Germbus - 4c Exalted Angel Control

[Toad]

Dante, nobody plays Wastelands in Europe apparently, as evidence by these recent Top 8's:
(...)
Paris 04-25-2004 - 7 total Wastelands in Top 8

60% of the field was packing the full set of Wastelands. Top8 are not metagame evidences.

[rozetta]

Dante, nobody plays Wastelands in Europe apparently, as evidence by these recent Top 8's:
(...)
Paris 04-25-2004 - 7 total Wastelands in Top 8

60% of the field was packing the full set of Wastelands. Top8 are not metagame evidences.

Interesting, I just thought of something that might make a good numbers analysis: has anyone checked trends with regards to number of wastelands in top 8 versus the rest of the field? Or whether there's a trend in the number of wastelands in the top 8 of larger tournaments over a period of time (are they increasing or decreasing)? How about performance of the same archetype with more or fewer wastelands?

We've been recently toying with the idea that, in blue-based control decks, running fewer wastes might actually be beneficial. It would be nice to point to some analytical figures along those lines...

I suspect that Crucible of Worlds, if it's taken into use, may affect this whole thing, but that's a subject of deep discussion too.

[jpmeyer]

While it is soooooooooooo taboo to even suggest playing a deck in a different way, why don't people just think of the fast Angel play as the primary play and then Balance/Will as the backup?  It seems like you could get more random easy game wins like that.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Interesting, I just thought of something that might make a good numbers analysis: has anyone checked trends with regards to number of wastelands in top 8 versus the rest of the field? Or whether there's a trend in the number of wastelands in the top 8 of larger tournaments over a period of time (are they increasing or decreasing)? How about performance of the same archetype with more or fewer wastelands?

I seriously doubt that the non-Top 8 information exists for most of the tournaments in the past year, unless TOs archive decklists that they don't publish online. If the info exists, I'll take a stab at it, but I can't even get 100% reporting on the Top 8, so I remain skeptical.

Wasteland itself in Top 8s is easy enough. You might as well have typed "Paging Dr. Sylvan." :)

(Expressed in occurrences per T8.)

Q4 2003 : 9.0
2004-01 : 16.4
2004-02 : 4.9
2004-03 : 12.9
2004-04 : 12.1

By deck? I don't have it for every deck, but at least Hulk and Keeper, which account for 19.7% of all decks (and a lot of Wastes), look like this, up to and EXCLUDING April: (Insert "Shazam!" word indicating the magical appearance of requested data.)

Keeper: (Strip Mine is 100% used in all 21 decks.)

X_XXXX_-X_XXX-X_X-XXXXXX 1st Wasteland
X_XXXX_-X_XXX-X_X-XXXXXX 2nd Wasteland
X_XXXX_-X_X_X-X_X-XXXX_X 3rd Wasteland
_______-_____-___-X_XX_X 4th Wasteland

Hulk Smash:

_X_XX___XXXXX_X 1 Strip Mine
_X_______XXXX_X 2 Wasteland (1st and 2nd)
_X_______XX_X_X 3rd Wasteland
_X_____________ 4th Wasteland

[Dante]

While it is soooooooooooo taboo to even suggest playing a deck in a different way, why don't people just think of the fast Angel play as the primary play and then Balance/Will as the backup?  It seems like you could get more random easy game wins like that.

I assumed this was how you play the deck - get an angel fast because so many decks can't deal with it.  And if they do deal with it, that's why you have 2 more plus a Decree (or 1 more plus 2 Decrees).  (Note by "fast" I mean turn 4 or earlier, which is "fast" compared to previous kill strategies [Decree, Trenches, Morphling]).  On top of that you can bombs like Yag Will, Balance, etc...

Bill

[jpmeyer]

That's why I was figuring that it might just be better to run all 4 Angels to increase your chances of just winning.

[Zherbus]

Why not run 4 Togs in Tog then? 4 Slavers in Slaver?

[jpmeyer]

Well, I thought that Workshop Slaver did run 4.

And the difference between Tog and Angel is that Angel will require 5 turns to kill, so you need to drop it earlier than you need to drop a Tog which while it needs one turn to kill, needs a few turns to have passed first.  Another way to put it is that the process of looking for Tog makes Tog more powerful, but the process of looking for Angel just gives your opponent more time.

[MaxxMatt]

@Zherbus.

Do you think that  this configuration could be playable?
 
