Just having a Source account doesn't make the match relevant. I know tons of people who are terrible who have one.
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Just having a Source account doesn't make the match relevant. I know tons of people who are terrible who have one.
See again there's that thing. This refutes some of the games we've played against the source members. We claim that we played thousands of games against each other, hundreds against other source members, and 10 most recently or so. But we win the argument at the thousands, we add the rest just for icing on the cake. You come along and debunk our extra argument partially, and say "I win!" But this is not how debates or reasoning works.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anusien
I should also note that the way a metagame evolves is precisely someone comes up with a good idea, the format changes to compensate so that playing that deck isn't strictly dominating. When people adjust for our existence, it could well be that we will have closer to 50% against the field. It's silly that people ignore the existence of a period of time for which we are unaccounted for and thus win. If you deny the existence of metagame evolution, do you think that the metagame existed at the beginning of time as it is now?
Take for example Ichorid. Imagine the very first game someone played with this deck. It must've been crushing. People didn't know it was necessary to come with graveyard hate that also owns ichorid, and even red hate that also owns ichorid. If ichorid would have posted "90% against the field" everybody would've been like "But it's only possible to be 50% against the field so therefore you lose GG." I don't know how to explain this any other way but it's not only ridiculous to not believe us because it's equivalent to assuming we're lying/inexperienced, but it's also ridiculous because it's a natural part of how magic works for the metagame to evolve in the above way. There should be a best deck in the metagame, but we're not saying it's clearly this one. As soon as people adjust for us, we'll probably be on par with whatever else exists, and Matt and my contribution to the legacy format will be just another deck that people will play, and people will sideboard for. Until people start packing null rods/12 wrath effect decks or something, though, we stand by the 65% against the field average claim that we implied.
Not really, we've always switched off. Also, we've only played the mirror match twice, and we were running different builds at the time, so it's not that surprising I went 1-4 or whatever. I made him sign a blood pact that we'd chop if we met up in a tournament, so whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
But I don't understand, Phoenix. You've played against this deck and lost consistently. I know every time that you lose, you blame it on some luck streak. I do that too, sometimes, but you've only been on top of us with Invader Zur (which is a way underrated deck and is very favorable against NoGoyf).
But you keep coming to us with different decks and some explanation why they should beat us, but it just doesn't pan out in testing. I'm all for theorycrafting and for everything else, but you of all people should know that there's more to this deck.
The problem is you are obviously a better player than Matt (according to mirror match results), and he is switching from deck to deck without actually being good at them. From that you conclude that the deck he plays has a 40% or less win ratio against NG, which is really funny to me. By "we" have a problem with it, I mean "we" the community, not "we" you and me.Quote:
Originally Posted by pi4meterftw
No freaking clue what you're saying here, I made no comment on MWS the program or it's shuffler, only on what people expect when they play on there. Also, CAPS LOCK IS LIKE A CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!!!!Quote:
BUT OMG THE SHUFFLER IS BAD SEE LOLOLOLOLOL THAT WAY YOUR TESTING RESULTS WILL BE SKEWED BECAUSE ALSO THE SHUFFLER IS BAD AND FAVORS NG, YEAH! I WIN.
Sidenote, this is the third thread (that I've read) you've used caps lock and overly bombastic responses to attempt to insult or degrade people and their arguments. Can you argue in a civil matter? I realize this is the internet, but Jesus Christ, grow up.
It's not enough, obviously the playtesting results between you and your best buddy are skewed terribly by the piloting of a deck. The only real results we can conclude from the playing with this deck was the one source tourny it won online. The no goyfs tournament doesn't count. That would be like playing a tournament with "no combo allowed." Local tournaments count somewhat, depending on the size though they can also be fairly inaccurate.Quote:
and in case reasoning can't persuade you we've also played thousands of games against each other and maybe hundreds against other source members. But in case that wasn't enough, we also said we even played more games just now.
Playtesting on MWS doesn't say almost anything. You can win every game you play in a day without knowing if your deck is good or bad at all, because everyone on there is playing with a new deck they just thought up.
I have played around with this deck on and off for over a year, and I'm probably one of the 3 people in the world that can say that. I've given you my suggestions, but you and Matt are so headstrong that you can't accept the fact that the deck could have changes to improve it. I've made good suggestions on what to take out before, and since the last time you posted this deck my suggestions on the bad cards has obviously been followed (whether you think it was by me or by "1000s of playtests"). Realize that your deck is not perfect. Starting from the assumption that it is just gets hundreds of people to turn against your deck, regardless of its merits.Quote:
Maybe you just need to see it for yourself to debunk some superstitions or something.
