Open Source: Meandeck's Death Long

[Smmenen]

The week after the Columbus Mox Tournament (Dec. 28th) I was hard at work on post January Combo.  Unfortunatly, a modified TPS was just sooooo slooooowww more often than not winning on turn three and being completely unable to beat Tog without 4 md Xantid Swarm.

What follows is the original inception and evolution of Death Long for Open Sourcing.

You've heard people suggest Death Wish before - but I had always dismissed it.  So, desperate for something to work, I tried it on Dec. 30th and it was AMAZING.  

A few things about Death Wish that meandeck people have heard me rant about repeatedly.  First, you don't have to reveal the card!! Second, you don't just have to get Sorceries!  You can get creatures, instants and even lands! This problem with that is that you have unlimited choices in SBing.  Literally - every card is something you have access to.  

This deck is something of a labor of love for me - not because I'm enthralled with combo - but becuase of my underlying belief, that becuase Type One is the broken format, Combo should necessarily be the best archetype.  

Here was my first serious list:

From:   "smmenen" <Smmenen@lycos.com>
Date:  Wed Dec 31, 2003  12:17 pm
Subject:  Smmenen.dec?
 
1 Crop Rotation
1 Memory Jar
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mind's Desire
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
1 Tinker
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 City of Brass
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Burning Wish
4 Death Wish
SB:
1 Yawg Will
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Duress
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Primitive Justice
1 Meltdown
3 Naturalize
3 Crumble
 
 
It plays just like Long. You just have to play more carefully. The
key reason regular combo stinks is becuase you have to rely on draw
7s. Long used Draw 7s as a last resort. So does this deck. With
Burning Wish and Death Wish you have 5 more threats that don't
involve refilling your opponents hand. Your goal is simply to dump
some mana and a tutor in your graveyard - which means finding Dark
Rituals is important, then cast Death Wish + Yawg Will and win.

Or else you find Desire, Necro, or Bargain and abuse them and then
lose like 2 life to Death Wish and win. The alternative is to rely
on some draw 7s, which can be legitimate.

Any SB suggestions?
Maybe a Goblin Welder?

Steve

Here was the next update:

Date:  Sun Jan 4, 2004  12:42 am
Subject:  LongDeath and TnT lists

LongDeath:

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Glimmervoid
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Dark Rituals
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Crop Rotation
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

General Utility, AKA, The Good Schtuff
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall

Tutors:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation

Draw7s AKA the Last Resort:
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune

Wishes - Things that Find Yawgmoth's Will - Five this time!!
4 Death Wish
1 Burning Wish

Really Good Shit:
1 NecroPWNtence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Mind's Desire

Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony

Before I give my SB, a brief funny aside. Paul Mastriano recounted
a funny aside that emphasizes how powerful the old long was. He
said he loved playing Ancestral just as counter-bait. After all, he
recounted, if that went through you knew something was very very
wrong and you could just go nuts. Sooo TRUE.

SB:
Keep in mind that you do NOT have to reveal the card you get with
Death Wish.

So far my SB isn't that stupendous but its powerful:
The usual suspects:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Meltdown
1 Primitive Justice
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Crumble
2 Naturalize

Hurkyl's Recall has been an MVP so far.

The mainboard isn't completely finished. It may want 2 Elvish
Spirit Guides instead of One, but then again, it may not. These
things need to be tested in detail and I'm sure over the next few
months we'll discover what is best.

Stephen Menendian

 
On January 7th I made some analysis which I think is super-important - and remains so at the moment:

From:   "smmenen" <Smmenen@lycos.com>
Date:  Wed Jan 7, 2004  11:15 pm
Subject:  How To Win WIth LongDeath

 
The round of preliminary testing has ended and I'm ready to present
some analysis of where Long stands. In the process, we can hope to
shed some insight into how to play the deck build for some of you
who might want to try their hand.

How things shake down.

Death Wish BB1

Yes, Death Wish is no Burning Wish.....Its better....just kidding.

Death Wish is certainloy not strictly inferior. Let me try to
identify how the casting cost difference affects long. The red
meant that your mana base was basically UB/r. That was a problem
for Long and why you really needed the chromatic Spheres. In fact,
alot of the turn one wins involved using chromatic sphere to make
Burning Wish a 2R cc cantrip.

