Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Regarding the storm is hard thing ... it is. I take nothing away from TES, in any combo deck where you have numerous different routes to victory, the larger the decision tree becomes, thus the more complicated it gets. Sometimes it is super easy like casting AdN, revealing a bunch of LEDs, Rits, Petals, and an Infernal. But we have gone through all of this before.
I don't think there is a way to write a primer for Doomsday aside from telling someone to pick up an old IGGY or SI list, learn the decks, then start practicing with others. Hell, when I learned DD, I printed off the piles (maybe ... 3-5 pages back then) and went and playtested against a patient friend. I also goldfish the deck almost daily, mainly when I'm talking with people on FB or watching a TV show .. stuff like that. I suppose a primer would help, but there are so many nuances of DD. Just the other day when I posted in the piles thread, in the single scenario I set up, there were at least 3 different routes to victory in that exact case, but these situations change based on number of cards in hand and available mana. Even by reading the piles and preparing yourself to play the deck, you need to really understand how DD functions as a hole because nothing is linear. You need to be able to think outside the box and make on-the-fly adjustments. Sure, I use a lot of the same piles a majority of the time, but unlike AdN, DD does not function the same way.
The problem with AdN is that it never changes how u win with it, while there are certainly some tough scenarios, they are usually very straight-forward. Your entire goal with that is cast AdN and reveal cards till you can win, or until you hit low enough life you feel obligated to stop and start playing cantrips digging for an action spell. Sometimes there is cantrips + LED tricks but, in general its pretty simple to win with half ur deck in hand. With DD you cast it ... and then u have to figure out how to win, and there are a lot of what ifs like: what does the opponent have, how am I drawing into the stack, which lands to I tap, what is the pile, etc. There are just a lot more variables to account for. In short, don't start with DD, start with the Lax ANT list and work your way up.
Or, if you want to play DD, just mention the list you are playing and describe the scenario that u can't figure out but feel there is a way to win and post it here, thats what these forums are for. Most of us would love to figure the puzzle out.
@emidln: I have been thinking about IU, especially with Probes but I just hate the CC. The fact that I can have 2 lands in play, no Petals, and ritual my way into a win with access to only a single blue is why I have always preferred Meditate. If I were to play a draw spell in the board, I think Edge of Autumn or a Ponder would be better.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
emidln
@ storm is hard
The hard parts of playing TES and DDFT (and ANT, TNT, NLS, Iggy Pop, etc) have always been playing your cantrips, managing your protection (particularly discard spells), and building the your 75 correctly for what you expect to play against. People fumble about these steps...
I cannot agree with you more.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
I appreciate that no primer is going to be able to cover all of the intracacies of this deck, nor is it going to be able to allow a newcomer to pick up the deck and play in competently without first putting in a great deal of practice.
However, I don't see that Doomsday is any more complicated to play than SI or Solidarity, or even ANT. It's different, of course, but the majority of games seem to involve resolving Doomsday and creating a previously memorised pile of cards with which to win. Alternately, there is the Ill Gotten Gains loop, which is hardly unique to the deck.
An over simplification? Almost certainly. My point is simply that there are decks out there that are at least as difficult to play and master as Doomsday, but which manage to have very helpful and comprehensive primers. The TES and Solidarity threads offer excellent examples.
This website is far and away the most influential Legacy website on the internet. It is the go-to resource for deck information. It seems a shame, therefore, that such an interesting deck seems to have so little effort put into it's presentation. I've played against ANT, TES, SI, Belcher, Elves, Dream Halls, Grindstone, Reanimator, Solidarity and others in tournaments - pretty much every combo deck I can think of or have heard of - but never Doomsday. Would that be the case if the deck were made more accessable with a solid primer?
I don't play this deck, and it's easy to point out flaws in work you had no hand in, but it seems to me that a deck with so much potential "awesome factor" deserves better promotion. If the OP cannot keep the opening post up to date, is it perhaps time for a new thread?
-Silent Requiem
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Silent Requiem
However, I don't see that Doomsday is any more complicated to play than SI or Solidarity, or even ANT. It's different, of course, but the majority of games seem to involve resolving Doomsday and creating a previously memorised pile of cards with which to win.
