Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryant C.
Printable View
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryant C.
Then how can you say these?
Quote:
I think it's fair to say Fetch Tendrils is soo slow it wins on turns 4-5.
Quote:
I still doubt that turn 3 Doomsday win is an average. I'd say 4.
Everytime a combo deck mulls, the bar for an opponent's hand to be "the nuts" is set lower and lower. When I've been working with FT, I've tried to largely decrease the times when, because of luck, I make my opponent's hands nuttier than they are. FT operates largely the same on a mull to 5 as it does when it keeps its opener. I don't want to rely on my opponents not having the nuts, or even a good hand turned better because I mull. I'm not saying that any combo deck mulls more than another, but in my experience, they all mulligan and I don't want the randomness of an opponent's hand factoring into my matches at all. The way that I designed FT to operate within the confines of Chant/Abeyance/Extirpate protection shows that mentality. If everything goes wrong, I want the potential to win anyway. To do this, the cantrips are required to increase general consistency. TES has adopted these as well (and neither deck is really an innovator in the add cantrips for consistency area that pros figured out a decade ago), but the aggressive attitude of TES lends itself to creating unwinnable positions because it is forced to assume that an opponent doesn't have the nuts. On average, this pays big dividends for TES players more than it really hurts them (more often than not, playing through 1 piece of hate is good enough to win, and TES is extraordinary at blowing right by the first counter or two turn 1-2), but I'm not comfortable at all telling my opponent "nice cards" and picking up to a better hand. TES does this when it forces itself to combo out earlier because it knows it cannot deal with Counterbalance, mass removal, or a lot of countermagic late in the game.
This consistency vs aggression argument is something that will probably never be resolved, but Breathweapon is correct in that I am extremely uncomfortable not being able to fully leverage my ability to play storm combo against an opponent. I find my desire to be able to win in poor situations greater than my desire to win most of the time before poor situations develop. due to luck/randomness/whatever.
That's a statistical generalization. If by combo-ing out and winning turn one you mean, then yes, it is set lower. But again, it depends on what you play. I've combo-ed out with five cards numerous times with Belcher.Quote:
Originally Posted by emidln
There is no best combo deck in the format; only the best combo players.
What are you confused about? 4, then 4-5. They both have the number 4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Your arguements are lame. Stop.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
For me, I just smile everytime I hear about FT being able to beat every deck in the format. That's a joke. I will be glad to hear those statements when they actually come true and the deck proves itself. It has 2 top 8s and people are rubbing themselves thinking of how awesome it is. Stop FT from becoming the new Dirt, please.
TES is faster by at least two truns and that matters. Who cares if you can tutor for your single Wipe Away when they will still have a hand full of counters and some creatures beating you down. I really liked the old lists, but now I see the new lists with hardly an acceleration and claiming to be able to beat every deck. Its slow.
TES has the ability to go off fast before Landstill or Thresh can get its hand full. It has the ability to tutor up answers to any hate card. It has 10 ways to search through the deck and win. It has multiple ways to win. It has 8 tutors that win with LED. It has the best card to beat CB and Counters. It has the ability to run any card. It doesn't lose to a first turn Moon. Should I keep going? Stop BSing yourself by saying FT is the best deck. I am not claiming TES is but when you just straight up make a dumb post on a good site, then I get annoyed.
Here's an analogy you may find useful,
When I first started poker I was more passive than I was aggressive, but aggressiveness is a learned behavior and it's the most important characteristic of a successful card player. In Poker, it's natural to be risk adverse to going All In or Coin Flips, because once you've lost your stack, you've lost the tournament. So you become a small ball poker player, and then you painstakingly build your stack over time. The problem tho' is that if people realize you're risk adverse, they'll manipulate you by increasing their aggression levels against you, while the people who are risk inclined will either wash out or win big in the tournament.
Small ball better leverages the skill deficit between opponents over time, but that's not to say that aggression is skill-less. Aggression simply requires a different skill set, and you must have faith in your hand/the numbers to bare out your strategy. By courting volatility, you have more opportunities to flop the nuts, and because of your aggressiveness, you're more likely to get paid off when you do hit the board. People will curl into a ball and let you steal their blinds when you don't have a hand, and people will over react when you have a hand and ship their entire stack.
