Neo Academy Discussion

[Tatanka]

cooberp: there is only one thing I have to disagree with you and i's about Will place.  The yawgmoth's will obviously deserve a MD place, it help you recover from early disruption,  after a conter war or after a powder keg(which is a big problem for the deck. It also help you a lot in a normal game letting you cast a bunch of broken spells twice, and make you win games you would otherwise have lost.  Ok another draw 7 would be better but we don't have this other draw 7.  I play the deck since ursa's got out and the will always prooved herself.

Nova: I would suggest interdict instead of teferis response, yes it's one less card but it also stop annoying cards such as jester cap, tormord's crypt and  specially Powder Keg.  It's also quite fun in somes random situation. (I will always remember the day I interdicted a lotus topdecked by that turboland player. He burned for 15 and died after trying to cast a torch on me having no other red mana source in play)
If you use the transformation sideboard it save your negator asses from the keg.

Did anyone bring the deck to somes tourney with a will in it and regreted it???

my 2 cents...


Tatanka

[cooberp]

Tatanka--I don't know what kind of metagame you're playing in that would make Will worthwhile in Academy, so all I can fairly say is that I can't dream up an opposing deck or situation that would merit playing Will in any metagame I've been exposed to.  I do hate this sort of he-said she-said nonsense (CooberP says Will has no place in Academy, Tatanka says it does) with no way to resolve it--it's not very helpful to people who are curious to learn more about the deck.  Is there any way to empirically test/verify this?  Obviously not an Academy mirror match...I would say we should both play ten games against the same skilled Keeper player, but a) who wants to play 20 games against Academy and b) those results would depend more on your/my comparative skill than the presence or absence of Will.  Any ideas?

[walking dude]

Thoughts on issues:

LANDS, I think consensus is that 2 duals are needed in addition to the 5 colors. These are now seas, but a strong case could be made for trop.
Sea gets 2 tutors, 1 good, 1 card disadvantage.
Trop gets 1 almost tutor (regrowth) and 2 good acceleration cards.

It might be worth goldfishing 20 games or so and seeing if your limiting factor is more often lack of mana to cast your spells early/mid game or a lack of spells now. If its mana than the switch to trops might be a good idea. Although, that will depend on the sideboard, see below.

YAWGWILL, I’m not a believer.  Too many times I’ve had a stroke/geyser in hand and needed to cast wheel/windfall to keep going. Knowing I could get them back later let me do it. There are just too many times when you NEED cards in the graveyard for me to play this.

MEDITATES, my testing against control is v powered UR phiddian and sometimes rOSE rather than keeper, so my results may be skewed. I leave meditates in and find them to be one of the best cards in the negator transformational sides, the fact is that drawing 4 cards you will draw at least 2 good spells, with 2 top decks they should not draw 2 counters. Although, academy with trans side beats UR phiddian better than 50% game 2, so it might not be applicable.

SIDEBOARD, I have a thought here. A while back I was testing my worldgorger build v academy. It was about 50/50 although that’s not important, whats important is that I noticed that there was a 100% correlation with casting timewalk in the 1st 2 turns and winning. Speeding up a combo deck by 1 turn is big, especially when that turn comes from a cantrip and so cost very little. What about seed times? Early game control tends to use force because they don’t have  much blue yet, then they untap and have more blue. Seed time would let you get in an extra land drop as well as the ability to cast another good spell like a draw 7 without giving control the untap. And it cantrips (ala timewalk) so its not card disadvantage. I haven’t tested this so I’m in theory land now, but I’d like to hear thoughts on this.

[spevack]

I have been playing essentially D'Avanzo Academy for the last few months, and here's my opinion on a few of the topics:

First, I agree with CooberP and Walking Dude that Yawgmoth's Will does not really fit in the deck.  Much of the power comes from the recycling of broken cards with the draw 7's, and you just don't want to be removing them from the game when you could be shuffling them back into your deck and drawing them again.

With respect to his well-thought out posts, I must disagree with Nova about the inclusion of any sort of burn (be it Torch or Ghitu Fire) in the sideboard.  I just don't think it fits.  You either win by generating sufficient mana to deck your opponent or by trying some sort of transformational sideboard and going aggro-Negator.  Burn seems to be confused, uncertain of whether or not it wants to combo or go aggro.  However, a potential Negator/burn mixture could prove interesting.

