[Discussion] What is the best current combo deck?

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Originally Posted by Arsenal

In a very long-winded way, you are agreeing with this post:

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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?

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He isn't saying that. He's running the modified the against the same decks again to "recheck" the matchups and not changing which decks he's running against so he can get a meta adapted deck. Unless I misunderstood it, that's stated in his last paragraph.

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Originally Posted by lonelybaritone

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.

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That single Petal isn't actually for acceleration. It's for making the most common Doomsday pile work without the necessity of not having dropped a land already while also increasing storm.

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Originally Posted by lonelybaritone

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.

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Dearest lonelybaritone,

You are correct that Lotus Petal accelerates FT, but I have a reason to include it in the extra business spells. Lotus Petal isn't, in my not very humble opinion, good enough to see play in FT. It accelerates amazingly well, but to compete against well-honed aggro-control and control decks, the necessity of Sensei's Divining Top puts a premium on cards that produce mana only once. Where decks playing a similar tutor package and manabase to FT have relied on Lotus Petal in the past, the search for absolute stability has pushed it out of my life.

There is a catch. Lotus Petal is required for Doomsday to be a better Ill-Gotten Gains. For the stack to work properly, you need BBBBBB floating into a hellbent Infernal Tutor (compared with BBBBB for IGG (not specifically black, but it's not like you can generate any other colors in mass amounts)) so you can find Doomsday, stack Cruel Bargain, 3 spells, and a Tendrils of Agony, then draw Cruel Bargain with SDT and win the game. The catch here is that it really requires 1BBBBBB because by tapping SDT to draw a card, you must now replay SDT in order to draw Tendrils of Agony. If you don't have any mana floating, this is incredibly difficult, so a singleton Lotus Petal was included for this Doomsday stack. Since I do not play with Lotus Petal unless I play with Doomsday, I include it in the Doomsday "package" of Doomsday, Cruel Bargain, and Lotus Petal of extra business cards.

@ Arsenal

I firmly believe that the best combo deck in a metagame is always going to be a variation of FT. Because my particular build is tailored to the metagame I'm playing in, I actually expect it to be the best combo deck in the metagame. Of course, I have been wrong about metagames in the past, but at least recently, I have been more correct than incorrect. This leads to me constructing lists that seem to be great against particular metagames.

Relevant cards against Threshold/Landstill:

Extirpate
Abeyance
Krosan Grip/Wipe Away (depending on the 75 and Thresh deck)
Sudden Death/Wipe Away (depending on the 75 and whether they have mage)
Brain Freeze/Death Wish (depending on the 75 and Thresh deck)
Dark Confidant (depending on the 75 and Thresh deck)


Relevant cards against Chalice decks:

Rushing River
Echoing Truth
Serenity
Dark Confidant (depending on the sideboard and Chalice deck)

Storm Combo Mirror

Extirpate
Abeyance
Echoing Truth

Chant-based Sideboard Plan (White-based control mostly uses this hence the more general bounce)
Extirpate
Abeyance
Rushing River
Echoing Truth

The only other category of matchups are those black-based aggro-control elements where you board:

Brain Freeze/Death Wish
Echoing Truth
Rushing River
Dark Confidant (if it's in your 75)

That brings a sideboard of something like:

1-2 Wipe Away (depending on the number of KGrip)
0-3 Krosan Grip (depending on the number of Wipe Away)
1 Rushing River
1 Echoing Truth
0-1 Sudden Death (depending on the number of Wipe Away and personal preference)
1-2 Abeyance
0-2 Extirpate
4 Serenity
0-4 Dark Confidant (I don't personally recommend this card very often, but other swear by it. Including it lessens the redundancy in terms of Extirpates, answers to CB, or answers to Chalice decks.)

If you take the max number of each of these, you get 20. Cutting the Confidants that I rarely recommend (and never discuss as part of the boarding plan unless it's known you're going into a black-infested meta) you have 16. Most of the time, the extra cut is the third Extirpate if you play one main, the third KGrip, or Sudden Death. This allows you to execute all of my boarding plans in tournament play without having a 30 card sideboard.

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Originally Posted by Arsenal

when your definition of "best" is relative to the meta you're playing in, and the flavor of the day you are piloting?

