Sandstorm is one of the ten most underrated cards in Legacy. I pack four in my Survival sideboard.
This is not just sneaky tech for most green-based decks; I'd argue it's almost mandatory.
Originally Posted by majikal
I am sorry sir, but the true reason (I thought) about flash was the fact that it could be as controling (or even moreso) than most control decks/aggro control decks.
it was a pain in the ass to try and counter/stifle the 'combo (I call it just broken)' when they run even more countermagic than you might.
I always keep a hand with FoW against combo, but that wasn't enough because they either had their own or a daze... that was rediculous.
ETW is not unbeatable, in fact it is easier to deal with than dying instantaniously to a brainfreeze or tendrils.
ETW can be dealt with by any quick board clearer, as well as stifled/trickbinded (which were the only ways to deal with other storm spells).
I would much rather someone cast ETW and have a couple of turns to find a solution than die upon resolution of the spell... that's just me though.
I did not say that I wanted to cut it up into two catagories (rather the rock, paper, and sciscors annalagy provided before)... I do not see why all you guys are saying all the combos are becomming unbeatable (unless you guys are bitching that your lackey isn't all that great anymore).
I play decks designed to beat gobs and combo, but die to aggro control and stax, so I would like to see the meta either be
goblins or combo... The flash meta screwed with me mainly because everyone was picking up Hanni fish.
that's where I stand, I play against players piloting belcher/TES (sometimes iggy) on a regular basis at my local tourney, so I know that they are not nearly as broken as you guys say.
How often have you guys seen a first turn ETW drop with EPIC? (as a percentage of the matches). I don't think I have seen it very often myself, turn 2 more-so, and then I don't find it all that bad to deal with. I can race it with solidarity and i maindeck 4 powderkegs in my stax deck, so that is always a gamble, and I have even readily out-done the Gobbos with my dragon stompy build. I can see it being a massive problem for thresh, but, as a solidarity player....screw mage
First off I cant stand that you compared Lackey and Flash. Yes Flash is utterly broken to that point. It was ban worthy and beat the snot out of dedicated hate decks. Where the hell were you this spring?
I dont know if you left Solidarity and Gamekeeper out on purpose or simply forgot about them. You can have your personal opinions all you want Gamekeeper is a combo deck and it has placed very well for itself.
I dont think combo is too much of a problem. The only decks that combo completely snuffs are the ones designed with no proper outs to a combo opponent. Those decks usually get a significant boost against control/aggro because of what they lack against combo. Glass Cannon decks are fine in certain meta's.
Now playing real formats.
Despite having combo finishes it's difficult to call High Tide and Gamekeeper/Salvagers combo in the same sense of the word that we use to describe TES and Belcher because of their fundamental turns. I'd argue that High Tide is a control deck with a combo finish and Gamekeeper/Salvagers is a board control deck with a combo finish more than actual combo. I don't think I've ever heard some one use the words unhealthy or unfair when describing High Tide or Gamekeeper/Salvagers, and I think that's probably because of aggro being able to race race both of those decks to their fundamental turn.
I think in order for combo to be "combo," it needs to be a full turn faster than the fastest aggro deck in the format.
This is flawed logic. The fastest aggro deck in the format is now Manaless Ichorid. It wins turns 1-3 the fundemental CRET and TES turns. Does this mean it is a combo deck?
Some builds of flash combo were designed to go off specifically turn 3 instead of a turn 1-2 rush. Are those not considered combo by your standard?
I have heard many many clammers of Solidarity being unfair by winning instant speed and being reliable enough to master the stack. Ive heard many of my opponents tell me Gamekeeper was unhealthy as a combo deck simply because I ran 8 discard spells. These decks are simply under represented at the moment. Gamekeeper just won the 2 Man Tournament run by Tacosnape and it does extremely well for me whenever I play it.
I would say the only difference between the aforementioned decks and Solidarity/Gamekeeper is the skill required to pilot them. Alot of people made cracks about Gearhart being the only one that could pilot Solidarity correctly till multiple other fans grinded out games and learnt how to make the right play with the deck. Gamekeeper is admitedly the most complicated decision packed deck Ive ever played.
