History
- I always enjoyed playing vintage shop decks from a raw power perspective. Wining the die roll against none FOW decks with an average keep was a huge advantage. Unfortunately finding vintage players is not the easiest task. Thus, I sought on what seemed to be an insurmountable task, try to port the deck to legacy. The deck's goal in design was to keep the raw feel of vintage shop deck, in that it could almost always deploy sphere effect turn one. After many iterations (+6 months) I have come up with the following list. Yes, I know there is no side board in the posted list. I my self have only spent the time trying to get the main deck set up in a reliable manner. Since The deck requires a huge density of spheres effects + mana there are only 7 flex slots in the whole deck. Without further ado, I Present Legacy Shop.
- Game play
Like it's vintage counterpart it plays the same way. You don't keep a hand if you cant deploy a turn one sphere like effect. Unlike most MUD or staxx counter parts, this deck does not need to mulligan often due to its huge
redundancy. Thus most hands have two effects meaning that force of will alone will not stop it. Once the effects are deployed, The goal is to win with its man lands instead of trying to go over the top of the sphere effects. Your opponent will be helpless to stop the 2/2 creature beat down.(Wasteland can hinder this plan to a degree.)
Match-ups :
Elves this is almost a buy for you on the play. Most of the time they just cant deploy creatures and in the face of the Abyss and tabernacle they will not stay around long.
RUG/URW Delver
As long as they don't deploy a turn one delver/ mongoose this matchup is in your favor. They generally keep one landers making you sphere effective very effective. Once you have it deployed you don't have
to worry about counters and continue to lock down the board without fear. Even with the wasteland you have more man lands then they have wastes.
Storm ANT /TES
This match-up is completely dependent if you have a man land in your first three turns. Even though it may look like you may lock, a storm player can still wiggle their way out given enough time. Thus hitting their
life total is key. Of course they could also just have the turn one kill on the play which you can do nothing about.
Death and taxes.
This match up is 100% dependent on a turn one aether vial. If they have it is a total nightmare as your sphere effective simply are not effective. On the other hand, if they don't have it your sphere effective will
take over the game. Between this and the Abyss/ tabernacle their board is going to stay clear leaving the way clear for man land beat down.
Dredge
This is a tough match-up since they don't have to cast spells to win. If you don't have your tabernacle you have lost this game.
Lands
- Another tough match-up , since most of the cards you really don't want them to play are in fact lands. Between wasteland/ghost quarter / maze of ith and Depths + Stage there is always something to ruinin your plan.
UW Counterbalance
This match-up is pretty even. It all comes down to how many lands the UW player finds and how many turns you give the player. Like storm UW has all the tools to wiggle their way out of the lock so you have to have a fast clock. Chalice on one is big here since it turns off all their dig for lands and prevents your creature from being swords. This is because sphere effects are not always enough against there 22+ land mana base.
Losing the match almost always is because or a Clique or Jace has gotten deployed through your sphere effects.
- As always comments and suggestions are welcome. But I do recommend you goldfish the list some first, as at first glance it does look like a bunch of rubbish plied together.
I think this will be anther one of SCG forced price grabs like the one over a year ago when they listed FOW for $100. Most people will not spend $300 for a blue dual or $80 for plateau. My bet is in 3 weeks the cards will move back close to their originally listed price.
The biggest drawback to Magus is that he has to pay for himself, aside from being a very fragile creature.
Wasteland's pricetag is the highest it's ever been, last year I remember it hitting $100, but $150....that's just crazy.
Its not really that crazy. Tempest was large set with ~350 cards. Some boxes of Tempest Sealed did not contain a single wasteland. I know this first hand, I drafted a sealed box 4 years ago with friends and there was not a single wasteland found.
You can argue about the severity of his punishment, but thats subjective and pointless.
You can try to defend his intentions, but since we dont have a mind reader, that discussion is also pretty subjective and pointless. Honestly, given where and how he posted it, the choice is either incredibly ignorant or malicious.
Regardless of his intentions, the actions he took were highly inappropriate and he should have known better.
That we even need to discuss that is somewhat disturbing. Some people have been spending way too much time on the internet.