The difference in playlevel is not a solid way to test a deck. That's fine if he's better than you to the point where you need to sign blood pacts or whatever, but you can't seriously take playtest results from this as the truth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forbiddian
I completely admit you've kicked my ass in a lot of matchups. But every time I take a deck that isn't Aggro control (my best piloted archetype) I will perform horribly at it. I can't pick up combo or ichorid and expect to be good at it without a solid week of practice so playing against "Grab a zoo deck, we need to test" is also not a way to get playtesting results. FYI I also beat that crap out of NG with a Bloodbraid Elf thresh deck which I played against pi4meter, at which point he wanted to give up Legacy and make an Extended control deck because it's too broken a format, with too many good cards or some such.Quote:
But I don't understand, Phoenix. You've played against this deck and lost consistently. I know every time that you lose, you blame it on some luck streak. I do that too, sometimes, but you've only been on top of us with Invader Zur (which is a way underrated deck and is very favorable against NoGoyf).
Right, I'm not good enough with many decks, and I wouldn't take any of them to tournaments. From our playtesting I will tell you that:Quote:
But you keep coming to us with different decks and some explanation why they should beat us, but it just doesn't pan out in testing. I'm all for theorycrafting and for everything else, but you of all people should know that there's more to this deck.
Faeries: Whoever drops first Jitte (in some cases with a bit of protection for the Legend effect) wins.
Zur: Crushes you, but no one really knows about it so not a big meta threat.
Merfolk: Slightly favorable to you, but you need the Jitte to work (playtesting results from not current list, looks like with extra Fathom Seers you should do better)
Mirror: Whoever drop jitte first wins.
Cascade Thresh (Deck in progress, not currently in a thread but maybe I'll write one soon): Too many big threats and Shackles crush you.
In My testing with my friend:
Countertop is not an even matchup, it is favorable towards them
The Rock: Highly favorable for NG, they can't ramp mana
Combo: Maybe 50/50 but he isn't a perfect combo pilot.
All I can conclude is Jitte is a good card, against other creature decks you need to see it, and against countertop you don't fair well.
Here's what you quoted from the thread:
This is your example of all your suggestions that you felt it was good to quote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
We don't play ANY of those cards ("more Jotun Grunt" refers to the fourth Jotun Grunt, which we don't run). The only card we ever ran outside of "hey, let's test X or Y" was Cursecatcher. I was excited about it, and it was like a 2-of for a while because it hit Ichorid and TES, but BFT proved to be better in the long run so we just moved back.
Thanks for your help on the deck, but I think you're really overstating what you've done. None of the cards currently in the deck was suggested by you, and the only suggestion that made it out of preliminary testing was Cursecatcher.
The suggestions I think you're referring to were pointing out the worst card (and I think even then you only called Epochrasite), and being psyched about a replacement (but the replacement was worse). We know what the worst card is, and we've pretty much always known. Right now the worst card is Court Hussar. Back in the day, we knew it was Epochrasite. Before the more recent changes, we knew it was Meddling Mage. The problem for us isn't identifying the worst card in the deck, it's finding a good replacement.
If you had suggested any of the current cards, I at least would treat you very differently.
Ichorid also easily dominated a GP and then continued to be the best deck for most of that Extended season. In other words, it had incontrovertible results. If this deck is so insane, sit on it until Columbus and T8 a GP.Quote:
Originally Posted by pi4meterftw
For a deck to be a Deck to Beat, it has to hold up after surprise value is out. It needs to be a tool someone can use to beat someone who knows what they're doing. In other words, for this to be a deck to beat, this needs to do more than beat a guy who just picked up Ichorid. If you think you can discount playskill and say "Who cares about pros", good luck getting anyone to take the deck seriously.