Most decks like TES and CRET actually play themselves. You just need to play the cards in the right order and filter colored mana correctly.
Now playing real formats.
No, surmising that Mana-Less Ichorid is indeed an aggro deck when the deck has no traditional affiliations with aggro and uses Lion's Eye Diamond and Token Creatures to win, characteristics which could be used to categorize Mana-Less Ichorid with combo, is a tangential counter argument for a point I think most people will recognize for what it is.
Isn't it obvious that Turn 3 Flash is still faster than the Turn 4 fundamental turn of aggro and thus fits the definition of "combo" as I used it above?
Where are those cries of the unfairness of High Tide and Gamekeeper now?
I'm not going to get into an argument about skill.
why are you guys arguing about whether or not gamekeeper, ichorid, and solidarity are combo?
they are obviously combo, and I do not see any room for confusion... now if we had an exact definition then that would be nice.
to settle the 'arguement', breath was right... end of discussion.
this thread is about whether or not there will be a high population of combo players this summer. It has nothing about decks that could be combos or not.
honestly, I would truely like to know what you guys personally think the fundamental turn has become with the 'newer' meta.
Personally I think it is 1-3, that is enough time to kill with a quick goblins' hand, kill with a combo deck, and find answers for either by the third party (i.e. control).
Chill out a bit, take a breather before posting. If you reread what I said I was talking about Empty the Warrens and Lion's Eye Diamond when mentioning the "Unstoppable or utterly broken".
It was meant to be on Ritual based combo neither Gamekeeper or Solidarity fall under this catagory. I've never said gamekeeper hasn't placed for its self, but I believe its more like the Rock with a combo finish than a combo deck. Combo decks aim to win ASAP were as Gamekeeper takes its time winning.
It's not like either card mentioned is unstoppable or utterly broken to the point a large part of the metagame is unplayable.
Im pointing out how you mention Flash is stoppable and not utterly broken to the point that a portion of the metagame is unplayable. Which is absurd. Flash rendered several archetypes unplayable such as Angel Stompy, Survival, Lands.dec; Look through the N&D and check out how many people drop the chime "cant beat flash".
I didnt see anything posted about your "History" of combo only in regards to ritual combo. The topic is Combo Summer not Ritual Combo.
I dont really care whether each deck is classified as Combo/Control or Control/Combo but nontheless each wins in a combo fashion not by swinging with Mishras Factories. Keeper does play Dark Ritual and is fully capable of winning turn 2. Doesnt that still make it a ritual based combo with a fundemental turn 2?
In conclusion, this thread needs more Gearhart.
Now playing real formats.
this is strictly wrong. I can drop 8 or 10 goblins turn 1 with TES about 25% of the time. Thats goldfishing about 40ish games. Some of those would have been stopped cold with a force on a ritual, but not all. Thats a turn 3 or 4 kill, or a turn 2 or 3 kill if I can wish into a war strike. None of those hands were capable of a turn 1 tendrils, and although they *might* have been a turn 2 or 3 kill, that one or two turns I give my opponent a chance to draw a stifle/duress/whatever might cost me the game.
Whereas if I dump out a load of 1/1s on the table, unless you run a very quick, usually narrow (except for keg/explosives) answer, you lose.
*edit*
I also play Mono-W stax, and I'm back to maindecking a pair of kegs and another two in the side just because of how bad a quick ETW is for my normally awesome combo matchup.
Hmmm, seems to me like this thread needs more me. Anyway, I don't really see the possibilities of comparing Legacy combo decks to 'Flash'-acy Flash decks. Flash was a format all on it's own. It was absolutely the best and only choice to take to a tournament that you wanted to win. CRET Belcher and TES aren't like that. They exist in a completely different format. Bane is right on some things though. Wastedlife made Flash sound fair. Now, not a crime or anything, but is a tad misleading. He's also right that Wastedlife's dismissal/omission of Solidarity and Gamekeeper was odd to the point that it required calling attention to it. Also, he was right that this thread needed more me. Anyway, Wastedlife brought up a couple of very good points. I thought the history was pretty accurate although I have to admit that 'Raining Tendrils' was humorous. I think it's important to note that Wastedlife seems to think in a manner that reflects the idea that combo will become a much larger portion of the metagame in the future. I think that Bane is trying to say that the format is being sped up not necessarily ONLY due to the combo decks. End result is that Bane and Wastedlife are saying things that are similar but go through different methods to achieve that end result. Wastedlife through Combo Summer and Bane through tight play and ridiculous card interactions. Sound about right?
