Has Curfew been considered in the maindeck? Likely it would only be a consideration in a Reanimator heavy metagame, but it provides some nuts interactions with CIP effects. Primarily its used to bounce Shroud Fatties, but it has some uses on your side as well.
Notable Interactions w/ CIP effects include:
Court Hussar (old build)
Knight of the White Orchid (old build)
Fathom Seer *
Stone Forge Mystic **
It can also bounce your Grunt after you pay the Upkeep, which pretty good when you really need want it again vs. Dredge. On top of that, we know well that it slows down your opponent and saves your creatures from removal. The problem I see is that there aren't really any slots available. :/ How do the interactions I'm talking about work out when playing the Reanimator matchup? And in which other matchups do you board in Curfew.
Aside, I like how you guys keep updating the Primer to include new data; however, I think you ought to include the different lists that the authorities are playing. I know Matt still plays the old build, but Jeff plays the new build. Also, you ought to include card tags for people who are unfamiliar with obscure cards like KotWO.
Luck is a residue of design.
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Expect me or die. I play SI.
Why would you want to bounce any of those?
3, bounce two islands, U, 3, bounce two more Islands: Draw two more cards, yeah!
Stoneforge Mystic: We only run Jitte.
Resetting counters on Sphinx is bad and on Grunt it's not that great and I can't think of any other applications.
It doesn't work as a combat trick and against Zoo it costs more tempo staying open for it, even if you manage to "counter" the Lightning Bolt. It's a case of "whatever you boarded out, you'd rather have."
Curfew is strictly to counter Emrakul/Reanimator.
What is the current list for this deck (as used by Forbiddan and pi4meterftw)? I noticed that somebody asked about Knight of the White Orchid (KoWO) in the maindeck, but pi4meterftw responded that it's not in the list anymore. I looked at the very first post of this thread which has the original list with KoWO in it. It would be tedious to go through every post to see if there is an updated list.
I presume this has been discussed somewhere in this long thread, but does Man-O' War work in this deck?
Thanks for your help.
Page 45Originally Posted by Eriol
Was this even a real Skeggi's hero?Lol. You're my hero.
I just played this list today in a very small event so I figured I would just post my results here instead of in a new thread. I ran the UW tempo list almost exactly as on page 1. I had the Vexing Sphinx in the main deck and in the board only had 1 BFT since a friend took mine a while ago and that is the only one I could find. (Ichorid made an appearance but I somehow avoided that match. May the gods smile upon me.) The event was 4 rounds and cut to a top four. Like I said not big at all but still fun.
Round 1(BW Clerics) This list wasn't very competitive and it had some kinks that needed to be worked out. He is one of the people who strictly plays casual legacy.
Game1. Jitte and Serra Avenger win this singlehandedly. He did manage to get a dark supplicant thing going, but mom kept my blockers strong.
SB- Nothing Relevant
Game2. I noticed he was light on lands and kept a hand of fetch, 3x wasteland, daze, mom and Serra Avenger. He missed his one drop becuase of a mull to 5, and I waste every colored source he gets down. Serra Avenger takes the cake here.
Round 2(Eva Greene) Optimal list. I am not that familiar with this decklist but he is new to the format and he said it was a straight netdeck.
Game1. Keep a hand of island, Vial, FOW, Mom, Brainstorm, Jitte, and STP(i think) On the play i cast vial. he duresses and takes my jitte. Next turn I get mom down eot with vial and he tries to snuff out. I fow. and Mom really just wrecks his day when the tarmogoyf drops looking for a kill. Eventually I get triple Mom and a serra Avenger that just punches through damage slowly.
SB- took out daze and spell pierce I think.
Game2. Kept a 1 land hand that had a wayfarer in it. he opens with bayou and thoughtseize. takes something irrelevant. I use wayfarer next turn after he drops another bayou and goyf. Grab two wastelands. (one during his turn and one during mine.) He doesn't draw any lands for a good number of turns and literally as we stood there at a stalemate. As we are playing a friend behind me is kinda mocking me because before the day started he looked at my list and kept insisting that fathom seer is an awful card to run. and at that time I drew a fathom seer, and the game went from stalemate to I win. I am pretty sure my draws in that were double Mom. I got extremely lucky draws and by the time he got back up to three mana I had a wasteland ready and he used gatekeeper of malakir and I was taken off guard but had a daze ready. Mom won that match as well.
Round 3 (Reanimator) This is the friend that was mocking fathom seer. Upon sitting down for the match he asked how my last match went and I just had to over exaggerate and say that fathom seer singlehandedly won me the board stalemate.
Top 4
In the top 4 is Mono Blue Merfolk. Reanimator. Pro-Bant. and UW Tempo.
Round 4(Pro-Bant) I have not played this matchup and his list seemed to be abnnormal compared to other people's lists I have seen online.
