[Deck] NoCantrip.deck

[Maveric78f]

History of the deck
In order to follow the reasoning that lead me to that deck, here is the chronology of my thoughts:
1/ I tried a merfolk list quite close to the first Finn posted on The Source's Thread:
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7355
This list was already very good. The merfolks that were played were the power three (lord/reejerey/silvergil) plus a land transformer for 1CC plus 2 copies of Seasinger. There was quite the same disruption suite than the one I play now (port/waste/Fow/Daze/stifle).
2/ I quite quickly abandonned the stifle to play another land transformer (Stifle remained in SB).
3/ After some testing I noticed that these land transformers were bad since they only prevented my opponent to play double colored spells. So I removed them to play protected creatures such as vodalian zombie or the white one protected against red.
4/ Then I noticed that terravore continued to trample over my face and that pilly couldnot be blocked by these protected red creatures. I also noticed that my deck was lacking draw. I tried 2 versions, 1 with standstill and confidant and 1 with confidant and tarmogoyf.
5a/ The one with Standstill and Confidant was good but was lacking a creature that could make the difference by itself, or basically stall the game the time I overrun my opponent with my over boosted creatures.
5b/ I liked a lot this version. I played Aquitect's Will in it as been a the only reliable land transformer, being also a great pump for tarmo, and being a cantrip. And I even did a tourney with it (the one that is reported). I did a fair result given the bad MU I encountered but I was really disappointed by my seasingers.
6/ I decided to switch the SB slot of Jitte with the MD slot of Seasinger. Then I posted the list on CANGD.
7/ As I was not playing Seasinger MD anymore, I had no reason to keep a transformer in the MD, but removing another merfolk was a bit scary to me. However I did not want to play any other merfolk. Only Voldalian Zombie would be a defendable slot. I did not test it though. I tested MD Stifle because I wanted a first turn card and I thought that another MD would be great. I updated the CANGD entry with it.
8/ Then, with only 12 merfolks MD, my testing were really good but I felt that they were most of the time just fair creatures with 2-power, sometimes 3. I found too that I was a bit unnecessarily exposed to pyroclasm and engineered plague. That's why I wanted to try the deck with good blue (for FoW and to keep the splashes very light) creatures instead of merfolks. I simply posted the deck as a reference in the CANGD entry, but my entry remains the merfolk list, because I won't have time to complete the testings with that new nocantrip/goodcreatures.deck.

If you want more information about the 7/ build, which is the best merfolk deck I could build, I refer you to:
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8097

The merfolk part of my branstorming is not really relevant in this thread. But the merfolk fillers are still under development.

Introduction
After some brainstorming, I concede that the tribal synergy of the merfolks are good but not transcendant, and I was wondering if the deck would not be better with creatures that are good in themselves. However some constraints need to be respected:
- The first constraint is that the creatures need to be blue in order to feed FoW with enough consistency
- In order to keep the nice mono colored mana property, I wished them to be only U and not UU.
- In order not to messup too much with Vial, I wanted also only 2CC and 3CC creatures. 1CC creature would be acceptable, but it should be very powerful or very uselful in early game.
- I wanted also some evasion in order to feed jitte without exposing my creatures to a tarm block.
- Big P/T or big utility
- Does not rely on graveyard. I don't want to leave my SB planar voids, or be too much impacted by such cards from my opponent.

The creatures I considered up to now :
- Serendib Efreet is clearly the best call. It's perfect against mongoose. It hurts a bit but Jitte is here, and usually it hurts far more my opponent than myself. It's absolutely a 4-of.
- In the same idea of Serendib, Sea Drake is a must. However, the fact that it may slow me down a lot, and that it has to trade against mongoose or gilded drake is really an issue. It may interact incely with vial and fetches though.
- Gilded Drake. Not really an evasive guy, as it's going to be given to your opponent but:
....* It steals tarmogoyfs/terravore/crushers/confidants/Akroma, angel of Wrath/Dreadnaught/random big animated creature.
....* It can be blocked by Serendib Efreet with no casualty.
....* It can't be stifled. It means that it cannot be countered when played through vial, except with a Mother of Runes. It also means that you cannot play it if your opponent has nothing to target which can be problematic sometimes.
- Manowar, nice against a lot of stuff, quite the sames as the Gilded Drake's targets. But not as much powerful. Manowar is very nice in combo with Gilded Drake.
- Nimble Mongoose. Does not fit the not GY dependant constraint.
- Sage of Epityr. I love the guy. you can play vial turn 1 and vial it before your first draw which is crazy. However, It looks too weak is long games. And I really love my curve with no 1CC spells except Vial and Stifle.
- Shadowmage Infiltrator. It's really nice for a lot of reasons, evasive, CA, can be pitched to FoW, quite strong body BUT:
....* difficult to play (double coloured mana and black mana)
....* makes the Engineered Plague on wizards too strong.
- Trygon Predator. very nice but it's difficult to play too:
....* evasive
....* deals with stuff I can't deal with in first game
....* completes the mana disruption by removing moxen
....* can be pitched to FoW
....* quite strong body.
- Raven Familiar: it's nice with vial, as a chump blocker or looking for a solution.
- standstill + conclave: the deck was crying for standstill. Being aggro, playing vial and a lot of anti-lands.
- Epochrasite: really synergic with the vials. Does not require coloured mana which is quite often often relevant. It is not blue and this is a pain because I can't pitch it to FoW. And it has no other "utility" than being a recurrent 4/4. It looks a bit weak compared to all the good blue beaters we have.

