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I played legacy reanimator for some time. The deck should have a creature to reanimate against each deck type. Inkwell is the target vs decks with maze of ith or slow control decks.
the other targets are:
Sphinx of the steel wind vs agro
Iona vs Combo
Blazing Archon(or iona) vs Dredge
Red akroma vs white control
White Akroma general target.
Played 4 rounds of swiss again. The gods of magic are definitely against me.
Round1. Crappy MonoU (no nonbasic lands) Illusions/Donate Combo
I mull 2 no landers to 5 game one, the game ended many turns later. All cards I've seen throughout the game are nearly 10 lands (FLOOD), 2 Serra Avengers (countered) FoW, Daze, Daze, Brainstorm. His deck contains ton of counters, so my lonely Force couldn't disrupt him.
Game 2 I beat with 3 creatures, and he can't draw into his combo.
Game 3. I mull to 6, keep two lander (fetch + wasteland) and get stuck on that forever. He easily comboes me out.
Round2. ANT
Game1. I keep him on one land with Wayfarer, and beat down with Avenger.
Game2. I get Canonist, Avenger, beat him down for a while, drop Thorn, he bounces Thorn EOT, when Pacts Canonist, but he can't go for IGG (I have double daze and Spell Pierce in grave) and short of lethal Storm
Round3. B/w Midrage (4 nonbasic lands).
Game1. My 7: 5 lands + daze + Jotun Grunt. My 6: No lands. My 5: 3 lands, Vial, FoW. I almost get to do something off topdecks, but he Vindicates my Avenger, Vindicates Jitte and beats in with double Demigod of Revenge. I never get anyting to pitch for that FoW
Game2. My 7: 1 Wasteland + spells. 6 cards hand has one land, wayfarer and vial, so I keep. Long story short, I get hymned twice, he casts plague on humans, I get flooded again, and my fathom seer draws into two lands as well.
Round4. Enchantress (guess what - 4 nonbasic lands).
Game 1. Mull two no landers into 5: 3 lands + vial + Spell Pierce. He get 4 enchantress effects, and just overwhelms me.
Game 2. I manage to cast Aura Flux + Aura of Silence, and he's locked.
Game 3. My 7: Wasteland + 6 spells. My 6: Wasteland + 5 spells. My 5: 3 lands, Avenger, Fathom Seer. I get flooded again, getting nearly 12 lands between my graveyard and battlefield. The most agonizing play was when he had only single enchantress on table, casted his only card from hand - Sigil of Empty Throne, I had FoW + 2 lands in hand. and morphed Fathom Seer on table. I unmorph, return two Tundras, draw into Plains and Tundra. And topdeck Arid Mesa after that. Bummer.
So this is how the deck felt playing like: you mull no landers to 5 and then get horribly flooded (yeah, running only 17 lands) :(
Wow, that sucks :-(. Hopefully your luck will turn around. I think you're due for not getting screwed over.
A while back, Jeff and I did the mulligan battery + approximations. Against an unknown opponent, you should mulligan 20-25% of your hands over a long period of time (i.e. no ridiculously bad luck streak like this and correct mulligans). Against a known opponent, that number varies. In an extremely good MU like Tempo Thresh, you should mulligan around 15% of the time, and then against Belcher you should mulligan the bottom 30% on the draw.
It's safe to say that you got extremely unlucky with 10 mulligans in 10 games.
I'll note that you were 4-0 when you didn't have to mulligan 0-2 on one mulligan, and 0-4 on double mulligan. So mulligans explain most of what happened.
I wonder if you need to buy new sleeves or need to change the way that you shuffle. In my first tournament, I went 1-2-1 with 8 mulligans in 10 games (winning every non-mulligan game, losing every mulligan to 5, and then like 1-2 or 1-3 or something on mulligans to 6). Anyway, afterward, I got new sleeves and have only had two mulligans in 30ish games since. Although my sleeves were HORRIBLE -- like it was two or three distinctly different brands and they were all circa 2002. Some of them curved down and others curved up, so they were almost glued together. I'll also note that I didn't mulligan any game 1s, possibly because I pile shuffled before every game 1 very diligently (like 5+ times) and then for games 2 and 3 I just got lazy or forgot I had to do that.
Anyway, since then, the deck's been back to its dominant self. Low mulligans, extremely high win percentage.
