I'm fairly sure that Medea has this correct. The very old version of this scenario was with Nevinyrral's Disk, Benalish Hero, and Regeneration on it. When the disk gets popped, you can activate Regeneration to save the hero.
No problem. SotL's main drawback is her one toughness. Another drawback however is accidentally drawing off of SoFI, or Horizon Canopy. I have come SO close to taking an extra draw and potentially a game loss, but I don't think I've ever done it -- I catch myself at the last moment. I think one opponent permitted me to take back a Horizon Canopy once.
As for mulligans, it really is an art form for this deck, but probably not moreso than for most Legacy decks. I routinely keep a single non-White land if I have Aether Vial, for example -- it's not even a question if I have two Aether Vials. As for post-sideboard matchups, I routinely toss away a "perfectly good hand" if it contains no hate for the current game. Most typically, you pull seven aggro cards, which will do nothing against Storm, etc., etc.
J
Careful keeping that 2-Vial, 1-land hand in game 2. I lost my 2010 win-and-in for no other reason than Lewis Laskin had his one Pithing Needle in his opening grip when I kept that hand. I think that was the year you were not with me.
Ten years ago, I was aching for competitive Legacy. I could talk about it online, but as far as I knew there was nothing in the state of Florida at all. I was so desperate once that I actually fronted the prize - a Grim Tutor (which I lost in the finals) just to try to drum up interest. But life happens, and I don't get out much for tournaments anymore, even though there is a good one weekly, 3 minutes from my door organized by David Winsauer and the excellent Southfloridamagic crew. And lemme tell you - it KILLS me to drive past it all-the-time!
But this Sunday the stars aligned and I made it with my friend, Travis.
This is not even close to a tuned list for either this environment or, probably any environment. Here goes:
----------Rd 1: John with Shardless
g1: I confessed to John that I was feeling rusty before we even finished shuffling. He was pleasant enough, and he opens with Underground Sea ->Ancestral Vision, betraying his entire deck's contents. Recollection tells me this is a good matchup, so I happily start in on him. Waste his land, pass. He plops down a fetchy and passes. Me: Plains, go. He Brainstorms and I am holding the singleton Spirit of the Lab. I see him draw those cards and it feels like I'm being robbed of the whole tournament here in round 1 game 1 simply because I lost the die roll. I got it down just in time to catch Vision, but he had the Decay to handle it on his upkeep. Drat! No matter, he simply could not draw enough lands and I ground him down while he held a fistful of cards.
g2: This was a fun game for me with Karakas into Thalia, followed by Revoker (on Deathrite Shaman - he had two eventually), followed by Mangara with the means to recur him. Shardless is slow, so while he got stuff going, it was just too little to matter in the face of this and the fact that he scooped with just one land left. John correctly pointed out that my three creatures made it virtually impossible for him to ever resolve another spell. Yep, now I remember tournaments.
1-0
g1: On my turn 2, I knew I was facing Dredge. He had a Lion's Eye Diamond on the battlefield. I had to decide whether to go Revoker on it in hopes that he either would not see what I could do, or that the timing would be bad for him. He had told me that he plays often at a different store (coolstuff games), and he played his turn 1 quickly and efficiently. Given this, I thought he was likely to sac the LED in response, probably ending me. So I figured that the Revoker gamble was a bad one, and I went with Jitte.
g2: Brandon was clearly not happy with how interactive game 1 had been. I don't think he had ever experienced anything like that with Dredge. My seven included Containment Priest and three lands, so I kept. Cage would have been a perfect turn 1 play, but there is just the one copy. Anyway, he manages six 2/2 zombies on his turn 2 while I have...Plains. He Therapies me and names Swords to Plowshares in the same breath. You can see my hands up, asking him to wait for a response. He was cool about it, but I had topdecked Enlightened Tutor on my turn 1, so I used it to fetch RIP, which really should not have been enough to save me.
Things very much broke my way this entire match. Brandon had a fine line of play in both of the games, and Jitte is just about the only card that can win g1. And I had to have either Mom or Vial turn 1 to get it going offensively on turn 3. Then I was able to dodge his Therapies because I topdecked the tutor in g2. Because of Cabal Therpay, simply having Containment Priest in hand was not enough (I don't know why he did not take it from me, btw - his Bridges were all gone so the Priest would have prevented him from getting any more creatures). Finally, the topdecked Flickwerwisp was pretty much the best card I could have drawn. Brandon was gracious, but confounded how the games went the way they did. This was starting to feel just like old times.