The list
The list I tested quite a lot up to now. I did not make such heavy testings as I did with merfolk for the CANGD, because I think that the MUs are quite the same, with certainly a better control MU. There are a lot of heavy control decks on MWS these last weeks and it's really fun to be able to control them and rape them at the same time. Their only relevant threat is shackles and at the time they can play it through my land destruction, they usually face my superior super draw engine and my free mana counterspells:

// Lands 23
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [b] Island (2)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [A] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
3 [10E] Faerie Conclave

// Creatures 15
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [AN] Serendib Efreet
3 [US] Gilded Drake

// Spells 22
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [SC] Stifle
3 [OD] Standstill

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [US] Planar Void
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [MI] Mind Harness

Notice that 1 tropical island from the merfolk manabase was replaced with 1 Conclave.
I am still very unsure about Gilded Drake, especially against Trygon Predator.
I am also not completely sure about the conclaves and the Standstill. Once could imagaine the following suite to replace the 12 Merfolks with a lot of evasion and control:
4*Serendib
2*Gilded Drake
3*Manowar/Repeal
3*Trygon Predator/Sea Drake
My main worries about this suite is the bad synergy between Gilded Drake and Trygon Predator/Sea Drake.

The Basic NoCantrip Idea
The cantrips are cool to find a solution, raise the blue count for FoW and feeding the grave. First, we have no need to feed the grave anymore. The best creatures do'nt need it anymore (tarmo&confidant). Second, there are very good blue creatures (see the list above) and the disruption pack is often enough to raise the blue cards count to 20/24. Third, one should stop thinking that thay have no cost:
- it costs mana
- it is counterbalanceable/chaliceable/trinisphereable
- it forces you to play a lot of blue mana sources
- your hand is often not readable anymore

My opinion is that cantrips are highly overrated in legacy. It's good in combo, bad in aggro, nice in very small quantity in control (4*brainstorm basically, in order to fix the mana curve), and it can be as good as bad in aggro control. But now every blue deck plays them. It's insane.

This deck has an history that made me find a new shell for a U-based aggro control with no cantrip. It wins against most control on the strength of vial, mana deinal and card advantage (dark confidant and standstill). It wins aggro control on mana denial and big creatures that are too aggro for them generally. It has a very good MD disruption against combo (4 stifle, 4 daze, 4 FoW) and quite a nice clock (far better than thresh's for instance). Only full aggro decks are difficult to manage because the mana denial plan is not relevant as the threats come down before I can start it.

\\ updated stuff for record //

3 Tourneys (3/15, 3/50 and 1/46)
16 matches (14-2)
16 games preboard (13-3)
22 games postboard (16-6)
38 games (29-9)

Decks encountered:
Alluren: 1-0 (2-0)
Belcher: 1-0 (2-0)
Burn: 2-0 (4-1)
Dragon Stompy: 1-0 (2-0)
Enchantress: 1-0 (2-0)
Eternal Garden: 1-0 (2-1)
Faerie Stompy: 2-0 (4-1)
Goblins: 1-0 (2-0)
Ichorid: 1-1 (3-3)
Pox: 1-0 (2-0)
Reanimator: 1-0 (2-1)
Threshold Ugr: 0-1 (0-2)
Togless Tog: 1-0 (2-0)

[Maveric78f]

The tourneys
As I have a family life, I cannot do as many tourneys as I wished. I usually do 1 every month, if not less. Aside from that all my testings are done on the MWS freeware. I try to chose the biggest of the month each time, but sometimes personal constraints prevent me from doing it.

15 people: Troll2Jeux. Finished 3rd (no top4/8)
I took the Standstill*3/Gilded*3/Conclave*3/Efreet*4 list. As I found by the time only 1 Gilded, I replaced the 2 others with Manowar, expecting to randomly do the Manowar/Gilded trick, which of course, never happened.

Despite the small number of players, I did not face any random deck, neither bad players (as far as I could judge).

Round 1:
Against Faerie Stompy. played by Guillaume. 2/0 no fear.

I win the toss.

I start with vial and I understand quite quickly that he's playing FS. He plays chalice@1 when I have FoW, but as only stifle will be countered now, I don't really care. Moreover stifles suck in this MU (except against mox) and I don't have any in hand. I start controling his mana base until he plays sea drake. The creature does not really bother me because I have Efreet in hand but I care that he's going to save his lands from my wastelands and rishadan. I think quite a lot and I de cide to FoW it. He answers with FoW on another Sea Drake. He's got an almost empty hand and I decide to play my efreet and keeping my vial at 2 for my coloured creatures. I may lose 2 or 3 life points because of us stalling, then I play jitte and tarmogoyf as I need to daze a SoFI (flying protection against blue is a pain).

