combo tendrils - play situation

[carl]

Hello,

Here is a situation that I'd like to submit.

It's game 3. You are playing TPS against a deck with 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void and jewelry. No mulligans occurs.
You are on the play with the following hand:
Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Duress, Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, Mox Ruby and Polluted Delta.

How do you play?

[LUPO]

delta into swamp, rit, duress, rit, DT for Necropotence, cast necropotence, drop sol ring and mox, Necro for a bunch keeping ideal 7 for turn 2 kill

[Blitzbold]

If I was on the play I'd choose to drop the Delta an break it for a black source - basic swamp if there were any wastelands involved in earlier games, UG Sea otherwise and try Dark Ritual. If the opponent counters the ritual I'd drop ruby and then pass the turn.

If they don't counter the game is basically over since you can Duress away a FoW he didn't want to use on the ritual and then safely combo out: tap land, B floating, Ritual (BBB floating), Duress, Ruby, tap Ruby (BBBR) -> Sol Ring (BBB), tap Sol Ring (BBB2) -> Demonic for Will (BB1) -> Ritual (BBBB1) -> Will (BB) -> Ritual (BBBB) -> Ritual (BBBBBB) -> Demonic for Tendrils (BBBB) -> ToA for 22.

In my oppinion it all depends on whether the opponent counters the aggressive 1st turn ritual. If they do you can still drop the Mox and search for some kind of draw (Necro, Wheel [if you happen to play that]) in turn 2.

[Mr. Nightmare]

Why drop the Mox turn 1 if they Force your Ritual?  You don't have any other plays that turn, leave it in hand for +1 storm turn 2.

[ashiXIII]

If I was on the play I'd choose to drop the Delta an break it for a black source - basic swamp if there were any wastelands involved in earlier games, UG Sea otherwise and try Dark Ritual. If the opponent counters the ritual I'd drop ruby and then pass the turn.

If they don't counter the game is basically over since you can Duress away a FoW he didn't want to use on the ritual and then safely combo out: tap land, B floating, Ritual (BBB floating), Duress, Ruby, tap Ruby (BBBR) -> Sol Ring (BBB), tap Sol Ring (BBB2) -> Demonic for Will (BB1) -> Ritual (BBBB1) -> Will (BB) -> Ritual (BBBB) -> Ritual (BBBBBB) -> Demonic for Tendrils (BBBB) -> ToA for 22.

In my oppinion it all depends on whether the opponent counters the aggressive 1st turn ritual. If they do you can still drop the Mox and search for some kind of draw (Necro, Wheel [if you happen to play that]) in turn 2.

Uhm, you're B short if you play the Duress. You'll find you're fetching out Tendrils with only BBB floating. Look at your steps: You never subtracted the B for Duress.

Why drop the Mox turn 1 if they Force your Ritual?  You don't have any other plays that turn, leave it in hand for +1 storm turn 2.

Because they have 4 Chalice in their deck. This was said in the original post. Even on the draw, Chalice for 0 is pretty good against combo. There's no reason to chance the Ruby getting stuck in your hand.

[warble]

All you have to do is do 1 Dark Ritual and Duress followed by dark ritual sol ring Mox Ruby Demonic Tutor for Wheel of Fortune which you use floating 1 black mana.  Generally plopping down more than 4 mana on turn 1 means chalice won't hurt in the least, and since you already have threshold . . . but wait that is a Grim Long strategy for this deck it's probably best to just DT for necropotence actually...it really depends on how broken their start will be.  If you just took a Force of Will and they have land mox and 2 chalices you should...y'know...get wheel...

[Webster]

Anyone who can add and subtract competantly will notice that if you play:

#1: delta-->swamp, ritual, duress, ruby, sol ring, ritual, dt-->will, will, ritual, ritual, dt-->tendrils.

you'll only have BBB floating so going for the yawg will tendrils kill turn 1 with duress can't be accomplished. The alternative is taking duress out of the play sequence which will leave you with a duress in hand and nothing else if they have force for your yawg will.

So, that play doesn't seem very good.


The next option is:

#2: delta-->swamp, ritual, duress, ruby, ritual, dt-->necro, necro-->draw 15. win on turn 2.

I don't think that I would necro for more than 15 since you will want the option of being able to force once and also cast vamp + draw with brainstorm. This route sets you up for the turn 2 kill unless you get a really bad set of cards which shouldn't happen very often depending on how many accelerants + tutors you draw.

A caveat to play #2 is that you can necro for a smaller amount depending on how much you'll need to set up based on the information that you get from duress.


If you're playing a TPS build with red, thus including wheel of fortune and the 2x gifts/recoup package, then there is a third play sequence:

#3 delta-->swamp, ritual, duress, ritual, sol ring, dt-->wheel, ruby, wheel, B floating.

This play lets you continue your turn with a near lethal storm count and B to play with. Depending on what you get with the 7 cards from wheel, you can try to continue the turn and win, or if not, hopefully have a duress to weaken your opponent's hand and try to win next turn.

