In response to what capn said, I think he made basically two points, that Xantid Swarm is better vs. control, and that Hurkyl's Recall is better vs. chalice///sphere disruption based decks (ie, slaver & stax).  And he's correct.  However, I feel that YOU guys are looking at this the wrong way.

You said yourself that Xantid Swarm is a narrow card.  Well, Hurkyl's Recall is also narrow.  I'm suggesting that in a mixed metagame, you would be better off running Orim's Chant since it can deal with both of the things Recall and Swarm are designed to deal with.  Hence why it is a better maindeck slot.  You're not going to face JUST Tog or artifact based decks in today's meta, you'll face both.  I would not main just Swarms or Hurkyl's Recall and then just hope I don't have to play the other deck.  I would bring a deck with cards useful against both.

As far as downsides to Chant, I think it has the same downsides as Recall and Vapor in that it uses on color mana.  The deck as a whole's main struggle (I feel) is with obtaining fast, on color mana.  Lion's Eye Diamond used to help immensly with this problem, but as you all know, it's been restricted.  It was the gas to the former long decks, and it is the reason that I run 4 FoW's over any other disruption (it uses no mana).  The limiting color is usually blue.  I usually find myself usually scraping for blue mana if I don't get an Academy or a Black Lotus out.  My two main plays that I make game after game is dem-tutoring for black lotus to turn that dark rit mana into blue mana, and using green ESG mana to crop rotate into academy.  So Hurkyl's Recall being blue doesn't really alleviate this problem of being color limiting.  Of course, chant doesn't get around this problem since you have to tap a source that would usually be used to create blue to create white.  But saying that Hurkyl's Recall is on color and that Chant is off isn't a fair arguement except for when talking about pitching to FoW.  I actually find Chant nice because it gives me something to do with my mox pearl :p.

I would also like to point out that while going off ASAP is not a must against control, it definately helps.  Usually in the control matchup, it comes down to a counter war over a critical spell.  Weither it be Swarm, Chant, Twister, whatever.

Just for the record, my version of the deck runs 1 Chain of Vapor, 2 Orim's Chants, and 4 FoW's.

Basically to summarize:


This is the statement I don't agree with.  Hurkyl's Recall isn't more flexible.  It does nothing vs. control, and is basically in the deck for 4 cards: Null Rod, 3Sphere, Sphere of Resistance, and Chalice.  Just like Swarm is around to deal with just counters.  No one is trying to argue that those cards aren't a real threat to combo decks, I'm simply saying that Chant deals with all of them, and is a better slot for the main deck in a varied metagame where you will meet all kinds of threats.

As to the other posters, I'll briefly respond to them, since they don't matter.



1) Good.
2) What reason?
3) You're dead right.  I value thoughts and reason over some magic celebrity's opinion.  He basically stated he thought the "idea" of swarm was that you don't have to use the mana on it the turn you go off.  That had already been stated, and I wondered to myself if he had even read my posts.  I don't care if he doesn't want to get into a long dragged out debate about card choice, that's fine.  His choice.  But I, personally, am going to think for myself, and take everything into account.

And to the Krauser guy, he basically restated himself.  He said stuff like:


that he tried to pass off as an arguement for his position.  He said things everyone knows, and didn't address what I wrote about.  Hence why I don't value his "arguements" or opinions.

I'm all for a longer time limit.  Being able to think decisions out is always nice.  And stasis might be a viable deck type once again :p.

My opinion on madness coincides with Clown of Tresserhorn's.  The versions with no disruption are not as sucessful.  Most of the madness decks that I've seen top 8 recently have either run FoW & Circular Logic, or have ran the dragon combo.  Both of these give the deck the ability to either deal with what the opponent does turn 1-3 or to completely disregard it (in the case of the combo).  So I think decklists need to be updated to reflect this, since it's pretty common knowledge that in type 1, you just can't ignore what the other deck is doing.

