Very interesting pseudo article; I got a few things to bring up:
Firstly, is it really fair to consider goblins "antiquated"?
The Goblin/Zoo match has always been close to even, at least in my experience. When did that change? Zoo has healthy amounts of removal and pound-for-pound better creatures, but Goblins has the ultimate trump in an aggro race (unblockable, haste for the alpha strike) to go along with ancestral recall, demonic tutor and decent removal of its own.
Unlike Zoo, Goblins actually has disruption and as such has a better match-up against control because of it. Also, all of the projected top decks you listed, with the exception of CounterThop (and even then, depends on the build), has real issues with blood moon. With that, I still think Goblins is a really strong deck.
Secondly, some aggro loam players I know told me that Chalice is one of their stronger cards in the Zoo matchup. Do you really think its a good idea to take it out? After all, the biggest advantage that Aggro Loam has over Zoo is that it's dudes are bigger and harder to remove. How much bigger is that advantage if their only source of removal is shut down? In fact since it shuts down swords and path, chalice basically gives your big dudes absolute immunity. When you only have ~10 threats in the deck, how can you say no to that kind of power? And why run bolt when you can use Terminate?
Thirdly, what are the Dark Horse decks that you foresee making a splash? I think Enchantress is going to surprise people now that one of its worst match ups has been kicked to the curb. It goldfishes most all creature-based strategies and has a positive match with Lands. It still doesn't have a way to consistently beat Countertop, though. Will older combo (yeah, referring to solidarity) rise out of the grave?
Lastly, as a Lands! player myself, I think the biggest change for this new meta-game will be a slight swing back towards red. Devastating Dreams might start popping up in some sideboards and Burning Wish might start showing up in some lists again. Wish is the only way to recover from Extirpate (spreading a lot now that lands is prevalent) and it gives you at least a handful of other dick moves--worm harvest, performance, upheaval--to pull out of a hat. Performance doesn't seem like a bad way to beat counterthop. Needs Boseiju to work, though.
Goblins' disruption is fairly inconsequential. Actually, it has less disruption than Merfolk, with which it shares Wasteland but lacks Force, Daze, and Cursecatcher to actually stop bad things from happening. Mono-red versions may also have Port, but on average Goblins is less consistent at disrupting mana than, say, Lands, which can't even always keep control off of Jace TMS mana with recurring Wastes, recurring Ghost Quarters, and multiple Ports. Goblins can bring in Blood Moon, sure, but how mana lists opt for Blood Moon in the board? Many Goblins decks are still using two-three colors for various sideboard options. Furthermore, many control decks are now built with mana disruption in mind and will have a higher number of basics, and access to basics in colors needed for either sweepers or counter-hate cards. Goblins is also more adversely affected by things like Firspout, since nothing in Goblins will actually survive one (as opposed to Goyf and Knight in Zoo). Goblins also can't answer Moat in game one, while Zoo can still try for Pridemage, and so on.Originally Posted by Antonius
The only selling point of Goblins over Zoo is Demonic Tutor and Fact or Fiction on legs. Haste is fine but not good enough when many of the common anti-aggro strategies involve locking down the combat step completely in one way or another (chumping Thopter tokens, Moat, Glacial Chasm, etc).
Goblins can still compete, but it's no longer the aggro deck. It's also not nearly as scary as it used to be. Turn one Lackey is pretty meh in this day and age, and lots of 2/x and 1/x guys aren't that frightening anymore.
Chalice doesn't stop Zoo. It stops Zoo until the draw Qasali Pridemage and kill it. You can play more than one Chalice at one, but that's a pretty "do nothing" play; alternately, you can take yourself out of the game as well by playing Chalice at two and hope you can get there with Crushers alone. Furthermore, if you have Chalice in the main, Zoo will bring in Grips in game two, meaning they have additional outs for it - and you're not fast enough to force them to need to have the Grip right away. In most cases, Chalice doesn't come down until turn two, in which case you're already behind to their Nacatl.