I'm not saying that shuffling or sleeves caused it for sure, but it seemed like shuffling was a big factor in how my deck mulliganned, so you might want to look into changing how you shuffle.
Yeah the statistics I think turned out to <15% mulligans off land, though, which seems to be the only kind he's complaining about.
Hello,
I've played against this deck on MWS and was surprised on how it performed. Looking over the list i was shocked that the deck ran only 17 lands..., I guess this is the recent discussion aswell. For my taste 17 lands is kinda low even if you have a low curve.
How about making it to 18 lands ? I think Stoneforge Mystic would be a nice addition to this deck as it nets a 2 for 1 card advantage. Maybe this has been posted in the past but why is that stifle is not part of this deck, it's a great tempo card.
Because you only want to use Land Destruction for so long. This deck only wants to use LD long enough for it to have superior board position over the opponent. In essence, it's more of a control/aggro deck then it is a aggro/control deck. It's not like Tempo Thresh where it goes, "Wasteland, Wasteland, Stifle-Win." It uses Wastelands to break the symmetry gradually rather than suddenly, like Tempo Thresh. It basically wants to make Turn 20 look like Turn 4-7 when it has board dominance. Tempo Thresh just wants to win when the opponent is crippled.
I'm not sure if there's a better way to describe it, but look at this decklist, http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19954. It uses Wastelands and Vindicates for the exact reasons UW Tempo uses it's Wastelands and Wayfarers. Both of those decks don't run Stifle because both decks value redundancy and versatility, and Stifle only hits fetchlands and other silly triggers both decks don't particularly care about.
A big advantage of our deck is that we get to run few lands. This is because we also have 3 vials, 4 wayfarers, 2 KOTWO, as well as 4 brainstorm if you're absolutely panicking.Quote:
Originally Posted by _erbs_
(It's not good to toss a BS to find a land, but it's usually better than taking a mulligan.)
We used to have 18 land, 2 vial, but decided that the acceleration of vial was much better, as well as peripheral things like combat tricks, avoiding CB, trinisphere, chalice, etc.
As such, this deck enjoys great consistency in the way of early game avoidance of mana screws, as well as late game not getting flooded, because by the late game you've usually drawn say 20 cards, so about 6 of them are lands, and you've typically fetched about 4 times. (Between fetches and wayfarer.) At 36 cards with 7 lands remaining, you could probably win a topdeck war without this deck being blue.
The biggest issue of this deck is that it doesn't have any MD disenchant effects, which is VERY annoying... Maybe i'm just playing the deck wrong, but while this deck has lots of syinergies, I don't really feel it has the inevitability I can have, say, with landstill or a random cb.deck...
The deck's not about netting tempo in that sense. You'll notice how every game we played, you were able to get to 4cc and resolve spells like Pernicious Deed. But really those spells didn't matter, because by the time you got them out, I had 5+ cards in hand and you had 2-3 cards in hand and a life disadvantage playing back out onto a blank board.Quote:
Originally Posted by _erbs_
It's not about the mana screw, it's about holding the opponent in a supressed state until we have a dominating position. Stifle is not card advantage, and requires us to stay untapped. Also, it competes for 1-drops against Weathered Wayfarer, Aether Vial, and Mother of Runes, all are far better spells.
Yeah, against those decks, you typically play the aggro role (and have an extremely good matchup -- especially since Bob/Predator left CB.dec it's so much easier to own them). Well, against like Bant CB, you play a modified control role, but you beat down when you can.Quote:
Originally Posted by gustha
The relevant thing is that you have inevitability against the decks that you can't beat in the aggro role. Landstill is very unprepared to handle a deck of many small creatures getting incremental card advantage and then the leftover shells are beating them down. 3 damage a turn is a ton of damage when your opponent is drawing half to a full card more than you are per turn, some/most of your hand is blanked because it costs more than you can get on the table, and any bombs you have, you need to resolve through an opponent who has more active countermagic than you do.
As long as each side has fewer than 4 lands on the table, UW Tempo is drawing 1+ cards per turn more than the opposition (while having far fewer lands in the deck, so it's getting more business), and all of the business spells are active whereas the other side has spells that cost 4+ that can't be used.
Eventually, both players will get through the wastelock / land disruption, and in that sense Landstill "has inevitability," but usually by then Landstill is down by 3-4+ cards and starting to hurt for life.
