The EPIC Storm (TES) Vs. Fetchland Tendrils (FT) - The Competition

[Obfuscate Freely]

Actually there are many many UGR Threshold lists which obv don´t play seize. So I think the list they are testing with is especialy hard to beat.

And UGw as well.

It's not like UGb is the only variant in the DTB forum. There are three of them.

Threshold is a single archetype that has been successfully built in many different color combinations. With the printing of Thoughtseize, the deck gained a new staple, and thus many existing lists, such as the "traditional" UGW and UGR builds, were obsoleted.

Now, I would go so far as to say that it is optimal to splash all five colors when building a Threshold deck for an unknown metagame. The only reason I would consider not doing so is in order to play Blood Moon, but that is only worth it in certain, well-defined environments.

If you are referring to Canadian "Thrash," with Wasteland and Stifle, I do not consider that to be of the same archetype as the decks we are discussing. It has too many strategic differences, and it certainly plays very differently against storm combo decks.

The results are meant only to be compared to the FT ones anyway, so there would be no point "writing them off" since FT will test against the same build.

All they're saying is that they'd have a better matchup against a list without Thoughtseizes. Nobody said the matchup was positive.

There were assertions made by both Bryant and emidln that their pet decks are favored against Threshold. I'll be honest; those claims interested me far more than the "TES vs. FT" clusterfuck that begot this thread. After all, if this is true:

The list of cards that FT fears:


That's it. In case you don't understand, that list is blank. There is nothing the deck isn't prepared to beat, and nothing that an experienced pilot can't handle. Dedicated hate decks have difficulty beating it, and extreme difficulty beating anything else. The format is lucky that the deck has just been picked up. The initial round of top8s was with players who had picked up the deck a day or two in advance. When the FT pilots gain the same experience that other pilots have with their decks, a combo summer will be upon us stoppable by only Wizards' intervention.

Then we have a serious problem on our hands!

Luckily, it would appear that those outrageous statements are the results of testing against handicapped opponents, playing suboptimal decks. However, that doesn't mean we should let them remain uncontested.

I was worried that the results of Bryant and freakish' testing session were being written off, not in the context of the contest between TES and FT, but in the context of TES' matchup against Threshold.

Factual evidence #1: Link
Factual evidence #2: Link
I'm not that stupid.

As I said, your statement is not very relevant, but it is also impossible to substantiate. Can you show me exactly how those links prove that fewer than 10% of Threshold players currently play Thoughtseize?

Wrong. You should test against what people will bring, not against what people should bring.

People will bring Threshold with Thoughtseize. They certainly do where I play. It may take time for the popular concept of Threshold to incorporate Thoughtseize, but it will happen. Why test against yesterday's technology, if tomorrow's technology is already available?

[ParkerLewis]

There were assertions made by both Bryant and emidln that their pet decks are favored against Threshold. I'll be honest; those claims interested me far more than the "TES vs. FT" clusterfuck that begot this thread. After all, if this is true:

The list of cards that FT fears:


That's it. In case you don't understand, that list is blank. There is nothing the deck isn't prepared to beat, and nothing that an experienced pilot can't handle. Dedicated hate decks have difficulty beating it, and extreme difficulty beating anything else. The format is lucky that the deck has just been picked up. The initial round of top8s was with players who had picked up the deck a day or two in advance. When the FT pilots gain the same experience that other pilots have with their decks, a combo summer will be upon us stoppable by only Wizards' intervention.

Then we have a serious problem on our hands!

That I clearly agree upon, it was certainly a ridiculous statement. I mean, just replace every instance of "FT" with "Nourishing Lich" and you've got yourself some free Cavius - now with a good deck.

Luckily, it would appear that those outrageous statements are the results of testing against handicapped opponents, playing suboptimal decks. However, that doesn't mean we should let them remain uncontested.

I was worried that the results of Bryant and freakish' testing session were being written off, not in the context of the contest between TES and FT, but in the context of TES' matchup against Threshold.

