TheManaDrain.com
December 03, 2025, 11:51:19 am *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News:
 
  Home Help Search Calendar Login Register  
  Show Posts
Pages: [1] 2
1  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Djinni Oath on: January 17, 2006, 11:56:21 am
Why 2 Djinns? 1 Djinn +1 Akroma should be just as fast.

Niv-Mizzet seems also like a good Oath creature. He is a bit like Hydra or Triskelion.
2  Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: A viable WW? on: January 07, 2006, 12:04:46 pm
Quote
If I wanted a discussion of a Fish deck I would have started a thread for one.  All I want in this thread is how to improve the build of WW I posted and if the deck is even viable in any tournaments.
The above list is not Mono White Weenie. That is just not true. You slash a color and blue is the better slashcolor for the deck.
If you look at old Extendet White Weenie lists you will see that a blue Slash for Meedling Mage is more typical for White Weenie than slashing green.

One year ago the "Meandeck Fish" would have been called WW/u. And it is WW/u. Fish decks follow the rule "Your creatures must have at least as much power as their casting cost, and they should have some ability to outtech your opponent if possible". That the rules on which WW is build.
Fish was the deck that played Standstill and tried to abuse the Standstill.
3  Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: A viable WW? on: January 06, 2006, 01:36:41 pm
Quote
Yay, another WW thread!!!!  Everyone says WW is currently not viable but I wonder with all the recent additions and deck trends if this is still true. 
Well there is White Weenie, it just slashes Blue.

The difference is that you drop Blue in favor for green. That doesn't allow you to play the best White Weenie creature = Meddling Mage. And you lose the Brainstorm Drawengine in favor for more creatures. That leaves you with no carddraw engine.

The blue slash enabled the other deck to play Force of Will over your Seals. Force seems to be a better distruption card.

You play Whipcorder over Stormscape Apprentice. Both creatures with the same ability. Your Whipcorder cost one aditional mana and has one power more. So they serve both as good as the other.

The only gain of slashing Green instead of blue is that you can play Oxidicein your sideboard. That seems to be a bad tradeoff.
4  Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: [Single Card Discussion] Sarcomancy on: December 15, 2005, 02:54:34 pm
Quote
In theory, Sarcomancy is extremely strong against Stax.  The enchantment can be tapped for Tangle Wire or sacrificed to Smokestack with no ill effects and some gains.
Quote
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player taps an untapped artifact, creature, or land he or she controls for each fade counter on Tangle Wire.
Unfortuneatly no Enchantment.

An additional Disadvantage is that Echoing Truth kills your Zombie Token.

Concerning the decklist:
Is it built for a aggro meta?
4 Swords, 24 creatures, 0 Chalice and 0 Null Rod looks wired.
It looks much more like a White Weenie Decklist with Black for better creatures and Duress. White Weenie is not necassary a bad deck, but it is no Fish.

5  Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: Solidarity/High Tide: Legacy Powerhouse, Vintage Viable? on: December 15, 2005, 02:32:38 pm
In my opinion Time Walk is to good to be dropt. You need 2-3 Lands into play as soon as possible so you should play Walk.
Same with Lotus and the On color Mox, you need to be as fast as possible in Vintage.

Frantic Search is a card that should definatly be added to a High Tide List.

The important question is whether your decks is fast enough to survive with only 4 Force of Will for Distruption.
6  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: GWS Oath on: December 09, 2005, 06:50:43 pm
Since you are playing no Thirst for Knowledge I see no reason to run Top over Sylvan Libary. The Libary is way more powerful because it allows you to get ~3-4 extra cards in a matchup were life doesn't realy matters like the control matchup.
7  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Wild Zombies on: December 06, 2005, 09:48:05 am
I think I would try to put 3 Null Road in the Sideboard. It is better than Root Mazes gainst Combo. Also Nul Road + Wasteland Recursion is tech. It works also exellent against Gifts.
8  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: December 06, 2005, 09:41:19 am
I have switched to:
-1 Polluted Delta
+1 Cabal Pit (having a maindeck way to handle Welder or Fishes is nice)