My SB :
-4 Stifle
+4 Engineered Explosives

He does land/go. I answer the same. Then he plays ancient tomb and mox, Cloud of Faeries, and chalice@2 (playing around daze). I force it. Then I play standstill or Dark Confidant and I start creating a crazy card advantage. He's not going to do anything else in the game apart playing creatures that are going to be removed thanks to jitte.

Round 2:
Against monoRed Gob played by Camille (Assassin). 2/0 on very tied games. Je win with luck because the MU is rather unfavorable, especially MD. Moreover he's a very good gob player. MonoRed is certainly the best premorningtide version against my deck since I can't waste or stifle lands as much as I would with a splashed version.

I win the toss.

The first is really funny. If it was played on MWS we would have both considered that the shuffler once more got crazy. He does a turn 1 fanatic and I do a turn 2 Standstill. To my surprise, he will break it very fast and it will provide me a lot of stifles and creatures and that holy jitte but no counterspells. He plays a first ringleader that I stifle. Then a second that I stifle. When my PVs are going low, I decide to fulltap to play a second tarmogoyf and to play a jitte that I equip to my Serendib Efreet and I beat down with Efreet (most of all for the counters). Next turn he topdecks a 3rd ringleader and my 3rd stifle in hand is useless as I'm fulltap. Ringleader connects with a matron and the bouncer gob. He unsummons a tarmo and beats down to get me at 3 (no counters anymore on jitte). He sacs his 2 fanatics to get me at 1 hoping I would die at the efreet's upkeep. But as you already know, I had a stifle in hand. Then I draw another stifle again. but anyway equipped Jitte is better than gobs and most of his tribe was defeated by being blocked or sacced.

I side:
-3 Standstill
-2 Manowar
-1 Gilded Drake
-2 Faerie Conclave
+4 Propaganda
+4 Engineered Explosives

The second game is less clear in my memory. He does vial go but I FoW it. Then I do vial go. He does vial again. I draw explosives thatI play with my lonely island. Then I play confidant thgough vial because I miss card advantage. I leave his vial go up to 2 after a lot of thinking. Then I find tarmogoyf with confidant. I vial it in and I crack explo. I'll play propaganda then and it will earn me some time. He draws quite few lands contrary to the first games. I'l eventually find jitte for the win.

Round 3:
Against Ichorid played by Pierre-Emmannuel (Hermelk). 1/2.

I lose the toss and he decides to start.

He starts quite softly the first game. He attacks with 2 zombies and 1 Ichorid with 2 brdiges in the grave when I have vial@2 in play. I vial in dark confidant to kill a zombie and remove his 2 bridges. Only 1 token left into play. It won't be enough becasue I won't find anyotehr creature neither Jitte which is my only chance MD.

I side:
-4 FoW
-4 Stifle
-1 Gilded Drake
-3 Standstill
+4 Engineered Explosives
+4 Propaganda
+4 Planar Void

I have quite a crappy hand but I keep it anyway. And as Hermelk does no go nuts, it's going to be ok. At some moment he flashes back a therapy and name FoW when I have 2 dazes in hand. I will play planar void when he's got 30 cards into the yard already but it stops his ichorids and as he did not find any bridge (maybe it's on this game that I vial confidant to remove the bridges). Then I play propaganda but I have absolutely no mana disruption and I can't find a creature that does not hurt me (conclave or tarmogoyf or manowar) as I am at 3life points. I think I have already won (2 propa and 2 planar void into play) but he will find a lot of lands and I cannot disrupt it. He will play a narcoamibe that I trade with a conclave. I'll finally get a tarmo and a jitte for the win.

I side again:
-4 Daze
+4 FoW

I open a no-SB card hand with 3*FoW. I decide to mulligan (for the loss). I have now 2 SB cards but my only lands are 2*conclave. I decide to keep it targettting a turn3 propaganda play. He makes a perfect opening on turn2 that would have been very poor if I kept my FoWs:
Collisée
2*Land
LED
2*Troll
Deep Analysis

I just needed to coutnerspell that damn LED! Nothing to discard, nothing to draw... I need to work a bit this MU. I though that daze and Force were bad in this MU but they are certainly good. I think that the MU should be positive with all my powerful SB options (EE/propa/planarvoid are damn good in this MU).

Round 4:
Against Dragon Stompy played by Jean-Marie (Lejay).

I can't remember the games because we continued playing several games after the actual match. The ocnclusions are that the Gathan Raiders are really good answers to Tarmogoyf, especially becasue they appear after my counterspells are outruned. But in this MU, I have a big advantage: I know what to counterspell. If I have vial in hand I counterspell chalice@1, but if I don't I won't. If I have vial in hand I don't absolutely need to counterspell the moon effects. Trinisphere is not really a threat because I have very often a lot of mana disruption. If I have 4 lands in hand with wasteland, I will probably not counterspell it.

