thing to remember is that Hag is a "may" ability and doesn't necessarily have to be used if you don't want to. This isn't like actually casting Reclaim or one of the top of the library tutors where you end up with card disadvantage because the effect doesn't cost you a card to get.
Yuan,
So your argument against Slide is basically, "it can be countered, discarded, or destroyed, therefore its crap"? Wow.
Generally speaking its rank newbies who make the argument that cards are bad because answers to them exist, guess someone inflated their post count without learning anything along the way.
Regarding using witness/mage to bring back therapy, why is it bad to re-use early discard? First you said therapy was bad because there weren't enough things to sacrifice to it, now you're arguing that its bad to use it more than once? I'm very confused by your counter-to-itself logic circle here.
Why does it need to be two open mana for cyclers? The deck runs 14 cycling cards, 6 of them cycle for one colored mana, 8 of them cycle for two colorless. The colorless cycling is one of the better things tomb does in this deck as it pays their cycling cost exactly.
What exactly are the other Loam decks filling their yard with that's so much better than what this one does? I don't mean Dredge Combo (ichy, ceph, etc.) I mean other loam decks. They mostly dredge and cast loam for cycling lands and fetchlands.. just like this deck is doing.
You also suggest that in addition to countering/discarding/destroying everything I do that my opponents will be simultaneously killing me. I would appreciate, and I'm sure everyone else would too, if you shared this amazing decklist with the rest of us.
Finally, you say this deck dies to Counterbalance. Threshold, the most common counterbalance deck, doesn't run any cards at three mana except for Krosan Grip in the sideboard. Counterbalance has no effect on the vast majority of cards in this deck because the decks that contain counterbalance generally lack cards at the relevant casting costs.
Your logic is lacking and your arguments are internally inconsistent. Please troll somewhere else. You are not providing helpful suggestions or anything besides rampant negativity when it isn't warranted with a deck you haven't played or tested with or against.
At a first glance, it seems terrible against Thresh, since your deck has very few must-counters and only Therapy as disruption. Thresh will set up faster than you and I'm not seeing apparent answers.
Same thing with Landstill. They'll cast better threats while having more counters than your disruption.
Goblins seems a bit rough also, since that deck will just plow through random stuff, and you don't seem to have dedicated answers for it.
Thanks.
The only major testing I've done so far is against Goblins and Thresh.
This is the Goblins list I tested against
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
2x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Mad Auntie
1x Wort, Boggart Auntie
4x Warren Weirding
2x Gempalm Incinerator
Artifacts
4x Aether Vial
Lands
4x Wasteland
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothills
3x Taiga
4x Badlands
4x Mountain
The Threshold list I've been testing against is the 5c version.
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Nimble Mongoose
2x Mystic Enforcer
Artifacts
3x Sensei's Divining Top
Instants
3x Daze
4x Force of Will
2x Predict
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Counterbalance
Sorceries
4x Thoughtseize
4x Ponder
Lands
4x City of Brass
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
2x Tundra
2x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
All testing was pre-board.
Vs. Goblins, Finks is your best card. A single Finks plus an Unearth is four creatures they have to kill, and each one costs them a Weirding or an attacker. Hedge Mage is also very good here as she comes down on turn two if you get Tomb instead of mox and later on works as a card advantage machine, emptying their hand while giving you good draws. The main use for therapy in this match is to hit their card drawers. Matron is always the card I named blind. Basically you just keep an endless flow of guys coming through witness/hag/finks/unearth tricks while slowly gaining life and emptying their hand. If you get Slide going along with the horde of blockers the process goes even faster. Wort and Mad Auntie were the two most difficult cards to deal with besides the Ringleaders, mainly because Expunge doesn't hit them. Slide can keep Wort off of recurring Ringleaders if you start to achieve board position. Keeping their Vials dead with Elder is hugely important because it slows them down so much. I've played the match enough to know either deck can blow out the other depending on draws. That's one reason Orim's Chant is on the bubble for the Thoughtseize slot in the board, since you can use it to lock them out of the game. If goblins are really big in your meta and you're really having trouble, Batwing Brume is available and pretty much makes it impossible for them to win barring Siege-Gang/Sharpshooter combo - if they run it. But generally, its about 50/50 with a high degree of draw dependence for both decks.
