What about Bob? and the Chain of Vapor v. Repeal Dileimma

[Smmenen]

Bob has become a vintage staple for sure - people LOVE bob - esp. in Europe and lots of Americans are turning to the card as well.

But as widespread as he has become, is his usage warranted?

I believe that Bob is GOOD in some decks - like Aggro Control decks, but poor in Combo and Control.  Here is my reasoning:

Bob is a tempo dip - much like Ophidian (but obviously better).  You do not recover the tempo loss nor the card advantage immediately.  It takes two turns for him to seal up the game.  The first turn with bob in play his existence and your control over the game state remains tenuous.  The second turn, your grip solidifies dramatically.

Thus my point; every single time my opponent plays Bob, I am ecstatic:

a) that means no turn one counterspell (i.e. Leak or Drain or Duress)
b) diminishes the likelihood of turn one FoW
c) I basically get a free unmolested turn to combo out OR
d) AND a basically one more turn after that in which the card advantage generated by bob is too marginal to make a difference from a regular turn two.

The point is: I think bob is just not that great for one reason: he is too much of a tempo loss without immediate gain.   Decks like SS and Fish ACCEPT this tempo loss because they play that game.  They arent' trying to win in a flashy show, but they are eeking out victory.  Thus, bob makes sense for them.

This leads me to another point: card advantage versus tempo.

For some reason, some of our bigger named players are still obsessed with evaluating cards in terms of the card advantage they generate.  While it is true that the best cards generate the most obscene amounts of card advantage (see Yawg Will and Ancestral), the lens of card advantage is a poor focus.  It misdirects us from important things (such as that which directly contributes to winning the game).

For example: take Repeal.

team GG and reflection have a newfound fascination with the card.  Don't get me wrong, it is a good card.  However, it is not nearly as universally good as Andy and Rich think.  The card is fantastic in meandeck Tendrils and some other decks, but i think it is poor in Gifts and Slaver.  Why?  Although you do get a cantrip out of it, and lots of cool nifty plays, the card is simply not better than one of the best tempo cards in the format right now: Chain of Vapor. 

The Bang you get for your buck and the tempo is simply more important than the card advantage you get from Repeal.   

I think the Chain of Vapor v. Repeal example is the best illustration of the dyanmics currently at play in Vintage: tempo and immediate utilyt as well as multiple functionality is simply MORE important than cute tricks and straight card advantage. 

[cssamerican]

Thus my point; every single time my opponent plays Bob, I am ecstatic

As YOU should be. If everyone is playing quick combo deck then Bob becomes a liability because of the exact reasons you have put forth. The thing that you are overlooking is, there are not enough people playing quick combo decks to make Bob a bad gamble (The last SCG tournament might be an exception to this.), and even less people are running enough creature hate to make Bob a tempo loss that does not generate card advantage. Therefore, many players are willing to gamble the loss of tempo in the early game in order to cruise to a victory off the pure power of card advantage Bob will provide in the next few turns. This is a trade off many control-combo players are willing to accept as long as the format doesn’t speed up.

The Repeal vs. Chain debate could simply be what those players perceive as threats. If all you want out of you bounce spell is to pop up Chalices then Repeal wins hands down. In the case of Control Slaver generating storm is unimportant, Goblin Welder handles Tinkered targets, and they have multiple ways of handling the formats creatures, so versatility might not be as important to them since Repeal can bounce most of the things they care about on their opponents eot step (Chalices, Needles, and Rods.). Gifts I think I would find Chain to be the better choice, but I would have to see the actual list being played before I could make that assumption. Bottom line is that even if a card is better in theory because of versatility it might not be the best choice for you if you only plan on depending on it for very specific uses.

[AJFirst]

I agree on the Bob issue to a point, but the real issue here is the tempo discussion of Repeal vs. Chain.

Basically, Chain is significantly better for two reasons. One, it gets all of the problem cards that Repeal gets (Chalice at anything but 1, Rod, so on) for a (usually) smaller investment. Sure you don't draw a card, but you've dealt with the threat on the board outright for the turn for a small investment, not to mention it deals with other threats that Repeal has a hard time doing (DSC, Angels, Smokestack).

