And, following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, your first turn "substantial play" is enabled by your opening hand.  So the fundamental turn in Type 1 is zero.  

I don't think this is true.  Each example in turn:

1) Which of these combo decks has a fundamental turn of 2: Doomsday, Dragon, Belcher, TPS?  Dragon is way slower than turn 2, and TPS or Doomsday are only going off on turn 2 with good draws and good play; on average I look at them as closer to turn 3.  Belcher is the one that I would say has a fundamental turn of 2 (or faster, more like 1.5).

2) Oath is notoriously slow, despite its potential to draw Orchard+Oath and just win.  It's like saying Tog's fundamental turn is 2 because it can put a Tog on the table then.  Why have Intuition + AK in the deck if your fundamental turn is 2?

3) For Slaver, you aren't going to be welding much unless you resolved a TfK, which means 3 mana the turn before (and 4 to activate the Slaver for instance.)  Despite the potential for broken plays every now and then, I don't think any control deck can be said to have a fundamental turn of 2.

This is a good point and an interesting thing to think about.  We agree that 3Sphere is not broken in 5/3 (or 7/10 as well.)  If it's broken, it's a lock deck such as Stax that will break it.  But it's not always broken.

I think we also agree that what we are afraid of is two particular quick starts by Stax, something like 1) Workshop + 3Sphere - Go, 2) Land + Smokestack - Go.   Or 1) Workshop + 3Sphere - Go, 2) Crucible - StripMine - (strip) -Go.  (Which is almost to say that we are afraid of Stax's god-hands.  But we should be afraid of any decks god-hands.)  

Anyway, some thoughts on Stax:  

1) Stax has always been about dropping fast mana, a Smokestack and disruption (Sphere of Resistance/Wasteland).  If you say that 3Sphere has reduced Stax matchups to coinflips I think you have to look at historical Stax decks and admit they have always really really wanted to win the coinflip.  It's part of their nature as lockdown decks.

1a) My point about the win percentage is that if you say "Workshop + 3Sphere wins X%" you are postulating a good start for Stax and you have to compare it to the other traditional good starts like "Workshop+Sphere of Resistance".  So 3Sphere may win X% but if SoR wins X-5% then then we are really arguing about the -5% as a difference, not the X%.  (I hope that made sense. )

2) Once we say Trinisphere (or Crucible) is OK in 5/3 but maybe broken in Stax I think the next step is to look at the results for that particular deck: is Stax is dominating or even becoming popular?  Right now this is not happening, so I don't see enough facts to support the feeling that 3Sphere is a problem.  Stax is good, it can win in the hands of a good player, but it's not Black Summer Necro.

3) Something I mentioned earlier: Which Stax v. X matchups do you side your 3Spheres out?  The fact that there are a few important matchups where the 3Sphere is not good enough game 2&3 shows that even Stax is not totally breaking the card.  No matter how devestating a card can be in certain circumstances, it's hard to argue for restriction when it gets sided out a lot.



Yeah, but you said it yourself, would you rather face 2 Vises or 2 Trinispheres?  Also, would you ever side out your Vises?  Smemmen probably covered this in his LoA article (in great depth! ), but Black Vise is not a good comparison with Trinisphere.

And how would that compare with a first turn Sphere of Resistance or a first turn Chalice = 1 or =0?  You can't just claim that a first turn 3Sphere adds 6-12% to the win column in most matchups.  A first turn 3Sphere is a good start, but not that good.

Anyway, my main complaint was with people saying "You might as well scoop to a first turn 3Sphere."  No, you might as well play on and see if one of a hundred things happens because you aren't out of the game until they back 3Sphere up with another threat.  (See below about Welder).  I think some people are grossly overstating how effective 3Sphere is against a prepared deck.



I've played a game or two with this card called 3Sphere, so don't think I am basing my opinion soley on the Dragon matchup.  I brought it up because I think that this matchup is the clearest illustration of how a first-turn 3Sphere is not the be-all and end-all that people are making it to be.



