Coming up a little short (2nd at Gencon)

[Smmenen]

yes, when I say 2.5 color i meant running a trop/bayou maindeck with 1 swarm and 1 regrowth like Grim Long.  that didn't work worth a crap because you can't afford to support green.  too often you'd fetch out sea to draw the swarm or you'd fetch out the green to play swarm but be unable to play some other key spell.

post sb, its totally different.

tk doesn't seem to wrap his head around this, but xantid swarm reads:

T1:
Swarm

T2:
Win. 

It has nothing to do with counterbattles.  (Not sure what he meant)

[TK]

The mistake that travis made was from what i saw not tapping his mana crypt for mana before chaining it. By the time he was ready to combo off he had the spell count lotus in play, on ecolorless floating, and a land drop for the turn. Assumming he had a volcanic to fetch out yet seeing as he had one in play and im guessing his deck plays 2. if he would have floated mana off the crypt he would have had 2 colorless and lotus after a wish instead of jsut lotus. It was jsut a small mistake that is often made and ended up not mattering in the long run.

As to steves last post i dont think i mentioned counterbattles anywhere, because they usaally dotn come up to often in that matchup.

As far as your statement that all you havce to do is play turn one xantid turn two win, i believe you are simplifying things a little bit. sure you can get hands like that but it wont happen often. I think xantid means for the most part i hope i can play it first turn and then go off by turn 3-4 hoping things dont happen like my opponent screwing my hand with a duress or them jsut comboing me out first.

[Komatteru]

For the record, the name "2.5c Long" came about because the third color was in the sideboard.  It was a "half color" because green was no longer in the maindeck, and its role was completely out of the sideboard.  The version with the Xantid and Bayou and Trop in the maindeck was called "3c Long," because it had three colors--it also had Regrowth and Crop Rotation in the main.

The transition from 3c Long (debuted in November of 2005) to 2.5c Long (somewhere around January as I recall) was just cuttting the green cards from the maindeck, adding more other stuff, and changing the two duals to one of each basic.  This came after I realized that I could board one island and a swamp against Stax and Fish, and then realized that it was better to just have those maindeck and the green for the sideboard--I made my game 1 against Stax and Fish much better, while hardly weakening my control match, which was still incredible post-board because of the Xantids.

[Smmenen]

lets be clear: i know very well you put xantid swarms in your old list along time ago.

I hated your list, not your sb.  your conflating the two.

[Smmenen]

Faster than MDG?  How is that possible?  LED?  maindeck Tendrils? 

[M.Solymossy]

I believe I answered that for you steve.  LED and Maindeck tendrils. 

As far as hating JD's list... I don't see how you can.  I seem to recall you saying how you  would LOVE to play against Stax with 5C Long, but didn't you lose in THREE top8s to stax with Long?   Wouldn't 2 color long be MUCH more solid?   

[Smmenen]

look at jds list and you'll see why:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=16677

[Dxfiler]

Why the mods are allowing squabbling over different variants of the same deck is beyond me...

Anyway, congrats on your performance Tommy.  I'm not at all surprised by your finish and you were actually my pick to win once I heard top 8.  I look forward to seeing you in Boston.  -_-

BTW, nice tech with the infernal contract. 

- Dave Feinstein

[JACO]

look at jds list and you'll see why:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=16677

It's just an untuned (in my opinion) version of 2.5. Maybe with your help he could have perfected it, since he was on your team and all. If JD was on my team, my immediate thoughts back then to attempt to help JD out would have been:
-2 Elvish Spirit Guide
-1 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Hurkyl's Recall
-1 Rushing River

+1 Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth
+4 Cabal Ritual (or +3 Cabal Ritual and the other Chain/Truth bounce spell above)

That would leave the deck with 2-3 assorted bounce spells, and some really solid mana production out of Cabal Ritual. JD was probably just testing the Gifts Ungiven (which was really really good in two color TPS), but the other stuff isn't as gassy as Cabal Ritual. It obviously has a superior mana base to 5C Grim Long in the eye of Wastelands and Stax.