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Isn't that the definition of "best" though? Wasn't it like 4 pages ago a bunch of people mentioned how there isn't a best storm deck in the format, but only the best deck for a given metagame?

Personally, wouldn't you want to play the "best" deck for a given metagame, since you are always playing in the context of a metagame? If I went into a tournament today, and I knew what the metagame was like, I'd certainly tune my deck to beat that metagame, screw the base build. Who cares as long as I win? Who cares if I have to play Doomsday, as long as it circumvents the zillion Tormod's Crypt that I know I will be encountering.

And because I don't check this board that frequently, to that whole "Badger Stompy" thing, I answer: that was just dumb. A deck with more selections and options will definitely be harder to play vs a deck that has fewer options. Why is go harder than chess? Why is chess harder than checkers? Why is checkers harder than tic-tac-toe? That's basic game theory. A deck with more potential play paths will therefore have a higher learning curve, and therefore, reward the better player. How is that hard to comprehend? The fact that FT hasn't been consistently piloted in a large number of tournaments is partly influenced by the fact that it is relatively hard to play. However, if you put more work into it, then you will be able to reap more benefits. The same thing can't be said for something like 10 land aggro stompy or Belcher. Not all decks are equal.

Maybe your Badger Stompy deck defies regular game theory, but I think all BSes do.

Well, I'd have like to say Aluren, but since it isn't really a combo deck, I'll go with the one I can play the most accuratly and say Ichorid (even if, in this case too, it's not pure combo).

TES sure is strong, but I don't seem to be able to pilot it with enough assurance to beat a tournament field, and Fetchland Tendrils is a little on the slow side for pure combo deck imho... Well... don't intend on flaming or anything, but, so, in the end, my vote goes to TES. The flexibility of the archetype is really a nice thing (I mean, the sideboard flexibility ;)) and those Shushers and Serenity really are strong cards, and unexpected ones.
Definitely a great deck, even if it's badly played by meself and lotsa people so it does not put up massive results as it could be.

I guess I just hate FT's direction into going into a control-combo. control, as in, not control the oppoentn, but control their control cards against you. TES doesn't need Extirpate or WIpe Away because we don't get ourselves into those situations. We are fast, but if we do, we can Wish for the needed card to help us win. FT is turning into a pile. Winning on average turn 4 with out being disrupted is horribly slow. I can build a faster Goblins list. I fail to see how slowing the deck down to combat Thresh and Landstill is a good thing when you are still getting beat by them. Why not make the deck fast again, actually beat decks you are supposed to and lose once in a while to your tough MUs? I speed is what makes combo, combo.

I thik arguing this anymore is pointless because everyone, but two people have come to the conclusion that FT's new version is slow.

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Originally Posted by Jak.

I guess I just hate FT's direction into going into a control-combo. control, as in, not control the oppoentn, but control their control cards against you. TES doesn't need Extirpate or WIpe Away because we don't get ourselves into those situations. We are fast, but if we do, we can Wish for the needed card to help us win. FT is turning into a pile. Winning on average turn 4 with out being disrupted is horribly slow. I can build a faster Goblins list. I fail to see how slowing the deck down to combat Thresh and Landstill is a good thing when you are still getting beat by them. Why not make the deck fast again, actually beat decks you are supposed to and lose once in a while to your tough MUs? I speed is what makes combo, combo.

I thik arguing this anymore is pointless because everyone, but two people have come to the conclusion that FT's new version is slow.

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No, they realize that it's slow. But what they don't realize is now with Shusher, TES has a better Landstill and Thresh match-up. Meaning that there's absolutely no reason to play Fetchland Tendrils, when you can play a faster deck thats better versus blue decks.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

No, they realize that it's slow. But what they don't realize is now with Shusher, TES has a better Landstill and Thresh match-up. Meaning that there's absolutely no reason to play Fetchland Tendrils, when you can play a faster deck thats better versus blue decks.

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I golfished 100 hands this morning. I have an average goldfish kill of turn 2.91. I mulled 14 times. I won with Doomsday on turn 1 1 times. I won with Doomsday on turn 2 11 times. I won with IGG on turn 1 1 time. I won with IGG on turn 2 9 times. I won with Doomsday on turn 3 45 times. I won on turn 3 with double sensei's top 1 time. I won on turn 4 with 1 or more Time Walks (everytime I cast Time Walk, I take a turn off since that's a turn my opponent can't play spells) 27 times. I won on turn 5 3 times.

