I am writing this post after looking at a good player tournament where he used wasteland on a bayou go in the first turn, is that a correct move? I know that use wasteland on ancient tomb go is generally considered correct, but... wasteland on turn one on the draw against:
a) bayou go
b) tundra go
c) underground sea go
d) karakas go
e) ugin's eye
Is a correct move?
(ALL THIS TURN ONE IS LAND DROP AND NO CREATURE OR OTHER PIECE PLAYED)
It really depends, if you're opponent mulligan'd a bunch then the wasteland could just win the gameOriginally Posted by Thorgils
If your hand is stacked with more lands than spells sure why not?
Unless maybe against the USea if you have spell pierce or other Cmc 1 interaction like brainstorm into Fow/Daze for if they respond with Entomb, next turn reanimate Grisel
Most other decks wouldnt have any explosive blowout like that I think. Maybe a random Storm godhand with the same Usea.
What decks were being played? What deck played the wasteland? Did he know what his opponent was playing? What was the rest of his hand? All very relevant questions to be able to respond.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
I can't really think of a legacy deck that would go T1 bayou and pass the turn, without a back-up land in hand. Elves or jund would at least have a DRS follow-up on a 1-land keep. Storm would not keep such a hand.
Small chance its Lands I guess.
Would not waste the bayou if another line was available.
The opponent obviously doesn't have a turn 1 play, which means they will not be doing anything other than land-go on their second turn. If they only had a 2 land hand, you most likely win, if you are playing delver, you are super happy to play trop-delver-go with daze still active.
Unless you actively need the wasteland I think it is the correct play most of the time.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Imo it's always the not a bad move if nothing has been done by your opponent (and you do not cripple yourself by the Waste obv) and the MU is unknown as you return to the same situation as the turn before and put your opp to the test of having lands... but could you do a bit better? it's highly contextual to a deck you are playing and hand you kept, do you need pressure?, can you protect you threat by Daze? do you have more threats so?... basically answering the question - is returning to the same situation as a tunr later benefit your strategy/position or not?
btw. the classic player tester is you T1 Ponder and they Waste you on draw (actually happens)
this tells you
A, facealm, the player is terrible (most cases)
B, is on Lands
C, have you on combo and are desperate for interaction
I would almost always waste the bayou in this situation. I would NOT if I NEEDED the wasteland to generate mana.
Think about it from the perspective of the person playing the bayou: They don't have a 1 drop they can cast. Bayou is probably not their only land, but they dont have a fetchland or basic or they would have played that first. They kept their hand thinking they would be able to do stuff. They probably have more than 1 land, but might not have more than 2 and if you waste their bayou they might not be able to cast all/some of their hand till they draw more lands.
Besides the rare reanimator situation, what is the worst that could happen? You opponent actually has 5 lands in hand so you did not really throw them off by wasting bayou? It doesn't matter, you didn't lose any tempo or card advantage. You just set both players back to turn 1 again.
Wasting turn 1 is low risk, with potential for high reward.
If my opponent casts ponder and shuffles I am almost always wasting. Keep is a slightly different story and depends on my hand. I don't see how casting ponder and then opponent wasting on the draw is a signifier of a bad player. Especially in a world where people fetch and cast brainstorm on turn 1.
The only time I'm not wasting as early as possible (assuming I have plenty of lands to cast spells) is taiga or trop. Those two lands can signify decks like lands or 12 post/infect which run crop rotation and can get you blown out. The upside of wasting a player and them simply not having a second or third land is so high. Especially as a maverick player where the most important thing in the early game is to gain a mana advantage.
In this example of Bayou -> pass; I'd be pretty heavily weighing just how game ending Hymn [or Chalice] is going to be on their next turn. In terms of decks one can expect to encounter, this play pattern would most likely be Shardless or Aggro Loam. Less likely, but possible, that you're dealing with Aluren, BUG Delver, or NicFit.
If it is Storm, you're probably dead (Rit, Rit, Ad Naus). Elves has too many 1 drops for Bayou -> pass to be a g1 keep.
There's a lot of context here. It depends what decks are facing off.