This, along with Heiner Litz's "Litz Long," would be the obvious precursors to Eric Becker's "Pitch Long."


In reference to Tommy's report, I just want to congratulate you on another solid performance. In the prediction thread I didn't even make a post, because you were my pick to win the damn thing, and I didn't even have a clue who else would make it, aside from hopefully my teammate Nick (who did).

While you may have not won the Vintage World Championships, you have had the best year in Vintage from anybody in North America that I can see, putting up big finish after big finish in large events (with an assortment of decks/archetypes, no less). If there was a pro circuit for Vintage you would probably win this year's crown based on Vintage pro points! Great job. I look forward to playing with you when I'm back in the Midwest (coming soon).

[TK]

I'd just like to say thankyou for all the kind words people have said about me lately. I have worked really hard this entire year and it has paid off greatly. i appreciate that others have taken notice to my hardwork and determination. I would like to say though that i wouldn't have accomplished any of the things i did this year withour the solid team helping me all the way. A good portion of the congrats should go to all of the members of team ICBM.....

Ben Carp,   Blake Czarnyszka,   Chris Nighbor,   Dan Carp,   David Carhart,   I@n DeGraff,   Jamison Bryant,   Jake Kempfer, Jeremy Sauld,   Jeremy Seroogy,   Mark Sadowski,   Matt Ladwig,   Peter Van Heesch,   Rafe Colton,   Tony Lyskawa

[Komatteru]

First of all, congrats to Tommy!!

look at jds list and you'll see why

As I recall, Steve, the entire reason you didn't like my list had little to do with specific card choices.  It was the whole two colors thing.  We never argued about Cabal Ritual/ESG, or what and how many bounce spells should be included in the maindeck.  You never asked "Why aren't you running Cabal Ritual?"  Instead, your question was "How many games will you lose because you drew Island or Swamp and didn't have the right color mana?" and you fixated on that, and never really looked too much deeper.  You made a big deal out of how many times you might have to mulligan because of that, and wanted some sort of statistical analysis of how many times that would happen in relation to the number of times you would be faced with Wasteland and have it hurt you.

We could have easily fixed design issues like how many Cabal Rituals to run, but we didn't get that far because you wouldn't accept the 2c manabase, citing "personal preference" as the deciding factor between choosing to play 2.5c or 5c Long when I put up results just as good as yours (3 tournaments, 3 pieces of power).

Of course, in your defense, we never got much past the "This is better vs. Wastelands" because you somehow never manged to lose to decks with Wastelands in your tournaments, except for that T8 at Chicago, where you cited Trinisphere as the problem, and (as I recall) said that if Sean had had nothing to back up that Trinisphere, you could have easily gotten out of it (duh!).  As I recall at Cleveland, you beat Stax twice, and in the first game, your opponent mulled to 5 and was unable to draw any lock pieces in that hand.  In another match, your opponent's first turn play was Mind's Eye, pass, and that was the last turn he got.  Since all your matches with Wasteland decks went about like that (or involved winning on the first turn), anything I could have said never mattered because you never experienced the same issues I ran into.

Maybe with your help he could have perfected it, since he was on your team and all.

Bingo.  I built 2.5c Long almost entirely by myself, and ended up getting more input on how the deck played from people outside the team (my friends Chad and Mike Shean).

look at jds list and you'll see why:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=16677

It's just an untuned (in my opinion) version of 2.5. Maybe with your help he could have perfected it, since he was on your team and all. If JD was on my team, my immediate thoughts back then to attempt to help JD out would have been:
-2 Elvish Spirit Guide
-1 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Hurkyl's Recall
-1 Rushing River

+1 Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth
+4 Cabal Ritual (or +3 Cabal Ritual and the other Chain/Truth bounce spell above)

That would leave the deck with 2-3 assorted bounce spells, and some really solid mana production out of Cabal Ritual. JD was probably just testing the Gifts Ungiven (which was really really good in two color TPS), but the other stuff isn't as gassy as Cabal Ritual. It obviously has a superior mana base to 5C Grim Long in the eye of Wastelands and Stax.