Storm combo and Poker have a lot in common, because in both games the person will be asked to either go All In or Flip a Coin at some point. TES's aggression gives it certain advantages that FT's passiveness does not, because TES is the risk inclined deck, and since it's win percentages on turn one and turn two are higher than FT's win percentages on the same turns, the opponent's have to react to TES's aggression by mulliganing aggressively for their disruption.
Because Magic is based on a three game match, I believe the dominant strategy has to be aggression. Even if you lose an All In or a Coin Flip, you get to "Rebuy" into the match by going to game 2, and even if you lose a match, you get to "Rebuy" into the tournament by going to match 2 (assuming the tournament is large enough for X-1 to finish). Since TES's aggression generates card advantage by representing your willingness to go All In at any time (whether you intend to ever go All In or not is irrelevant, making them think you are willing to go All In at any time is always better than looking like a nit) and because the tournament structure is forgiving of "bad luck," TES is going to pick up a lot of advantages for a little investment.
For example, against FT, you can keep a hand of Stifle and Counterbalance on the draw, but against TES, you may have to mulligan for Force of Will under the assumption that TES will just win before you can even play an Island.
So playing TES doesn't mean that you wont be able to leverage your skill against your opponent (but playing Belcher would ;p) it just means FT's small ball approach gives you more opportunites to exploit your skill difference thru' the course of the game at the cost of winning chances at the beginning of the game, and TES's long ball approach immediately exerts pressure over its opponent by putting them on the defensive.
Both approaches are arguable, but I think "dealing with the nuts" is going to be a less successful approach than "preventing the nuts" over the long haul. If your opponent out draws you, you just have to learn to live with it and go to game 2. that's by no means a refutation of Emidln's approach to Storm combo, in a small tournament with a predictable metagame FT > TES, but its TES's big tournament with an unpredictable metagame reasoning for its approach.
Essentially, volatility over time yields greater equity.
You said you have tested the deck and then say it averages turn 4, 5. It shows how well you know the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryant C.
Neway, this "mine's better than yours" discussion is over.
Lets not get into a "you don't know how to play X" argument, I think between Wastedlife, Emidln and myself we've pretty much got every Storm archetype covered. Wastelife and I aren't saying, "Don't play FT," we want you to play FT, because FT, SI, Belcher etc. diversifies the Storm combo decks in the format and makes it harder for control to hate on just one. We're saying, "FT isn't the self proclaimed end all be all of Storm combo," it's just another viable choice with its own distinct set of advantages and disadvantages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Besides, it's damn near impossible for any one to know the deck that well because it changes every damn day.
I want to take a brief segway into combo theory, as I started to do, lets see, 3 pages ago.
It seems to me that a success of a storm combo is determined by a few factors, namely:
(The strength of your opening hand - The strength of your opponents opening hand) + (The amount of turns you spend setting up - The amount of turns your opponent spends setting up to stop you) x (The efficiency of your setup - The efficiency of your opponents setup)
So, let's say I'm playing Belcher against Threshold. I open with Land Grant, Petal, Mox, RoF, Manamorphase, LED, Belcher.
I'm on the play.
Therefore, the formula would be:
I'm going to win turn one - The chance that they have FoW + 1 (I've had one more turn then them) x 0 (I haven't been able to draw any cards, so my setup sucks is nonexistent. Of course, so is theres).
Therefore, the chance that you win is around 61% on turn 1. Each turn, it will go down because there set up is better than yours. (I guess you could hit a land early, and lose)
My theory is that storm decks each try to create a different combination of these factors. Belcher focuses most on the first turn, and is extremely explosive. TES focuses on the opening hand also, but has a stronger set up than Belcher, and FT focuses more on having a better set up than the its opponent.
Discuss.
Also, holy shit BreathWeapon is making good posts.