Therein lies the misconception. Sure, there are lists and spreadsheets listing various DD piles, along with mana required and storm count etc. However, mastering the deck isn't by memorizing these piles, but rather being able to craft your own at any given situation. And I do mean ANY situation.
I mean, come on. It would be bonkers if someone could memorize 100+ DD piles. The good pilot can memorize the more useful piles in the list, according to what cards are in their 75. The best pilots can add to the ever-growing list, along with understanding which cards they should use in their metagame.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Imo it's not necessarily the fact that there are tons of different Doomsday piles. Most of them are easily made, and you're in general not using more than a couple standard ones. The difficulty lies in playing your cantrips correctly.
First of all, this deck plays SDT along with other cantrips, which is inherintly harder. Making things worse is the fact that Doomsday does not have a clear cut plan. Looking at decks like ANT and to a lesser extend Solidarity, considerations of which cards are the best to take are not quite as obvious in this deck as they are there. I know Solidarity occasionally has difficult Impulses, but there are a number of cards in the deck that are going to be good no matter what (Reset, High Tide etc.). The only card that really qualifies in this deck is Dark Ritual. Well, and Brainstorm I suppose. LED is only good when you decide to go for certain piles. The deck therefore essentially forces you to make decisions much earlier than you'd normally think.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kicks_422
Therein lies the misconception. Sure, there are lists and spreadsheets listing various DD piles, along with mana required and storm count etc. However, mastering the deck isn't by memorizing these piles, but rather being able to craft your own at any given situation. And I do mean ANY situation.
I mean, come on. It would be bonkers if someone could memorize 100+ DD piles. The good pilot can memorize the more useful piles in the list, according to what cards are in their 75. The best pilots can add to the ever-growing list, along with understanding which cards they should use in their metagame.
I accept what you say but still don't see that involves doing anything other decks don't already do.
Non-linear draw decks, such as SI and Solidarity, have to "make things up on the fly" multiple times per turn, without any certainty about what the outcomes will be. When you cast a draw 4, for example, you may know what you are likely to draw, but you don't know what you will draw until it's too late to change your mind. That's why these decks are generally recognised as being the most complicated decks in Legacy.
Doomsday, on the other hand, only needs to "make it up" once, and, short of disruption, can know exactly how things will work out before they even cast their signature card.
Even ANT, widely considered the easiest storm deck to play, does not have the same certainty of winning (absent disruption) that Doomsday does after casting it's signature spell. The final round at the Madrid Grand Prix is evidence of that.
My intention here is not to denigrate Doomsday, far from it, but to point out that:
a) the deck is no more complicated than any number of other decks; and
b) some of those other decks manage to have pretty excellent primers.
Edit: @ Bahamuth -> And that's exactly the sort of guidance and advice that ought to go into a primer, along with up to date lists and a few of the more common piles, of course. :D
-Silent Requiem
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Silent Requiem
a) the deck is no more complicated than any number of other decks; and
I'm going to chime in here. This is incorrect, based simply on my own experience. I've played TES, SI, ANT, Spiral Tide, and numerous other combo decks, and consider myself to be a competent TES player (as in I know what I'm doing and rarely punt games due to misplays). Even after playing Doomsday.dec for several months straight, I still lost an inordinate amount of games due to my own misplays. It's difficult to understand the complexity of this deck until you actually bring it to a tournament and try and run through all of the decision trees on the fly, with a judge standing over your shoulder watching for slow play. Go ahead and theorycraft all you want, but it's not going to make any sense until you actually play the deck under pressure.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Silent Requiem
I accept what you say but still don't see that involves doing anything other decks don't already do.
Non-linear draw decks, such as SI and Solidarity, have to "make things up on the fly" multiple times per turn, without any certainty about what the outcomes will be. When you cast a draw 4, for example, you may know what you are likely to draw, but you don't know what you will draw until it's too late to change your mind. That's why these decks are generally recognised as being the most complicated decks in Legacy.