Against thresh the matches were incredibly one sided. Counterbalance stops one and two casting cost spells. You have Unearth and Loam at those points. Basically, they have four relevant cards against you: Swords to Plowshares, Thoughtseize, Mystic Enforcer, and Force of Will. If you don't tap out, Daze is useless, you completely miss their counterbalance curve, and you can trade with Mongoose and Tarmogoyf due to Slide and creature recursion from Witness and Mage. Enforcer doesn't hit that early because four lands is a lot for Thresh. Once he does hit, you have four Slides to slip through against their four Force of Wills, alternatively, you can pump out lots of random dudes and race him. Thresh lacks lifegain and does a fair amount of damage to itself. you can usually win that race. In short, Thresh is nearly an auto win because they have approximately 14 cards that can affect the game state, while you have a whole deck to play with.
YuanTi,
If you have nothing constructive to contribute, please stop trolling and leave the thread. For an explanation of why 'Goyf is bad, read the first post as I've already requested you to do. The explanation is below the decklist and slightly set off from the rest of the post.
Your deck is incredibly reliant on Slide, and quite slow from a strategic standpoint, while lacking sufficient disruption. Your only disruption is cabal therapy. This means that combo and hyper aggressive decks, like goblins, are just going to roll you. Even Dragon Stompy is just going roll you over before you can get up a sufficient defense, it seems.
From there, your entire deck is highly vulnerable to counterbalance when wielded by the fear. The fear is just going to drop balance, get a 3cc card on top and watch you squirm. Even if they don't, they're swinging with far faster and more efficient beats in the form of goyf. Yes you have removal, but not really enough, and you have such a low density of actual threats that they'll usually be able to overcome those. And you talk about locking them out or w/e, but decks like the fear are going to get things like academy/ee rolling in the large amount of time you're giving them.
Yes, existance of removal does not make a card back, but when you have a strategy completely centered around one card, and then lack real defenses against answers to that card, you are in trouble. You say your deck is alright without it, but it takes quite a bit of effort for your deck to sum up the resources to get those engines going, and in the mean time, every other deck has an extreemly prevelent threat, much more so than your 2 powered creatures for 3 mana, and those things are going to overwhelm you.
Furthermore, as YuanTi implied, you have no real draw or search engine, save lftl. What if you don't draw it? I mean, you really need to play it asap, or this deck isn't getting off the ground as opponents will be playing all of their cards. I mean, when you can't get a threat down before standstill, I've got to say that it looks like the deck is in trouble.
I mean, I don't want to sound to harsh, but you're really forcing us to by not really listening to our theoretical criticism. It just seems that, on a basic theoretical level, your deck is flawed, if you want us to help you, cut out the belligerent crap and explain your deck on a theoretical and meta based level, so that we can see where you're coming from, because obviously the majority of the responses you've gotten indicate that you either aren't presenting your ideas sufficiently or that there really is an integral flaw that you are ignoring, in either case better analysis is the solution.
EDIT: Having seen your response, you must admit that your testing is extremely limited, and therefore I regard it very skeptically. You've tested against a fraction of the metagame, and even then your analysis indicates incomplete understanding of the matchups. I mean, you act like finks is good agianst goblins, but it doesn't even hit until turn 3. You can't even answer lackey, I mean, they don't need a god hand exactly to kill you before you even start playing relevent spells. If you're using elder to kill vial, its already too late really. And how does slide keep goblins off of wort recurussion exactly? Against thresh, you seem to completely ignore any concept of tempo, which makes me doubt you even fully understand the concept, really. Even then, you're missing testing against large portions of the metagame, many of which probably have an even better matchup against you, when I'm not even convinced of your results so far.
Glix,
I apologize, it is entirely my mistake to rely on my testing results rather than your theoretical concepts and what seems to be the case to you at first glance.
