Question and Answer thread.

[Azhrei]

This used to be in the old forums, and I'm reopening it. What you do here is post a question about deck theory or something similar, and a moderator will edit a response into your post in bold. This is not a discussion thread, so don't get into conversations about things and don't go off topic. I've had a lot of requests to bring this back, and here it is. Rules questions and the like should be included in the appropriate mill.

Please remember to SIGN your edits, moderators.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I'm unsure why Duress is optional in Hulk Smash. Under what conditions should it be run or left out? Is this a matter of balancing the dangers from Slavery and FCG?

Who says it's optional? Whoever does either has a very warped metagame or is incompetent.

-- Azhrei

From: here:

Re: inherent flexibility of Tog:
I mentioned this explicitly, but look at the decklist. Beyond the core 11-12 draw spells and Intuitions and Togs, the deck is essentially whatever you want it to be. You can have Wastelands, or you don't have to. You can have Duress, or you don't have to. You can run whatever you bloody want - it is the ultimate flexible deck with the ultimate win condition that wrecks both Prison and Aggro strategies and becuase its win condition is bigger and badder than anything the other deck proposes.

For a while, I wasn't running Duress maindeck because the metagame I was in was so full of crappy decks that Smother was almost always a better card to be running in game one. However, if you plan on playing in an environment where good people play good decks, 3-4 Duress are a must simply because Duress becomes better the better the deck you are facing is.

-- Azhrei

[Rico Suave]

How many black sources should you run if you have 4 Duress and hopefully wish to reliably cast them first turn?

With 4 Duress you have a 40% chance to see one on the first turn. To "guarantee" that you have black mana available, you'd want about 9-10 sources so that 1 in 6 cards will be a source of black mana. For example, Hulk ran Jet, Lotus, 4 Seas, and 5 Fetches-- so 10 sources with Lotus as a kicker.

-- Azhrei

[Jhaggs]

Why do some top deck makers build a deck with 61 cards?  Granted that this is rare, yet from time to time I have seen some quality players opt to go with that extra card.  I was hoping that you could comment on the thought process behind this.  I am a firm believer that anything over 60 cards is "strictly bad" due to the obvious fact that you lower your percentages in drawing into your deck's best spells.  Is this percentage decrease too minor to be considered? Is there a rule of thumb in adding that extra card?

DON'T DO IT!  Going over 60 is a sign of an untuned deck.  Period. -jpmeyer[/color]

Theoretically there are reasons to go over 60, but the work involved with actually proving that it helps in any way is on the scale of sending a man to the moon. So if anyone tells you that it's better for their deck to go over sixty cards, they're either:

a) possesed of a mind that puts Einstein to shame (in which case, why are they bothering with a stupid game?)
b) they're lying through their teeth (most probable)
or c) they're incompetant and should not be listened to.

Regardless, for all practical purposes, jp's right. --Matt[/color]

[Tank]

I'm a firm believer in the whole "controle rulez" theory. I have yet to have a deck, apart from ym cleric-pain (weird T2) and White Weenie (again, T2), that doesn't pack half-a dozen counterspells AT LEAST!

Now, my problem is that I play keeper in vintage. I'v played it at one (1!) tournament so far, because my area generellty sucks fo vintage-palyers, but that's beside the point. My problem is, that I've been playing a scepter-keeper thingie. It should've been doing better than it did at the tournament, especially since noone (out of 72 players!) played keepatog.

Now, my question is this: what the f***ing h*ll have I done wrong? Why do I keep losing to bloody welder-mud variants of Stax and weird landstill decks? I played with 11 counter-spells (4 drain, three CS, 4 Force of will), 2 morphlings, a decree, 3 moxes, recall, lotus and time-walk. I played 2 brainstorm, fetches and intuion+accumulated knowledge.

Why do i keep losing? It seems like I just couldn't get controle over the board I've considered playing factories maindeck to be able to stop landstill, but that leaves me with only 2 fetches and 7 lands that produce colored mana. I've considered playing hyrkuls recall to set welder-crap back a few turns, but I just can't make the deck run, especially with the factories taking all my colored mana.