As a Maverick player, if I suspect or know my opponent is playing a deck that's tight on lands and absolutely needs to hit its land drops early, I could ruin them immediately. I've won a variety tournament games because I wastelanded the greedy deck's only dual. I've also had variance in my favor of opening 2 turns being double waste. I have more lands than the opponent...I can function off turn 3 nobody has lands better than he can.
Other times, certain decks need a critical mass of mana to operate. The sol lands (or eldrazi deck lands) are significantly impacted by wasteland early.
Let's not forget there is just a "good read" on the opponent. I've lost games where I got greedy and the opponent turn 1 destroyed a resource I needed. Color screw and mana screw are components of the game. If you feel it's worth nuking a key land early, go for it.
As a Maverick player too, I back you 10/10 on this. If I feel that my opponent needs 2-3 mana to operate (what you can already assume by the fact that he didn't do anything), I'd often just go for it.
To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, a bee, and revery...
I will always waste a tundra. Volc/trop/u sea could stifle you, so if you are going to, do it upkeep. Tropical sometimes I will leave, because I might need for inkmoth or cloudpost. Sol lands or etb tapped pretty much always waste. Bayou could be elves. So I might not waste if I have a removal hand. Just save for cradle or dryad arbor.
I generally play tempo decks.
If I don't have a good turn 1 play, eg. DRS or Delver, and my opponent does nothing with his turn one land (ie: no DRS, Ponder, Vial, etc); I'd probably Wasteland. I want to keep the game small, can operate of one land, and don't really want either of us to see 3 lands.
Just as a reminder, the game is zero-sum, so it has to put you more ahead than your opponent. This is about who is the beatdown (as it normally is.)
In this case, wasting your Storm opponent won't likely to anything but help them if if it's blind T1, because they will get a draw that will likely produce *more* mana than the thing you wasted. If instead you blind wasted SneakShow, you may in fact be ahead as they require a bit of mana but don't have a lot of ramp; so you've net reduced their mana over the game.. [probably.]
Another way to look at it is; how much mana are you costing yourself vs. your opponent by making this play. It's 1-per-turn until until the end of the game. How much mana do you need to win vs. your opponent? If they're midrange, they need a lot more than you; so it may be a wise choice since if they get stuck at 2 mana you'll just win; f.e. If they're tempo; you need similar amounts of mana, so you are banking on them missing (which is why it's a bad strat against tempo a lot of the time.) F.E. they are likely to have stifle, and then you just lose because you are behind in mana and they are not.
IMO, if it's bayou, go for it. If it's Tundra, go for it. If it's USea or Volc, I'd avoid until you have more information. Sneakshow? May want to drop a threat first to shorten the game. Storm? Definitely drop a threat first. Shardless? You know unless they top deck it, they won't drop a guy, so pop it. Lastly, I'd say that there's always the chance that they were greedy and in order to deal with their greed, they'll brain-lock themselves out of desperation. This has a reasonable chance to solidify your game-winning T1 waste.
Tl;DR:
* Don't do it against Tempo, ever?
* Usually don't do it against Combo. You're lengthening the game.
* It's fine to do it against midrange-> they won't have a play and are unlikely to topdeck a play; you should net a mana advantage.
EDIT: To match the OP's request:
a) go for it
b) sure
c) don't
d) Hard to say. may be a weak keep starting like that. Or.. they have double karakas. I'd say don't do it.
e) Same as D. It's a toss up whether it'll win you the game or cost you. In general it will probably cost you.
There is no such thing as a general rule in magic. Board states always matter.
If that guy lets say pondered or Brainstormed on turn 1, you probably shouldn't waste land.
if that guy mulled to 4-5 then you could probably bet that he doesn't have many lands and should wasteland
if he thoughtseized you or something on turn 1, you probably shouldn't wasteland.
if he drops a drs on turn 1, you probably shouldn't wasteland.