UW Tempo doesn't execute the aggro plan the same way that other decks do, it's more about netting card advantage during a time when the opponent is crippled (sometimes they're even self-crippled, if they just have a slow hand or just don't draw 4 lands which happens).
It's tough to call inevitability when the "aggro" deck has more draw power and ends up with more cards in hand by the endgame. Typically it means, "If I can just survive until endgame, I win," but the "endgame" against Landstill is typically something like this:
UW Tempo: 2 creatures on the table, 3 lands in play, Vial, Jitte with 2 counters. 7 cards in hand.
Landstill: 8 life, 4 lands in play, 3 cards in hand.
I don't really understand a single word you said... or maybe you misunderstood my remark... I'm not saying I'm playing this deck wrongly against random cb decks (which should be easy if you have vial or if they don't have an early cb out) or against landstill. I have also remarks on your thoughts on landstill: I personally play 5-6 basics, so getting through the wastelock is pretty simple, and EE@1+EE@2 totally ruin UW tempo. Lifeloss is not that matter in a deck which abuses of life points to go to the midgame. But that's another question.
I was saying that maybe I'm playing the deck overall wrong. Landstill has lots of synergies but doesn't scoop to a resolved dreadnought or even progenitus, has difficult MU but doesn't get submerged by aggroloam and the like, etc. Again, it's probably me, but I'm not really happy with this deck, which has overall pretty few solutions for a control decks as, say, landstill or another cb.deck.
Matt's comments generalize almost flawlessly. If a deck has a trick that for some reason you can't deal with, then the goal is to win before such a problem can materialize.
For example, this deck loses if vedalken shackles with 4 islands backed by countermagic (to stop the jitte+our counters) and a decent number of removal spells (to prevent a rush strategy) and like >4 or 5 life. You simply avoid this situation by winning first, and then you just eat the loss whenever it happens; board in aura g2-3.
This deck also loses g1 if your opponent sticks a humility+ a moat. (But not to either independently.) What I'm stating is always the minimum condition that I would concede.
I dunno, it takes pretty ridiculous conditions to be fulfilled to concede. It even takes pretty ridiculous conditions to be in like a desperate position, so I don't know how you keep losing to enchantments and artifacts.
Maybe your metagame has a lot of shackles, humilities, moats, etc.
Don't scoop to shackles alone if your opponent is on short life.
Cast Angel, cast mom, one other creature, and race them. If they steal mom, you get Angel back and beat them down. If they steal Angel, use Mom to dodge the blocker and win. I've won a couple of games like that, probably almost as many as I've lost to shackles. Unless Shackles is cast very early with other cards backing it up, the game's not over.
It also helps that you control the Jitte even if your opponent jacks the creature.
@gustha: I don't see why my statements were particularly confusing. I understood what you meant, and I was giving a specific example of how strict "inevitability" is not necessary to have a very high percentage matchup, even if your deck seems too slow to win under the aggro role.
You mentioned specifically Dreadnought and Progenitus, and implied that a strength of Landstill is that it doesn't scoop to either (I guess because singleton Humility ftw?). Just for reference, I've had Natural Order --> Progenitus resolve against me three times in tournament play. I've lost one of those games and won two of them. I'm also 2-0 against resolved Dreadnoughts in tournament play when I don't have an answer.
That's not unusual, either. In the last few days I've had Progenitus resolve five times against me on MWS and I won three of those games. The two losses were both to a turn 3 Progenitus when I didn't have any countermagic. There were a number more times when I faced an early Natural Order but came up with the countermagic to win the game.
Obviously there are no "answers" in this deck to Progenitus. We don't run WoG or Anarchy or Diabolic Edict or anything. The only option is to kill the opponent before he can kill you. This strategy is extremely effective if you've been working toward that goal throughout the game (weakening the opponent over time, etc.).
With Landstill, you never get that option. You have to come up with the answer because you can't win until the late-late-late game. Landstill therefore needs a specific answer to every conceivable spell that could come up, and so it packs a specific answer to every conceivable spell that could come up. Your question seems to be, "How come UW Tempo doesn't do the same?"
With UW Tempo, you can race some threats and win the game before other threats or answers become relevant. It's not always Rocky I, sometimes you can just Rocky III to their face. If you're not skilled enough as a pilot to identify those situations, then you should definitely play something simpler like Landstill.
Hi, I just built this deck and played it yesterday for the first time ...