When I built the deck, I was considering a metagame full of Fish and Stax, which was what was showing up in the Midwest (mostly the Stax) at the time.  In that respect, I set out to make a combo deck that would not lose rounds to Stax with consistency.  That's the reason for the ESGs and multiple maindeck bounce spells.  Rushing River was selected because I could never escape a combo reputation, and people were ALWAYS setting Chalice for 1 against me the first chance they got.  Combined with Meddling Mage, that was a complete pain, and I needed a way to take care of both of those things at once.

ESG is superior over Cabal Ritual against Stax because of Sphere of Resistance (which causes FAR more problems than Chalice at 1), and helps you cast Rebuild under multiple SoRs.  Plus, I never cared all that much for Cabal Ritual, and I still don't actually.  But I end up playing it anyway these days...

As for Gifts, I was never satisfied with that slot.  Gifts was the last in the string of cards that went in there, as  I tried a few things and never liked any of them really.  I've always hated Windfall, but that does seem to be the best card for that slot.

[Smmenen]

I would be happy to discuss the reasoning behind not playing jds list in more detail as well as further engage TKs points and arguments provided both truly want me to do so - however, for the former, I think a different thread would be most appropriate.  let me know.

[M.Solymossy]

I would like to say though that i wouldn't have accomplished any of the things i did this year withour the solid team helping me all the way. A good portion of the congrats should go to all of the members of team ICBM.....

Im insulted by this.  Your team did nothing to help you besides ride your coat tails.  I'm very enraged that the person who did 80% of your testing with you doesn't get any respect.  This is the whole reason I left ICBM, and might leave vintage... because people never appreciate the things I do... just cuz I don't win assloads of power.

I'm actually insulted and hurt by that...

[Smmenen]

sully, take a step back man - I'm sure it was an oversight - and even if it wasn't, it wasn't a sleight at you.   

I know that you helped tks testing so you get props from me. 

[Demonic Attorney]

Okay, enough.  This thread is devoted to TK's list and tournament performance, not to resurrect in-house debates over Meandeck's old combo preferences, or ICBM's recognition of its members contributions.

[TK]

Well ok....... getting back on topic. I personally feel that the list i went with was really solid but there is still room for improvement. I think the biggest thing that needs work for the deck is the side. Usually when i prepair for a tourney a large portion of my work goes into constructing a solid side. For some unknown reason though i have never put a ton of time into my long side. Both tourneys i have built the sideboard the morning before the tournament and at the end of the day am greatly disappointed with it for the most part.

If anyone wants to give me some ideas or results they have had with sideboards for pitch long i would appreciate it, since i am finally spending some time trying to build a fully functional side.

[Smmenen]

you didn't ask, but oh well:

I did consider the use of swarm in the sideboard but opted against it for several reasons.

1. it takes up a large section of the board

taking a look at your board,
2 plague spitter
1 dsc
1 massacre
3 stifle
2 tormods crypt
2 spirit guide
2 chain
2 hurk

so what?

I've played with every single one of those cards and I think that 3 swarm + 1 Trop/Bayou - 4 cards, 5 at most, woudln't really cost you that much out of your board. 

I have no idea why you have Plague Spitter.  I've played with Spitter before, and I think versus Fish its terrible and versus SS its unnecessary.  Versus Fish, they will directly attack your life and spitter won't be good enough.  Against SS, I think you should be fine with a combination of Chain of Vapors and slow play.

2. my drain matchups are already heavily in my favor for the most part

Yes, but each drain deck is different.  MDG ability to find and play countermagic requires an efficient response.   Swarm is that answer.

