FOW's pretty weak sometimes in this deck, but duh they won't print a better FOW. They're too busy printing
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU10
instant
counter target spell unless it's controller pays 1. You lose the game.
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FOW's pretty weak sometimes in this deck, but duh they won't print a better FOW. They're too busy printing
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU10
instant
counter target spell unless it's controller pays 1. You lose the game.
I was quite suprised to find that our idea got adopted into deckcheck
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=22035
and also into the D&T builds partially.
Speaking of D&T, the question has been posed: What makes this deck better than D&T at least in some ways? There had better be more than nothing, for if "nothing" is the answer, then D&T is a strict improvement on our deck and nobody should ever, ever play nogoyf.
Well, Matt (Forbiddian) brought up the most obvious point. Now D&T is including wayfarer, so at least a priori, the argument shouldn't be that we have that advantage. However, really we do because D&T functions on 3-4, probably 4 if they want to be using karakas too. (Yes they have vial, but if one was guaranteed to also draw vial, then epochrasite would be an autoinclude in both decks instead of still a question mark.)
However, I'd like to point out another thing. D&T and us have some cards in common, but we get blue, at the cost of virtually no consistency. This means we can actually run the manipulation that D&T players lack. (See the D&T thread to see that this is something D&T players actually notice is missing, and have, in the past, tried to fix.) We get daze. Actually, even if they had a white daze, they'd have trouble using it as well as us because they need 4 lands.
Okay, well then why isn't our deck a strict improvement on their deck? Well they are supposed to have an awesome ichorid matchup (See their thread) and we only have ~40%, which is <awesome. They are supposed to stomp all over goblins, but we only have ~50%, which is not stomping on Goblins. For instance, however, we don't autolose to TES (And solidarity), as they claim to do. I did not do thorough research for this last claim, but I feel like their dependence on more mana might lead them to lose a few more games than we do to decks that specialize in mana denial like team america. We run thorn in the sideboard for combo, which is unchantable. Well, you could argue they could run thorn too, and they could but they would lack the ability to protect it from th countermagic of solidarity or the chain of vapor of TES. (If they try to wipe it away, that's going to take almost forever, and you should be able to do something quite amazing by then like dropping another thorn, a meddling mage or two, an aura of silence, or at least brainstorm and draw into two counters.)
Anyway, I actually am mainly bringing this topic back for more sideboard and land ideas. I think the 1x island maindeck is a liability because I'm always unhappy to see it in the opening hand. If the hand is like island+X colorless sources like vial, wasteland, then I'd rather it be a plains or a dual land. If it's island plains, I'd rather have a dual land. But it's also convenient to be able to have nonwastelandable blue, at least in theory. (In practice, though, it might not be that necessary)
Also, I don't know if Forbiddian would agree with this, but I'm definitely thinking BEB/hydroblast are superior to forge tender because I am thinking about switching all the mind harnesses to oblivion rings to deal with creatures and vials better, and stopping the goblin aether vial with BEB and daze backup seems like it should be good. Also, peripherally speaking, BEB and hydroblast should put the help for TES, making unnecessary the kind of plays like meddling mage naming burning wish, and stopping their rite of flames. I mean it's not just peripheral for that matchup, it's probably quite significant, but if that were the only difference, we might still run forgetender. Forgetender is better against ichorid, but seemingly worse against everything else. We thought it might be better for goblins cause it can carry a jitte, but it actually it sucks to let ringleader resolve.
two more points:
I'm a fairly openminded guy. I tried out the mangara and karakas. (Cutting epochrasite x2 maindeck and switching a plains for a karakas.) Here are my observations: It turns wombat from nearly unwinnable game 1 to essentially unlosable, because before we were getting beaten by moat, whereas now we care very little about it. However, it screws with our consistency and speed. Perhaps further testing is warranted.
Does anybody have sideboard suggestions?
I don't think that Death and Taxes is playing Weathered Wayfarer. I suggested it, but it had been discussed and rejected apparently earlier.
It's harder to abuse in D&T since they require more land to play out creatures (even sitting at 1 land, we're always 1 land away from being able to cast anything in the deck, whereas they can't react as quickly to the opponent playing out more land), we have Daze, and we have Brainstorm (shuffle away the land we tutored up). These three factors make Wayfarer tons better in our deck.
Without running Wayfarer, there really isn't a 1:1 comparison between NoGoyf and D&T as the cards and playstyles are wildly different.
Prices are similar, though.