Both players are under the 3Sphere; where are they getting an active Welder from?  (This brings up the point that it's hard to follow a first turn 3Sphere with a non-Artifact; the Stax and 5/3 manabases are notoriously a bit rickety due to the inclusion of the Workshop.)



I can't think of a deck or a matchup that I don't care about the coinflip. I want to win all the coinflips I can.  

This is the real question to me: does the first turn 3Sphere affect too many games?  And the math above shows that it doesn't.  You have to win the coinflip.  You have to draw the 'shop & 3sphere.  And you have to build a commanding position before your opponent gets to 3 mana.  So what percentage of games could this first turn 3Sphere win for you?  And then, you have to avoid the FoW, the Wasteland, the R&R and the opposing Workshop just to name 4.  How many is it winning now?  And how does that compare with any other good start in MtG?

This is what it comes down to; either you get out from under the Trinisphere "in time" or you don't.  Dragon, despite playing a lot fewer land than a control deck, plays sufficient fetches and basics to not fear the Wasteland that often follows the 3Sphere.  The Bazaar-based search helps too, but don't forget that you need to survive extra turn if you drop Bazaar instead of mana.  

What's interesting to me is that the Dragon matchup shows that "in time" is often turn 3, 4 or even later.  



If control Wishes for R&R (or just plays R&R in games 2-3) thats pretty good too.  

My point is that a first turn 3Sphere is vulnerable to a plan of 1-2-3 land drops and then playing a threat (Dragon) or an answer (R&R).  First turn 3Sphere is pretty darn good, but it's not an auto-win by a longshot, especially against a deck that is prepared (play land!    

Approaching it from another angle: would anyone consider mulliganing a decent hand, hoping instead for 'shop + 3Sphere?  You do against decks like Belcher where 3Sphere really is an autowin, but the 3Sphere just isn't good enough in other matchups to be worth the risk.  So there is a limit on how broken that play really is.

Wait, wait, wait; I joined late and haven't conceded that yet.  Let me try my point from another angle:

How do people feel about the Dragon v. 5/3 matchup?  To me, that's hugely in Dragons favor; Dragon just fetches some basic lands and goes off when it gets to 3 mana.  Now, if Dragon is not conceding to turn one Trinisphere, what is it doing right that everyone else is doing wrong?

edit: ps. Saying something about Crucible.  Um. Um.  OK, sure, Crucible v. Crucible games are boring and can be more about luck than skill.  Mirror matches tend to be degenerate like that in a lot of cases, so I am not surprised/frightened/offended.

I suppose you're exaggerating to make a point, but you make it sound like a turn 1 Trinisphere is grounds for concession by the opponent!  ( If that were true, we'd all be playing Stax and mulliganing aggressively. )

I just don't buy the idea that Trinisphere is skill-less either; sure it's obvious to drop Workshop->Trinisphere if you draw it early in the game, but take a look at all the different SB plans from 5/3 and Stax players in major events.  Knowing what to do with your Trinispheres -- on the off chance you wont draw them on turn 1 -- is something you can see lots of different opinions on.

edit: As for Crucible, I feel even more that it's proper use requires skill.  It may not be rocket science for experienced players, but I have seen people resolve Crucible, do pointless things with it and lose.  Workshop->Crucible is not an autowin either.

Did the players in the finals get decklists; ie, did Jim know that Dragon would be bringing in 2 Hurkyls + 2 Chain against him?  If so, he's probably figuring that Dragon has one of those cards in hand and doesn't want to lose next turn to Land + EOT Hurkyls.  (And if Dragon is at 3 land EOT it opens the possibility of winning without Bazaar through Land+Compulsion+Animate+Card).  

This all depends on hand-size and number of Squees in the 'yard.  Anyway, I assume since Squee wasn't mentioned in the report the Wasteland->Underground play looked sweeter as it played out.

OTOH:

One thing I was really curious about was the Dragon sideboard; with 3xEngineered Explosives and 3xChalice.   I wonder what he was gunning for with that configuration?  It's going to be hard to get the EE to be for more than 2 with the manabase as is.  I hope the Dragon guy writes a report!  