+1 Angel ( 4th )
+1 Fire/Ice
-2 StP

If you can lay the Angel faster than before thanks of his redundancy, maybe you have to face only critters, that can be possible to handle with the 2 Fire.
The rest of the game would consist only on countering/removing some of the greatest opponent's treats.


Coincidentally, in this way you have an higher amount of Blu Cards for your FoW, a number that I noticed tend to decrease build after build.
Another aspect that can be considered is that, putting StP in the side, you have less maindeck dead Cards,.

I tried this configuration with the "Fast" mana base that I proposed and with your side. The general plan consist on laying a fast Angel during my first or second turn. It appeared to be possible almost every time an Angel showed up on my initial hand. It is REALLY an huge advantage agaisnt a lot of opponents. The fast life gaining ability of the Angel helps ( sometimes... ) even against Storm.decs too.
 
If preside, Madness could be a Nightmare, I feel better agaisnt Slavery and Hulk and MW.dec.

Post side, your FTK's Tech for the Madness/FatAggro matchups, helped me A LOT  to gain an Huge advantage agaisnt them.

------------

My field have an huge amount of Storm based decks that even the MW.dec are not always able to stop. Our last Top8 showed up 3 TPS.dec and 1 RectalAgony.dec. Really a pain for Keeper with this configuration ( a lot of dead or slow cards ).

Excluding CotVs, that can be easily included in the side, how would you deal with them, if your field would see an increase of their number?

------------

my 2 cents

[Zherbus]

I'm pretty certain most Slaver builds, control or workshop, only run 3. That's neither here or there though.

I guess I was looking at it differently in that drawing a win condition when you're not ready is often worse than not drawing it when you're ready. This touches on the oversimplification of this format in that you should be concentrating on 'just winning' which is often a pretty bad way of formulating a gameplan in either game play or deck building. I think this needs to be examined and discussed and I think this is the best thread to do it.

The reason 'just winning' is that you're assuming your path to winning is superior to the opponents path to winning. It seems like this theory simplifies everything down to the script of "find win condition and then win with win condition". This omits things like 'Psychatog can't counter Animate Dead' and 'Mind Slaver can't get rid of Null Rod'.

My whole premise behind using my 4 win condition slots the way that I do (2 Angel and 2 Decree) is because at times I don't want to be holding Angel. Sometimes I want to filter out a Decree (for 0 or more) EOT to draw something useful... like a Shaman, Fire, Wish, draw spell, or a Plow when there is a Welder on the board. I like it that way because I know that Angel doesn't affect Mind Slaver until it's dealt 20 damage, while an active Welder is much more damaging to me after only one use.

Am I making any sense at all?

[jpmeyer]

Here's one way to look at it:

With Tog, you need to sit there drawing lots of cards and whatnot to make your Tog lethal.  If they try to deal with the Tog himself, they're just countering the Donate.

With Angel, if you drop the Angel mad fast and start beating, they need to try to counter the Donate.  If you're just going to try sitting back, then Angel becomes much less useful than a Decree, since the Decree will probably kill in half the time.  Also, if you go for quick Angel, you can then use your counters to defend the Angel and if you successfully defend the Angel, you're going to win rather than if you go for a late Angel, where you will need to force the Angel out and then still defend it for probably 4 turns.

Now, going back to what I said about the Angels always requiring 4-5 turns, the faster an Angel hits the better, but since a Decree becomes more powerful as the game goes on, the later you see a Decree the better.  Because of this, it seems to me that the ideal setup would be 1 Decree and then 4 Angels.  Therefore, I am almost certain that 2/2 is incorrect.

[Grand Inquisitor]

'just winning' is that you're assuming your path to winning is superior to the opponents path to winning

I think this is should be the focus of how to select the amount and frequency of win conditions in this list.

When playing exalted angel, the focus should be opportunity cost.  You're investing a large amount of mana when you could be answering threats.  This is a sound investment, so long as the angel's life-gain is in and of itself an answer to opponent's threats.  Traditionally, keeper hasn't been able to do this with its win conditions.

Current strategies where this doesn't work are: dragon combo, slaver lock, and artifact lock (if you still consider Stax).  I would consider adding Gobbos and Tog as able to race angel, but I haven't done the testing to know for sure.

I agree with Z, that if you go up to 4x angel, you're forcing your strategy to be pro-active, when every other card in your deck (save mana denial) is reactive.  Given that many of the top decks use win conditions that win faster than angel, it doesn't seem like a widely successful strategy.

