I can't answer for Vacrix but I play a 3:1 Belch:Tend build for good reasons:Originally Posted by Silent Requiem
1. As you already mentioned: You often get a turn 1 kill just from your first seven cards. That's possible with Tendrils too (with Past in Flames) but doesn't happen that often.
2. You don't have to kill in the turn you start with your D4-chain. I like to play first turn D4, have no mana floating and win on T2 with belcher, perp. sources and the drawn cards.
3. You have more space in your Sideboard, because you need Belchers for your postboard.
Played in another local tournament today. Format was four rounds of swiss (no cut to top X). I used Vacrix's recent list because I wanted to try the Belchers maindeck.
Round 1 - PSI (I kid you not).
Game 1: It turns out that this guy had borrowed a deck from Spanish Tunnel King, who had lent him PSI! I'm on the draw, and I've kept a decent hand, but one that needs to topdeck some gas to really go for it. My opponent goes off immediately, however, and I think he has the game (multiple draw 4's, loads of mana), but he's not able to put the game away. All I need to do is pass my turn to let his Pact triggers kill him.
Game 2: He keeps a decent hand against most decks - Slithermuse pass the turn. I go off on my T1, but Belcher fizzles at 16. This limits his next combo turn, though, causing him to fizzle too. I then reactivate Belcher to win.
1-0
Round 2 - Burn
Game 1: I go off first turn and win.
Game 2: He plays a Vexing Devil, and I take the 4 damage. I draw, but don't have enough gas to feel secure - I only get so many D4's before he just burns me out, so I risk passing the turn. He plays something more, but I'm able to win on my T2. He shows me his hand: he had a T3 kill.
2-0
Round 3 - Maverick.
Game 1: I win on my turn 1.
Game 2: My D4 bricks. He lands Teag.
Game 3: I dump my hand of artifacts and play EtW for ten. It gets me there. Just.
3-0
Round 4 - Lands
Game 1: I win T1 on the play. My first time casting Slithermuse in a tournament.
Game 2: I mull to four, expecting a T1 Chalice for zero, and keep a hand with no zero CC spells. He doesn't have the T1 Chalice, but he does Intuition for it on T2. I go off around it on turn 4.
4-0
Being the only undefeated player, I win the tournament! Hooray!
Thoughts:
I got lucky, and managed to dodge the blue decks (although they were only a small part of the meta today, for some reason). This could easily have gone differently if I had kept running into control. That said, some of the matchups I played would have been a real challenge for Solidarity, so PSI is doing exactly what I want it to do - race the permanent based hate.
Although it never specifically came up, I liked only having one copy of Tendrils. The sideboard I used feels more awkward, though, as there is now a Belcher shaped hole in the SB that I'm not sure how to fill. I'm not a huge fan of Autumn's Veil yet, nor the extra lands. Something to mess about with.
I did not miss Manamorphose. Not even a little bit.
RUG doesn't play Counterspell and if you land enough perps sometimes you can grind them out even faster than against slow UW variants and BUG control. Daze can be a problem though if they see how good it is against Carpet of Flowers. Regardless they can have trouble putting on a fast clock and in my experience usually only have one dude as a clock. That gives you a solid 7 turns from turn 2 to run them dry of countermagic and then they fall over. I've won most of my RUG matchups, and for a while was undefeated against them, even when they knew my boarding plans. EtW is really strong here. They have absolutely no way to answer it. Playing 3 in the post-board is pretty strong in that case. I'd just say keep practicing the matchup and it gets easier as you understand how a RUG player usually reacts to you. Grind games are usually close; one mistake by either player can cost the game.
Yeah its dope. Put it on 10+ tokens though or else they can play enough dudes to stabilize.
Cantor is nice as a black source in the case that your IMS is ESG/Pact. Wolf was just something I was testing to see if it was good. Given the deck now as access to PiF, I figured in longer spell chains it might make it smoother and more consistent. It turned out to be a rarely searched for Pact target that I'd rather have as something else, namely, IGG. IGG is just way too good. Also, IT lines of play come up a lot and I like to have access to multiple targets. Boarding against Maverick would be pretty much the same only I'd probably try:
+3 EtW
+1 Taiga
-1 Wild Cantor
-1 PiF
-1 Slithermuse
-1 Summoner's Pact
With access to IGG, you don't really need Past in Flames because its a little redundant. PiF is good against control while IGG is not. I'd agree about Pact. You don't want to see them with EtW. Still they facilitate long spell chains and help you get to BBBB to play out Belcher so I'd still want to keep most of them in after boarding.
This deck really doesn't have too much of an issue racing bears. Belcher makes your job pretty easy and EtW makes playing around stuff like Pithing Needle and Leyline of Sanctity relatively easy. Basically, these business spells make your chances of a turn 1 win or inevitability very likely post-board against decks like Maverick:
4 IT --> IGG, EtW or Belcher
4 Belcher (or pass the turn)
3 EtW
A grand total of 11, much like traditional Belcher, but with the advantage of a D4 engine to back it up. I've completely opted out of the anti-hate hate but if your metagame is heavy Maverick or something and you encounter a lot of bears, I'd just say make room in your board for the full playset of Empty the Warrens.
Against UW variants that play bears, yeah Carpet is pretty boss here. And it plays through Cannonist because its an artifact so you can even bait with another business spell if you hit enough perps. Also, Carpet plays around Thalia rather well
Indeed. I would just say try a larger sample size because when I do a larger sample size (at least 50) its never been less than 50% even when testing new builds ie. SSG instead of Chrome Mox and Burning Wish as a business spell. Also I wasn't really trying to provide a correct number of turn 1 kills because there were multiple lines of play, you have to factor in that most of the plays were Ceterus Paribus so shuffling would produce different results, and sometimes you are just straight up on the draw anyway so I was trying to analyze it less from your perspective of chasing the turn 1 kill and more from a pilots perspective, if that makes sense.
I mean after you, say Belcher activation and misfire (as an example), look at the top card to see if it would produce a win if you had another turn. It good to backwards analyze things. For example, if you play a D4 on the first turn, just to make sure you have a pilots perspective. Would it have been better to pass the turn and wait? And if you were on the draw how would the top card (the first card you drew off the D4) affect your spell chain)? Sometimes you want to be on the draw anyway against decks that aren't disruptive. 8 cards makes it much easier to go off turn 1. I did testing of 100 games a while back and PSI was something like 80% turn 1 when you are on the draw.
The last big testing results that I've read about was DireLemming playing his build of DSI which played Burning Wish. He played 50 games and had a 70% turn 1 kill ratio, and in the other games won with EtW, Belcher pass the turn, or fizz. Here's the results, from the StormBoards:
You could probably PM him about an actual like Word Doc of each individual match if he kept/took those notes.I'm pushing 70% T1 with this list; no fizzles in the last 50 games, even on a mulligan to 4. Keep in mind it's impossible to separate me becoming a better SI pilot from actual deck improvements. It may well be, some past incarnation is objectively (or for your playstyle) better. The other issue with my results is, they are mostly goldfishing which can lead to optimizing for the wrong qualities. My thinking here is, being a glass cannon has more to do with (in)consistency than strategy.
Also, I think Emidln has played quite a lot with PSI so he would be another good person to ask about the turn 1 ratio.