I am talking about Beyond Dominia, not TMD.  (Am I misremembering?  It was all so long ago...)  

Anyway, my request for judicious moderation stands; the winner of a big tournament usually gets a (coherent!) report and a bit of swagger.  I don't know if either of those players wants to report on TMD, but if they do, I'd like to hear what they have to say.  (I realize that other people with mod power may not agree with me, but I am pre-emptively putting my opinion out there; I wouldn't like to see a reasonable report deleted/distorted by a mod with a grudge.)

--edit --

Z posted while I was posting.  Obviously he disagrees with me.    Anyway, I am not asking for them to be allowed back; I agree that original Legend quickly returned to his old ways after being reinstated.

I'm looking forward to this; I've heard there were some interesting matchups and lots of general shenannigans.  

Also, I know LegendOfMagic and RandomMizer have been banned, and for good reason.  However, if they should decide to report under an alias ("Dr. B2" ? or through a 3rd party,  I'd hope that the mods leave anything useful that they have to say intact.  This is a time that these players can give back a bit if they so choose and hopefully we can put aside past grievances for a while.  Remember, even the original Legend (& Negator) were allowed back for a bit when they started winning.

Cool, thanks for all the info.  

It looks like Somerville is pretty close to Boston, I'll definitely have to check out YMG.  Brockton could happen, though at 40 yahoo driving minutes it's a bit of a stretch.  

Is there anything else good within 30 minutes of Boston?  And is there a good time to pick up some T1 at YMG?  I don't see any scheduled T1 on their calendar.  :-/

I am going to be in Boston over Labor Day.  What should I check out MTG-wise while I am there?  Any good stores, any good places to pick up games?  Should I bother to bring my decks?

I enjoyed that coverage a lot.  Seriously, I was expecting the standard feature match coverage by someone who doesn't actually play T1; so it was great to read something by someone who cares/understands the format.  Good coverage.

Buh?  This tournament was in Las Vegas, which is pretty far from your corner of the world.  I wouldn't expect you to recognize the names unless you keep up with the California Top 20.  Needless to say, the top few names are pretty familiar to me.  

Btw, congrats to those who made the trip to Vegas, to those who finished well, and to those who just had some fun with the magical cards.

The changes would have to be pretty drastic to fit in SotF.  

First up, there are only 2 Welders in the deck.  Adding SotF implies you want to go to 4 so that you can use the synergies of throwing Artifact Fat into the 'yard and welding it back.  You are really changing the function of the Welder in the deck if you do this.  (See TheWhiteDragons comments about what the Welder is for.)  Then you need the 4 Survivals and at least one Squee.  So thats a 7 card core change and you aren't going to be Tutoring up utility creatures as much because you only have a handful of expensive ones (Razormane, Duplicant, Karn).

Beyond that, there is the mana-base, which is several cards short of the well-tested 28 TnT mana-sources.  Do you change that, do you leave it or do you split the difference and run 26?

Anyway, my point is that TMS is not TNT though they both share a core of cards.  Adding Survivals isnt a bad idea, but I suspect that if you want to do that, it's better to approach it from the TNT end of the equation.  What ~4 cards from TMS would you want to bring to TNT?  (My first thought was always to add 3 Crucibles to a 4 Wasteland version of TNT.)

This is an interesting observation.  I test drove The Man Show this weekend; I went in unconvinced about a couple aspects (1. low, low mana count compared to TNT or wMUD; 2. off color singletons) and walked out with a bit more respect for the deck.  With TNT falling from fashion a lot of decks aren't prepared to face a stream of fast 5/3s and 4/4s.  And Chains is a vigorous hosing for all sorts of draw effects.   Which reminds me:



The point of running 3 Chains is that no one gets to draw.  You can't run draw without changing your gameplan here.  

Random observation:

One thing that I particularly did not like was the Razormane.  It may be great if you are playing 'Togs all day (though (2):Regen makes me a decent case for the other Masticore) but having to wait until the draw to ping is a huge disadvantage against Welder-based decks.  So if you list out the creatures you are likely to face these days and decide which (Razormane or Classic Masticore) is better against them I'd lean towards the Classic.  Sure, the mana for Classic is really hard to get in this sort of deck, but at least you can probably kill a Welder before it kills you.

