[Free Article] Dazed and Confused

[Nidd]

I didn't mean you specifically, or the deck you play. I mean any deck, it's not just merfolk that loses under those conditions. I would wager that almost all decks lose under those conditions.

Yeah, I know, people lose when their deck decides to not to work.
The point I wanted to make was, that even I, a mediocre Storm pilot, has a quite good score against Merfolk, which means that either Merfolk isn't so hot against ANT, or that I'm an incredible lucksack.
I can tell you the latter isn't true, so...

[edgewalker]

Yeah, I know, people lose when their deck decides to not to work.
The point I wanted to make was, that even I, a mediocre Storm pilot, has a quite good score against Merfolk, which means that either Merfolk isn't so hot against ANT, or that I'm an incredible lucksack.
I can tell you the latter isn't true, so...

Ok, so Merfolk loses to Zoo and Combo (depending on who you are, etc etc.) But beats everything else, or eats least beasts enough to make top8/top16. I don't see the problem. No deck beats everything, in fact what I just described was the definition of a metagame deck. You destroy one of the decks, in this case most blue based decks, decks with shitty mana bases, and generally shitty decks. You do well against another third of the decks, for Merfolk it's combo. However, you get shit on by the last third, in this case zoo. It just so happens that the majority of the decks in the upper tables fall into the catagories merfolk does medicore to well against.

I mean seriously stop hating on merfolk because two people think it's whack. They can give their opion all they want, but results are results. I mean a lot of these "good players" are in the top16 that Merfolk was in or the top 16 were merfolk did better than them.

[Nidd]

Ok, so Merfolk loses to Zoo and Combo (depending on who you are, etc etc.) But beats everything else, or eats least beasts enough to make top8/top16. I don't see the problem. No deck beats everything, in fact what I just described was the definition of a metagame deck. You destroy one of the decks, in this case most blue based decks, decks with shitty mana bases, and generally shitty decks. You do well against another third of the decks, for Merfolk it's combo. However, you get shit on by the last third, in this case zoo. It just so happens that the majority of the decks in the upper tables fall into the catagories merfolk does medicore to well against.

I mean seriously stop hating on merfolk because two people think it's whack. They can give their opion all they want, but results are results. I mean a lot of these "good players" are in the top16 that Merfolk was in or the top 16 were merfolk did better than them.

Hey hey hey, I'm not hating on Merfolk. In fact, I think it is a good deck, but from my experience, it doesn't really prey on Combo as much as people think it does.
I play Bant Survival on occassion and I have to say that Merfolk gives me headaches - because I play Islands, Fetches and Duals. The matchup is far from unwinnable, but Merfolk keeps me on my toes all the time - because I fall into the category of prey for them.

You're right, it indeed is a metagame deck, and it's good at what it does: It abuses the fact that many decks play Blue and it abuses the fact that many decks use Fetches and Duals as means to fix their manabase - Merfolk has great weapons against these 3 things.

Merfolk is a good deck and that's backed up by results.

[edgewalker]

Hey hey hey, I'm not hating on Merfolk. In fact, I think it is a good deck, but from my experience, it doesn't really prey on Combo as much as people think it does.
I play Bant Survival on occassion and I have to say that Merfolk gives me headaches - because I play Islands, Fetches and Duals. The matchup is far from unwinnable, but Merfolk keeps me on my toes all the time - because I fall into the category of prey for them.

You're right, it indeed is a metagame deck, and it's good at what it does: It abuses the fact that many decks play Blue and it abuses the fact that many decks use Fetches and Duals as means to fix their manabase - Merfolk has great weapons against these 3 things.

Merfolk is a good deck and that's backed up by results.

I guess that wasn't directed at you then, but more of the masses. I don't even know why I'm even adding to this discussion I sold off a lot of the deck (Minus fow's and wastelands) way back when to build RDW. Yet another deck no one gives credit to. But yet another deck that shits on people's chests.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Ok, so Merfolk loses to Zoo and Combo (depending on who you are, etc etc.) eats least beasts

Awesome set of typos!

[edgewalker]

Awesome set of typos!

Leave me and my Gin and Tonics alone! I don't go to your work and knock the broom out of your hand.

[Rico Suave]

@ Rico

Why did you post this in the first place? To make us laugh? It worked.

