Hello everyone

It's me again with another (maybe stupid) question:

Necrotic ooze:

Creature - Ooze 4 / 3
As long as Necrotic Ooze is on the battlefield, it has all activated abilities of all creature cards in all graveyards.


Phyrexian devourer:

Artifact Creature - Construct 1 / 1
When Phyrexian Devourer's power is 7 or greater, sacrifice it.
Exile the top card of your library: Put X +1/+1 counters on Phyrexian Devourer, where X is the exiled card's converted mana cost. If Phyrexian Devourer's power is 7 or greater, sacrifice it.


My question is: can necrotic ooze die when you reveal a card with converted mana cost 7 or greater? Personally, I don't think so since that is a triggered ability and the ooze only gets the activated abilities. Is this correct?

Many thanks!

Elmar fud

Hello everyone

I've started playing aluren in legacy and now I'm thinking about "updating" it to a vintage level, there is however a question that remains:

What happens if Aluren is in play and your opponent has sphere of resistance  / lodestone golem in play? Do I have to pay 1 more for every creature that I put into play with Aluren?

I already checked the Q&A forum here and found a number of questions regarding Aluren and trinisphere, but I believe this is a different situation. Not?

greetings!

Elmarfud

Hello everyone

I have a rather odd question. Take for instance the card hymn to tourach:

Target player discards two cards at random.

Say for some reason I would target myself (for example with a reanimator deck, to get creatures in my graveyard). How should I discard? Can I look at my cards when I choose them? Should my opponent pick the cards? ...

greetings

Elmar fud

Nice!  One more trick to add to my FEB-list.
Another thing we were discussing was what happens with the card that goes to the graveyard when you use welder. Does it go on top of your graveyard pile or does it take the place of the card you weld in? I'm asking this because it could make a great difference with volrath's shapeshifter.

greetings

Elmar fud

I've been playing Full English Breakfast for about a year now and this is the most awkward situation I have been in yet. This is what my board looks like:

- 1 goblin welder
- 1 sharpshooter
- 1 volrath's shapeshifter
- 1 mox saphire

In my graveyard I have a bunch of cards. Among those cards is a phyrexian dreadnought. The top card of my library is also a phyrexian dreadnought, making my shapeshifter a dreadnought as well.
My opponent has an inkwell levithan in play, so I need to have 2 dreadnoughts in play. I have 1 more dreadnought in my hand.

My question for you: Can I play the dreadnought from my hand and in response use my goblin welder to switch my mox saphire with the dreadnought in my graveyard (not the top one!).

Here's what I think:
When my hand-played dreadnought comes into play the 'sacrifice'-ability will trigger. In response to this trigger I tap my welder to get another dreadnought into play. His sacrifice-ability will also go to the stack. I sacrifice one of my dreadnoughts and so at least one of them lives ...

Greetings

Elmar Fud

The fact that you need at least 2 cards in your hand to complete your combo is what makes this deck difficult to play. You need at least a balance and an ignorant bliss. With a recall as well, the party has begun. But the complexity and difficulty is to have all these cards in your hand at the same time. And of course you'll also need some protection like force of will, which means you'll need another blue card as well.

The fact that you need all these cards is what makes this deck fascinating but also very vulnerable. The difficulty this deck faces is that you'll spend 1 or 2 turns looking for the pieces you need for this deck to function. During these turns you can't play any disruption and that's what makes this deck very vulnerable.

The idea is of course very original and your combo is indeed strong, but I think it's too difficult to play...

greetings

Elmar fud

It's almost impossible to say which card is the best lockpiece in magic since this totally depends on your matchup. Against slaver I prefer null rod instead of chalice or trinisphere where in a combo or fish matchup a first-turn chalice is a denive gift ...

greetings

elmar fud

ps: let's add another, not unimportant, lockpiece: leyline of the void

I've been observing your list and here's what I would make of it:


Volcanic Island 4   
Flooded Strand 2
Island 3   
Polluted Delta 3
Strip Mine 1   
Wasteland 3 
Mishra's factory 4

Mox Ruby 1
Black Lotus 1
Mox Sapphire 1
Brainstorm 1
ponder 1
Ancestral Recall 1
Stifle 4
trickbind 2
Time Walk 1
Null Rod 4
Fire/Ice 4   
Force of Will 4

Gorilla Shaman 2
Grim Lavamancer 3
Magus of the Moon 4
red elemental blast 2 or 3
phyrexian dreadnought 3

A bit of an explanation:

mishra's factory: just take a look at my previous reply ..

