The consistency of Sligh

[FeverDog]

BTW, in case i wasnt clear, its not that i didnt understand why you said they were necessary, its that i felt your earlier post didnt explain itself. Im doing this as much for me as for everyone else.

[Zherbus]

Wastelands simply help you get to where you need to be. Disrupting an opponent can buy you a turn here or there, just enough to squeeze out that extra bit of damage.

With that logic why, besides Zuran Orb, do you need Gorilla Shaman? The point is, you have plenty of potential of mana screwing your opponent. Mainly, your just using disruption as mini "Time Walks" to deal more damage faster.

As a keeper player, both your shamans and wastelands scare me.

[Maxx Matt]

i'm glad to see that i'm not the only one that think about the lack of utlility ( in some cases...of course...) of waste in sligh....

i have tried to sustitute them with other manlands as mishras.. but the mana pool in sligh doesn't let me to use either manlands and cursed.... and if i have to decide a way to finish the match i want to use cursed, of course!!!

the problem is that who use wastes is sure that they are NECESSARY to sligh but ( from reading the previuos posts...  i'm not flaming, i'm only asking a better reasoning on the argument...) can't ( or wouldn't....  ) explain WHY they are better then other card choice....

i playtest B.RIng against a lot of monocolored deck ( blu,mirror red, pox,suicide and stompy, ww, etc) and B.ring are definetly better than wastes (but i'm not saying nothing new..... i hope.... )

i usually play keeper so i heavly playtested it against sligh with wastes. It  underline that the sligh player can screw him only two or three times on an amount of more then 10 games... and when he screw him... usually doen's have the mountain to finish him off ( see cursed 3cc cost ability or fireblast double mountain sacrifice...)... so the manascrewed keeper (me..  )player can rebuild his mana and drop the cop or the zorb or the abyss and stall the game until he can say "i win"

i'm not saying that sligh couldn't win "the game during the keeper pleyer is manascrewed" ( i'll fool to say such words...)
but if you substitute the colorless damage to the lack ( of ONLY one  or two ...) lands the result isn't so different... he lose the game...

so, i think that only in a control heavy enviroment the wastes are a better choice for a  sligh deck... but in a general and not specific metagame, i prefer to add more damage to my opponent ( chosing the form that my style of playing let me to rule...mishras, b.ring.... ).


critics are welcome , of course  

thanx in advance

Maxx Matt

 

[Zherbus]

Quote (Maxx Matt @ July 01 2002,06:33)the problem is that who use wastes is sure that they are NECESSARY to sligh but ( from reading the previuos posts...  i'm not flaming, i'm only asking a better reasoning on the argument...) can't ( or wouldn't....  ) explain WHY they are better then other card choice....

I did explain why wastes are nessecary.

I can see rings perfectly in a sligh deck. If theres a low pwer environment, rings can take out pro-red critters and get around COP:Red.

However, in a powered environment with keeper, disruption is key. You need to slow them down for a turn. If you've played keeper enough, you realize that you depend on a stable mana base more than keeping at a high life total. Throwing control off balance can sometimes be the turning point in a game.

In short, setting a control deck back a turn is a big deal.

[FeverDog]

OK, most of us would agree that you need to run Wastelands, so we can assume that argument is settled.

What i want to know is what you guys think about Fireblast, two questions come to mind:

1) Do you feel the card is necessary in Sligh?

2) Is there a better alternative out there?

[MarkPharaoh]

I think Flame Rift woul be a good choice over Fireblast in a Keeper type of field.  Yes you lose life  too but Keeper doesn't do damage often and you dish it out every turn.  I am thinking of putting them sideboard for my area for the Keeper deck that is played here since he has Mirror Universe (either SB or MB)  so I might have a better chance against him.  Haven't tested it out yet though.