Repeal is good for Meandeck Tendrils because the deck neeeeds the cards, but Chain is better for efficiently answering threats, and because it ups storm counter infinit (and is mana accel at times).
-AJ

[Harlequin]

I think I see it 100% opposite of that.  Chain of vapor is better for combo, and repeal better for control... Here's why:

Chain of vapor is a great card if you've got "nothing to lose."  Outside of a tinkered DSC (which is not in the MD of most tendrils decks) and possibly Xantid Swarm, you literally have nothing to lose when you cast chain.  If they copy it onto even something like Bargin you just draw a ton of cards and then ... yay! I get my draw step back.  Anything else they copy it onto gains you storm and potentially mana.  Add in the fact that you can convert tapped lands into spell count and mana and you've got a dynamo for any tendrils based combo. 

On the other hand, If a Control slaver player is trying to win the small war, sometimes getting that chains flipped on your Welder or Big artifact will end up being worse than bouncing a pesky needle or chalice for 0. 

Repeal in combo handles your bigest threats Chalice, & Null Rod. with the fringe benefit of random stuff that might be in your way.  Such as true believer or even a soon to be flipped Erayo (or with the flip trigger on the stack).  Then it draws you a card.  For combo, you're really not getting that much use out of it.  You've got at maximum 3 spell count and potentially convert 1 blue into 2 colorless.   Not as impressive as chaining 3 Moxen sacing Tolarian in the process, then playing will to replay 'cad.  Chain over Repeal simply allows for more "So many more insane plays."

Repeal in Control fits the description of control. - Win the small fights -  If you use this as a slogan for Slaver, you will see why cards like Repeal are amazing.  I think as a general rule of thumb, when your considering a bouncer of choice it comes down to "Are you running LOA?"  If the answer is yes, then Repeal will help you win those small battles, if the answer is no, then Chain is likely better because you've dedicated your deck to a more direct win, and if chain is anything... its direct.

[Dralock]

So the point of this thread is that the best choices for card selecton are the ones that will be most optimal.

Isn't that obvious?

[TopSecret]

     1)     Bob draws a lot of cards in a long game, making him superb in the control matchup.
     2)     Bob can beat down and aid in dealing damage.
     3)     If your opponent is playing a control deck, they will often be forced to deal with Bob or lose.
   
     4)     It is true that Bob is not great on the first turn when the opponent is capable in comboing out on turn 1-2,
             and the Bobplayer has no disruption prepared.

     I think that Bob's strong points, in many decks,
     often outweigh his ineffectiveness in stopping an opponent's turn 1-2 super broken hand.

     Also, Repeal draws a card when cast, while chain does not. Extra cards can help players to combo out and win counter wars.

[EotGiftsGG?]

For example: take Repeal.

team GG and reflection have a newfound fascination with the card. Don't get me wrong, it is a good card. However, it is not nearly as universally good as Andy and Rich think. The card is fantastic in meandeck Tendrils and some other decks, but i think it is poor in Gifts and Slaver. Why? Although you do get a cantrip out of it, and lots of cool nifty plays, the card is simply not better than one of the best tempo cards in the format right now: Chain of Vapor.

Repeal is house. Against fairly new decks such as SS, Repeal provides both the tempo and card advantage you speak of. Letting them resolve and tap out for a cutpurse, and then repealing it is almost BETTER than a timewalk. Against random fish decks, Null rod is no longer a problem. Yeah, the whole "repealing your own mox, at EOT" is pretty lame at points, but it digs one card deeper, and can always get pitched to fow, and YOU KNOW you have 3 left. Sure it cant bounce collussus, but if you let tinker resolve, you've probably already lost anyway. Its the best card control has seen since....thirst for knowledge?! It wins games...

and who are these slick GG'ers anyway? = )
     

[Cross]

On the case of chain versus repeal, both cards have obvious appeal, but the jury is still out on repeal. It’s only been legal for a couple months, and people are just now beginning to use erayo, so who knows.

On Bobby, he’s best suited for a deck built around him, or in fish.