Fair enough. To be honest, I havent really followed the FT thread (actually, I just didn't), where apparently such insanity has happened. On the other hand, I'm following the TES one, and I don't recall anyone (at least, anyone relevant) making such preposterous statements, and certainly not Bryant.

This I think explains why I was not worried about such behaviour, while you had reasons to be.

Threshold is a single archetype that has been successfully built in many different color combinations. With the printing of Thoughtseize, the deck gained a new staple, and thus many existing lists, such as the "traditional" UGW and UGR builds, were obsoleted.

Now, I would go so far as to say that it is optimal to splash all five colors when building a Threshold deck for an unknown metagame. The only reason I would consider not doing so is in order to play Blood Moon, but that is only worth it in certain, well-defined environments.

People will bring Threshold with Thoughtseize. They certainly do where I play. It may take time for the popular concept of Threshold to incorporate Thoughtsieze, but it will happen. Why test against yesterday's technology, if tomorrow's technology is already available?

Sorry, but those statements are as bold as the one you criticized earlier. Each of the main three variants (yes, I mean UGw/UGr/UGb) as it's pros and cons, and you can not write two of them off by simply saying "UGb is clearly the best" when you do not have factual evidence to back that up. Even more, unless one of them would appear to be considerably better than the two others (read : has better matchups against all of the existing decks in DtB + ED forums), there will always be metagames where one of the other variants is the correct choice.

If people are not playing Thoughtseize, it's not because they're stupid, it's because it's not "the future". If metagames shift to decks where the b variant fares significantly better, people will adapt and play it. Thougtseize is 7 months old. If it was making the UGb variant so obviously better, the two other variants would have disappeared and stopped from placing by now.

Other statements like "I would go so far as to say that it is optimal to splash all five colors when building a Threshold deck for an unknown metagame" is an even more obviously false statement. It would already be false if you had chosen one of the three main builds, but 5 color in an 17 land deck (18 at most) ? Seriously, you want to die to every single mana denial ?

[emidln]

That I clearly agree upon, it was certainly a ridiculous statement. I mean, just replace every instance of "FT" with "Nourishing Lich" and you've got yourself some free Cavius - now with a good deck.

I stand by that statement. There is nothing that FT piloted by a competent pilot fears. There are no autolosses.

Anyway, in the context of this thread, Thoughtseize presents a unique problem that undercuts the main removal that FT uses against black Thresh (Wipe Away). Turn 1 Thoughtseize is nowhere near as scary as turn 4 Thoughtseize that can rip away a tutored or drawn Wipe Away. Thoughtseize alone turns the matchup back around from being heavily favored for FT (against UGR, UG, and UGW Thresh) to being slightly unfavorable on the whole (game 1 is unwinnable with current builds if an early Counterbalance plus a mid game Thoughtseize happens, games 2 and 3 are slightly in FT favor, but it doesn't appear to be in any more than 55/45 and highly playskill dependent). The major reason being that current versions have Wipe Away instead of KGrip in the maindeck which turns Thoughtseize into a flashing red sign that says "GG".

[undone]

The problem with thoughtseize not being in every deck is because Its bad in the UGr or Thrash matchup. Where 2 life after a fetch is very important. But seriously Thoughsieze isnt in 100% of T8s and if you just want to go by numbers since theshes appearance the numbers are

8 UG thresh decks
17 UGB thresh decks
104 UGR "thrash" thresh decks
89 UGW thresh decks
13 UGwb thresh decks
40 UGwr Thresh decks

so out of 270+ decks there are tops 30 of them running T seize. that is about 11% meaning that if you play threshold 2 times (which could happen..) you have about a 13 or 14 % chance of playing thoughtsieze threshold.

UGw and UGr are so popular because UGr is land disruption, and UGw can kill tarmogoyf with STP.

In any event Its all playable, and saying that Thoughtsieze should be an auto include is just insane. Also let it be noted, UGr thresh doesnt have CBalance that often, and to my knowlage B decks always have CB in the main or side (i think like 1-2 didnt but most did)

So you can test the ultimate anti combo list, OR you can test against the UGw and UGr decks that are far more tipical (by numbers) in a metagame

[Hightower]

You get those numbers from germagic I suppose.. But you can't set it up like that. Many factors are involved when counting the (global?) number of thresh decks, which by the way I think is near impossible.