Am I really seeing the "arguments" you guys are putting up for Xantid Swarm, or do my eyes decieve me?  Lemme address some of these real fast.



Okay, nice opinion with no fact or reason behind it.  And considering statements like these:



We can see that his opinions mean nothing.  If he loses to dragon, then wouldn't Orim's Chant be nice in that matchup?  And how good a player can he be if he gets beaten by a bad dragon deck playing draw 7?  And in the second statement, he says he loses to control.  Wtf?  I thought those 4 Xantid Swarms meant you won?  Or do you just enjoy contradicting yourself for the sake of my amusement?  And if you're having problems with running out of gas, shouldn't you drop some of the non-gas cards *COUGH* 4 SWARMS *COUGH*?


Maybe you don't understand why you would lose to aggro.  Combo decks do not fear their beatdown.  They fear Root Maze, Null Rod, Pyrostatic Pillar, Chalice of the Void.  THAT is how aggro beats a combo deck (I can't believe I just had to explain that).  The chants are not in the deck to buy extra turns vs. the attack.  They are there to play during their upkeep to keep those evil hoses from hitting the table.  Xantid Swarms do NOTHING to stop these cards.



Yes, very good.  But here's the question that I'm wondering about.  You said the words "burn deck".  Meaning that the deck has a lot of burn I suppose (maybe your burn decks differ from mine, who knows.).  Now the question here is, HOW THE HELL IS THE XANTID SWARM ALIVE!?!?!  If a deck is running tons of burn spells, why is he unable to burn your swarm?  In this matchup, Orim's Chant is (once again) the card to be playing.



Are you planning on playing the game for a few turns AFTER you go off???  And if you play spells the turn before you go off that you don't want countered, swarm isn't going to help much there either since it has summoning sickness, and games usually only last 2-3 turns.


And Orim's Chant can't?  You do realize that chant can be used to ensure your spells aren't countered right?  And along those same lines, are you sure running 4 cards maindeck is a good decision just to help beat 1 deck?

I'm seriously getting sick of all the opinions rolling around.  People seem to think that just by posting up "Swarms > Chant" or some junk like that they have made a persuasive arguement.

What I would suggest with chants, is that it is your 2nd strongest disruption next to force of will.  Some metagames that are heavier on control would benefit from running 2 chants maindeck, and a higher land count, by taking out some of the fast mana that you run since being fast isn't as much of an issue against a slower, blue based control deck.  I would rather see chant maindecked instead of Xantid Swarms since they are much more flexible vs. other decks.

Currently, in my version, I run 2 main deck, with 4 Swarms in the board for the reasons which I've dicussed above.  I've also made some modifications to the deck, as far as Burning Wish, and Dim Returns go, I'll post them if anyone is interested, but somehow I think it will be met with the same mindless criticisms like "omg no, you defy the Menendian decklist", and since I really don't feel like responding to all that again, I'll hold off.

Oh yeah, and props to Roadtrippin'.  He may have disagreed with what I have to say, but he at least put some brains into his response.  However, I must say that I have to disagree.  He seems very sure that Xantid Swarm is much better than chant in the tog matchup.  But I personally don't see the huge advantage it creates.  I think they are really close to equal if anything.  Xantid Swarm saves you a mana the turn you go off if you play it the turn before.  However, I don't see that one mana as being so critical that you would neglect the other 70-80% of the metagame.  Basically, I don't feel the one mana edge is worth running a dead card in other matchups, and I feel the edge is not necessary in order to have a good chance against tog game 1.  So I don't maindeck the swarms.  I can understand if you thought you were going to see a field of 40+% tog how Xantid Swarm would be a better choice (but 4 is still a bit extreme in the main deck).

And lastly, I flame people because of their blatantly thoughtless posts, and if they take offense to what some John Doe has said over the internet then they need to get their head checked.  I realize that you guys here are trying to create a positive discussion enviroment but I believe a lot of the retarded posts around here are detracting from that more than this isolated flame ever will.