Anyways, is the situation just generally bad when you put a scepter-keeper up against these types of decks, or is just me who can't play/draws like sh*t? An answer would be greatly appreciated (I'll give you a decklist if you need). Thanks!!

~Tank

I'd recommend starting a thread on your deck. It sounds like you've got a few things that could be improved (cut counterspell, cut morphlings for decrees, intuition/AK is probably bad in "keeper", a few others). It's really going to be impossible to address fully in here.
-Jacob

First off, go to 4 Brainstorm.  I like can't start a deck nowadays without "4 Brainstorm."  That said, one of the most important things to learn is that you don't necessarily need to have complete, iron-clad control against your opponent in order to win.  This is really evident against Workshop decks, where the most important thing for a control deck to do is to get out a threat that will win the game (either literally or figuratively) in a few turns as quickly as you can.  For Tog, this is Tog, and for Keeper it's either a Scepter with Disenchant or a good-sized Decree that you fueled with Mana Drain.  Workshop decks really can't hurt you that much if you have a good clock against them since it still will probably take them a few turns to ever clear the threat away with Smokestack.

Another good way to learn this is to watch or play in some drafts.  Unless you have a deck that's really able to stall for a while until it can cast some really swingy bombs, what happens a lot is that you have to try to plan out how quickly you can race your opponent based on an unstable board.

-jpmeyer

[ganandorf]

do you think that P9 is absolutly neccisary for Ninja Mask? Im not sure becuse it does run pretty slowly without it. if so, what can be left out and what cant?

The basic truth is that while you CAN run a deck without its normal p9 component, it's going to be much weaker and much worse. I don't think anything can really be "left out" as you say; it really comes down to how underpowered are you willing to go and still want to play the deck? I personally opt to not play anything I can't fully power.

-- Azhrei

Every deck that uses power uses it in different ways.  For instance, not having all the Moxes isn't so bad in Tog since you can always run like 3 Moxes, a Sol Ring, and a Mana Crypt or something like that and it probably won't be much different.  Tog might even be able to get away without Ancestral, but Keeper never would.  Then again, Tog really really needs its Time Walk and I wouldn't play it without one.

With Mask, it's really important to have Moxes so that you can cast Mask or Survival either before your opponent has counter mana up or so that you can Duress and follow up with a Mask or Survival.  Otherwise, it becomes a lot harder to win as quickly as you need to.

-jpmeyer

[Grand Inquisitor]

Since its the recent flavor, can I have some commentary on why or why not to include the following in Hulk (assume 4-color version):

*obviously much of this is metagame dependent, but lets assume a wide-open competitive metagame such as Dulemen, Waterbury, or on a smaller scale, Ohio or NJ*

Merchant Scroll

I'd have to vote no on this one, simply because you can add a draw spell to this slot instead or run another Intuition if you really want to.

I'll say no too, but this is more because there really isn't space for it.  Most of your draw is pretty redundent anyway so you'd probably just be better off adding Gush or FoF or something there instead.

Mind Twist

Yes.

Yes.  It can randomly win against aggro and combo, and it's the spell that you probably need to force through against control to win.

Gush

You can run this if you want a slightly more aggro feel, though I never did once it was restricted.

I'm going to experiment with running one of these over the 24th mana and see how it turns out.  I figure I can put it there since it could be used there to ramp up mana.

Gorrilla Shaman

In an environment where you expect a lot of artifact decks it's certainly a good choice.

If you've got red in the deck, I might run this over Deed maindeck.

Firestorm

No.

If everyone is actually being truthful and not just trying to mess with my head, this is as good as I thought it would be.  I would probably run it over BEB (or if you have sort of rotating slot, try it there) but not over something like Smother

# of Deep Analysis

Four after boarding.

Four if you can fit four.  I can never figure out what to cut in order to go up to 4 DA, 4 Duress and at least 3 B2B.

Xantid Swarm

I never liked this card; it had surprise value at first but shouldn't significantly affect anyone good now.