In that respect, Death Wish adds more consistency. One problem with
Death Wish is that with one ritual you cannot recast the ritual
since the Death Wish and yawg will eat up the black B and BB. This
hasn't been a problem at all though. If you don't have one extra
black mana, you aren't going to be able to go off anyway unless you
have two or more rituals and some really good shit.

Most important cards:
Brainstorm and Dark Ritual.

Dark Ritual is now the central broken mana source and my most
frequent Consult target. Brainstorm is even more imporant than
ever. Prior to the restrictions, the Draw7s were acceptable becuase
of their synergy with Lion's Eye Diamond. Otherwise Draw7s were
mostly a last resort - the reason is that Duress, Wheel requires
another black to play another Duress to clear their new hand - all
that clearing sucks. The problem with Draw7s as it stands now is
that you are even less likely to have any good amount of mana
floating off a turn 1 draw 7 and thus you are much less likely to
randomly win off a turn one draw7 with three LED mana floating.

Net result? That eats into the old long's turn one win percent -
which if played aggressively rose to around 35-40% although most
poeple don't believe it - it was true. The new long has no more
than a 20% turn one win percentage and probably less. But its hard
to tell because like old long, speed isn't everything and I don'
tplay to win on turn 1 - I play to WIN period.

Why is Brainstorm so much more important? Becuase without Draw7s
becing so broken, you need a way to optimize your hand with mana,
duress, and tutors so that you can follow your ideal plan of just
winning immediately - the preferred path to victory of not having to
deal with draw7s.

Because the draw 7s are weaker - it basically means that you need to
slow down the game as much as possibly before using them. That has
affected a few cards: Time Walk is now really importatant and
Desire, Bargain, and NERCO increased in importance as the draw7s
decreased.

With all that in mind, the deck is unfinished. It still needs one
or two more cards and I'll explain my experimental decisions at the
end:
4 Gemstone
4 City of Brass
2 Glimmervoid
1 Academy
I still don't understand why that land base is so money, but it is.
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 LED
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Crop Rotation (it's a "wet" or blue ritual, if you will)

Protecting and Setting up the combo
4 Brainstorm
4 Duress
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral

The Tutors:
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consulation

Ways to find Yawg Will
4 Death Wish
1 Burning Wish

I WIN:
1 Necro
1 Bargain
1 Mind's Desire

Draw7s:
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Timetwister

Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony

At this point i have one test card:
1 Mirri's Guile. WTF?

I don't like Enlightened Tutor. Recall my discussion of how
important Brainstorms now are. If I could easily cast Sylvan I
would play it, but I can't. This deck only wants to set itself up
on turn one for a monster turn two win. Mirri's guille fulfills
that Brainstorm Function but gives me another way to do it. I'm
open to suggestions to cut it, but so far its really good.

Just to Summarize of the moment, Death Wish is actually not slower
than Burning Wish, BUT Draw7s are worse without 4 LEDs - thus making
the deck appear slower simpkly becuase it has about 1/2 the number
of turn one wins - it is actually just as much of a turn two deck as
it always was.

I can go into more detail if people want - but I figured poeple were
interested in how the games go. I'll just close by saying that
Bargain and Necro are still AMAZING becuase you just go to 2-3 life
and then cast Death Wish for tendrils and refill your life and kill
them.

But perhaps the biggest breakthrough was:

From:   "smmenen" <Smmenen@lycos.com>
Date:  Tue Jan 13, 2004  2:37 pm
Subject:  ALERT: Radical Update to Long

I try and take these things slowly - making sure that I am certain
with updates before I report these things, that's why they have been
so sporadic.

As many of you know, I've been constantly tweaking Long in the past
few weeks ? starting with Dec. 29th when we first put Death Wish
long together under the assumption that Death Wish was a good
replacement for Burning Wish.

A week ago I sent out an update on where the deck was and what I had
together at the moment and I attempted to explain some of the
changes I had made. The deck was doing very well against many
matchups, but Friday night I had a bit of trouble against Joe's
Tog. Admittedly he drew *very* well, but I lost something like 5
games in a row before I won 4 in a row. I was constantly making
adjustments as we were playing. In the end, I was disappointed with
several elements of the deck.