I agree that it's a terrible plan against Tempo, but again, there are exceptions. I was playing game 3 of a Grixis Delver mirror on the draw and kept a 4 land hand with double Waste. My first two turns I Wasted him off his lands and he really stumbled after that, while I could just play lands and apply pressure while he tried to recover. Maybe I got lucky there, but knowing the matchup, where the deck only ran 6 meaningful lands, I negated 1/3 of his mana-producing lands for the whole game, opened myself up to the devastating play of Wasting him off black entirely with the third Wasteland, and I had enough lands to back it up that I knew I wouldn't cost myself tempo by making the play.
If it were a single Wasteland, then no, I don't think I would've done it. But double? Certainly plays out differently if he has a turn 1 DRS, but without it, there's not much he could've done.
If my opponent isn't adding any sort of board presence on turn 1 I'm wasting my opponent almost every time. Especially if I don't have a meaningful turn 1 play. It also sets us back basically to turn 1 and gives me another draw to find a meaningful turn 1 play.
What Wasteland deck you're playing with matters too. DnT, Delver decks, Lands, Shardless, Eldrazi - they all are trying to do different things. Whether or not this fits in your gameplan is dependent on what your gameplan is. The non-blue Wasteland decks have more consistent prison plans with which to backup the t1 Wasteland, but they also have no FoW/Daze and can't interact without committing permanents to the board / spending mana, so there's more risk to delaying your own development.
If you're playing DnT you might be choosing between a t2 Thalia or a t3 Thalia if you Wasteland, if you're playing a Delver deck you might be choosing between committing a threat and holding up a counterspell or Brainstorm. Those are different trade-offs.
Generally t1 play a land do nothing should lead your hand towards considering the psycho-Wasteland because they kept a hand that didn't have a t1 play, which means that they probably don't have a t2 play with 1 land either. And if you're lucky the Wasteland really hurts them, and some % of the time just wins the game. I think you need to take as many of those easy-wins as you can get.
The more common 'actually I *did* have a t1 play and you just didn't know about it until you Wastelanded me' cards are Brainstorm, Stifle, Entomb. Forcing them to Brainstorm in response is...okay. They might come out a little ahead, but they probably had a bad hand. Stifle is not a heavily played card in legacy at the moment and while it's always something to consider, I don't think it's worth assuming your opponent has it unless you know they're on a Stifle deck. Stifling your Wasteland is not actually that big of a blowout, you get out-tempo'd but their Stifle on the play was probably going to hit you at some point. Entomb, eh, good luck, you might be dead.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is that Hex Depths is a Bayou deck where you def wouldn't want to spend your Wasteland on their Bayou.
vs.
a) bayou go
b) tundra go
c) underground sea go
d) karakas go
e) ugin's eye
a. Could be a wide range of decks and you'll get punished once in a while (aforementioned Hex Depths, maybe it's Jund or Loam and you need it for a Grove later, etc.) but there are enough mana-tight Bayou decks that it's usually going to be an okay decision.
b. Tundra decks are the most mana-hungry since they're control decks and they want to fetch basics. If they're playing a Tundra and doing nothing then they're either trying to bait a Wasteland because they're actually flooded (happens occasionally) or they have a kinda rough hand. You should almost always go for it.
c. Higher risk of being combo and probably the case where the deck you're playing affects things the most. Blue decks might be more inclined to hold up a counterspell/Brainstorm in case they're playing combo. Non-blue prison decks probably would need to make a decision based on what the rest of their hand looked like.
d/e Generally correct but you're going to get burned once in a while because they could be baiting you with multiples. This is more likely to be the case with DnT than Eldrazi - if DnT only has one white source they're more likely to sandbag it until they need to cast a spell. However, you also can't assume that they're a good player, most legacy players are very bad players. T1 Karakas is more likely to be their only white source if they used it to cast a Vial, but if we're assuming that they didn't cast anything then the only reason to t1 Karakas if it's the only white source is to hold up STP.
If your opponent has a turn 2 play like a goyf or bob or stoneforge your wasteland keeps them off of it on turn 2, and if they kept a 2 land hand on the back of trying to resolve that 2 drop, they might just die. There are a lot of factors that go into the decision, but I generally am always wasting and trying to mise out a free win.
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