[Article] Paskins on Constructed

[Happy Gilmore]

In Paskins article you will find mostly a review of GR for standard, but at the bottom I found this:

I'll finish up with something completely different.
This deck is not, in fact, legal for any Constructed format at the moment, but is prompted by Christopher Coppola's article about how Land Tax ought to be unbanned because card advantage is less important in Legacy than tempo, and any Land Tax deck would not be as good as the current big three Goblins/Threshold/Belcher. He supported this with a write-up of matchups between a hypothetical mono-White Land Tax deck and the top decks.
I thought this was a pretty dubious rationale (and for the sake of Legacy players, Land Tax should be banned because it is not worth the risk of the crushing tedium involved in playing against it).
Christopher offered an “open challenge” to deckbuilders to come up with a Land Tax deck that is good. I'd have thought that rather than a mono-White deck, the place to start would be with some kind of Blue/White deck, as per the following:

4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Land Tax
3 Scroll Rack
3 Masticore
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sphere of Law
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Pithing Needle
1 Porphyry Nodes
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Diamond
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
5 Island
5 Plains
2 Forest

This is just version 1.0, and I'm not claiming it is unfair or anything. But if you look at Christopher's examples of how games between a Tax deck and the top decks play out, compared to how this deck would operate, the difference is striking (basically, in his scenario, the Tax deck does nothing except use Land Tax or play Orim's Chant before turn 3. It certainly doesn't use Force of Will or Daze or tutor for a Sphere of Law or Phyrexian Furnace). If you can imagine how tedious a mirror match between two tuned versions of the deck above would be, I think you'll agree that Land Tax should be left well alone.

What do you guys think about this deck?

[JohnnyCage]

I think a deck that runs three kill conditions is not gonna win.
Especially three kill conditons very open to removal.

[outsideangel]

It definitely needs some tuning to be Legacy-playable, for sure. Stuff like Gaea's Blessing seems so bad. Also needs Academy Ruins. Reverence would make a better 1-off than Sphere of Law. Where the hell is Brainstorm?

[Bovinious]

I dont pay for a SCG premium membership, so Im really glad you posted this. When I saw this list I LOLed, because its just so bad. Hes not even playing Brainstorm, for some reason hes playing TFK, theres only 3 Tax/Scroll, this is just further proof that people who dont actually play Legacy dont know anything about it, which is the reason Land Tax is banned in the first place, WOTC's ignorance of the format. Why would he need Land Tax and Scroll Rack (as 3 ofs...) to play janky E.Tutor-silver-bullets.dec?

Anyways, I think that deck is God-awful, and he even claims its not unfair (maybe unfair that his opponents get a free win), so its not even remotely close to evidence Land Tax should remain banned, which is the claim he seemed to make.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Only 16 blue cards is a danger zone for Force of Will. 12 is right out. This makes me question taking anything else the author has to say seriously.

[Machinus]

I appreciate this response, but Daze doesn't make the deck good. There aren't even any other enablers : /

[Obfuscate Freely]

That list looks about as well-thought-out as a hasty forum post.

I hope that the rest of the article was made of better stuff.

[kirdape3]

The article was actually stellar. He also had the disclaimer that this version of the deck is probably terrible (indeed it's in the c/ped portion), but that a deck like this is entirely possible and would be extraordinarily awful to play against. Like, for reals. I personally would vomit repeatedly at the idea of playing the mirror between the two decks.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Okay, I won't doubt that the article was good. I've read Paskins' stuff before and enjoyed it.

However, I don't really see any justification in banning a card because it could create a tedious mirror match. Is Standstill next on the chopping block?

[Nihil Credo]

I think a deck that runs three kill conditions is not gonna win.
Especially three kill conditons very open to removal.

Don't forget that Gaea's Blessing is a win condition too. And it has synergy with the other win condition of inducing coma in your opponent.

[Bovinious]

The mirror match would never come up anyways becuase no good player would pick up any deck like this, I dont even wanna think about TWO people playing a pile like this...

[troopatroop]

Imagine how playing two well tuned Stasis decks in the mirror match and how boring that would be? For that reason, I ask Stasis to be banned.

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THE LOGIXXXX!!!!

ZHEY DOOO NAATHINGG!!!!!

[scrumdogg]

Imagine how playing two well tuned Stasis decks in the mirror match and how boring that would be? For that reason, I ask Stasis to be banned.

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...

THE LOGIXXXX!!!!

ZHEY DOOO NAATHINGG!!!!!

Neither do you, yet you're in the format.... :) Paskins said straight out the deck wasn't tested, it was his inclinational response to Machinus challenge. Paskins is also a red mage, almost exclusively, and not a Legacy player. That he at least acknowledges our format & shows some interest is a positive.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't particularly like the lack of Brainstorm in a Land Tax deck and I hate the 4 Enlightened Tutors, even in a deck that has so many key things to fish up with them. That said, if we all held our noses every time somebody proposed a non-optimum card mix we'd never see any innovation at all in the meta.

I lived through the days when people thought I was totally clueless for playing white in a Black/Red/White deck largely for 4 Swords to Plowshares.

[T is for TOOL]

The particular decklist used in the article, optimal or not, is irrelevant. The author stated that Land Tax should stay banned because it could potentially create decks that have a tedious mirror match. The author was apparently ignoring the decks in the format that already fit the bill such as Landstill, Solidarity, 43 land.dec, etc. This argument is flimsy at best and ignorant at worst.

[Jander78]

I can see what the author is trying to display with a list like this, but I don't think a boring matchup is good enough argument for a card to stay banned. If the mirror would be "tedious", that is the pilot of each decks fault for choosing to play a deck similar to this. There is a reason why we have time limits per round.

[Kundalini]

Probably the author just says that, with Land Tax unbanned, a decklist much better than this would come out; and it would be good to the point of everybody wanting either to play it or hate it (remember flash?). This will generate an immense number of mirror matches, with total boring tournaments...

[HdH_Cthulhu]

blah...
Maybe i am wrong but i have to say that:

There are 3 threats about unbanning Land Tax! Is it only me who think that the card is so bad? On the play it does absolute nothing and on the draw you get some basic lands, yeha great!

Hmmm its hard to say for me, Landtax.deck brings too much problems with it. It requires you to run a lot of basic lands, you have to run things like mox (chrome or diamond) and all that for a card dose sometimes give you 3 basic lands...

please play a deck with Elder Pine of Jukai or something...
but i think Weathered Wayfarer is realy a littl bit better than Land Tax

For me i think the unbanning of Land Tax will change the format as the unbanning of Mind over Matter!

[Lego]

I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion that the mirror with this deck would be tedious. I often enjoy playing the mirror when I decide to pick up a terrible deck.

[TheMightyQuinn]

So tedious equals banned today now, huh? What about a Teachings Control mirror in today's standard? Is that not tedious?

Yes. It is.

I guess we need to ban Mystial Teachings, Teferi, and Cancel in standard.