The problem with this play is that it is almost identical with play #1 in terms of risk. There is an argument that can be made that your opponent's new 7 cards will be less desirable than his/her initial 7 because of the fact that they did not chose to mulligan the initial 7 away. Furthermore, if a force was discarded to the duress, then the density of force vs non-force cards goes down from 4/60 to 3/53 which makes it less likely that if you _can_ go off with the 7 cards from the wheel that your opponent will be able to stop you with a force.

To me, the risk in play #1 and #3 seems far too high to warrent going that route instead of play #2 since you only have to deal with your opponent's initial 7, get to duress them, and dig 15 cards deep with necro instead of only 7 with wheel.


Web

[MaxxMatt]

It's game 3. You are playing TPS against a deck with 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void and jewelry. No mulligans occurs.

You are on the play with the following hand:
Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Duress, Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, Mox Ruby and Polluted Delta.

I would like to argue that AS IT IS, there isn't a correct answers.
We can opt for a couple of really different paths to follow and find that they can have completely separeted winning rates and conclusions.

The opponent that Carl described is supposed to have at least one of his good protections.
Both CotVs and FoWs can be deadly if well timed against that hand, that can win the game ALONE.


I'm assuming that you aren't playing against a scrub.
No offence intended, but at least plateal game errors and interpretations should be avoided by your opponent.



First path to follow. Risky one.

Land --> Swamp, Mox, Ritual, Ritual, Sol Ring, Demonic for Y.Will. --> Ritual, Ritual, Demonic, --> ToA
10 Spells.
20 Damages.
Enough to go out quickly and eat pizza.
Or fall in love of a lot of girls.



I'm not saying anything impressive.
Aside from the girls' argument.
It is a first turn play that can produce a first turn win, IF the opponent kept an hand WITH CotVs or other broken things BUT NOT FoWs.

Going 2nd, if I was him, I would have avoided such a play, so I don't consider it as available.
If your opponent is a scrub ( look at his face instead of your cards ) do it ALL DAY LONG.
Remember the girls? They are waiting you! Don't waste time with scrubs!



Second Path to follow. MaxxMatt's one.
Land --> Swamp, Ruby, Sol Ring, Duress. Discard. Go.

Why leaving open to your opponent that open window, instead of winning?
Because, such as I suggested to you, I consider my opponents NON Scrubs.

If I would have started Land, Ritual --> Especting something,my opponent, because of FoW, and because of CotVs would have FoWilled the first rite and then proceded to play the possible CotVs to slow down my game MORE than needed.

Countering Ritual would have stupid of a full turn the first turn Duress AND the Bombs that could have followed. You can't trick FoWs in hands so much frequently. Your opponent would learn from the past and counter the RIGHT thing.

Ritual.

Especially if he has the ability to folllow that stupid counter with something far more game sealing, such as CotVs.

Which are the possible targets of your Duress? I would leave him CotV if he have no acceleration at all or leave him the FoW if he can afford to a first turn CotV1 AFTER seeing his hand with Duress.

Duress is so much crucial, that your possible win SHOULD be stupid in order to collect as much information you can about opponent's situation.
If he had a good hand, the first solution is really stupid too.
If he had a bad hand, you can chain a good win even after levaing him a couple of turns, where you developed your mana base ( CotV less effective ) and he had only FoWs to really interfere with you.



NOTE
I fetched for Swamp, BECAUSE I suspected that it is a *denial based* deck.
Such as S.S. or Fish or soething similar to old ChaliceKeeper or New-Control decks.

For these reason, I focused on my spells, without RISKYING a DEADLY colorscrew.
But.
Because of the information that Carl, give to us, if he had a good deck but WITHOUT any denial component, I would have fetched Underground Sea, instead, because A LARGE part of my business spells, would be BLUE and not only Black.

Brainstorms, Tutor and Gifts can be far more crucial than a second turn Demonic Tutor.
They can give you the NEEDED redundancy of threats and more flexibility.

When you have a stable mana base on table, you can ALWAYS think about being able to play spells in the future


@All
I see that a lot of you suggested Necro or Wheel or anything else.
Wheel suppose that you are playing red. Not sure about his insertion EVEN if the deck play Red. I don't play Wheel in my UBr-TPS. Only a maindeck Recoup. Only Reb#1 and R&R#1 in my side.
First turn Necro supposed that your opponent would not counter your Ritual. Which I think that is often correct to counter. Especially with the deck proposed by Carl as TPS' opponent.

Both the situations that you suggested, can took place if he had a bad perspective of the game AND if he had a not so good hand.

MaxxMatt


PS. Sorry for the post similar to Webster one, he posted contemporarily to me. I'm so slow writing things... :-/

 
EDIT.
Suppose to face both FoW and CotVs instead of one of them.
You could win, trying to optimize your moves as much as you can.
Force him thinking that you have a bad hand.
He had no Duress to use against you, so you can cheat at him as much as you can.
Start playing Land, Duress --> Talking out FoW, leaving him CotV. Then play Ruby and Sol Ring.
With such a play, he could think about your possible remaining cards in hand.
You played 2 cc1 spells in a single turn. You leave them CotV, so it could be better to optimize the cards into hand in a different manner, maybe searching another FoW with that Brainstorm that you leaved them in hand with the porpouse to be used as soon as possible.

