Dazed and Confused Part 2

[mchainmail]

Wherein Steven Birklin continues to misunderstand Legacy.


http://strategy.channelfireball.com/featured-articles/sweeping-ice-and-other-important-topics-magical-christmas-basic-land/

[DrJones]

Great! I really needed the fun read. :smile:

[mujadaddy]

Oh, nice; THIS cocksucker again.

...reading...

...acknowledgment that he was, in fact, a cocksucker in Part One. This might actually be ok!

...mediocre, not-really-objectionable stuff... C'mon, guy, gimme something...!

"I’m not attending GP Columbus, but I really want to. I believe that I would do quite well, but alas, we won’t have closure on this one."

Wow. I almost did really well at that one tournament I didn't go to, too!

"People have learned to play around Daze the card. What confused me last week, and still confuses me actually, is why people haven’t been able to find a way to build around Daze the deck yet. "

Can anyone translate what he's trying to say there?

Overall, much improved. Low-middle of the pack of articles. Really reads like a blog post, though-- lots of personal anecdotes, not much information. Again, as many noted last time, I agree that the right number of basic lands is an uncommon deck-building strategy that should come back, but playing way-too-many is JUST as bad as playing nowhere-near-enough. He's making the right point, but with the wrong reasons.

[Lifeless]

Well, I'll at least give him some credit. He admitted he's new to the format and used poor terminology/inappropriate tone in his last article.

The rest of his comments are pretty uninteresting.

[frogboy]

playing way-too-many is JUST as bad as playing nowhere-near-enough.

False. When you are digging in the first few turns to find land, you are ceding considerably more tempo than when you dig in the midgame for spells.

[Cyrus]

Is it just me or is this the same thing as his last article, except this one has apologies?

[mujadaddy]

False. When you are digging in the first few turns to find land, you are ceding considerably more tempo than when you dig in the midgame for spells.

I struggled as how to word that. I would definitely concede your point, but 'for certain values of way-too-many & nowhere-near-enough' it holds.

[TnA_Will]

Trying to get thru all the craziness, I think he's trying to say that it confuses him that combo decks/ decks in general haven't figured out how to play around the daze/stifle/wasteland/force of will package(basically every blue package in legacy).

Being a person that tries to bust metagames and enjoys trying to do so it's not exactly easy to bust the blue package especially with a combo deck. Sure you can try the whole run more lands and go for a more consistent combo deck like he suggests (but the ones I've seen that try this loose to multiple recurrisions of the blue package) the problem isn't just the blue denial package it's the blue draw sources to get to more blue denial package that hurts... Blue decks running brainstorms, stand still's, ponders, tops, etc... find it easier to chain spells together for another piece of denial to hurt the combo players.
From what I've seen( I have a few friends that are as true Legacy Johnny Combo Players) a combo player that can put themselves in a situation where they aren't completely "dead" if drawn out by the blue denial package but does try to go off as quickly as possible is the way to go.

The only suggestion I can give for trying to get past blue's package is taking his advice of carrying your own disruption package and getting to it quick enough to protect your combo.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Can we get a cease and desist order to shut this idiot up? I mean, it's great that he's dumbing down the new players, but finding out that crap like this exists just angers me. I'd like to have a word with him. I'm not even as good as a lot of the people on this forum, and I could probably talk circles around him about Legacy.
He mentions Miracle Gro, which nobody cares about. Then he suggests that NH runs more lands. NH is just thresh with no 1-drops. Lists like that have always been notoriously tight. I don't think it's getting to him, guys.
EDIT2: Daze.dec is borken, guys. We should cut our Dazes for basics so as not to anger him.

[Amon Amarth]

I'm pretty sure this guy got enough shit for his previous article I really don't think we need to pile it on anymore. He adressed everyones concerns and was a big enough man to admit where he screwed up. He even apologized. I may not necessarily think the article is well written but give the man a break

[UrDraco]

I for one welcome the outside perspective. Legacy players live in a bubble and need a fresh look at the format. I miss using brainstorm to find business rather than land. It is a very warped world when people think that 1 basic is okay with a billion wastelands running around. While he may not have the experience using an infinite card pool to build decks, he does have a lot of high level play experience. He simply used that to see a weakness in the format. Someone with Legacy experience would have to build a deck to abuse said weakness. Something I don't understand is all of the elitist hate. I don’t see anyone from the source making as much money playing magical cards as this guy has so maybe, just maybe his opinion isn’t horrible.