-1 Exploration (having 2 at the same time is not good enough to play 4)
-2 Intuition
+3 Gifts

and
-1 Brainstorm
+1 Sylvan Libary (a old Keeper tradition to play a single Sylvan Libary, it is a nice card with all the shuffle effects)

Sideboard:
-2 Carpet of Flowers
+2 Nullroad (to have a better combo matchup)
-2 Forbidden Orchard
+1 Naturalize
+1 Oath of Druids (The Oath Sideboard tech doesn't need Forbidden Orchards, because I board them against aggro I can also defend myself against the Manlands of Fish with my Loam Engine)
9  Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: Yawgmoth's Will in MBC on: December 05, 2005, 05:37:23 pm
Quote
Yawgmoth's Will does not belong in every deck that has black mana.  You cannot just make this kind of blanket statement.  For example, many Turbo-land type decks don't use Will because it interrupts them going off.  You are probably better off with a different card if it gives you better results.
Naturally their are some decks that want to replay a card more than once, but this deck has no other use for its graveyard.

To quote from a old Void primer:
Quote
The Yawgmoth's will is one of the best cards in the format and it is also in this deck a game deciding card, with the help of dark Ritual you can sometimes replay your whole graveyard.
Under a Nether Void the Will may appear useless but it can be played to replay Wasteland or Stripmine to destroy an additional land.

10  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: vintage truths.list on: December 05, 2005, 05:18:44 pm
Quote
1) Brainstorm + Fetch rates in the top 5 vintage draw engines .: Brainstorm should be considered in any blue based deck with fetchlands, or conversely fetchlands should be considered in any blue based deck with Brainstorm.
It is generally considered a bad idea to play Brainstorm a Fish deck with Standstill.

Quote
3) Black Lotus makes any deck better .: should be included even at the expense of another possible "business" card.
The old Gay Fish lists couldn't use Black Lotus, because of the card disadvantage that resulted from the Lotus.

I think Oncolor Moxen and the Demonic Tutor in black decks would be better truthes
11  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Game Theory and the Best Deck on: December 05, 2005, 05:08:26 pm
Quote from: PucktheCat
There are a million caveats that apply to this sort of analysis.  We left out the chance that a player has an upset tummy during the game and can't concentrate, the chance that the road from St. Louis to Chicago will be struck by a meteor so Vroman can't win the next Star City there, and so on.  We reduced the complexity of the problem significantly for analysis.  In fact, that is true by definition
You have a theory that may be consistend, but it produces significant wrong results. If you leave the skill out your theory is consist only of some metaphysical assumptions, because skill matters. And skill is no random factor. Skill is certainly predicable, and therefore better analysable than a factor like a meteor that hits Vroman.
That meteor would be a random factor, but skill is not. By the way if a player can't concentrate that is a lack of skill.
Quote from: Elric
If players are identical, the effect of skill is captured in knowing how each of the decks match up against each other.  So each player’s individual skill doesn’t matter.  I would assume that if all players had no idea how to play GrimLong (and consequently couldn’t beat anything with it because they couldn’t figure out how to put together a Storm kill), GrimLong wouldn’t be played at all. 

If I try to get matchup data I propose a thought experiment.
I give 2 team meandeck players a Gifts built and Stax built. They switch the decks after each match. They play 100 matches. Then I would gain a knowledge of the matchup.

On the other hand I take the the same decks to a local shop in which I meet two players who know the magic rules but have never before played T1 in their lives.
They shall also switch the decks after each match and they play also 100 matches.

I would think that the two players in the local shop get a drastically different matchup than the two meandeck players.