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
Empty the Warrens gives combo nice flexibility....You can either kill with ETW or Tendrils, (or Brain Freeze) making combo decks increasingly difficult to hate out.....
But I don't know if the flexibility is enough to warrant banning....There's already a lot of decks in Legacy that are extremely flexible....can shift game plans etc.
What I see as banworthy is Lions Eye Diamond....All of the super-fast combo decks run it (IGG, TES, Belcher etc) and I think a conditional Lotus is too fast for this format....
Decks shouldn't consistently win before Turn 3 in my opinion.....
If those combo decks lost LED, they would still be viable, just not as consistently blazingly fast.....Decks shouldn't be incredibly fast AND resilient....Flash was the utter extreme of this, but the other crop of combo decks still cross the line, IMHO
Why ban LED? Its not the card that makes everything broken. Belcher lists barely abuse the card, they could care less if it was Dark Ritual. TES abuses LED fairly badly, but one deck that abuses a card doesn't mean that card shoild get the banhammer.
Decks would still be just as fast, I doubt Belcher would even care if LED got banned. It would Kill Tendrils combo, but belcher would be left unharmed.
I've always felt the better answer would be to unban cards that increase the overall power level of the format rather than take it down a notch. LED's drawback is substantial and in every case leaves the opponent open to countermagic. I personally would prefer having multiple strong archetypes rather than only one or two.
As it is, Combo/Agro-control/and Agro are fairly balanced. Unbanning Replenish was a great step in the right direction but I still have not seen a control deck to come around that puts up any consistent results. Maybe that’s the nature of this format.
Someone a couple of pages back mentioned that combo tends to gain the most from the printing of new sets, I can't agree more. How often does Wizards print good control cards? They are already leaning away from good blue cards; the chance of a good spell coming out is mediocre at best. Counterbalance and Gifts are the last two big additions. Counterbalance is much better in thresh than in a dedicated control deck, and so far no one has found a set of 4 cards to search with Gifts that wins the game efficiently.
Team Unicorn is too hetero for me.While this is close it's still wrong. Every one knows it's an orgy of unicorns.******s?
TeaM NOVA for life.
About the percentages... in my testing with TES, I managed to combo out on the first turn 21% of the time (10% kills, 11% goblin hordes).
That was under the assumption that 10 Goblins are enough on the play, 12 on the draw. That should be enough to overrun most creature decks even if they get a decent start.
Incidentally, I counted the goldfish attempt a failure if it didn't kill by turn 4. TES was, according to the standards i set beforehand, the least consistent deck I tested with a 12% fail rate which is somewhat misleading. If I had lowered my standards to 8 goblins turn 1, the success rate would have been near perfect and the percentage of turn 1 plays would have gone way up. That is not certain to work against a real opponent though.
In this sense Empty the Warrens is quite significant, as it allows you to do 'something' on a consistent basis.
Seeing as fast combo decks are quite reliable these days, Solidarity and Salvagers Game come across as bastards spawned by an unholy union between MUC/The Rock and a true combo decks.
Flash had comparable control tools, with speed not far behind the true combo decks. Resilency and consistency were also quite impressive.
Now about the concerns that combo decks are too good for the format... we have 3 impressively fast combo decks, and each of them does quite well against some things that are generally assumed to stop combo cold.
Discard is not sufficient against SI. If they get some mana sources down, they can undo all efforts by their opponent by topdecking a Contract and do something degenerate from there. The same applies to counters if those mana sources are permanent.
Early disruption is necessary because SI has a stupidly high chance to kill on turn 1 (~45% when playing conservatively. On the draw and trying to force the issue it's closer to 60%)... but unless the opposing deck has permanent-based hate such as Null Rod, Chalices or taxing effects, they need to keep disrupting while presenting a relevant clock or SI will simply overpower them in the long run.
