To be fair I can't imagine the fizzled game three belcher (only 10 damage after activation) was a better matchup. That's actually one of the luckiest things I've heard happen in a tournament, especially a high profile top 8.Originally Posted by Forbiddian
If you do the math, or even thought about it for a second: If you try going off with your Bayou still in the deck, over a third of the time, your ass is going to fizzle.
I don't really see how that's even surprisingly lucky or anything. It's just what happens 1/3rd of the time when your win condition is only successful 2/3rds of the time. I didn't see a decklist, for sure he at least had the one Bayou in his deck (making it only a 2/3rds chance to kill), but he might even be running a second land, making it around 50% to make a kill.
Belcher is way more likely to fizzle than, like Ad Nauseum with 8 life left. Or Ichorid dredging and missing a second dredger. Though both of those happen all the time, even to the point of banality. There's a reason why combo doesn't win every game it plays: There's a chance (actually a good chance) that it fizzles and the other guy wins regardless of what crap he drew. If you somehow ignore the 1/3rd chance and call it "one of the luckiest things [you've] heard" about, then your assumptions about all of combos matchups have to be horribly inflated.
I didn't hear anything about a bayou or taiga, just the 10 damage belcher fizzle, so if you heard it was a bayou then yeah it's a bad move on that guy's part.
That person was definitely running both Bayou and Taiga in his deck. It was also first turn when he went off, and I do not believe he ran Land Grant. Unless one of the lands were in his hand, he had both in his deck.
The man who won the entire tournament was on like a two-outter in the second-to-last round against Patrick Sullivan and he ripped the Replenish he needed to take down game three and the match.
Yeah, it was (for sure) at least a Bayou. The guy hadn't used Land Grant. So he probably even had both Bayou and Taiga floating around.
EDIT: And even if it were a Taiga, there's still a 1/6 chance that he whiffs. If 1/6 is the luckiest thing you've ever heard of, you surely don't watch a lot of poker.
But are we really discussing this matchup as being worse than 50%? 4 Force + the fizzle chance already puts us around 50%, and we also get Daze, Spell Pierce, and a strong anti-combo sideboard. If Belcher can really beat us at a good clip, I guess we can only pray for every deck that doesn't run Force of Will?
God damn I hate Belcher combo. I can't imagine going to a Legacy tournament, where you can play any deck you want, even Enchantress and other really fun decks, and then you choose to play Yahtzee.
He revealed a taiga, and 5 other cards for 10 damage.
I see my top 8 matches are already accessible, as well as my round 6 match, and my round 5 match should be accessible too since they took notes down. Round 1-4 I played ad nauseam/ETW, AL, goblins, AL(=aggro loam).
I'll be more detailed sometime later, but right now I'm pretty burnt out of magic.
The zoo player was caught off guard game 1, and did not burn wayfarer when he had a chance to (in the semifinals). So he ate 4 wastelands, and I boarded wayfarers out. But game 2, I ate a flood and he played well, same thing game 3.
The tournament was a lot of fun, and I thank those who helped me (Gave me rides, Matt for deck ideas, SCG for hosting it even though it was negative, or at least not extremely positive returns. (We had 141 people so they were losing money unless their vendors made a killing.))
It's worth noting that on top of the fact that not accepting a split was statistically warranted (I win 60% of the matches I play against zoo players who knows what is coming at them, probably much more if they don't know how the deck functions.) I actually didn't take the split for the sake of generating an interesting memory. I mean I wouldn't just do that if it was a horrendously bad move, but I might even have played it for the money even if the expected value of the move was slightly negative. Indeed it was extremely positive up until perhaps even the last draw step.
All the players I played towards the end were extremely skilled and I did not spot any errors in their play besides the standard ones due to not knowing what I play.
I thought you said he didn't have a Land Grant out because you slapped down a ToA ftw.
But he still revealed taiga. Seems unrelated. Especially since he failed to kill with belch first and then tried to land grant (but I told him he couldn't.)
Oh, ok, so he had both Taiga and Bayou still in the deck, though.
Gratz pi4meterftw! I'm glad to see this deck do well. Although now people are going to know what to do once wayfarer hits the board =/
Any insights when playing against the field?
If your opponent plays some strange-looking card that you don't quite see the purpose of, kill it on sight because he wouldn't be playing it if it wasn't important to him. This is known as the Manakin effect.
I don't understand the lack of the 4th Wasteland. Also, I think the deck is in desperate need of a manland so Wayfarer stays fresh.