Also... from the Storm Boards:
Probably says something about Slithermuse as well. I've used it quite a lot but now that I have IGG again, I might consider dropping it for something else..Slithermuse seems really fucking bad. I've played close to 1000 games with this list and the number of times that it was better than Past in Flames or a Draw4 have been less than 5. I'd rather just have IGG or Past in Flames (probably PiF).
Also from the StormBoards..
As the creator of Doomsday, DDFT, Rev614, NLS, and SAINT, Emidln saying he can't lose with this deck made me smile for like a good 5 minutes straight. If he can do it, it means if you truly master the deck (or are just a boss at storm combo in general) then it will reward your skill as a pilot.So, out of boredom, I've started playing Pact SI (Vacrix's list actually) lately. As it turns out, I can't actually lose matches with this deck. I might need to acquire Cruel Bargains again...
Also, how insane are hands that have your Pact of Flames + LED + IT in them?
I agree an algorithmic approach would certainly help with understanding how to combo turn 1 when its necessary.
IT floating BBB is hardly reliable. I'd probably mulligan that hand unless I'd already mulliganed pretty low (that is if I were chasing the turn 1). D4 turn 1 without any floating is not a bad play because at least you have other resources in hand to work with. A blind D4 with IT.. I don't think I remember the last time I got there with that play.
In regards to 5, I'd say it depends on the other resources in hand. If, for example you can float but you have a Chrome Mox that you can't use yet, or a Pact you don't want to go all in on, then it might get there. Or perhaps you have business spells but need mana. Now.. if the hand is blind D4 + LED, if you are chasing the turn 1, it can definitely get there. You usually draw at least 1 business in the 4 because you play 19-20 so you see one about every 3 cards.
In regards to 6, yeah it depends. This choice also depends on if a Pact has been played or not. A D7 usually gets there for me though. Sometimes you have to Slithermuse, pass the turn but I find that even without mana floating, a standard 7 card hand will get there especially since you should already have threshold. Also, if you are floating a D4 with mana floating instead of a D7, does that mean you are breaking a LED to IT into a D4 so that you have more mana floating? If so you also have the option of pass the turn Belcher, or IGG, or PiF. I'd say this is more of a line of play question than a principle of turn 1 kills. In general, you go for the D7. Its safer and you are more likely to hit the resources you want because you simply get more resources.
Summerrain covered this pretty well. Its sometimes an opening 7 kill or pass the turn kill. Its pretty difficult for most decks to answer a resolved Belcher except for QPM, Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker (so if you expect that play carefully with pass the turn Belcher plays). It also gives you 8 total cards in the maindeck that combine for 4 mana to produce a kill with LED, those being IT (4 mana means after LED, you have 5 for IGG/PiF) and Belcher (4 mana play, 3 activate). I find that rounds out LED's power pretty well. And as Summerrain also mentioned, it creates a lot of board space that way you don't have to board in the grind plan; most of it is already there. This creates more space for stuff like EtW to help race bears and other hate, play around Leyline, etc. as well as play a suitable number of protection spells (I've been enjoying 6, at 7 they seem to show up more often than I want them when a business spell would have been better). Tendrils can be imprinted on Mox but its also not a business spell unless it has a D4 to accompany it. Also, Belcher + IT + 6 mana is a kill, unlike ToA + IT + 6 mana (ie. IT for LED to activate Belcher with the last 2 mana).
R1: Wow, I've heard of SI mirrors before but yeah this rarely happens. Belcher misfire, even at 16 would also put an ANT player in a difficult position when you can just activate it again as it turns off AdN.
R2: Nice, you can usually race Burn and if you can't because you have to play D4s in your hand try to mulligan into a hand that sets up the Belcher kill, even if you have to pass the turn, because thats going to get there if you don't have to use your life total. Also, EtW doesn't seem like a bad idea here if you can get it high enough to win quickly. They usually can't win turn 3 its like a turn 4 turn 5 win with the shitty creatures they play. I'd say EtW at 10+ gets there. Also, let Vexing Devil resolve. It slows their reach down by a full turn, and you can block it if you need to with a naturally drawn Pact target if you're still setting up.
R3: Nice. EtW does get there. I've definitely dropped games against Maverick before but as long as you board in EtWs you should have the match.
R4: Sick --> Mull to 4 win turn 4. Good stuff. As you can see this deck mulligans much better than Solidarity :P
Yeah you did get lucky matchups, but it happens. Sometimes you'll run into a bunch of blue players. Play test the SB against a Slow control player to get the feel for it. Its a bit more rushed against Tempo because they actually have a clock. Then it won't feel so awkward. If you like, you can always drop the Bayou for a full playset of EtW post-board. It will give you a much more solid plan in the current metagame, that is, if it stays that way and the blue players decide to stay home. The Bayou is mostly because my meta has a lot of slower control decks. EtW can still run into Flusterstorm though, and the Tempo players tend to board that in as their hate for storm, so I tend to play the other Bayou over the 4th copy, and for a while I was playing Mirri's Guile. I actually might go back to it if my meta continues to get UW heavy. Terminus is nuts against EtW. Guile is like Carpet number 5. I played as Solidarity today against a dude at my local store who borrowed SI just to play a casual game with me, and Mirri's Guile kicked my ass. He landed it turn 1 as I forced a Carpet of Flowers and Guile sculpted him into 3 lands to grind and then he played through 3 Forces, a Mindbreak Trap, and a Remand before Belching me out. Its a pretty dope turn 1 play, though Carpet tends to be a much better topdeck.
Also, I played against pre-board Goblins today, dude didn't have a board. 5-0, 4 turn 1 kills, one turn 3. That matchup is atrocious for Goblins.
I also played against BUG control with Standstill, Deeds, Counterbalance, Jace, Liliana, etc. today. Went 3-3 pre-board and something like 4-6 post-board, but we were fucking around and I wasn't really taking it seriously. Had I not misplayed (most of them were stupid had I been playing serious it wouldn't have happened) it would have been more like 7-3. 3 Games in a row I was just like not paying attention, eating food, making phone calls, side conversations, etc. Also he knows this matchup really well now so the last time he doesn't really misplay.
Also played Solidarity against it and went 1-2. Carpets are just way too good against a deck that plays all Islands. Same argument applies when playing against Spring Tide, and kinda against Merfolk unless they drop a Vial or Cavern of Souls.
Also, here are some new ideas I'm going to explore in the next few days:
Defense Grid - I think its time we explore this card again. Many a time I have Autumn's Veil in hand, and it gets there. There is also many a time I've been sitting on enough mana to do just about anything and I need more than just one protection spell.. but both of us are in topdeck mode, and then I draw Veil. Defense Grid is perpetual. Its Snare-able, but its perpetual. The color requires are also pretty lax so you could use something like Taiga/ESG to play it. Turns off Force completely or limits them to one counterspell per turn. Its pretty solid if it hits play.