I side:
-4 Stifle
-2 Conclave
-1 Standstill
+4 Explosives
+3 Mind Harness

The overall top4 are:
1 Ichorid
2 Uwg Slivers
3 Me
4 Gob (not the one I've beaten)

[Cavius The Great]

Cabal Therapy?

[Maveric78f]

I don't want to sac my creatures! Are you crazy! Disruption is already great.

[Waikiki]

Did you never think the 4th stifle is just a little too much? and how have the gilded drake been working out for you? seems they can do really well vs some decks but really suck against other.

[Maveric78f]

Stifle is part of the mana denial. As far as I know, except maybe monoblue controls (which are bad overall), not a single deck has a stifle proof mana base. It either plays chrome mox, wastelands or fetches. Stifle can also be golden in some MUs (Gob, deed, explosives, wastelands, combos). It's also my only first turn with Aether Vial. And sometimes (because of Daze), I have to play 2 first turns... Anyway, Stifle is not reductible slot.

Gilded Drake solves a lot of unhandled cases. The main problems of the deck are bigger creatures than mine (tarmo/terravore/exalted/stalker/reanimation). Gilded drake is nothing else than a 3/3. Even if I don't have fliers, if I get 2 tarmos, it's enough for forcing my opponent to block. However I agree in some MUs, it's really bad. It'sn ot an absolutely necessary slots. Often, I would just prefer to have manowar instead, because my mana denial would prevent my opponent to play again the threat (or against Ichorid/Reanimation/Stalker/...)

Nota Bene about Gilded Drake:
- It removes Ichorid's Bridges.
- It's very good against random decks, like the ones with protean hulk. It's nice to be able to vial it in.

[Cavius The Great]

I don't want to sac my creatures! Are you crazy! Disruption is already great.

Therapy + Gilded Drake is neat though. Another reason I mentioned it was because I figured Goyf needs to eat some sorceries to get his daily fiber.

[Maveric78f]

Therapy + Gilded Drake is neat though. Another reason I mentioned it was because I figured Goyf needs to eat some sorceries to get his daily fiber.

Can you explain me, the interaction between drake and therapy ? And I don't want to see the goyfs getting bigger except against gobs (but it plays the new tribal sorcery edict now). A lot of people forget that you pump your opponent's tarmo too. As my strategy does not rely on tarmogoyf as much as for Threshold, I don't want to help them with suboptimal cards.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Therapy + Gilded Drake is neat though.

Thats more like a complicated Pongify. I dont see any real advantage to using Therapy with Drake.

I understand the reason for going cantripless but Im not sure if you really want to go as so far as to cut Brainstorm. Brainstorm is still really powerful in any blue deck with fetches and does much more for you than smooth out your draws.

[Maveric78f]

Almost 6 months since my last tourney. Here is my report of the new one.

First of, the results of the tourney:
- 1st Raphaël (threshold old-fashion with no tarmo, 5-1-0, 3 BB bilands)
- 2nd Sea R Hill (Landstill UW, 5-1-0, 1UL biland)
- 3rd Me (No Cantrip, 5-0-1, 1 UL Taiga)
- 4th Lejay (Life combo, 5-0-1, 1 UL Scrubland)
- 5th Eudes (TES, 5-0-1, 1 WB Badlands)

There were 50 people. I counted at least 5 burn and 5 goblins, 2 togless tog, 2 Landstill, 1 TES, 1 Belcher, 1 fetchland tendrils, 1 Aluren, 3 slivers (including 2 random and 1 meathook), 1 Ichorid, 1 Angel Stompy, 1 Life, 1 Aggro Loam, 1 Old Thresh, 1 Affinity, 1 Deadguy ale. Not a too much random meta, but very diversified.

My NoCantrip list:
// Lands 23
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [A] Underground Sea
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [UL] Faerie Conclave
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [B] Island (2)

// Creatures 14
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [R] Serendib Efreet
2 [US] Gilded Drake

// Spells 23
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [SC] Stifle
3 [OD] Standstill
3 [PS] Rushing River ==> It has not been tested a lot, that's how the list differs from the one 6 months ago instead of 2 jittes and 1 Gilded Drake. It comboes with standstill, provides tempo, universal removal (in adjonction to land disruption), very good against a lot of things, from dreadnoughts, Tombstalkers to moxen.
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte ==> the MD ones that were moved to SB
SB: 4 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [MI] Mind Harness
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives ==> reduced to 2, since I believe that rushing river is better, int the general case.

Round 1:
Simon with Burn. Very bad match up and I start to regret to have removed the MD jittes. Fortunately for me, everything goes wrong for him (he makes full) and he makes mistakes (he's an occasionnal player if I got it).

Game 1: he has soon 4 mountains but he does nothing. I still don't know what he plays and I lost a lot of life (2*fetches + 8 life to confidant, including 1 FoW). Then he plays a Magma Jet and he sacs all his mountains for 2 fireblast that should kill me as I'm going to kill him 2 turns after, but he did not take the mana from his untapped mountains and I can daze the second one instead of Forcing it. I kill him 2 turns later after revealing a stifle, and stifling my next dark confidant. I explain him his mistake and we go to game 2.