Also, the 2 Knight of the White Orchid come across as so out of place. They also have synergy with Vial/Wasteland/Fathom Seer (as does Wayfarer), but it fights Wayfarer and Wayfarer seems the more important card.
Also, I have to say I'm not surprised that you ended up cutting most of the awkward, out of place cards that everyone criticized.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
The list has been carefully optimized. We can't claim to have done such a good job that suggestions could never impact us, of course, but we're quite sure about the wayfarer and knights questions you raised. Not every game do I enjoy the dominance of wasting my opponent to nothing, and it's a nice consolation prize to get the tempo boost of the knight. Also, if you read the articles concerning my matches online, you'll see I drew both wayfarer and knight against zoo, and both were put to good use.
In fact, if he had burned my wayfarer earlier, I would definitely have been glad to draw the knight.
I don't think asking questions about how our numbers get the best desired effect will be productive. Either test the list if you want an approximate sense (relies on measurements converging to the actual values so you better test A LOT) or do the computations (Not recommended unless you're mathematically capable.)
EDIT: I do actually wonder, how many games have you played with the deck? After about 100 (5 or so against each reasonably different variant of each deck type) you should have a good grasp of why we make the choices we do. By now we have definitely played thousands of games. I had the experience edge in the matches because my opponents didn't test the matchup, but I also noticed some of them and others made much the same suggestion to me after playing 0 games, which leads me to question if you've played even like 20 games? (1 game against every major deck type.)
I'm still pretty burnt out on magic, and in any case my homework sets have started to go up for my classes, so I will probably not be doing much more magic for the next bit. However, I may continue to post here and there, and here is the tournament report:
P=I'm on the play for the Match
Round 1 vs. Derrick Cabrerra: Ad Nauseam with red, ETW, burning wish. I guess people call this "TES" but I don't follow the deck naming definitions.
P
G1 I mull, he keeps, then I keep. I open wayfarer, he duresses takes FOW, I brainstorm, he duresses again and takes something I forget. I get jitte, he desperation-ETW's for 12 after jitte gets 2 counters, and I quickly reduce his army to nothing.
G2:Mull. He wasn't ready for thorn of amethyst.
Round 2 vs. Loam by Morgan
D
G1: Mox diamond, confidant meets FOW removing BS, mom+double avenger+vial=gg
Round 3 vs. Goblins by Daniel
P
G1 mom, jitte+active wayfarer take down his board position.
G2: BFT, mom, triple avenger=gg.
Round 4 vs. Loam by Ramoncito
Can't remember if I played or draw, but it was more or less similar to round 2, with the main difference being that this time I was slightly mana screwed G1, while he mulliganned to 6.
Round 5 vs. Belcher.
G1: I keep a good hand for anything but combo, but he's combo. Okay. Gg I thought, until his belcher whiffed. I did not actually calculate the probability, but in retrospect perhaps I should not have been in such despair. His board is reduced to belcher lotus petal, while I have daze. Of course he topdecks LED.
G2: Mull Mull keep with FOW and thorn of amethyst.
G3: can't remember how many times I mulled, but I had the lock elements.
The rest can be found online, I think.
It should be noted that you intentionally drew rounds seven and eight.
Finance prompted corner-cutting, but I've been happy with 3 Vial.
Tested and rejected. I also question your definition of "desperate."Also, I think the deck is in desperate need of a manland so Wayfarer stays fresh.
Last edited by Nihil Credo; 01-06-2010 at 04:22 AM. Reason: Bitching was made for PMs or the angry dome (© Futurama)
Epochrasite.
Chump blocks in the early game and then comes back as a 4/4. Comes into play from vial already a 4/4, recurrent threat against decks with no white. And even against deck with white they can only play so many StPs.
gratz on the result, just 1 small question, why is the decklist called 'UW Tempo' in the deck lists? Of SCG that is from th $5k tourney
Guy reading the decklists fucked up.
The writers for SCG classify the decks. The announcers were calling the deck "White Weenie Splash Blue" which is like calling Tempo Thresh "Mono Blue Control Splash Green and Red," so I guess UW Tempo is an improvement.
Last edited by Nihil Credo; 01-06-2010 at 04:26 AM. Reason: Bitching was made for PMs or the angry dome (© Futurama)
Thread moved to Established in light of the deck not folding out at a ~140-player event.
It is my hope that the quality of the discussion in this thread proceeds to match its new location.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote