That seems really low. There may be something missing in your algorithm.
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That seems really low. There may be something missing in your algorithm.
I read your primer Steven, and I'm a bit skeptical about your frequency of Turn 1 kill hands. They struck me as "too good to be true". I'm going to build your version and run my own tests, as validation. Good job on the primer, the ideas behind which cards to include/exclude are well reasoned and meaningful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smmenen
After reading your article and some testing, here's are some explanations of things I would do differently from your list:Quote:
Originally Posted by Smmenen
Business
4 Undercity Informer - 4th informer in the main due to being able to use LED to activate ability (more on this below)
3 Balustrade Spy - still prefer 4th spy in the sb due to emergency body to sac to therapy/dread return
4 Living Wish
4 Narcomoeba - no bridge to reduce # of dead cards (finding room for playset of LED); should be fine with some main deck protection built in
1 Dread Return
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Cabal Therapy - shaved to reduce # of dead cards
3 Chancellor of the Annex - biggest problem regarding pact of negation is it does nothing against discard while on the draw; the only things this doesn't hit game 1 are FoW and daze (can be easily played through); it also allows you to run 4 LEDs
Mana Sources
3 Chancellor of the Tangle - shaved to bring in 4th LED
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
1 Deathrite Shaman - can be searched with summoner's pact and imprinted onto chrome mox; effectively gives you +5 black cards to pitch to mox; not too bad in hand as well
4 Lion's Eye Diamond - so good I want 4
Sideboard
1 Swamp
1 Peat Bog - better ebon stronghold
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Traitors - probably not obvious to everyone but excellent with double living wish hands
1 Karakas
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Pact of Negation - I like your idea of pact of negation with wishes when not running LED; board in against blue (-2 LED, -1 azami, -1 lab maniac, +1 fiend hunter)
4 Goblin Charbelcher
Overall, I really like your idea of still running pact of negations by reducing the number of LEDs while keeping living wish. Previously, I wouldn't run wish without LED to go with it. Like Koby said, good job explaining your card choices.
A couple of things worth mentioning not discussed in the article, which I'll double post, that may shed light on my approach:
* At the last minute I cut a 2nd Wild Cantor for the 1 LED maindeck. As I said in the article, Wild Cantor is shockingly important to this deck. Wild Cantor does so many important things, not just alleviate the one bottleneck, but also "store" Chancelor mana for later wins, sacrifice to Therapy, and more.
The LED was a last second inclusion. I actually prefer 0 LED maindeck. I prefer the way in which this list is able to win on turn 2 or turn 3.
* I play this deck kinda grindy compared to the speed versions. That reinforces what I just said. I like Living Wish's ability to win on turn two solidly. You have Chrome Mox in play, and Wished for a land, for a solid turn 2 victory.
This version of the deck, far more so than all of the other versions I tested, can recover better from a counterspell. You can actually grind out victories over turns because of your density of Hermits and because of Living Wish. LED and C of the Annex are much more "all in" tactics. That's why I don't prefer them.
There is nothing missing in my algorithm that is important enough to severely alter that percentage. I can watch the program play out hands and I agree with it every time.
On the draw(so just with 8 instead of 7 cards) it's 44%
With your starting premise in mind, here are some suggestions I think you might find helpful:Quote:
Originally Posted by Smmenen
I like every card in your main deck except the single LED (or second cantor), I would definitely look at deathrite shaman for that last spot. Similar to wild cantor in your opening hand, it stores chancellor mana (exiling opponent fetches next turn) and is good with chrome mox (doesn't "waste" mana). However, it can be searched with summoner's pact and generate black mana off of chrome mox in a pinch. This effectively gives you 5 more black cards to pitch to chrome mox and has come up quite often in my testing.
For your sb, I think replacing karakas with a swamp is very strong. Being able to make your play wasteland-proof can probably save several games that would otherwise be lost. Moreover, karakas only acts as a hate card and doesn't add to the actual game plan. Besides, if your opponent plays show and tell, you can reveal your rogue and win on the spot. Also, I like peat bog over ebon stronghold as a personal preference since you can use it for 2 black mana a second time if your rogue gets countered. Looking at the options available, I would remove city of brass or fiend hunter to make room for the 4th LED supplementing the belcher package. How relevant has city of brass been in your testing? I can't see too many scenarios where I would wish for it instead of one of the other utility lands. Lastly, I forgot mention this before but I think the Thrun spot is a very nice idea I didn't think of. It gives main deck outs to leyline of the void/RiP/DRS.