Perhaps TheWhiteDragon can comment on his theories about the Razormane.

Thug:


Smokestack is Stax answer to all permenants.  

Nicely done.

How did you settle on 3 Crucibles as the correct number?  Looking over your games, they are mentioned 5 times as winning / being part of the win, which is a fair amount.

Playing Italian Keep3r (which runs 2) I frowned at drawing redundant Crucibles, but in a Stax style deck nothing that is cheap and can be sacced is really wasted.    Is 4 just too many for a card that you only need one of in play?

There is a monthly proxy tournament at Eudemonia, but I don't think it's gathered all that much support.  



I agree 100%.  Due to a variety of reasons, C&Js has posted few reports over the last 6-9 months.  During that time, I can think of 4 fully powered players who moved out of the area or stopped playing.  These players have not been replaced; and a similar effect has happened across the board - where peak summer turnout neared 50 people last year I'm seeing a lot more 16 person tournies this year.

So, to summarize: Proxies, eh.  Reports, good!

Hulk is sorta out of fashion at C&Js right now; we all Hulk'ed ourselves into boredom with the deck several months back.  People break it out for the "serious" tourneys still, but it doesn't get as much play week to week as it's strength would recommend.  

OTOH, I expect that there were likely a Draw7 and either a Hulk or a Dragon; but the pairings meant that Brian didn't have to face them.  Belcher is also out of fashion right now.  



Yes, please keep this on topic.  Arguements about proxies should go in the newbie forum.  

Well, each land in this slot is going to have drawbacks; it's not like you might not lose (or be unable to play!) Glimmervoid.  The Volcanics haven't bitten me yet, so I am satisfied.  



I think this is an interesting direction to take the deck.  At first, it seemed to me that it had huge anti-synergy with the rest of the deck since 7/10 runs no basic Islands.  Is it mainly for the control matchup (maybe certain combo decks as well?) Can you talk about your experiences with this card?



You can see in my report how risky they are; if I had lost a Mana Crypt flip in the first match my opponent would have burned me out.  Two seems to be an aggressive configuration for me.

Interesting question.  This tournament was pre-5th Dawn, which is the straightforward answer.  But I think that post-5th DawnSerum Visions will be tested at least in 7/10.

I agree with Hyperion; essentially that Brainstorm is good as-is.  I also Brainstormed almost exclusively as an Instant; especially in the post-SB matchups where I might bluff an early ReB.  So that's another advantage to Brainstorm.  Still, I lost a couple playtest games where I Brainstormed early and found junk; especially the notorious 1 Land + Brainstorm hands where you do-or-die based on the success of the Brainstorm.  Serum Visions would have been better in these cases, so I think it's an interesting idea.

For the record: this decklist has one shuffle effect; the Mystical Tutor.  



Yeah, and I am going to complain bitterly whenever someone says they are from "LA".  Me: "LA?  Which LA are you talking about?  I live in Los Altos and I think we are the *real* LA."

Sligh can be rough, but I generally had good games against Fish.  Fish has such a hard time dealing with big guys and with all the explosive mana floating around thier Daze tricks become less good.  

I had a Duplicant in my SB but I dumped him this week.  I had imagined him being best against Tog, where you really do want to steal the creature.  I'll give this some more thought.

BTW, I am likely to be in LA on business soon, PM me and maybe we can set something up.  I definitely want to visit the cool shops while I am there.



It was 3 rounds, but there were prizes.  I got a foil Serum Visions and a weird little wheely life-thingy that says "Champion" on it for winning.  Why do you ask?

OK, this is a small tournament, but 1) it’s a new store, 2) I haven’t posted a report in a long time, and 3) all the rounds were against strong players – so it’s all wheat, no chaff.  

Also, I think I’ll post this in the Open Forum, rather than the Tournament Forum so that the other people who attended but don’t have full memberships can respond.  