3. xantid seems to slow combo down to much. Sure there is the hands where you can play a turn one xantid and then go off second with a wall of protection, but those hands are just to rare. The thing is a good gifts player should be able to combo out only a few turns slower than myself. I feel that using xantid against gifts is just to slow and gives them the opportunity to just win faster than you.

slow down combo too much?  Original long and draw7 ran swarm for a reason.  It is based upon the presumption that the turn one development leads to turn two killmost of the time.  Grim Long consistently goes off on turn two.  Paul told me that he won most of his games on turn two.  I think that Swarm is perfectly suited for it.  It doesn't make sense to say that Swarm slows down combo too much if you think that Duress is an approprate card in combo decks (which I do). 

Sure, gifts can combo slower, but that doesn't make Xantid any less broken.  Swarm doesn't slow down combo one whit.

I actually had tested the gifts on pitch long match with 13nova quite a bit with myself being the gifts player. A had noticed from are testing that it often was wrong to just try and control the game into the late stages. I found it much more productive to play a aggressive roll with gifts and go for the combo as soon as i could. I was however playing a version of gifts that is faster than meandeck gifts however.

absolutely that's correct.  Gifts should combo out as quickly as possible if it is going to win.  But that doesn't make a turn one or two swarm any less potent. 
it's a must counter.

As far as your statement that all you havce to do is play turn one xantid turn two win, i believe you are simplifying things a little bit. sure you can get hands like that but it wont happen often. I think xantid means for the most part i hope i can play it first turn and then go off by turn 3-4 hoping things dont happen like my opponent screwing my hand with a duress or them jsut comboing me out first.

If you are wining most of your games on turn 3 or 4, why not try Time Spiral over Windfall instead of playing Infernal Contract? 

sure i was simplyfing things a bit, but mostly because your opponents will try to force of will turn one Swarm.  And when they do, you've just played a threat they force of willed. 

Even if you go:

Turn One: Swarm

Turn two: stuff

Turn three: win

swarm did its job just fine.

  entire discussion about mini tendrils

that whole example of a mini tendrils backed up by a second tendrils doesn't necessariliy follow that you want two tendrils.

IMagine you only had one tendrils, bt that tendrils in your hand was actually tendrils.  YOur mini tendrils would give you the life you need to find will and shoot off the lethal tendrils. 

[TK]

As far as the plague spitters go they were basically only there for the SS match up. I had been testing the match up and i wanted something to push me over the top a little after the board. Plague spitter basically makes SS have to resolve cutpurse. It may not be the best creature ever but it did enough against SS for me to give it a shot. when i actually played SS round one i never drew one so i didn't get the tourney testing with it i had hoped for.

Maybe i am over looking swarm a little bit, i will start testing it in the side again and see how it goes.

[Smmenen]

i know why you had spitter - I gathered that you probably tested against ss alot since your team came up with it.

my point was that it wasn't necessary for that match.  I tested against Ss and i beat one of your teammates in the main event.  the way to beat ss is to observe how it plays out.  SS has certain rythms, patterns, and bottlenecks.  I think the two chains are the optimal sb choice for ss. 

[TK]

Yeah don't worry i know how to beat SS. I actually have never lost a game in a tournament to it yet. Your observation of how SS plays out is pretty accurate. Most people downfall is when they simply try and blow SS out of the water early they wind up falling right into the hands of the SS player.


In your opinion Steve what is the best SB answer to the combo mirror. I don't mind playing the combo mirror quite as much as everyone else seems to but i still find it to occasionally be a pain. Ive considered trying to add a tundra and 3 chants to the side but that solution doesn't seem real hot.