The first few games we played I was trying to play conservatively,
as I might with old long if I had the chance ? I would try and clear
the way first before playing a key spell. Well one of the lessons
learned back in Sept/Oct that night when Kevin and I finally put the
Tog from HELL for combo (with four duress) up against Long was that
the way Long won was by constantly applying pressure. What this
meant was that you would try and force your way through the Tog
deck. This was not an easy task considering that at the same time
draw7s would want to be played 2nd and you didn't want to break your
LEDs. I spent some time illustrating this difficult and the best
way to mitigate it in my subsequent SCG article covering the matchup
and I posted a perfect split of 4-4.

Well, I had to learn that lesson again in the context of new Long.
Longdeath is more razer's edge in that regard, but at the same time
its not. Let me explain. You do not have extra mana to spend on
Duress, at the same time you don't have to consider whether to blow
an LED or not. The correct way to play long ? and once I did this I
started winning against Joe, is to PLAY the draw7s immediately ?
play those threats. Play the threats, if they counter the threat,
play another the following turn, if they don't fine. They aren't
combo ? they aren't going to combo you out even if you can do
nothing off the draw 7. Instead I was trying to duress first and
I'd get wrecked by his Duress, his Shaman, his Wasteland, and his
Mana Drains. You have to apply all the pressure you can muster
immediately. Midway through our testing I also decided to try
Hurkyl's Recall as a maindeck card and to my amazement, it was
perfect. It would help against Joe's turn one: Mox, Lotus, Land
openings but primarily, by playing aggressive draw 7s, it could also
help rejuvenate my mana on one turn.

This got me thinking: I never want to cast Duress anymore ? why use
it? Last night I goldfished 20 games with Duress as Force of Will
and it was INCREDIBLE. I was asking myself why in the hell didn't I
try this with long? Force of Will never would have worked in old
long. The first and obvious reason is that LED basically precludes
countermagic. In my current build of Long I have 16 blue cards with
4 fows, that's four more than Crazy stax at time. It worked so
perfectly I can hardly express. In goldfising it would help secure
a turn one back up for Dark Rit, Necro. It would be there after I
bargain to help protect me from countermagic ? it was just so
amazing that I was actually a bit stunned. I won a huge percentage
of my 20 goldfishes on turn one ? something like 7 or 8 ? and over
half of those because I had FoW ? otherwise I would have been one
turn slower, or more, with Duress protection.

Anyway, here is the list:

2 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
7 Moxen including Diamond and Chrome
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Grim Monolith (has been fine so far) because of:
2 Chromatic Sphere
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual

1 Crop Rotation
1 Hurkyl's Recall

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

1 Mind's Desire
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Windfall
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Burning Wish
3 Death Wish

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

Finisher:
1 Tendrils of Agony
At this point, the deck is much closer to being tournament ready ?
although I am demanding the utmost strict secrecy as I did with
Slavery until we decided none of us wanted to play it. If
necessary, I will not be playing this at the local tournaments just
to keep it out of tournament reports and out of sight.

Retract may or may not find a place in this build, if it does, it is
key to understand why it would be good, which requires some
explanation because it is not as obvious as one might think.

Steve

The final suggestion to the deck was the at midnight before the Waterbury, I was talking with Kevin Cron and he suggested Cabal Ritual - which in a few goldfishes where it was inserted, the card was insane.

At this point I have tested with 4 Cabal Rituals and I like what I see, but I am not satisfied.  The deck is still two tiered and I really don?t know which direction to push the deck in as of yet.

For the Waterbury, becuase I had not tested Cabal Ritual I cut it in the morning at Carl's urging and the Grim and the Mox Diamond for two maindeck Xantid Swarms.  I had also cut Mystical to make room for a maindeck Diminishing Returns.

One of the key things for Waterbury was that the deck was a TOTAL surprise.  Nobody saw it coming and that was a powerful bonus.  I think one of the biggest traps I get into is thinking, against control, that I have to protect my key spell.  This only gets you into a rut.  It is simply not possibly to protect your spells like it once was with old Long.  The deck does not have enough resources to do this.  The best strategy, and the only good way to win against control is to continually pile on the threats.  