Bolt is better than Terminate simply because it's also reach. Terminating a Wild Nacatl or Steppe Lynx to stay alive is always a pretty unsatisfying move, and their big guys never quite get as big as your big guys, leaving open the possibility of blocking as "removal" for things Bolt can't kill. In either case, you're most often only breaking even on mana when you Terminate something, which is not exciting.
Solidarity is dead, despite what the two or three remaining players in the world will tell you. The deck's fastest kill was ~turn four, which is waaaaay too slow. Also, Counterbalance exists. Not gonna happen.
Enchantress seems fine. It's certainly the most difficult engine deck to answer, but it's costly and unpopular; there won't be enough players with it to make Top 8 in significant numbers, and the deck isn't ridiculous enough to put a disproportionate number of people near the top of the tournament. At the end of the day, all the cool kids are playing Krosan Grip, many are also playing Pridemage, and many decks can simply ignore most of the enchantments you have (Elephant Grass is dead against Lands while Ground Seal is only a cantrip against Zoo, and so on).
I think storm decks in the vein of TES will be Dark Horses for this tournament. Conventional wisdom, or at least the prevailing belief, is that combo is dead for the GP. People will drop hate because they feel they could get more value from devoting those slots to other matchups, which is true: I do not think there will be enough combo decks to make going above four or so sideboard slots necessary. That said, this is exactly what those crafty storm players want, and there may be just enough of them around for a significantly higher percentage than normal to make Day Two. At that point, how well they do is dependent on the "meta" (the apparent metagame at the top tables is actually much different than the apparent metagame at the bottom tables).
Reanimator is also a dark horse. People assume the deck is dead, but there are a lot of folks who spent too much money on Entombs to give up now. Those people will be working on fixing the deck until the tournament starts, and Columbus is likely to showcase the best of the patches people came up with for Mystical Tutor. In fact, given how the hate is likely to shift back to things like Crypt, I would not be very surprised if we had a repeat of Madrid with Next Gen Reanimator versus TES or something in the finals.
Other than that, there are a bunch of fringe decks with decent chances of breaking out. Aeon Bridge will show up in non-negligible amounts because of the Conley Woods Coattails Factor, and because it did well. Laskin Landstill may just be good enough, but I doubt it. It's tough to predict this because there will be a lot of rogue decks that show up, as well as a lot of crappy decks people seem to love (Stax, I'm looking at you here). Any of those could do well, but the real question is whether they do well because of a fluke, their pilots' skill, or inherent strength. I think it's tough to call that, and I don't do enough development out here in the Legay Wastes of Tucson to be able to single out any fringe candidates.
There are a few issues here:
1) The deck may or may not already be using Riftstone Portal, in which case you're in white for Pull from Eternity, and reagrdless of what splash colors you are, you're in green for Riftsweeper. Yeah, none of those are as exciting as Burning Wish, but Burning Wish itself is not as exciting as a ninja "board into Meloku and Stronghold" plan against Counterbalance (you can totally out-token them with Manabond) or the Hexmage/Marit Lage plan.
2) Dreams seems okay, but why not just use Armageddon and float about a million mana? Geddon takes out all their lands, is potentially on-color, doesn't screw you if it's countered, and is easy to recover from for you. The damage is not relevant against some decks where you're only after the land destruction (like Enchantress).
3) What happens if they just counter the Burning Wish? It costs two, which is right on target for most Counterbalance lists.
Nice final sentence.
But with Jace 2.0, you do have a game plan. If your opponent does nothing you still win, it's not that you need your opponent to do something specific to win. You make it sound like it's a Test of Endurance deck where your only life gain spells are Exile. The opponent is not so necessary as you make it seem. It just so happens that the deck wants to survive long enough to get to that stage to win, and it has to deal with the opponent's onslaught before it can reach that stage. The philosophy, as I see it, is one of security and variability (to be able to handle more opposing strategies, such as disrupting engines as well as halting armies), whereas aggro/engine has no such stability and just balls-to-the-wall goes for it.