Game 1. He gets a nuts hand and I keep a one land hand with double daze, island, vial,double spell pierce, and double serra avenger. I was on the play(the dice liked me this tourney.) and lead with vial go. he goes turn 1 noble hierarch. I daze, He dazes. T2 play my land and draw nothing relevant. He plays another noble hierarch and ponders. I let both resolve. T3 I attack with Avenger(oh yeah I eot vial in avenger.) and pass turn. His turn he untaps drops a land and plays natural order like a badass. I am still on one land and I have a daze and a spell pierce in hand. I pierce his Natural Order. He dazes it. I daze back and he Fow's my daze. Like I said he drew way better.
SB- I don't remember exactly how I sideboarded. All I remember is that I sided out stoneforge mystics and jitte's(I felt they were too slow for this matchup.I was indeed wrong.) I boarded in 3 Aura of Silence, and 1 E.Tutor. This was most likely a horrible sideboard mistake. And as the end game shows it def was.
Game2. I lead with vial go. He leads with yet again noble hierarch. I do not have the daze though. My next turn I draw go No land drop. He plays double hierarch...and pass turn. By this time my hand is something like serra avenger serra avenger serra avenger force of will daze. He plays a swords on my 1st avenger. (i think he was trying to pull my fow out.) swords the 2nd Avenger next turn... and then somewhere about turn 7 he plays Natural Order and I daze. He Forces the daze. I Force the Daze. He dazes.. I pay the one mana as I have no more counters in hand. And then he dazes again..... I do not think he could have any better draws... I kept some sketchy hands against him, but overall I think I need to re-evaluate some of the matchups. And the real kicker was when we showed our sideboard plans I noticed a certain lack of Counterbalance. He sided them out because he saw my vials. he effectively made 5 of my maindeck cards useless. Overall not pleased with my fail against bant but pleased with my avoiding the boogeyman.
You had 2 pierces in hand G1 top 4. Why didn't you pierce ponder? It was clear the idea was to maximize your mana efficiency, since you were mana screwed. You were hoping to avoid precisely that situation where you have all the counters in the world, but you can't cast them all, and he uses cards like ponder to find just enough counters to only deal with the counters you can cast in one turn.
I mean, it's hard to see stuff like this coming, but you should've even knee-jerked pierce on ponder because you were so mana screwed. (He was playing this from 2 mana since he returned land to daze turn 1.)
Also, why would you be pleased to avoid ichorid? Even game 1, we win like half the games. (Matt and I actually win more, but lets just say even 50%.) 50% is much worse than the average UWT matchup, but after sideboard, even without BFT the matchup jumps way up.
An interesting mathematical fact is that if G1 is 50%, and G2 win% is X, then X is also the match win %.
G2 win % is about 80%, so the match win % is 80%, which is like 10% better than the average matchup.
Normally it is a very good matchup against Ichorid. But the person playing the deck is a giant lucksack and we tested all last night with me winning all but one game. It was like 10-1. Then we get there today and my deck just does not get there before the tournament started. We played like 6 games pre sideboard. It was just obnoxious because I had to mulligan aggressively to get an okay hand.
And you are right I should have pierced the ponder, but I was kind of thinking that I would draw into another land before turn 4 and that Natural Order really scared me. He seems to win with Natural Order every game.
I am pleased with my performance. I made some dumb misplays and some of them cost me that last match(i.e keeping two one land hands) But I feel that I can only learn from those mistakes and after playing this deck for a total of maybe 5 days I feel that I did fairly well.
You may want to try 1 humility, it is very strong vs show/tell decks and quite good against reanimator. Its the only card i have found that can stop terastadon, iona and inkwell :).
Okay.
How does one win a match? The following configurations are precisely the ones that work: (Check it!)
LWW
WLW
WW
And since they are disjoint, to find the probability of any of them occuring, we sum their individual probabilities. Suppose x is the G2-3 Win rate and 0.5 is the G1 win rate.
For independent events, such as the games in a match, to find the probability of the whole occurence we can multiply the probabilities of individual events.
Then the first has probability 0.5x^2. The second has 0.5x(1-x), while the 3rd has 0.5x.
Summing these, one obtains:
0.5xx+0.5x(1-x)+0.5x(1)=0.5x(1)+0.5x(1)=0.5x(2)=x, as desired.
Whoops...
Went 3-1 today, won against Zoo (2-0), NO Bant Aggro (2-0), Bant C/BTop (2-0), lost to Aggro Loam (0-2).
Also, placed 2nd in magic-league trial, going 4-1. I wouldn't bother with the details, since that doesn't qualify for the real tournament, but I've stomped over yet another Merfolk 2-0.
Hey,
I recently had some success in small tourneys with the 3x Aether Vial, 1x KotWO version of the deck. I found the new list with 2x vial and 2x vexing sphinx. Can anyone explain me in detail (or give me the post #) why 2x vial + 2x sphinx is better than 1x sphinx + 3x vial.