Wasteland: I would run 3 wastelands instead of 4. Since your also running magus, 3 should be enough.

ponder: great card and a great replacement for brainstorm.

null rod: Nowadays, this card is one of the most powerful cards in your deck. So you definitely want this card in you opening hand. That's why I would run 4 instead of 3

Magus of the moon: very powerful card against stax, TPS and slaver. The same as with null rod: you want to draw this one as soon as possible.

red elemental blast: a cheap anti-blue counterspell that can also destroy a meddling mage for example.

stifle/trickbind/phyrexian dreadnought: Since you have no large creatures like tarmogoyf or jotun grunt, you have to find a way to defend yourself and destroy your opponent. Dreadnought is perfect this way. The good part of this combo (stifle with dreadnought) is that stifle (and trickbind of course) can also be used beside in this combo. And since stifle is very good nowadays, I would definitely use this card ...

greetings

Elmar Fud

ps: as you can see, you're still at 58 cards so you still have to add a few cards. if you're going to play dreadnought, then you might think about trinket mage ...

Here are a few tips:

* run mishra's factory instead of mutavault. It's cheaper and it's better. Why run a land that can only turn into a 2/2 creature when mishra can become a 3/3 when blocking ...

* forget spellstutter and cloud of faeries. I know stutter works well with cloud of faeries and that cloud of faeries is essentially a "free creature", but it has no disruptional aspect. It's only a 1/1 flying creature. That's why you won' be able to beat as hard as other fish decks.

The problem with red is that it doesn't have any card drawing like black with dark confidant. that's why all your card drawing should come from blue. together with brainstorm, you should definitely play ponder and even merchant scroll...

A card I've always been fond of is reckless abandon. It's good for replacing goblin grenade when playing a non-goblin deck...

I'll get back to you tomorrow with some new ideas.

greetings

Elmar Fud

I totally disagree with you on this one. Saying null rod should be more of a sideboard card instead of main board is ridiculous. These cards are all useless due to null rod: 5 moxen, Lotus, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Slaver, Triskelion/Triskelavus, devining top, illusionary mask, powder keg, engineered explosives, tormod's crypt, memory jar, aether vial, goblin charbelcher, ....

All these cards are used in today's metagame. Of course there are still decks like Fish or Ichroid in which null rod is useless, but that's what sideboard is for. I would say 80% if not 90% of today's type 1 decks use many of the cards above so Null rod is one of the most usefull disruptions at this time.

About Jotun grunt: I play grunt in Fish, but that's because I play blue as well. Brainstorm, ponder, stifle, ancestral, time walk, ... They all fill up your graveyard very nicely to support grunt. Your deck might have some difficulties as you point out so I can only advice you to test it and see where it brings you.

If I were you I would cut the savannah lions. As well as 1 duress. I believe 6 discard-disruptions is enough. Of course you really want to have one in your opening hand, but you shouldn't overdo it. 6 is enough, I think.

Maybe you should also put in at least 2 basic lands (maybe forest and swamp). With wasteland on the table you can have some real trouble because you are playing aggro and you really need at least 2 mana to function properly.

Greetings

Elmar Fud

A nice idea, but in my opinion it still needs some modification. First of all, I would leave out Skyshroud Elite or savannah lions. They are very good, don't get me wrong, but they simply are not good enough. Once they hit the board they only beat. That's it. I've noticed these creatures are rather useless against combo because they don't have the disrupt aspect like meddling mage or they don't bring the advantage of a dark confidant. A possible alternative is glowrider. Since you're not playing that many non-creature spells.

A second card which is really necesarry: Null rod. Nowadays null rod is one of the most powerful cards in the format so I would definitely add 3 of them and maybe even 4 since you really want to have this card in your opening hand.
You might also consider some removal cards like swords to plowshares and dust to dust (or any other artifact/enchantment removal card). With this list, you don't stand a chance against stax or any other artifact-built deck (e.g. slaver). You might say you'll try to litteraly beat them to it, but you'll find out you are just too slow for that.

Last but not least: when playing aggro you might consider wasteland/strip mine as another way of disrupting...

greetings

Elmar Fud

I thought it was possible, because the discarding is part of the cost. You also have to pay 2 life with a vampiric tutor or sacrifice an artifact with tinker before you can search your library. Since discarding comes first, I assumed the faerie was already in the graveyard and could be a legal target for it's own ability ...

elmar fud

I've been playing full english breakfast for a month now and I have a small, but rather important problem.
I play 3 faerie macabres main and I was wondering if you could use the faerie's ability to remove itself from your graveyard.

for example:

I have a volrath's shapeshifter in play.

my graveyard:

1. dreadnought
2. mox ruby

In this situation, my shapeshifter would simply be a 0/1 because the top card is a mox. Can I discard faerie macabre to remove itself and the mox so my shapeshifter would become a dreadnought?