Drop of Honey - Potentially a new method of getting rid of bears, but with additional applications. Its a green card (relevant against Iona which will obviously name black) that can potentially answer decks like Reanimator and Sneak Attack that play fatties without any other creatures. So it will just kill them in your upkeep. Also, it can kill Mother of Runes that might protect your opponents bears from Deathmark as well as kill multiple bears; sometimes when you play Deathmark you just aren't ready to go off until the next turn.. and they they land another bear (this fixes that problem). Also, if they play a Hierarch, GSZ --> Arbor, or Mother of Runes turn 1, you can play this if you know you can go off in another turn and then it not only slows them down because they don't want to race the drop but they can't cast their bear or else this kills it during your upkeep. Also, this might be a decent way to stop RUG/UR's clock from closing on your life total too quickly. It hits stuff thats hexproof as well as well as stuff that can regenerate. I don't know if its good yet because I haven't tested it yet but it looks like it could be promising. If it turns out to be good it might even get played in Classic Belcher.
Thrun, the Last Troll - Somehow playing Trolls in storm combo seems like something nobody would expect. Why not? We often have 4 mana sitting there during our grinding sessions with blue decks. It can only get answered to my knowledge in blue decks currently by Terminus (UW) or Innocent Blood (BUG). So it seems like it would be most effective against Threshold (however its going to have to get ritual accelerated rather than cast for free with perps because Tempo can sandbag your Carpet with Daze or low land count), though if those slower control decks can't find their creature removal because they don't see Thrun coming.. it might pull its weight as well since it can't get countered and its hexproof. Regeneration is just gravy if they get a bigger creature out like Goyf (a bigger goyf). In fact, I was thinking that theresurrection used to actually keep his Summoner's Pacts in whilst playing against U.dec. He used to find Dosan the Falling Leaf with Pact in order to play around countermagic therefore using Pacts as a business spell. I wonder if Pacts can stay in against the slower control decks where you'll have time to set this up; against Tempo leaving in Pacts can never be good because you'll be less likely to hit enough mana with Carpets and other perps to cast Thrun consistently. Against slower control decks, though, they need their mana. Perhaps, Thrun + 2 Pacts in the maindeck would be enough to land him for a 5 turn clock that can't be removed easily (except by like 3 spells that these decks play in the main) and cannot be countered (I rarely ever see anyone counter Pact). Also, its worth mentioning that you can accelerate into Thrun pretty early on if you have something like a Land and then a LED to make 4 for the Pact trigger. UW/BUG might just board out their mass removal spells anyway if they don't see Xantid Swarm. This was a board that theresurrection suggested a while back:
I never really gave enough thought to this idea. I think its worth exploring again, but I don't know about running 4 Thrun post-board. I'd have to work out how to optimize the board after I play with Thrun a little post-board and see how good he is first.
EDIT:
@Silent Requiem
Forgot to say congrats. :P
4-0 is pretty boss.. but now they will expect you. So find someone to playtest with whose down to have fun playing against the grind plan. It really is fun and most people I've played against with it have said its the most fun they've had playing magic in a long time. In that sense, it shouldn't be that hard. Clearly your tournament ready at this point for the non-blue decks but the grind plan has a lot of opportunities that make or break the entire game so its good to get familiar with your mistakes that way you make less of them when it really counts.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I was promising a tournament report for sunday or today, but unfortunately my team and I were preparing to hard for it this time - long story short: We were completely drunk the next day.
However: I was able to make some matchup-analysis which I found quite interesting.
It covered the following MUs:
- Sneak&Show
- Merfolk
- Solidarity
- Goblins
- UW Miracle Control (Playing both sides)
1. Sneak&Show
This is an interesting MU I find. Let's cover preboard first:
- They play Force of Will and Daze. That's bad for us.
- They can put a very fast clock on you via Show and Tell. S&T can be cast even on turn 1 (Lotus Petal + City of Traitors/Ancient Tomb). If it's an Emrakul, the aeons torn you get another round but a Griselbrand can draw them a ton of counterspells. Also bad for us.
- S&T is symmetrical. It often helps to put a Lion's eye diamond down early if you got a Goblin Charbelcher on your hand. This can also be a very nice bluff if they saw the belcher in game 1.
- They often sport some Misdirections mainboard. That card is almost completely useless against S.I. Dead cards are always very nice.
All in all a rough matchup preboard. However I don't want to put any numbers or percentages here, since this would need much more intense analysis, at least 100 games I guess.
Now what's about postboard?
- Duress is very strong as it can both hit their counters and vial parts of their combo e.g. Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Through the breach. Also Duress can't be misdirected as e.g. Unmask can.
- Carpet of Flowers can be very strong here. S&S need their blue cantrips to work, thus they need some islands on the board and they need them right of the bat. However they can also play differently by using their Lotus petals for the cantrips an hereby sandbag you.
- Empty the warrens' a good card, but can be a bit slow, even postboard. Griselbrand has lifegain so you have to make sure you get enough gobs on the field. My opponent boarded some Flusterstorm which made EtW additionaly difficult to play in this match up.
- If both decks run out of gas S.I. should have the advantage as we just need a Belcher or a D4 wheras S&S need the creature and the spell.
2. Merfolk
Another interesting MU. Preboard:
- They have FoW and Daze.
- They also have Spellstutter Sprite and Cursecatcher. Be careful of those two when they got an untapped Aether Vial on 1 or 2 in play. Vial->Cursecatcher can serve as a "creature-daze". If either of them is on the board be aware of Phantasmal Image.
- They're clock isn't that fast. Grinding games preboard are, I think, winnable, but watch out for the creatures I mentioned above.
Postboard:
- Duress gets rid of their Forces and the Dazes or other counterspells they might have boarded. It doesn't hit the sprites however.
- Since Cavern of Souls is out there, Merfolk can easily sandbag your Carpet of Flowers. 1 Blue source is often enough combined with Wastelands or Mutavaults. They also got their Aether Vial. I had to play Carpet very carefully or failed to use it to properly.
- Autumn's Veil also doesn't shine in this MU. It simply can't handle the Sprite and the Catcher. Should Merfolk become more popular than RUG Tempo (what I really doubt) Xantid Swarm would be a better choice here.
- Empty the Warrens is great. They just can't handle, let's say, 8 Gobs and their clock is not fast enough to kill you first.
3. Solidarity
Solidarity lists vary of course. My friend plays 4 Force of Will and 3 Disrupt.
Preboard:
- Force of Will is always hard to play against. You can play around Disrupt but the Solidarity-Player definitely has the opportunity to cast it against you and draw the extra card.
- Solidarity can win one turn 3. That's to early, if we have to recover from an early FoW.
Postboard:
- Carpet of Flowers really shines here. He has to put down Islands and he has to do it early because of his need of cantrips.
- Duress is also good as it hits both his combo pieces and his counters.
- Autumn's Veil hits both his counters as well as the (often seen) postboard Flusterstorms.
- Solidarity has a wishboard so he can't board in that much additional combo hate. Flusterstorms are, as mentioned, quite common though.
- You need to be careful with Empty the Warrens because of the Echoing Truths in the wishboard.
4. Goblins
Let me just quote here:
Be careful though in the postboard-match. Common boardings against combo are e.g. Surgical Extraction, Leyline of Sanctity, Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst, Pyrostatic Pillar and Mindbreak Trap. So nothing to hard to play around.That matchup is atrocious for Goblins.
Unfortunately, I can't find my notes for the UW-MU here, so I have to look for them at home.
Haha. Congrats. I always play some lumbering board control deck with no clock against you when you play storm (I chose to play lands then because I just got my ports together - even though I was lending PSI out :)). I would have ruined you if I could have untapped T3 with upkeep Tutor --> cannonist ^^.
