Make The Right Play

[freakish777]

This thread is for posting interesting lines of play you encounter and seeing what the rest of the community thinks what the right play is. Any format.

Please only post one play at a time. Please don't post a new play unless discussion on the old play has sufficiently died down (hopefully in most cases, a consensus will be reached on what the right play is).

Here's a scenario I just encountered on MWS, that I thought was interesting:

It's G3. You're playing UB Reanimator and are on the draw. Your opponent is playing UGwr CounterTop with Firespout (presumably having boarded the Firespouts out) and Jace, the Mindsculptor (so, it's highly unlikely that Progentius is in his 60 cards, and I've brought Show and Tell in from the sideboard as a way around graveyard hate).

On his turn 1, he played Divining Top off Tundra.
On your turn 1, you cracked a fetchland for USea and then played Thoughtseize, which he Dazed.
On his turn 2, he replays his Tundra.
On your turn 2, you play your second land, Ponder, crack a fetchland to get rid of 2 lands on top, and then Duress, he responds by looking at the Top 3 of his library, tapping to draw a card, and then letting Duress resolve.

He reveals:

Island
Counterbalance
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Force of Will
Sensei's Divining Top

You know there's a SDT on top of his library.

You hand:

Entomb
Iona, Shield of Emeria
Show and Tell
Swamp
Daze

What do you take with Duress?










I took Force of Will.

The resulting plays are:


He plays Counterbalance, you Daze, and then play Entomb for Inkwell Leviathan in your upkeep (since you'll only have 2 mana that turn), and hope to draw Reinamate/Exhume in case he has another FoW on top of his Library after the SDT that he just re-drew.
He replays top and passes the turn. You go for Show and Tell, he activates Top in responses hoping for Daze/FoW, which you Daze back. If he FoW's he's pitching Jace, if he Dazes, he's behind enough lands to not be able to play Jace in time to bounce Iona (naming white).
He replays top and passes the turn. You gor for Show and Tell, he activates Top in response looking for land or RWM to buy time to try and drop Jace to bounce your Iona (naming white).



If you take Counterbalance, he replays Top and passes the turn. If you go for Show and Tell, he can just FoW pitching Jace, unless he decides to look at his top 3 in response (under the impression that Jace is more important than playing around Daze), in which case your Daze forces SnT through unless there's a Daze in the Top 3 also.


I didn't bother considering taking Jace or SDT, Jace is too slow and results in the same plays as you taking FoW, except your opponent now is digging for a blue card to match their FoW instead of a FoW to match their blue card. There's another SDT on top of his library, making taking the one in his hand the worst card to take.


After reading this if you think taking Counterbalance, SDT, or Jace was the appropriate play, let everyone know why you think that.

[rocketrae21]

I think taking FoW is the right play, but I don't think you Daze the counterbalance. I would say go for the glory and allow CB to resolve, he is tapped out, and go for Show and Tell. If he blind flips RWM, then well its just not your day. If he has Daze or Fow, you have Daze back up. Once Iona is out, he is looking for 4 mana to drop Jace. He has 2. So you are dealing 14 damage, plus you still may have a Daze for Jace.

[Dilettante]

I agree with the duressing of the Force of Will. It's an option card that can always be played against your resolution of a reanimator/sneak card. However, I wouldn't have tried to daze the counterbalance. I would have saved it and hoped the Show and Tell would resolve. The question is... are you running 1 or 2 Iona? He doesn't have a Brainstorm in hand, but leaving 2 mana sitting around infers he wants to use the top rather than luck-balance you... or is cautious of a daze (more likely the latter). If you're running 1 Iona, I would have tried to just sit back and try to hold as many counters as possible for resolving show and tell. If 2, I would have tried to use Entomb as a EoT play as a decoy for your show and tell.

Warning: I'm about 6-8 drinks in.

[frogboy]

If you think he's a moron, take Jace and cast Show and Tell when he casts Counterbalance. If you think he's not a moron, take Force of Will and cast Show and Tell when he casts Counterbalance. Name Blue.

[pi4meterftw]

I bet he drew with top to try to trick you into thinking you should take his top. Why else would he do this...

The average mws player is bad enough that maybe this sort of thing actually works.

[Angelfire]

You are running Vial Goblins and are at 5 life. Your opponent is at 9 life. Your board is 2 Goblin Warchief, 1 Goblin Ringleader and 1 Goblin Matron. You also have 2 Mountains in play. Your hand is a single Fetchland. Your opponent has a single card in his hand and 3 Mountains in play (he is running Sligh btw). You draw for your turn and rip Siege-Gang Commander. You know your opponent's decklist and know he runs 4 Fireblast and zero sweepers.

Do you fetch, putting yourself at 4, and drop Siege-Gang to to go for the win or do you kill him in two swings and give him another card draw?

[freakish777]

I bet he drew with top to try to trick you into thinking you should take his top. Why else would he do this...

I think his initial reasoning was "I have Counterbalance in hand, and I really want to resolve that, since I have Top, if I have CounterTop in play with mana open, I can't lose this game, or it's going to be very hard for me to at any rate" so he topped in response. Seeing Force in the top 3 he probably rearranged and drew FoW. Then after his Top activations had resolved, he realized resolving Counterbalance next turn after I FoW his Duress, he could still combo me, because I have to blind flip, I actually can't FoW the Duress and have to hold it for his reanimation spell."

