[Article] Eternal on the other Side of the Ocean: Dealing with Disruption

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Well, this week it's back to talking about Legacy for me and with the growing popularity of Team America, I thought I'd talk about playing against the tempo-disruption engine. Enjoy!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21389_Eternal_On_The_Other_Side_Of_The_Ocean_Dealing_With_Disruption.html

Any comments, criticism, etc are welcome!

[Admiral_Arzar]

Excellent article. Being a storm player myself, this was a very helpful analysis of a couple of matchups I haven't gotten the opportunity to test much against. Keep em coming!

[GGoober]

Nice article, we need to see more articles on how to "Do X against Y" more instead of how to "Do X and why X is good".

I would like to point out that Wasteland isn't as simple as it seems to use. A lot of times, I realize that I play my Wastelands wrong, or opponents play theirs wrong and ending up losing because of it. It's not a card that is more skill intensive like force of Will or cabal therapy but there is still an art to using wastelands correctly.

Player A: Taiga, Nacatl
Player B: Wastelands Taiga (nothing on board left)
Player A: Plateau swing for 3
Player B: Land drop pass turn
Player A: Drops goyf, swing for 3 again
Player B: Drops goyf.

By now, Player B has already taken 6 damage from Nactl because of a misplayed Wasteland. But the situation isn't as clear, because by WAstelanding Taiga turn 1, he can hope that the Player A does not draw any land and have a weak Nacatl, but what I'm trying to say that Wasteland isn't always necessarily tempo for the deck utilizing it. Tempo is subjective to board position.

For the same reason, take a deck like Meandeck MUD or Steel Stompy, say I have the option to drop Lodestone turn 2 or Wasteland, what should I do? There's a lot of times, where your natural Legacy will just lead with a 3-drop and waste their land when you could have played the Lodestone that created the same effect (spells costing 1 more), then following up with a Wasteland afterwards. This not only ensures that you safely cast an expensive 4cmc creature, but also creates a stronger lock with Wasteland if lodestone does survive. at worst, it acts like a Wasteland (Golem's effect) until removed, which buys a turn since your opponents have tapped 2 mana to remove Golem instead of focusing on their own tempo development.

There are quite a lot of scenarios where I see Wasteland being played incorrectly that cause myself/opponents to lose games. common ones also include:

A: Sea, Vial
B: Wasteland Sea

Guess who loses? Yeah, sometimes people don't think, but there are situations where a lot more thought has to be put into using Wasteland as well, which this article has done a good job guiding readers on how to battle tempo decks.

[OurSerratedDust]

This was a great read. There was a lot of stuff I hadn't even thought about.

[Mad Zur]

I liked this article, especially the parts about Wasteland. A lot of people think the way to build and play around Wasteland is to play lots of basics, but when you're running three or more colors, that generally isn't true. I also liked the section on Daze, though I would have mentioned that trying to blank Daze is extremely bad if you can't stick to it for the entire game (for whatever reason). If you eventually get to the point where you can't afford to keep extra mana open, you're probably also at the point where you can't afford to lose a turn having your spell countered, and you probably lose. (Wasteland creates similar situations sometimes, e.g. a player fetches only basics for the first X turns, then ends up playing a dual to get the tertiary color he needs. Now Wasteland cuts him off of a color, but if he had fetched duals in the first place, it would have been much less effective.)

I didn't like this:

The first step in playing around Stifle and Wasteland in decks that use cantrips is to set up a basic Island.
and was planning to go on for a while about why that's often not true. Then I saw this:

The earlier you get Wastelanded, the better for you, usually. Opening the game with your duals is often correct, even though you might be tempted to avoid getting hit by Wasteland.

If you play a dual turn 1, and they Wasteland it on their turn, essentially nothing has happened.
which was basically what I was going to say. Baiting Wasteland is sometimes better than trying to dodge it.

The other thing I wasn't sure about was this:

Don't crack your fetches and try to play things until forced to. Instead, just sit around playing lands as long as they don't clock you. The longer you sit around with uncracked fetchlands, the longer they have to leave up blue mana for their Stifle(s) – instead of getting Time Walked, you're now actually Time Walking them!
Forcing them to keep their mana open is good, but you're only really Time Walking them if you're not slowing yourself down to do it. If you play a fetch and never use it, in an attempt to make them hold Stifle open, you're trading your land for theirs. That might be the right play, but it's not necessarily a Time Walk (just like the first turn Wasteland isn't). If, on the other hand, you can advance your game plan while forcing them to hold mana open, you do gain an advantage -- for example, if you can hold fetches in hand while continuing to play duals and cast your spells, or if you don't actually have a use for all of your lands every turn, and they're holding mana open, that is like a Time Walk.

Anyway, this was a good analysis of several things that a lot of people seem to have trouble with.

[SpikeyMikey]

I'd like to echo the ego stroking that everyone else is throwing out there. It was a great article. I think a lot of people who port from standard to legacy fail to realize that the format is a lot more fluid. While no format is entirely scripted, standard has a lot more scripted plays then legacy in part due to the larger number of viable decks that legacy has and in part due to the faster nature of the format. In standard you can get away with not doing something relevant every turn. In legacy a dead turn will often cost you the game.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

First off, thanks for the kind words. I'm happy you enjoyed the article. :)

@Metalwalker: Good explanation concerning the other side of the board (when playing the Wastelands yourself)

@Mad Zur: Yeah, I could have gone into the Island vs let them waste your lands thing a little more, I guess. A fuller version: If you are in danger of getting cut off of blue mana, you should take any safe opportunity to make sure that you have at least the mana to cantrip with. If there isn't much chance of that happening, baiting Wastelands with Duals is a good plan.

Holding Fetches back against Stifle: The thing is, playing against the tempo-decks you're kind of advancing your gameplan already simply by getting lands into play while they don't do much because they hold up Stifle (as I said in the article, that strategy is one to follow when they don't have a clock out) because that will blank a ton of their disruption without you doing any additional work. Obviously if you need mana to cast cantrips (for more lands) or have enough lands to play through Stifles anyway and enough business to just brute force through their disruption, you might as well just do that.