But rather than delve into that, I would like to pose a larger question regarding the sideboard, and that is this.   If we assume that decks without control/disruption are favorable matchups because we can go off very quickly, then essentially we need to have a sideboard that focuses on beating Keeper/MonoU, and Suicide Black, which I think are the most difficult matchups for the Academy deck.

Against Keeper, I am questioning the value of the Negator transformational sideboard.  Consider this -- the Keeper deck is well-equipped to deal with a heavy creature onslaught that Suicide Black decks bring, particularly in games 2 and 3.  Legend himself says in his Suicide Primer that he thinks the matchup is favorable to Keeper post sideboard.  As such, if a deck like Keeper can deal with (and have a favorable matchup against) a deck packing at least 12 monster kill cards (Negator, Nantuko Shade, Hyppie), it shouldn't have much difficulty dealing with only 4 Negators from Academy.  Furthermore, boarding in the Negators generally means that either you board out or slow down the combo, which makes the deck neither aggro nor combo -- it seems to simply do both poorly.

My current thought is to replace Negators in the board with Duress, and have the route to victory remain the same post sideboard.  You still want to combo them out, just do it more slowly.

I propose the following Academy sideboard:

4 Misdirection -- board in against Suicide
4 Duress -- board in against Keeper/MonoU
3 Red Elemental Blast -- board in against Keeper/MonoU
2 Seal of Cleansing -- board in against Suicide/Blue Control (Null Rod/Keg)
1 Balance -- board in against Suicide/Aggro
1 Mind Twist -- board in against Keeper/MonoU

In terms of what to take out, I think this is very difficult, but probably something like this:

Against Keeper/MonoU

-3 Helm
-3 Meditate
-1 Crop Rotation
-1 Mana Crypt
-1 Mana Vault
-1 Fastbond
+3 REB
+2 Seal of Cleansing
+1 Mind Twist
+4 Duress

Against Suicide
-4 Force of Will
-1 Mystical Tutor
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-1 Mana Crypt
+4 Misdirection
+2 Seal of Cleansing
+1 Balance

The following just occured to me, as I was discussing this issue with a friend.  Negator is very good as a sideboard card against Keeper, but *ONLY* if they don't expect it and therefore board out all of their creature control.  Since Academy is considered a rare deck, it is possible that many people will not be aware that for some time, the general consensus has been a transformational sideboard, and that this strategy could work.  However, I think that it is better overall to come up with a sideboard that does not rely on creatures, and assume that if you are trying to beat a Keeper player, they are aware that Negators are frequently an option, and you can therefore gain an advantage by not playing with them at all.  If your opponent is unfamiliar with the Academy deck and has no clue as to what might be in your board, then you're probably already in a good position.

I am interested in your thoughts/opinions, particularly regarding the sideboard.  As a former BD'er, it's really nice to see people congregating here and that Type 1 discussion is flourishing.

As a final note, I will say this regarding Academy/Keeper.

I believe that Keeper is a stronger deck, and if I am going to a random T1 tournament with an unknown metagame, I would ask myself the following question:

Am I here to have the overall best chance of winning, or am I here to have a decent chance and have a ton of fun?  If the former, then play Keeper.  If the latter, then play Academy.  I cannot think of a deck that is more *fun* to play than this one, while still being very competitive.

[cooberp]

Sui is not a difficult matchup for Academy.  It's harder than Stompy, sure, but it's not hard.
I don't think your analysis of Keeper v. Academy is entirely right.  Keeper is the best deck for a random field.  Academy is the best deck for a beatdown field.

[spevack]

Coober,

While I agree that Sui is not as bad as Keeper, it is still a difficult matchup.  The possibilities of a first or second turn Null Rod exist, and there is almost guaranteed to be a very fast clock down, which, when coupled with Sui's disruption, demands flawless play for the Academy deck to go off.

