It is nowhere near as good as those others IMO. Those others make any creature, even a birds of paradise very scarry. if they are active, you are winning.
Basilisk collar only makes creatures that are already scary even scarier. Basilisk collar on a 1/* is not winning you the game, its merely stalling. That is a BIG difference.
In collar's defense though it does costto play instead of
... but it still costs
to equip. Stoneforger makes the others cost
It's significantly less of a tempo investment than the other equipments (besides Jitte). They're more powerful, but also cost a lot more tempo if the creature gets blown away when you equip. Collar is pretty cheap for something that's going to stop a Goyf in its tracks immediately or help keep you out of burn range. I'll readily admit that I haven't tested it and I'm not saying it should go in the deck, but it's at least a solid pair of abilities on a cheap equipment, which isn't something that has shown up before. No need to be a dick at the mention of it.Originally Posted by Forbiddian
On a more serious note, you even pointed out how Basilisk Collar is worse than 20 other equipments. (You missed Empyrial Plate, which is better than Loxodon Warhammer and certainly better than BC) Anyway, so long as Jitte + one other equipment is superior, then this will never see play, cause nobody wants more than about 6 equipment.
No, it's not even close to Legacy-playable. It has to be at least better than SoFI before people consider it and SoLS doesn't even see any play.
Basilisk Collar is just awful, probably even worse than Loxodon Warhammer, which has seen exactly 0 plays anywhere. But yeah, obviously people are going to make fun of you for suggesting it was worth talking about. This whole conversation even started with Rex laughing at a guy for calling it "The new Jitte." Maybe that was a good hint that Basilisk Collar is horrible?
The "besides Jitte" was kinda intended to cover the entire post. You wanted to make a snide remark about equips #21-24, so I pointed out that it has some advantages over all of the other decent, non-Jitte equipments by not being as terribly slow. Since it's not better than Jitte, yes, it probably means that it just loses out to just playing more copies of Jitte. You win or something, whatever makes you happy.
Unban skullclamp please ;)
Plate seems like it has amazing synergy with fathom seer/wayfarer. 10/10 avenger would be the lols!
I think the deck should be called "U/W Jitte" because, lets just be honest, about 70% of the decks wins are on the shoulders of Jitte :).
Last edited by RexFTW; 02-03-2010 at 01:17 PM.
This is false. If jitte were that important, we'd definitely run 4.
Didn't you hear? we are running 5 now. Stoneforger mystics count as jittes in my book :)
In that case, we're running 4. The current list we're testing is -1 knight, -1 jitte, +2 stoneforger.
Jitte seems like a card that you want to see in every matchup. Combo is probably where it is worst, but it is still good. It kills xantid swarm or bob, and attack + double pump + swords your own guy can be an awesome play against combo. It also keeps your ethersworn out of tinderwall/pyroclasm territory!
It is legendary... but thats what Brainstorm is for!
I think you're underestimating the deck. Although your comment about brainstorm is a true trend, it really just justifies running like 3 jittes, maybe 4 now if 2 of them are the hedged bets that are stoneforge mystics.
I dunno, maybe learning to win without jitte, or to recognize that it can be done takes a long time, but I don't actually mentally even record things like: oh I didn't draw jitte. Because to me that's not a meaningful piece of data, since it doesn't really change any statistics in my gameplay.
I have, in the past, noticed when things like: wow no jitte, no swords, no mom, no FOW happened, though.
This deck always hits landfall... too bad none of the landfall cards are good enough :P.
Out of curiosity I tested this theory, using a 52 card deck with 2 lands still in it (taiga + bayou), as well as a 52 card deck with 1 Bayou left in it. It's not nearly 1/3, it's actually closer to 1/2 that the belcher player will win. Your assumption was that he played double Bayou (I don't think any belcher list does), and in that scenario there is a ~37% chance of him winning. With a single Bayou left in the deck, there is a ~53% chance of him winning. With both a Bayou and a Taiga there is a (if I'm doing my math correctly) ~45% chance of him winning. Nearly a coin flip. This takes into account hitting no lands in the top 10, then hitting a taiga in the next 10 = win, and hitting a Bayou in the second 10 = lose unless the Taiga comes before the Bayou. Not 1/3 chances of winning, much closer to 50%.
