Force of Will vs. Black Lotus

[Imzakhor]

Often players state, without hesitation, that the best card in their deck is Black Lotus, some going so far as to keep running tallies of win-loss records when the card comes up. Often it is the single most important card of any win.

Given that, I find it strange how rarely Lotus is met with FoW, especially on the first turn. I am guilty of this as well; if I have an active FoW, many times I believe it would be better to wait for the ACTUAL bomb to counter. However, in the Age of Storm, this is Magic's Maginot Line.

What I would like to know, is what are the general feelings on FoW vs. Lotus? Should FoW be held back against this bomb? Late game, almost never, but 1st/2nd turn becomes quite debatable... Maybe even third turn. Under what game scenarios/opponents would you counter Lotus, to letting it slide?

I will go first! I would always Force the Lotus if my opponent did not drop a blue land first... And that is my only hard rule. Aside from that, Lotus will crack against me for 3 of any color, and I will hope to find another pertinent Force target later.

[Machinus]

This is a very hard question to answer. FoWing black lotus can be completely devastating if they follow up with another relevant card. I think most players would rather take the risk of the opponent not having the complete nuts on turn 1 and save their countermagic for the broken card advantage, or to protect their own win.

[ketchupgun]

I've always held back and waited for the broken cards, not the accelerant.

Though, I think it depends on what your opponent is playing...it's almost like semi-blind Meddling Mage guesses. (If no blue mana was played, FoWing th lotus seems like a good general rule..I'll try that out)

From memory, I recall a match in a semi-scrubby meta, where someone playing a WW deck cracked lotus turn one, I let it reslove, and was immediately put on a clock, facing 2 Lions and Isamuru. Needless to say they made short work of me. (Oh, and it was a Topdeck btw!! 

[desolutionist]

It depends on if they can play more bombs than you can counter off that Black Lotus.  (But in that scenario, you lose anyway)  It's usually best to reserve Force for the actual threat unless you suspect a huge Desire/Tendrils/Empty.

[Implacable]

It absolutely depends on the deck that you are facing, the turn of the game, and, of course, on a myriad of other factors.  This answer is not a copout; it is simply the only correct one.  However, there are some general rules for when to counter Black Lotus.
1) Lotus's value goes down as the game progresses.  A turn 1 Lotus will often be forced; a turn 7 Lotus, almost never.  This is because, as the game goes on, mana available will evolve to the point where Lotus mana is superfluous.

2) The more broken the deck, the better the Lotus.  The biggest stumbling block of the most broken decks in our format - Gifts & Long - is mana.  Lotus provides an absurd amount of mana, giving these broken decks instant access to their game-winning spells.  Conversely, in a deck like Fish, Lotus enables 'power' plays like first turn Rod, Mage, go.  While that's bad, it's better than facing a first turn Scroll, Ancestral, Gifts, or something of the like.  Therefore, Loti should be Forced when the deck playing them is broken.

Following these two guidelines has led me to my current 'policy' when it comes to Forcing.  While I probably Force Lotus more than is usual, I rarely regret it; hands are kept on the strength of the best card in the game.

[Imzakhor]

It absolutely depends on the deck that you are facing, the turn of the game, and, of course, on a myriad of other factors.  This answer is not a copout; it is simply the only correct one.  However, there are some general rules for when to counter Black Lotus.
1) Lotus's value goes down as the game progresses.  A turn 1 Lotus will often be forced; a turn 7 Lotus, almost never.  This is because, as the game goes on, mana available will evolve to the point where Lotus mana is superfluous.

2) The more broken the deck, the better the Lotus.  The biggest stumbling block of the most broken decks in our format - Gifts & Long - is mana.  Lotus provides an absurd amount of mana, giving these broken decks instant access to their game-winning spells.  Conversely, in a deck like Fish, Lotus enables 'power' plays like first turn Rod, Mage, go.  While that's bad, it's better than facing a first turn Scroll, Ancestral, Gifts, or something of the like.  Therefore, Loti should be Forced when the deck playing them is broken.

Following these two guidelines has led me to my current 'policy' when it comes to Forcing.  While I probably Force Lotus more than is usual, I rarely regret it; hands are kept on the strength of the best card in the game.

The question gets more dicey when you don't KNOW the deck you are facing. Imagine facing an unknown opponent, who is on the play... It's Game 1. What is the prudent strategy for Forcing Lotus? While that is quite a few constraints, I know it comes up a lot, and would be good to figure out.

Thanks for reading!

[zeus-online]

Depends 100% on the situation, however, i often FoW a turn 1 lotus! whatever he uses it for, its gonna be something good.

/Zeus

[Draven]

Following these two guidelines has led me to my current 'policy' when it comes to Forcing.  While I probably Force Lotus more than is usual, I rarely regret it; hands are kept on the strength of the best card in the game.