Most of those things you mention require a turn/land-drop. Trap can be played around and nobody REALLY plays leyline because its pretty bad... And there is always the goblins :). You should win at least 1 of the 2 post board games, unless some catastrophe happens
The Spannish Tunnel King
@Summerrain
You covered everything pretty well. But I have some details to add.
1. Sneakshow
Daze is barely relevant until the post-board. Force is obviously relevant but if they mulligan too aggressively, they don't have enough maindeck countermagic to deal with us because their countermagic is mostly there to protect their combo. ESG, Pact, or just +1 IMS helps us to play around Daze in game 1. Occasionally they will also play Spell Pierce (8-12 countermagic). The builds vary quite a lot.
I'm glad you mentioned Charbelcher off SnT. It makes SnT the shittier enabler meaning that they have to take extra time to hit 5 for Sneak Attack instead. This means you go off and straight up win, play through Daze or they don't have Force. If they have Force, you can even just IT with none floating and hold on to Belcher to shut off Show and Tell.
Yes Misdirection is useless. I love to see those builds. They can't Misdirect a Belcher activation so its completely dead. I think this is more often played in Hypergenesis though. I haven't personally come across too many people who play it.
It looks like post-board we will either run into Pithing Needle, Surgical Extraction, Spell Pierce, or Flusterstorm. However, we have 4 Maindeck Belcher so they really want to find Sneak Attack and Force. Also this means that IT for Belcher's becomes a really strong grind play. You can IT for one, try to play it, then play another til they run out of Forces and try to play around Daze/Pierce. Flusterstorm doesn't do shit against Belcher. I'd be apprehensive to go for early EtW and empty my hand if its not turn 1 because we might run into Flusterstorm. They can also play Echoing Truth post-board. The safest play is IT for Belchers and grind. They need at least one Island to function and cantrip to sculpt or else you get too much time to naturally draw into Belchers. Also, dropping Carpet of Flowers isn't that bad off of SnT. If you land one, you can, if you have another, potentially produce quite a bit of mana if they drop Emrakul instead of Jizzlebrand. Duress is strong, takes combo pieces. Ideally, take Sneak Attack if you can, even over Force. You don't want them to have a win condition and its crucial that you force them to play SnT when they feel like they are under too much pressure to combo before you do.
2. Merfolk
Cavern, Wasteland and Vial can make it hard to get there with Carpet. Still, there are plenty of games that don't ride on Carpet. If you draw it though, pray that they have mostly Island to work with. I find Carpet is usually one 2 for this matchup. EtW is certainly strong. I'm hoping that Thrun helps in this matchup as well. It can get in there to deal some damage, maybe hit them two or three before it gets outclassed. Then you can try to get there with Goblin tokens. Then, Thrun can chump dudes and regenerate and take them off Lords which can really hurt their clock. I'm still testing Thrun but even limited play time with it has made it look quite promising. I'm thinking a 2 of' at the moment and an additional Bayou in the board. I'm probably dropping Autumn's Veil.
3. Solidarity
I own both decks so I know this matchup really well. Its easily in PSI's favor. Pre-board its Force or no Force. PSI doesn't really have enough resources to play through Remands, Force, and Cunning Wish --> Trap with the perps it has in the MD. But then its really all about that Force of Will.
Post-board, PSI dominates like nothing else. Solidarity needs to eventually crack the fetches to start cantripping and make sure they hit land drops and sculpt. This turns on Carpet and then you just blow them out. You often can get double business combo strings where one thing gets countered and then Solidarity just falls over and dies. It can be a close matchup though if you keep a bad hand as PSI. Otherwise, definitely in PSI's favor.
4. Goblins
Trap isn't enough. Thats like just having one Force in a Goblin deck and you have to mulligan pretty aggressively for it which means the clock is shit; Belcher has a much harder time when they board this because they have to invest all 7 cards, while we invest 3-5. I'd say you more often run into Leyline of Sanctity, which means you need to go for Goblin tokens.
5. UW Miracles
This matchup is in our favor. Granted they have quite the countermagic quite but their clock is atrociously slow unless they draw their 1-3 copies of Entreat the Angels. Granted, last time I played against this matchup in a tournament, my round 5, I lost 0-2 because he topdecked the only copy of Entreat the Angels in both games. Fuck Miracles; the bastard child of Magic and Go Fish. I've mostly seen these builds run 1 or 2 copies of it. Its literally the only card that can race you. Squadron Hawk + Equipment is a huge investment for them to make, which means they need to play a lot of Islands; great for Carpet of Flowers. Thrun would also be excellent in this matchup as their only answer is Terminus. So you could play out EtW tokens, they play Terminus, then set up Thrun and hope they don't have another Terminus.
So preliminary testing of Thrun has been looking good. I'm still trying to configure a board whilst I figure out how good Thrun actually is by itself in a match. Usually it has other creature to back it up. Also, I've been thinking that if Thrun winds up being good, Scavenging Ooze might not be that bad. Its good against RUG as well since it gets out of Burn Range fast, gains you life when you are racing them, and shrinks Goyfs. Same argument applies to RUG. Also, its just a huge surprise. I tried a few post-board configurations keeping some Summoner's Pact in as well. Occasionally you can find Thrun with it, cast it with perps and then pay the Pact trigger next turn. A single, well placed, Wasteland can blow that plan out though so I'm a bit apprehensive to try that as a consistent strategy. They almost never counter Pact though and you can use it in conjunction with LED to give LED even MORE power in the post-board. That means it gives you mana floating after D4s, mana after IT to find Belcher, EtW, or Thrun, as well as Belcher activations, and then Summoner's Pact into Thrun. So it can basically turn Pact into a business spell, in a much more powerful way against control than Eternal Witness ever was a business spell when the deck is a goldfish.
The board I'm currently trying is:
SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Duress
2 Thrun
2 Bayou
3 EtW
I really want to run Taiga for 3 EtW but the 3rd Bayou post-board was awesome. I tried playing the playset of Bayous in the post-board and it made grinding IMMENSELY consistent. However, its a bit too much. I think that 3 Bayou is solid, and then Taiga/EtW(2-3) come in either in G3 as a surprise, against aggro, and/or against Tempo.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Briefly tried a few matches with a board of
SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Duress
2 Thrun
2 Defense Grid
2 Bayou
1 EtW
The 2 Bayous were pretty helpful for grinding. Defense Grid was BOSS. I'd recommend it over Autumn's Veil at the moment. Thrun has yet to be relevant though.
4 Carpet 4 Duress 1 EtW is 9 cards that aren't really modular. You need Carpets for the Grind plan and to replace the Culling package. Duress is pretty dam good as protection. 1 EtW is necessary to play around Needles, Leylines, and in the board against aggro. The other 6 slots are flex. If Thrun starts being relevant in my practice games I might run him as a 1'of. Otherwise I might wind up testing this board instead:
SB
4 Carpet
4 Duress
2 Defense Grid
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
You can just board everything but 3 EtW, 1 Taiga if they don't have hate for Belcher. Then the full set of EtW can come in. Also, boarding in 3 cards for the aggro matchup seems pretty good when we want a consistent turn 1 play. It turns what we might IT for into actual business spells castable from the hand ie.