[Dave Kaplan]

Wastelands are a neccessary evil. They slow down keeper and give you enough time to set up dorks. They also take out the 2nd blue source so you can get in the scroll. Lastly they always take out annoying non-duals (factories vs. mikeyp, cradle, academy, etc..). Any non-wasteland non-basic land is not viable at ng because every keeper is running 3-5 strips that just sit there for a while. If you let them take out a factory or barb ring, you are letting them do something with an obsolete card. This whole game is about card advantage, nullifying a card's usefulness (Having wastelands against only other wastelands) is essentially card advantage. Juggernaut get's balance'd and costs the extra, while idol doesn't. I am really liking the idols since they work only a little worse than pyrokinesis against aggro and are MUCH better against control. I think maybe fork is a metagame call, I have drawn it about 15/75 games and it has copied:
3 Demonic Tutors, 2 Mana Drains, 1 Ancestral, 2 Fow, 1 Mis-D, 1 Mind Twist, 1 Stroke (Yes I killed the academy player because he stroked himself for the last 15 cards and drew 30 instead =D, 3 PoP, 1 Fireblast. It almost always resolves and is just utterly amazing i'd run 3-4 if it was unrestricted. Lastly, I'm considering running flame rifts over the Fireblasts which would allow me to MAYBE run a ring or two, since it can always be sac'd in responce to waste if u wait a few turns.

[MolotDET]

ok bear with me here because Though I am a long time player I have never played Burn.

     Fact? - sligh is termed as so because it uses all available mana every one of it's turns and casts every card it can to acchive the quickest victory it can.

     If this is so.  Why are cursed scroll and Fireblast in the decklist?  I know scroll is colorless damage and Fireblast is the finshing card but I think that these are sub-optimal at best.  To me it seems that what started as sligh has regressed back into the burn deck it took it's roots from.

     I have several friends who play burn/sligh and we have debated this for what seems eternity.  When talking to them about it they always seem to bring up the names of many of the people that have posted here.  So I guess this is as good a place as any to ask.  With those questions out of the way I will voice my oppinions which I am hoping will be rebutted.

     Wastelands:  Though I understand the need to slow multi-color and control decks down, without the exception of mana screw, wastes don't really slow these decks down all that much.  Buying yourself a turn is understandable.  What i don't understand is that they are only a very good defense against LoA so why use them.   Academy can be easily wrendered moot with mox monkey and while taking a multi-land is good, is it worth the eventuality of Teferi's Response?  Also, you are playing burn.  Manlands should not be a true problem.  Using mishra's and/or Barbarian rings should make up in kill speed for what you lose in disruption.  Against mono colored decks wastes are all but useless though they do tend to let you have extra mana in these cases, they are wasted and thusly are card-disadvantage.

     Cursed Scroll:  This card seems to go against the very concept of sligh.  By holding on to a card and using the scroll to do your damage you tie up three of your mana and are, in most cases, unable to cast said card.  While the scroll is colorless damage, the above sugestions of mishra's and/or Barbarian rings solve the colorless damage problem.

     Fireblast:  The thought of a card concidered to be the finishing card in a burn deck frightens me.  I thought whatever delt the last damage was the finisher.  I think concidering anything the finisher in this deck is dangerous.  That would mean that you might hord it (in extreme cases) or not do the damage as soon as possible.  The truth is the eventuality of hard casting this card is not even near good, especially with multipule copies of it in the deck.  Sacking land to it keeps you mana poor in what is already a mana poor deck.  At only one damage extra than bolt, chain or incinerate it boggles my mind my anyone uses this card.  Also with the possibility of it being countered or misdirected I would think it wouldn't be worth the chance to cast.  I though that was the reason mox diamond was not as popular in T1.

     Fork:  Out of any card in red's arsenal I have always though this to be the best, surely the most versital.  For all the reasons stated in previous posts I see this as your most awesome card as it can be used to garner most any effect.  Why most sligh decks don't run one is beyond me.  Though it is understandable while running scroll, blast and wastes.

     Black Lotus:  A wise man once said that any good deck can be made better with the inclusion of Black Lotus.  Actually that was me.  But seriously, how many times have you had 3 or 4 single or two cc burn spells in hand first turn?  From what I have witnessed this is fairly often bordering on 50% of the time.  Has any of you not secretly wished that you had sliped the lotus into the deck on accident every time this happens.  If that happens and the lotus is in hand that is upwards of 12 damage on first turn.  Or it draws out the first turn force, or it is a wheel later in the game to refill your empty hand with fresh new burn spells.  I can understand why mox ruby is absent in so many builds but not the lotus.  Understandably Burn/Sligh is the cheepest and easyest way for new players or money light players to get into the game.  What isn't understandable is when seasoned players and those who have the power, or money, miss out on the T1 brokenness for no good reason.