In the event your opponent plays Counterbalance, I think it's right to Daze it. In the event you run Show and Tell into a RWM, you straight up lose (just about always), where as delaying a turn they still need to find Daze/Fow, and even then, that puts you both in topdeck mode.

Lastly, I was only running 1 Iona.

What wound up happening, for those that are interested, was my opponent played Top, when I Show and Telled, he activated top then used it to draw another FoW, pitching Jace and I Dazed. I named White with Iona and won.



@Angelfire, how many cards are left in your opponent's library, and how many Fireblasts has he already played?

Let's say he has 47 cards left in his library and has played 0 fireblasts. That gives him a 1 in 12 chance of having Fireblast (47 + 1 in hand, 4 blasts left is 4 in 48 goes to 1 in 12). Under those circumstances, it seems more likely he has a Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning and is hoping to pair it with another card on top of his deck. It really sort of depends on his exact decklist and how many cards he's drawn, but my inclination is to go for it.

[markbris]

I like taking the force of will as well and like others said my thought was to let him play the counterbalance and then go for the show and tell since he has to get pretty lucky to stop it.

[markbris]

@ angelfire, I'd just go for it, maybe he is holding a fireblast maybe hes holding a land for searing blaze, maybe hes holding a bolt and just didn't want to leave you with the information that he had nothing left by playing it so you could do something like what you are contemplating here. I don't know but it seems to me you should just drop the siegegang and most likely he scoops.

[pi4meterftw]

I think his initial reasoning was "I have Counterbalance in hand, and I really want to resolve that, since I have Top, if I have CounterTop in play with mana open, I can't lose this game, or it's going to be very hard for me to at any rate" so he topped in response. Seeing Force in the top 3 he probably rearranged and drew FoW. Then after his Top activations had resolved, he realized resolving Counterbalance next turn after I FoW his Duress, he could still combo me, because I have to blind flip, I actually can't FoW the Duress and have to hold it for his reanimation spell."

In the event your opponent plays Counterbalance, I think it's right to Daze it. In the event you run Show and Tell into a RWM, you straight up lose (just about always), where as delaying a turn they still need to find Daze/Fow, and even then, that puts you both in topdeck mode.

Lastly, I was only running 1 Iona.

What wound up happening, for those that are interested, was my opponent played Top, when I Show and Telled, he activated top then used it to draw another FoW, pitching Jace and I Dazed. I named White with Iona and won.


Wow, that's terrible. Jace is probably not only not worth jumping through hoops to save, but probably his *worst* blue card. Why would he do more than nothing to not pitch it? I wouldn't play jace, but if I did, I'd be begging to pitch it to FOW.
@Angelfire, how many cards are left in your opponent's library, and how many Fireblasts has he already played?

Let's say he has 47 cards left in his library and has played 0 fireblasts. That gives him a 1 in 12 chance of having Fireblast (47 + 1 in hand, 4 blasts left is 4 in 48 goes to 1 in 12). Under those circumstances, it seems more likely he has a Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning and is hoping to pair it with another card on top of his deck. It really sort of depends on his exact decklist and how many cards he's drawn, but my inclination is to go for it.

[frogboy]

In the event you run Show and Tell into a RWM, you straight up lose (just about always)

In what universe does he tap out and leave a three on top?

[freakish777]

For those that can't read pi4meterftw's comment above, I've taken it out of my quote and put it below


Wow, that's terrible. Jace is probably not only not worth jumping through hoops to save, but probably his *worst* blue card. Why would he do more than nothing to not pitch it? I wouldn't play jace, but if I did, I'd be begging to pitch it to FOW.


He wasn't jumping through hoops to try and save Jace. Did you misread something? He was attempting to save Counterbalance, which he ultimately got to put into play for free off of my Show and Tell. He did pitch Jace to the second Force of Will...

[freakish777]

In what universe does he tap out and leave a three on top?

One where random bad players do things like draw with Divining Top, and then let Duress resolve (letting you look at 1 more card) because they haven't thought things through? It's very possible when he re-arranged his 3 cards it's something like Fetchland, Force, RWM and he draws the Force with Top, leaving his top cards, in order, as SDT, RWM, fetch. Now, I highly doubt he's going to tap out for Counterbalance without FoW in hand and without Top in play, if he stopped himself from FoWing the Duress, but I could always be wrong and my opponent could in fact just be punting a lot. I'm not saying I think this particular player was bad, I think he made a bad play and then stopped himself from making an even worse play, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of him making a bad decision later and luckily having a 3cc on top. Recovering against an assembled CounterTop with Reanimator is extremely difficult, if there's something I can do to prevent it, I'm going to. Again, he'd still have to draw into another Daze/FoW, he's already played 1 Daze and I've already taken out 1 FoW.


EDIT: I should probably also point out that I Show and Telled Leviathan out in Game 2, so he does know I'm running SnT.

[TeenieBopper]

You are running Vial Goblins and are at 5 life. Your opponent is at 9 life. Your board is 2 Goblin Warchief, 1 Goblin Ringleader and 1 Goblin Matron. You also have 2 Mountains in play. Your hand is a single Fetchland. Your opponent has a single card in his hand and 3 Mountains in play (he is running Sligh btw). You draw for your turn and rip Siege-Gang Commander. You know your opponent's decklist and know he runs 4 Fireblast and zero sweepers.