Doomsday, on the other hand, only needs to "make it up" once, and, short of disruption, can know exactly how things will work out before they even cast their signature card.
Even ANT, widely considered the easiest storm deck to play, does not have the same certainty of winning (absent disruption) that Doomsday does after casting it's signature spell. The final round at the Madrid Grand Prix is evidence of that.
My intention here is not to denigrate Doomsday, far from it, but to point out that:
a) the deck is no more complicated than any number of other decks; and
b) some of those other decks manage to have pretty excellent primers.
Edit: @ Bahamuth -> And that's exactly the sort of guidance and advice that ought to go into a primer, along with up to date lists and a few of the more common piles, of course. :D
-Silent Requiem
I can't make any comments about Solidarity, but SI was the first Legacy deck I ever played, and other than the mental toll of playing a deck that never had an "assured" win, it honestly isn't anywhere near as hard as you make it out to be. You just trip dickfirst into your wins. It isn't that hard. You cast a D4, hope it draws you the right cards, and the cards you end up with usually only have one or two correct plays that they can offer you. You don't know what you will draw from a D4, but the only decision the deck ever really ever gives you is whether or not to potentially play rituals for extra mana before you cast your D4 to keep the chain going instead of potentially wasting mana if your D4 draws you nothing--and the answer is usually yes because you're SOL if your D4 doesn't draw gas anyway.
I would say that you are entirely correct about Doomsday being no more complicated than any other deck if and only if your opponent is a goldfish. But if we're talking about playing decks that don't face disruption, no deck should be difficult to play because you just memorize all of the decisions the deck has to offer. You are basically always "making it up" unless you're playing against an opponent that doesn't do anything. The fact of the matter is that you do face disruption, and memorizing all the piles on the Storm Boards won't teach you how to adjust your piles to play against it--that's the part that makes the deck complicated. Yes, Doomsday wins are "assured" wins--but only if you've planned it out that way, which is pretty fucking hard sometimes. Doomsday is the kind of deck that has allowed me to win with one land in play against Jace and two hatebears in play merely from thinking far enough ahead to play out a turn and building my pile in a way that could deal with all of my opponent's disruption. It's like Bahamuth and Admiral_Arzar said, basically. The reason you don't see this deck do too well in big tournaments is that most people just aren't up to having to do the math required for storm, in addition to planning which kinds of piles they want to use many turns in advance while adjusting those piles on the fly to compensate for any and all disruption their opponents play against them. Doing that under pressure for more than six rounds is something that I have no shame in admitting that I am not capable of doing right now.
What I have learned in my experiences is that Doomsday looks to be the hardest deck to play...then you play it and you think it's easy after you've memorized a few piles and realize these are the piles that you use a lot of the time. It's a trick though, because you play the deck some more and you realize that a lot of your losses stem from not being aware of some random pile you could've made to win the game. To put it into perspective--I'd like to think I'm no slouch, but emidln literally just blew my mind when he mentioned that you can make Doomsday-Doomsday Pass-the-turn piles because they weren't on the Doomsday Piles spreadsheet and I just never thought about it. So in reality, I am a slouch, but the message is that thinking the deck is mastered from rote memorization of a worksheet online will cause you to lose games.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Metalwalker
Noted for later. I can't read the file from work (blah blah google filters), but I am getting back into the DD pile mindset. I'll give you some feedback when I look it over.
I bet it would be fairly simple to build a "can I win with this scenario?" solver/lookup script - or at least report max storm that can be generated. /me goes off to brush up on VB scripting.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Your entire goal with that is cast AdN and reveal cards till you can win
Actually, you try not to resort to AdNauseam whenever possible.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Malakai, thank god u were here to clarify that .... welcome to my blocked list :smile:
@doomsday is hard: emidln and I discussed for a short while starting some kind of combo site like SCG Premium that only focuses on Legacy combo with bi-weelky articles, 1-on-1 training on cockatrice or MWS, private forums with up to date lists of everything we are playing, tournament reports, etc. It would be very time consuming and neither of us are sure there is a large enough audience out there for that. I personally have written numerous emails to SCG about doing combo stuff, cause I would like to write about Legacy storm but ... they seem quite uninterested. It would take .... 3-4 fairly long articles to introduce everything and get people prepared to play, and honestly most of them would not focus on DD itself, but rather lines of play, strategy, hand selection, SB building, that sort of thing.