     X-damage:  Though I can already hear the arguments against this in my head, I still don't understand why the inclusion or one Torch is a bad thing.  I have no other comments about this until it is rebutted because none of my lemming friends seems to know the patented answer to this one, other than they can't find a deck list that has one in it.

     As far as the creatures go I cannot find one single creature that seems to be better than the ones included in every deck I've seen to date (ie. pup, monkey, scouts, mogg, vandal).  Also I know why Charge and Ball are bad, but not why shock and winds of change are bad.

     so I guess it's time to open the flood gates and see what is said.

2 cents,       

[Magimaster]

Quote (MolotDET @ July 04 2002,23:16)ok bear with me here because Though I am a long time player I have never played Burn.

     Fact? - sligh is termed as so because it uses all available mana every one of it's turns and casts every card it can to acchive the quickest victory it can.

     If this is so.  Why are cursed scroll and Fireblast in the decklist?  I know scroll is colorless damage and Fireblast is the finshing card but I think that these are sub-optimal at best.  To me it seems that what started as sligh has regressed back into the burn deck it took it's roots from.

     I have several friends who play burn/sligh and we have debated this for what seems eternity.  When talking to them about it they always seem to bring up the names of many of the people that have posted here.  So I guess this is as good a place as any to ask.  With those questions out of the way I will voice my oppinions which I am hoping will be rebutted.

     Wastelands:  Though I understand the need to slow multi-color and control decks down, without the exception of mana screw, wastes don't really slow these decks down all that much.  Buying yourself a turn is understandable.  What i don't understand is that they are only a very good defense against LoA so why use them.   Academy can be easily wrendered moot with mox monkey and while taking a multi-land is good, is it worth the eventuality of Teferi's Response?  Also, you are playing burn.  Manlands should not be a true problem.  Using mishra's and/or Barbarian rings should make up in kill speed for what you lose in disruption.  Against mono colored decks wastes are all but useless though they do tend to let you have extra mana in these cases, they are wasted and thusly are card-disadvantage.

     Cursed Scroll:  This card seems to go against the very concept of sligh.  By holding on to a card and using the scroll to do your damage you tie up three of your mana and are, in most cases, unable to cast said card.  While the scroll is colorless damage, the above sugestions of mishra's and/or Barbarian rings solve the colorless damage problem.

     Fireblast:  The thought of a card concidered to be the finishing card in a burn deck frightens me.  I thought whatever delt the last damage was the finisher.  I think concidering anything the finisher in this deck is dangerous.  That would mean that you might hord it (in extreme cases) or not do the damage as soon as possible.  The truth is the eventuality of hard casting this card is not even near good, especially with multipule copies of it in the deck.  Sacking land to it keeps you mana poor in what is already a mana poor deck.  At only one damage extra than bolt, chain or incinerate it boggles my mind my anyone uses this card.  Also with the possibility of it being countered or misdirected I would think it wouldn't be worth the chance to cast.  I though that was the reason mox diamond was not as popular in T1.

     Fork:  Out of any card in red's arsenal I have always though this to be the best, surely the most versital.  For all the reasons stated in previous posts I see this as your most awesome card as it can be used to garner most any effect.  Why most sligh decks don't run one is beyond me.  Though it is understandable while running scroll, blast and wastes.

     Black Lotus:  A wise man once said that any good deck can be made better with the inclusion of Black Lotus.  Actually that was me.  But seriously, how many times have you had 3 or 4 single or two cc burn spells in hand first turn?  From what I have witnessed this is fairly often bordering on 50% of the time.  Has any of you not secretly wished that you had sliped the lotus into the deck on accident every time this happens.  If that happens and the lotus is in hand that is upwards of 12 damage on first turn.  Or it draws out the first turn force, or it is a wheel later in the game to refill your empty hand with fresh new burn spells.  I can understand why mox ruby is absent in so many builds but not the lotus.  Understandably Burn/Sligh is the cheepest and easyest way for new players or money light players to get into the game.  What isn't understandable is when seasoned players and those who have the power, or money, miss out on the T1 brokenness for no good reason.

