[discussion] Death Long or Twister, that is the question.

[Ultima]

After much contemplation, I have chosen to start playing combo, as i feel it is the natural evolution of type 1 to culminate there. Anyway, I have begun testing Death Long and think it is insane.  On the other hand, i hear some talk about Twister.dec as being stupid crazy as well.  I wanted to as the combo player, particularly Smmenen, about what everybody feels is the most explosive and consistent combo deck of the moment.  I don't believe that Dragon or Rector is really a contender to either of these two decks as Dragon is too easily hated out and lots of times just rolls over to itself.  Rector is very inconsistent and has too many bad matchs, playing it every time at Waterbury and never seeing a problem beating it regardless of what I'm playing.

For reference,

Death Long (personal build)

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Burning Wish
3 Death Wish

1 Necropotence
1 Yawg Bargain
1 Mind's Desire

1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Memory Jar

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Lim Dul's Vault
1 Tinker
1 Crop Rotation
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Glimmervoid
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Chromatic Sphere
3 City of Brass
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gemstone Mine

SB

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawg Will
1 Balance
1 Primative Justice
1 Meltdown
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Disenchant
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Hull Breach
4 Xantid Swarm

Twister. dec (Smmenen's Build)

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Burning Wish

1 Necropotence
1 Yawg Bargain
1 Yawg Will
1 Mind's Desire
1 Fastbond

1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Memory Jar
3 Diminishing Returns

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Sol Ring
2 Glimmervoid
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Sb

1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tendrils of Agony
13 Meta slots

Please discuss and give opinions.

[Smmenen]

There is little doubt in my mind at the moment - Twister is the way to go.  I did goldfish statistics on the decks and Twister is the deck with the fastest goldfish numbers and with the lowest mulliganing ratios.  

It is very important to note that I do all my goldfish testing without Black Lotus, Lion's Eye Diamond, Mind's Desire, Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain becuase those cards are the five cards I find totally distort all goldfishes because they lead to wins that don't really tell you information about the regular power of the deck.

Good luck!  I hope to have an article up soon about twister.

Steve

[Geelite]

The twister deck is absolutely the nuts. Ive been playing with it ever since i saw steve's first list. I rarley mulligan and consistently go off on turn two. The death wish list is also good but i had mulligan problems such as having the wish in the opening hand and no fast mana, etc.  I look forward to reading an article about the deck.

[Jhaggs]

After going through extensive testing of my own through a multitude of combo decks, I too can testify to the fact that on straight goldfishing, twister preforms really well.  In fact, I haven't tested anything that registers more turn two kills.  Suprisingly, bebe's budget combo deck found here:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15082&start=15

also goldfishes very well.  I feel that right now, twister is probably at the forefront as far as how fast and broken a t1 deck can get.  This of course is with 4 MD force of wills which are needed, but don't necessarily make goldfishing more efficent.

I have to disagree with Steve's point about removing the 5 cards he listed becuase they distort the decks statistics.  I would argue that if you were to compare and contrast two decks and both decks contained those 5 cards (like ultima's post) then the only truley accurate data that could be collected would be to see which of those decks drew into those 5 cards more often.  Or in a sense, which decks could break those cards the best.  If you test 10 times, then the percentage of having games that distort the data are pretty high.  But if you test 300 games or better yet 1000, now you have an adequate testing sample where anolomies are downgraded and you could evaluate a more accurate percentage of which deck wins faster.  By eliminating elements that operate inside an enviroment, in order to create an evaluation of that enviroment, is misleading in my opinion.  Plus, you are also testing with fewer cards then you would normally play with thus altering the data even further.  I understand that Steve wants to eliminate the "just win" games becuase of godly draws but those types of statistic are revelant because they are real life senerios.

[Smmenen]

Yes - but the specific question I was trying to answer is: is the deck still good without those cards.

For Death Long the answer is almost No.  For Twister, the answer is yes.  

Steve

[BreathWeapon]

In testing Death Long proved incredibly inconsistant and slow in comparison to Dragon, despite the hate. I haven't tested Twister much, but it seems to be better than Death Long so go for it. I also think Belcher is worth investigation, if you haven't looked at it yet.

[Ultima]

I watched and saw the belcher deck play at tournaments near me, where it is seen often enough.  I honestly don't think its that good.  Almost all the time, if the belcher player can't go off in like turns 1-2, then they lose to control really badly.  Even a stray wasteland or stripmine also screws the belcher deck way too much(the belcher decks I have seen use 2 lands).  

As far as death long is concerned, I will admit a certain dependency does exist on the 5 cards Steve is referring.  When I tested the deck, it almost always needed these cards to kill 1st and 2nd turn.