Here is my most recent list:

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Glimmervoid
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Sapphire  
1 Mox Emerald  
1 Mox Pearl  
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet  
1 Chrome Mox  
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault  
1 Black Lotus  
1 Sol Ring
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual  
3 Chromatic Sphere  
1 Crop Rotation  
2 Foil Cabal Rituals

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk  
1 Timetwister  
1 Wheel
1 Windfall  
1 Tinker
1 Diminishing Returns  
1 Memory Jar  
1 Necropotence
1 Mind's Desire  
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain  
3 Death Wish
1 Burning Wish

1 Vamp Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consulation

1 Tendrils

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

If you are in a heavy control environment, I would add MD Swarms.

If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer.  As for the future of this deck, I?m uncertain.  It will take a lot of work and testing, but I believe that it has a real future.  In the meantime, I have started working on another Academyesque combo deck reminiscent of Koen?s Diminshing Returns deck from last June based on the theory that Diminishing Returns is one of the most broken unrestricted cards and abusing it can be rewarding.  

Stephen Menendian

[Ifflejink]

Very insightful. I do have one question: Is this deck possible/viable on a budget? It seems that the power is very hard to replace without 4 LEDs.

[BreathWeapon]

Well, it looks like you completed the circle on where Long should be going. Most of the decisions seem incredibly intuitive with the exception of FoW, I just don't know about that ... but i'll take your word for it cuz FoW is broke and no form of Disruption is better vs Prison. I'm surprised you skimped on the ESG count, were they that unsatisfactory or is Cabal Ritual just THAT good?

[Smmenen]

That's why I posted this list in the first place.  The tech was already open.  Its something of a misnomer to say that its realy my tech when much of it was intuitive and already discovered by people like DRG.  If i hadn't have played it at Waterbury or had prevented someone else from posting the other lists, I would never have done this.   I'm not certain about the correct number of Cabal Rituals, but 2-3 is probably the right number.  The deck is still brutally powerful, but I don't think it can realistically compete with Trinistax and will have increasing difficulty against Combo Tog.

It kind of feels as weak as Mono Blue felt on the cusp of GroAtog - something of an upper tier 2 deck.  Another reason I'm posting is on the principle that more minds are better than one.  Maybe we can work on this?

Steve[/i]

[Dr. Sylvan]

Steve, if combo were a cookie, you would be its monster. :) That was very interesting to read.

Perhaps some elaboration on how Waterbury went for you would give more insight? Matchups/overall results, basically.

[Smmenen]

The deck wasn't finsihed by the time that Waterbury came around.  I was also a bit shell shocked.  I was 4-0 before playing Jacob and in our first game I stunned him with a turn one win.  And game two and three I was nailed by turn one Root Maze and I took out Naturalizes from my SB the night before.  I was unprepared for that and didn't even know what the card did.  I was a little shell shocked and had trouble keeping focused for the remainder of the tournament despite the fact that my next round opponent had to face me win on turn one both games one and two.  

He went: ESG, Forest, Wild Mongel and in both games I won on turn one.   When I sat down in the final rounds against control I was having some trouble focusing and playing correctly.  One thing that happened was that I was not playing aggressively enough.  Somewhere in the first post I say that you have to keep playing threats - not trying to protect your first threat - and as long time control player, it was easy to fall into that trap.  The deck was savage but the deck was also unfinished - and perhaps is to this day.  I sat in my hotel room the night before and told Carl I was thinking of playing my tog deck with 4 duress and Gush, etc like I posted recently, but I was goldfishing with this and it was so insane.  

My games against Jacob are well documented, if I had Naturalize I would have been in much better shape.  At the tournament I think my opinion was, and Carl and probably everyone else I encountered was that the deck was probably the most broken deck there - but it losees some of its luster by being brought into the open.  Beyond that, it *does* suffer from some consistency problems.  BigHatKids 0-3 performance with this deck suggests that this deck is probably not exactly the best deck choice.  I would be hard pressed to suggest that this deck is any better than Combo Tog or even other variations on the Academy theme.  We'll see though.  This deck is quite potent.  

