OH YES that big deck tech! . I know from a content creation standpoint gameplay with spicy decks is the correct business decision to focus on producing. But I cant deny I would love for Phil do like a full expansive deck tech on his favorite decks in various formats legacy, cedh/edh and such even without gameplay.
Just to echo what others have already said: your deep-dive into theory (both during games as well as during the deck tech portion) is exactly why I'm supporting you on Patreon. I appreciate you timestamping the games for others, but I'm here for All. Of. It. #gimme
this is not even an insult but i fall asleep to your videos almost every night. You‘re calm and voice out every thought so its basically podcast. love this channel, (and play more death and taxes!!!)
Quick question about the deck tech, why are there 3 polluted deltas? There aren't any fatal pushes or stalactite stalkers, so I don't see any upside besides deck thinning. If you're going for deck thinning then why not play 4 and run some marsh flats?
0:45 Bro, Mono Black is my favorite archetype in every format I can play it in! Please! Discuss niche edge case interactions and card choices for as long as you want!
edit: just rewatched it. there was a chalice on board so reanimate was a blank. also scratched my head on that part though. But he could have pointed out the play
24:39 i love how you point out your opponents misplays and explain how their misplay made the game easier/harder for you. its interesting to see how one or two small mistakes add up and change a winning game to a losing one
I love your gameplay, and I don't want to degrade that when I say the Incredibly In Depth Deck Tech was the most interesting thing on the channel in a fair while. I would love to see you do that more, it's really cool!
Question im not sure if i missed it. But why the copies of polluted delta? Is it literally just for deck thinning purposes? There doesnt appear to be any land tech like a witchs hutt or anything. Also the deepdive was cool and insightful
The detailed breakdown of the deck was wonderful. Some probabilities on certain draw patterns would be perfectly fine too. As for the deck, I just don’t think Opposition Agent should be mainboard, as the opportunity cost for it is too high compared to adding more trolls, cavalry, etc. Opposition Agent doesn’t feel like it’s a big enough threat and the deck needs more threats. Also, I’ve got to ask, why do Legacy mono-black decks not run Cabal Coffers? Is it just too slow and susceptible to Wasteland?
35:35 I think I really prefer casting the Bowmasters in OP's upkeep, it would discourage their looting even further and would allow you to trade the tokens
I found myself wanting Chrome Moxes for more explosivity, then I realized I'd want to then cut some Wastelands and put in Saga, which would require Ancient Tomb, at which point Dauthi Voidwalker becomes much harder to cast as said in the deck tech. I think Phil did get incredibly unlucky this league, but I felt this scam deck wasn't scammy or fast enough to compete in the match losses (granted, M1 was nigh unbeatable)
At 35:40, is there a reason you don't cast Bowmasters on your opponent's turn to make their attack worse? For example, if they choose not to discard with Fable, your 1/1 army doesn't trade with the shaman token unless you mark damage on it.
Maybe a 22 year old movie is how you draw in new viewers, but as a current viewer, I can tell you that movie would be older than me by a bit, and it would likely go over my head.
I think he also may be on them so he can trick people into thinking he is on blue on like turn one or whatever to force people to play around things they dont need to. Just a theory.
@@ThrabenUniversity Ohhh. I see. Interesting. Regardless, amazing video! I may donate to see a video like this that goes over deck choices for Moon Stompy.
At 1:12:12 (and earlier in the same game, but they have no untapped lands in the earlier case so it doesn't matter), it seems to me that it would be easier for your opponent to flash in a nontoken creature (snapcaster or bowmaster) than a creature token and successfully trade for your opposition agent, which making them sacrifice a creature token avoids. Even if they flash in a bowmaster, while it still kills your opposition agent, the army token has to be sacrificed immediately afterwards. In either case, the bowmaster they block with dies, and they're left with fewer choices about what to sacrifice. Is there a reason I'm not seeing that you choose to make them sacrifice a nontoken creature in these instances?
I feel like I'd say that while the deck has a lot of *possible* nut draws, it doesn't have a whole lot of *probable* ones -- maybe that's part of what you were trying to get at in the outro? It feels like this deck is straddling fair and unfair in a weird way, like a Chrome Mox D&T build.