Feel free to correct my math, I was using Hypergeometric Distributions and took a couple day break in the middle of the problem.
Sorry, sort of off topic in terms of deck design, but the question of the math was bugging me for a while and I wanted to clear that up, and it wouldn't hurt to see a break from people advising you to run non-jitte equipment (hah).
Rest of your post for reference:
I'm confused as to why you think it's both 1/3 and 1/2 chance to kill though. You say both the wrong and the right answer.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.
EDIT: After reading your post a few times you might be right, but I'll leave this here for math reference anyway. I think you mean the belcher player loses 1/3 of the time, and that something happening 1/3 of the time is not that far from normal, in which case you would be right.
1/3rd chance to fizzel DOES = 2/3rds chance to kill. I think you just misread my post.
Although the Belcher player has a chance to go off again (which is almost guaranteed since Bayou or Taiga is on the bottom) and you're lower on life, you have a chance to stop him in between those two events.
But there's a big shortcut: just calculate the probability that Bayou is in the Top 20 or that Taiga is in the top 10 and that Taiga is not in front of Bayou but past the top 10. The problem took me about 5 minutes, you can see the solution in the Belcher thread. I think it's like ~40%ish to fizzle if you have both lands and like 35% if you have Bayou alone and 15% if you have Taiga alone. Something like that.
Heh. Does all of this mean the best play is to force land grant? It also keeps them from duressing you or playing Dark Rit. I guess it depends on what they reveal.
It depends. Against R/G belcher, they really dont want to be playing land grant against you because then they are essentially telling you what to counter. If you have force and they have land grant then you should win. Against GOOD combo players like Pact SI pilots, you really have to know how the deck plays. Don't lump all belcher decks into one category. Some of them are just play out your opening 7. I dont play that version cause its loses too hard to force, it can't recover from a fizz as easily, and it doesn't win as often on the first turn.RexFTW
Heh. Does all of this mean the best play is to force land grant? It also keeps them from duressing you or playing Dark Rit. I guess it depends on what they reveal.
^ This guy is genius on combo, so basically w/e he says.
Minus the following: Belcher refers exclusively to the R/G/(B) version now. SI pact has more or less turned into Ad Nauseum of some kind, but a lot of people still play a lot of RGB.
There are 136 search results for Legacy decks maindecking Belcher.
There are 9 that contain Belcher and Tendrils of Agony, three of those aren't SI Pact lists, and one was in the 2-man tournament. Meaning I guess 5 results?
The most recent SI Pact list to get listed on Deckcheck was in November of last year and it was the ONLY one in 2009. The next-most-recent result was over a year before that.
Obviously some people still play it (and Vacrix with it is still pretty scary even with 4 years of better cards printed for everyone else), but "Belcher" refers to Coinflip.dec. Unfortunately.
:D I wouldnt quite call myself a combo genius but I'm pretty dam good with Pact SI, and I can pick up most combo decks with ease. It really is a scary deck though if you know what you are doing. Expect to see me playing it at the Ohio GP in august.^ This guy is genius on combo, so basically w/e he says.
Actually the version you saw at Artifex was Land Grant SI, which is REALLY old school and that deck is definitely outdated tech. I've been playtesting Pact SI on MWS and in proxy since Breathweapon proposed it in april 2008 but I only recently bought the deck and its been amazing. Can't wait to take it to a tournament.Vacrix with it is still pretty scary even with 4 years of better cards printed for everyone else
Which is beautiful news to my ears. It means the deck is still relatively under the radar for most legacy players and that makes it even more dangerous.The most recent SI Pact list to get listed on Deckcheck was in November of last year and it was the ONLY one in 2009. The next-most-recent result was over a year before that.