[Smmenen]

i also considered a tundra and 3 chants before gencon for pitch long, but i found upon testing that the best card, surprisingly, is duress.

as i said in the pitch long thread, my combo sb plan is:

- 2 bounce spells
- 3rd Cabal Ritual
+ 3 duress

taht gives me

4 fow
3 misd
3 duress

mainboard

I tested every major anti combo card, and the problem with chant is two fold - like stifle, grim and pitch longs major bottleneck is the Land.  If you have rituals, blue spells, one land and a stifle/chant - you CAN"T play the stifle or the chant unles you let your opponent time walk. 

the second problem is related to the first.  FoW just ruins you.

imagine:

your opponetn plays a bomb, you chant, they fow.   


or even this simple:

they go first and go:

T1:
lannd, Brainstorm,

You play City of Brass/ Tundra


T2:
They play Land, ritual and appear poised to go off

in response to ritual, you play Orim's Chant

you know what they do now?  They FoW you and you lose.



What i discoverd is that the fundamental difference between fow and all other anti-combo cards is that FoW both protects your spells and stops your opponents.  There is only one other card that does that: duress.   Thus, int hat same scenario, you could duress and take the bomb. t hen you won't die and you've bouhght time - you've developed your board state in the meantime.  sure, they could fow the duress, but they are slightly less likely to fow it cause they 'll lose a card and - they will have seen less cards- maybe the brainstorm of the draw step saw them that fow

stifle is even worse.

the only reason some of these really janky cards work: like stifle and envelop for eric is, i'm convinced, people play into them , eric finds them effective and has positive reinforcemen of a bad card.

I understand why duress is better though.   if you can surprise yuor opp, then maybe duress isn't best.  but in the world of perfect information, duress is second only to fow and misd. 

[AJFirst]

cards I've seen used, whether they are good or not is up to you.

Tormod's Crypt
Leyline (not necesarily in the mirror, but you know)
Envelop
REB (against Pitch and IT mostly)
Brain Freese (even if it's not great, it's still hilarious)
Extract (not really in the mirrors)
Duress
Stifle
cabal Therepy (usually in conjunction with duress)
Chant/Abeyance

and some others. Sorry, I'm on 6 hours of sleep for the past 3 days. Of these I'd say just Duress and FoW, maybe with some Envelops, although the Brain Freeze plan still cracks me up.
-AJ

[ashiXIII]

What i discoverd is that the fundamental difference between fow and all other anti-combo cards is that FoW both protects your spells and stops your opponents.  There is only one other card that does that: duress.   Thus, int hat same scenario, you could duress and take the bomb. t hen you won't die and you've bouhght time - you've developed your board state in the meantime.  sure, they could fow the duress, but they are slightly less likely to fow it cause they 'll lose a card and - they will have seen less cards- maybe the brainstorm of the draw step saw them that fow

Can you explain why Chant doesn't protect your bombs? If you cast it on your turn before you go off, it's basically a one-shot Xantid Swarm.

[diopter]

What i discoverd is that the fundamental difference between fow and all other anti-combo cards is that FoW both protects your spells and stops your opponents.  There is only one other card that does that: duress.   Thus, int hat same scenario, you could duress and take the bomb. t hen you won't die and you've bouhght time - you've developed your board state in the meantime.  sure, they could fow the duress, but they are slightly less likely to fow it cause they 'll lose a card and - they will have seen less cards- maybe the brainstorm of the draw step saw them that fow

Can you explain why Chant doesn't protect your bombs? If you cast it on your turn before you go off, it's basically a one-shot Xantid Swarm.

Chant protects your bombs just fine, but it doesn't do enough to stop an FoW-wielding opponent's bombs.

[Headless_Horseman]

hey,
this is david cohen, your first top 8 player. the first hand that I kept, the one where i discarded the mana drain, had 2 force of wills and an ancestral recall but no mana sources, and I trought that it was pretty good, and i thought that going down to 6 would have given me a much better hand.
the second game, having mulled down to five, was lost from the beginning...
congrats anyway on a nice result and on a great performance.
hope to play you again soon.