[Report] Anusien's Tale of Scrubbery [Archive]

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Anusien

10-10-2006, 11:48 AM

[Report] Take Your Whipping Like an Altar Boy (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=30557.0)
I have some pictures that aren't up yet, but there aren't many.

URABAHN

10-10-2006, 01:45 PM

Was it that difficult to cut and paste it on The Source? It was...interesting meeting you, btw! I look forward to witnessing more discussion of Tog v. Gro between you and AnwarA101!

Firebrothers

10-10-2006, 01:55 PM

Perhaps he just wanted the discussion limited to one web site.

Anusien

10-10-2006, 04:36 PM

There's limiting the discussion to one site, plus the fact that I just followed Machinus's lead on this one.

Yeah, that discusison was sad. Like, yes, going 0-4-1 with a deck kinda hinders its credibility, but it's basically just something Bardo wrote:

Control-based Psychatog has broken every format since the card’s printing in Odyssey block. To this day, despite numerous upheavals in its respective formats, Tog remains a top tier deck in Extended, taking First Place at GP: Los Angeles; and, in Vintage, taking Second Place at the most recent Waterbury, where it lost to Grow-a-Tog, of all things. But Psychatog’s absence in Legacy is perplexing.
I feel that Legacy is fundamentally strong. The blue-based decks that do well are highly synergistic, but weak. Both Reset High Tide ("Solidarity") (David Gearheart, you're WRONG! :P) and Threshold both win small. They do little things with cantrips and one mana spells. You're playing Opt and Peek when Intuition/AK and Fact or Fiction are both in the format. This is not to say those decks are bad, because they're clearly very good, but it seems like some sort of powerful control deck, when properly built, would own because it would just blow those decks out of the water with extremely powerful cards. You wouldn't need to devote an extra 7 slots to creatures; you could run 3-4 Tog and then just make the entire rest of your deck removal and disruption and draw. That's the point I was trying to establish, but I did it poorly.

quicksilver

10-10-2006, 04:56 PM

They do little things with cantrips and one mana spells. You're playing Opt and Peek when Intuition/AK and Fact or Fiction are both in the format. This is not to say those decks are bad, because they're clearly very good, but it seems like some sort of powerful control deck, when properly built, would own because it would just blow those decks out of the water with extremely powerful cards.

I think the reason why you see spells like opt and peak more than Intuition/ak and Fact or Fiction, is not because the smaller ones are more powerful, but because they are much faster. Intuition/ak and Fact or Fiction are slow as balls in this format, too slow in fact to be contenders which is why we need smaller, faster effects to win. Casting FoF on turn 4 is a strong play, but if you never even get a turn 3, it's about as good as a polar kraken. Do you seriously want to be tapping out (even at the end of your opponents turn) for FoF against say solidarity? That's just like handing them the win.

edit: P.S. Where are teh pics at?

jamest

10-10-2006, 05:10 PM

Power level of a card is directly related to its casting cost. It is possible that Opt is just stronger than Fact or Fiction, because of its efficiency. Magic is an evolving game. What was once a ban worthy card like FOF may simply be mediocre at this point.

AnwarA101

10-10-2006, 05:20 PM

I feel that Legacy is fundamentally strong. The blue-based decks that do well are highly synergistic, but weak. Both Reset High Tide ("Solidarity") (David Gearheart, you're WRONG! :P) and Threshold both win small. They do little things with cantrips and one mana spells. You're playing Opt and Peek when Intuition/AK and Fact or Fiction are both in the format. This is not to say those decks are bad, because they're clearly very good, but it seems like some sort of powerful control deck, when properly built, would own because it would just blow those decks out of the water with extremely powerful cards. You wouldn't need to devote an extra 7 slots to creatures; you could run 3-4 Tog and then just make the entire rest of your deck removal and disruption and draw. That's the point I was trying to establish, but I did it poorly.