UB Fish is the obvious use of Bob, there’s no need to argue here on that.

For less obvious and successful applications of Bob you need to be willing to play a deck that works the long game. This can be seen with Laplante’s new stax deck, a great application of the card because it takes advantage of stax really long game, which is much the reason that the card is so great against stax.

I find Bob to be good against combo when you are playing control because it allows you to keep up with their bombs. Grim long is so bomb centric, that you need to constantly have answers, and bob offers the answers though a free second car every turn.  This is kind of true to some extent against stax, but he’s good against stax just because he provides cheap throw away permanents to sacrifice to smokestack, which forces them to ram it up.

The wrong application of bob, in my opinion is a straight combo deck like gifts or IT. He may have sideboard applications, but he just clogs up the main board. These decks want to win now, and Bob works against that.

Now the Europeans may disagree with this, as they have been using him main board in gifts, but I feel like Bob and combo are just fundamentally different strategies, and putting them in the same deck is poor deck building. I was told that Eli Kassis, who played a bob-gifts deck to second at scg, was siding the Confidants out all day because they were not any good in the deck.

A more suitable application of Bob can be found in the SCG day 2 decklists, a deck which is based on the original confidant control lists, and seems to take some of the things that I have said about the card and put them to good use.

Confidant Control
A Vintage deck, by Rian Litchard
37th place at a StarCityGames Power 9 Tournament tournament in Rochester, New York, United States on 2006-06-18
Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

Artifact Creatures
1 Sundering Titan

Creatures
4 Dark Confidant

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Darkblast
4 Force Of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Mana Leak
1 Rushing River
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
4 Night's Whisper
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Basic Lands
4 Island

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Underground Sea

Now, this may not reflect perfect card choices, but this deck apparently started of 3-1 or 4-1 on the day. This deck thrives off Dark Confidant, it is chock full of answers, and plays the long game extremely effectively. When you have your opponent controlled, you tinker up titan and win out.

[Cr0v4x]

Before actually evaluating Bob in combo we have to look at what decks really are combo. For example Gifts is a Deck which is a combo deck to some extend and is a control deck to most likely the same extend. TPS is a control-combo-deck seeking to win in turns 3-4. Gifts is more likely to win a little later around turn 4-6 I suppose. You all might have had first turn kills with TPS. Well, so did I but this deck simply isn't built to win on turn 1. Otherweise cards like Force of Will would definitely not be included. Gifts play Drains to power out Gifts Ungiven and the following "comboing-out"-turn.

The question is basically: does Bob help you get a 3-4 turn-kill with TPS or does he help you get a turn 4-6 kill with Gifts? What cards do you plan to play on turn one playing Gifts? Mana Drain would be an option but nobody will play a Confidant when you're holding Drain and have double blue turn 1. Therefore the start of USea/Swamp + Mox + Confidant doesn't seem all that bad apart from the fact that playing Swamp on your first turn makes a second turn Drain nearly impossible unless you get a Sapphire in some way... Not only do you have to suffer from not having Drain-mana open on turn 2 but you are also in danger of your USea getting wasted. Assuming you played fetchland and cracked it for Usea that really sucks and in the case of not playing Confi you would most likely not have cracked it vor a dual at this point of time. When playing TPS you have several disadvantages playing Dark Confidants. First of all you most likely will play something like Swamp, Mox, Confidant. This way you "waste" two potential spells which would normally help you resolve a deadly Tendrils. Assuming you think that Confidant is a awesome card you might probably even play Dark Ritual on turn one to get Bob into play as early as possible. This loss of spells for the storm-count will finally be balanced by turn 3. We all realize that this really isn't that good as any card which would have made you simply draw two cards (like Night's Whisper) would have made the same thing. You want to win on turn 3-4 therefore basically a spell which makes you draw 1 card already serves the same purpose as bob does. (By the way by cracking a fetchland for Swamp isn't bad at all in this deck and if you already had a USea in hand you would have played it anyway.) This fact is known to every single TPS-player. Nevertheless Bob is being played in TPS (at least in my homecountry which is Germany).