I really like this discussion, so please explain this. How does FT wins turn 3 most of the time by running the following:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual (takes time to get thresh)
4 LED (takes time to find Infernal Tutor)
FT is slower than TES but is a lot more stable in the mid game with the cantrips and the protection it has. The problem with that plan is that you are going straight up against Thresholds mid game plan. They run a ton of cantrips with 14-18 counters (Daze, FoW, CB, and sometimes Stifle/Spell Snare). TES doesn't give them the time to cantrip into all their goodies or allow Threshold time to apply pressure. FT does. They sculp their hand until it will allow them to win through 2 Forces or a CB. This is a good thing. It means combo can adapt and change to beat its tough MUs but Thresh can win fast now and countering your set up spells hurts you. Stifling a fetch hurts you.
I loved Breath's post and think that it is true a lot of the time.
The argument, I think, is not that FT wins turn 2.5. That just isn't true, unless you open something absolutely busted. The argument that I would make is that FT still wins a good .5 turn faster than Goblins, which is fast enough for a positive MU, while having a better Thresh MU than TES, so the fact that TES is relatively slow is irrelevant, as long as it's fast enough for the format. However, I doubt that's true anymore with the printing of Shusher. Also, as you said, giving Thresh time to set up is a good thing. I would argue that FT is better at setting up than many versions of Thresh, and thus will win if the game drags on for a long time (not Black Thresh, though, and Thrash is just too quick).Quote:
Originally Posted by Jak.
@Breathweapon:
The flaw in your argument is that aggression is a wonderful thing to have in any single matchup but it will tend to lose over time as the succession of coin flips inevitably balances out. You have to get VERY lucky to keep flipping coins and having them come up your call.
Further, once you've had a single negative result the pressure to avoid unnecessary risks builds dramatically since the next bad result will finish you. To use your poker analogy: once you've got the short stack your options are dramatically reduced and you usually wind up all-in on a hand that is not optimal to be doing that.
FT has a much more measured approach to risk aversion vs a sudden kill than TES does and as a result it really is more resilient against a wide field and more likely to successfully navigate the pitfalls and traps in that field. The basic concept of waiting to pounce until you see a moment of weakness and then going for the kill is very sound as long as you can force the kill through reliably at that point.
The difference between aggression in poker and aggression in Magic is that in Magic, you have a limited number of matches, perhaps 5 or 6, in which to be aggressive. In poker, you have virtually infinite games. That's where the theory of playing the odds works out. If you are aggressive, and you play to make 50x your bet with 3% odds, in the short run you're going to lose a lot of those (theoretically 97% of them), but in the long run that's going to pay off. In Magic, if you go all in on small percentages, you don't have enough matches to make it pay off.
Random trivia that might be relevant: Jon Finkel's lifetime match win ratio is about 60%.
Random trivia: Zach Tartell's lifetime match win ratio is about 30%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil
When I said Coin Flip, I didn't mean a literal Coin Flip as in 50/50 odds, I meant a Poker Coin Flip as in QQ vs AK 55 vs 45 odds. Assuming Storm has the hand to go All In, the opponent has even worse odds than QQ vs AK to hit Force of Will at 40%. This is the reason Belcher is viable, Belcher has greater odds of going All In game one than the opponent has odds of drawing Force of Will, and game 2/3 that All In pressure forces the opponent to mulligan into Force Will and give Belcher card advantage.
Furthermore, your analysis fails because you took my analysis out of context. I said tournament poker and not cash poker, the strategies used in tournament poker and cash poker are not the same, because in tournament poker the buy ins are a sunk cost and the chips are a scarcity. You analysis is more appropriate to venture capatalism, which is the only place you'd ever take 3% odds at a 50x return, Poker and Magic never have odds that risky/lucrative to take.
Think of it as Fish who go All In each hand, the Pros have to react to that All In pressure by folding until they find a hand that has a mathematical advantage over any 2 random cards, an Ace, a Pair and maybe a suited connector. In the meant time, the Fish gets to collect the blinds with impunity, and assuming he knows to stop when he's ahead, he'll have gained a definite advantage over his opponents. Even if he doesn't stop, when he's confronted he wont be drawing dead, and he can either double up on long(er) odds or afford a hit because he's built up his stack from stealing the blinds.