Turn/Method/Times
1/Doomsday/1
1/IGG/1
2/Doomsday/11
2/IGG/9
3/Doomsday/45
3/IGG/2
3/SDT/1
4/Orim's Chant + Doomsday/27
4/Orim's Chant + IGG/3
5/Any/3

Average kill not counting Time Walks: Turn 3.21
Average kill counting Time Walks: 2.91
Mulligans: 14%

In short, you people don't know how to play FT properly, as I've been saying all along. I had 3 times where I couldn't combo out before turn 5 (and each of those was because I cast multiple draw spells and couldn't find a tutor or a win condition). I never saw a chance where I would have combo'd out turn 4 without at least casting Orim's Chant once. In all my testing, I rarely do see this situation in a straight goldfish. Turn 3 is faster than any aggro deck will ever kill. At least half of the turn 3 kills could have been with Chant backup had I wanted it (it was required in a couple of the IGG kills to reach lethal storm, I never assumed my opponent broke fetches or anything to hurt himself).

TES doesn't have a better matchup against Landstill or against Threshold, even with Vexing Shusher. Landstill doesn't actually have enough cards to board in against FT so they keep in STPs, EEs, and Deeds. Any of these can kill a shusher. Added in, most Landstill builds have BEB or Hydroblast giving them actually more cards to bring in for anything that happens to be supoptimal. TES doesn't have the manabase or mana production to play Shusher + Combo off consistently on the same turn (unless you're willing to wait until turn 3-4 which is where FT is attacking anyway).

Thresh comes in two varieties:

Tempo Thresh - These guys aren't even going to board out their 8 burn spells that will happily kill shusher (well, they board out Fire/Ice for Pyroclasm, but Clasm kills Shusher and ETW tokens). Their maindeck is actually really solid against you, then postboard they upgrade the burn package and board out bounce for their two EE. Shusher probably makes this matchup worse because you're trying to play into their plan now.

CB Thresh - Shusher helps here if you have a mana heavy hand and he sticks around. Shusher should greatly improve this matchup unless they are boarding BEB/Hydroblast for Goblins since they tend to only have about 6 ways to remove Shusher. They don't have Wasteland to attack your manabase letting you more easily cast Shusher then attempt to go off the next turn. Unless it's in red, the build likely won't have more than 3 ways to get rid of ETW tokens either.

How about we settle this in a productive manner. Can we have one person test both Landstill and Threshold against us both? 15 Games for each deck. 5 Preboard, 10 postboard. Let's post the lists that we'll we playing so we can all make sure there is no deck changes to help the match-ups? I'll be running my standard TES list.

The Decklist
Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Tarnished Citadel

Creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Infernal Contract
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Cleanfall
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Thoughtsieze
SB:1 Pyroclasm
SB:1 Shattering Spree
SB:4 Vexing Shusher
SB:3 Pyroblast


From the Landstill thread:
Tacosnape's U/b/g/w list:

4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monestary

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Jace Beleren
1 Life From The Loam

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Diabolic Edict

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Stifle

1 Crime // Punishment
1 Extirpate

Sideboard:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Extirpate
2 Engineered Plague
2 Krosan Grip

UGW Counter/Top Threshold from the Threshold thread:

// Lands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island

// Creatures
1 Mystic Enforcer
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Predict
4 Ponder
4 Counterbalance
2 Pithing Needle
1 Hoofprints of the Stag

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Hydroblast
SB: 2 Armageddon
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 Gaddock Teeg

I clearly have a disadvantage with all the blue blasts and Engineered Explosives, but I'm confident enough to think I'll still have better results.

emidln -

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

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.

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This is why so many people are doubting you and your follower's claims; how is anyone supposed to take "2.91" as an absolute truth if there are a bunch of variations of the deck, all yielding different fundamental turns? How are you to say that we are playing the deck incorrectly if we are running a slower variation, which typically yields a turn 4-5 kill?

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Originally Posted by Arsenal

emidln -



This is why so many people are doubting you and your follower's claims; how is anyone supposed to take "2.91" as an absolute truth if there are a bunch of variations of the deck, all yielding different fundamental turns? How are you to say that we are playing the deck incorrectly if we are running a slower variation, which typically yields a turn 4-5 kill?