If angel was a smaller mana investment (like dryad, for instance), then it would be much more plausible to be able to use counters and wishes to delay your opponent while angel beats down.  However, when you're using angel early, you really have to devote all of your resources for two turns.

I'm sorry if all this is painfully obvious, but I think this is the reason why angel beatdown is only good against a handful of good decks (i.e. those that don't combo), like Gay-R, Madness, GAT, and possibly control slaver (which combos very slowly).

[Zherbus]

With Tog, you need to sit there drawing lots of cards and whatnot to make your Tog lethal. If they try to deal with the Tog himself, they're just countering the Donate.

With Angel, if you drop the Angel mad fast and start beating, they need to try to counter the Donate.

That's a very good way of explaining that, I never had thought of using Necro-Trix to explain it. It's really good for explaining why STP isn't good against Tog, but that's really for another topic.

Also, there is one rather important part missing in that formula. There will be more than dropping Angel, countering obstacles, and winning. Sometimes they don't need to worry about your win condition since theirs ignores a 4/5 flyer. This really just goes back to the whole 'who has the best win condition' arguement.

Another reason why I hadn't gone to 4 Angels (or even 3) is that color balancing is harder than it looks on paper.

@GI - Very well articulated, thanks.

[Windfall]

@MaxxMatt (cutting Swords for 4th Angel and 2nd Fire/Ice)
The problem you run into is that spot removal is needed to help you against creatures that don't damage you by attacking.  Indeed, Angel can help you against aggro decks that just play creatures and attack.  However, it does not help you against early problems such as Shaman and/or Welder.  In the late game, you don't want to draw Angel as an answer to Memnarch.  Thus, I think it's safer to keep the extra spot removal slot to combat both aggro and creatures that don't hurt you by dealing damage.

Re: Fast Angel Strategy
If it works, it works and it's great.  But I can see some problems with trying to do this, especially in a deck that's historically been a reactive control deck based on gaining card advantage.  The first problem is that it's still somewhat uncommon to have a first turn morphed Angel, since you need a Land and 2 accelerants (or a Crypt if you play it, which I think is a good move if you want to play this style) and the Angel.  That's 4 of your first 7 cards, which I think is too much to assume you'll have every game or even every other game.  Thus, you're probably going to be dropping the morphed creature on turn 2, which can happen with regularity, I admit.  So, you tap out on turn two, which is breaking the rule that on turn 2 you play your second blue mana source and pass the turn with Mana Drain in hand.  This gives your opponent a chance to play around Mana Drain.  Eeek.  Then, on your next turn, you need to have a second White mana source to flip the Angel up and start beating.  You're not always going to have 2 white mana that early.  These disadvantages are piling on top of the fact that a 2/2 creature is easy to remove, especially when you're tapped out as it is.  For those of you that say "well, that's what Force of Will is for," please understand that if you Force the removal or whatever on your turn 1-3 Angel, you probably have like 1 card left in your hand after that, which is not a very good position for Keeper to be in on turn 3.

[Zherbus]

@MaxxMatt (cutting Swords for 4th Angel and 2nd Fire/Ice)
The problem you run into is that spot removal is needed to help you against creatures that don't damage you by attacking. Indeed, Angel can help you against aggro decks that just play creatures and attack. However, it does not help you against early problems such as Shaman and/or Welder. In the late game, you don't want to draw Angel as an answer to Memnarch. Thus, I think it's safer to keep the extra spot removal slot to combat both aggro and creatures that don't hurt you by dealing damage.

A simpler way of saying this is Angel doesn't kill Welders and Fire doesn't kill Wild Mongrel.

[MaxxMatt]

I found that Fire works well with "Welder-like creatures" and Angels can deal/race/kill Mongrels.

With your side ( +3 FTK ) and Maindeck Decrees and/or Angels, I don't know how fat opponent's creatures could be such a huge problem for you to feel the need of 2 StP maindeck. And Fire works really close to StP with all the creatures that have to be killed before they lose Summoning Sickness ( Welders, Lackeys, Fishes, Critters, Goblins, Metalworkers and so on ).

For every Artifact Fatties ( from slavery men, to Dreadnaught to Juggies ) I think that all my artifact removals, wished from the side, can do a great job too.

Game 2 and 3 I can move in from the side 1 or 2 StP and all the other specific cards to complete the distruptive plan.