Did you include wishing for a swamp to turn on dark and cabal ritual?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bahamuth
No, I'll try to fix this. It's not going to make a significant difference though.Quote:
Originally Posted by nudon
Thanks for working on this even though I agree it probably won't make a big difference. The other relevant line of play I think you might have missed in addition to using living wish as an expensive wild cantor for the t1 kill includes the following hand:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bahamuth
1 undercity informer, 1 black mana (petal, mox, or cantor + green/red source), 1 green source, 1 any other source, 1 living wish, and other junk
1. Use green + other source to wish for city of traitors
2. Use black mana + city of traitors to play undercity informer
3. Activate undercity informer's ability with city of traitors on next turn and win the game
This is technically not a turn 1 kill and can be considered a very greedy play but doesn't need your 1st draw step to help you win.
Edit:
If you know your opponent doesn't have removal, you can similarly use chrome mox as one of your 3 mana (5 mana for living wish instead of informer in opener) and have it reused next turn to activate informer's ability.
So, my question is what makes this deck different/better than the rest of the combo decks in legacy?
Yeah, my program is not considering anything that happens past turn one. It would make things much more complicated.
This is the $40,000 question. It's definitely different; but is it better than existing options?Quote:
Originally Posted by goblinsplayer
I tend to think so. This deck should beat "fair" decks handily, just like Belcher. Unlike Belcher, however, this deck is not necessarily all-in; all you need to do is eventually resolve a four mana spell and you win. Plus, it can run protection like Pact of Negation, which is absolutely huge. It gains a vulnerability to grave hate, true, but then you can sideboard into traditional Belcher.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koby
So, bottom line, this is a Belcher-style kill that accepts additional vulnerability to hate in exchange for being more resilient, both through disruption in the main and the ability to unpredictably sideboard into different kinds of threats.
I don't necessarily agree that it's more resilient than Belcher -- for starters, the graveyard is now exposed when going for the kill, opening up the possibility of losing to Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, Leyline, Tormod's Crypt, and Faerie Macabre. 4 out of the 5 options here can be played in ANY deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaximumC
I don't think that's true, because you have the option of sideboarding into belcher or Empty the Warrens. My point was that, yes, you are open to a new kind of hate, but you are also more adaptable to beat that hate. It's really hard for traditional Belcher to overcome a reasonable amount of countermagic (Force of Will, Flusterstorm, Mindbreak, etc) even with a board.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koby
Hermit, in theory, always has options.
EDIT: The proof is, of course, in the pudding. The deck has to start winning to be considered a real thing. I remember how Tin Fins went under the radar for an absurd amount of time before filnally getting out there, and this deck has alot in common with that one; an ability to come back after an attempt to win is thwarted, yard and storm hate vulnerability, etc.
After testing with the deck again and using recommendations from Stephen and Final Fortune, I believe I have made significant progress that makes the deck much more consistent as well as giving it main deck solutions to FoW and graveyard hate. This progression was made possible by finally dropping LED entirely and working living wish overtime. This is illustrated by using the entire sideboard as a wish board. I firmly believe that the deck cannot really afford to board in cards because each card significantly dilutes the combo and makes it very inconsistent. While not having any sideboard options may ultimately be incorrect, I wanted to illustrate a full wish board repertoire for the purposes of this post. Once I get feedback on what people think is unnecessary, then those spots can be dedicated to a few sideboard options.
Here is my current main deck with explanations of new cards detailed below:
3 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish
3 Narcomoeba
2 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Dragon Breath
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Unmask
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
1 Deathrite Shaman
There are two new additions to the main deck: sutured ghoul kill and unmask. Final Fortune pointed out that an additional cabal therapy can mitigate having to go through the attack step because you can name StP with the 3rd cabal therapy. This also gives us 1 additional black card to pitch to chrome mox. Unmask replacing pact of negation is HUGE. I didn't like how pact of negation was too reactive and thus did nothing against discard and combo. Unmask not only makes use of extra rogues, bridges, therapies, and pacts (fetching DRS) but pitches to chrome mox for black mana too. In my testing, it's been nothing short of amazing.
Sideboard with explanations:
1 Swamp - black mana and plays around wasteland
2 Peat Bog - ramps black mana; 2 because of wasteland
1 Forest - for double living wish hands and plays around wasteland
1 Hickory Woodlot - for double living wish hands and ramp
1 Cavern of Souls - uncounterable rogue
1 City of Traitors - immediate double mana to play second living wish or informer
1 Undercity Informer - rogues 8-11
1 Desecration Demon - for playing around gy hate with black mana; fastest clock among anti-gy hate options
1 Thrun, the Last Troll - for playing around gy hate with green mana; best against control among anti-gy hate options
1 Lodestone Golem - for playing around gy hate with wrong mana; storm hate among anti-gy hate options
1 Phyrexian Obliterator - for playing around gy hate with perfect mana; probably rare to pull off
1 Gilded Drake - show and tell hate; probably rare to pull off
1 Karakas - show and tell hate; generates mana
1 Bojuka Bog - gy hate; generates mana
Sorry for the long post but hopefully it will help trigger some good ideas/conversation as a result. Thanks for reading.