You kind of just brought up the question I was going to ask. How many sub-par hands are kept on the back of Lotus? How many of the hands would be wrecked it the Lotus is countered? Maybe another equally important question, how many times is Lotus Duressed away first turn? This is slightly different, because you get access to their entire hand, but it is still a good question.

[DoubleDrain]

I FOW'ed Nick Trudeau's (<-spelling? )  turn one lotus in our top 8 match at worlds and he just passed the turn without even laying a land! That play was hot. I think he had turn 1 windfall or something, but that play bought me plenty of time to seal the game up.

Sometimes you must follow your instinct and force the lotus, and sometimes you gotta let it resolve...

[netherspirit]

I think that if you know what you're opponent is playing and feel Lotus is too threatening counter it; another situation where I would counter it is when I'm already ahead in terms of tempo and don't want to give them a chance to catch up.

I personally don't counter Lotus without enough information, though.

[Anusien]

I FOW'ed Nick Trudeau's (<-spelling? )  turn one lotus in our top 8 match at worlds and he just passed the turn without even laying a land! That play was hot. I think he had turn 1 windfall or something, but that play bought me plenty of time to seal the game up.

Sometimes you must follow your instinct and force the lotus, and sometimes you gotta let it resolve...

In that situation, is it better to Force the Lotus and wait for Windfall/whatever else and force it?

[T00L]

I'd probably force a lotus against a storm deck. I've heard that starwarskid almost always counters lotus. So i've heard.

[ErkBek]

I FOW'ed Nick Trudeau's (<-spelling? )  turn one lotus in our top 8 match at worlds and he just passed the turn without even laying a land! That play was hot. I think he had turn 1 windfall or something, but that play bought me plenty of time to seal the game up.

Sometimes you must follow your instinct and force the lotus, and sometimes you gotta let it resolve...

In that situation, is it better to Force the Lotus and wait for Windfall/whatever else and force it?

Not necessarily. If Nick were planning to play a Brainstorm or something first then you could end up having to deal with multiple threats. What if Nick would have played Lotus (resolves), Brainstorm, Fetchland, Twister (meets FOW).

Even though the twister was countered, Nick now has a Land in play and shuffled away the bad cards.

[Godder]

On turn 1, probably, but as another poster mentioned, probably not later in the game. Rakso was a big proponent of Forcing a turn 1 Lotus, and while people like to denigrate his writing, that was one of his best suggestions.

[yespuhyren]

Lotus is probably one of the single greatest components of whether to keep a risky hand.  Assuming you are playing Gifts, lots of players with something like:

Lotus, Brainstorm, Brainstorm, Drain, Merchant Scroll, Ruby, Gifts.

Would probably keep against unknown.dec.  I probably would, as this seems like it could be keepable, especially with double brainstorm, ruby, with brainstorms and scroll being workable off blue. 

What if your opponent forces the lotus?  Then what if for two turns in a row you don't draw a mana source?  That should almost guarantee that unless your opponent is playing Fish, you lose.  Even if your opponent is playing fish, odds are they are in a much more favorable board position.

[Klep]

I can't say I'd be comfortable keeping that.  From the other side of the table, if my opponent were to lead with Black Lotus rather than a land, I would consider that a red flag that countering the Lotus would be highly likely to cripple my opponent's development.  That wouldn't always be the case, obviously, but I would consider it highly indicative.  I would likely only keep such a hand if I felt confident my opponent had no way to stop the Lotus.

[forests failed you]

If I knew my opponent was playing Long I would FOW his turn one Lotus every single time I could.

The problem with not FOW a turn one Lotus, (or even Dark Ritual) is:  Lotus?  Crack for black, Dark Ritual?  Duress?  Land.... Oops, should have Forced that Lotus. 

Especially if you are playing a control deck, you can infer that if your opponent is casting  a Lotus he is probably intending upon using it that turn.  Think to how good it is when  you are playing Lotus on turn one with a combo deck, and how you usually feel when it gets Force of Willed.  Its usually just safe not to give your opponent three free mana for no reason.  If it resolves that early before you have ample cards to save yourself, you are extremely vulnerable to being killed.

[sorcutt]

I can't say I'd be comfortable keeping that.  From the other side of the table, if my opponent were to lead with Black Lotus rather than a land, I would consider that a red flag that countering the Lotus would be highly likely to cripple my opponent's development.  That wouldn't always be the case, obviously, but I would consider it highly indicative.  I would likely only keep such a hand if I felt confident my opponent had no way to stop the Lotus.

On several occasions I've actually baited an opponent by not dropping a land and leading out with the lotus, with the intention of it getting forced so I can drop a bomb later (with an unprotected hand). I wouldn't consider auto forcing the lotus without serious consideration. My opinion is that forcing the lotus on turn 1 is one of the more intuitive plays in Magic.