But since none of that is available, we just get PMs from people who are interested in combo and (at least myself) are happy to answer them. I remember a discussion a while back about laziness and I am sure that plays a big part of why more people don't play DD. You have to make a serious effort to WANT to play it. If you are not a masochist and are not willing to put in HOURS upon HOURS towards learning a certain deck and/or archetype then none of these posts nor a ridiculously long-winded primer will help you. The things that lorddotm, Cook, emidln, myself, and a few others say is based on a LOT of experience. We all have put in countless hours working towards bettering ourselves as combo players and frankly ... thats not something a lot of people are willing to do.
So in short, this is not Burn, you can't just pick it up and play. If the only effort you put into learning a deck is reading a primer and a few pages in the thread then playing a few games on MWS, then combo is not the archetype for you.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pulp_Fiction
Malakai, thank god u were here to clarify that .... welcome to my blocked list :smile:
@doomsday is hard: emidln and I discussed for a short while starting some kind of combo site like SCG Premium that only focuses on Legacy combo with bi-weelky articles, 1-on-1 training on cockatrice or MWS, private forums with up to date lists of everything we are playing, tournament reports, etc. It would be very time consuming and neither of us are sure there is a large enough audience out there for that. I personally have written numerous emails to SCG about doing combo stuff, cause I would like to write about Legacy storm but ... they seem quite uninterested. It would take .... 3-4 fairly long articles to introduce everything and get people prepared to play, and honestly most of them would not focus on DD itself, but rather lines of play, strategy, hand selection, SB building, that sort of thing.
But since none of that is available, we just get PMs from people who are interested in combo and (at least myself) are happy to answer them. I remember a discussion a while back about laziness and I am sure that plays a big part of why more people don't play DD. You have to make a serious effort to WANT to play it. If you are not a masochist and are not willing to put in HOURS upon HOURS towards learning a certain deck and/or archetype then none of these posts nor a ridiculously long-winded primer will help you. The things that lorddotm, Cook, emidln, myself, and a few others say is based on a LOT of experience. We all have put in countless hours working towards bettering ourselves as combo players and frankly ... thats not something a lot of people are willing to do.
So in short, this is not Burn, you can't just pick it up and play. If the only effort you put into learning a deck is reading a primer and a few pages in the thread then playing a few games on MWS, then combo is not the archetype for you.
Agree with all of this.
I and a friend wanted to learn how to play combo decks and after reading the threads on it here and Stom Boards we sent Emidln(DD was the most baffling to us) emails and ended up speaking to him on instant messenger. The guy was always very helpful and pleasant to talk to. Pretty cool guy, I even ended up talking to him frequently after, lent cards for MtGO and just shot the shit in general. I find most of the storm addicts are happy to lend their advice(so are a number of other notable players on various archetypes here).
The thing with combo is exactly what you wrote. It is not a pick me up and play archetype. Not even close. Small hard to spot plays can win or lose the game and it is not forgiving. Practice is needed in very large quantity. It might also be a different case for me, I can playtest most any deck like Animator, all Show and Tell, Merf, Bant, Dredge without ever having played it before and play rather well, but DD and TES(just not as intuitive to me as ANT) are harder.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pulp_Fiction
Malakai, thank god u were here to clarify that .... welcome to my blocked list :smile:
This comment is very comical, because he is correct and one of the signs of an inexperienced ANT player is they always Ad Naus when they have the sure kill via IGG or a Tutor chain. Ad Naus is also the actual hardest way to win with the deck, as there's a bunch of things you have to consider about life totals and odds that all change every time based on what you already cast. I mean, it makes it look easy every time you lead on Infernal into LED as your first two cards off it, but that's not always how the world works.
