[discussion] maindeck disruption in combo decks

[trickydan]

Recently a new combo deck has made its pressence known in the format, not through good performance but instead through a sort of notoriety that it has gained in its short lifespan. The deck is called "Meandeck Tendrils" and is a creation of the good folks at team meandeck. In this forum, it has been dubbed "Spoiled Tendrils," clearly an ironic jab at its poor performance at both Waterbury and the most recent SCG. Though this deck may not be a force in the metagame right now, it does raise an interesting question, and it is this question exactly that i pose:
Is maindeck disruption in the form of force of will, duress, or even unmask in tendrils combo worth the necessary drop in speed that results from its inclusion?
or the converse:
Is streamlined speed in tendrils combo worth the necessary exclusion of maindeck disruption?

for reference, some decklists:

Meandeck Tendrils SX
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Night's Whisper
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Brainstorm
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Darkwater Egg
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Land Grant
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Force of Will
1 Bayou
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Black Vise
1 Necropotence
1 Chrome Mox

TPS (Waterbury 3rd place list)
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Frantic Search
2 Rebuild
1 Tinker
1 Cunning Wish
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Force of Will
1 Time Spiral
1 Mind's Desire
4 Dark Ritual
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Memory Jar

Sideboard:
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Hydroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Stifle
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Brain Freeze
1 Echoing Truth
2 Energy Flux
1 Rushing River
1 Misdirection
2 Engineered Plague
2 Skeletal Scrying

[CrazyCarl]

The reason I feel that TPS is a sub-optimal combo deck is that it plays far too many disruptive elements for a combo deck.  I won a match at the last Waterbury by my opponent hitting Duresses, Force of Wills and lands off his Mind's Desire for 8 and his Yawgmoth's Bargain.  Duresses are fine.  Force of Wills are fine, though not preferable as you need to maximize every card you have when playing combo.

The accepted ideal is that less disruption leads to more speed while more disruption leads to a loss of speed.  You really don't want to be dicking around casting Force of Wills and Duresses - you want to go for the throat, and SX epitomizes that concept.  Yes, it does board Duresses or Force of Wills, but they're only there to deal with opposing Force of Wills and random problematic cards (Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Chalice of the Void, Null Rod, etc).

So yeah, I say disruption in combo sucks in the maindeck, but is a necissary evil in the sideboard.

[Sean Ryan]

First of all, props for having the balls to play probably the most broken (but not consistent) deck evar.  However, as the results indicate something is missing from Spoiled Tendrils.  I have played TPS off and on for awhile and I understand that the more disruption you run the less speed/brokenness is availble.  But using the logic contained in your quote below:

Yes, it does board Duresses or Force of Wills, but they're only there to deal with opposing Force of Wills and random problematic cards (Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Chalice of the Void, Null Rod, etc).

It follows that to beat the best decks in the format, ie; decks with FOW & Trinisphere, one needs some kind of disruption.  What I don't understand is why the hell don't you pack the disruption main deck if all the best decks have you sideboarding in some kind of disruption?  

Carl, when you got second at the last Waterbury with Long Death Duress was maindeck.  It seems this would also be the case in Spoiled Tendrils.  How are they different in this regard?  Also, what were the cards you usually sided out for disruption?  

Sean

[trickydan]

we can talk about what we feel is a suboptimal combo deck and what isnt, but all of that remains theory and personal preference. my goal in asking this question was to see if we could determine a quantifiable quality in combo decks that could measure the benefits of disruption and compare it to their detriments.

here is what i propose that we try to find (i would have done this in the initial post but i had to go to class):
1. is there some specific percentage of first turn goldfish wins that would make a total lack of maindeck disruption acceptable? (it has been proposed that SX goldfishes at something around 70%, depending who you ask, and clearly this isnt high enough based on the results).
2. if that statistic got high enough, could you validate a list that also lacked any sideboard disruption, i.e. is there a point at which a deck is fast enough that it invalidates the sideboard by being so effective?
3. what factors other than speed* should be used in determining the level of disruption a deck should run (for example, stability of the win condition. a deck with 4 mind's desires prior to restriction obviously could have run less disruption due to the inherent "safety" of desire, since it can't be countered except by stifle).

*for sake of uniformity, im going to losely define speed as a function of the percent of 1st turn goldfish wins a deck can post.

[Bakes]

Carl, don't you think that the forces in tps a re somewhat of a security so your oponent does not cast a first turn 3sphere? I mean in recent post you were telling us about in multiple matches trinispheres and other decks that play cards exactly like that where you needed an answer and  it makes your deck that much better and then you go off next turn.