2-0
----------Rd 3: James with Infect
g1: Another classy person who knew his deck well. James went first with Inkmoth Nexus. I think I Wastelanded it. I think I Wastelanded his second land also after a Brainstorm. He never really recovered from that and I tempo'd my way to victory. Infect is a crappy matchup for me. I think this is true for all D+T players, but I'm not sure. For me though, I just don't feel like I have the right tools.
g2: James effectively slow rolls me. My StP was kinda meh, and he did me in with an inkmoth, Agent, and the usual tools. One of the things that hurts so bad about this matchup is just how good Hierarch is. I had her revoked and she still kicked my butt.
g3: Finally I get to go first. Plains, Vial -> go. This time James had the speed draw, but I got Thalia out on turn 2 and that made all the difference. I kept attacking with her because that deck almost never blocks. Again I had Hierarch revoked, but I went first and had a clock. He saved his inkmoth at his eot with Vines of Vastwood, which he had been saving (along with 2 mana to cast it through Thalia), and I was concerned. But Thalia made him need too much mana to kill me with the inkmoth on his next turn and he scooped to lethal on the table. Phew!
3-0
g1: I did not initially know what Paul was on, but he revealed that this was his first top 8. This knowledge impacted a lot of my decisions including a questionable attack with Brimaz. What a slog. That deck is full of bad stuff for D+T, and he started game 1 with Deathrite Shaman into Punishing Fire on my Revoker to make that clear. I got him down to like 7 life or something, and the game went on so long that I forgot that I had even hit him when I boneheadedly attacked Lilly instead of his dome for the win. I remembered a moment too late. Rusty. What was tough was the fact that I had revoked the not-yet-present Liliana the turn before (not the Deathrite Shaman, as the commentators assumed), and he killed the Revoker just before he untapped and got Liliana blind off the Bloodbraid Elf.
g2: This one went pretty long too, and I probably would have been fine if he did not topdeck three removal spells in a row. Also, in hindsight, I could have killed the Tarmo if I had triple blocked it with Mom still out there. Whatever, that is what it is like to face Jund.
g3: I got RIP. He did not get Abrupt Decay. That set him back enough to ride in easily in atypical fashion for D+T.
4-0-2
Top 4 split. Fine with me. I was paired with Danny (Omni) again, and I did not care to face yet another bad matchup. What a hostile environment this had been. Anyway, fun times. I hope nobody copies my 75. The Warping Wail was annoyingly stuck in my hand the one time I drew it, and my sb was an affair of "what do I have handy?" rather than an actual design.
On a side note: Travis had a KILLER new combo deck that we worked out the broad strokes to the night before. Skill Borrower, Phyrexian Devourer, Altar of Dementia. You can make your Skill Borrower big enough to mill the opponent completely (or just use Triskelion a la the ooze deck) by just activating it a bunch of times while it has the Devourer ability. With these on the stack, you get to choose whether to use the top card before devouring it. Just keep going until you get to the kill card. Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor make this extremely consistent. The only problem: Devourer has unnecessary errata making the removal of the top card a cost and not an effect. We realized it after round two, so he did not have a fun tournament. Otherwise, I would be writing about that today instead of D+T.
2 color mana bases can not use either sol lands OR Rishadan Port to complement your Wasteland (Lands gets away with this because it is, well, a deck of lands). 1 color decks all use one of these because they are very good. 2 colors and beyond and your mana base gets increasing pressure to only produce mana.
Is your central strategy good enough to get away with your lands only producing mana?
Jeff, I cast it some time on turn 3 (I actually thought I would be blocking something) and sacced the little peck for mana. But in general, I have been having occasional difficulty casting it because I refuse to keep Wasteland around for it. As usual though, what are we all cutting for these new cards?
I, for one, am excited to try out Warping Wail in tournaments. I am most concerned about the casting cost and less concerned that it is a good enough card. I can't recall where I posted it exactly, but it seems that of all of our bad match ups, the cards that hurt D+T most are almost all sorcery. Also, on Saturday I used Warping Wail to hard cast Batterskull on turn 4 against an aggressive rogue deck.
It's the casting cost that has me concerned too, just like SwordstoTimeshares said.
Interestingly, I think that with lands like Battlefield Forge available, it might be the two-colored deck that ultimately has the mana base to support these cards.