Steve

[BreathWeapon]

I fully agree with you that the deck looks Tier 2, but in the absence of Prison i'd say it can run and gun with the best of them. I like the look of FoW in the deck to battle 1st turn Disruption, reducing the importance of the coin toss is just HUGE and it reduces the dependance on Black Mana (stating the obvious). I'm really going to have to Gold Fish a lot with this deck before I can come back with more insightful points, but I really feel that ESG is more important than MD Meta like Hurkyl's etc. The Chromatic Spheres just don't feel right, sinking mana for a cantrip was plush in Old Long ... but you just can't afford that luxury with the Death Wish variants in my experience and you "shouldn't" have to filter mana anyway.

Heh, I hope that R&D unrestricts Burning Wish now that everybody knows Death Wish is just as good (If not better).

[Smmenen]

I fully agree with you that the deck looks Tier 2, but in the absence of Prison i'd say it can run and gun with the best of them. I like the look of FoW in the deck to battle 1st turn Disruption, reducing the importance of the coin toss is just HUGE and it reduces the dependance on Black Mana (stating the obvious). I'm really going to have to Gold Fish a lot with this deck before I can come back with more insightful points, but I really feel that ESG is more important than MD Meta like Hurkyl's etc. The Chromatic Spheres just don't feel right, sinking mana for a cantrip was plush in Old Long ... but you just can't afford that luxury with the Death Wish variants in my experience and you "shouldn't" have to filter mana anyway.

Heh, I hope that R&D unrestricts Burning Wish now that everybody knows Death Wish is just as good (If not better).

Your points about Chromatic Sphere are very interesting to me.  Somewhere in post one I said that I completely agreed.  Old long had plenty of spare mana and the wierd Red requirement of Burning Wish make Chrom Sphere a necessity.  HOWEVER, I have had numerous instances where Chrom Sphere is just a life saver now that I have so much single colored mana.  It also makes the deck more consisent becuiase you can keep hands with off color moxen or like Mana Crypt and Chrom Sphere and be like: Mana Crypt, Chrom Sphere, Dakr Ritual, Necro and just win.  So, I understand what you are saying precisely, but I'm torn.

Steve

[xrizzo]

Your playtesting is amazing.  You are truely dedicated to combo - and it is fun to watch the results.

I think the inherent weakness DeathLong will have is different from the weakness old Long.dec had.  Long.dec was buoyed by sacraficing LED's in response to a draw7 spell.  DLong can't do that nearly as easily and will need to 'play it straight,' meaning it will not be able to go off with the same confidence old long could.  FOW backup should help things a bit, but Death Long overall feels more aggressive.

What about diminishing returns here?  It helps with the blue spell count, draws lots of cards, and returns all the removed cards as new death wish targets...

[Smmenen]

I had a) Dimishing Returns maindeck for the Waterbury tournament b) made the point you made about Draw7s and LED midway through the first post, and c) agree with everything else you said.

[CowWithHat]

The way the deck tests now I feel that chromatic sphere is more like a 1 mana cycler which just seems out of place.  At the moment the deck plays with only 3 maindeck cards that require non U/B colors to cast.  The added room would be a good place to insert the 4th death wish which seems more optimal then the 4 wish plan (blah only four Yawgmoth's Will).  The other slot is now free for another draw seven (possibly diminishing returns) or different type of mana exceleration.

Again the deck is running with only 3 cards that aren't blue or black which probably isn't but may be an indication to shift away from the "money manabase" that you seem to love.  (I am aware that certain sideboard options are requiring green mana and possibly red but even then you are only baording 4 at most more off color cards into the deck).

The mana can easily be adjusted to drop at least one source for another money card, if you limit the any color land count and add more just U/B sources.  This could lead to a more consistant turn one kill due to more card drawing conisistancy as opposed to the off color mana consistancy that is provided by this set up.

[Smmenen]

Could you be more specific?  My last list is edited into the first post.

Steve

[BreathWeapon]

Well, I think one of this deck's key selling points is its ability to go off turn 1. When you compare Death Wish Long with B/g Spoils Dragon, they have roughly the same turn 2 win percentages and Dragon packs twice the amount of disruption and is significantly more versatile. Considering that B/g Dragon is MUCH easier to pilot and a hell of a lot cheaper, you really have to establish a fundamental selling point for Long in order to justify playing it. That turn 1 win IS your selling point, you can either embrace it or play the inferior combo deck in terms of brokenness (Ducks the Flying Chair). This is why I am so adamant about cutting Sphere and backing ESG, turn 1 wins are the only reason to play Long. Now, i'm sure plenty of people are ready to jump in here and disagree, but its at the very least something for every one to consider. The Hate for each deck is very different, so we'll have to hold that constant for the moment.