I mean the probability with 2x vial is pretty low to draw it in the early game and I dont want it in the late game. 3 seemed just like the right number to draw one early, but I have serious problemls to make use of just 2 vials.
2 vials is more than 2/3 the probability of 3 vials to get into your opening. I don't see how you could go run running flawlessly to "having serious problems."
Sure, but I try to see it from a different point of view.
When is the time I need Aether Vial? -> I want it in the first few turns
When ist the time I dont need Aether Vial? -> I dont want it through mid to late game
If I use 3 copies I will probably see an Aether Vial in the first 5 turns, if I use 2 copies I will probably see one copy during the entire game.
So I wont get the vial often enough in the first few turns, but in the late game. But to get into the late game I need to get control of the game early (maybe with the help of vial).
Maybe you can explain me with the help of concrete numbers/calculations WHY 2xvials + 2x sphinx is more successful than 3x vial + 1x sphinx/kotwo
Edit: Okay after testing a few games I see that I was overvalueing AV a little bit and it is just not that important, but pretty good against certain games in midgame (where I will have on for sure).
Last edited by hiyouthere; 05-14-2010 at 08:04 PM.
Please pick a couple of random pages of the thread to read and you will probabilistically quite certainly see a counterargument to this whole: 2 of=midgame, 3 of =early game.
I think the misconception that's going on here is this, and I'll say this since I haven't said it before. When you add a card, what you increase (approx uniformly) is the chance to draw the card at all all the way through the game. The way stats works, it's not like some greater force is "keeping" track of the # in your deck, and then adds in your ability to draw it at the midgame first, until that fills up and spills over to the early game.
I know that probability does not have memory. With two copies I have a chance of X of drawing at LEAST ONE of them, with three copies I have a chance Y of drawing LEAST ONE of them
=> to maximize the use of Aether Vial I want to draw it a certain amount of time in the median.
I need to know WHY the use of 2 vials is better than 3 vials. Why is it better to have one vial in x% amount of times than in y%?
Because it comes with a drawback. If you want vial Y% of the time in the early game, then you also have to accept drawing it much more in the lategame. It just turns out that it's better (although pretty close apparently since some of our builds ran 3 vials) to run 2 vials most of the time. That is, it is the optimization of the competing factors of wanting 1 early, but wanting 0 late.
I.e. the avg game lasts ~15 turns in median. (actually I dont know how long the avg game lasts thats just a random number so lets say it lasts the amount of A turns)
a) I have 2 vials in my deck
So what is the probability of drawing at least 1 vial within the first A - X turns (and not a second one)
-> the probability of drawing it exactly ONE time
Starting hand: 21%
after drawing once: 24%
after drawing 2x: 26%
after drawing 3x: 28%
after drawing 4x: 30%
5x : 33%
6x : 35%
7x : 36%
8x : 38%
9x : 40%
10x: 41%
11x: 43%
12x: 44%
13x: 45%
14x: 46%
15x: 47%
b) I have 3 vials in my deck
So what is the probability of drawing at least 1 vial within the first A - X turns (and not a second or third one)
Starting hand: 28%
after drawing once: 31%
after drawing 2x: 34%
after drawing 3x: 36%
after drawing 4x: 38%
5x : 40%
6x : 41%
7x : 42%
8x : 43%
9x : 44%
10x: 45%
11x: 45%
12x: 46%
13x: 46%
14x: 45%
15x: 45%
For calculating purposes lets leave out brainstorm, shuffling effects, fetching -> library thining etc.
So as you can see it is obviously very important to know how long the average round lasts, because the probability of drawing at least one jitte approximates around turn 11.
The probability of drawing a second jitte (while using 3 in the deck) increases after turn 14.
If you use two jitte the probability of drawing a second one increases after turn 23. (while using 2 in the deck)
The important difference is that there is a mayor difference in the probabilities in the early turns of getting a jitte:
21/28 = 0.75
24/31 = 0.77
26/34 = 0.76
28/36 = 0.78
30/38 = 0.79
... and decreasing until the relation becomes >=1
So the decision if we play 2 or 3 vials depends on WHEN we want to have the via in the median. The more we play the more likely it is that we get one early. (and obviously the second one earlier)
And thats what I need to know: Do I want to have ONE jitte early (around turn 1 - 7) or do I need the jitte later (around turn 8+)
Nobody made the obvious point that seal of removal is strictly better than aether spellbomb in the sideboard. Oh well, this has been accounted for.
Curious as to why Seal is strictly better? Seal costs 1 less and is FoW pitchable, but that is it. They both can be tutored via E Tutor. Spellbomb can be cast off of either colo(granted activator is blue), cantrips if targeted for removal when deployed preemptively or becomes obsolete and is a color Iona can not name. May also randomly bounce pro blue dudes like Piley.
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