In what real place would taking pictures of random people in embarrassing positions and then taping them up all over town not be considered highly inappropriate? Being on Reddit does not magically absolve you of all consequences. Just because people can generally get away with hateful behavior on the internet does not make it generally acceptable.
You can attack the people in the pictures all you like, but that doesnt change the reality. A picture captures a single instant in time. He searched a room full of people, managed to catch a handful of opportune pictures and then presented those pictures as representative. As if any of those people were just walking around all day with their pants half-way down.
It was childish and inappropriate. You want to talk about the community having a problem? How about the level of man-boyishness required to believe this was remotely acceptable behavior?
I think its more bothersome that inappropriate dress and poor hygiene are known issues at large magic events and Wizards of the Coast would rather sweep it under the rug then address the real issue.
Legend of the Five Rings Tournaments give judges the ability to kick people out for Hygiene issues and inappropriate clothing. Instead of banning this guy for taking a humorist approach about the issues of inappropriate dress, they need to just fix the rules.
Two Mana instant speed target discard is very powerful. I am not aware of such card ever being printed for that CMC.
Scepter lock is already possible. They printed 1 mana instant speed discard already (along with multiple other uses since it's a charm, ie Funeral Charm) and it doesn't see much/any play outside Pauper. Oh and it was Timeshifted in Time Spiral so it's legal in modern, it's not just an old card that won't see print any longer. Heck they even color shifted it in blue as Piracy Charm.
In legacy combo decks generally keep the key combo cards on the top of their library using brainstorm / ponder until the combo turn. This card just recks that plan. This thing opens sick lines of play of hitting a player when they brainstorm, or attempting to use a miracle a card, or even playing show and tell. That being said wizards will never print it. This thing creates softlocks with isochron scepter in modern. I am sure people will love to draw a card only to having it discarded at the end of the draw step.
Generic instant speed discard wouldn't really help vs Brainstorm since they'll usually have other cards to discard. So are you just talking about instant speed selective discard?
Non targeting discard in eternal formats is almost useless, unless its repeatable or is a two for one like hymn. The power does not come from the fact that its instant, its the fact that its instant and targeted. The charms see very little play because its the opponent's choice. I have many times seen storm deck being able to beat an oppent quite easy by being able to simple trick to opponent to counter the wrong card. With instant speed targeted discard you get to hit the card that really matters on the turn it matters most.
There is only one single way:
"You may exile a black card from your hand instead of paying Brain Squeeze's mana cost."
unmask. Granted, it costs 4 if you don't want to use the alternate cost, and is sorcery speed, but it still sees 0 play. I'm not sure if making it 2 mana and instant would be enough. Maybe.
I would argue an an speed unmask may be better then force of will half the time. That type of effect is extremely powerful and provides you with the exact knowledge of your opponents hand.
Two Mana instant speed target discard is very powerful. I am not aware of such card ever being printed for that CMC. In legacy combo decks generally keep the key combo cards on the top of their library using brainstorm / ponder until the combo turn. This card just recks that plan. This thing opens sick lines of play of hitting a player when they brainstorm, or attempting to use a miracle a card, or even playing show and tell. That being said wizards will never print it. This thing creates softlocks with isochron scepter in modern. I am sure people will love to draw a card only to having it discarded at the end of the draw step.
Honestly if these fake cards get any better its not going to matter if a fake or real card brought to a sanction event. Judges will not be able to distinguish these cards. There is nothing wizards can do about this other then to add additional security marks to new sets every year. This does however give a compelling reason to switch to magic online. At least there your digital cards are legitimate at least for now. I can honestly see wizards switching to an online only model in the next 20 years.
And therein lies the problem with making big splashy mill cards. It is mathematically impossible to make a mill card that is good enough for standard but not completely unbeatable in limited.
It likely its going to get a ban in limited due to the 40 nature of the format. I mean if its in your first pack you are going to force mill.