In other words, in porn terms, Landstill has mastered a repertoire of Kama-Sutra positions whereas aggro/engine can only do doggy.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
surviving firespout doesn't matter if you can just draw four more goblins. Getting multiple lords isn't as hard as it used to be, with kings and chiefs. But yeah, I don't think that the 2/3 color builds are going to be as successful. Running multiple colors just doesn't make sense with tabernacle/wasteland reared to dominate your team. Blood Moon is so strong, especially with King.Goblins' disruption is fairly inconsequential. Actually, it has less disruption than Merfolk, with which it shares Wasteland but lacks Force, Daze, and Cursecatcher to actually stop bad things from happening. Mono-red versions may also have Port, but on average Goblins is less consistent at disrupting mana than, say, Lands, which can't even always keep control off of Jace TMS mana with recurring Wastes, recurring Ghost Quarters, and multiple Ports. Goblins can bring in Blood Moon, sure, but how mana lists opt for Blood Moon in the board? Many Goblins decks are still using two-three colors for various sideboard options. Furthermore, many control decks are now built with mana disruption in mind and will have a higher number of basics, and access to basics in colors needed for either sweepers or counter-hate cards. Goblins is also more adversely affected by things like Firspout, since nothing in Goblins will actually survive one (as opposed to Goyf and Knight in Zoo). Goblins also can't answer Moat in game one, while Zoo can still try for Pridemage, and so on.
So what if you don't stop Zoo? You only have to slow them down. If they get Pridemage to remove Chalice, then so what? You traded cards 1-for-1 an they paid 1 more mana than you did to do it. But while chalice is out there, it shuts off about half of all their business. Even if chalice gets axed several turns later, thats several turns that you are ahead because they weren't able to use those turns to cast bolts and light your ass up. Also, by your own logic, missing that T1 Nacatl with a chalice shouldn't matter--it's one of those midget creatures that your guys eat for breakfast anyways.Chalice doesn't stop Zoo. It stops Zoo until the draw Qasali Pridemage and kill it. You can play more than one Chalice at one, but that's a pretty "do nothing" play; alternately, you can take yourself out of the game as well by playing Chalice at two and hope you can get there with Crushers alone. Furthermore, if you have Chalice in the main, Zoo will bring in Grips in game two, meaning they have additional outs for it - and you're not fast enough to force them to need to have the Grip right away. In most cases, Chalice doesn't come down until turn two, in which case you're already behind to their Nacatl.
Also, I'm not sure if you realized, but the Aggro Loam list you posted was short 2 cards--I presume those slots are for Seismic Assault?
As for Dark Horse decks--you're probably spot on. Reanimator and Storm have decent shots but I would really like to see some previously unknown deck emerge from the woodwork and stun people like Enchantress stunned everyone at SCG LA. Glimpse Elves? Or something equally random, lol. Of those random rogues, though, I'd say that Dragon Stompy is the perennial dark horse favorite. It can win any tournament so long as it doesn't lose to itself along the way.
Sweeper and Pull don't sound all that appealing. Both are extremely narrow.There are a few issues here:
1) The deck may or may not already be using Riftstone Portal, in which case you're in white for Pull from Eternity, and reagrdless of what splash colors you are, you're in green for Riftsweeper. Yeah, none of those are as exciting as Burning Wish, but Burning Wish itself is not as exciting as a ninja "board into Meloku and Stronghold" plan against Counterbalance (you can totally out-token them with Manabond) or the Hexmage/Marit Lage plan.
My beef with Meloku/Stronghold is that I really don't think that the deck has room for both stronghold and ruins and getting into some struggle choosing between the two is not profitable. But bringing it in from the board isn't a bad plan. You can really blindside someone that's boarded out all their swords. But there are better, broader tools to bring in against Counterbalance (Needle is what I'm using now, Boseiju also comes to mind) and also, better ways to win maindeck.
