It is: usually it's stronger to play Moxen and Lotus yourself and play Null Rods.Originally Posted by Cthuloo
As a Zoo player, you shouldn't have to run Gaddock Teeg maindeck. After sideboarding, ANT has no problems getting rid of Gaddock Teeg using Chain of Vapor, Deathmark or Slaughter Pact. If it has to, it can Tutor/Brainstorm for these cards.
No, not unbeatable, but since people realise its potential it's gaining popularity and we'll all have to run maindeck Combo hate. I personally don't think that's healthy for a format. And while Aggro Loam does have maindeck chalice, you don't always know you play against Combo game 1, and if you do, mulling to that Chalice and a Mox can be devastating to your hand. Not a good match-up for Aggro Loam; maindeck Chalice doesn't solve everything.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably delicious.
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Snored thru' most of the article, wake me up when Combo Winter in Legacy actually happens - the only thing in print that was relevant in the last x years was Ad Nauseam and Simian Spirit Guide before that, stop the chicken little BS.
Well, it may take some time to build mana to go off and tutor what you need to get rid of teeg. Zoo is a very fast deck and may need to keep you busy searching for no more than 2-3 turns. Of course if the ANT player already has a perfect hand and only needs to search for a removal, there nothing the Zoo player can do. But this can't happen always
Well, this is an interesting point. I don't really know what to answer; after all, one of the reasons behind the decline of countertop is that people are running maindeck answers to counterbalance. On the other hand I have to admit that it would be pretty boring if every decklist should start with 4x combo hate.
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For the article itself...I'm not so much a fan of things that try to run off a sensationalist tone. Sounds more like someone trying to make a big fuss over combo when there really isn't one. Maybe next time.
+ 100500. MD Teegs in Zoo smell baaad.
And think of this: we have 2 types of unfair DTB: GY-based (Dredge, Reanimator) and Storm-based.
But what if we will also have Snot and Pimple - the other 2 good unfair noninteractive decks that need special hate? Let's pretend each of theese 4 decks are good enough to take 10% of metagame each (ANT already took much more in some areas).
Now your most fair tier deck (Zoo) needs to pack 4 GY-hate, 4 Storm hosers, 4 anti-Snot and 4 anti-Pimple to have a chance to win tournament (and some md cards that can clash with 4 unfair strategies 'cause 4 SB cards are not enough - yeah, like that fucking Teegs in Zoo). But oops, the sideboard is limited with only 15 cards and it needs something else for the rest 60% of the field.
Legacy is not broken because of existing combo decks, but with all that massive cardpool each new set adds and adds the probability of new powerfull unfair deck (most likely comboish). And the format with 4-5 such decks will be unfun to say at least.
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Which DTB uses Elspeth (regularly)? Or am I missing the irony here?
There's no irony. There are various non-DTB decks wich use Elspeth as a win con. They use it because it's more reliable than alot of other win conditions. The fact that she doesn't fit in every deck doesn't make her a less good win condition. Ofcourse, Tarmogoyf, Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape, Steppe Lynx get the job done alot faster, but aren't as reliable and take up more slots. It's all a matter of perspective.
On a side note, there are alot of Bant decks that use Elspeth (with or without CounterTop). Why? Because after Tendrils, she's the best win condition. Here in The Netherlands there are even a couple of Zoo players who use her. Personally I think that's a bit too slow and mana intensive, but it clearly demonstrates the power of Elspeth.
But we're drifting...
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably delicious.
Team ADHD-To resist is to piss in the wind. Anyone who does will end up smelling.
I definitely agree. In fact I made a very similar point in the thread about menedian's article. I think that the meta is ok right now, and there's room to pack enough hate to beat combo. I'm not sure if this will still be the case if wizards unban some of the broken combo cards or prints new combo enablers.
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Well, according to the first week of Legacy Daily Events on MTGO, combo isn't remotely a problem, with Goblins and Zoo being the top finishing decks while no Combo deck got to at least three $ finishes over seven events. But while it may not be a problem, the fact that non-blue decks largely can't interact with combo doesn't make for fun games. (non-blue decks beat combo with prison effects/prevent spell x effects, which is non-interactive).
We have monthly tournaments with at least 70+ people every month within driving distance, as well as a bunch of smaller weekly/bi-weekly/monthly events scattered around. What's your point?
@ BreathWeapon
Perhaps I define combo more broadly than you, but I consider these to be some other relevant additions to the combo-side of Legacy in the past X years:the only thing in print that was relevant in the last x years was Ad Nauseam and Simian Spirit Guide before that, stop the chicken little BS.
- Unbanning of Entomb
- Unbanning of Dream Halls
- Iona (Dread return or Reanimate/Exhume)
- Errata of Carpet of Flower
- Painter's Servant
- Progenitus
- New Fetchlands
- Silence
- Ponder (slightly older)
- Angel's Grace
That isn't to say these are on par with Ad Nauseam's effect on a particular combo deck, but they are still quite relevant.
