[Discussion] Combo Summer- Coming Soon?

[Whit3 Ghost]

Not to de-rail the thread, but Red gives you Goblin Welder and Boil, both of which wreck blue based control. Also, you're missing Uba Mask on your list of hosers.

[Iranon]

To those who wondered, links to the SI thread proper (not very helpful) and a thread containing quite a bit discussion of SI although it was created by yours truly as a comparative analysis of fast combo.

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4246

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5538

I have followed the evolution of the deck with interest and tried to develop more resilent versions myself. When all is said and done, I personally still favour the old one running Belcher as a secondary kill. SI is immensely tweakable; while I'd say no version is as resilent across the board as TES, there is little short of taxing effects or double chalice on turn 1 that reliably kills all versions of the deck.



The turn-1-percentages depend on whether it's a theoretical exercise or actual gameplay. Doing everything to score a turn 1 win (aggressive mulliganing, attempting to go off immediately even when I had a guaranteed turn 2) I succeeded approximately 60% of the time.
I was surprised to hear that this can be increased to 70% (unless they were drawing every game, in which case their results come close to my own), but I didn't really practice pushing the deck past its limits so I'm not doubting the results of people who did.
Following from that, I fully expect a list with EtW to combo out turn 1 in the vicinity of 80% if pushed.

Something I consider more relevant: Playing very conservatively, 100 games on the play and on the draw each, I managed to kill by turn 4 93% of the time, 44% on turn 1. If we assume we are drawing first every game (not entirely unreasonable), results were 95% by turn 4, 54% on turn 1. his combination of speed and consistency is, to my knowledge, unmatched by any other deck.

[Nightmare]

While we're talking SI,

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3042

[developed by] Robert Vroman and others on Ogre's Message Boards in the late Winter/early Spring of 2006. I remember playing against an early version with Flame Vault Stasis Stax on the side of a Vintage tourney at some Anime Convention that March/April.

Just sayin'.

[emidln]

While we're talking SI,

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3042



Just sayin'.

Vroman had the first version that was close to what I had in the primer. If I remember right, he said he based his version on the KI.TT Vintage deck. It was the first version that I've seen that had the 14 free mana (actually, 15 if I remember right), 16 ritual effect shell that was played in the future. I'd imagine that someone actually had it before January 2006.

[emidln]

The best tools against blue based control are brown. They are Defense Grid and smokestack :B

Defense Grid is fucking awful. Red Gives you Goblin Welder and Boil. The best brown cards to beat control are Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Smokestack, Uba Mask, Crucible of Worlds, Pithing Needle, and Tangle Wire.

[jazzykat]

Defense Grid is fucking awful. Red Gives you Goblin Welder and Boil. The best brown cards to beat control are Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Smokestack, Uba Mask, Crucible of Worlds, Pithing Needle, and Tangle Wire.

I was being a bit fecicious and I agree with you about everything but your defense grid comment. Defense grid effectively makes every counterspell they play cost 3 or more with little to no drawback to yourself when playing stax or a tubby deck.

[BreathWeapon]

Why not blue based aggro prison (like Faerie Stompy)?

You have to deal with Landstill, which Faerie Stompy and AfFOWnity don't care for, besides Force of Will classifies both decks as a form of control and the point was that decks with out Force of Will can compete against combo.

[Whit3 Ghost]

I was being a bit fecicious and I agree with you about everything but your defense grid comment. Defense grid effectively makes every counterspell they play cost 3 or more with little to no drawback to yourself when playing stax or a tubby deck.

The thing is, it does nothing against them casting any of the following cards
Pernicious Deed
Akroma's Vengence
Meltdown
Shattering Spree
Rebuild
Hurkly's Recall
Serenity
Nev's Disk
Every other anti-artifact card that absolutely wrecks you.

[jazzykat]

The thing is, it does nothing against them casting any of the following cards
Pernicious Deed
Akroma's Vengence
Meltdown
Shattering Spree
Rebuild
Hurkly's Recall
Serenity
Nev's Disk
Every other anti-artifact card that absolutely wrecks you.

I agree.

I like defense grid because it basically makes their counterspells dead. However, I didn't consider that something like serenity which only costs 2 mana makes my whole deck dead.