I think the deck was too heavy on the mana, i could see cutting 2 swamps for 2 more trolls pretty safley on this build. I also dont think sheoldred should be in the main, i think the best curve toppers are at 3 mana for the "whoopsie dark ritual" hands. I would prefer the sheoldreds to be something a bit more interactive like hymns or more removal Edit: Last thing is I don't think the side board worked out well. I think you want like 8 slots for unfair matchups (more leylines and so on)
Do you also have a reasoning behind choosing not to play Stalactite Stalker? Most Mono B Scam lists that I browsed through recently run that, and it felt like a decent piece when I took them for a spin (the decks themselves felt not entirely satisfying to me though). When I saw that you cut Stalactite Stalker and upped the count of 3-drops to 7, I immediately thought that this would make sense in a list trying to use Ancient Tomb. However this deck is not doing that.
Running specifically 3 Exsanguinator Cavalry, especially when you’re not on ancient tomb seems odd to me. I would usually assume that the 4th Cavalry is the most important of the playset, so I should either play 4 or 0…
Scam means what it means in other formats - reanimating or blinking an evoked pitch elemental (like Grief) in order to bypass its mana cost while still getting the creature and often getting to use its ability twice. It's a "scam" because it cheats your opponent - they get double-thoughtseized and you get a 3/2 with menace on turn 1 if you Grief + Reanimate, something that you wouldn't be able to do for that little mana if not for the exploit.
Deck's not particularly consistent and spreads itself too thin. You have a scam package, but have less targets than you normally would. You have Sheoldred and 2B cards without the soul lands to take advantage of them, and Dark Ritual isn't enough copies of mana acceleration to reliably get them out a turn faster than they should in the way an Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors does. This second point is what you trade away when making sure you'll "always" get Dauthi Voidwalker out on curve. I think the deck is too slow and inconsistent to be good enough for the current legacy metagame where you should expect to either do something big on turn 2-3 or die. This is also why I'm not entirely sold on Dauthi Voidwalker as a primary source of graveyard hate (as we saw in the games vs. reanimator where a decent opponent would have gone under your 2-drop and killed you. I'm probably more fond of Surgical Extraction than I should be, but against an unfair GY deck you want 3+ sources of turn 0-1 interaction, and for that I'd go for copies of Faerie Macabre or Surgical over Tourach. I'd then cut Malakir Rebirth for an extra Troll to make up for replacing a few swamps and Takenuma with soul lands.
At 36:11 Round 3 game 1, is it not better to wait on the draw trigger from fable to cast bowmasters? If you do this you can ping the 2/2 for 1 damage which makes it so even if they draw only one card it kills their 2/2 token.
M3:G3, I don't understand not wastelanding. Your wastelands are sitting there, you knew you weren't using them for oppo any time soon (which wouldn't have been powerful in that board state), you were simply casting reanimates and thoughtseize, and opponent kept generating mana from their nonbasics, eventually hardcasting fury for the nail in the coffin (you couldn't have known they had City to cast Fury, instead we have to bet that they don't have it, and use our resources).
I notice a lot of the time you'll make comments about certain builds or cards not necessarily being viable anymore. But isn't it still cool that people are still trying to make niche cards or archetypes work as opposed to going against the same Initiative/Gobbo decks all the time?
Competitive Legacy and casual Legacy are totally different things. As long as you understand you're playing Legacy for fun and not fully trying to win, then, yes, it's fun to see what the format can do, and that's a large part of what my channel showcases.
R1: I can't stand Reanimator. How can you say that you like playing Magic, when your deck days "I want to play as little Magic as possible, and I don't care if I have an opponent."
Some people like putting Griselbrand into play on turn 1. Why does anyone play mono-red, an archetype that also tries to get the game over fast? They like that kind of gameplay.
Play some post-sb games with Reanimator and I think your opinion of the deck will change greatly. While game 1 vs Reanimator is only non-interactive, post-board games can be crazy difficult and interesting.
@@ThrabenUniversity I'm just unreasonably salty from my interactions playing against it. Getting T1 Griselbranded 2 games in a row with Chancellor protection does not fun magic make. -___-;
Hey Phil! Big fan of the channel. Something I’ve noticed over the last month or so is that you have started filling “dead” time with criticism of the opponent’s play. IMO there’s a difference between making an observation and what you have been doing.