-1 PiF
-1 Slithermuse
-1 Wild Cantor
-1 Summoner's Pact
I played a match against Folk. Turn 1, Mox, Land Grant, Dark Ritual, Defense Grid, IT--> Carpet, Carpet. He was forced to play Islands as he didn't draw Vial. By the time I had Thrun out he had enough dudes to kill me so I had to go for a D4 chain into EtW for 18 (he had played Pithing Needle., which got there. G1 I actually won after a mull to 4 of something like Trow, Land Grant, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual. Played Trow, played Arbor, played Cantor... blocked his dudes for a bit and then at the clutch turn managed to D4 into Tendrils, IGG, Tendrils with a lot of mana. It was dope. We played a 3rd match though for kicks. He sandbagged me on Carpet with Mutavaults, Wasted 2 Bayous. I got a 3rd and had a Carpet and a LED but he had turn 1 Needle on Belcher. Probably should have mulled to something stronger.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I've written several posts over the last three days, and deleted all of them before posting because I feel like I am just reinventing the wheel. SI is new for me, but not to most of the posters in this thread.
I really do feel that running all of IGG, Slithermuse and PiF in the maindeck is just trying to be too clever. I'm just not sure what to replace them with. Do we have any better options than Manamorphose? I'm just looking for more gas/initial mana sources. If I were running SITES I might consider a singleton Mox Diamond. If I were running LGSI I might consider a singleton Mox Opal.
But for PSI? I'm stuck.
Yeah there isn't much man. Kinda sucks. We are quite limited in our perpetuals and IMS's. There are Mox Opal lists. Darth Vicious has a decent one. I much prefer my list though. Having both IGG has been consistently awesome; I've drawn it naturally and I've tutored for the kill; I actually rarely use PiF but its necessary for the blue matchup when you don't want to return countermagic. I have also found myself not wanting Muse that often though. I'm thinking that I'll just change it to Empty the Warrens. It can be better than Muse. It accomplishes the same thing in cases where you don't have Pact; 4 mana after IT. I haven't tried it in a while but it would save board space. Its a common play in SITES when you can only get to 4 after IT and you don't have a D4. So its kinda like having access to a Classic Belcher line of play.
EDIT:
Just play tested 50 games (though I should probably be paying attention in class) with EtW over Slithermuse. Looks pretty solid from limited testing. Every case so far I was able to avoid playing Pact and EtW in the same spell Chain. The smallest its been so far has been 8 tokens and that was when I had both PiF and EtW in the opener, using Chrome Mox as the red source; I also had Charbelcher in play and activated by turn 4 and landed Dryad Arbor by turn 2 to have 9 creatures vs. 8. In another hand, I had it in the opener and went for it with Lotus Petal for like 14 tokens. I had a few other hands where I made at least 12 tokens each time, sometimes 14.
Granted, in longer spell chains I think I would feel more comfortable with Slithermuse because sometimes you have to play those Pacts. In general though, it feels good to have access to IGG again and now EtW. These are safe options that the deck really needs so that its not playing a 'glass house or bust' strategy. In game 1, EtW has plenty of advantages over Slithermuse. Its uncounterable if cast from the hand. Its also difficult to answer when we can consistently make 10+ tokens with it. Even 8 gets there quite often in my experience. Also, in the post-board this allows us to play the full playset of EtW, making Taiga an even stronger and more relevant post-board card because we'll need it more often to get the red source. The Slithermuse line of play basically is only better than EtW if you've played a Pact; tokens will pretty much always get there in game 1. Slithermuse is also most effective on the play turn 1, and beyond that its relatively useless while EtW can function as an out past turn 1.
EDIT 2:
Also. Its about time.
Last edited by Vacrix; 07-03-2012 at 03:19 PM.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I liked the idea of EtW over Slithermuse, so I gave it some testing. Interestingly, my initial thoughts are the reverse of yours - that I was finding I needed/wanted to Pact too often, or that my spell chains were too short (8+ goblins just doesn't feel like enough, imho). So I'm still using Slithermuse for the moment, although further testing might change that.
What I did find, though, was that I don't want PiF and IGG in the deck at the same time. They do the same job (generate storm), but have slightly different strengths and weaknesses. IGG stays in the main because I don't need off colour mana to cast it, while PiF now sits in the SB with Carpet of Flowers for the blue matchup.
In the PiF slot I'm actually running a singleton Mox Diamond, and I've been really, really liking it. It pairs well with both Land Grant and Summoner's Pact, and gives me a second effective land drop during the combo turn.
Just a mini tournament report from a side event at SCGSEA.
SCG Open: Seattle, Legacy Challenge
June 30, 2012
3-1 with Spanish Inquisition
MAIN DECK:
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
4 Culling the Weak
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Tinder Wall
1 Wild Cantor
1 Odious Trow
1 Dryad Arbor
SIDE BOARD
4 Duress
4 Carpet of Flowers
2 Virtue's Ruin
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Taiga
1 Nature's Claim
PSI is probably my favorite Legacy deck, although I certainly don't claim to be the best (or even a good) pilot. I wasn't ready to bring it to an Open (ten hours of PSI sounds gross) but I've been wanting to play the deck against strangers in a tournament setting for awhile, so this seemed like a good opportunity. I was also hoping that maybe I would get insanely lucky and somebody playing/scouting me in the Challenge event would mull to Force in the next day's Open, when I would play Sneaky Show. (That, of course, did not happen.) At a little after 5PM, the event began.
R1: Galen with UG Infect
So I just rode in a car for three and a half hours and paid ten dollars to play someone who drove up with me. Pretty cool? Fortunately I have not only played against him a ton, I've piloted UG Infect myself--so I understood the mechanics of the deck well. That being said, it is literally my least favorite deck to play against, it feels absolutely awful to lose to it. Good thing I'm faster!
G1: Turn one I drop Dryad Arbor. Turn two I cast Land Grant to play Bayou, cast Dark Ritual, and play a Japanese Charbelcher. I drop an LED to activate, explain to Galen what's happening to him, and turn my deck over.
I board in my blue plan. (Board out culling package, board in everything but Claim and Ruin)
G2: I kept seven cards that only needed a single additional mana to cast and activate Charbelcher. On Galen's first turn he drops Glistener Elf. On my first turn I draw business instead of the Petal/Pact/Land Grant/Chrome Mox/Ritual/Tinder Wall/Bayou I needed to win. On Galen's second turn he does the ol' one-two Invigorate/Berserk.
G3: T1 Charbelcher activation wins!
1-0
R2: Joel with RUG Tempo
Aaaaaand it happened again. Joel drove the car that got me here. I know what Joel is on, and I am not excited to face one of my worst match-ups. Not only that, Joel and I are good friends and have tested SI extensively, so he knows exactly what my deck does. Worst of all, I played like a donkey in both games.
G1: I kept a slow-ish hand that was a little light on accelleration but had good business. Although I did draw into the accelleration and mana I needed, Joel knew to totally commit to the control role. Over the first few turns he countered two Goblin Charbelchers and a D4. The next time I attempt to go off I build up around six storm with LED on the board, Infernal Tutor and a Summoner's Pact in hand, and enough mana floating to play through spell pierce. My plan was to Empty the Warrens. Joel has an untapped blue dual and just a few cards in hand. I think to myself: "even though he's used a lot of counters already, he could have both Spell Pierce and Daze." So then I get the terrible idea that I should Pact (!) for Elvish Spirit Guide, so I can float one more mana (before I have to discard my hand to Infernal Tutor->crack LED) and play through both Spell Pierce and Daze. After the Pact resolves I realize what I've done and scoop. Best part? Joel had no counters left and I would have won if I didn't get tunnel vision and cast the Pact. Ugh.