Like I said when we were discussing this, theoretically Psychatog could work in Legacy. But that's all I'm willing to concede. Everything else is for you to prove to us. You have failed to do so in every way imaginable. 0-4-1 Drop is not only not impressive, it is the definition of failure. I don't say this to be mean but to show that you tried to prove your argument in practice and you failed. Those who have argued for Solidarity and Threshold have proven their argument time and time again. They have proven that their 'weak' spells are not only good enough to win but win consistently. You haven't even shown that Psychatog can win at all. Until you do that, have some respect for the decks that proven themselves and attempt to emulate their success.

jazzykat

10-10-2006, 05:47 PM

What I learned when I changed over from T1 to T1.5 is that 1.5 is a format of relative "eveness".

In 1.5 ou get 1 mana spells, that do amazing things. i.e. Lackey, bolt, stp, etc. but they balance each other.

In t1 you get ancestral recall. Nothing for 1 cc is that good.

In 1.5 you play a land a turn. You can try and cheat this with either tombs, city of traitors, mox diamonds, chrome mox etc. Each one has a significant drawback that sometimes makes you mulligan or lose the game (I won't rant about how taking "broken" hands sometimes cause me to stall or get toasted by a wasteland etc.)

In T1 you play real moxes and mishra's workshop. You only mulligan if you don't have the right colors.

In 1 you have mana drain so what does a 4 cc spell really cost? 2 after a drain?

1.5 Allows you to break rules sometimes and in not very dramatic ways. When was the last time you heard of a "really broken play". They can't happen, the cards that make you go broken or are broken are banned.

What I am getting at is that the efficiency as stated above is what really matters. If lackey hits you and you get siege gang banged you have almost lost and you have no drain and timewalk to save the day. Your only hope is pyroclasm or some other quick mass creature removal.

Big powerful spells without a lot of fast mana to power them simply do not work right now, because little efficient spells will smoke you before you cast your FoF or whatever.

Anusien

10-11-2006, 12:57 AM

Like I said when we were discussing this, theoretically Psychatog could work in Legacy. But that's all I'm willing to concede. Everything else is for you to prove to us. You have failed to do so in every way imaginable. 0-4-1 Drop is not only not impressive, it is the definition of failure. I don't say this to be mean but to show that you tried to prove your argument in practice and you failed. Those who have argued for Solidarity and Threshold have proven their argument time and time again. They have proven that their 'weak' spells are not only good enough to win but win consistently. You haven't even shown that Psychatog can win at all. Until you do that, have some respect for the decks that proven themselves and attempt to emulate their success.
Of course I've failed to prove anything to you all, and of course I suck at Magic. If I didn't, I'd be CavernNinja or David Geartheart or Bardo or you or someone who has done something significant at this game. I suck at Magic. Why do you think I call myself the Mike Flores of Legacy? I build these interesting decks that are strong in theory and then fail in practice. This is an exaggeration. I tend to be a very solid player and I find some creative solutions to problems. I'm just not a tight technical player.

Who said I didn't have respect for the decks that have proven themselves? I love Threshold, Solidarity and now the UWB Fish decks (and I respect Goblins for being brutal). They do interesting and incredibly synergistic things. I respect them a lot and think they are solid choices (and if I ever bothered to try and find cards ahead of time, I could probably just play them). However, I'm not looking for decks that win small. My goal is to find the extremely powerful decks that can blow out the other guy. That's why I tried so hard with Flame Vault Stax. I want to find the Trix, the Long.dec, the T1 Tog in a field of Keeper (or even more impressively GAT in a field of TNT). I wouldn't even mind Stax in a field of GAT. I've basically stopped work on aggro-control decks because I haven't found anything that makes them better than Threshold or UWB Fish. I don't work on aggro decks because I haven't found anything that works better in the meta than Goblins (even if I can find decks that beat Goblins, like Zoo). The reason I've been looking towards combo-control is that theoretically, if you find the right build, it can beat everything. Tog was dominant in T1 for a long time. Get a solid core to let it combo over Goblins, out power Threshold with card draw and just run 4 Duress and 8+ counters to blow Tide out of the water. Now obviously I've failed to find a build that can do that, but I'm not convinced such a thing doesn't exist. So I'm going to keep looking. In the meanwhile, I think I understand BBS versus ATS better than anyone on the planet, since I've spent hours trying to make that matchup winnable from the blue side.