TES on the other hand can win through ridiculous amounts of permanent-based hate (what they can't play around, they answer via their wishboard), can usually get a decent amount of goblins almost at will if an opening presents itself. Burying them under tons of counters or discard isn't guaranteed to work but usually slows them down quite a bit because their individual cards are geared towards flexibility and not raw power.
Belcher is a total wild card; even if they don't kill outright they are almost assured to have something major in play turn 2. Unfortunately, there is little that is effective against an active Belcher and ETW (Stifle often only delays the envitable).
While sometimes a Force on Belcher can make them sit in a corner and sulk for 8 round straight because they draw nothing but mana, the same aspect of the deck means they excel at putting down a large number of dorks into play turn one without any way for the opponent to prevent it, and Daze & friends might as well not exist.
The tools to fight combo are all there; having the right ones in the first place and drawing them in time becomes an issue though. This means even decks packing a significant amount of sideboard hate won't have a hugely favourable game against modern combo.
Moreover, since the 3 best fast combo decks have different vulnerabilities a mostly-combo metagame can exist since any dedicated anti-combo deck will probably fail to crush all 3.
Until aggro-control or control goes into contortions to defeat Belcher and/or TES with a card as non-interactive as Leyline of the Void and then fail to do so, I think the increase in the use of Stifle, Piracy Charm, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt, Chalice of the Void etc. is fine for the format. None of those cards are as one dimensional as Leyline of the Void and at the very least they should be able to contain the combo in the format to a healthy portion of the metagame.
Also, to clear a couple things up, resolving a Belcher isn't the same thing as being inevitable, Goblins can Tin Street Hooligan it or Waste/Port the Taiga and aggro-control can cantrip into a Pithing Needle for it or counters and Meddling Mage for the acceleration and then slip in a Tarmogoyf for the win. Counters and permanent based hate affect all combo decks equally, it's when people start aiming at the opponent's win conditions that they'll find any disparity in their card choices, and even then Warrens is still a safe bet since every combo deck plays with it. SI is an awful deck, I don't think any one takes it seriously when they are discussing combo. Draw 4's definitely aren't bad, but that particular deck packs it in to any form of disruption so hard.
Perhaps you're playing it wrong or are just plain bad at playing/metagaming combo. From some of the other threads, I'm not sure which this is. SI is great at being really fast while being able to slow down and wait for an opening. Moreso than any other deck, it punishes control for not applying immediate pressure. Give SI a few turns after you stop the initial onslaught and it can combo through 2-3 counters and a stifle or two on the same turn. This is especially true of the blue version that goes EOT Meditate and won't go off until it has 10-11 cards in its hand against control. Lately, both B.C. and I have been testing red splash versions that run 3-4 Empty the Warrens and 4 SSG main in order to turn the percentages for turn 1 even higher while being able to better countermagic.
As far as disruption that SI packs up to? The same as TES, Iggy Pop, and Belcher: 2-3 discard spells by turn 3 and a fast clock AND poor luck. Something that Belcher and TES have a particularly hard time doing is what Iggy Pop and SI do all the time, go down to 0 cards in hand, topdeck a tutor/draw4/igg and go off. I've won games through multiple extirpates, hymns, duress, and haunting echoes (in the same game) against decks that put up no pressure like MBC and Truffle Shuffle. Stifle? We run Cabal Therapies and men to flash them back? Countermagic? Slow it down and we run right through it on the back of drawing an extra 12-24 cards. I've won games through multiple pieces of countermagic AND active counterbalance/top. The only thing that SI generally packs up to is Trinisphere, and to a lesser extent Chalice @ 0 followed by a clock. Everything else is just a speedbump.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
To be honest, I have no idea what the current SI lists look like, it's just always been a combo deck that's never put up any numbers in my eyes, but feel free to prove me wrong.
Here, stop complaining...
A Combo deck is a deck that uses a series of card interactions to perform a set action and thus win the game.
That includes all combo decks, and it what combo actually does.
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