SB : -3 rushing river, -2 gilded drake, +3 mind harness (He played 1 fanatic and 1 Marauder on first game) and +2 jitte of course

Game 2: He keeps another full-land hand. He does nothing during a lot of time except playing creatures that I deal with mind harness (1 marauder and 1 fanatic). Then the big turn with 5 mountain into play for him and 5 non basic lands for me: incinerate : ok, price of progress : no way => FoW, fireblast n°1 : ok, fireblast n°2 : FoW again. I stabilise at 3 life with an active jitte and I win the game.

Almost unwinable MU but I took advantage of the errors of my opponent (mulligans and the daze thing). Thanks to him for being fairplay, for accepting my advices and for performing really good after that, he finishes (4/2), which helped me to finish 3rd instead of 5th. 1/0

Round 2:
Jean Charles aka Random Deck Builder aka anti fair player (not far from cheating) with Belcher splash W (WTF).

Game 1: I mulligan, then I draw 7 cartes (in a raw) mechanically (I never mulligan with 23 lands and 4 vials), I notice it and report it to my opponent. I thought we would go over it but he decides to apply the official ruling: automatic mulligan (I know it has changed now). I mulligan at 5 and I keep. Not really fair play, but I execute myself as I'm aware I'm the one to blame first of all. He comboes when he has 2 lands a mox and 2 LEDs in play and I have no open mana. As he played land grant I knew he had the choice between the play of 12 EtW tokens and belcher and activate it in the turn. He has chosen Belcher. Yeah, I force and I win quit quickly after that. He was afraid of EE I guess. I think he should have kept 1 LED in hand and play for 10 EtW tokens.

SB : -2 rushing river, -2 gilded drake, -4 vial +4 propaganda, +2 EE, +2 jitte

Game 2, he starts, he says he's keeping his hand, I say I keep too. Then he says well no I mulligan. As he was a bitch on the first game, I'm going to bitch in return. I tell him, he can't change his mind after I answered and instead of negociating (which was badly engaged), he hurries to shuffle his hand in his library. The tourney is the biggest legacy meeting in Paris but they never have a competent judge (so much that we asked them to leave us autojudge). I thought it was deserving a game loss but as I had a perfect hand (FoW, EE, lands and stifle), I left him. I learnt later that it was a disqualification, for such a behaviour. Then he starts trashtalking saying I have an annoying shitty deck. I asked somebody after and apparently he's more friendly when he wins. 2/0

Round 3:
Raphaël aka Raphy aka luckyman (nothing mean, but he wins 2 very difficult MUs, including mine) with the old Thresh that will finish first.

Game 1: he's got an active mongoose and I have 2 confidants into play, he waits that I kill myself with them, as I draw no kill (but a third confidant). I could have bounced them but he would have killed me just after with mongoose + werebear. I can't find a tarmogoyf, serendib or a gilded drake.

SB: -4 FoW -3 Rushing River +3 Mind Harness +2 Tormod +2 EE

Game 2: He's got 3 threshed Mongoose very early. I find 3 confidant but no tarmo, no serendib, no tormod, no explosives... Very frustrating. 2/1

Round 4:
Frédéric aka Valendir aka unluckyman with Ichorid. Usually the first is unwinable but the 2/3 are quite positive for me. I think that's overall 50/50.

Game 1: He's really really slow. He starts, plays nothing to discard on next turn. He does that a couple of turns but finds no dredger, no ichorid and no bridge !!! I play confidant and I equip jitte, everything goes for the best. When he finally gets his ichorid in yard he's got also 2 bridges and 1 narcomobea and I have 4 counters on jitte. I decide to kill my confidant before he could do anything, in order to remove the bridges. I also kill the ichorid, god knows why... Then the same problem as in last game, I can't find any creature of faerie conclave (I mean it's 17 cards in my deck), neither rushing river (not bad against ichorid or narcomoeba). He find the remaining bridges quite soon and I can't do anything.

SB : -4 vial, -3 stifle, -3 standstill, +4 propa, +2 EE, +4 Tormod

Game 2: He mulls to 5 and keeps a bad hand. I don't have a great hand but I have FoW which should give me time to play propaganda. He does really nothing in this game, I have my creatures out very quick.

Game 3 : he mulls to 6 and keeps again a bad hand. I have 2 ormods in hand. I play 1 and keep the second one in hand (actually he SBed out his needles for chains after game 2). I kill him quite quickly too. 3-1

Round 5 :
Tristan aka Pokpok with Alluren. MU quite balanced I think. Probably in my favor anyway...

Game 1: He searches for his Cabal therapies (I played 2 standstill) but he will never find them. I force and daze an intuition and a tarmo I think. I have quite early confidant and tarmo on board.

SB: nothing great -2 Drake, -3 Rushing river for +2 jitte and +3 mind harness.