Quote from: Elric
Assuming that you know the outcome of a truly random variable beyond the probability distribution is similar to “All ghosts are bodybuilders.  There are no ghosts.â€?  This is logically true but because there are no ghosts, the first statement doesn’t imply anything at all.
Logically you don't know whether it is true or false.
"There are no ghost and therefore all ghost are bodybuilders is true" but “All ghosts are bodybuilders.  There are no ghosts.â€? can be true as well as false because you can conclude a right statement from a false statement.

Quote tags fixed
12  Eternal Formats / Creative / Re: Yawgmoth's Will in MBC on: December 05, 2005, 09:47:01 am
Quote
Do you agree that Will isn't that effective in MBC in comparison to other combo/control decks?
Is that a honest question? Will is a bomb. Even when the Void is in play a Will can still Recycle a Wasteland.

Quote
Many people say that Will should be included in every deck that runs black, but I'm not that sure about this one since after Void hits play, problably on turn 3-5, then Will is totally unplayable while Vampiric can still be played.
  If you plan to play Void on turn 3-5 in a deck withoud carddraw and you aren't playing 4 Voids than there is something wrong with your gameplan.
If you Netdeck a deck like Nether Void you should at least understand it's gameplan. The deck tries to distrupt the enemy in the first turns and uses Void only to prevent the opponent from recovering.

I would rather play Crucible/Chimeric Idol/Nether Spirit than your creature base.
13  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Game Theory and the Best Deck on: December 03, 2005, 09:05:28 am
Quote
Let me use an example that should make it really clear why: let's say that right before the tournament starts, I offer to pay you $100 if you can pick the player who will win the tournament.  All players are assumed to be identical, so each player's chance to win the tournament only depends on the deck he is playing and the rest of the decks at the tournament (and you know all of this).
Even if all players are identical skill is still important. If everyone know how to play Gifts and nobody knows how to play Grim Long, Gifts will win with a higher percentage than if nobody knows how to play Gifts and everyone knows how to play Grim Long.

Quote
You might think that the "best answer" to this question is person with the deck that has the highest chance to win the tournament (assuming you know all matchup percentages and can just run through the calculation). 

But now let's suppose that I assert that that "best answer" isn't really the "best answer" at all- it's just the best practical answer.  The real best answer, though, is to know the future and see which players will win the tournament.  Then you simply pick that player.  In theory, this works every time. 
That is only true if there is only one future. If Schroedingers cat is only alive or dead when someone opens the box, their could also be multiple futures from the start point of a tournement. And random shuffling is based on some electrons that move in our brain so chaos theory should have an effect in there.
So you have to look in who many futures the cat lives and in who many it dies.
You have also to look in who many futures which deck wins.
So you have to remove all random factors and replace them by Fuzzy logic: A coin flip is 50% tails and 50% heads instead of a coin flip can be 100% heads or 100% tails.

14  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Bazaar Oath on: December 03, 2005, 06:38:19 am
Where do you want to take your mana to play counterspells from?
You need to tap out for your Tap 3 Lands/Draw a Card combo.
You lack the manasources to do something with your cards. You need Fastbond and or Exploration to gain the full advantage of Life from the Loam.
That allows you to trade cards you draw into tempo by dropping a Wasteland for free in addition to your other plays each turn.
15  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Query: Do you think there is a lack of consensus about Basic Propositions In T1? on: November 28, 2005, 04:31:26 pm
Quote
The best deck is defined independently of its performance.  To find the best deck you would look at all of the other decks that will be in a tournament and determine the list that has the greatest possibility of winning the tournament.  No account is taken for things independent of the deck itself, such as playskill, luck, or random gamelosses for illegal decklists.
I can make a better prediction which list has the greatest possibility of winning the tournament when I have the same of the player on the decklists.