Note that I criticize my own play as much if not more than my opponents. One of the best possible ways to teach is to point out mistakes on both sides of the field, and that's always my goal. Will I occasionally lose my mind as my opponent punts into the stratosphere and I have no agency to stop it? Sure, but overwhelmingly the goal is didactic.
![Reid Duke Grixis Delver vs Mono Black Scam [Legacy $2000 Top 8]](/img/1.gif)
OH YES that big deck tech! . I know from a content creation standpoint gameplay with spicy decks is the correct business decision to focus on producing. But I cant deny I would love for Phil do like a full expansive deck tech on his favorite decks in various formats legacy, cedh/edh and such even without gameplay.
I don't know if I quite agree with the "without gameplay" part, but I do love a good deck tech.
Just to echo what others have already said: your deep-dive into theory (both during games as well as during the deck tech portion) is exactly why I'm supporting you on Patreon. I appreciate you timestamping the games for others, but I'm here for All. Of. It. #gimme
I really enjoy the the deck tech and analysis, much more than the actual gameplay. A 10-15 min analysis of each deck would be perfect !!
this is not even an insult but i fall asleep to your videos almost every night. You‘re calm and voice out every thought so its basically podcast. love this channel, (and play more death and taxes!!!)
I take that as a great compliment!
Quick question about the deck tech, why are there 3 polluted deltas? There aren't any fatal pushes or stalactite stalkers, so I don't see any upside besides deck thinning. If you're going for deck thinning then why not play 4 and run some marsh flats?
0:45 Bro, Mono Black is my favorite archetype in every format I can play it in! Please! Discuss niche edge case interactions and card choices for as long as you want!
38:00 reanimate solitude?
Edit: Rip, it happens. Love to see more mono B, finishing this on the way home c:
edit: just rewatched it. there was a chalice on board so reanimate was a blank. also scratched my head on that part though. But he could have pointed out the play
@@severinstalder6923 I KNEW I WAS MISSING SOMETHING. THANK YOU this was bothering me
41:00 i am prettty sure you opponents plan to win was evoke fury then touch the spirit realm on it.
24:39 i love how you point out your opponents misplays and explain how their misplay made the game easier/harder for you. its interesting to see how one or two small mistakes add up and change a winning game to a losing one
Hell yeah ten minute deck tech! I love these deep dives!
I love your gameplay, and I don't want to degrade that when I say the Incredibly In Depth Deck Tech was the most interesting thing on the channel in a fair while. I would love to see you do that more, it's really cool!
Some things never get old
I'm so game for big deck techs. I appreciate the view into your insights on deck optimization.
Big deck techs should happen more often!
Question im not sure if i missed it. But why the copies of polluted delta? Is it literally just for deck thinning purposes? There doesnt appear to be any land tech like a witchs hutt or anything. Also the deepdive was cool and insightful
If memory serves, it was a hold-over from when Fatal Push was in the deck that I didn't edit out.
@@ThrabenUniversity ah i see
Is Drown in Sorrow better than other options such as Cry of the Carnarium or Dead of Winter if you swapped for Snow-Covered Swamps?
I mean, I guess you might want to Reanimate a small creature.
At 38mins when they cast the initiative creature you had reanimate their solitude.
Disregard they had a chalice. I see. My bad. Great content!
the only thing id suggest is cry of the carnarium in the side board over the drown in sorrow
That entire match 5 was so interesting.
The detailed breakdown of the deck was wonderful. Some probabilities on certain draw patterns would be perfectly fine too. As for the deck, I just don’t think Opposition Agent should be mainboard, as the opportunity cost for it is too high compared to adding more trolls, cavalry, etc. Opposition Agent doesn’t feel like it’s a big enough threat and the deck needs more threats.
Also, I’ve got to ask, why do Legacy mono-black decks not run Cabal Coffers? Is it just too slow and susceptible to Wasteland?
35:35 I think I really prefer casting the Bowmasters in OP's upkeep, it would discourage their looting even further and would allow you to trade the tokens
I found myself wanting Chrome Moxes for more explosivity, then I realized I'd want to then cut some Wastelands and put in Saga, which would require Ancient Tomb, at which point Dauthi Voidwalker becomes much harder to cast as said in the deck tech. I think Phil did get incredibly unlucky this league, but I felt this scam deck wasn't scammy or fast enough to compete in the match losses (granted, M1 was nigh unbeatable)
At 35:40, is there a reason you don't cast Bowmasters on your opponent's turn to make their attack worse? For example, if they choose not to discard with Fable, your 1/1 army doesn't trade with the shaman token unless you mark damage on it.