I guess the speed of the deck would dictate if defense grid even made remote sense. I mean with a tubby build it might because they die in short order and you just need to buy time and force something onto the board that kills them and race them finding an answer (because they aren't countering anything for a long time) In stax it is probably crap.

[HPC]

So what, now decision making isn't part of Magic?

My point was that EtW breaks with how all cards before it are played, pumped and reacted to. I like combo. Let's see how it affects the format. But I think in the end EtW will need to be banned because it challenges too many of the format's answers. The format will contain EtW decks, decks that beat EtW decks by using specific hosers like EE or Stifle, and decks that ignore EtW decks. The decks that ignore EtW decks will be able to use more efficient spot removal and beat decks that beat EtW decks and the format will be warped.

If you like choices we should unban Balance. It gives you LOTS of opportunity to make decissions and is a great reply to EtW and aggro. Seems about as fair. At least it can be counterspelled and for it to be broken you need to overextend just like EtW. QED.

[emidln]

My point was that EtW breaks with how all cards before it are played, pumped and reacted to. I like combo. Let's see how it affects the format. But I think in the end EtW will need to be banned because it challenges too many of the format's answers. The format will contain EtW decks, decks that beat EtW decks by using specific hosers like EE or Stifle, and decks that ignore EtW decks. The decks that ignore EtW decks will be able to use more efficient spot removal and beat decks that beat EtW decks and the format will be warped.

If you like choices we should unban Balance. It gives you LOTS of opportunity to make decissions and is a great reply to EtW and aggro. Seems about as fair. At least it can be counterspelled and for it to be broken you need to overextend just like EtW. QED.

Balance would polarize the format. You would have a choice of W/x Stax and decks playing Serenity (likely Fish/EBA/Deadguy) since that's the only reliable hate card against Stax (as long as the Stax build is designed with hate in mind).

Balance doesn't require overextension, it requires Stax to play normally. As per normal, they run out threats as fast as possible, and Balance rewards their lack of card draw and suicidal manabase (City of Traitors/Crystal Vein/Gemstone Mine).

[BreathWeapon]

My point was that EtW breaks with how all cards before it are played, pumped and reacted to. I like combo. Let's see how it affects the format. But I think in the end EtW will need to be banned because it challenges too many of the format's answers. The format will contain EtW decks, decks that beat EtW decks by using specific hosers like EE or Stifle, and decks that ignore EtW decks. The decks that ignore EtW decks will be able to use more efficient spot removal and beat decks that beat EtW decks and the format will be warped.

If you like choices we should unban Balance. It gives you LOTS of opportunity to make decissions and is a great reply to EtW and aggro. Seems about as fair. At least it can be counterspelled and for it to be broken you need to overextend just like EtW. QED.

Look, Empty the Warrens has a clear affect on the metagame, Stifle becomes the third best counter spell in aggro-control, Pyroclasm replaces Swords to Plowshares as the removal spell in aggro-control and between Stifle, Pyroclasm, Tarmogoyf and a Red SB aggro-control is in a better position against Goblins, combo and control than it ever was before.

All Empty the Warrens is really doing is preventing opponents from GGing combo with a single Force of Will, which means combo is a legitimate part of the metagame (finally) Goblins is a glass cannon, control can come out of hiding, Stompy decks get a chance to be developed, Zoo can look at Martyr of Ashes, Tin Street Holligan, True Believer, Glowrider, Root Maze and Pyrostatic Pillar to survive, regular Affinity with MD Chalice of the Void is sensible, people will pick up on Bomberman in Legacy like they did in Vintage, all while the format shift around Empty the Warrens encourages storm combo to look at other options.

Really, the format has never been better, people just need to go out and make something of it.

[Cabal-kun]

...control can come out of hiding...

Will control be fast enough to handle EtW?

[HPC]

Empty the Warrens has a clear affect on the metagame, Stifle becomes the third best counter spell in aggro-control, Pyroclasm replaces Swords to Plowshares as the removal spell in aggro-control and between Stifle, Pyroclasm, Tarmogoyf and a Red SB aggro-control is in a better position against Goblins, combo and control than it ever was before.