And the metagame, the decks that are played by other people are depenedent on the deck itself?
They are external factor that are independent of your decklist. They are the same category as things like your gameplans for your matchups.
16  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Query: Do you think there is a lack of consensus about Basic Propositions In T1? on: November 28, 2005, 02:47:14 pm
Quote
Since there is always going to be incomplete knowledge and varying interpretations what is known, whichever deck is the "best deck" will vary from person to person so yes, you are correct in this statement that the best deck could be deck C or deck D.
My statement is that it could be deck C for Player B and deck D for player A.
This is not about incomplete knowledge. If we only look at the decklist, we have to assume that the other factors that determine who wins the game are fixed.
Even when we do not know the factors, they are those factors. A chess player can't calculate all variants, but he can assume that there are all variants that results from the game rules. Their is nobody who throw a ball on the board when the player does a certain move.
There are variants that have a higher win chance and those that have a lesser win chance.
He tries to find one of the higher win chance variants.
But he has to assume that the rest of the game is theorethicly predictable for making good moves.

If you assume that there is a specific result of a decision you can't drop the factor of the player just because you want to.
To quote Sun Zi: If you know the enemy (the metagame) and know yourself (you, the player) , you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. 

The decisions that are made by a player are a huge factor which determines how good a deck performs.
From the perspective of having to make the choice which deck to play at a given moment having perfect knowledge would mean knowing the metagame and yourself and how the two interact with a given deck.

Quote
The definition of the best deck does not require that any given player be able to exploit it properly, and specifically allows for it to lose as a result of things like insufficient playskill or plain dumb luck.
Their is a mayor difference between insufficent playskill and plain dumb luck. Insufficent playskill partly predictable. All theoreticly predictable data has to be taken into account to get a objective result.

I am not saying that making tactical (those that depend on a specific situation) mistakes is predicable and a lot of mistakes come from general strategic misunderstanding of the perfect game plan of a deck.
If someone realy likes to play his deck as fast as possible, he just follows blindly the concept of getting your opponent to 0 life as fast as possible, he is better of with playing Belcher than playing a slow control deck and not using the strategic control ressources of the control deck.

Conclusion: The gameplan of a deck is just as important as the cards in the deck. It can't be left out when it gets to chosing the best decklist.
17  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Query: Do you think there is a lack of consensus about Basic Propositions In T1? on: November 28, 2005, 07:16:43 am
Quote
Just to set something straight, there is in fact always a 'best deck.'  The best deck for a tournament is the deck that has the greatest probability of winning the tournament.
The question is is the best deck for Player A the same as for Player B? If it is not it is only a subjective term.

Player A may have enough strategic understanding of the decks in question to have a 60% win chance with deck C and a 65% win chance with Deck D.
Player B may have enough strategic understanding of the decks in question to have a 65% win chance with deck C and a 60% win chance with Deck D.

The point is that game theory says that their is a best strategy in a given field. But strategy is more than just the deckchoice.
18  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 23, 2005, 10:37:54 am
Quote
No, you've probably lost.  Because they let you play your mana and countered all the recursion and tinker.  This is a terrible assumption.  TPS can regularly get 10 mana out...and then you counter the last card that happened to be wheel with force backup and TPS stalls out the same way this deck stalls out.  10 mana?  Who cares, I have force of will + drain in my hand.  BAD assumption.
You if you have 10 manasources (note that they need to be permanent sources and no Lotus Mana) you have the LotL engine going or a Crucible in play. And then you can destroy the manabase of your opponent. So while I am "stalling out" I destroy 2 lands per turn.

But even when it is a situation in which they have force+drain in hand and a living manabase this is no situation in which the Echoing Truth combo is realy useable.

You don't draw that many cards that you have a full set of moxen in play, mana is mostly produced by lands in this deck.

Quote
Lastly, if you need more black sources, why not go with 2 Bayou, 1 Sea? Is there a reason to go with more basic lands?
Having basic Lands is good against decks like Stax or fish.
And I would only need more black sources if I would play Pernicious Deed. It would probably weaken my stax Matchup and only improve the aggro matchups. I have not much problems against Aggro because of the Oath Sideboard plan, the Staxs matchup seems more important to me at the moment.
But I should probably test the Deed.