Geddon or Upheaval is the only way you can beat Enchantress, so that makes sense, but I'd rather hedge against the match that i know I will run into.2) Dreams seems okay, but why not just use Armageddon and float about a million mana? Geddon takes out all their lands, is potentially on-color, doesn't screw you if it's countered, and is easy to recover from for you. The damage is not relevant against some decks where you're only after the land destruction (like Enchantress).
That's why I'd want to run boseiju with a Burning Wish build. Not only to resolve wish, but to resolve whatever I get. Because every card in the wishboard other than loam and hull breach will be some kind of game-winning bomb.3) What happens if they just counter the Burning Wish? It costs two, which is right on target for most Counterbalance lists.
Yeah, but you're not good at doing either of them. For example, Thopterbalance doesn't need to work to halt an army because it just sets up the Foundry engine; if aggro isn't fast enough, the tokens can race. That forces the aggro deck to do something to answer the engine or risk losing, while not being able to execute its game plan in the meantime because of the life gain and chump blockers. What does Zoo care if you have Jace? They can burn it out or attack it and then kill you. Sure, you can Counterspell or Force the first burn spell, but if they have more than one burn spell, Jace dies. You can Swords a guy, but the other guys will get Jace. And if you have Counterspell and he has Goyf, Nacatl, and Loam Lion, your Jace just became one of the most expensive Fog varients ever printed (though with slightly more upside if you Brainstormed or something).
When the opponent is doing something ridiculous, you can't just ignore them - you'll lose the game. But if you don't get the answer in time, you'll lose the game. Trying to be the jack-of-all-trades is terrible in a format where there are so many different "answer me or lose" strategies. And often, even if you can answer those strategies, the decks running them have outs. Zoo can burn you to death, Thopterbalance has Jace, Lands has Mindslaver lock, and so on.
Also, to say that Zoo has no stability is pretty loose. Zoo is far and away the most consistent deck in the format (although Lands is more consistent in the late game because it Ancestral Recalls multiple times every turn).
Anyway, I think you're still misunderstanding me, so let's look at this a different way:
When you goldfish a Zoo deck, what do you do? You play guys as fast as you can while lobbing burn spells at the imaginary opponent's head. You're mapping damage outputs and trying to figure out your maximum speed and most efficient resource use.
When you goldfish a Lands deck, what do you do? You try to get Loam going as quickly as possible and then figure out what the best way is to achieve the most board development per turn. You're interested in figuring out how much growth you get relative to resouces spent, so even though Ports and Mazes are kind of meaningless without concrete targets, you can still figure out what happens to your development when you need to Port one land versus needing to Port two or whatever.
When you goldfish a Thopterbalance deck, what do you do? You try to figure out how to set up your Foundry engine the fastest and then figure out how long it takes to win. Yeah, Force and Moat are meaningless draws, but you can still figure out how to set up your engines given particular combinations of cards.
But when you goldfish Landstill, what do you do? It's all hypothetical. You say to yourself, "Well, my opponent probably did some stuff, so I'll pop Deed for...I dunno, three, maybe? No, I need mana up to counter the spell he's definitely going to play next turn, so I guess I'll do it for two. Well, maybe he has Knight of the Reliquary. So I'll guess I'll be fine if I just keepup for Brainstorm. But maybe he has Bolt and PoP..." Do you see what's going on here? With Landstill, you have to write the opponent into the equation much more than the other decks. That's because you have all of these cards whose value is predicated entirely on what the opponent is doing. Figuring out how fast you can set up Jace is even more useless for this deck than figuring out how fast you can set up Thopter Foundry because the amount of resources you have available for setting up Jace vary incredibly based on what you need to do to interact with the opponent. In other words, you're a reactive control deck: more so than any other deck in the format, the value of the cards you run is dependent on what the opponent is doing. Jace only makes it into the deck because he wins faster than Factory beatdown does, and he does something more useful than tapping for colorless.
