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While I don't think Mystical Tutor is that bad, if you do play Mystical Tutor, I think you have to build your deck with 2xTendrils in mind. There's actually inherent card advantage in Mystical Tutor when you are searching for a Dark Ritual or a second Right of Flame, since you're getting 2 mana for 1 mana compared to Lotus Petal or Chrome Mox, but TES is a tempo based deck, and it can't afford the tempo loss.
That's what Dark Confidant, Orim's Chant, and Abeyance is for. Mystical Tutor is good when you're looking for a specific threat, such as Diminishing Returns and Ill-Gotten Gains. Getting Rituals is good, but you have to wait one turn for them. Dark Confidant can get you rituals and other forms of mana as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
Also, why would you Tutor up Abeyance/Chant, when you can just draw it? Even with Confidant is in play, you're still better off drawing that 2nd card as it may be mana, threat, or protection.
Also, isnt Mystical Tutor a Tempo loss in this deck already? You've wasted your first/second turn + Draw step, instead of just finding ways to apply pressure towards the opponent.
It's always been a rule when playing beatdown, apply pressure and force the opponent into a mistake, then make them pay for it by winning or make the situation worse than before.
I couldn't agree more.
I wasn't advocating Mystical Tutor in TES, just saying that it's not a horrible card in storm combo. You might look into a U/b/w style TES deck with Death Wish etc. it just requires reshaping the archetype into a more sand bag on your life total and then go off protected esq deck. Essentially, you'd be control-combo that could occassionally go nuts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anti~American4621
But the thing is that TES can do things similair to playing Control. It can simply just switch gears and approach the game in a much slower fashion and bait out counters into oblivion.Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
We can already play control with 4 Chant, 2 Abeyance and 4-5 Blasts (Sideboard). No need to ruin the deck to pursue the idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
Curious why you haven’t tried 4 DC 4 Xantid? They can’t swords everything.
Because you now have 8 cards (plus every land) that is now a dead card when you combo.Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade81
The whole point is that Draw 7's are good, and if you get 1 dead card a draw 7 average, they are draw 6's, and thats stupid.
You probably can't draw 8 creatures by the time they find 2 pieces of countermagic and a creature removal spell. At this point, you would lose the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade81
Civility. Use it.
Full Warning. - Bardo
Actually your wrong.
Swarm used to be the best answer, but the meta has shifted. Thresh (with spot removal) and Combo (Swarm dosn't hurt) have grown, while Goblins (Need chump blockers) has died.
Thus Orim's Chant was a meta change, not a better card in a vacume change.
With four creatures in your deck your opponent has a 40% chance of having a spot removal card in his hand (assuming 4 spot removal) with a 24% chance that it's dead. If you have eight creatures in your deck, your opponent's chances of have a dead spot removal card go up to under 7%. With 0 creatures in your deck, your opponent has a 40% chance of having a dead removal spell in his deck. That means UGR Thresh (we'll go by the Gencon top4 build) goes from having 8 relevant spells to stop your protection to turn on the remainder of their counters plus Spell Snare and Stifle on turn 2 (only Daze and Force counter Chant/Abeyance) to having 4 Force, 4 Daze, 4 Stifle, 4 Lightning Bolt, and 4 Fire/Ice to stop your protection that lets them turn on Spell Snare in addition to Force/Daze/Stifle.Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade81
This is fucking hilarious as my design was the first to widely abuse Chant/Abeyance/Dark Confidant. Take a look at Grim Iggy, a deck that I designed early this year and my teammate has finished highly with. Now look at how it beats control. Notice anything?Quote:
I think it's really really funny that now since every one has converted to Chant, Xantid is now the far inferior choice. I truly find it hilarious, actually when I saw the first list with 4x Chant I had a good laugh for like 5 mins.
I've yet to see anything worthwhile in all of your posting on the source. The only recurring theme is that you want to play Pact of Negation in decks where it is obviously awful. (And now for the personal attack to lead into something relevant,) who are you to be calling out people for independent thought, especially people who have shown a far better record on independent thought.Quote:
Have some independent thought.
@ APriestofGix
Chant is much better in a vaccum precisely because it negates all creature removal. Additionally, Chant is available from turn 1, never forces you to time walk to come online, and Time Walks (sometimes providing protection to ETW). Chant's major disadvantage is the fact that it can be misdirected, which as you normally won't cast it after you've played spells anyway, isn't much of a concern.
Edit:
P.S. In thinking on the evolution of TES, Grim Iggy, and my own SI, one thing becomes extremely clear. While I converse with wastedlife a lot (we're talking daily), our changes to our decks to include the current package has largely resulted from independent testing. We both arrived at the fact that our current anti-control packages were best. While we are both aware of the other's developments, differences in playstyle of each deck dictates that we approach things differently. However, the power of Chant/Abeyance/Confidant did manage to break through to both of us. Is that independent thought?
Pre Script - I was spell checking when emidln posted. This is aimed at APriestofGix post only
I am not wrong.
Alright you attempted to have two points to disprove me statement, "The only true disadvantage of running Xantid is that is gives the opponent 4 more counterspells in the form of STP"
Your first point Thresh (with spot removal) - I already conceded that was the problem with Xantid - so no Kudos.
Your second point Combo (Swarm dosn't hurt) - Congrats this is the closest point to disproving my argument. So you get a gold star.
