[Free Article] Dazed and Confused

[SlopeeJ]

The only reason people win tournaments with these garbage Legacy Land Destruction decks (read: Merfolk) is because everyone else in the room is playing a deck with poorly constructed mana. When your two ways to win the game are 1) being on the play in the mirror, or 2) hoping your opponent constructed their deck incorrectly, it’s not a very good recipe for success. Although, the latter seems to be a pretty safe bet in most Legacy tournaments these days.

Slap Yourself

[LostButSeeking]

The second one, is that combo decks should be playing with Force of Will themselves.

I'm having a difficult time with this. I'm a TES player; my mainboard only has nine blue spells in it right now. I'm not as familiar with ANT or DDFT, but I'm looking at some lists and they don't seem that much higher. Additionally, the major storm engine--Ad Nauseum--is really, really ugly with Force of Will. I regularly kill myself from 15 life with Ad Nauseum using a deck that has an average converted mana cost of 1 because I don't hit business spells. Adding force of will would only make this worse. Thirdly, the card advantage involved with protecting your combo seems to me to be also bad--I don't often have cards left in my hand, after I Ad Nauseum, let alone a possibly useful blue spell that I could have pitched to force rather than use silence.

What decks were you thinking of when you made this comment? Some of the new Iggy lists with dream salvage? Solidarity? Do you have a decklist?

[Sharpened]

So if everyone is horrible then can we expect to see a nonhorrible player with a mana base that is full of basics and plays more then 22 lands win Columbus? Becuase that's what he's saying right?

Basically, everyone is doing it wrong with regards to their mana bases. So the correct thing to do is play more lands and more basics to make a stable manabase. If thats the case, where are the intelligent people who decided to do just that and why aren't they dominating every tournament? Becuase if it was as easy as this article makes it seem, thats what we should expect to see, right?

I dunno, whole article seems silly.

[DragoFireheart]

While the author is correct about Legacy having fragile mana bases, he clearly shows he knows nothing about Legacy.

God, I want my 5 minutes back please. I also want whatever IQ I lost reading that pile of trash.

[dahcmai]

I had to give a little laugh over seeing Rakdos Pit Dragon mentioned. Been a while since I've seen one of those played. Good card, but not right now. Anyway, we probably all could stand to have a few more basics, I'll give him that. Face it, Legacy players are known for having seriously greedy manabases. lol It's true, don't deny it.

The rest was obviously a lack of knowledge of Legacy which sadly became more noticeable and laughable the longer he tried to make his points. Oh well, least we know better.

[Fons]

I'm having a difficult time with this. I'm a TES player; my mainboard only has nine blue spells in it right now. I'm not as familiar with ANT or DDFT, but I'm looking at some lists and they don't seem that much higher. Additionally, the major storm engine--Ad Nauseum--is really, really ugly with Force of Will. I regularly kill myself from 15 life with Ad Nauseum using a deck that has an average converted mana cost of 1 because I don't hit business spells. Adding force of will would only make this worse. Thirdly, the card advantage involved with protecting your combo seems to me to be also bad--I don't often have cards left in my hand, after I Ad Nauseum, let alone a possibly useful blue spell that I could have pitched to force rather than use silence.

What decks were you thinking of when you made this comment? Some of the new Iggy lists with dream salvage? Solidarity? Do you have a decklist?

In Combo-Lion's Eye Diamond>Force of Will

Lion's Eye Diamond's downside makes Force of Will unusable.

[DrJones]

I'm having a difficult time with this. I'm a TES player; my mainboard only has nine blue spells in it right now. I'm not as familiar with ANT or DDFT, but I'm looking at some lists and they don't seem that much higher. Additionally, the major storm engine--Ad Nauseum--is really, really ugly with Force of Will. I regularly kill myself from 15 life with Ad Nauseum using a deck that has an average converted mana cost of 1 because I don't hit business spells. Adding force of will would only make this worse. Thirdly, the card advantage involved with protecting your combo seems to me to be also bad--I don't often have cards left in my hand, after I Ad Nauseum, let alone a possibly useful blue spell that I could have pitched to force rather than use silence.

What decks were you thinking of when you made this comment? Some of the new Iggy lists with dream salvage? Solidarity? Do you have a decklist?

I'm not suggesting adding Force of Will to existing combo decks that cannot afford to run it, but running combo decks that can make use of it. At least, if your main concern are the Fish / Countertop matches.

[RexFTW]

Well some of his article is actually dead on IMO (not all of it mind you). I dont think that legacy decks should run 26 lands like jund because your curve ends at 3 not 6. This is a bit of an exaggeration. However, you do see that all of the top 8 decks played lots of basics and all 20 or more lands.

[LostButSeeking]

I'm not suggesting adding Force of Will to existing combo decks that cannot afford to run it, but running combo decks that can make use of it. At least, if your main concern are the Fish / Countertop matches.

But what combo decks can make use of it, though? Which storm deck would rather spend two cards and no mana than one card and one mana (silence or duress) as protection? Storm--by definition--wants to play all of the cards in its hand. More spells = more storm. It's hard enough comboing out with all of the cards in your hand, let alone -1 cards. The only thing I've seen that could properly use force was an interesting (if fragile) storm combo deck that used Necologia to draw enough cards to storm off. Maybe the deck will get better with leyline of anticipation? .

[lordofthepit]

Hey guys, if you liked this article, you should check out the paper I'm going to publish in Nature about why quantum physicists have to use all them newfangled math symbols.