I'm better than Matt is at piloting NG. He's better than I am at learning other stuff. We always discard like the first couple of games where we are learning how to play. Learning to play magic decks isn't steep for most decks. There's reasoning. Matt and I like reasoning. In fact, you should too. Do you ever take a physics class and say: I'm just going to get a B in this class cause I actually need 3 years to learn this material.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
You seem to think that the learning curve is infinitely high or something, to the point where the only people who can play the deck well enough are pros who are rated >2000. Plus, if I'm a good pilot with this deck, then that should count. Afterall, the deck will be piloted by someone, and if the deck was good enough that I could learn it to this degree, there shouldn't be any reason why given time, others can't. No higher education is needed, one simply needs to do what makes sense. I don't know anything about your friend's skill level or yours playing our deck, but I don't see why you only point out that your friend's skill level is not superb on combo when yours was not superb in our matches. I seem to remember you picking up a game where I drew 0 jittes and then you drew jitte with counter back up, even though I scrolled through half my library, and then you eeked out a kill through all my answers because you had extra countermagic or something. I didn't get to see all your hands, but if you were very practiced with the deck, the other games where neither of us got particularly screwed should not have been one-sided the way I recall them being. Anyway, be that as it may, you have testing results. We have thousands of game and reasoning, so even if we include your results in ours, the numerical sway is negligible.
Also, we have changed our deck. Sometimes even with things that you also suggested. So I don't see how our actions constitutes thinking our deck is perfect. We're not willing to make every possible change known to mankind. If you were to have suggested fathom seer (instead of how I suggested it to Matt) I would have given it some thought. But instead, you suggested aven mimeomancer, which I was quick to reject because I had already thought about it and deduced that it was horrible. For the same price, you can drop a court hussar, which instead of losing 2 mana's tempo to removal loses 2 mana's tempo to removal and then nets card advantage/quality. Also, instead of doing nothing to answer problems, it digs for the answers. I mean, mimeomancer could theoretically answer some problems like if you're facing down a 4/5 goyf, you could 2:1 it. But I'd much rather pay 1UW to look for swords/jitte/grunt/mom so that instead of being a 2:1, it's a 0:1, and instead of being vulnerable to getting the double block owned by a removal, it's gg.
Okay, this is wrong. Pros should be able to beat pros with my deck, but why should I be obligated to prove that I can beat pros? I'm not a pro. I'm rated 1800-1900 (I forget exactly what), which makes me like a good player or w/e. It would be an excellent argument for our deck if I could beat pros, but it's not a necessary one. It's kind of like how if x=1, then x^2=1 is implied, but x^2=1 does not necessarily imply x=1. (For all x in the integers.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Anusien
More precisely, I would win this argument hands down if I could beat pros with my deck. But the converse, that I lose if I can't produce good results against pros, does not hold. However, I agree that it would be suspicious if people of the same skill level (Say pros vs. pros or Matt vs. I) could not reproduce these results.
You seem to reiterate my points in your first sentence of the second paragraph. (Which is not a counterargument against my claim) and then follow up with something unrelated. The second sentence seems to refer back to your previous arguments, which is what I respond to with the above.
By the way I am willing to play against the bloodbraid elf deck or w/e else. We've changed our deck. Although I still don't claim it's a good matchup. There's nothing to prove because we never said we trounced it or w/e. We think that depending on the exact build, blue aggro control CB lock can be 40-60%ish. I guess if you doubt we can muster 40%, then you would contest our claim (and as per usual require an exhibition).Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
But I'm interested in playing this for fun, and to establish more closely where in the 40-60 range it lies.
out of curiosity have you tested Kazandu Blademaster? a 2/2 first strike vigilance just seems too good to pass up. with a jitte he's just a killer, he can block and get counters and attack and get countered. provided you can protect him via mom or countermagic or just jitte, i can see him being the single reason you destroy aggro. im going to test him as a 1 of right now in the place of court hussar and see how he plays.
right now their arent really too many allies to take advantage of his first ability, but a 2/2 first strike vigilance is good all the same, and if you draw multiples they are even better.
thoughts?
I'm pretty sure a Bloodbraid Elf deck would beat us. New changes like Mom/Fathom Seer (if you go way back) would help a lot, but Bloodbraid Elf is a good card against our deck. A 3/2 is big enough and it's fundamentally a 2:1.Quote:
Originally Posted by pi4meterftw
Why don't you splash green for tarmogoyf?
facepalm.. the deck is called no goyf. >.>Quote:
Why don't you splash green for tarmogoyf?
and he is playing grunt.
