[Article] Unlocking Legacy - Deck Tweaking and Sideboarding

[Brehn]

Link

Decks you get from the Internet are built and tweaked already. When you try to metagame them you may be doing more harm than good. Read on, and get some tips on making the deck better, not worse.

Liked it. And basics are seriously underrated. Some sample sideboards might have been good to illustrate your concept.

Side note:

4 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

What?

[Ewokslayer]

I thought this was Anusien's best article. I liked it alot.
Though he is advocating relying on your fetchlands to get your colors more than multiple dual lands while at the same time trying to get people to play more stifles. That seems a bit odd and counterproductive.

Also the decklist isn't good.

[Nihil Credo]

I liked the article: I think it showed quite a bit of research and effort. That said, I think it got confusing (or confused) on a couple of pretty big points:

First: resilience to Wasteland, Sinkhole and Rishadan Port is very different from resilience to Blood Moon and Back to Basics; in fact, those goals are often contradictory. He mentioned Dragon Stompy right after mentioning the often-seen Turn 1 Wasteland: the contrast should have been stark.

Second: In the fifth paragraph ("A deck you get...") Kevin uses the terms card filtering and card drawing interchangeably, but those are different effects that have diametrically opposite influence on how a deck interacts with the player's skill.

Pure card drawing makes a deck more forgiving of mistakes, not less, because you can afford to completely blow a tactical estimation and not be kicked out of the game for it - because you still have answers after Counterspelling a lesser threat, or because you still have gas after walking one extra creature into a Wrath. The downside, of course, is that you'll have to sink up to four mana a chunk to gain this luxury of extra lives.

Card filtering, or card selection, is what I think he is actually talking about ("If the only way you can lose is by drawing the wrong cards at the wrong time, it can be correct to err on the side of extra draw power"). However, it must be observed that this imposes a greater burden on the player's skill, because you are required to make tactical assessments as much as three turns in advance - shuffle my library now and play my creature, or Time Walk myself so I draw that Swords to Plowshares next turn?. This is not trivial, and should have been pointed out.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I liked that the article seemed more meaty.

But the writing style was noticeably not good. It took a few retries before I could make any real headway.

[Parcher]

I have mixed feelings on this one. I also think it was one of Kevin's best articles. Many very important subjects touched on, and in just enough detail. I think the writing was fine, and the article of a good length. Also, very little room for controversy, which is always a treat.

I don't however like seeing yet again another intro-to-magic fundamentals filling up the Legacy column. While directed toward these issues in Legacy decks, the concepts are pretty general through all formats. I understand that most articles will be skewed toward the dilletantte, but I just prefer them more Legacy-specific.

[Anusien]

First: resilience to Wasteland, Sinkhole and Rishadan Port is very different from resilience to Blood Moon and Back to Basics; in fact, those goals are often contradictory. He mentioned Dragon Stompy right after mentioning the often-seen Turn 1 Wasteland: the contrast should have been stark.

You are right; there is an interesting tension between resilience to Wasteland and resilience to Blood Moon that I don't cover. I tend to really like talking about manabases and deck construction, so this is potentially a topic that is very interesting for me to talk about. Then again, I doubt other people like it.
(With Port/Sinkhole seemingly falling off the map even more so than Wasteland, in part the answer is just more basics). It's possible I didn't spend enough time discussing the difference, but there is potentially a half an article there; I've spent some time talking about the distinction in terms of the Threshold deck.

Second: In the fifth paragraph ("A deck you get...") Kevin uses the terms card filtering and card drawing interchangeably, but those are different effects that have diametrically opposite influence on how a deck interacts with the player's skill.

Pure card drawing makes a deck more forgiving of mistakes, not less, because you can afford to completely blow a tactical estimation and not be kicked out of the game for it - because you still have answers after Counterspelling a lesser threat, or because you still have gas after walking one extra creature into a Wrath. The downside, of course, is that you'll have to sink up to four mana a chunk to gain this luxury of extra lives.

Card filtering, or card selection, is what I think he is actually talking about ("If the only way you can lose is by drawing the wrong cards at the wrong time, it can be correct to err on the side of extra draw power"). However, it must be observed that this imposes a greater burden on the player's skill, because you are required to make tactical assessments as much as three turns in advance - shuffle my library now and play my creature, or Time Walk myself so I draw that Swords to Plowshares next turn?. This is not trivial, and should have been pointed out.