Do you fetch, putting yourself at 4, and drop Siege-Gang to to go for the win or do you kill him in two swings and give him another card draw?

You go for the win. Make it so he has to have fireblast. Don't give him another turn to draw an answer or win the game.

[jrsthethird]

I bet he drew with top to try to trick you into thinking you should take his top. Why else would he do this...

The average mws player is bad enough that maybe this sort of thing actually works.

Or he had Jace on top and didn't want to show you Force. CB, Top. If you're a bad player you might be scared of the Jace and take his worst card, whereas if he doesn't draw he's guaranteed to lose Force or CB.

[practical joke]

I might be the only one, but I would have chose the jace,

Why?

decks like that only play approx 2 jace, taking out one only leads him into a very few choises and you can abuse them freely this time.

There are a few things that can happen: the trick is to try and bait him in a mistake.

1. Chances are there he has a swords to plowshares in his deck or a force of will. ( or any other blue card whatsoever.)
- he takes his turn, draws the known card. if it's a blue card he'll definately play counterbalace, if it is not, he'll probably play SDT.

Again: 2 options, if he played a Counterbalance, you can safely guess on show and tell. there are only 4 3-mana targets ( rwm), because if it's a blue card he drew HE MUST counter the show and tell, if he can't he'll die horribly by iona naming white. ( no stp, no rwm, no elspeth, no nothing)

If he drew a STP or anything non-blue, he probably would play a SDT, daze it. He probably pays 1, which means he'll be outtapped.
That way he is outtapped, not able to search for the top 3 cards since he only has 2 lands in play.
Now you can safely play show and tell (dropping iona white), he'll drop either counterbalace or SDT. he has only 3 draws ( +1 top) to find a jace,
since he CANNOT outrace you. there's only pw, sorcery, instant, land in gy. He won't be having double goyf right now. (unless he played one, but then you are still safer than ever, baiting his FoW with a single daze).
in 3 draws he MUST find 1 land and a jace. ( he can't search for a single land the last turn, he can't play anything else except useless goyfs, counterbalances and more SDT's)



I'm curious what he eventually had on top of his library. If you don't mind to pm me that. ( see if I could correctly remember a complete decklist including SB's, and chances he draws certain cards)

[Skeggi]

On your turn 2, you play your second land, Ponder, crack a fetchland to get rid of 2 lands on top, and then Duress, he responds by looking at the Top 3 of his library, tapping to draw a card, and then letting Duress resolve.



If you think he's a moron, take Jace and cast Show and Tell when he casts Counterbalance. If you think he's not a moron, take Force of Will and cast Show and Tell when he casts Counterbalance. Name Blue.

Why would this guy respond to Duress by activating his Top only to reveal an extra card?

[ESG]

@ Angelfire: There's some important information missing. Like, what turn is this? What spells has he already played (or at least how many Bolts or Fireblasts have you seen)? Is he tapped out? Is this preboard or postboard? Does he know that you know his decklist, or at least that he runs 4 Fireblasts but no sweepers? (This would increase the chances of him playing mind games with you.)

I'm going to assume that he is tapped out and that this is not within the first three turns of the game, and that it is Game 1.

I would not crack the fetch. As long as you don't fall to 4 life, the only way the Sligh player can win this game is if he already has a Bolt in hand and topdecks a second cheap burn spell. I've missed many times in this situation as a Burn player, and Burn runs more direct-damage spells than Sligh does, so Sligh's percentages are going to be far worse.

Some things to consider:

* If the card is a Bolt, why hasn't he played it yet? He's obviously going to send it to your dome, since he can't much change the state of the board with it. If he's still holding it at this point, he's hurting his chance at winning this game. What happens when he hits a three-drop --- say, Rift Bolt --- for his draw and can't play both?

* It makes more sense for him to be holding a Fireblast than to have already played it, because Blasting early would cut him short on land, leaving him with a greater chance of drawing something he can't cast. I can't think of anything Sligh would need to Blast that it couldn't just Bolt away, so there's almost no way he would've used a Fireblast up on your creatures. I don't believe Goblins are playing Tarmogoyf yet.

* He has a LOT of dead cards here. Your Mountains blank all copies of Price of Progess. Your guys can attack; he can attack only if he draws somebody with haste. So that eliminates Grim Lavamancer and Keldon Marauders. And Kiln Fiend, too, if he's running that. You don't have anything in play that would pump his Goblin Guide, so that's irrelevant, assuming you leave a guy back to block a topdecked Guide.

Given the situation you describe, I put him on either a land or a Fireblast. Goblins has great odds to win this one.

[practical joke]

I agree with ESG, I cannot imagine what other cards he wants to hold.
( blanks to fake, fireblast, instants)

could be anything, the chances he draws in a win aren't that great. Marauders is a win if he holds a fireblast.
Keep matron behind to block a random creature, attack for 6.

he needs 2 burnspells to win, one way or another. The chances he draws a blank or a bolt + creature is good enough.
Chain lightning has nothing to do with it. ( actually you only get the copy after the original was resolved, so it won't give you the win)

I wouldn't gamble this time, since fireblast is a card you really hold on untill the very last moment. (you could have remembered when playing face to face, how long he has been holding onto certain cards.)