With so much protection, the Sutured Ghoul kill definitely can be reasonable. In your testing, have the longer grindy games been harder to win with Ghoul compared to the Angel kill?
I'm surprised Unmask has been consistent for you. I know it's a card that was tested before, but at least in my experience was never consistent. The deck tends to mulligan a lot, so I would think Pact of Negation would be live more often. How often would you say your build of the deck mulligans compared to previous builds?
What prompted adding Deathrite? I know PSI uses it as Chrome Mox fodder but I never really found it necessary when I was testing this deck.
The Wish board makes sense. The transformative boards have never really worked better than just hoping they didn't have it.
Glad to see you're still working on the deck! That list looks so much more polished than where we started - it's been a great experience watching this deck develop!
The ghoul kill isn't really a problem when running 3 cabal therapies. In long games, your opponent's outs are maze of ith (usually a singleton in KoTR decks) or two different removal spells. Even then, this can be addressed by adding fiend hunter and angel of glory's rise to the sb. The reason why unmask didn't work before was because chancellor of the tangle wasn't being used yet. Also, having that single DRS turns all your summoner's pact black so you can lead with unmask on the combo turn. I really don't like pact of negation in this build since I think it's too slow. It causes you to lose to t1 DRS. The deck mulligans a lot less because the wish board really helps clean up our hand while unmask is a virtual time walk. More importantly, the mulligans to 4-5 are much better than before. There's a realistic chance of recovering.Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmuant
The single DRS adds so much to the deck in my testing. Having 5 more black sources helps chrome mox while also being able to pitch to unmask as stated above. Moreover, it stores chancellor mana if drawn in opening hand. It'll most likely draw removal in this case but once again, that slows your opponent down a full turn. If it doesn't draw removal, you will probably win the game.
Thanks, I started working on the deck again when I saw Stephen try living wish without LED. His idea of using living wish to bypass gy hate was good too. It's been a rewarding experience so far to see this deck grow. :)
I posted my thoughts on Unmask, Pact of Negation, Lion's Eye Diamond and how you should build your SB in Stephen's thread and I'm going to read thru' this thread to get a better idea of what has and hasn't been tried.Quote:
Originally Posted by nudon
That may be the simplest of all of the questions to answer, and is answered in my article:Quote:
Originally Posted by goblinsplayer
For just 4 mana, you can win the game on turn one with a Rogue Hermit. That is better in at least one critical sense: that is much cheaper than anything else. Belcher costs 7 mana total to do what Rogue Hermit can do for just 4.
4>7 in Magic.
The trade-off, of course, is that whereas Belcher just has to deal with countermagic, this deck also has to answer graveyard hate. So the 4 mana versus 7 total mana is not the end of the story.
The question is whether the efficiency can be taken advantage of.
Yes, I think that's probably my most important contribution at this point and with my article. You had already done so much of the legwork for me -- I just had to make some hard choices. Once I concluded that a Wish version was the only viable route, I spent the vast majority of my time trying to cut the Gordian Knot of Pact/LED, and ultimately arrived at the logical but counter-intuitive conclusion of going non-LED. I admit losing some sleep trying to think that one through. I really like the way my list allows for grind-out games.Quote:
Originally Posted by nudon
I'm also glad my idea of Thrun or a sb beater creature to trump GY hate has inspired you in that way as well. I was trying to find a Phyrexian Negator type creature, and concluded that Thrun or Goyf were probably among the top options.
Can you gold fish this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bahamuth
MD
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informant
4 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Dragon's Breath
4 Cabal Therapy
SB
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Brass
1 City of Traitors
1 Peat Pog
Once you have a % for Balustrade Spy in the SB and T1 wins (defined by killing your opponent) can you compare it to a % for Undercity Informant in the SB and T1 wins (defined by killing your opponent or resolving Undercity Informant and by kiling your opponent on the following turn)? I think finding the impact of resolving Undercity Informant, go vs making Swords to Plowshares a W Counterspell is very important for understanding whether or not the opponent should keep in Sword to Plowshares in order to create a mana bottle neck.
As far as deck building observations go, I don't think +1 black card in the MD is worth the inability to SB out a Bridge from Below whenever you SB in Angel of Glory's Rise and Fiend Hunter, because when you can get yourself into position with f.e. 4 Chancellor of the Annex and 4 Lion's Eye Diamond on the play vs combo you'll need to cut 3 Cabal Therapy, and 1 Bridge from Below or lose a mana source other wise.