You're very right. You could say the same thing about drawing instead of filtering because card draw gives you the extra choices of what to play, but card filtering makes you decide NOW how you're going to play the next few turns.

I don't however like seeing yet again another intro-to-magic fundamentals filling up the Legacy column. While directed toward these issues in Legacy decks, the concepts are pretty general through all formats. I understand that most articles will be skewed toward the dilletantte, but I just prefer them more Legacy-specific.

Actually, I prefer not to think of this as an intro-to-magic fundamentals. For one, while I hesitate to call the material incredibly tricky, it's at the least non-obvious. While nothing I ever write here will not apply to Legacy, some of the things will be focused to other areas as well. I'll try and talk about something more concrete next time.

P.S., any thoughts on the decklist? It's something I'm interested in testing.

[Illissius]

4 Aether Vial or 4 Rofellos are both ideas I've thought it might be interesting to try and build a Survival list around, but I'm far from certain the two would end up being the same list, and never thought it might be one with the Painter combo. What was the reason you chose to run them here? The mana intensiveness of the combo? If your goal is to accelerate into the combo, you don't have much protection for it.

Basically, I think it looks equally likely to be workable or complete trash, so I'm interested in your results if/when you test it.

[metalman2785]

4 Aether Vial or 4 Rofellos are both ideas I've thought it might be interesting to try and build a Survival list around, but I'm far from certain the two would end up being the same list, and never thought it might be one with the Painter combo. What was the reason you chose to run them here? The mana intensiveness of the combo? If your goal is to accelerate into the combo, you don't have much protection for it.

Basically, I think it looks equally likely to be workable or complete trash, so I'm interested in your results if/when you test it.

I run a survival painter list that is much different.

4 Aether Vial is really nice, speeds up the deck, and allows for survival + goyf drops like crazy.

4 Rofellos is really bad, I cannot see how this helps the deck.

I do not like the black splash for this deck at all, there is no real benefit except some creature control. Deck needs welders and intuition. Also LFTL and academy ruins for infinite engineered explosives/tomod's crypt.

[Anusien]

I wanted to solicit feedback first to keep my testing from being invalidated.

4 Aether Vial is something MattH has had me on for a long time. It's either that or Birds, and Birds is both more fragile, and does not tap to produce 2U. The fact that you dodge counters and make guys at instant speed is better. It may be better to have Birds here because of the need to produce lots of Survival mana, or to pay {4} for Grindstone.

4 Rofellos evolved from 2, actually. I had a few slots, and I wanted more acceleration. I considered Wall, but I felt like Rofellos would help me Grind better. Then as I had more slots, I added more to Rofellos. You don't have Anger so you basically never want to have to tutor up Rofellos. Ideally you go turn 1 tutor up Survival or Thoughtseize, turn 2 Rofellos, turn 3 Survival + do stuff. This does leave your earliest kill at turn 5.

I did want to build around Painter, but it takes surprisingly few slots to do. You could probably fit Painter+Grindstone into any Survival build and have reasonable success. Being able to tutor up Survival and race some of the combo decks might be what something like RGSA needs to compete.

I do not like the black splash for this deck at all, there is no real benefit except some creature control. Deck needs welders and intuition. Also LFTL and academy ruins for infinite engineered explosives/tomod's crypt.

Can you explain your thoughts please? How often do you have problems with Threshold because they Counterbalance lock you or counter your combo? Why Welders and Intuition; seems like you want more action and not more slow, set up the combo type cards.

Is Academy Ruins recursion ever the answer? It always LOOKS cute to go "Engineered Explosives/Tormod's Crypt every turn" but I'm rarely willing to give up my draw step for it. I can see wanting to recast EE once or twice, but infinite recursion is a bit silly. That said, I can see the case for an Academy Ruins, but Forests are sooooo good.

[Illissius]

Oh; I didn't even notice you don't have Birds. I thought you were using both. Birds and Vial likely require very different builds of Survival -- I remember hival using Vial in his controllish RG build, whereas decks with many discard effects for probably prefer Birds so they can go turn one Birds, turn two take your counter, play Survival.

[Anusien]

Oh; I didn't even notice you don't have Birds. I thought you were using both. Birds and Vial likely require very different builds of Survival -- I remember hival using Vial in his controllish RG build, whereas decks with many discard effects for probably prefer Birds so they can go turn one Birds, turn two take your counter, play Survival.