Capitalization is required on these boards. Use it. - zilla
If this turns out to be good, it will likely be right to play it as a 4 of to take advantage of its synergy. But it seems like knight of the white orchid is better. I'd much rather have a 2/2 first strike with a shot (a good shot at that) at the extra land. When you draw 2 of these it starts to become better than drawing two knights, but the majority of the time even at 4x, you will draw 1x, and then when you draw 2x your opponent might have removal/answers. But the other thing is this deck could really use more avengers first. Flying causes this deck a few problems (but not enough to pay 1UW and play bad cards to make them go away.) Avenger is also great with jitte, and vial mitigates the drawback, which isn't a big deal to begin with. But the blademaster is at least a runner up. I don't know if it'll ever make the cut. If you find it's great, let us know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
If we want to test this deck, is the list on the first page still the relevant list or was there changes?
Angel is almost strictly better than that. There aren't very many (>=3/<=2), e.g. 3/1, 3/2, 6/1 played in the format. Piledriver and... Ball Lightning? Compared to Kird Ape alone, where 3/3 wins and 2/2 first strike loses, Angel is much better, not to mention the double block opportunities that 3/3 gives you that 2/2 first strike doesn't and the added power from beats. And then the flying is candy (and the most relevant ability on Angel, actually).Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
And we don't even run 4 Angels.
But even then, I don't see the Vigilance as being useful. It's very rare that a 2/2 first strike outsizes their team such that you can attack with it, and the situations where that does happen are narrowly tailored to the situations where your opponent has no red zone presence and you're simply attacking (vigilance is irrelevant).
For instance in the Goblins matchup, the situation where a 2/2 first striker vigilance is best, there are a lot of situations where you don't want to attack and potentially give up a blocker to the double or triple block. In situations where you have a Jitte, you typically just want the Jitte to go to your worst creature so you won't end up behind if they happen to have Gempalm (or some other removal).
I just don't see it as being better than Angel or KotWO right now, which are the obvious slots that it's gunning for, but I'll keep it in mind as a potential card. It seems around the same ballpark as Knight of Meadowgrain or Silver Knight, which is to say a good card that doesn't fit our deck's plan well.
The OP list is current. The 'changes' discussed were changes that happened in the deck evolution 2-12 months ago, for the select few people who tested the deck previously, before those changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raindown
Hm looks like people are mostly dodging. I think the trouble is that my point about how not everybody is pro implies in particular that almost nobody on this thread is pro, and so our testing results would still be the same or perhaps even much better...
Just a few pieces of general deck critique:
*It seems to me that in this style of deck (nay, in just about any deck), if you are going to run Aether Vial and/or Ancestral Visions, they should both inherently be four-of. These are cards who have maximum impact on the game if you play them on your first turn, and I think you'd have a hard time arguing that their impact isn't generally diminished by each subsequent turn you wait to cast them. If you want to run them, you want to have as high of a chance as possible of seeing them in your opening hand.
I'm not sure either one of them is necessary for the strategy of this deck, though. I feel like this deck doesn't get as good use out of Aether Vial as some lists where it's classically awesome (like Goblins, Merfolk, Slivers, Affinity, etc.) Generally speaking, decks that run Aether Vial are usually going for a "swarm aggro" strategy of some sort... And that's not really the strategy of this deck (as you yourself have already said). You run a few creatures which just don't work well with Aether Vial: I'm assuming you're rarely going to want to vial in a Fathom Seer, and Court Hussar just gives you a Ponder and dies if you use Vial on him. Maybe it seems insignificant, but that's already a full 25% of the creatures that you use and they're basically wearing t-shirts that say "Please don't play me off of Aether Vial."
As far as whether or not Ancestral Visions is necessary, between 4x Brainstorm, 4x Fathom Seer, and 1x Court Hussar, you already run a fair amount of draw spells.
Anyway, as far as whether or not Vial and Visions are good in this deck, you tell me. But I think they're both the kind of cards where if you feel like they're good enough to run, you should be running the full four copies.
*You're still cutting it pretty close on the amount of blue spells you have to be able to pitch to Force of Will. If it's working consistently, great, but I'd be a little nervous only playing 18 blue spells, since that's 18 including the 4 FoW.
*Enlightened Tutor out of the sideboard is giving me a real case of the "wtf's". Why is this in there again?
*Knight of the White Orchid seems like a bit of a strange fit. Since your curve is so low, you don't really gain all that much with the pseudo-acceleration besides just deck-thinning. How has he been working out?
*I would try to fit in one more copy of Serra Avenger... Especially if some amount of Aether Vial is still used.
...Anyways, that's all. I'd be interested in hearing y'all's responses.