Game 2: He finds 2 or 3 tarmogoyfs, but I find also 1 tarmo and 2 mind harnesses that will give me the game. 4-1

Round 6 :
Solknar with Togless tog. I think I'm positive on this one too, even if his big guys may be problematic (4 tarmo and 3 tombstalkers).

Game 1: I stifled his first fetch although he could have done it on his turn (I played a vial on my first turn). I hesitated to do it because I knew he knew my deck and I thought it was a plan to make me waste my stifles. But actually he forced back, and I dazed his force... He will never go back in the game (standstill, wasteland, and so on).

SB : nothing as far as I can remember.

Game 2: The same. I control his mana base with stifle and wasteland. There was a funny stifle battle in this game. As he's got an island and a fetch in play and I have only a fetch. He fetches, I answer with mine which he stifles, which I FoW (with standstill unfortunately) and I finally I stifle his fetch. He will only find blue mana after that (if we except the bayou he fetches for a tarmo that I waste directly). I'm quite fast after that. I gilded drake + Rushing River.The only game where my mana denial and my rushing rivers were golden. 5-1

Finally, The tourney was strange because my mana denial + gilded drake + rushing river never helped except for last round. Usually, I win half my matches on mana denial + fast kill.

[matelml]

Your deck looks strong, but other than being original, I don't think you have enough reasons to not play Brainstorm. Brainstorm is THE best card in Legacy and just makes (almost) all your hands playable, helps finding FoW and protects against discard. You don't need to Brainstorm in the first turns while you want to Stifle/play reatures/Vial, but you can always use it later on, when you have cards you don't want. It's just sick with fetch, please try it, I love the card in almost every deck.

[Maveric78f]

Well, I'm not as close minded as I used to be about brainstorm, now that few people are playing chalice of the void or even counterbalance in my place. If I had to enter BS in the deck, it would be probably instead of :
-1 conclave
-1 rishadan port
-1 rushing river
-1 jitte

But with 23lands+4vial=27 sources of mana, I hardly need to mulligan to find gas. As among my 27 sources of mana 8 are mana denial, 3 are creatures and 4 are also counterspell / counterbalance / chalice cheaters, I also very rarely have the feeling to be in full. I often keep my hands with 5 sources of mana. I mulliganed twice in the tourney, once because I had only 1 land which was colorless (and no vial) and a second time against Ichorid, because I had really nothing from my sideboard in hand (then I got 2 tormods, so I'm happy with it).

The point about brainstorm is that it dodges discard, that it breaks the standstills at instant speed, that it searches for the killer cards (this feature would have probably prevented me from losing the game 1 against ichorid and at least 1 game against threshold, which is great since I lost only 3 games in the tourney), and that it comboes with the fetches.

[Willoe]

It's actually a very good deck, and I think Maverick's right when he says that cantrips are very overrated. But I think that Brainstorm is more than a cantrip. Seriously. As you've pretty much tuned your list and it's more midrange than it's actually aggro-control, I can't see what to take out. But Brainstorm does more than just dig:

1. Help against discard, which is in my opinion the biggest argument for playing it.

2. With seven fetches, you can utilize it to the max. Also, because you play 23 lands, you'll end up with wasted spots as you, as far as I can see, don't want anymore than four lands.

3. Finds cards that you need. Especially FoW on opp's turn 1. With Standstill, you can dig 6 cards into your deck for just an investment of 1UU and two cards. This is fair. This isn't synergy, just a total of what they do.

These arguments are fancy enough, but obvious, and I bet you've considered the advantages of running brainstorm.

I'm not advocating running more cantrips as I think that Ponder simply sucks by not being an instant. If you only run Brainstorm, you'd might find what you needed in the games. A topdecked brainstorm is like three topdecks, you know. For a simple investment of one blue mana.

Creature removal:
No creature removal? Strange. It might be dead cards against your worst matchup, but cards as snuff out can simply win games against i.e. It's the Fear.

Immunity to Counterbalance (kind of):
Actually, pseodu-immunity to that damn enchantment is a greater strength than running it. Especially because so many decks play it, it will cause them dead spots and a virutal time walk. So therefore, I can see the point of not running brainstorm. However, you should at least run a tiny bit of draw. Standstill CAN be played around, and against Landstill, you will most likely crack it as far as I can see. an 1U ancestral for the opponent seems bad. I think that you should try Fact or Fiction or maybe Thirst for Knowledge.

Goyf?
Well, it seems too strong not to play, and sure, it can stall the game against thresh while you beat with Serendib Efreet. But I'm just wondering how good it is. Your complete immunity to the graveyard should really be abused. It's too good not to. Have you tried Pernicious Deed? I don't think it should be included as a playset, but maybe 2 of, and then another flier. Who plays hurricane anyways? Here's a breakdown of possible cards:

Sea Drake (you don't play Chrome Mox, so meh)
Wasp Lancer (too crappy cost?)
Bitterblossom (Too suicidal?)