[monotone]

I have been messing around with Long for a few weeks.  Recently I have had some success with 2 maindeck Helms of Awakening.   The reasoning being that:
1) They are more threats that control has to deal with early.
2) They make Cabal Ritual even better.
3) They make the chromatic sphere's not suck quite so much.
4) They help fight against a workshop decks sphere of resistance.

In general I have found that a Helm can often provide the inertia necessary to "go off."

On the other hand I have had them be dead cards when staring down a hand of 1 & 2 cc spells.  Also, they were less tasty when you saw them as part of a draw 7.

It's just a thought I had that maybe someone else can run with.
Chris

[Nehptis]

Steve, great analysis once again.  I'd like to comment on one point that you made that I feel has been over looked thus far in the discussion.

From Smmenen:

Because the draw 7s are weaker - it basically means that you need to slow down the game as much as possibly before using them. That has affected a few cards: Time Walk is now really importatant and Desire, Bargain, and NERCO increased in importance as the draw7s decreased.

I think slowing the game down and the importance of Time Walk is critical.

A quote from my post on 1/20/04:

My thinking is that having 3-4 Time Walks in this deck isn't a bad thing. I think that it may be better to try and go down the path of winning in 2 or 3 turns instead of trying to find solutions to make the deck win on Turn 1 or 2 as it did in the past. If the tools were there to win T1 or T2 then fine. But, I just don't see any suitable replacements for 3 LEDs and 3 BWs. The deck is so crutched by the Draw 7s now-a-days that playing it like it was orginally designed is just too fragile and inconsistent.

So this is what I have been testing 2 x Peace Talks

Peace Talks - 1W - Sorcery
Oracle Text: This turn and next turn, players skip their combat phases and can’t play spells or abilities that target a permanent or player. (Triggered abilities are unaffected.)

So far no complaints.  The PTs act exactly as I expect them to.  They are mini Time Walks that act as a setup spell to go off the next turn in most situations.  And they stop aggro / non-control decks dead in their tracks by forcing them to miss a crucial early attack.

[BreathWeapon]

Alright, i'm trying really hard to break the new Long deck in half and this is what i've come up with so far:

Death Long

Kill (1)
1xTendril's of Agony

Setting Up (10)
4xForce of Will
4xBrainstorm
1xAncestral Recall
1xTime Walk

Search (4)
1xDemonic Tutor
1xDemonic Consultation
1xVampiric Tutor
1xMystical Tutor

I Win (3)
1xYawgmoth's Bargain
1xNecropotence
1xMind's Desire

Wishes (5)
4xDeath Wish
1xBurning Wish

Draw 7's (5)
1xMemory Jar
1xTinker
1xTimetwsiter
1xWindfall
1xWheel of Fortune

Acceleration (9)
4xCabal Ritual
4xDark Ritual
1xCrop Rotation

Mana (23)
1xTolarian Academy
4xCity of Brass
4xGemstone Mine
2xUnderground Sea
1xSol Ring
1xBlack Lotus
1xLotus Petal
7xMoxen
1xMana Vault
1xMana Crypt

Cabal Ritual seems like the best way to go for this deck (Fuck ESG). Its synergy is undeniable with Yawgmoth's Will and the Draw 7's, and the deck is almost primarily Black. I cut the 4 "questionable" Mana Sources, Grim-Spheres-LED, for their inclusion and i'm never going to look back. I figure its time to let LED go, the single copy is incredibly inconsistant and has poor synergy with FoW (U count 15). I'm considering dropping the MD Tendril for either Diminishing Returns or Future Sight, but I figure I shouldn't push my luck with this deck. All in all, it feels like the original Long with a few key changes; -4 Duress +4 FoW, -4 LED +4 Cabal Ritual and -4 Chromatic Sphere +1 Crop Rotation +1 Burning Wish +1 Mox Diamond +1 Chrome Mox. I'm still undecided about FoW over Duress, I figure Duress is better against Cotrol and FoW is more important against Prison. The funny thing is tho', Xantid Swarms are a hundred times better than Duress against Control as a self contained threat ... so I really don't see a place in the MD for Duress anymore.