Conclusion 1: When playing Gifts and playing Confidants you might not have drain-mana open on turn two (which is a lot more essential for this deck than having Bob out on turn 1). That really sucks. Nevertheless Confidant rides to you tremendous card advantage but my question is if this advantage in a deck like Gifts is actually needed. I personally think that the basic game plan of playing Gifts and just winning and therefore playing cards that help you find and resolve Gifts are a lot better than playing Dark Confidant. In TPS he doesn't help you actually at all. When you play a deck that is built to win on turns 1-4 Bob isn't helpful at all.

Nevertheless Bob is played anyways. For quite a long time one argument of this card was that you have a beatstick this way but when everybody plays Bob you no longer have a beatstick. Therefore the only aspect of Bob still counts. Let's say you cannot combo out as early as you want Bob will definitely support you with tremendous card advantage so that you will be able to recover from a failed try of comboing out and so on ... I actually do not want to believe that the plan should be to play Dark Confidant instead of cards that help you comboing out simply to be able to combo out later on ...

Comments?

[LotusHead]

The Bobs of Northern California are in storm decks who love to beat face for a few turns (say, 3 turns) and draw 3 cards off Bob.

That puts an opponent at 14 or less life, and the Bob player has 3 more cards in hand that would not normally have been there.

This means that the Bob Tendrils player only needs storm count of 7 to win.  Those extra three cards are like a resolved Ancestral Recal.  In Combo, 3 extra cards is awesome.

So far it has been pretty effective, winning about 80% of the tournies out here.

Got no opinion on Repeal vs Chain,

[kirdape3]

Crossman: My deck was actually completely untuned, but the reason I got to 3-0 was that I played Grim Long three straight times.  This deck is awfully good at beheading Grim Long (in order, the matchups were Mike Herbig, Steve Menendian, Paul Mastriano) and pretty decent against a lot of other things, but the next two matches I lost were against Bomberman.

The kill isn't very good and Night's Whisper was actually terrible the entire day, but the reason that the deck was so strong against is that it could reload very quickly by drawing 2 cards a turn through Bob Maher for no mana.  There is much to be said about being able to grind your opponent down like that - the real question is how to kill the opponent when you get into that position.  None of the applicable kill conditions are good enough that I can think of.

[Mantis]

The question is basically: does Bob help you get a 3-4 turn-kill with TPS or does he help you get a turn 4-6 kill with Gifts? What cards do you plan to play on turn one playing Gifts? Mana Drain would be an option but nobody will play a Confidant when you're holding Drain and have double blue turn 1. Therefore the start of USea/Swamp + Mox + Confidant doesn't seem all that bad apart from the fact that playing Swamp on your first turn makes a second turn Drain nearly impossible unless you get a Sapphire in some way... Not only do you have to suffer from not having Drain-mana open on turn 2 but you are also in danger of your USea getting wasted. Assuming you played fetchland and cracked it for Usea that really sucks and in the case of not playing Confi you would most likely not have cracked it vor a dual at this point of time.

If you Sea gets Wasted, it doesn't really matter if you have Drain mana up or not on turn 2 as they've missed their land drop too. He will only have one card more and probably the same amount of mana on turn 2 anyway.

Your land drop might get Wasted but with the Bob out the chances of drawing another land (with the help of BS or not) is much higher, so having your land wasted may actually prove to be advantageous for you as it's basically a free card since the game will last one turn longer.

Still, I'm really unsure if Bob really belongs in a deck that tries to win with storm, as a creature that doesn't effect the gamestate at the moment it gets played is clunky for a Storm combo deck that needs every card to work right. But TT has shown some decent results so and it's still very effective in the long run so TT-esque decks can make good use out of it. I still don't think TT is any better than either Grim Long or Gifts as they have far better card advantage machines in my eyes.


Repeal vs. Chain:
Chain belongs in Grim Long and the likes, pretty obvious so the actual question should be Repeal versus Chain in CS/Gifts.