I had committed to sending the damage at face, as it's easy to play around the single ping.
I did not get that reference, but I'll still watch the video
its a movie about two cowboys
Maybe a 22 year old movie is how you draw in new viewers, but as a current viewer, I can tell you that movie would be older than me by a bit, and it would likely go over my head.
is hymn to Tourach dead ? Is there to many one card game ending threats like initiative or forth eolingos for my boi ?
Not dead, but much less strong than a few years ago.
If you don’t mind me asking, what are the Polluted Deltas for? Deck thinning?
im wondering the same thing
I think he also may be on them so he can trick people into thinking he is on blue on like turn one or whatever to force people to play around things they dont need to. Just a theory.
I think it was a hold-over from when Fatal Push was in the deck that didn't get edited out.
@@ThrabenUniversity Ohhh. I see. Interesting. Regardless, amazing video! I may donate to see a video like this that goes over deck choices for Moon Stompy.
At 1:12:12 (and earlier in the same game, but they have no untapped lands in the earlier case so it doesn't matter), it seems to me that it would be easier for your opponent to flash in a nontoken creature (snapcaster or bowmaster) than a creature token and successfully trade for your opposition agent, which making them sacrifice a creature token avoids. Even if they flash in a bowmaster, while it still kills your opposition agent, the army token has to be sacrificed immediately afterwards. In either case, the bowmaster they block with dies, and they're left with fewer choices about what to sacrifice. Is there a reason I'm not seeing that you choose to make them sacrifice a nontoken creature in these instances?
Because if my opponent had those cards in hand, they already would have used them ;)
@@ThrabenUniversity Thanks.
I love mono black sheoldred makes me happy
I feel like I'd say that while the deck has a lot of *possible* nut draws, it doesn't have a whole lot of *probable* ones -- maybe that's part of what you were trying to get at in the outro? It feels like this deck is straddling fair and unfair in a weird way, like a Chrome Mox D&T build.
Why the fetchlands I don't see any synergies with them?
With 4 opposition agent, ghost quarter is really decent
bigtime into theory, too. long deck-tech ❤️
I think the deck was too heavy on the mana, i could see cutting 2 swamps for 2 more trolls pretty safley on this build.
I also dont think sheoldred should be in the main, i think the best curve toppers are at 3 mana for the "whoopsie dark ritual" hands. I would prefer the sheoldreds to be something a bit more interactive like hymns or more removal
Edit:
Last thing is I don't think the side board worked out well. I think you want like 8 slots for unfair matchups (more leylines and so on)
Do you also have a reasoning behind choosing not to play Stalactite Stalker? Most Mono B Scam lists that I browsed through recently run that, and it felt like a decent piece when I took them for a spin (the decks themselves felt not entirely satisfying to me though). When I saw that you cut Stalactite Stalker and upped the count of 3-drops to 7, I immediately thought that this would make sense in a list trying to use Ancient Tomb. However this deck is not doing that.
I usually played decks roughly as they are submitted, and that felt like a big change.
Running specifically 3 Exsanguinator Cavalry, especially when you’re not on ancient tomb seems odd to me. I would usually assume that the 4th Cavalry is the most important of the playset, so I should either play 4 or 0…
Any black deck with less than 3 Chrome Mox is a huge W for me.
Hey, thanks for the video.
I live for the expansive deck tech
swamp, thoughtsieze, keep :)
Turn-1 if they have no Daze, Dark ritual, thoughtseize, grief, reanimate. GG.
I bet last OP was kicking themselves for not fetching an underground, they deff had that game if they could cast Barrower.
I want to see cavalry work so bad its my dying wish.
Could anyone explain to me what "scam" means in the context of mtg legacy?
Scam means what it means in other formats - reanimating or blinking an evoked pitch elemental (like Grief) in order to bypass its mana cost while still getting the creature and often getting to use its ability twice. It's a "scam" because it cheats your opponent - they get double-thoughtseized and you get a 3/2 with menace on turn 1 if you Grief + Reanimate, something that you wouldn't be able to do for that little mana if not for the exploit.