By the way, you will never convince me that Opt is more powerful than Peek for being cheaper. Opt is definitely better in the current format for being playable and able to get hand optimization going faster, but Fact or Fiction does ridiculous things. You're never going to play Peek and make your opponent want to scoop because you've buried them in card advantage. I mean, hell, I had an opponent end up +3 as well as optimizing their draws to a ridiculous degree with the Threshold Predict engine, and he still felt blown out of the water by the power of my draw. If you can get Intuition + AK online, you get such a ridiculous advantage over other decks with counters.

parallax

10-11-2006, 11:11 AM

You're never going to play Peek and make your opponent want to scoop because you've buried them in card advantage.

I scooped to Peek once. I was playing Iggy Pop against Solidarity, which is nearly unwinnable game one anyway, I scooped so he wouldn't know what I was playing going into game two.

AnwarA101

10-11-2006, 11:31 AM

Who said I didn't have respect for the decks that have proven themselves? I love Threshold, Solidarity and now the UWB Fish decks (and I respect Goblins for being brutal). They do interesting and incredibly synergistic things. I respect them a lot and think they are solid choices (and if I ever bothered to try and find cards ahead of time, I could probably just play them). However, I'm not looking for decks that win small.

Your implication that Solidarity and Threshold play "weak" spells and win "small" is a lack of respect. How can something that wins time and time again be weak? Their ability to win because they can actually cast their spells before they die is not weak but very a strong characteristic. Is Fact or Fiction really powerful if you are basically dead when you cast it? Those are the questions you need to ask yourself. I'm not convinced something like Fact or Fiction will ever be great in this format, but I'll agree that if Fact or Fiction could be cast before the game is basically over then its power level would be high. Spells are rarely useful when you are dead before you cast them.

My goal is to find the extremely powerful decks that can blow out the other guy. That's why I tried so hard with Flame Vault Stax. I want to find the Trix, the Long.dec, the T1 Tog in a field of Keeper (or even more impressively GAT in a field of TNT). I wouldn't even mind Stax in a field of GAT. I've basically stopped work on aggro-control decks because I haven't found anything that makes them better than Threshold or UWB Fish. I don't work on aggro decks because I haven't found anything that works better in the meta than Goblins (even if I can find decks that beat Goblins, like Zoo). The reason I've been looking towards combo-control is that theoretically, if you find the right build, it can beat everything. Tog was dominant in T1 for a long time. Get a solid core to let it combo over Goblins, out power Threshold with card draw and just run 4 Duress and 8+ counters to blow Tide out of the water. Now obviously I've failed to find a build that can do that, but I'm not convinced such a thing doesn't exist. So I'm going to keep looking. In the meanwhile, I think I understand BBS versus ATS better than anyone on the planet, since I've spent hours trying to make that matchup winnable from the blue side.

You are trying to break the format by finding a deck that beats Goblins, Threshold, and Solidarity? That's fine. Many people are trying to do that, but most don't write articles about how great certain decks are and then go 0-4-1 Drop. Or claim that 3 color Slide beats Goblins and then lose to it. Or claim you broke the format and then proceed to scrub out.

Anusien

10-11-2006, 01:10 PM

I'm confused. Bardo wrote the article about Tog. I wrote about FVSS and admitted that it went only split +/- about 5% versus Goblins (usually in their favor). I've freely admitted the problems with every deck I've ever built, and yet you're chewing me out for hyping too much?

You do realize that quotes about winning small with Threshold come straight from Bardo, right? It's very much like playing in limited; you need to be extremely tight and make all the right decisions to win, especially without having to rely on Mystic Enforcer. It requires doing the right play like Forcing Brainstorm sometimes.
Perhaps there's a difference in terminology. Let's take Extended Heartbeat. There was a competition over a slot, with Ideas Unbound fighting to take slots away from Mind's Desire. Mind's Desire is objectively a more powerful card. Even if Ideas Unbound ends up in the better build of the deck, that doesn't make Mind's Desire any less powerful of a card.
Another example (from SCG's submit an article page).