There are a lot of probabilty that they can do the wrong thing, not playing CotV, or playing it for zero only to optimize a Tutor or a Brainstorm or anything else.
The knowledge of the opponent's hand, would be perfect to understand HOW MUCH you can force into him BAD REASONINGS and contemporarily gain tempo and spells.

After that turn, you can draw into threats as much as him, but you have 4 mana on table during turn2 while they possibly have one or two opened.

It is another good advantage to abuse of.

If they play CotVs for 1, I can ALWAYS play Demonic Tutor for a Blue Bouncer such as Rebuild or E.Truth. In those situations, their cc2 and cc3 rise his value as much as I always want to reveal to you.
Going deep into this analisis, the choice to discard his FoW and leave his CotV into hand, would put you in a better position, because you have more tools to deal with artifacts on table rather than one to deal with counterspells.

In the end, I would not use Demonic Tutor for bouncers, until it would be really needed, because, at now, it is your own only real business spell.

[Webster]

Second Path to follow. MaxxMatt's one.
Land --> Swamp, Ruby, Sol Ring, Duress. Discard. Go.

First off, if you were to go with this play sequence, the proper way to start is:

delta-->swamp, duress

There's no reason to lead off with mox, sol ring because it does nothing if your intention is to only duress them on turn 1. The information yielded by duress will then determine whether or not you play mox, sol ring.


Secondly, playing just duress on turn 1 seems a bit too cautious. If the opponent does have the force for your ritual, then your remaining hand is: ruby, sol ring, dark ritual, duress, demonic tutor. At that point, you can play ruby and sol ring to minimize the damage that a chalice for 1 would do, leaving the duress, ritual, dt in your hand for turn 2.

My reasoning to play the ritual first over the duress is this:

1. If you play the duress first, you're basically conceding the fact that your opponent will get a turn without you having done something to greatly advance your game.

2. If you play the dark ritual first, you now have access to a more broken turn 1.

3. If your opponent does indeed have the force, and they would force your dark ritual, it would seem very likely that they would also force your duress also because forcing the dark ritual signifies that they want a turn unfettered by what you've intended to play, letting them play cards that they would not normally be able to play on your turn.

4. If they do have the force, but don't force your play that used your black mana (duress or ritual), then resolving ritual is much better than resolving duress. The dark ritual lets you continue with your turn whereas the duress does not.

5. If they don't have the force at all and you played the duress, then you have to pass the turn leaving you open to whatever they play on their turn whereas if you had played the ritual, you would continue your turn and resolve a necro.


The benefits of leading with dark ritual seem to outnumber those of playing duress.


Web

[Smmenen]

The necro route seems pretty obvious to me.  I don't think i'd get 15 cards though, but I haven't played TPS in ages.

[MaxxMatt]

Playing just duress on turn 1 seems a bit too cautious. If the opponent does have the force for your ritual, then your remaining hand is: ruby, sol ring, dark ritual, duress, demonic tutor. At that point, you can play ruby and sol ring to minimize the damage that a chalice for 1 would do, leaving the duress, ritual, dt in your hand for turn 2.

If they counter Ritual, you have a lot of information about opponent's remaining hand.
He hasn't FoWilled Ritual only to waste two cards.
He usually can chain it with Duress / Leak / CotVs to slow you down so much that he can build up a god mana development, needed to both oppress you and resolve his bombs.

IMHO, while they would not counter Duress, regardless the rest of their/your hand, they can thought hard IF counter your first Ritual. They can cheat or not. They can bluff a first turn bomb or not.

WHEN that Ritual got countered, the game start going into a different play level.
It would prevent unbalanced plays and FEARING A DURESS POST RITUAL, I would counter Ritual first.

They cannot know enough of your hand to realize WHY, but that Ritual would mean too much for them to let you resolve it and ABUSE of the rest of your hand.

I can find only a similar example to put more emphasis on this argument.
Just think about MWs and B.Lotus in opponent's initial hand. They can went around FoWs ONLY with their mana and double threat. Simple. Just let them resolve mana and they would resolve double threat or defensive spell and threat.

You would easily become fucked.

With this Ritual, I would just argue of feeling exactly as in the previous example.
WHEN Ritual resolve, I have to fear BOTH Duress and Bomb.

For this reason, if I'm the FoW player, I would just counter it and gain tempo.

Playing my mind scenario, the perspective should be exactly the opposite.
Change perspective and shift behind your moves.
You have to REASON minimizing dynamic that would not let you gain little but needed informations or advantages..
With your moves, you have to *suggest* your opponent that nothing would harm him in the near future, without alerting his good defences.

The better you would cheat on him, the worst he would do against you.

Play Duress and then mana ( as you suggested ).
He would not think about nothing dramatic and you would get the information you need to correctly map your win.

Play Ritual first, to optimize THAT turn, and the smart opponent would force you fizzling into a not so exciting turn2, where and when your reciprocal board positions can be changed a lot and not in your favour.

If I don't think about the worst scenario available, I would lose too much in real life games.
When bad things could happen... simply, they happens ( Murphy anyone? )


MaxxMatt


EDIT>>>

The necro route seems pretty obvious to me.  I don't think i'd get 15 cards though, but I haven't played TPS in ages.