[jrsthethird]

* If the card is a Bolt, why hasn't he played it yet? He's obviously going to send it to your dome, since he can't much change the state of the board with it. If he's still holding it at this point, he's hurting his chance at winning this game. What happens when he hits a three-drop --- say, Rift Bolt --- for his draw and can't play both?

So that eliminates Grim Lavamancer and Keldon Marauders. And Kiln Fiend, too, if he's running that. You don't have anything in play that would pump his Goblin Guide, so that's irrelevant, assuming you leave a guy back to block a topdecked Guide.

He could wait to Bolt at EOT, but leaving the card in hand to bluff Fireblast.

Keldon Marauders deals 1 as he ETB, so he's like a burn spell in this case, and paired with Fireblast, you're toast anyway.

[practical joke]

That's the gamble you'll have to make, if it's a bolt you don't lose straight ahead and het gets a draw with significant chance to draw a blank.
If it's a blank you he's holding you win either way.
If it's a sorcery speed burn, the chances a good enough he would've casted it. ( he has no use to hold that card)
Also, I see no reason why he would hold a non-land, non-bolt, non-fireblast card on his hand, when the gamestate is far from usefull.
He won't be casting a chain lightning when you have 2 red open. Since that'll kill him next turn. If he draws a burn next to that, it's over.

I would take the gamble and play it safe, I just hate getting fireblasted to death. If he has a burn on top, then he won. Congratulate him, and give him terrible goblin beatings G2 and G3.

( I assume you play B/R goblins, else fetch shouldn't be needed in your deck at all)

How the heck did you play the first chieftan anyways? ( I see no lackey, no vial)
wasteland has no targets unless you targeted your won rishadan port/wasteland just to safe yourself 4 damage from a PoP ( which I doubt)

So as I see it, you should stop hiding your third mountain underneath your other two mountains, play the SGC and win.

[Dilettante]

Okay, on the UB Reanimator vs. Countertop, now that I can think again... since the 1 mana was already used for duress, you can throw down a false signal to your opponent... turn 2 play after the duress to just throw the entomb out there and grab IWL as a decoy, to flash that you're ready to go off on reanimate or exhume... it also makes you look more vulnerable being tapped out and in some players... may make them top-dig a daze to try to keep you off, since if they are packing a daze and you just took away their force... and your potential card to sneak is only 1-2 mana (more trying to flash you are holding exhume), it will flush out their daze on the entomb if they are holding one under the top.

[practical joke]

He already played a ponder that turn, so he can't trick an entomb.

[Dilettante]

Oops, missed that Ponder. Then yeah, that's all you can do. Chance the S&T and hope he would have dazed the Duress.

[Angelfire]

@ Angelfire: There's some important information missing. Like, what turn is this? Like turn 5-7 What spells has he already played (or at least how many Bolts or Fireblasts have you seen)? we'll say zero of each Is he tapped out? No Is this preboard or postboard? Game 1 Does he know that you know his decklist, or at least that he runs 4 Fireblasts but no sweepers? Yes, you are friends and know each others decklists(This would increase the chances of him playing mind games with you.)

I'm going to assume that he is tapped out and that this is not within the first three turns of the game, and that it is Game 1.

I would not crack the fetch. As long as you don't fall to 4 life, the only way the Sligh player can win this game is if he already has a Bolt in hand and topdecks a second cheap burn spell. I've missed many times in this situation as a Burn player, and Burn runs more direct-damage spells than Sligh does, so Sligh's percentages are going to be far worse.

Would your decision change if your land was 1 Mountains and 1 Badlands (Price of Progress become relevant, which you know he runs)?

Some things to consider:

* If the card is a Bolt, why hasn't he played it yet? He's obviously going to send it to your dome, since he can't much change the state of the board with it. If he's still holding it at this point, he's hurting his chance at winning this game. What happens when he hits a three-drop --- say, Rift Bolt --- for his draw and can't play both? Assuming he isn't tapped out: could be for the bluff, to kill a piledriver or to do end step so the damage is more backloaded or bursty

* It makes more sense for him to be holding a Fireblast than to have already played it, because Blasting early would cut him short on land, leaving him with a greater chance of drawing something he can't cast. I can't think of anything Sligh would need to Blast that it couldn't just Bolt away, so there's almost no way he would've used a Fireblast up on your creatures. I don't believe Goblins are playing Tarmogoyf yet.

* He has a LOT of dead cards here. Your Mountains blank all copies of Price of Progess. Your guys can attack; he can attack only if he draws somebody with haste. So that eliminates Grim Lavamancer and Keldon Marauders. And Kiln Fiend, too, if he's running that. You don't have anything in play that would pump his Goblin Guide, so that's irrelevant, assuming you leave a guy back to block a topdecked Guide.

Given the situation you describe, I put him on either a land or a Fireblast. Goblins has great odds to win this one.


That's the gamble you'll have to make, if it's a bolt you don't lose straight ahead and het gets a draw with significant chance to draw a blank.
If it's a blank you he's holding you win either way.
If it's a sorcery speed burn, the chances a good enough he would've casted it. ( he has no use to hold that card)
Also, I see no reason why he would hold a non-land, non-bolt, non-fireblast card on his hand, when the gamestate is far from usefull.
He won't be casting a chain lightning when you have 2 red open. Since that'll kill him next turn. If he draws a burn next to that, it's over.

I would take the gamble and play it safe, I just hate getting fireblasted to death. If he has a burn on top, then he won. Congratulate him, and give him terrible goblin beatings G2 and G3.