In general, if you think the deck is bad, that's fine, explain why and OFFER SUGGESTIONS. Perhaps try asking about previous builds or considered alternatives. Ask how the deck works or what the results of a player who is more familiar with it than you are have been. You know, just pretend, for a brief second, that I, who've built and tested this deck, MIGHT know slightly more about it and its actual play results than you, who read half a post and decided what was best.
I'm incredibly tired of hearing people say the deck has no draw engine. It's called cycling. It's a draw engine. Slide outdraws Threshold every day of the week and twice on Sunday. No, it isn't blue, no, it doesn't run Brainstorm, yes, it does draw more cards.
EDIT: For Example, Therapy used to be Chalice of the Void, and the sideboarded Thoughtseizes were Trinispheres. When hag got added to the deck, I switched to discard as disruption to go with the Hag's abilities. If you think that's a mistake, say why. Of course, you don't know this happened because you were busy telling me what you already know instead of asking about the deck and how it works.
Official warning to keep it cool. Remember, Magic is a game. - AoK
"I am in the arcane, and the arcane is in me."
Official Matron Mother of Clan Planar Chaos
Awesome Avatar and signature by DarkNightCavalier
Deraxas, Dark Maiden of Shimia,, still oddly obsessed with a mindmage.
Divinity Of Pride? He's cheaper and bigger than Dragon, and with Angel could be very impressive early on.
Glix EDIT,
Yeah, the testing is limited. It's a new deck. I put it up here for advice, testing help, and suggestions.
Slide keeps Wort off recursion the same way you use it to keep Confidant from drawing cards. Cycle the offending creature out during your own EOT step, and it won't come back into play until their EOT step, thus missing the upkeep phase and its upkeep trigger. The fact that you didn't know how this works really just makes me think that you aren't familiar with the deck or the cards in it and how they interact with each other.
Against goblins you spend your first one or two turns cycling into the cards you want then just start playing one or two dudes every turn. Each of these dudes has a small amount of card advantage built in, and they keep each other coming back. Once you start getting Unearth, Witness, Hag, and Finks going, they just keep returning each other to your hand and to play in a never ending chain that slowly builds up your life and hand while emptying your opponents'. Slide amplifies all of these effects by making them happen repeatedly each turn.
Please stop insisting that all my 3cc spells don't hit until turn 3. There is a reason there are 8x turn one accelerators in this deck. Yes, the deck rarely does kill a turn one lackey on the play, it's possible, but highly unlikely (mox, tomb, expunge). Killing/blocking Lacky on t2 or when goblins is on the draw is much, much more likely. The reason Finks is good against goblins is they have to kill it twice. And they have to kill it twice every time it comes back. And you gain lots of life while this is going on.
I don't talk about tempo vs. Threshold because it doesn't matter. Tempo is Thresh's game. Good for them, they're better at it than me. I'm not playing it. I'm going to play my game which is long term incremental advantage that makes 75% of their deck completely irrelevant. Thresh has no pure card advantage, and no unbeatable end game plan or insta-out. You're not in a hurry to kill them. They have one threat that matters, and it requires them to tap four mana on their turn. Just run them out of cards, take control of the board, then win.
panda,
I don't think divinity is better than angel. unless pumped (rare if you're running tomb) it has a lower toughness than exalted and its mana cost is extremely difficult in a deck that is primarily G secondary B and splash W.
Cartographer, and Tilling Treefolk both do a worse job of the same thing than eternal witness or life from the loam depending on your perspective. Loam is great because it recurs itself, making it a self fueling one card advantage machine. That is Loams main advantage over the creatures.
If you're looking for a flyer for Slide, might I recommend Reveillark? You can run Aven Riftwatcher in the lifegain slot to take full advantage of the double resurrection.