But seriously though, the best thing to do with a Storm combo deck is read the basic principles of it and just jam a bunch of matches. You lose a ton at first, then start winning, then start figuring out little things and win a bunch more.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
The turning point for me was when I started being able to read people's faces, and be able to pick up by the first few cards they played what the rest of their hand was.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
@Ari: TY sir but you are both wrong. Had I said "the entire goal of ANT is ..." then you would be correct, but since I was comparing the functions of AdN to DD .... u get the point. U notice I didn't mention anything about natural storm, switching Tops, Tutor chains, IGG loop, and IGG Top stacking when I talked about DD. Cliff notes version: AdN is a very linear card while DD is not; AdN can not be adjusted for a calculated win in tight situations .... DD can. Now I remember why I get annoyed posting here, cause people attack tiny subtleties of your main point rather than posting information that may be relevant. I planned on ranting but its just not worth it anymore.
@lorddotm: True, and another fun trick is if your opponent draws their cards individually, looking at each one after they draw, they almost always pause after they draw a Force/counter ... then continue; the same holds true for people boarding in Traps. After they look at their opening hand, oftentimes they will pick up Force+blue card and ship it to the back as if "holding it for later" and putting the cards they plan on playing immediately up front. This is all good to know, but this information can also be misleading. Sometimes u psych yourself out thinking "damn, look how he drew that, he totally ripped Force" or something along those lines, in a time where you should probably go for it. Its important to find a balance between being cautious and knowing when to just go balls out.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pulp_Fiction
@Ari: TY sir but you are both wrong. Had I said "the entire goal of ANT is ..." then you would be correct, but since I was comparing the functions of AdN to DD .... u get the point. U notice I didn't mention anything about natural storm, switching Tops, Tutor chains, IGG loop, and IGG Top stacking when I talked about DD. Cliff notes version: AdN is a very linear card while DD is not; AdN can not be adjusted for a calculated win in tight situations .... DD can. Now I remember why I get annoyed posting here, cause people attack tiny subtleties of your main point rather than posting information that may be relevant. I planned on ranting but its just not worth it anymore.
No offense, but people are attacking the subtleties of your post because the message as a whole is very hard to understand from the way you worded your post--and then you started acting like you were dealing with idiots because of the responses you got due to your post being hard to understand. Rereading the post you're talking about, I wouldn't have assumed you were talking about one card unless I was looking for that message. It looks like you're talking about Ad Nauseam Tendrils when you call Ad Nauseam "AdN." No part of your message makes it clear that you're talking exclusively about the single card other than your assumption that everyone knows that AdN means "the card" and no one ever means "the deck" when they say it, which appears to have been a faulty assumption. You even refer to both Doomsday the card and Doomsday as a deck both as "DD," so you're hardly being consistent enough to avoid the confusion that inevitably happened. When you look at it that way, your subsequent messages make it look like you know next to nothing about how to play Ad Nauseam Tendrils (not to say that this is actually true); it only makes sense that people who play the deck would want to correct you when it appears that you're making faulty assumptions. It was a miscommunication, and now that everyone's on the same page, there's no reason to rant about anything--and we can get back to discussion on this deck instead of focusing so damn much on which deck is better.
Honestly, if anyone had the time and experience to write even a weak primer (maybe revising emidln's primer from MTGS), it'd help people make their own decisions. As it stands right now, if you see ANT and TES consistently doing well at big events, you sort of need to be a masochist or love overly complicated things if you have any desire to play Doomsday. Most of the information I've ever seen about this deck is outdated (pre-Mystical Tutor), and another big issue is that the general feeling in most threads about DDFT is "This deck is so complicated that you will never understand it. If you need to ask questions about basic things like Doomsday Piles, you'll never get it; if you need to ask for a decklist, you're not competent enough to play this deck." I had to sift through all of the material in all of the threads I could find on this deck to find anything that could help me, and while there are some good pieces of information and advice for new players, a lot of the responses and arguments about stupid questions freaked me out so much about asking for help that I didn't feel that I could reasonably expect answers to my questions if I were to ask them, and I was unable to actually learn how to do anything with this deck until Pulp offered to provide some analysis on sample hands to start discussion back up on the deck. And honestly, that seems to be where we are now--trying to start discussion back up. I understand that somewhere along the way we sort of have to kick DDFT players out of the nest so they can actually learn how to play the deck, but we need to give people something to go off of in order to get started, and it'd be a great help if they didn't have to basically go on an Easter Egg Hunt to find that information. I'm willing to help write a primer, but I don't feel like I have the experience required to write a good one on my own.