Nothing is obvious.
First turn Ritual got countered.
They play CotV for 1.
You Necro plan go to farm.

What is obvious?
I analyze the game from BOTH the side.
You have a strong hand.
WHY they can't hold THEIR strong hand?
Their strong hand kill that strong hand of yours, BUT with my caveat and my game solution, I can be pretty sure that the damages to me are reduced to the minimum.

Always talking with a single angle perspective is so little foresighting that it shouldn't even be considered as possible in a public and bilateral dicussion such as this one.

Which would have been the point of the whole thread?
Discussing a stupid one turn kill hand without interaction with the opponent?
Discussion a stupid one second turn kill hand after you resolved Ritual?
...

[Smmenen]

you are on the play, so the only real possibilities are:

A) They have no FoW

B) They have FoW:
i) They FoW the Duress
ii) They FoW the Ritual
iii) They don't FoW and you take it with Duress.

[Machinus]

Why not lead with swamp, duress, go? Then, even if they drop Chalice 0, you can still dt for will, and cast a tendrils for 20 on turn 2.

[Webster]

The necro route seems pretty obvious to me. I don't think i'd get 15 cards though, but I haven't played TPS in ages.

I agree. Most of the time, I would necro for 7-10 in that situation. Taking into consideration that you've gone through 2 rituals already, finding enough mana accel to be able to go off with what is in your hand + ruby/swamp in play is being a bit optimistic.

Why not lead with swamp, duress, go? Then, even if they drop Chalice 0, you can still dt for will, and cast a tendrils for 20 on turn 2.

Yes, that is an option, however, it is ideal to set chalice for 1 against TPS.


@MaxxMatt

-If they do indeed force the ritual, you play ruby--> sol ring. You are then open to their turn 1 which introduces both duress and chalice as problem cards. If they have chalice, then they will cast it for 1 if possible. If that situation takes place, then your next turn will most likely consist of playing dt for wheel. If a mana source was drawn (4 mox, 1 petal, 1 lotus, 1 crypt, 12 land remaining: 19/52 probability), then you can cast wheel in the same turn.

-If they play chalice for zero, then you can resolve wheel with what's in your hand or necro if you draw a source of black mana.

-If they have duress, then you're just screwed because they take your tutor and then you have no gas, only dark ritual and a duress.

The worst case scenerio is if they have force _AND_ duress. So why not try to avoid that particular case if possible?

If you assume that they have force + another sorcery speed disruption card, then why would you lead with duress? Leading with duress makes their sorcery speed disruption relevant 100% of the time whereas if you lead with ritual, there's a chance that the other card won't be nearly as relevant because you've resolved a bomb.


Web

[MaxxMatt]

@Smmemen
I discussed, aside with Webster A), B), I), II), III) AND other subtle little differences that can help anyone judging WHY play in a way IF they decide to do so.

The paths that we explained are referred as *open*.
They are all available.

Choosing one of them, you decide your destiny without possible come back.
While some choices aren't usually mutually exclusives, the ones showed until now, will bring you to completely different ends of this history.

Instead of telling people : "Do it in this way. It is correct!", I showed them all the opportunities available. Iexplained all the different perspective angles, what should they think when letting resolve something.
Tricks and menthal reasoning *per sè* are the key of a good understanding of the game dynamics.  Me and Webster gave people instrument to decide, not rule to follow.

You can go with you moves and win as much as we can play our game and win.
Put the same weight to the exact opposite endings. We both fails. Opponent will win.
We are talking about methods and not percentages.
To do some maths we need numebrs or variables.

On the contrary, to let people understand WHICH are the things to know, they have learn MORE than needed.

This is how I learned almost about anything I know.
No simple answers to complex tasks.


@Machinus.
You are right only if you are sure that opponent would resolve CotV@0 instead of CotV@1, which seems usually the best choice to do, because it wouldstop not only Rituals, but Restricted Tutors, Drawers and Duresses. I would rarely play CotV@0. If they have Moxen, they would likely play, without too much thinking about losing Storm-Counts. Mana development is far more important than storm count.

In a mid-game perspective of that match, I would weight Sol Ring far more crucial than Rituals, because it is a stable mana font that would let me resolve my own overcosted bombs far more constantly than one-shot Rituals. With this goal in mind, I would probably resolve Sol Ring off the Moxen, too and then Pass the turn.

On the other hand,  making the assumption that CotV@0 would resolve, I would keep all the gas into hand, such as suggested by you.
IMHO, it would never happens, because, after all our talking, opponents will become smart enough to decide for the right cc to pay for the Chalice

Maxx


EDIT>>
@Webster
Good reasoning, but talk about you.
You hold FoW and CotV/Duress
Wouldn't you FoW the Ritual and THEN strike the rest of his hand with the sorcery speed disruption?
Making the assumption that you ( TPS' opponent ) would make THE RIGHT choice, why should I suggest people the Ritual-Duress-Necro path?

In my mind, a resolved Necro would never happen, because both of us have strong hands and make right choices.
If you are on the play and you have to weight if "Risk&MaybeWinOrLose" or "SlowDown&NoOpenAutolose", wouldn't you follow the second path?