1) There's alot of the r/w splashes since they are old Top-8 records (read before Lorwyn)
2) Some decks are submitted by users (I think)
3) Some decks are from 10-14 people tournaments, which doesn't necesarily prove much.
4) Decks from all countries are counted, which Americans can't use for much - and vice virsa, since it doesn't affect the US (for example there's alot of aggro loam in Europe, but I don't think it has many T8 showings in the US)
- Depends on why you want the data. If it's for inspiration then it can be used ofc.

[Brehn]

If you want Top 8s from relevant tourneys in 2008:
Worldwide - 4/37 = 10.8% of Threshold decks play Thoughtseize.
US - 2/7 = 28.6% of Threshold decks play Thoughtseize. Note: both lists were played by players with the name Hatfield.
You see, it's far from an auto-include.

If the statements about the positive Threshold matchup were true, we'd have two new Best Decks. I doubt that the matchup of TES/FT even against an "outdated" UGw Threshold list without Thoughtseize is positive.

Then, there are the players who overestimate the importancy of the Threshold matchup. Random stuff I've read in this thread:

Not to be a dick or anything, but the "results" are pretty shitty as far as reporting.

It's not bad for a combo deck, but considering that you're going 2-4 against a deck that makes up a big share of the metagame, it seems to be not enough to get up to Tier 1 status.

The Threshold matchup isn't everything. A deck doesn't have to have a positive Threshold matchup to be qualified to be Tier 1. It's not like you face Threshold 3-5 times every tournament - and if you do, just play Train Wreck or so.

DTB
Threshold – 9 (variants include 4 UGR, UGW, UGB, 2 5C, UG)
Ichorid – 9
Landstill – 9 (colors include 5 BHWC (4C), 3 UWb, UW)
Goblins– 5 (all white splashes)
BWG Rock – 5

Both decks should have a positive Ichorid, Rock and Goblins matchup. If the second testing phase shows that they have an equal to positive Landstill matchup, the Tier 1 status is not far away - in this case, 4 out of the 5 most important matchups in a general meta are equal to positive.

(if you're American and you don't like that "The Rock" appears here because "nobody" [i.e. nobody american] plays it - just replace it with "RGBSA"; "nobody" [i.e. nobody european] plays that, it seems to put up good results in the US and the FT/TES matchups against it should also be positive.)

[BreathWeapon]

All they're saying is that they'd have a better matchup against a list without Thoughtseizes. Nobody said the matchup was positive.


Factual evidence #1: Link
Factual evidence #2: Link
I'm not that stupid.

No disrespect, but Threshold and Thoughtseize aren't the accepted standard, and most of the Threshold decks I've seen are either in the Counterbalance /w or /r or "Bird Shit" Wasteland and Stifle schools. Thought Seize is good against TES because it discards Vexing Shusher, that's the ONLY thing I was insinuating.

[Bovinious]

Both decks should have a positive Ichorid, Rock and Goblins matchup. If the second testing phase shows that they have an equal to positive Landstill matchup, the Tier 1 status is not far away - in this case, 4 out of the 5 most important matchups in a general meta are equal to positive.

(if you're American and you don't like that "The Rock" appears here because "nobody" [i.e. nobody american] plays it - just replace it with "RGBSA"; "nobody" [i.e. nobody european] plays that, it seems to put up good results in the US and the FT/TES matchups against it should also be positive.)

Just because a deck beats the top tier, which is debatable, doesnt mean it itself is top tier. It could have problems getting past lower tier decks or being consistent enough to top8 often (SPOILER ALERT: THIS IS TRUE), in addition to few playing the deck at all and well. So yeah, based on what you said it is not reasonable to conclude that FT or TES will be tier 1 soon.

Also, Rock sucks, and so does RGBSA, theres nothing else to say about those abominations.