What do you disagree with regarding Keeper vs. Academy points that I made?  Certainly I think we agree that Keeper is best for a random field and that Academy is best in aggro.  Are there specific points regarding the sideboard that you have issue with?  Please elaborate so we can continue this very good discussion.

[cooberp]

Spevack--The odds of a first-turn Null Rod when you dont have a Force are very slim.  Sure they can take down your handsize, but that's why you have draw sevens.  I just haven't had trouble against black decks of all stripes, which are pretty standard.  They're certainly not worth diverting attention from Keeper to.
I just meant that I see Keeper vs. Academy in terms of random vs. aggro rather than good vs. fun.

[Magimaster]

This is crap, how people think Sui can rock Academy on a regular basis.

I will sum up the entire matchup in a few lines.

Basically, if Sui doesn't draw it in its opening hand, it's more than likely that it won't see play early enough to make an impact. Sui won't have time to tutor for it (except for Consult, which is probably the speediest tutor) or draw into it. This means that Sui has to do whatever it can with its opening hand.

Also, a hand without Ritual for Sui is a losing one. It won't have the speed to compete with Academy. A Duress does jack most of the time. And people seem to forget that Academy has counters of its own, to protect against some of the nastier things like Null Rod and Sink.

To sum it all up :

No Rit, no win.

Even if you draw a rit, it's still no gaurantee win. No other deck (not even Keeper) has the ability to pull the most amazing comebacks out of its ass. This isn't saying that Sui can't win without rit, because Sui will occasionally win even without rit, but then the road gets much much steeper, if you get my drift.

Academy >>> Sui in terms of overall win pecentage. I won't put up an actual percentage, because I think those are gay.

ENOUGH!!!!![/b]

[walking dude]

I’m unsure which way the suicide academy deck match up goes and I’ve tested it a lot. Sometimes academy just wins. But then again, some times black does the same. But that’s not the issue. If you want to talk about that there should be a new thread sui v academy. And all that stuff in this thread should be killed. We were having a good discussion on SBs before this tangent came up.

[Zherbus]

Quote Also, a hand without Ritual for Sui is a losing one. It won't have the speed to compete with Academy. A Duress does jack most of the time. And people seem to forget that Academy has counters of its own, to protect against some of the nastier things like Null Rod and Sink.

To sum it all up :

No Rit, no win.

I totally agree, but I think we need to revise that. No Ritual/No Mox/No Lotus, No win.

Now, I'm not saying suicide loves playing academy...it DOESN'T. I am, however, saying that the matchup isn't something either side should scoff at.

I REALLY think academy needs to push for a faster 'going off' else suicide's disruption can really cripple the deck.

I made a statement that if Academy doesn't kill turn 3, then it probably won't. CooberP hasn't put out since I said that so I feel I need to justify my quote.

1. Duress will force through a Null Rod, or a Hymn. Both of which are devistating.

2. Null Rod, once it hits play just killed the whole deck.

3. Hymn/Sink following a duress on turn one can set the academy play back enough turns that Negator/Shade will kill it with massive damage.

Of course the reverse arguement works as such:

1. Null Rod will not always be drawn.

2. Null Rod will sometimes be countered.

3. Draw 7's recover from discard.

4. Meditates recover from discard.

I would say the overall matchup will be in Academies favor, as it IS the deck of many broken things and just because it got wrecked turn 1 and 2, it can recover quickly.

Anyways, the original point is that against suicide you don't have the same clock as you would against misc. aggro. Neither deck should underestimate the other.

I'll even be as bold as to say that suicide would win 3-4 out of ten maindeck matchups. Another 2-3 of the matchups suicide would lose would be from broken recovery and the rest would be just because of academys sheer speed.

Oh yeah. Lets keep the tempers down a bit, please.

EDIT: I just saw walking dudes post. Good idea, if someone wants to carry on the Suicide vs Academy discussion, start a new thread please.

If it is to be intelligent, keep it in extreme. Otherwise please keep it in the regular Type 1 forum.

Thanks.\n\n

[dandan]

I know I'm disagreeing with the combined wisdom of much better players than me BUT:

Yawgmoth's Will is the dog's bollocks (ask someone English)

YawgWill recoves you more lost games than anything else. It saves your butt more times than Balance saves Keeper's. I agree it stops you recursing key spells but thinking back I think I can say that every time Will resolved I won.