[Webster]

@Webster
Good reasoning, but talk about you.
You hold FoW and CotV/Duress
Wouldn't you FoW the Ritual and THEN strike the rest of his hand with the sorcery speed disruption?
Making the assumption that you ( TPS' opponent ) would make THE RIGHT choice, why should I suggest people the Ritual-Duress-Necro path?

If my opponent is playing TPS with that hand (delta, ruby, sol ring, dt, ritual, ritual, duress), which is unknown to me, and is on the play, while my hand is force, blue card, duress/chalice, then, yes, I would force the ritual. However, while it may seem like a clear play for you or I, it may not be clear to lots of other people. That is my reasoning. There is not a 100% chance that the opponent of the TPS player will force the ritual.

If the TPS player leads with duress, they can take my force or my chalice/duress. In the following situations:

-If my hand is force + duress, whichever one is not duressed takes care of the demonic tutor.

-If my hand is force + chalice and chalice is left after duress, then I chalice for 1 if possible. If they take the chalice, then my force takes care of their demonic tutor.

Both situations where TPS leads with duress are bad for TPS and there is nothing that TPS can do with its hand at that point to stop either of those situations from occuring. With the play sequence of leading with dark ritual, there is a small chance that the opponent will not make the correct play which gives the TPS player a path to escape and cast necropotence.

small chance > no chance.

That is my reasoning.


Web

[Machinus]

CotV 1 is definitely bad news. I can say that I would not know to set it at 1, based on swamp/duress. If I knew my opponent was playing TPS, that might change, but I think generally players maindecking CotV will set it to 0 early on. I have not played/against much TPS, so it might just be my inexperience with this deck.

[Webster]

CotV 1 is definitely bad news. I can say that I would not know to set it at 1, based on swamp/duress. If I knew my opponent was playing TPS, that might change, but I think generally players maindecking CotV will set it to 0 early on. I have not played/against much TPS, so it might just be my inexperience with this deck.

The thread topic post:

Hello,

Here is a situation that I'd like to submit.

It's game 3. You are playing TPS against a deck with 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void and jewelry. No mulligans occurs.
You are on the play with the following hand:
Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Duress, Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, Mox Ruby and Polluted Delta.

How do you play?

Since the rolls are reversed, the thread topic post becomes modified to read:

It's game 3. You are playing a deck with 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void and jewelry against TPS. No mulligans occur.
You are on the draw with the following hand:
Force of Will, blue card, Chalice of the Void/Duress, Polluted Delta/Underground Sea, card X, card Y, card Z.
Your opponent leads with Polluted Delta and sacrifices it, fetching a swamp. Your opponent plays Duress.

What do you do? Why?


Web

[MaxxMatt]

@Machinus.
It is ok, but just to clarify, Carl stated that TPS know about opponent's FoWs and CotVs, so, conversely, I reaosned that opponent' would at least know about facing a storm.dec

@Webster.

This discussion is really going far higher than I would have thought in principle.
I'm glad to see from you good understanding of TPS mechanic and a straigthforward precision with words.

My feeling goes now, to what is Teoretically Correct and what should be considered available to people during the few minutes between start and play their turns.

We are on the same wave, this time.
Weighting initial hand isn't so much important as weigthing opponent and his *teoretical* approach to the game.

Would he take care of you and your hand in the best possible way?
Would he scrub out and play the simpler among the games?

There is nothing about this into the initial task prepared by Carl, but this would be the end of every wise argument.
Uusually I want to show people the best reasoning I can achieve or how to play their hand at his best.
This is stupid.
I should, instead, put them into both the sides of the table, dissecting the game from both the perspectives.

I can't told them ( such as you ) where you are wrong until you d your moves.

I played a lot against people that would optimize their moves, only thinking about opponent doing the best choices.

All the pro-players usually reasons in such a way and they usually don't follow the logic of *winning fast*  but the one of *winning small*, little advantage after little advantage.
They are aware about the value of the opponent, and they can't leave themselves with the guard off, letting opponent to abuse of that situation.
They would always play the *slowest* win available because it is the safer one.

It is not T1 or T2 or decks choices that make those statements true.
It is usually the valor that you give to your opponent to judge if you would resolve a first turn Ritual-Necro or a Duress-Mana opening play.

My perspective maybe too cathedratic, but it seems to function, because it learns you a lot about *avoid losing* instead of *practising winning*.



MAxxMAtt

[Tin_Mox5831]

Here's the plan:

Delta -> Underground Sea, Dark Ritual.
-------------------------
If it's countered: Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Pass.
If it resolves: Duress.
-------------------------
If they FoW Duress pitching FoW or Ancestral: Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Timetwister, Pass.

If they FoW Duress pitching anything but FoW or Ancestral: Dark Ritual, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Necropotence, Play Necro, Draw 9-13 cards, Pass. (FoW here indicates they are protecting broken cards, not hate. If they are holding hate, FoW is better spent on the first Dark Ritual.)

If you see a single hate card: Take the hate w/ Duress, use the same line of play as above.

If you see CotV and Duress: Take Duress, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Tinker, Pass.

If you see CotV and FoW+Blue spell: Take FoW, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Tinker, Pass

If you see Duress and FoW+Blue spell: Take FoW, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Black Lotus, Lotus, Pass.

