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Forbiddian
11-18-2009, 11:22 PM
UW Tempo
Updated 04/12/10


Videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForbiddianSC
So I've been recording my MWS games recently, recording an audio commentary some of the more interesting ones, and then posting them on youtube. You can watch the videos for advice on how to play, to see how the deck works in a real game situation, or just for entertainment value because you like Magic.



Deck Concept:
Instead of thinking of it as Aggro/Control, think of it more like a Control deck that runs creatures. In general, you’ll have inevitability with your powerful draw spells and the fact that your creatures have secondary abilities and are extremely cheap (and everyone can carry Jitte).

The big difference between this deck and other decks is that the creature's red zone capabilities aren't the primary way we judge creatures. With few exceptions (Bob, Grim Lavamancer, maybe Cursecatcher), every creature in Legacy is played for its ability to fight in the red zone. Occasionally creatures will do something else nice to break ties.


UW Tempo looks at creatures the other way: Creatures are spells that also also have a second use as a creature. The fact that a spell is a creature affords it some disadvantages and some massive advantages, but this deck mitigates the disadvantages and exploits the advantages extremely well.

Every creature is born with the ability to deal damage to the opponent in a stalled situation. Two or three small creatures adds up to a lot of damage, especially noticeable if the creatures were played for other abilities. The fact that it's now doing damage is just icing on the cake, which forces your opponent to luck into answers for spells you would have played anyway.

Every creature can chump block in an emergency or double/triple block in normal situations.

Every creature can carry Jitte and force your opponent to remove it.


Keep that in mind when you look over the card selection. Obviously UW Tempo benefits from larger creatures the same as any other deck, it's just that the size of the creature isn't even the main goal of many of the creatures.



Advantages of UW Tempo (or Why UW Tempo Wins So Much):
It will always have a chance in any matchup. The deck runs blue with Force of Will, Daze, and Spell Pierce as well as creature removal and gas to stay afloat against Aggro. The worst matchups are around 40%, so you can go into any long tournament with confidence that you make your own fate.

The mana base is very stable, given what it needs to do. The deck can operate off of 1 land (and in a featured match on TV, it won with 0 lands). It can even operate off of a single basic land without an Aether Vial, which is basically something no non-combo deck can do, and has many ways to draw into more lands. It also only requires 2-3 land in play as the maximum, so Brainstorms can put a lot of gas into your hand.

It has inevitability. Most decks in Legacy simply don't have a draw engine, relying on card quality advantage to win the endgame. Not only does this deck need fewer lands (and thus Brainstorm more effectively), it runs a draw engine that actually turns your opponent's 1:1 for quality trades against him. Umezawa's Jitte is also an automatic ticket to board control if it resolves.

There is no good spot removal for any of the creatures in UW Tempo. Most all of the creatures either have a CIP ability that makes them worthwhile or they only cost W. Whether you pick up a mana-tempo or a few life or a basic land, you are gaining on your opponent by simply playing creatures onto the board.

All of the creatures are good on their own in many different situations and all the creatures are dominant with Jitte. They don't require Lords to be in play to be good and don't require a buddy in play to be good, so you don't have to walk into Wrath of God and spot removal doesn't neuter your team (three Merfolk Lords is 12 power, but two Merfolk Lords is only 6 power, and one Merfolk Lord is only 2 power, encouraging you to overextend).





Deck File:

// Lands
2 [MI] Plains (3)
1 [MI] Island (4)
4 Tundra
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [CHP] Serra Avenger
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
1 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
2 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
4 [TSP] Fathom Seer

// Spells
3 [NE] Daze
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [SHM] Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 3 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender
SB: 3 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 2 [ARE] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist


[b]Card Explanations:

Lands:
4x Flooded Strand
3x Windswept Heath
4x Tundra
2x Plains
1x Island

This is the most efficient allocation of 14 colored lands allowing for play around non-basic hate. Polluted Delta is not recommended, because fetching basic Plains is more important than fetching basic Islands. It's noted that with the printing of Zendikar, 3x Arid Mesa or a combination of white fetches (now that they are available) are better than 3x Windswept Heath.

3x Wasteland (or 4x)
This is a big part of the deck. For a while, we were running 4x (with 1 less Vial). 4x Wasteland is very effective, but on the whole Vial has proved to be stronger in a lot of the problematic matchups. With only three wasteland, the deck has more explosive power at the cost of some consistency.

If your meta has a lot of nonbasics (especially combo decks with non-basics), then running the fourth wasteland over the third Vial might be a good idea.


Creatures:
4x Weathered Wayfarer: This is probably the deck MVP. This deck is just about the best deck in the format at 1cc and is the best deck in the format at 2cc. Opponents will almost certainly lose without playing the second or third land. Be happy to wait it out, even with an expensive hand. When your opponent has to play a land, be happy getting a Wasteland and generating card advantage and color screwing your opponent. You can play any number of fetchlands that you want as well and then jumpstart yourself to Fathom Seers.

Keep in mind a 1/1 isn’t as useless as you’d think with Umezawa’s Jitte available, so even if he just digs one land the whole game he’s extremely cost-effective.

Also, there are some tricks: You can fetchland (or wasteland) and activate Wayfarer. You can activate Wayfarer at opponent’s endstep and again after draw step to get 2 Wastelands (activate after draw if you’d be happy to see a Wasteland on your draw step, even if you’re otherwise flooded). You can also float a white mana and activate if they play a Wasteland and sac immediately or Sinkhole your land. Fathom Seer and Daze obviously combo. Especially if you have a Brainstorm in hand, you should continually search your library when possible. Deck thinning is very important and helps us win long games, as does using Brainstorm like an Ancestral Recall. He also is useful as a shuffle, so if you Brainstorm first, you can shuffle off the chaff.

4x Mother of Runes: The most recent addition to the team. She’s a defensive tempo-generating machine. She costs just W and usually trades with their removal immediately or blocks their creature drop all day long (and it still costs them a removal spell to get rid of her). If Mom survives until endgame, she is useful protecting your Jitte carrier from being removed. She seems pretty weak, but there are stunningly few decks in the format who can ignore her or even allow her to lose summoning sickness.

She seems small, but there really aren't very many decks that can win while she's active, so she'll almost always at least block and then take a removal spell, or take a removal spell immediately.

4x Serra Avenger: Serra Avenger is a very solid card. The drawback isn’t too punishing. She carries Jitte over enemy lines (and can still block on defense). Mainly she’s in there for flying, which is very important. The number of slots waivers around 2-4. Generally this deck doesn’t have very much to backup a quick beatdown attempt, but the fact that she puts the opponent on a flying clock while playing defense gives you a huge leg up sometimes.

Serra Avenger is back up to 4x in the standard list. We've refocused the deck more on the aggressive option. It generally makes the deck easier to play and highlights more advantages. The last week or so, we've been working on the control MU, and Avenger is the card you want to see.

1x Knight of the White Orchid: With Vial, you can almost guarantee getting a free land out of it (just sac a fetchland and in response Vial in the Knight). He allows for an extremely fast post-Fathom Seer recovery, letting you chain together a horde of creatures and more draw spells. He also holds Jitte like a champ (the first strike opens up a whole new can of combat math worms). Oh, and he eats Goblins and Merfolks all day. This could also be cut for a third SFM.

2x Stoneforge Mystic: As soon as this got spoiled, a preordered a set. Honestly haven't had that much time to playtest since she was spoiled (just about 30-40 games with her), but she's been amazing so far. The problem is that these get worse with more equipment -- what you really want is you want SFM to fetch the first Jitte so you can use the body and the equipment. In this situation, she's insanely good. Unfortunately, SFM requires equipment to be in the deck to function, and the more SFMs you run, the more you require extra equipment to ensure you're getting use out of SFM.

Jitte is Legendary to boot, so after you get the first one, you don't want to see another one. There really aren't any really good equipment outside of Jitte right now (the next-best is SoLS, which is clearly better than anything else out there, but still a bit outside playable).

3 SFM, 2 Jitte and 2 SFM, 2 Jitte seem to be the only two really good options.

2x Jotun Grunt: Grunt eats every commonly-played creature in the format either by outsizing them or by removing the graveyard. It’s very strong, but drawing 2 of them sucks really badly except against a few decks, so that’s why we only run 2. He’s not as strong against Ichorid or Reanimator as you might imagine (if you haven't played with him before, you might think he's graveyard hate), but he is a *GOD* against Zoo (and Aggro Loam). He's exactly 1 bigger than everything that they have and shrinks their Goyfs and hurts Lavamancer.

4x Fathom Seer: This is so unbelievably strong in this deck. He’s what Mulldrifter is for Faerie Stompy. You play him. You draw cards. You abuse his “drawback.” He does many things. He really looks like just an awful, awful card, but with the many ways this deck uses land differential, his drawback is manageable if not downright advantageous.

This deck is very happy trading cards down primarily because Fathom Seer comes in to win the topdeck wars.

Instants:
4x Force of Will: This card is amazing.

4x Brainstorm: The best spell in the format. It prevents mana floods from hurting (it actually ends most mana floods before they even happen), and it’s useful in a pinch against a mana screw.. Best spell in the format.

4x Swords to Plowshares: Again, not a tough call.

3x Daze: If 3x isn’t the standard number now, it’s at least accepted. Drawing multiple Daze slows us down a bit, especially when we have Fathom Seers to worry about, but the card is amazing and has synergy with a lot of the rest of the deck.

2x Spell Pierce: This card came in as a replacement for Ancestral Visions, which wasn't really performing against much of anything except black discard. The cards we were testing in parallel to replace it were: 1 extra Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, and Divert. Originally we landed on Divert because it was more closely tailored to covering Ancestral Vision's matchups, but after more changes, we landed on Spell Pierce. It's amazing against all storm combo and belcher, and generally is a solid card that's very tough to play against. It's possible to run a lot of 4cc bombs around daze, but SP is quite reliable to stop their big play as well as help play the tempo game.


Other cards:
[b]3x Aether Vial (Vial): It combos with every single creature in the deck (even Fathom Seer, because it lets us use the cards we draw immediately). Because our deck is almost always on defense (or winning easily), Aether Vial is used a lot as a combat trick or bluff in our deck.

Drawing two of them is just a mess, however. I never want to see two. If I do, the only recourse is a Brainstorm. Still, with the added changes, Vial is more effective, reflected by our cheating on the land count more.

2x Umezawa’s Jitte: This is the glue that holds the rag tag group of creatures together. I like to imagine that my creatures are the chimps from 2001: A Space Odyssey. They’re weak, like getting pushed around and stuff. Then one of them figures out it can make a club out of an animal bone and beats the living shit out of everyone. That’s Umezawa’s Jitte.

A lot of games you’re just playing to resolve and protect a Jitte carrier for one turn to charge up Jitte. Actually, that’s what you’re trying to do in probably most matchups.

With the printing of SFM, we can run additional artificial copies of Umezawa's Jitte.


Sideboard: I'm only listing the matchups that these cards are boarded in against, this will also save you time constructing board plans.

1x Jotun Grunt: Zoo especially (four toughness), decks with Goyf, decks that use the graveyard, fast aggro decks.
3x Aura of Silence: Decks with artifacts/enchantments you need to answer. Good matchups where you think that they might have artifacts or enchantments that would beat you. Storm combo (shuts out artifact mana). Also a solid wildcard pick if you don’t know what to bring in.
3x Burrenton Forge-Tender: Zoo, Goblins, Ichorid. Great in all three of those matchups, although Ichorid and Goblins are less-played and Zoo is running KoR and Steppe Lynx over red creatures.
1x Ghostly Prison: I cut a BFT for a Ghostly Prison, which is stronger against Elves, Goblins, Merfolks, Affinity, Ichorid... and worth playing against Zoo and Belcher (so similar to BFT in that respect). With the fall of Ichorid and Goblins from popularity in recent months, and a lot of Zoo players replacing Kird Ape with Steppe Lynx, BFT is no longer such a bomb. GP has a very similar effect to BFT with some added diversity.
2x Enlightened Tutor: All combo decks: Ichorid, Storm Combo, Solidarity, Reanimator.
1x Thorn of Amethyst: Storm Combo, Solidarity.
1x Ethersworn Canonist: I think Jeff doesn't believe in this one, so it should be in a parenthetical. EC is huge against Elves and Enchantress, and generally does about 90% of what Thorn of Amethyst does against combo. Against combo, you still tutor up the Thorn first, but EC gives you a strong sideboard option against Elves and Enchantress.
1x Relic: Decks that have or are likely to have Crucible or Loam, Storm Combo, Ichorid, Reanimator.
1x Tormod’s Crypt: Ichorid, Reanimator, Aggro Loam.
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon: This is a great tutor target. It's ridiculous against Ichorid, and in other matchups there are situations where it will win the game where Relic and/or Crypt will fail. Often hate cards are specific to the type of hate present. With the three yard hate board (Relic, Crypt, Wheel), it's hard to find a truly effective answer. Ancient Grudge, Null Rod, Pithing Needle don't shut down our options the way that they're supposed to.




Matchup Breakdown:

Aggro Control: Our deck fairs pretty well against them. Decks with more non-basics are easier, and decks that invest more in trying to kill our lands are easier. Decks that focus more on early game are easier as our deck is pretty much designed to stall until Fathom Seer, Jitte, Court Hussar, etc. give us an insurmountable advantage.

Tempo Threshold Our strongest matchup, it's probably around 75-80%. None of their cards does anything while all our cards are bombs. Their main strategy is land denial/trading cards down and then trying to win off of a big goyf or an unremovable Goose, but it's difficult to deny land against 3 vials, 4 Wayfarers, 2 Knights of the White Orchid, and 4 Brainstorms.

Tarmogoyf is typically a 3/4 in this matchup. The only sorceries are a couple of Ponders, and nobody runs enchantments, so Goyf is an anemic clock. Grunt is absolutely a trump card in this matchup. None of their removal kills him, and he outsizes their team as well as shrinking it down for later posterity. They also don't really have an answer for Mother of Runes, which just stalls the game out indefinitely and demands removal (which is already stretched thin, since their 3/3s really don't outsize us by enough to make attacking profitable).

Regular Threshold (Nassif Thresh) Our weakest matchup against a tier 1 deck. Probably it's around 40-45%. They have a lot of trouble with Wayfarer, but if we don't draw Wayfarer or they have the answer, then they can often take the upper hand. They also have a similar play (to Wayfarer) in Bob. It must be answered quickly or else we lose. Angel is surprisingly very good in this matchup, and is often a must-eventually-answer (with Swords only). Typically the ground war stalls out and then Angel can swing the game in our favor.

Fortunately, Nassif Thresh is horribly positioned in the current metagame. Nassif used to crush combo off of Counterbalance, but the new Belcher decks are much more resistant to CB. Nassif Thresh is also too slow to handle Zoo, and its draw engine on Bob is designed to beat control decks, not aggro decks.

Merfolk: A favorable matchup, around 60% or a little more. If you can keep them off of two Lords, then all your guys actually outsize their guys and you'll win the Red Zone conflicts. Decks that neglected to run Umezawa's Jitte are extremely disadvantaged in this matchup. Lord of Atlantis is their strongest card, but Fathom Seer can be used in a pinch to blank the Islandwalk (and you can often make wasting your own Tundra profitable enough that they can't attack. In general, most situations where they're attacking, they'll lose if you have the Swords (or vial in the right creature).

You'll generally lose if they get, like, 3+ Lords out. But until that point, you have every single advantage. Your creatures are bigger or the same size with better abilities. You have removal. You have Jitte. You have more countermagic and your draw spells are more powerful and less conditional.

Aggro: Again our deck is pretty much designed to stall, so it's difficult to catch us off guard with all of our one-drops. Aggro decks that reliably have less than 3 toughness are significantly easier because Knight of the White Orchid is an additional house against them. Knight can turn 3:1 plays with tempo. Mono colored aggro is more difficult, although we have Burrenton Forge-Tenders specifically to combat Goblins (mono goblins has absolutely no answer for BFT).

Zoo: Mother of Runes, Swords, etc. are just great in this MU. Obviously you focus on surviving and then resolving a Jitte for the game. The faster Zoo matchups are favorable for us, and the slower variants with Sylvan Library and such are closer to 50%. Both variants are pretty vulnerable to land destruction. They run enough that they won't get mana screwed, but with Kird Ape and/or Nacatl in the mix, you can force them into tough spots just with the threat of Wasteland. Jotun Grunt is huge in this matchup and should be boarded in.

Goblins: It used to be closer to 55 or 60%, but now it's like 80%. This is a very favorable matchup, especially with the new popularity of Mono Red who have no answer to BFT and weaker answers to Mother of Runes. They're favored slightly to win if they open with Vial and you're strongly favored to win any time that they don't. Just draw Jitte, play it, and sweep them. Variants with Goblin Sharpshooter do much better against us, splitting or even taking the edge depending on other card choices. Fortunately since M10, Mogg Fanatic got nerfed to pieces (so Jitte is even stronger), and Goblin Sharpshooter plays are less common, and Warren Weirding is basically gone.

Combo: Our combo matchup isn't as strong as, say, a faster combo deck's or Counterbalance deck's, but any time you start the game with 3 Daze, 4 Force of Will, you have a chance. Our sideboard is designed with the combo matchup in mind. You'll notice that every single card in the sideboard comes in against one combo deck or another, and some come in against all combo decks.

Ichorid: We have the following: Jotun Grunt (stops any multi-turn attempt to combo), Burrenton Forge-Tender (stops same-turn comboing), Daze/Force (slows them down), Tormod's Crypt/Relic (slows them down again), Jitte (wins the game if they got slowed down), Mother of Runes (slows down any slow-roll plans), Swords (answers their namesake or a non-Iona reanimation target), Wasteland to reactivate Daze, etc.

It's pretty similar to how Death and Taxes has a good Ichorid matchup. It's not that we have a very fast clock, it's not that any individual hate card prevents them from winning, it's that we cover so many of their outlets to try to win quickly and then Jitte wins the game. It's virtually inconceivable to lose with an active Jitte on the table, so Ichorid typically has to try to win before then.

Storm Combo: Thorn of Amethyst, Aura of Silence, Relic of Progenitus (among other duties, it stops Cabal Ritual), Tormod's Crypt, Enlightened Tutor for any of the above, Daze, Force, Wasteland.... Their typical strategy against aggro control is simply to keep drawing and slow-roll. With the presence of these hate spells (which are each game-winning), it makes any slow-roll a big gamble.

TES doesn't usually have the gas to go off turn 1 (or turn 2 on the play), and then if they haven't gone off by then, they risk Thorn of Amethyst (something they wouldn't have to worry about against e.g. Merfolk). If they try to go off blind, they risk Daze/Force/Spell Pierce. Even if we don't draw Thorn or Enlightened Tutor, giving us a third land lets us activate Aura of Silence.

Every turn they pass without going off gives us a bunch more outs. Someone just glancing over the list might not appreciate how much more difficult it is to play against UW Tempo than against Merfolk in the combo matchup, but the thick stack of hate or potential hate coming in games 2 and 3 makes the slow-roll a poor choice.

Belcher
Sadly, I neglected Belcher. I despise Belcher as a deck. It's not elegant like Solidarity or skill-intensive like TES. It's just Yahtzee. And I can't imagine the mirror matches. Oh, the humanity! But apparently it's doing really well, so dust off your Spell Pierces everyone!

Belcher is a coinflip against every deck in the game, but we at least have 3 Daze, 4 Force, and 2 Spell Pierce, so I think we fare better than most. "Clocks" are more or less irrelevant, but they don't want to let us play any land. We get 4 hates at 0 land, 5 more at 1 land, 4 more at 2 land (counting Enlightened Tutor for Thorn), and 3 more at 3 land.

I don't really have enough data, I'd say it's a 60% matchup just based on the probability that they fizzle and the probability that we get Force of Will from the draw and/or Daze/Spell Pierce from the play. If you win the coinflip, you get a pretty huge advantage.



Matchup Score (rate Forbiddian's predictions!)
Bant (included CB Bant and NO Bant)
8-5-1

Tempo Thresh
5-0-1

Goblins
3-3-1

Zoo
4-4-2

Ichorid
8-3

ANT
6-6

Belcher
6-1

Merfolk
9-0-2

Lands
2-3-1

Survival Bant
2-1-2

Eva Green
2-2


Appendix
Complete Sideboard Plans
See Post #197. The sideboard is slightly more updated, but the board plan is very similar. Take it as-is, no explanations are given, YMMV, buyer beware. Still a useful resource.

All tournament reports
Due to recent criticisms levied, and some thought (believe it or not, I actually had thought about the problem, but on more recent thought I thought of a slightly better solution), I’ve changed the way that the tournament reports are tabulated.

There is a problem of people only recording their top performances with the deck and not posting all of the times that they lost. This obviously would make UW Tempo look better than it is.

Ideally we want results from every tournament played by every person ever playing UW Tempo, because the results serve a more important purpose than bragging rights: I actually go through these to identify potential problem matchups and discuss with other UW Tempo pilots problems and solutions.

To help alleviate the problem, the tournament reports are now categorized into two distinct categories:

1) Trusted Reports
2) Questionable Reports

A trusted report is at a minimum risk of this sampling error. It’s a report posted by a regular user of The Source or a user who can in another way be datamined. A trusted report is a report from a user who has shown willingness to post ALL of his finishes, even unimpressive finishes. I just want to give a shoutout to Tinefol, who has done an amazing job.

Only Trusted reports will be used for further data analysis.

The rules
Any user who has posted an unimpressive finish is trusted, and all his tournament reports are trusted reports. By posting an unimpressive finish (possibly at my veritable begging for people to do this), he’s displayed a willingness to put the data first. These users can be counted upon for reliable tournament results.

Exception: for obvious reasons, reports from Forbiddian and pi4meterftw are trusted. And at any rate, if either of us went to a big tournament and didn’t make top 8, you’d hear about it whether we told you or not. I can’t go to a tournament without people recognizing my girly voice from Youtube (or how much of an asshole I am).

Note: This sets an upper limit to how well UW Tempo can possibly do, since players are essentially required to do poorly before their matches can be counted. For two examples: Jeff and I have never done poorly with the deck, so I’m sure at least a few of the tournament reports posted in the Questionable column are indeed the only tournaments ever played by those people. Although in the interest of having only the most trusted possible data, I’m removing the deck’s winningest performances.

To this end, I’ve removed a TON of reports with amazing finishes because I’m just not sure if those users are posting all of their results or not.

If your report is Questionable: Please keep posting results. Eventually you will have a bad day :-P. I will still look at questionable results and maintain the list, so it’s still very useful to me.

If you can show some proof (e.g. an image of your match history from The DCI) that you’ve posted all of your tournament results, the report will be moved to trusted. Yeah, it’s a lot of work, I’m sorry! It would help us all out, though, if you could do this.

If your report is trusted and you have not posted a poor performance and have no plans to post the results in the future (or have forgotten the results), please post in the thread so I can move your reports to questionable. You can check your DCI match history to help you try to remember, I’ll work with you to try to salvage any data (or possibly just add the results to the total without having specific game-by-game results)

If your report is trusted and you’ve not posted a GOOD performance, I would like to see the results if possible, but don’t worry about it too much, we’re mainly looking just to avoid missing bad performances.

Questionable Reports
Anatural Death*: 5-2-1 @ SCGs.
RexFtw: 5-1. Goblins (1), Threshold (1), ANT (1-2 loss), Stax (0), ANT (1), Dream Halls (1).
mcnubbins2t*: 5-1. Ug Faeries (1), Life.dec (?), Dreadstill (?), Bant Survival (?), Ichorid (?), Rb Goblins (0-2 loss)
Amaroid*: 4-0-1. WStax(1), BUG Thresh (1), Tempo Thresh (0), Bant Survival (1), Zoo (1-1-1 draw).
Chokin*: 3-0. GR Burn/Sligh (0), Dredge (0), Canadian Thresh (0), NOBant (ID (1-0 win in the fun game))
Little Red Riding Hood's friend: 5-0-2. Trisomy 21 (0), LoamRock (1), BantSur (0), NLS (1), Ichorid (0), ANT (1-1-1 Draw), Ub Faeries (1-1-1 draw)
Nelis: 2-1-1. Thropter Combo (0-2 Loss), Dragon Stompy (1-1-1 Draw), Faeries (1), Dredge (1),
Scud: 2-0. Goblins (0), Landstill (1)
Ocean: 4-1. Countertop (0), Zoo (1), Demon Stompy (0), Goblins (1), Zoo (1-2 Loss)
Hattivita: 5-1. CT Bant (0), Merfolk (1-2 Loss), MBA (0), Ichorid (0), Ichorid (0), Lands (1)
huygee
3-0. Landstill (0), NO Bant (1), Dragon Stompy (0).

Jedi_Gof: 4-1. WB Aggro (0), MBC (0), ANT (1), NO Bant (1-2 Loss), Lands (1),
Jedi_Gof: 3-2. Losses to Reanimator and Aluren.
Jedi_Gof: 5-0. Meathooks (0), Ichorid (0), Zoo (0), Lands (1), Merfolk (0)

Even though Jedi_Gof played in multiple tournaments, and had a fairly unimpressive finish, he wasn’t consistently posting all his data. Unfortunately his 12-3 record is pretty damn impressive, so it’s a shame I can’t take it.

Fouzt
4-2. Dredge (1), Reanimator (1-2 Loss), Countertop (1), RGB Goblins (0-2 Loss), Eva Green (1), Mono G NO Pro (1).

This guy is also on the fence. He didn’t make top 8, and I have assurances that it was his only Legacy tournament (so he couldn’t possibly be leaving tournaments out). Still, I set up the rules to increase transparency and confidence in the data collection, so Fouzt is out. Sorry, Eric, I still want to find out how you’re doing with the deck if you go to any more events. I might see you in May.

"Clarance" (not a member of The Source, but I've been getting regular updates on his performance since he lives sorta by me
5-1-1: Tempo Thresh (0), Zoo (0), ProBant (1-1-1 draw), Supreme Blue (1), Merfolk (?, win), Belcher (0), ProBant (0-2 loss)
6-1-1: Zoo (1-1-1 Draw), Merfolk (1-2 Loss), Zoo (0), Bant Survival (0), Merfolk (0), Rgb Goblins (0), Merfolk (0), Merfolk (0)

Again, pretty sure these are the only tournaments he’s been to, but he’s not even a source member, so whatever. I still would like to get updates on how this individual is doing. Go Clarance, I might see you in May.

Total Questionable Report Record: 70-14-8



Trusted Reports:
Forbiddian:
5-1 @ Pro Tour. Ugr Dreadstill (1), Tempo Thresh (0), Merfolk (0), Enchantress (1), Belcher (1), Top 4: Enchantress (1-2 loss)
4-2-1 @ Knightware. SI Pact (0), Tempo Thresh w/ EE (1-1-1 draw), Pro Bant (0), Painter's Grind (0), Pro Bant (0-2 loss), Dragon Stompy (1), Top 8: Eva Green (1-2 loss)
Total: 9-3-1

pi4meterftw
7-1. (See Star City Games Database for match history)
Total: 7-1

Aaron Wayne:
Awayne*: 5-1-1. (See Star City Games Database for match history)
Awayne: 6-2-1. (See Star City Games Database when it's posted -- doesn't look like this is happening)
Awayne: 1-2. (See Star City Games Database when it's posted -- doesn't look like this is happening)
Total: 12-5-2

Tinefol:
1-2*. Goblins (0-2 loss), Aluren (0-2 loss), ProBant (0)
1-3. Crappy MonoU Illusions/Donate (1-2 loss), ANT (0), B/w Midrange (0-2 loss), Enchantress (1-2 loss)
3-0. Belcher (0), RGW Aggro Loam (0), Merfolk (0)
3-1. LEDless Ichorid (0), ANT(0), BGWSA(0-2 loss), Goblins (0)
6-0. Merfolk (0), Train Wreck (1), Tempo Thresh (0), Swans (1), Tempo Thresh (0), Train Wreck (1)
2-1-1. Bant (1-1-1 draw, 40 minute rounds, said he had it wrapped up), Dark Depths (0), Zoo (0-2 Loss), Aggro Loam (0).
5-4. Survival Bant (0-2 loss), Dream Halls (1), Merfolk (0), Dreadstill (0-2 loss), Dream Halls (1), Bant CB (0-2 loss), Dragon Stompy (1), Bant CB (0), ANT (1-2 loss)
3-1. Lands (0-2 loss), Eva Green Depths (0), Bant CB (0), Bant CB (0)
3-1. Ichorid (?), MUC (?), Team America (?), Belcher (? Loss).
3-2. Reanimator (?), Reanimator (?), Enchantress (?), Ichorid (? Loss), Countertop (? Loss)
2-2-1. ANT (?), Faerie Stompy (?), MysticFish (? Loss), Reanimator (? Loss), Zoo (1-1-1 Draw).
4-0. BGW Fish, UW Fish, ANT, MonoU Faeries. Game data unknown.
4-0. Reanimator (0), Mono G NO Survival (0), Merfolk (1), Reanimator (0)
2-1-1. UR Fish (0-1 Loss [Editor’s comment: Holy shit! Long game]), UW Mystic Fish (1-1-1 draw), Zoo (1-0 Win [Editor’s comment: Holy shit^2]), BGW Rock (0).
3-2. Bg Train Wreck (0), MonoG Progenitus Survival (1), Bant-Something (#922) (0-1 Loss), MUC (0), Bant-Something (0-2 Loss)
2-2. Ichorid (0), BGW Survival (1-2 Loss), White Weenie (0), Mono G Prog Survival (0-2 Loss)
Total: 47-22-3

Stuckpixel:
1-1-1*. W/B Pestilence (0), Eva Green (1-2 loss), Goblins (1-1-1 draw)
4-0. Type 2 Allies (?), B/W Pestilence (?), GBW Midrange (?), Reanimator Hulk (?)
2-1-1. Merfolk (1-1-1 draw), 4c Landstill (0-2 loss), Lands (0), Merfolk (0)
Total: 7-2-2

Colo:
1-2-1*. Type 2 Soldiers (0), Bant Countertop (1-2 loss), Bant Survival (1-1-1 draw), NO Bant (1-2 loss)
2-2 (possibly 2-0-2): Unknown matchups.
3-0-1: Bant Survival (?, win), Aggro Loam (0), GW Survival (1-1-1 draw), Some European Gwb Loam deck (1).
3-1: Elf Aggro (?), MBA (?), WG Weenie (0), Survival (0-2 loss).
2-0-2: MBA (1), Dredge (0), Trisomy 21 (1-1-1 draw), Trisomy 21 (1-1-1 draw)
1-2. NO Bant (0), Reanimator (0-2 Loss), Imperial Painter (0-2 Loss)
3-0-1. UW Crap (0), Bant Survival (0), Non-Imperial Painter (0), Trisomy 21 (1-1-1 Draw)
Total: 15-7-5

Jeanbathez
1-1-2*. Merfolk (1-1-1 draw), Goblins (0), Supreme Blue (1-1-1 draw), Elves (1-2 loss), Bgw Loam Pox (No idea what happened)
3-1-1. Zoo (0-2 loss), UB Mill (0), Belcher (0), UB Reanimator (0), Dream Halls (1-2 loss)
Total: 4-2-3

Little Red Riding Hood
5-1. Zoo (1), ANT (1-2 loss), Tempo Thresh (0), Dragon Stompy (1), Countertop Throper (0), NLS (1)
3-0-2. Ichorid (1), Lands (1-1-1 Draw), Dragon Stompy (1), Gw Survival (1-1-1 Draw), Ichorid (0)
3-2. Ichorid (1), Pox (0), UBg Reanimator (1), Death and Taxes (1-2 Loss), Ichorid (1-2 Loss).
3-0. ANT (1), Rb Goblins (1), UB Reanimator (0), 4c Landstill (0), Dreamhalls (0)
Total: 14-3-2


Yan
7-0-1. ANT (1), Zoo (1-1-1 draw), Merfolk (0), Merfolk (1), Zoo (1); Top 8: Zoo (1), Belcher (0), Reanimator (1).
3-3. NO Bant (0), ANT (1-2 Loss), Lands (1), BGW Loam Depths (1-2 Loss), Tempo Thresh (0), ANT (0-2 Loss)
Total: 10-3-1

Trusted people with only one report, by definition, these have to be losing records
TooCloseToTheSun
2-2-1. Elves (?), Eva Green (?), Goblins (? Loss), MWC (? Loss), Bant Survival (1-1-1 Draw)

kicbak
2-2. Reanimator (1-2 Loss), Team America (0), Lands (0-2), Merfolk (0).

Citrus-God*
2-2. Goblin Sligh (0), Zoo (0-2 loss), NO Bant (1), UWB Countertop (0-2 loss)

Damnosus*
1-2. Ichorid (1-2 Loss), ProBant(0-2 Loss), Belcher (0).

Plague Sliver:
1-3. Life (0-2 Loss), Ichorid (0), ANT (1-2 Loss), Lands (0-2 Loss).

Teumie
2-4. Goblins (0-2 Loss), Stax (1), Faeries (1-2 Loss), RecSur (0-2 Loss), Eva Green (0), Zoo (1-2 Loss).

Total: 10-15-1

Total Trusted Record: 135-63-22

Phoenix Ignition
11-19-2009, 01:53 AM
Reminds me of this deck: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12065

Might get some help from there.

Jak
11-19-2009, 02:18 AM
Lol at linking to the previous thread.

IMO, the deck is cool and looks solid. Mom is a card that definitely needs to see more play.

IsThisACatInAHat?
11-19-2009, 02:28 AM
Reminds me of this deck: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12065

Might get some help from there.
That's because it is that deck, a year later.

I've actually been meaning to IM you about some of my results recently (all g1, I didn't have a relevant sideboard), but for the most part testing has gone well.

For its part, wayfarer/ wasteland is one of the fastest, most vicious LD packages I've ever used, but also really susceptible to crossfire from the greatly increased amount of removal most decks pack nowadays (I blame the rise of Zoo). When I first started playtesting with my group, wayfarer was largely ignored. After the first session though, I had a really difficult time getting him to stick. Ever. I've tried using a stronger counterspell suite (spell snare and recently spell pierce), but have had difficulty finding what to cut.

I'm not a huge fan of aether vial to begin with (not enough copies to reliably get it before it's irrelevant and as you say, it's a shit topdeck), so my then-current list cut them+ hussar for 3 pierce MD but as long as nogoyf is relatively unplayed/ unknown, I think they're better in the board. Right now, I'm trying a crucible/ enlightened tutor package for wastelock+ jitte-searching shenanigans (cutting aether vial, 1 knight of white orchid and reluctantly, moving 1 jitte to my imaginary board).

For my part, I'm not a very good pilot but the deck can usually take care of slow obsolete control decks (anything that ends in "-still") by itself. The most trouble for me comes from decks with fast clocks (Zoo can be very difficult and anything with multiple chants always gives me fits, partially why I like spell pierce so much).

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 03:12 AM
That's because it is that deck, a year later.

I've actually been meaning to IM you about some of my results recently (all g1, I didn't have a relevant sideboard), but for the most part testing has gone well.

For its part, wayfarer/ wasteland is one of the fastest, most vicious LD packages I've ever used, but also really susceptible to crossfire from the greatly increased amount of removal most decks pack nowadays (I blame the rise of Zoo). When I first started playtesting with my group, wayfarer was largely ignored. After the first session though, I had a really difficult time getting him to stick. Ever. I've tried using a stronger counterspell suite (spell snare and recently spell pierce), but have had difficulty finding what to cut.

I'm not a huge fan of aether vial to begin with (not enough copies to reliably get it before it's irrelevant and as you say, it's a shit topdeck), so my then-current list cut them+ hussar for 3 pierce MD but as long as nogoyf is relatively unplayed/ unknown, I think they're better in the board. Right now, I'm trying a crucible/ enlightened tutor package for wastelock+ jitte-searching shenanigans (cutting aether vial, 1 knight of white orchid and reluctantly, moving 1 jitte to my imaginary board).

For my part, I'm not a very good pilot but the deck can usually take care of slow obsolete control decks (anything that ends in "-still") by itself. The most trouble for me comes from decks with fast clocks (Zoo can be very difficult and anything with multiple chants always gives me fits, partially why I like spell pierce so much).

Wayfarer is low commitment. It doesn't suck if it's removed. In fact, it's a bit ridiculous that cards that are polarized towards taking it out, such as swords, black removal, either lose tempo to it, or break about even. Pathing wayfarer is ridiculous, and having it eat a burn spell forces the burn player to play burn turn 1. Also, it is not too difficult to protect a wayfarer with mom. Unlike stifle, wayfarer is actually occasionally useful as a beater with jitte, and does not require keeping mana open, and actually generates card advantage, so yes it is quite a vicious lock.

Zoo is not a spectacularly favorable matchup, in a relative sense to our other matchups, but if you practice with the deck you should find, as Matt and I did in many testing sessions, that zoo is at least 50%, and for average builds more like 60%. You can draw double wasteland, which already shuts them out of some games, start with mom/swords at nacatl, both of which slow the bleeding of their first turn play to 0, or force them to burn turn 1. Force of will gains tempo, while card advantage is gained the usual way. Out of the sideboard you get an extra grunt, which is bigger than every creature zoo has, with the possible exception of Woolly Thoctar, with which it trades if desired. (But this won't be desired because you get 4 BFT also.) As soon as Grunt comes down knights and goyfs will almost be smaller than it next turn.

Actually, no other fast deck (Beside combo elves which is actually a negative matchup, and aggro elves which is about 50/50) gets much closer than zoo. Merfolk is strictly dominated (which is not to say the matchup is 100% for us obviously, but only that there's no reason to play merfolk. The matchup is about 65-70% at least.)

I played a few games with some Sourcers and many games against their various lists of TES, ANT, solidarity, etc. I don't know how you have trouble with chant. Playing against this deck is scary for the combo player. First, he must identify that his best chance to win is like ASAP. Some people mistake this deck for fish and try to sculpt a hand. We'll gladly wasteland lock/reduce the life total of such players, as we draw more cards and prepare for the chants. Our sideboard is obviously prepared for such matchups. They turn out to be highly favorable. It is also worth noting that a lot of combo players are bad with their decks, so they might actually be even more favorable than what arose in my testing sessions.