( I assume you play B/R goblins, else fetch shouldn't be needed in your deck at all) Correct

How the heck did you play the first chieftan anyways? ( I see no lackey, no vial)
wasteland has no targets unless you targeted your won rishadan port/wasteland just to safe yourself 4 damage from a PoP ( which I doubt)

So as I see it, you should stop hiding your third mountain underneath your other two mountains, play the SGC and win.
The situation is hypothetical, although similar to one I was involved in (I was the Sligh player)


I agree Goblins has great odds to win, but I'm still not convinced there is better chance he has a Fireblast than 2 Burn spells. I would rather lose to Fireblast than give my opponent another turn to draw outs. Another thing to remember, if he is holding Fireblast (and you don't fetch) your odds of losing are still very good (this is relevant if you did out actual math odds).

[Nightmare]

On scenario 1:

Your opponent is going to do the following, if the opportunity presents itself:

Draw top #2.
Play Island.

Play Counterbalance, with Force backup. Sure, he could attempt to dig for the third land, and set up the turn 3 CB/Top, but only if he didn't already see good stuff with the top the first time around. He's already seen the second card, so he's likely to make it a 1 or 2 drop, in order to stop you from Entomb-Reanimate, or Entomb-Exhume. Ideally, it's a 1-drop.
If he choses not to make that play, in order to play around the Daze you may not have, or because he considers the Force to be enough protection, he plays Top and leaves a mana up for spinning. In this situation, Daze is shut of by virtue of him having the mana to pay for it.

In either of these scenarios, your next turn's play should be to cast Show and Tell, with Daze for backup. In order for this to be effective, you need to force your opponent to make the play YOU want him to make, which would be to cast the Counterbalance - as the other plan does not turn Daze on. Because of this, you have to take the Force of Will. Either of the other two blue cards is incorrect, as it encourages the opponent to play the Top, as opposed to the CB. In addition, you remove his ability to effectively prevent him from shutting down your gameplan two ways, which makes him hit the panic button, and play the CB into the Daze in the attempt to put some pressure on you, or disrupt you in some way.

My suggestion would be to take Force, and to NOT Daze the Counterbalance. As I said, he's more likely to have a 1 or 2 mana spell on top due to the curve of your deck and his own previous information, and the Daze gives him the time to find another relevant spell off the topdeck. If he instead plays the top, you're still ok, since he'd have to spin top to find another trick - again working from the assumption that he set up a 1-drop with top.

Of course, through all of this, you could have the nightmare scenario where he just floated a Force or a Daze, plays the top, draws the Counter without looking, and has Daze mana up, but that's Magic. I'm willing to play around that scenario.



In the Goblin matchup, you go for the win that turn. Letting them draw the card gains you nothing. In addition, even if you have Badlands/Mountain, he can't kill you with Price if you fetch a basic. By the time he gets priority to play a spell, the fetch is already in the yard.

[Angelfire]

In the Goblin matchup, you go for the win that turn. Letting them draw the card gains you nothing. In addition, even if you have Badlands/Mountain, he can't kill you with Price if you fetch a basic. By the time he gets priority to play a spell, the fetch is already in the yard.

The Badlands in play is relevant because they can PoP then 3 damage burn you for the win (if you don't go for the win that turn). I agree though, I would fetch and go for the win.

[Nightmare]

If he has Lava Dart (not to start that debate again) in hand, he can get you with a 3 Damage spell off the top. It doesn't matter what he has in hand - the only thing that doesn't win on his next turn is a land. You put him on the one-out'er, and try to win now.

[markbris]

If he has Lava Dart (not to start that debate again) in hand, he can get you with a 3 Damage spell off the top. It doesn't matter what he has in hand - the only thing that doesn't win on his next turn is a land. You put him on the one-out'er, and try to win now.

Yea I didn't even think this clearly through and I still said to go now. Because like nightmare said, even if he does have the fireblast, then any burn he draws wins him the game, if he doesnt have fireblast he could still be holding other burn and draw a burn to win but you will have given him that extra turn to do it whereas if he doesnt have the fireblast hes dead.

[Angelfire]

If he has Lava Dart (not to start that debate again) in hand, he can get you with a 3 Damage spell off the top. It doesn't matter what he has in hand - the only thing that doesn't win on his next turn is a land. You put him on the one-out'er, and try to win now.

Not that it is relevant but I don't run Lava Dart, nor does the Sligh player in the example :) Again, you are correct. If you play in fear of your opponent having a single out, you will lose more games than you win under most circumstances.

[Forbiddian]

You are running Vial Goblins and are at 5 life. Your opponent is at 9 life. Your board is 2 Goblin Warchief, 1 Goblin Ringleader and 1 Goblin Matron. You also have 2 Mountains in play. Your hand is a single Fetchland. Your opponent has a single card in his hand and 3 Mountains in play (he is running Sligh btw). You draw for your turn and rip Siege-Gang Commander. You know your opponent's decklist and know he runs 4 Fireblast and zero sweepers.

Do you fetch, putting yourself at 4, and drop Siege-Gang to to go for the win or do you kill him in two swings and give him another card draw?