I board in my blue plan.
G2: I just threw away game one, I am very much "on tilt." I stop taking notes and lose focus on the game. After four turns or so I cast Charbelcher (without the mana to activate it that turn) while Joel has Ancient Grudge in his graveyard (which he had just cast the turn before), immediately realize what I've done, and scoop.
1-1
I talk to Joel about how I am horribly on tilt and I don't want to lose my next rounds. He suggests that instead of worrying about how I misplayed, I should just think about what happened in the game and analyze the play. I did that and started enjoying myself again.
R3: Jeff with Reanimator
Earlier I saw a guy with a bad-ass Empire Strikes Back t-shirt and I complimented him on it. Now I am playing him. Jeff says he's from Portland but hasn't been to Portal Games yet (my store)--although he was aware of it. (Our store is the only place in town to play Legacy, nowhere else supports it.) I have no idea what he's on, he finished his rounds before I got a chance to scout him.
G1: I lose the roll and keep a slightly durdly hand with solid permanent mana sources, rituals, and Tendrils. I can generate some storm for the Tendrils, but not nearly enough to win. I am hoping to draw any one of my many business spells. On his first turn, Jeff plays a black fetch land. (Uh oh.) I drop a Dryad Arbor on my first turn (he immediately puts me on Maverick) and at my end-of-turn Jeff fetches a swamp and entombs Grislebrand. On his turn he reanimates it. My heart sank until he made a critical misplay: drawing seven before Grislebrand could swing, putting him at 11 life (edit: I think he fetched again during this turn). (Even though it was a little greedy of him, in his defense he couldn't have known that Maverick kills you with Tendrils of Agony.) I am on cloud nine, I am still in this game. I cast a Japanese Culling the Weak, which shocked and confused him. He responds with a Grislebrand activation, finding no response. I play a couple more spells and windmill slam Tendrils.
I board in my blue plan.
G2: I keep a pretty decent D4 hand. Jeff plays a land and I accellerate and go off. My hand was such that I had to make a hard choice about what card to pitch to Chrome Mox, and I chose my second D4. I am punished for this decision when I cast the D4 and find nothing but accelleration. Jeff bins Grislebrand with Careful Study or something (edit: actually I think it was EoT entomb on my first turn?), casts Animate Dead targetting Griselbrand, and I lose soon after that.
G3: Jeff mulligans. I draw an awesome hand with Duress. On my first turn I Duress him, seeing three fatties, two lands, and entomb (which I take). The next turn I belch and win.
2-1
Afterwards Jeff asks me if I noticed anything wrong with his play, and I mention that he was a bit greedy with Griselbrand in game one.
R4: Aaron with Goblins
G1: I mull to six and find a decent D4 hand. Aaron plays a goblin and I let him hit me once so I can draw more cards before going off. I go off from 19 life, my D4 totally whiffs and a few turns later Goblins beats me easily from 9 life.
I notice that Aaron does not sideboard at all.
G2: After some thought I decide to keep my hand of Arbor/Culling/D4 plus more Culling. I play Arbor and pass. The next turn I sac Arbor to Culling, generate more mana, and D4. I see some lines of play involving Pact and I tank. I decide to go for it, casting Pact for Odious Trow and sac'ing it to Culling the Weak, into another D4. I find LED and Infernal Tutor for the Tendrils win.
G3: T2 win with Belcher with both lands in the deck.
Aaron seemed a little on tilt after the game (understandably), he was very polite. I don't think he was very familiar with storm combo.
3-1
Prizes are based on record, and I won six packs of Avacyn Restored! I didn't even really want the packs (I was just hoping to get first and win some SCG credit), but it will be cool to take them to Portal for some drafts.
Overall, it was the best time I've ever had playing Magic: the Gathering. Even though I only played two opponents I didn't know, they both read all my cards (the non-Japanese ones, anyway!) and were thoroughly confused and bewildered by the things I was doing. It was basically my SI wet dream. I definitely plan to bring the deck to a future event.
Notes on the deck:
Taiga to replace Dryad arbor was very good. I tried out Virtue's ruin because I'm sick of scooping to T2 resolved Teeg. I never used it but I still want to try it out. The Nature's claim was a random last minute addition because I didn't need any other cards for my 12-card blue plan (I think Autumn's Veil is win more), I only want the two Virtue's Ruins for Maverick, and I didn't know what to do with the slot. Nature's Claim works well with the deck's mana base and is good generalized hate. I don't know if I'd run it again, but I'm not sure what to do with that slot.
Also, the EtW over the second Tendrils main deck would have been awesome if I didn't play like a Donkey. Even though it's nice being able to D4 into Tendrils with two in the deck, I still like having at least one EtW main and that was the slot I used. Cutting PiF was possible but I like that it's a one-card combo with a full graveyard vs. blue, although I always board it out vs. my non-blue opponents.
I've done two more sets of 30 hands each; one set was on the play, the other was on the draw. I was using the following list, per suggestions after my last set of 30 hands:
List
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Slithermuse
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor
1 Eternal Witness
2 Manamorphose
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
I was surprised to find my T1 rate on the play was not statistically significantly higher than my previous set of 30. (I got 10 wins out of 30 hands on the play, compared to 9 previously.) I did feel like I was mulliganing much less, but I haven't gone back through the hands to check that yet. My T1 rate on the draw was significantly higher, with 16 T1 wins out of 30 hands. I'll post the hands themselves later, but first I wanted to ask again: is there any way to hide text on these forums? 60 hands is a lot of text to just dump into a forum post.
I intend to start trying larger sample sizes when I settle on a list and have a better idea about what my keep/mulligan and play rules should be. For now, the sets of 30 hands are helping me figure that out. That having been said, although 30 hands is far too few to declare my T1 rate during a set is the actual T1 rate, I think it is enough to say that the 60%+ claims are inaccurate.
Claims like this sound a bit silly, and nobody has put forth any data that would make me believe this. If the actual T1 win rate on the draw were 80%, then the probability of only having 16 wins out of 30 hands (as in my own testing) is approximately 0.06%. This assumes I'm playing accurately with a list which is at least as fast as yours. I'm perfectly willing to accept that my list may not be perfect and my play might be far from it, but you yourself only found one game in my last set of 30 where I missed a chance for a T1 win. (I don't mean to single you out. Plenty of other people have made claims like this, you just happen to be the one who responded to my post.)
I can't yet tell if I agree with this. I'm usually content to cast Slithermuse if I can. But, especially in a goldfishing scenario, I feel like this should be an Ill-Gotten Gains. In most situations where I go for Slithermuse, I think IGG would be an auto-win, whereas Slithermuse is more like a coin flip (perhaps a bit better).Slithermuse seems really fucking bad.
I won't say I've mastered the deck, but I feel perfectly competent playing it in real matches. (In fact, I won a bit of store credit with it on Monday at a small local tournament.) But as I've said before, I'm trying to see what the optimal goldfish rate is, which is quite a bit different.