I realized of course that I lose a lot against DARgon and it is the only matchup in which I feel to have a lower winning rate than before. Because of the little number of players with DARgon during these days, I think that the previous suggestions could be some possible changes.

[Toad]

Angels can deal/race/kill Mongrels.

Not when the Mongrel flies.

[MaxxMatt]

---> If my side has Purges, Mongrels and Fats would not Fly/Grow/RunFast at all.
---> If my side has FTKs and StPs, I think that I can race/block/kill Mongrels and Fats with a right combination of these elements.

Of course these are not my theoretic thoughts and calculations about this matchup, but my words consist of precise game-play solutions learned from playing this matchup against different Madness versions ( from Control-Madness to Aggro-Madness, from 2 color madness to 3 color madnes and so on.. ), a bit online but the most during my real life game experiences.

Preside the matchup without StP maindeck is more difficult than before. I can try to resolve an early Wish for StP and then recurr it via Y.WIll or Skeletal/Wish/StP, but it isn't usually a good plan.
Wishing for Purge to get rid of their Squees/Incarnations usually do soooo much better. It let you "contain" the opponent's biggest treats ( Mongrels ) expecially after an Angel resolve. Because of the number of Angels that I'm trying in a similar build of Zherbus's one, I found that one or two of them if needed can be "sacrified" to chump a fat. In this process you gain Lifes to abuse of your Skeletals and one of the last Angels with Balance/Y.Will are usually game.

Post side you can transform yourself in a "ZooWithBrokenSpells". You have a number of treats that can be compared to the Madness'one, your StPs came back to the maindeck and you have Wastes for his Bazaars and Drain for his Wurms.

IMHO and in my experience, it is generally enough to win agaisnt this deck.


On the other hand, I don't know how many frightening non-artifact-creatures, rather than Mongrels, you have to face that canno't be destroyed by a single Fire/Ice. All the artifact creatures commonly used come in to play after an use of a Welder or are finishers that can be usually resolved on turn 3 or 4, when I can use Wishes for Removals with great consistency.


StP is bad against Atog.
StP is bad against Combo and Control.
StP is God against DARgon.
StP is God against Mongrels.

If I have not to fear a lot DARgon because of the lack of his presence in your field and I choose to have an higher winning rate agaisnt Madness POST side, I think that StPs can be switched out for something more versatile and at least Not Dead in every non Aggro Matchup.


I think that this little analysis is not reducing the role of StP in my Keeper Maindeck. It is a good maindeck card for a large and various metagame, but with this "new" configuration, it apperears to be the most sacrificable to create space to other and more sinergic cards with the Duo Skeletals/Angels.


Just my 2 cents

[JACO]

Dante, nobody plays Wastelands in Europe apparently, as evidence by these recent Top 8's:
(...)
Paris 04-25-2004 - 7 total Wastelands in Top 8

60% of the field was packing the full set of Wastelands. Top8 are not metagame evidences.

Toad, I stand corrected. I have just not been seeing a lot of Wastelands in those Top 8's, but perhaps the decks that are rising to the top are simply ignoring them and streamlining their orientation to ignore certain aspects of what the opponent is doing, or their board position.

@MaxxMatt, thanks for those links. Those results are a real eye opener as well, and that site is a great resource for information that I was not aware of.

Here's one way to look at it:
...If you're just going to try sitting back, then Angel becomes much less useful than a Decree, since the Decree will probably kill in half the time.  Also, if you go for quick Angel, you can then use your counters to defend the Angel and if you successfully defend the Angel, you're going to win rather than if you go for a late Angel, where you will need to force the Angel out and then still defend it for probably 4 turns.
...Because of this, it seems to me that the ideal setup would be 1 Decree and then 4 Angels.  Therefore, I am almost certain that 2/2 is incorrect.

JP, if you feel the best path to winning with this deck is to simply drop an early Angel (and therefore playing 4 to increase your chances accordingly), why would you even play Keeper? EBA is more narrow in this aggro-control focus, and seems to be the deck that you really want to play if you're simply all about dropping a quick Angel and beating. The reason Keeper can't afford to use that plan is because, by nature, it is not an aggressive deck, but uses it versatility to combat what the opponent is attempting to do. As pointed out by Toad, doing things like dropping Swords to Plowshares, or solutions, does not help against an Animate Dead targeting Worldgorger Dragon, or a Smokestack with 3 counters on it, or even something as simple as a Goblin Welder or Memnarch. I think it was Dave Price who once said, "there are no incorrect threats, only incorrect solutions" (I could be wrong, someone like JP feel free to correct me and I will edit my post accordingly). By narrowing the focus of the deck too much, and cutting possible solution slots, you decrease your ability to handle a great many decks in the format, which is what Keeper used to pride itself on doing. If you don't want to have a deck that's not as versatile, then seriously take a look at dropping a color and just playing URW or UBW (like EBA, but without the Ophidians and/or Meddling Mages).