Say you take Bitterblossom. You'll have a lot of cards that will cause you to lose life in fact. 7 fetches, 4 bob, 4 FoW and if we say, 2 bitterblossom. That's 17 cards, or more than 25% of the deck. Regarding Bob, your average cmc with i.e. 4 tarmos switched for 2 deeds and 2 bitterblossoms: 1,41. Damn, that's a lot. Especially if you flip over FoW. This is another reason to play brainstorm. With draw phase and bob trigger, it becomes an ancestral. Also because it allows you to put your lands on the top and therefore not losing any life. Such a brainstorm in response to the bob trigger will net you total three cards. I.e. one FoW, one to feed FoW and a dude. Sounds fair to me.

In total:
1. Run Brainstorm or at least think about it.
2. You're short on creature removal. I'd run something, at least 2 pieces of it.
3. Immunity to Counterbalance is very good! Keep up the good work!
4. Goyf should be speculated about once more.
5. Possible other cards could be the faerie generator or deed. Plus, the Fae fly! :D

I hope that this will be considered as constructive critique. Because it is

[Maveric78f]

Great. Some stuff to comment.

It's actually a very good deck, and I think Maverick's right when he says that cantrips are very overrated. But I think that Brainstorm is more than a cantrip. Seriously. As you've pretty much tuned your list and it's more midrange than it's actually aggro-control, I can't see what to take out. But Brainstorm does more than just dig:

1. Help against discard, which is in my opinion the biggest argument for playing it.

2. With seven fetches, you can utilize it to the max. Also, because you play 23 lands, you'll end up with wasted spots as you, as far as I can see, don't want anymore than four lands.

3. Finds cards that you need. Especially FoW on opp's turn 1. With Standstill, you can dig 6 cards into your deck for just an investment of 1UU and two cards. This is fair. This isn't synergy, just a total of what they do.

These arguments are fancy enough, but obvious, and I bet you've considered the advantages of running brainstorm.

I'm not advocating running more cantrips as I think that Ponder simply sucks by not being an instant. If you only run Brainstorm, you'd might find what you needed in the games. A topdecked brainstorm is like three topdecks, you know. For a simple investment of one blue mana.

As I said in my previous post, I'm considering to reintegrate brainstorm because I guess that the games I lost (2 on 3 at least) would have been prevented if I ran it. Maybe I would have lost other ones too. Difficult to say, but I noticed that we don't have any counterbalance or chalice anymore in our local metagame, mostly because the decks are more and more controlish or vial included (gob, life, slivers, mine). Just to note that a good cabal therapy player will always name brainstorm against a blue deck, and by not playing it, I'm blind cabal proof. Also I play only 12 islands (including fetchands). I would prefer go down to 5 fetches than go up to 7.

Creature removal:
No creature removal? Strange. It might be dead cards against your worst matchup, but cards as snuff out can simply win games against i.e. It's the Fear.

I play 2*gilded drake, 3*rushing river, 4 daze, 4 FoW are enough I think (at least for MD). The basic game plan is either vial + standstill or rushing river kicked at turn 3 eot of opponent and standstill at my turn.

Immunity to Counterbalance (kind of):
Actually, pseodu-immunity to that damn enchantment is a greater strength than running it. Especially because so many decks play it, it will cause them dead spots and a virutal time walk. So therefore, I can see the point of not running brainstorm. However, you should at least run a tiny bit of draw. Standstill CAN be played around, and against Landstill, you will most likely crack it as far as I can see. an 1U ancestral for the opponent seems bad. I think that you should try Fact or Fiction or maybe Thirst for Knowledge.

Landstill will break his own standstill against me, because I play 11 control or kill lands when Landstill plays at most 4*mishra+4*wasteland (when he plays decree, that's a bit more problematic...). Plus I don't fear the long term plan against landstill.

Goyf?
Well, it seems too strong not to play, and sure, it can stall the game against thresh while you beat with Serendib Efreet. But I'm just wondering how good it is. Your complete immunity to the graveyard should really be abused. It's too good not to. Have you tried Pernicious Deed? I don't think it should be included as a playset, but maybe 2 of, and then another flier. Who plays hurricane anyways? Here's a breakdown of possible cards:

If watch closely, I don't need sea or trop as long as I have vial@2. I can't rely on a non creature spell with green or black, and I don't want to, that's how I can rely on my junk mana base. Tarmogoyf is really the creature I need.

Sea Drake (you don't play Chrome Mox, so meh)
Wasp Lancer (too crappy cost?)
Bitterblossom (Too suicidal?)

I tried sea drake and didn't like it. The other ones have mana costs I can't support.

Say you take Bitterblossom. You'll have a lot of cards that will cause you to lose life in fact. 7 fetches, 4 bob, 4 FoW and if we say, 2 bitterblossom. That's 17 cards, or more than 25% of the deck. Regarding Bob, your average cmc with i.e. 4 tarmos switched for 2 deeds and 2 bitterblossoms: 1,41. Damn, that's a lot. Especially if you flip over FoW. This is another reason to play brainstorm. With draw phase and bob trigger, it becomes an ancestral. Also because it allows you to put your lands on the top and therefore not losing any life. Such a brainstorm in response to the bob trigger will net you total three cards. I.e. one FoW, one to feed FoW and a dude. Sounds fair to me.