It's not that good.  My SCG article explained why, but basically you can't really take advantage of it early on and later on it just does the same thing as Duress.

--jpmeyer
--Azhrei

These are, in my mind, the most questionable slots in a deck that is starting to become well defined as the best in the format (again).

[Ric_Flair]

I am not sure if this was asked on the Q and A thread on TMD1.  I will ask it again because I think it is worth asking.  What metagame conditions give rise to the optimal time to run a transformation sideboard?  

In my mind Oath seems like a good candidate for making up such a sideboard in a deck that has trouble with creatures like GAT.  Any thoughts?

I think the time of transformational sideboards is probably ending.  One of the biggest factors in this are the Wishes.  The presence of Wishes makes it so you don't need to have nearly as many (and in many cases, any) really dead cards in your deck.  Without dead or almost dead cards, it becomes significantly harder to be able to scrounge up the 10-12 slots that you need for a transformational sideboard.  The fact that the Wish targets will probably take up like 8 slots doesn't help either.

Combo decks used to be the best places for transformational sideboards because they used to have a large engine component that you could cut if you feared hate.  These decks however were running fairly standard mana bases outside of their combo and still had good numbers of draw and disruption.  Trix and High Tide are great examples of this.  But now, you either have a deck like Draw-7 combo where you'd have to cut like 30 cards in order to transform or something like Belcher combo where in addition to your Living Wish targets, your "combo" is only 4 cards so you'd have to probably cut mana.

-jpmeyer[/color]

[Jhaggs]

How do the formats top players properly define what the meta game will be for tournaments and then how do they use this information to construct the sideboard?  Local metas where you see certain decks routinely, are a little more predictable but I am referring to larger venues such as themanadrain.com Open or GEnCOn.  Do these top players just review recent tournament results to see what is popular?  Do they review the top decks in each deck category (combo/aggro/contol/control-aggro/combo-control) and then pick appropriate SB cards?  How accurate can they be in predicting what the top decks should be for a top 8?  Once they have a grasp on what the meta may look like, how do they turn this information into a 15 card sideboard?  Are there certain keys that must be addressed first like hating a bad matchup?  What constitutes applying "new tech" into a SB rather than cards to hate other decks?

EDIT:  This is definitly the weakest part of my game.  I usually can forge a SB that can help out a lot of my expected matches but I tend to get blind sided at times.

Typically, what we do first is look at top 8s to see what decks are popular and then test our existing decks against them.  If we find that we'll beat them, we won't bother allocating specific SB slots towards those decks.  We also try to use new or different tech in our SB because we assume that people have not brainstormed or tested as much as us.  Now, if you don't really explore your options, this backfires since if your opponent did more work than you.

One of the most important factors is that we trust our testing even more than any tournament results or messageboard hype.  This can even surprise teammates, such as at the Columbus Mox tourney last month when our opponents with Stax were baffled by the ease with which our Tog decks were able to 2-0 them.

And anything else is probably covered here.

-jpmeyer[/color]

[warpdragon]

Ive never seen Keeper in action, so is Fire/Ice used for for fire or ice?

Both.  Against things with a bunch of fat creatures, you'll Ice the creature during their attack step so as to not take a chunk out of your life total.  It can also be possibly be used to tap a key land (Workshop during their upkeep or someone's second blue mana source to cut off Mana Drain) or other annoying permanent.  Of course, you could always take out a Welder and one to the head, or a Lackey and one, or various other options.

However.  In the current metagame Swords does a lot more than Fire/Ice since either the creatures are too big for it (most of TnT's threats, Dragon) or require immediate destruction (Lackey, Welder) so that you need the cheaper spell.  Fire/Ice is really just to toss on an Isochron Scepter and make yourself very annoying.

kirdape3 [/b]

[Dr. Sylvan]

With Psychatog rapidly emerging as a deck with few tough matchups and no really bad ones, what are the remaining reasons to play Keeper? Familiarity and playstyle?

What matchups would you consider significantly better for a Keeper player than a Hulk player?