But let me give you a hypothetical - what if there was a enchantment that cost one green, came into play tapped, and said, "Tap: your opponent can't play spells for the rest of the turn. You may only play this ability when you could play a sorcery." Are you seriously telling me that wouldn't be a 4-of in every single TES deck?
Notice the word "true" in my, I did not state "the only disadvantage" there is a significant difference in my syntax. The word "true" in my statement modifies the sentence to mean it's the only significant draw back.
Since the above hypothetical card's advantage is that it can't be STP's, and everyone and there mother would run it, my statement remains true.
I am truly and incredibly sorry for ever posting in this thread. I'm going to reinstate the ban I put on myself to ever post in this thread. All I really wanted to know is if wastelife had tested the 4x Xantid 4x DC build, since he's the only intelligent person who posts about TES. I really should have just PM'd him.
Hypothetically, we have two cars. Both get us where we want to go on autopilot. One of them has a genie that summons itself randomly roughly 10% of the time to provide hot members of the appropriate sex to give you head while you are moved to where you want to go.Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade81
The car that has the genie represents the combo mirror. Chant and Xantid Swarm are both functionally the same (despite the fact that swarm is more vulnerable to disruption) when they stick, but Swarm, while it doesn't actively hurt you in the combo mirror, doesn't actually help (give you head) either. Having chant over swarm in the combo mirror is that extra little bonus.
This card is fucking awful compared to chant. For reference:Quote:
But let me give you a hypothetical - what if there was a enchantment that cost one green, came into play tapped, and said, "Tap: your opponent can't play spells for the rest of the turn. You may only play this ability when you could play a sorcery." Are you seriously telling me that wouldn't be a 4-of in every single TES deck?
Do you know why it's fucking awful compared to chant? Chant isn't ever affected by enchantment removal. Never ever never going to get hit by a random disenchant or naturalize. Xantid Enchantment will never provide you protection turn 1. Xantid Enchantment can actually get pithing needled (which is pretty terrible). Xantid Enchantment still doesn't get used as an offensive tool against combo or as a time walk.Quote:
Originally Posted by me
First I want to apologize for insulting you two. I shouldn't post when I'm angry and I shouldn't take things as personally as I do. I haven't posted in a long time and only do when I feel I have something relevant to say, and get irritated when I get BS arguments thrown at me by the first two replies. Which come on – were really weak points.
The first two post ‘it makes D-Returns bad’ and ‘if they just counter 2 spells’ I mean come on that’s horrible. D-Returns stays the same because you replace counter magic with counter magic, and the same is true if they counter 2 spells. I mean those two arguments are really weak because nothing really changes if you drew Chant over Xantid.
The advantage of having 4 Xantids is being able to pull STP off Bob, that’s really it. And again all I wanted to know is if some had tested that at all.
Name one spot in my argument where I say I think Xantid is better then Orim’s chant. You will not be able to find it. I don’t think its better. I think Orim’s a much stronger spell. Again all I wanted to know is if the 8 Swords target version had been tested, period. Not saying it’s better. I repeat I don't think it's better.
To be honest I have been running 4x Chants 2x Xantids in my play testing. I like two because it forces my opponent to keep in at least 3 Swords and allows me to Infernal Tutor for a second one. I think at least one random Xantid might be worth considering in non Dark Confidant builds (after the 4 Chants of course).
BTW my laughing at 4x Chants was a form of satire. It was mainly a poke fun of people who ran Xantids while I was told I made the deck “infinitely worse” by running Chant at the infancy of the decks creation.
Again I apologize I should stop being an asshole.
Last post in this thread I promise, cross my heart, hope to die.
No i would NOT run them.Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade81
Chant does MANY things (i allueded to above).
I can be used turn 1.
And (most important) it's good against more decks then JUST control, as it hits storm combo.
Please go away, and think a little more. When you actually want to try and make any improvments on the deck, come back and stop being so "smart" and yet SO wrong!!!
So you would do -4 Chant +4 Swarm (dosn't touch D-Returns i agree)Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade81
and cut what 4 cards for you Bob's? ANYTHING you cut, hurts D-Returns, LIKE I SAID!
Wow stop the flame wars. He just said that he ran 4 Chants and 2 Swarms.
Orim's Chant rules. I don't think anyone disagrees.
I think I like Xantid Swarm more than Abeyance, though.
Its not a question of chant vs swarm. Its a question of abeyance vs swarm. What is so complicated? Chant is amazing yes, but abeyance costs an extra mana and that can seriously slow you down at times.
Also some of the arguements people have posted are just stupid. Wow swarm is bad if you draw it with diminishing returns. So what. Abeyance is even worse. Swarm actually works better with dreturns than abeyance because if its in play it doesn't get shuffled back.
Also will people please stop suggesting that we play horrible cards. If you think mystical tutor or grim tutor are playable good for you. Have fun going 0-3 at any serious legacy tournament, but please don't waste our time with your silly suggestions. If you are suggesting a certain card have a well thought out arguement as to why it's good in TES and also why it's better than whatever you are cutting to replace it. And don't start a flame war when everyone points out how silly your idea is if it truly is a bad idea.
Grim Tutor > all.
Back to running 2 main, still owing every i play on MWS...
now if i could onyl get 2, and get a tourny in this state to show you all. Thats all anyone cares about are top 8 lists.
Flames deleted. Warning for Flaming. ~ Nightmare
it's not flaming, it's saying how dumb EVERYONE is, not just a single person.