Do you think the Mogg Fanatic count is low enough that I can switch to Birds? They're definitely less of a threat but I like the ability to Thoughtseize and cast Survival... Although that's a sort of metagame dependent question. I guess the real question is, "If your Birds was never killed, would you prefer Birds or Vial in an aggressive Survival deck?"

Some sample sideboards might have been good to illustrate your concept.

Maybe I'll build some sample sideboards in a future article, but this does seem like it would lead to mind-numbing boredom. Plus, my metagame is likely to be different than yours.

[emidln]

Maybe I'll build some sample sideboards in a future article, but this does seem like it would lead to mind-numbing boredom. Plus, my metagame is likely to be different than yours.

Perhaps you should discuss what types of sideboard cards should be used against particular types of hate.

[Anusien]

Perhaps you should discuss what types of sideboard cards should be used against particular types of hate.

Well what I care isn't about what cards to use, but how to build the sideboard. A lot of people already know what the options available are. It's more about "How do you position yourself post-board against this deck" and that's very deck dependent. An example would be, "How do I sideboard VoroshStill v Ichorid post-board". Looking at my updated build from my older article, I'm taking out 1 Crucible of Worlds, 4 Standstill, and possibly some number of Counterpsells and Counterbalances (Counterbalance first). Crucible is a lategame card and just dead. Counterbalance seems weak to me because they only need to resolve the one spell, and it will likely be before I get to 2 mana. I'd much rather have removal, especially because they can just draw up to to 8 and discard GGT. I'm not a fast deck. Standstills the same reason. So I want 7-11 cards to bring in.
Against Goblins I pull the 4 Counterbalance, and then start bringing out Standstills as well. So I have between 4 and 8 slots.
Against Dragon Stompy I take out Counterbalance and Crucible.
Against Belcher I want to take out 3 Diabolic Edict and then start taking out Standstills and Pernicious Deeds.
(And if my metagame was Ichorid, Goblins, Dragon Stompy, and Belcher, I should play another deck. But it's an example).

Against Belcher, I want to make sure I deal with their first rush. Then when they're reloading, I want to drop a quick Goyf or Counterbalance/Top and win easily. I need my EEs to make sure they don't win on EtW, but I probably only want to take out 3-5 cards. I'll run some number of Thoughtseize. If I end up running any BEBs or Stifles, I can board them in here.
Against Dragon Stompy I want to use BEB to enable Deed to beat them, while keeping my life total high. I basically want to survive until they run out of cards, get huge card advantage swings with Deed and win with Tarmogoyfs. I need Blue Elemental Blast and Krosan Grip to help with this, and possibly Thoughtseize (although this list doesn't have a basic Swamp so it's unlikely). Basically I either want to get a basic Island or basic Forest as fast as possible, and I want to be able to clear away disruption with either one.
Versus Goblins I want 4 Engineered Plagues and then fill the rest of the sideboard. I already have BEBs (I'd have considered a compromise there if I didn't already want them), so 4 Plague.
Against Ichorid I have 3 slots. I could change the deck to make more room, but I have 4 cards to bring in here already (4 Plague), so I'll sit 3 more anti-Ichorid cards.

3 Thoughtseize (Belcher)
3 Blue Elemental Blast (Dragon Stompy)
2 Krosan Grip (Dragon Stompy)
4 Engineered Plague (Goblins)
3 Anti-Ichorid cards

So I ended up, amusingly, with the same sideboard. It was definitely on my mind when I was building it, but it worked out quite nicely. Then again, if I don't care about Belcher, I probably end up siding 6 dedicated anti-Ichorid cards instead.

Does this illustrate the concepts a little better?

[metalman2785]

Can you explain your thoughts please? How often do you have problems with Threshold because they Counterbalance lock you or counter your combo? Why Welders and Intuition; seems like you want more action and not more slow, set up the combo type cards.

Is Academy Ruins recursion ever the answer? It always LOOKS cute to go "Engineered Explosives/Tormod's Crypt every turn" but I'm rarely willing to give up my draw step for it. I can see wanting to recast EE once or twice, but infinite recursion is a bit silly. That said, I can see the case for an Academy Ruins, but Forests are sooooo good.

Allow me to explain my take on the deck,

First I use alot more acceleration:
4x Aether Vial
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Chrome Mox

Fast starts are awsome, survival or intuition by turn 2 is usually the case.

