Dies to Removal

You're hoping that they're close to dead by turn 3 anyway.

Just throw Burn spells at the face. It sounds primitive, but more often than not, it's going to be the way to go.

Trust me that IS my plan

The only issue is that I can't SB if I don't know what I'm facing

I've learned that most decks are pretty obvious, but there's been a few times where I didn't know what my opponent was playing because I had won so fast.

This is actually a good topic to discuss now that I think about it.

Like, if your opponent leads off with a Wooded Foothills, are they playing RUG delver or Jund? Stuff like that.

Brainstorm is not a telling card. At least half of the decks in the format use it. In general, you should be able to pick out their strategy over three turns without seeing any signal cards. No viable deck in the format can survive that long without giving away most of their strategy. Of the ones you may not see:

Top signals either Miracles or Painter (easy to tell which based on other cards). If they are UB/Grixis and you see them just filtering through cards and maybe casting a Cabal Therapy at you, they are Storm/ANT trying to get the last card or two they need or a very unlucky Reanimator player. You can figure out which Delver variant you face based on what lands they play. Just about everything else should be obvious.

Edit - Do not base your determination on what fetchland they play. It is easy to fake people out when you have all 10 fetches to choose from.

The fetchland question was just an example, albeit a mediocre one.

Like, if your opponent leads off with a Wooded Foothills, are they playing RUG delver or Jund? Stuff like that.

More likely RUG actually, Jund actually hates the basic mountain (they are nominally a BG deck splashing red for bolt and BBE) and taiga

I've notice that the Legacy queues don't fire very often

Is that because 2-Man give you 1 VM booster while you'll need win TWO games in queues to get anything? (2-Man fire quite a bit obv.)

- - - - - - - - - -

Time for my Legacy report:

I've played two 2-Man and lost both of them in grueling T1 fashion vs Belcher twice (same person) losing lots of rating (which won't matter after DT and 8 tickets (rather painful))

I'm gonna stop with 2-Man since I think you'll just have some MU's where you simply can't win, I'll just stick with DE until I get use too the format.

- - - - - - - - - -

Gah I queued for a 2-Man again (on the beta this time) only to face the same Belcher player
again def. gonna wait until tomorrow so that I can try some DE's (I knew I would do poorly but not this bad, consistence T1 kills arn't very fun on the opp. end - makes me wish I have 4x MindBreak trap). I'm glad I borrowed the cards rather then brought them - I don't think I can enjoy a format where you consistently need a counter-spell just to stack the odds in your favor.

I've noticed two mans are much different than 8 mans/dailies, when I played painter I would run into burn constantly in two mans, anything larger then that it tended to open up a bit

I played my first DE today (on v4 aka Beta):

G1: TES/Belcher M: T1 kill both rounds...
G2: Storm M1: T1 kill game 1 (warrens), M2: he durdles and I win, M3: T1 Kill

Drop.

I decided that not playing something without counters or T1 kill capabilities isn't the best bet during my timezone.

Ouch That's a pretty horrific intro to :Legacy

Certainly what I call a "Welcome to Legacy" moment. Storm is more popular online than on paper since the game counts for you. Kinda like how it is in modern as well.

Geez, MDU, if that isn't just the worst of luck, then I don't know what is. Like Lazerburn said, that's a terrible intro to Legacy.

If the decks in your timezone are THAT skewed toward Storm/Belcher, don't play burn or put four Leyline of Sanctity in your board and mull aggressively. That's about all you can hope for.

Shit, maindeck Eidolon, pack 4 mindbreak traps, and play Pillar from the board.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27 ... ation.html
I hope this helps. Im not sure how good this guy is but I think i remeber an article that frank kartsten did on the same thing.

After testing, I have concluded that YP is not where we want to be. There were times where it was nuts but it is dead in other matches and always needs you to do something on top of it in order for it to be useful.

Hooray for testing!