[jpmeyer]

To answer your question simply, I don't know.

To elaborate on that, because I don't know if red is better or if Meddling Mages are better.

[Gabethebabe]

I think red is better than Mages.

But as I wrote in the EBA thread in the open forum: Angels are better in EBA, because EBA with Duress and Mages is pro-active, which fits the idea of the Angel better. In many cases you can afford to tap out two turns to play an Angel and flip it, if Duress and Mages have done their work properly.

[Toad]

Note that there are plenty matchups where you can do (should do?) that with Keeper, too.

[CrazyCarl]

I've fiddled around with EBA a bit(think adding Mask of Memory, soooooo good), but decided to go back to GermBus(god we need a better name than this).  The main reason is Balance, but the rest of the deck is pretty good, but that's not what I really want to talk about.

Exalted Angel is playing a very important role in how Bus is played(how's that? Short and sweet).  The Angel gives Bus a way to now play aggro/control, somewhat like Tog.  It's giving the deck a better "come from behind" option, making life points a bit more expendable than before.  It still works just fine as a slow finisher as it gets the job done fairly quickly.  Almost always you'll have a few early Shaman hits that combined with fetchlands from the other side will shave a turn or two off the Angel's clock.

Angel is really the only reason I decided to give Bus a try, it helps to make playing the deck a bit more flexible, somewhat the way Tog plays, and flexibility is something I really, really like in a deck.  That and turn 1 kills, but that's another topic all together.

[DavidHernandez]

Carl: if you spell GermBus backward, you almost have "suBmerGe"

[Dozer]

JP, if you feel the best path to winning with this deck is to simply drop an early Angel (and therefore playing 4 to increase your chances accordingly), why would you even play Keeper? EBA is more narrow in this aggro-control focus, and seems to be the deck that you really want to play if you're simply all about dropping a quick Angel and beating. The reason Keeper can't afford to use that plan is because, by nature, it is not an aggressive deck, but uses it versatility to combat what the opponent is attempting to do. (emphasis by me; D.)

I believe this needs to be rethought. Keeper may not be an aggressive deck by nature, but aggression is its second nature and has ever been.

Think back to the days where Morphling was the primary kill condition: Did you not win (or lose) some games to "speed Morphlings", churned out on turns 1-3? It did not happen often, but it did.
Think back to the days of Goblin Trenches. Sacrificing some lands to make some tokens is not exactly a play to spare ressources, but it won its fair share of games.
 
The primary game plan always was to establish control and beat down from a safe position, and the secondary game plan was luck with early beatings. Now look at the environment, look at the decks you can face. Most of them are fast and furious (in no particular order):
Control & Workshop Slaver, Hulk, Stax, Madness (pure & Dragon), Ravager (Affinity & Arcbound), Mask (Vengeur & Spoils), Fish, Grow, R/G, Goblins, and the combo squad: Dragon, FCG, Belcher and Draw7.
All these decks have in common that they are faster than their historical counterparts. Keeper is about the only deck that had not sped up in the same way but rather relied on the old tactics of „delay and destroy“. In the new vintage, which started with the demise of BD and the rise of TMD, the old silver bullets that enabled Keeper to stand its ground (The Abyss and Moat in particular) became too expensive. Keeper players all over looked for a faster and more consistent build, which led to the inclusion of fetchlands and later the choice of Decree of Justice as the primary kill condition.

Incorporating Skeletal Scrying in multiples and Exalted Angel was a natural evoutionary step. Skeletal Scrying is another step towards consistency and a good answer to the Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition-Engine. This was realized right on. The Angel seemed to be a mere supplement to offset some of the lifeloss and to randomly win games against bad aggro, but this assessment is wrong. The Angel is more than that. I’ll elaborate.