     X-damage:  Though I can already hear the arguments against this in my head, I still don't understand why the inclusion or one Torch is a bad thing.  I have no other comments about this until it is rebutted because none of my lemming friends seems to know the patented answer to this one, other than they can't find a deck list that has one in it.

     As far as the creatures go I cannot find one single creature that seems to be better than the ones included in every deck I've seen to date (ie. pup, monkey, scouts, mogg, vandal).  Also I know why Charge and Ball are bad, but not why shock and winds of change are bad.

     so I guess it's time to open the flood gates and see what is said.

2 cents,       

MD,

What happens when playing sligh is that at somepoint in the early mid game, sligh will run out of steam. It has no reliable means of card drawing, and will oft be reduced to 1-2 cards in hand. This is when Cursed Scroll comes into play, when you have the mana to cast spells, but you don't have enough spells in hand. As well, Cursed Scroll evades red hosers like CoP:Red and can kill any weenies blocking the way for your creatures to attack. Think of Cursed Scroll as reusable, flexible, colorless burn .

This goes the same for Fireblast. With a decent hand, Sligh can pump around 14-16 damage (around that area) before running out of steam and going into cursed scroll mode. Usually by this time, control has managed to stop your creatures and now it's just a matter of dealing X damage before control gets X spell into play to seal up the game. Fireblast insures a strong finish. It's not necessarily intended to be played early on to just deal 4 random damage to a creature or player early on (except in certain situations) but rather near the end. Yes, that one damage difference between Fireblast and Lightning Bolt makes a world of a difference. Many a game are decided by just one life. Essentially, Fireblast is free. It doesn't matter if you have no mountains if you're opponent is dead. Putting it in a rough sort of way, I guess Fireblasts' exposiveness helps make up some of the slack that Sligh tends to experience during the late stages of a game.

Wastelands belong in Sligh, end of story. All the reasons for wasteland included are up in the previous posts.

X Spells are horrible. Sligh does not have the mana to use it effectively. If you're thinking of Using a Kaerveks torch, then might as well play Urza's Rage, atleast it's an instant, and it's a better bargain (but still a horrible one). Don't worry, if you find yourself in a situation where you think an X spell may help you out, you've most likely lost anyways.

Shock isn't bad, it's just that their are a whole slew of spells that are much much better. Shock should be a last resort kind of thing, like if some random scrub stole all your chain lightings before a match or something.

as for winds of change...

*looks up winds of change*

ahem. Remember what I told you about sligh having a reduced hand during the later stages of a game?  how useful is winds then?

I hope I have answer your questions. Hopefully someone here can explain better than can I.

[MolotDET]

not that I don't thank you for your reply but i was kind of hoping for one of those who posted above me would answer those questions.

     by the way did you have to quote my entire post?  I mean good god man, what's with you?

     also I was not intending to play sligh.  I was mearly asking questions to better understand my friends arguments.  The answers you gave though they are informative are the same ones I get from my friends.

thanx though,

[Bartelby]

I've actually comsidered adding blue to sligh for windfall, ancestrall, walk and twister so that midgame it doesn't peter-out as bad and timewalk can often be the card that wins the game...the only thing is that there are no ways of searching for it, but the cards all serve the same purpose(no to run out of burn/critters, fill hand for scroll) so its essentially having 5 wheel of fortunes. the drawback i can think of is vuneralbiltiy to wasteland (maybe add more land can help) and price of progres will do some damage to you.and blue helps in the mirror match.

[Dave Kaplan]

Here is my final version of sligh for Neutral Ground's fully powered metagame:

DKaps Sligh

Dorks:
4 Goblin Cadet
4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Jackal Pup

Burn:
1 Black Vise
4 Chain Lightning
4 Cursed Scroll
3 Fireblast
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress

Utility:
1 Fork
1 Wheel of Fortune

Mana/[Denial]:
1 Mox Ruby
16 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard:
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Dwarven Miner
3 Pyroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast

This is the optimal version to play against players who have a decent amount of power.