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If you can make the maindeck slower than this with it still being FT, I'd love to see it:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [U] Tundra
1 [B] Scrubland
1 [B] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [8E] Swamp (4)
1 [US] Plains (3)
1 [ON] Island (1)

// Spells
1 [TSP] Wipe Away
1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [TE] Lotus Petal
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [SC] Brain Freeze
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [6E] Doomsday
1 [PLC] Extirpate

For anyone counting, I'm maindecking Extirpate, 4 Chants, Brain Freeze, 4 Tops, and 17 lands. I have 1 Lotus Petal (which wouldn't even be in the deck except for Doomsday).

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Originally Posted by emidln

If you can make the maindeck slower than this with it still being FT, I'd love to see it:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [U] Tundra
1 [B] Scrubland
1 [B] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [8E] Swamp (4)
1 [US] Plains (3)
1 [ON] Island (1)

// Spells
1 [TSP] Wipe Away
1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [TE] Lotus Petal
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [SC] Brain Freeze
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [6E] Doomsday
1 [PLC] Extirpate

For anyone counting, I'm maindecking Extirpate, 4 Chants, Brain Freeze, 4 Tops, and 17 lands. I have 1 Lotus Petal (which wouldn't even be in the deck except for Doomsday).

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So is this the decklist you used to goldfish 100 times this morning, or is this a different decklist you posted in response to my post?

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Originally Posted by emidln

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [U] Tundra
1 [B] Scrubland
1 [B] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [8E] Swamp (4)
1 [US] Plains (3)
1 [ON] Island (1)

// Spells
1 [TSP] Wipe Away
1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [TE] Lotus Petal
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
1 [SC] Brain Freeze
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [6E] Doomsday
1 [PLC] Extirpate

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And the board is?

Are you going to accept the challange? If so, is that the list you are presenting?

Who would like to be the Landstill and Threshold guinea pig? A middle party, one with no interest at all in either deck would be best suited.

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Originally Posted by Nightmare

And the board is?

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Whatever 30 cards you want.

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Originally Posted by Jak.

I guess I just hate FT's direction into going into a control-combo. control, as in, not control the oppoentn, but control their control cards against you. TES doesn't need Extirpate or WIpe Away because we don't get ourselves into those situations. We are fast, but if we do, we can Wish for the needed card to help us win. FT is turning into a pile. Winning on average turn 4 with out being disrupted is horribly slow. I can build a faster Goblins list. I fail to see how slowing the deck down to combat Thresh and Landstill is a good thing when you are still getting beat by them. Why not make the deck fast again, actually beat decks you are supposed to and lose once in a while to your tough MUs? I speed is what makes combo, combo.

I thik arguing this anymore is pointless because everyone, but two people have come to the conclusion that FT's new version is slow.

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The direction that FT is taking in moving towards a more controlling game is probably the path to best overall deck in the meta at some point. I'm not sure that the cards are there yet to do it but moving a combo deck down the control path, without losing much speed, is a very strong overall development in terms of likely future power. The evolution of FT at this point is reminding me a little bit of the evolution of the Balance decks early on. Nobody had the same list but the concept was being clearly established and it wasn't long before the deck was tops in the meta. The caveat here is that our meta is much, much smaller than that one and so it may take a significantly longer interval for the right mix to emerge. There were 10,000 people (approximately) trying to break Balance in 1994 and we maybe have 100 (that's probably a high estimate) trying to break the FT archetype.

The board didn't matter during goldfishing, but the list uses:

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSP] Wipe Away
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [PS] Rushing River
SB: 4 [6E] Serenity
SB: 2 [WL] Abeyance
SB: 1 [TSP] Sudden Death

Its security code is 929090bb

I'll be the Landstill guinea pig if I have time. If I don't, I'll go on record to say that without claiming any superiority for either deck in any way, TES does a lot better against my personal Landstill build. TES is stronger against Meddling Mage and Extirpate, and doesn't always have to get a Chant off to win.

I take it that means you accept? Mine is...
Deck security code for current deck: 93d588c3

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

I take it that means you accept? Mine is...
Deck security code for current deck: 93d588c3

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Correct.

Can we get a Threshold player?