[Article] I have a Death Wish for Yawgmoth's Will, Conclusio

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8279

In Part One, I made the case for MeanDeath as a serious contender in the format. In Part Two, I walked through some of the important considerations that will guide your gameplay. In this article, I wrap up the discussion with an explanation of various sideboard decisions, suggestions on how to sideboard, and a give run-through of the important matchups. I'll conclude with some final considerations that will tighten up your game.

This is the most important part.  I hope you all get a chance to look it over.

This is the article that really deals with all the criticisms that were leveled at me after the first part by the Europeans.  I hope you get a chance to take a look at this.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Good conclusion for the series, I liked it far better than part 2 (which pointed out a lot of rather obvious or narrow things). The part about not allowing them to Slaver you if possible was a biiit unnecessary, though.
What I liked and disliked at the same time where the tourney-games you included. They gave a nice feeling for how some games and the deck itself should play out, which made them very helpful (+).
At the same time they produced the impression (probably unintentionally), that ALL games vs those decks work out that way, which, probably aside from Belcher, is not true (-).

As for the deck itself, I've been testing it lately, actually since like 2 days after I came home from Morrocco, and despite low expactations after looking at the decklist (it looks so underpowered compared to Long), it is a really smooth and enjoyable deck.
It is a bit slower than Belcher, but far more consistent in the face of disruption.
It also is A LOT worse in how often it can mulligan to get an earlier kill. Most hands below six are really problematic. Luckily this deck does have to mulligan a lot less than Belcher to find playable hands, too. It actually feels quite nice to play a combo-deck where you know you won't regularly mulligan to 5.


Btw, for all those wondering, Mindslaver and Donate in the SB came probably from Kims listing and are meant to enable you to do the most important thing the deck can do - Mindslavering the opponent and Donating Necro/Bargain with the help of double Death Wish.

[Shades]

Good conclusion for the series, I liked it far better than part 2 (which pointed out a lot of rather obvious or narrow things). The part about not allowing them to Slaver you if possible was a biiit unnecessary, though.
What I liked and disliked at the same time where the tourney-games you included. They gave a nice feeling for how some games and the deck itself should play out, which made them very helpful (+).
At the same time they produced the impression (probably unintentionally), that ALL games vs those decks work out that way, which, probably aside from Belcher, is not true (-).

As for the deck itself, I've been testing it lately, actually since like 2 days after I came home from Morrocco, and despite low expactations after looking at the decklist (it looks so underpowered compared to Long), it is a really smooth and enjoyable deck.
It is a bit slower than Belcher, but far more consistent in the face of disruption.
It also is A LOT worse in how often it can mulligan to get an earlier kill. Most hands below six are really problematic. Luckily this deck does have to mulligan a lot less than Belcher to find playable hands, too. It actually feels quite nice to play a combo-deck where you know you won't regularly mulligan to 5.


Btw, for all those wondering, Mindslaver and Donate in the SB came probably from Kims listing and are meant to enable you to do the most important thing the deck can do - Mindslavering the opponent and Donating Necro/Bargain with the help of double Death Wish.

Actually I  killed someone donating him my Mana Crypt and winning the coin flip in his upkeep.  

And yeah I really killed somebody via Donating him my Necro and Mindslaving him... it was the first round and my opponent played his first Type 1 tourney.
Well, he dropped after our match....  

@ Smmenen: I agree with Carstens post, that was way better than the 2nd part of your article.

I love this deck.

[Smmenen]

Thanks guys.  I agree with what you said.

I also think it might be one of my better articles ever since I discuss the art of sideboarding in a way that I haven't before.  Sideboarding in Vintage is so different from other formats that it merits far more attention than it's currently recieving.

[Mind_under_Matter]

I respond to that with Duress

Um...

Where can I get some instant speed Duresses?

Great article, it's great to see sideboarding plans for a deck now. It's the hardest part of deckbuilding not only to construct a viable sideboard, but to keep it balanced with the maindeck. Again, great article!

At the same time they produced the impression (probably unintentionally), that ALL games vs those decks work out that way, which, probably aside from Belcher, is not true (-).

True enough, but it's a combo deck, all the matches are supposed to work like this. If a person really wants to play the deck they should playtest it and figure out how to "win small".

[Komatteru]

Overall, I think that this is the best article of the three parts.  I found your sideboarding suggestions to be quite correct and overall helpful.  The concept of not oversideboarding was not one that had really occurred to me.  It's become a force of habit to side at least 3 cards from playing other decks, and was a bit alarmed when I found myself siding only a couple, if any, in most matchups.  I rarely side 4 Xantid Swarm, and that's pretty much the limit of siding.