So it will happen just like I said. EtW be in the most powerful decks because it's easy to cast and hard to dismantle. Pyroclasm doesn't kill Goyf like StP does and EE is expensive so Anti-EtW decks will have to choose less generalized cards to defeat EtW and decks that choose to ignore EtW will beat anti-EtW decks because they will have more potent removal and counter. Barros realized this when he decided to put in Spell Snare instead of Stifle in UGw Thresh -- even though Stifle is the "third best counter" he decided to create a more generalized Thresh.

All Empty the Warrens is really doing is preventing opponents from GGing combo with a single Force of Will, which means combo is a legitimate part of the metagame (finally)

Yes. Empty the Warrens protects itself, which also means that EtW combo can totally ignore having anything but acceleration and business spells in hand. Gone are the days when combo needs to worry about playing hand disruption. There's something wrong with that. It's akin to an aggro deck not worrying about mass removal. We'll see how this affects the format.

Balance would polarize the format. You would have a choice of W/x Stax and decks playing Serenity (likely Fish/EBA/Deadguy) since that's the only reliable hate card against Stax (as long as the Stax build is designed with hate in mind).

Balance doesn't require overextension, it requires Stax to play normally. As per normal, they run out threats as fast as possible, and Balance rewards their lack of card draw and suicidal manabase (City of Traitors/Crystal Vein/Gemstone Mine).

That's exactly why I compared Balance to EtW. You don't have to overextend much to play EtW (3 accel spells and EtW for a 3 turn clock) and Balance is "full of choices," which is just what the parent poster was saying he liked. I was being sarcastic about actually unbanning Balance; however, I think there are parallels between how EtW allows a combo player to "just play normally" by just worrying about accelerating into their combo and how Balance would play. Although if we unbanned Balance White would probably not be the worst color anymore and "the meta would just shift to deal with it...." right?

[BreathWeapon]

No, if using Clasm concedes ground in the aggro-control mirror then aggro-control can use Explosives also/instead or MD/SB Grunts to pick up the slack. There is no such thing as anti-Warrens and ignore-Warrens, there's just decks with answers to Warrens that are superior against Goblins and decks with answers to Warrens that are superior against aggro-control.

Also no, getting acceleration countered isn't as good as disrupting the opponent and then casting the acceleration, a single Force of Will eliminates at least 2 pieces of acceleration in Belcher, at which point Belcher goes into top deck mode while the opponent casts Tarmogoyf and cantrips for more disruption. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual and Culling the Weak are "must counters" in a vacuum, but if the opponent has an answer to Empty the Warrens he will allow them to resolve and then remove Empty the Warrens or counter the threat. Counter Spells are still detrimental to combo, so combo is going to use Duress, Cabal Therapy, Unmask, Xantid Swarm, Orim's Chant, Red Elemental Blast or Pyro Blast* to clear a path and then resolve a threat if it can, but if it can't the game isn't over. Speed doesn't replace the need for disruption in combo, it reduces the need for disruption in combo, and there's a fine difference between those two points.

*Warrens and Blasts do have an interesting interaction with each other, because the opponent is forced to counter the third mana before he sees Lion's Eye Diamond, which gives Blasts the ability to protect tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond against counters.

Countering the acceleration isn't new in Magic, it's new in Legacy, people have been countering the acceleration in Extended against Mind's Desire for years.

You can't compare Warrens across decks, in TES or SI, Warrens can be cast fo six against aggro-control to do damage that decreases the storm count for a Tendrils of Agony, but the opponent will stabilize against the Warrens with a single creature and there is a schance that he will be in a position to prevent you from reaching a Tendrils with 3 less cards in your hand or play an answer to Warrens and leave you with 3 less cards in your hand for nothing, in Belcher, Warrens is a win condition and not a segway into Tendrils, in other combo, Warrens is just a 1x alternate kill condition when the mana or storm falls short for Tendrils.

There is no parallel between Warrens and Balance, that notion is so inane it defies logic, no one can alternate their removal and be prepared for Balance. Wrath of God, Armageddon and Mind Twist in a single card in a single deck that focuses on Artifacts and Enchantments is just a "tad" more distorting than neo-Snake Basket.dec

@Cabal-Kun

If it wants to be, there's no reason control has to use Pernicious Deed and Engineered Plague over Engineered Explosives or Powder Keg and Sandstorm and Echoing Decay are suplimental spot removal/mass removal for the format.