How have the enlightened tutors been working out in the SB? And how well does it answer reanimator? The matchup looks difficult as they run relatively the same amount of countermagic (though builds vary) and they just need to resolve 1 reanimation target to win. Grunt looks strong in the matchup but without it I'd imagine you'd have trouble. I played a few games on MWS against Reanimator and it was definitely not an even matchup for me. Thoughts?
Enlightened Tutor has been a ridiculous bomb. It can't be stopped by discard if you have W, and then you get a GG bomb. It's strongest against combo decks, but also very good against Ichorid and Reanimator, especially since we now have Wheel of Sun and Moon as another tutor option (which is GG against Ichorid instead of just like a Crypt or something, which they can sometimes play through).
Reanimator is about an even split if they're very good and playing the correct deck. You have a sub-500 game 1 and then game 2 and game 3 you're very favored.
If they're retarded and make mistakes or run the non-self-discard variants, then your odds to win go way up. It's easier to handle the Entomb/Buried versions/Intuition versions than the Show and Tell versions.
It's because you run a *lot* of yard hate. But the 8 cards that you board in aren't even the main gameplan against Reanimator. The main gameplan is to stall them with countermagic and then win with board pressure or before they can assemble the combo (twice).
You might have noticed this, but the big problem with reanimator is that resolving the combo doesn't instantly win against most decks. The opponent has many turns to assemble any number of possible outs. Even if the counterwall doesn't stop him from reanimating Iona, Serra Avenger + Mother of Runes is still a win, and then Swords answers his Ensnaring Bridge guy if he's alone, so he usually needs to reanimate two guys to buy the win.
You should usually win the games where you get Vial+Mom, and then you can also win by Wheel of Sun and Moon --> GG, or by yard hate requiring them to come up with double copies of their combo through your countermagic, and sometimes if they have to use Reanimate, you can win with just a couple of weenies.
Actually I also play reanimator, and my build runs Stifle to deal with Crypt and other grave hate that activates. The only thing I really hate to see is Wheel but then again I also run SnT. I think competent reanimator players will often try to get Inkwell into play against you as it is likely unblockable if you have a tundra or an Island in play, in which you have to find a way to bounce your island(s) fast if MoM + avenger is gonna save you. Then again, most reanimator players I've encountered are not competent, which is why they play reanimator and not something better.
Also, I heard talk of switching out Court Hussar for Aven Mimeomancer. I see the updated list dropped it for something else already, but have you considered Mirror Entity. It makes your little guys so beefy. The only problems I could see with it are having enough mana to activate it and the deck often plays off very few land. Thoughts?
Yes, Inkwell is sometimes a good animate target. If you can only get one target, it's probably your best bet, but it doesn't support a second animate target, so you can't win the game off getting the "enemies can't attack" guy out.
You'll often lose the footrace with just a 7/11, especially if you had to use Reanimate to get it onto the board.
To be successful with Inkwell, you need to get it down on turn 1 or 2, but even committing a turn 1 Entomb to finding Inkwell can cost you the game if the reanimate effect is stalled for a turn or 2 with countermagic or sloppy draws, and then you're getting a 7/11 ground-bound on like turn 4 instead of a 7/7 flying that locks us off a color.
We've tested the matchup quite a lot. I don't think against decks running Stifle as countermeasures. Does that even work for you, though?
You: Exhume.
Them: Crypt you.
You: Stifle.
Them: Daze your Exhume.
Against Reanimator, I've always seen them tread the fine line between losing the game to Daze and losing the game to playing too slowly. If you have to wait for an extra mana to play around Crypt, it pretty much did its job.
Although given I haven't tested vs. Stifle builds, so I'm not sure. I am sure that against the regular builds that run around, you should be winning with UW Tempo, and then splitting or slightly losing to Show and Tell builds.
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