I don't understand the rationale with "not enough copies of vial for it to matter." People always seem to have comments of this sort at the ready. It's not a black and white thing. Each copy of vial comes with X "Great in the early game" and Y "Bad late game." Granted X and Y may not increase at exactly the same rate due to statistics, but it's certainly not the case that X is 0 until you run 3, at which point it's 100%, while Y steadily increases. Indeed, we run 2 because we think that relative to the other cards and their X and Y, we optimize by running 2. In fact, if many good cards were available (and I mean lots) the ideal decks would run 1 of everything. (Don't forget, if you think this is inconsistent, then your definition of consistent is not one that is useful for calculating win percentages.)

I can be convinced to expound upon some of the points in the last paragraph but I'm not the best at teaching math even though it's a passion of mine. Perhaps Matt could say something if this turns out to be necessary, or you can look at some examples like "Wouldn't it at least be strictly better to run 1 of everything if there were many card names of the same effect." This is sort of analogous to why we don't just run
4A
4B
4C
...

Edit: Also you not having our sideboard is a big deal. The sideboard turns various combo from "barely favorable" to "Wow this isn't even close." It greatly helps zoo and red, most noticeably goblins.

Forbiddian
11-19-2009, 03:14 AM
When I first started playtesting with my group, wayfarer was largely ignored. After the first session though, I had a really difficult time getting him to stick. Ever.

That's very, very good. It's better to win outright with Wayfarer, but they're certainly paying more than W and 1 card to get rid of him. I almost never use Force of Will and rarely use Dazes to protect my Wayfarers. You're much better off saving your gas to beat your opponent endgame. When your opponent removes him, you're picking up a big advantage. Your opponent's deck is slowing down relative to yours, and he's running out of removal.

Wayfarer is broken, not because his effect is that strong (honestly Bob has a much better effect), but he only costs W if you don't get to use him. Bob runs into Swords or even Daze and drops you tempo, but Wayfarer cannot be answered at less than cost. The best answers in the game aren't picking up tempo.

So your opponent has horrible options: 1) Don't answer wayfarer and take the wasteland hits. 2) Don't play more lands (and NG can play fetchlands to stay ahead anyway). 3) use time and cards immediately to answer wayfarer.

3) is almost strictly the best option for all decks in the format, but NoGoyf is designed to take advantage of when your opponent chooses 3.



I'm not a huge fan of aether vial to begin with (not enough copies to reliably get it before it's irrelevant and as you say, it's a shit topdeck), so my then-current list cut them+ hussar for 3 pierce MD but as long as nogoyf is relatively unplayed/ unknown, I think they're better in the board. Right now, I'm trying a crucible/ enlightened tutor package for wastelock+ jitte-searching shenanigans (cutting aether vial, 1 knight of white orchid and reluctantly, moving 1 jitte to my imaginary board).

All those changes are terrible.

I know people are obsessed with getting a wastelock, because it is a flashy win, but against good players piloting good decks, a few wastelands are more color screwing/card advantaging.

Crucible of Worlds is an awful play, if only because not every deck in the format runs all that many non-basics, so it's a dead card some of the time. Even against control decks with almost entirely non-basics, Fathom Seer is still a more crippling play, and Crucible needs the first Wasteland to begin with.

Spell Pierce (and Stifle and other U: Do something that wasn't worth it) is just awful in this deck. You should either be waiting on trying to win the game off of Wayfarer (making sure your opponent has no outs) or tapping yourself down, every turn. I have no idea how you're playing the deck in such a way to keep Spell Pierce mana open, but even then there aren't many must-counters. This deck can play around a lot in its current setup.

I think maybe you're countering too many spells. Try to think if you really need to counter something before you burn the Force of Will. Daze should be played at anything very strong, but Force should be reserved for spells that will likely give your opponent the win, if resolved.


Vial is really good in this deck. Try it out against Counterbalance or any aggro deck. It's not quite as good against Aggro/Control, but it makes hero plays happen all day long against Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, Elves, White Weenie, Faeries, etc. etc. It can also do crazy stuff like Vial stuff in endstep who carry Jitte. Even the threat of that makes people slow down.

"Drawing it consistently" is a joke. It doesn't matter whether you have 10 copies or 1 copy. Some games you'll start with it. Some games you'll start without it. Some games you'll topdeck it. Some games you'll topdeck extra copies.

NoGoyf functions best with one copy of it to start, and second best with one copy of it off the top. It functions worse without it and worst with two copies. That's all qualitative, I know, but it gives you an idea why we play two copies.

Cutting it completely is really bad. It's always better to have one copy, even late-game topdecked.



Zoo is a favorable matchup, but like any fast aggro deck, they sometimes get a nuts draw. If you're having that much trouble with Zoo, cutting Hussar for a third Vial or third Grunt maindeck is probably the best option.

The Zoo matchup does get much better post-sideboard. Usually they have irrelevant crap like Krosan Grips, and we get 4x BFTs and an extra grunt, which really help against their removal.



EDIT: Ah, shit, Jeff and I posted like the same thing. We've been friends for too long.

About the sideboard, though: You're really hurting yourself by not running a sideboard. A big reason why you'd want to play white is that it gets THE BEST sideboard options in the game. Also, since we're not a combo deck, we rely on the fact that their deck has some stoppable engine that we can exploit.

I'd say preboard most combo is probably slightly unfavorable, but you're bringing in the best sideboard in Legacy. I didn't talk too much about that, but you get much better board options than other, comparable decks.


Here's the first Fish/Merfolk sideboard available on Deckcheck. It's not the best (it splashed Green for Goyfs and Kgrips), but just an example:

"Sideboard
3 Trinket Mage
3 Krosan Grip
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Umezawa's Jitte"

Ok, so like... against TES you bring in 2x Chalice and 3x Trinket Mage, trying to Trinket Mage for Chalice?

NoGoyf gets: 3x Aura of Silence (pretty much strictly better than Trinket Mage for Chalice), 2x Thorn of Amethyst, 2x Relic, 2x Enlightened Tutor.

Against Ichorid, you get like... probably the 3x EE and 2x Tormod's Crypt.
NoGoyf gets 1x Crypt, 2x Relic, 1x Jotun Grunt, 2x Enlightened Tutor, 4x Burrenton Forge-Tender.

Against the field, having white lets us construct a sideboard in such a way that we're bringing in more cards and better cards than any comparable deck, because white gives us crazy-good sideboard options like BFT, Aura of Silence, and Enlightened Tutor which open up the doors for other hate spells.

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 03:28 AM
Reminds me of this deck: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12065

Might get some help from there.

Why would getting this kind of help matter when you make suggestions such as:

Run aven mimeomancer.
Run cursecatcher, yeah!

You were also on the stifle bandwagon. Lol, wait why did you post this thread again? We certainly didn't ask you to and it seems in your best interest to have not reminded anybody of your trolling.

mossivo1986
11-19-2009, 05:10 AM
Why would getting this kind of help matter when you make suggestions such as:

Run aven mimeomancer.
Run cursecatcher, yeah!

You were also on the stifle bandwagon. Lol, wait why did you post this thread again? We certainly didn't ask you to and it seems in your best interest to have not reminded anybody of your trolling.

That's just not necessary. Of all people it's going to be me who says this...:rolleyes:

You both are very intelligent magic players and you both happen to play Fish-Esque decks.

So when both of you stop acting like your four :) heres some insight for you pia..

I think you should retest the land-still match-up. At the very least for kicks. I think your missing a big step in the decks evolution, and also you've changed cards in your model that makes a big difference in your current game-plan against the deck. 1. ancestral visions is @ 2. 2. Mother of runes makes you much more susceptible to ee on 1. (obv.) 3. the way to overcome the match-up deficit that sucked for land-still has changed dramaticly. your no longer a mid range beatdown disruption deck (blue rock? one might say?) your much more aggresive. I think this deserves alot more testing.

lorddotm
11-19-2009, 05:36 AM
I'm still wondering how this deck could possibly beat Tempo Thresh.

Hell even Tarmogoyf is a problem.

Tacosnape
11-19-2009, 10:25 AM
Given that all of the following are true, which they are-

A. Meddling Mage = One of the three best White creatures in Legacy.
B. Meddling Mage = One of the three best Blue creatures in Legacy.
C. Your deck is White and Blue only, and runs a lot of creatures.
D. Meddling Mage >> Every other creature in your deck.

-Why are you not running four Meddling Mage?

Tao
11-19-2009, 10:47 AM
I LOOOVE Fathom Seer, it is the one card I always wanted to break for Legacy and never succeeded. The deck looks really solid and synergetic and I think the odd numbers are a result of testing and not randomness.

However, you look at your matchups way too positive.

- You say this is the best deck at CC2 in the format. How are Knight, Grunt and Serra Avenger better than Goyf, CB and Confidant?

- The matchup anylysis is completely insane: at least 50% against DtB Forum, and usuallly "very favorable" or even "close to bye"? come on, be realistic. Or you need BETTER testing partners.

FieryBalrog
11-19-2009, 11:02 AM
I've played against this deck once on MWS. I remember it especially well because of this:

I have 6 cards in the GY and 3 lands out. Going to cast a Tombstalker.
Opponent has no lands in play (I killed them all). Has one Vial @ 2. And some small critters including Wayfarer.
I only remove 5 cards for my Tombstalker and pay 3, keeping a Wasteland in the 'yard for Crucible. I remember specifically thinking "aha! no Daze now, bitches, got no Islands at all!"
Opponent activates Vial, puts in KotWO, fetches a Tundra, floats mana, Dazes, activates Wayfarer.

-> lol. I remember being completely and utterly nonplussed by such a cool play.

Anyway, I have to say this is one of the coolest decks I've seen and I love Weathered Wayfarer especially, I love how he looks in this deck. I gotta put this together on MWS and try it.




- The matchup anylysis is completely insane: at least 50% against DtB Forum, and usuallly "very favorable" or even "close to bye"? come on, be realistic. Or you need BETTER testing partners.

I have to agree with this though. I love it when I go into every Developing deck and each and everyone claims a positive matchup vs CB/Thresh. :laugh:

lorddotm
11-19-2009, 11:10 AM
I've played against this deck once on MWS. I remember it especially well because of this:

I have 6 cards in the GY and 3 lands out. Going to cast a Tombstalker.
Opponent has no lands in play (I killed them all). Has one Vial @ 2. And some small critters including Wayfarer.
I only remove 5 cards for my Tombstalker and pay 3, keeping a Wasteland in the 'yard for Crucible. I remember specifically thinking "aha! no Daze now, bitches, got no Islands at all!"
Opponent activates Vial, puts in KotWO, fetches a Tundra, floats mana, Dazes, activates Wayfarer.

-> lol. I remember being completely and utterly nonplussed by such a cool play.

Anyway, I have to say this is one of the coolest decks I've seen and I love Weathered Wayfarer especially, I love how he looks in this deck. I gotta put this together on MWS and try it.



I have to agree with this though. I love it when I go into every Developing deck and each and everyone claims a positive matchup vs CB/Thresh. :laugh:

I think that was just a misplay by you. There is very little reason not to take that 6th card out of your grave and bluff something.

FieryBalrog
11-19-2009, 11:15 AM
I think that was just a misplay by you. There is very little reason not to take that 6th card out of your grave and bluff something.

It was a misplay somewhat, but I didn't know he was running KotWO. Also the 6th card was a Wasteland.

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 11:16 AM
I recommend testing the deck. We've been testing it rigorously for almost 1 year now. If for some reason you think 50% is a magic number that no deck should be able to beat against the DTB field then you can convince yourself. The thousands of games (literally) that I've played against DTB isn't going to convince you.

In fact, we were claiming this from the start. We were each other's testing partner, and believe me when I say Matt and I are competitive. Everything in our friendship is some sort of competition whenever possible. I usually played this deck and he the other deck, but we occasionally switched it up.

Also, we didn't actually claim a positive matchup against CB thresh. I called it slightly favorable and Matt called it slightly unfavorable. I... don't see what the problem is. We do murder canadian, but that's just because canadian is horrible.

Oh yeah, also 1 goyf isn't scary. Especially early game. Lategame we do sometimes lose when the guy drops 2-3 goyfs. I usually don't even bother to FOW goyf, and sometimes I don't even swords it. (I usually daze it if I can without slowing myself down too much.) The fact is goyf enters play turn 2 as a 2/3, and swings as a 3/4. With land creature instant in yard, it's not going to be a 4/5 until somebody contributes a sorcery, and that's not trivial, since we only run ancestral visions. Anyhow, usually some combination of grunts, jittes, swords, FOW, and daze make goyf actually rather laughable.

Edit: Forbiddian is a UCSD student and I attend Caltech. We'd be happy to play IRL (although my deck isn't on me right now.) Also, after today's fat problem set I'll be willing to play on MWS. Then you can bring whatever DTB and try it out. By the way I think people may also be ignoring how consistency (the important kind) matters. We mulligan (calculate it, we can keep hands of 1-4 lands, and almost any hand of this sort) about 10% of the time. Some decks mulligan even twice that much. Crazy risky decks triple that maybe. (Dragon stompy, ichorid, etc.) For the probability of a double mulligan, you might consider squaring the mulligan probability, but it's actually even worse, since 6 card hands are less likely to be keepable than 7. Therefore, the 10-20% difference in mulligan rates that this deck has against the field, especially nonblue decks, increases even more for second mulligans.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 11:33 AM
Ichorid: Very favorable You have just about the best maindeck to fight Ichorid. You run the Force/Daze package, Wasteland, Swords, Mother of Runes, Jitte lets you sac your own guys, and Grunt for kicks. And then you sideboard in 8+ cards.
It is rather clear you haven't tested the matchup. As a sometime Ichorid player, Mother of Runes, Jitte, Grunt are all too slow in the maindeck. You can basically only ever get rid of Bridges by letting Grunt die, and you have no way to get rid of the Zombies after the Bridges go. And post-board, 3 ways to remove the graveyard and some "Worse than Heap Doll" bridge removers aren't scary. Technically you may be boarding in 8 cards, but they're not all that good in the matchup.

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 11:35 AM
It is rather clear you haven't tested the matchup. As a sometime Ichorid player, Mother of Runes, Jitte, Grunt are all too slow in the maindeck. You can basically only ever get rid of Bridges by letting Grunt die, and you have no way to get rid of the Zombies after the Bridges go. And post-board, 3 ways to remove the graveyard and some "Worse than Heap Doll" bridge removers aren't scary. Technically you may be boarding in 8 cards, but they're not all that good in the matchup.

I'd actually say it's obvious we tested the matchup since it's pointless to lie about this sort of thing, but I suppose the internet has all sorts. You're welcome to test our claim. Vs. us of course, not some other player who butchers the playing of this deck. See my above post.

lorddotm
11-19-2009, 11:40 AM
I'd actually say it's obvious we tested the matchup since it's pointless to lie about this sort of thing, but I suppose the internet has all sorts. You're welcome to test our claim. Vs. us of course, not some other player who butchers the playing of this deck. See my above post.

I'll just have to beat you at the Knight Ware tournament.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 11:43 AM
I'd actually say it's obvious we tested the matchup since it's pointless to lie about this sort of thing, but I suppose the internet has all sorts. You're welcome to test our claim. Vs. us of course, not some other player who butchers the playing of this deck. See my above post.
Are you two actually any good at building and playing the Dredge deck?

Edit: Post the list and sideboarding you used for Dredge.

Aggro_zombies
11-19-2009, 11:56 AM
Wait, so a generic blue-white Fish list trounces the entire format?

I can't see how Zoo is positive. Mom and Jitte are about the only things in that matchup that matter, and Zoo has over 9000 removal spells in the main. Also, I'm going to reiterate Taco's call for Meddling Mage and further suggest diversifying your mana slightly to take advantage of Wayfarer.

stuckpixel
11-19-2009, 12:17 PM
This looks like a really interesting build - and I'm seriously considering giving it a whirl (just would need to pick up tundras and wayfarers mostly).

Is there a reason you aren't running meddling mage in here? It seems like it'd be an amazing fit.

Phoenix Ignition
11-19-2009, 12:33 PM
Why would getting this kind of help matter when you make suggestions such as:

Run aven mimeomancer.
Run cursecatcher, yeah!

You were also on the stifle bandwagon. Lol, wait why did you post this thread again? We certainly didn't ask you to and it seems in your best interest to have not reminded anybody of your trolling.

Wow, that’s pretty harsh, man. You guys have a thread for this already, with 4 pages of posts, I have no freaking clue why you need to have 2 threads for this deck, unless there’s some e-peen trying to grow.

I’m all for defending myself, so let’s dance:
You guys thought Epochrasite was good. But let’s look at these suggestions in context:
You said:


Obviously nothing will exist that is such an obvious answer to our question, but if it's possible even to hate ichorid or TES concurrently with anything else, we'd be interested.
To which I responded

Against TES:
True Believer, Glowrider (too slow), Ethersworn Canonist, Orim's Chant, Abeyance, Children of Korlis (sac after X storm went off), CotV, 3sphere(too slow), Rule of Law (too slow), more daze, stifle (Not good through their chant), Cursecatcher, Counterbalance + top (dunno how good your mana base is for that) Back to Basics (meh).

Against Ichorid:
More Jotun Grunt, Cursecatcher (sac on your own spells when it gets bad), Children of Korlis, Glowrider (marginally), Crypt, leylineotV, Relic, Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (great with Wayfarer, not so much since they have ~no lands though so you can't fetch it), Moat, Magus of the Tabernacle, Magus of the Moat (lol), echoing truth, Pendrell mists, Wispmare.


Which apparently wasn’t a horrible suggestion, was it?


Cursecatcher also looks amazing. Against Ichorid, don't sac at your own spells, you sac at their spells. Their only sac outlets are Cabal Therapy and Dread Return. You can always respond to those before they get the tokens (and there's an intervening 'if' clause so if you can remove the bridges before the tokens resolve, they don't get tokens).

Thanks for the suggestions, those are great finds!

I suggested Stifle as both a way to further mana-screw, and not get blown-the-fuck-out by Deeds. The same argument applies to EE at 1 or 2. This is still a problem for you.

Aven Mimeomancer I suggested to you in person, and I will stand behind that suggestion as long as you are running the most terrible 3-drop you can find: Court Hussar. You have 13 creatures with 1 power, and your only evasion is Mom. Jitte is the only card in the deck that makes any of your creatures do anywhere near enough damage to win before other deck’s strategies work. People who fetch for basics (like I’d argue most people do if they have any idea that there are wastelands coming their way, which all decks that run basic plains or Tundra do) are only slightly effected by your Wasteland “lock” that is more or less negated if you play first. But regardless of that, turning your 13 1/X’s into 3/1 fliers speeds your clock up enough to actually win before someone finds an answer. Or you could draw a card and have a body that blocks no creature in the format and lives, which is only good with a Jitte equipped. (Which arguably any non-0 power creature is).

Also,


4x Weathered Wayfarer: This is probably the deck MVP. This deck is just about the best deck in the format at 1cc and is the best deck in the format at 2cc.

I wonder what you mean by “best,” but ANT, Belcher, T.E.S., LED-Dredge, Non-LED Dredge, Cepahlid Breakfast, and Tempo Thresh/ Canadian Threshold would love to have a word with you. You only tested against each other, but if you test against someone who actually knows how to play any of these decks you will assuredly find different playtesting results.

santeria
11-19-2009, 02:25 PM
// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
2 [TSP] Serra Avenger



http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/285/dreadofnight.jpg


wouldnt dread of night just give you a mouthful of aids.

Swing4Five
11-19-2009, 03:13 PM
No one runs Dread of Night in this format. I would be seriously surprised if you could find a single decklist to link to that had it in it's 75.

Onto the actual deck. It seems interesting, but extremely reliant on Jitte and opponent's inability to correctly play around Wasteland and Daze.

Your only response to the 'goyf problem was:

Anyhow, usually some combination of grunts, jittes, swords, FOW, and daze make goyf actually rather laughable.
I find that somewhat hard to believe. How does a combination of the format's most heavily played removal spell, paired with the format's ubiquitous counter-magic, plus 2 of a creature, and a slow piece of equipment (which, if it itself is destroyed or countered, grow opposing goyf's), make the biggest, most played creature 'laughable'?


Btw, since when does Forge-Tender get acronym status? Is "Forge-Tender" really that difficult to type in a page long post?

santeria
11-19-2009, 03:40 PM
No one runs Dread of Night in this format.

no shit. but if someones going to tell me about an amazing pile of jank thats going to break the format. then Im going to mention a small piece of jank that gives said pile a mouthful of aids.

IsThisACatInAHat?
11-19-2009, 03:59 PM
I don't understand the rationale with "not enough copies of vial for it to matter." People always seem to have comments of this sort at the ready. It's not a black and white thing. Each copy of vial comes with X "Great in the early game" and Y "Bad late game." Granted X and Y may not increase at exactly the same rate due to statistics, but it's certainly not the case that X is 0 until you run 3, at which point it's 100%, while Y steadily increases. Indeed, we run 2 because we think that relative to the other cards and their X and Y, we optimize by running 2. In fact, if many good cards were available (and I mean lots) the ideal decks would run 1 of everything. (Don't forget, if you think this is inconsistent, then your definition of consistent is not one that is useful for calculating win percentages.)

I can be convinced to expound upon some of the points in the last paragraph but I'm not the best at teaching math even though it's a passion of mine. Perhaps Matt could say something if this turns out to be necessary, or you can look at some examples like "Wouldn't it at least be strictly better to run 1 of everything if there were many card names of the same effect." This is sort of analogous to why we don't just run
4A
4B
4C
...
He actually did explain this to me in terms of the weird creature spread after wayfarer/mom/seer. I agree with the logic for those because they all fall broadly under the category of "creatures that give CA, but would lose your opponent tempo if he wastes removal on them." It's simply a case of diminishing returns. But my problem with aether vial specifically is thus: having fewer copies of each creature gives you a better chance to draw a combination of two or more different ones (which is what you want), but overall the number of creatures that fit the above criteria is very high (everything but Avenger), so the point is you're going to draw one anyway, it just doesn't matter what it is. I really admire that aspect of design behind Nogoyf.

But to me, aether vial is alone in that no other card fills its role and no card tutors for it (cantrips will find you something better, so I don't think they count), so you literally only have 2 copies. This means you'll rarely draw it in your opening 7 (when it's useful) and usually draw it later in the game (when it's not), it's not a sometimes-sometimes split. To include Matt's response as well, if this is a card that's useful specifically against aggro, wouldn't you always want to see it early?

Arguably the most important turns of the game are 1-4. There's no more dangerous time for you when they have a full grip and you've got nothing on the board. If you draw it early (or start with it), fine. But that will happen less than 1/4 of the time (23.33%). If you draw it too late, then you're already in control of the game and it becomes win-more (or not useful, like when you really want another CA-generating creature). I just am having difficulty grasping that a card that's only good against aggro (arguably the most common, granted) and only if you draw it soon really worth the two slots it's been given?

On the subject of crucible, I think the deck has more than enough ways to get both it and wasteland on the table- 4x waste and 4x stifle has worked pretty well for Tempo Thresh (maybe a bad example; I stopped testing this MU because it's a bye g1, but their game plan does revolve around having one or the other to disrupt mana bases) but generally speaking 8 copies of some effect is enough to see it at least once per game. If wayfarer sticks, you've got your waste. The deck also revolves around massive card advantage, so you're really bound to see something in a relevant time period. If you think not enough decks play nonbasics (I strongly disagree, but lets assume), then what about running it in the side to bring in with the tutors? I like the idea of card advantage, but card quality does occasionally become a major problem when jitte gets gripped (fairly often postboard I imagine, once your opponent recognizes how broken it is in NG). Is wastelock really such a terrible alternate win condition to "force your opponent to waste good cards removing bad ones" when that doesn't work?

I'll try a bunch of games with a sideboard as soon as I can get around to it (playtest group meets tomorrow), so maybe it'll make a difference in the way I perceive the matchups. I'm still massively against court hussar and aether vial, but we'll see what they bring to the table with a sideboard to help them.

Tao
11-19-2009, 04:44 PM
I agree with not including Meddling Mage in the main. Mage basically sucks against everything except Combo and Ichorid / Dredge. It is just way too small to affect the board, it can't trade against any of Zoos or Threshold creatures and even in the Tribal matchup it will be hard to get anything out of it. So even if you get a spell they have, which is not certain (and Tempo Loss), you wont get CA because MM does not affect the board in a way this deck wants.

And the list plays already enough similar creatures which fulfill a useful and synergetic role in creating card advantage and stabilizing the board.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 04:59 PM
Meddling Mage on Engineered Explosives seems really important.

Forbiddian
11-19-2009, 06:21 PM
Meddling Mage

Meddling Mage is terrible, particularly against Zoo. That's why it got the axe after like six months of trying. Believe me, we tried to make it work.

It's only very good against Combo, and even then it's not game winning, because they can go off Ad Nauseum or Igg Loop and they have half a dozen removal spells. Yeah, it throws them a wrench, but it's not so great. It's about 2:1 status (and very good) if you can block your opponent's removal with it. Unfortunately, the most common removal spell is Swords to Plowshares, and naming Swords isn't generally a profitable play. Against UWxxx, Meddling Mage is just about a Grizzly Bear. Also, Mother of Runes fits the same role, she only costs 1, and she stops varied removal. Cutting her for Mage is a big mistake (it was a big improvement in the deck to add Mom).

But really, the fact that Mage is so horrible against Zoo really pushes it over. Against Zoo and Goblins, he's atrocious. Whatever you name, he's just a 1:1 that gives your opponent tempo if he's Zoo, and against Goblins you stop Ringleader, but only against non-Vial hands and they still have Gempalm and SGC for answers. Against those decks, I'd much rather have any 2/2 first striker (even without the land-fetching ability that we do have).

Also, a much-underestimated aspect is simply how often you go to a game one and have no idea what he's playing. Turn 1 Fetch Underground Sea for Ponder could be CB/Thresh or Black Storm. It's difficult to make it work as a turn 2 drop. And sometimes even game 2 or 3, you think he's playing The Rock with a red splash and it's actually Survival or Aggro Loam running more green. Legacy is too wide-open for Meddling Mage to be all that effective, especially on the early rounds of the Swiss.


Tarmogoyf

Honestly, I think this is a pretty broad criticism, since so many decks run Goyf. He plays slightly differently in every matchup, but here's something that might help:

We don't run ANY enchantments (no Standstill).
We only run 5 artifacts, and 3 of them don't come down until late, and 2 are only going to the yard off of a Force of Will.
We only run 2 sorceries and they end up in the yard turn 5 at the earliest (barring discard).
Our removal of choice is Swords to Plowshares, so more than you'd think my opponent won't have a creature in his yard.

If Goyf gets big, it's because the other guy filled the yard with random crap. Goyf is normally about 3/4, 4/5 at the most during the early game. We only put Instant Land into the yard by ourselves. If they want creatures or artifacts, they have to come up with the bolts or countermagic. I'd say on average against our deck, Goyf is -1/-1 over the non-Goyf field and -2/-2 under what you might be used to in a matchup where both players are running cards such as Rift Bolt and Chain Lightning partially for the purpose of enlarging Goyf.

As to answers during the game: Grunt is bigger (and chomps Goyf down). Any double block handles Goyf. Mother of Runes can block Goyf all day long. We also have Swords, and anything with a Jitte will walk over Goyf. We have so many different ways to handle it, and even if we can't it's just a 3/4 or 4/5. It's rarely the 6/7 monster that puts you on a two turn clock that it is in some matchups, like the Nassif Thresh mirror.

I mean, if you compare us to Merfolk, we're strictly better at handling Goyf. In fact, most of these criticisms just melt away when you compare to Merfolk.


Ichorid

Uh, I haven't looked at the data mine from Stephen's new article (it looks really cool, though), but the standard consensus was that Merfolk beats Ichorid.



It is rather clear you haven't tested the matchup. As a sometime Ichorid player, Mother of Runes, Jitte, Grunt are all too slow in the maindeck. You can basically only ever get rid of Bridges by letting Grunt die, and you have no way to get rid of the Zombies after the Bridges go. And post-board, 3 ways to remove the graveyard and some "Worse than Heap Doll" bridge removers aren't scary. Technically you may be boarding in 8 cards, but they're not all that good in the matchup.

Since you have obviously never seen our deck play a single game, I think that you should mentally compare us to Merfolk (just for the Ichorid matchup) before you accuse us of not playtesting the matchups. Against Ichorid, we have everything that Merfolk does, and far more. If you roll Merfolk consistently with Ichorid, then props to you. I'm pretty sure the consensus is still that Merfolk has a good Ichorid matchup, and it's not just Enchantress that keeps Ichorid down in the dumps. If you can't even beat Merfolk with Ichorid, then you can't beat us with Ichorid.

You don't think that Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt, tutors for those cards, and BFT are good cards?

In the extensive testing that we've done, they have been very good. BFT prevents them from comboing for a while (they can still go beatdown, but it's extraordinarily difficult to combo out when you need two good bridge dredges). Mom essentially nullifies the beatdown plan and makes virtually all non-lethal swings unprofitable if we have multiple blockers. Grunt more often than burning Bridges puts cards like Cabal Therapy, Dread Return, and GGT under the deck. We don't care about them having a couple Zombie tokens, since all of our creatures (except Weathered Wayfarer... whatever) can eat Zombie tokens. If you just have a couple, attacking is not going to be profitable and we'll eventually get a Jitte out and win, so slow-rolling against our deck doesn't work as well as it might work against a combo deck. Recurring an Ichorid to generate a token a turn is not even close to enough to make us burn a Relic or Crypt.

I mean, in your analysis when you're talking about BFT, you speak as though Bridges don't matter. But then when you're talking about Grunt, the enemy is expected to have three Bridge from Belows and we're supposed to sac the Grunt!?



Meddling Mage on Engineered Explosives seems really important.

Yeah, we do scoop to recurring Engineered Explosives. What's your point?

If you've played the matchup, you'd understand how difficult it is to set up recurring EE against us. Even hands where we don't get Wayfarer (or you come up with Swords for it... if you don't, there's almost no way to win), you're still fighting a losing matchup.

It's also very difficult to draw all the elements required for recurring EE. Certainly not enough to run shit like Meddling Mage which is horrible in every matchup. And even if we had Meddling Mage, Landstill would just cast Firespout and we're out a card instead of up a card and you'd be talking about how Meddling Mage on Firespout is a critical play. Or Meddling Mage on WoG. Or Swords. Or Vedalken Shackles.

Landstill is not a problematic matchup at all. It's pretty close to a bye for some variants, so there's nothing we could really do to improve it (other variants are more competitive with us, but their strategy fundamentally doesn't work against Wayfarer, so we can always pick up the win from that).

Anusien
11-19-2009, 06:35 PM
Richard Feldman constantly beat Merfolk players at Chicago in spite of them having Relics maindeck.

And yes, it's incredibly obvious you haven't test the Ichorid matchup. Because you just say "We are better than Merfolk!" without referring to your own testing. Merfolk has a clock, you don't.

frogboy
11-19-2009, 06:54 PM
Against Ichorid, we have everything that Merfolk does, and far more. If you roll Merfolk consistently with Ichorid, then props to you. I'm pretty sure the consensus is still that Merfolk has a good Ichorid matchup, and it's not just Enchantress that keeps Ichorid down in the dumps. If you can't even beat Merfolk with Ichorid, then you can't beat us with Ichorid.

You don't think that Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt, tutors for those cards, and BFT are good cards?

a) I would play Dredge vs stock lists of Merfolk for money until my opponent was broke.

b) Beating one Relic/Crypt is easy, two is workable but rarely pretty, three is hard. Note also that if they are Grudging your yard hate, your Jitte plan is loose.

c) The card Darkblast would appear to destroy you.

It doesn't sound like you've tested much against a Dredge player who just grinds things out with an Ichorid or two, a Bridge or two, some random 1/1s, and some Therapies while always threatening to bury you in one big turn. It's certainly true that you can beat "flip my deck, make a Troll and some Zombies" with a Plow and a Forge-Tender...but the Dredge player can just draw four cards per turn while making a couple 1/1s, a 3/1 or two, and maybe some 2/2s for value and do that every turn while being capable of yarding their deck and killing you at any point.

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 07:25 PM
Wow, that’s pretty harsh, man. You guys have a thread for this already, with 4 pages of posts, I have no freaking clue why you need to have 2 threads for this deck, unless there’s some e-peen trying to grow.

I’m all for defending myself, so let’s dance:
You guys thought Epochrasite was good. But let’s look at these suggestions in context:
You said:

To which I responded


Which apparently wasn’t a horrible suggestion, was it?


I suggested Stifle as both a way to further mana-screw, and not get blown-the-fuck-out by Deeds. The same argument applies to EE at 1 or 2. This is still a problem for you.

Aven Mimeomancer I suggested to you in person, and I will stand behind that suggestion as long as you are running the most terrible 3-drop you can find: Court Hussar. You have 13 creatures with 1 power, and your only evasion is Mom. Jitte is the only card in the deck that makes any of your creatures do anywhere near enough damage to win before other deck’s strategies work. People who fetch for basics (like I’d argue most people do if they have any idea that there are wastelands coming their way, which all decks that run basic plains or Tundra do) are only slightly effected by your Wasteland “lock” that is more or less negated if you play first. But regardless of that, turning your 13 1/X’s into 3/1 fliers speeds your clock up enough to actually win before someone finds an answer. Or you could draw a card and have a body that blocks no creature in the format and lives, which is only good with a Jitte equipped. (Which arguably any non-0 power creature is).

Also,

I wonder what you mean by “best,” but ANT, Belcher, T.E.S., LED-Dredge, Non-LED Dredge, Cepahlid Breakfast, and Tempo Thresh/ Canadian Threshold would love to have a word with you. You only tested against each other, but if you test against someone who actually knows how to play any of these decks you will assuredly find different playtesting results.

Yeah if we find people who are better, our results will be worse. Duh. But people who are better aren't that common. We test so much (it's one of like 3 things I do when I'm not doing homework sets.) that we learn how to play the lists. It's not like your average Joe, is going to actually happen to be such a good pilot that he can nullify our results.

I'm going to turn your question around about mimeomancer. Why on earth would you run aven mimeomancer when for that same mana you can get court hussar? Heck, you can even get vendillion clique, which is much better, and sucks. I don't get why you hate on court hussar but not fathom seer. The two are not really that different.

Relative pros of hussar
vigilance
more affordable cost (1UW instead of 1UU) approximately speaking
burns ichorid's bridges (minor)
sees more cards
Gets around counterbalance

Relative pros of fathom seer
Generates more card advantage
Suprise (minor)
Combat trick (almost not relevant with M10 rules.)


Also, returning 2 islands is around slightly negative. Also, why do you make it sound like we're trying to race the other deck? We're obviously not, and it was stated in the OP. Other than like "I run 12 wraths, standstill, fact or fiction, academy ruins, crucible".dec, we've got inevitability on everything. I like winning, obviously, but it's not important to win early, which nullifies a significant part of your post.

We explained in a civilized manner to you why aven mimeomancer is a bad choice. It's not like "IMO aven mimeomancer is bad" or some silliness like that. Whether cards are good or bad can be reasoned out, and it's not some opinion. A lot of people are afraid of criticism and say "IMO" in front of everything, but we are simply asserting the facts. You're a math and physics major. You should be interested in facts.

I should also mention that our primary goal in posting this was not to seek suggestions, although if you have a well-tested/reasoned suggestion we would be more than happy to consider it. This is partially why we have a new thread, besides the fact that the old thread is... old and necroing threads is generally frowned upon. We posted this so that interested individuals, as there are already a few, could build our list. That way, the archetype can proliferate slightly, but moreover people could actually gain experience playing the deck at which point we'd be able to have more useful communication about what's good and what's not, allowing mutual benefit.

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 07:31 PM
I agree with not including Meddling Mage in the main. Mage basically sucks against everything except Combo and Ichorid / Dredge. It is just way too small to affect the board, it can't trade against any of Zoos or Threshold creatures and even in the Tribal matchup it will be hard to get anything out of it. So even if you get a spell they have, which is not certain (and Tempo Loss), you wont get CA because MM does not affect the board in a way this deck wants.

And the list plays already enough similar creatures which fulfill a useful and synergetic role in creating card advantage and stabilizing the board.

This is actually a great analysis of the result of running MM. That and it makes the choice of what to pitch for FOW very easy.

I'm not attending any tournaments while I'm at Caltech. The undergraduate program here is insane and I intend to prepare for graduate school and various math competitions. You're welcome to PM me/AIM me at pi4meterftw, and arrange to play with me online. I do take breaks from studying.

Sideboarding for dredge:
+2 Tutor
+2 relic
+1 tormod's
+1 grunt
+4 BFT
-2 ancestral
-4 wayfarer
-2 aether vial
-2 creatures depending on what we see g1 etc.

Forbiddian
11-19-2009, 08:41 PM
Richard Feldman constantly beat Merfolk players at Chicago in spite of them having Relics maindeck.

And yes, it's incredibly obvious you haven't test the Ichorid matchup. Because you just say "We are better than Merfolk!" without referring to your own testing. Merfolk has a clock, you don't.

Sorry, bro, don't know who that is. Name seems vaguely familiar, was he the Ichorid player who made T8? Why are you bringing this up?

For testing results, are we expected to play against Pros? We're not pros ourselves! I'm like 1750 rated and he's like 1850 rated (although no rated games since like early High School and we're much better now). We've also played against other people from The Source and in San Diego where we've by and large won easily, especially against Ichorid.

Obviously if we're playing against players far more skilled than we are, we're going to lose more games. The matchup values that I reported are what the matchup is for two somewhat equally skilled players. I'm sure the best Ichorid player in the world would destroy this deck when piloted by me. I'm also sure any Ichorid players around my rating will get killed by this deck.

It seems like you're just trolling at this point. I can say with supreme confidence that regardless of player skill, this deck gives you more tools and better tools to beat Ichorid than any other deck other than a faster combo deck (which, if I'm hearing correctly from local Ichorid experts, Ichorid's matchup against TES isn't too bad anyway).


We've tested, like, a hundred games for Ichorid. I don't know what you want. I talked about generalities. I talked about a specific comparison since you obviously didn't play our deck. Do you just want proof that we've PLAYED the matchup? I don't know how to provide that other than this screenshot taken a month ago or so (I DIDN'T count it toward our Ichorid percentage, since it was a horrible version and horrible pilot, but that is, indeed, an Ichorid deck (playing Islands) and losing a game 2 to Ancestral Vision). He could have won this game, but he didn't dredge well. I had a Swords on top of my deck that he knew about from earlier, so naming White wasn't his mistake.

http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z5/Forbiddian/?action=view&current=ILOLLED.jpg

I'm sorry I don't have screenshots of our dozens and dozens of other games that were played against more competitive versions. Beating Ichorid doesn't usually make me lol or post it on photobucket.

lorddotm
11-19-2009, 08:54 PM
Sorry, bro, don't know who that is. Name seems vaguely familiar, was he the Ichorid player who made T8? Why are you bringing this up?

For testing results, are we expected to play against Pros? We're not pros ourselves! I'm like 1750 rated and he's like 1850 rated (although no rated games since like early High School and we're much better now). We've also played against other people from The Source and in San Diego where we've by and large won easily, especially against Ichorid.

Obviously if we're playing against players far more skilled than we are, we're going to lose more games. The matchup values that I reported are what the matchup is for two somewhat equally skilled players. I'm sure the best Ichorid player in the world would destroy this deck when piloted by me. I'm also sure any Ichorid players around my rating will get killed by this deck.

It seems like you're just trolling at this point. I can say with supreme confidence that regardless of player skill, this deck gives you more tools and better tools to beat Ichorid than any other deck other than a faster combo deck (which, if I'm hearing correctly from local Ichorid experts, Ichorid's matchup against TES isn't too bad anyway).


We've tested, like, a hundred games for Ichorid. I don't know what you want. I talked about generalities. I talked about a specific comparison since you obviously didn't play our deck. Do you just want proof that we've PLAYED the matchup? I don't know how to provide that other than this screenshot taken a month ago or so (I DIDN'T count it toward our Ichorid percentage, since it was a horrible version and horrible pilot, but that is, indeed, an Ichorid deck (playing Islands) and losing a game 2 to Ancestral Vision). He could have won this game, but he didn't dredge well. I had a Swords on top of my deck that he knew about from earlier, so naming White wasn't his mistake.

http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z5/Forbiddian/?action=view&current=ILOLLED.jpg

I'm sorry I don't have screenshots of our dozens and dozens of other games that were played against more competitive versions. Beating Ichorid doesn't usually make me lol or post it on photobucket.

Are you going to the Knight Ware tournament?

Forbiddian
11-19-2009, 09:01 PM
Are you going to the Knight Ware tournament?

I wish, but for a few problems. 1) I have exams. 2) My card collection is at home (with my parents) until TG. That's a long story. 3) Los Angeles is like 200 miles away from San Diego (they're not that close), and I don't have a car down here and the muni system sucks shit for public transportation here.

Only like right around UCSD are the busses devoid of that hobo stench and overpriced bus fares (and there's no BART/Metro). If Public transportation were better, it would just ferry Mexican Marijuana up to LA and LA would be the drug capital of the western world.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 09:46 PM
Games versus MWS randoms don't count.

pi4meterftw
11-19-2009, 09:58 PM
Games versus MWS randoms don't count.

Nice troll. Why would we count games against randoms?

HAVE HEART
11-19-2009, 10:24 PM
The argument over the Ichorid matchup is irrelevant. Ichorid does not usually take up a big percentage of a meta (playing it once in eight rounds seems average). Also, play skill for the Ichorid player is huge; if the player is terrible, then the matchup is a bye for most decks, but if the player is relatively skillful, then the Ichorid player is obviously going to be advantaged until significant sideboarding takes place. This has always been the reason why Ichorid rarely puts a dent into meta percentages: people are scared to play a deck that can be hated out by 4x Tormod's Crypt + 4x Relic of Progenitus (it seems Ravenous Trap might be better now, but I have not given it much thought).

What should be discussed is the Storm matchup, tribal matchups, Counterbalance matchup, and Zoo matchup. I would also suggest actually playing these guys (them with NoGoyf, you with whatever) because although this deck looks terrible, it generates a lot of card advantage very quickly. The deck is usually half-empty by turn 7-8 (fetches, Weathered Wayfarer, Ancestral Visions, Brainstorm, Fathom Seer, Knight of the White Orchid, etc.), so the person playing the deck can see a good percentage of the deck's cards. I do not see this deck winning a Grand Prix or some 300+-person tournament, but it definitely has game. I have not seen these guys dodge anyone; they offer a match, and no one seems to want to accept.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 10:39 PM
Nice troll. Why would we count games against randoms?
The <System> Player Lost in the screenshot is a good indication of this.

Also, you were playing against a Brazilian with a poor version of the deck. So you shouldn't count it anyway.

Forbiddian
11-19-2009, 10:41 PM
The <System> Player Lost in the screenshot is a good indication of this.

Try reading. It might help you look less retarded.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 10:47 PM
Which one of you is LeoLunkhinho[BRA]?

Like sure, you say you don't count it against testing results, but then why bother post it? Games where an Ichorid player dredges to with an Ancestral Vision actively counting down shouldn't be referenced at all in a thread about a deck you think is competitive.

HAVE HEART
11-19-2009, 10:54 PM
We've tested, like, a hundred games for Ichorid. I don't know what you want. I talked about generalities. I talked about a specific comparison since you obviously didn't play our deck. Do you just want proof that we've PLAYED the matchup? I don't know how to provide that other than this screenshot taken a month ago or so (I DIDN'T count it toward our Ichorid percentage, since it was a horrible version and horrible pilot, but that is, indeed, an Ichorid deck (playing Islands) and losing a game 2 to Ancestral Vision). He could have won this game, but he didn't dredge well. I had a Swords on top of my deck that he knew about from earlier, so naming White wasn't his mistake.

http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z5/Forbiddian/?action=view&current=ILOLLED.jpg

I'm sorry I don't have screenshots of our dozens and dozens of other games that were played against more competitive versions. Beating Ichorid doesn't usually make me lol or post it on photobucket.

Anusien
11-19-2009, 10:55 PM
If the only proof is a game where a guy lost to an on-board trick, you might as well have not posted anything.

Forbiddian
11-19-2009, 11:02 PM
Which one of you is LeoLunkhinho[BRA]?

Like sure, you say you don't count it against testing results, but then why bother post it? Games where an Ichorid player dredges to with an Ancestral Vision actively counting down shouldn't be referenced at all in a thread about a deck you think is competitive.

Nice jorb reading, now you look much smarter.

It basically comes down to whether or not you think I'm lying. Obviously you think I am, but you think your time is better spent trolling this thread than actually investigating.

I know that I'm not lying, so I offer you this challenge: Play the deck and then post how you did. In less time than it takes you to get reading comprehension lessons, you'll be able to see for yourself.

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 01:39 AM
If the only proof is a game where a guy lost to an on-board trick, you might as well have not posted anything.

The real question is why you would require additional "proof" of our claim.

Aggro_zombies
11-20-2009, 01:57 AM
The real question is why you would require additional "proof" of our claim.
Because your matchup percentages range from somewhat suspicious to downright bogus?

thefreakaccident
11-20-2009, 02:03 AM
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/285/dreadofnight.jpg


wouldnt dread of night just give you a mouthful of aids.

Win

EDIT: I played against a variant of this deck at Game Empire some time ago... Which one of you guys was it?

If I recall correctly, I did some smashing with an old Uwr landstill list that day... But hey, I win like over 80% of the legacy events I attend, so its not a big surprise.


EDIT!!!!: Holy Shit! My rating has taken a HUGE hit since I last saw it... Im only at 1793 now... It used to be over 1850!
Maybe it was because I took a total pile and lost a bunch at that LA tournament.

EDIT556: You know... That must have been it, because I remember just scooping to some kid that had never played the format before, but assembled counter-top, and I was really hungry... I think that would have hurt it a lot, but where on earth did all those other points go?!!!!

I think Ima go kill myself now.
Im a little embarrassed now... just editing non-stop... Looking at things that used to be much prettier, wondering when this thread will turn into an all-out flamewar... Well, w/e (see, I can do it too!) I'm going to bed... Tell me how it all turned out in the morning will ya?

THX

EDIT4: ignore those last few sentences...

I think this deck could have some merit if it ran something to actually turn sideways... Jotan grunt could be a decent addition (deals with opposing goyfs, feeds more wastelands into your deck, makes you feel better when you're lonely)

EDIT5: Oh thank GOD! I have at least! A better eternal rating that Adam Barnello (sp?)... At least I don't feel too bad now.

EDIT#7:

Another thing you could consider doing is run some decent creatures aside from the wayferer (sp?)... splashing green wouldn't hurt in the least... I mean, the rest of the format does it... Why can't you? But in all honesty, I can't see this deck ever winning through the red-zone, as everything else in this format is either larger than you, or sweeps you easily (explosives, firespout!, deed (not as much anymore, but its out there) and the dreaded dread of night)

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 02:05 AM
Because your matchup percentages range from somewhat suspicious to downright bogus?

Okay w/e our matchups are 0% everything then. That way, they can be not bogus. I offered to play games but w/e. I guess it's better anyway if people don't know to bring hate for us in tournaments/cast devastating dreams against a face down.

lorddotm
11-20-2009, 02:25 AM
@thefreakaccident

This is just a comment about your sig.
Do you have any proof of any of your claims?
And if you win 80% of the tournaments in our general area, what is your name?


@the deck

The reason people are saying your match-ups are bogus is because you're saying you are a blowout against almost every single deck.

Zoo runs about 340925345072398793482750120 removal spells. You have 4 Moms and 3 Jitte to fight against them, and all their creatures are bigger.

CounterTop completely lock this deck out.

Daze gives this deck fits.

Cute Vial tricks with Knight are not hard to play around.

Merfolk has a clock, you don't.

Goblins is fast a s hell, you aren't.

Fathom Seer costs three mana to play. Extremely slow.

Visions is extremely slow.

Two Vials is not the right number. Vial is broken early and is terrible later.

How do you Daze when you get all your lands bounced and Wasted and whatnot?

Not personal attacks, just comments about the deck.

Vacrix
11-20-2009, 02:57 AM
glad to see this is finally up.

seriously for those of you trolling, play with it enough and once you are a GOOD PILOT you'll seriously kick ass. ive play tested against forbiddian probably 4 or 5 times with different decks and got my ass handed to me each time. it doesnt look all that hot on paper honestly, but the synergies work so well. the only time i legitamately won that i can remember was via a turn 1 Pact SI when he didnt have force. otherwise, he stabilized, visions resolved and he took the upper hand. seriously give it a go and see how it does. to tell the truth, i thought he understated its matchups. playing with it ive won more games than ive lost and those that i lost more from lack of play experience then just not drawing the right shit. its really well cut out to deal with a majority of the meta game. it just has a ridiculous number of jitte bearers that once you get jitte down, it wins you the game.

the only change i have made to it with my testing is ethersworn cannonist over thorn. ive preferred another jitte bearer to the thorn.

Capitalization is required on these boards. Please use it in the future. Thanks. - zilla

DukeDemonKn1ght
11-20-2009, 04:56 AM
I just think this deck is cool because it uses Weathered Wayfarer. And I'm just gonna leave it at that, because all this controversy isn't all that interesting one way or the other.

Digital Devil
11-20-2009, 05:21 AM
This deck is pretty cool. With Grunt you just put on the bottom of your deck your Wastelands, then fetch them with Wayfarer, and annihilate your opponent's manabase. I was thinking about building a similar deck with Standstill and Mishra's Factories. The list was pretty rough, but this was my original idea:

4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
3x Wasteland
2x Mishra's Factory
2x Island
2x Plains
1x Mutavault
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Windswept Heath

4x Knight of the White Orchid
4x Weathered Wayfarer
3x Steppe Lynx
3x Fathom Seer
2x Jotun Grunt
2x Serra Avenger

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Standstill
3x Daze
3x Aether Vial
1x Crucible of Worlds
I did not finish the sb yet, but it would have certainly involved Jittes/Canonists/BEBs and such. Good move by Forbiddian. Creating this thread was an awesome idea.

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 05:23 AM
glad to see this is finally up.

seriously for those of you trolling, play with it enough and once you are a GOOD PILOT you'll seriously kick ass. ive play tested against forbiddian probably 4 or 5 times with different decks and got my ass handed to me each time. it doesnt look all that hot on paper honestly, but the synergies work so well. the only time i legitamately won that i can remember was via a turn 1 Pact SI when he didnt have force. otherwise, he stabilized, visions resolved and he took the upper hand. seriously give it a go and see how it does. to tell the truth, i thought he understated its matchups. playing with it ive won more games than ive lost and those that i lost more from lack of play experience then just not drawing the right shit. its really well cut out to deal with a majority of the meta game. it just has a ridiculous number of jitte bearers that once you get jitte down, it wins you the game.

the only change i have made to it with my testing is ethersworn cannonist over thorn. ive preferred another jitte bearer to the thorn.

Oh yeah, I remember playing you like all night one time. I think I got a bit lucky on some of those matches, but I'm glad you like the deck.

Here's what I did today (only posting games against people who claimed they were from the Source):




2-1 against Tamariz on Aggro Loam.

Game 1 no land mulligan. Keep a weak hand with 1 land. He goes: Fetchland, Double Mox Diamond, Life from the Loam. I untap, draw. No second land. Shit. Brainstorm? Shit shit shit. Miss my land drop and pass the turn.

He plays the Wasteland and I scoop it up before he knows what I'm playing.

Game 2 no land mulligan (again, what the hell?). I have a good 6, though. His play is Mox Diamond fetchland, Life from the Loam, but I’m able to ignore it since he doesn't have a broken play. He gets a Countryside Crusher and two Bobs on the table. I get a pair of Moms and Angel out and stabilize at 11 life (although his CC is like 15/15). Mom walls the CC, so he can’t profitably swing with anything. He keeps Bobbing up lands and Chalices (damn) as I go beatdown from the skies with Angel and using one Mom to get through with Knight for 5/turn. I don't know what he's looking for, but on the last turn, he double Bobs 2x 3cc spells from 6 life. GG. I think I still had that one anyway, but it was pretty bad luck of him.

Game 3 it’s his turn to mulligan and I keep a really strong hand except for no white mana. I open with Island and Relic. Turn 2 Wasteland and sit on Relic. I choose not to Force his Burning Wish and he gets Loam, but Relic keeps him down. I play a second relic and he asks if I switched decks, since he didn’t see Relic or Island either G1 or G2. Yeah, the deck plays weird games like that.

He only comes up with Seismic Assault as I resolve Ancestral Vision, Serra Avenger + Jitte, and Grunt. He has a turn to topdeck Life from the Loam to potentially stay in the game (and does topdeck the loam), except his next turn dredge doesn’t turn up any land and he dies to my beats.


2-0 Morivictus playing some Urb Welder deck. I didn't think it was good.

Game 1: On the draw, I mulligan again, wtf, no lands. I open the god 6, though: fetch, wasteland, wayfarer, mom, vial, knight, ancestral visions, so I forgive the RNG. Wayfarer mana screws him after he plays a turn 3 City of Traitors after Synod and City of Brass. First wasteland took City of Brass, then I’m able to vial in Wayfarer endstep and tutor up a Wasteland to knife Synod. So he’s down to City of Traitors against my Weathered Wayfarer, ticking AV, mom and Vial. I beat him down pretty quickly. He plays a land, but when I point out that it would kill his City, he scoops them up.

Game 2: I mulligan again, wtf, no lands. I keep a pretty soft six with Aura of Silence. I manage to ramp up to it properly with Mom + Jitte. He casts Tangle Wire. This deck really doesn't care about Tangle Wire. I have two Moms and Jitte on the board, so I’m able to tap random permanents, swing in for 1, and shoot his Goblin Welder. It took all my permanents, so both Moms were tapped. He probably should have blocked. In hindsight, I probably should have boarded out the Moms. Aura comes down as he gets Tangle Wire + Smokestack going, but I have more permanents than he does, so it doesn't really matter as Jitte hits him for 5 a turn he goes down.


2-0 Acroma on Goblins.

Nice guy.

Game 1 from the play. I drop mom and he plays Mountain Lackey. I look at my hand. He loses. I have Jitte, Knight of the White Orchid Serra Avenger, Force, Ancestral Vision, and a second land. He taps Mom with Gempalm and swings in with Lackey, but only has Chieftain, so it doesn’t even make me sweat. He casts a second lackey as I play out Jitte and Knight. He gives me an >.< when he reads that Knight has first strike. I stabilize at 17 life with a Force of Will and a blue saved up the whole game that I don’t even need to reveal. Blowout.

Game 2, he opens lackey but I have BFT. Mom comes down turn 2 and he stumbles on a second land, gg. He says he probably shouldn’t have kept the hand, but with Gempalm and SGC on board, if he drew the land, I would only have Swords or Force on the lackey to survive that one. Mom would have just gotten burned out by Gempalm. He didn’t know I also brought in BFTs, which gave me 50% more outs, but I couldn't really argue with his play esp if he didn't know that I had a 12 outer instead of just an 8-outer, and he could still win if I don't block with Mom or Wayfarer (which he didn't see, yet) instead of playing the Swords or Force.


1-0 Acroma on White Stax

Game 1 from the play. I keep a 1 land hand double brainstorm and Force. He took a long time deciding to keep, so I thought he might be combo (thinking about turn 1 play) and the Force would get me there. I probably would have kept anyway, but I was actually pretty convinced he was on Combo or had a very weak hand that Force would chew apart after the 1-2 minute wait for him to say keep. Turns out he had a great hand and he was just tricking me or taking a shit or something. He opens Mox Diamond (pitching Plains), Flagstones, Chalice.

Ugh, tough matchup. I kneejerk the Force on Chalice and play Brainstorm finding me a land. He gets Tangle Wire and Ghostly Prison a few turns later, but this deck flies over Tangle Wires. I just played out a half dozen lands and artifacts off of Knight of the White Orchid.

He has to go, so no game 2 or game 3. I probably should have lost this set, though, but I'm happy to be 1-0.

Total: 7-1, 4-0 matches (one cut short).

Hopefully people with better decks will play me tomorrow after my Physics exam and I can get a few losses as well. I know people think that I'm just lying about the testing results, so I'm actively looking to lose.

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 06:06 AM
@thefreakaccident

This is just a comment about your sig.
Do you have any proof of any of your claims?
And if you win 80% of the tournaments in our general area, what is your name?

Nah, TFA is full of shit. You can tell if only from his sub-1800 rating that he doesn't have that kind of win percentage. I'm 1750 rated and I only won about 66% of my matches, and only went 4-0 3 or 4 times in 14 weeks playing there. If you go 4-0 80% of the time, that's like a 95% win ratio. But yeah, we'd all like to see his DCI number.



@the deck

The reason people are saying your match-ups are bogus is because you're saying you are a blowout against almost every single deck.



I'm not saying that they're blowouts. Favorable is like ~60%. Very favorable is like ~66%. Slightly favorable is between 50 and 55%. A blowout is like 80% or better, and frankly, some of the matches are blowouts.




Zoo runs about 340925345072398793482750120 removal spells. You have 4 Moms and 3 Jitte to fight against them, and all their creatures are bigger.



If you try counting one of these days, we actually run more creatures than they run removal. So :-P. They also run a completely non-basic mana base and their creatures rely on having the correct lands out (in addition to their spells). We win a lot of the games just off of lucksacking the double waste (or Wayfarering it).



CounterTop completely lock this deck out.

Yeah. It also locks every deck out. So how come it sucks in the current metagame? Oh yeah, because actually getting the CB/Top lock out early enough to win it clean is pretty rare. It happens much less than half the games, especially through our Countermagic and potential Vial draws. I say CB/Top is unfavorable, so I agree with you in that sense, but CB/Top is run in about a million decks, so it's tough to talk specifics. I will say that it's very hard to take advantage of the lock against a Wayfarer.



Daze gives this deck fits.


Huh? It just counters target spell like it does against every deck. We run Daze. It's a good card. It's actually much worse against our deck, because the most expensive spell it can possibly get costs 3 and legitimately it will only ever get a 1cc or 2cc spell.



Cute Vial tricks with Knight are not hard to play around.

Again, huh? It's actually very hard not to play a second land. I've seen very few people be able to pull off playing with just 1 land the whole game (unless they're a combo deck or something, but then Knights/Vial tend to get at least partially boarded out).



Merfolk has a clock, you don't.
Two things: 1) What the fuck? We're basically a control deck with creatures. Do you post in the Landstill thread, "Goblins has a clock, you don't." 2) We're not that much smaller than Merfolk. Merfolk can occasionally goldfish, but most decks run some form of spot removal which removes the lords from combat. If you have two removal spells or more, we're functionally bigger or equivalent to Merfolk.

But yeah, I agree we're much slower than Merfolk, but that's just a conceptual change, it's not actively hurting any matchups.



Goblins is fast a s hell, you aren't.

Goblins isn't that fast when you have blockers in the way, and lately it's been slowing down to try to beat control more. The only fast hands are unanswered Lackey or Instigator, really, and we have Swords, Force, Daze, Mom, Wayfarer chumping, Knight turn 2, Fathom Seer turn 2. Games 2 and 3 we get BFTs as well. Goblins goldfishes in like a second, but we run 20 creatures and Goblins doesn't goldfish nearly as fast against blocking potential. Very quickly, attacking becomes not profitable, even in situations where they outnumber us. Imagine: Knight, Mom, vs. Chieftain, Lackey, Lackey (happened earlier today). There's no profitable attack in that situation. Effectively we're up a card (or 2) and we're also up between 2 and 3+ mana-tempo because even though their side is stronger, we're still at board parity. They can't advance board position, so they're forced to pass the turn with no attack.

Obviously they're not out of the game or anything, but I hope you can see from that example how keeping up with Goblins is simply not needed when you have Jitte/Swords. It's just about making their attack not profitable and then waiting for Umezawa's Jitte or a pack of Gushbears to kick in. If I have Swords or Force backup, I can stall that board position out for an extremely long time.

For some other examples: Fathom Seer, Knight of the White Orchid, Serra Avenger vs. Goblin Piledriver x2, Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Goblin Lackey. The two Piledrivers are 9 power in the all-in, but you can block and kill both and kill the lackey, trading a Serra Avenger and 3 life for two Piledrivers and a Lackey. If you have a Swords, you can trade a Swords and 1 life (and 1 life for him) for 2 Piledrivers, a Ringleader, and a Lackey.

By any measurement, he's got WAY more board presence than you do, and he's invested a ton more in getting that on the board than you have. And the board looks one sided as hell. But if you look closely, you're still at parity since he can't attack profitably. In fact, you're hitting him for 3 a turn, so he's actually got to find some gas.

And just for kicks, let's see what he'd need to turn a profitable attack if you have a Jitte on Serra Avenger with two counters: 3x Piledriver, 2x Ringleader, 2x Goblin Matron, 1x Lackey. Let's see... in that situation you'll trade 6 life and Angel for 3 Piledrivers Goblin Lackey, and two Jitte Counters, which can shoot the two Matrons or gain life back, leaving only 6 power in the board which won't get it done against two creatures and a Jitte. If you're at 7 or more life, he still can't attack in that situation without a combat trick (which would be game winning, but more likely than not he doesn't have one or you have a trick of your own). So your Jitte and 3 "small" guys are holding off 3 Piledrivers, 2 Ringleaders, 2 Matrons, and a Lackey, even without a Swords.

So you can see how it's so hard to win through a Jitte and how this deck can stall the game long enough to resolve one. Even though it has no chance to "race" goblins, it can continually play creatures to ensure that blocks and double blocks are profitable, while relying on the fact that Jitte will come (eventually) and be able to turn the tide.





Fathom Seer costs three mana to play. Extremely slow.

Instead of running some shitty bear, we have an endgame out that will win the topdeck war. Again, we're not an aggro deck, primarily because Fathom Seer guarantees that we'll win the topdeck war if we can get to that point.

I wish that Fathom Seer was cheaper. It would definitely make the deck better, but there's nothing for less than 3cc that generates so much card advantage or guarantees the topdeck war win like Fathom Seer does.



Visions is extremely slow.
Yeah, I agree. It's also countered by Standstill, Stifle, and Counterbalance, the first two are weak against our deck and then suddenly strong. I wish it were ancestral recall, but damn Wizards banned it. I could explain how we try to slow the game down anyway to take advantage of it, but you'd continue to pretend like we're an aggro deck and we never get to turn 5. Really, how hard is it to get to turn 5?



Two Vials is not the right number. Vial is broken early and is terrible later.

Since you haven't even played the deck, I don't think you have any authority to comment on what the right number is, but if you'd like to run 3 or 4, be my guest. I like Vial a lot, it's a very fun card.



How do you Daze when you get all your lands bounced and Wasted and whatnot?

There's a mechanic in the game that allows you to move a land from your hand into play during your mainphase. Typically if you use it every turn, you're good.

We run 4x Fathom Seer, 3x Daze, and 3x Knight of the White Orchid in terms of things that let us cheat in or step behind on Land drops. If you're used to playing decks with Daze, this shouldn't be a tough transition.



Not personal attacks, just comments about the deck.

I didn't think there were any personal attacks, just that you've never played the deck and have some questions about how the deck functions in certain situations.

Other people have had similar questions for me. It's part of why I started this thread is to answer questions like that.


EDIT: Fixed some typos and stuff.

lorddotm
11-20-2009, 07:18 AM
I would respond to your post. But I've realized your deck is unbeatable, there isn't any option but to bend over and take it.

I'm done with this thread.

Kagehisa
11-20-2009, 07:40 AM
Just one thing about Vial and Fathom Seer. You cannot cast it with Vial under its morph body, right...? Vial "only" allows you to put it in the table from your hand, it does'nt allow you to cast it as a morph for free. It means putting it in game with Vial won't let you the possiblity to unmorph it, then you won't draw the two precious cards, right...? ( I'm noob and I'm not sure ( but I'm sure I'm noob ))

Sorry for my very bad english. I would like to add some jokes to make my post more "english" or something like. Anyways... Tell me if I'm wrong about Fathom Seer and Vial.

God bless you, guys or something like.

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 07:48 AM
I would respond to your post. But I've realized your deck is unbeatable, there isn't any option but to bend over and take it.

I'm done with this thread.

The fact that your criticisms are easily refuted proves nothing. If you had well-thought criticisms instead of making a laundry list of strategies that NoGoyf doesn't attempt to have, then you might have made more progress (I assume that your overall goal is to convince me that I'm a terrible player, intentionally bad, troll me, etc. etc. because you responded extremely negatively to my response).

Just some more friendly advice: Because I'm the only one out of the two of us who has played the deck, I will automatically look down on your criticisms as being borne of ignorance and stupidity. Especially after reading them. If you played the deck and then thought up criticisms based on your observations, you'd be much more helpful and overall more successful at convincing me that I'm terrible.



Just one thing about Vial and Fathom Seer. You cannot cast it with Vial under its morph body, right...? Vial "only" allows you to put it in the table from your hand, it does'nt allow you to cast it as a morph for free. It means putting it in game with Vial won't let you the possiblity to unmorph it, then you won't draw the two precious cards, right...? ( I'm noob and I'm not sure ( but I'm sure I'm noob ))

Sorry for my very bad english. I would like to add some jokes to make my post more "english" or something like. Anyways... Tell me if I'm wrong about Fathom Seer and Vial.

God bless you, guys or something like.

You can only Vial Fathom Seer into play as the 1/3 blue creature (i.e. face up), and only when Vial has exactly two counters on it. The morph is a special ability that allows you to cast it from your hand for an alternate cost.

Some other interesting stuff: It is colorless (can block Piledriver) and its CMC is 0 (so Counterbalance players should try to put land on top). You don't have to pay extra to play it under a Trinisphere.

Phoenix Ignition
11-20-2009, 02:21 PM
This deck has been played in at least a thousand games and has multiple tournament wins, but pending a suggestion from Nihil Credo, I'll completely throw out all of my testing results so far and only count new testing results and only against The Source members.




Here's what I did today (only posting games against people who claimed they were from the Source):
people testing janky new decks or using decks for the first time making huge mistakes


Please don't tell me this is how you're getting your new testing results. You have to realize that people on MWS are 90% of the time testing new decks, testing odd deck tweaks, or just practicing with something they have no idea how to use, and 10% of the time playing a deck that they play normally for the fun of stomping on someone in the 90% column (and 85% making up percentage statistics).

Mainly, the only good MWS does is to make you get a feel for how a deck runs and whether it is going to perform somewhat well. The getting real playtesting statistics will only come from playing against people who are good at decks that they are currently playing.

I mean the whole percentages thing was funny in the beginning because the majority of the decks you listed were played by you, and pi4meter played the NG deck repeatedly. He even told me after I got a game on him (after 3 tries) in the mirror match that he was really surprised because you had never beaten him in the mirror before.

Now that is something we can all see a problem with.

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 02:40 PM
Please don't tell me this is how you're getting your new testing results. You have to realize that people on MWS are 90% of the time testing new decks, testing odd deck tweaks, or just practicing with something they have no idea how to use, and 10% of the time playing a deck that they play normally for the fun of stomping on someone in the 90% column (and 85% making up percentage statistics).

Mainly, the only good MWS does is to make you get a feel for how a deck runs and whether it is going to perform somewhat well. The getting real playtesting statistics will only come from playing against people who are good at decks that they are currently playing.

I mean the whole percentages thing was funny in the beginning because the majority of the decks you listed were played by you, and pi4meter played the NG deck repeatedly. He even told me after I got a game on him (after 3 tries) in the mirror match that he was really surprised because you had never beaten him in the mirror before.

Now that is something we can all see a problem with.

Wait what? I never said it was a problem, so how is it a problem? And how does it matter if our group tests IRL or on MWS. BUT OMG THE SHUFFLER IS BAD SEE LOLOLOLOLOL THAT WAY YOUR TESTING RESULTS WILL BE SKEWED BECAUSE ALSO THE SHUFFLER IS BAD AND FAVORS NG, YEAH! I WIN.

Okay, I'm not retesting crap. It's amazing that you still need proof that this deck is as advertised. (about 65% win against the current field) Nobody has actually provided a reason why the matchups should be bad, we've provided the reasons why the matchup should be good, and in case reasoning can't persuade you we've also played thousands of games against each other and maybe hundreds against other source members. But in case that wasn't enough, we also said we even played more games just now. Then everybody forgets that we already presented our main argument and are just adding icing to the cake, and focuses on what's lacking in like our 10 most recent games. "We even did..." usually signifies that we've already presented our crushing argument. Now we're just interested in putting the nail in the coffin so to speak. Even that is too loose of an analogy, because the nail was already in the coffin when we played thousands of games and reasoned our list through.

As such, I may decide to play more games with this list, but I'm not testing anymore except against new builds. You can ask me how I'm doing and I'll respond, but I'm not making a point of tabulating my wins against the known decks anymore because I already know it's precisely what is listed. The argument that it would be lower for pros is retarded. It's true, it's just a horrible argument. Everybody would do worse if their opponents were better. Nice red herring. You may assume all our results were played with nonpros. But if a deck can do even 50% against pros when played by mere paupers such as Matt and I, that too is an equal statement of strength of the deck. So why is it that having a lower matchup against pros is a good argument? You won't be able to answer this question because it's not well-formed: it's a horrible argument.

Matt may have the temperament to tabulate results again but we agreed to post this for the evolution of the metagame. If the players won't proliferate the deck, then I doubt logical reasoning is the way to forward the case. Maybe you just need to see it for yourself to debunk some superstitions or something.

Anusien
11-20-2009, 02:46 PM
Just having a Source account doesn't make the match relevant. I know tons of people who are terrible who have one.

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 02:50 PM
Just having a Source account doesn't make the match relevant. I know tons of people who are terrible who have one.

See again there's that thing. This refutes some of the games we've played against the source members. We claim that we played thousands of games against each other, hundreds against other source members, and 10 most recently or so. But we win the argument at the thousands, we add the rest just for icing on the cake. You come along and debunk our extra argument partially, and say "I win!" But this is not how debates or reasoning works.

I should also note that the way a metagame evolves is precisely someone comes up with a good idea, the format changes to compensate so that playing that deck isn't strictly dominating. When people adjust for our existence, it could well be that we will have closer to 50% against the field. It's silly that people ignore the existence of a period of time for which we are unaccounted for and thus win. If you deny the existence of metagame evolution, do you think that the metagame existed at the beginning of time as it is now?

Take for example Ichorid. Imagine the very first game someone played with this deck. It must've been crushing. People didn't know it was necessary to come with graveyard hate that also owns ichorid, and even red hate that also owns ichorid. If ichorid would have posted "90% against the field" everybody would've been like "But it's only possible to be 50% against the field so therefore you lose GG." I don't know how to explain this any other way but it's not only ridiculous to not believe us because it's equivalent to assuming we're lying/inexperienced, but it's also ridiculous because it's a natural part of how magic works for the metagame to evolve in the above way. There should be a best deck in the metagame, but we're not saying it's clearly this one. As soon as people adjust for us, we'll probably be on par with whatever else exists, and Matt and my contribution to the legacy format will be just another deck that people will play, and people will sideboard for. Until people start packing null rods/12 wrath effect decks or something, though, we stand by the 65% against the field average claim that we implied.

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 03:01 PM
I mean the whole percentages thing was funny in the beginning because the majority of the decks you listed were played by you, and pi4meter played the NG deck repeatedly. He even told me after I got a game on him (after 3 tries) in the mirror match that he was really surprised because you had never beaten him in the mirror before.

Now that is something we can all see a problem with.

Not really, we've always switched off. Also, we've only played the mirror match twice, and we were running different builds at the time, so it's not that surprising I went 1-4 or whatever. I made him sign a blood pact that we'd chop if we met up in a tournament, so whatever.

But I don't understand, Phoenix. You've played against this deck and lost consistently. I know every time that you lose, you blame it on some luck streak. I do that too, sometimes, but you've only been on top of us with Invader Zur (which is a way underrated deck and is very favorable against NoGoyf).

But you keep coming to us with different decks and some explanation why they should beat us, but it just doesn't pan out in testing. I'm all for theorycrafting and for everything else, but you of all people should know that there's more to this deck.

Phoenix Ignition
11-20-2009, 03:02 PM
Wait what? I never said it was a problem, so how is it a problem?

The problem is you are obviously a better player than Matt (according to mirror match results), and he is switching from deck to deck without actually being good at them. From that you conclude that the deck he plays has a 40% or less win ratio against NG, which is really funny to me. By "we" have a problem with it, I mean "we" the community, not "we" you and me.


BUT OMG THE SHUFFLER IS BAD SEE LOLOLOLOLOL THAT WAY YOUR TESTING RESULTS WILL BE SKEWED BECAUSE ALSO THE SHUFFLER IS BAD AND FAVORS NG, YEAH! I WIN.

No freaking clue what you're saying here, I made no comment on MWS the program or it's shuffler, only on what people expect when they play on there. Also, CAPS LOCK IS LIKE A CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!!!!

Sidenote, this is the third thread (that I've read) you've used caps lock and overly bombastic responses to attempt to insult or degrade people and their arguments. Can you argue in a civil matter? I realize this is the internet, but Jesus Christ, grow up.

and in case reasoning can't persuade you we've also played thousands of games against each other and maybe hundreds against other source members. But in case that wasn't enough, we also said we even played more games just now.

It's not enough, obviously the playtesting results between you and your best buddy are skewed terribly by the piloting of a deck. The only real results we can conclude from the playing with this deck was the one source tourny it won online. The no goyfs tournament doesn't count. That would be like playing a tournament with "no combo allowed." Local tournaments count somewhat, depending on the size though they can also be fairly inaccurate.

Playtesting on MWS doesn't say almost anything. You can win every game you play in a day without knowing if your deck is good or bad at all, because everyone on there is playing with a new deck they just thought up.

Maybe you just need to see it for yourself to debunk some superstitions or something.

I have played around with this deck on and off for over a year, and I'm probably one of the 3 people in the world that can say that. I've given you my suggestions, but you and Matt are so headstrong that you can't accept the fact that the deck could have changes to improve it. I've made good suggestions on what to take out before, and since the last time you posted this deck my suggestions on the bad cards has obviously been followed (whether you think it was by me or by "1000s of playtests"). Realize that your deck is not perfect. Starting from the assumption that it is just gets hundreds of people to turn against your deck, regardless of its merits.

Phoenix Ignition
11-20-2009, 03:15 PM
Not really, we've always switched off. Also, we've only played the mirror match twice, and we were running different builds at the time, so it's not that surprising I went 1-4 or whatever. I made him sign a blood pact that we'd chop if we met up in a tournament, so whatever.

The difference in playlevel is not a solid way to test a deck. That's fine if he's better than you to the point where you need to sign blood pacts or whatever, but you can't seriously take playtest results from this as the truth.



But I don't understand, Phoenix. You've played against this deck and lost consistently. I know every time that you lose, you blame it on some luck streak. I do that too, sometimes, but you've only been on top of us with Invader Zur (which is a way underrated deck and is very favorable against NoGoyf).
I completely admit you've kicked my ass in a lot of matchups. But every time I take a deck that isn't Aggro control (my best piloted archetype) I will perform horribly at it. I can't pick up combo or ichorid and expect to be good at it without a solid week of practice so playing against "Grab a zoo deck, we need to test" is also not a way to get playtesting results. FYI I also beat that crap out of NG with a Bloodbraid Elf thresh deck which I played against pi4meter, at which point he wanted to give up Legacy and make an Extended control deck because it's too broken a format, with too many good cards or some such.



But you keep coming to us with different decks and some explanation why they should beat us, but it just doesn't pan out in testing. I'm all for theorycrafting and for everything else, but you of all people should know that there's more to this deck.

Right, I'm not good enough with many decks, and I wouldn't take any of them to tournaments. From our playtesting I will tell you that:

Faeries: Whoever drops first Jitte (in some cases with a bit of protection for the Legend effect) wins.
Zur: Crushes you, but no one really knows about it so not a big meta threat.
Merfolk: Slightly favorable to you, but you need the Jitte to work (playtesting results from not current list, looks like with extra Fathom Seers you should do better)
Mirror: Whoever drop jitte first wins.
Cascade Thresh (Deck in progress, not currently in a thread but maybe I'll write one soon): Too many big threats and Shackles crush you.


In My testing with my friend:
Countertop is not an even matchup, it is favorable towards them
The Rock: Highly favorable for NG, they can't ramp mana
Combo: Maybe 50/50 but he isn't a perfect combo pilot.


All I can conclude is Jitte is a good card, against other creature decks you need to see it, and against countertop you don't fair well.

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 03:24 PM
Here's what you quoted from the thread:


Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition View Post
Against TES:
True Believer, Glowrider (too slow), Ethersworn Canonist, Orim's Chant, Abeyance, Children of Korlis (sac after X storm went off), CotV, 3sphere(too slow), Rule of Law (too slow), more daze, stifle (Not good through their chant), Cursecatcher, Counterbalance + top (dunno how good your mana base is for that) Back to Basics (meh).

Against Ichorid:
More Jotun Grunt, Cursecatcher (sac on your own spells when it gets bad), Children of Korlis, Glowrider (marginally), Crypt, leylineotV, Relic, Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (great with Wayfarer, not so much since they have ~no lands though so you can't fetch it), Moat, Magus of the Tabernacle, Magus of the Moat (lol), echoing truth, Pendrell mists, Wispmare.

This is your example of all your suggestions that you felt it was good to quote.

We don't play ANY of those cards ("more Jotun Grunt" refers to the fourth Jotun Grunt, which we don't run). The only card we ever ran outside of "hey, let's test X or Y" was Cursecatcher. I was excited about it, and it was like a 2-of for a while because it hit Ichorid and TES, but BFT proved to be better in the long run so we just moved back.

Thanks for your help on the deck, but I think you're really overstating what you've done. None of the cards currently in the deck was suggested by you, and the only suggestion that made it out of preliminary testing was Cursecatcher.

The suggestions I think you're referring to were pointing out the worst card (and I think even then you only called Epochrasite), and being psyched about a replacement (but the replacement was worse). We know what the worst card is, and we've pretty much always known. Right now the worst card is Court Hussar. Back in the day, we knew it was Epochrasite. Before the more recent changes, we knew it was Meddling Mage. The problem for us isn't identifying the worst card in the deck, it's finding a good replacement.

If you had suggested any of the current cards, I at least would treat you very differently.

Anusien
11-20-2009, 03:27 PM
Take for example Ichorid. Imagine the very first game someone played with this deck. It must've been crushing. People didn't know it was necessary to come with graveyard hate that also owns ichorid, and even red hate that also owns ichorid. If ichorid would have posted "90% against the field" everybody would've been like "But it's only possible to be 50% against the field so therefore you lose GG." I don't know how to explain this any other way but it's not only ridiculous to not believe us because it's equivalent to assuming we're lying/inexperienced, but it's also ridiculous because it's a natural part of how magic works for the metagame to evolve in the above way. There should be a best deck in the metagame, but we're not saying it's clearly this one. As soon as people adjust for us, we'll probably be on par with whatever else exists, and Matt and my contribution to the legacy format will be just another deck that people will play, and people will sideboard for. Until people start packing null rods/12 wrath effect decks or something, though, we stand by the 65% against the field average claim that we implied.
Ichorid also easily dominated a GP and then continued to be the best deck for most of that Extended season. In other words, it had incontrovertible results. If this deck is so insane, sit on it until Columbus and T8 a GP.

For a deck to be a Deck to Beat, it has to hold up after surprise value is out. It needs to be a tool someone can use to beat someone who knows what they're doing. In other words, for this to be a deck to beat, this needs to do more than beat a guy who just picked up Ichorid. If you think you can discount playskill and say "Who cares about pros", good luck getting anyone to take the deck seriously.

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 03:31 PM
The difference in playlevel is not a solid way to test a deck. That's fine if he's better than you to the point where you need to sign blood pacts or whatever, but you can't seriously take playtest results from this as the truth.


I completely admit you've kicked my ass in a lot of matchups. But every time I take a deck that isn't Aggro control (my best piloted archetype) I will perform horribly at it. I can't pick up combo or ichorid and expect to be good at it without a solid week of practice so playing against "Grab a zoo deck, we need to test" is also not a way to get playtesting results. FYI I also beat that crap out of NG with a Bloodbraid Elf thresh deck which I played against pi4meter, at which point he wanted to give up Legacy and make an Extended control deck because it's too broken a format, with too many good cards or some such.



Right, I'm not good enough with many decks, and I wouldn't take any of them to tournaments. From our playtesting I will tell you that:

Faeries: Whoever drops first Jitte (in some cases with a bit of protection for the Legend effect) wins.
Zur: Crushes you, but no one really knows about it so not a big meta threat.
Merfolk: Slightly favorable to you, but you need the Jitte to work (playtesting results from not current list, looks like with extra Fathom Seers you should do better)
Mirror: Whoever drop jitte first wins.
Cascade Thresh (Deck in progress, not currently in a thread but maybe I'll write one soon): Too many big threats and Shackles crush you.


In My testing with my friend:
Countertop is not an even matchup, it is favorable towards them
The Rock: Highly favorable for NG, they can't ramp mana
Combo: Maybe 50/50 but he isn't a perfect combo pilot.


All I can conclude is Jitte is a good card, against other creature decks you need to see it, and against countertop you don't fair well.

I'm better than Matt is at piloting NG. He's better than I am at learning other stuff. We always discard like the first couple of games where we are learning how to play. Learning to play magic decks isn't steep for most decks. There's reasoning. Matt and I like reasoning. In fact, you should too. Do you ever take a physics class and say: I'm just going to get a B in this class cause I actually need 3 years to learn this material.

You seem to think that the learning curve is infinitely high or something, to the point where the only people who can play the deck well enough are pros who are rated >2000. Plus, if I'm a good pilot with this deck, then that should count. Afterall, the deck will be piloted by someone, and if the deck was good enough that I could learn it to this degree, there shouldn't be any reason why given time, others can't. No higher education is needed, one simply needs to do what makes sense. I don't know anything about your friend's skill level or yours playing our deck, but I don't see why you only point out that your friend's skill level is not superb on combo when yours was not superb in our matches. I seem to remember you picking up a game where I drew 0 jittes and then you drew jitte with counter back up, even though I scrolled through half my library, and then you eeked out a kill through all my answers because you had extra countermagic or something. I didn't get to see all your hands, but if you were very practiced with the deck, the other games where neither of us got particularly screwed should not have been one-sided the way I recall them being. Anyway, be that as it may, you have testing results. We have thousands of game and reasoning, so even if we include your results in ours, the numerical sway is negligible.

Also, we have changed our deck. Sometimes even with things that you also suggested. So I don't see how our actions constitutes thinking our deck is perfect. We're not willing to make every possible change known to mankind. If you were to have suggested fathom seer (instead of how I suggested it to Matt) I would have given it some thought. But instead, you suggested aven mimeomancer, which I was quick to reject because I had already thought about it and deduced that it was horrible. For the same price, you can drop a court hussar, which instead of losing 2 mana's tempo to removal loses 2 mana's tempo to removal and then nets card advantage/quality. Also, instead of doing nothing to answer problems, it digs for the answers. I mean, mimeomancer could theoretically answer some problems like if you're facing down a 4/5 goyf, you could 2:1 it. But I'd much rather pay 1UW to look for swords/jitte/grunt/mom so that instead of being a 2:1, it's a 0:1, and instead of being vulnerable to getting the double block owned by a removal, it's gg.

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 03:37 PM
Ichorid also easily dominated a GP and then continued to be the best deck for most of that Extended season. In other words, it had incontrovertible results. If this deck is so insane, sit on it until Columbus and T8 a GP.

For a deck to be a Deck to Beat, it has to hold up after surprise value is out. It needs to be a tool someone can use to beat someone who knows what they're doing. In other words, for this to be a deck to beat, this needs to do more than beat a guy who just picked up Ichorid. If you think you can discount playskill and say "Who cares about pros", good luck getting anyone to take the deck seriously.

Okay, this is wrong. Pros should be able to beat pros with my deck, but why should I be obligated to prove that I can beat pros? I'm not a pro. I'm rated 1800-1900 (I forget exactly what), which makes me like a good player or w/e. It would be an excellent argument for our deck if I could beat pros, but it's not a necessary one. It's kind of like how if x=1, then x^2=1 is implied, but x^2=1 does not necessarily imply x=1. (For all x in the integers.)

More precisely, I would win this argument hands down if I could beat pros with my deck. But the converse, that I lose if I can't produce good results against pros, does not hold. However, I agree that it would be suspicious if people of the same skill level (Say pros vs. pros or Matt vs. I) could not reproduce these results.

You seem to reiterate my points in your first sentence of the second paragraph. (Which is not a counterargument against my claim) and then follow up with something unrelated. The second sentence seems to refer back to your previous arguments, which is what I respond to with the above.

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 03:42 PM
The difference in playlevel is not a solid way to test a deck. That's fine if he's better than you to the point where you need to sign blood pacts or whatever, but you can't seriously take playtest results from this as the truth.


I completely admit you've kicked my ass in a lot of matchups. But every time I take a deck that isn't Aggro control (my best piloted archetype) I will perform horribly at it. I can't pick up combo or ichorid and expect to be good at it without a solid week of practice so playing against "Grab a zoo deck, we need to test" is also not a way to get playtesting results. FYI I also beat that crap out of NG with a Bloodbraid Elf thresh deck which I played against pi4meter, at which point he wanted to give up Legacy and make an Extended control deck because it's too broken a format, with too many good cards or some such.



Right, I'm not good enough with many decks, and I wouldn't take any of them to tournaments. From our playtesting I will tell you that:

Faeries: Whoever drops first Jitte (in some cases with a bit of protection for the Legend effect) wins.
Zur: Crushes you, but no one really knows about it so not a big meta threat.
Merfolk: Slightly favorable to you, but you need the Jitte to work (playtesting results from not current list, looks like with extra Fathom Seers you should do better)
Mirror: Whoever drop jitte first wins.
Cascade Thresh (Deck in progress, not currently in a thread but maybe I'll write one soon): Too many big threats and Shackles crush you.


In My testing with my friend:
Countertop is not an even matchup, it is favorable towards them
The Rock: Highly favorable for NG, they can't ramp mana
Combo: Maybe 50/50 but he isn't a perfect combo pilot.


All I can conclude is Jitte is a good card, against other creature decks you need to see it, and against countertop you don't fair well.

By the way I am willing to play against the bloodbraid elf deck or w/e else. We've changed our deck. Although I still don't claim it's a good matchup. There's nothing to prove because we never said we trounced it or w/e. We think that depending on the exact build, blue aggro control CB lock can be 40-60%ish. I guess if you doubt we can muster 40%, then you would contest our claim (and as per usual require an exhibition).

But I'm interested in playing this for fun, and to establish more closely where in the 40-60 range it lies.

Vacrix
11-20-2009, 03:46 PM
out of curiosity have you tested Kazandu Blademaster? a 2/2 first strike vigilance just seems too good to pass up. with a jitte he's just a killer, he can block and get counters and attack and get countered. provided you can protect him via mom or countermagic or just jitte, i can see him being the single reason you destroy aggro. im going to test him as a 1 of right now in the place of court hussar and see how he plays.

right now their arent really too many allies to take advantage of his first ability, but a 2/2 first strike vigilance is good all the same, and if you draw multiples they are even better.

thoughts?

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 03:50 PM
By the way I am willing to play against the bloodbraid elf deck or w/e else. We've changed our deck. Although I still don't claim it's a good matchup. There's nothing to prove because we never said we trounced it or w/e. We think that depending on the exact build, blue aggro control CB lock can be 40-60%ish. I guess if you doubt we can muster 40%, then you would contest our claim (and as per usual require an exhibition).

But I'm interested in playing this for fun, and to establish more closely where in the 40-60 range it lies.

I'm pretty sure a Bloodbraid Elf deck would beat us. New changes like Mom/Fathom Seer (if you go way back) would help a lot, but Bloodbraid Elf is a good card against our deck. A 3/2 is big enough and it's fundamentally a 2:1.

beastman
11-20-2009, 04:01 PM
Why don't you splash green for tarmogoyf?

Vacrix
11-20-2009, 04:05 PM
Why don't you splash green for tarmogoyf?

facepalm.. the deck is called no goyf. >.>
and he is playing grunt.

Capitalization is required on these boards. Use it. - zilla

pi4meterftw
11-20-2009, 04:05 PM
out of curiosity have you tested Kazandu Blademaster? a 2/2 first strike vigilance just seems too good to pass up. with a jitte he's just a killer, he can block and get counters and attack and get countered. provided you can protect him via mom or countermagic or just jitte, i can see him being the single reason you destroy aggro. im going to test him as a 1 of right now in the place of court hussar and see how he plays.

right now their arent really too many allies to take advantage of his first ability, but a 2/2 first strike vigilance is good all the same, and if you draw multiples they are even better.

thoughts?

If this turns out to be good, it will likely be right to play it as a 4 of to take advantage of its synergy. But it seems like knight of the white orchid is better. I'd much rather have a 2/2 first strike with a shot (a good shot at that) at the extra land. When you draw 2 of these it starts to become better than drawing two knights, but the majority of the time even at 4x, you will draw 1x, and then when you draw 2x your opponent might have removal/answers. But the other thing is this deck could really use more avengers first. Flying causes this deck a few problems (but not enough to pay 1UW and play bad cards to make them go away.) Avenger is also great with jitte, and vial mitigates the drawback, which isn't a big deal to begin with. But the blademaster is at least a runner up. I don't know if it'll ever make the cut. If you find it's great, let us know.

Raindown
11-20-2009, 04:14 PM
If we want to test this deck, is the list on the first page still the relevant list or was there changes?

Forbiddian
11-20-2009, 04:23 PM
out of curiosity have you tested Kazandu Blademaster? a 2/2 first strike vigilance just seems too good to pass up. with a jitte he's just a killer, he can block and get counters and attack and get countered. provided you can protect him via mom or countermagic or just jitte, i can see him being the single reason you destroy aggro. im going to test him as a 1 of right now in the place of court hussar and see how he plays.

right now their arent really too many allies to take advantage of his first ability, but a 2/2 first strike vigilance is good all the same, and if you draw multiples they are even better.

thoughts?

Angel is almost strictly better than that. There aren't very many (>=3/<=2), e.g. 3/1, 3/2, 6/1 played in the format. Piledriver and... Ball Lightning? Compared to Kird Ape alone, where 3/3 wins and 2/2 first strike loses, Angel is much better, not to mention the double block opportunities that 3/3 gives you that 2/2 first strike doesn't and the added power from beats. And then the flying is candy (and the most relevant ability on Angel, actually).

And we don't even run 4 Angels.

But even then, I don't see the Vigilance as being useful. It's very rare that a 2/2 first strike outsizes their team such that you can attack with it, and the situations where that does happen are narrowly tailored to the situations where your opponent has no red zone presence and you're simply attacking (vigilance is irrelevant).

For instance in the Goblins matchup, the situation where a 2/2 first striker vigilance is best, there are a lot of situations where you don't want to attack and potentially give up a blocker to the double or triple block. In situations where you have a Jitte, you typically just want the Jitte to go to your worst creature so you won't end up behind if they happen to have Gempalm (or some other removal).

I just don't see it as being better than Angel or KotWO right now, which are the obvious slots that it's gunning for, but I'll keep it in mind as a potential card. It seems around the same ballpark as Knight of Meadowgrain or Silver Knight, which is to say a good card that doesn't fit our deck's plan well.



If we want to test this deck, is the list on the first page still the relevant list or was there changes?

The OP list is current. The 'changes' discussed were changes that happened in the deck evolution 2-12 months ago, for the select few people who tested the deck previously, before those changes.

pi4meterftw
11-21-2009, 12:22 PM
Hm looks like people are mostly dodging. I think the trouble is that my point about how not everybody is pro implies in particular that almost nobody on this thread is pro, and so our testing results would still be the same or perhaps even much better...

DukeDemonKn1ght
11-21-2009, 03:57 PM
Just a few pieces of general deck critique:

*It seems to me that in this style of deck (nay, in just about any deck), if you are going to run Aether Vial and/or Ancestral Visions, they should both inherently be four-of. These are cards who have maximum impact on the game if you play them on your first turn, and I think you'd have a hard time arguing that their impact isn't generally diminished by each subsequent turn you wait to cast them. If you want to run them, you want to have as high of a chance as possible of seeing them in your opening hand.

I'm not sure either one of them is necessary for the strategy of this deck, though. I feel like this deck doesn't get as good use out of Aether Vial as some lists where it's classically awesome (like Goblins, Merfolk, Slivers, Affinity, etc.) Generally speaking, decks that run Aether Vial are usually going for a "swarm aggro" strategy of some sort... And that's not really the strategy of this deck (as you yourself have already said). You run a few creatures which just don't work well with Aether Vial: I'm assuming you're rarely going to want to vial in a Fathom Seer, and Court Hussar just gives you a Ponder and dies if you use Vial on him. Maybe it seems insignificant, but that's already a full 25% of the creatures that you use and they're basically wearing t-shirts that say "Please don't play me off of Aether Vial."

As far as whether or not Ancestral Visions is necessary, between 4x Brainstorm, 4x Fathom Seer, and 1x Court Hussar, you already run a fair amount of draw spells.

Anyway, as far as whether or not Vial and Visions are good in this deck, you tell me. But I think they're both the kind of cards where if you feel like they're good enough to run, you should be running the full four copies.


*You're still cutting it pretty close on the amount of blue spells you have to be able to pitch to Force of Will. If it's working consistently, great, but I'd be a little nervous only playing 18 blue spells, since that's 18 including the 4 FoW.


*Enlightened Tutor out of the sideboard is giving me a real case of the "wtf's". Why is this in there again?


*Knight of the White Orchid seems like a bit of a strange fit. Since your curve is so low, you don't really gain all that much with the pseudo-acceleration besides just deck-thinning. How has he been working out?


*I would try to fit in one more copy of Serra Avenger... Especially if some amount of Aether Vial is still used.


...Anyways, that's all. I'd be interested in hearing y'all's responses.

thefreakaccident
11-21-2009, 06:31 PM
Nah, TFA is full of shit. You can tell if only from his sub-1800 rating that he doesn't have that kind of win percentage. I'm 1750 rated and I only won about 66% of my matches, and only went 4-0 3 or 4 times in 14 weeks playing there. If you go 4-0 80% of the time, that's like a 95% win ratio. But yeah, we'd all like to see his DCI number.


You also would have to put into account, that this is only one of several accounts (losing DCI cards, re-registering... etc.)...

Also, this is over a year after I had stopped actually going to events competitively... As someone who has claimed to have played at GE, you would know that I am telling the truth... You could also ask any of the old regulars here on the source: Css, Team-Hero, the rack...

They will all tell you the same thing I told you.

Now to the deck... lets talk about your list:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [IN] Island (2)
2 [CST] Plains (2)
4 [A] Tundra
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [DD2] Fathom Seer
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
2 [TSP] Serra Avenger
1 [DIS] Court Hussar

// Spells
2 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
2 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [BD] Brainstorm
4 [OV] Swords to Plowshares
3 [NE] Daze
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender
SB: 2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 3 [10E] Aura of Silence


Lets start with the numbers here, shall we?

Vial: It has been agreed upon for years now, that Vial can either go two ways:
1. it is in your opening grip, allows you to do battle tricks, make uncounterable dudes, and smash face... Great!

2. It is not in your opening hand, and you also fail to draw it in the first few turns... It is terrible. You have either a. played your threats already, or B they have counter-top/whatever already and the card no longer matters.

You run 20 creatures, 13 of which have a power of 1... This simply is not competitive, as you can never apply any pressure on your opponent when you have the disruption advantage, or you simply get out classed (which I can see happening VERY often, with just about every deck in the format running much more powerful threats than you)...

I'm glad you took my advise about putting grunt in, its just about the only good card in this deck... Well, it and the avenger.

Ancestral vision: Not suited for this kind of deck... If you are going to try and play tempo, then play tempo. Your 'lock' of 4 wastes and the hope that grunt can get you more is just not ever going to happen. This format has a lot of ways to deal with a 1mana 1/1, and unfortunately, your deck just doesn't run without it. (the game plan is to equip jitte and hope? I don't think so.)

Jitter is also kind of lackluster in this deck, as you are pretty much relying on there not being a goyf on the other side of the field, and since mom is usually playing defense against removal, I wouldn't argue that she gives evasion, especially since most decks in the format have creatures of different colors (even merfolk, with the mutavults and gobbos with the new black dudes).

You also have no real way to deal with artifacts or enchantments (which happen to be the most powerful tools in legacy ATM btw)... So, you pretty much just scoop it up to any overpowered artifact or enchantment.

Firespout, explosives, and well, every sweeper in the format would love to gobble up your little guys, as you are generally forced to commit multiple threats on the board to even come close to threatening your opponent.

So... Final Analysis of the deck:

-You need to run real threats, and clean up your numbers for your spells... If you do the mana-denial thing right, daze can be potent for a large portion of the game, so utilizing stifle could prove very potent.

-Vision is a good card, but not in this kind of deck. So, you should cut that.

-Vial should be a four set or a no set, either cut cards to fit the others in, or just cut the card... its not vital to the strategy of the deck anyways.

- You need to be able to deal with enchantments and artifacts... If that means splashing green, that's fine, it will also give you goyf, and help you with your threat quality as well...

So, a sample list:

lands//18
4 wasteland
2 windswept heath
2 misty rainforest
2 flooded strand
4 tundra
3 tropical island
1 island

creatures//13
4 tarmogoyf
4 weathered wayferer
2 trygon predator
3 jotan grunt

spells//29
4 force of will
4 daze
4 stifle
4 brainstorm
4 swords to plowshares
4 ponder
2 umezawa's jitte (if you still want it... it can be spell snare)
3 flex spot... whatever you want


You pretty much play like White tempo threshold, but have the wayferer to make your wastes more unfair... and your threat quality goes up, as well as your consistency with the additional cantrips. The flex spot can be added disruption, or additional threats.

You don't run basics like the older Thrash builds, but you run both wayferer and 8 cantrips to get a healthy amount of lands, so it shouldnt be an issue... Moon is not played too often anymore, so you just have to worry about opposing wastes, and we all know how you can do that.

Forbiddian
11-21-2009, 07:09 PM
*It seems to me that in this style of deck (nay, in just about any deck), if you are going to run Aether Vial and/or Ancestral Visions, they should both inherently be four-of. These are cards who have maximum impact on the game if you play them on your first turn, and I think you'd have a hard time arguing that their impact isn't generally diminished by each subsequent turn you wait to cast them. If you want to run them, you want to have as high of a chance as possible of seeing them in your opening hand.

You might be looking at this table exclusively:

p(drawing 1 or more 4-of after n cards):
7: 40%
8: 44%
10: 53%
13: 63%

p(drawing 1 or more 2-of after n cards):
7: 22%
8: 25%
10: 31%
13: 39%

And then going: "Well, a 2-of shows up 56% of the time in your starting hand if you have it by 13 cards whereas a 4-of shows up 63% of the time in your starting hand if you have it by 13 cards, therefore, if a card is good early, to maximize the probability of getting it early and minimize the probability of topdecking it, you should run four copies." It's not even much of a difference.

That makes some superficial sense, but if you ask yourself why the function is so much more concave down for 4-cards than for 2-cards, you'll get that the cause is DRAWING MULTIPLES.

Let's look at the expected number of cards drawn:

For a 4-of:
7 cards: 0.47
8 cards: 0.53
10 cards: 0.67
13 cards: 0.87

For a 2-of:
7 cards: 0.23
8 cards: 0.27
10 cards: 0.33
13 cards: 0.43

So now let's look at the probability of having a multiple (subtract one from the other, it technically gives you the probability of having a multiple * the number of extra cards for that given multiple):

4-of:
7: 7%
8: 9%
10: 14%
13: 24%

2-of:
7: 1%
8: 2%
10: 2%
13: 4%

If you look at a 4-of, you gain an extra 18% chance to open with it, but you also "gain" a 20% of seeing a second one by 13 cards (turn 5-6 without Brainstorms or AVs). For our deck (and you'd definitely agree if you played it a few times), you'd much rather not have a Vial at all than a second Vial. Goblins goes apeshit with two Vials (Matron for Ringleader, Ringleader finding Matron....), and actually wants 2 or even 3, but we can very very rarely make any use of a second Vial.

One other thing you might note is that Merfolk and Goblins have a distinctive endgame where Vial becomes irrelevant. Vial is never as strong a card in our deck as it is in Merfolk (and certainly not as strong as it is in Goblins), but it also very rarely turns to crap late-game like it does in those decks. Most of the time you'll be using Brainstorm to shuffle away extra lands and between the bounce effects and wastelands, even by turn 10 or 12, you might still only have 3-5 lands in play, so Vial will still allow you to spend mana on Jitte.

Relative to Merfolks and Goblins (and others you mentioned), we: 1) Don't care as much about getting Vial. 2) Hate to see multiple copies. 3) Don’t mind seeing it late, provided it's the first one.

But even if we wanted four Vials, we'd have to cut into our creature base to do it. That obviously cramps Vial’s power.

You summed it up well, actually:
I feel like this deck doesn't get as good use out of Aether Vial as some lists where it's classically awesome (like Goblins, Merfolk, Slivers, Affinity, etc.)

We don't get nearly as good use out of it as those lists. In those lists, they downright ABUSE Vial. Vial is the best card in those decks. For us, it's only a good card.


You run a few creatures which just don't work well with Aether Vial: I'm assuming you're rarely going to want to vial in a Fathom Seer, and Court Hussar just gives you a Ponder and dies if you use Vial on him. Maybe it seems insignificant, but that's already a full 25% of the creatures that you use and they're basically wearing t-shirts that say "Please don't play me off of Aether Vial."

Again, it's not as effective in our deck as it would be in, say, Merfolk. That's why we run 2 instead of 4, but I'll go with the comparison. I'll just use Finn's list as an example:

20 Vialable targets. 4 at 1cc, 8 at 2cc, and 8 at 3cc. Vial represents a trick with Standstill, and to a lesser extent with Lords in the red zone or against decks with burn removal (if you have two lords already in play). It's also a trick on defense.

NoGoyf has:

15 Vialable targets. 8 at 1cc, 7 at 2cc, plus 4 Fathom Seers which can come in theoretically, and ticking Vial to 3 to get the instant-sac on Hussar. So at any fixed value, it’s about equal in effectiveness. It represents a sizeable trick with almost creature, AND we're always on defense.

Vialing in Mom endstep protects it from removal if your opponent taps out.
Vialing in Wayfarer endstep prevents them from holding land or digging basics in anticipation of wastelock. It also allows you to stay on one land. It's about as much of a trick for us as Standstill is for Merfolk.
Vialing in Knight should be fairly obvious, it's much easier to proc it if you can use fetchlands and it's a surprise. It also puts the land into play immediately.
Vialing Grunt endstep allows you to kill a lot of yard cards you wouldn't normally be able to.
Vialing in Avenger or Grunt or Knight are pretty big combat tricks. Note that they're singularly larger than any Merfolk, allowing plays like killing 3/4 Goyfs, Kird Apes, Nacatl's, etc. With an empty board (or even a no-lord board), Nacatl swing or Kird Ape swing are both obviously safe plays against Merfolk even without burn backup, but swinging into a Vial at 2 carries legitimate risks.

The first Vial is always pretty good. It represents two much-less useful lands and all those different tricks. The sum of the tricks and the land is generally worth more than a card. The second Vial doesn't really provide any new tricks, and the land is even less useful, making it a piece of shit to be avoided at all costs.


*You're still cutting it pretty close on the amount of blue spells you have to be able to pitch to Force of Will. If it's working consistently, great, but I'd be a little nervous only playing 18 blue spells, since that's 18 including the 4 FoW.

If you get outside the Legacy world, into Vintage, it’s very standard to see decks running 17 or 18 blue spells making clutch must-force plays on turn 1. All the blue spells we do run draw more blue spells (except Daze). I’ve only had problems of running out of blue against discard, but usually if they have something they want to resolve, they’ll pull the Force first anyway.


*Enlightened Tutor out of the sideboard is giving me a real case of the "wtf's". Why is this in there again?

Combo exists. It’s used exclusively against combo, exclusively to tutor up combo hate. Mainly what it does is it stretches any type of hate we have into pulling double duty against multiple decks, and gives us more outs against pithing needle.

With the Enlightened Tutor slots, the 2x Thorn of Amethyst is almost as good as 4x Thorn of Amethyst, but then Enlightened Tutor also lets us bring in more “copies” of Relic and Crypt against Ichorid. We get almost the same board strength against Ichorid and Storm combo as would take 9 slots and it only costs us 7, leaving us more room to board against other decks. Unlike a lot of the deck, it’s actually accepted into the cannon of board strategies. See Gabriel Nassif’s GP Chicago list. Enlightened Tutor makes an appearance in the board to snag Relic, Crypt, and Planar Void against Ichorid, Energy Flux against Affinity and Stax, and Engineered Plague against Tribal.


*Knight of the White Orchid seems like a bit of a strange fit. Since your curve is so low, you don't really gain all that much with the pseudo-acceleration besides just deck-thinning. How has he been working out?

Very, very well. Mainly the mana can be used to cast Jitte or as general card advantage. Even if we can’t use the tempo, at all, it saves us from having to make a land drop, so after a Brainstorm it gives us +1 card.

Merfolk actually runs a very similar curve. We have 5 three-drops and they usually have 8 or 9. We have 3 Jitte which is somewhere between 2 and 4cc.



Trolltrolltroll (I didn't read anything after you said you really did have an 80% tournament win percentage)

Send a screenie of your Match History to prove 80% tournament win ratio (~95% match win), please, especially if you're going to troll just because you think 60% is too much.

"3:2 favorite? Way too much. But I know I'm a 19:1 favorite when I play."

Vacrix
11-21-2009, 07:11 PM
lands//18
4 wasteland
2 windswept heath
2 misty rainforest
2 flooded strand
4 tundra
3 tropical island
1 island

creatures//13
4 tarmogoyf
4 weathered wayferer
2 trygon predator
3 jotan grunt

spells//29
4 force of will
4 daze
4 stifle
4 brainstorm
4 swords to plowshares
4 ponder
2 umezawa's jitte (if you still want it... it can be spell snare)
3 flex spot... whatever you want

I like wayfarer, stifle, daze and wasteland working together, but grunt and goyf isn't gonna fly. They eat each other's food.

thefreakaccident
11-21-2009, 07:28 PM
@ Forbiddian- I just love the fact that you decide to attack me instead of adress the points I make about this pile... I think it's because I'm pretty much right...

As for grunt and goyf... They can coexist, as with the cantrips and entire manadenial plan, there is plenty of 'food' to go around... Besides, grunt is a supplementary beater, he's there when you just need more pressure for just a few turns... As big of beaters that grunt and goyf are, they only need a few turns anyways... Grunt also has synergy with the wyferer don't you forget :)

as for the jitte spot, I don't think it can fit happily in the list (mine)... Probably would need to be snares or something.

DukeDemonKn1ght
11-21-2009, 07:42 PM
Yadda yadda...

Ok, you've sort of sold me on Knight of the White Orchid and the question of whether FoW is viable...

On the other hand, all that talk didn't really convince me that: A.) this deck needs Aether Vial at all; or B.) if this deck does need Aether Vial, it's correct to play two copies.

The simple point of the matter is that if you draw Vial late-game, even though you say you can still put it to good use, you probably would have been better off drawing something else. Saying "Whatever, I can still use it to save on mana if I draw it late game" kind of assumes that you're already winning that "late game scenario." If your opponent has you on any sort of relevant clock, you're still gonna find that seventh turn Vial to be a dead draw like a motherfucker.

On a different topic, you also didn't mention Ancestral Visions at all... I really don't think it's right for this deck. If I was you, I'd cut Vial and Visions and add in some more utility spells or creatures. You know, just test it. See if you still have that cherished "60% against the entire field" without these cards; who knows, maybe there's something better that you could replace them with.

One more thing: Isn't Court Hussar pretty much just better than Fathom Seer?? Sure, he doesn't give +1 card advantage, but he also doesn't require you to bounce your own lands back to your hand (which isn't an advantage in any sense of thinking unless you have a Wayfarer online). And he gives you card quality.

pi4meterftw
11-21-2009, 08:29 PM
@ Forbiddian- I just love the fact that you decide to attack me instead of adress the points I make about this pile... I think it's because I'm pretty much right...

As for grunt and goyf... They can coexist, as with the cantrips and entire manadenial plan, there is plenty of 'food' to go around... Besides, grunt is a supplementary beater, he's there when you just need more pressure for just a few turns... As big of beaters that grunt and goyf are, they only need a few turns anyways... Grunt also has synergy with the wyferer don't you forget :)

as for the jitte spot, I don't think it can fit happily in the list (mine)... Probably would need to be snares or something.

What? We addressed your point, and then he ad hominem'd you just for fun, and then you say "You only attacked me so I win."

If goyf were on color, we'd play it even despite the antisynergy with grunt. But we're not going to stretch our mana base thinner (We win a lot of games off of consistency) in order to accomodate a 2 mana for a 4/5, at best. (We don't even have a reliable way to put sorcery in the graveyard.)

And yeah, 19:1 favorite is ridiculous. What are you rated? I think I'm about 1850, and certainly no less than 1800, and yet I would say in a game of magic I'm on average a 3:1 favorite, maybe even slightly less. Obviously, if I play against more skilled players, it's even lower. But then you, sir, are a 19:1 favorite. Do you play against children? I don't even think pros vs. normal players would be a 19:1 favorite, let alone you versus normal players.

I again address the issue with vial, but this time much more briefly than before. Many functions in elementary calculus have local mins/maxes, even global mins/maxes. When you actually write out a computation, any reasonable model will show that the maximum utility per card does not always exist at 0, 4. (At 0 it'd be ill-defined, perhaps it'd be better to use another metric, but you get the point.) Actually, vial is one of those cards for all the reasons stated before. (Matt's post, as well as many posts earlier in this thread.)

DukeDemonKn1ght
11-22-2009, 12:46 AM
As far as Aether Vial, I'm paying attention to all y'all's mathematical arguments and everything, and yeah, I got the pm accusing me of not testing the list and you're right I haven't been playing Magic much recently.

But I'm addressing this from a common-sense perspective, and you haven't provided me with any common-sense counter-arguments. You basically just show me a flow-chart of statistics and say "We like drawing Aether Vial about this often, and it doesn't really matter when." On the other hand, here's paraphrasing some of you two guys' own comments about Vial in this deck: Aether Vial is unimportant to your overall strategy, and you can win without it, and you'd rather draw a Squire than a second Aether Vial, and yadda yadda... Well, then it sounds like it's probably not really a card that you need to include in your list, is it? Y'all really haven't done much to convince me that this deck really intrinsically wants to play the first copy of Aether Vial that it draws.

It seems to me like, in this deck, Aether Vial basically just lets you play the same creatures you were going to play already, at pretty much the same rate of speed you were already going to play them at (ok, marginally quicker if you have a creature-heavy draw.) It just doesn't seem necessary. I'll leave the whole subject alone completely if y'all just give me the assurance that you've tested the list without Aether Vial and with four Aether Vial, and you're happiest just splitting the difference. And next time I play MWS I'll test this list, but that's gonna have to be on a friend's pc so it may be a while from now.

PS: I'm really not trying to increase the flame count around here, I swear. But Ancestral Visions still seems like a poor choice, especially at two copies.

Forbiddian
11-22-2009, 12:52 AM
Aether Vial

We've tested it. We've tested every number of Vials, from 0-4. When we run more than 2, the creature count drops too much and we're never happy seeing Vial, and especially the second Vial. There's not much difference between 1 Vial and 2 Vials in terms of the situations when you do see Vial. That change would probably be -1 Vial, +1 Serra Avenger.

pi4meterftw
11-22-2009, 02:20 AM
As far as Aether Vial, I'm paying attention to all y'all's mathematical arguments and everything, and yeah, I got the pm accusing me of not testing the list and you're right I haven't been playing Magic much recently.

But I'm addressing this from a common-sense perspective, and you haven't provided me with any common-sense counter-arguments. You basically just show me a flow-chart of statistics and say "We like drawing Aether Vial about this often, and it doesn't really matter when." On the other hand, here's paraphrasing some of you two guys' own comments about Vial in this deck: Aether Vial is unimportant to your overall strategy, and you can win without it, and you'd rather draw a Squire than a second Aether Vial, and yadda yadda... Well, then it sounds like it's probably not really a card that you need to include in your list, is it? Y'all really haven't done much to convince me that this deck really intrinsically wants to play the first copy of Aether Vial that it draws.

It seems to me like, in this deck, Aether Vial basically just lets you play the same creatures you were going to play already, at pretty much the same rate of speed you were already going to play them at (ok, marginally quicker if you have a creature-heavy draw.) It just doesn't seem necessary. I'll leave the whole subject alone completely if y'all just give me the assurance that you've tested the list without Aether Vial and with four Aether Vial, and you're happiest just splitting the difference. And next time I play MWS I'll test this list, but that's gonna have to be on a friend's pc so it may be a while from now.

PS: I'm really not trying to increase the flame count around here, I swear. But Ancestral Visions still seems like a poor choice, especially at two copies.

To spell out a proof of our claims would require math, but to simply explain some concepts can be done at a pretty accessible level. Basically I too used to subscribe to the incorrect logic that all things are either good enough (deserving of 4 copies) or not good enough (deserving of 0 copies.) When I began magic at the age of 12 (I'm now 20) and possibly a bit into my 2nd and maybe even 3rd year I subscribed to this reasoning. One day it hit me that with each card comes a certain amount of negative utility for the redundancy and a certain amount of positive utility, and that it's quite possible for the negative utility to vary differently than the positive utility. As common sense informs you, decision making is naturally marginal, and the marginal decision is at the 2nd vial, we decide to stop including more. To see why this is you'd actually have to do a computation. I think the catch phrase for this is "diminishing returns."