If you see all three: Concede to avoid a migraine. 

[Webster]

Here's the plan:

Delta -> Underground Sea, Dark Ritual.

If it resolves: Duress.

1. If they FoW Duress pitching FoW or Ancestral: Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Timetwister, Pass.

2. If they FoW Duress pitching anything but FoW or Ancestral: Dark Ritual, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Necropotence, Play Necro, Draw 9-13 cards, Pass. (FoW here indicates they are protecting broken cards, not hate. If they are holding hate, FoW is better spent on the first Dark Ritual.)

If you see a single hate card: Take the hate w/ Duress, use the same line of play as above.

If you see CotV and Duress: Take Duress, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Tinker, Pass.

3. If you see CotV and FoW+Blue spell: Take FoW, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Tinker, Pass

4. If you see Duress and FoW+Blue spell: Take FoW, Mox Ruby -> Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor -> Black Lotus, Lotus, Pass.

The topic did not say whether or not the other deck contains strip effects, although I am working under the assumption that it does (eBA, SS variant w/ chalice, oath, etc).


Assuming that the first ritual resolves, I present the following:

I fail to see the superiority of fetching timetwister or tinker over necropotence. In each case, both tinker and timetwister requires your opponent to not have duress and not have a waste effect in addition to TPS being forced to pass its turn 1.

-Necropotence lets TPS see more cards than timetwister acting as a double draw-7 opposed to only a single draw-7. In the case of your opponent having double force, both routes end up in failure, so comparing one to another is pointless. The likelyness that TPS will find a solution with necro opposed to reshuffling with timetwister is greater because:

1. you see more cards with necro.

2. you only have to deal with the 5 cards in your opponents hand + each of their draw steps opposed to their fresh 7 + each of their draw steps.

-Arguably, tinker/DSC will kill slower than the necro route, not being lethal until your turn 4 (turn1: dt for tinker, turn2: tinker, turn3: attack for 12, turn4: attack for 12). Tinker/DSC is much more prone to failure because a single bounce spell will unravel your plan to victory. Having only dark ritual in hand + whatever you draw over the next 2 turns to protect DSC, the probability of successfully dealing lethal damage with the DSC seems too low.

caveat: If you were talking about tinker--> memory jar: that plan is even worse because you give your opponent a fresh 7 cards to find a force or other hate card like stifle _AND_ requires in the majority of cases for TPS to go off that turn having only an untapped ruby and having not played a land for the turn with 1 ritual in the yard and 1 in the set aside hand.


When dealing with the 4 cases you wrote about whose text I have made bold, there is are variations in your decision making process:

-Gamestate 1, 2, 3, and 4 are arguably the same. In all 4, the TPS opponent's hand is Force of Will, blue card, and at least one card that will make an impact in the opening turn(s). In case 1 and 2, the only difference is that the opponent forced the duress, whereas in cases 3 and 4, they did not but still had force of will, blue card, X. I have the following questions:

1. Why is it so clear that in case 1, 3,  and 4 that the better play is to play demonic tutor for "not-necro"?

2. How can you be so sure that if, in case 2, your opponent forces pitching anything but another force or ancestral, that the remaining hand _MUST_ be broken cards?

3. Why would your opponent not force the first ritual to begin with regardless of whether the remaining hand was either broken cards or disruption cards?


Web

[Tin_Mox5831]

It's like 3:00 AM, so take this with a grain of salt, but w/e. I'll indulge you with my decision process.

If they pitch FoW or Ancestral Recall to FoW in order to counter Duress, you can be sure that they are holding brokeness. If they are holding any type of proactive hate, the better move would have been to FoW the initial Dark Ritual and cut you down at the knees, then play their hate on their Turn 1 preventing any chance of Duress hitting play from your side before then. If FoW is removed via another FoW, it's clearly a good time to try Timetwister as they will only have 3 Forces in their deck when they draw their new 7. Also, if by some chance they were actually protecting CotV, Twister provides a solid plan that can easily circumvent either of the two possible CotV settings (0 or 1) on your Turn 2.

In plays 2 and 3 of the ones you bolded, the other hate cards besides CotV pose a high degree of threat to your gameplan. As such, you are forced to take them with Duress, leaving CotV in their hand. Tinker -> DSC is the least symmetrical effect you can go for here while maintaining a strong position in the face of either CotV setting. It's not an airtight plan, but it certainly looks like your best bet.

In play 4 of the bolded ones, Duress is going to severely muck up your plans with Demonic Tutor, but you simply cannot allow them to have FoW + Blue spell. If you use Demonic on a juicy target, it'll be Duressed away. If you don't cast Demonic, odds are that will be the card that is Duressed, which gets you nowhere. In addition, casting Necropotence and leaving them a Duress is suicide. If your Necro removes either Tendrils or Yawgmoth's Will, you have to put them in your hand of 7, and their Duress will proceed to be the cheapest win condition ever. Conversely, getting Black Lotus makes Duress a dead card for their next turn, while basically making every significant spell you could possibly topdeck playable in terms of mana availability. This play also reduces the effectiveness of the strip effects you mentioned.