[thefreakaccident]

*Sorry, don't mean to be backseat Moderator*

Lets try to keep this thread civil and on point you guys.

This thread is to discuss the observations we can make about the succes/failure of these two decks (TES & FT) against blue based decks... Currently, they are competing to see which deck has the better counter-top threshold MU & Landstill MU.

Any other discussion about threshold and other decks should therefore be in their respective threads.

Thanks for doing my job. You actually posted everything I was about to say. People, listen to this shit, or ima spit out warnings. -Di

[Obfuscate Freely]

Fair enough. To be honest, I havent really followed the FT thread (actually, I just didn't), where apparently such insanity has happened. On the other hand, I'm following the TES one, and I don't recall anyone (at least, anyone relevant) making such preposterous statements, and certainly not Bryant.

Bryant has asserted that TES has a better matchup against blue-based aggro-control than FT does, and he has done so without challenging emidln's matchup descriptions. We can only conclude that he thinks TES is even more broken than emidln thinks FT is.

Bryant, please correct me if I'm wrong, here.

Sorry, but those statements are as bold as the one you criticized earlier.

If my statements seem overly bold, it might be because you haven't been following Threshold development closely enough, or just because you haven't done enough work on the archetype, personally. Either way, I can tell you, from tournament experience, that there are very few, if any, advantages to playing a three-color Threshold list. Splashing additional colors gives you access to better cards, and it's as simple as that.

If I were to limit myself to a three-color Threshold list, I would run black over white and red, anyway, because of Thoughtseize. Again, I could see making an exception to this in order to play Blood Moon, if the metagame warranted.

so out of 270+ decks there are tops 30 of them running T seize. that is about 11% meaning that if you play threshold 2 times (which could happen..) you have about a 13 or 14 % chance of playing thoughtsieze threshold.

If you want Top 8s from relevant tourneys in 2008:
Worldwide - 4/37 = 10.8% of Threshold decks play Thoughtseize.
US - 2/7 = 28.6% of Threshold decks play Thoughtseize. Note: both lists were played by players with the name Hatfield.

As Hightower pointed out, historical data is rather limited in how much it can tell us about what people are playing today (especially if that data is from before a card was printed). If you really wanted to estimate how many Threshold players will be playing Thoughtseize at the next major tournament, you would have to take into account the card's upward popularity trend, going back to when it was first legal.

I prefer, instead, to simply prepare for my opponents to have well-built decks.

Despite all that, Brehn, each of those percentages is greater than the "less than 10%" you quoted, which I find amusing.

Lets try to keep this thread civil and on point you guys.

Discussing what consitutes a "typical" Threshold list seems plenty relevant to this thread, and to the contest between TES and FT. After all, the two decks are being tested against a specific list of Threshold; how that Threshold list is built impacts not only the combo decks' matchups against it, but also their performance relative to each other.

And while the Threshold list has already been chosen, any debate over how relevant it is will certainly affect the conclusions drawn after the testing is completed.

[undone]

Im sorry my post kinda derailed it(not to say it wasnt off track a little), but it was more meant to show the numbers but it got us off track. On track I think that the thoughtseize Problem is equal in terms of damage to the combo decks. Simply because Counterblanace can be backed up by seize on either shusher, or wipe away. Either of these events make matchups alot worse.

Also as to just TES Vs fetchland tendrils, I play both, TES seems to be a "GET THERE NOW" deck, playing alot more acceleration. While FT seems to be combo control which means that it can wait. I also think FT pilots hate that doesnt involve black a bit better then TES.

As to matchups I was trying to find a really good player to do the same matchup testing, It came out about the same, but I think my opponent wasnt quite optimal (we used identical lists).

Some notes on matches we played.

He drew force... alot (like in all but 2 opening hands)
Seemed like Going first was some what key in the matchups with TES. FT didnt care that much, He either drew alot of hate in 3-5 turns or lost.