Decree of Justice requires a lot of time to become an effective win condition. You need enough mana to put on enough pressure that cannot be put off one at a time. Once you have reached a threshold where you can cycle a Decree for a killing amount of soldiers or make two angels, you are at the same point in the game where you would have played Morphling in the old days – you have a certain amount of control, you have an established board position, and you don’t need the extra card off the Decree right now. A Decree in your opening hand is not something you want to see (although Decree cycles just fine in the early game). All this combined, Decree is a perfect card for the control matchup, and less so for the aggro matchup, which will be shored up by the rest of your cards.

The problem that is inherent in the slowness of Decree of Justice is that the rest of the environment has accelerated to a point of speed and consistency beyond Decree’s effective range. Merely keeping the opposing decks at bay before Decree gets online is far more difficult when you need to deal with the Welder in play, the Mindslaver in the graveyard and the Thirst for Knowledge on the stack, or when you face Rootwalla, Mongrel, Wurm. The window of opportunity against a majority of decks to disrupt them to the point of preventing them from reaching their fundamental turn is very small.

Given that the primary goal in any matchup is to prevent the opposing deck from reaching their fundamental turn, there are two ways to do so. One way is via disruption, in the form of removal and counterspells, maybe even a silver bullet (Null Rod, Damping Matrix and Cop: Red spring to my mind). The second way to attack a deck’s primary strategy is a change of role. Many have emphasized how important it is to know your role (for details, see Mike Flores, „Who’s the beatdown“) in any matchup and to recognize it in any game. When you change your role, your opponent must apply the new information to his gameplay and react accordingly. Often, you will take him by surprise with a sudden change of role, or – even better – if he does not realize it, he will lose the game trying to fill a role he does not have.

Exalted Angel does just that. She puts you, as the default control player, in the role of the aggressor, forcing your opponent to deal with your correct threat. „There are no wrong threats, only wrong solutions“ does apply for you as well. (I think it was Adrian Sullivan who coined this phrase, by the way.)

In this change of role lies the key difference between Exalted Angel in EBA and Exalted Angel in Keeper. EBA is by default the aggro(-control) deck, so an early Angel is in line with the general strategy. Accordingly, EBA’s defense is proactive (Duress, Meddling Mage), making it difficult to revert to the role of the pure control deck if necessary. EBA has the tools to do so, no doubt, but Keeper has the edge here mostly because it has far better draw spells and works with Gorilla Shaman (pro- and reactive) instead of Meddling Mage (proactive). Also, if EBA tries a role change, it loses synergy (Duress, Meddling Mage, Ophidian), which Keeper does not. Keeper is built to deal with threats and loses nothing of that ability with Angels in the deck.
If the early Angel plan fails, for whichever reason, Keeper can easily fall back into the old scheme for a couple of turns and then make an Angel again, reverting roles once more. As long as you have sufficient disruption to survive the periods without an Angel, you should be fine. Keeper can apply both ways to stop another deck from reaching its fundamental turn, which is pretty much an optimum.

By implementing a single Decree, Keeper even leaves the option open to act entirely like in the old days without a single change of role. The possibility to double back and remain the control deck is the major reason why I prefer Keeper over EBA when I am „simply all about dropping a quick Angel and beating“. Also, this explains why 4 Angels are necessary, because they are the only 4 cards that allow you an early role change while providing extra defense and resources with their lifegain. Having four is a matter of consistency if you plan on utilizing the role change plan.


The short summary to all this is practically jp’s comment about four Angels and the Balance/Will backup plan. My goal was to elaborate the point and to make clear that playing 4 Angels/ 1 Decree makes the overall deck more viable than a 2/2 configuration does. I agree that the 2/2 combination does also include the possibility I described. With only two Angels, though, it becomes not a possible key strategy but rather a side outlet if all else fails. To make this clear: A 4/1 configuration is a commitment to the aggro-control role change strategy with the classic strategy as backup, a 2/2 configuration is a commitment to the classic „delay and destroy“ concept with aggro-control role change as backup. You decide how you want to play.

A last word about the combo matchup: Nobody cares if you are aggro-control or control, just as long as you have the necessary disruption handy. Neither Angel nor Decree give you an advantage here as long as you draw one when you are ready to win, so I have safely ignored it. (Yes, Decree cycles, all right. The difference is marginal, though, especially since I side out win conditions for additional disruption.)