After the first few matches against Stoneblade and Delver, I nearly declared it a solid win. Then I ran into Elves and Sneak and Show where it was just too slow. I was neutral to it against D&T and Maverick.

Went to a 40 people event today. I'm not sharing list or anything because it was quite uneventful ... i lost to combo decks and had close games with Jund, Bug, Patriot ending up 3-3.

Round 2 , i am on the play and opponent starts with a leyline of sanctity ... what the fuck? I'm quite pissed ,after losing round 1 to reanimator, to face someone who plays leyline of sanctity main deck. Except for the fact that immediately after he also slams down a leyline of anticipation and a leyline of the meek. At this point i have no idea what is happening, and since he does nothing for 2 turns i start beating down with goblin guide and eidolon. On his turn 3, he plays a Serra's Sanctum and casts Opalescence .... and i get beat down by 4/4 leylines. Anyway, i manage to kill his leyline of sanctity with 2 burn spells (best feeling ever, burning out the bastard leyline), and win the first game in
a close race. Games 2 and 3 are not even fun because he has both times a perfect hand with 3-4 leylines attacking on turn 2. I just needed a bit more time to land a bridge since, as he said after , he had no answer to that.
So after this loss i was already out of top8 but at least i have an epic game to remember i never faced or read about this deck and i don't think i'll face it anymore ... plus, i burned a leyline of sanctity !!!

the bastard leyline

i was able to beat leyline 4 times at the invitational. Thanks to flame rift, with most lists cutting flame rift, you leave yourself weaker to leyline.

Which decks played Leyline? I cut Rifts in favor of Eidolon, maybe the matchups stay balanced. I know that I have been beating Leyline with this version.

Edit - Searching SCG's database, I found a small sample of decks that ran it, mostly Show and Tell decks with a few random copies in Miracles, UWR Delver, and Cloudpost. From that list, only against Delver does our life total matter.

Show and Tell. I think it might just be practice to run 3-4 of these at the Invitational(lot's of discard), not sure how many they would run in an Open environment.

And I just edited my post mentioning Show and Tell. Flame Rift is stronger against Leyline in that matchup but Marauders is stronger when they don't have it. I will add it to my list of things to test before Syracuse.

I think if you entering an open enviroment, you will face MUCH less Leyline than you will burn mirrors/delver (especially early)

You worry WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much about Leyline of Sanctity.

Going into an open, I don't think you have to worry about leyline.

You don't. If you lose to it, thems the breaks. Take your lumps and move on. It's not like Modern where it's an actual sideboard card.

And a card that I can easily answer in Modern but not here. Unless I have some major breakthrough, I will likely run my "stock" list when I finally get to go to an Open in 3 weeks.

This was 7th place at the last SCG event:

[deck]
Creatures (8)
4 Goblin Guide
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Spells (32)
2 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress
3 Searing Blaze
4 Chain Lightning
3 Flame Rift
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt

Lands (20)
12 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
4Scalding Tarn

Sideboard (15)
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Searing Blaze
1 Searing Blood
4 Smash to Smithereens
1 Surgical Extraction
[/deck]

The main looks so streamlined. No Lava Man, and strangely enough, I'm ok with this.

Although that's a ton of GY hate and no Show and Tell/Sneak Attack hate.

I see more people trying to move toward this, including Ari Lax suggesting it for Modern. I think it's wrong, but it's worth noting.

I don't like that sideboard but the main in intriguing. I always felt that Lavamancer was too slow for what we fight against. I don't think you will pry the Vexing Devils out of my charred hands though.

Man, I couldn't play with Vexing Devil in a format with Deathrite Shaman....

Against a BUG deck, they come out for the other utility cards I can use. Vortex also helps protect me.

Ick...

To each their own, mate.

It is definitely an acquired taste and one of the more contentious selections I have made.

Then again, the "fetchfull" version I run (when I have no fear of Stifle or racing) also cuts the Devils. I should look into this more.