“Who’s on Firstâ€? used to be an institution here in the Bay Area, but it closed up several years back and the MTG world moved on; or at least my little corner of it did.  However, last week a friend said to me “Are you going to the T1 this Saturday?  It’s in Dublin.â€? Me: “A new store?  What’s it called?â€?  Him: “Who’s on First.â€?  Me: “Well, well.â€?  

So, I show up a little before 2pm with 7/10 Split in hand.  I’ve been playing 7/10 for the last couple weeks.  I was thinking of going back to Tog, or trying that ridiculous Exalted Angel Keeper, but 7/10 has a bit the TnT feel that I like so much.  Besides, what’s more fun than to play huge creatures and Armageddon your opponent at the same time?  The store is full of T1’ers from C&Js and some old “Who’s on Firstâ€? friends.  Indeed, it is the same owner, back from a 4 year hiatus.  Cool.  Here’s what I played:

Decklist:  7/10 Split

3 Sundering Titans
2 Trike
1 Memnarch
3 Chalice (not 4.)
1 Jar
3 Gilded Lotus
7 SoLoMox
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt

4 FoW
4 Thirst
4 Brainstorm
1 Twister
1 Ancestral
1 Tinker
1 FoF
1 Time Walk (Out of fashion? Bah. Was great all day.)
1 Mystical

4 Welder  
1 Wheel

4 Workshops
1 Tolarian
4 Shivan Reef
2 City of Brass
2 Ancient Tombs
2 Volcanic Island (I own no Glimmervoid.  But I am willing to lose a land to cast Titan anyway.)

Round 1: Ken with wMUD w/Slaver.
It was Ken who told me about the tournament, so karma dictates we must play each other.  Titan is sort of poopy in this matchup, since Ken has fewer “basicsâ€? than I do.  
Game 1: He wins the die roll and dumps a monster hand on the table, Wasteland, 4x Mox, and Shaman.   I brace myself, but Ken passes the turn.  Hrm.  Things are still sketchy for me as I kept a solo Shivan Reef hand with Brainstorm and Mystical.  The Wasteland could be bad news, but I Brainstorm into another Reef and then play Mystical for Ancestral in my upkeep.  I resolve a Welder shortly, then a Gilded Lotus.  I Thirst off the Lotus pitching Memnarch and figure I have the game in the bag.  However, Ken drops Tolarian and a Mana Vault and is able to eat the Gilded in response to my Welding (!).  Hrm.  Despite my mistake, I manage to play enough artifacts to force through a weld for Memnarch and a Trike that kills Monkey before it can eat the artifacts Memnarch is trying to steal.  
Game 2: I Cap him once quickly (using Mana Crypt) seeing only one Slaver and a Trike.  I figure he’s got another dangerous win condition in hand.  He’s at 5 mana due to Workshop, so I take Slaver and two Welders and brace myself for a Pentavus or 2nd Slaver.  Instead he plays a Chalice for 1, hosing my Welders as I have hosed his.  Hrm.  I drop a second Cap and take Trike, Ancestral, Smokestack, which is a bit random of me.  We go back and forth, he takes his big turn off a Jar I cannot counter, but I have a Rack and Ruin to solve my problems afterwards.  I Tinker away my Mana Crypt for a Karn and eat much of his board to win from there.  Afterwards, Ken notes that I had won 4 Crypt flips in a row and that I finished the game at 4 life while he seen 3 Fire/Ice during the game but had always thought he had better plays than just burning me.  That would have been harsh, to be burned out by wMUD.