Flames NEVER, EVER solve a problem. They ALWAYS make things worse. The whole point of TMD is to discuss and communicate; flaming is actually worse for the site than whatever you flamed to begin with.

Warning issued.

-Jacob

Cut some meditates.  They're too situational.  If you don't play them on the critical turn, they give your opponent too much of an edge.

I'm in it for the men O_O

I dunno, drain uses blue mana which is in far more abundance, and limits them on mana.  Not to mention it can help you go off.  I'd be tempted to run drains instead.



If you haven't played a draw spell in your deck already, you have other problems than yawg's will.  I think my favorite play is to have my opponent waste my academy, shaman my moxes, and then will them all back out.  With academy being so crucial to the deck, running ways of recurring it is vital.  Not to mention that regrowth would go before will would.



Word.  Brainstorm is too strong.  Placing cards back into your deck is half the appeal of this card.  I've often used it to ensure good draws off jar//windfall//wheel, and it shuffles academy back in, to crop rotate it out if I've already played a land.  Not to mention the obvious benefit of smoothing your draws over, and hiding things from the evil duress of your opponent.  Combine that with a few ways to shuffle, and you have yourself a mandatory 4-of.

Edit - Let me try to iterate why Drain is better than duress IMO.  Against academy, your opponent will be mana and turn limited.  He will not be limited by the number of cards he sees.  With the draw 7's, he will have a constant flow of bullets against you.  However, since your deck is so fast, he will have a limited number of turns and mana to play them with.  Your measures against his disruption need to take this fact into account.  Mana Drain forces your opponent to use up mana to play his mana drain//stifle//orim's chant//whatever, and then have his spell stopped.  Duress only takes that card away from him, and he's quite likely to draw another of bullet X after you play a draw 7.  Abeyance has a similar effect.  Your opponent has only a few turns to play his disruption, and abeyance takes one of those turns away.  Thus the reasoning by which I choose drain over duress.  Not to mention that it can stop mox monkeys and wretches.  While these are not as big a threats as other cards in the meta, they still add to the pile of reasons why I'd rather have mana drain.  Add the colorless boost from drain, and I think you can see why I'd prefer it.

1) Why not just not screw yourself?  I run Burning Wish in my academy, and I have Mind's Desire in the SB, since it's somewhat situational.  I usually end up wishing for Trade Secrets instead.  The two cards trade secrets provides my opponent isn't really an issue since my deck is set up to deal with this problem.  Either way you go, just playing smart, and not doing something stupid like playing mind's desire without your academy out is the best route, rather than throwing in a card which only helps you go off in that particular instance.  And come to think of it, if your academy gets removed by desire, wouldn't fastbond be the best way to remedy that problem without having to throw in a dead card?  And even then it's just good play form not to play a land in the academy deck until you absolutely need to, in case you draw into academy later on in the turn.  I really don't see how Mind's Desiring away your combo is an issue, unless you do something really retarded.

2) I wasn't talking about mana, I was talking about # of blue cards, not the mana base.  FoW is more suited for this deck than duress also because of the fact that it's mostly blue.

Putting multiple kill cards in your deck only dilutes it.  When academy "goes off" it goes off.  You should work towards that one objective rather than just toss tendrils in the deck.  And the reason tendrils based decks are faster is because they have more synergy with dark rit.  I personally find academy to be more consistant however (read the rest of what I say before you respond to this).  I find academy has less of a chance of stalling, and has almost a 100% chance of going of by turn 4.  This is mainly due to the fact that all of it's mana generating cards aren't 1 turn shots (like dark rit), they are instead things that hang around (candelabra, helm, ect.).  However, academy's fast mana is slower than rits & spirit guides and candelabra depends on academy, hence the reason why storm based decks are so much faster.