However, one thing concerns me.  In your first article, you drew a lot of criticism for downplaying Workshop decks to the point of laughability, but in this article, you call Stax one of the worst matchups.  Are you merely overcompensating for that criticism and just telling people what they want to hear/think is true?  Or do you really think the matchup is somewhere in the middle of impossible to hilariously easy?

[Necrologia]

As I understand it, the earlier mentions of Workshop weren't to say the matchup was a cake walk, it was to say that Trinisphere didn't mean you had to scoop immediately. That said, it's still one of the roughest cards for this deck to face.

I'm surprised to find that you keep LED in the deck against control. As broken as the card it, I often hate to draw it against a counter heavy deck. It seems that the only time you can pop it successfully is when the opponent has run out of counters, in other words when the opponent has already lost. I'd often rather have the Chome Mox over the LED for an additional stable source of mana. I'd like to hear your reasoning behind keeping it in.

[rozetta]

Great article. Although I sided in a similar way to your explanations in some games during the last tournament, I think the advice you had in your article would have allowed me to sideboard a little better on the whole. It's true that a deck like this wants to make as few possible changes to it's maindeck between games in order to keep it running consistently all the time.

[Wollblad]

I'm sorry for not reading all of your articles, so perhaps you have already brought this up.

Your mathup analysis against Trinistax is by the way only correct if you face the American version with draw 7 and other, agains combo, useless stuff. As you point out, you only have to be afraid of 4 Trinisphere and 4 Wastelands. If draw 7 is cutted from Stax, more lock components can be added, which together with the rest slow the game down so much that Smokestack becomes a threat also to combo.

The general reason for playing TPS over draw 7 or MeanDeath is that TPS has a much more stable mana base, more disruption and hence has a better matchup against Workshop Prison. Have you considered changing TPS to include Death Wish? Compared to your deck, the losses are Wheel, Burning Wish and sideboard stuff. Such a deck would of corse not be as broken as MeanDeath, but far more stable. If you have tried it, which were the reasons for chosing the 5-color version instead? Suppose that you were facing the European Workshop Prison decks instead of the American, would you still make the same choice?

EDIT: Sorry, you loose Crop Rotation as well

[Smmenen]

As I understand it, the earlier mentions of Workshop weren't to say the matchup was a cake walk, it was to say that Trinisphere didn't mean you had to scoop immediately. That said, it's still one of the roughest cards for this deck to face.

I'm surprised to find that you keep LED in the deck against control. As broken as the card it, I often hate to draw it against a counter heavy deck. It seems that the only time you can pop it successfully is when the opponent has run out of counters, in other words when the opponent has already lost. I'd often rather have the Chome Mox over the LED for an additional stable source of mana. I'd like to hear your reasoning behind keeping it in.

It was partly an oversight stemming from the fact that I rarely SB out LED anymore.  If you have Xantids active, LED has no drawback.  Therfore, the synergy between Xantid and LED increases after board.

[Smmenen]

I'm sorry for not reading all of your articles, so perhaps you have already brought this up.

Your mathup analysis against Trinistax is by the way only correct if you face the American version with draw 7 and other, agains combo, useless stuff. As you point out, you only have to be afraid of 4 Trinisphere and 4 Wastelands. If draw 7 is cutted from Stax, more lock components can be added, which together with the rest slow the game down so much that Smokestack becomes a threat also to combo.

The general reason for playing TPS over draw 7 or MeanDeath is that TPS has a much more stable mana base, more disruption and hence has a better matchup against Workshop Prison. Have you considered changing TPS to include Death Wish? Compared to your deck, the losses are Wheel, Burning Wish and sideboard stuff. Such a deck would of corse not be as broken as MeanDeath, but far more stable. If you have tried it, which were the reasons for chosing the 5-color version instead? Suppose that you were facing the European Workshop Prison decks instead of the American, would you still make the same choice?

EDIT: Sorry, you loose Crop Rotation as well

It's not entirely accuratet to say that I'm playing a five color deck when my only white card is Balance, in the SB.  I see this as a four color deck.  The Xantid Swarms, Oxidize, etc i see as crucial SB cards and I wouldn't trade it.

If you want to play TPS, play TPS.  TPS is an entirely different deck with different goals and objectives.

As for stabiilty, that's a fuzzy word that can mean different things depending on how you manipulate it.  I could argue that the speed of this deck gives it stability in ways that TPS doesn't have.