As well however, it should be noted that Death Long would logically have a better game against Workshop decks and other artifact haters because of its better access to answers should a rod, 3sphere, or something else hit the board.

[Lucentspirit]

I've done some testing with my belcher deck and I'd really like to get some hard statistics from twister/death long to do a comparison. I ran 100 goldfish hands (all cards included)..... 50 start with 7 cards, 50 with 8 cards. This is what I came up with:

Kills on turn 1   31%
Kills by turn 2   77%
Kills by turn 3   91%
Kills by turn 4   94%
Kills by turn 5   94%
Kills by turn 6  100%

#mulligans  18

      I find belcher wins close to 50% maindeck vs. control matches (hulk smash, mono-blue, good aggro-control). I don't have stats vs. prison builds mainly because I don't think my play abilty is good enough to produce accurate results and I think prison decks are changing so rapidly now any stats done will likely be obsolete in short order.
      I think the FOW makes a huge difference in deck comparison and definately plays in favor twister/death being a stronger build. I would love to see goldfish results posted from someone that can play twister/death long well.

[Smmenen]

Prison is a nightmare for combo decks such as these.  Not only do they have 3Sphere, Sphere of Restience, Chalice, and other goodies, but they also can bring in stuff like Damping Matrix against Belcher.  

Steve

[Ultima]

Logically, Death Long would have a better game against Prison decks Steve, but do you find Twister to be more resilant than Death Long against Prison?

[Smmenen]

Well, I think its really a two part question.

Death Long is more inconsistent than Twister - so from that piont of view, it is going to have slower games once in a while Prison can take advantage of.  Additionally, A draw7 on turn one can ruin Prison's day - giving it an awful hand.  

However, you are right about the fact that Death Wish gives you inherent resiliance to Prison - this is totally true.  I think the Draw7 deck can more easily cast Force of Will as well, for what that's worth.

My revised build of draw7 has 1 Chain and 1 Hurkyl's maindeck along with 1 LED and 1 Chrome Mox (4 Xantids in the board) and so I think that should help the matchup quite a bit.  

@ The person doing the Belcher statistics - if you don't have a belcher deck that wins more than 50% on turn one, then you aren't playing the fastest Belcher deck (that doesn't mean its good, mind you).

Steve M.

[frimble]

@ Smmenen - Lucentspirit and I came up with his build of Belcher.  I have yet to see a faster build than ours.  His results at your Columbus Tournament three weeks ago were pretty good, I thought.

How does Draw 7.dec do against Blue based control decks?

[Ultima]

The twister deck is much the same as Long.  If Control has the opening force of will, you may have a chance.  If Twister has the opening force and a decent hand, then its just bad for control.

It somewhat depends on which Control your playing though.  Against Tog, twister can actually stall Tog out for a while if it resolves its twister effects.  Tog, I think is usually the more difficult control match of all of them.

Keeper is easier because they take forever to do something so Twister has alot of time to play itself out.  Keeper does have mana denial though and that hurts alot.

Landstill, Urphid/Bloodmoon Control are all very slow and take alot of time to really capitalize when Twister hesitates.  These are most of the time easy pre-board.

Post-board each of these might get easier or harder depending on whether control has the chalices or rods.  You've got Xantid swarm though and resolving those guys usually give you game hands down.  

They are so good as well because you've just added 4 more must counters for the control deck which will have to debate whether or not to side the spot removal.  They are just so good for you.

[Lucentspirit]

I did some testing on my own with twister.dec and ran the same kind of goldfishing  I did with the belcher deck. The only difference here is I did 50 hands (25 with 8 cards and 25 with 7).

Here's what I found,
   
Kills on turn 1      16%
Kills by turn 2      60%
Kills by turn 3      80%
Kills by turn 4      84%
Kills by turn 5      88%
Kills by turn 6      96%      

mull total   10      

I'd like to note that not once in all 50 hands did diminishing returns remove both kill cards from the deck. I also found that mind's desire was super hard to cast and I only used it once.

[Ultima]

Yeah, Mind's Desire isn't the easiest thing to hard cast but when it does with a decent enough storm count (5 or more) its usually game.

On a similar note, I have been goldfishing and playing like mad with both DeathLong and Twister.  I really have to say that Death Long has been out preforming Twister in killing first and second turn.  Mind you this is with the 5 broken cards that Smmenen removes when goldfishing.

I'm really leaning towards Death Long right now as being the better combo deck.

[Smmenen]

@frimble, the draw7 deck is very strong against Control when piloted correctly.  Much stronger than Long becuase you can mulligan more aggressively into hands that don't have uber conditional cards like Death Wish.  Furthermore, you can mulligan to 4, but if you have turn one Swarm, turn two draw7 it doesn't matter.  

I think that the most up-to-date build of the draw7 deck is the msot powerful.

