Most difficult deck to pilot?

[apistat_commander]

I am curious about what people think is the most skill-intensive Legacy deck. I am talking about difficulty strictly in terms of in-game decision trees, not more broad concepts like properly metagaming with your flex spots. Thoughts?

[Piceli89]

In before everyone yelling out the obvious Doomsday:




Pitch World.
Hard to manage the light card disadvantage it may sometimes provide.

[leegoo]

Doomsday and Solidarity get my vote.
Both leave you a TON of opportunities to completely bone yourself later in the game by making seemingly innocent "mistakes" earlier.

[B.C.]

I've played a LOT of Doomsday. I usually tell people that it is extremely hard to learn, but relatively easy to play once you know the deck. You do pretty much the same thing most games. I think as far as decision trees go, it's much easier to pilot than your average blue control deck.

[Telperion]

I would say TES. You can have some really agonizing decisions with your ponders/brainstorm/burning wish, which storm engine to go for, playing around counter magic, when to take another hit before trying ad nauseum etc.

[(nameless one)]

I'm with DDFT, Solidarity and TES. So much options with those deck.

Also, Dredge. Especially playing that deck against hate. Not to mention you have to be on top of your triggers.

[klaus]

I'll go with Ux.Control.
Since its more reactive / interactive than any other deck, you're more dependent on knowing all other relevant decks/strategies inside out in order to make wise choices play by play.

[betterthenandrew]

I think something with Doomsday has the steepest learning curve, but once you've memorized a bunch of piles it gets a lot easier. One of the High Tide decks is probably the most difficult to play optimally as you have so many decisions with almost every card, as other than High Tide pretty much every card presents multiple choices once cast, in addition to deciding whether to cast something in the first place.

[dahcmai]

I think I have to second UW control. Knowing your opponents decks inside and out is much rougher than memorizing a bunch of Doomsday stacks. So playing UW control perfectly is a serious bitch.

I play Doomsdays decks incidentally and it can be tough in some cases like having a ton of hate thrown at you or getting wins out of really tight situations. For the most part, people here are right, nasty high learning curve, not too horribly much depth after that since you only have to memorize what your own deck can do and not other people's as much.

[menace13]

Dreadstill(CBalance/Standstill)
Doomsday decks
Storm
Aggro Loam utterly baffles me

[Koby]

Any deck that requires you to forecast the next 1-3 turns in order to gain advantage. UW control is like that, most Storm based decks (when is my last safe turn?), and a large part of playing Maverick well.

Hardest deck to play technically might be Doomsday, but once you know it, it's a cakewalk.
Hardest deck to play optimally is 4c Supreme Blue (CB/top) - one slip and you've fallen way behind.
Hardest deck to play without losing infinite value - Lands.
Hardest deck to play without getting warnings for missed triggers - Elves.

[rockout]

Hardest deck to play without getting warnings for missed triggers - Elves.

I would say enchantress for hardest deck not to get warnings and miss crap since you are drawing a billion cards along with upkeep effects.

Hardest deck to play would have to be combo in general. Lots of decisions along with landstill variants. Decisions, decisions...

[Picc]

In terms of pure learning curve gotta go with TPS, Ive handed that deck to a lot of newbies and explained the basic concept only to watch them fizzle moments later.

[Sloshthedark]

Lands, Doomsday

[kusumoto]

Storm in general.

I'll throw a shout out to PSI though as you can literally kill yourself multiple ways very easily if you don't know what you're doing. It's so much harder than a lot of people think because they want to compare it to belcher.

[warai]

Cephalid Breakfast!!!

[Misplayer]

Aggro Loam utterly baffles me

This. I'll play Ux control all day but Aggro Loam is auto-punt for me.

[JDK]

I guess it's Smart Burn.

[Jay_Gatz]

Absolutely solidarity, you have to go into a combo turn without a clear plan and play based on each spell you cast.

[Kich867]

I would probably agree with combo elves being rather difficult to play optimally. You can half-ass elves pretty easily, but if you're playing truly optimally you can milk that deck for mana and card generation that most other players wouldn't.

It hits a certain point where playing optimally with it doesn't matter though and you just need to win. However, it is impressive what you can do with the deck when playing it perfectly.

In terms of the number of things you need to remember to do elves is without a doubt the hardest, as Koby mentioned, there are many triggers you need to take into account any time you do anything and taking full advantage of those triggers and also keeping everything in your head is very difficult. Luckily I'm pretty good at doing very basic math very quickly (that's not sarcastic, it's not actually easy to be doing math, while figuring out math for future plays that you aren't working with, while managing which triggers you haven't taken advantage of yet, etc.) and I find the deck pretty damn fun, I haven't really played it recently...

Though I do intend to sell most of my stuff soon because I feel uncomfortable having that much money in a card game, so I may end up going back to it since it was my roots haha.

[clavio]

To me, it was some of the pre-vengevine survival decks. Despite being able to "demonic tutor every turn" those decks were brutal to play properly.

Right now though? Probably some doomsday deck.