Quote
or you could just destroy the oath.... that's probably a lot easier than the combo.
Yeah, but Echoing Truth doesn't destroy the Oath.

Playing threats is IMO better than playing anwsers. Thats why Gifts is better than Keeper.

Quote
Tinker -> Colossus is still often great in the early game. Do you find that you win more with one or the other?
I win Game one mostly with the infinite turns combo. But when the opponent boards enough graveyard hate I switch to the collosus plan.

Quote
One thing I learned from playing Gifts is that it often recurs Tinker, and can do so more than once in one game if it wants. Actually, sometimes Gifts can even hard-cast the dude, especially if they've resolved a Mana Drain. Watch out for Shamans too, as many decks run them MB, and you still have almost no answers to a resolved 1/1 for one red mana, other than bouncing it and killing the red mana sources, or blocking with Witness.
But after the first Tinker the second is probably powered by a Yawamoth Win anyway. And the Will produces a situation in which a Echoing Truth wouldn't realy help and a turn more or less would be insignificant because the Gifts player has a good counter wall.

Blocking Shamans with Winess sound like a good plan. I know that bouncing a Darksteel Collosus is no win, but it brings me back into the game.

Quote
How is the Gifts/Intuition split working out?
I am at the moment fine with 2 Intuitions and 3 Gifts. But that results in a 61 card deck Sad
19  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 22, 2005, 04:10:11 pm
Quote
Mark of eviction takes a turn to work
Yes, that is true.
But taking 11 damage from a collosus is okay. Decks who play Tinker-Collosus usually don't play beats to do the other 9 damage. I have still a few lifepoints to do a bit FoWing or Fetching, so what is the problem? Yes, Echoing Truth is a better bouncer and yes Mark is a bad card for bouncing opposing creatures and the Echoing Truth-Infinite Turn combo is realy bad. The Mark infinite turn combo is good. 

Quote
No my argument is you don't need infinite turns to win the game. It's nice that it is there but rarely is it required to win. Think of the infinite mindslaver position in CS.
A large number of turns is enough.
The mindslaver position is different because you can destroy your opponents hand in addition to taking turns. And for a matter of fact th infinite mindslaver combo needs a lot more set up.

But think about the Oath Matchup, they play the Oath and you have around 2 turns left. If you resolve the infinite turns combo you win. This is a typical situation in which you need to win now. And gathering 4 additional mana sources needs maybe 2 additional turns.
Sure you can try to counter Oath by bouncing Oaths creatures a little, but this doesen't gives you a win and it leaves the threat in play.

If I have already 10  manasources out I have probably already won the game. In this deck having ten mana sources out often means your opponent has ~ 0 lands in play. If I have that mana mana I can also hardcast Darksteel Collosus but that doesn't make Tinker 'unneeded'. And Tinker realy can't do much else than getting Collosus, so discard it?
20  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Life from the loam IS the hate. (aggro/control list) on: November 19, 2005, 07:41:34 pm
Have you considered Unearth? It works realy great with your Witness and your large graveyard.

I would rather take out Vampiric than cutting Demonic Tutor.
21  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 19, 2005, 03:59:55 pm
Quote
In almost a year of playing sex, i've never once needed to take infinite turns. I'd say that in less than ten games, I've even done it. When it is needed to win, echoing truth does the same thing by bouncing two or more eternal witnesses. Mark of Eviction is clunky and not necisarry. It leaves extra room for your "combo" to be disrupted and is terrible as a bounce spell in general as it takes a turn to work and only hits creatures.
So your argument is:
"Because a 10 Mana Combo which requires 4 cards doesn't work (or is unnecassary) a 6 Mana combo which requires only 3 cards will not work"?
And if I have the 4 extra mana and an extra witness the combo is even more difficult to distrupt than the Echoing Truth combo.