[MolotDET]

Dave,

    I was wondering why there is no Black Lotus in your Sligh.  Also it was you I was pointing my comments at in my last post.  So my questions are, would you mind going back to my last post and answering some of my questions, and why do you miss out on the brokenness by not playing Lotus?

[FeverDog]

Im not trying to up my post count here, i just wanna say that i think Dave's Sligh is optimal for a fully powered metagame.

[Dave Kaplan]

Cursed Scroll: way to use unused mana, for targetted non-red damage. The fact that you have to have 1 card in hand is irrelevant, since it's rare that you won't be able to leave an extra mountain or just whatever you drew in the grip.

Fireblast: Although it does sacrifice resources, it is often the game-ender. Against keeper, game 1 they are very vulnerable to burn, and thus have their hand emptied keeping dorks off the board and burn off their dome, so you just wait til they FoF or wutever. I have become very good at determining when Keeper has the counter, except against MikeyP. MikeyP is a PT, Master Series, and GP winner for a reason. He has one of the best poker faces, and he NEVER fucks up. Although the 1 time we played in sanctioned vintage, I beat him, whenever we play for fun I always end up buying him snapples and soda =(.
  
Wastelands were explained in my earlier post.

Barb Rings, also explained, but they just don't work with PoP and opposing wastelands, letting your opponent do something with his dead card is NOT GOOD.

Fork: RESTRICTED

Black Lotus: Good turn 1. Decent turn 2. Shit turn 3+. Also dropping 2+ bills on a piece of cardboard is out of the question. The ruby is questionable, but nice.

X-damage:  If you have enough mana to make X-spells good, you've lost

Shock: Seal of Fire is better, Flame Rift is better. They don't make the cut either.

Winds of Change: You shouldn't have cards in hand, and it's card disadvantage!!!

[Legend]

Dave

I am about to compliment you, then censure you.


 First the compliment. I am willing to endorse your Sligh deck as the optimal version for a powered metagame. I can see no major problems with it.  As you said , your deck has definitely emerged as one of the two best aggro options for a high-level metagames along with my Suicide deck.

However, I do find your continual references to Mike Pustilnik and his ability to be quite disturbing. If you allow any sort of reverence or awe to creep into your game, it can ultimately only serve to hinder you. I for one, do not think that anybody is better than me, nor should anyone have such an attitude.

Never lavish excessive praise on another player. The most anybody could get out of me would be a "he's a solid player, an opponent I respect." That is because I feel that any public admission of more than that just takes away the edge that you need to have, or that I feel I need, which is to play with a slight contempt for my opponents.

 You must always think that you are the best. You sound as if you KNOW that Mike will outplay you. Look, you did beat him, but still, that is a bad attitude.

I am 3-2 against Mike in our personal series, and after I won the first 2, it was getting to the point where he even admitted to me when we sat down for the 3rd time that he thought I was going to beat him, and he mentioned something about how he keeps losing to me.

My point is, don't give any other player too much respect, no matter what he has accomplished in the past. It is important for me to feel that I am going to sit down across from anybody and outplay them. Compliments and reverence can only damage my mindset. I want to take it to my opponent, hit him hard, and damage his brain severely with a metal pipe.

I give NO opponent any more than the minimal amount of respect that I feel is due to a fellow competitor who is not acting like a jerk. Any more respect than that I feel is too much respect.

[FeverDog]

EDIT: I had not seen Legend's post when i wrote this.

I would like to hear from Legend on this one, since he is one of the deck's biggest supporters maybe he can share some tech with us.