Why is the Polluted Delta in there?
Obligatory algorithmic contribution
38:33 reanimate solitude?
Ooh chalice
Is this the Magic equivalent of an Emo phase?
37:42 reanimate solitude
Chalice on 1.
Deck's not particularly consistent and spreads itself too thin. You have a scam package, but have less targets than you normally would. You have Sheoldred and 2B cards without the soul lands to take advantage of them, and Dark Ritual isn't enough copies of mana acceleration to reliably get them out a turn faster than they should in the way an Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors does. This second point is what you trade away when making sure you'll "always" get Dauthi Voidwalker out on curve.
I think the deck is too slow and inconsistent to be good enough for the current legacy metagame where you should expect to either do something big on turn 2-3 or die. This is also why I'm not entirely sold on Dauthi Voidwalker as a primary source of graveyard hate (as we saw in the games vs. reanimator where a decent opponent would have gone under your 2-drop and killed you. I'm probably more fond of Surgical Extraction than I should be, but against an unfair GY deck you want 3+ sources of turn 0-1 interaction, and for that I'd go for copies of Faerie Macabre or Surgical over Tourach. I'd then cut Malakir Rebirth for an extra Troll to make up for replacing a few swamps and Takenuma with soul lands.
In round 3, why didn't you just reanimate their solitude?
Chalice on 1.
22 year old movie. Dude you jsut aged half your audience 10 years.
At 36:11 Round 3 game 1, is it not better to wait on the draw trigger from fable to cast bowmasters? If you do this you can ping the 2/2 for 1 damage which makes it so even if they draw only one card it kills their 2/2 token.
Sure, but if they don't draw and don't attack, I then miss damage.
M3:G3, I don't understand not wastelanding. Your wastelands are sitting there, you knew you weren't using them for oppo any time soon (which wouldn't have been powerful in that board state), you were simply casting reanimates and thoughtseize, and opponent kept generating mana from their nonbasics, eventually hardcasting fury for the nail in the coffin (you couldn't have known they had City to cast Fury, instead we have to bet that they don't have it, and use our resources).
Leave timestamps for questions like these so I can go back and look.
I notice a lot of the time you'll make comments about certain builds or cards not necessarily being viable anymore. But isn't it still cool that people are still trying to make niche cards or archetypes work as opposed to going against the same Initiative/Gobbo decks all the time?
Competitive Legacy and casual Legacy are totally different things. As long as you understand you're playing Legacy for fun and not fully trying to win, then, yes, it's fun to see what the format can do, and that's a large part of what my channel showcases.
Exsanguinator Cavalry is not a Legacy card.
R1: I can't stand Reanimator. How can you say that you like playing Magic, when your deck days "I want to play as little Magic as possible, and I don't care if I have an opponent."
Some people like putting Griselbrand into play on turn 1. Why does anyone play mono-red, an archetype that also tries to get the game over fast? They like that kind of gameplay.
@@drpibisback7680 Because they enjoy playing as little Magic as possible. xD
Play some post-sb games with Reanimator and I think your opinion of the deck will change greatly. While game 1 vs Reanimator is only non-interactive, post-board games can be crazy difficult and interesting.
@@ThrabenUniversity I'm just unreasonably salty from my interactions playing against it. Getting T1 Griselbranded 2 games in a row with Chancellor protection does not fun magic make. -___-;
@@Mmoll1990it must make fun magic for someone or no one would play it
Hey Phil! Big fan of the channel. Something I’ve noticed over the last month or so is that you have started filling “dead” time with criticism of the opponent’s play. IMO there’s a difference between making an observation and what you have been doing.
Is there something wrong with criticism?
Agreed. I find it really unpleasant to watch.
Note that I criticize my own play as much if not more than my opponents. One of the best possible ways to teach is to point out mistakes on both sides of the field, and that's always my goal. Will I occasionally lose my mind as my opponent punts into the stratosphere and I have no agency to stop it? Sure, but overwhelmingly the goal is didactic.
R2 player just bad, really bad, don’t worry too much about it lol
London mulligan is not the strongest thing in magic the gathering. Your credit card is xd
This is, of course, why the last MTG Worlds event had a final round of Jeff Bezos vs Elon Musk...o wait...