Quote
Why aren't your running Crop Rotation?  That seems like a natural fit to me.  It makes that example of a hard lock you had a harder lock.
In this deck the "Land war" is about card advantage. When LotL give me 3 useable (this word is the problem of LotL, it needs Exploration to be solved) cards for only 2 mana, I can outplay Gifts or Staxs.
Crop Rotation results in permanent disadvantage. I rather take a Intution to tutor my Strip Mine because Intution gives me LotL and a Wasteland or a Cycleland on top. And here I am not sure that Gifts can replace all Intuition, because it comes one turn later.

Quote
I'm still worshiping Pernicious Deed. It's best for what ails ya, and blows up just about everything that isn't indestructible.
Pernicious Deed could be a replace for Seeds of Innocence as mana artifact destroyer but I think that I have not enough black manasources for Deed. Tutoring Deed and playing it in the same turn requires 2 black Mana and Mystical Tutor can't even search Pernicious Deed.

Quote
seeds of inocence is cool tech, but control slaver doesnt depend on rack and ruin to survive stax
Seeds are also used in other matchups as tool against mana artifacts when enough damage is already done via Strip Mine Recursion.
Life of the Loam/Exploration is a good engine against Stax.
22  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 18, 2005, 07:12:48 am
You are probaly right that Gifts is very powerful. I will test a split of Intutions/Gifts.
23  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 17, 2005, 04:53:07 pm
Quote
The one thing that I am curious about is, do you feel that Intutioning for two lands and Life from the Loam is better than Intutioning for three Accumulated Knowledge? Without any testing in the Life from the Loam engine I am hesitant to believe that; however, it is possible that I am wrong in this assumption. But either way, I would like to here your opinion on this matter.
If a Exploration lays already I am confident that Life from the Loam+2 Lands is clearly better. If not it is as strong as Accumulated Knowledge. Keep also in mind that you tutor for power cards when the LftL wouldn't work in the situation.
Quote
Secondly, your only answer to a Chalice of the Void for one is Seeds of Innocence. Since a CotV for one kills your combo and your mana acceleration engine I would think this might be a problem for you.
Exploration could be played before the Chalice comes into play.
On top of that you can switch to the Tinker plan. And one Strip Mine per turn can also sometime be enough to distrupt a opponent enough, remember the Stax player is also hosed by  his Sphere of Resistances.

Quote
And right now I think most decks will be hard to disrupt through land destruction because of fetchland-lots of basics mana bases.
If I resolve a Intuition I have a Strip Mine for the basics.

Quote
I must say, this is an interesting variation on that theme and Mark of Eviction was an excellent find (I am stealling that piece of tech)
I am looking forward to reading a 'Sex' list with Mark of Eviction. It would be interesting if it affects other card choice in your deck and how often you win with beating your opponent with Werebears afterwards.

Quote
I don`t understand why you don`t pack the Zuran Orb in your deck, this would be a second chance of winning.
In my counting it would be the fourth chance of winning. Infinite Turns, Lock your opponent and 'Tinker Collosus' are already three ways.
24  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 17, 2005, 03:28:41 pm
Quote
Comment 1: This is not a mana drain deck and packs a whopping 4 Force of Will to protect.
Quoting from a article from Stephen Menendian about Gifts:
Quote
Randy Buehler: [...] I'm actually growing to hate Mana Drain. It's probably the worst card in the deck right now and I sideboard out 3 of them with some regularity.[...]
[/url]
Mana Drain is not so important when you aren't playing pure control.

Quote
Comment 2: Tendrils can run 4 Force of Will and mana drain, and way more broken cardz.
Imagine a Draw like: Exploration/Wasteland/Tropical Island/Fetchland/Life of the Loam/xxx/xxx, your opponent starts with playing a Nonbasic Land.
You play Tropical Island/Exploration/Wasteland/Destroy Land go.
Next turn you play Fetch search a Land then play Life of the Loam for a Fetch/Wasteland. Maybe your opponent sees now his problem and forces the Life of the Loam. Well you get a new one next turn.
Conclusion Exploration is an effective Lock Card. It is no bad card. It is a broken card. In this Example the opponent probably had to force it to be in the game. And that isn't bad for a 1 mana casting cost card.