[Aggro_zombies]

False. When you are digging in the first few turns to find land, you are ceding considerably more tempo than when you dig in the midgame for spells.
...so? When you Ponder on turn one and set up land, land, spell in that order, why does it matter? How many decks are actually able to punish you for losing some tempo? How many decks actually care about your tempo?

The consequences of getting mana flooded are worse in Legacy than the consequences of getting mana screwed. Every deck can fuck you over for drawing lands instead of cards that actually do things, but not many decks can punish you for being stuck on two lands for a few turns or whatever. Hell, many decks in the format can play 90% of their spells on just two lands.

This article sounds more like it's based on some sort of theory crafting wherein tempo is some sacred cow that we can't ever lose, when a card that was both a tempo sink and card disadvantage just got banned because it was too good at enabling degenerate decks. Many decks in Legacy will willingly make tempo sacrifices in the early game if it improves performance later.

What he should have done was make an argument for mana bases with more fetchlands, more basics, and fewer duals - in other words, the sort of pretty cool mana base that doesn't afraid of anything. Most decks in this format aren't spread evenly across all of their color requirements and therefore there isn't a ton of opportunity cost to cutting back on the number of multicolor lands in favor of things impervious to Wasteland. But that's just me.

[Nihil Credo]

False. When you are digging in the first few turns to find land, you are ceding considerably more tempo than when you dig in the midgame for spells.
Having to dig for spells doesn't seriously hurt your tempo, having to draw-go for them does. (While the author is careful never to explicitly point out anything in particular he would cut for those extra lands, by bringing up the Comer Rule as his target he is strongly implying that he would cut down on the Ponders).

[Atwa]

I never read at ChannelFireball and if this comment I just read is standard for that site, I'm pretty well convinced to never visit there again:

I don’t care what most Legacy players think, mostly because they are usually wrong, but also because most of them are Mouth-Breathers. I doubt that 99% of the players on these forums have won anything more than their local weekly tournament, full of even more idiots.

Arguing that something is incorrect simply because it goes against the grain is ignorant, and the analogy Steven made about Galileo vs The Church was classic. In many ways, the Legacy Community and the Church are pretty similar, in that they spout righteousness and infallibility at anyone who shares a microscopic viewpoint having to do with their precious format, which seems very akin to Christians worshiping the Bible.

Very nice people over there...

Edit: Here some more gems...

I agree with some of the Legacy manabases being much too greedy. Just look at CB-Top Bant, 17-18 lands but they play Hierarch omfg. They could do just the right thing and play 3 CB / 3 Tops +2 lands and start to win sometimes.

[frogboy]

How many decks are actually able to punish you for losing some tempo? How many decks actually care about your tempo?

Zoo, Merfolk, Counterbalance, Lands, New Horizons are all decks that you want to be actively doing things against, not sitting around cantripping. Further, though most Ponder decks don't have one drops that they are playing in lieu of Ponder (though they should probably be running Noble Hierarch) they become vulnerable to having their Dazes hit by Daze, or having to sequence their next turn awkwardly when they have Plow and Tarmogoyf.


not many decks can punish you for being stuck on two lands for a few turns or whatever.

I can't think of a single deck that wouldn't crush you if you were a blue deck stuck on two until turn five. If you're Merfolk, you're playing one spell per turn (if you have Vial, you're not stuck) which isn't even good enough against Counterbalance. If you're Counterbalance, you're just dead to Wild Nacatl. If you're New Horizons, you're probably dead to Wild Nacatl, and even if you're not there's very little interacting you can do in the meantime.

If you have excess lands in the midgame, in contrast, you can just Brainstorm on turn four or five and shuffle them away.

[frogboy]

Having to dig for spells doesn't seriously hurt your tempo, having to draw-go for them does. (While the author is careful never to explicitly point out anything in particular he would cut for those extra lands, by bringing up the Comer Rule as his target he is strongly implying that he would cut down on the Ponders).