That's how Belcher works, it takes a favorable All In scenario game 1, it forces the opponent to mulligan for Force of Will game 3 and then it can afford to take the hit from Force of Will and rebuild depending on how much card advantage it gained from the mulligans.
TES is more of a median between some one who pushes All In with any two random cards and some one who pushes All In with any two cards that are a mathematical favorite against any two random cards. Since TES isn't concerned with peddling the nuts like FT is, TES can use its aggression or image to pick up the blinds more often than FT can etc.
I'm not saying that FT's approach isn't sound, there are times I'd prefer FT to TES or to Belcher etc. and there are times I wouldn't, but FT operates under the assumption that the opponent ALWAYS has a hand, and while sometimes you may look like a genius when you fold the second nuts, more often than not you're losing money by not calling.
Being risk adverse, waiting for a mistake and then attacking the opponent is all well and good, but it's not some fool proof strategy that guarantees you the victory. In a lot of games, sports, careers etc. it's the person who constantly puts his opponent under serious pressure that causes his opponents to make mistakes, and that approach is what is at the very foundation of TES. We just refuse to give up our ability to out maneuver our opponents post flop like Belcher does.
The thing I find most relevant about FT is not that it can't win much on turn 2 or even (what the hell) turn 1. God hands exist, but they are not to be looked at. The deck can win consistently on turn 3 exactly because it can fetch Chant not only if there is already one in hand or by cantripping, but by using Lim-Dul's Vault and Mystical Tutor. Those are card disadvantage, but who needs an entire seven cards hand to win? TES runs their card disadvantage in the form of acceleration, as in SSG and Mox (1 card for 1 mana and 0-1 storm is pretty much disadvantage, IMO), and they do work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jak.
If you cantrip/top turn 1, then turn 2, with the assistance of fetchlands, you have already filtered 6 or more cards.
You forgot that making the opponent too comfortable and catching them on the first distraction is a great weapon as well. Lots of impatient opponents will have their spell going sooner than they should because they think they can afford it. That's when you catch them off guard.Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
Where is all the voting?
Frankly, I dont see how this can be true. Im not saying you or anyone who says this is lying because Ive heard it a lot, but if that is true, then most Magic players should be way lower in win %, under 50%. I dont see how this can be true however, since there should be an equal number of wins and losses in magic. I mean, I dont see how we can have scrubs down in the very low win %s, but then have the BEST player only be at 60%. Are there just a TON of people with 51-55 win %s, or whats the deal? I think draws account for some of this discrepancy but not the entire thing...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil
Sure, boring the opponent until he makes an error works to, it's just not as immediate/severe as pressuring the opponent until he makes an error. We could argue the point forever, but in the end it's two divergent schools of thought in praxis with one being more successful than the other in practice at addressing the metagame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
I still think the current incarnations of FT are just unnecessarily slow tho'.
I would guess that even scrubs do not have particularly low win percentages. If at every event you attend you go X-X, your win ratio is 50%, but you're also never going to even get close to Top 8.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bovinious
Well yeah, there are people who go X-X, but for every person that goes X-0 there has to be someone who goes 0-X, or at least some really bad record, right? I mean usually people drop at like 0-2 or 0-3, but it still seems like some people would have to have a God-awful win %. I dunno maybe I'm wrong, it just seems weird to me that everyone in Magic is clustered in the 40-60 win% window.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil
Hi.Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
It's not a good thing that your decklist changes everyday. Half the people playing the deck don't know they're playing outdated lists.