You also would have to put into account, that this is only one of several accounts (losing DCI cards, re-registering... etc.)...Quote:
Nah, TFA is full of shit. You can tell if only from his sub-1800 rating that he doesn't have that kind of win percentage. I'm 1750 rated and I only won about 66% of my matches, and only went 4-0 3 or 4 times in 14 weeks playing there. If you go 4-0 80% of the time, that's like a 95% win ratio. But yeah, we'd all like to see his DCI number.
Also, this is over a year after I had stopped actually going to events competitively... As someone who has claimed to have played at GE, you would know that I am telling the truth... You could also ask any of the old regulars here on the source: Css, Team-Hero, the rack...
They will all tell you the same thing I told you.
Now to the deck... lets talk about your list:
// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [IN] Island (2)
2 [CST] Plains (2)
4 [A] Tundra
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [DD2] Fathom Seer
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
3 [ALA] Knight of the White Orchid
2 [TSP] Serra Avenger
1 [DIS] Court Hussar
// Spells
2 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
2 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [BD] Brainstorm
4 [OV] Swords to Plowshares
3 [NE] Daze
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [AL] Force of Will
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender
SB: 2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 3 [10E] Aura of Silence
Lets start with the numbers here, shall we?
Vial: It has been agreed upon for years now, that Vial can either go two ways:
1. it is in your opening grip, allows you to do battle tricks, make uncounterable dudes, and smash face... Great!
2. It is not in your opening hand, and you also fail to draw it in the first few turns... It is terrible. You have either a. played your threats already, or B they have counter-top/whatever already and the card no longer matters.
You run 20 creatures, 13 of which have a power of 1... This simply is not competitive, as you can never apply any pressure on your opponent when you have the disruption advantage, or you simply get out classed (which I can see happening VERY often, with just about every deck in the format running much more powerful threats than you)...
I'm glad you took my advise about putting grunt in, its just about the only good card in this deck... Well, it and the avenger.
Ancestral vision: Not suited for this kind of deck... If you are going to try and play tempo, then play tempo. Your 'lock' of 4 wastes and the hope that grunt can get you more is just not ever going to happen. This format has a lot of ways to deal with a 1mana 1/1, and unfortunately, your deck just doesn't run without it. (the game plan is to equip jitte and hope? I don't think so.)
Jitter is also kind of lackluster in this deck, as you are pretty much relying on there not being a goyf on the other side of the field, and since mom is usually playing defense against removal, I wouldn't argue that she gives evasion, especially since most decks in the format have creatures of different colors (even merfolk, with the mutavults and gobbos with the new black dudes).
You also have no real way to deal with artifacts or enchantments (which happen to be the most powerful tools in legacy ATM btw)... So, you pretty much just scoop it up to any overpowered artifact or enchantment.
Firespout, explosives, and well, every sweeper in the format would love to gobble up your little guys, as you are generally forced to commit multiple threats on the board to even come close to threatening your opponent.
So... Final Analysis of the deck:
-You need to run real threats, and clean up your numbers for your spells... If you do the mana-denial thing right, daze can be potent for a large portion of the game, so utilizing stifle could prove very potent.
-Vision is a good card, but not in this kind of deck. So, you should cut that.
-Vial should be a four set or a no set, either cut cards to fit the others in, or just cut the card... its not vital to the strategy of the deck anyways.
- You need to be able to deal with enchantments and artifacts... If that means splashing green, that's fine, it will also give you goyf, and help you with your threat quality as well...
So, a sample list:
lands//18
4 wasteland
2 windswept heath
2 misty rainforest
2 flooded strand
4 tundra
3 tropical island
1 island
creatures//13
4 tarmogoyf
4 weathered wayferer
2 trygon predator
3 jotan grunt
spells//29
4 force of will
4 daze
4 stifle
4 brainstorm
4 swords to plowshares
4 ponder
2 umezawa's jitte (if you still want it... it can be spell snare)
3 flex spot... whatever you want
You pretty much play like White tempo threshold, but have the wayferer to make your wastes more unfair... and your threat quality goes up, as well as your consistency with the additional cantrips. The flex spot can be added disruption, or additional threats.
You don't run basics like the older Thrash builds, but you run both wayferer and 8 cantrips to get a healthy amount of lands, so it shouldnt be an issue... Moon is not played too often anymore, so you just have to worry about opposing wastes, and we all know how you can do that.