View Post
@ Angelfire: There's some important information missing. Like, what turn is this? Like turn 5-7 What spells has he already played (or at least how many Bolts or Fireblasts have you seen)? we'll say zero of each Is he tapped out? No Is this preboard or postboard? Game 1 Does he know that you know his decklist, or at least that he runs 4 Fireblasts but no sweepers? Yes, you are friends and know each others decklists(This would increase the chances of him playing mind games with you.)


Rock on.

I mean, you said we have full knowledge of the deck, and there's a lot of information that would help.

1) How many Ball Lightnings does he run? I guess we'll assume zero.
2) How many Flame Javelins does he run? I guess we'll assume zero.
3) How many Magma Jets does he run? I guess we'll assume zero.
4) Specifically which burn spells does he run? I guess we'll assume 4 bolts + 4 chains + 4 Rift Bolts + 4 Price of Progress (doesn't matter) + 4 Mogg Fanatic + 4 Keldon Marauders.



So all that really matters in this situation is what card your opponent has in hand and what card is on the top of his library (or potentially more if he's running Magma Jet).


If it's a Fireblast and he also has a burn spell on top, you'll lose no matter what.

If it's a Fireblast with no burn spell on top, you'll win only by holding off the attack.

If it's a non-Fireblast burn spell and he has a burn spell on top, you'll win only by going for it.

If it's a non-Fireblast burn spell and he has no burn spell on top, you'll win no matter what.

If he doesn't have a burn spell, you'll win no matter what. Therefore for purposes of finding out which play is better, we need to assume he has some type of burn spell.


So the only situations we have to analyze are: Fireblast in hand, no burn spell on top vs. No-Fireblast in hand + Burn spell on top.

Let's also assume that your opponent is not retarded. Because he has at least some number of Rift Bolts in his deck remaining, it's the best play to play out any Sorcery-Speed burn that he might have. Otherwise he might topdeck the Rift Bolt and be unable to play it and the, say, Chain Lightning.


He's holding SOMETHING. Again, we're assuming that it's a burn spell otherwise it doesn't matter. That means it HAS to be either a Fireblast OR a Lightning Bolt. There's no other instant speed burn that has any impact.

If it's a Fireblast and you don't attack, you'll still lose if your opponent has Bolt, Chain, Rift Bolt, Mogg Fanatic, or Keldon Marauders. Which we'll assume he was drawing average, so the odds are about 2/3 that you win if he's got a FB by not attacking.

If it's a Bolt and you don't attack, you'll lose where you would have won through more aggressive play if your opponent has Bolt, Chain, or Rift Bolt on top. That's 12 cards or about 1/4.

So if your opponent has a FB, 2/3rds of the time you win where you would have lost by holding back.
If your opponent has a Bolt, 1/4th of the time you lose where you would have won by holding back.

In order for attacking immediately to be better, the odds that he has a Fireblast have to be 8/3rds as much as the odds of him having a Lightning Bolt, and I'd actually suggest that the odds of him having/holding a Fireblast are GREATER than the odds of him having/holding a Lightning Bolt.

Of course, the gamble changes if your opponent has Magma Jet in the deck, which gives him three shots at drawing any three damage burn to kill you (yet does nothing if you swing). And it changes again if your opponent has Flame Javelin, which is essentially more copies of Fireblast. But for the things outlined above, it's a MUCH better play to hold the SGC.



In this case, attacking is miserable.





It doesn't matter what he has in hand - the only thing that doesn't win on his next turn is a land. You put him on the one-out'er, and try to win now.

Why would you put him on a one-outer when you could instead put him on a runner-runner?

Especially when he's had 10+ draws to get his "one-outer" and if he drew it, he would be holding it. Seems like a horrible play mistake, actually, to go for the win immediately.

[Nightmare]

If it's a Fireblast and you don't attack, you'll still lose if your opponent has Bolt, Chain, Rift Bolt, Mogg Fanatic, or Keldon Marauders. Which we'll assume he was drawing average, so the odds are about 2/3 that you win if he's got a FB by not attacking.Uh, what? If it's a Fireblast and you don't go for it, he wins if he draws any non-land spell, be it Fanatic or whatever. With imperfect information we can't conclude what the odds are of him drawing a non-land, but it's nowhere near .33. Using a random burn list from the Sligh thread, and assuming he has not fetched, he has 15 lands left in his deck out of approximately 48 cards. That's a better than 67% chance the card on top of his library is a spell. Even if he's running 4 Kiln Fiend (whatever) and Lavamancer, it's still about a 50-50.


If it's a Bolt and you don't attack, you'll lose where you would have won through more aggressive play if your opponent has Bolt, Chain, or Rift Bolt on top. That's 12 cards or about 1/4. Or Fireblast, or Lava Spike. Which makes 20 cards, and the odds go up. If he's running Magma Jet, the odds get even higher he goes 2+3 damage, since he could either scry, or he could have another 4 outs in the deck. Either way, the odds are higher than 40%, which obviously is not 1/4.


So if your opponent has a FB, 2/3rds of the time you win where you would have lost by holding back.This is not true. You take a guaranteed loss (pushing), and turn it into a 50-50 or better chance of losing by not pushing. You gain about a 50% chance to win, on a bet that he has a 4-of (or about a 1/12 odd). If you assume its a bolt, you take a guaranteed win, and turn it into a .083 chance of losing. You lose about a 8% chance to win, on a bet that he has a 20-of (about a 1/2 odd).


If your opponent has a Bolt, 1/4th of the time you lose where you would have won by holding back.