It's a very good thing. The primary reason that it changes is because there might be a better way to do something. Not a lot of people know this, but while I change lists everyday (sometimes multiple times in a day), I revert back to a base list frequently. This is because I test things, notice they suck, don't work quite like I want them to, or happen to be unnecessary technology then I shelf the changes and go back. The core of the deck has changed significantly three times in the last 9 months. Those changes were Ponder, Sensei's Divining Top/17 lands, and Doomsday. Minor things like a draw4 here or there, extirpate main, 3-4 chants, a grim tutor or two, switching alternate win conditions (ETW, Brain Freeze, Tombstalker), etc are heavily metagame dependent. They change individual matchups a lot, but the don't drastically change how the deck is played like Ponder, SDT, or Doomsday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryant C.
For example, you can be successful with the deck while playing Dark Confidant (even maindeck). It helps out the black-based aggro-control significantly, hurts the red and white thresh matchups, helps the black and ug thresh matchups, and is usually a hinderance against Landstill builds. It's good in the combo mirror, against loam, against survival, against stax, and against dragon stompy.
I suppose the bottom line is that I'm not terribly interested in giving someone else the 100% best list. There is no such animal in magic as a best list for anything. I am interested in testing different solutions, understanding what affects my deck, and providing that information to people who want to know. If I'm playing in St. Louis tomorrow, I'm probably not going to maindeck Wipe Away because I know it's a terrible metagame call (with the exactly 1 Counterbalance player in the area). Likewise, I am going to play Dark Confidant because it's insane in the black aggro-control and combo matchups, which are both prevalent. Threshold (non-CB) sees play and I'll probably maindeck Extirpate over Wipe Away (no bounce main). I know to do all of this because (1) I have an accurate picture of the metagame and (2) I have tested so many things that I know what cards are best against what. If the other people who play FT don't know how to adapt it to their metagame, they really need to figure that out for themselves or at least ask someone knowledgeable for help in doing so.
And that's fair, in a deck with that much tutoring/cantriping you can afford to change your MD and SB at your discretion, but what I was implying is that it's not fair for other people to accuse us of not being knowledgable about a deck when the list changes every day.
Since TES has an exact (for the most part) deck list, you can make absolute statements about TES, but since FT doesn't have an exact deck list we can only make relative statements about FT. When we say FT is a turn 4 combo deck and some one else just says "nuh uh," it's impossible for a consensus to prove either side right/wrong because there's no control. Over 20 cards can be substituted in and out in FT, and that's just a metric fuck ton of options to keep tabs on.
Post your list Jaiminho, I'll godlfish it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
God hands in TES? You obviously haven't played the deck much if you think we need god hands to go off turn one. Sure, they need to be good, but it is not like we need 7 specific cards to go off. I have gone off turn one with Chant back up numerous times.
Mine, Chant, Petal, Rit, LED, LED, Infernal
That is a god hand, but TES is still able to go off turn one multiple different ways. The fact that TES can go off turn one should be looked at.
I won't talk about CD because we both have it with some cards, but we both can still go off with less than seven cards. TES just doesn't need to wait two turns accumulating those cards.
Also, I would hate to rely on the opponent to make a mistake to win. But please post your list because I want to test this.
I was talking entirely about FT when I said those things about god hands and when I ignore the chance of turn 1 and 2 wins since they are so unlikely. I'm not saying anything else there.
My bad. Reading FTW.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Quote:
Originally Posted by emidln
Right, but isn't that kind of shaky confidence in your base build? Until you do poorly otherwise, there should be no other reason to swap cards in and out so frequently. In doing so, all you're ultimately doing is cheating yourself out of winning consistently.
This happens way too often. Sometimes people do it out of boredom. And they usually end up paying the price.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Legend
Wrong. I'm partially interested in being able to field the best possible deck at any given time with my knowledge. This requires testing a lot of combinations to attempt to add greater consistency to the overall game plan of winning after playing some spells despite what my opponent might play or think. When I'm changing slots frequently, this is for gauntlet testing and mws testing. At tournaments, I metagame for the tournament based on the testing data that I have and my understanding of the metagame. By testing all the time, I know how to make my deck most effective at tournament.Quote:
Until you do poorly otherwise, there should be no other reason to swap cards in and out so frequently. In doing so, all you're ultimately doing is cheating yourself out of winning consistently.