I'm also not saying we are in a combo winter; I do, however, think it would be wise to consider carefully how even the expectation of combo as just a portion of a competitive tournament will end up warping the metagame. Most forms of pure aggro and dedicated control have become obsolete, in part, because they have such stunningly awful matchups against the many types of combo in Legacy. Combo, even in small numbers, warps a metagame by a much wider margin than any other strategy.
Now, I'm hardly afraid of change (I generally welcome it in a competitive setting actually), and the thought that one archetype might heavily influence the metagame or an unbanning might upset the balance to which I've grown accustomed is not a problem for me. I am, however, quite concerned about the balance of a format when several large strategies have become extinct. The concern that combo is perhaps too influential, in the way it obsoletes not just a few decks, but entire swathes of the strategy-wheel, appears valid.
I think we should admit that general strategy selection isn't as "wide-open" as many Legacy commentators might lead their audiences to believe. I'm concerned that pure aggro and control strategies are dying (not just a few decks, but almost all of them), and to be fair, I'd be concerned if aggro-control and pure combo strategies were dying instead.
peace,
4eak
This.
Plenty of methods to deal with ANT have been outlined.
The point is, that once your meta evolves, the power of ANT should become more clear to you.
On a sidenote, I've looked up all tournaments in Pennsylvania in March, there are 5 of which the lowest number of attendants is 9 and the highest is 32. Am I searching the wrong area? I'm just comparing this to this.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably delicious.
Team ADHD-To resist is to piss in the wind. Anyone who does will end up smelling.
Maybe I missed something here, but wasn't this the guy that proclaimed that Dredge was too good for the format?
While I do believe that combo has gotten better lately, it's not the be-all/end-all of the format. Combo can not win every game on turn 1, so interaction is definatly possible in a match. If that wasn't true we would not be talking about ANT being amazing-broken-sex machine, it would be Belcher.
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Why is Gaddock Teeg maindecked a bad thing? Zoo is hurt by X spells (EE for 1, Chalice for 1, etc.) and 4 mana spells (sweepers like Wrath, Armageddon, Smokestack, Natural Order, Force)
It interferes against a lot of the format, there's no reason Zoo shouldn't have it maindeck.
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I'm more worried about Reanimator than about ANT, because ANT is much, much easier to hate, and sometimes loses to itself. Having to pack maindeck answers against combo it's not much different that having to pack maindeck answers against aggro or against control. The problem is that combo is good, the non-blue cards against combo are so bad, the blue cards are so good, and they unfortunately create more resilient combo decks.
I would be happier with better non-blue cards, worse blue cards, and worse combo decks. Better blue cards and non-blue cards alone unbalance the format towards blue, and worse blue cards without worse combo decks unbalances the format towards combo. By the way, the red trap that does damage equal to the number of cards in hand is incredible against ANT.
Somebody asked about the matchup aggroloam has against ANT. I played with loam for a year and a half, before I switched recently. Basically, it's almost unwinnable. I used to play chalice maindeck, but that rarely helped. If you don't see AND chalice AND mox, together with at least two lands, in your starting hand, it's nigh impôssible to win. Because chalice did little for me against other decks, I put it in the side after a while, and considered ANT an autoloss (I thought it'd be better to focus on the decks I could reliably beat). A few months ago, in one of the big tournaments in Mol, I knew there'd be quite a few ANT decks, so I made my list hyper-aggro to defeat other decks faster than usual (I had more creatures and more spot removal than other aggroloam decks, but no sweepers; which made the mirrormatch quite fun and easy), and put four chalice and four ethersworn canonist in the sideboard. I was paired against ANT for sure, and that time I won, but only because I got very good opening hands.
Point being: you can beat ANT, but you have to warp your deck to the point that it can hardly be called aggroloam anymore. It was basically a GRwb deck with big beaters which could do some fun tricks with loam, if I happened to draw it.
But that does not invalidate the "Attacking is Miserable" statement. You don't need to do any combat math.
Creatures could also read:
Tap: deals x damage
Interaction comes down to mulligan into hate on the one side vs mulligan/tutor into anti-hate on the other side.
Three weeks ago he said:
If you are not playing Dredge in Legacy, you are doing it unbelievably wrong.
If combo is as strong as some claim why didn't it make up more than 25% of the GP Madrid day 2 metagame?
Something all of you who are deriding the title of the article are forgetting:
Journalism is by definition sensational. If he didn't make bold claims, you'd be saying "We've heard all this before. Yawn."
I, for one, feel like a lot of what Max said NEEDED to be said, by someone. He's 100% correct - if you're trying to play fair in Legacy, you are doing it wrong.
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