GP Philly metagame, and metagame deck

[Matt]

Simple question.

If you could play a deck that went 70% vs goblins (all builds) and 70% vs Landstill (all builds) but 5% vs everything else - from zoo to trix to tide to gro - would you play this deck at the GP, and why/why not? For those who say no, how high would you expect such a deck to place?

Sometimes it seems to me that you could simply pack your deck full of hate cards for these two decks and waltz into the T8. If you had two byes, this might actually be a winning strategy!

[carlossb]

It's the same situation as the Black season some years ago, when everybody was playing Necro decks and burn decks to beat them.
Then, a few players created TurboStasis (in the US Champs, I think they were MattPlace and some others) in order to beat only Necro, and they relied on the surprise factor against every other deck (as they loose when you disenchant their Howling Mines... but as it was a new deck their opponents didn´t know it).

So my answer is YES, if the deck you´re playing is a complete surprise in the metagame.
If you cannot create one of this, the other solution is to modify one of the best current decks to beat the mirror.

[Anusien]

Sometimes it seems to me that you could simply pack your deck full of hate cards for these two decks and waltz into the T8. If you had two byes, this might actually be a winning strategy!

The main problem with this is finding effective hate against both decks.  Different cards hate out each deck.  In order to win, you'd essentially need to fill your deck with Wraths, StP, Bolts and REBs.  And by the way, I'll be taking UWr Landstill to Richmond this weekend.

[Matt]

I half-seriously thought about building this deck:

4 REB
4 BEB
4 Pyroblast
4 Hydroblast

4 Distorting Lens
4 Isochron Scepter

etc. It was originally some semi-casual failed deck from type one, back before Onslaught (possibly before Judgement).

[Anusien]

BEB is sort of bad versus Goblins because it can't kill Piledrivers.  The other problem is in both matchups you go into it with 8 dead slots, and you have 16 dead slots generally.

[Jacob Orlove]

BEB is sort of bad versus Goblins because it can't kill Piledrivers.  The other problem is in both matchups you go into it with 8 dead slots, and you have 16 dead slots generally.

Did you miss the Distorting Lens he runs? Also, Blue Blast is fine for countering Piledriver, killing turn 1 Lackey, and has a ton of other key uses.

You could ask bebe about the deck, he built the original version called "I stole my friend's sideboard" or similar.

[Bardo]

BEB is sort of bad versus Goblins because it can't kill Piledrivers. The other problem is in both matchups you go into it with 8 dead slots, and you have 16 dead slots generally.

Heh. I found out about this the hard way.

"What do you mean I can't target Piledriver? Oh... I see."

But if you've removed/countered AEther Vial, you can always counter Piledriver while it's on the stack. It's also very strong against Burn/Sligh variants that run Pyrostatic Pillar, Sulfuric Vortex, etc.

It's a handy card indeed. I have 4 BEB in both my Fish and 3cThreshold decks and they're pulling their weight admirably.

[freakish777]

Simple question.

If you could play a deck that went 70% vs goblins (all builds) and 70% vs Landstill (all builds) but 5% vs everything else - from zoo to trix to tide to gro - would you play this deck at the GP, and why/why not? For those who say no, how high would you expect such a deck to place?

Sometimes it seems to me that you could simply pack your deck full of hate cards for these two decks and waltz into the T8. If you had two byes, this might actually be a winning strategy!

Only if I had the 3 byes for winning a GPT.  I expect there to be a TON of crap through the first 3 or 4 rounds before they're relegated to the lower tables by "better" decks like goblins and landstill.

[Pancakes]

MWC solidly beats both Goblins and Landstill. The problem is that I'd expect a fair amount of Solidarity as well.

[The Atog Lord]

I wouldn't play a narrow deck at all.

The field is wide open -- and despite how things turned out at the Legacy Championships, things were pretty diverse there, too. And I'm sure that Ravnica will inspire a new deck or two of its own.

I'd rather take a deck that has game against anything, rather than play a hate deck. Of course, I almost never advocate a pure hate deck, anyways.

[49 Cents]

I'm still thinking about some kind of deck that runs 4 Pyroclasms in the main.. Pyroclasm is such a ridiculous strong card in Legacy (at least in my meta). We don't have combo, we barely have Landstill (like, 1 or 2 from 30), and Aggro is dominating atm.. I'm curently testing a Landstill list that doesn't run Disk but it does run 4 Clasms, let's see how that works out.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'm still thinking about some kind of deck that runs 4 Pyroclasms in the main.

Burning Wish?

[49 Cents]

If you run Burning Wish, you can't play Clasm until turn 3. that might be to late against really fast aggro decks. My meta is fairly undeveloped, people all play Goblins, Elves and other Creature decks they like. Clasm is really, really good against those decks. I've had tons of situations in which Goblins went Lackey, dump Warchief, play Piledriver + Random GoBo, and in a situation like that with Clasm you solve the problem, but with Wish you'll still get kicked.

[Matt]

Clasm is surely great vs goblins, but I was never very happy with it vs r/g. Kird Ape just kind of shrugs it off and Wild Mongrel/Rootwalla can both survive.

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

Life would probably be a great choice if people are looking for a metagame deck, goblins gets reamed, if your running vials landstill looks a lot brighter as well.


You just need to make a solid build which isn't too easy...


Oh yes if you are worried about solidarity I wouldn't, not enough people are going to own Resets for it to make a huge presence in the metagame.

[freakish777]

The real problem is that Life doesn't actually win.

It just assumes your opponent will scoop.

[Matt]

Yeah, Life has a real problem, in that if Landstill can contain your creatures well enough, they can forcibly deck you by breaking their own Standstills at you, making you draw like 12 extra cards.