It's not like Ponder is particularly awesome at filtering excess lands from your hand anyway. You still have Brainstorm.

You can also, you know, build your deck to take advantage of the fact that you actually have lands in the lategame. Jace is a good one.

[dahcmai]

This guy probably should have cut it while he was ahead. Why write about something you admit to not playing much. That's fine if he's not up with the times on Legacy, plenty of people aren't and play a lot of formats.

I find it annoying for people to write about things they really don't have a decent amount of knowledge in. It's like me writing an article on Block Constructed. Sure, I can play Magic and fairly well, but I barely have ever touched a block deck. Why would anyone read what I had to say? I can write all I like and sound good, post decklists and go into theory, but it's not going to be useful aside from the basics of deckbuilding and maybe some decent meta ideas. It might even be detrimental to players who don't know that I know very little about that format and trusted my word to be gold. That can't be a good thing. When I read an article, I expect the person to know what they are talking about and not just generalizing about it based on knowledge gained in other formats. It just doesn't work for me otherwise.

I'm sure the guy is fairly smart and probably is a damned good player, but he needs to stick with what he knows well. It's only going to make him look bad. People are quick to point out mistakes and I'm sure they will.

[pippo84]

I have to give the author a point this time. He calmed down and admitted that he was to arrogant and that he's new to legacy. The article wasn't the best, but was fine to read.

Btw I agree with the post above that when I read an article I expect the author to know what he's talking about. I don't play T2 so I would never expect someone to read and pay attention to a T2 I could write (don't worry, I won't!).

[xTrainx]

I have to give the author a point this time. He calmed down and admitted that he was to arrogant and that he's new to legacy. The article wasn't the best, but was fine to read.

Btw I agree with the post above that when I read an article I expect the author to know what he's talking about. I don't play T2 so I would never expect someone to read and pay attention to a T2 I could write (don't worry, I won't!).

This.

[SpikeyMikey]

I'm going to say the same thing I emailed Steven.

Using 20 lands as our example of a greedy manabase and assuming no Ponder, Brainstorm or SDT, you average 2 and 1/3 lands per opening. By turn 3 you average 3 lands on the play and 3 1/3 lands on the draw. That is sufficient mana for most Legacy decks to operate on and that's without filtering effects. That is also without the thinning effects of fetches, but that effect is fairly negligible. I remember reading an article on it when the original fetches came out. In any case there are enough variables in Magic that sticking to simple scenarios is the only way to run numbers.

I'd like to look at a scenario I ran into last night. I was on the play and my opponent opened with Nacatl into double Nacatl. What I did is really irrelevant for this story, but we'll talk about the goldfish. After my 3rd turn in this scenario, barring any other changes in gamestate, I die. 10 years ago, a similarly busted opening from aggro (triple Jackal Pup for instance) would kill me after my 4th turn. A spot removal spell buys me one turn in either instance; after turn 4 for Zoo or turn 5 for Sligh, I'm dead.

The point? The format is at least a turn faster than it was even 3-4 years ago. I say at least because with slower hands, the Sligh deck is more than a turn behind the Zoo deck. Double pup is 7 turns to double Nacatl's 4. Again, I'm keeping it simple to keep the math from becoming too difficult to handle without a computer, but it works as long as we aren't looking for any sort of specifics and we're fine in dealing with generalities.

But now let's consider what happens if we replace one beater with a land. That spot removal extends Sligh's goldfish from 7 turns to 10 and Zoo's from 4 to 7. While it's the same # of turns, as a percentage of game length, it's significantly more.

But what if, because of our low land count, we are stuck on one land. Our Nacatl's will only be 2/2's (obviously) so we're looking at a turn 4 kill or a turn 7 kill with the spot removal. This is the same speed as we'd have seen with 1 less beater. While the screw may be more noticeable and more frustrating than a single extra land, the tempo loss would be exactly the same.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to show average tempo loss for screw or flood without running a simulator and simming an MtG game would take way more programming chops and computing power than I possess. But I would argue that screw is only slightly worse than flood and flood is much harder to see. Also, your average mana base is only going to get screwed a disproportional amount of the time when your opponent is messing with it, meaning that upping your land count will leave you at a disadvantage in a greater proportion of your games than ignoring the exisistence of Wasteland in your deck construction.