Match 2: Brent with rTog
Brent is very highly rated, and it’s been a long time since I have beaten him.  People have touted his “mystery deckâ€? and I vaguely hope he is playing something crappy.  But no, it’s Tog.
Game 1: He plays Underground, I play Reef, Mox, Mox, Time Walk, Ancestral.  The Walk and Ancestral accelerate me enough to hardcast Titan on the Walk turn, I smash the Underground and say go.  Brent plays Fetch (for Volcanic) and Sol Ring, telegraphing a plan to Wish for Rack and Ruin, but I have the FoW to defend with. ( I think about it a bit actually, if Titan dies he destroys Brent’s board.  Ultimately I decide that Titan just wins if he is not destroyed, so “just winningâ€? must be better.   )
Game 2: Brent gets a decent start, I use a Black Lotus and a Vault to power out a quick Gilded as I am light on land.  I get a second Gilded out and am set to cast Memnarch or Trike when Rack and Ruin ends my dreams.  After some sad “draw-goâ€? action and several points of Shaman beatdown Brent flashes me 4 counterspells.  I frown, Brainstorm, find nothing and scoop.
Game 3: Brent must mull to 6, but he has the FoW for my Workshop, Vault, Jar play.  Still, that cripples the remains of his hand and a few turns later I launch a Brainstorm to set myself up.  â€œHmmm, let me think,â€? says Brent.  Brainstorm resolves and then I try Ancestral.  â€œThat’s OK,â€? says Brent, frowning mightly and giving up pretense of having a counterspell.  I slow play 3 more turns during which I resolve Welder, FoF and Memnarch with a REB sitting unused as backup.  Brent scoops after drawing his 4th consecutive mana source while I steal his Sapphire.  Note: I win 2-of-2 Mana Crypt flips in this match, 6-0 on the day.

Match 3: Christiaan with Draw7
I was going to say that Christiaan is another highly rated player, but I just checked the California ratings and all my opponents are California Top 10, which I guess is not surprising.  (Hey, look at my rating!  What happened to me!?  I’m like 5 places behind Brian Woo! )  In any case we played this match on Thursday and I lost 2-0.  I won a couple fun games afterwards, and I gave the matchup some thought so hopefully this will go better.  Again, Titan is poopy since Draw7 plays about 4 “basicâ€? lands.
Game 1: I win the die roll and start ramping up.  Christiaan comes within an inch of going off on turn 2, and when he fails we have a mega FoW fight over my attempt to stack my deck with Brainstorm.  I lose that battle, but next turn I resolve a creature and start the clock.  I swing once or twice.  I have a Wheel in my hand and I agonize over it; I really don’t want to give him 7 fresh cards, but I also don’t want to just hope he doesn’t draw anything in the next 4 turns before I kill him.  I decide to Wheel, which dumps his lone MD Hurkyl’s into the graveyard and gives me the FoW I need to spike his attempt to go off next turn.
Game 2: He plays Land-Mox-Lotus-Twister and I am drawing a new hand before having played a permanent.  I get to draw another 7, dumping another hand.  I believe this is the game where I FoW his Lotus after two Draw 7s (I assumed this mattered at the time, I mean why play the Lotus if you aren’t going off this turn?) and he fizzles.  A turn or two later I get an active Welder and I am able to respond to my Tendrils death by welding Platinum Angel back into play.  (I have a moment of confusion where I think he has Hurkyl’ed me, but he unfortunately needs to Hurkyl himself to get his spellcount high enough.)  I have only 3 cards in my hand, but one of them is a Chalice which resolves for 2, blocking the 4x Hurkyl’s Christiaan likely sided in.  Christiaan takes another huge turn (hoping to find Chain of Vapor or Rack and Ruin) and settles for Tendril’ing me twice for about 46 points to buy even more time.  (Several people hear him say “So I have 54 and you are at –54,â€? and come over to watch.)  The rest of the game is nerve-wracking as he could win with Chain or Rack and Ruin and I have 2 Brainstorms and a ReB as my hand.  I begin swinging with Memnarch and Angel for 8 each turn and try to steal as much of his board as I can.  Late in the game I have two Mana Crypts and big stack of Moxes due to Memnarch’s efforts.  Christiaan tries a desperation Chain as I threaten to steal the rest of his stuff and I am able to ReB it for the win.  Somewhere in here I win another 4 Crypt rolls, before Angel makes them irrelevant.  That’s at least 10-0 on the day, which may be a bit above average.  