- I always enjoyed playing vintage shop decks from a raw power perspective. Wining the die roll against none FOW decks with an average keep was a huge advantage. Unfortunately finding vintage players is not the easiest task. Thus, I sought on what seemed to be an insurmountable task, try to port the deck to legacy. The deck's goal in design was to keep the raw feel of vintage shop deck, in that it could almost always deploy sphere effect turn one. After many iterations (+6 months) I have come up with the following list. Yes, I know there is no side board in the posted list. I my self have only spent the time trying to get the main deck set up in a reliable manner. Since The deck requires a huge density of spheres effects + mana there are only 7 flex slots in the whole deck. Without further ado, I Present Legacy Shop.
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Tangle Wire
4 Lodestone Golem
3 The Abyss
2 Staff of Domination
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Moxen
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Mox Opal
4 Mishra's Factory
4 City of Traitors
3 Crystal Vein
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mutavault
4 Vault of Whispers
- Game play
Like it's vintage counterpart it plays the same way. You don't keep a hand if you cant deploy a turn one sphere like effect. Unlike most MUD or staxx counter parts, this deck does not need to mulligan often due to its huge
redundancy. Thus most hands have two effects meaning that force of will alone will not stop it. Once the effects are deployed, The goal is to win with its man lands instead of trying to go over the top of the sphere effects. Your opponent will be helpless to stop the 2/2 creature beat down.(Wasteland can hinder this plan to a degree.)
Match-ups :
Elves this is almost a buy for you on the play. Most of the time they just cant deploy creatures and in the face of the Abyss and tabernacle they will not stay around long.
RUG/URW Delver
As long as they don't deploy a turn one delver/ mongoose this matchup is in your favor. They generally keep one landers making you sphere effective very effective. Once you have it deployed you don't have
to worry about counters and continue to lock down the board without fear. Even with the wasteland you have more man lands then they have wastes.
Storm ANT /TES
This match-up is completely dependent if you have a man land in your first three turns. Even though it may look like you may lock, a storm player can still wiggle their way out given enough time. Thus hitting their
life total is key. Of course they could also just have the turn one kill on the play which you can do nothing about.
Death and taxes.
This match up is 100% dependent on a turn one aether vial. If they have it is a total nightmare as your sphere effective simply are not effective. On the other hand, if they don't have it your sphere effective will
take over the game. Between this and the Abyss/ tabernacle their board is going to stay clear leaving the way clear for man land beat down.
Dredge
This is a tough match-up since they don't have to cast spells to win. If you don't have your tabernacle you have lost this game.
Lands
- Another tough match-up , since most of the cards you really don't want them to play are in fact lands. Between wasteland/ghost quarter / maze of ith and Depths + Stage there is always something to ruinin your plan.
UW Counterbalance
This match-up is pretty even. It all comes down to how many lands the UW player finds and how many turns you give the player. Like storm UW has all the tools to wiggle their way out of the lock so you have to have a fast clock. Chalice on one is big here since it turns off all their dig for lands and prevents your creature from being swords. This is because sphere effects are not always enough against there 22+ land mana base.
Losing the match almost always is because or a Clique or Jace has gotten deployed through your sphere effects.
- As always comments and suggestions are welcome. But I do recommend you goldfish the list some first, as at first glance it does look like a bunch of rubbish plied together.
Its not really that crazy. Tempest was large set with ~350 cards. Some boxes of Tempest Sealed did not contain a single wasteland. I know this first hand, I drafted a sealed box 4 years ago with friends and there was not a single wasteland found.
I think its more bothersome that inappropriate dress and poor hygiene are known issues at large magic events and Wizards of the Coast would rather sweep it under the rug then address the real issue.
I am not saying such a card would replace thoughseize but would exist in the same deck, possibly replacing hymn.
Non targeting discard in eternal formats is almost useless, unless its repeatable or is a two for one like hymn. The power does not come from the fact that its instant, its the fact that its instant and targeted. The charms see very little play because its the opponent's choice. I have many times seen storm deck being able to beat an oppent quite easy by being able to simple trick to opponent to counter the wrong card. With instant speed targeted discard you get to hit the card that really matters on the turn it matters most.
I would argue an an speed unmask may be better then force of will half the time. That type of effect is extremely powerful and provides you with the exact knowledge of your opponents hand.
It likely its going to get a ban in limited due to the 40 nature of the format. I mean if its in your first pack you are going to force mill.