Here is what I'm playing:

Lands:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid
1 Tolarian Academy

Accelleration:
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
Mox Jet
Mox Ruby
Mox Pearl
Mox Sapphire
Mox Emerald
Lotus Petal
Black Lotus
Lion's Eye Diamond
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault

Setting up/Protecting the Combo:
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will (they are Awseom111!!one)
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl?s Recall

Draw 7s Extraodinare:
3 Diminishing Returns
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister

BORKEN!!!PWNED!!!
1 Mind's Desire
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Tutors:
1 Vamp Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
(no Mystical or Consult)

Finishers:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Burning Wish

SB:
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Hull Breach
2 Chain
2 Hurkyls
2 Oxidize
2 Random Slots

[frimble]

Goldfishing is one thing.  Detailed tournament reports are what helps us to relive the experiences of others.  If someone can play all day and take good notes (shouldn't be too hard to do with only 2-3 turns to keep track of), and we can read about it in 15 minutes, then that is very worthwhile information.  The way each person plays a deck will yield different results.  

The solitaire stats on these super-powerful decks are pretty close to each other.  Many times we are trying to  choose between a great deck and a great deck.  Variables come into play when we start making decisions based on personal play-style, metagame expectations, deciding when to play what cards, etc.  I just need to find a method by which I enjoy defeating an opponent.  Getting in control of a game is usually the easy part.  Killing them in a fitting way is the enjoyable part.  For example, I play with Werebears in one of my decks not just cause its a good card, but its fun to watch my opponent's face as the little druid becomes the beatstick that kills him.  The act of shuffling and drawing over and over may be stimulating to some while others like flipping over their entire library to deal that much damage.

The interacton with another player, even if only 2 turns, must be fun.  What is the most enjoyable part of playing Twister?  Same question for Death Long players...

[Dr. Sylvan]

***SPEAK NOW UNTO THE TMD ORACLE***

The interacton with another player, even if only 2 turns, must be fun.  What is the most enjoyable part of playing Twister?  Same question for Death Long players...

TMD ORACLE: "It is as though they were presented with a race car, and then spent an hour criticising all the ways it differed from chocolate cake."

[frimble]

Ok, Ok.   But at least I only spent about 6 minutes  :lol:

And Smmenen, thanks for your most current build.  I have already printed it off using Kevin's uber-cool proxy program.  Thanks again to him.

[BreathWeapon]

Is this Program available over the net? I'd love to get ahold of it, if you wouldn't mind providing a link?

Back on topic, Smmenen have you found the ESG to be better than the Chromatic Spheres? I have a hard time finding the right combinations of on colored mana with the UU req of Returns.

[thecapn]

Back on topic, Smmenen have you found the ESG to be better than the Chromatic Spheres? I have a hard time finding the right combinations of on colored mana with the UU req of Returns.

Chromatic spheres got cut in favor of better mana producers - LED and Crop Rotation and much needed utility cards - Chain of Vapor and Hurkyl's Recall.  If you were going to fit them in the deck, though, it certainly wouldn't be in ESG's spot.  Spirit guide is one free mana, doesn't have to be cast (important when Chain and Hurkyl's cost more under a sphere), and he wins the game turned sideways that one time you need him to.  More importantly, the 4cc of Diminishing Returns makes it so that you want as much free mana production as possible, and the fact that Chromatic Sphere costs 1 and then only filters 1 makes it less than optimal.  With the Draw 7 focus I always found the card drawing effect to be more or less irrelevant.  

Having said that, I found the filtering effect of the Chromatic Spheres to be unnecessary.  I tried to fit a Death Wish for a while and it's just not needed; I find Chromatic Sphere to be in the same category.  Sometimes you want it, sometimes it makes winning easier, but there are just better card choices.  While U mana is tight, I've always managed to get by.  I haven't seen you play the deck, but I'd keep a few things in mind when playing it.  Mana management is important: you always want to generate as much mana as possible, and use your U and B last, usually saving as much U as possible aside from 1-2 B.  I often delay land drops until I really need it as Academy is everyone's favorite U source and you may see it 2 Draw 7's down the line.  

The other thing to remember is that playing some draw 7's and then passing the turn will generally net you a good amount of card advantage and may leave your opponent wishing they could mulligan.  Your position is often equal or better than the last turn as this usually leaves you with a draw 7 or two in your hand and the ability to drop another land, which is great.  The draw 7 focus allows you to apply continual pressure over a few turns, knowing full well that each turn you start off with a draw 7 can be a deadly turn.  The fact that you can fizzle on mana or strategically pass or even better Time Walk and still be in a solid position is perhaps the strongest aspect of the deck.

Hope I helped and wasn't too obvious/condescending with the mana usage...
Peace,
 Jason