I would run abeyance & counterspells any day over duress.  With academy, you're running every draw 7 spell there is to run.  Your opponent is not going to be low on threats to play.  They are, however, going to be short on mana and turns since you win so fast.  And what's the point of pulling a mana drain with a duress, when you're going to make them draw a new hand later in the turn.  FoW & Abeyance work much better with the general flow of the deck.  Not to mention that the majority of academy is base blue.



Because of statements like these?  I agree that it's inherently not as good as long.  However, it is slightly easier to play.  And Academy is also much more fun to play in my opinion  I've played time walk 8 times in a row before .  Given, it doesn't make the deck better, but it's a better casual choice IMO.  Knocking a deck just because it's less competitive doesn't really help the situation.  I wouldn't really mind if you posted that statement with some advice, but just that statement seems kinda lame.



Reduce it to 0?  Sounds like you have very little experiance playing academy.  Or is it just me?

Something tells me you're high.  Will is one of the most broken cards that I've played with.  Not running it would be a crime.  I find myself tutoring for this card more often than any other when playing academy.  This is the newbie forum, but still, suggesting the drop of will from academy is, like, whoa.

Crop Rotation defin8ly needs to be included.  I find that fastbond really isn't necessary.  Just don't play a land unless you know you're not on the "critical turn".  I find MoM to be dead weight many times, and taking it out for more draw power has only helped my deck IMO.  4 Brainstorms are just plain awesome.  The two Cunning Wishes, I'm unsure about.  They're really quite slow.  A maindeck capsize takes care of just about any problem you'll have that isn't a counterspell, so I feel it should be included over MoM.  Meditate..... eh.  I'm not sure how much I like it.  They're only useful on the "critical turn" in which you go off, otherwise I feel the drawback is too debilitating.  The scroll racks also look dead.  Defense Grids are excellent SB cards.  Blah blah blah, hope that helps.

Contamination only works (as previously mentioned) if you get your 1 spirit.  That, to me, is too big an if.  Maybe with Zombie Infest, or more spirits in combination with skeletal scrying, or something like that.  Otherwise, I don't see it being viable.  Besides, the deck already runs 13 mana denial effects (strips, pox, sinkhole) that focus on destroying your opponent's land.  More destructive mana denial would synergize better with the deck.

And to the suggestion of more artifact mana, normally when you alter a decklist, you alter it to improve your bad matchups.  Taking out null rods, and adding in scrolls, artifact acelleration, and chimeric idols (I feel) would only weaken you to your worst matchup more than you already are.  Scroll is best against weenie aggro and control.  Artifact acelleration wouldn't help that much vs. stax either.

And zuran orb..... Somehow, I feel that pitching that 1 extra land to the orb to gain 2 life (which will then be cut by a third) won't really help that much.  I'd rather have edicts, powder kegs (if you don't want to run null rod), or (if you're running white) seal of cleansing/disenchant/swords to plowshares.

Well one thing to think about is your metagame.  It seems to be unpowered, and it also seems to have a lot of weenie aggro in it.  In the online//large tournament metagame there isn't a whole lot of weenie aggro running around.  The decks that are aggro are TNT, madness, O-Stompy, ect.  Not exaclty running weenies, so cards like cursed scroll have to be replaced with cards like ensnaring bridge.  So Pox may be a good choice in your meta, however in the current meta seen at large tournaments, I think pox isn't as good of a choice.

Isochron scepter would be nice, except for the fact that pox's instant count is rather low (3).  So unless you can up the number of instants to 20, I'd suggest nixing the idea.



Ensnaring Bridge isn't an issue vs. stax.  The main problem with them, is that they drop disruption much faster than your discard can handle it.  The only time I've seen a mono-black deck beat stax is by siding in 4 nev's disk.  However, that would be more than counter to what a pox deck is trying to accomplish.

If you'll count, my deck is 56 cards, guess what I forgot to add?  *hint, rhymes with "The Ack"*

And as to the Null Rods:



However, you are correct that pox has a really good game vs. combo, so if the meta ever shifts in that direction, it would be a good deck to pick.