Both are good decks but I want to see the landstill matchup. I think that would be more interesting a matchup Not because its better, but because it gets better as it goes on. My personal prediction (Might be compleatly off base) Is that the landstill matchup will be better for TES, and the Thresh matchup will be better for FT.(once again thats just a little testing, and thought on it)

[Di]

Ok. Apparently some people cannot read. Shut the hell up with the Thoughtseizes and the Thresholds and your motherfucking circle jerk. Seriously. WRONG THREAD.

If this thread isn't put back onto topic, I am going to take a massive dump on several people's accounts.

[Mental]

Both are good decks but I want to see the landstill matchup. I think that would be more interesting a matchup Not because its better, but because it gets better as it goes on. My personal prediction (Might be compleatly off base) Is that the landstill matchup will be better for TES, and the Thresh matchup will be better for FT.(once again thats just a little testing, and thought on it)

Meh, I think both FT and TES have an equal thresh MU - Bad. As for the Landstill MU, FT really shines there because it can set up Solidarity Style. Landstill has no clock, so FT can just Extirpate FoW and win. On the other hand, TES has a better chance against Discard.

[chokin]

Meh, I think both FT and TES have an equal thresh MU - Bad. As for the Landstill MU, FT really shines there because it can set up Solidarity Style. Landstill has no clock, so FT can just Extirpate FoW and win. On the other hand, TES has a better chance against Discard.

QFT. I think TES has better recovery against a discard, Extirpate and has Burning Wish to deal with random pains. I think FT does a much better job at hand sculpting and still reliably is able to get answers because of Mystical Tutor.

I'd say that both decks hate CB+Top equally and have a few cards out there that they hate seeing. Both combo decks have ups and downs, pros and cons, but that's expected. I personally feel TES is more explosive, while FT has more of a control style to it. I like em both.

[Arsenal]

I'd say that both decks hate CB+Top equally and have a few cards out there that they hate seeing. Both combo decks have ups and downs, pros and cons, but that's expected.

Then you expect wrong according to emidln:

The list of cards that FT fears:


That's it. In case you don't understand, that list is blank. There is nothing the deck isn't prepared to beat, and nothing that an experienced pilot can't handle. Dedicated hate decks have difficulty beating it, and extreme difficulty beating anything else. The format is lucky that the deck has just been picked up. The initial round of top8s was with players who had picked up the deck a day or two in advance. When the FT pilots gain the same experience that other pilots have with their decks, a combo summer will be upon us stoppable by only Wizards' intervention.

[Lego]

I'm actually really curious to see how emidln does here. He's spoken highly of his matchup against Threshold (even saying that he has a positive matchup against WB Thresh with Force/CB/Daze/Thoughtseize in the main and Meddling Mage, Extirpate in the board.) I wanna see if he can pull it off.

[Arsenal]

It's currently 1-0 in Thresh's favor, and 1-1 in the second match. emidln apologized saying he had a pressing matter to attend to. I'm a patient enough person to wait until he's ready.

Don't know if they've progressed any further, but this is the most recent info that has been posted.

[Phantom]

Pressing matter = scared of losing.


In all seriousness, I'm glad this is happening because I'm one of the many people that pretty much just ignore combo players reported matchups because I assume they are off. I don't know what it is about combo decks that make their players lose sight of reality, but I wonder if this exercise will confirm my hunch.

[undone]

Combo players dont lose sight of reality, they are simply playing the "Most powerful deck" which is true, the synergy in thier deck is greater then any other deck in the formats... Aside from other combo decks. As a combo player I can honestly say that, unless my opponent has 16-20 MD hate and draws a significant portion of it, I feel invulnerable. Unfortuneatly unlike control decks and aggro decks, there is no middle road for combo. You get there NOW or you dont. The state of the game is very dynamic instead of a sliding static or slight back and forth that aggro and control games are.

But on topic I would love to see the FT matchups. So that TES can get to the landstill matchup.

[chokin]

Then you expect wrong according to emidln:

Ha. That's funny. Even though the deck packs Wipe Away and Extirpate, I'd say that CB is still a problem.

As for current results of FT, I'm glad there was a win in there for FT. Even though I play Thresh, I love decks that beat Thresh here and there. It's even better with 2 good players.