Discussion Forum

first of, your assumption in win condition is wrong. Only combo decks can win that quickly and most of the time they don't because every competitive deck has ways to interact and disrupt an opponents strategy.

Aggro: will try to win as quickly as possible but non of them can do it in 3 turns. Goblins maybe but it doesn't happen often.

Combo: Decks like Cephalid Breaksfast, Ad Nausium Tendrils, Belcher, Elves and others are all combo's that can goldfish in 3 turns or less. But there are slower combo decks like Aluren who are slightly slower but have a lot more interaction with other decks to make sure they win.

Control: true control doesn't want to win fast at all. It's a slow strategy that tries to break other decks. Landstill for instance is a deck that used to win on Mishra's factory beatdown and now wins on Jace the Mindsculptor. Games take a lot of turns and this deck plays 4 Jace and every other card is either counterspells of some sort (Force of Will, Counterspell, Spell Snare) or removal (Pernicious Deed, Swords to Plowshares, Innocent Blood).
Another true control deck is lands (these days 38lands)


The way to interact with fast strategies is to play the most mana efficient hate cards in the game. Swords to Plowshares versus creatures, Force of Will against combo are the big ones. All the rest differs from deck to deck, strategy to strategy, sideboard to sideboard. It also depends on current meta. There is no deck to rule them all (although landstill comes close IMO if piloted well.

I guess your right that i was wrong to assume that most legacy decks win within the first three turns everytime, cause your right some decks dont do that quick win, but yet win in a different way making the game go on longer, depending on the cards or deck such as aggro and mill, i was prolly thinking more down the aggro way of playing, so i guess i should restate my question.

So i guess the question I'm asking is just what is your favorite ace in the hole card to play against quick decks. to be more specific against quick aggro decks. I know it depends on the situation and type of deck, but i know theres a specific card that has saved your butt multiple times in a multitude of matches.

Aggro is the weakest form of magic, it's super easy to break. I always hope for aggro matchups when going to a tournament but unfortunatly I hardly ever get an opponent playing aggro.

Pernicious Deed is the best aggro killer in the game. Playing those colors also gives you access to Hymn to Tourach which is also devestating to aggro. Any kind of discard is very good against them because they usually have to win with what they start with. Attack that and they are dead.
If you don't play creatures yourself you can play Innocent blood as turn 1 removal.

If you play white, Swords to plowshares is the best spot removal.

If you play red like I usually do your options are limitless. Lightning Bolt, Grim Lavamancer, Ancient Grudge, Lightning Helix, Chain Lighting, Seismic Assault, Devestating Dreams....

I've been playing Natural Order RUG and my matchup was good against every aggro deck in the field. Merfolk don't stand a chance when you play Grim Lavamancer and side in Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast. Lightning bolt and Grim lavamancer held goblins in check. Lightning Bolts were good against zoo. Ancient Grudge and Grim lavamancer destroys affinity.

Now this is all backuped up by Mental Misstep, as of oktober MM is banned and aggro will be better again.


Bottem line though, and this is true for any format, casual or tournament. If you can slow aggro down with casting cost 1 spot removal and then kill their field with a sweeper they die. They allways die to spells that generate card advatage. That's why affinity can't win to Ancient Grudge. It's 1 card that kills their 2 best creatures or their broken equipment.
Grim lavamancer creates card advantage against merfolk and goblins, again card advantage wins. Though Goblins have a lot of card advantage of their own, they are a very unique aggro deck.

Zoo is more problematic as their creatures are big enough to withstand burn and they use burn to finish the game when they loose the board. Cards like Fireblast make the deck really fast. The key here is to slow them down. Lightning helix for instance is awesome as it buys you a full turn early on while killing one of their best creatures (Wild Nacatl). Swords to Plowshares is the answer to the big creatures like knights and goyfs.
The best sweeper in legacy against zoo is Perish or the more expensive Nature's Ruin. Deathmark is good as well but not divers enough to dedicate sideboard space to.

wow nice thank you, thats a pretty well thought out answer, and ive never even heard of pernicious deed until now but thats pretty amazing, instant win stopper for sure once you get it out against decks with quick creature, ect.. kills. Personally red has always been my fav to play, and honestly i like aggro decks, but when building one i have to take into account everything that youve been talking about, the if you have those cards in the opposing deck, what can i do to still get by, makes me think, because i think youve looked at my quick kill elemental deck, and i love it but ive always thought, "would really suck if someone had a lightning bolt haha or a counterspell". Obviously the point of a aggro deck is to win before anyone has any time to get set up or close to going off, but they only need one mana to screw the whole plan up.