As far as maze of ith for tog, I'm not seeing it being that much of an issue.  Hulk & Gat have relatively low creature counts.  Stax and TNT are scary decks.  They get 3 mana from 1 land, so your mana denial isn't as effective.

I personally feel that Null Rod is a must.  Without it, the workshop decks just steamroll you.  Hence, why I feel Null Rod is a must.  And weenie aggro usually gets eaten by bridge as well.  As you well know, stax is quite good at emptying it hand quickly.

As far as your SB, Cabal Therapy is trixie.  Long decks aren't very redundant.  Calling the correct card would be difficult.  And sideboarding for a match that really isn't that hard doesn't make much sense to me.  You have many worse things to be worrying about.

The dystopia I agree with, since madness and O-stompy can be rather annoying.

As for the COPs, Sligh isn't extremely scary.  I'd prefer a SB card like spinning darkness against sligh.

Right now, if I was to splash a color into pox, it would be red.  Red helps immensly with TNT and Stax by giving you rack & ruin.

And some other cards you might want to consider are Null Brooch and Bottomless Pit.  I find the Pit to be extremely good with the mana denial that you run.  Usually you can eat an opponent's solutions before he//she gets the mana for them.  Null Brooch is excellent if you're not running null rod.

And lastly, I generally don't run that many non-basics in Pox.  It's mana base is tricky enough as is, I personally hate having wasteland targets for my opponent.  However, balance is a complete and utter bomb, and seal of cleansing could defin8ly help out the stax & TNT matchups, so I could understand why you would want to splash white.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, I will say that pox has many inherent problems with it.  I personally am in a delima with mine.  Big aggro decks have been beating up on me, so Ensnaring Bridge became a must.  And to have any chance at beating workshop based decks, Null Rod is a must as well.  However, these two cards end up Eliminating the majority of kill methods you could run (scroll, idol, nether spirit being the main ones).

Anyways, here's my version of the deck:

The 16 Cards Every Monoblack deck must run:
4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual

1 Planar Void
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Underworld Dreams
2 Bottomless Pit
3 Null Rod
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Pox

5 Strips
19 Swamps

I'm not sure why I'm not running a Yawg's Will.  I think I talked myself out of it at some point.  Probably not terribly smart.

The SB varies quite a bit, but generally consists of an aggro hose (dark banishing, another bridge, dystopias, smother, or edict), Coffin Purges or more Planar Voids, Chains of Mestopheles, and another null rod.

This deck just doesn't cut it IMO.  Stax and TNT are really ugly matchups, and the only thing I can think of that would improve those are kill switch, but it doesn't fit in with null rod.  And this deck also kills painfully slow.  I just don't see it being that potent.  A white splash for balance and vindicate looks intriguing, but, I still doubt the deck would be that strong.

Anyways, there's my two cents.

Usually if you can rector out form of the dragon, that means you can rector out bargain, which is usually good enough to win it.

Hence the reason I think mox should enter in.  I doubt you'll draw 3 extraneous lands (that means at least 3), and mox also comes out of the gate and provides you with that mana to play those draw 7's, which I find harder to accomplish than generating mana to combo off after you've drawn 7 up.  So basically, if fastbond does produce more mana, it is certainly after you've played a few draw spells, which probably means you've won the game already.

I'll get right to it:

I've seen more and more people running fastbond over mox diamond in long.dec, and I've been wondering why.  I figured I'd analyze the two real quick so you can see where I'm coming from.

Mox Diamond:  Costs you 1 land, and generates one mana of any color.

Fastbond: Costs you 1 mana.  Generates mana only if you have 2 extra lands, 1 to get the mana back that you spent playing it, and 1 to get +1.  3 extra lands if you want to generate more mana than mox diamond does.  And it deals you some small insignificant damage.

However, if you have plenty of mana, mox can't be played for a spell like fastbond can.