DukeDemonKn1ght
11-22-2009, 03:11 AM
To spell out a proof of our claims would require math, but to simply explain some concepts can be done at a pretty accessible level. Basically I too used to subscribe to the incorrect logic that all things are either good enough (deserving of 4 copies) or not good enough (deserving of 0 copies.) When I began magic at the age of 12 (I'm now 20) and possibly a bit into my 2nd and maybe even 3rd year I subscribed to this reasoning. One day it hit me that with each card comes a certain amount of negative utility for the redundancy and a certain amount of positive utility, and that it's quite possible for the negative utility to vary differently than the positive utility. As common sense informs you, decision making is naturally marginal, and the marginal decision is at the 2nd vial, we decide to stop including more. To see why this is you'd actually have to do a computation. I think the catch phrase for this is "diminishing returns."

Dude, I never said all cards have to be a four-of. What I'm implying is that what determines the number you should use of any given card, is how often you want or need to see that card in any average game. This is mitigated by factors such as the card really only being useful if you draw it in your opening hand. No one plays Stax with two fucking copies of Chalice of the Void.

Nor did I really need some sort of biography of your rise from naive ignorance (which is kinda where you imply I'm at) to supreme enlightenment (which is kinda where you imply you're at) as a Magic player.

All I'm saying is that a card that you fundamentally want to play on your first turn should pretty much be a four-of if you want to use it. And besides that, in a deck with a curve as low as this, and this many cantrips to ensure getting your mana you need, I really don't see the need for Aether Vial. You already have plenty of other ways to consistently play lands, and your curve is low enough that you don't really need to cheat on mana. I'll test it when I get a chance and see how it plays out (when I draw it.)

Anyways, I'm done with that argument. Really. Finished.

Can y'all explain the reasoning behind using Ancestral Visions? And also why two copies is the right number for it? Y'all literally have not defended this choice at all and we're on to like over half a page of Aether Vial argument.

Vacrix
11-22-2009, 03:36 AM
Can y'all explain the reasoning behind using Ancestral Visions? And also why two copies is the right number for it? Y'all literally have not defended this choice at all and we're on to like over half a page of Aether Vial argument.

In my testing I have to say Ancestral Visions has been meh. In the aggro matchups it has been dank. In almost every situation I have preferred Standstill. I mean, you run Vial so there is some synth between vial and standstill, and you can get a winning board position in a really short amount of time. I think standstill is the best way to refill your hand. Once you get a board position that you can win under, your opponent has to break it. Have you tested it?

Also, Visions has been completely dead against Landstill. A few days ago I played against a guy from the source (J.V. was his name I think). My ancestral visions just turned into the spell that broke the standstills he kept pulling from SDT. How do you beat landstill? He stabilized every time (one time at 1 life!) and then played the RW Ajani, which I basically had no answer for. I mean the matchup was very close (fun too) but he gained the upper hand (I think I won game 2, but lost the 1 and 3). The draw spells just didn't cut it. I think if i resolved Standstill when I had the winning board position, that would have made the game in a few of the games.


As for grunt and goyf... They can coexist, as with the cantrips and entire manadenial plan, there is plenty of 'food' to go around... Besides, grunt is a supplementary beater, he's there when you just need more pressure for just a few turns... As big of beaters that grunt and goyf are, they only need a few turns anyways... Grunt also has synergy with the wyferer don't you forget :)

I love the synergy between grunt and wayfarer. Sure goyf and grunt could co-exist but I would much rather draw 2 grunt then 2 goyf or a goyf and a grunt. Grunt is just bomb in so many matchups, namely in making goyfs smaller and in doing so you weaken your own offense. I think its safer to leave goyf out and play anti-goyf grunts. That might just be my preference but either way is green really worth the splash? It would be difficult to support with 18 lands, 4 of them being wastes. Also, in your list, FTA, wouldnt you want at least a singleton savannah? Wayfarer can work as a mana fixer if you aren't drawing the greens. I'd run at least one.

pi4meterftw
11-22-2009, 04:41 AM
In my testing I have to say Ancestral Visions has been meh. In the aggro matchups it has been dank. In almost every situation I have preferred Standstill. I mean, you run Vial so there is some synth between vial and standstill, and you can get a winning board position in a really short amount of time. I think standstill is the best way to refill your hand. Once you get a board position that you can win under, your opponent has to break it. Have you tested it?

Also, Visions has been completely dead against Landstill. A few days ago I played against a guy from the source (J.V. was his name I think). My ancestral visions just turned into the spell that broke the standstills he kept pulling from SDT. How do you beat landstill? He stabilized every time (one time at 1 life!) and then played the RW Ajani, which I basically had no answer for. I mean the matchup was very close (fun too) but he gained the upper hand (I think I won game 2, but lost the 1 and 3). The draw spells just didn't cut it. I think if i resolved Standstill when I had the winning board position, that would have made the game in a few of the games.



I love the synergy between grunt and wayfarer. Sure goyf and grunt could co-exist but I would much rather draw 2 grunt then 2 goyf or a goyf and a grunt. Grunt is just bomb in so many matchups, namely in making goyfs smaller and in doing so you weaken your own offense. I think its safer to leave goyf out and play anti-goyf grunts. That might just be my preference but either way is green really worth the splash? It would be difficult to support with 18 lands, 4 of them being wastes. Also, in your list, FTA, wouldnt you want at least a singleton savannah? Wayfarer can work as a mana fixer if you aren't drawing the greens. I'd run at least one.

Matt and I are considering cutting the remaining visions. But if we cut visions it will be because we believe they are not good cards in general. There's no way for visions to work in any decks, but not this one, because our deck is maximally designed to take advantage of "waiting" cards. We have many time walks: wasteland, daze, wayfarer. Many more stalling cards like swords, mom, grunt. If we don't run visions, then I don't see how any other deck could run visions unless they are trying to combo it into play with tricks or something. We have not tested standstill, although I have thought about it. It may be worth looking into this but we have no game under standstill. We can: play one of our two vials, and that's about it. We don't get any advantages when the board state freezes over a few turns. We don't have the lands to make the drop every turn if we're not playing spells that return lands. Additionally, you may notice that we have trouble casting things conveniently on turn 2. It's normally undesirable to cast knight, jitte, grunt, and avenger is not allowed. Also, our 1 casting cost spells are the most broken in the format; it's nice to drop 2 of these on turn 2, or even just 1 of these saving a fetchland so that wayfarer can trick a wasteland out. During the lategame, when AV can no longer be used, it can be FOW'd or brainstormed away. FOW naturally favors cards that are conditional to some extent for the obvious generalization of the above reason.

We beat standstill by wastelocking them. I have most recently lost an entire match to some guy on mws playing a really slow control deck that even had nonbasics, because he was only interested in playing mass removal spells and card draw, with loam tricks. Yeah, when this happens, it's going to be an uphill battle. This might even be a negative matchup. (Although it doesn't matter cause these builds lose to everything else.) If they at all convert their mass removal into targetted removal or try to run useless crap like elspeth/counterspell, targetted removal, then you'll have a massive advantage. The reason is essentially that every mass removal is about a 2:1 on average, so good enough that if they run anything less than a deck dedicated to sniping slow control decks with creatures, they will lose, but that they can actually win if they dedicate their deck to beating our type of deck.

Also, for future reference, nobody should expect to be convinced by an argument that is inherently mathematical when asking for a nonmathematical justification. In fact, I found it silly to argue without math, but since it was requested I obliged.

thefreakaccident
11-22-2009, 11:21 AM
What? We addressed your point, and then he ad hominem'd you just for fun, and then you say "You only attacked me so I win."

If goyf were on color, we'd play it even despite the antisynergy with grunt. But we're not going to stretch our mana base thinner (We win a lot of games off of consistency) in order to accomodate a 2 mana for a 4/5, at best. (We don't even have a reliable way to put sorcery in the graveyard.)

And yeah, 19:1 favorite is ridiculous. What are you rated? I think I'm about 1850, and certainly no less than 1800, and yet I would say in a game of magic I'm on average a 3:1 favorite, maybe even slightly less. Obviously, if I play against more skilled players, it's even lower. But then you, sir, are a 19:1 favorite. Do you play against children? I don't even think pros vs. normal players would be a 19:1 favorite, let alone you versus normal players.

I again address the issue with vial, but this time much more briefly than before. Many functions in elementary calculus have local mins/maxes, even global mins/maxes. When you actually write out a computation, any reasonable model will show that the maximum utility per card does not always exist at 0, 4. (At 0 it'd be ill-defined, perhaps it'd be better to use another metric, but you get the point.) Actually, vial is one of those cards for all the reasons stated before. (Matt's post, as well as many posts earlier in this thread.)


Actually, he didn't adress any of my actual points about the deck, he simply ignored it.

Your guy's list simply cannot end the game quickly enough, splashing green would simply make it better in every sense of the word.

Forbiddian
11-22-2009, 06:00 PM
In my testing I have to say Ancestral Visions has been meh. In the aggro matchups it has been dank. In almost every situation I have preferred Standstill.

Wait... you do know what dank means, right? Your post is pretty confusing, because you said that it's dank against aggro, but that you'd prefer Standstill.

Actually, Ancestral Visions is so much better than Standstill in our deck that I'm a little bit surprised it has never been discussed in Merfolk.

I understand that Merfolk has more synergies: More Vial, more early board pressure, and manlands, so that might be part of it, but in our deck, the comparison isn't close:

You never have to break your own AV, and it isn't countered by Vial. It's countered by Standstill, Chalice @ 0 (better than Chalice @ 1, believe me), and Counterbalance, but all three of those combined are probably played less often than Vial. You never run into the situation where you have board position, but then your opponent drops a Factory or bolts your 2/2 in response. That's disastrous, because you often have to break your own Standstill in that situation.

AV costs 1 instead of 2. It also can't be dazed, letting you use all your mana for the turn and still ducking Daze.

AV doesn't pump Goyf with Enchantment. Enchantments are extremely hard to get into the yard, so it almost guarantees +1/+1 against any future Tarmogoyfs. We can eat it with Grunt, but Grunt triggers almost exclusively go to the opponent's yard for KotR, Grim Lavamancer, Nimble Mongoose and etc., so Grunting our own yard is much more inconvenient.

AV literally wins the game against any type of black discard strategy, and Standstill doesn't have any matchups where it's as crippling.

There are a lot of other factors why AV is much better than Standstill in our deck (such as how we don't benefit at all from stalling while any decks with more expensive cards benefit a lot).

Vacrix
11-22-2009, 06:21 PM
Wait... you do know what dank means, right? Your post is pretty confusing, because you said that it's dank against aggro, but that you'd prefer Standstill.

Yea, in other words, I liked drawing it, preferably early against aggro so it could replenish my hand. I could use it well in that situation. Otherwise, it was the shittiest top deck ever. Most of the time I took control of the board with tricks, removal and countermagic, and then dropped AV. In all of those situations I am saying I would rather have had Standstill. Against control, AV was a terrible topdeck. It just got countered, stifled, or activated my opponents Standstill's into shit that killed me. Maybe I just haven't played this deck as much as you have, but I will tell you that I gained board position in quite a few games, and then if I lost it, standstill over AV would have made all the difference.

Forbiddian
11-22-2009, 10:40 PM
Yea, in other words, I liked drawing it, preferably early against aggro so it could replenish my hand. I could use it well in that situation. Otherwise, it was the shittiest top deck ever. Most of the time I took control of the board with tricks, removal and countermagic, and then dropped AV. In all of those situations I am saying I would rather have had Standstill. Against control, AV was a terrible topdeck. It just got countered, stifled, or activated my opponents Standstill's into shit that killed me. Maybe I just haven't played this deck as much as you have, but I will tell you that I gained board position in quite a few games, and then if I lost it, standstill over AV would have made all the difference.

I board it out against Landstill, but I like seeing it G1 early. Or you just pitch it to Force or Brainstorm it away. Control is such a rare matchup and it's way in our favor anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about two suboptimal cards G1. And I'm not convinced Standstill is better even against Landstill. Landstill is generally better at abusing our Standstills than we are. It would take a pretty crazy board position advantage (like Wayfarer in play) for me to want to cast a Standstill, since they could recover with DoJ or something.

With only two Vials, you can't just lucksack the lockout every game.

pi4meterftw
11-26-2009, 02:25 AM
Still up for more games, although I must say it's pretty silly to play if you're just going to complain about luck irrationally. (OMG YOU DREW A 4 of!!!!!!) Or if you're just going to claim afterward that you're a horrible player and don't represent the deck well.

Maveric78f
11-26-2009, 03:29 AM
I like wayfarer, stifle, daze and wasteland working together, but grunt and goyf isn't gonna fly. They eat each other's food.

I can't believe to still read this more than 2 years after... How come is it a problem to keep 3 or 4 cards in a graveyard? And Grunt will fill the graveyard by itself too. On the opposite they are complementary because Grunt can't be played early although Goyf is an early beater. Once the opponent has dealt with you goyf copies (or earlier if you feel that you can kill), you can play grunt to seal the deal and/or shrink opponent's goyfs.

With grunt you get to choose if you pay the upkeep or not, you choose which cards you remove from the yard. You have all the control of the situation. Goyf eats no ressource. How can they be dyssynergic?

pi4meterftw
11-26-2009, 03:46 AM
I can't believe to still read this more than 2 years after... How come is it a problem to keep 3 or 4 cards in a graveyard? And Grunt will fill the graveyard by itself too. On the opposite they are complementary because Grunt can't be played early although Goyf is an early beater. Once the opponent has dealt with you goyf copies (or earlier if you feel that you can kill), you can play grunt to seal the deal and/or shrink opponent's goyfs.

With grunt you get to choose if you pay the upkeep or not, you choose which cards you remove from the yard. You have all the control of the situation. Goyf eats no ressource. How can they be dyssynergic?

Yeah we actually don't run goyf because it's not blue or white, and not because of the slight negative interaction with grunt. In fact, if anything the interaction might even be possible when we control it, we'll approximate it with "neutral." But to have a mana base supporting goyf would require adding lands, so even if it's better than the worst card in our deck, it's not better by enough to justify adding it AND 2 savannah, or w/e.

pi4meterftw
11-26-2009, 12:44 PM
Lately I've beat piceli 4-0 matches (8-0 games) and lost to Green one 1-2 matches (2-6 games) against various builds of Ad Nauseam. I think the massive difference is a fluctuatiuon of luck. Against Piceli I drew fairly well, whereas against green one I mulliganned for mana screw reasons twice and for "hand has no answers in it" like 5 times.

Anyhow, I do acknowledge all results should count independently of draws and such, so it's currently 10-6 since our matchup was called into question.

Actually I suggest other people test this MU if they want to be convinced. It will be hard to do any convincing in the way of the combo matchup since it heavily depends on draws enough. For example, sometimes I open with thorn of amethyst on the play, or on the draw with disruption. (Or they get a slow hand)
Sometimes I mull to 5 or 6. Actually I mulled to 4 against green one and still won, but it was like pretty close to the best conceivable 4, where the best 4 is tundra, wasteland, daze, thorn, and my 4 was wayfarer 2 wasteland thorn.

Forbiddian
11-27-2009, 02:36 AM
Actually I mulled to 4 against green one and still won, but it was like pretty close to the best conceivable 4, where the best 4 is tundra, wasteland, daze, thorn, and my 4 was wayfarer 2 wasteland thorn.

But it does bring up the point that Thorn is a strong piece of hate, and that it's worth giving up cards for. I.e. Enlightened Tutor is extremely strong, and that NoGoyf can win the game or draw more disruption before the ANT player can answer the Thorn.

thefreakaccident
11-27-2009, 03:08 AM
Yeah we actually don't run goyf because it's not blue or white, and not because of the slight negative interaction with grunt. In fact, if anything the interaction might even be possible when we control it, we'll approximate it with "neutral." But to have a mana base supporting goyf would require adding lands, so even if it's better than the worst card in our deck, it's not better by enough to justify adding it AND 2 savannah, or w/e.

How about goyf actually being a clock, unlike all the other critters in this decks asides from grunt.

@Maverick... THANK GOD someone has their head on straight here... Its like i've been talking to monkeys or something... I would say something, then they would say something that wouldn't make sense to any normal person (i.e. no rational explanations besides the fact that they thought they were right), then shit would be thrown EVERYWHERE!

It was actually quite disturbing.

I actually posted my list in the tempo thresh thread... It seems to fit under that category better.

pi4meterftw
11-27-2009, 03:40 AM
How about goyf actually being a clock, unlike all the other critters in this decks asides from grunt.

@Maverick... THANK GOD someone has their head on straight here... Its like i've been talking to monkeys or something... I would say something, then they would say something that wouldn't make sense to any normal person (i.e. no rational explanations besides the fact that they thought they were right), then shit would be thrown EVERYWHERE!

It was actually quite disturbing.

I actually posted my list in the tempo thresh thread... It seems to fit under that category better.

Do you criticize landstill for not having a clock? Also, I believe we've shown a bit of the math we did. I don't see how that's not rational. We don't want a clock. I mean we'd put a clock on our opponent if it was at no cost, but we're ready for the long game so a clock is pretty pointless unless we need to finish the match, which isn't tough against most decks.

Goblins has no countermagic
ANT has no creatures
landstill has no clock
merfolk can't generate a large storm count
Nassif thresh has no land destruction

How come I don't hear you making retarded criticisms like this? It's not an argument to name one thing our deck doesn't have. Here are other things our deck also doesn't have:

Green, red and black.
storm count/storm

Actually I can't name that many things our deck doesn't have as far as overarching concepts such as these. That may be because we... actually took the time to practice good deck design. Just saying...

Maveric78f
11-27-2009, 04:12 AM
Just to make it clear, I never claimed that goyf belonged to this deck. I just said that Goyf and Grunt are NOT dyssynergic.

Funny enough, I think that the best role for goyf in this deck would NOT be to beat early but to hold opponent's creature. But really I doubt the green splash would justified by goyf inclusion. Knight of the reliquary would be better and it's probably still not justified.

GreenOne
11-27-2009, 07:43 AM
Lately I've beat piceli 4-0 matches (8-0 games) and lost to Green one 1-2 matches (2-6 games) against various builds of Ad Nauseam. I think the massive difference is a fluctuatiuon of luck. Against Piceli I drew fairly well, whereas against green one I mulliganned for mana screw reasons twice and for "hand has no answers in it" like 5 times.

Anyhow, I do acknowledge all results should count independently of draws and such, so it's currently 10-6 since our matchup was called into question.

Actually I suggest other people test this MU if they want to be convinced. It will be hard to do any convincing in the way of the combo matchup since it heavily depends on draws enough. For example, sometimes I open with thorn of amethyst on the play, or on the draw with disruption. (Or they get a slow hand)
Sometimes I mull to 5 or 6. Actually I mulled to 4 against green one and still won, but it was like pretty close to the best conceivable 4, where the best 4 is tundra, wasteland, daze, thorn, and my 4 was wayfarer 2 wasteland thorn.
Heya, just wanted to point out how the games went by the AN/Doomsday player point of view.
The first game was usually quite easy, with your deck only having FoW, Daze and Wasteland as disruption. This means like the same package tempo decks run, minus Stifle, Spell Snare, etc. It's not a bye, but should definetly be in AN favour.
Matches 2/3 are an entirely different thing, cause permanent hate cards are joining the fight. Thorn of Amethist is definetly good, and aura of silence, albeit slow, is nonetheless painful. In the first 4 or so matches we played I SB wrong (didn't know the deck), bringing in cards against hate bears (MM, or even true believer) and losing one matchup to an unexpected Thorn.
I don't know what are you siding in the other matchups, but only considering combo decks, it would be a better move to sideboard an Ench/Artifacts and hate bears (Glowrider, True Believer, MM, Aven Mindcenson, etc) split, so that the ANT player just have to draw the right removal spell instead of just a random disenchant effect.

pi4meterftw
11-27-2009, 01:55 PM
This looks like a really interesting build - and I'm seriously considering giving it a whirl (just would need to pick up tundras and wayfarers mostly).

Is there a reason you aren't running meddling mage in here? It seems like it'd be an amazing fit.

How have you liked this deck in testing, if you've tried it yet?

pi4meterftw
11-27-2009, 02:06 PM
Heya, just wanted to point out how the games went by the AN/Doomsday player point of view.
The first game was usually quite easy, with your deck only having FoW, Daze and Wasteland as disruption. This means like the same package tempo decks run, minus Stifle, Spell Snare, etc. It's not a bye, but should definetly be in AN favour.
Matches 2/3 are an entirely different thing, cause permanent hate cards are joining the fight. Thorn of Amethist is definetly good, and aura of silence, albeit slow, is nonetheless painful. In the first 4 or so matches we played I SB wrong (didn't know the deck), bringing in cards against hate bears (MM, or even true believer) and losing one matchup to an unexpected Thorn.
I don't know what are you siding in the other matchups, but only considering combo decks, it would be a better move to sideboard an Ench/Artifacts and hate bears (Glowrider, True Believer, MM, Aven Mindcenson, etc) split, so that the ANT player just have to draw the right removal spell instead of just a random disenchant effect.

You played very well, I'll admit that whenever I play a g1, I actually feel kind of relieved when I win. I think against average players, I can pull a 50-60%, and against practiced players it's negative. Also, depending on build: some players don't play doomsday, which was a REALLY important thing in our games. You may have noticed I was engaging in silly plays like once I reduced your life total to 10 or so, immediately I swordsed my 5/5 wayfarer (off jitte) and was ready to dump the jitte counters to require you to storm up to 13 or something. This was how I shut piceli out game 1 most of the time, because it makes IGG loop kills almost unreachable, and at 10 life Ad nauseam is also pretty pressed to pull off storm count 13.

But doomsday just puts you at 5, gives you like 6 more storm count. I'm wondering why more people don't play this lock, cause definitely not every storm combo deck I've played has doomsday. Maybe it takes up too much space cause you have to run meditate and top. I, too, wasn't able to put you on combo early enough g1 of match 1, cause you opened with a blue dual and a top or something, which could easily be other stuff, and then turn 2 you still played ponder and brainstorms.

Doomsday is the big problem, and mage is pretty bad against decks that have 3 ways to win. True believer lets you start your combo first and then find an answer, so it's bad. We want our hate to stop you from casting Ad Nauseam or whatever else, not to let you draw 10 cards first, and then produce the answer.

We'll happily run more thorns if the matchup starts to become prevalent. Right now the 2 sideboard slots we dedicate to this deck is because 2 SB slots is pretty cheap and we do still want to win the MU, but I don't see it all that often.

They were fun games. Thanks for your perspective. I retract that statement about the difference in matchup vs. piceli and green one being just a statistical fluctuation, I think I did much better against piceli partly due to luck and partly due to no doomsday.

Forbiddian
11-27-2009, 02:08 PM
I don't know what are you siding in the other matchups, but only considering combo decks, it would be a better move to sideboard an Ench/Artifacts and hate bears (Glowrider, True Believer, MM, Aven Mindcenson, etc) split, so that the ANT player just have to draw the right removal spell instead of just a random disenchant effect.

Enlightened Tutor is too good against other combo decks. The only card we could possibly cut would be 1x Thorn of Amethyst, but even if I know that you're running only disenchants, is Glowrider actually better than Thorn of Amethyst?

Obviously if the combo player knows our decklist precisely, they'll have a slight advantage, so there's a modicum of information advantage if we draw Glowrider (and we don't lose because it's not Thorn... we only run 18 lands and 4 of them we want to use Wasting, and there's a big difference between Thorn turn 2 and turn 3).

Also, there's the disadvantage game 2 to Glowrider when almost everyone brings in hate thinking we have Meddling Mage. If we have Glowrider it'll just get Banished, but Thorn of Amethyst sticks them in a really tough spot.

Even if they lose game 2, they might still be reluctant to board out creature hate, thinking, "He has to have Meddling Mages also, because he's UW." It's only after playing 3-5 games that you'd come to realize that for sure, we don't have any mages and it's safe to board out creature kill.


So you're right: There's an information war going on, where the TES player tries to figure out exactly what we have and we try to make them think we have other stuff. But it's only after a number of games (or reading this thread) that the TES player will understand that they have to bring in Ench/Art removal and completely ignore creatures.

In a typical "best of 3" setting, we can probably get out of two games before they know for sure we don't have Mages (or Glowriders, etc.).

Piceli89
11-27-2009, 02:36 PM
Enlightened Tutor is too good against other combo decks. The only card we could possibly cut would be 1x Thorn of Amethyst, but even if I know that you're running only disenchants, is Glowrider actually better than Thorn of Amethyst?

Obviously if the combo player knows our decklist precisely, they'll have a slight advantage, so there's a modicum of information advantage if we draw Glowrider (and we don't lose because it's not Thorn... we only run 18 lands and 4 of them we want to use Wasting, and there's a big difference between Thorn turn 2 and turn 3).

Also, there's the disadvantage game 2 to Glowrider when almost everyone brings in hate thinking we have Meddling Mage. If we have Glowrider it'll just get Banished, but Thorn of Amethyst sticks them in a really tough spot.

Even if they lose game 2, they might still be reluctant to board out creature hate, thinking, "He has to have Meddling Mages also, because he's UW." It's only after playing 3-5 games that you'd come to realize that for sure, we don't have any mages and it's safe to board out creature kill.


So you're right: There's an information war going on, where the TES player tries to figure out exactly what we have and we try to make them think we have other stuff. But it's only after a number of games (or reading this thread) that the TES player will understand that they have to bring in Ench/Art removal and completely ignore creatures.

In a typical "best of 3" setting, we can probably get out of two games before they know for sure we don't have Mages (or Glowriders, etc.).

I'd like to add that this deck should perform way better against TES than how it does ANT, since TES runs 11-12 lands against the 14-14 ANT usually packs; moreover, it doesn't run any kind of fetch nor any basic land, so Wasteland=Strip Mine. Add to this the fact that you run Wasteland-tutors in the form of Wayfarer (which doesn't always work tho', since they'll be more likely to be behind you in terms of lands), free disruption, and you should be ok.
Post sideboard Thorn really hurts them; even when i played against pi4meter i found Thorn to be really damnly disturbing with ANT, i wouldn't even imagine with TES. To me it's the best kind of anti-combo tool avaiable for this deck, because it's impossible to go off with in on the board and it's more difficult to bounce it rather than, say, a Canonist. The NG player just has to keep a mana open to cast FoW on the bounce (unless it's KGrip or Wipe Away), and he's basically done.

@Pi4Meter: i should have boarded in a different way playing the hybrid version of ANT in all our matches , the point is that i didn't know your deck very well so i thought it to be a UW fish with a twist. Now if we're gonna meet again on the mws i'll try a different approach, even if i'm sure that you'll topdeck those 2 lonely thorns and i will screw like a bitch :laugh: (joking, I'm very happy to be useful for testings, and I apologize if I wasn't worth of representing (DD-)ANT, but this deck scaries the shit out of me so much that I play like a real Combo-noob :tongue: ).

pi4meterftw
11-27-2009, 05:28 PM
I am currently playing an extended version of this deck. I am still not an awesome pilot, but I'm practicing. If you want to test/practice as well, please contact me.

The list is:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
2 [BD] Island (3)
4 [DIS] Hallowed Fountain
3 [9E] Plains (1)
2 [DIS] Azorius Chancery
2 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
4 [DD2] Fathom Seer
4 [DIS] Court Hussar
3 [TSP] Serra Avenger
4 [ARB] Meddling Mage
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt

// Spells
3 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
3 [MR] Empyrial Plate
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
1 [DIS] Condemn
1 [RAV] Compulsive Research

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [10E] Aura of Silence
SB: 4 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [TSP] Return to Dust
SB: 1 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender

Tao
11-27-2009, 07:36 PM
Some ideas to the 1.x list (which looks like it could work quite well against the Meta):

- The list might need 1 or 2 more Basics. The meta is pretty fast so you don't want to hurt yourself, especially with Fathom Seer bouncing Fountain seems too painful. Either cut Chancerys or reduce Fountain. The base can also be strenghtened by 2 Mystic Gates or Glacial Fortresses.

- Have you thought about 3-4 Chrome Mox? The Legacy list has 20 T1 plays (FoW, Swords, Mother, Wayfarer, Vial, Vision) while this has only 8 (Wayfarer, Vision, Condemn - Pathing on turn 1 is usually not a good idea). Because the fastest Aggro deck (Zoo) is pretty much the same in both formats I think you cannot play a so much slower version.
You'd have to cut Empyrial Plate which would make room for Vision, KotR and Avenger #4. This list plays a lot of card draw so I think it can easily compensate the card loss plus the Mox has synergy with Knight and Wayfarer.

- The metagame is pretty defined, so chances are high that you run into Dredge, Dark Depths, Hypergenesis or Zoo. Against Dredge I think you should play either Crypt or Ravenous Trap (or a 2/2 mix of both) instead of Relic because being forced to pay 1 and then leave 1 open forever slows you down too much. Hypergenesis will have 4 Firespout postboard without any doubt so there is no need to lose an early MM that had to be set on Hypergenesis AND the Canonist to it. Instead go for Chalice on 0. Against Zoo you need just one thing: Fast removal, as fast as it gets. Explosives just doesn't do it when they go T1 Lynx, T2 Geopede. So I would suggest to pack the remaining 3 Condemns there and they will work against Rubin Zoos big guys just as well. For the Depths/Hexmage matchup I have no ideas since their threads and solutions are so wide spread. My best idea would be Oblivion Ring because it deals with Confidant, Bitterblossom, Chalice and Hexmage and because it seems solid on the other matchups too, but I have no idea how that matchup would work out anyways. Just don't be overconfident only because of the Wayfarer/ Ghost Quarter engine. It helps, but does not win on its own.

4 Ravenous Trap / Crypt
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Condemn
4

Azania
11-27-2009, 08:30 PM
I'm interested in testing this deck but have 1 worry. How does deck deal with CB decks. Especially when it hits play and all you have are 1~2 mana costing cards. Seems very dangerous. Also you have no way to protect your jittes or vial from any artifact destruction aside from the 7 counters.

If I am missing something please let me know. It seems when jitte gets removed you are depending on your smaller creatures to deal lethal damage. Which aside from Grunt aren't very big.

Forbiddian
11-28-2009, 02:49 AM
I'm interested in testing this deck but have 1 worry. How does deck deal with CB decks. Especially when it hits play and all you have are 1~2 mana costing cards. Seems very dangerous.

Counterbalance/Top combination isn't assembled every game.

You can win the game through a Counterbalance if you keep up land destruction with Wastelands and/or Wayfarer. With just two lands, it's very hard for them to develop their board while continuing to keep a tight Countertop lock against you.

Post-board, you get Aura of Silence, which is extremely effective against Counterbalance, both preemptively and reactively.

And probably most-importantly: Nobody is playing Counterbalance. If there's a matchup you can write off now, it's the Counterbalance matchup. There's more Zoo, TempoThresh, Goblins, Merfolk, TES, and Ichorid than CB right now. It's no longer the end-all-be-all of Legacy the way it was around the time of Chicago, so to me, the question of "how do you beat Counterbalance" comes behind the questions, "How do you beat: zoo, Tempo Thresh, Goblins, Merfolk, TES, and Ichorid?" Everything said, our matchup is like 40% against CB Thresh, so it is below 50%, and this isn't a great pick if your metagame is completely infested with CB/Thresh.

If CB is truly the ONLY matchup you care about, then you should obviously play Zoo, which gets like 60% or something. If you have a more developed metagame, I wouldn't worry too much about it.


Also you have no way to protect your jittes or vial from any artifact destruction aside from the 7 counters.

If I am missing something please let me know. It seems when jitte gets removed you are depending on your smaller creatures to deal lethal damage. Which aside from Grunt aren't very big.

... what else would you want? How many people do you know are packing like a thousand copies of Disenchant? I've never run into problems with my opponents running too many disenchant effects.

Why would anyone think that Grunt is the only big creature in the deck? He's not at all more aggressive than Serra Avenger, and all the other creatures generate card advantage. I win maybe a third of the games without Jitte. It's generally a great trump card, but you'd be surprised how often it's not needed. I mean, compare to Tempo Thresh:

4 Goyfs, 4 Nimble Mongooses. And people think Tempo Thresh is aggressive and that we can't win without Jitte. Give me a break.

pi4meterftw
11-28-2009, 03:13 AM
Some ideas to the 1.x list (which looks like it could work quite well against the Meta):

- The list might need 1 or 2 more Basics. The meta is pretty fast so you don't want to hurt yourself, especially with Fathom Seer bouncing Fountain seems too painful. Either cut Chancerys or reduce Fountain. The base can also be strenghtened by 2 Mystic Gates or Glacial Fortresses.

- Have you thought about 3-4 Chrome Mox? The Legacy list has 20 T1 plays (FoW, Swords, Mother, Wayfarer, Vial, Vision) while this has only 8 (Wayfarer, Vision, Condemn - Pathing on turn 1 is usually not a good idea). Because the fastest Aggro deck (Zoo) is pretty much the same in both formats I think you cannot play a so much slower version.
You'd have to cut Empyrial Plate which would make room for Vision, KotR and Avenger #4. This list plays a lot of card draw so I think it can easily compensate the card loss plus the Mox has synergy with Knight and Wayfarer.

- The metagame is pretty defined, so chances are high that you run into Dredge, Dark Depths, Hypergenesis or Zoo. Against Dredge I think you should play either Crypt or Ravenous Trap (or a 2/2 mix of both) instead of Relic because being forced to pay 1 and then leave 1 open forever slows you down too much. Hypergenesis will have 4 Firespout postboard without any doubt so there is no need to lose an early MM that had to be set on Hypergenesis AND the Canonist to it. Instead go for Chalice on 0. Against Zoo you need just one thing: Fast removal, as fast as it gets. Explosives just doesn't do it when they go T1 Lynx, T2 Geopede. So I would suggest to pack the remaining 3 Condemns there and they will work against Rubin Zoos big guys just as well. For the Depths/Hexmage matchup I have no ideas since their threads and solutions are so wide spread. My best idea would be Oblivion Ring because it deals with Confidant, Bitterblossom, Chalice and Hexmage and because it seems solid on the other matchups too, but I have no idea how that matchup would work out anyways. Just don't be overconfident only because of the Wayfarer/ Ghost Quarter engine. It helps, but does not win on its own.

4 Ravenous Trap / Crypt
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Condemn
4

The basic lands suggestion is a good idea, but in reality I don't need that many lands, and all the nonbasics I'm already running are required. The chalice over ethersworn canonist is a great suggestion, and I take it. I didn't know that ETW, pyromancer's swath were not played. Chalice and ethersworn are both good against hypergenesis and elf combo.

It's much less important in extended to have a turn 1 drop because you can fill that void by playing a dual land. Also, the format is slower. Additionally, condemn is a reasonable play, meaning that we have 7 1 drops and an 8th that might occasionally be played targetting, say, a nacatl.

IAmTheBestEver
11-28-2009, 08:35 AM
Over in the merfolk thread someone mentioned that them running Weathered Wayfarer in merfolk would be like running Lord of Atlantis in NoGoyf. He is blue and I was wondering what you guys thought of him as an efficient 2/2 for 2 beater. He also drops of vial pretty early if you happen to have one in play. I could see it being an issue if an opponent plays changelings, though.

pi4meterftw
11-28-2009, 12:36 PM
Over in the merfolk thread someone mentioned that them running Weathered Wayfarer in merfolk would be like running Lord of Atlantis in NoGoyf. He is blue and I was wondering what you guys thought of him as an efficient 2/2 for 2 beater. He also drops of vial pretty early if you happen to have one in play. I could see it being an issue if an opponent plays changelings, though.

Well done, sir!

Unrelatedly, here is my list where I have taken in some suggestions:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
2 [BD] Island (3)
4 [DIS] Hallowed Fountain
3 [9E] Plains (1)
2 [DIS] Azorius Chancery
2 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
4 [DD2] Fathom Seer
4 [DIS] Court Hussar
3 [TSP] Serra Avenger
4 [ARB] Meddling Mage
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt

// Spells
3 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
3 [MR] Empyrial Plate
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
1 [DIS] Condemn
1 [RAV] Compulsive Research

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [DIS] Condemn
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [10E] Aura of Silence
SB: 3 [TSP] Return to Dust
SB: 2 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender
SB: 1 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void

Again, this is the extended version.

Goaswerfraiejen
11-28-2009, 12:55 PM
This deck truly looks like a pile. With that said, I've given it a few spins, particularly against my own pet (UGB Intuition-Thresh), and the sheer draw-power seems to tend to smooth out what might otherwise be kinks. In fact, unless my opening hand sets up a stable manabase, it's very difficult for me to win the matchup. Part of that is simply due to not being entirely sure what I'm better off attacking; but a lot of it has to do with the first few turns of the game. If I can assemble two basic lands (Forest, Swamp) and make a Hierarch stick, then I can surf in under the radar: either NG starts developing their mana, or they lose. If that situation can be established, then I can win. Otherwise, I've found that Wayfarer and StP wreak too much havoc on my manabase, so that although it takes a number of turns before I actually lose the game, it's very difficult to recover from those early losses.






... what else would you want? How many people do you know are packing like a thousand copies of Disenchant? I've never run into problems with my opponents running too many disenchant effects.

Why would anyone think that Grunt is the only big creature in the deck? He's not at all more aggressive than Serra Avenger, and all the other creatures generate card advantage. I win maybe a third of the games without Jitte. It's generally a great trump card, but you'd be surprised how often it's not needed.

The back-breakers for me are Jitte and Mother of Runes. I can deal with MoM and Jitte easily enough, but there's so much draw power in the deck that the third Jitte tends to stick long enough to make a real difference, or MoM ends up allowing the little 1-power bastards through for the win. Of the games that I've lost against NG, I'd say the majority ended up being lost to those tiny 1-power fuckers. The problem, once you know what you're facing (a factor that can't be discounted), is that none of what you end up destroying is particularly important to the deck. Avenger and Grunt are obvious removal targets, but since the deck only runs two of each, it's not really a setback at all. This, in turn, forces you to expend valuable resources dealing with otherwise innocuous creatures. And you can do this for a number of turns, but eventually you run out of steam, while this deck has enough draw power to fight its way back very quickly. Given time and testing, I'm sure I could develop a more coherent strategy for my deck to deal with NG, since it has all the cards/removal it needs to be a difficult matchup for NG, but the fact will always remain that just about everything hinges on that opening hand. And that's not something that I can fix.