There's a fundamental difference between the kind of strategic framework that goes into building a deck like Landstill versus a deck like Zoo. One of these decks sits down and says, "I have a specific game plan and everything in my deck is geared towards executing it," while the other says, "I want to do something about my opponent's game plan, and oh yeah, guess I need to win too." I'm arguing that the realities of Legacy make the latter of these two fundamentally flawed as a strategy. You can't react to all of the broken things that happen in Legacy, and trying to do so makes you spread yourself too thin, while doing the opposite and gunning for specific decks means you'll lose too many games to decks doing something you're not equipped to answer. That's why I said it's better to just do something broken and force the opponent to react to you than to be on the receiving end all of the time - if people have decks with powerful plans, the person who loses is going to be the one for whom things went wrong. Control decks in the Landstill vein have far, far more room for things to go wrong, and far fewer ways to recover. Yes, specific sequences of cards will get you out of a jam, but what if you don't draw them? What if you draw them in the wrong order? What if the opponent has the answer to your answer? And so on. Reactive control decks are simply bad in this format, no matter what their fans say (insert long wall-of-text rebuttal post from Hanni here).
I mean, in a lot of cases, Zoo can just ignore Jace and burn you out. It's not exactly a broken card in this format.
Sigged.
I don't need a wall of text. Sounds like you have a boner for proactive stratgies, and hate reactive ones. However, if you look at historical Top 8's, reactive stratgies can and do Top 8. The reason why Landstill isn't doing well anymore isn't because it's a reactive strategy, it's because it's cards are no longer strong enough or efficient enough to compete with the current power level of Legacy. Once you up the power level, cutting bad cards like Standstill, Mishra's Factory, and Decree of Justice... the deck becomes alot stronger. It has nothing to do with a reactive strategy being bad.Reactive control decks are simply bad in this format, no matter what their fans say (insert long wall-of-text rebuttal post from Hanni here).
You're also mostly dead wrong on all of your points for why reactive control is bad, and why proactive control is better, but there's no need for me to make a wall of text right now to rebuttle each and every point.
Also, you say control decks have no gameplan besides to interact with the opponent, and you are wrong. They only interact with the opponent so that the opponent cannot get their gameplan going; the control deck prevents the opponent from playing magic to prolong the game. It does this because once it gets further/later into the game, it dominates the opponent's deck through superior card quality, card advantage, and it's bombs are much stronger than the opponent's spells, i.e Elspeth, Jace, Vedalken Shackles, hell even Morphling, is better than a 2/3 Kird Ape at that point in the game.
I'm not sure why you assume that reactive control is bad, despite the massive amount of Top 8's that reactive control has had in this format. However, you're wrong, and I'd be glad to playtest with you to prove it, rather than go back and forth and argue with walls of text about it. Or we can just agree to disagree.
Pretty cheeky considering you buried that in a wall-of-text post.
Yeah, I get what you're saying and I see why you think it's flawed, but my original point of contention was your opinion that the deck's philosophy is to do nothing. I think it wants to win just as badly as Zoo, it just has an opinion (however flawed it may be in reality playing in Legacy's current meta) that it is flexible/stable (which is what I meant about Zoo... not consistency, flexibility and how Zoo pretty much should be a bye for Lands/Storm combo) enough to interact with all decks, even those that try not to interact. I agree with you that the strategy is passive and that the answers sometimes don't come as consistently as with aggro or aggro-control, but I still disagree that Landstill has no plan, for all the reasons I already said. Old school Landstill had even more of a plan than newer Planeswalker incarnations. They essentially want to beat the opponent down and by not needing to waste spell slots on threats, and instead can pack their deck full of answers. Again, where you are rebutting my original complaint (that Landstill has no plan) is saying that the plan is horrible. That may be, but it still has a plan/philosophy.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
Yeah, I was being sarcastic. Sometimes I forget that you're not allowed to do that on the internet.Pretty cheeky considering you buried that in a wall-of-text post.