Dozer

[DavidHernandez]

Given that the primary goal in any matchup is to prevent the opposing deck from reaching their fundamental turn, there are two ways to do so. One way is via disruption, in the form of removal and counterspells, maybe even a silver bullet (Null Rod, Damping Matrix and Cop: Red spring to my mind). The second way to attack a deck’s primary strategy is a change of role. Many have emphasized how important it is to know your role (for details, see Mike Flores, „Who’s the beatdown“) in any matchup and to recognize it in any game. When you change your role, your opponent must apply the new information to his gameplay and react accordingly. Often, you will take him by surprise with a sudden change of role, or – even better – if he does not realize it, he will lose the game trying to fill a role he does not have.

This is really important. I have a friend who has a US Ch3ss Federation rating of over 2000, and he used to tell me that "controlling the center of the (ch3ss) board" was a key to winning.  Then he said "...but what really sets the better players apart is that they MOVE THE CENTER..."

By redefining where the "center of the board" was, they threw their opponents off and forced them to rethink entire strategies.  

I believe that this mentality applies directly to MTG.  This is where Smennen's advocation that we need to know what the opponent is playing and how they play it can be turned to our advantage (regardless of what deck we are playing).

Dave.

[Zherbus]

Dave, it's that reason exactly why I've always favored 4cControl. I think the chess analogy is dead on.

[Fishhead]

The first problem is that it's still somewhat uncommon to have a first turn morphed Angel, since you need a Land and 2 accelerants (or a Crypt if you play it, which I think is a good move if you want to play this style) and the Angel. That's 4 of your first 7 cards, which I think is too much to assume you'll have every game or even every other game. Thus, you're probably going to be dropping the morphed creature on turn 2, which can happen with regularity, I admit. So, you tap out on turn two, which is breaking the rule that on turn 2 you play your second blue mana source and pass the turn with Mana Drain in hand. This gives your opponent a chance to play around Mana Drain. Eeek. Then, on your next turn, you need to have a second White mana source to flip the Angel up and start beating. You're not always going to have 2 white mana that early. These disadvantages are piling on top of the fact that a 2/2 creature is easy to remove, especially when you're tapped out as it is. For those of you that say "well, that's what Force of Will is for," please understand that if you Force the removal or whatever on your turn 1-3 Angel, you probably have like 1 card left in your hand after that, which is not a very good position for Keeper to be in on turn 3.

Windfall asked this question on the previous page; I was thinking the same thing after watching the deck being playtested last night.  

(The question I asked during playtesting was "So, what matchup is the Angel intended for?  Traditional Aggro like Sligh, Fish and MonoB will have 5 Strips and making an Angel will be just as hard as making Moat was; really too hard.  It's irrelevant against Combo.  Does it buy enough time against Tog....if you can resolve it...?")  

So a related question is about the SB strategy; which matchups do you side Angels out?

[Windfall]

Wow this thread has a lot of good Magic theory in it!  I haven't read a thread this enthralling in quite some time.  Everyone who has posted here has great ideas and their opinions are solid.  I think this is why there is such a good discussion.

Dozer, you've got a lot of good stuff in those paragraphs.  That is why I mentioned the problems of the fast angel strategy that Fishhead just revived.  In a format where entire games are decided by a slight tempo swing, it is risky.  In a format where the fundamental turn is turn 2 or 3 most of the time, and sometimes it's even turn 1, trying to resolve a "clunky" angel during those turns seems like it could ruin you.

The whole change of role theory is excellent though.  I have won many games with my current deck by beating with Angels.  Honestly, I think there's only one real way to put it  - if you have the hand for a fast Angel strategy, by all means do it.  You are all smart enough to know what kind of hand I'm talking about - one with the fast mana, the Angel, and the backup.  It's kind of the same idea as having the hand for a turn 1-3 Morphling in MonoU or old style Keeper.  Basically, it's rare, but with the right hand, it wins you random games and it's amazing.  The key is to notice these hands, and know it is time to change your role.  That's why I think it's bad to say "Okay, I'm always going for a fast Angel."  It's equally bad to say "I will never try for a fast angel."

     ~Mark B.

[MaxxMatt]

Now that 5D are playable, I think that some of the cards can/should be added to this archetipe to high the winning rate against some specific opponents.