Thanks for your input man.
and btw for you, whats your fav deck to play that you would consider hardest to stop, not unstopppable, cause theres always something that will mess any kind of deck up, but i guess you would say, hardest to stop.

I don't really have a favourite deck, I switch a lot depending on meta shifts and my own chaotic nature. The decks I do favour, like Loam Control and Junk are far from the best out there. I just enjoy playing them.
I enjoy playing control but not blue permission. Aggro control is also fine. I don't like playing pure aggro and combo, both are usually all or nothing startegies.
But this doen't mean I don't play them if they are the best choice of deck.

For instance, now with Mental Misstep banned I think I'm going to start playing Ad Nausium Tendrils. I don't enjoy playing it but it's one of the best decks in my opinion.

Seth, you're answering the questions too well! Makes it hard to add to the conversation. :P Anyways, as far as Legacy is concerned, all you have to do is play something that does something that's unfair. Whether it's casting rituals and cantrips into killing you with a sorcery, making 20 zombies on turn 3 without needing to resolve a spell (can't believe you forgot Dredge Seth, yeesh), or soft-locking your opponent with Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top, almost all the decks in the format are doing something unfair to win. So, you have to play unfair to have a chance. You just have to remember that if you play an inconsistently unfair thing, you're going to get wrecked by the more consistent 'fair' decks of the format like Zoo.

I love this format, because unfair is fair and the broken still have to deal with Force of Will.

interesting for control, ive always wanted to build one, but am so indecisive with it i can never get it built, haha i never know the direction i wanna take it. I'm such a fan of originality with deck building that it takes forever to build new ones, since most ideas for decks are no longer original haha, with so many players the only originality left is the slight changes in a few cards and gameplay with decks. but what does the tendril deck do?


And i agree with you loki, seth answers questions amazingly well and in depth for sure. dredge is pretty fun, ive seen quite a few in some tournaments, they are rather annoying haha. and ode the legacy format with all the unfair combos, it seems now adays you gotta play more than unfair, you gotta play just right mean haha, like playing iona shield of emeria on first or second turn against a mono color deck ha, and isnt force of will a counter spell for 0, right? cause not too much to do against a counterspell...other than another counterspell.

[QUOTE=Chewrida]interesting for control, ive always wanted to build one, but am so indecisive with it i can never get it built, haha i never know the direction i wanna take it. I'm such a fan of originality with deck building that it takes forever to build new ones, since most ideas for decks are no longer original haha, with so many players the only originality left is the slight changes in a few cards and gameplay with decks. but what does the tendril deck do?


And i agree with you loki, seth answers questions amazingly well and in depth for sure. dredge is pretty fun, ive seen quite a few in some tournaments, they are rather annoying haha. and ode the legacy format with all the unfair combos, it seems now adays you gotta play more than unfair, you gotta play just right mean haha, like playing iona shield of emeria on first or second turn against a mono color deck ha, and isnt force of will a counter spell for 0, right? cause not too much to do against a counterspell...other than another counterspell.[/QUOTE]


Force of Will lets you exile a blue card in hand and pay a life to cast it instead of its mana cost (which is 3UU), so the downside is that it's card disadvantage. The upside? You don't die to broken things on turn 1 or 2. God upside in this format.

yeah, long live Force of Will. I played a modern tournament a few weeks back and it was the perfect example of what would happen when you would ban Force of Will and Wasteland in legacy. It all breaks appart and decks go nuts.

Force is one of the greatest card designs ever in my opinion. It's increadibly well balanced. It gives you a chance against combo but it kills you against aggro. But it's also great for combo protecting their all or nothing win condition. Legacy is awesome.

damn, i like that card, its prolly expensive to buy huh? and legacy is by far the best, dont have the money to keep up with standard right now, and legacy opens too many fun doors to not play it, ode to the many ridic combos

Very nice information. Thanks for share this.