Random thoughts: 1) Memnarch is very good.  For something that looks like such a huge piece of crap he sure does a lot of wrecking.  I don’t think I could play two though. 2) Time Walk was great all day.  When you play 7/10 (or at least when I play 7/10!) you end up taking big turns, tapping all your mana to drop things that cost 5, 6, 7 or 8 on the board.  There are so many good synergies to Time Walk in this deck since you often get bottlenecked with all these high CC cards – Gilded, Time Walk sure is sweeter than Gilded, go for instance.  Sure, Time Walk has fallen out of fashion, but whatever.  It did more than fine.  3) FoW was also great all day.  I supposed MD’ing Trinisphere shores up your game against Combo but, as Christiaan demonstrated, a good Combo deck has a rock solid workaround for this strategy.   Bang, your Trinisphere is back in your hand.  4) I played 3 Chalice with the 4th in the side.  To me, Chalice is good in some matchups, but rough in others.  I sided them out in the first two matches, then all-in for the Draw7 match.

How much did you tend to Interrogate for?

It would seem that Interrogating for X=7 is a bit risky as a Sorcery.  OTOH, if X=1 then you are likely getting junk.  Disrupting Scepter was good once upon a time though, so it seems like an interesting idea.  I wonder if the obvious advantages of the Interrogator outweigh the obvious disadvantages (1/1 body) vs. Scepter.

Windfall asked this question on the previous page; I was thinking the same thing after watching the deck being playtested last night.  

(The question I asked during playtesting was "So, what matchup is the Angel intended for?  Traditional Aggro like Sligh, Fish and MonoB will have 5 Strips and making an Angel will be just as hard as making Moat was; really too hard.  It's irrelevant against Combo.  Does it buy enough time against Tog....if you can resolve it...?")  

So a related question is about the SB strategy; which matchups do you side Angels out?

I guess here we get into exactly what build people are using of both decks.  Razorfins and Thiefs wouldn't matter much in this area since people are playing Duress over Xantid Swarm in Dragon.  (Thief has to be too slow in any metagame doesnt it?  Cast on turn 2, use all your mana on turn 3 to remove what exactly?)  Stifle is very good in this matchup, but Fish has to be able to win their other matchups and cant afford to run more than 2 MD around here.  I guess this deck disparity isn't that surprising; Fish is intended to be very flexible deck that can be tuned against any metagame.  

This brings up the point that very fine bits of tuning can make a large difference in result (think of adding 3xCoffin Purge to Tog SB to beat Rector Trix back in the day) and swing a matchup from unfavorable to favorable.

I would also put it at neutral, maybe even slightly favorable to Dragon.  (I watched people playtesting this last week, but haven't tried it myself.)  The Fish player was one of our strongest players, but certainly if the Bazaar engine got going he would get swamped.  OTOH, I didn't see him draw any Wastelands when they mattered.

Amazingly enough the dice roll seemed to be quite important in this matchup.  

I'd like to add these results to the Belcher discussion:

Unfavorable:
Fish (Null Rod, FoW, Stifle, Daze!)  
Trinisphere.dec (can mull aggressively for Trini.  Odds of finding = 60%)

Neutral/Slightly Unfavorable:
Control (FoW or no?  Can't mull as aggressively as Trinisphere decks)

Favorable:
Dragon (Me faster!)
Sligh (Me faster!)
FCG (Me faster!)

And to 'Tog v. FCG:



FCG has a solidly winning record against Tog right now at C&Js.  FCG is generally played by good players and the 'Tog players have been a mixed bag, but still there were some good ones among them.  Just data points for people to chew on.

Is the metagame so static that we can talk about *where* more than *when*?  Time passes and players adapt; the metagame changes even without cards from new sets being added to the pool.  And, as a corallary, you won't bring the same deck to the weekly tournament too many times unless you want to face some prepared hate.

Can Slaver win against decks which pack 5-7 artifact removal spells?  It might be the best deck in some theoretical sense, but when people revive 4xGorilla Shaman Sligh or start cramming their SBs with Artifact Mutations then it stops winning and something else becomes dominant.  Similarly, when Tog starts packing tons of DA for the mirror match can it still survive against decks gunning for it?

I'd have to think if any archetype has won C&Js three weeks in a row since the GroTog days.  Certain decks put up consistent results, but there is no best deck in a practical sense.