Neo Long issues I need help with.

[Hampuusi]

Hello folks!

I already posted these questions in StarCity, but that really isn't the best place to go looking for Type I knowledge, now is it? (Except the recent avalanche of quality articles, of course.  )
So if you could shed some light on these points, I'd be very grateful indeed!

If you were to play in a tournament before the restriction of Vault and C.Mox, what would the decklist be like?

- Duress or Force of Will or both?
- What to replace the sideboard Xantid Swarms with, since you'll propably have huge difficulty casting them with less green sources? Pyroblasts?
- Can you drop all Chromatic Spheres or are some still needed?
- Timewalk or no? (Seems kind of moot to have, if you are aiming for the first turn kill. A bad cantrip, in a way...)
- If you go the way of FoW, how many blue cards do you need?
- Is 4 Vaults optimum, or should you keep Necro in the deck?
- Bounce in the maindeck? (Chains of Vapor or Hurkyl's Recall)

Decklists would be appreciated, but even short opinions are needed. Thanks in advance, people.

[Toast]

try the search feature; I know there was a thread discussing post mirrodin long.dec a month or so ago in the vintage forum, also I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a good list searching through the tournament reports.

EDIT:Try This for Starts\n\n

[Hampuusi]

Thanks for the try, Toast. I appreciate it.

I have read that particular thread quite a few times already, but my questions aren't answered there... And the thread in Extreme forum degenerated quickly to something else than a deck discussion. The one about sideboarding Long in the Newbie forum was actually much better in terms of hard data. Go figure.

It just seems to me that most, if not all of the writers in this forum have already decided to wait until the Mox and Vault are restricted, instead of making any research now. If I was mr. DCI, I'd not restrict anything and would laugh my posterior off when everybody starts running around like headless chicken, trying to catch up on deck evolution.  

I'd love to give you my current list as it is, but if I do that I doubt I'd ever get any answers to the questions above, because the attention would be elsewhere...

[hippie tourach]

I see a potential for two builds emerging, one with FoW and one with Duress. Obviously the one with FoW will require more blue to support it. The one with Duress will need more than one way to deal with a first-turn Chalice maindeck, so I think you'll need to squeeze in multiple Chain of Vapor or Hurkyl's Recall (enough copies to Spoils for, preferably). If you prefer Hurkyl's to Chain, the build will not want to have 4 Chrome Mox, plus it would benefit from more than a few lands so that it can answer Chalice.

All the above analysis is under the assumption that a significant amount of decks will play Chalice maindeck. Now it seems that only Workshop decks, most black decks, and some Keepers actually will. Perhaps this means that only a token Chain of Vapor is required maindeck and the more convenient Duress can be played over FoW, while multiple Chain/Hurkyl's can be sided in (most decks you face will have multiple Chalice sideboard).

Why would you drop Chromatic Sphere? LED is not only a mana source for Will, sometimes you just don't have enough mana to play what you have or what you tutor for, and LED/Sphere provides 3 mana of any two colors, net.

Time Walk is bad to draw once you've committed yourself to winning on a particular turn, but it's an excellent untap or emergency way to draw from MT/VT. The untap effect I think is key, and the mana boost that provides should allow you to play an easy 10 spells on your extra turn. I'm usually happy with it.

The boost Spoils provides makes Necro stupid, especially when it doesn't let you win until 2nd turn, which is far too late. At this point I'm testing some pretty wacky builds, so I can't post a decklist yet, but those are my thoughts.

[Hampuusi]

C'mon you two! Cut it out!

The great battle of vocabulary isn't really helping my dilemma, but neither is Steve's "I'm not telling anything yet." act. Hippie at least gave some insight to the issue at hand, so shame on you guys...  

Hippie: Thanks for the post. I was just wondering why you didn't address my question about using both Duress and Force of Will? Have you or anyone you know tried this? My build currently has 4 FoW + 3 Duress. This is one of the reasons I don't have any room for the Chromatic Spheres. You say that the Duress-only version might need to run multiple bounce spells for the Chalice, but isn't it more viable to add FoWs than bounce?