Ever had Suicide destroy your hand and land? Ever had a Mox Monkey eat your precious artifacts? Ever had Keeper/BigBlue counter good stuff (Abeyance, draw7s,etc)?

Sure that Timetwister, Time Spiral might show up but YawgWill lets you dump your graveyard into play and onto the stack in a way that will overwhelm any opponent (and if they can counter it {and let's face it you would if you could} they could also counter Twister).

I often see criticism of card choices as win more cards. Surely there should be room for an alternative win/comeback card?
If you are saying Will is for the sideboard what matches doesn't it come in for?
Keeper Yes
Sligh Yes
Suicide Yes
OSE Yes
Other aggro Who cares? You win anyway
Dragon No
Enchantress No
Turboland No
The mirror And how likely is this to happen? No

To me it looks like Will is strong against the decks that can beat you and weak against those that can't (except for the unproven Dragon deck)

[cooberp]

A few comments.  While Suicide CAN'T win without mana acceleration, that doesn't mean it WILL win when it gets it.  Just last night I played a game where I went second, was Duressed and Hymned and Wasted and had a Negator and Mishra eat me down to 2.  But on my last turn, I had enough mana to TinkerJar, and he drew about 350 cards--one way to negate a Negator.  The reason why I think it's a Very Unfavorable matchup for Suicide is that Sui just doesn't have card drawing.  If it gets a creature draw, it's too slow, and if it disrupts you and then drops a dude or two, they're not going to kill you before you can get off one draw seven, which is all you need to go off.  The only thing I fear is Rod, and those are a) not always included b) not four-ofs and c) have to get past FoW before they are Wheeled away.  That said, I'll agree with Zherbus that Suicide might--MIGHT--take 30% from Academy.  But last time I checked, 30/70 was a pretty poor matchup.

[cooberp]

I've said enough times why Will is bad.  At this point you'll just have to test against good players to see it for yourself.
Academy primer draft is complete and has been submitted to D'Avanzo--hope it will be up in a few days.

[Nova]

This thread has grown a lot recently, and I want to weigh in on some of the issues you guys have been discussing.

Yawgmoth's Will maindeck:
As I have said before, Neo-Academy is a twister-regrowth deck.  I frequently have to cast the twister multiple times on the same turn to be able to generate the necessary mana to kill.  Casting Will prevents me from recycling my deck enough times to win.  That alone should be reason not to run it in the maindeck.  Yes, I often see people saying how it is not one of those win-more cards, that it can help you come from behind.  I agree it is not a win-more card, but if I cast this turn 2-3 I might not be able to win because I won't be able to generate the necessary mana.  For me, a maindeck Yawgmoth's Will is a win-less card  

Quote With respect to his well-thought out posts, I must disagree with Nova about the inclusion of any sort of burn (be it Torch or Ghitu Fire) in the sideboard.  I just don't think it fits.  You either win by generating sufficient mana to deck your opponent or by trying some sort of transformational sideboard and going aggro-Negator.  Burn seems to be confused, uncertain of whether or not it wants to combo or go aggro.  However, a potential Negator/burn mixture could prove interesting.

This is where I believe you are incorrect, Spevak.  Magimaster (and practical experience) have made it abundantly clear to me that trying to pull off the combo against dedicated control strategies is futile.  It is reasonable to be able to generate 30 mana in a turn against Keeper, but not 70.  I actually believe the burn is MORE focused than the negator board because we don't have to worry about getting the negator down and controlling the opponent long enough to swing 4 times.  4 times is 4 turns, which is enough time for the control player to fight back.  Also note that this is even MORE time for them if we have to meditate to save the negator or win the counter-war over The Abyss.  It seems to me that putting in Negators AND burn is what is confused.  For instance, do we expend resources keeping negator alive?  Do we save them for the torch?  If we play a turn 1 negator, how much mana are we even going to HAVE for torch?

To summarize possible SB approaches:

1. Negator - If Keeper can stop suicide black's creatures, it can sure as heck stop 4 of these especially since we have no land destruction and little discard...