I'm using the phrase "do nothing" somewhat flippantly here. Obviously the deck does something, because every deck does something (even a deck with 60 basics still plays a land every turn). The point is that the deck doesn't get up in the morning with the intention of going out and grabbing the bull by the horns; it does not dictate the rules of engagement and force the opponent to play by them. Instead, it plays by the opponent's rules but tries to beat the system. It's a fine strategy but not one I would want to play in the relatively open field of a GP, because there are simply too many different potential systems to have to beat. Landstill will do well in the sorts of defined metagames that allow it to pack all of the right answers, but in open or hard-to-predict metagames you generally have to run broader but weaker cards to try to cover all the bases. This sounds like a losing proposition to me. That's why I only recommended testing against it if you're a deck working on a similar wavelength or your deck hinges around one or two cards working, since Laskin Landstill is very good at negating those kinds of decks. Otherwise, you're generally fine against the deck if you can force it into awkward situations where things have to happen in just a certain way for them: Zoo is very good at blanking a lot of potential draws just by having a very aggressive start (topdecking Force does jack shit when the other guy can kill you with what he already has in play, for example). Coincidentally, that's why I've been arguing for proactive strategies this entire time, and apparently pissed Hanni off in the process - I am much happier letting the opponent lose to himself than in being in that position.
EDIT: @Hanni: no hard feelings or anything, broski. I hope you come to the GP so I can meet you and buy you a beer or something.
Bitterblossom control, Death and Taxes, and Aluren have all been making stronger and stronger showings in MTGO tournaments lately, there's a good chance some very tuned versions of those decks are going to be at Columbus and surprise some people. Just throwing this in here since it's a "GP meta" thread.
Coincidentally, that's why I've been arguing for proactive strategies this entire time, and apparently pissed Hanni off in the process - I am much happier letting the opponent lose to himself than in being in that position.I'm not pissed, and there isn't any hard feelings. I just disagree with you, that's all. We do disagree on alot of things, though. :pEDIT: @Hanni: no hard feelings or anything, broski. I hope you come to the GP so I can meet you and buy you a beer or something.
I'd love to go to the GP, but I only have half the cards I need for my deck, the other halfs gonna cost $400 I don't have, and I have no arrangements. So unless a miracle happens, I won't be attending this GP. Maybe the next one. It's funny, I only live 2 hours from Columbus, too.
What do you need?
1 Scrubland
1 Kor Haven
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
3 Wrath of God
2 Doom Blade
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Innocent Blood
4 Relic of Progenitus
I realize some of the cards on that list are super cheap (like the Doom Blades), but I priced it on shuffleandcutgames (which could be more expensive than other places, I dunno), and it was roughly $400 before shipping.
Luckily, I have most of the staples (manabase, Forces) because of a little old UWb Fish deck I invested in back before the last GP Columbus. Unluckily, I was in a bad car accident last year and I'm still working on recovering financially.
Hanni, your inbox is full.
That said, I can loan you at least some of it, and potentially almost all of it, depending on what I'm playing at the GP. Here's what I can definitely loan you:
1 Elspeth
3 Wrath of God
1 Kor Haven
2 Doom Blade
1 Shackles
4 Relic
2-4 Innocent Blood (not sure how many I have)
I have three potential decks I might play. If I eliminate one of them, I can also loan you the Jaces, the Scrubland, the Counterbalances, and most or all of the Tops. But I won't know for sure what I intend to play until probably a week before the event. Still, if it makes you more willing to come, you'd only need to find 1 extra Elspeth if I can loan you the rest of the package.