[Azdraël]

Crap.

[Vacrix]

The question is, do we enjoy insightful articles more where everything has pretty much already been said?
Or shit like this that we can both ridicule and use as a starting point to facilitate our own discussion? :P
I personally prefer REALLY shitty articles or really good articles. Anything that falls in between isn't worth my time. Its like the funny/ridiculous loop. Some things in comedy are so ridiculous that they loop back around to funny, but others are really just not ridiculous enough or too ridiculous. There's a fine balance.

[mujadaddy]

Why are people putting Wild Nacatl and Lord of Atlantis in their decks when there are multiple ways in the format to kill you on the first turn of the game.

Because those first-turn-kill decks don't do it every time, and you might actually play your deck, so, you should put some cards in it?

It’s almost like they are actually playing back in 1995

...no.

People don’t play Thoughtseize to disrupt the combo decks for some reason, they play Stone Rain.

...what?

Daze beats combo because combo players build their decks incorrectly.

...tell us, oh Standard Master, how do we lowly Legacy players build "Daze Proof" Combo decks?

I’m not exactly sure what the best way to do that is, specifically, but I know it begins by adding a freaking land.

...yeah, that 'freaking land' really helped my turn 1 kills. Thanks a bunch!

I honestly don’t have a clue why Merfolk decks even exist, because their strategy is inherently pretty weak.

Note that this is said AFTER

2nd place – Merfolk
3rd place – Merfolk
4th place – Goblins
5th place – Goblins
9th place – Faeries
13th place – Goblins
14th place – Merfolk

Again, I honestly don’t have a clue why Merfolk decks even exist, because their strategy is inherently pretty weak..

I wonder what they will do when the combo decks realize they should start playing Force of Will themselves, and a manabase that doesn’t suck.

...say that again...

combo
manabase

combo
manabase

combo
manabase

combo
manabase

...you're an idiot. If you, the reader on The Source, doubt that, let me summarize his anecdote at the end.

He's playing the burn mirror, he 'accidentally' looks at his opponent's hand and thinks they have the last 3 damage they need as an instant. He therefore doesn't cast his sorcery speed last 5 damage, conceding instead. He misread what cards the opponent had in hand.

As the kids say, Cool Story, Bro.

[Sims]

Who is this fucknut and who did he blow to get to post this garbage on channelfireball, or any mtg site.

Legacy has a problem with people getting greedy with their manabases, true. I'll concede that point. But next time you want to write an article about a format, try putting more than 1 month into it and learn how to write an article before throwing your junk out there like a highschool bully telling everyone they are wrong and you are right becuase you are semi-pro/wanna be winrar!

tl;dr: article was trash.

[AngryTroll]

Although the overall article wasn't great, he had some interesting points. He's right that people play it fast and loose with their manabases. About the first thing I do with almost any list I pick up here or at SCG is add a basic Island. He's also correct that Zoo is one of the best-tuned, most consistent decks in the format, and that it will steamroll opponents with awkward draws.

[Vacrix]

Because those first-turn-kill decks don't do it every time, and you might actually play your deck, so, you should put some cards in it?
...no.
...what?
...tell us, oh Standard Master, how do we lowly Legacy players build "Daze Proof" Combo decks?
...yeah, that 'freaking land' really helped my turn 1 kills. Thanks a bunch!
Note that this is said AFTER
Again, I honestly don’t have a clue why Merfolk decks even exist, because their strategy is inherently pretty weak..

...say that again...



...you're an idiot. If you, the reader on The Source, doubt that, let me summarize his anecdote at the end.

He's playing the burn mirror, he 'accidentally' looks at his opponent's hand and thinks they have the last 3 damage they need as an instant. He therefore doesn't cast his sorcery speed last 5 damage, conceding instead. He misread what cards the opponent had in hand.

As the kids say, Cool Story, Bro.

/thread

[SJUD]

Author of the article has played Legacy two or three times at my local store. He plays hypergenesis combo and gets angry if you have force of will or if you flip a land off your counterbalance to counter his win. True story.

[mujadaddy]

Author of the article has played Legacy two or three times at my local store. He plays hypergenesis combo and gets angry if you have force of will or if you flip a land off your counterbalance to counter his win. True story.

Hahahahahahhahahaha. Give this man some Rep!

[JeroenC]

^loving that.

OT: even the comments are full of BS (not brainstorm):

While I don’t play merfolk, I do play goblins and I can tell you, combos are not all they are cracked up to be.
Turn 1 Lacky(on the play) can beat a turn 2 Iona all day long in the Reanimator match. Post board it is easier to deal with a combo than it is to deal with an agro deck.
People with you attitude generally are the people type those messages online like “gosh, if you played any worse” as my Fireblast in response to there turn 2 ANT combo kills them.
Agro decks have long kept combo decks in check and I don’t need more than 21 lands with 6 fetches to drop a turn 2 Siege-gang Commander that doesn’t care if I can’t cast red spells anymore. I’ll be happy to race you.

I didn't know combo was being kept in check by aggro? Good thing Goblins always draws both Lackey and SGC in their opener and always plays first and reanimator never has a counter and ANT always needs to go down to four on turn two and and and...

phew, stupid people just get me rantin'

Edit: this guy is awesome though:

I don’t think I’ve seen as much cognitive dissonance come out of Alaska since Sarah Palin.

[Vacrix]

This article isn't free! ITS TAXING MY BRAIN CELLS!