I posted this because I think there is a really valuable lesson to take from it. It's a shame that most of the target audience for this article are going to be put off by the tone. It's not a surprise that people don't like being called bad.

The basic concept is to play a stable mana base. For this point, the author in the article is spot on. There is no substitute for playing a healthy mana base and it pays incredible dividends. I could go on about specifics, but it seems this thread has resorted to one giant flame-fest and nobody cares about the actual point anymore, which is unfortunate.

[Vacrix]

Okay. I'll put down 4c Landstill and start playing Combo Elves then...

Sure running basics is a good thing. That doesn't mean you should NECESSARILY run a stable mana base. Some decks forego a stable mana base in favor of something else. Just like some combo lacks some of its protection for a little speed boost while some combo gives up its speed for consistency. I don't think that there is necessarily a right answer in this respect. Stax doesn't have the most stable mana base in the world, but it has its own niche in the metagame. Besides, people aren't going to leave their Duals in the closet just because someone shit on them with Wasteland or Back to Basics. Having decks that prey on unstable mana bases makes the format more interesting and less like the rock paper scissors environment we so detest in Standard.

[Amon Amarth]

A good way to alienate your audience is to act condescending and arrogant. The guy has a good point about building stable manabases but who the fuck cares if you act like a prick. You catch more flies with honey...

Also somewhat related is people making ridiculous claims in articles, for example, that Merfolk is a bad deck. I mean, really? I just don't get it. Can we really disregard all the T8's its accumulated? At least back it up with data from testing or something. It seems like people have blinders on and are trying to simplify Legacy for whatever reason. Some players tend to disregard the impressive card pool, unlimited number of answers for any problem that exists, the cyclical nature of the format, meta gaming, and so on. Legacy isn't simple. And comparing it to Standard is simply a fool's errand.

Needless to say I wasn't very impressed with the article.

[Rico Suave]

Okay. I'll put down 4c Landstill and start playing Combo Elves then...

Sure running basics is a good thing. That doesn't mean you should NECESSARILY run a stable mana base. Some decks forego a stable mana base in favor of something else. Just like some combo lacks some of its protection for a little speed boost while some combo gives up its speed for consistency. I don't think that there is necessarily a right answer in this respect. Stax doesn't have the most stable mana base in the world, but it has its own niche in the metagame. Besides, people aren't going to leave their Duals in the closet just because someone shit on them with Wasteland or Back to Basics. Having decks that prey on unstable mana bases makes the format more interesting and less like the rock paper scissors environment we so detest in Standard.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking is not competitive.

[SpikeyMikey]

I see people saying that he has a point about unstable mana bases. He doesn't. As Mmogg pointed out, it's a case of optimization. Tempo is so important early and card quality so important throughout the game. Running more lands decreases your overall card quality and basics slow your tempo against everything that isn't Goblins, Fish or New Horizons. Improving 2 M/U's slightly at the expense of your game against a vast majority of the field is bad, and I don't care how much money you make playing this game, if you're advocating that in this format then you're bad at Legacy. Because this format has so many tools for fixing mana (top 3 effects, fetches, duals and a host of multicolor lands people don't even play with (because they're unecessary) and because the power level of the format is so high, you can't afford unecessary land draws. Two turns of unanswered double Nacatl or KotR will put you so far out of the game you'll never recover. I have to go to bed, the gf is looking at me funny. More later.

[Vacrix]

Unfortunately, this line of thinking is not competitive.

Right......

You aren't taking metagaming into account. You can't beat the field. All you can do is metagame and prepare for your bad matchups, and test... and test some more. Sometimes Belcher is the right thing to bring to a tournament. Same goes with Stax, or 4c Landstill, none of which have particularly stable mana bases. I know that you are of the opinion that decks like NLS and TES suck balls because they don't have a stable mana base like your pet deck ANT (which is not even true in the case of NLS). Clearly, nobody is being competitive unless he is playing ANT.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

I posted this because I think there is a really valuable lesson to take from it. It's a shame that most of the target audience for this article are going to be put off by the tone. It's not a surprise that people don't like being called bad.

The basic concept is to play a stable mana base. For this point, the author in the article is spot on. There is no substitute for playing a healthy mana base and it pays incredible dividends. I could go on about specifics, but it seems this thread has resorted to one giant flame-fest and nobody cares about the actual point anymore, which is unfortunate.