What a fun deck! Never knew that such 'silly' creatures (especially fathom seer was regarded with some 'weirdness'). Anyway, I played against tempo faeries and a control-loam deck.
Hard times for this deck (i.e. when I lost): against the faerie deck: a resolved bitterblossom with some backup spells was hard ...against the loam deck: tabernacle (the land) is killing ... ended up 4-3 against faerie tempo and 3-2 against the loam deck, which was surprising (both for me and the opponents!)
Any ideas on how to play against those?
Note that we did not play with sideboard, could someone indicate on what to take out against specific matchups (what to put in is clear, but what to take out is so hard if you do not know the deck very well (after only one evening of testing ...))
Regarding stoneforge mystic: you bring in 2 and take out 1 jitte and 1 knight? which means you still have a single knight ... isn't that a bit random?
Any other creatures to fill this single spot? (or another equipment/spell pierce?)
Thanks for this cool deck!
Why do you not like the number 1? 1 possesses some very admirable properties. Observe:Quote:
Originally Posted by Teumie
n*1=1*n=n for all n in N
1^(-1)=1
1^n=1 for all n in N
1 is the only number in N without a nontrivial prime factorization
1 is the best number of KOTWO, and any other card with diminishing returns
1 is not bad. I don't see why people associate 1 with words like "bad" or "random."
I would run 60 1 ofs if wizards printed enough cards to support this strategy. I only run 4x because there's not enough good cards to run 60 1x at the optimal level.
Also, a complete guide for sideboarding has already been posted.
I have built this deck also and appreciate the thorough analystic point of view as well, but I have to agree with previous posters that it isn't very fun to take part of the discussion on this thread because of the non-supportive answers
Is having a singleton knight more valuable than say, having an 18th land or a third mystic?
I understand that it's a solid card - but unless there's a specific reason to run singletons, wouldn't consistency be more valuable?
The point of my post is that 1 of is not a bad thing that you have to do anything about. 1 is just another number of cards you can run. In fact, 1 is probably the best number for many cards. But in reality, you're going to draw 7 cards, and then some of them are going to be one thing, and some of them another. Then you'll draw a card every turn, and some cards will be something and some cards another. Is there a reason why this form of "consistency" is valuable? It doesn't win more games, all it does is it lets you play fewer card names.
When I was little, and people told me to run 4x, I assumed it was because it was too difficult to learn how to play a deck with 1x in it, because even then I couldn't come up with a reason to play 4x everything. But it also seems like people's attitude is like:
4x has a pupose
3x has a purpose
2x has a purpose
0x has a purpose
But 1x? random.
The only question should be "Is having the next knight better than the next whatever" rather than is having the next SINGLETON knight better. Singleton doesn't matter. It's still maximizing utility all the same. In fact, it's obvious the first knight is the best, then it is diminishing returns.
I dunno, I hope when you say "nonsupportive answers" you aren't referring to me shooting down a concept like this because I really just don't know what else to say. I understand that "1x is bad" is a common misconception, but this is really the best I can do to explain it.
I consider myself to have been reasonably helpful as long as questions demonstrated even a few minute's worth of thought. We never claimed the 247th version is perfect or whatever (although the last 200 versions have been this +/-like 6 cards, and the last 100 this +/-2 cards, if you want to say the number is 247.)
But we'd like to claim that in 2 years of reasonably frequent testing, that we're going to be the ones who eventually reach the perfect list, and not some random guy who thought about it for a little while even.
I would have the same respect and assumption about someone else who started the deck this much before I did. If you think about it, comparing your understanding of the deck to mine is like calling me clinically retarded, not because you're clinically retarded, but because you're probably not 20 times smarter than I am.
Well, look at the math man.
4x - 1 in 15
3x - 1 in 20
2x - 1 in 30
1x - 1 in 60
0x - never
Of the options, it's pretty clear that having 1 in 60 is the most 'random' of the listed probabilities.
Singletons are not _always_ bad, and honestly anyone blindly stating that they are would be fools - but normally singleton cards are singletons because you have a way to tutor/search for them (toolbox), or because you absolutely never want to see more than one a game.
Knight is neither of those.
I agree that under your definition of random this is true. By why is this kind of "random" bad?
I didn't say that it was. In cases of toolboxes or cards you only every want one of in a game period, it's fine.
Knight isn't that type of card, which is why I posed my question about whether a singleton of him was worth losing consistancy elsewhere.