During these last weeks, I tested and played 2 5D cards that showed a lot of potential:

1) Crucibile of the Worlds


2) Vedalken Shackles


In a primarily test, the CoW seemed to perfectly fit the tight maindeck of a 4C-Control. I added 1 then 2 then 3 CoWs, cutting, in some orders, Shaman, one of the 3 Removals ( I try to swap both Fire/Ice and StP for it ) and then one of the 4 Winners.
The final results were poor:

-I have no potential Winner to defense with it
-The recursion of Waste-Strip is really a long term plan.
-At some point of the match you have to tap 3 mana to resolve it at sorcery speed. It waste you a lot your game plan. CoW and a Morphed Angel concur to your same goal ( break the game in some way... ) but using the same mainphase, they are both mutually exclusive and they lose you a lot of time.
-A lot of decks run basic lands that can deny the effective use of CoW during the match until you can Tutor/Draw/Search for the MonoStripmine. It is effective only in a long term plan vision of the match.



The best results that I found is the ability of digging with a single fetchland for a specific missing color in my manabase at virtually anytime of the match. It helps a lot the color screw and your mana development is virtually unstoppable by the opponent denial; under this perspective CoW is a great Tempo Advantage.

The best results in his maindeck insetion derived by switching a single Winner for it and keeping the number of maindeck CoW = 1. But this results IMHO, didn't satisfied me enough to continue the test.

If my test would have been ONLY Control decks this card would have shined more at my eyes, but I tested against Aggro too and I found it to useless to warrant a maindeck slot.
A lot of Aggro decks have Basic Lands, a lot of Combo decks use every land OneShot and they can virtually play ONLY with the single land drop in his mainphase, so, not letting him to develop the mana base is too slow and doesn't stop his game plan at all ( at least if the opponent is prepared to face CoW ).

These results OBLIGE me to think about CoW as a perfect sideboard choice to break the mirror match.
I changed the sideboarding strategy a bit and I found that Manadraining something to be able to resolve a CoW with some backup CAN translate entire games in winning games.
It produce "cards advantage" not letting your opponent to develop mana and play key spells in a long term plan.
It is both and offense/defense weapon against a similar strategy.

4C-Control, Hulk and anyo other Control deck that you are used to play usually abuse of Denial and/or Duals. CoW is the key to stop his plan of victory.

The beatiful thing that I noticed playing sided games againsts other good opponents, have been an improving in my best strategy against any opponent: The Denial Plan.
Both CoWs and Shamans concurr to achieve the same goal but kicking the opponent in different resources and they have a Terrible/Beatiful sinergy.
 
I will deserve up to 2 slots to this card in my side at the next tourney.

2 things can be added to this argument:

---If CoW ould see and intense use I think that Mishra's Factory could be added ( 1 or 2 copies ) to the maindeck, being able to recycle ad libitum a good alternative win condition ( a Keeperesque deck with 1 CoW and 2 Mishra's Factory maindeck won our last tourney )
---The best thing that I found is the difficulties that my opponents had sideboarding agaisnt me. After some games, they were aware of my configuration and they have been obliged to chose better Creatures Removals and/or Artifact Removals and/or Rebs to try to win some counter wars. This diluite his sideboarding strategy, leaving us with the great advantage of being able to resolve A LOT of bombs ( Skeletals, CoWs and Angels and Brokeness ). In a control mirrror, if you take care of his artifacts with a Shaman, they HAVE to deal FAST with you CoW or they are simply unable to win.


****

The Shackles are a suggestion of Siral in my testing of a good MonoU build. I found that they are the perfect sustitute to FTK in EVERY game where some nasty creatures can be used to produce bad/strange/tempo effects.

No maindeck test for it.
3 Shackles in my side swapping  the FTK for them.

If the Aggro player didn't Naturalize the Shackles in some ways, he have to resolve 3 creatures every turn to be able to damage you in some ways or he have to spend resource on killing HIS creatures that you control every turn and that you kill every turn if he attack.

They are stellar agaisnt Cheap aggro deck as GoBBo, RG-Beats, even FCG and any sort of monocolored deck that use the Attack Phase to win.

Even if the stolen creature doesn't have nasty abilities to use agaisnt him, you are in a position that 1 or 2 FTK can't be able to produce, because they DIDN'T consume the opponent resource as much as the Shackles.

Forcing the Aggro player to Keep in Artifact removals against you post side, didn't help him to win in a better way while let you virtually stop his entire army only by tapping 2 mana every turn.

I think that any game I resolved an FTK would have been better to have resolved that Shackles instead. They can produce every turn the disruptive effect that he produce with his CIP effect.

For reference this is the side that I'm using until now with good results:

3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Sword to Plowshares
1 Disenchant
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Skeletal Scrying
2 Crucibile of the Worlds
3 Vedalken Shackles


Maxx