If you play a second bounce spell to make sure you can hit Colossus I think Repeal is the better choice over Chain. Repeal handles Chalice more effective and can replace itself for 0 when hitting a Mox may it come up un needed. Drawing the card is also good with LoA and to remain card parity. Repeal allows for much more tricks if the goal is not to win with Storm.

[Cross]

Kirdape, thanks for your response, it brings up some interesting discrepancies.

Can you expand on your thoughts on the win condition? Have you tried colossus, or something like belcher/sev or tendrils to use after a will?

but the next two matches I lost were against Bomberman.

Massacre is always fun there.

This deck is awfully good at beheading Grim Long (in order, the matchups were Mike Herbig, Steve Menendian, Paul Mastriano)

Wait a second, isn’t that contrary to:

But as widespread as he has become, is his usage warranted?

I believe that Bob is GOOD in some decks - like Aggro Control decks, but poor in Combo and Control.  Here is my reasoning:

Bob is a tempo dip - much like Ophidian (but obviously better).  You do not recover the tempo loss nor the card advantage immediately.  It takes two turns for him to seal up the game.  The first turn with bob in play his existence and your control over the game state remains tenuous.  The second turn, your grip solidifies dramatically.

Thus my point; every single time my opponent plays Bob, I am ecstatic:

So wait, Steve you lost to a confidant deck, playing combo. Your teammate(, not sure if Herbig is meandeck) lost to the deck too, so what’s the deal? Is confidant good or bad in a control deck?

I would have thought you would say good, as confidant control is basically an updated mono-blue.

[LordHomerCat]

If you look at Rian's list, you'll notice about 30 cards which are average/good against GrimLong (SB not posted, it had leylines and chalices IIRC).  Its not like his confidants were insane or anything (although drawing cards is still good even against combo), but the fact that he had Leylines, Chalices, Forces, Drains, Leaks, AND Duresses after board is really powerful.

Also, Steve stated that he made some play mistakes that match, causing him to lose a game he should have won (and thus lose a match he should have won) with some careless Chain of Vaporing.

[kirdape3]

To be fair, I did pwn my teammates (I'm one of the nefarious Meandeck guys too) and Steve still beheaded everyone else until he somehow forgot that you still need business cards in your hand against Stax.

Confidant is the final nail in the coffin against combo.  It won't keep you alive, but if you somehow aren't dead yet he will basically insure that you can't lose the game ever.  I've seen worse cards at doing that.

As to kill the other guy, as you said, this is basically monoblue.  I don't need very many win conditions, and they don't even have to be that fast to kill the other guy - BUT, they have to be big enough to punch through and mostly invulnerable to targetted removal.  That doesn't leave many things out there.  Tinker plus giant man would be okay if it didn't straight up lose to bounce and put an enormous CC thing in the deck to get yourself killed when you should have won the game.  Other options exist and are being explored when I get around to it.

[Prometheon]

I played a similar version of yuor deck (with a few minor tweaks, like removing the two factories for basic swamps) a few days ago at a tournament.

I played against golbins unfortunately, and lost. I played againg Bomberman and lost. But I did smoke Grim Long twice. This deck just can't deal with opposing creatures. I'm thinking about Caltrops as a potential SB card against Ichorid and Gobbos. How do you handle the bomberman matchup though? They have as much countermagic as you, and way more creatures, as well as StP from the board to kill your Bobs and Colossus.

I was considering cutting the 4 Whispers for 4 AKs, but I decided that AKs didn't draw cards fast enough. Also burned off Drain a few times; there is VERY little to drain into with this deck (and I even cut one Whisper for a FoF and fit a Sensei Top in there!). A lot of the time, I'd be at 11 or 12 life with the deck, with a Confidant or two out, and be about to win, and end up just crossing my fingers and praying that I didn't turn Colossus over.

Any thoughts?

[kirdape3]

The only creature deck that I'm worried about really is Fish at a SCG event, and good luck Fish against (should've been 4) Old Men plus some number of Darkblasts.  When I flopped the Old Men out of my deck against Lany in round 5, he went a little pale and went 'yeah that card would've won you games' since they only have so many Plows to hammer you with postboard.

I certainly am not going to play Tinker/giant guy in any variant of this deck that I can think of.