Where are all the 50%+ turn 1 Long decks?

[Dante]

There was a thread semi-recently about the addition of multiple Spoils of the Vault and Chrome Moxes to Long which apparently "based on lots of testing" was going to be much more consistently going off turn 1 and 2, inspite of Chalice.

There were multiple people who had indicated in their playgroups (these were people who from my experience had a good grasp of Type 1 strategy and testing) that these new Long decks were dominating even more than the "accepted" Long build.

I was hesitant to believe based on my own preliminary testing that these decks were better than the existing Long decks (they certainly may have been faster, but better is another issue).  

So I wanted to ask those who were adament (Rico, others) about the new Long decks earlier, how is it coming?  Since we haven't seen any new versions (or at least any that do well) at the big Post-Mirrodin tournaments, have you guys abandoned it (based maybe on fear of Dec 1 action)?

just curious to see how the "4 Spoils in Long will kill Type 1" will pan out.

Bill

[leviat]

Personally I just don't see Spoils of the Vault being a card that is going to see a lot highly-competitive tournament, at least not as an early game tutor as is needed for decks like Mask and Long. The risk involved in getting the card you need will always be too high to be used because of the chance of an auto-loss.

Quote In a recent email to Smmenen from Vincent -- *snip* Anyway, if you look at the table, you'll see I get the same results as Elric, except that X is one less. For example, the chance of 49.118% appears at X = 7 life here instead of 8, etc. Note that the chance to die is 13.974%, which makes Spoils even better than thought before .

So what I read is that I have a 14% chance of just losing outright. Let me compare this percentage to a tournament like the recent Waterbury. There are seven rounds of swiss, plus Top 8, Top 4, and Top 2. That's a total of 10 matches if your attempting to take first. Every match will be at least two games and I would say that on average, every other match will go to three games.

So basically what I have here is 25 games that I have to play through. When I take 14% of 25 I end up with: 3.5 games. That means I am going to kill myself 3 or 4 games before I even get to take my second turn.

Personally, I find that having to deal with ugly starting hands is bad enough in a competitive tournament. But, when I add on the fact that I'm probably going to lose three games even when I have an amazing hand to Spoils, it's just too daunting for me.

I'm not trying to tell everyone that Spoils is a bad card, just that you won't find me playing it at a serious tournament because it's too risky. It you find this unrealistic, just ask the few people that tried Spoils at Waterbury. I heard at least two different stories of people killing themselves on turn one.

[Rico Suave]

To be honest, if I were to play in a tournament tomorrow, I would use the list I last posted.

You know, it is a scary deck to play.  I think how people can handle that fear is a key to success.  Other players have mentioned that they don't Consult for restricted cards unless desperate.  I do it all the time.  That's just one example, but there are plenty of things like that which affect the overall performance.  I'm not saying certain choices are better than others, but people do see things from a different perspective.

As for the percentages, well, I've already stated before I disagree with them when you look at actual results instead of just theory.  Additionally, Spoils is not cast every game nor is it always cast blindly.

[Dante]

Quote (Rico Suave @ Nov. 20 2003,21:05)To be honest, if I were to play in a tournament tomorrow, I would use the list I last posted.

You know, it is a scary deck to play.  I think how people can handle that fear is a key to success.  Other players have mentioned that they don't Consult for restricted cards unless desperate.  I do it all the time.  That's just one example, but there are plenty of things like that which affect the overall performance.  I'm not saying certain choices are better than others, but people do see things from a different perspective.

As for the percentages, well, I've already stated before I disagree with them when you look at actual results instead of just theory.  Additionally, Spoils is not cast every game nor is it always cast blindly.

Right, I wasn't talking about statistics or theory or anything like that about Spoils, just the results, which I hadn't seen...

Bill

[jpmeyer]

Actually, I thought it was the older-style versions that weren't using Chrome Mox that were the ones that could still kill through a Chalice for 0 (albiet about a 1-2 turns later than normal.)  I can't see how a Chrome Mox version would ever be able to deal with the Chalice seeing how it has like no lands.

[Jacob Orlove]

Quote (jpmeyer @ Nov. 20 2003,23:55)Actually, I thought it was the older-style versions that weren't using Chrome Mox that were the ones that could still kill through a Chalice for 0 (albiet about a 1-2 turns later than normal.)  I can't see how a Chrome Mox version would ever be able to deal with the Chalice seeing how it has like no lands.

But Chalice for 1 is the better play anyway, Chrome Mox or no.

[Gilthanas01]

I have to agree with JP. I tested the Chrome Mox and Spoils version last Friday against Keeper with Chalices  and lost 9 games in a row before giving up, and I have months of experience with Long. The only way that I can see to win with Chrome/Spoils vs Chalice.dec is to go 1st AND go broken, or hope to hell that Chalice and/or FOW aren't in my opponent's hand (and against Long, any competent player will ALWAYS mulligan into one of those...)

[Gzeiger]

If you consider that your win expectation ought to be about .5, a card that outright kills you 14% of the time needs to win you the game 60% of the time to be worth including. Spoils has proven to be far better than that, especially since, like nearly every other card in the deck, it will be held back until you are prepared to win.

[Eastman]

Quote (Gilthanas01 @ Nov. 21 2003,00:05)The only way that I can see to win with Chrome/Spoils vs Chalice.dec is to go 1st AND go broken, or hope to hell that Chalice and/or FOW aren't in my opponent's hand (and against Long, any competent player will ALWAYS mulligan into one of those...)

At Waterbury I remember having an opponent playing long.dec tell me that turn 1 when they passed the turn. I didn't have a Force of a Chalice. I still won.


The first part of what you're saying, while an exageration, touches on the truth of the situation. It is very hard for long to beat a good Chalice keeper hand without the random turn 1 win. The second part of your comment isn't completely accurate. You don't need to be mulling down to smaller hands only in the hopes of preventing the random turn 1 win that occurs about as often as the turn 1 suicide (in spoils versions).  

The risk of the turn 1 win just isn't as great as people make it out to be. Granted it happens a hell of a lot more than with other decks but I wouldn't say the 'play' is to always mull down to a Force or a Chalice... they will not stop the deck on their own. The risk of mulling into poorer and poorer hands is greater than the risk of your opponent going off turn 1.

[Smmenen]

I think everyone needs to go back to testing Long if it isn't restricted Dec. 1st becuase in the last few days I have heard some absolutely atrocious comments that are completely untrue.  

Steve