You know what's really funny? On BD Sligh used to get almost no respect and some of the guys would rate it below PandeBurst and stuff, but now that we are on a new site it seems like everyone is sharing their true feelings about the deck. Dont worry guys, its ok to like Sligh!\n\n

[Legend]

Fever Dog


Well, as I just said, I fully support Dave's version, and I really don't have much to add beyond the fine work Dave has already done, especially since I have discussed the deck a bit with him in real life and on the Internet since I play him at NG a lot. The only minor weakness I can spot is the slightly low mana count. I would be a lot more comfortable seeing -1 Fireblast, +1 Mountain, but that is such a minor nitpick. I do think that the low mana count might get this deck into trouble once in a while, but that is splitting hairs. I have never been a big supporter of Fireblast, but if it is cut down to 2 or 3 (I really would prefer 2), then it is OK since it will just be a supporting card that can be used in the right situation. I really like the addition of Black Vise.

As far as the sideboard goes, it is obviously geared towards beating Keeper and he doesn't care about other matchups, which opens him up a bit, but that is OK I suppose at NG, where you will do well if you can beat Keeper, even if you put all other matchups on the back burner. However, I will say that his deck as currently configured will get blasted by other aggro decks because of the lack of SB'd Pyrokinesis, a really good card in my opinion, but whatever, he judges the metagame as he sees fit. This deck was not going to beat Legend Black or Stompy anyway, Pyrokinesis or no Pyrokinesis, so it probably makes sense to just go all-out anti-Keeper.

[FeverDog]

Today i played in a 45 person T1 tournament at Carta Magica in montreal, i decided to play Sligh to take a break from Suicide and to prove to people that it doesnt suck. Here is how it went for me: I beat every non-Worldgorger deck i faced, went 4-2 (after starting out 3-0) and missed T8 by a hair. Obviously i now want anyone who plays that crippled scrub deck to die a horrible death by Bee stings, but other than that the deck performed very well.

I am posting this here because its not a tourney report, i just wanted to share with you some of my experiences. The one thing that became totally apparent is that, if your metagame has enough Dragon decks, you really cant play Sligh and expect to win. Its practically an auto-loss and barring sideboarded Tormod's Crypt i dont see many ways to change that.

I wont post my decklist because it is too close to Dave's and it only differs because of metagame considerations, but i am glad to say the deck did not crap out on me at all. If our scrubby meta had a few more good control decks then i wouldnt have to worry about Dragon, but as it is now i will not play Sligh again until something gets done about the combo or people just stop playing it (but why would they, the deck is so easy to play my grandma could win with it).\n\n

[Magimaster]

Feverdog : Would you care to divulge some of the specifics of some of the dragon decks you faced?  stuff like what disruption besides duress they were packing, some weird things you noticed about any of the decks, sideboarding (if any?) etc...

thanks.

[dandan]

Anyone got any ideas on anti-Dragon Sligh sideboard cards?

I can only think of Tormod's Crypt as Spellshock and Mana Barbs will be too slow. Wasn't there a little dork who allowed you to not draw cards a while back?

[Legend]

Yeah, Obstinate Familiar.

[Wobble]

"However, I do find your continual references to Mike Pustilnik and his ability to be quite disturbing. If you allow any sort of reverence or awe to creep into your game, it can ultimately only serve to hinder you. I for one, do not think that anybody is better than me, nor should anyone have such an attitude.

Never lavish excessive praise on another player. The most anybody could get out of me would be a "he's a solid player, an opponent I respect." That is because I feel that any public admission of more than that just takes away the edge that you need to have, or that I feel I need, which is to play with a slight contempt for my opponents."

Great advice Legend.

I find it a bit ironic however that you call Dave on the mat for that and not the more deserving sycophantic partner of yours.

Just my two cents.

[dandan]

A lot of Dragon decks are running only Stroke for the kill. Some use Aerial Caravan to find it, others use Whispers. Blue and Black are short of instant speed kills!

The Familiar isn't so bad if he causes most Dragon decks to fold and he can beat for 1 if necessary. Sort of the metagame choice of Shamen/Vandal/Familiar (feeble 1/1 for 1) to suit the dominant deck in your area. The idea of Sligh running a rare creature is weird (look at how people don't like Lavamancer). Sligh should be cheap and nasty.

Crypt is so unsligh. It doesn't beatdown and Sligh likes filling up graveyards not emptying them (I can't see why an incinerated creature goes to the graveyard though!

Perhaps this is irrelevant since Dragon wins in a low powered environment and Sligh isn't good vs assorted WW, Zoo, Stompy, Fires and Junk.