2. Combo w/ Additional Support - If I thought this would increase my chances against keeper, I would MAINDECK this strategy and SIDEBOARD into uber-fast mode against the aggro decks for a good chance game 1 and practically auto-wins games 2 & 3 against them.  I don't think it's possible to force the combo past keeper, so I have no faith in this strategy.

3. Negator/Burn Mix -  It hasn't been tested yet, to my knowledge, and it simply has too many unanswered questions (see above).  Having two divergent choices on how to win can be bad since you will end up wasting resources defending one, leaving you without the resources to defend the other.

4. Burn - This is the strategy I currently endorse because it allows a kill in a single turn, does not require getting amounts of mana that may be difficult, and allows Academy to focus the most resources on it's victory condition.

Suicide Black vs. Academy

Just a brief note, since the debate went a little off-topic and flared tempers.  I have not tested this matchup nearly as much as I would like, but all indicators point to a favorable matchup for academy.  Not auto-win, far from it really, but not unfavorable.  People have said it here before, without acceleration suicide black is too slow to stop academy.  With null rods poplular in suicide the matchup is closer, but still Academy has the edge.  Before null rods showed up in larger numbers in suicide decks I sometimes forced the first-turn ritual, which made force of will into 0, Remove a blue card in your hand from the game: time walk   I haven't done that in a while though, I fear a second turn rod too much.

-Nova

[dandan]

Cooberp:
You will probably understand when I say that most good players don't want to test against Academy and when you add any new cards to Academy it tends to be worse until you learn how to play it. Playing Academy involves the most complicated decisions of any deck (mana issues both colour and quantity, selection of land drops, choice of whether to search or try to go off, baiting Keeper, and so on). So playtesting the deck is a long and painful process and no sane person would want to be your opponent.
(I'm not saying YOU don't know how to play the deck or how to play with YawgWill, just that 'playtest with good players' is not that easy)

Even assuming that playing with YawgWill means an end to recursion after you use it, once your graveyard coughs up artifacts, lands, Abeyance, draw cards, search cards, FoW, Ancestral, etc the game ends right there. You only need one Stroke or Braingeyser (hell even Ancestral can do it if you Time Walk and don't Timetwister from the Will).
If you have timetwistered and have an empty graveyard then chances are you are in a winning position anyway. If you are losing then chances are your graveyard has some good stuff in it.
I'm sorry, maybe I'm daft but I can't see this 'YawgWill stops recursion' argument. Imagine if you cast YawgWill and managed to resolve Timetwister, Stroke, Braingeyser, Ancestral, Abeyance, Lotus or any two of the above. Your ability to recurse is greatly reduced but YOU HAVE WON.

I can see the 'recursion stops YawgWill' argument but as I have mentioned this only affects you when you are winning.

What was that 'better to be silent and let others think that you are stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt' quotation again?

P.S. Regarding the Torch thing. Academy can easily get 10-20 mana without going infinite through Academy plus mana artifacts or Academy+Candelabra or Academy+Frantic Search but without card drawing. Personally I'd rather have a card drawer and draw lots more cards and use the mana that way but the point made was that Academy sometimes has 20 mana but not 60 mana. This is true. I am unsure why you disagree. The bone of contention should be what to do with the 20 mana.

[Greven]

I don't really have any info to give on the deck because I have never played it, although I have seen it in action a lot.

It won a couple of tournaments in a row at the local shop, and my friend got pissed and decided to hell with it, and decided to play Battle of Wits at the next tourney.   He got paired against the Academy deck first round and won, we all laughed, but then he got the ass-whupping he deserved in round 2.

But if you wanna beat Academy, you can always just play BoW.