Now, like others, I'm not sold on the effectiveness of Vial or Visions. Vial, in particular, strikes me as a weaker link. I certainly understand the rationale behind running it, and behind running so few copies, but in the games that I've tested, I have yet to really see Vial enabling the serious Wayfarer shenanigans that it wants to. I think the deck would run just fine without it. s for Visions, I don't have a ready replacement off the top of my head.


Anyhow, there you are. Some small input. The deck definitely looks bad but it pilots well, and that's important.


EDIT: The list above looks much smoother to me, actually, even if it's more appropriate to Ext. I'll give that a spin as well, adapted to Legacy. PtE, in particular, seems more promising than StP, given the land-synergy and the fact that 1-power creatures have a harder time of it when StP gives the opponent all kinds of life-gain.

Oh yeah, and I prefer calling it Wayfarer-Fish to No-Goyf, since it's more descriptive of the deck. But that's just a personal quirk. :tongue:

Tao
11-28-2009, 01:30 PM
PtE is horrendous in the Legacy version because giving the opponent Basic Lands into play kinda messed up the Wayfarer/Wasteland plan.

pi4meterftw
11-28-2009, 01:55 PM
PtE is horrendous in the Legacy version because giving the opponent Basic Lands into play kinda messed up the Wayfarer/Wasteland plan.

Who suggested running PTE in the legacy version?

Oh I see. Yeah... that was an ext version. It would die in legacy. The duals are strictly inferior, the wastelands are far inferior, lack of countermagic etc. Also, path is indeed a horrible choice.

Tao
11-28-2009, 02:41 PM
In his edit he explicitly says he wants to try PtE over StP in the Legacy version.

Goaswerfraiejen
11-28-2009, 03:59 PM
I fully realized that it was an EXT version of the deck, and as such it had some card choices that would be sub-optimal in Legacy. On the other hand, it looks to me like the deck has a little more cohesion in the EXT version proposed.

One of the choices that was particularly interesting, I thought, was using PtE. Again, I fully realize that it grants basic lands, and that this goes against the ideal Wayfarer-Wasteland tech combo. On the other hand, it also helps you to keep Wayfarer viable, since it helps your opponent's land count. The thought was that, to a large extent, the advantage given might be negligible if you consider how many and which basics most Legacy decks run, and if you consider that you're still disrupting the non-basic side of things. If the observation that one-power dudes are usually the ones that break through was accurate, then that helps to prevent Time Walking yourself four+ times with StP. I mean, it seems to me that creatures are only going to be cast on the other side of the board when the Wasteland tech starts to wear thin or become ineffective: at that point, your concern is less about how many lands your opponent has than it is with having your creatures connect quickly.

It was just a point of interest, nothing more. I'm not committed to saying it's better (or worse) in Legacy, just that it was a thought.

pi4meterftw
11-29-2009, 12:42 AM
I fully realized that it was an EXT version of the deck, and as such it had some card choices that would be sub-optimal in Legacy. On the other hand, it looks to me like the deck has a little more cohesion in the EXT version proposed.

One of the choices that was particularly interesting, I thought, was using PtE. Again, I fully realize that it grants basic lands, and that this goes against the ideal Wayfarer-Wasteland tech combo. On the other hand, it also helps you to keep Wayfarer viable, since it helps your opponent's land count. The thought was that, to a large extent, the advantage given might be negligible if you consider how many and which basics most Legacy decks run, and if you consider that you're still disrupting the non-basic side of things. If the observation that one-power dudes are usually the ones that break through was accurate, then that helps to prevent Time Walking yourself four+ times with StP. I mean, it seems to me that creatures are only going to be cast on the other side of the board when the Wasteland tech starts to wear thin or become ineffective: at that point, your concern is less about how many lands your opponent has than it is with having your creatures connect quickly.

It was just a point of interest, nothing more. I'm not committed to saying it's better (or worse) in Legacy, just that it was a thought.

Opponent gaining life is roughly nothing. Opponent gaining a basic land is not approximately nothing. Why would we care if our opponent gains life? Going on the offensive is one of our last priorities. We run creatures, but that's just because it so happens in legacy right now creatures are better control spells than control. I mean yes, it literally says 1/3, 2/2, 4/4, 3/3 etc. on our creatures but you should think of it as more approximately:

Instead of usual draw spells, we run creature draw spells.
Instead of usual mass removal, we run jitte
etc. etc.

Once you get beyond the expectation that creatures have to be 10/10s or whatever, it'll be easy to see why this deck succeeds.

Sevryn
11-29-2009, 05:05 AM
Is there room in the land-base for Maze of Ith? With the tutoring power of Wayfarer, NG should be able to find it fairly consistently without running too many copies.

Forbiddian
11-29-2009, 07:57 PM
Is there room in the land-base for Maze of Ith? With the tutoring power of Wayfarer, NG should be able to find it fairly consistently without running too many copies.

Tutoring Maze of Ith usually isn't a good play. When we have an active Wayfarer, we try to play fewer lands than the opponent, and Maze of Ith gives us less flexibility and performance than a land would most of the time. It gives you the ability to let them trade a creature on offense for a land. Unfortunately when we have active Wayfarer, they would almost always try to trade a Goyf or something for the ability to play a land if they could.

Against mono-colored decks when you don't have Wasteland access as easily, it's still not that great, because many mono-colored decks use swarm-style offenses, and removing one attacker generally isn't as good as playing a land that lets you catch up.

There are times when I might want to tutor it up, and it was a good idea (tested a while back), but it's too niche to be worth all the times that we'd end up drawing it.

Kagehisa
12-02-2009, 11:41 AM
Hello

I would like to ask something about Fathom Seer and his interaction with Aether Vial (again). Hum... I play MUC or Stasis. In my testings, I tried to replace Ophidian by Fathom Seer. In MUC, it doesn't work because it ruins my lands drop when I use fathom's ability to draw the 2 cards. In NoGoyf, I understood that bouncing 2 islands wasn't a probleme because you want to use the wayfarer or save a Tundra targeted by a nasty Wasteland or something else. I was wondering if Ophidian (with the so loved "Mom's" support) was better than Fathom Seer. It costs 3 manas like a morphed Fathom (that costs 2 to cast face up), can makes you draw cards too, can be drop with vial for three counters on it (instead of 2 for the Fathom, bad thing ?) but still makes you draw if you give it evasion with Mom (protection I mean).

So my question is : Ophidian or Fathom ? Don't be afraid to answer. I have no idea about that. I just want to know your feeling about that choice. I mean I won't fight for a choice that can be based on tests or tastes ;) (XD My first english joke!!)

Another point about Vial. It "gives" flash in some way your creatures. Have you ever tested Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir ? With the omnipresent Mom, all your creatures are safe if Teferi joins the team. No way for the opponent to cast before Mom's protection resolves. Yes, it cost 5 manas and I don't know if your deck can produce 5 manas before Teferi becomes a "winmore". Better than Vial (in late game) ?

The last question is : Any room for Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir ?

Atwa
12-02-2009, 11:56 AM
So my question is : Ophidian or Fathom ? Don't be afraid to answer. I have no idea about that. I just want to know your feeling about that choice. I mean I won't fight for a choice that can be based on tests or tastes ;) (XD My first english joke!!)

I don't really get why people still want to play Ophidian. Isn't Augury Adept a lot better? Both have no evasion, Adept still deals 2 damage and it gives you life.

Now I don't have any experience with this deck, but I was just wondering.

Kagehisa
12-02-2009, 12:12 PM
Yes, you're right; Augury Adept is better than Ophidan. I forgot this card. I don't know why people would still want to play Ophidian... maybe because they forget Augury Adept. I don't play Ophidian anymore... but yes, in a blue/white deck, Augury Adept is better. Even in a blue XD. The only thing is that the adept reveals your card but the life gain can compense maybe. I really don't know...

The question becomes : Augury Adept or Fathom Seer ?

You know what, Atwa ? Let's the NoGoyf players decide ! I am too noob with NoGoyf to pretend to know what might improve the deck... Hey dude, we both were wondering ! XD

Atwa
12-02-2009, 01:47 PM
You know what, Atwa ? Let's the NoGoyf players decide ! I am too noob with NoGoyf to pretend to know what might improve the deck... Hey dude, we both were wondering ! XD

Haha, but I was just curious about why play Ophidian :) I've tested this deck a little and I know it's not my kind of deck to play.

I'll keep checking on for the answer though.

Forbiddian
12-02-2009, 01:50 PM
Haha, but I was just curious about why play Ophidian :) I've tested this deck a little and I know it's not my kind of deck to play.

I'll keep checking on for the answer though.

Ophidian is shit. Do you really need someone with it in his name to point that out to you?

stuckpixel
12-09-2009, 01:36 PM
Have a few questions:

Creature slots, specifically Serra Avenger and Court Hussar - do these numbers stay pretty static for you or do you modify them depending on the expected meta? I'm not sure how often you'd want to see multiples of either, but they both seem like they'd be pretty solid carrying a jitte.

Is this deck playable on less than 4 tundra? I'm in the process of building it - but I probably won't have 4x tundra for a little while (unless things go really well in my fantasy football leagues). It seems like it's pretty crucial for your lands to all be islands for daze and fathom seer.

hjalte
12-09-2009, 03:05 PM
I have played the deck a few times (the version from a year or so ago) with only 2 tundra, and it worked pretty well. Just remember to have 8 fetches, which can get plains, as plains is heavily needed for wayfarer and Swords

Forbiddian
12-09-2009, 10:19 PM
Have a few questions:

Creature slots, specifically Serra Avenger and Court Hussar - do these numbers stay pretty static for you or do you modify them depending on the expected meta? I'm not sure how often you'd want to see multiples of either, but they both seem like they'd be pretty solid carrying a jitte.

Is this deck playable on less than 4 tundra? I'm in the process of building it - but I probably won't have 4x tundra for a little while (unless things go really well in my fantasy football leagues). It seems like it's pretty crucial for your lands to all be islands for daze and fathom seer.

Recently Avenger/CH has been constant. I really want to add more Avengers, but you can't add any without cutting blue (the white spells are all better), and you can't cut blue because Force of Will would get hard to cast.

Court Hussar might go up in really controllish metagames, but it would have to be a crazy control meta to do that, and I don't really think those exist (most are undeveloped aggro metas).


2 Tundra would probably be playable. I guess you'd replace the other two with a third plains and a second Island. 3 is definitely playable, you just replace one with either a plains or fetchland. Especially if there isn't that much Wasteland in your metagame, you can get away with fewer tundras.

The big play you want to be able to make that two tundras would miss is bouncing two Tundras to hand, and then cast Knight for a Tundra.

Also after getting double wasted, you still want to be able to Fathom Seer later in the game. If you just have two tundra, it might be fairly difficult to Fathom Seer at all, and people noting that could exploit that factor (generally land destruction doesn't work at all against this deck). With only two tundras, you need to add a second basic island, which generally isn't good.

pi4meterftw
12-16-2009, 03:57 PM
I'd like to keep the blue count at or above 18 or so, but it'd be convenient if we could cut ancestral vision and court hussar. These three are easily the worst three cards in the deck, and some things on the list Matt and I came up together: (This is really a union of lists, we didn't both agree to everything on the list yet.)

Divert
Spellstutter sprite
Sower of temptation
Threads of disloyalty
Vendillion Clique
Counterbalance/top

He's currently testing divert and I'm currently testing counterbalance top. Any other suggestions? Phoenix has suggested mimeomancer but it seems like clique is better at instant speed and with the disruption/extra information it reveals. (Or perhaps the ability to ditch one of your bad cards.) In extended, this typically enables meddling mage, but in legacy this is somewhat slow.

We'll be keeping our eyes open when Worldwake comes around.

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [A] Tundra
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [TE] Wasteland
2 [9E] Plains (1)
1 [BD] Island (3)

// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
4 [DD2] Fathom Seer
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
1 [DIS] Court Hussar
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid

// Spells
4 [BD] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [OV] Swords to Plowshares
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
2 [DS] AEther Vial
3 [NE] Daze
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [CS] Counterbalance

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 3 [10E] Aura of Silence
SB: 2 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 4 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender
SB: 1 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor

Is the list I've been playing. Hussar stayed to keep the creature and blue count up, but ancestral visions were cut. Avengers were also cut; we've agreed that 4 is too many because they can't be cast until turn 4 and Matt likened having them or AVs to "mulligans until turn 4/5 respectively."

I think this justifies their complete removal, though, even though mom with avenger is such a tight combo, as well as jitte with avenger.

Counterbalance top lets us equip jitte with confidence that we won't get tempod by swords/lightning bolt, or whatever other removal. We have an awesome curve for it, and it also increases our TES/ANT MU even more.

Maybe future versions of this deck will make room for some avengers. Vigilance really was a pretty big deal against goblins. I think our goblins MU improvement was already on diminishing returns since we were beating it pretty hard with 4 moms, 4 BFT, and we cut cards that were horrid against goblins in the first place for the new cards as well. (AV)

Anyway, hopefully Matt will chime in with his thoughts on divert. We'll be testing the new cards. Both and the rest of the list are all possibilities so we will see. As an aside, in case anybody thinks of this I have thought about using scroll rack with counterbalance instead so we can ditch our extra lands as well. However, it's much more clumsy with counterbalance since you must maintain a hand with the variety of casting costs you want, and you must use it twice to restore the original state of affairs. Also, you can only guarantee one counter per turn.

Phoenix Ignition
12-16-2009, 04:45 PM
I liked Looter Il-Kor in testing. It provided an offensive way to charge the Jitte and not be put in danger by tapping mom for it. Also removes excess lands from your hand which is a plus. I saw it as a way to cut visions while keeping creature and blue counts up, while still having a cantrip in the deck. Aether vial gets used more at 2 then as well. Obviously 4 would be too many.

Divert is bad maindeck. I haven't tried it in this deck but I have in merfolk and you won't hit it often enough against good enough spells to actually include it. You also have to keep mana open, which sparked your original tirade. If anything spell pierce should go here, as that card is freaking amazing.

Aggro_zombies
12-16-2009, 05:13 PM
Spellstutter Sprite is a pretty good tempo play, and probably better than the random 2-of Counterbalance. In my experience, Counterbalance really needs to be an all or nothing deal since late-game Counterbalance lock is pretty much irrelevant, so not having both components very early on makes Counterbalance in particular much worse. Top is pretty much always good, but I don't see it being something this deck necessarily wants. Sprite stops Swords/Path, most relevant burn, Top, Grim Lavamancer, Spell Snare, Vial, Chant/Silence, etc - and that's just the first one, as subsequent Sprites will be able to stop bigger and bigger spells. If you go with four of them, you end up with a counter suite of 4 Sprite, 4 Force, 3 Daze, which is pretty brutal.

Sower is a bit above this deck's curve, but it might be worth testing.

Divert seems pretty mediocre. I'd play Spell Pierce or Stifle before I played Divert. I mean, seriously, what spells are you desperate to redirect in this format?

FieryBalrog
12-16-2009, 06:03 PM
Without Avenger though, the deck is pretty much entirely reliant on Jitte, and I think the tiny size of the guys was already a problem (they function fine as control elements, but relying on 1 power dudes who get outclassed if they get sneezed on in combat relies too much on complete control of the game from trying out the list...)

Forbiddian
12-16-2009, 09:46 PM
Without Avenger though, the deck is pretty much entirely reliant on Jitte, and I think the tiny size of the guys was already a problem (they function fine as control elements, but relying on 1 power dudes who get outclassed if they get sneezed on in combat relies too much on complete control of the game from trying out the list...)

QFT/What I have been arguing. Jeff made it sound like I wanted to cut Angel, for whatever reason, but I've actually been running three copies recently.

A lot of times it boils down to trench warfare when they can't attack profitably and you can't attack at all. Then Angel wins the game. It's definitely the one card you want to see against: Landstill and Threshold.



Spellstutter This is a good card, probably worth testing if I had more time. With only two vials, though, and playing this deck, it's pretty hard to keep two untapped, and your opponent might play into two drops anyway.

I guess that's the same argument vs. Divert.


Divert

It has been good so far, but not as good as I'd hoped, so I cut it. The thing is you don't have to stay open for Divert the whole game, because there are only small timing windows where your opponent is looking to remove your guys or play a Hymn or Sinkhole. There are situations like where you have Jitte or you vial in an endstep mom where you know your opponent will try to spot up the removal, and getting a Divert in under those circumstances is almost always game-winning as it nets you a 2:1 with incredible tempo.

I dunno, it might go in the board as a 1-of, it was just incredible against Zoo, which is our toughest common matchup.


I've been more happy with Spell Pierce, which is better than Force against Storm and control and also pretty good in most matchups.

pi4meterftw
12-18-2009, 01:41 PM
I may play at the legacy tournament on the 3rd. I will not play at the Extended PTQs on the second because baneslayers, duals, are cards that have no long term value, but cost a lot right now.

So I'm going to reveal the list I probably would have played. If you're interested in playing nogoyf in a format where it's dominating instead of only good, look into extended. (It's why I looked into extended.)

// Lands
2 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
1 [BD] Island (3)
4 [DIS] Hallowed Fountain
4 [9E] Plains (1)
1 [DIS] Azorius Chancery
2 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
1 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [M10] Glacial Fortress

// Creatures
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
4 [DIS] Court Hussar
4 [ARB] Meddling Mage
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
4 [9E] Weathered Wayfarer
3 [M10] Baneslayer Angel

// Spells
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
2 [TSP] Return to Dust
1 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
2 [DIS] Condemn
4 [TSP] Careful Consideration

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 2 [TSP] Return to Dust
SB: 2 [DIS] Condemn
SB: 1 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [SOK] Kataki, War's Wage
SB: 1 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender

Beats zoo because of 6/8 removal after board, beats affinity and thopter because of return to dust main and return/kataki side. Condemn also comes in vs. affinity, beats midrange aggro because it can draw into and protect baneslayer much easier than the other deck can. (If it even has baneslayer at all.) Also careful consideration is awesome.

It beats combo because the combo decks of the format are fragile. Mage stops them, and then if they resolve, half the time they're not even lethal. (Like hypergenesis.) Sometimes hypergenesis even leaves the board state at parity if you have baneslayer and other stuff, with like 1 removal spell.

Forbiddian
12-23-2009, 04:21 AM
Well, I went to a pretty fun local/pickup tournament in SD. The decks overall were pretty competitive, but only 7 people so :-(. Whatever that's worth.

Placed 2nd with outdated decklist. Here's what I played:

//Creatures
4x Serra Avenger
4x Mother of Runes
4x Weathered Wayfarer
4x Fathom Seer
1x Court Hussar
2x Jotun Grunt

//Spells
3x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
3x Ancestral Vision
4x Swords to Plowshares

//Other
2x Aether Vial
3x Umezawa's Jitte

//Lands
3x Wasteland
4x Windswept Heath
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
2x Plains
1x Island


Round 1 vs. Charlie on Dreadstill Ugr:
I win the roll and we both take one mulligan each. I get out a Vial + Wayfarer going.

He Stifles an early Wasteland and I think he might be Tempo Thresh, since I don't really know his deck, but I decide to play more aggressively when I see the Top. He plays a Counterbalance quickly after, but he can't assemble the lands to toplock me completely out. I continually wasteland him, keeping him on 1-2 lands so he can't effectively top or even play spells. To compound the problem, he started missing land drops after his fourth or fifth land, and I was even able to resolve a Facedown underneath CB/Top noting that he missed his land drop.

He decides to dig out two Islands just to try to get something going, but Dreadstill functioning as MUC doesn't work out too well.

I end up beating him down with 1/1s and a 1/3 until I get Angel out. I end up with Mom, Wayfarer, Fathom Seer (face up), and Serra Avenger. He rips and plays Dreadnought/Stifle, but it's one turn too late. I have more than 12 life and he only has 10. I swing him for 5 down to 5. Dreadnought can't even attack (the crack back is barely fatal), and Angel takes the game home as Charlie's top lets him down.

With just UU on the table and looking for lands, I don't think there are any outs that could have saved him (Angel flies over 2R for Firespout), but he apparently forgot to draw a card the turn before his last draw step after musing over a top activation for a while. The game was pretty long (like turn 15 or so). I offered to count up all the cards to see, but Charlie decides to scoop in the interest of time, since maybe he knew there weren't any outs left for him.

Game 2 goes to time. Actually way over time.

Again he ends up with CB/Top lock, but Wayfarer makes CB/Top more or less a push. This tends to lead to an extremely drawn-out game as he tries to maneuver anything onto the board without losing the lock and I try to sculpt a play that can put a game-winning threat onto the board. Highlights included an early Firespout going 4:1 but leaving me up on cards because the stuff he killed was like Fathom Seer and Weathered Wayfarer. Time is called and it's a draw.

Round 2, Max on Dragon Stompy:

I hate Dragon Stompy. I've tested it a lot, and it's a positive matchup, but it always makes you feel like you don't have any control whatsoever as to your fate.

Game 1 I win the roll and a Jitte hand, so I win the game. Turn 1 Mother of Runes outpaces turn 1 Chalice @ 1, then turn 2 Jitte. He has I think Blood Moon. W/e. I already tutored basics out. I swing with Mom and charge up Jitte.

On his turn, he plays Seething Song. Ok. Then he plays Arc-Slogger into Daze. GG. He also had Rakdos Pit Dragon, but by then Mom had 2 counters already and could just run Rakdos over.

Game 2 I see no land and mulligan. Then I see: Vial, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Daze, Jitte, Tundra Tundra. Pretty much the best hand I could hope for, I only lose to one piece of hate: Chalice @ 1, (3 sphere is about a push, but this hand totally rapes Blood Moon), and then he has to follow it with more disruption or I'll win off of Jitte as soon as I see a creature.

Sure enough, he goes: turn 1 Chalice @ 1, turn 2 Magus (Guiding my Daze), turn 3 Changeling guy, and I get beat down going on the hopeless quest for a creature. Dragon Stompying me.

Game 3 against Dragon Stompy. Fortunately, Max Dragon Stompies himself this game and takes a mulligan whereas I draw double Force of Will opening hand and soon win.

Finals vs. Sean on Merfolk:

We talk about how I feel about the NoGoyf matchup and I say it's like 60-65% against Non-Jitte Merfolk. He says that my creatures don't do anything, but I kinda feel the opposite is true, and that the game just comes down to the Jitte, which I have and they usually don't have.

So with the stakes raised up, we begin.

Game 1: No land, Mulligan. No land, Mulligan. Fuck. Keeping Vial, Angel, Land, Land, Swords. Pretty much the best possible five, but I topdeck two land over the next two turns while Sean is Vialing in Silvergills and Lords. I keep it close when I set up a 3:1 play off of Swords on a Lord of Atlantis, but he has the Force, then the Force for my Force and I'm out of cards. GG.

Game 2: Nobody mulligans, and I open with Vial. I never see a Jitte (sucks). Still, the fact that any given turn, I could rip Jitte and win makes him play aggressively into a Vial @ 2 and it rapes him twice (once on a 3:2 play where two swords took out his Lord and then Angel kills his muta) and then later Jotun Grunt came in to kill a 3/3 Lord and seal the game up. Angel beats him down and eventually he scoops.

Game 3: No land, Mulligan. No land, Mulligan. Double fuck. Keeping 2 Tundra, Plains, Fetchland, Force of Will. Yeah. Thanks, deck. I do topdeck Mother of Runes and then Serra Avenger, two very nice draws, but then my deck feeds me two land and a daze, and I scoop with more nearly twice as many lands as business spells when he casts Vedalken Shackles.

Postgame Exhibition Matches
We did play 3 games afterward, just for funsies. I didn't mulligan any of those (and in one case told him to just take 7 after a mulligan) and swept 3-0, including one interesting play:

I have Mother, Fathom Seer, Weathered Wayfarer, Serra Avenger, Vial @1. He has a sick Silvergill and sick mutavault and 4 guys not sick attacking me (cursecatcher, Silvergill, 2x lord of atlantis, Merrow Reejerey). I have no islands in play through use of Fathom Seer. I choose to double block the 4/4 Reejerey with Seer and Avenger, using Mom to protect the highest in the damage order, taking damage down to 2 life. Endstep I use a fetchland for plains to reduce my land count in order to tutor a Wasteland with Wayfarer. So yes, I'm at 1 life.

I tick Vial to 2, play the wasteland, and pass. He doesn't topdeck anything relevant and swings with the team.

I wasteland the mutavault, and Vial in Grunt to block LoA (3/3), Angel blocks the other lord, Fathom Seer, Wayfarer, and Mom each block the rest of his now one-toughness squad. Mom gives protection to Angel and I end the turn with Grunt Angel against his nothing. My topdeck is conveniently Umezawa's Jitte to lock him out of the game.

So I basically traded: Mom, Fathom Seer, Wayfarer for: Cursecatcher, Silvergill x2, Mutavault, Lord of Atlantis x2, Merrow Reejerey and stabilized on 1 life. Maybe it was a play mistake to have attacked the turn before, but trading a Merrow Reejerey for 17 damage doesn't seem too bad.


Analysis

I've played NG in tournaments before, so everything was more or less what I expected (except for slops for the turnout -- it was fucking POURING rain, so a lot of people bailed -- Thanks, Sean, btw for the lift back after beating my ass).

There wasn't any surprise factor since I was talking to people about the deck beforehand and everyone there had played me or Jeff before. I think in a larger tournament, you get some surprise edge which can get you some freebie games, but all my opponents knew what to do against Wayfarer, knew that the morphs were all Fathom Seers, etc. Made the games more interesting, at least.

The deck performed really well, despite being a pretty outdated model and generally worse than the new builds. The only games lost were mulligan games. I did mulligan way more often than usual (usually you should mulligan to six around 15-20% with this deck, but I only played 8 games and mulled 6 times). I can chalk part of that up to very old, dirty sleeves and not paying enough attention during shuffling. Even drawing 7 cards is pretty difficult because the brand making my sleeves apparently installed some tiny velcro strips on the edges.

pi4meterftw
12-24-2009, 04:00 PM
Yeah running MWS statistical package reveals we actually mull like 10% of our 7 cards. For an estimation, we probably mull 20% of our 6 cards.

It's interesting to note that even with Matt's draws, 2-1 is approximately the overall ratio that we claimed against any reasonable meta: ~2/3 win.

It's the same in big tournaments as in small ones, so if there's any truth to this deck performing "worse" in big tournaments, it's only because everyone "performs worse" if the metric is getting first place, since there are more people by definition of "big."

In a big tournament you'd want to increase the variance of your matchups across various decks. This deck has matchups ranging from about 40 to 80%, not the highest amount of variance, but a reasonable amount. Also, as the number of rounds increases, the decks that are well suited for playing in tournaments of that given number of rounds benefit because in more rounds, one if using a statistical model, can reduce the deviations from the expected performance. (I mean relative to everybody else, I think fewer people is still better at maximizing your chance to win!)

As far as I understand, Matt and I will be participating at the SCG 5K in LA. Hope to see you there.

stuckpixel
12-27-2009, 12:05 PM
Someone else had mentioned Spellstutters as a potential card in this deck. Has anyone looked at trying to run them, as well as a singleton Riptide Lab in the deck?

With Wayfarer able to tutor up the Lab, stutter could be a great tempo play early, a nice evasive jitte carrier, and possible recurring countermagic in the late game - all while still being pitchable to FoW.

Forbiddian
12-27-2009, 01:05 PM
There's not that much at 1cc that we'd like to counter against the field. If you're looking to stop spot removal, Mother of Runes does the same thing.

It actually might be strong against Zoo, Thresh, and obviously TES, so I'll test it out a bit. I see getting it bolted in response to lose tempo sucks a bit, but maybe we could draw out their burn with Moms and Wayfarers early.

I do remember one game where I played a Jitte and the other guy casts 2 Spellstutter Sprites to try to counter, but I had Swords in response. I don't want that to happen to me.

I also see it as being useless against Merfolk, Landstill, 43-lands, all the stompy decks, etc. and having a maindeck card so useless against such a chunk of the field is pretty painful, which greatly contributed to the decision not to run it in the first place.

In a deck like Faeries, you can scale the Spellstutter Sprites and have more resistance to the counterburn.


Riptide lab is probably not a good tech decision, since we try to minimize lands in play to maximize Wayfarer and Knight, but I'll look at SSS.

stuckpixel
12-27-2009, 01:59 PM
Yeah, just tossing the idea out there. I've got the bulk of the stuff coming in the next few days for the deck so hopefully I'll be able to give it a whirl this week.

Are you still running a 2x of Ancestral Visions? That's the card I'm really most torn on with the deck - It's great early, and still decent late but if you need something _now_, it's terrible to topdeck. Have you thought of running something that's more dig than draw, like ponder or impulse?

pi4meterftw
12-27-2009, 02:36 PM
We probably shouldn't reveal *all* our tech right before a big tournament, but we're no longer running ancestral visions.

pi4meterftw
12-27-2009, 02:41 PM
For the skeptics, I should note that recently I have found a terrible matchup. If a deck, such as the one I ran into Nihil playing in a source tourney, runs like:

8 mass removal (Maverick was piloting this, he had deeds and crime/punishment)
some spot removal (he had swords)
but the planeswalkers like ajani vengeant and say elspeth so that you can't afford to just play 1 creature.
Must counters/discard like recurring nightmare loop/thoughtseize/cabal therapy

We didn't test this because we thought we had all bases covered playing against regular rock. The kind with the beatdown plan at least in the background, where if we survive to lategame then our lategame is better. Surviving was easy.

The only way I see it as possible to win against this deck is either:

I open wayfarer, and then either he has no swords or I have mom.

Or

He gets mana screwed/flooded.

After sideboard this MU is also pretty dismal. Currently trying to fix this because all it takes is for a rock player to deviate to deviate to the control side. There's like aggro rock and control rock. Anything with lategame staying power will ruin control rock since it can't counter stuff/fight topdecks, but I can't think of anything. Crucible is the only thing, maybe I'll try it in the sideboard and my excuse for running such a card would be that it breaks the CB lock with wastelands. Really not sure about this though...

dearleader
12-28-2009, 02:19 AM
Have you considered running your own Elspeths? It solves mass removal, spot removal, and is a permanent source of card advantage to combat discard. It's also removal for their Elspeths. I've played 2 Elspeth in UGw countertop to help against loam-Rock and landstill decks, and they worked pretty well.

The one card that i've found to be awesome against control-ish rock builds is Jace. Even if they have Vindicate or EE to kill it, you still get card advantage. I'm not sure if it's worth changing your draw package to deal with control-ish version of rock, but getting what's effectively a Bob for 3-5 turns is usually enough to put you ahead.

pi4meterftw
12-28-2009, 03:20 AM
Yeah I thought about it. But

http://www.cardshark.com/magic/card_detail.asp?card_id=27240

and

http://www.cardshark.com/magic/card_detail.asp?card_id=25069

is what stopped me. For an individual like myself about to play in perhaps at most one tournament every 2 or 3 months, (I play when school is off.) it's not worth even like $10 to improve the control matchup that marginally. I mean in the way of must counters, we already have lots. The other thing is:

typically the kinds of control decks I'm worried about have a "gameplan" that transcends making silly 1/1 dorks. I'm not worried about landstill, I'm worried about like, rock decks that try to get into loam loops, witness loops, raven's crime/worm harvest loops... Against this sort of a deal, I think deep analysis is actually the best bet.

Azania
01-01-2010, 06:12 PM
I have been playing the deck quite a bit against several decks. In general I found that when you play this deck white weenie mode due to no drawing any counter or draw spells is bad luck and basically looses, which did happen quite a bit to me anyway ><. Most likely just my bad luck. It really needs the other cards to function well unfortuantly. With that said I did found that Serra Avenger working very well, even if it comes turn 3 earlies of a vial or else turn 4. Flying and vigilance is perfect for a 3/3 beater. I really feel that this card should not be cut at all.

The other 3 cards that I did feel were doing pretty bad is Court Hassar and Ancestrall Vision. (The former being used for FoW 80% of the time). I cannot say which card is good other then those already mentioned but I do feel like it is better to have Vendillion Clique or Stifle in the deck instead. Most likely Clique. I will test those cards when I have the chance.

Forbiddian
01-03-2010, 04:46 PM
We've made a few changes to the deck in the past month. The sideboard is quite different and handles much better.

I'll post the updated list later this evening, after Jeff is done with the LA tournament. Unfortunately, I got sick on Friday/Saturday. Some local SD players graciously offered me a ride to the LA tournament, but I wasn't feeling 100%, and I didn't want to get all of them sick, so I'm home and Jeff's playing it out.

He called me to tell me that he's 3-0 (6-0 games), drawing some easy matchups against tier 1 decks. So hopefully that means he'll have good tiebreakers.


@Elspeth
We've been systematically removing any extremely expensive suggestions (e.g. Elspeth) that we can establish as having a marginal effect. Elspeth was pretty good in testing, but she wasn't clearly better than the alternatives, and we stopped testing it when we realized the improvement was slim and possibly it's even a downgrade. Unless you physically own Elspeths already (because of Standard, Ext, or lucksack Limited), I wouldn't bother testing her.

luckme10
01-03-2010, 07:39 PM
Are you guys watching the LA SCG 5k now?
The guy is playing WWu with the fathom seer and wayfarer combination and everyone was just shocked.

He's 6-0 now too. Just won the game. They're speaking with him now. http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/18542.html

Phoenix Ignition
01-03-2010, 08:12 PM
Good to see some solid results with this deck finally.

I'm not eating any words, I've never said this deck was bad. In fact I've only ever suggested improvements (and obviously the COURT HUSSAR IS BAD!!! sunk in). Look at all of my posts in either thread, I've never said this deck was bad.

In fact I've had the deck built and sitting in my card stack for over a year.

But I still stand by everything I've suggested before.

luckme10
01-03-2010, 08:18 PM
haha i know, i guess i was refering to the little recent banter in the merfolk forum.


Well, you know, that, and the fact that this deck actually has a bunch of top 8's to back up its reputation... :wink:


Hahaha... well nogoyf doesn't have people in the thread trying to make people play merfolk all the time too...

Phoenix Ignition
01-03-2010, 08:20 PM
haha i know, i guess i was refering to the little recent banter in the merfolk forum.

Yeah it's annoying to have a merfolk thread clogged with arguments about nogoyf. Your point?

(Just like it's annoying to clog this thread with merfolk talk, so stop)

Otter
01-03-2010, 08:47 PM
The deck really does look like a pile, cool to see it work out and grab a T8 slot. Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

SilverGreen
01-03-2010, 11:23 PM
Hahaha!! Rocketlaunching this from N&D to SD in a hurry. Well done, and congratulations!

I never gave it a look before. Fortunatelly I own all necessary stuff, I'll give this deck some attention in the next few days. ^^

Kanabo
01-04-2010, 12:58 AM
this deck got 3rd or 4th in the scg $5000 today. good job deck designer!

Forbiddian
01-04-2010, 01:10 AM
Nice job, Jeff. He told me he'll write up a full tournament report for this one.

hungryLIKEALION
01-04-2010, 01:11 AM
I'm surprised he lost to Zoo. I used to play against him with that deck all the time and he'd usually trounce me.

Phoenix Ignition
01-04-2010, 01:19 AM
I'm surprised he lost to Zoo. I used to play against him with that deck all the time and he'd usually trounce me.

The trouble of playing a card game is sometimes you can do no better than rely on chance.

HAVE HEART
01-04-2010, 02:24 AM
I was there today as well and was rooting on Jeff. He has some pretty good stories to tell, so I will let him tell them. It is surprising to hear he lost to Zoo, but I would assume that he was unable to get an active Mother of Runes in the games he lost. It would seem that card would be especially key in saving bros from removal.

@Jeff: Did you guys run splits or what happened with the money situation?

Forbiddian
01-04-2010, 02:52 AM
I talked to him briefly, he was pretty vague about the loss. I heard his complete matchup breakdown, and he got pretty good matchups all
day.

I know he chose not to split (and I agree with that) because he put the Zoo matchup at over .500, so a hedged bet is suboptimal in that situation. Or effectively, not splitting would be placing a positive bet, so he did. Zoo in the semi's was probably the worst matchup he saw, but it's still the right decision not to split.

Phoenix Ignition
01-04-2010, 02:53 AM
Zoo in the semi's was probably the worst matchup he saw, but it's still the right decision not to split.

To be fair I can't imagine the fizzled game three belcher (only 10 damage after activation) was a better matchup. That's actually one of the luckiest things I've heard happen in a tournament, especially a high profile top 8.

Forbiddian
01-04-2010, 03:09 AM
To be fair I can't imagine the fizzled game three belcher (only 10 damage after activation) was a better matchup. That's actually one of the luckiest things I've heard happen in a tournament, especially a high profile top 8.

If you do the math, or even thought about it for a second: If you try going off with your Bayou still in the deck, over a third of the time, your ass is going to fizzle.

I don't really see how that's even surprisingly lucky or anything. It's just what happens 1/3rd of the time when your win condition is only successful 2/3rds of the time. I didn't see a decklist, for sure he at least had the one Bayou in his deck (making it only a 2/3rds chance to kill), but he might even be running a second land, making it around 50% to make a kill.

Belcher is way more likely to fizzle than, like Ad Nauseum with 8 life left. Or Ichorid dredging and missing a second dredger. Though both of those happen all the time, even to the point of banality. There's a reason why combo doesn't win every game it plays: There's a chance (actually a good chance) that it fizzles and the other guy wins regardless of what crap he drew. If you somehow ignore the 1/3rd chance and call it "one of the luckiest things [you've] heard" about, then your assumptions about all of combos matchups have to be horribly inflated.

Phoenix Ignition
01-04-2010, 03:16 AM
I didn't hear anything about a bayou or taiga, just the 10 damage belcher fizzle, so if you heard it was a bayou then yeah it's a bad move on that guy's part.

HAVE HEART
01-04-2010, 03:22 AM
I didn't hear anything about a bayou or taiga, just the 10 damage belcher fizzle, so if you heard it was a bayou then yeah it's a bad move on that guy's part.

That person was definitely running both Bayou and Taiga in his deck. It was also first turn when he went off, and I do not believe he ran Land Grant. Unless one of the lands were in his hand, he had both in his deck.

The man who won the entire tournament was on like a two-outter in the second-to-last round against Patrick Sullivan and he ripped the Replenish he needed to take down game three and the match.