[Cavalry19D]

After reading over this post, it seems that most of the focus has gone into creating a Sligh build geared mostly towards beating control. How would it change when facing a heavy aggro meta-game.

I've never played Sligh before, but I will admit that it's streamlined simplicity does spark a flame of interest.

Not alot of type 1 players in my area play with power. Hell, even one of the jankier Keepers here in So. California play Shadowmage Infiltrators and kick The Abyss from the main (no need to comment, I know). I've yet to see a single Dragon Deck around here.

Looking over the previous posts, if I were to tweek Dave's build to a more aggro-friendly environment, I would go:

-4 Cadets
-2 PoP (only two because there are still a few Non-basics running around, but proabably not enough to warrent 4

+4 Mogg Fanatics
+2

Bumping the Chemeric Idols from the SB and adding the extra two PoP's and another RBlast ?

Am I on the right track here ?

[SpikeyMikey]

I know that I'm the only person who likes Ball Lightning, and I get into this argument on a continual basis, but I'm going to give this one more shot before throwing in the towel.

First, however, I'd like to start in with from the wasteland discussion on the last page.  Wastelands and Strip Mine are invaluable in sligh.  I don't have to tell any of the control players here how powerful LoA is, but for those of you that don't play control, an active Library is a VBT(Very Bad Thing).  You cannot play around it.  Control decks are based on card advantage, and when someone is drawing twice as many cards as you are, you quickly find yourself in a bad position.  If for no reason other than to shut down Tolarian Academy and Library of Alexandria, Wastelands would be justified.  They do more however.  While it's true that you will rarely totally screw your opponent for mana with a mere 4 Wastes and a Strip, they WILL buy you time.  That can be very important for an aggressive deck, a few swings of a pup or two can mean the difference between burning your opponent out for the win, and them getting Abyss or Zuran Orb out in time.  You have to remember that mana is the lifeblood of control, if you can stall Fact, if you can stall Abyss, if you can buy some time, it could very well win you the game.

Anyway, on to Ball Lightning.  There are two main arguments against running Balls, one being that they are too expensive, the other that they make good Drain targets.  A tertiary, less often used argument, is that they aren't 'reliable pressure'.

Ball Lightning IS expensive, I won't disagree with that, yes, most of the time when you cast a Ball, it means you are tapping out.  You have to look at the effect you get for this, however.  A Ball Lightning is 6 points of damage.  Think about that for a moment.  How often do you feel comfortable losing nearly 1/3 of your life total against a Sligh deck?  How often do you feel comfortable losing 1/3 of your life against ANY deck?  It's no more expensive than Wheel, or the activation cost of Dwarven Miner, and I've never heard anyone complain about the cost of either of those cards.  Now the counter argument to that is that Wheel and Miners use colorless mana, meaning that you can activate a miner with a Wasteland, you don't need three Mountains in order to do it.  However, how often do you find Wastelands just sitting there?  Unless I'm severely mana screwed, Wastelands are going to nail the first available target, in an effort to slow my opponent down enough to where he can't stall my strategy.

I'm famous for drawing lands like they're cool, anyone that's ever watched me play can testify to that point, so perhaps I'm a bad example to use, but I rarely have difficulty getting RRR to cast the Ball.  Yes, they make a great target for Drain, as well as Swords, and recently, I discovered the joys of having someone cast Orim's Chant with kicker in response to a Ball Lightning(makes you want to kick some teeth in).  I think that's a cop out however.  Most sligh decks run 4 Fireblasts(I agree with FeverDog, I think 3 is the right number, 4 is too many), and that's a far better Drain target than Ball.  In terms of resources, it's also far more of a drain on your mana base than Ball is, because if that Fireblast doesn't resolve, you have absolutely no hope of recovery.  It's very risky.  Yet no one has called for the T1 community to pull Fireblast out of Sligh, for fear of Mana Drain.

How often have you had a Fireblast Misdirected back at you, or worse, at a Jackal Pup.  It's a severe blow to any Sligh deck.  Having a Ball Lightning Swordsed is ugly, but not nearly as ugly as that.  I'm not saying that Fireblast doesn't belong, just that you should compare the interactions against a control player between Ball and other cards in the deck.