[Kich867]

Absolutely solidarity, you have to go into a combo turn without a clear plan and play based on each spell you cast.

I'll redact my previous statement and correct it. Any deck in which you need to do this ^, is the hardest deck to play in Magic. Any deck that requires decisions based on an evolving turn are the hardest decks.

Doomsday I'm not so sure of, though I'd really have to play it a lot more too have an informed opinion. From what I understand you generate some amount of storm and then doomsday for a guaranteed win, I think it's hard from a conceptual standpoint of having to devise a series of draws that will undoubtedly win you the game, but I think I'll have to again agree with Koby that it sounds like something that you get the hang of.

Personally with elves after playing it for about a year I was able to play it faster, but it felt like the deck got harder after I realized the ins and outs of it so thoroughly, the lines of play became far more complicated than they were when I started and comboing through a razor-thin margin repeatedly becomes very stressful very quickly.

[Aggro_zombies]

This. I'll play Ux control all day but Aggro Loam is auto-punt for me.
Really? It's exactly the opposite for me.

[Que]

Dredge - aforementioned triggers plus it really plays in an unorthodox manner. unlike any other deck. And then of course the grave hate. :rolleyes:

[joemauer]

Battle of the Wits. I mean only someone like Shaq or Koby could shuffle that deck.

[Tammit67]

Thresh.

None of your cards are abstractly powerful and game breaking on their own, but you have to make them that way through planning out the game. A good pilot runs tables, while a bad one dies to a resolved 4/4. Sometimes you need to play control, sometimes you need to kill quickly. The deck lists are relatively unchanged from the past 3 years because the combination of cards is so good when played correctly.

I find myself just playing to my outs with solidarity or TES. The nice thing is how often you only care about a few cards in a matchup with combo.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Solidarity by far. I've won games because I wrote down the order of cards I Impulsed to the bottom turn 2 only to have it become relevant turn 5 when I combo out with lethal on board. Solidarity is like the world's hardest logic puzzle had sex with a statistics book and it is the kid.

[Namida]

I've played a LOT of Doomsday. I usually tell people that it is extremely hard to learn, but relatively easy to play once you know the deck. You do pretty much the same thing most games. I think as far as decision trees go, it's much easier to pilot than your average blue control deck.

Honestly, this is what I feel about the deck. Doomsday is made out to be the fucking bogeyman. But once you learn how to play the deck, you do the same thing most games, as B.C. says here. However, if you want to be able to play the deck without just regurgitating piles you saw written down somewhere, I feel like the decision trees can be just as daunting as those one finds in blue control decks. Yes, you will make the same default piles pretty often, but I feel like an average player is going to shit the bed a majority of the time in situations when they can't just go autopilot.

[Occam]

Doomsday's difficulty isn't regarding the actual construction of piles. Most piles are simple enough and you'd use between 5-10 piles the vast, vast majority of the time. It is entirely possible to go close to autopilot when it comes to piling. The deck's difficulty is derived from a combination of the fact that it's a storm deck, has anywhere from 10-18 cantrips, is often required to go attritional with blue when you play UBr or UBrg versions and that while piling is simple for the most part, cantrips are part of the combo (especially with IU) and cannot be aggressively used in many optimal lines of play (except sdt). The last reason is the part that most people ignore when evaluating a doomsday deck in lieu of the piling, which in itself is academic. With a deck like TES, you can aggressively expend cantrips to find a missing piece of the perfect combo hand. With Doomsday, expending your ponder too aggressively can mean the difference between a UU pile and a 1UUU pile.

That said, Doomsday is a tough deck to learn and pilot properly, but there are plenty of other legitimately difficult decks around, many of which are listed in this thread.

[Darkenslight]

Solidarity is like the world's hardest logic puzzle had sex with a statistics book and it is the kid.

I'm so sigging this.

OT: I'd say that the Blue control >>>>> Solidarity >> non-Solidarity Storm >> Dredge in terms of difficulty playing effectively. Anyone can play a deck. But only a few can play the deck effectively, and that is my baseline.

And the reason Blue control is that hardest to play effectively, IMO, is that the strategy is based entirely on your knowledge of the opponent's strategy, rather then your deck's capabilities.

[Richard Cheese]

Really? It's exactly the opposite for me.

Same here. Aggro Loam isn't a cakewalk, but I never thought it was a mystery wrapped in an enigma or anything. The hardest decisions to me are when to dredge vs. draw off cyclers, and it usually comes down to "am I digging for a specific card or not". Of course, maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

[sdematt]

Solidarity by far. I've won games because I wrote down the order of cards I Impulsed to the bottom turn 2 only to have it become relevant turn 5 when I combo out with lethal on board. Solidarity is like the world's hardest logic puzzle had sex with a statistics book and it is the kid.

This is most likely why I don't enjoy Solidarity, since I slept through statistics (but still got the A+, mind you...).

I'd have to say any deck where decision trees really matter and minor mistakes cost you games. Storm for sure, but also 43 Lands or most Loam decks.