Forbiddian
01-04-2010, 03:22 AM
I didn't hear anything about a bayou or taiga, just the 10 damage belcher fizzle, so if you heard it was a bayou then yeah it's a bad move on that guy's part.

Yeah, it was (for sure) at least a Bayou. The guy hadn't used Land Grant. So he probably even had both Bayou and Taiga floating around.

EDIT: And even if it were a Taiga, there's still a 1/6 chance that he whiffs. If 1/6 is the luckiest thing you've ever heard of, you surely don't watch a lot of poker.

But are we really discussing this matchup as being worse than 50%? 4 Force + the fizzle chance already puts us around 50%, and we also get Daze, Spell Pierce, and a strong anti-combo sideboard. If Belcher can really beat us at a good clip, I guess we can only pray for every deck that doesn't run Force of Will?

God damn I hate Belcher combo. I can't imagine going to a Legacy tournament, where you can play any deck you want, even Enchantress and other really fun decks, and then you choose to play Yahtzee.

pi4meterftw
01-04-2010, 03:31 AM
Yeah, it was (for sure) at least a Bayou. The guy hadn't used Land Grant. So he probably even had both Bayou and Taiga floating around.

He revealed a taiga, and 5 other cards for 10 damage.

I see my top 8 matches are already accessible, as well as my round 6 match, and my round 5 match should be accessible too since they took notes down. Round 1-4 I played ad nauseam/ETW, AL, goblins, AL(=aggro loam).

I'll be more detailed sometime later, but right now I'm pretty burnt out of magic.

The zoo player was caught off guard game 1, and did not burn wayfarer when he had a chance to (in the semifinals). So he ate 4 wastelands, and I boarded wayfarers out. But game 2, I ate a flood and he played well, same thing game 3.

The tournament was a lot of fun, and I thank those who helped me (Gave me rides, Matt for deck ideas, SCG for hosting it even though it was negative, or at least not extremely positive returns. (We had 141 people so they were losing money unless their vendors made a killing.))

It's worth noting that on top of the fact that not accepting a split was statistically warranted (I win 60% of the matches I play against zoo players who knows what is coming at them, probably much more if they don't know how the deck functions.) I actually didn't take the split for the sake of generating an interesting memory. I mean I wouldn't just do that if it was a horrendously bad move, but I might even have played it for the money even if the expected value of the move was slightly negative. Indeed it was extremely positive up until perhaps even the last draw step.

All the players I played towards the end were extremely skilled and I did not spot any errors in their play besides the standard ones due to not knowing what I play.

Forbiddian
01-04-2010, 03:35 AM
I thought you said he didn't have a Land Grant out because you slapped down a ToA ftw.

pi4meterftw
01-04-2010, 03:37 AM
But he still revealed taiga. Seems unrelated. Especially since he failed to kill with belch first and then tried to land grant (but I told him he couldn't.)

Forbiddian
01-04-2010, 03:44 AM
But he still revealed taiga. Seems unrelated. Especially since he failed to kill with belch first and then tried to land grant (but I told him he couldn't.)

Oh, ok, so he had both Taiga and Bayou still in the deck, though.

stuckpixel
01-04-2010, 08:24 AM
Gratz pi4meterftw! I'm glad to see this deck do well. Although now people are going to know what to do once wayfarer hits the board =/

Any insights when playing against the field?

MattH
01-04-2010, 02:57 PM
Gratz pi4meterftw! I'm glad to see this deck do well. Although now people are going to know what to do once wayfarer hits the board =/

Any insights when playing against the field?

If your opponent plays some strange-looking card that you don't quite see the purpose of, kill it on sight because he wouldn't be playing it if it wasn't important to him. This is known as the Manakin effect.

Anusien
01-04-2010, 03:28 PM
I don't understand the lack of the 4th Wasteland. Also, I think the deck is in desperate need of a manland so Wayfarer stays fresh.

Also, the 2 Knight of the White Orchid come across as so out of place. They also have synergy with Vial/Wasteland/Fathom Seer (as does Wayfarer), but it fights Wayfarer and Wayfarer seems the more important card.

Also, I have to say I'm not surprised that you ended up cutting most of the awkward, out of place cards that everyone criticized.

pi4meterftw
01-04-2010, 03:34 PM
I don't understand the lack of the 4th Wasteland. Also, I think the deck is in desperate need of a manland so Wayfarer stays fresh.

Also, the 2 Knight of the White Orchid come across as so out of place. They also have synergy with Vial/Wasteland/Fathom Seer (as does Wayfarer), but it fights Wayfarer and Wayfarer seems the more important card.

Also, I have to say I'm not surprised that you ended up cutting most of the awkward, out of place cards that everyone criticized.

The list has been carefully optimized. We can't claim to have done such a good job that suggestions could never impact us, of course, but we're quite sure about the wayfarer and knights questions you raised. Not every game do I enjoy the dominance of wasting my opponent to nothing, and it's a nice consolation prize to get the tempo boost of the knight. Also, if you read the articles concerning my matches online, you'll see I drew both wayfarer and knight against zoo, and both were put to good use.

In fact, if he had burned my wayfarer earlier, I would definitely have been glad to draw the knight.

I don't think asking questions about how our numbers get the best desired effect will be productive. Either test the list if you want an approximate sense (relies on measurements converging to the actual values so you better test A LOT) or do the computations (Not recommended unless you're mathematically capable.)

EDIT: I do actually wonder, how many games have you played with the deck? After about 100 (5 or so against each reasonably different variant of each deck type) you should have a good grasp of why we make the choices we do. By now we have definitely played thousands of games. I had the experience edge in the matches because my opponents didn't test the matchup, but I also noticed some of them and others made much the same suggestion to me after playing 0 games, which leads me to question if you've played even like 20 games? (1 game against every major deck type.)

pi4meterftw
01-04-2010, 04:15 PM
I'm still pretty burnt out on magic, and in any case my homework sets have started to go up for my classes, so I will probably not be doing much more magic for the next bit. However, I may continue to post here and there, and here is the tournament report:

P=I'm on the play for the Match


Round 1 vs. Derrick Cabrerra: Ad Nauseam with red, ETW, burning wish. I guess people call this "TES" but I don't follow the deck naming definitions.

P

G1 I mull, he keeps, then I keep. I open wayfarer, he duresses takes FOW, I brainstorm, he duresses again and takes something I forget. I get jitte, he desperation-ETW's for 12 after jitte gets 2 counters, and I quickly reduce his army to nothing.

G2:Mull. He wasn't ready for thorn of amethyst.

Round 2 vs. Loam by Morgan

D

G1: Mox diamond, confidant meets FOW removing BS, mom+double avenger+vial=gg

Round 3 vs. Goblins by Daniel

P

G1 mom, jitte+active wayfarer take down his board position.

G2: BFT, mom, triple avenger=gg.

Round 4 vs. Loam by Ramoncito

Can't remember if I played or draw, but it was more or less similar to round 2, with the main difference being that this time I was slightly mana screwed G1, while he mulliganned to 6.

Round 5 vs. Belcher.

G1: I keep a good hand for anything but combo, but he's combo. Okay. Gg I thought, until his belcher whiffed. I did not actually calculate the probability, but in retrospect perhaps I should not have been in such despair. His board is reduced to belcher lotus petal, while I have daze. Of course he topdecks LED.

G2: Mull Mull keep with FOW and thorn of amethyst.

G3: can't remember how many times I mulled, but I had the lock elements.

The rest can be found online, I think.

HAVE HEART
01-04-2010, 08:52 PM
It should be noted that you intentionally drew rounds seven and eight.

Forbiddian
01-05-2010, 03:00 AM
I don't understand the lack of the 4th Wasteland.

Finance prompted corner-cutting, but I've been happy with 3 Vial.



Also, I think the deck is in desperate need of a manland so Wayfarer stays fresh.Tested and rejected. I also question your definition of "desperate."

alderon666
01-05-2010, 07:07 AM
Epochrasite.

Chump blocks in the early game and then comes back as a 4/4. Comes into play from vial already a 4/4, recurrent threat against decks with no white. And even against deck with white they can only play so many StPs.

Azania
01-05-2010, 05:21 PM
gratz on the result, just 1 small question, why is the decklist called 'UW Tempo' in the deck lists? Of SCG that is from th $5k tourney

Forbiddian
01-05-2010, 10:45 PM
gratz on the result, just 1 small question, why is the decklist called 'UW Tempo' in the deck lists? Of SCG that is from th $5k tourney

Guy reading the decklists fucked up.

The writers for SCG classify the decks. The announcers were calling the deck "White Weenie Splash Blue" which is like calling Tempo Thresh "Mono Blue Control Splash Green and Red," so I guess UW Tempo is an improvement.

Nihil Credo
01-06-2010, 04:30 AM
Thread moved to Established in light of the deck not folding out at a ~140-player event.

It is my hope that the quality of the discussion in this thread proceeds to match its new location.

dahcmai
01-06-2010, 05:46 PM
Finance prompted corner-cutting, but I've been happy with 3 Vial.


Ok, quick question. If there was a little corner cutting due to costs, what would be some choices if you had unlimited cash? (Not counting the obvious Guru lands and such).


Just wondering if the deck would have any alternate choices that had to be discarded based on them being overly expensive.


Congrats on the nice placing btw. Love the deck.

IsThisACatInAHat?
01-06-2010, 06:37 PM
The deck that made T4 in the SCG was a little different than previous (recent) incarnations of the deck. Mostly, more 4-ofs and fewer 1/2/3-ofs. What made you guys decide on what stays and what goes? I know from before the reasoning against 4-ofs was because a combination of different cards (didn't matter which, as long as they had the same role) is more valuable than 2 copies of the same card. I'm personally happy to see Court Hussar go, but the newest list seems to have made some really big changes with regards to numbers. Did you guys just decide that multiples of the same card combinations were actually better, or was there something else? (and what about that wasteland?)

Also, congrats on your finish. I'm a huge fan of the deck even though I haven't had much play time with it. T4 is an amazing [major tournament] debut and a solid confirmation that the laundry list of haters here really have no idea what they're talking about.

pi4meterftw
01-06-2010, 06:57 PM
This is in response to the two most recent posts.

I would change nothing if given unlimited cash. Here are some changes I had previously considered, given unlimited cash:

-1 vial +1 wasteland?
-1 wheel of sun and moon in the sideboard, +1 enlightened tutor?

But the good dredge players can bring our match win % down to as low as 60% unless we hate them, and wheel of sun and moon is such a GG piece of hate. Ichorid can't even dredge into their flashback hate removal to stop it. It also hated aggro loam, although I never drew it in tournament matches, but it makes crusher almost useless, and sometimes a liability if they're trying to break a lock induced by 2 or 3 wastelands. (It stops land topdecks.)

It also isn't totally useless that unlike tutor, it is immediately a hate spell, instead of a hate spell W, a card, and usually a turn later.

-1 vial +1 wasteland?

Well, we used to have the last wasteland, but actually we had run 3 wastes in the past. Double waste is pretty devastating, but I guess at some point it came to our attention that with 7 waste-finding effects, the marginal utility of another wasteland is much less than that of vial, which actually lessens our mulligans since it removes the need for double white mana, as well as the need sometimes for even a colored land. It usually promotes keeping one land hands, sometimes ones that would not otherwise be even considerable, and it encourages the use of wasteland much the same way knight of the white orchid does. It also counteracts fathom seer. We had previously advocated 2 vials because drawing 2 was a disaster, and it still is. However, it was a close call which brought more marginal utility, and a recent few facts we became aware of swung the decision the other way. The cash factor merely made it from a "close call" as to which one was right into an obvious call we didn't even have to think about.

For those of you watching closely, I did make an error in round 6 in the tournament, playing wayfarer before waste. It may have appeared I meant to tempo trip Pat by fishing out a daze and then wasting him in the same turn, but I actually would have preferred to resolve wayfarer. Answering the unasked, but possibly wondered question of if I would do anything differently in general, the answer is nothing for deck construction, and then I would change plays analogous to that one in the future.

What made us decide on what stays and what goes is some grand weighted sum of contributions to our match win %. Nobody can be expected to detect these changes without having hung out with the ideas of the deck for a year or so, so it's definitely a valid question to ask. But there's also no obvious answer. As I said, some of the changes in the last month occurred mostly because we were on the fence anyway, and then realized some other factors we previously forgot to take into account. Testing is a way to realize these things faster.

I don't think we played more multiples though. Our last couple of changes were:

-2 ancestral vision +2 spell pierce
-1 court hussar +1 serra avenger
-1 wasteland +1 vial

This actually decreased our tendency to play multiples.

From a mathematical standpoint, there are a couple of pretty basic advantages to diversifying, and not just to "similar effects." Obviously if there's a card that does exactly the same thing, you diversify to decrease the redundancy in card names, to dodge cabal therapy, meddling mage, pithing needle, maelstrom pulse, and the like.

This effect in this particular example generalizes to when you run cards that have any effects. However, the reason in practice this is not taken as a serious reason to run 60 1 ofs is because it's a rather minor factor.

Another factor is that magic inherently is a game where you'll have more than 1 card in your hand sometimes, and perhaps 2 copies of these cards. It pays game-theoretically to have choices.

The most incredibly difference is when you have tutor effects and filter. Our deck has a lot of this, so all the effects above are exacerbated.

Forbiddian
01-07-2010, 03:01 AM
Without budget constraints, we might have taken the deck in a different direction earlier, but with an infinite budget, I wouldn't make any changes to the current build against the current metagame.


However, budget constraints were important in deciding what to test, how much effort to put into testing, what to practice with, etc.

We were pretty much forced to settle on 3 Wasteland due to budget reasons. I think he had two randomly and then we bought a playset on the cheap and split them so we each had 3. Originally we thought 3 was good, but it became obvious, especially in the Landstill and Rock matchups that 4 was better than three. But we weren't going to pick up two random Wastelands (and the price shot WAY up), so we looked for alternatives from the card stock of readily available material.

It lead us to an ultimately (I believe) stronger build cutting a 4th WL for a 3rd Vial.

Also, I'll note that the new metagame is quite primed for the shift. There's much less multicolor go-the-distance control where four wastelands is important and a lot more midgame aggro/control decks where getting a vial is critical.


If you're curious, finance did weigh in on a lot of decisions for the direction of the deck:

There was a version briefly that ran Ajani and Elspeth. The build was performing pretty well. Even before it was really optimized, it was putting out good numbers (not as good as the standard build, but considering it was unoptimized for the change, it was doing well). When it became clear that it would not be a strict improvement and not one worth $80+, then optimizing the PW build became a purely academic exercise and it was abandoned.

We briefly considered Tabernacle and Moat, but quickly rejected them for budget reasons alone. They don't look good, but those were both above the bar of "shit Jeff and Matt tested because there's a tiny chance that it might be useful." Except they were below the bar of, "Worth $200 to actually get in real life." There were a few other cards that we thought about testing, but rejected in the preliminary stages because of high price, but Tabernacle was probably the most promising. But yeah, we pretty much tested everything.

We would have shipped this deck to Extended as well. There's an Extended build that was testing quite well (according to Jeff). I don't know shit about Extended, but because the cost of the ghetto-duals alone was prohibitive for me to switch, we more or less gave up on it.

Obviously with infinite money, we would have flown out to GPs and such, and probably we wouldn't have released this primer or anything since we'd be reaping the benefits of hidden tech.

Also, fundamentally, we were looking for a deck that didn't run Goyfs in part for money reasons. We both got back into Legacy and we were looking for something we could pick up and play. We stumbled onto the UW combination with Wayfarer, but honestly Goyfs were fucking amazing. If we'd had some on hand, we probably wouldn't have bothered inventing a deck that could deal with them, and just run them ourselves.




I did think of something I'd change: I would change the Windswept Heaths. I haven't thought about this problem too much, since I don't have other fetches, but it's pretty interesting. Here are my thoughts:

I would at least run the strict improvement: 1 Windswept Heath, 1 Arid Mesa, 1 Marsh Flats. Pithing Needle might happen, so might Extirpate. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it still is a strict improvement over 3 Heath.

Heath is run sometimes in Aggro Loam, some Zoo, Enchantress, Death and Taxes... If my opponent goes Heath, go, there's a huge range of decks I can put my opponent on.

I'm still probably not expecting Heath --> Tundra --> Daze my shit, but I don't have much information and the general play strategies against the range are quite different, I would simply make the standard play and not alter my strategy. Enchantress, I want to play aggressively, but Zoo I want to play defensively. Aggro Loam I want basics, Death and Taxes I want non-basics. There's no way to tell what to do just from Heath, go. It's hard to tell, I wouldn't leap to any conclusions from Heath, go.

But with Arid Mesa, you're actively feeding your opponent misinformation. I'd probably run 3x Arid Mesa just for that. Turn 1: Arid Mesa, go will have your opponent put you on a range of very aggressive decks. Particularly because it's a type 2 card, so you're most likely running a type 2 port deck like Naya.

Arid Mesa is played widely in Naya Zoo, Boros, Burn, Goblins, Aggro Loam, Goyf Sligh. The most defensive deck on that list is Aggro Loam and is has the word "Aggro" right there in the fucking name. If your opponent plays an Arid Mesa, you're instantly thinking "How do I keep my life above burn range?" Which is obviously the wrong question to ask if you're actually against NoGoyf.

If you see Arid Mesa, go, and it's like round one or something and you decide to play around Daze, you're missing a trick and you'll get your ass stomped 99 games out of 100.

I dunno, when I see Arid Mesa, it's like a trigger to play defensively. It's pretty rare someone would run a fetch for just one of the two colors, so I'm thinking he's got red. Even if he makes a move like Arid Mesa --> Plains --> Vial, I'd still guess "Zoo with Vial" before I guessed "UW deck." In fact, in Legacy right now, there are so few two color decks that if my opponent even runs like: Arid Mesa --> Tundra --> Vial, I might even STILL think he has burn and that I have to play defensively.

Play the Mesa, let it sit for 5 seconds while you "think", then fetch out a Tundra and do whatever. You just mindfucked your opponent into thinking you're an aggro deck.

In a few months, when people see Tundra --> Vial, they might think "NoGoyf" (and hopefully, "Oh shit, it's NoGoyf"), but until then Arid Mesa alone is such a scare card, you can probably get away with playing your game and still bamboozle your opponent into thinking you're running a weird Zoo build.

whienot
01-07-2010, 02:49 PM
That's a very good point in using the off color fetches to trick your opponent into misplaying. I remember a discussion in the Tempo Thresh thread about this exact point, leading with Wooded Foothills to have your opponent walk into Stifle/Daze.

dahcmai
01-07-2010, 11:50 PM
Thanks for the answer and the tip too. I think I'll have to do that. I would play defense also if I saw an Arid Mesa. I like that trick.

paK0
01-09-2010, 02:31 PM
The deck that made T4 in the SCG was a little different than previous (recent) incarnations of the deck.



Is this covered somewhere? I looked, but apparently I'm only good at finding stuff I don't need



Just ordered the deck after some testing, it is really fun to play and gives you so many opportunitys to outplay your opponent, nice job there.

One question though, could you write a little guide how to side? Its kinda obvious what goes in but there are too many things I don't wanna board out =).


€dit: How is the Dragonstompy Mu? It seems godawful =).

Forbiddian
01-09-2010, 04:24 PM
@Deckchanges:
The primer is updated for the new deck. Before the SCG 5k, we didn't post an up-to-date list because we realized we were both going to the SCG 5k and figured it would be better to hold off on releasing the new tech. I got sick, though :-(, but maybe hiding the tech paid off for Jeff.


€dit: How is the Dragonstompy Mu? It seems godawful =).

65-70%. I'm pretty happy to go up against DS, but it's basically a combo deck, so it's not a very fun matchup and when you lose, it always feels like they were lucky as hell.

Incidentally, if you look back a page or two, I played in a small tournament where I faced off/beat Dragonstompy. Obviously that's just one match, but it highlights how they usually go.



If you're on the play, you'll almost always win. Fetch a basic with your fetchland, play out some random one-drop, then you're very resilient to all their hate. You also get Daze access and Spell Pierce.

From the draw, they're much more competitive. You'll notice I lost the game where I was on the draw. He did have exactly the hate that I didn't want him to see. If he opened with anything else, I would have won that game.

Considering him getting a Chalice @ 1 turn 1 happens only like 25-30% of the time (and less if he might preferentially cast Blood Moon first), I liked my odds for that game. Unfortunately, he came out on top that game, since he was able to resolve the hate I didn't have the answer for. You'll notice that, were I on the play, I'd have won that game easily no matter what he had -- highlighting how difficult it is for them to win games when we're on the play.


Also notice you have a lot of outs to each hate in general, even if you're on the draw AND don't have the Force of Will.

Chalice @ 1 is trumped by your two drops + Jitte.
Blood Moon is trumped by Aether Vial, either of your two basic plains, and Fathom Seer + Jitte -- yes, this HAS happened.
3 Sphere on turn 1 is their strongest hate, but only if it came out through the very specific: Ancient Tomb, Chrome Mox, 3 Sphere. It's much rarer than other hates, since they need three mana and can't use SSG. Turn 1 Ancient Tomb, SSG, 3 Sphere is not that scary, you'll note.

And again, you can occasionally play around it. Any creature, then Jitte.


To beat you, Dragon Stompy needs:

1) To win the roll (otherwise you're on the play twice and DS will almost certainly lose those games).
2) A crippling hate spell in the opening hand that you don't happen to have the outs for (or have the Force of Will).
3) Follow it up with more crippling hate AND another fast beat creature to actually kill you off before you can draw the intersecting outs.
4) Do that again during game 3.

paK0
01-09-2010, 04:39 PM
Okayyyyyy, well the thing why I asked is that 3 sphere seems even stronger when you consider that this Deck only runs 18 Lands.

Yeah, but the rest sounds promising =), just a little reliant on Jitte.


Again, is there a tournament report or so that I missed? I checked the thread and SCG but couldn't find the said thing.

pi4meterftw
01-09-2010, 04:42 PM
I wasn't lying in my interview: of the main decks (say the ones on deckcheck) we have no "Godawful" matches. I think the worst is nassif thresh, where it's about 50%, and then slightly less if the opponent knows what we're doing and makes no errors.

This might change if people start paying attention to our deck and packing their sideboard full of hate. (Say null rod, night of soul's betrayal, or even dread of night lolololol.)

But if people just leave things the way it is, the deck will continue to enjoy essentially completely positive matchups averaging 65-70% MUs.

We board out KOTWO against a reasonable number of matches. I have a formula sheet for sideboarding plans, but it can basically be summarized by: we don't run bad cards so besides swords, and mother which are cards that are polarized to some specific situation, you really should be looking to answer

"Which card in the deck is worst"

not

"Which card in the deck is bad."

I mean, bad only makes sense in the context of other existing cards anyway, but it might help you to realize that the choices are typically nonobvious, but end up being swords, knights, mothers, and occasionally wayfarers. We spent a few hours debating sideboarding plans, so it's definitely not something that is too easy to derive.

Edit: we never claimed that Dragonstompy has no opportunities to win, but like all of magic, but most obviously so with DS, it's modeled well by a probability model.

paK0
01-09-2010, 05:03 PM
We board out KOTWO against a reasonable number of matches. I have a formula sheet for sideboarding plans, but it can basically be summarized by: we don't run bad cards so besides swords, and mother which are cards that are polarized to some specific situation, you really should be looking to answer

"Which card in the deck is worst"

not

"Which card in the deck is bad."

I mean, bad only makes sense in the context of other existing cards anyway, but it might help you to realize that the choices are typically nonobvious, but end up being swords, knights, mothers, and occasionally wayfarers. We spent a few hours debating sideboarding plans, so it's definitely not something that is too easy to derive.




The problem is that it is hard to test sideboarding. On MWS it hardly makes a difference and our playgroup is not that big, so I can only test so much Matchups(I'm not a fan of just giving a deck to someone, play against him and call that testing since at tournaments chances are your opponents know what they are playing)


Just because my boarding is ok right now does not mean I am satisfied with it, something like this should be done perfectly everytime.

Main reason why I ask is the point that you stated. Its hard to figure out which ability is the least valuable in certain situation:

I usually put out the Wayfarers vs Decks that do not play too many Duals and Knights VS Decks that don't run creatures it cant handle.

I have a lot of trouble figuring out the rest of the creatures, since there are very few situations where there effect doesn't matter. (Draw 2 is hardly dead in any matchup.)

Same goes for Avenger, mostly she is unimpressive but she goes crazy with Jitte.

I figured asking you was the best way since chances are you tested stuff like that =).

Forbiddian
01-09-2010, 06:04 PM
Yeah, Jeff actually typed up sideboard plans for every single archetype that ended up on Deckcheck and even some more. It's quite exhaustive, but after discussing it, we realized it wouldn't be that much help to people (just to post the list) because the theory for WHY a card is coming out is so important. As long as you're cutting one of the worst cards in the deck, it doesn't really matter what you're chopping, but you have to be able to identify what's good and bad.


In general, you'll want to board out White cards. It's pretty easy to cut Fathom Seers and such against fast-aggro, and game-by-game you probably won't miss it, but it's a bad percentage play because of what it does to Force. One notable exception is that I cut Spell Pierce on the draw against Goblins.

If you ask for specific matchups, I can discuss the board plan for those in more detail.


Or just an example: Against Tempo Thresh I do this:

+1 Grunt, +1 Relic. After a ton of debate, we decided against bringing in Tormod's Crypt or Wheel of Sun and Moon. Both look good, but exposed to countermagic they can backfire, giving Goyf +1/+1. Also, Crypt hitting them gives Goyf +1/+1 almost automatically.

-2 Knights is the cut that I do. It's pointed out that they have a lot of land kill, and that's generally how they will win (if they do), but Knight doesn't help in the intensely-mana screwed position. He doesn't do very much without Jitte (which is game winning regardless), and Tempo Thresh will sometimes even decline the third land drop.

Grunt, Vial, Mom, and Avenger are the most important cards in this MU. Also, if you get to kill a Goose or a Goyf, usually you want to kill the Goose.

paK0
01-09-2010, 06:16 PM
Mh, i think every bit of Information helps if you wanna pick up a new Deck. You can still question your plans after you know the right ones. Well, but its your list and your decision, if you decide against it it's fine with me.

The thing is at our tournaments you are sure to face Combo, Merfolk, Canadian, Dredge, Zoo/Goyfsligh and BantSur. The rest is all over the place, so it is really hard to anticipate what you will face. I don't like having to play 3 rounds while improvisng =).

So if not the full List I would be very grateful if you could give me the plans for these.

Ah, and vs. Gobbos I just did
+4 Tender -2 Grunt -2 Wayfarers

It worked well (I won without much hassle)but i was torn between siding out them or 2 Avengers since Wayfarers give me another out to Lackey but Avengers get the beatdown going while maintaining defense.

aTn
01-09-2010, 07:04 PM
I became familiar with your deck recently (via the SCG 5k coverage) and I must say I'm impressed by the list (and will probably sleeve it up soon).

I was wondering, how is the CB-Top Progenitus match-up ? It would seem like landing Vial is key in that MU, but I'd like insight from people with tournament/testing experience of the MU.

Forbiddian
01-09-2010, 07:20 PM
I didn't want to post lists without explanations, and I didn't want to type up 80+ explanations. But I'm happy to explain board plans against standard decks.




Storm Combo:

This is really easy to board. You're bringing in everything except BFT and you're taking out everything useless.

+3 Aura (if you resolve it, they can't cast Artifacts for profit or IGG or Doomsday loop you)
+2 Thorn (obviously this is sick, vulnerable to Echoing Truth and Hurkyl's Recall, though)
+2 Enlightened Tutor (get Thorn, then get Aura if you have the 2WW to cast Aura under Thorn... you don't want to lose to Hurkyls or ET, and either one is a pretty good lock if they have Chain of Vapor)
+1 Relic
+1 Crypt
+1 Wheel
+1 Grunt

Cards coming out:

4x Swords to Plowshares (junk)
3x Mother of Runes (junk)
2x Knight of the White Orchid (junk)
1x Umezawa's Jitte (junk)
1x Vial (junk)

Against Solidarity, you obviously don't want Aura of Silence. Leave those in the board. Also leave Moms and Vials in. You can vial in a Grunt after being milled "to death" and protect it with Mom = You Win. In storm matchups, you have so much junk that corner cases like that are important in deciding which cards to keep.

Against Belcher, you want to leave Moms and Jittes in, cutting Serra Avenger instead. You can beat a soft (12 tokens or less) EtW with Mom and/or Jitte, but Avenger is basically useless and surprisingly it's worse even than Aura of Silence. Wayfarer is better than Avenger because you can chump a token with it more consistently. You also don't bring in the four yard hates. Sorry, Jeff brought up the good point that you should chop Vials against Belcher, and that obviously Moms < BFTs, which I forgot to mention.

Ok, so Belcher plan, more spelled out:

+2 Thorn
+2 Tutor
+3 Aura
+4 BFT
-4 Mom
-3 Vial
-4 Swords



Goblins: Spell Pierce is horrible from the draw (they just cast Vial first). I always board it out from the draw in that MU. Wayfarer isn't a great answer to lackey from the draw, either. And a 1/1 body isn't that great. The matchup is very tempo-oriented, you usually don't have that much time to sit around and Wayfarer the roses, PARTICULARLY when they have Vial out (which is when they're most likely to beat us). +4 BFT is obvious, then I do -2 Spell Pierce, -2 Wayfarer from the draw and I do -4 Wayfarer from the play.

By the way, Angel is very solid against Goblins. It's not so fast that you can't get them into play, and Angel survives all the normal stuff, carries Jitte like a champ, and can block most of his team at 1:0.

Stopping their Vial is very important. They almost can't win without it. I find Grunt to be pretty good at two copies because he just eats everything, and can stall you into Jitte. But I would still cut him before Angel.


Merfolk: Do nothing! Yay! They usually don't have anything for you, either, so just keep winning. If you know they're running Vedalken Shackles, you put in two copies of Aura over Wayfarer and Knight.



Canadian I went over above. I call it Tempo Thresh (UGr).



BantSur... what's that? Non-combo Survival, right? Uh, don't bring in yard hate except Grunt against Survival decks. It's not worth it. If it's Bant Aggro that runs Survival, stick to the above. Bring in just Grunt and 1 Aura. Cut Knights.

If it's more survival-intensive, you can cut some Moms or Vial for more Aura. I wouldn't go too overboard, Survival is not that good of a card if you can keep them off having a lot of lands. Jitte is ridiculous against Survival, so try to Jiquip. Sorry, I don't really know this MU, I'm more experienced with Survival that runs Red for like Anger.


Dredge: +the 10 obvious cards, cutting 4 Wayfarers, 2 Knights, 3 Vial, 1 Spell Pierce. You basically want a steady stream of creatures and disruption coming out to stall until you can resolve Wheel.

Particularly on the draw, Spell Pierce is not great, but I try not to cut many blue spells if possible.



Zoo and Goyf Sligh, you'll want to cut a combination of Wayfarers and Knights for BFTs and the Grunt. Grunt is the best card in this matchup. I'd cut 3 Wayfarers, 2 Knights.

I like to leave Spell Pierce in, but just play normally and the first time you happen to be untapped and he happens to cast something you can SP, then SP it. It's not worth saving it to stop a really good spell.

I mean, there are some exceptions when you set up something crazy on when you're winning easily or he completely wastes a spell for no reason, but you generally just want SP to trade with a Bolt. The matchup is so fast you can't wait around on anything, or even stay untapped for SP. Also, trading down is really good for you. Always block his Nacatl with your Angel.

paK0
01-09-2010, 07:35 PM
Im cool with everything but combo

Why take out the Swords? Most Decks bring some Xantid Swarms, and Confidants and Shushers aren't too uncommon either.

pi4meterftw
01-09-2010, 07:53 PM
Im cool with everything but combo

Why take out the Swords? Most Decks bring some Xantid Swarms, and Confidants and Shushers aren't too uncommon either.

Yeah some of my opponents made the mistake of bringing in xantid swarms, but I've never seen confidant or shushers. If you see a confidant, (presumably from AdN) then he takes ~1 damage a turn (it doesn't even do anything to help him combo unless it sticks around for 2 upkeeps), and if that happens, you get two turns to swing about 3-4 damage, so say you deal about 8 damage to him, and he deals 2 to himself +1-2 fetches, so 12 damage. Now his Ad Nauseam isn't even scary... I don't see why DC would come in. Every estimate used here has been rather conservative.

Xantid swarms are bad because our hate doesn't stop at countermagic, and they can't bring in disenchants, bounce, be running Pact/duress/silence/chant at at least 8 copies, and then also have xantid swarms, and expect to not only draw the right answer to whatever hate we draw, but then to have enough actual combo pieces to still go off.

Analogous reasoning holds for shusher. As stated though, we won't be able to take the time to justify the entries in the list, but we trust that you will have the ingenuity to understand why we've made our choices.

BTW, having forgotten about ETW, I might also in the future do -1 vial, +1 jitte relative to the generic storm combo plan. This is what I did in the tournament; it's good to think about what you do even if you refer to my guidelines.

Forbiddian
01-09-2010, 07:54 PM
I became familiar with your deck recently (via the SCG 5k coverage) and I must say I'm impressed by the list (and will probably sleeve it up soon).

I was wondering, how is the CB-Top Progenitus match-up ? It would seem like landing Vial is key in that MU, but I'd like insight from people with tournament/testing experience of the MU.

The most important card in that MU is Weathered Wayfarer. He just stops them from getting out Progenitus and he stops the lock from being effective.

If I know that's what I'm up against, I lead with Mom, then second turn cast Wayfarer, forcing the resignation (I'm serious, they can't do anything about that -- Mom Wayfarer > Counterbalance Top, and the individual parts are better, too).

If you can't land-lock them out of Progenitus, but they haven't landed Toplock, just get a Spell Pierce ready and make sure that their Dazes are blanked during the counterwar. Don't tap out when they can get to four, it's not rocket science. You have more countermagic than they do, and you might even have a LOT more if they can't play around Daze (e.g. if you're beating them down with Angel and they don't have many turns left, or you mana screwed them and they only just barely managed to get to 4 mana).

I mean, you get: 4 Force, 2 Spell Pierce (and sometimes 3 Daze as well), and they get 4 Force to defend their combo.



I dunno, play it a few times. You're obviously the beatdown, but you also have more countermagic and a lot of their spells are caught up in clunky combos. Also, you can draw cards and they can't. You have a lot going for you.

paK0
01-09-2010, 08:15 PM
Ok, thanks a lot. I looked over it, and I actually like most things. Still I feel like some things (only a few, be relieved =)) Just short comments are more than enough, I'll figure out the rest myself.


Storm again:
Ok, your probably right about the Confidant, with a fast clock it might hurt them.

Swarm however blanks 9 of our Spells. So wouldnt we actually gain more hate by leaving them in?





Affinity:
Aura has written "I win" all over it, so why no Tutors?



Painter:
-4 Aura
+3 Aura + Grunt

well, THIS is wrong^^




Dragon-Stompy:

Beforehand Jitte was mentioned frequently, so is Tender really > Tutor?





Ok, thats the only things I'm really wondering about right now. Thanks again for the list^^

pi4meterftw
01-10-2010, 03:01 AM
Ok, thanks a lot. I looked over it, and I actually like most things. Still I feel like some things (only a few, be relieved =)) Just short comments are more than enough, I'll figure out the rest myself.


Storm again:
Ok, your probably right about the Confidant, with a fast clock it might hurt them.

Swarm however blanks 9 of our Spells. So wouldnt we actually gain more hate by leaving them in?





Affinity:
Aura has written "I win" all over it, so why no Tutors?



Painter:
-4 Aura
+3 Aura + Grunt

well, THIS is wrong^^




Dragon-Stompy:

Beforehand Jitte was mentioned frequently, so is Tender really > Tutor?





Ok, thats the only things I'm really wondering about right now. Thanks again for the list^^

Storm: this is a decent argument but a clock is not worthless, so the minute amount of hate gained isn't worth anything. You already board out vial, mom, swords. (This is the new plan after realizing vial is bad vs. storm.)

Also, not everybody even runs xantid swarm, and they don't even always draw it, and when they do, we don't even always have countermagic as our hate, and when we do, we might even have jitte to take it out.

Affinity: Aura is only great against affinity, but it's not an autowin. It's subpar if it's W and then 1WW plus a card for the effect.

Painter: cut 4 of something in the deck for that, perhaps mother of runes, or like KOTWO, it doesn't really matter as long as you make a reasonable choice.

DS: you would never tutor a jitte. Tutor isn't this handy toolbox, you only bring it in when the spell you're grabbing is so gg that -1 card -W is worth it.

For those of you who still decide that decks like UW merfolk have some merit over this deck, I suggest at least changing your sideboard to adopt the ideas of ours. In many matches, rather than just like a few for sideboards that are thrown together, we bring in many things, and sometimes even many things that completely cripple the opponent, like thorn of amethyst and auras against storm, graveyard hate against ichorid, BFT against goblins...

alderon666
01-10-2010, 11:19 AM
Your argument on the storm matchup seems rather optimistic. If you don't draw/tutor the hate your counterspell aren't likely to be enough. I also think you're overestimating your clock, 1/1's barely tickle and the 3/3 only does damage on turn 4(vialed) or turn 5 (cast). The Thorn is a fine piece of hate, but most storm players play Krosan Grip on the side, so don't bank on resolving a Thorn and sitting on it.

I test against Merfolk with storm constantly, a deck that packs much more disrutpion than this (Strifle, Wasteland, Daze, FoW, Cursecatcher) and has a much faster clock, and I win from 40% to 50% depending on the pilot. It's a hard matchup, but it's definetly winnable. And this deck just seems that much weaker game 1, on game 2/3 having a slight advantage because of Thorn + tutor.

pi4meterftw
01-10-2010, 12:51 PM
Your argument on the storm matchup seems rather optimistic. If you don't draw/tutor the hate your counterspell aren't likely to be enough. I also think you're overestimating your clock, 1/1's barely tickle and the 3/3 only does damage on turn 4(vialed) or turn 5 (cast). The Thorn is a fine piece of hate, but most storm players play Krosan Grip on the side, so don't bank on resolving a Thorn and sitting on it.