Reject #3: There Are No Good Cards,
Only Good Decks

Spiritmonger was one of the most powerful creatures ever printed... But it never saw serious play back when it was Standard-legal. Although it was an incredibly-potent win condition, the rest of the black and the green cards available couldn't back it up.
The lesson is clear: No single card is good enough on its own. You need at least fifty-six other cards to make it win. (Combine Spiritmonger with Cabal Therapy and Treetop Village, on the other hand, and you might just have a deck for Extended.)

As such, one of the most common errors I see is players looking at cards from spoilers and saying, "Oh, this looks powerful! And this looks powerful!"

Cards cannot be judged in a vacuum. The question is always, "Can a deck be built around this card that will win against the most popular decks?" If you're just saying, "Wow, Mindslicer is a powerful card and it will surely see play just because it's powerful," then you'd better think again.

My goal is to find all the powerful cards and try and build more powerful decks around then. I'm denigrating the decks that people are playing; in fact I've recommended Threshold as a good deck for peole to play multiple times. As well as Goblins, and Reset High Tide. It's just while I acknowledge that those are the best decks now, I'm not convinced they're the best decks in maybe a year. Look at Vintage, where Sui Black has been replaced by something like Gifts, or Standard, where Gifts was pushed out of the way by an objectively better deck like Greater Gifts, or Flores (Jushi) Blue by Tron.

AnwarA101

10-11-2006, 01:57 PM

I'm confused. Bardo wrote the article about Tog. I wrote about FVSS and admitted that it went only split +/- about 5% versus Goblins (usually in their favor). I've freely admitted the problems with every deck I've ever built, and yet you're chewing me out for hyping too much?

I'm chewing you out? I disagreed with your assessment that Solidarity and Threshold play "weak" cards. I don't see how I'm chewing you out. Even you agreed that Tog as you played it was bad.

My goal is to find all the powerful cards and try and build more powerful decks around then. I'm denigrating the decks that people are playing; in fact I've recommended Threshold as a good deck for peole to play multiple times. As well as Goblins, and Reset High Tide. It's just while I acknowledge that those are the best decks now, I'm not convinced they're the best decks in maybe a year. Look at Vintage, where Sui Black has been replaced by something like Gifts, or Standard, where Gifts was pushed out of the way by an objectively better deck like Greater Gifts, or Flores (Jushi) Blue by Tron.

Things can ofcourse change with time. No one is arguing otherwise. If you are trying look forward and find what might be better in the future that's fine. I'm not attacking your attempt to play something outside of the established decks. If you will notice I play decks outside that established tier. My only complaint is that you simply present decks that aren't good in the current metagame such as 3 color Slide but you write that they are. How well has that deck turned out for you? I just checked your result in February here it is -

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=15783

If you want to admit that you are bad at Magic that is fine with me. The following question comes to my mind - Given that you are bad at Magic, why should anyone take your articles seriously?

Machinus

10-11-2006, 02:08 PM

Anusien -

Those decks have never been good in the first place. It's quite ignorant to talk about how broken or powerful some decks are that have never had a better performance than the other thousand rogue decks in Legacy. FV was never "broken," or even good, despite your ridiculous article title and your incessant hyping of the deck. Tog has never been good in Legacy, even though it has made it to a top8 at least once. On the rare occasions it is played, Slide does not have much success. Many bad decks have a similar story.

You do a disservice to the community and the format by acting irresponsibly with your writing and your hyping. If there were any merit to your ideas, it would be obscured by your egoism and disrespect of the work of other players. If you truly wish to engage in constructive debate, then remove your emotional involvement with your decks and show some maturity.