Tutors:
3x Enlightened Tutor
3x Intuition

Next is my Combo:
1x Painter's Servant
1x Grindstone
1x Trinket Mage

Small package but it is all that is needed.

Welder package:
4x Goblin Welder
1x Sundering Titan
1x Shield Sphere
1x Duplicant

General Survival Cards:
4x Goyf
1x Anger
1x Genesis
1x Squee

Control:
1x Engineered Explosives
1x LFTL
1x Academy Ruins

The thing is that intuition is not slow in the deck, and you should be able to combo off the turn after intuition, usually welder/grindstone/painter's servant, but multiple combinations will allow you to combo off depending what is in your hand.

As far as counterbalance goes, they will not have the combo fully online until turn 3, so this gives some time for an explosive start. Obviously Aether Vial would be the best drop, but if you can get a welder into play that survives CB won't really matter as you can just weld in and out of your graveyard. Intuition alows for Genesis/Krosan Grip/Eternal Witness for game 2 if you need it, but against Thresh with CB I would either try to get a vial/survival and start dumping goyfs in play, or try to weld out a Sundering Titan to clear their lands.

LFTL and Academy ruins is not necessary but for a 3 card package it can help in certain matchups. I have played with and without this package and I can say that it is hardly ever my intuition target.

A nice trick in the deck is to get grindstone in play, activate it, then weld the painter's servant into play while the grindstone effect is still on the stack.

[emidln]

@metalman2785
You you just scoop g1 to storm combo and ichorid?

[metalman2785]

@metalman2785
You you just scoop g1 to storm combo and ichorid?

Well storm combo matchup is a race, it is entirely possible to combo out turn 3 with a settup like this. Probably the deck's worst matchup pre-sb.

Against ichorid I would try and tutor EE and drop it turn 2, but still a tough matchup. Fetching Tomod's Crypt is another possibility.

[Anusien]

The thing is that intuition is not slow in the deck, and you should be able to combo off the turn after intuition, usually welder/grindstone/painter's servant, but multiple combinations will allow you to combo off depending what is in your hand.

Assuming you have no other pieces, don't they give you Painter's Servant and then make you frown? I feel like I'm missing something crucial here (like already having Genesis in the yard or Academy Ruins in play and a billion mana).

[metalman2785]

Assuming you have no other pieces, don't they give you Painter's Servant and then make you frown? I feel like I'm missing something crucial here (like already having Genesis in the yard or Academy Ruins in play and a billion mana).

When you say "you have no other pieces", are you talking exclusivly about the painter combo (welder,grindstone,servant) or are you including no survival and enlightened tutor?

The deck is still a survival deck and it is the most important card. Intuition has a lot of different solutions depending on the situation.

If you had no combo pieces and a survival in play then intuition for something like welder/servant/grindstone. If they give you servant use survival to get a welder and win.

If you have a welder in play with no survival, then intuition Survival/Servant/grindstone.

If you have nothing (no welder/ enlightened tutor/ survival of the fittest/ grindstone/ servant) 13/60, almost 25% of the deck, then intuition for survival or EE/LFTL/Academy Ruins. This rarely happens because you always have something to help you combo. Also remember that there will be Aether Vials/chrome moxes/Birds so mana comes quick, anger in the graveyard is also key.

I agree that genesis is slow and he is never a target for intuition, I am going to cut him, he is the card that helps the least.

[MattH]

You know what would be a good article [for anyone in the Unlocking Legacy staff, not just Kevin] to write? "When to Quit."

By which I mean, when should you just give up trying to make a matchup winnable and make "hoping you don't run into it" your plan? This is more relevant in Legacy than other formats, because of the combination of infinite archetypes + insane hosers. Like, what's the EV of 43lands.dec spending SB space trying to fight 8bloodmoon(and 4 chalice@2).dec vs. just ignoring it to focus on other matchups?

and

When is the right time to give up on developing a new deck idea? Again, generally useful to know, but it takes on special resonance for Legacy, where the common man's innovations have a much higher chance of becoming format canon. You're not really likely to outbuild the pros at standard or block, but you can totally make a new DTB in Legacy with a little work.

[Alfred]

I don't really get what you mean with this line:

More famously this is also the step where you discover that your Blue Elemental Blasts you are sideboarding against Goblins are better than Swords to Plowshares against Reset High Tide.

EDIT: Oh, sorry, you're talking about it in Painter Survival?