[zeus-online]

If i have spells to cast off artifact accelerants, i almost always lead with those rather then a land...an example:

I'm playing against Control Slaver (I'm playing an IntuAK deck)
I go: Lotus, off-color mox, fact or fiction - My opponent assumes that i have no land and split it with mana sources and spells (One being A. Recall)....I take the pile with A. recall play my land and A. recall.

It's great for bluffing or just hiding information.

/Zeus

[Malhavoc]

Forcing a lotus is making one of these two assumptions:

- He is short on mana sources, and countering the lotus can screw him
- He could cast from that lotus more threats than I'm able to counter with just my force

The second depends on the deck we are facing: it's like countering a dark ritual because we fear something like ritual->duress+bomb. If instead ritual just gives the mana for a SINGLE spell, than just countering the bomb instead of the lotus is obvious card advantage. There is a certain degree of chance and risk here, but it's most dependent on the deck we are facing and the mana they already have put in play.

The first instead is pure chance and risk: it's like countering a brainstorm cast from a first turn sapphire with no land drop.. it could be a game-winning decision, or just a wrong one if our opponent has been so nice to trick us into it on purpose, without really needing that brainstorm at all.

[Tin_Mox5831]

I've been following this thread for awhile, and a can of worms has been opened here, for sure. Long variants are built in such a way that they create awkward situations as they pertain to this question. Playing Grim Long and Pitch Long for quite some time has invariably skewed my view of the situation, but here's how I feel about it:

First off, you have to take any existing information into account. This could be something you saw in Game One, or perhaps you did some scouting earlier. If you know he's playing Ichorid, Fish, etc and just happens to lead with Lotus, no big deal. If your information leads you to believe something more broken is on the horizon, Force the flower. However, if you have no existing information whatsoever, I say Force it then as well.

There's a reason that I suggest this. Vintage is a format that is fundamentally flawed. The value of lands, which are usually a highly prized resource in other formats, is severely diminished in Vintage by the mere presence of Dark Rituals, Moxen, etc. For this reason, nearly every competitive deck in the format is designed on the back of a manabase that wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of surviving an attack on it. As a result, most of these decks fight an internal battle to overcome a built-in disposition leaning them towards a dangerous bottleneck on their mana production. If they're already fighting themselves, you joining the fight shouldn't help their situation one bit.

I would be so bold as to say that I'd Force an opening of Black Lotus up to 3/4 of the time unless I have compelling information to change my mind.

Then again, I've baited many an opponent with Lotus, so maybe I'm just a dirty rotten combo bastard. 

Later,
Dave

[matthewCURBSTOMP]

On several occasions I've actually baited an opponent by not dropping a land and leading out with the lotus, with the intention of it getting forced so I can drop a bomb later (with an unprotected hand). I wouldn't consider auto forcing the lotus without serious consideration. My opinion is that forcing the lotus on turn 1 is one of the more intuitive plays in Magic.

I've done this plenty of times also. Learning to win without needing the Lotus is something that takes time and I often play Lotus as bait recently.

[Klep]

On several occasions I've actually baited an opponent by not dropping a land and leading out with the lotus, with the intention of it getting forced so I can drop a bomb later (with an unprotected hand). I wouldn't consider auto forcing the lotus without serious consideration. My opinion is that forcing the lotus on turn 1 is one of the more intuitive plays in Magic.

Yes, that is one of the exceptions I indicated obviously existed.  I did not recommend auto-Forcing anything, merely that an opponent leading with a Lotus instead of a land would figure prominently in my considerations as strong evidence in favor of playing Force of Will.

[Webster]

One point that should be said which hasn't been brought up is player calliber factoring in how to play an opening hand. There've been multiple games I've had where I was playing against some deck with fow and my opening hand was somewhat threat-light and had lotus; example: lotus, pearl, sol ring, delta, island, brainstorm, merchant scroll. I led with lotus here because of the reasons discussed in previous posts: I wanted my opponent to think hard about fowing the lotus when it wasn't crucial to the hand. If the lotus got forced here, no big deal.

When you sit down across from your opponent, chances are that you'll have a vague idea of how good that person is (assuming you're at a small t1 tournament, 40-) if it's within your "area" geographically. The average t1 player, much like the average magic player, isn't very good and won't necessarily try to construct a trap by leading with lotus so fowing it isn't going to be wrong a lot of the time.

Taking the player into consideration is important almost as much as the deck itself.