For the sake of completeness, I want to include my original list (Pre-Restriction) to help show the transgressions in my thought process to the new Long Deck ... that and I think its cool ...

4 Color Combo

Kill (1)
1xTendril's of Agony

Disruption (4)
4xXantid Swarms

Setting Up (10)
4xBrainstorm
1xAncestral Recall
1xTime Walk
1xDemonic Tutor
1xDemonic Consultation
1xVampiric Tutor
1xMystical Tutor

I Win (3)
1xYawgmoth's Bargain
1xNecropotence
1xMind's Desire

Wishes (4)
4xBurning Wish

Draw 7's (5)
1xMemory Jar
1xTinker
1xTimetwsiter
1xWindfall
1xWheel of Fortune

Acceleration (5)
4xDark Ritual
1xCrop Rotation

Mana (28)
1xTolarian Academy
4xCity of Brass
4xGemstone Mine
2xGlimmervoid
4xLions Eye Diamond
4xChromatic Sphere
1xSol Ring
1xBlack Lotus
1xLotus Petal
6xMoxen (Diamond)

[wizmentor]

What I've found with some goldfishing is that
the deck really turns on when it hits threshold.
With threshold, Cabal Rituals give you MORE
mana than pre-restriction long.

With the deck going back to mostly 2 colors,
why not run fetchlands which fuel threshold?

Some thought should also be given to careful
study.

[BreathWeapon]

Fetch Lands seem like a good idea, but that would make playing Wheel of Fortune, Burning Wish and Crop Rotation incredibly difficult. It also decreases the decks ability to abuse Xantid Swarms in the SB, while simultaneously decreasing the MD's flexibility by restricting the possible targets for a Death Wish.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I've never been told just why Tainted Pact wasn't nearly DT-level broken in these decks. Is it the RFG part? Or the potential to fizzle?

[Di]

I've never been told just why Tainted Pact wasn't nearly DT-level broken in these decks. Is it the RFG part? Or the potential to fizzle?

Actually, I think it could be very good. Not like, Consultation good, but good. The odds of it fizzling aren't too high, because there's a high count of 1 of's and not too many "playsets" of cards. That, and the remove from the game part can also be some fun with Death Wish .

[Smmenen]

Alright, i'm trying really hard to break the new Long deck in half and this is what i've come up with so far:

Death Long

Kill (1)
1xTendril's of Agony

Setting Up (10)
4xForce of Will
4xBrainstorm
1xAncestral Recall
1xTime Walk

Search (4)
1xDemonic Tutor
1xDemonic Consultation
1xVampiric Tutor
1xMystical Tutor

I Win (3)
1xYawgmoth's Bargain
1xNecropotence
1xMind's Desire

Wishes (5)
4xDeath Wish
1xBurning Wish

Draw 7's (5)
1xMemory Jar
1xTinker
1xTimetwsiter
1xWindfall
1xWheel of Fortune

Acceleration (9)
4xCabal Ritual
4xDark Ritual
1xCrop Rotation

Mana (23)
1xTolarian Academy
4xCity of Brass
4xGemstone Mine
2xUnderground Sea
1xSol Ring
1xBlack Lotus
1xLotus Petal
7xMoxen
1xMana Vault
1xMana Crypt

Cabal Ritual seems like the best way to go for this deck (Fuck ESG). Its synergy is undeniable with Yawgmoth's Will and the Draw 7's, and the deck is almost primarily Black. I cut the 4 "questionable" Mana Sources, Grim-Spheres-LED, for their inclusion and i'm never going to look back. I figure its time to let LED go, the single copy is incredibly inconsistant and has poor synergy with FoW (U count 15). I'm considering dropping the MD Tendril for either Diminishing Returns or Future Sight, but I figure I shouldn't push my luck with this deck. All in all, it feels like the original Long with a few key changes; -4 Duress +4 FoW, -4 LED +4 Cabal Ritual and -4 Chromatic Sphere +1 Crop Rotation +1 Burning Wish +1 Mox Diamond +1 Chrome Mox. I'm still undecided about FoW over Duress, I figure Duress is better against Cotrol and FoW is more important against Prison. The funny thing is tho', Xantid Swarms are a hundred times better than Duress against Control as a self contained threat ... so I really don't see a place in the MD for Duress anymore.