So I'd like to get everyone else's opinion's on this one.

And there's steve's long deck for referance, if anyone is unfamiliar with the deck.

Thx

Hi, I lurk.  There are many intimate details to my life, but none of you care.  I post whenever I'm inclined.

I've found that wasteland is one of your biggest problems with this deck.  Being that this deck's most critical turn is turn 2 (the turn that you get your B and W sources of mana up and running) running a basic swamp in the deck might not be a bad idea if you suspect wastelands.  That would allow you to avoid some of the wasteland problems while still being able to play your hand kill turn 1.

And secondly, I've noticed that the basic idea of this deck is drop a rector as fast as possible.  With that being the goal, a lotus petal should probably be in this deck, since the limiting factor for that is usually the 2 colors of mana that you need (B for Rit, W for rector).  More search besides the 4 brainstorms might be warranted as well, since first turn you either want to disrupt their hand, or ensure that you have the cards to drop rector second turn.

Hope that helps.

Okay, I lurk this forum, and I had to get an account to reply to this post.  It really just blew me out of the water.  I swear he says that Androstanalone has a "lack of forethought", and then posts stuff like this?  Dude, you've got another thing coming.



First of all, the decks that I see running chalice are Keeper, Chalice Black, and Stax//wMUD varients.  You will never drop a pillage on one of their chalice's if they have any kind of play skill.  Between duress///hymn//mana denial in chalice black you won't get it out.  Keeper has counterspells (obviously) and will be protecting their bomb against you.  Stax and wMUD both run massive amounts of mana denial in the form of sphere, wire, and stack (I'm telling you this because you OBVIOUSLY don't know), so playing a pillage becomes quite difficult.  And at 23 spells @ 1 cc in your deck, chalice hurts.  You've done nothing but turn sligh's main spells which are 2cc (PoP, ankh), and turn them into 3cc spells (pillage, and wire) which wasn't an issue under chalice anyways.  Bottom line is, chalice is still a problem.  Your best answer is a first turn Shaman or Vandal, which you have dropped from your deck.



ARE YOU HIGH?!  Metalworker won't live to see the light of day.  Just a reminder, you're playing SLIGH, who's general formula goes something like 1/3 creatures, 1/3 land, 1/3 BURN.  20 burn spells (4 bolts, 4 chains, 4 lava mancers [if you play them first turn], and 4 incinerates) MIGHT be able to deal with that Metalworker.  Do you think before you write things like that, Mr. "lack of forethought?"



Miner is too slow vs. an aggro deck.  Su-Chi's will be knocking at your door.  Ports are 2 perms for your 1, they don't count.  Wastelands are 1 for 1.  And lastly, many TNT decks actually RUN tangle wire!  How disruptive can it really be if they felt they run enough permanents to get around the draw backs of running it?  Thier creatures will be beating down more often than not.



Yes, but while it may require you to drop another land, taking -2, it forces your opponent to do the same.  Either a wasteland to kill your port, or another land to take the place of the ported one.  And since you can control when ankh comes out, you could even play your port, and THEN drop the ankh, taking none.  Either way, more damage to your opponent is ALWAYS advantageous in sligh.



You answered yourself there.  At least you didn't put something silly like a 1/2 creature will survive against sligh.




It's not that you don't run enough land, it's that you have 11 sources of red.  That's about one sixth of your deck.  So you'll have to draw about 12 cards to get 2 sources.  In case you didn't know, that's 5th turn if you draw.  If you play, 6.  The math is not in your favor there.  And your main bullet cards which supposedly improve your chances of dealing with chalice are both RR (slith & mainly pillage).  You WON'T have the double red many games, and that's what Androstanalone is trying to tell you.  Try actually reading his post next time if that isn't too much of a stretch.



Good thing.  I suggest testing out a completely different deck.

Anyway, that post was just too ridiculous not to respond to.  Back to my world of lurking I go.

- C9.