I hope that that makes some sense, but it may not.  I play a lot of Grim Long rather than TPS, so I'm used to doing things in a bit more broken fashion. 

Later,
Dave

[Webster]

If they pitch FoW or Ancestral Recall to FoW in order to counter Duress, you can be sure that they are holding brokeness. If they are holding any type of proactive hate, the better move would have been to FoW the initial Dark Ritual and cut you down at the knees, then play their hate on their Turn 1 preventing any chance of Duress hitting play from your side before then. If FoW is removed via another FoW, it's clearly a good time to try Timetwister as they will only have 3 Forces in their deck when they draw their new 7. Also, if by some chance they were actually protecting CotV, Twister provides a solid plan that can easily circumvent either of the two possible CotV settings (0 or 1) on your Turn 2.

-So given that the opponent is holding brokeness, why do you think that they would let the dark ritual resolve in that case opposed to the other case in which they are holding force and some proactive hate?

-Why bother waiting for a turn 2 timetwister when you can have a turn 1 necro? If they did indeed pitch a force to force, then they would only have 2 remaining in the 58 cards that are in non-public zones (5 cards in hand, 53 cards in deck). Surely you don't believe that a turn 2 timetwister is a better play than a turn 1 necro.

In plays 2 and 3 of the ones you bolded, the other hate cards besides CotV pose a high degree of threat to your gameplan. As such, you are forced to take them with Duress, leaving CotV in their hand. Tinker -> DSC is the least symmetrical effect you can go for here while maintaining a strong position in the face of either CotV setting. It's not an airtight plan, but it certainly looks like your best bet.

-Again, I ask why is turn 2 tinker better than turn 1 necro? If you go with the tinker route, you're only guaranteed to see 2 cards in the next 2 turns to help protect your DSC win whereas with turn 1 necro, you'll have access to roughly 14 new cards.

In addition, casting Necropotence and leaving them a Duress is suicide. If your Necro removes either Tendrils or Yawgmoth's Will, you have to put them in your hand of 7, and their Duress will proceed to be the cheapest win condition ever.

-TPS lists run a standard 2 tendrils maindeck along with yawgmoth's will unlike IT and grim long lists which only run a single copy of tendrils. Getting your tendrils duressed while you have necro in play, and thus, removed from the game is hardly the end of it.


Web

[Gabethebabe]

It's game 3. You are playing a deck with 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void and jewelry against TPS. No mulligans occur.
You are on the draw with the following hand:
Force of Will, blue card, Chalice of the Void/Duress, Polluted Delta/Underground Sea, card X, card Y, card Z.
Your opponent leads with Polluted Delta and sacrifices it, fetching a swamp. Your opponent plays Duress.

What do you do? Why?

I would allow Duress to resolve.
I would only consider FoW when I have Chalice=1 first turn, so one of your XYZ is e.g. a mox.

[ErkBek]

Why play a draw7 in TPS if you don't have to? Draw7's in TPS are risky, especially considering the best card in the deck (demonic tutor) is already gone as well as 2 Rituals. The necro play is the best. This thread has gone on far to long for such a straight forward play. Check out the situation I posted in the GL thread if you want to discuss a real tough one.

[MaxxMatt]

I'm going to propose another game situation.
This is far more open that the other presented until now, but it lead me to an unexpected turn 3 win.

I haven't any information about my opponent rather than his first turn play.
He mulliganed down to 6 and started with Bayou, Xantid Swarm and then passed the turn.



My starting hand is:

Library of Alexandria
Flooded Strand
Mox Sapphire
Time Walk
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Brainstorm

The list that I was playing is the one that I proposed in "TPS, IT, GL thread".

How are you going to approach this game?
Are you feeling in trouble or not?
Would you have mulliganed this hand into a new one, if possible?
Which are the opponent's possible moves that could lead you to play in a specific way?
How many turns can you aestimate to have in order to set-up and win?
Would you have played in the way you choose to describe to me indipendantly from his first turn move?


Enjoy.
MaxxMatt

[Gabethebabe]

Lotsa questions for a rather straightforward hand, that I would keep any time of the day. It has only one important spell (Brainstorm) and I´ll just hope that I can combo before my opponent does.

I would simply draw my card and walk turn 1 off sapphire and usea, draw my card and brainstorm off Sapphire. I will have seen five cards more of my deck and hope there is something good in there. Either to disrupt (Duress) or to set up my own combo. After Brainstorm you ditch the two worst cards, one of which is likely to be Library.

The first card I draw can of course alter my plan. If it is e.g. Duress I would Brainstorm, fetch usea and Duress. If it is a Mox I would Brainstorm and Walk. Etc.

I´m not going to milk library. No time for that.

[JACO]

Here is a situation that I'd like to submit.

It's game 3. You are playing TPS against a deck with 4 Force of Will, 4 Chalice of the Void and jewelry. No mulligans occurs.
You are on the play with the following hand:
Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Duress, Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, Mox Ruby and Polluted Delta.

How do you play?

