[SCG Free Article] Thoughts on Thopter

[arebennian]

I'm not sure what the protocol is about posting someone else's article, so I apologise if I am stealing thunder.

Below is today's article from Doug Linn (10/11/09).

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/zenlimited/18266_Legacys_Allure_Thoughts_on_Thopters.html

Within he writes about the Thopter Foundary/Sword of the meek combo and its use in both a Control and Affinity shell.

[Forbiddian]

Seems better than Dreadnought and maybe even Painter's Grind, but still not good enough.

The parts are useless independently and it might not even be fast enough to beat Zoo that didn't draw Pridemage, let alone Zoo that could just burn the Thropter Foundary with a Qasali. Turn 1 Ponder, Turn 2 Foundary, Turn 3 Sword of the Meek, make a token probably even loses to Zoo if you're on the draw (or if they have a Qasali).

The fact that the combo is "cheaper" than other combos is quenched by the fact that this combo requires you to have access to 3-4 land before it can even combo out.


So here are some vulnerabilities to the combo that render it not functional as a game winning piece (that I could think of):

Wasteland, Back to Basics, Artifact Removal (esp Qasali), Engineered Plague, Terravore, Islandwalk, Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Jailer, Firespout buys one turn.

[hi-val]

I found when I was playing around with the combo in different decks that it absolutely made the difference against Zoo, since it makes lifegain and blockers. I liked it when they blew a Pridemage on it, since they can't point that at a Counterbalance or other things and it removes a 2-3 point damage source. Running it out doesn't make for a fast combo, granted, and it won't win any speed kill awards that other combos do. However, and this is really important and I wish I mentioned it explicitly in the article, this is the first scalable combo for controlly decks that I've found in Legacy. That is to say, it rewards you for living to the later game by making more tokens, though it's still fine in the early game.

Graveyard removal can hurt it in some ways and corner cards like Eplague (good spot!) and others can mess it up, too. Therefore, I think it's fine grafted into decks that can either remove lots of permanents (with Vindicate, Deed, EE, etc.) or has alternate ways to win (like Affinity).

arebennian, there's no problem with posting articles. If you see one you like, you're welcome to post it here. I don't always remember to make a thread for my articles here so it's nice if someone does that now and then too.

[Nidd]

God, I've been playing some sort of MUC now with the combo in it and while I never lost 1 of my 10 games I played, I can only say I'm happy I made my SB the way that i can board out the combo and go for beatdown with Vendilion Clique and Sower of Temptation.

Btw, Glen-Elendra Archmage sucks hairy nutsack. But not that anyone wouldn't have known that already.

[Aggro_zombies]

Seems better than Dreadnought and maybe even Painter's Grind, but still not good enough.

The parts are useless independently and it might not even be fast enough to beat Zoo that didn't draw Pridemage, let alone Zoo that could just burn the Thropter Foundary with a Qasali. Turn 1 Ponder, Turn 2 Foundary, Turn 3 Sword of the Meek, make a token probably even loses to Zoo if you're on the draw (or if they have a Qasali).

The fact that the combo is "cheaper" than other combos is quenched by the fact that this combo requires you to have access to 3-4 land before it can even combo out.


So here are some vulnerabilities to the combo that render it not functional as a game winning piece (that I could think of):

Wasteland, Back to Basics, Artifact Removal (esp Qasali), Engineered Plague, Terravore, Islandwalk, Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Jailer, Firespout buys one turn.
Against Zoo, it's actually actively a bad plan to go out of your way to find the combo as soon as possible, for the reasons you mentioned.

I'm going to break with Doug here a bit and say that the combo is much more of a late stabilizer against Zoo than an active "combo" in the modern sense of the word (something that ends the game all at once, or very quickly). The biggest thing you care about here is that it lets you tap out on your opponent's turn to get out of burn range and stymie the Zoo player's ground offense with blockers. In the first few turns, it's better to play control and draw and build your mana to maximize the immediate effectiveness of the combo (again, for the reasons you mentioned). In a control shell, you can often keep the first four turns or so of aggression out of Zoo contained before you start to run out of defensive options. Traditional control decks like Landstill would then have to start digging for answers, and the Zoo deck would use the lapse to get in a few more points of creature damage so it could end the game with burn. This combo can come online right around that time period to put a HUGE dent into Zoo's offense while also padding your life total. Even if the Zoo player pops a Pridemage, if you've sunk any mana into this combo at all, you've often set Zoo back a full combat step or more. If you have or can find Ruins quickly, the time required to get the Foundry back into play is often irrelevant, since your life total will either stay the same as Zoo eats through blockers, or drop to what it was pre-combo. That's actually really big for a deck looking to go long.

The combo looks worse on paper than it is in practice. If the other guy can't answer it before you untap again, you can often get so far ahead you simply can't lose.

[Skeggi]

I liked the article. It's trying to advance in Legacy, not look back and analyse what happened. Usually we already knew what happened and nothing new or breaking comes out. This combo may have some potential. If it's not that good, at least it looks a heap of fun! Well done, Doug, I really enjoyed this article :smile:

[Valarne]

Nice article.

The combo is really good, as far as I can see. One of my friends has been playing a heavy control Gifts-version, running this combo the last couple of weeks, and its really strong.

As Doug states in the article, its hard to disrupt (permanently - no Swords here), easy to recur, and easy to tutor up. I'm convinced its gonna find 1 or more tier 1-1.5 decks where it can thrive, in time.

[dahcmai]

A friend of mine went pretty extreme with recursion on it to try and make it virtually impossible to disrupt. He included things like Regrowth and even Argivian Find to make sure it stuck. It's irritatingly hard to deal with especially if you're playing a Zoo deck or something similar. It might have some promise since it's easy to set up and gains life as an added benefit so you're not dead to random lucky burn draws right when you try to combo out.