There are no acceptable reasons to play Keeper. Play style should be modified to play a superior deck. Sentimentality is secondary to victory in tournament conditions. Keeper is in every valuable way drastically inferior to Hulk, since they have comparable countermagic but Hulk has fewer dead cards and land, much more draw, more speed, a lower curve, and a faster earlier victory condition. The only reason to even think about Keeper is denial of reality.

It's really sad that Hulk is finally catching on after a year and a half of being the best deck, including a GenCon win. It's nearly as sad as the fact that only a couple people play Venguer Masque, which is easily one of the other top decks in the format.

Keeper probably has an advantage against Mask because it can run StoPs, but that's about all it has and Hulk has Smother

-- Azhrei

I was talking about this with Zherbus last week and what it seems like is that Keeper creates a vicious cycle with itself in deck construction.  In order to fit in more of Keeper's "options," you pretty much have to cut draw and maybe some counters.  Now that you've cut draw, you can't run Psychatog as your win condition, so this means that you need to run a slower kill.  Now that you've got a slower kill, you need to buy more time in order to win with it and you need to protect it for a longer period.  And then to do that, you need to cut draw for more options, even though now you have few counters and a less likely chance to draw them because of your decreased draw to protect the slower clock.  And because you had to cut draw, it'll take a longer amount of time to draw into those extra counters/options that you need which gives your opponent more time to possibly recover.

Maybe if like Balance and Exalted Angel became SUPER GOOD it'd be worth it but until then, nope!

-jpmeyer

[Purple Hat]

What do you see as the flaws of vengeur masque in the current metagame?

is the black heavy more aggressive version of survival-mask deck (Ninja) better then the more controling white versions?  if so, why or why not?

Both the biggest strength of Vengeur Masque and the biggest weakness in it is that it's a real "55%" deck.  It doesn't really have any matchups that are really tough, but you also can't count on just having a bye against anything.  While you can get random land, Mox, Mox,Mask, Naught, win hands, you're basically banking on lots of solid play to take it to the top 8.

In terms of which is better, the black splash tends to be stronger against control for Duress while the white splash is better against Workshop because of Devout Witness.  They're about even against combo, with Duress and Meddling Mage being pretty equal.[/color]

[Dr. Sylvan]

Rector and Dragon are two very similar decks in terms of their vulnerabilities, so why might one run rampant one month and another the next?

I'd say personal preference is a decisive factor here. However, in general, Dragon is the better deck, since it has more resilliance to hate, and a much better engine in general (Bazaar > Rector). Also, it seems to me  Dragon has been much more rampant than Rector, but I'm sure you got some nice stats to prove me wrong? - flingz0r

Well, February, for instance, had 5 Rector Tendrils/Trix (1,3,5,8,8) and 2 Dragon (3,3).

I'll said it before and I'll say it again. You have a very small sample size for your tables. You might have processed all the big T1's, but there's only a few, which could lead to strange mutations. But like I said, it's probably personal preference of a specific player in one of the tournaments.

You use a lot of european results, so there might be some skewing based on people simply not owning bazaars
-Jacob

[Jhaggs]

I was hoping if someone could explain exactly how a player seizes "duel" roles in Zvi's revised "who's the beatdown" model.  (I can't find a link to his article either).  If you are running a control-combo deck like Hulk, aren't you pretty much always going to play the control role up until you combo out?  How does Hulk seize duel roles, or can it?  If it can, is that duel role aggro or combo?  Perhaps, Hulk isn't the best deck to show how a player can grab 2 roles at the same time.  If so, could you list a couple that can?  Finally, I was hoping if you could address when a player knows that he should go after both roles.  What triggers this decision or does it just play out that way?

Side note:  Props again on this thread.  Being able to ask questions knowing that the answers are extremely creditable is an amazing resource.  Thanks

The example you gave above really isn't that much of an example of dual roles, interestingly.  If Tog counters some spells, draws some cards, plays a Tog, and then kills, that's pretty much just playing as a control deck the entire time.  Now, if Tog was playing against say Keeper and the decks had a drawn-out fight and then suddenly Tog draws their 4th AK and just explodes from there, then it switched to combo.  Also, against a deck like TnT, Tog may look like it's playing the control route, but it's actually playing the combo route.  Here, it's using Mana Drain purely as an accelerant and using Force of Will as it's "oh shit" button (just like a combo deck) instead of how a control deck uses those in order to stay alive/protect its stuff/etc.  It's kind of a tricky line.