[Magimaster]

Quote (dandan @ July 12 2002,02:35)Cooberp:
You will probably understand when I say that most good players don't want to test against Academy and when you add any new cards to Academy it tends to be worse until you learn how to play it. Playing Academy involves the most complicated decisions of any deck (mana issues both colour and quantity, selection of land drops, choice of whether to search or try to go off, baiting Keeper, and so on). So playtesting the deck is a long and painful process and no sane person would want to be your opponent.
(I'm not saying YOU don't know how to play the deck or how to play with YawgWill, just that 'playtest with good players' is not that easy)

Even assuming that playing with YawgWill means an end to recursion after you use it, once your graveyard coughs up artifacts, lands, Abeyance, draw cards, search cards, FoW, Ancestral, etc the game ends right there. You only need one Stroke or Braingeyser (hell even Ancestral can do it if you Time Walk and don't Timetwister from the Will).
If you have timetwistered and have an empty graveyard then chances are you are in a winning position anyway. If you are losing then chances are your graveyard has some good stuff in it.
I'm sorry, maybe I'm daft but I can't see this 'YawgWill stops recursion' argument. Imagine if you cast YawgWill and managed to resolve Timetwister, Stroke, Braingeyser, Ancestral, Abeyance, Lotus or any two of the above. Your ability to recurse is greatly reduced but YOU HAVE WON.

I can see the 'recursion stops YawgWill' argument but as I have mentioned this only affects you when you are winning.

What was that 'better to be silent and let others think that you are stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt' quotation again?

P.S. Regarding the Torch thing. Academy can easily get 10-20 mana without going infinite through Academy plus mana artifacts or Academy+Candelabra or Academy+Frantic Search but without card drawing. Personally I'd rather have a card drawer and draw lots more cards and use the mana that way but the point made was that Academy sometimes has 20 mana but not 60 mana. This is true. I am unsure why you disagree. The bone of contention should be what to do with the 20 mana.

Dandan, I suggest you play more practice games with Academy.

I have seen Academy in action literally hundreds of times, in real life, which is much much different than online.

Timetwister is one of if not THE most crucial spell Academy has. Yawgmoth's Will does not react well with Timetwister. Also, when you are going off, most of the time you end up Twistering twice in the same turn. Not only does it refill your hand but it puts some essential spells back into your deck which you may have used, like Meditates, other draw 7's, and cards which you discarded for Mind over Matter. Casting Will and then waiting another turn to use Twister is a game losing move.

Also, for 3 mana, I would rather play a draw 7, rather than pay 3 mana to pay another 3 mana to get a draw 7 from my graveyard, only to lose it. Waiting another turn to use the spell brought back from Yawgwill without losing it is another turn control has to stop you, or for Sui to disrupt you, so that doesn't help.

In short, you will find that

- Yawgmoth's Will is useless on many occasions, and sometimes even may threaten to cost you the game.

- In the situations where it's useful (recursion or whatever) another spell should suit the same purpose much better. (Twister refills your hand as well as "recursing", Regrowth is cheaper)

- It's negative synergy with Timetwister is enough to warrant me not to play it.

- What would you take out?

[Magimaster]

Hi all, I have been testing again.

Regarding the Sui VS Academy matchup, a first turn play for Sui is CRUCIAL to halting Academy, and even then it's important to back it up with another spell to keep up the pressure (sink, hymn or rod). Unless it's a rod, you must pray that Academy does not draw into a draw 7, because then he/she stocks up on a lot of good cards with the potential to go off. Something like Duress should let you see whether the game is hopeless, or if you have a chance.

Also, in most of the games with Sui where I drew a Rit and followed it up with soem decent disruption, I won. Dark Ritual is also crucial for Sui to rip a win from Academy's hands.

Another point. When playing Academy, ALWAYS COUNTER THE FIRST TURN RITUAL. If he goes ritual and you don't counter it, he could follow with a Duress and then basically, you're fucked  but if you counter the ritual, no chance of a first turn rod or hymn or any of that business.

Summary : A lot on this matchup depends on the individual skill of the Academy player (for the most part, Sui has a fairly low learning curve). I myself have been only playing for a month now, and while I've gotten better and know a few tricks, it doesn't compare to my friend, who knows it inside out. I guess when I put up my original thoughts on Academy VS Sui, I was basing it on my experiences against my friend, when I was the helm of Sui. I will concede that Academy doesn't auto-bye agaisnt Sui, and that even Sui sometimes will pull the hand of Rit-Duress-SPELL and cause you a world of pain, but as long as the person playing Academy isn't a complete dolt, then Academy will still have the favourable matchup.

[walking dude]

there really should be a new thread for this, but you got to reply where the posts are.