Edit: Screw it. I've taken the old half-finished primer off of MTGS and I'm working on updating it. I've been working on it for four hours straight and I'm still not even close to done, so I might eventually shelf this and make it into a side-project. As I previously said, I don't have the experience required to make the primer as useful as I'd like to, which means I'll probably be contacting some of you for some advice on content. One of the first things I've run into so far is trying to explain the pros and cons of Meditate versus Ideas Unbound. If anyone has anything they'd like to contribute...go for it.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Fair enough, I try to use DDFT but ... sometimes get lazy and just say DD, so that is understandable.
I don't even know where to start with a primer. What to people want to read? Clearly there will be links to Crafting DD Piles and the Piles pages, but I would start explaning how the deck works, something like:
What DD is
Lines of play to look for (Top tricks abusing LED and whetever)
1-3 lists
SB strategy
Stick articles at the bottom
Just thinking of it this would be a mere overview, but I guess if anyone is willing to play the deck they would have the patience to read everything. The problem is I can't really ... explain the non-linear thinking process because the deck has no clear cut game plan AND has a disgusting amount of options. Even with those sample hands I did ... that took FOREVER and ur plan changes and adapts with every new card u draw, especially if it is acceleration. There just is nothing about the deck that is 100%, so even reading sample hands it gives u an idea of how it works but when there is an opponent in front of u doing stuff ... then there are even more variables in the equation. I think I even missed a few plays doing just 3 sample hands. Now I realize this seems overly complicated, but to sum it up, you change so often based on what ur opponent does and it really isn't THAT hard, u just have to keep an open mind about things. I see so many people get fixated on 1 path to victory then just .. follow through with it when they could have taken some kind of alternate route that wins the next turn.
I almost think videos would be WAY better than a primer but I don't think people would want to watch me play against whienot or Thor and breakdown every turn and explain lines of play. Perhaps playing 1 match pre and 1-2 matches post board against Zoo, Merfolk, and ... some other random deck that people want to see would be informative. It would encompass hand selection, SB strategy, and lines of play against a broad portion of the meta. I'm sure either of those guys would be willing to play as long as I supplied the beer and I would be willing to make a few and that may be informative but u will only get to see my playstyle. The thing with combo is you have to evolve ur playstyle with each deck, that is why I never play Cook's list of TES and my hand selection is TOTALLY different than his. But if there are enough people who actually want to watch a video on DDFT VS other stuff .. I would probably make 1 or 2 playing against a blue and non-blue deck. If this sounds like something u guys would really want to watch, let me know.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Yes, videos would be more helpful as it is easier to follow lines of play when you can see them, not jsut read them.
I think of storm decks as this: SI trains your aggressiveness, ANT trains your cantrip and protection usage, and TES trains your decision-making. DDFT requires that you have mastered all three decks before picking it up. This is a general idea that I have in my head, and would probably be different among other Storm players.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pulp_Fiction
Fair enough, I try to use DDFT but ... sometimes get lazy and just say DD, so that is understandable.
I don't even know where to start with a primer. What to people want to read? Clearly there will be links to Crafting DD Piles and the Piles pages, but I would start explaning how the deck works, something like:
What DD is
Lines of play to look for (Top tricks abusing LED and whetever)
1-3 lists
SB strategy
Stick articles at the bottom
Just thinking of it this would be a mere overview, but I guess if anyone is willing to play the deck they would have the patience to read everything. The problem is I can't really ... explain the non-linear thinking process because the deck has no clear cut game plan AND has a disgusting amount of options. Even with those sample hands I did ... that took FOREVER and ur plan changes and adapts with every new card u draw, especially if it is acceleration. There just is nothing about the deck that is 100%, so even reading sample hands it gives u an idea of how it works but when there is an opponent in front of u doing stuff ... then there are even more variables in the equation. I think I even missed a few plays doing just 3 sample hands. Now I realize this seems overly complicated, but to sum it up, you change so often based on what ur opponent does and it really isn't THAT hard, u just have to keep an open mind about things. I see so many people get fixated on 1 path to victory then just .. follow through with it when they could have taken some kind of alternate route that wins the next turn.