Slaver is probably a better example of playing the dual roles.  You can sit there drawing cards, killing creatures, Chalice'ing away spells and so on like a control deck.  You can just drop a turn 2 fattie and attack 4 times like a beatdown deck.  And you can get Welder with either Pentavus/Jar/Slaver/etc. and be like a combo deck.

[Aniodia]

Hey, guys. I was wondering, exactly, how one would go about making a team for Magic. Are there forms to fill out, do I need sponsors, how many people do I need to rope together, does it cost money to start a team, etc. Any help on this subject would be appreciated.

Most of the time, when people talk about teams, they mean usually regional groups that get formed mostly for playtesting purposes.  The only kind of teams that get any kind of sponsorship are some pro teams.[/b]

[Dr. Sylvan]

What are the theoretical guidelines for how much card-drawing should go in a deck? Is there a rule of thumb for how much should be used? For instance, when is a deck all draw and no action (Hulk might be a maximal case)? Is it still possible in Type One to have a deck with no draw engine?

 Let's answer the last question first.  A deck with no draw engine will often be forced to live off the top of their deck, with the predictable results of not drawing enough action fast enough to do much.  All the good decks have some way of drawing cards, and the best two (Slavery and Tog) both have ways of drawing cards and ways to reuse cards already expended.

Drawing cards is by far the best mechanic in the game.  Any deck with the option of adding in drawing is almost automatically better because of it.  I could not fathom a top-flight deck in ANY constructed format without the ability to draw cards.

After that, you still have to have a deck.  Tog works very well since it's literally just Tog, counters, Wishes, and drawing.  The drawing really is the basis of that deck, one reason it's so damned good.  Slavery however became amazing when people added in Brainstorm and additional draw to the Workshop base.[/b]

[Fëanor]

OK, here's one for the M:TG paragons

What is the fate of Last Word in T1 extreme competitive? Is it simply way too expensive to be used at all, or does it have some sort of unseen use?
First time I saw the card It seemed like, while the can't be countered clause was eye catching, it was simply another T2 player's weapon in the low counter count of Mirrodin block. But think, where are uncounterable cards more useful? T1 of course.

Peace

I think it suffered the same fate as Chalice of the Void, where it really was best against decks that you probably shouldn't need to bother with.  Theoretically, it's a perfectly sound Wish-target.  You can fetch it at your leisure and then be absolutely sure that that Mind Twist/Will/Balance won't resolve, which is important since those are singleton "I win" cards so it's difficult really to even bait them.  But ultimately, it probably is just unnecessary.[/b]

[jpmeyer]

This is not a discussion thread, so don't get into conversations about things and don't go off topic. I've had a lot of requests to bring this back, and here it is. Rules questions and the like should be included in the appropriate mill.

[Jhaggs]

What are the established guidelines in constructing a mana base?  How does a top player know when he/she has provided enough colored mana sources to adequatley represent a color in a multi-colored build?  What is the correct number of fetchlands to use when running 2 colors? 3 colors? 4 colors? What is the train of thought when deciding to shave the amount of a duel land from 4 to 3?

I realize that this question has probably been asked 1,000 times but I have noticed such a wide variety of mana source count inside top type 1 builds and was curious to see if there was some sort of pattern: Control runs X sources, Combo runs X sources, Aggro runs X sources, 3 colored decks run X sources with X amount of fetchlands to even out the mana base, ect, ect.

The way I have always done it is to figure out how many of a particular source I want to draw in my opening hand.  Typically, I want at least 2 mana sources, so that's at least 20 in the whole deck (2/7 cards). If I want 2 on the low end but more often 3, then I'll run somewhere around 24 (24/60 is 2/5, which is close to 3/7). 3-4 mana sources to start gets you Keeper's normal 28 mana sources.