Finally, and I haven't heard this here yet, but I've heard it echoed on the comments on ChannelFireball: the idea that pros are good at all aspects of the game. An ounce of common sense will tell you that this is not the case. Most pros are very good at playing the game. Most are not that amazing at theory or deck construction. Almost none of them are amazing at all 3. Ozzie Smith may have been the best shortstop ever (or Cal Jr. or Derek Jeter, depending on your opinion), but he wasn't a particularly feared hitter, either as a slugger or a base-hitter. Because a guy is good at the mechanics of the game doesn't make him good at the theory behind it or constructing a good deck. Finkel was a phenomenal player, but he was an average constructionist at best. Flores might not have the skill that Johnny Magic had at flopping cards but it's hard to argue that he wasn't the best deckbuilder ever and impossible to argue that he wasn't the best theorist.

[Ando]

...and get your fetchland Stifled, or Dazed

Yeah man I hate it when my fetchland gets dazed!

I feel like this dude should wait at least a few more months before righting on legacy. Legacy is a nutty format, and I think he's way over simplifying it by just saying moar land. I'm assuming he can write and everything, even has some good points and interesting thoughts. I'd just... wait to write an article on legacy if I was him.

[Tivon]

Worth reading for the article by Dave Price in the comments.

[mchainmail]

Worth reading for the article by Dave Price in the comments.

Agreed. ( http://strategy.channelfireball.com/featured-articles/sweeping-ice-and-other-important-topics-magical-christmas-basic-land/#comment-70332 )

Edit: Although having 2 basics in the 43 lands matchup would really help.

[Forbiddian]

Playing too many lands is just as much of a mistake. Ponder and Top do very little to reduce the number of lands that you draw (in order to use them that way, you need to be using fetchlands).


The thing is: the number of lands that you play (and to some extent, the cost of the cards you play) is very dependent on the metagame. But he makes no mention of this, he just pretends like decks can simply be better or worse depending on how many lands that they run.

If your opponent is NOT running land hate, the extra lands are dead and youll lose to people who skip landkill in favor of more efficient strategies (e.g. Zoo). Extra lands do nothing, and instead you want more expensive spells to take advantage of them.

If your opponent is running land hate, you'll want the extra lands and you don't want any expensive spells. If you keep blanking the land kill, your deck will win eventually.

I mean, we could also get into the individual matchups that force these decisions, but the above generality is mostly true. At the very least, the point is that the number of lands that your deck runs, and the contents of your deck in general, are very dependent on the metagame. If you don't play Legacy, you won't have the insight to make that decision, which is WAY more complicated than just adding up the curve and subtracting out the land hate.


We have a TON of data from a lot of tournaments, and the winning decks generally have these low land counts that the author called bad. Obviously there are Legacy players that are running more lands, but by and large these people aren't winning tournaments. It's the people that are shaving their land counts low who have the highest win percentages. Nassif's deck, for instance, was 20 land/1 basic.

I conclude that adding more lands isn't strictly better, based on the tournament evidence that I presented. I also proposed a mechanism for why it's not strictly better, namely that there's a fine balance between having to survive decks with landkill and being able to outplay decks that forego it.

[morgan_coke]

http://mtgsalvation.com/500-mtgsclassics-tmm2.html

That's old, and out of date, and it includes a disclaimer about Legacy because I didn't play legacy back when I wrote it and was unsure how accurately the info would translate. But the general formulas and rules are still very good for figuring out your manabase if you're experiencing problems with it.

The author of the articles on channelfireball doesn't seem to use anything more than back-brained intuitive thinking to determine that the land counts in most decks are off, and while that's not a bad guideline, it lacks a certain precision for my tastes.

[Gandalf_The_White]

Sooner or later, someone is going to build a combo deck that doesn’t really care about Counterbalance, has a solid mana base built around some number of basic lands, and plays its own Force of Wills.

I guess he's never heard of Dream Halls.

[pippo84]

WOW!

David Price's answer was awsome! That's the kind of article I want and like to read!