Karmic Guide is an idea interesting in a build with Tuskers and Dragons, but it seems like it might just be a little to much work for the result. Especially since 'lark gives you twice as many dudes (though smaller ones) and doesn't have echo. there's probably also some sick combo with both guide and lark, but I think that would deserve its own deck.
long story short, i think cycling a creature to slide out karmic then using karmic to resurrect said creature falls into the category "danger of cool things"
good catch on the card though.
leyline and decay are really for different decks. leyline is for things where you just need to turn off the graveyard, like ichorid, iggy pop, cephalife, etc. Decay is for decks that use the graveyard but not so much that you need to devote four slots to straight-up pure hate for it. Things like Landstill and Survival and Rock.
I'm Curious too see what an old skool slide player thinks would be in a good B/W slide deck.
why not combine the current standard lark decks with an infinite combo into slide?
all of the slide components work wonders with Reveillark" target="blank">Reveillark
t1: Fluctuator" target="blank">Fluctuator
t2:slide
(there turn, fog until not needed)
Sig and Avvy by Heroes of the Plane Studios
Ninjas
Fish
Dredge
EDH
Sharuum
I would go combo cycle with slide backup.
The main thing I don't like about the deck right now is that it only has four pieces of disruption maindeck. (I guess you could count the Vindicates as LD, but with no other support for them it doesn't work out so well unless you're casting one every turn, at which point it doesn't matter that much since you're winning anyways) I mean, Chalice@1 is amazing and all, and the deck can easily run Chalice@2 also since you only lose one spell doing so, but still. More disruption would be nice. Post board you only have seven pieces of disruption for combo, which I have the feeling isn't quite enough given the decks kill speed. Need to do more combo testing.
Disruption level is fine for control and aggro decks given how much this deck can play around the common strategies of both control and aggro. Namely, Decrees and Monasterys and Slides give you lots of effects that don't require casting spells, which is tough on counterbased control. Vs. board control you have lots more card draw and better recursion. In a basic sense, Slide should beat decks that try to interact with it and lose to decks that don't. This version is pretty close to that.
Looking at your testing I agree that your few games are indicitave of your 5c thresh match up, but I do think you are translating that to cover your entire thresh match up, which I feel is a mistake.
Personally, I have been running UGw thresh steadily for about 2 years, and I find that the following cards can lock you out of the game:
Engineered Explosives set to 3
Krosan Grip on slide
Swords to Plowshares, before slide or when youre tapped out
Meddling Mage naming expunge/slide/witness
Pithing Needle naming Slide
isochron scepter imprinted with StP/counterspell/Lightning bolt/fire//ice
properly timed Force of Will + Daze
My build runs 2-4 of all of these and everything but the mages main deck (lbolt isn't in mine but fire//ice is)
Basically, I'm not certain that your threshold match up is as favorable as you indicate, and if you'd like to try it I'm willing to test a few games with you. I would love to find a deck that can steadily and consitently beat thresh, because that would change the legacy meta-game.
Modern: Jund
T1: Remora Gush
MTGS Legacy Tournament #7 2nd
NYSE V Top 8, NYSE X Top 4, NYSE XVIII Top 4
Blue Bell X Top 4
Pro Tour: Philadelphia Day 2
NEV 4 1st, NEV 6 2nd, NEV 7 Top 4, NEV 9 Top 8, NEV 11 Top 8, NEV 13 Top 8
Does nothing. Slide has a triggered ability, not an activated one.
Modern: Jund
T1: Remora Gush
MTGS Legacy Tournament #7 2nd
NYSE V Top 8, NYSE X Top 4, NYSE XVIII Top 4
Blue Bell X Top 4
Pro Tour: Philadelphia Day 2
NEV 4 1st, NEV 6 2nd, NEV 7 Top 4, NEV 9 Top 8, NEV 11 Top 8, NEV 13 Top 8
mage on cards with cycling doesn't really do much since the card can simply be.. cycled out. Honestly, I wouldn't bring Mage in against Slide, there are way too many relevant cards to name, kind of like vs. an aggro deck.
But hey, always looking to playtest :D. I'm traveling probably until saturday, but maybe we can set something up on PM for a few games on MWS after that?
Also started testing against UGb Thrash builds, pretty much the same story except they also have Stifle, which is useful.