Your endless examples from other formats are usually irrelevant and counter to the current understanding of Legacy. It doesn't matter how many Extended or Type 2 theorists you can quote, and applying those ideas to Legacy is a waste of time. You are excluding yourself from discussion by appealing to unrelated ideas and failing to form original theories.

If you continue to manifest solipsism, you can never engage in constructive debate or earn respect. However, if you treat the format and the community the way they deserve, your ideas will be judged on their merit by those whose opinions matter.

Hanni

10-11-2006, 02:54 PM

I don't see why everyone is bashing Anusien. He had a poor tournament performance but I don't see what he said that caused everyone to bash him.

Anyway though, to stay back on topic, I think Tog can do well. I just don't think that slow sweepers like Deed is the best route. I think running Tog, with Loam, makes the deck alot stronger. People argue that Loam is too slow. I think that's why it's beneficial to run Mox Diamond and go with a more aggro oriented version. In this way, the aggro can act as early game blockers to deal with the opponent's aggro, rather than rely on 4 Pernicious Deed or Fire/Ice or whatever to save you.

I don't think Intuition turn 3 into AK turn 4 is really as good as you think either. Intuition into AK is basically a 5cc 3 card draw spell. I like AK, especially in Tog, but I don't think the whole Intuition into AK plan is good. I'd much rather grab Loam, some techy lands (like Cabal Pit, Wasteland, Lonely Sandbar) some techy dredge cards (like Stinkweed Imp or Darkblast), or Genesis/Wonder/etc are much better ways to use Intuition.

Mox Diamond just makes things good, allowing you to go turn 1 Wild Mongrel turn 2 Intuition turn 3 Loam engine. The deck is a control deck, the deck should expect to go to the late game. However, I think the addition of aggro gives the deck a much better early game against opposing aggro as well as a better game 1 against combo. The thing about adding aggro to DAT is that the deck was already combo/control. If you turn it into aggro/control/combo, the deck has the ability to change gears and accomodate to certain situations. It makes the deck very hard to play against.

I built the following list a little while ago. I haven't really done alot of testing with it so it could actually suck hardcore. It seems good in theory, though. If your trying to find a good list for Tog, maybe you could try working with this list as a base and expand it from there:

U/G/b Aggro DAT

Lands (21)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Forest
3 Lonely Sandbar
1 Cabal Pit
1 Wasteland

Creatures (14)
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Wild Mongrel
1 Genesis
1 Wonder
1 Stinkweed Imp
3 Psychatog

Spells (25)
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
1 Life from the Loam
1 Darkblast
4 Mox Diamond

Sideboard (15)
3 Stifle
1 Life from the Loam
3 Naturalize
4 Duress
2 Darkblast
2 Pithing Needle

Good luck Anusien, it was a pleasure meeting you at the event and I hope you are more successful in the future.

A link the my discussion of this deck can be found here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4331

quicksilver

10-11-2006, 03:01 PM

I don't think anyone was bashing him. We were saying why we think smaller effects are better in legacy right now than bigger ones. If we were bashing anything it was cards, not people.

Anusien

10-11-2006, 03:15 PM

I'm not really sure how all this discussion got started. I mean, ever since I started in Legacy you never really listened to me. You clearly don't like me, and have shown noticable opposition to anything I say or suggest.

I find especially amusing that when I'm frank and open with my personal shortcomings as a player (which I'm actively looking to improve and get past) and my failures as a deckbuilder, those are thrown in my face, where as decks/concepts that suffer similar flaws are hailed. No one that I know of, aside from Frogboy, has ever piloted Confinement Slide in a tournament. Now, we have my limited testing results to say that it beats Goblins, and Frogboy's success. Now if someone else tested it, and said that it lost to Goblins, that would be one thing. But if it beat Goblins, doesn't that put it into the exact same metagame niche as Angel Stompy... except that it beats Angel Stompy? As an example.

At any rate, however much I may overhype my decks, I hardly think it deserves a personal attack. But I suppose Jack Elgin seems to be taking a hiatus, so I'm getting all the flak that normally gets directed at him.