Well done. :cool:

[menace13]

Price has ushered in a new era of guerilla writing: just jack the comments section of any bad writer and write your own better article. Good stuff David looking forward to it!

[Apex]

Seriously, channelfireball should just give Dave Price a writer's position and have him teach these "authors" how to actually write about legacy.

Also, the comments got pretty quiet after Dave Price's posts, because seriously, how do you follow that?

[MMogg]

Seriously, channelfireball should just give Dave Price a writer's position and have him teach these "authors" how to actually write about legacy.

Also, the comments got pretty quiet after Dave Price's posts, because seriously, how do you follow that?

Probably with "Dazed and Confused Part 3: Why Wasteland, Daze and More Non-Basics is Just Plain Smart" :wink:

I know people like to make digs about the Legacy community, and if we/it are/is honest with ourselves/itself, many things are pooh-poohed based on theory-craft. When those theories then become reified in tournament victories, however, heads start to turn. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

[Michael Keller]

The author fails (at least, in my opinion) to make a strong enough case for the advantages of Ponder over Brainstorm as it pertains to the "Daze Deck" theory he so confusingly tries to explain. I do not feel he addressed key points in regards to "Brainstorm versus Ponder" as far as the first turn is considered with a considerably lighter mana-base. Allow me to explain:

Here is an individual advocating the inclusion of a basic land (or two) while maintaining a restricted fetch-land count that would have to be configured in order to retrieve your basic land (in this case, "Island") more effectively. What he does not point out is that in doing such a thing can result in a slightly damaging percentage decrease in Brainstorming into a fetch-land to hide the "mana-flood" in lower-curved decks, as opposed to Pondering into an unneeded basic land (or extra mana in general) and being able to shuffle it away.


You can keep the one-landers with a little bit more confidence, and if you have a 3 lander, with some sweet blue filtering card, you can get rid of any extra lands that you may not want.

Right, but Brainstorm doesn't "get rid" of unwanted cards unless you have a shuffle effect. Otherwise, your next two draws could potentially be worthless. If you add more basics, you increase your risk (albeit slightly) in opening potentially with a hand that cannot be supported off a single off-color relating to your hand. Duals open you up to Wasteland more, true. But, they also grant you access on a smaller curve to more colors so that you won't necessarily have to solely rely on basics, fearing tempo loss the first few turns. Dave Price explained this perfectly.

My belief is that the more basic land you run, the less effective Brainstorm can become. Basic lands can only do so much, and although they are effective in dodging hate cards such as Stifle and Wasteland, they do not provide anything more than a straight-forward approach to playing your hand and permanents a little safer. Ponder gives you the opportunity to shuffle unneeded lands away and allows you the opportunity to reset your draws. Brainstorm acts in a similar fashion, although you still have to wait a turn (at times, depending on how important one of those draws are) to shuffle your library off of a fetch. Fetching immediately is obviously sometimes not the best option as important cards are oftentimes placed on top of the library to setup a draw, your hand, or to hide cards.

[dahcmai]

Go Dave, lol That comments section is comedy gold now. Good post you made.

[morgan_coke]

I am highly amused that Dave Price - a man whose most successful decks have preyed upon weak/poorly constructed manabases, and whose CURRENT DECK specifically preys on weak/poorly constructed/largely nonbasic manabases - tells everyone to run more nonbasics and its taken as gospel from on high.

Lack of self awareness and context is awesome.

[MMogg]

I am highly amused that Dave Price - a man whose most successful decks have preyed upon weak/poorly constructed manabases, and whose CURRENT DECK specifically preys on weak/poorly constructed/largely nonbasic manabases - tells everyone to run more nonbasics and its taken as gospel from on high.

Lack of self awareness and context is awesome.

Had he just posted what you just said without analysis/reasoning why, you would have a point. Yet, he fully explained why he believes those to be true, so we have the ability to discern for ourselves whether or not his analysis/reasoning is sound. I'm not sure why you think those praising his analysis are slack-jawed ignorami who are incapable of critically reading and then agreeing with what he said.