Yeah, I already kill my self quite regularly. I did once in the tourney against the thresold.

In total:
1. Run Brainstorm or at least think about it.
2. You're short on creature removal. I'd run something, at least 2 pieces of it.
3. Immunity to Counterbalance is very good! Keep up the good work!
4. Goyf should be speculated about once more.
5. Possible other cards could be the faerie generator or deed. Plus, the Fae fly! :D

I hope that this will be considered as constructive critique. Because it is

1. ok
2. nope
3. ok
4. goyf is great
5. nope, most of all the deck strategy is to take advantage quickly of our mana disruption. Going the control route is not a good idea. Aside from that, that's a threshold with a lot of good synergies:
- vial + standstill
- wasteland/port/conclave + standstill
- rushing river + standstill
- rushing river + gilded drake

[Willoe]

1. ok
2. nope
3. ok
4. goyf is great
5. nope, most of all the deck strategy is to take advantage quickly of our mana disruption. Going the control route is not a good idea. Aside from that, that's a threshold with a lot of good synergies:
- vial + standstill
- wasteland/port/conclave + standstill
- rushing river + standstill
- rushing river + gilded drake

1. I've had my post waiting for at least two and a half hours or something while I was at the doctor, this is why I don't spotted your answers about Brainstorm.

2. I just see it as a major problem with opposing dreadnoughts. Especially against dreadstill, which plays as many counters as you do.

3. Hmm, such a metagame? Strange, I thought Life was too crappy to play.

4. Yeah it is. I think he's good too, but it's no fun watching goyfs sit and stare. I think that this is why you run Serendib Efreet, right? In thi situation, I'd just like to experiment with another dude. I'm pretty into evasion these days, I should maybe drop my plans. After all, vialing in a goyf does feel like cheating.

5. I see. Your points about Æther Vial are good enough to convince me.

[Maveric78f]

2. Well Rushing river and gilded drake (vial+uncounterability of the trigger is great, careful to vision charm though) make 5 answers in the deck in addition to the counterspells. I think it's enough.

3. Life always does top8 in our meta because a) it's not that bad, b) it's played by a talented player. I think that the weakness of our metagame is the low number of combo (I mean real combo, not aluren, life or other combo-control deck). Specifically, I think that fetchland tendrils and TES are good enough to make it better. I'd like to take one of those deck, I'm sure that I would make results. But it requires a lot of testing to learn how to play it and I still want to demonstrate that my baby decks (this one and the merfolks) are good.

4. With opposing goyf stalling, I can fly over with serendib, I can steal my opponent's ones with gilded drake, I can alpha strike with rushing river (or simply bounce to force, or bounce after dealing with my opponent's green mana base), I can fly over with conclave. Once more, I think it's enough.

[Willoe]

All my negative thoughts about goyf are completely eliminated. Tested the deck against some random scrubs with random decks, and I now have a 6-0 record. The deck's awesome, but I'd like to add brainstorm. Oh, and Vial - I cream my pants when it's in my opening hand. Or not. But seriously, it's very, very good and I think the deck has a lot of potential. What have you tried to take out for Brainstorm, if you have tried it?

MWS log:
roske taps Trygon Predator
Willoe taps AEther Vial
Willoe plays Serendib Efreet from Hand
It is now the Combat Phase, Declare Blockers Step
<System> Player Lost

[Maveric78f]

just had this one ^^ (he was playing green stompy, which is really stupid)

Maveric78f taps Island
Maveric78f plays Mind Harness from Hand
<unai> Ok
<Maveric78f> then give it
<unai> what kind of deck is yours?
<Maveric78f> just see
<unai> monoblue control
<unai> ?
<Maveric78f> monoblue with trops and seas ?
<Maveric78f> control with tarmo and jitte ?
<unai> lol
<unai> i said TIER 1
<Maveric78f> you said nothing
<unai> thats deck is stupid
<unai> lol
<Maveric78f> you joined my game
<System> Player Lost

[Willoe]

After playing some games against Der_Imaginäre_Freund with Homebrew Elves and NQls, I realized that this deck simply fold to aggro or midrange, which NQls seems to be. I might not have played properly, but the elves swatted me, Mirror Entity made them 13/13's, and there were 7 of them. Ouch.

NQls was fairly even, but due to Sensei's Divining Top, he eventually won both games. I'm not that good at playing, but I think that the topdecks are the problems with this deck, too. You simply not topdeck good enough. Sensei's Divining Top instead of Brainstorm, or is that really necessary? Even without Counterbalance, the Top is really strong. We have a lot of lands, and we do not want to draw them late-game.

We need mass removal. Engineered Explosives are fine. Maybe even mainboarded. It deals with so many things.

And I've upped the Standstill count to 4 - that's better, I think. Maybe is that even enough?

[Maveric78f]

Elves is one of our worst MUs, our only chance is almost jitte+serendib. The deck does not like tribal decks. Propaganda helps a lot against them usually, but it's useless against elves.

I'm sorry but I don't know NQl (not quite landstill ???).