I would agree with Ochoa that the Necro play obviously seems best. Refilling your opponents hand with potential goodness after you just spent the mana and tempo to strip away their best or most relevant spell with Duress is counterintuitive, and probably 80% of the time or greater you're not going to win the first turn with TPS if you play that Wheel of Fortune with B floating in the scenario above, so that's out. Play the Polluted Delta, sacrifice Polluted Delta, find Swamp. Finding an Underground Sea doesn't let you win in 1-2 turns if they Wasteland it away, so that's obviously incorrect when playing against a partly unknown deck. Tap for B, play Dark Ritual (BBB floating). If they don't Force the Dark Ritual, play Duress (BB floating), take a Force of Will or anything you care about that would prevent you from winning in 1-2 turns from now (a Force of Will first, then Duress, or Null Rod, or Chalice of the Void, etc.). So now the question I have is, do you play the Sol Ring this turn and mana burn for one or not? Although it could potentially cheaply add to your storm count next turn, I would play it this turn, because you're going to refilling your hand with Necropotence anyway, and I would want to have the additional R mana next turn, especially if I'm playing the red splash in TPS. So along this line of thought, I'm going to play the Mox Ruby, tap for R and use it to play the Sol Ring. Then tap Sol Ring for 2, play Demonic Tutor (1B floating) and find Necropotence, and then play Dark Ritual (BBB1 floating) and then play Necropotence.

However, I would not draw 15 cards off the Necropotence. I have no cards in hand left, 1 Swamp + 1 Mox Ruby + 1 Sol Ring in play. Even if I draw 15 cards, am I really going to win next turn with TPS with those limited mana resources in play? I'm not convinced I would, so I tend to play TPS a bit more conservatively. I would draw about 10-11 cards probably, and then on my turn 2 I can either win, or develop my mana base a bit more and set up to definitely win on turn 3 after drawing a few more cards off Necropotence on turn 2.


Now on to MaxxMatt's scenario:

I'm going to propose another game situation. This is far more open that the other presented until now, but it lead me to an unexpected turn 3 win.

I haven't any information about my opponent rather than his first turn play. He mulliganed down to 6 and started with Bayou, Xantid Swarm and then passed the turn.

My starting hand is:
Library of Alexandria
Flooded Strand
Mox Sapphire
Time Walk
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Brainstorm

The list that I was playing is the one that I proposed in "TPS, IT, GL thread".

How are you going to approach this game?
Are you feeling in trouble or not?
Would you have mulliganed this hand into a new one, if possible?
Which are the opponent's possible moves that could lead you to play in a specific way?
How many turns can you aestimate to have in order to set-up and win?
Would you have played in the way you choose to describe to me indipendantly from his first turn move?

If my opponent leads with Bayou and then plays a Xantid Swarm, he's probably either playing Dragon (I've seen a lot of Italian lists with it main) or Charbelcher (again, with Xantid main). Knowing that I am going to Time Walk this turn makes me feel somewhat comfortable. Obviously we don't know what we'll draw off the cards when we get our turn, but depending on what I saw, I would probably play it like this:
Draw card for the turn (+1 unknown card), and play the Underground Sea, then play the Mox Sapphire, and then play Time Walk. Draw card for the turn (+2 unknown cards), then tap Mox Sapphire and play Brainstorm (+5 unknown cards). Your options and lines of play are all depending on what you've seen in those +5 unknown cards since your opponent last had a turn, but I think you would be in good shape.

[b-tings]

If I would have started Land, Ritual --> Especting something,my opponent, because of FoW, and because of CotVs would have FoWilled the first rite and then proceded to play the possible CotVs to slow down my game MORE than needed.

Countering Ritual would have stupid of a full turn the first turn Duress AND the Bombs that could have followed. You can't trick FoWs in hands so much frequently. Your opponent would learn from the past and counter the RIGHT thing.

Ritual.

Especially if he has the ability to folllow that stupid counter with something far more game sealing, such as CotVs.

If you're willing to make this leap, that your opponent, given a FoW, will Force your Dark Ritual, then you can lead with Dark Ritual and, if it resolves, skip the duress and win right now. This plan loses if your opponent kept something like Force, a single bomb like Recall or Gifts, say, a Chalice, and mana, since they won't Force until they absolutely have to, but leading with Duress doesn't seem to remedy that in any way, since you can either take their bomb and lose to Chalice at one, or take Chalice and be playing through lots of cards + FoW. Making this assumption, the only situation where Duress would really be relevant is if they had only one piece of fast mana to support both Chalice and Gifts (say, a Mana Crypt), or had no relevant pieces at all and were on the unprotected Recall into goodies plan, which seems like a fairly weak plan on the draw against a deck that plays both FoW and Duress. If you can put your opponent on only rolling with certain hands and certain plays, then leading with Dark Ritual seems much stronger.

EDIT

This is assuming that there are not situations where he would Force Ritual and follow up with something dynamite, but would not Force the Duress that could steal his cash play. I'd say that's a fairly solid assumption. Obviously if he Force's Ritual and follows up with something insane, you're in an awful position, but if he Forces your Duress and follows up with the insane play he was protecting, you're on equally unsteady ground, and you now have Ritual to try to win right now, instead of Duress to try to counteract you're opponent's insanity. I wouldn't think anything that doesn't have your opponent dominating your turn two Will/Necro, or winning on the spot, would be worth protecting from Duress with Force.