At any rate, I didn't realize people felt I was showing disrespect to the work of other players/deckbuilders. I honestly don't mean that. Like I said before, in interactions with people I have expressed nothing but respect for the top Tier and have continually recomended people play those decks (and not my own, because I can acknowledge the flaws and how they're not tuned well enough).

Edit: Can we move discussion of Psychatog to a different thread?

Edit 2: What's with the Unicorn thing? I mean, I get it, team theme and all... but why unicorns?

NANTUKO_SHADY

10-11-2006, 06:29 PM

Edit 2: What's with the Unicorn thing? I mean, I get it, team theme and all... but why unicorns?

Because Unicorns are so damn Sexy.

URABAHN

10-11-2006, 06:56 PM

Edit 2: What's with the Unicorn thing? I mean, I get it, team theme and all... but why unicorns?

What wrong with Unicorns?

Bardo

10-11-2006, 07:21 PM

The reason I've been looking towards combo-control is that theoretically, if you find the right build, it can beat everything. Tog was dominant in T1 for a long time. Get a solid core to let it combo over Goblins, out power Threshold with card draw and just run 4 Duress and 8+ counters to blow Tide out of the water. Now obviously I've failed to find a build that can do that, but I'm not convinced such a thing doesn't exist. So I'm going to keep looking.(bolded for emphasis)

This reminds me of some cheesy marquis billboard in front of a church I saw the other day: "Failure isn't losing, it's staying down." Eh, something to that effect. The day that people become complacent about the format and think the tier structure is some fixed unmovable monolith is the day this format will suck a dead cow's ass.

The hard thing (maybe for you) is to balance genuine heart-felt enthusiasm for some new deck with a strong follow-through on performance. And this is just one of the hurdles that deck builders (in all formats) have. Existing archetypes have the benefit of dozens/etc of people spending thousands of hours on tuning maindecks and sideboards. Brand new decks have, at best, a small handful of people playing and testing under suboptimal conditions (MWS, small tourneys, kitchen tables, etc.) It's just the way it is. But the "echo chamber" effect of the Internet can often a push a deck one way or the other.

A case in point: 3/4c Slide. Personally, I think this is a great deck*, but it just hasn't had enough people picking it up and running with it. When you compound this with your own Bad Player Kevin affliction, then, yeah, people are going to shit on your projects. The person of true character is someone who can be untouched by the criticism and keep moving forward and/or having the wisdom to drop a (theoretically) good deck, that's actually just a dud.

Long story short: if you feel a deck is really good and it's testing well, don't give up on it; unless you get bored or something.

However, I'm not looking for decks that win small.

This line, I believe, was just misinterpreted. The funny thing about "good" Legacy decks is that they often play (objectively) "weak" cards; but it's the decks that are good (strong inner synergies: cantrips/low land count/efficient beaters/free counters in Thresh; the tribal synergies of Goblins; counters + elegant combo win in Solidarity). For now anyway, this seems to be the way to go: sleak and efficient synergistic decks where explosive and expensive (mana-wise) cards just don't really fit.

Given that you are bad at Magic, why should anyone take your articles seriously?

Because someone can be a great designer, but a terrible player. These aren't interchangeable skills.

* Aside from the whole "gets raped by combo (no lube)" thing.

jamest

10-11-2006, 11:01 PM

Given that you are bad at Magic, why should anyone take your articles seriously?
Despite Anusien's self deprecating nature, I'm sure he's a solid player. Slide is not an easy deck to play, so just the fact that he took up the challenge and piloted a complex rogue deck deserves some props. I appreciate that Anusien is promoting new deck ideas, because all Tier 1 decks were rogue at one point.

Bane of the Living

10-13-2006, 05:25 PM

I also appreciate that you took a rogue deck. Rogue is the way to go. Im sorry you didnt do better with it, but you dont need to be all emo because you scrubbed out. We all do. Next time you go 1-5-0 or whatever just do what I do and find the nearest bottle of 151 and take it into the parking lot. Your not a bad player Anusien so dont kill yourself.

JACO

10-15-2006, 01:11 PM