If you tutor with Intuition your Strip Mine your opponent can also not go back to the Basicland defense. When you have 2 Strip effect per turn leaving a Fetchland open also doesn't allow the opponent to come back.

Quote
Have you considered using Vinelasher Kudzu and using Witness+Mark as secondary kill, taking the deck to a more aggro-combo route? Fetchlands, LftL, Exploration, Crucible make Kudzu an awesome fit.
I play a Lock/Combo Route. If I wanted to play aggro combo I would rather play Werebears than Vinelasher Kudzu's. In fact this deck envolved out of a aggro-combo list ('Sex'), but I think aggro combo isn't realy good. It gives your opponent to much time. If I attack the Mana base it has an immediate effect. And if I get him to 0 Lands it is also nearly a win.

Quote
LftL isn't necessarily better than any other, faster searchers.
Quote
Umm, otherwise, I tend to think that this is strictly worse than Sex, really. Eight counters are kind of necessary against decks that drop multiple bombs.
Sex does play four counters. I have more distruption than sex.
Life of the Loam is not so much a searcher, it is distruption. Life of the Loan/Crucible and Exploration is just as good in term of manaproduction as Werebear and Birds in 'Sex'. A Werebear or a Vinelasher Kudzu needs a few turn to put pressure on the opponent. Life of the Loam can also put pressure on them and it has an immident effect.

Quote
It is noted in my head as "slow engine, control deck".
The problem is that you need to tap out to use Life from the Loam to it's fullest potential. For that reason it has a lot of disharmony with Mana Drain. Much like Bazaar of Badgad + Manadrain. And Life from the Loam works so much faster with Exploration.

Quote
Also why is Intuition better than Gifts Ungiven here?
My game plan is to play the card the second turn. Gifts come a turn later.

Quote
Is this a casual deck or a competitive vintage deck?  Basically, I'm seeing a pile of cards thrown together, not a deck, and I can only critique this list as that.  It's not going to beat CS, FCG, Workshop, Dragon, Gifts, Tendrils, TMWA, Fish . . . so why?
At the moment my testing ground is MWS. I know that many people who play their aren't playing good. But it works good against the good decks that show up.

Quote
Crystal Shard seems more appealing to me then the Mark. It's low on counters and I don't think it'd stand up to control unless you Chains out fast enough, only then a good player can still do their damage. Relying on 1 creature to win seems bad to me.
The combo costs 10 Mana with Crystal Shard. 6 Mana is better than 10 I think. You can also pitch it to force and switch to the plan of Gifts Collosus/TimeWalk plan. (and this deck is good at Time Walk recurssion). I don't rely on one creature. Beating with a Witness does also work when you have infinite turns. If you destroy the whole board of your enemy with Strip Mine recurssion and Seeds of Innocence you can even beat your opponent with one Witness without Time Walks.
25  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / [Deck] Recycle Pile on: November 16, 2005, 04:47:12 pm
// Lands
    4 Tropical Island
    1 Bayou
    1 Forest
    1 Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Wooded Foothills
    1 Windswept Heath
    3 Wasteland
    1 Strip Mine
    1 Tranquil Thicket
    7 Solomoxen

// Speed Up
    4 Exploration
    1 Fastbond

// Recycle
    3 Eternal Witness
    1 Regrowth
    1 Nostalgic Dreams
    2 Life from the Loam
    1 Crucible of Worlds

// Kill
    1 Mark of Eviction
    1 Tinker
    1 Darksteel Colossus

// Others
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Intuition
    4 Force of Will
    1 Gush
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Time Walk
    1 Seeds of Innocence
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Mystical Tutor

// Sideboard (in work at the moment)
SB: 2 Seeds of Innocence
SB: 1 Naturalize
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 3 Oath of Druids
SB: 2 Forbidden Orchard
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Coffin Purge
SB: 1 Darkblast

The main Win-Combo:
Eternal Witness + Time Walk + Mark of Eviction
is a 6 mana win.
Tinker Colossus serves as an alternate Win.