I really like Warping Wail. It is great against every card we care about in Elves and it hits the only card we care about in Omni. And a few more. Also, having access to a counterspell in this deck is going to be all kinds of stupid. Seriously, from the ability to counter Ancestral Vision to simply leaving open two mana while I have an unused Port, is it REALLY a good time to see if Terminus goes through? Just having that card opens avenues to jedi your way to victory. I think you guys are going to outright love a card that at once acts as extra removal in a deck that is kinda light while simultaneously giving us an actual counter. Seriously, all the cards that hurt us the most are sorceries. Heck, you can even seriously knock out ANT with yet another avenue - counter Massacre, or the Tutor, or just I dunno Past in Flames or something.
I have been fooling around intermittently with other stuff (...a red, blue, black thing that seeks to disable opponent decks with Extirpate effects most recently - my second go with this...) and just watching what the rest of you come up with more than anything else.
I really like Mykatdied's first list there. Looks like all gas. As usual though, the lands make me nervous. Is Seachrome Coast because you only have two Tundras?
Considering many people are testing splashes right now: Have anybody of you seriously tested SDT yet?
In the deep dark stone ages I did. I found it antithetical to the deck in terms of mana usage. In other words, the tension between sinking mana into it or Port was painful.
Clearly Thalia/Chalice is a very strong place to start. Frankly, Suppression Field is not bad either. But the strength of the deck falls off a cliff after that. I see the benefit of Cavern and Enlistment Officer and Preeminent Captain. But by going that route, this deck is inexorably bound to the role of aggro. So, I have a possibly dumb question to pose to you folks. Does it have to be soldiers? You lose some of the best creatures that way. Mother of Runes is crazy good with Preeminent Captain. You could even fetch them with Ranger of Eos.
Also, Cavern of Souls makes any color. In my messing around with Slivers, I discovered the power of nearly-all-creature decks with Caverns. On that note, Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith is infinite damage, and both are fairly good on their own. Just some thoughts.
Skill Borrower
Phyrexian Devourer
Altar of Dementia
Triskelion
Also, Dismember? Against that aggro deck? What's wrong with Ensnaring Bridge?
But this Sunday the stars aligned and I made it with my friend, Travis.
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
4 Flickerwisp
2 Mangara of Corondor
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Warping Wail
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
4 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Horizon Canopy
9 Plains
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Council's Judgment
2 Cataclysm
This is not even close to a tuned list for either this environment or, probably any environment. Here goes:
----------Rd 1: John with Shardless
g1: I confessed to John that I was feeling rusty before we even finished shuffling. He was pleasant enough, and he opens with Underground Sea ->Ancestral Vision, betraying his entire deck's contents. Recollection tells me this is a good matchup, so I happily start in on him. Waste his land, pass. He plops down a fetchy and passes. Me: Plains, go. He Brainstorms and I am holding the singleton Spirit of the Lab. I see him draw those cards and it feels like I'm being robbed of the whole tournament here in round 1 game 1 simply because I lost the die roll. I got it down just in time to catch Vision, but he had the Decay to handle it on his upkeep. Drat! No matter, he simply could not draw enough lands and I ground him down while he held a fistful of cards.
g2: This was a fun game for me with Karakas into Thalia, followed by Revoker (on Deathrite Shaman - he had two eventually), followed by Mangara with the means to recur him. Shardless is slow, so while he got stuff going, it was just too little to matter in the face of this and the fact that he scooped with just one land left. John correctly pointed out that my three creatures made it virtually impossible for him to ever resolve another spell. Yep, now I remember tournaments.
1-0
----------Rd 2: Brandon with Dredge
see video coverage at 29:00
https://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/62575490
g1: On my turn 2, I knew I was facing Dredge. He had a Lion's Eye Diamond on the battlefield. I had to decide whether to go Revoker on it in hopes that he either would not see what I could do, or that the timing would be bad for him. He had told me that he plays often at a different store (coolstuff games), and he played his turn 1 quickly and efficiently. Given this, I thought he was likely to sac the LED in response, probably ending me. So I figured that the Revoker gamble was a bad one, and I went with Jitte.
g2: Brandon was clearly not happy with how interactive game 1 had been. I don't think he had ever experienced anything like that with Dredge. My seven included Containment Priest and three lands, so I kept. Cage would have been a perfect turn 1 play, but there is just the one copy. Anyway, he manages six 2/2 zombies on his turn 2 while I have...Plains. He Therapies me and names Swords to Plowshares in the same breath. You can see my hands up, asking him to wait for a response. He was cool about it, but I had topdecked Enlightened Tutor on my turn 1, so I used it to fetch RIP, which really should not have been enough to save me.