That said, I can loan you at least some of it, and potentially almost all of it, depending on what I'm playing at the GP. Here's what I can definitely loan you:I'd definitely be interested in that proposition, but I'd have to figure out something soon enough for me to also make arrangements sleeping wise, etc. I mean, GP Columbus is in like 3 weeks, so there's not alot of time left.I have three potential decks I might play. If I eliminate one of them, I can also loan you the Jaces, the Scrubland, the Counterbalances, and most or all of the Tops. But I won't know for sure what I intend to play until probably a week before the event. Still, if it makes you more willing to come, you'd only need to find 1 extra Elspeth if I can loan you the rest of the package.
Oh, and I didn't realize my inbox was full. I cleaned it out some.
EDIT: I also don't have a car, so I'd have to find someone either in the local area, or driving through this way, to carpool with. There just seems to be too many factors going against me for my attending the GP. I wasn't planning on attending the GP, and unless a miracle happens, I won't be there.
You can bring up as many arguments defending why Goblins is bad as you want. The reality is still that Goblins is even against Zoo, positive against any form of control except possibly for lands (I have no idea, no one plays lands over here) and it might be even against this CB list, and positive against any form of aggro-control, except for Red Tempo Thresh, against which it's even. Goblins has no bad matchups except for combo, which is pretty much gone now. I'd still call Goblins tier 1.
For the dedicated storm players in legacy like myself and my team, this change is actually a good thing. Combo has been the best deck in the format for a couple of years, and it will continue to be. Only at this point, people won't even realise it it. It's like going back 2 years, where no one had ever heard of TES. This doesn't mean that anyone that doesn't play combo should be worried. It's definitely the best choice to drop the combo hate you play, as you are extremely unlikely to meet combo anyway, and those 4 slots won't usually win you the match either.
I agree here. Reanimator is simply dead, but people will still be trying. With the right amount of luck, the deck obviously won't have to Mystical as much anyway, so there might be some players that just luck out and do very well.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
http://solidarityprimer.proboards85.com/index.cgi
I guess we can't agree, which is a-ok. I see them having a game plan (I knew what you meant by doing something, and I still think they do something), it just doesn't become proactive until mid-late game. Again, the point being the ability to have more favourable match-ups with a larger field.
For example, you're Zoo playing against Aeon Bridge. You come out strong, rawr!! Kitties smash!! Great, my opponent is at 10 life! Sweet, my plan is working. My opponent's turn three, Dreadnought, enters the battlefield trigger on the stack, Mosswart--> Emrakul. gg At least playing Landstill you'd have a better chance to stop that from happening. We could sit here all day with examples, and that isn't my point. My point is that Zoo's tunnel-vision thirst for blood makes it also more vulnerable in certain matchups as they have less chance to interact with decks that don't want to be interacted with.
Landstill, adding to what Hanni said above, is a way to put the brakes on their game plan until you are ready to go from reactive to proactive.
Edit: I should add, I do agree that in a field as varied as a GP, a reactive deck/strategy is probably not such a good choice unless you really know your shit.
I agree with what you quoted from AZ, but I disagree with this. Reanimator is certainly not dead. A deck that packs Show and Tell, Entomb and Lim Dul's Vault, supported with cantrips, has a good chance at running consistently. Sure it isn't the break out menace all the pros were raving about, but hardly dead.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
I call this dead. The deck won't be much better than a turn 3 deck that has a hard time fighting around a ton of different kinds of hate, including any form of Counterbalance, regular counters, graveyard hate, and even just creatures. LDV is terribly slow, and not suited for a deck that is willing to play a couple more turns after resolving it.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
http://solidarityprimer.proboards85.com/index.cgi
I live about 2 hours from Columbus also, which direction do you live from Columbus. We may be able to fit you in.
-Zay
I'm up near Cleveland, Ohio. Slightly west of Cleveland.I live about 2 hours from Columbus also, which direction do you live from Columbus. We may be able to fit you in.
Sorry can not help you, I live in southern Ohio.
-Zay
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