I also play only two Spoils at the Moment and I'm still keeping the Necro in, for now.

I have one Hurkyl's maindeck and boy did it give me a ridiculous mana+storm boost today! Although I did play against Enchantress... I know, it's like using napalm for pest problem. But they do call it the Burning Wish!  

My build has also the full compliment of Chrome Moxes. I like them, but not as much as in T2 Affinity. I'm getting way out of point myself here, so bear with me a moment please. I played the T2 Afro today and had a following game: Turn 1 Frogmite, Turn 2 double Myr Enforcer, Turn 3 8/8 Broodstar. That might have done the trick even against some T1 decks! Maybe the idea has some merits in Vintage too, because here we do have some cheap artifacts lying around...

Anyway, I'd still like some concrete info on the build, if somebody can spare some? Anyone?! I'd never guessed to see the day, when TMD can't help you with T1 deckbuilding.\n\n

[Smmenen]

Ok OK HampsterPussy,

Basically, You honestly want to know what I think the best Long deck is?

Same as the one I posted in August.  

Why?  Becuase a) I haven't tested with Spoils but can't imagine what it'd get me.  b) I have tested with Chain of Vapor and FoW and found them awful.  The reason I don't want Spoils is becuase I like to win with yawg will.  And you can't really spoils twice.  The other problem is that i just don't think the deck needs it.  It's already fast, reslient, and consistent enough.  Mind you, I've tested it post mirrodin.

RE: Time Walk.  That's the card Koen cut from his deck for Chain of Vapor.  I understand why.  Of all the non card advantage/tutor spells: Duress, mana, and that's about it - Time walk does the least for you.

BUT, it is best against control at setting up a double threat on turn one. And this decks biggest weakness is control and workshop decks.

Steve\n\n

[Hampuusi]

Now were talking!

I can see your point about the Spoils, Stevie, but have you tried the Chrome Moxes? Hot or Not?

Besides if you can't imagine what the Spoils could get you, then how about the claims many posters have made of the much improved 1st round kill percentages? Or do you feel it only applies to good old goldfishing...

I don't run into Workshop decks around where I play. Control decks are aplenty and aggro decks run wild. How would you change your deck from August if you were in my shoes?

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

[Smmenen]

Looks like you are in Great Shape then.  As long as you have access to four Xantid Swarms you almost can't lose.  Chalice is balanced out by Xantid Swarm.  Then you can Burning Wish for Meltdown in your SB to kill the Chalice (which ironically won't touch your own spells).

You might be able to win even with chalice in play with Dark Rituals, Mana Vault, and Sol Ring.

Steve

[Bastian]

This is kind of off-topic, but if Long.dec isn't really needing to pack spoils... and I don't know just how much will it need chrome moxes, doesn't this mean that they have been overrated and probably don't need restriction?

[Hampuusi]

Aaahhh, the Xantid Swarms.

I like Xantids a lot, after playing them in maindeck before the Chrome Moxes and Spoils. As of now, I feel that the manabase hardly supports them anymore.    I have 4 lands, a Mox and a Lotus for green mana, unless you count LEDs (which I won't, since you need to have attacked with Xantid before playing something and responding with sacrifice). Putting Chrome Moxes in cut 4 green sources and 3 went away in the removal of the Chromatics.

So there are good and bad sides to using Moxes. Same as with Spoils. I have killed myself with them only once so far, but every time sucks... I have also found out that sometimes you can Spoils another time reasonably safely. For instance after playing a "hard" Consult, there is not enough cards in the deck to hurt alot with spoils. The best side of the Spoils is obviously the easy casting cost. It is also an instant, which means you can counter with 1 black mana and a bunch of life, if you need to.

Chrome Mox:

+ Makes you faster by giving you extra coloured mana and storm count.
+ Decreases the number of lands in the deck, making draw 7's more reliable.
- Decreases the amount of green mana sources making the xantid swarm plan impossible.
- Makes you even more vulnerable to first round Chalice.