This is an interesting point, and, other than switching Slithermuse for IGG, this may be the biggest change I make before my next sets of 30. In my set of 30 on-the-play hands, I opened with a D4 floating no mana 7 times and fizzled every single time. I'll need to go back through those hands to determine which ones were blind D4s (i.e., after an LED or emptying my hand, so that I was totally reliant on the drawn cards) and which ones were D4 with other resources still in hand. In either case, having gone 0-for-7, I think I'll start mulliganing 7- (and maybe 6-) card hands on the play when I can only open with D4 floating no mana.
That's all for now. Hopefully somebody knows how to hide text. If not, I apologize in advance for my next post, dumping 60 sample hands.
I get what you are trying to do, but I don't think it will work. The deck simply isn't linear.
Take my last goldfish hand. I had the following hand: D4x2, LGx2, Mox Diamond, Dark Ritual, ESG.
Now, there are two lines of play here, both starting with LG for Bayou.
First, I could play Bayou > Ritual > D4. That gave me the second LG to fetch Dryad Arbor to play Mox Diamond and ESG to activate any rituals I drew into.
Alternatively, I could pitch Bayou for Mox Diamond > Ritual > D4. This protected my land drop, so if I drew into a Culling the Weak (and an initial mana source) I could LG into Dryad Arbor.
The first option seemed more likely, so I played out the Bayou. I drew into Lotus Petal, Culling the Weak, LED and Belcher. Easy T1 win, if I had chosen the second option.
Does that hand count as a T1 win for your statistics or not? The hand was capable of a T1 win, I just didn't play in properly. Note that I'm not saying I made the wrong call on a blind play, just that it was the wrong call in hindsight. I was wrong about what the deck was going to give me.
Because this example was so simple, it's easy to tell that the one play is a win, and the other is not, but it will rarely be so clear cut. The tournament report a post or two above alludes to imprinting a D4 over a ritual, and then drawing into nothing but gas - something we've all had happen. Was that a turn one win, if he had made a different choice? We can't know.
And because we can't know, your statistics tell us only what the deck is capable of when piloted by you. While you might be able to prove that the deck is capable of X%, you can't prove that it's not capable of X+1% in the hands of another pilot.
Silent Requiem, please don't take this personally, but your post is full of common mistakes and fallacies that people make all the time, so I feel compelled to point all of them out.
When you're just trying to find the T1 goldfish rate, the deck absolutely is linear. In any situation in which you are deciding between multiple lines of play, exactly one of those lines of play has the highest chance of resulting in a T1 win, and that is the correct play.
The correct play in this scenario obviously depends heavily on your list. I'm not sure what list you're using that runs Mox Diamond. (The list you posted on the previous page doesn't.)
Without knowing the list, I can't say which of these is the correct play. But the correct play doesn't depend on what you actually drew in any instance of this game. The correct play depends only on the probabilities that you will draw various cards. One of these plays is a higher percentage play than the other, even if we haven't yet identified which play is best.
No, since you actually fizzled. Although the proper way to determine which is the correct play is take that starting hand, shuffle the rest of the deck, and play 30+ games making the same choice every time. Then play 30+ games making the other choice every time. Then see which choice is the higher percentage play. (Note: if the two plays are very close in percentage, it may take significantly more games, even hundreds, to determine which is better.)
The "wrong play in hindsight" is a particularly common fallacy. To give an example that makes it more clear why this reasoning is wrong: suppose you have Belcher in play with 1 land left in your 50-card deck. You have BBBB GG floating and Witness in hand, with Manamorphose in the graveyard, nothing else in hand, and no other unused mana on the table. Do you go for the Belcher activation, or do you Witness -> Manamorphose hoping to topdeck the perfect card to continue? The probability that your Belcher activation does at least 20 damage is 60%. Assuming all D4s are left in your deck, your chance of topdecking a D4 is 16% (so your chance of winning with the Witness line of play is strictly less than 16%). If you activate Belcher, seeing a D4 on top of your deck and your 1 land 10 cards down, that doesn't make your line of play "wrong in hindsight". It was obviously the higher percentage play, and you should make the same choice every time you find yourself in this position.
You shouldn't make your play decisions based on an assumption of what the deck will give you. You should make your play decisions knowing the chances of drawing what you need to continue your spell chain.
This example is not at all clear cut. It is easy to see that you happened to lose in this one case. But it would probably take 50-100+ games to distinguish those two lines of play in terms of their relative win rates.
We can easily test this by putting ourselves in the same game situation and playing a large batch of games; half the time imprint the D4, and the other half imprint the Ritual, and calculate the win rate in each case. We CAN know, it just takes time.
I'm not claiming to play the deck optimally. I'm still trying to determine, for as many individual game states as I can, what the optimal choice is given that game state. Without testing every single game state, we cannot hope to find the optimal T1 goldfish rate. Having said that, we can definitely test claims of a certain T1 win rate by playing a large number of games and recording the outcomes. Then, simple math allows us to calculate things like:
This in itself isn't enough to reject the 80% on-the-draw claim. We also need to know that the difference in T1 win rate (53.3% vs. 80%) isn't due to other factors (such as deck design or incorrect plays on my part). That's why I post my hands, in the hopes that other pilots claiming significantly higher T1 win rates can identify any play errors which might be affecting my results.
Hey man. Just thought i'd pitch in with a few thoughts (hopefully helpful).
On linearity -
Its not liner in the sense of, I guess... magic deckbuilding theory? We dont quite try and resolve one key spell in the sense that AdN does (ironically now probably past in flames... :D) so the decision tree is relatively large and complex. Beyond simply 'missing' lines of play in a goldfish, its sometimes hard to distinguish between some lines in terms of the raw percentages. Maybe even the percentages between good lines of play are so small, that it doesnt really matter. I Guess that is what practice is about... Also just to flag up my experience in the sense that when I play storm, I tend to have a rough idea of percentage of drawing X, but I really just go on gut instinct a lot of the time. Maybe its my minds way of feeding the info that I need because im so comfy with the deck, rather than having to consciously process the information. I know that Silent tends to be a more... calculating storm player, so Im surprised the two of you missed each other so readily in the thread :).
On 'winning with the correct play' -
A friend of mine who is rather excellent at magic blew my mind one day by saying if you lost, you made the wrong play. The correct play is the one that wins, rather than the one that had a higher percentage chance of winning. No stats to back it up, but it seems right, even though he was talking about games where you're interacting with an opponent.
So....... Im not a very mathematically minded person, and to be honest I dont really want to spend an awful lot of time goldfishing a deck that I played a few years ago, but I did do some sample hands (5 of them!!!!!!!). Of course this is too few to tell anything, but you can add them to your data if thats the plan, but mainly it might help you see lines of play or whatever.
So, its hugely dry, and is just the note I took (I meant to clean it up but im too tired, but I hope that the shortenings are clear...):
hand 1 - bargain, MM, CtW, CM, CtW,CabRit, SP (keep)
T1 - Mox(Ctw), pact (arbor), arbor, CtW, CB (draw InfT, LED, LP, LP), LP, LP, LED, MM(Thresh, Blackx2 - draw Crit), Crit, Crit,InfT (tendrils)
PASS
Hand 2 - InfT, ESG, MM, LP, Arbor, Od Trow, bayou. ---> like it, but not turn1. Mull. I played it out for fun and it was a T2 hand. Not fast enough for our purposes though.