By staying with a static list until it loses, you are inviting yourself to be in a constant flux of top8s and 0-2 drops as the metagame shifts around you. This leaves you either preparing for the next great build or masturbating to the greatness of your great build. I'd prefer to always be playing the next great build while doing as little masturbating to magic cards as possible. This requires constant testing of new ideas so that I can know exactly what the next great build looks like when it comes time for the next event.
This is a good post that I think should be discussed further.Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
I think part of the problem is the deck isn't consistent enough maindeck against a wide field without swapping cards in and out for every match-up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsenal
Of course your deck is going to seem invisible when you're "testing the gauntlet" then changing cards in and out for every match-up. Hell, every deck in the format would be a deck to beat at that rate. You're not making the deck any more effective by switching out cards for every match-up maindeck. Because in a tournament you'll face Threshold one round, Goblins the next, and third round Dragon Stompy. Metagames are too diverse to make changes to the maindeck for single match-ups, you should know this. For example: They claim to have an amazing Stax and Dragon Stompy match-up, at the risk of 7-8 sideboard cards. Then 3 posts/arguments down the line, they have an "amazing" blue based control/Threshold match-up with another 4-6 cards in thier sideboard. Add in a few other troublesome match-ups and 4-5 more cards. This seems alright until you consider all their Death Wish targets and other nonsense. In the end, if you add it all up they have a 30 card sideboard. Which is why it's hard to argue against the deck because what don't they have? They could argue that they're boarding into goblins, does this seem reasonable?Quote:
Originally Posted by Emildn
I also agree with A Legend, Emildn is just arguing for the sake of arguing now. Changing your deck everyday is not good by any way you think of it, your logic is flawed.
To be fair, if the deck DOES change every day, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that (except it means that your are testing one deck 6-8 hours a day).
Even designing a deck to ensure that it is optimized for a certain metagame is also not bad. However, that is the purpose of the sideboard. Given the decks with wish cards often lose a chunk of their sideboard, it does stand to reason that a certain variation in maindeck strategy is required for different areas and should not be discounted as a weakness of the deck. After all, if TES never ran into effective coutermagic, how useful would Orim's Chant really be?
On the flip side, it would seem that even the core of Fetchland Tendrils is subject to an unusually large amount of variation. The deck does not seem to be working toward a constant state of optimization, but simply flowing along like a leaf in a stream. Given that a deck needs to constantly work to be both molded to the desire of the player and to be optimized for its metagame, it would seem that the work put into FT is mostly superfluous or even cosmetic and does not aid the deck in becoming one that can consistently perform in Legacy.
Exactly! I don't have alot of test time, but i do a metric ton of reading and theorizing and from what I've read, the FT decklist changes nearly twice a day.Quote:
it would seem that the work put into FT is mostly superfluous or even cosmetic and does not aid the deck in becoming one that can consistently perform in Legacy
It makes me think if Doomsday was the "right" pick, or the "sexy" pick. I'm all for theorizing but it doesn't matter without testing.
I disagree with the previous posters that not having a fixed decklist is a flaw of the deck. There are lots of good decks in the format that are built around a fairly simple core or philosophy, with relatively few fixed card choices; Aggro Loam and Survival come to mind. Fetchland Tendrils' core, according to emidln, consists of: 14-18 lands, a dozen acceleration spells, a dozen card drawers, a half dozen to a dozen tutors, a pair of Tendrils, and four to eight protection spells. That's not much less defined than the Threshold core.
It's true that having to test a lot of options to pick the correct ones for your meta is time-intensive. But that's no more of a flaw than is Armageddon Stax's requiring 2-3 Ravages of War and possibly 1-2 Tabernacles for an optimal build. It's only a flaw if you're bringing FT to a major European event (100+ players), where metagaming is a much less accurate tool.
What I do agree with is that using that fact to claim that FT "fears nothing" is misleading, or even intellectually dishonest. What actually happens is that you'll fear different things depending on how you tweaked your build.