As far as getting a particular color, there are ways to determine what the odds of drawing a particular land are in however many turns. If I want UU on turn 2 every time, then 16 sources is decent. If I only need U, then I can use fewer. If I need G, but only later in the game, then I can get away with only a couple sources. If I need B, but I always want to get B as soon as possible but will only need B and rarely BB, then I can run around 10 sources and be okay (1/6 cards will produce B, 7 cards in hand and 60 in deck total). Fetchlands basically let you count them as different sources of different colors. Running a blue deck with 4 Tundra and 4 Underground Seas and 6 blue Fetchlands functionally gives you about 9-10 sources of blue or black, and about 14 sources of blue alone. There's not really a formula other than "How often do I need this, and how soon?" The rest you can solve with very basic math.

-- Azhrei

P.S. Guys, sign your edits

[Blackest Lotus]

I've started playing a Workshop deck. I was wondering if there are things that all Workshop players need to take into consideration. For example, I have the option to play a first turn Tangle Wire against my opponent, should I cast it now or wait till I have a more perms out? Things like that. I'm playing Stax and I have found the number of choices to be intimidating, the deck is unexpectedly difficult. When to mulligan has been a problem as well. Thanks for all your help.

I advocate mulliganing aggressively the first time. Going down to six cards should be comfortable, since if you don't have enough gas to begin with you might lose before you can even play. My rule of thumb is that if I can't do something explosive OR lack a stable hand (e.g. 3 land, a FoW, a Brainstorm, a Mana Drain, and something else), mulligan. Every deck tries to do something-- if your opening hand doesn't let you do it, try again.

I'd generally say a first turn Tangle Wire is a good call, simply because Vintage is so fast that even costing someone a turn or two can be a huge difference. If you can lay a few Moxen and a Workshop, definitely.

-- Azhrei

[KboT]

Well, I have a question since I am kinnda new to the whole 'Vintage Online'..

Who are the Paragons? Who belongs to this group and what excatly where they put in place for..?

Anywho, thanks in advance,
~ BoT.

An old team that doesn't really play much anymore but still like to answer these questions.

A team of players I assembled a few years ago out of people I felt represented the elite at that time. Since then, a number of us have left Magic or have put Magic on the back burner, and while we're no longer the sole authority on Vintage deckbuilding, we did have 3 members in the T8 at GenCon this past year. But, all in all, it's just a team name that was chosen mostly to tweak the noses of the insecure-- several of us just like to share our knowledge and talk theory, so members of the team are fairly prolific writers or online personalities. For example, I sold my cards a while ago, but I still like to do helpful things like this thread, hopefully.

-- Azhrei

[ganandorf]

what do you think is the neccisary amount of blue spells needed to be able to include Force of Will? right now my Ninja Mask deck is running 13, including the forces, and Im finding that its just not enough. too often Ive pulled up a force and not seen another blue spell, or the only other blue spell would be a shapeshifter that I needed.

It depends on how many times you plan on casting Force of Will.  If you only need to cast it once, like in say, Dragon, you can get away with only running around 13 blue cards.  In a deck like Mask though, you might need to cast it more than once (combined with the fact that you can't really count Shapeshifter as a blue card since that's what you'd probably need to protect with Force) so I like to use 16 as a general rule.

-jpmeyer[/color]

[Yare]

Do Nether Void decks honestly have any chance of ever being any competitive again?  Was that WB Void 1st place a fluke (Mol 4-4 on Morphling.de), or does it actually have some potential?  Or is it just in decline at the moment? Thanks guys.