Mull to - CtW, InfC, CM, CtW, LP, Drit ---> need a good draw4. (keep)
T1 - CM (CtW), Drit, InfC, (draw Crit, ToA, InfT, CtW) Pass
T2 (draw LP) - Still doesnt go
T3 (draw LG) - Looks like minitendrils is the plan. 1 mana short of InfT (Tendrils) then double tendrils. The 3rd culling is really clogging the hand up.... Maybe hope to draw ESG or something. I abandoned ship here though.
FAIL
Hand 3 - CM, CM, LP, LP, MM, ToA, ESG (Mull) ---> To many manas
I was so disgusted with my next hand I didnt even write it down I threw it away so fast :). Down to 5 - LP, CB, CM, CM, Drit (Draw4, see what happens :)
T1 - LP, Drit, CB (draw InfT, SP, CB, Crit), CM (InfT), SP (ESG) [ESG], Crit CB (CtW, InfC, ToA, SP) ---> didnt think this would make it until now :D. CM (InfC), SP (arbor), CtW, ToA
PASS
Hand 4 - LG, Drit, ESG, MM, Drit, InfT, MM (keep)
T1 - LG (Bayou), Drit, Drit, [ESG], MM (BG, draw CB), CB (draw SP, SP, CM, CM), Pact (ESG), [ESG], MM (BB, draw LED [phew]). It thought I would celebrate this near miss (I think LED was my only out)... with a sweet, less obvious kill). InfT(LED), CM, CM, LED, LED, SP (Witness, crack GGGBBB - get back InfT), InfT (Tendrils), Tendrils
PASS
Hand 5 - CM, CM, ESG, InfT, SP, InfC, Crit (keep)
T1 - CM (InfT), [ESG] Crit, InfC (draw GoblinCB CtW, CtW ESG), CM (CtW), SP (Arbor), CtW, Blecher.
T2 - Activate belcher with ESG in resp to lose the game trigger it gets there
FAIL (technically, but in my mind this was a T1 :))
So in my hugely statistically relevant sample, I got 3/5 T1 (or 4/5 with the T2 upkeep belcher), so I guess im somewhere around 65-70% ish. But im rusty - some of those were ropey :).
I guess the turn 1 percentages are what they are. If you want to improve your game I would play the deck. Otherwise I guess its possible to do some number crunching and eventually work out the exact percentages of getting improved turn 1s with different plays card by card, but that is an exercise I wouldn't really enjoy. And I guess it would take the magic out of playing the deck for me (excuse the pun). I guess thats why I dont want to really engauge with that, more mathmatical side of the deck. Im happy with my percentages, and dont really feel like I need to spend 300 man hours grinding stats when there is a life to live :).
On a side note, I played the deck for maybe a year and a half relatively seriously. And even in that time I would have a little storm goldfish before a tourney, because some days just weren't storm days for me, and im sure I would goldfish around 20%, dying to pacts etc... and then throw the deck away and play enchantress. I think the player skill varies the deck immensely, and even your temperament when you play it... and the next day when my head was on the storm mothership, i'd go with a good T1 percentage consistently all day. In my mind, because I was on it...
Anywho im out (its late)
Peace to you all
The Spanish Tunnel King
Sorry for the double post. Just a quick one to say that Silent nuked me with the sideboard plan vs blue against me playing next level thresh. It always feels super hard to contain the thing games 2 and 3... It seemed like not tapping out ever was the key, but giving the deck a 'free' draw4 by making land drops feels really bad post board...
Also, I really do wish there was a storm mothership. That would be sweet.
Because of the randomness of D4's, you really can't say that one decision is correct over the other. That's just how it goes with this deck - balls to the wall plays that fizzle like a puppy if they don't work out, but explodes Tendrils and Huge Fireballs on the opponent's face if it does.
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
Okay. From Silent Requiem's example following his statement, I took "not linear" to refer to situations with multiple lines of play which might be correct. I agree we're not just trying to resolve one key spell and that we have a complicated set of decisions to make. But I disagreed with Silent Requiem's statement that the correct choice between two lines of play is determined after the fact by whether or not the play panned out.
I agree. And I agree with your following point that, sometimes, we're deciding between two lines of play that differ only very slightly in their win rates, and time spent determining the optimal play is probably not well spent.
I completely disagree with this. Suppose you're playing Texas Hold 'Em and you've got pocket aces. You raise significantly before the flop, and one player calls you with 7 2 off-suit. Was your play wrong if the flop comes 7 4 2? Does your play become right again if the turn comes up A? The answer in both cases is: of course not. Your decision is right if it's the best decision you can make with all available information at the time you make the decision.
That's fine. Playing by "instinct" is not so different. When you are faced with two lines of play and need to choose one, you base your decision on memory. (You may not even be doing so consciously.) But your memory is not nearly as accurate as carefully collected data.
Again, that's fine. I'll keep doing sets of 30+ hands so that you don't have to.
I've addressed this multiple times. This is incorrect. There's a reason people like Vacrix have spent a large amount of time tuning the deck lists to have the right number of business/mana/acceleration/etc. Part of that tuning is to make sure that the D4s are reliable. That doesn't mean we'll win every time we cast a D4, but we can say what we expect to get out of a D4 and how often we expect to win as a result of it. And we can (and should) use our knowledge of these probabilities to make informed decisions.
OK, I'll bite. Keep in mind that "people like Vacrix" used to include me.
Using this list of yours (which is I think 3 cards off of my own maindeck):
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Slithermuse
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor
1 Eternal Witness
2 Manamorphose
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
You draw an opening 7 of Land Grant, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox, Dryad Arbor, Infernal Contract, Dark Ritual. You go first. You have no idea what the opponent is playing.
What's your play? If all competent SI players would write their play down on a piece of paper and then reveal them, I would be surprised if there is one clear answer.
And do you really do that? I mean, during a match, you choose between going for a D4 or going for a Belcher activation. Do you really think of "well, if I cast a D4, I have an X% chance of getting this combination of cards to win outright, knowing that I only have Y of these certain cards left in the deck. But if I fire Belcher, I have a Z% chance of hitting that damn Bayou."
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
I had switched over to Belcher for a while (after letting go of Solidarity) and seeing this deck being bumped to the front page for the last couple of days has gotten me to see if the grass is greener.
That and I can't pass up playing 7E Infernal Contracts with 7E Duresses. Too much flavor.
Anyhow, here's my list;
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Slithermuse
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor
1 Eternal Witness
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
sb
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Duress
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Taiga
1 Goblin Charbelcher
It's like most list around lately, though it only runs 3 Belchers main. I enjoy running atleast 2 Tendrils in the main as Belcher isn't always as reliable as the Tendrils, though I sometimes want the 4th Belcher. If I would cut anything for it it would be Eternal Witness, followed by IGG. IGG has been pretty damn good so far though. I still want to test more with Witness and IGG though, as they are great solutions to many situations this deck runs into, like Slithermuse. To the comments of cutting Slithermuse, no way. It's one of the most amazing g1 IT targets this deck has.
The sb is pretty self explanatory. 4 Duress come in against combo decks, and the whole 15 goes in versus blue decks. Even though Xantid Swarm can be hit with removal I love it as it's castable off a single ESG or Petal, and lets you allows you to run some Cullings after boarding.
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