Spoils of the Vault:

+ Faster than Necro, lot faster than Bargain.
+ Gives you easy decisions, since 4 of's are the only real targets, unless you are desperate.
+ Has the possibility of saving your ass when you are desperate. (I once fetched a Lotus with this and had 1 life left afterwards...)
- Sometimes gives you the "Pulp Fiction" treatment. (Shoots your brains out without provocation.)
- In most cases can only be used once per game.

I for one don't really know which cards are better, when you are talking of actual tournament play instead of test draws...

Now that I've got some serious answers and opinions about my questions, I'll put my decklist to the test of publicity:

Mana (27)
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Gemstone Mine
5 Moxen
4 Chrome Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual

Protection (8)
4 Force of Will
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Duress

Search (14)
4 Brainstorm
2 Spoils of the Vault
4 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation

The rest (10)
1 Necropotence
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony

B – 14
U – 16
R – 5
Art – 19
Lands – 5

And of course in the sideboard:
 Yawgmoth's Will
 Diminishing Returns
 maybe Regrowth?

That's 59 cards MD. I currently have the 4th Duress in, but it could also be the 3rd Spoils, I guess.

Comments? Give it the whole works!

[Hampuusi]

P.S. I do have the tournament tomorrow, so if anyone has anything to suggest, I suggest you suggest it quick... And I don't yet have a sideboard, either...  

[hippie tourach]

Quote (Smmenen @ Oct. 30 2003,17:37)Ok OK HampsterPussy,

Basically, You honestly want to know what I think the best Long deck is?

Same as the one I posted in August.

That's interesting. The man who said Mirrodin is bringing huge changes to the format and that Chalice of the Void hoses Long doesn't think it should be changed.

Quote I haven't tested with Spoils but can't imagine what it'd get me.  

Mind you, theory is great, but you didn't answer Hampuusi's question. Why does testing show that Spoils wins games?

For that matter, on a theoretical basis, this is what Spoils gets you: Dark Ritual (net 1 black mana), LED (net 2 mana), Burning Wish (win condition), Duress (protection), Chain/Hurkyl's in some versions (protection), Xantid Swarm (protection), even Chromatic Sphere or Brainstorm for engine purposes. That doesn't take much imagination.

Quote The reason I don't want Spoils is becuase I like to win with yawg will.

Could you clarify this? I hope you're not making the fallacy of thinking removed from game cards are worse than library cards when you play Will. If so, reread Yawgmoth's Will and understand that it effects neither RFG cards nor your deck, so whether you have 40 cards in your library or 40 cards RFG, Will is the same.

Quote And you can't really spoils twice.

If the first one only hit you for a few life, yes you can. And the simpler answer to the question is, you don't need to Spoils twice. Testing would have shown you this.

Quote The other problem is that i just don't think the deck needs it.  It's already fast, reslient, and consistent enough.  Mind you, I've tested it post mirrodin.

Yet being faster, more resilient, and more consistent is better.

Quote I have tested with Chain of Vapor and FoW and found them awful.

Duress has its merits over FoW. However, how do you deal with Chalice if you don't like Chain? Playing two lands that don't get Wasted followed by Burning Wish and then Primitive Justice isn't exactly reliable, so do you have an alternative to Chain?

Quote I was just wondering why you didn't address my question about using both Duress and Force of Will? Have you or anyone you know tried this? My build currently has 4 FoW + 3 Duress. This is one of the reasons I don't have any room for the Chromatic Spheres. You say that the Duress-only version might need to run multiple bounce spells for the Chalice, but isn't it more viable to add FoWs than bounce?

I sort of addressed that, saying that builds would include either Duress or FoW. I would try both except I don't think there's room--without Sphere a lot of cards are worse-LED, Brainstorm, Mystical and Vampiric Tutor... Does your testing show that these cards are still worth it without Sphere or that the deck itself is consistent enough?

Actually it seems that bounce is more reliable than FoW, it only requires land while FoW requires pitching a blue card. The idea of FoW was to take the place of Duress against control while additionally stopping Chalice. Duress+bounce or Duress+FoW takes more slots than just FoW, which was why it was proposed as a solution.

Quote I also play only two Spoils at the Moment and I'm still keeping the Necro in, for now.