Nether Void was really good back when Black Vise was unrestricted and four Strip Mines were expected.  Since then, the restrictions of these two staples as well as the refinement of the format has left most Nether Void decks at a serious disadvantage.  Most of the powerful decks in the format have things that Void just does not deal with well (Psychatog, Goblin Welder), while the disruption of most Void decks has been neutralized by cards that other decks will commonly run (Brainstorms and Fetchlands kill discard and landkill pretty well).  The deck just isn't threatening enough when Duress/Hymn/Sinkhole can be played around pretty well and Goblin Welder is almost a concession on its own.  Adding green or white gives you only a minimal ability to deal with those factors that make the deck almost unplayable.

kirdape3 [/b]

[Nocturnal]

Why do Workshop-based decks use Trinisphere over Chalice of the Void?  
In what matches would Chalice be better than Trinisphere?
Which is better against Psychatog?

Trinisphere took the attention away from Chalice because Chalice was really only at its best against bad decks.  For example, what are you supposed to name with that against say, 7/10 Split and have it actually do anything?

-jpmeyer[/color]

[TimeBeing]

Running Basic Germbus Keeper with say this Sample sidebaorded
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast  
SB: 3 Flametongue Kavu  
SB: 2 Rack and Ruin  
SB: 1 Damping Matrix  
SB: 1 Disenchant  
SB: 1 Gush  
SB: 1 Vampiric Tutor  
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares  
SB: 1 Skeletal Scrying  
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast

I'm haveing problems decideding what to side out versus
Keeper/Bus
TOG
Madness
WelderMUD

Thanks
steve

This is something worthy of beginning a new topic in the open t1 forum.
- Kowal[/color]

[Law]

Ok I know a place thats selling Fourth Edition turny packs (you know the 75 card one). The place has three left. So would it be worth picking up one or two of the turny packs (for cards like lighning bolt, ect..)? If it is I hope at least two stay around so I can bye them.

No.  What would even be in them that would be of any value? -jpmeyer[/color]

Like I said lightning bolt, and other type one cards that are commonly used.

No one even plays Bolt anymore. 4th edition isn't worth buying; it'd be cheaper just to pick up the specific cards you want.

Thanks you two. Now I know to trade from the people that do get them. That or go on ebay for the ones I need.

Revised would be another story. -Matt[/color]

[Ric_Flair]

Suppose one was designing a new control deck or tweaking an old one and searching for a draw engine.  Under what circumstances is one of the following preferred over the other and why?

Option 1:  AK/Intuition a la Hulk
Option 2:  Skeletal Scrying a la 4c Control
Option 3:  Thirst of Knowledge a la Control Slaver/GAT

NOTE:  This is assuming that the 4 Brainstorm/Fetch draw engine will be in the deck and IS NOT OPTIONAL.

As a side question, how many artifacts need to be in a deck to make Thirst of Knowledge worthwhile.

The best draw engine for your deck really depends on what you want it to do. AK/Intuition is probably the best (most explosive and really consistent) draw engine actually available in Type One, but has two majors drawbacks : It's rather weak in the mirror, and It eats 6 or 7 slots in your deck. In the current metagame, using AK is a though call considering Tog is probably the deck which is the most suited to abuse it since It has a good synergy with Psychatog too.  The second drawback also has to be considered. If you want to design your deck as a Control deck with a Combo kill (such as in Tog or the old Shining), then using the AK/Intuition engine is fine because you don't need slots for removal. This is why 4cControl is forced to use a *weaker* draw engine:  4cControl needs slots for Swords to Plowshares, Balance and Fire/Ice, and used Skeletal Scrying, which can draw as many cards as Intuition/AK over the game, while only eating 3 or 4 slots.

I would never use Thirst for Knowledge in a deck that does not use Goblin Welder. GAT does a suboptimal use of Thirst for Knowledge. 3 manas for drawing 2 cards is too slow for Type One. And It's bad if you have no artifact in hand, even if you are discarding a Deep Analysis.

For your side question, my only criterium is whether or not the deck uses 4 Goblin Welder. If yes, then Thirst for Knowledge is worth playing. If not, then 0 Thirst for Knowledge is fine.

Toad

[Serin]

I've been wondering if its any useful to put cards in your SB to hose cards that your opponens might SB.
For example, if you play a deck that gets totally hosed, for example, by Chalice of the Void or Null Rod (you could vary the casting costs of the cards and other things, but this is just an example for Anti-SB Sb's) should you include some artifact hate in your SB, because of the fear of your opponents playing with SB Chalice?