In order for attacking immediately to be better, the odds that he has a Fireblast have to be 8/3rds as much as the odds of him having a Lightning Bolt, and I'd actually suggest that the odds of him having/holding a Fireblast are GREATER than the odds of him having/holding a Lightning Bolt.Please explain where these numbers are coming from. 8/3 as much? What are you talking about?


Of course, the gamble changes if your opponent has Magma Jet in the deck, which gives him three shots at drawing any three damage burn to kill you (yet does nothing if you swing). And it changes again if your opponent has Flame Javelin, which is essentially more copies of Fireblast. But for the things outlined above, it's a MUCH better play to hold the SGC.In the event that your opponent has Magma Jet in his deck, the odds fall on attacking improving. If he has Javelin (which is less likely, as the card is a rarity in any Legacy deck, be it Sligh or otherwise), attacking still better, as it's still only a 1/6 chance he has it (8/48).

[stalkerzero]

Right play: flip over table, punch opponent in face.

But seriously, this thread is a wonderful, wonderful idea. Really I think something like this could be a weekly type thing and would bring a lot of value to the forums.

Sorry for not answering on the plays. But I am thoroughly enjoying reading the replies and justifications.

[ESG]

Assuming he isn't tapped out: could be for the bluff, to kill a piledriver or to do end step so the damage is more backloaded or bursty.

I don't see why he would bluff Fireblast in this situation. He doesn't know you have a fetchland in hand, and he doesn't know you drew a Siege-Gang Commander; he just sees two cards in hand. Since he runs no sweepers, he's not going to waste Fireblast on the Piledriver, because then he dies to your horde no matter what.


Would your decision change if your land was 1 Mountains and 1 Badlands (Price of Progress become relevant, which you know he runs)?

This makes it a lot closer, because Price is another card that tends to sit in hand. So, yes, that would change my decision.

[ESG]

This one's for the non-LED Dredge players.

It's Game 2. You saw essentially nothing of your opponent's deck in Game 1, because you steamrolled him with a Turn 2 Breakthrough into perfect dredges and he had no answers. It looks like he boards in five cards. He elects to play first. You mull to 6 to find a hand with a dredger. He drops a Forest and passes. Your Turn 1 play is City of Brass --> Tireless Tribe. Your opponent drops a Marsh Flats, fetches a Scrubland and plays Diabolic Edict on you.

Your hand is:

Golgari Thug
Golgari Thug
Tarnished Citadel
Chain of Vapor
Bridge From Below

Which of these, if any, do you pitch to the Tribe and why?

[paK0]

Pitch 1 Thug. This gets around Trap.

Unlikely that he has Crypt, or he would have probably played it T1.
No Mana for Relic or Extripate.
Since he plays edict it looks more like some kind of Rockish cuild instead of Survival, so I wouldn't expect Fairy Macabre.

Since he kept his opening seven he either has no relevant hate, so you should stemroll him anyways, or he has some hate, and given the situation Trap is the most likely, so try to play around that one.

[cdr]

The whole problem with dredge, as had been said, is you usually have no idea what hate your opponent is going to attack with. You certainly can't write off Macabre. I would expect Macabre before I would Trap.

[MMogg]

The whole problem with dredge, as had been said, is you usually have no idea what hate your opponent is going to attack with. You certainly can't write off Macabre. I would expect Macabre before I would Trap.

But paKO's answer still is the best option. If they are running Macabre and you were to discard both Thugs, they would both be removed.

[pi4meterftw]

Uh, what? If it's a Fireblast and you don't go for it, he wins if he draws any non-land spell, be it Fanatic or whatever. With imperfect information we can't conclude what the odds are of him drawing a non-land, but it's nowhere near .33. Using a random burn list from the Sligh thread, and assuming he has not fetched, he has 15 lands left in his deck out of approximately 48 cards. That's a better than 67% chance the card on top of his library is a spell. Even if he's running 4 Kiln Fiend (whatever) and Lavamancer, it's still about a 50-50.

Or Fireblast, or Lava Spike. Which makes 20 cards, and the odds go up. If he's running Magma Jet, the odds get even higher he goes 2+3 damage, since he could either scry, or he could have another 4 outs in the deck. Either way, the odds are higher than 40%, which obviously is not 1/4.

This is not true. You take a guaranteed loss (pushing), and turn it into a 50-50 or better chance of losing by not pushing. You gain about a 50% chance to win, on a bet that he has a 4-of (or about a 1/12 odd). If you assume its a bolt, you take a guaranteed win, and turn it into a .083 chance of losing. You lose about a 8% chance to win, on a bet that he has a 20-of (about a 1/2 odd).

Please explain where these numbers are coming from. 8/3 as much? What are you talking about?

In the event that your opponent has Magma Jet in his deck, the odds fall on attacking improving. If he has Javelin (which is less likely, as the card is a rarity in any Legacy deck, be it Sligh or otherwise), attacking still better, as it's still only a 1/6 chance he has it (8/48).

8/3= the relative ratio of the odds Matt mentioned. [2/3: 1/4]:= (2/3)/(1/4)=8/3.

I checked the analysis and it's flawless, and the assumptions are pretty reasonable. It's interesting to note that if I had to guess which play was better here, I would have guessed wrong.

[Kuma]

This one's for the non-LED Dredge players.