[CrazyCarl]

Having an answer in your deck doesn't make it better, it just allows you to, well, answer a threat.  That isn't what you want to be doing in combo.  The idea with SX is that you kill them before they drop whatever it is you're afraid of.  The Workshop player has only ~40% shot of getting turn 1 Trinisphere whilst SX goldfishes at around 70% on turn 1.  The odds are with you game 1, but being on the draw in game two you're going to want Force of Will because you -definately- don't have the opportunity to go off before your opponent does.  Plus, not every deck in the format runs Trinisphere which is the deck's only auto-loss card.

With regards to Duress, a) there aren't enough slots that could be freed up for it, and b) Meandeath uses Duress to force through it's broken spells while SX is casting Eggs and random cantrips.  Your opponent won't always know what to Force of Will, so Duress really isn't that important there.

Duress on the draw against Trinisphere is dumb, and on the play you'd rather just win turn 1.  Running Force of Will, you're clogging your hand game 1 with spells that will keep you from going off faster.  I don't have the goldfish rates with and without Force of Will, but I'm sure that the goldfish goes down enough percentage points to counterbalance the "do you have Trinisphere or do I play first and smash your face in" that the deck has now.

TPS is just terrible.  Doug started a thread in the "normal" Vintage forum about how Doomsday is better than TPS.  I personally think Doomsday is shit, so think about how I feel about TPS.

As for sideboarding with SX, I don't know anything about it.  That's one of the reasons for our lack of success at Waterbury: no solid sideboarding strategy.  Justin was able to pull it out by combining his playskill with figuring out a solid sideboard plan during the event when he was still in contention.  Saucemaster is the awesome sauce incarnate.

[Negator13]

In my opinion TPS is much closer to Tog than it is to Meandeck SX or even Deathlong. Unlike SX, which is pure combo, TPS and Tog are combo control decks, using the early turns to build up mana and countering/Duressing the opponent's key spells. After this, they drop some sort of inevitably game-winning bomb: in Tog's case, a Drain-fueld Intuition or Yawgwill, for TPS, a Draw 7 or similar card.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the differences between SX and TPS are far deeper than more or less disruption, rather, they have fundamentally different game plans. SX is a  balls to the wall, hope-to-win the die roll and Tendrils for 20 on turn 1 deck. Tendrils is just a control deck with a very sudden win condition. Loads of cantrips and mana production are integral to SX's game plan, lots of disruption spells are key to TPS's.

All these words, and I'm not sure if I've made my intended point, but to sum up: SX= Combo, TPS= Control. SX can't afford the disruption because it needs to win ASAP, but TPS needs it because it isn't supposed to even try to win before turn 3, barring a nuts draw.

Which is better? That's a matter of opinion... but I say TPS for obvious reasons  

[pox_reborn]

So it has been established that TPs is fundamentally different so the 2 cannot be really compared because they obtain their goal differently. Since this is an SX thread we should find out if Meandeath is better or worse than SX. i believe it goes much deeper than run disruption and sacrifice turn to win.

Meandeath- Uses the broken 4 to win most of the time. Draw 7's are a backup plan.

Wishes are used as the answer to situations and further redunancy for kill condition and win condition.

Does run 11 lands that clogs once in a while.

Duress allows deathlong to react accordingly.


Sx-
minimizes dead cards in the deck
synergy between the whole deck
has the draw 7 diminishing returns deck tendency to randomly lose.
fastest deck in the format.

I may be missing something but is it only a matter of preference or is meandeath or sx fundamentally superior?

Another comparison to determining the better deck is comparing SX to draw 7 diminishing returns deck. Both were heavily reliant on probabilities and statistics. draw 7 was comprised of almost 50 % mana and 50% business. It was to force through opponents by overwhelming defenses. This was based on the statistic that each bomb it played it would be able to use a followup bomb while also maintaining the mana to use it. Draw 7 was deemed a failure as a successor to Long in the end because of the conflicting elements in the deck like renewing the opponets hand and the need to continually draw draw7 cards in one whole span of a turn.

A good way to compare SX to to draw 7 could be in the scope of which they attempt to acheive their goal. Draw 7 is macro focused relying on the probability that drawing 7 cards will allow the deck to continually press its luck again and again. SX is micro styled requiring much more micromanagement and card draw is cantrip based. But the probability elements for both still remain. In a way draw 7 and Sx represent the 2 scales of the skill for playing combo. Draw 7 is the easiest of the tendrils combo decks to play with a consistent turn 2 kill most of the time. Sx represents probably the hardest combo deck to play but has a consistant turn 1 kill. Bear in mind that these are goldfish rates. When hate comes in they both are hit hard.

So, which is the superior speed tendrils combo? Bear in mind that resiliancy to hate and real opponets must also play a factor. This makes me lean toward meandeathlong. Sx can still have a future though and could possibly be a deadly deck in the hands of a dedicated player. I don't think Sx will suffer the same fate as draw 7 just yet though.