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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 Half the people playing the deck don't know they're playing outdated lists.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