There's something to be said for stable mana bases. But, 25+ lands is not competitive in this format unless you're running a Loam engine and "MOAR BASICS LOLOL!1!!1" is not an acceptable solution for decks that run 3+ colors. The obvious choice is to run fewer colors, but 1. nontribal monocolor decks are either not competitive or force themselves into an all-in (incredibly unstable) stompy shell and 2. two color decks typically aren't competitive either or are strictly inferior to the tricolor decks they share colors with.

Stable manabases only pay incredible dividends if the format is constantly checking it. Canadian Threshold died because deckbuilders realized they could beat it by playing more stable mana bases and cards that let them circumvent mana (Aether Vial). When it died, unstable mana bases came back because they could. There's an idiom, "when the cat's away the mice will play." Until someone builds a deck that can compete effectively in the metagame and aggressively check unstable mana bases, decks with said mana bases will exist because more colors is more powerful. The Daze decks that exist right now don't do that. Merfolk cut Stifle, New Horizons runs the worst mana base in the format and Pro Bant plays 3 colors and double mana requirements.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that Legacy is cyclical- deckbuilders continue to push the boundaries of what they can get away with (resulting in decks like New Horizons), then someone calls them on it by popularizing a deck built to take advantage of the corners they cut. If we were all really that stupid, players from Standard would cross over all the time to grab the free money from the SCG 5ks. In fact, the same faces tend to place well consistently because they're not the idiots they're accused of being. Really, if Legacy was so easy, the pros would be as good at it as they are at Standard. They'd also probably have built a deck that beats the format. Neither has happened, so maybe it's not as easy as this author pretends it is.

[Rico Suave]

There's something to be said for stable mana bases. But, 25+ lands is not competitive in this format unless you're running a Loam engine and "MOAR BASICS LOLOL!1!!1" is not an acceptable solution for decks that run 3+ colors. The obvious choice is to run fewer colors, but 1. nontribal monocolor decks are either not competitive or force themselves into an all-in (incredibly unstable) stompy shell and 2. two color decks typically aren't competitive either or are strictly inferior to the tricolor decks they share colors with.

I certainly can't agree with the last part. U/W CB/Top Thopters is one of the best performing decks in the format right now according to results.

[SpikeyMikey]

I certainly can't agree with the last part. U/W CB/Top Thopters is one of the best performing decks in the format right now according to results.

Thopter-top is too new to use as a metric. Reanimator would've been a better example. But I believe he said "generally" anyway. The control version of Thopter will soon be just another brick in the wall of Legacy.

[Rico Suave]

Ok.

Maybe we just have a disconnect here. Let's say the decks to beat are Zoo, Goblins, and Merfolk. Why then do so many players continue to play 3 color mana bases that literally cannot beat those decks? What leads people to play "superior" 3 color decks when the 2 color decks actually have an advantage against all of the above decks?

[SpikeyMikey]

Zoo is a 3 color deck with a less than stable mana base. Especially with Lynx. While Fish and Goblins are both good decks (although I would say moreso Fish than Gobbos), they aren't a large enough portion of the field or a large enough proportion of the top tables for it to be worthwhile running hate decks. Leaving Zoo out of the discussion for a moment (as it doesn't fit the profile of the other two), let's look at these decks.

Both seek to disrupt the opponents mana while cheating threats into play with Vial. Actually, we can add in U/W Tempo as well, as it has a similar structure. So these 3 decks seek to disrupt an opponents mana while playing cheap threats. If they do not disrupt their opponent sufficiently, they lose, because the trade-off to mono color (or dual color) decks is that they give up power to stay in those colors. You COULD build a straight U Counter Top deck, but losing things like Goyf or StP or Firespout isn't worth the added mana stability. Again, it's a matter of optimization. Swords to Plowshares is better than Unsummon but only one is available to mono-U. Which is more valuable to a deck, immunity to the Wasteland your opponent may or may not run and may or may not draw or access to better removal? Which is more valuable, having enough lands to be able to ignore double Daze or having enough business spells to match your opponent card for card? These are design issues that each deck needs to handle. Some decks can function without access to StP or EE. Some cannot. Which is better in the abstract is an impossible question to answer, and to say that you have the answer is foolish. If you're going to make foolish statements (especially in a rude and abrasive manner) you have to expect to be mocked.