I too tested 4 Cabal Ritual... But it doesn't solve the fundamental problem: Which is that the deck remains "two-tiered" in that you strategy is: 1) Draw Seven, then 2) Wish -> Yawg Will.  But you can't reverse that order barring the nuts.  The result is that the deck is overreliant on 1) Bargain, Necro, or Desire and 2) as such the Death Wishes are not good in the opening hand - you want to see them after the first draw 7.  Oh, and I HATE Mystical Tutor.

Steve

[BreathWeapon]

I'm not sure where else you can go other than Cabal Ritual, the deck desperately needs another major source of Mana in it to go off. Maybe we should just put Long on the shelf as a decent Tier 2 surprise weapon?

I haven't had any qualms against Mystical Tutor.

[Smmenen]

I agree.  I think its eminently obvious to me that 2-3 Cabal Rituals are a permanent addition to this deck.  However, I think our resources are best spent exploiting remaining brokeness at the moment.  If someone comes up with something to change this, please let me know.  That's one reason I posted this in the first place - I felt I had hit a wall that I could get around.

Steve

[Rico Suave]

What are your thoughts on Chromatic Sphere vs. Helm of Awakening?

[Nehptis]

(Somehow this post sounded like a fortune cookie when I typed it but it gets my point across)

I still say that the answer is to stop banging our heads against the same wall over and over and chose a different path around the wall.  If the path to the wall is marked by finding a suitable mana acceleration replacement for the LEDs then try something else.  Like extending the game by a turn with cards like Time Walk and Peace Talks.  I'm going to keep playing this deck since my meta is well suited to combo.  So, I'll have match results to report with the Peace Talks.

[Rico Suave]

The reason to win first/second turn is to win before your opponent's spells matter.  It's not like an aggro deck is going to race Long, LED or no, but their hate cards can stop you.

Peace Talk is not going to remove their hate, nor is it going to untap your land, nor does it cantrip.  It's also terrible against control, because they'll let it resolve and counter the important spells leaving you with nothing.

[Nehptis]

@Rico Suave: I definitely think you make valid points.  Ones that I have considered, as well.  I'm still going to explore this route because I don't feel that the other direction is gaining any momentum.

BTW, I've tried the Helms / C Sphere build.  I explained in a different thread that when it worked the deck went off easier than pre-restrictions.  But, a lot of times the Helms either slowed me down a turn or got in the way of the combo.

This might be heresey.  But, I've also considered (some Apprentice Testing) testing 2/3 Rectors and 4 Cabal Thers and going more towards a Rector Tendril's build.  I'm considering this for the same reason that you guys have mentioned over and over.  I'll even quote Steve:

The result is that the deck is overreliant on 1) Bargain, Necro, or Desire

....since that's true then why not captilize on it and get the Bargain out ASAP and win.  Plus Cabal Therapies are amazing at stripping hate/control cards from opponents hands.

[Smmenen]

Becuase that leads down the road to Rector.  That is an entirely different deck, and a hybrid has all the weaknesses of both decks, but only part of their strengths.

I dislike Helm.  It almost never speeds me up that much and almost always slows my deck down a turn.

Steve

[carlossb]

If the Helm slows you down, perhaps we could use Mishra´s Workshop over 4 lands.
That way we solve part of the problem of the restriction of LED (lotuses #2-5), and we could use "again" the Chromatic Spheres (maybe necessary to get coloured mana, as we´re cutting 4 sources from the Citys)

That way, the Workshops would work as black lotuses for the Helms, the Chromatic Spheres, the ManaVault, Grim Monolith...
And with the Helms in play, the Cabal Rituals would be amazing.... (and the Will, Wishes.....)

 

[Smmenen]

Heh.  Your sarcasm is not needed thanks.  

I tested Helm and found it dreadfully slow with no real benefit - it was surplusage.

Steve