-Matt

[nedleeds]

For all the "complexity" of memorizing piles you never have to enter combat with Doomsday. People act like combat is 'Turn all my menz sideways', but it's not. Especially without hand knowledge, two GW decks battling with multiple Knights, Mom's, Oozes and equipment (along with hands full of STP, Scryb Ranger, etc.) is pretty taxing.

Koboldstorm is pretty hard to play because it's so terrible.

[emidln]

For all the "complexity" of memorizing piles you never have to enter combat with Doomsday. People act like combat is 'Turn all my menz sideways', but it's not. Especially without hand knowledge, two GW decks battling with multiple Knights, Mom's, Oozes and equipment (along with hands full of STP, Scryb Ranger, etc.) is pretty taxing.

Koboldstorm is pretty hard to play because it's so terrible.

You enter combat quite a bit with Doomsday. You have Bees, Faeries, Goblins, and Flying Spaghetti Monsters at your disposal.

[Aggro_zombies]

Same here. Aggro Loam isn't a cakewalk, but I never thought it was a mystery wrapped in an enigma or anything. The hardest decisions to me are when to dredge vs. draw off cyclers, and it usually comes down to "am I digging for a specific card or not". Of course, maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
It depends.

Loam is pretty intuitive for me so it's difficult to explain, but generally it's a multi-axis thing. There's a time component (if I dredge the card I want, do I have time to get it back through indirect means like Noxious Revival or Stronghold), a probability component (how many are left in my deck), a hate component (what can my opponent do to my graveyard or hand), and a mana component to whether you want to draw or dredge in any given situation. It also depends on the specific card you want and what's already in your hand.

I feel like I have trouble with blue control decks because I don't have a good grasp on what to counter and what to let resolve. I'm fine with tempo decks because I have a decent idea of how to do aggressive counters correctly, but I never feel like I'm really in control when using a slow blue deck.

[KevinTrudeau]

Solidarity is honestly not hard to play at all in comparison to other storm decks, even when you consider shit like devising acronyms to remember the bottom cards of your library after casting Impulse or Peer Through Depths (a line not as necessary any longer now that Blue Sun's Zenith has replaced the classier Stroke of Genius) so that you can Brain Freeze yourself/Flash of Insight/eventually draw into stuff you unfortunately had to bottom (usually like the last Cunning Wish or something). I'm not saying it's easy, but people are giving way, way too much credit towards it, as every game pretty much goes along the same track. For storm decks, DDFT is on another level in terms of complexity; powers higher.

Next Level Threshold (back in the 2010 metagame) is probably the hardest blue deck I've ever played, and Maverick is probably the hardest nonblue deck I've ever played (not 100% on that, though).

[feline]

The hardest deck to try and win with is a deck full of 60 basic lands! >^,^<

Anyhow, the real answer, I can't say out of the stuff I haven't tried, but out of what I have tried, I can say, maybe not the hardest, but what requires the most effort/attention out of stuff I've pushed is probably High tide, I've had games where I blue sun zenithed for lethal, forgetting about my opponents 2 leyline of sanctity's because it took me so long to "get there" only to have to target myself instead, then force of will it, then get a wipe away, bounce one, time spiral, bounce the other one, and just do it all over again!

I had another game where after a resolved time spiral my opponent ended up doing THREE force of will's against my blue sun zenith on them, luckily though I never go off without protection and I was able to counter them with my own force, force, cunning wish for pact of negation.

I had another game where someone successfully casted surgical extraction on me FOUR TIMES and I still pulled it off, they removed ponder, force of will, turnabout, & high tide. It was a post sideboard game though so I purposely sideboarded a single high tide, once you resolve one, and they extract, you can still wish for that last one, cast it, and your islands are tapping for 3 minimum, possibly more after another time spiral, it just takes alot more tapping and untapping to get there in this situation.

I have also had to Blue Sun's Zenith for over 200 cards because my opponent was playing battle of wits! And on the 3rd game, I was working my way up the mana, comboing out like never before for the mana, and after a resolved time spiral, I did some cantrips, only to draw a cunning wish, and the problem with that? I already casted all 3 of them, which meant I realized I shuffled them back in, as well as 2 time spirals, so i had no way of knowing which time spirals would be legit and which would be the removed ones, so I had to stop and say what was up, and after the organizer came over, it was a game loss, which happens, but i have since never done that again! lol

I have also had people try the "leyline of the void" strategy against me, but as long as I can get to a wipe away before I use my entire deck, it never stops me, it just makes my deck smaller after a resolved time spiral lol, but as long as there's still a cunning wish, some high tide's left, some untap effects & card draw, it's fine!

I once even for fun played against multiple people, and I was able to cast Blue sun's zenith for 50 cards to kill an opponent, then do it again, then do it a 3rd time for the win. I even tested out how many times I could do that in "goldfishing" and I was able to USZenith 13 seperate times for 50 cards. Another time I just wanted to see how much mana I could get to and I was able to get to 2,000 mana (Don't ask me why, I get bored between tournaments and test all kinds of stuff, including crazy shit like this)

[wolfstorm]

Solidarity / old survival decks (like zvi's list) PSI, and learning doomsday.