Things very much broke my way this entire match. Brandon had a fine line of play in both of the games, and Jitte is just about the only card that can win g1. And I had to have either Mom or Vial turn 1 to get it going offensively on turn 3. Then I was able to dodge his Therapies because I topdecked the tutor in g2. Because of Cabal Therpay, simply having Containment Priest in hand was not enough (I don't know why he did not take it from me, btw - his Bridges were all gone so the Priest would have prevented him from getting any more creatures). Finally, the topdecked Flickwerwisp was pretty much the best card I could have drawn. Brandon was gracious, but confounded how the games went the way they did. This was starting to feel just like old times.
2-0
----------Rd 3: James with Infect
g1: Another classy person who knew his deck well. James went first with Inkmoth Nexus. I think I Wastelanded it. I think I Wastelanded his second land also after a Brainstorm. He never really recovered from that and I tempo'd my way to victory. Infect is a crappy matchup for me. I think this is true for all D+T players, but I'm not sure. For me though, I just don't feel like I have the right tools.
g2: James effectively slow rolls me. My StP was kinda meh, and he did me in with an inkmoth, Agent, and the usual tools. One of the things that hurts so bad about this matchup is just how good Hierarch is. I had her revoked and she still kicked my butt.
g3: Finally I get to go first. Plains, Vial -> go. This time James had the speed draw, but I got Thalia out on turn 2 and that made all the difference. I kept attacking with her because that deck almost never blocks. Again I had Hierarch revoked, but I went first and had a clock. He saved his inkmoth at his eot with Vines of Vastwood, which he had been saving (along with 2 mana to cast it through Thalia), and I was concerned. But Thalia made him need too much mana to kill me with the inkmoth on his next turn and he scooped to lethal on the table. Phew!
3-0
----------Rd 4: Danny with Omni
ID
3-0-1
----------Rd 5: Josh with Esper
ID
3-0-2
----------Top 8: Paul with Jund
see video coverage at 4:19:18
https://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/62575490
g1: I did not initially know what Paul was on, but he revealed that this was his first top 8. This knowledge impacted a lot of my decisions including a questionable attack with Brimaz. What a slog. That deck is full of bad stuff for D+T, and he started game 1 with Deathrite Shaman into Punishing Fire on my Revoker to make that clear. I got him down to like 7 life or something, and the game went on so long that I forgot that I had even hit him when I boneheadedly attacked Lilly instead of his dome for the win. I remembered a moment too late. Rusty. What was tough was the fact that I had revoked the not-yet-present Liliana the turn before (not the Deathrite Shaman, as the commentators assumed), and he killed the Revoker just before he untapped and got Liliana blind off the Bloodbraid Elf.
g2: This one went pretty long too, and I probably would have been fine if he did not topdeck three removal spells in a row. Also, in hindsight, I could have killed the Tarmo if I had triple blocked it with Mom still out there. Whatever, that is what it is like to face Jund.
g3: I got RIP. He did not get Abrupt Decay. That set him back enough to ride in easily in atypical fashion for D+T.
4-0-2
Top 4 split. Fine with me. I was paired with Danny (Omni) again, and I did not care to face yet another bad matchup. What a hostile environment this had been. Anyway, fun times. I hope nobody copies my 75. The Warping Wail was annoyingly stuck in my hand the one time I drew it, and my sb was an affair of "what do I have handy?" rather than an actual design.
On a side note: Travis had a KILLER new combo deck that we worked out the broad strokes to the night before. Skill Borrower, Phyrexian Devourer, Altar of Dementia. You can make your Skill Borrower big enough to mill the opponent completely (or just use Triskelion a la the ooze deck) by just activating it a bunch of times while it has the Devourer ability. With these on the stack, you get to choose whether to use the top card before devouring it. Just keep going until you get to the kill card. Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor make this extremely consistent. The only problem: Devourer has unnecessary errata making the removal of the top card a cost and not an effect. We realized it after round two, so he did not have a fun tournament. Otherwise, I would be writing about that today instead of D+T.
Is your central strategy good enough to get away with your lands only producing mana?
It's the casting cost that has me concerned too, just like SwordstoTimeshares said.
Interestingly, I think that with lands like Battlefield Forge available, it might be the two-colored deck that ultimately has the mana base to support these cards.
I have been fooling around intermittently with other stuff (...a red, blue, black thing that seeks to disable opponent decks with Extirpate effects most recently - my second go with this...) and just watching what the rest of you come up with more than anything else.
Also, Cavern of Souls makes any color. In my messing around with Slivers, I discovered the power of nearly-all-creature decks with Caverns. On that note, Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith is infinite damage, and both are fairly good on their own. Just some thoughts.