I also tested academy v suicide.
6 games .
academy first 3 times sui first 3 time.
Sui won 4 of 6 going 2-1 in each of the sets.  
Deck lists were, standard Matt D academy. And a suicide black list one card off from legend’s, consult replaces lotus.

Facts of note:
1. I'm getting better numbers against ophidian them I am against black.

2. Two of blacks wins did not involve first turn rituals, although they did involve going first and having the sligh disruption curve. example
Turn 1swamp duress
Turn 2swamp sinkhole
Turn 3waste null rod

3. Two of blacks wins were the result of extreme luck so that I'm temped to say black didn't deserve them (swamp rit rit duress hymn null rod seem fair anyone). But I'm not going to because one of blacks losses came from a double mulligan so it could be said academy didn’t deserve that one.

Can people who post test results on this issue please give, # of matches played, who went first, and deck lists so that we have relatively rigorous results to work with. This question is contentious enough that, “oh I’m doing well in testing” just isn’t going to settle it.

[dandan]

I use Will instead of Impulse compared to the Matt standard Academy.

Please understand that I know how an Academy deck works, I know how you can often twister often en route to victory. I make no claims to be great as Academy has to be the hardest deck in the world to master and there are surely better players. PLEASE don't speak as if I am clueless for suggesting Will. I know and wrote that there are times when Will is useless, you win most of the time in those situations. There are times when Will means you win.

It is not at all easy to assess whether an Impulse which is generally useful but not game ending is better or worse than a Will which is sometimes useless and sometimes game ending.
Compare it to Balance in Keeper, bad when you are winning, the best possible card when you are losing.

Specifically
Does anyone who has played Academy with Will find that after resolving Will they have trouble recursing or that you 'just win'?


Regarding Suicide vs Academy I believe any well built Academy should have a strong winning record against Suicide, you have too many top decks which negate all previous disruption. Having a card like Will makes it even worse for Suicide.

[Magimaster]

Quote (walking dude @ July 12 2002,07:26)there really should be a new thread for this, but you got to reply where the posts are.

I also tested academy v suicide.
6 games .
academy first 3 times sui first 3 time.
Sui won 4 of 6 going 2-1 in each of the sets.  
Deck lists were, standard Matt D academy. And a suicide black list one card off from legend’s, consult replaces lotus.

Facts of note:
1. I'm getting better numbers against ophidian them I am against black.

2. Two of blacks wins did not involve first turn rituals, although they did involve going first and having the sligh disruption curve. example
Turn 1swamp duress
Turn 2swamp sinkhole
Turn 3waste null rod

3. Two of blacks wins were the result of extreme luck so that I'm temped to say black didn't deserve them (swamp rit rit duress hymn null rod seem fair anyone). But I'm not going to because one of blacks losses came from a double mulligan so it could be said academy didn’t deserve that one.

Can people who post test results on this issue please give, # of matches played, who went first, and deck lists so that we have relatively rigorous results to work with. This question is contentious enough that, “oh I’m doing well in testing” just isn’t going to settle it.

I will start a new thread about this. This makes for interesting discussion.

I will also post some logs about this, as they may help clear up some issues.

Will : you have just pointed out my earlier deduction : Sui needs a good first turn play followed up with more good plays in order to win. Any turn wasted is a loss.

Also, even though I have barely played against mono blue/phid, I haven't lost yet, but keep in mind that I drew opening hand Abeyances as well, so I'm willing to disregard those matches.

[jpmeyer]

I played a series with Meridian a few weeks ago and it came out to around 60/40 in Academy's favor.  My favorite play came when I went off turn 3 in the face of his Null Rod because I was able to Crop Rotation and then Timetwister.

[Tatanka]

Dandan I agree with you all the way

Academy is a deck witch require almost the same skill as control to play.

  

magimaster: Also, for 3 mana, I would rather play a draw 7, rather than pay 3 mana to pay another 3 mana to get a draw 7 from my graveyard, only to lose it. Waiting another turn to use the spell brought back from Yawgwill without losing it is another turn control has to stop you, or for Sui to disrupt you, so that doesn't help.