[majikal]

There is sooo much win in the comments section of that article! :laugh:

[jrsthethird]

I am highly amused that Dave Price - a man whose most successful decks have preyed upon weak/poorly constructed manabases, and whose CURRENT DECK specifically preys on weak/poorly constructed/largely nonbasic manabases - tells everyone to run more nonbasics and its taken as gospel from on high.

Lack of self awareness and context is awesome.

Another relevant example to back up his reasoning:

I'm testing New Horizons against my friend's UWB deck with Stoneforge Mystic and Tombstalker. He fetches for each relevant basic, but neglects to find a second Swamp for Tombstalker. I'm able to Waste him off of BB so he can't play TS, which is a very relevant threat to me. If he had just fetched so that he had at least 3 Swamps in play in addition to 2 of every other color (possible with 2 Sea, 1 Scrub, 1 Tundra), I would be unable to shut him off of anything relevant, so my Wastelands are weakened unless I can draw multiples.

[Tammit67]

It's like how thoptertop beats grip. Play too many targets for 2-4 grips to be able to handle alone. That's the idea behind wasteland.

I despise how the author thinks that Ug or Uw folk is weak v. wastes. Sure you might be able to by a turn hitting the tundra/trop, but the merfolk player can leave the fetch up, or the land in hand to play around that. Not to mention mutavault is a bigger waste target.

And what is this BS about Adept barely counting as card draw?
Factor in that if you don’t draw an Aether Vial, you have to draw two of your 13 Islands cold because there is no card-drawing outside of the Silvergill Adepts (which barely count) in order to even cast like half of your creatures.
That is one of the best things about Adept, giving you an extra chance to hit something amazing. Sometimes you get color screwed, but less often thanks to the draw of adept, and standstill -> which seems to be going to the wayside :(

[heroicraptor]

standstill -> which seems to be going to the wayside :(

Standstill is only good when you are already in a winning(ish) board position.

[Aggro_zombies]

Another relevant example to back up his reasoning:

I'm testing New Horizons against my friend's UWB deck with Stoneforge Mystic and Tombstalker. He fetches for each relevant basic, but neglects to find a second Swamp for Tombstalker. I'm able to Waste him off of BB so he can't play TS, which is a very relevant threat to me. If he had just fetched so that he had at least 3 Swamps in play in addition to 2 of every other color (possible with 2 Sea, 1 Scrub, 1 Tundra), I would be unable to shut him off of anything relevant, so my Wastelands are weakened unless I can draw multiples.
Or he could simply fetch one of each basic, then wait to fetch/hold in hand the black-producing nonbasic until he wanted to play Tombstalker. That way he could just not care if you Wasteland him.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Standstill is only good when you are already in a winning(ish) board position.
People always say this but it is incredibly wrong. Having an aether vial in play and no cards in hand is NOT a winning board position against a wild nacatl, but you should ALWAYS play standstill in that situation (provided you aren't dead in a turn etc.). The opponent opening with a noble hierarch and you following with a Standstill is still a good play because you gave yourself 19 turns to find a Mutavault. Standstill doesn't only help winning positions, it helps situations that are not horrible. But when you hear it that way, what card does bring you back from horrible positions in a deck like merfolk? Goblins has Ringleader but merfolk have almost nothing (although the new 4/4 flier lord is pretty close to being able to bring you back from horrible situations). So really, having a card that can hands down win you the game if you hit 2, and most likely win you the game if you get one to work is pretty good.


Or he could simply fetch one of each basic, then wait to fetch/hold in hand the black-producing nonbasic until he wanted to play Tombstalker. That way he could just not care if you Wasteland him.

But if he has that many lands to do that wouldn't wasteland be a blank anyway? I doubt Tombstalker/Stoneforge deck needs more than 3 lands to cast anything, so has its manabase set to possibly find 4 lands in the first 5ish turns. The opponent is generally not going to find even 2 wastelands in the early game and therefore fetching all duals would not hurt unless there is recursion.

[Rico Suave]

I don't see how including basic lands in one's deck precludes the possibility that it may be optimal to fetch non-basics at times.

[Mad Zur]

The idea is that it's usually (not just sometimes) optimal to fetch non-basics, and, for the same reasons, usually optimal to draw non-basics.

[jrp]

@ Dave, thanks for the 'article' in the comments section. Solid reasoning and analysis.