I almost think videos would be WAY better than a primer but I don't think people would want to watch me play against whienot or Thor and breakdown every turn and explain lines of play. Perhaps playing 1 match pre and 1-2 matches post board against Zoo, Merfolk, and ... some other random deck that people want to see would be informative. It would encompass hand selection, SB strategy, and lines of play against a broad portion of the meta. I'm sure either of those guys would be willing to play as long as I supplied the beer and I would be willing to make a few and that may be informative but u will only get to see my playstyle. The thing with combo is you have to evolve ur playstyle with each deck, that is why I never play Cook's list of TES and my hand selection is TOTALLY different than his. But if there are enough people who actually want to watch a video on DDFT VS other stuff .. I would probably make 1 or 2 playing against a blue and non-blue deck. If this sounds like something u guys would really want to watch, let me know.
Part of the reason that I've already got four hours under my belt on this primer update is that I'm apparently writing a fucking book on this deck. Emildn's primer was already 16 or so pages and I'm being as detailed as possible (possible upside to being unemployed?) I'm writing about what the deck is, how storm in general works to some degree, giving an explanation of every card choice I can think of (that I know the explanation for), linking to articles on Brainstorm and Lim-Dul's Vault and all that crap...It'll be a little while before I'm finished.
The fact of the matter is that this is all extremely complicated, as you just said. The DDFT videos on the internet so far have been so helpful to me personally as a new player that I can't imagine not linking them, and if you could make more videos, that would be a godsend. Just don't supply *too* much beer, man. And it would only showcase your playstyle, which is true, but emulating someone's playstyle is better than sitting there and twiddling your thumbs around because you have no idea how to play the deck at all--besides, I think anyone who puts the time in on this deck will be able to identify where how they play and how you play diverge, and hopefully they will be smart enough to adopt their own playstyle.
Re: [Deck] Fetchland Tendrils
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lorddotm
The turning point for me was when I started being able to read people's faces, and be able to pick up by the first few cards they played what the rest of their hand was.
Yeah, for me, this began versus merfolk because either they have counters or creatures, so it's a little easier. I just noticed this when I saw sometimes they beat my ass down and sometimes they just have tons of cards in hand and only curse catchers and muta vaults for the beats.. I can't wait to develop this skill further.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pulp_Fiction
@lorddotm: True, and another fun trick is if your opponent draws their cards individually, looking at each one after they draw, they almost always pause after they draw a Force/counter ... then continue; the same holds true for people boarding in Traps. After they look at their opening hand, oftentimes they will pick up Force+blue card and ship it to the back as if "holding it for later" and putting the cards they plan on playing immediately up front. This is all good to know, but this information can also be misleading. Sometimes u psych yourself out thinking "damn, look how he drew that, he totally ripped Force" or something along those lines, in a time where you should probably go for it. Its important to find a balance between being cautious and knowing when to just go balls out.
That's so interesting. I think THAT should be on the primer. I never really noticed how people would pause or how they would move their cards to one side. I should start paying attention to that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pulp_Fiction
I don't even know where to start with a primer. What to people want to read? Clearly there will be links to Crafting DD Piles and the Piles pages, but I would start explaning how the deck works, something like:
Cook writes a pretty good primer = )
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Namida
Part of the reason that I've already got four hours under my belt on this primer update is...
Overall, I think the importants of a primer isn't to teach people how to master the deck, but to teach them to begin learning about the deck. I think some simple Doomsday piles + some sample hands to keep is good enough. The card breakdown seems to be necessary for every primer. Probably include some top4/8 reports and then some further reading. I quite like Bryant Cook's primer, and I think that's a good guideline for you. You don't have to write the book, just write the abstract.