In short, you will find that

- Yawgmoth's Will is useless on many occasions, and sometimes even may threaten to cost you the game.

- In the situations where it's useful (recursion or whatever) another spell should suit the same purpose much better. (Twister refills your hand as well as "recursing", Regrowth is cheaper)

- What would you take out?

the other draw 7 you would play doesn't exit

The will is more often good than costing you the game, perhap I admit that playing academy with a will on the stack ask a lot of skill.

You can't play more regrowth or timetwister as they are restricted so the next better spell for recursion is will.

Take out an impulse for the will

I talk according to many years of playtesting in tourneys(I never played online, sorry I don't have apprentice) The will prooved herself so many times and I can't believe it's one of the cards we are arguing on. The only time when it's useless is (as dandan said) when you are already winning the game.

Walking dude: I don't know how was the phid deck you played against tuned but it's supposed to be a much harder matchup for academy than suicide.

btw post sideboard if you don't play the transformation sideboard use interdict to get rid of kegs as the seal can't do anything against a keg at 0

Sébastien

[Greven]

I have a general question: Like I said I personally haven't played Academy but some of my friend's have, but how fragile is the combo? BSB is getting popular in my area again, along with a couple of other Forbidian type decks, and I am curious as to how much counter-magic Academy can deal with.

[cooberp]

Academy can pull about 2 out of 5 against Keeper's 8-10 counterspells.  Don't expect it to do half that well against a draw-go, BBS, or Forbidian strategy--anything with 14+ counterspells (including early game ones like MisD and Mana Leak as well as FoW) will usually stop Academy dead in its tracks.  Academy is fast enough that it can usually brush off most disruption (hand/landkill), but only if its spells can resolve

[walking dude]

I've done some more testing. Another set of 6, 3 academy first, 3 sui first. Results here were very different.
Academy won 3 when it played first and won 2 of 3 when it played second.

Not sure if this is a luck fluke or whether it is due to the fact that this round of testing was not late at night after on long day of work and so I just played better.

[Rico Suave]

I have a question.

Academy has the most troubles against control.  So, for round 2 as the control player (supposedly) sides out critter control, the combo deck sides in Negators to surprise them.  However, it is well known that combo decks bring in these type of cards, and oftentimes control decks will leave creature control in their deck.  

Now, what about just starting with the transformational sideboard already in?  If it truly is a better strategy, then the deck will have better matches against control game 1, as well as confusing the hell out of the opponent as to what you are playing.  Maybe boarding in your combo wouldn't be a bad idea if they're really clueless.

Against any aggressive deck, just side in the actual combo and enjoy.

It certainly makes a lot of sense to be prepared for your hardest match-up with your maindeck cards, no?

So, would somebody explain why it hasn't been done yet?

[Anonymous]

I don't know whether this has been discussed (I don't see it in this thread, at any rate), but what about 4 MD Living Wish and have Academy sideboarded (and random stuff like Deserted Temple, Cloud of Faeries, or whatever if you want the later wishes to do something)? The biggest drawback it would have is it would be counterable, but you would, in effect, get to play with _4_ academies. Perhaps in a more controllish version with Defense Grids and stuff?

[jpmeyer]

Quote (Rico Suave @ July 13 2002,16:09)I have a question.

Academy has the most troubles against control.  So, for round 2 as the control player (supposedly) sides out critter control, the combo deck sides in Negators to surprise them.  However, it is well known that combo decks bring in these type of cards, and oftentimes control decks will leave creature control in their deck.  

Now, what about just starting with the transformational sideboard already in?  If it truly is a better strategy, then the deck will have better matches against control game 1, as well as confusing the hell out of the opponent as to what you are playing.  Maybe boarding in your combo wouldn't be a bad idea if they're really clueless.

Against any aggressive deck, just side in the actual combo and enjoy.

It certainly makes a lot of sense to be prepared for your hardest match-up with your maindeck cards, no?

So, would somebody explain why it hasn't been done yet?

Because then you would have a really really shitty aggro-control deck instead of a good combo deck.

[cooberp]

Walking Dude -- why on earth would that be a "luck fluke?"  You're playing the fastest combo deck around against a beatdown deck.  What do you expect?