The speed of the deck has increased to the point that Necro is often a turn slow. It's weird, but true.

[glenchuy]

Quote (hippie tourach @ Nov. 01 2003,15:00)Duress has its merits over FoW. However, how do you deal with Chalice if you don't like Chain? Playing two lands that don't get Wasted followed by Burning Wish and then Primitive Justice isn't exactly reliable, so do you have an alternative to Chain?

is maindecking hurkyll's recall/rebuild a viable option?

[Hampuusi]

I managed to 3-2 with the deck and one of the wins was a tie... Blech.

A short recap might be in order. First, the changes I made before the tournament:

-1 Mox Pearl (didn't find one in time)
-1 Chrome Mox (I got the feeling from the final test draws, that I had a little too many for my liking. )
+2 City of Brass
-1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Chain of Vapor
And the 60th card I chose was the 4th Duress.

The first game was against monoblue Ophidian. Argh. Marko has played the deck long and it shows in his sure playing. He wins the die-roll and the first game after two critical counters in as many rounds. I get the second one, when his opening hand doesn't contain a FoW. The last game I try hard, but how does one climb a vertical wall made out three FoWs, two Islands and one Counterspell? And he even mulliganed...

Then I got the Bye. Nice bloody start...

Third game was against... URphidian! Why, oh why! And the I lost the die-roll again to make things worse. But on the other hand, Visa had counter-light opening hands and I win both games in round 2. I couldn't believe my luck, although resolving a first round Defense Grid in the second game might have had something to do with that. First game he actually had a FoW, which he was contemplating on using on my Lotus, but I had a FoW of my own, and a surplus Brainstorm to boot, so it wouldn't have mattered. (It sure as hell didn't do anything anymore about the Mind's Desire for 14!)  

4th round and Timo with Chalice Black. I actually didn't know about the Chalices beforehand, so I was quite happy about the matchup. How wrong can you be? First game went by the book. I don't remember the details, but having seen no Chalices I'm still smiling. Second game I Duressed him at the beginning and couldn't play any winning moves. Then he plays the Demonic T. and tries a Chalice. FoW and a loud phew... But he plays another one and I go on to lose the game. Third game I'm thinking for a long time about mulligan, but I keep a hand of 2x Duress, Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, a land, LED and a Lotus Petal. I Duress him and find a Chalice. Go away you bad boy! But he has a one-lander with Dark ritual, Mind Twist and Duress, so I'm bound to lose some cards next turn. I take away the Ritual and hope that my Brainstorm will be enough for some real gas. It isn't. And he plays Double Chalice for 0 and one for 1 just in case... There goes my top4 ticket for good.

The final game was fun. Stompy. Mmmm, I love snacks. 1st game - easy win, with lots of flashy overkill. 2nd one he drops a round 1 Powder Keg. Oops. Did I just side my FoWs away? I managed to Detonate it, (in the sideboard, I didn't find any Meltdowns) but I have to Spoils for a Wish, while being in 5 life. That ain't good for your health.    The final game is something that just doesn't happen every day. I have to mulligan to 4 cards before I get any manasources (!). What is going on? The hand I kept was LED, Gemstone Mine and two Brainstorms. What would you have done? I put all my eggs in the same basket and jumped in myself for good measure. Drop LED and the land, Brainstorm, sac LED for UUU in response, cross my fingers in response to that. It seemed to help, because the first card on the top of the deck was Timetwister. I was so flustered after that, that I managed to forget saccing two LEDs after breaking the Jar, but I won still.

Quote I sort of addressed that, saying that builds would include either Duress or FoW. I would try both except I don't think there's room--without Sphere a lot of cards are worse-LED, Brainstorm, Mystical and Vampiric Tutor... Does your testing show that these cards are still worth it without Sphere or that the deck itself is consistent enough?

I didn't have so much testing before the tournament, but they all seemed to work just fine. I don't actually see why your list includes Brainstorm? Something I'm missing?

Quote Actually it seems that bounce is more reliable than FoW, it only requires land while FoW requires pitching a blue card. The idea of FoW was to take the place of Duress against control while additionally stopping Chalice. Duress+bounce or Duress+FoW takes more slots than just FoW, which was why it was proposed as a solution.