I think there's a low probability that, if your opponent is playing that certain card in their SB, that he will play it in the second game, and you will have your SB'd answer, but maybe its the only way to fight their SB.

PS: Its really hard for me to explain my thoughts in english, but I hope you understand me

This is most relevant for combo decks, where people can and will SB in cards that completely shut you down. For example, when Dragon was popular, people would run Tormod's Crypt, Ground Seal, and other hosers. Dragon responded by running Pernicious Deed and Chain of Vapor in the side--not because they were particularly useful against opposing maindeck spells, but because they were necessary to avoid just losing to SB hate.
Similarly, Long would run Hurkyl's Recall in the side, because it could bounce any number of Chalice of the Voids. Echoing Truth is another option for modern combo decks, because it can bounce all copies of any annoying SB card, whether it's root maze, chalice, null rod, or something else.
-Jacob

I assume you're referring to affinity decks being crushed by Rod/Shaman/both? If so, yeah, you need SOMETHING to combat Null Rod, especially if you won the first game. IT's just too common and too devastating to leave unaswered.
-Matt

[Sarcasmic]

I feel kinda weird opening up this old thread, but I figured it's stickied for a reason.

Anyhoo, here's my question.  I've recently decided to give combo a try and built a build of TPS to practice with.  It's obviously notoriously difficult to play, and I'm discovering these nuances through playtesting and goldfishing.  What I really have problems with is when to mulligan.  What should my opening hand consist of?  What are the elements that, if missing, should force a mulligan?  So far I've noticed draw of any sort (Bargain, Ancestral, whatever) is key.

Also, what are the ideal tutor targets?  Or at least some general guidelines for when to tutor for what.

Thanks for your help!



This is a great question.  The problem is that the correct answer is: It Depends.  WHat does it depend upon?  It depends upon what your opponent is playing, primarily.   With TPS you should be playing to beat your opponent.  This means you should consider the following factors:

* What disruption does the opponent have that can stop you?
* How fast is your opponents deck?
* How fast will it get its disruption online?

With TPS, you should be waiting for the last possible moment in many cases before going off.  Agianst most decks you want a nice margin of safety, but the principle remains - dont' rush the deck if you don't have to becuase your chances of winning will continue to rise as the game progresses.  

Therefore, if you are playing against Stax and they are going first, you will likely need to be looking for a hand with FOW or with basic lands so that you can Hurkyl's a Trinisphere + Chalice up.  If you are playing against something like Mono Blue control, you need to understand that you can't play the control role, so you will have to go off prettty quickly to have any chance at all - so in that matchup its all about pressure.  

Testing can reveal what is needed for each matchup.  Just pay attention to what works and what doesn't.  If you still are confused, let me know.

Smmenen [/color]

[Geet]

Hi,

I hope this is the right place to ask this question.  I have been playing Type 1.5 for a while now, and I am just starting to get into some Type 1 tournaments.  Due to financial constraints, obtaining power will be possible, but gradual for me.  I am just curious as to what order I should obtain them; in other words, which ones are more important?  I mainly play control, sometimes aggro control.  The main deck types I am interested in exploring would be stuff like 4c control, hulk smash, and possibly land still.  I already have the ancestral and a set of drains, so I can actually stand a chance playing right now.  My guess is that next would be between a Mox Sapphire, Time Walk, or Library.  Thanks in advance for your response.

 The first piece of power that is more important to acquire is Black Lotus and Mox Sapphire for someone in your position.  Black Lotus is the hardest to acquire and will continue to rise in price.  Finding one should be a priority for you.  Wait six months and the price will have jumped $50.  Lotuses have tripled in value in the last two years.  Lotus will also enable you to have a good start of nearly any deck.  If you play in a five proxy event, you can play Lotus, X moxen and still have a decent chance.  Black Lotus is the most univesally played card in the format and is played in every deck except for fish.  However, if you can't find one, I suggest trying to find Mox Sapphire and the two blue power.  

Smmenen