Thanks in advance

Elmar fud

A few things I would like to add as a moderate stasis player:

* when playing root maze (which you definitely have to in vintage nowadays), then forget morphling. Black vise will do the trick for a lot less mana and a lot less messing around. (it even works when tapped because of root maze)

* Reset is indeed a nice idea, but I think it's better to use the chain of vapor trick or rescue. Personally, I choose chain over rescue because it can also remove a colossus from the board.

* I haven't tried Eon Hub yet, but to me it looks rather complex. The idea is of course great and indeed it will work with stasis, but you'd have to play at least 3 workshops main and workshop is useless with any other card in this deck.

* Frozen Aether: it's simply too slow. Vintage nowadays is very fast. Even fish is fast nowadays, so with a stasis deck, you basically have three turns. No more. After that, you're either dead or your lock isn't strong enough to hold off the enemy. So you should try to find your cards ASAP.

*Cards I play in my deck:

- vampiric tutor / demonic tutor: simply to find stasis or any other card. If you're simply looking for stasis you might want to change this in enlightened tutor.
- null rod: very good card nowadays and it doesn't bother you that much.
- crop rotation: the most important card in your deck is (next to stasis of course) forsaken city. This card really helps.

Elmar fud

Hello there,

I've been playing stasis in Legacy for over a year now and I must say I'm really excited that someone has finally put the effort into converting this deck to vintage. I've checked your list and the first thing I noticed was the absence of Ponder. Now that brainstorm is restricted I basically play 1 brainstorm and 1 ponder in every deck. I don't have to tell you guys what a great card Ponder is and actually is just a very good substitue for brainstorm.

Secondly, I would definitely play root maze. Especially in vintage, root maze can really kick ass. just think of all the things they stop: moxes, black lotus, fetchland (twice !!!), wastelands, ...

I'm not sure I would play these cards:

 1 Mana Crypt
 1 Claws of gix
 1 mishra's workshop

Mana crypt: once it hits the board, you need to have something to make it disappear in time since your luck your will run out. And why play it in the first place? Why not add a mox diamond of chrome mox? (or a real mox, but since this is budget ...). I would just leave out mana crypt. In legacy I play 4 elvish spirit guides. Maybe worth a try?

I can understand why you want to play claws of gix. Nothing better than destroying your own stasis at the end of an opponent's turn, untapping everyting and play a new one. But there are better ways to do this. Some might say you should play "rescue". But I'm not very fond of that myself. The problem with rescue is that it's rather limited. A tinker - colossus on the other side of the table and you're fucked. Therefore I play 3 or 4 chain of vapors. I see you already play 2 of them, but I would increase that to 3.

Mishra's workshop: first of all: playing 1 is way too random. I can understand that you only have 1 of these (I don't have any at all  ) but playing just1 is rather stupid. I know you want to play orb of dreams, but this is a card that has to hit the board in your first or maybe even your second turn. After that, it looses too much of it's strength. I would definitely play 4 root mazes. They kick ass, they only cost 1 mana, but they are green. That's the only disadvantage of this card I think. When you add green, perhaps an alternative for feldon's cane could be Gaia's blessing ...


Here are some cards I would add when playing this deck in vintage:

null rod: really good nowadays and very usefull against a lot of decks. It only screws your feldon's cane so I think it's really worth it.
The tabernacle at Pendrell Vale: very good card and extremely good in stasis. Of course it's very good against aggro. (Not very cheap by the way)
crop rotation: you want to find forsaken city ASAP and this is the card that will do the trick. Sadly restricted, but definitely worth playing. Especially if you are playing 1 or 2 tabernacles ...
pithing needle: the most terrible cards against stasis: wasteland and strip mine. The one thing that keeps you from completing this combo is forsaken city. This is the holy grail of your deck and should be protected at all time. Pithing needle will do the job and it's usefull against a whole lot of other cards as well: welder, illusionary mask, fetchland, mox monkeys, ...

I will post my legacy decklist this afternoon if I don't forget it.

greetings

Elmar Fud

Hi guys,

I've been playing a similar list for quite some time now and I was wondering what your opnion on misdirection is? I've been playing 2 misdirections main because of oath and GAT all reaching out for an ancestrall. on the other hand I've noticed that misdirection and confidant aren't very close friends.

I'll post my list this evening ...

Elmarfud