I test against Merfolk with storm constantly, a deck that packs much more disrutpion than this (Strifle, Wasteland, Daze, FoW, Cursecatcher) and has a much faster clock, and I win from 40% to 50% depending on the pilot. It's a hard matchup, but it's definetly winnable. And this deck just seems that much weaker game 1, on game 2/3 having a slight advantage because of Thorn + tutor.

Maybe you are misplaying, since last I checked most merfolk players claim at least 60% against TES. Kgrip costs 4 to remove thorn, so wtf? We're more afraid of like, chain of vapor, but then that requires (since they run 1) mystical tutor->chain, which can either eat a counter, another thorn, an aura, or sufficient beats where they can't do anything anymore in the meanwhile. I mean I find it hard to believe that thousands of games of testing won't sway you to believe we win about 70-75% against average players and maybe 65% against players who expect us, and 60% against players who expect us and don't make mistakes. It's definitely not a bad matchup. (The most heavily tested figure is the 65% figure, since Matt is a player who expects me, but might make a few errors with TES, but we tested the 60% figure by playing against a few experienced source players, as well as the 70-75% figure by playing just about anybody, including at the SCG 5K.)

Thorn has always been gg, I have never resolved a thorn and then proceeded to lose. Same with aura, the only thing is it's harder to resolve. usually you spend turns 1-2, or 1-3 locking them out, or at least neutralizing the threat of getting combo'd the next turn, so then you get to beat with avengers and grunts anyway, which stops the "threat" (if it even exists) of a dark confidant creating crippling card advantage through beats. In any case, I didn't claim our beats were good enough to force TES to act fast. The claim was in response to the question: How do you handle dark confidant. If they're going to win next turn anyway, dark confidant only replaces itself and wasn't the problem, so we don't care. If DC lives enough turns to do something, then they're also dead, or at the very least we have locked them out and then have them under the AdN range.

But to humor you, let's compare with merfolk. Merfolk has mana denial in the form of stifle and wasteland (Stifle does not disrupt the combo because if they get their engine going, they'll just draw a duress or something, the only meaningful combo stoppers are those that stop the engine). But I'll concede that stifle isn't useless; you can play mana denial. You have cursecatcher, daze, and FOW.

We have the same daze and FOW, with wasteland and wayfarer instead of stifle. You have a faster clock, than we do, and we have spell pierce instead of cursecatcher. You have 4 cursecatcher, we have 2 spell pierce, but spell pierce is a surprise. We can also occasionally match your clock with a grunt, and if we do, we also keep them off threshold. You guys have standstill and we have seers; if the game goes long, both of us are equally likely to win. However (and this actually mattered at the SCG 5K) we have jitte, so unless your bounce of choice is echoing truth, you lose to ETW and we can at least fight it half the time. It looks like I might believe that merfolk does maybe 5% better than us, but most merfolk players claim 60% matches, which is about 55% games, and we do claim about a 50% g1 score.

If we win g1, then it's virtually unwinnable for the AdN player, since from the play with thorns and the draw and tutors to find it, and the ability to mulligan hands lacking hate, we always win. So 50% of the time, the match is essentially over. The other 50% of the time, we still almost always win g2, and the question is can they win g3, which happens maybe 40% of the time with the most skilled players. So we're looking at 50%*~90%+50%*40%=65%.

Merfolk on the other hand gets nothing, so your comparison is a bit silly, but it gets 60%, which isn't bad either.

That you do 40-50% makes me question if you're playing it correctly.

4eak
01-10-2010, 02:10 PM
@ pi4meterftw

You replaced the broad term "storm" with what is usually the more specific term "TES". I'm not sure what you mean by the term, but I hope you are talking about more than just Burning Wish based Tendrils (Cook's list). Plain ANT is much more common and DDay-Hybrid lists are extremely flexible (and difficult to find good testing partners for).

Your post indicates that you think alderon666 is playing merfolk. I believe alderon666 is playing Storm, not merfolk. It looks like he is speaking from the perspective of a storm player, explaining that he initially would fear merfolk more than your list. I'm inclined to agree with alderon666; Merfolk does seem a stronger deck in the storm matchup.

No need to "humor" us with your comparison of merfolk and nogoyf. To claim anything close to merfolk's matchup percentages against storm is not an easy task. Also, since the primer suggests that many folk are likely to compare this deck to Merfolk, don't pass off this comparison as "silly".

First off, I think game 1 is the most important game against combo decks. Turning the game 1 which combo decks expect to win into even or better matchups is backbreaking to a combo player. I think Merfolk has the major asset here, and I think we have good reason to be skeptical of your 50% claim.

You have 12 cards which of major concern to the storm player (3x Wasteland, 4x Force, 3x Daze, 2x Spell pierce), the rest are much more neutral. Merfolk have 20-24 cards (Stifle, Wasteland, Daze, FoW, Cursecatcher, Standstill) which are of major concern. I consider this a large difference in game 1; which I think translates into a wider margin in game 1 win percentages than you seem to think.

Stifle is still better than you've given it credit for. Yes, you want to stop the engine, and stifle doesn't commonly hit the storm trigger, but when you have very clutch games (which Merfolk can certainly force against storm decks), every little bit of mana counts. They won't always be able to play around stifle. Stifle also has that invisible hand effect, whereby players will simply assume it is there, and artificially lose tempo because of it. Forcing the storm player to Chant or Duress regarding Stifle is a meaningful barrier. 1x Wasteland and 1x Daze which many Merfolk play that you don't does count for something (you don't have the "same daze"). In addition to all the -1 mana stacking effects like Stifle, remember that Wasteland and Daze have very important synergy with each other which will show itself in this matchup. Merfolk's Dazes count for more than yours because they have higher synergy.

Wayfarer hardly makes up for this either. Wayfarer will buy you more tempo against decks which actually rely upon dropping more than 1 land. Storm decks can play around wayfarer to a greater extent than many decks though; in fact, in many circumstances, storm breaks wayfarer's symmetry better than your deck (to your detriment).

I consider the 4x Cursecatchers to be stronger than 2x Spell pierce by a large margin as well. This "surprise factor" isn't as big a deal as you seem to think (duress reveals nicely). Aether Vial allows Cursecatcher to be a surprise too. Against Orim's Chant (the really dangerous card), I think Cursecatchers are deadlier. Force spike on a stick is pretty sweet, especially when subsequent drops makes him 2/2 or 3/3.

Also, Seer and Standstill aren't so easy to compare. You seem to think these cards should be compared in the mid-late game, where you are likely already winning as the fish deck. I think Standstill is much stronger than Fathom seer in the storm matchup though, especially since it can be used earlier. Standstill's symmetry is almost always broken by the fish player in this matchup, and with Vial and man-lands, the Merfolk player makes "setting up" (for the storm player) exceedingly painful. Standstill is a fine turn 2 or 3 play (depending on what you drop before it); generally catapulting the Standstill player into a much better game position than when they first dropped the Standstill. Seer, on the other hand, requires a lot of resources to play and activate at a vulnerable time in the game. Standstill with creatures/vials/man-lands often functions as a Time Walk, and Seer really doesn't do this.

You obviously don't autolose to combo game 1, but 50% does look a bit like hyperbole for the average player. I'll grant you have a plan for game 2, but surely you can at least see why alderon666 would be skeptical.

As for your testing, I think you need to take that into perspective as well (you show some perspective, but not enough imho). I've seen you play this deck, and I know you are an expert with it. I also think you can boast matchup percentages that are well above average because of it (and I expect nothing less from someone's pet deck). Apples to apples though, where I'm comparing average pilots against average pilots, I think you'll find different results for this matchup. You, as an expert pilot of Nogoyf, might have extraordinary results against average storm pilots. This is unlikely to be the case for most pilots.

Let us also remember how difficult it can be to find comparably expert storm partners (of all the variants) with which to test against -- this might be an issue for your reporting.

Even worse for your matchup percentage claim is that this deck is somewhat rogue (some have known about it for a while, but many have no idea what it is). Remove the 'rogue' mystique, and have people actually learn to play against it, and it seems quite likely that the matchups become at least slightly less favorable than before.

It isn't unreasonable to be skeptical -- if you think it is, then yes, please "humor us". =)






peace,
4eak

Forbiddian
01-10-2010, 02:48 PM
It's unreasonable for someone who hasn't played the deck to assert that documented results are fraudulent. If you think we're wrong about something, you could play the deck and actually help the testing, but wild speculation isn't going to convince me or anyone who has played it.



Incidentally, we group all ANT/DDT/TES/SI/whatever combo into the same pile for purposes of discussing the MU. You play differently against them (mainly mulligan differently), but I'm not going to write up like 15 different primers because some people decided to play one Doomsday and some people decided to play 3 Ad Nauseum and some people decided to play Burning Wish and other people decided to run more than one IGG (and some decided not to run any IGGs).

I'd say that Doomsday ANT is the toughest MU and TES is the easiest MU, but the slider is moving around numbers well over 50%.



You can even check your claims with reality/history of ANT even if you believe none of our claims: If you believe that ANT beats us, then obviously ANT should have similar percentages against any blue decks (we might have a worse G1, but probably better G2 and G3 to make up for it). It obviously beats everything non-blue except Belcher. So then it should beat everything except Belcher (a very new addition to the metagame -- I had no idea people were playing it).

We really have not seen that. ANT has been doing well and is a big part of any healthy meta, but it has never been dominating. If Belcher is the only thing that beats ANT, then obviously there should have been a long period of combo summer preceding the rediscovery of belcher decks. We haven't seen that and even in tournament results recently we don't see ANT players beating blue decks running just FoW, Daze, and Counterbalance, let alone everything we run.

A belief that better fits the evidence is:

ANT loses to most decks with Force, as long as the deck has something other than pure countermagic as backup.
ANT beats everything without Force.
ANT loses to faster combo.

pi4meterftw
01-10-2010, 02:50 PM
@ pi4meterftw

You replaced the broad term "storm" with what is usually the more specific term "TES". I'm not sure what you mean by the term, but I hope you are talking about more than just Burning Wish based Tendrils (Cook's list). Plain ANT is much more common and DDay-Hybrid lists are extremely flexible (and difficult to find good testing partners for).

Your post indicates that you think alderon666 is playing merfolk. I believe alderon666 is playing Storm, not merfolk. It looks like he is speaking from the perspective of a storm player, explaining that he initially would fear merfolk more than your list. I'm inclined to agree with alderon666; Merfolk does seem a stronger deck in the storm matchup.

No need to "humor" us with your comparison of merfolk and nogoyf. To claim anything close to merfolk's matchup percentages against storm is not an easy task. Also, since the primer suggests that many folk are likely to compare this deck to Merfolk, don't pass off this comparison as "silly".

First off, I think game 1 is the most important game against combo decks. Turning the game 1 which combo decks expect to win into even or better matchups is backbreaking to a combo player. I think Merfolk has the major asset here, and I think we have good reason to be skeptical of your 50% claim.

You have 12 cards which of major concern to the storm player (3x Wasteland, 4x Force, 3x Daze, 2x Spell pierce), the rest are much more neutral. Merfolk have 20-24 cards (Stifle, Wasteland, Daze, FoW, Cursecatcher, Standstill) which are of major concern. I consider this a large difference in game 1; which I think translates into a wider margin in game 1 win percentages than you seem to think.

Stifle is still better than you've given it credit for. Yes, you want to stop the engine, and stifle doesn't commonly hit the storm trigger, but when you have very clutch games (which Merfolk can certainly force against storm decks), every little bit of mana counts. They won't always be able to play around stifle. Stifle also has that invisible hand effect, whereby players will simply assume it is there, and artificially lose tempo because of it. Forcing the storm player to Chant or Duress regarding Stifle is a meaningful barrier. 1x Wasteland and 1x Daze which many Merfolk play that you don't does count for something (you don't have the "same daze"). In addition to all the -1 mana stacking effects like Stifle, remember that Wasteland and Daze have very important synergy with each other which will show itself in this matchup. Merfolk's Dazes count for more than yours because they have higher synergy.

Wayfarer hardly makes up for this either. Wayfarer will buy you more tempo against decks which actually rely upon dropping more than 1 land. Storm decks can play around wayfarer to a greater extent than many decks though; in fact, in many circumstances, storm breaks wayfarer's symmetry better than your deck (to your detriment).

I consider the 4x Cursecatchers to be stronger than 2x Spell pierce by a large margin as well. This "surprise factor" isn't as big a deal as you seem to think (duress reveals nicely). Aether Vial allows Cursecatcher to be a surprise too. Against Orim's Chant (the really dangerous card), I think Cursecatchers are deadlier. Force spike on a stick is pretty sweet, especially when subsequent drops makes him 2/2 or 3/3.

Also, Seer and Standstill aren't so easy to compare. You seem to think these cards should be compared in the mid-late game, where you are likely already winning as the fish deck. I think Standstill is much stronger than Fathom seer in the storm matchup though, especially since it can be used earlier. Standstill's symmetry is almost always broken by the fish player in this matchup, and with Vial and man-lands, the Merfolk player makes "setting up" (for the storm player) exceedingly painful. Standstill is a fine turn 2 or 3 play (depending on what you drop before it); generally catapulting the Standstill player into a much better game position than when they first dropped the Standstill. Seer, on the other hand, requires a lot of resources to play and activate at a vulnerable time in the game. Standstill with creatures/vials/man-lands often functions as a Time Walk, and Seer really doesn't do this.

You obviously don't autolose to combo game 1, but 50% does look a bit like hyperbole for the average player. I'll grant you have a plan for game 2, but surely you can at least see why alderon666 would be skeptical.

As for your testing, I think you need to take that into perspective as well (you show some perspective, but not enough imho). I've seen you play this deck, and I know you are an expert with it. I also think you can boast matchup percentages that are well above average because of it (and I expect nothing less from someone's pet deck). Apples to apples though, where I'm comparing average pilots against average pilots, I think you'll find different results for this matchup. You, as an expert pilot of Nogoyf, might have extraordinary results against average storm pilots. This is unlikely to be the case for most pilots.

Let us also remember how difficult it can be to find comparably expert storm partners (of all the variants) with which to test against -- this might be an issue for your reporting.

Even worse for your matchup percentage claim is that this deck is somewhat rogue (some have known about it for a while, but many have no idea what it is). Remove the 'rogue' mystique, and have people actually learn to play against it, and it seems quite likely that the matchups become at least slightly less favorable than before.

It isn't unreasonable to be skeptical -- if you think it is, then yes, please "humor us". =)






peace,
4eak

My mistake on the 40-50%, I should have said 50-60% was the statistic alderon was claiming from merfolk's perspective.

You bring up a good point about skill level, but it is also inherently built into nogoyf to reward its pilot for skill, meaning that any player with enough practice and aptitude for reasoning and statistics should eventually attain the reported percentages. Also remember that I did not do the bulk of my testing against an average opponent. Matt was my testing opponent for at least 90% of the games, and he knows the deck inside out, and is also a highly intelligent individual, for whom after about 5 games on a relatively easy to play deck he makes no more errors than a pretty good player of that deck would, and sometimes significantly fewer errors since he knows what's coming. It is true that my results are all from Matt or I piloting the deck, and I don't believe in extrapolation, much less extrapolation when there isn't even evidence; I have no idea how the deck would do in the hands of one who has just picked it up.

I agree with some of your merfolk points. I am not an expert of merfolk, so it's no surprise I should easily make mistakes in analyzing (even approximately) what the merfolk matchup should be. However, the fact is that against usual storm players we enjoy 50% g1s. Merfolk players usually claim about 55%. If the cards should account for more than a 5% difference, then the discrepancy probably arises out of the fact that the TES player does not know what we play, and does not pack the appropriate hate for NoGoyf.

When I say TES, I always mean, btw, the collection of the following:

virtually any storm deck with ad nauseam.

I don't try to distinguish too much although we do test different builds because it's typically difficult to identify what kind of build the deck is g1, and then g2-3 it doesn't matter because you have thorns.

Even if we always lost g1, which is far from being the truth, Ad Nauseam still has to pick up one of the back two games, and they're almost certainly not picking up the one where we're on the play.

The rogue factor will be eliminated, and if people are willing to run more vedalken shackles, mass removal, etc. etc. our deck could easily be kept at a normal level. But just like ichorid, if people don't pack serious hate and learn how the deck works, then there's no reason to take into account that the rogue factor will eventually wear off. We posted the list, played it in a major tournament, the ball's now in the court of other magic players to see if they will make the rogue factor wear off by studying our deck.

I'm generally not a big fan of skepticism because I wouldn't lie; I might make mistakes, but certainly not ones that would accidentally miss a large margin, since I approximately understand the way magic works. But I do understand not everybody knows that I follow this, so I can understand why he would be skeptical. I agree your reasoning is sound, and might concede as much as that if people practiced, we could be brought down to a 45% to merfolk's 55%. The main irritating thing is that many speculators haven't thought long enough to deduce real questions about the deck, nor have they at least tested to motivate asking the right questions. But we can leave it at this, I urge you to test the storm matchup for yourself. This might be better at convincing you (meaning anybody who decides to do this) or at least it might provide data where the NG player and the storm player are on equal skill footing.

4eak
01-10-2010, 11:12 PM
@ Forbiddian


It's unreasonable for someone who hasn't played the deck to assert that documented results are fraudulent. If you think we're wrong about something, you could play the deck and actually help the testing, but wild speculation isn't going to convince me or anyone who has played it.

Whoa whoa, I didn't say (and I wasn't even trying to imply) your results were fraudulent. I've bent over backwards trying not to say that. Accept my compliments for your deckbuilding and playskill; read my criticism with some charity though. Do not hastily assume I'm not familiar with this deck. I have tested your deck. I've played incarnations of it for quite a while (I've even purposely tested Goyf in your deck). I'm also not implying you are unreasonable, even if you aren't returning that favor. I think you are mistaken about the context of your results though, particularly when compared to other decks (Merfolk) and other pilots (who haven't created the deck itself).

My argument wasn't wild speculation either. In addition to my own testing and experience with this deck, I gave counterpoints to what I believe was a flawed merfolk comparison. I also gave you reasons why it is possible that you are finding different results. Please note, even 1,000 game sample sets have huge variance.

Like any good experiment, it needs to be replicable. It is possible that we've had different results. I've not said you have a terrible storm matchup either. I have said I think it is weaker than you've claimed, and I think Merfolk is better in this particular circumstance by a wider margin than you seem to believe.

You do need to consider the implications of playing one deck instead of another. Asking yourself, "why not play merfolk?" is a very good question. I think NoGoyf has some strongpoints which merfolk can't match (several aggro matchups come to mind), but with regards to Storm, I still disagree.


You can even check your claims with reality/history of ANT even if you believe none of our claims: If you believe that ANT beats us, then obviously ANT should have similar percentages against any blue decks (we might have a worse G1, but probably better G2 and G3 to make up for it). It obviously beats everything non-blue except Belcher. So then it should beat everything except Belcher (a very new addition to the metagame -- I had no idea people were playing it).

I think storm decks (not just ANT) have a slight advantage, not a huge one. You have 9 direct stack-disruption cards, a relatively slow clock (when compared to combo), and a much larger reliance upon the midgame than alternative aggro-control decks. This is a board control deck; I don't consider NoGoyf's ability to control the stack to be all that impressive. NoGoyf's strategy is somewhat unique; you won't easily find many comparable "blue decks" in this 'board control' regard; likewise, you won't find many top "blue decks" which have as few direct answers to storm as NoGoyf.

Your challenge here is odd; I think you've largely oversimplified the factors which go into storm's presence. I'll still try to briefly take your challenge. Look at the DTB forum. Your deck isn't parallel to the other blue decks. This deck simply isn't as stack-oriented and it doesn't sport a clock to make-up for the lack of disruption in the main. Quickly:

Merfolk has been discussed. Tempo Thresh is the most optimized by consensus over time deck I've ever seen, with raw pressure, a stronger disruption suite, and a good chance to hit the red zone early. Countertop has a widerange, and some are better than others (Countertop built for Zoo can be weaker in this regard), but its lockpiece is exceedingly potent. Landstill also has a range, and generally has more relevant blue spells than NoGoyf, although not as much of a clock. Landstill is one of the least defined decks, and some versions have stronger matches than others (some run Counterbalance for example, and many don't). I think Landstill is the most comparable blue deck to Nogoyf as it is similarly a board control deck, but I also think Landstill isn't as good against storm as something like Merfolk.

Outside of some Landstill builds, these are the decks that keep ANT at bay, not 9-permission, 3-wasteland decks with a slow clock and a decent sideboard plan. I don't grant 50% in game 1, but I'll agree to that percentage overall. If the DTB wasn't filled with blue decks like these, and instead with decks which have limited disruption and a clock more like NoGoyf, then yes, I think ANT would be more prevalent.


@ pi4meterftw

There is good precedent for skepticism -- we need to flee from even the appearance of "best thing since sliced bread" attitudes/arguments (which is why I think you should stay away from some of the language you've used with alderon666). You'll need to bend over backwards (more than we usually expect of others) to appear objective and willing to accept criticism (which I think you've done a good job of doing for the most part).

You are in the unenviable position of discussing a deck as one of its creators. As you have implied, in your position, I think it is better to understate your experience and beliefs about the deck, and let the future results of the deck speak and let other players come to defend the deck.

I know I enjoy the deck. I think it has a better ground game than many people realize, and powerful tempo tools to vault itself into a good mid-game. It has a good deal of synergy, which is odd for a fish deck. For now, I have to ask myself, "why play NoGoyf instead of just modifying Merfolk, Thresh, Survival, and Bant mixtures (which are some of the decks which need to be compared) for a better ground game?" Giving up on Tarmogoyf and other powerful standalone options like Qasali Pridemage and Rhox War Monk still requires some justification in my eyes.





peace,
4eak

HAVE HEART
01-11-2010, 01:06 AM
I found this funny: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t[C1]=leg&start_date=2010-01-10&end_date=2010-01-10&event_type=STAL&state=TX;

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=30816.

Forbiddian
01-11-2010, 01:54 AM
Sean, thanks for pointing that one out. Yay, another Top 8 for NoGoyf. Bummer he wasn't able to beat Merfolk. 'Folk decks with Umezawa's Jitte MD aren't the easy matchup that Merfolk without Jitte are, it's closer to a coinflip in that case.

Richard Wayne (the guy piloting NoGoyf) went undefeated on the Swiss to draw into the top 8 without a sweat.


We'll wait to see the breakdown, but potentially there were only two people ever to play NoGoyf in these SCG tournaments, and two top 8 finishes. For anybody demanding our results be replicable....




Incidentally:

Fish: 14
Dredge: 11
Burn: 8
ANT: 7
Zoo: 6
Aggro Loam: 5
Countertop: 5
Enchantress: 5
Survival: 5
Threshhold: 5
38 Land: 4
Goblins: 4
NO Bant: 4
Belcher Combo: 3
Dream Halls: 3
Eva Green: 3
Affinity: 2
Geddon Stax: 2
Imperial Painter: 2
Painted Stone: 2

Oh my god that's a juicy metagame for NoGoyf. Nice to see the guy was able to T8. I hope that he'll post a tournament report or at least a matchup/win/loss breakdown. I'm pretty sure against that metagame, you'd have to play against Dredge and ANT a few times on the Swiss.

Since people in this thread were mainly saying our matchups against those are bad, we can see some data that's not mine, not Jeff's.

tyleredw
01-11-2010, 02:00 AM
Sean, thanks for pointing that one out. Yay, another Top 8 for NoGoyf. Bummer he wasn't able to beat Merfolk. 'Folk decks with Umezawa's Jitte MD aren't the easy matchup that Merfolk without Jitte are, it's closer to a coinflip in that case.


We'll wait to see the breakdown, but potentially there were only two people ever to play NoGoyf in these SCG tournaments, and two top 8 finishes. For anybody demanding our results be replicable....

Not to mention, he would've been top4 if he didn't punt game 3 of that match really hard.

I might have to put this deck together soon and try it. At the very least, fathom seer shenanigans seem entertaining. :tongue:

Forbiddian
01-11-2010, 02:12 AM
Not to mention, he would've been top4 if he didn't punt game 3 of that match really hard.

I might have to put this deck together soon and try it. At the very least, fathom seer shenanigans seem entertaining. :tongue:

Didn't watch it, what happened?

Otter
01-11-2010, 06:22 AM
Didn't watch it, what happened?

Game two he lost a Grunt either because he didn't realize he could split paying its age counters between the two graveyards or possibly because he just forgot to pay the upkeep. Either way he then died to triple Goyf, which must've sucked.

Game three it started when he forgot to Vial in a Mother of Runes, then escalated into him doing pretty much everything wrong for about five turns in a row. Horrific tilt, felt kinda bad for him.

Anyways, he could've won either game if he was a bit more on top of everything.

Forbiddian
01-11-2010, 12:43 PM
Game two he lost a Grunt either because he didn't realize he could split paying its age counters between the two graveyards or possibly because he just forgot to pay the upkeep. Either way he then died to triple Goyf, which must've sucked.

Game three it started when he forgot to Vial in a Mother of Runes, then escalated into him doing pretty much everything wrong for about five turns in a row. Horrific tilt, felt kinda bad for him.

Anyways, he could've won either game if he was a bit more on top of everything.

Ugh. At least he played well for the first 5 rounds to get there, so good for him. And probably that was less of a meltdown than some other people in the Top 8 (from what I hear).

NoGoyf itself ran very well the whole tournament, then.

pi4meterftw
01-12-2010, 04:40 AM
We are currently working on taking the name of the deck more seriously than like 0. My idea is to name the deck "Phoenix Ignition v0.6." We're glad the corresponding Source Member didn't choose a handle like "I'm an idiot" because that would make for a horrible deck name.

Hopefully Matt will chime in with some ideas, but we are open to suggestions, as long as they're within reason.

Illissius
01-12-2010, 05:01 AM
Worse Than Goyf? (In the tradition of Worse Than Fish.)

4eak
01-12-2010, 05:14 AM
I think "Sliced Bread" was a decent name; it would match Forbiddian's rhetoric. It has been hilarious to re-read this thread.

While my replicability argument was about Storm (and to some extent why I prefer playing merfolk in a storm heavy metagame to this deck), I also agree that it applies to the general metagame. In light of that, I also think it takes a bit more than 2 tournament placements (and your personal/local experience) to show replication. Don't hear me doubting that the deck is capable of doing well overall, but it is far from proven in my eyes.

As to actually naming the deck, if NoGoyf isn't going to be used (which I found to be a playful name), I think U/W Fish or Wayfarer Fish would be fine names. Much of the deck is defined by Wayfarer in my opinion, and it is the usual naming convention to highlight the MVP card/strategy.




peace,
4eak

FoulQ
01-12-2010, 05:45 AM
The deck is hard to come up with a name for, I agree. The best thing I can come up with is Postmodern Fish, that is a fun little name, but not as exciting as some of the other options. However it is very to the point. For some reason I think of postmodern and I think of a timeline, and it's at the end, just like how the deck can be wicked strong in the late game. But it still retains a lot of fishy qualities. Just a thought I guess. I feel like phoenix kind of implies red. I actually think that would be a better name for a RB combo deck or something along those lines.

My worries about this deck is people figuring out relatively unknown cards like Fathom Seer and figuring out how to play against a card like weathered wayfarer. I fear the same thing is sort of happening with dream halls right now as well. It's final test is time.

eq.firemind
01-12-2010, 05:58 AM
I'd call it Wayfarer's Blues. At least it's not Magic-geeky.

Julian23
01-12-2010, 06:08 AM
Next Level Fish?

RexFTW
01-12-2010, 10:55 AM
Has anyone tried Cosi's Trickster instead of knight of the White Orchid? :wink:

Meister_Kai
01-12-2010, 11:11 AM
I think most "traditional naming conventions" or whatever are stupid. Fruity Pebbles? Worse than fish? These all sound silly.

I don't like the term "fish" in conjunction with this decks name (yes I know what the term means) because even though its a bunch of small creatures only 4 in the deck are blue.

As said earlier, I think Wayfarer Tempo is a good name, because it combines the aspects of what the deck is about with its (or what I think of as) the deck's namesake card. Thing is, one day you could take Wayfarer out, and I wouldn't name the deck after a card that you feel isn't the strongest link.

That said, and this is the only part of my post I hope you follow closely, don't name the deck after some inside-joke. Nobody will get it. It doesn't sound clever. When someone tells me what their deck's name is, I want a good idea what the deck does without looking at any of its cards. A name like "My daughter's diary" tells me jack shit.

stuckpixel
01-12-2010, 11:25 AM
I <3 the name Sliced Bread.

Dislike U/W Tempo and Wayfarer Tempo - conventional names for decks are boring.

Naming a deck after an inside joke and no one else getting it is kind of the point of naming it after an inside joke.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
01-12-2010, 11:30 AM
Call it Land Hax.

(nameless one)
01-12-2010, 11:33 AM
I actually like Bread as this deck's name... Just bread...

Its either that or this:


Hahaha Anus Mittens is an awesome name for a deck!

Wargoos
01-12-2010, 11:43 AM
The Secret Solution - TSS

or The Secret Wayfarer Solution - SWS

for the decks gameplan being rogue. :laugh:

But seriously, I will build this, got most of the cards, the deck seems promising AND I CAN GET MY MOFUCKING SERRA AVENGER TO WORK!
I cried when I realized DnT died and my beloved avengers couldn't be played competitive anymore. (Arrival of the goyf)

paK0
01-12-2010, 12:36 PM
Call it Land Hax.


I lol'd, actually like it




I just thought that WBT Control might do =).
WBT standing for Wayfarer beats Tarmogoyf. Not the best literaric suggestion of all time but I think it fits. Contains the card that most people associate with the deck, Tarmogoyf for the original reference and well, control for being a controlish deck.

As for me I am german and lots of us just name their decks after the first thing that comes to mind (like what you had for lunch) or just something funny.

electrolyze
01-12-2010, 01:27 PM
Call the deck goofin' (off). As kind of an anagram of nogoif (you still say it as nogoyf).

Otherwise 'NY goof', but that doesnt make sense (unless you have a grudge against people from NY, and because there were 24 goyfs in the last big NY tournament). But it would make the anagram better.

Forbiddian
01-12-2010, 11:35 PM
Land Hax is the frontrunner, for those keeping track.


Wish I had thought of that :-(. Yeah, it's obviously an inside joke for everyone playing Legacy, but then I guess it's not THAT inside.

I like how deck names are somewhat descriptive of what they do, so that the name sticks easier. I don't like names like Fruity Pebbles, Solidarity, NoGoyf, Team America, that are hard to remember if you're not part of the in-crowd, but generally the most apt/funniest names are like that. Like Soltaire is such a great name for Enchantress, but people call it Enchantress because it's more descriptive/sticks easier.


If we call it Land Hax it might be called UW Land Hax or something. Does that sound too clunky?

stuckpixel
01-12-2010, 11:46 PM
I could get on board with Land Hax (not that my opinion actually matters). UW Land Hax isn't too clunky, 2 syllables for a deck name is about as minimialist as you can get aside from 'burn' or 'elves'.

Cyrus
01-13-2010, 12:05 AM
Land Hax is indeed awesome.

Meister_Kai
01-13-2010, 12:07 AM
Land Hax is the frontrunner, for those keeping track.


Wish I had thought of that :-(. Yeah, it's obviously an inside joke for everyone playing Legacy, but then I guess it's not THAT inside.

I like how deck names are somewhat descriptive of what they do, so that the name sticks easier. I don't like names like Fruity Pebbles, Solidarity, NoGoyf, Team America, that are hard to remember if you're not part of the in-crowd, but generally the most apt/funniest names are like that. Like Soltaire is such a great name for Enchantress, but people call it Enchantress because it's more descriptive/sticks easier.


If we call it Land Hax it might be called UW Land Hax or something. Does that sound too clunky?

Just "Land Hax" should suffice, not like there aren't any RGW lists running around. No, I don't consider "Hax an inside joke, anybody playing magic should be familiar with the term "hax" and any eternal player worth their salt knows what Land Tax is.

Also, for the record "Phenoix Ignition" sounds like the title of a bad japanese cartoon, no offense to the poster with that name though.

Forbiddian
01-13-2010, 12:10 AM
Well, some idiot is going to post in this thread:

"I thought Land Hax was 43-Lands. So confusing!! CHANGE NAME PLZ!!"


So mainly I'm just probing for that guy.

mossivo1986
01-13-2010, 12:52 AM
polar bear. ilve always admired your humor, but land hax is genious.

+1 for land hax.

p.s. pheonix ignition is a far better name then your giving him credit for. it uses pheonix which is a fucking sweet creature (i dont know plurall term for pheonix) and ignition, which to me if u can use ignition succesfully in a screen name then your sick in my eyes.

anus ignition....

Gui
01-13-2010, 05:29 AM
Nice name, Land Hax! ^^

Just began to read about the deck, although I think "NoGoyf" is a good name, and lol'd about "Land Hax", but I think none describles the, uhm, UW Control w/ creatures idea... I think: +1 to "UW Land Hax".

I remember when "Fish", which was supposed to be "Merfolk"'s name, became UWb Fish, and gave up running merfolks... and now merfolks came back from the ashes and everyone calls it Fish again, and I don't even know if the UWb fish exists anymore... Well, "UWb Fish" was something similar to NoGoyf (run white creatures, blue control...), so it defenitively demands a strong name so that it sticks once and for all, and sink that poor name "Fish".

Maveric78f
01-13-2010, 05:53 AM
Can someone explain me what Land Hax is supposed to mean?

Is it just supposed to mean that the deck destroys lands and be close to Land Tax?

Gui
01-13-2010, 06:06 AM
Can someone explain me what Land Hax is supposed to mean?

Is it just supposed to mean that the deck destroys lands and be close to Land Tax?

Maybe i'm wrong on that one, since i'm not english native, but I thought that "Hax" standed for "hacks" which is some kind of slang for "cheating" which means the deck "cheats" to get high amount of lands, and since it's effect is similar to Land Tax one, it fits. :smile:

Illissius
01-13-2010, 11:03 AM
The main issue with Land Hax is what you do if they actually unban Tax. Probably nothing.

(nameless one)
01-13-2010, 11:23 AM
Why call it Land Hax... just call it Hax.

Short and simple. Usually decks with one name do really good. Look at Zoo, Goblins, Thresh, Fish, Staxx, ANT.

Look what happened at Death & Taxes and Team America... too much going on with its name, did not really get there.

Gui
01-13-2010, 12:03 PM
Why call it Land Hax... just call it Hax.

Short and simple. Usually decks with one name do really good. Look at Zoo, Goblins, Thresh, Fish, Staxx, ANT.

Look what happened at Death & Taxes and Team America... too much going on with its name, did not really get there.

You could also call it something else, like... Fax... or Max... or Sax...

Nessaja
01-13-2010, 12:19 PM
Landfarer! As opposed to its cousin in the control spectrum -still.

whienot
01-13-2010, 12:31 PM
Way-stax. (Waste-tax) Abuses the stack, wastelands the hell out of the opponent, land taxesqe namesake. But really, we might as well give up.

Nothing is as awesome as Land Hax.

RexFTW
01-13-2010, 01:58 PM
Has anyone considered wall of tears in this deck instead of knight of the white orchid?

Pros:
Blue (force)
blocks zoo creatures profitably
out of bolt range
insane tempo swings
hilarious with mother of runes!

Cons:
first strike + jitte gives people fits
not as good at blocking silvergill adepts or piledrivers.

stuckpixel
01-13-2010, 02:04 PM
You forgot to add "Con: Terrible".

2/2 first striker for 2 that can carry a jitte like a champ is worlds above a 0/4 wall that basically serves as an expensive, worse than sorcery speed unsummon for a large majority of creatures.

RexFTW
01-13-2010, 02:14 PM
Y expensive, worse than sorcery speed unsummon for a large majority of creatures.

It is 'instant' off a vial and much harder to burn out for goblins/zoo. 4 toughness will block goyf which is (in my experience) usually a 3/4 vs this deck. If you read the first several pages of the thread the author intends the deck to be played as control not jitte-agro and I think wall of tears is very difficult to attack into.

I will test it out and let you know how it works!

paK0
01-13-2010, 02:28 PM
Yeah, it is essentially a control deck, but Jitte wins too many games of its own to play creatures that cannot attack with it. Even the Seer becomes a monster with it.

Right now the games i loose are not due to being overwhelmed, so the Wall only adresses a weakness the Deck does not have right now.

RexFTW
01-13-2010, 02:38 PM
Even the Seer becomes a monster with it. hehe I think any creature with a power >0 is unfair with a jitte!

paK0
01-13-2010, 02:57 PM
hehe I think any creature with a power >0 is unfair with a jitte!

Exactly my point, and this is a huge part why the Wall fails in this deck =).

RexFTW
01-13-2010, 03:02 PM
the other 18 creatures aren't good enough?

paK0
01-13-2010, 03:06 PM
I'm not saying that. Im pretty sure the deck can win with wall in it =).

The point is that the Wall will not increase the win%, so there is no reason to play it (imo). If you like test it and show some results, maybe you discovered the new tech for this deck, I, however, highly dobt it.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
01-13-2010, 03:23 PM
The main issue with Land Hax is what you do if they actually unban Tax. Probably nothing.

Nothing sounds good. That card is awful. It can't even carry Equipment.

On a side note, I've desperately wanted to fit Trinket Mage into a deck that could support Meekstone for ages. And this seems like a prime contender. The only 3+ power creature you have is Avenger, who has Vigilance, and anyone carrying Jitte counters.

I'm not sure what to cut and/or if that'd be terrible. The list already seems pretty near complete.

It'd just be Hell cool, though.

My thought is if you're only running 3x Vial you might not actually need them that much.

On a side note, is anyone else aware that this list looks a lot like Wayfarer White Weenie from way back during the 1.5/early Legacy days? That's not an accusation of plagiarism. For one thing, this list seems to be a vast improvement on those old lists. I just really missed seeing Wayfarer up there winning tournaments.

Jayzonious
01-13-2010, 03:38 PM
I'm gonna be honest, I've only read the first 2 pages and the last 3ish of this thread, but this deck has always interested me.

I always wondered why Meddling Mage has not been included in the list, I don't even see it on the sideboards. Seems like he could be pretty good in it. Is there a specific reason for him not being included? Thanks in advance.