It's Game 2. You saw essentially nothing of your opponent's deck in Game 1, because you steamrolled him with a Turn 2 Breakthrough into perfect dredges and he had no answers. It looks like he boards in five cards. He elects to play first. You mull to 6 to find a hand with a dredger. He drops a Forest and passes. Your Turn 1 play is City of Brass --> Tireless Tribe. Your opponent drops a Marsh Flats, fetches a Scrubland and plays Diabolic Edict on you.

Your hand is:

Golgari Thug
Golgari Thug
Tarnished Citadel
Chain of Vapor
Bridge From Below

Which of these, if any, do you pitch to the Tribe and why?

I would pitch both Golgari Thugs and the Bridge From Below. This allows my opponent to Ravenous Trap me, but even if I discard only a Thug or two, he'll just do it after I dredge. Discarding only one Thug puts you at high risk of hitting blanks when you dredge, and doesn't improve your position much in the face of graveyard hate. Because you have a second land, it's important to get the Bridge From Below in your graveyard so you can do Golgari Thug shennanigans where you chump block, dredge the Thug, and replay it netting a Bridge token each time.

It's pretty unlikely that your opponent has Crypt or Relic or he would have already played it. If he has Faerie Macabre, at least you have something useful in your graveyard. Your hand is too weak to play around sandbagged graveyard hate. You're going to need everything you've got to try to play Magic at this point.

Pitching all three does make you more vulnerable to Extirpate, but that card is terrible and there are at least five better pieces of graveyard hate against Ichorid.

[freakish777]

Your deck: UGw CounterTop
Oppo Deck: ANT

Game 2, you've lost game 1 (so you're on the play).

Your first 7 cards had no land, your 6 card hand is:

Force of Will
Force of Will
Brainstorm
Ponder
Counterbalance
Tarmogoyf

Do you mulligan to 5, or hope that 1 of the top 2 or 3 cards of your deck is a blue land?

[hungryLIKEALION]

This is a pretty wretched situation to be in already, but I think you have to keep and just pray to get there. A 5 card hand is unlikely to contain the land, clock, and disruption needed to win the matchup, and FoW is often the most important card in your entire deck against them (Followed closely by counterbalance, which you also have.) So it really comes down to drawing land here, or hoping for the most ridiculous 5 card hand possible... I'd rather just put on my balls and keep. You'll lose as many games as you'll win with that strategy, but sometimes you have to get lucky to win a tournament.

[Nihil Credo]

There's a ton of relevant information missing - how many lands do we play? What is our disruption set, post-boarding? What defensive tools did we see from ANT in game 1?

Also, I am assuming the ANT player kept its initial seven.

In the worst-case configurations, I'd keep. After a mull to 5 the opponent is likely to go for it as aggressively as possible, and he's actually very likely to succeed since a seven-carder usually allows for at least one protection spell before going off. If we pass he's going to correctly expect a really strong hand and will play more conservatively, and we will likely draw a land in two, maybe three turns.

Stuff that would make me more inclined to mulligan, in order of importance:

- Any cheap disruption we have beyond 4 FoW. Daze, Spell Pierce, to a lesser degree Spell Snare and Stifle.
- A higher number of blue lands in our deck.
- If they play discard or Pact of Negation rather than Chant effects.
- Having the full set of Ponders.

[freakish777]

There's a ton of relevant information missing - how many lands do we play? What is our disruption set, post-boarding? What defensive tools did we see from ANT in game 1?

Also, I am assuming the ANT player kept its initial seven.

In the worst-case configurations, I'd keep. After a mull to 5 the opponent is likely to go for it as aggressively as possible, and he's actually very likely to succeed since a seven-carder usually allows for at least one protection spell before going off. If we pass he's going to correctly expect a really strong hand and will play more conservatively, and we will likely draw a land in two, maybe three turns.

Stuff that would make me more inclined to mulligan, in order of importance:

- Any cheap disruption we have beyond 4 FoW. Daze, Spell Pierce, to a lesser degree Spell Snare and Stifle.
- A higher number of blue lands in our deck.
- If they play discard or Pact of Negation rather than Chant effects.
- Having the full set of Ponders.

17 "blue" lands, 1 plains, 1 forest.

4 FoW
4 CB
3 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
1 Engineered Explosives (not really what you want to draw, but it's more relevant than Swords here unless they bring in Confidant/Xantid).

In game 1, you saw Thoughtseizes, Fetchlands, USeas, basics. You did not see Pact of Negation, Tundra or Chant/Silence (or Tropical Island).


You're playing 2 Ponder.



EDIT: For the record, I kept and drew the blue land eventually (I think my hand was slightly different, it had the 2 FoW and at least Ponder and CB, it may not have had Goyf + BStorm but this was a while ago on MWS). I didn't win the game, but when I finally got to Ponder I found the 3rd FoW.

The reason I brought it up was I remember my opponent deriding me for keeping a 6 card hand with no lands in it when I said pass on turn 1, and my response was something like "what am I supposed to do? Go to 5?" Of course when he slow played and ran into all 3 FoWs he wasn't happy, but I think he eventually found IGG after Slaughter Pacting a Goyf.

[Nihil Credo]

Ok, I think I would have gone to 5 in that situation. I was expecting ~21 lands, and with that disruption set you have extremely good odds that your 5-carder will put up a fight. Discard will also quickly force you to live off the top, whether through luck or cantrips (I'm also assuming 4 tops?).