[emidln]

You can build a 3, 4, even 5 color manabase with an excellent game against those decks. The critical factor is how much of your splash colors you need. If you're trying to get a sorcery-speed spell with WW in its casting cost in a base blue deck against Goblins, you're not going to be very happy with the result. If you situationally need a single splash color, say a red to cast Firespout, or a white to cast Thopter Foundry, your deck is in a much stronger position because the Ports and Wastes won't lock you down as much. In the hypothetical base blue deck, you can keep fetching out basic Islands until you want to cast whatever splash spell you want, then fetch into it and cast it. Further, if you plan on working with 3-4 mana, you need enough basics to actually have 3-4 mana under waste+port, which means 5-6 basics.

For such a manabase, look at the 2nd place GP Chicago list:

2 Academy Ruins
4 Flooded Strand
6 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

Brassman played a base blue control deck with a splash into Tarmogoyf+Krosan Grip maindeck and a single mana red splash and a single mana black splash sideboard. The red splash has a larger representation than the black splash given that the matchups he brings in red cards for are likely to be able to waste or otherwise tie down his first red mana after its use. The black splash is primarily against things that will not have mana disruption and thus a single black source is fine.

BrassMan also likely skimped on mana, but he did so due to playing 11 filtering effects, and ran enough mana that a single LD spell is unlikely to stop him from continuing to play filtering effects to grab more lands. Inability to play additional filtering effects to turn those filtering effects into lands because of a light manabase is an extremely common problem for most legacy aggro-control decks.

Edit:

Zoo's manabase doesn't need to be rock solid because decks cannot spend their resources attacking Zoo's manabase if they hope to contain 1-2cc creatures that power up off a fetchland paired with 1cc burn/removal. Goblins can afford to play Wasteland and Port games against NLU. They can't do the same when their opponent goes turn 1 land, nacatl go.

[SpikeyMikey]

You can build a 3, 4, even 5 color manabase with an excellent game against those decks. The critical factor is how much of your splash colors you need. If you're trying to get a sorcery-speed spell with WW in its casting cost in a base blue deck against Goblins, you're not going to be very happy with the result. If you situationally need a single splash color, say a red to cast Firespout, or a white to cast Thopter Foundry, your deck is in a much stronger position because the Ports and Wastes won't lock you down as much. In the hypothetical base blue deck, you can keep fetching out basic Islands until you want to cast whatever splash spell you want, then fetch into it and cast it. Further, if you plan on working with 3-4 mana, you need enough basics to actually have 3-4 mana under waste+port, which means 5-6 basics.

For such a manabase, look at the 2nd place GP Chicago list:

2 Academy Ruins
4 Flooded Strand
6 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

Brassman played a base blue control deck with a splash into Tarmogoyf+Krosan Grip maindeck and a single mana red splash and a single mana black splash sideboard. The red splash has a larger representation than the black splash given that the matchups he brings in red cards for are likely to be able to waste or otherwise tie down his first red mana after its use. The black splash is primarily against things that will not have mana disruption and thus a single black source is fine.

BrassMan also likely skimped on mana, but he did so due to playing 11 filtering effects, and ran enough mana that a single LD spell is unlikely to stop him from continuing to play filtering effects to grab more lands. Inability to play additional filtering effects to turn those filtering effects into lands because of a light manabase is an extremely common problem for most legacy aggro-control decks.

Edit:

Zoo's manabase doesn't need to be rock solid because decks cannot spend their resources attacking Zoo's manabase if they hope to contain 1-2cc creatures that power up off a fetchland paired with 1cc burn/removal. Goblins can afford to play Wasteland and Port games against NLU. They can't do the same when their opponent goes turn 1 land, nacatl go.

I think Andy was actually a little heavy on mana. Most CB decks back then were running 16-17 lands and the field was not particularly hard on manabases. How many lands was Nassif playing?

I mentioned Zoo's mana because it didn't fit the pattern of the other "consistant" decks, not because I felt that Gobbos or Fish would want to play the disruption game against them. Zoo has no disruption but doesn't need it for the same reason most 3 and 4 color decks don't need disruption; they've got an edge on card quality by blending colors. However, it is vulnerable in M/U's against PT Junk/Rock style decks and I would imagine against New Horizons as well, although I've never played the M/U.

[mujadaddy]

Really, if Legacy was so easy, the pros would be as good at it as they are at Standard.

Ouch.
Pro's and their groupies:
[ ] Told
[x] Fucking Told