If FoW needs a blue card to pitch and bounce needs land, then be reminded that there are many more blue cards than lands in the deck.  

[hippie tourach]

Quote I didn't have so much testing before the tournament, but they all seemed to work just fine. I don't actually see why your list includes Brainstorm? Something I'm missing?

Well if I don't have the mana for a card in my hand I might Brainstorm, put it on top of my library, Sphere-LED, draw it and play it with the LED mana.

Quote If FoW needs a blue card to pitch and bounce needs land, then be reminded that there are many more blue cards than lands in the deck.

Damn, you got me there. Even with lands instead of Chrome Moxen, Chain of Vapor isn't so good, Hurkyl's is bad and Rebuild is worse than bad.

In light of that realization, I suppose a Duress + FoW build does make more sense than a Duress + bounce build. My only problem is using up that many slots--I'd prefer only 4-6 protection cards, before the deck loses key components. And I don't feel safe against control with just FoW protection, because losing my hand to LED and having the draw/tutor spell countered is no good.

Perhaps the best idea would be to only maindeck Duress. My feeling is that not as many people are maindecking Chalice as we originally thought, so maybe we can get away without FoW/bounce main and rely on speed and coinflipping to race maindeck Sphere of Resistence and Null Rod. If you win game 1 you side in FoW, then side it back out game 3. And you forgo bounce completely because of the scarcity of land in the deck.

In other words, this is what I am looking at right now:

//Set Up (19)
4 Brainstorm
4 Spoils of the Vault
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar

//Protect (4)
4 Duress

//Go Off (6)
4 Burning Wish
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony

//Mana (31)
4 Chromatic Sphere
9 Moxen
10 Loti
3 Sol Rings
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

//Sideboard
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Primitive Justice
4 Force of Will
4 Xantid Swarm (or Pyroblast...what did you try here?)
3 Seal of Cleansing

The maindeck Tendrils could be anything...Diminishing Returns, Necropotence... I haven't figured out exactly how sideboarding would work, especially against control w/ Chalice.

What do you think?

[EDT: small correction]\n\n

[Tom Gibbs]

My opinion, after playing Turn1.dec (4 Chrome Mox, 4 Spoils) in the KC tourney yesterday is this:

Spoils isn't even worth playing.  I died to it 3-4 times throughout the tournament when I already had that game won.  Don't risk it, kids, there's nothing worse than the smile on your opponents face as he fills out the report sheet in his favor after you died to your own spell.

Chrome Mox was pretty nice sometimes, allowing me to win up to a full turn earlier, however you have frequent problems like "I can't remove ~this~, cause I need ~this~ color.  I can't remove ~this~ cause I need it to win."  You're stuck with Chrome Moxen that you need, but can't afford.  You wouldn't believe how many times I cast them just to get the storm up, without imprinting.  The card isn't bad, but I think if you play them you most definitely don't need a full set.

[erik]

Please do not think that you can get away with replacing a few cards for the post-mirrodin meta. The threat of first turn COTV is too vast, and unless the deck is built with that card in mind Long is a dead deck. I played in the major T1 tournament at a convention this weekend and there wasn't a single Long deck played since everyone's testing showed the same; 2 of the 3 Tier1 decks are autolosses thanks to Chalice. As an experiment I tried playing it in a second Vintage tournament with smaller prices and although I T8'ed, my both matches against wMUD were impossible to win. Overcoming sphere was hard enough already, being able to mulligan into first turn chalice means you have to spend several turns finding and playing your bounce/seals, turns that you don't have when your are up against a deck filled with bombs. Keeper is pretty much the same, they just have FoW instead of Spheres and your window of opportunity is drastically hemmed in by Mana drain. As far as I'm concerned, Dragon and the various Tendrils builds are the only combo decks that are tournament viable right now. If R&D takes a look at post-mirrodin results they won't have to restrict LED, much less take all the insane drastic actions that have been suggested by doomsday prophets on this site. Results aren't based on speculation and subjective opinions about what makes T1 "fun" or not...