In terms of reliable pressure, Sligh is not about reliable pressure.  It is about winning, and winning NOW.  Burn is not reliable pressure, in fact, sligh decks only run 12 creatures that provide reliable pressure.  That's less than 1/4 of the deck.  If you want to count cursed scrolls, you have 15-16 cards that deal damage more than once.  In terms of mana efficiency, Lightning Bolt packs more punch than Ball Lightning, but in terms of card advantage, the Ball is far better.  Just the threat of Ball puts your opponent in a position where they can't tap out if you have 2-3 mountains on the table, for fear of taking 6 to the head.  It's a huge psychological advantage, for a deck that scares the crap out of most people anyway, and with good reason.

So go ahead, and tell me how wrong I am, I'm used to it now   .  Just had to add my two cents.

[Rico Suave]

Fireblast is an instant, and much harder to Mana Drain than Ball Lightning.  If your opponent does Mana Drain Fireblast, say at the end of their turn, then YOU untap and do nasty things, not them.

I'm not worried about StP with Ball, I'm more concerned with Fire/Ice taking down more than it should.

On a side note, I actually had an opponent Mana Drain Fireblast and do nothing with the mana, taking 6 burn.  It was quite hilarious when I pointed out he would've been better off without countering.

[Zherbus]

Mana Drain or not, the fact that you cannot reliably cast a RRR casting cost spell on your third or even fourth turn is a huge factor. Especially when you run wastelands/strip mines.

What do you cut for it? PoP does way more damage against keeper, Shamans are too disruptive, Pup and Cadets are really too good, 3 damage burn spells are too effective, and cursed scrolls are just amazing in sligh. The last option, basically, is Fireblast. I think Rico nailed it on the head why this will be better.

Also, it taps you out for the turn. This means against control tapping out to Ball Lightning then almost turns every counterspell into a time walk. Against aggro packing any sort of burn (hell even control packing fire/ice) turns burn into time walks.

[SpikeyMikey]

My sligh is as follows:

1xBlack Lotus
1xMox Ruby
4xLightning Bolt
4xChain Lightning
4xJackal Pup
4xMogg Fanatic
4xGoblin Cadets
3xGorilla Shaman
3xCursed Scroll
1xBlack Vise
4xIncinerate
4xBall Lightning
3xFireblast
16xMountain
4xWasteland
1xStrip Mine

SB4xPrice of Progress
SB3xDwarven Miner
SB2xScald
SB2xAnarchy
SB2xDisenchant
SB1xBlood Moon
SB1xTormod's Crypt

The SB is a little wacky, just because of some of the shit floating around here.  Conversion does a number on sligh.  I'd rather not talk about that disgusting card...  My meta is exceptionally aggro, with my deck being one of 3 slighs out of about 13-14 people that usually show up.  The rest is aggro and a mixture of odd junk, from Parfait to mono-U, with a pair of U/G Oath decks and a couple other control decks.  Until recently, over half the people that play there ran mono-color decks, which is why Price hasn't managed to migrate to the mainboard yet.  Honestly, for my area, Cadets can go, and in a Keeper heavy environment, screw it, lose the fanatics, they're better against aggro.  Getting hit with a Ball is something people try and avoid at all costs.

On a side note, I had the funniest draw today.  I was playing someone after the tournament, and after a few games, he complained about how badly he got mana screwed the last game(He kept a 1 land hand to play first turn morphling with untargetability mana, and I ended up killing it a few turns later anyway, he never drew another land), so we shuffled up for another game.  My opening hand was

Chain Lightning
Mountain
Goblin Cadets
Strip Mine
Wasteland
Wasteland
Wasteland

in that order.  I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.  Needless to say, he didn't keep a land in play that game either.  He told me it was about as amusing as watching a small child get thrown into a lion's den.  I pointed out that that is kinda amusing.  I've always been kinda sick....

[Nil8er]

Can anyone comment on the usefulness of Browbeat in Type 1 Sligh/Burn?  Perhaps as a B.Lightning replacement?