"Fetchland Tendrils for Dummies, or how classification helps you optimize decks"
// The "Core" or what I've played with recently
17 Lands
2-7 Extra Business (Doomsday/Petal/Draw4/IGG)
2-3 Win Condtions
10-12 Cantrip Effects
7-8 Normal Business
12 Acceleration
5-7 Protection
If you want specific names for the core cards, let's go there:
// Lands
1-2 Tundra
1-2 Scrubland
1-2 Underground Sea
0-1 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1-3 Island
1 Swamp
1-2 Plains
That's up to 35 combinations for 7 cards to fit into 3 slots. Solution: Pick your favorite 3 from this lot and play with them:
Tundra
Scrubland
Underground Sea
Tropical Island
Island
Island
Plains
// Rituals
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
There is actually no variation here.
// Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
3-4 Ponder
3-4 Sensei's Divining Top
Depending on whether you play 10, 11, or 12 Cantrips, you have up to 2 available slots. From those, you can pick 0, 1 or 2 of the following cards:
Ponder
Sensei's Divining Top
// Normal Business
3-4 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
Here, we play 7-8 normal business spells. If you play 7, pick 0 of the following cards. If you play 8, pick one of the following cards:
Mystical Tutor
// Protection
3-4 Orim's Chant
0-1 Extirpate
0-1 Wipe Away
0-1 Death Wish
We play 5-7 protection spells. Choose 2, 3, or 4 of the following cards:
Orim's Chant
Extirpate
Wipe Away
Death Wish
// Extra Business & Related Stuff
0-2 Grim Tutor
0-2 Doomsday
0-2 Cruel Bargain
0-2 Lim-Dul's Vault
1-2 Ill-Gotten Gains
0-1 Lotus Petal (included when Doomsday is)
Here we play 2-7 extra business spells. If you've loaded up on everything else, pick any one (but I'd recommend IGG or Cruel Bargain) of the following cards. Otherwise, pick 2-6 of your favorite cards here:
Grim Tutor
Grim Tutor
Doomsday
Doomsday
Cruel Bargain
Cruel Bargain
Lim-Dul's Vault
Lim-Dul's Vault
Ill-Gotten Gains
Lotus Petal
Win Conditions
1-2 Tendrils of Agony
0-1 Brain Freeze
We play 2-3 win conditions, so pick up to two of your favorite cards:
Tendrils of Agony
Brain Freeze
This is how you can construct a deck for gauntlet testing. By staying within these classes it is easy to determine what particular cards do in each matchup, what classes of cards are important in each matchup, and, logically from the first two, what you should build for a specific metagame. With the 26 possible cards that I've used in my 11 slots, I've explored roughly 20 combinations out of the 7.7 million possible. The goal is that by selecting combinations to test carefully (and with logic) I can eliminate many potential combinations at a time bringing the testing down to a more reasonable number that data can be gathered on for analysis.
When I test a sideboard, it generally has about 30 cards in it. I make notes on which cards are most effective in each matchup, as well as what other cards have uses in the matchups. When I go to make a deck for a specific metagame, I, taking into account my maindeck, pick 15 cards that will help me against the expected metagame. Anyone testing with methods other than these is not giving enough consideration to their deck.
The cards within these categories might change, but given that they each do the same thing in slightly different ways, it doesn't change the consistency of the deck, but the individual matchups the deck faces. This is actually not an attribute of Fetchland Tendrils as much as it is an attribute of a non-linear combo deck that plays a lot of cantrips and tutors.
I'm not changing the deck to play against each matchup. I'm changing the deck, running it through a gauntlet of decks, taking notes, then changing it again. When it gets changed, it gets put back through the gauntlet. Amazing how this yields information on which cards are better in what matchups. It's almost like it's a testing process from someone who has worked as a Validation Engineer for several years...
Dearest emidln, isn't Petal an acceleration spell? Which is to say, not a business spell? I'm just trying to understand you list here.
In a very long-winded way, you are agreeing with this post:
My question to you emidln, is how can you claim that FT is the "best" combo deck, when your definition of "best" is relative to the meta you're playing in, and the flavor of the day you are piloting?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryant Cook