[article] i hate this place

[jpmeyer]

Here you go, for anybody that didn't check the closed forums for the link or who wants to discuss it.

[Lunk]

From a Type 1 player's perspective, I honestly got very little out of that article.  That said, I know that the average TMD user (ok, so there are some of us that still need to be told that sui-black isn't going to win even your local tournament) wasn't necessarily who the article was aimed at, and for the target audience, I think it's very valuable information.  And "Force of Will be damned - winning is so the best answer in Magic." was hilarious.

Nicely written.

[Nantuko Rice]

Winning is very nice, but I still wouldn't cast a Goblin Ringleader into a Mana Drain.

I would also like to create some senseless bickering:

I think FCG needs to be considered tier 1. Why? Cuz it takes on tog and slaver anyday (barring those games where they draw god hands).

I also notice how all the cards in your "top 10 cards" were mostly blue or mana accelerators. FCG plays none of them (except wooded foothills).  

Nonetheless, good article.

[Dante]

I also notice how all the cards in your "top 10 cards" were mostly blue or mana accelerators.

That's why most of the top decks are blue-based or fully powered....or both..

 

[jpmeyer]

And why so many of my decks start "4 Force of Will, 4 Brainstorm."

[Abakar]

I am stunned by your article jpmeyer, mostly regarding your comments on the usefulness and efficiency of standstill as well as the deck that uses it the most landstill.  I do not know if you've played the deck a few times, but from my experience you do not understand it at all.

I agree with you that standstill in itself is a pretty bad card and that it gives no card advantage when your opponent casts a spell at the end of your turn when you have a full hand, it fact, in this case it is card disadvantageous.  However, should your opponent opt for that option, he will lose, why? It's pretty simple.  Basically if you cast it with 3 cards in hand, your opponent will usually have to wait around 7 turns for you to get a hand with 7 cards (assuming you get 1 land every 2 card which is not unlikely in a deck running about half it's cards as lands), a control deck actually beg you to wait 7 turns to get good board position, if you do that you lose.  Even if you were not to lose to tempo advantage of the deck, you would lose to card quality, discarting cards means you got better quality in your hand which leads to victory.  Seriously, I have rarely lost a game in which my opponent waited more than 3-4 turns to break the standstill... this is what the deck wants. If there was a card "1U: Your opponent will not play any spells until you have 7 cards in hand", I would cut the standstill for that at anytime.

Then you comment on the landstill deck itself, even though it is not clear, I read it that you say the deck is bad because it has synergy but no power, you can corect me if I am wrong about that.  However, right now from what I see, it is one of the best deck right now... personally, I define one of the best deck as one that wins against most "bad decks" as well as against the top decks. To me the bad matchups are : aggro-ctrl (fish, grow, tog) and oshawa stompy which are fought with a good sideboard.  I have been playing the deck for 8 tournaments so far (not that many, but I only count those with 40+ players) and have yet to fail to make top 8, I did not even win so much in the time I played grow-atog w/ 4 gush, a deck I considered to always win.  To deck is not explosive, but it prevents others from being explosive, it stalls them and can react to anything.  To me the most important characteristic of a deck is not explosiveness and power, but stability which landstill has plenty of.

Before commenting on a deck, you should really test it and make sure you fully understand it otherwise your comments will be inapropriate.

[jpmeyer]

If you don't have a lot of cards in hand, you're not going to be able to win a counter war over a draw spell, but if you have a lot of cards in hand then people won't fight over it since they can break it EOT.  Also, if your opponent has more cards in hand than you and they're a control deck, they probably have a favorable board position and Standstill doesn't benefit you and may even backfire.  The only other position is if both of you just tried to blow your load in some big counterwar, in which case the board is even and your opponent can wait to break it.

And since a lot of Landstill's answers are 1-for-1 or better (and since it's a control deck,) it should have more cards in hand than its opponent if it's against an aggro deck or a Workshop deck, so they can also try to break it EOT.

[yodoblec]

Many times Landstill won't have that high of a hand count due simply force of will and misd. Balance will also do that sometimes if you want to set that up.

[eric]

I am not here to rain on jpmeyer's parade. "I hate this place" is a great article. That said, here are a few things on "Rotations:"

In Standard, cards rotate out. That's it. Never play with them again. In Vintage, they don't. That's it. Play with them at your own peril.

jpmeyer's point about old sets being reduced to just a few cards is true. New cards come along, and make old cards comparatively less efficient. Whole decks are wiped out this way. But look at Bazaar. Squee (and some decks) made it a $100 card instead of a $20 card. Same for Mishra's Workshop.

These cards existed before deckbuilders figured out how to use them the way we all use them today; they existed before the designers printed new cards that pushed them over the edge. Can you play Workshop in Standard? How about Bazaar in Standard?

To come at this another way: Force of Will was good the day it was printed. If Force of Will was reprinted, it would still be good in Standard; then it would rotate out. Elvish Spirit Guide, however, is just now seeing resurgence in Vintage because it speeds up decks. It was always there, but new cards and more sophisticated deckbuilders made it playable.

I'll admit, no tournament Vintage deck is going to run Grizzly Bears over Wild Mongrel, but Magus of the Unseen "rotated" in; you never know.

's and "s fixed. Please don't paste straight from MS word.
-Jacob

[Zanetanos101]

Question for JPMeyer, when you put in the Tiers, under Tier 2 it said U/G madness, with our without bazaars?

[yodoblec]

U/G Madness can live without Bazaar just as dragon can, it's just harder. When LED got restricted it didn't affect U/G as much as I thought it would.

[Dr. Sylvan]

When JP is talking about UG Madness, there's no Bazaar involved. He won Columbus with it some time in the past month.

[Zanetanos101]

Ok thanks, I was just checking.

[dicemanx]

If you don't have a lot of cards in hand, you're not going to be able to win a counter war over a draw spell, but if you have a lot of cards in hand then people won't fight over it since they can break it EOT. Also, if your opponent has more cards in hand than you and they're a control deck, they probably have a favorable board position and Standstill doesn't benefit you and may even backfire. The only other position is if both of you just tried to blow your load in some big counterwar, in which case the board is even and your opponent can wait to break it.

And since a lot of Landstill's answers are 1-for-1 or better (and since it's a control deck,) it should have more cards in hand than its opponent if it's against an aggro deck or a Workshop deck, so they can also try to break it EOT.

This all sounds good in theory, but in practice it seems to turn out differently. Landstill is able to develop board position very effectively under Standstill, while it's difficult for most other decks to match Landstill in terms of land drops. If you wait too long in order to reach a situation where you will force the Landstill player to draw their cards at the end of their turn and cause a discard, you will typically be way behind in terms of mana development, which is extremely important in control vs control battles. Furthermore, much of Landstill's power comes from Disks, which can single-handedly obliterate many decks out there. It is hardly reliant on 1-for-1 removal, although sometimes it loses attrition wars in such a manner. This doesn't make the deck weak or lower tier.

In my opinion, there is too much emphasis placed on either the potential for explosiveness of a deck (like Workshop Slaver), or its ability to say "no" to opponent's threats or draw cards. 4 FoW and 4 Mana Drain doesn't automatically turn your deck into a countermagic machine, even if your deck is packed with much card drawing (like Hulk). Landstill can manage just fine against such decks. It might not dominate them, but it can compete.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Also, if your opponent has more cards in hand than you and they're a control deck, they probably have a favorable board position

I've seen people lose to Fish-esque decks with a full hand many times.  People can think of standstill as a bad card all they want, but like so many other cards (draw 7's, lock parts), they're simply not symmetrical in the decks that play them.