What to intuition for is one of the key questions of the deck.
You have to basic plans:
A power set up: Ancestral Recall/Timewalk/Tinker. You play this when you have Eternal Witnesses/Regrowth/Dreams in your hand.
The other Distruption setup is either:
Life from the Loam/Tranquil Thicket/Strip Mine is  good  when you have no Exploration or Fastbond or when you have one get someting else in place of the Cycleland.
The Cycleland is neccsary when you have only one land per turn to have not to much unused cards in your hand.

One black mana producing land is thanks to Life from the Loam enough for the two card slash.

Note the synergy between Life from the Loam and Brainstorm. You can either put lands back to your library or put the cards on top of your library into your graveyard via dredge.
Discarding the lands for Nostalgic Dreams is a similar card quality accelerator.

The 2 Life/1 Crucible is a good split because multiple Lifes are bad. Life has the advantage over Crucible in the early game because it is "counterresistent" and tutorable via Intuition.

Mark of Eviction can also be used as second class bounce against the creatures of your opponent.

Seeds of Innocence is a good silver bullet against Stax and a way to destroy mana artifacts.

Gush is in question, but it seems to be to good  to be left out in a deck with 4 Exploration. Maybe Gift of Ungiven would be better in this slot.

0 Mana Crypt:
You want to win with infinite turns, Mana Crypt produces problems.
0 Mana Drain:
You have a lot of sorcery speed cards and need to tap out.
0 Birds of Paradise/Werebears:
Exploration is just better in this deck.

26  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Ironworks on: August 02, 2005, 01:15:32 pm
Ashnod's Altar is in my opinion better than Krark-Clan Ironworks. 4 Mana is a lot, and the altar does often about the same as Ironworks.

Is there a reason for the lack of Junk Diver's?
27  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: R/G beats discussion on: June 13, 2005, 03:57:12 pm
I think you should play Karplusan Forest over the fechies. You have already enough forests for kirds.
Fetchies + Rootmaze = Sad
28  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / Re: Sixty First Card Discussion on: May 21, 2005, 05:02:24 pm
Over a game in which you see maybe 30 cards. Your chances to see specific card are ~ 1/31 more worse than in an 60 card deck.
If you want to see 5 cards at much as possible(Recall/Timewalk/Black Lotus/Yawamoth Win/Your Silverbullet Xy), and play 7 rounds in a tourment you will see 5*7*1/31= ~1 important card less than a player how plays a 60 card deck.

It is irrelevant to look at a per draw chance to draw a specific card, you have to see the hole picture over a larger time.
29  Eternal Formats / Creative / U/W aggro- A solid 5 proxy deck? on: December 12, 2004, 12:26:15 pm
I have played W/U sometime ago. I found Weathered Wayfarer to be a realy good creature. The Abillity to tutor up Wastelands if your opponent drops more lands than you is realy good against all kinds of control.
Playing fewer lands would  also work well with Aether Vial i think.
It can also Tutor more Mishras against decks like madness.
It is also good after SB when you bring Maze of Ith in.
30  Eternal Formats / Miscellaneous / [Singlecard-discussion] Forbidden Orchard on: September 25, 2004, 04:48:33 pm
How about a single Battlefield Scrounger?
If you have Oathed two times you put Anything - Ancestral Recall Time  Walk on top of your library.
You walk and can put replay Time Walk and playing your whole deck.
Or you can go Yawamoth Will up a combo. (Then you could use Krosan Reclamation in the case your Scrounger get sworded to combo kill too Crucible/Fastbone/Orb)

Two Yosei, the Morning Star would be also possible if you want to play blessing.
Pages: [1] 2
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Page created in 0.217 seconds with 18 queries.