[Implacable]

One point that should be said which hasn't been brought up is player calliber factoring in how to play an opening hand. There've been multiple games I've had where I was playing against some deck with fow and my opening hand was somewhat threat-light and had lotus; example: lotus, pearl, sol ring, delta, island, brainstorm, merchant scroll. I led with lotus here because of the reasons discussed in previous posts: I wanted my opponent to think hard about fowing the lotus when it wasn't crucial to the hand. If the lotus got forced here, no big deal.

When you sit down across from your opponent, chances are that you'll have a vague idea of how good that person is (assuming you're at a small t1 tournament, 40-) if it's within your "area" geographically. The average t1 player, much like the average magic player, isn't very good and won't necessarily try to construct a trap by leading with lotus so fowing it isn't going to be wrong a lot of the time.

Taking the player into consideration is important almost as much as the deck itself.

Conversely, if both players are good, this can lead into double traps.  If both players 'know' that leading with Lotus is often bait, then the guy with it can use that to headjink the other fellow.  As I've read, this happens a lot on the Pro Tour; having two quality players at a table leads to higher-level psychological ploys.

[DoubleDrain]

I FOW'ed Nick Trudeau's (<-spelling? )  turn one lotus in our top 8 match at worlds and he just passed the turn without even laying a land! That play was hot. I think he had turn 1 windfall or something, but that play bought me plenty of time to seal the game up.

Sometimes you must follow your instinct and force the lotus, and sometimes you gotta let it resolve...

In that situation, is it better to Force the Lotus and wait for Windfall/whatever else and force it?

Not necessarily. If Nick were planning to play a Brainstorm or something first then you could end up having to deal with multiple threats. What if Nick would have played Lotus (resolves), Brainstorm, Fetchland, Twister (meets FOW).

Even though the twister was countered, Nick now has a Land in play and shuffled away the bad cards.

This is exactly the type of sityation I was trying to avoid. As FFY posted later, he could have gone lotus, ritual, duress, necro, etc. etc. Those situations are tough and it is often correct to attack the combo player's mana (BLotus) to prevent any silliness.

on the other hand, any decent combo player may try and bait the FOW on turn one lotus, only to follow up with land, rit, rit, blah blah blah.

[Liam-K]

There's a big difference between someone glancing at their hand, saying "keep", and announcing black lotus...
...someone peering at their hand, taking a glance at the table, back to their hand, saying "keep" and announcing lotus...
...someone looking at their hand, saying "keep", thinking for a minute, annoucing lotus, and then meeting your eyes...

etc etc.  With no/minimal scouting info, I'd go very strongly on body language.  Basically it boils down to, do I think they have plays this turn?  If so it's probably worth stopping it.

And I'll agree with everyone above.  If I don't mind much if my Lotus is countered I always drop it first, as it raises the suspicion I have a fragile hand.  If I need my lotus I'll drop it at a point when I have other mana available (lands, moxes, rituals, whatever)  if at all possible, people are less eager to force it when you could float BU anyway.

[yespuhyren]

I can't say I'd be comfortable keeping that.  From the other side of the table, if my opponent were to lead with Black Lotus rather than a land, I would consider that a red flag that countering the Lotus would be highly likely to cripple my opponent's development.  That wouldn't always be the case, obviously, but I would consider it highly indicative.  I would likely only keep such a hand if I felt confident my opponent had no way to stop the Lotus.

I guess then the question would be is this right?  Assuming I knew who you were and we were playing, I could do this:

IF Lotus is critical, play land, lotus, let you allow lotus.
IF Lotus isn't critical, I can play Lotus, let you counter it, and then proceed to do my stuff.

Point being if you are the same every time you become easier to bluff against.

[Klep]

I can't say I'd be comfortable keeping that.  From the other side of the table, if my opponent were to lead with Black Lotus rather than a land, I would consider that a red flag that countering the Lotus would be highly likely to cripple my opponent's development.  That wouldn't always be the case, obviously, but I would consider it highly indicative.  I would likely only keep such a hand if I felt confident my opponent had no way to stop the Lotus.

I guess then the question would be is this right?  Assuming I knew who you were and we were playing, I could do this:

IF Lotus is critical, play land, lotus, let you allow lotus.
IF Lotus isn't critical, I can play Lotus, let you counter it, and then proceed to do my stuff.

Point being if you are the same every time you become easier to bluff against.

You're putting words in my mouth.  I said no such thing.  In fact, I explicitly left room for deviation.  I spoke merely in terms of probabilities and likelihoods.

[Glix]

Klep was only talking on the most base of strategies.

When taking that basic strategy into account, it becomes a sort of prisoner's game.  Since if you play lotus first, then its critical, but if you know its critical, and I know that you know that its critical, perhaps it isn't critical, etc etc.

A lot of times, this is about reading your opponant a la poker, probabilities of whats in his hand, what you have personally available, and the neccessity of lotus given conditions.

That being said, I was actually posed this question at Myriad last weekend by Kyle in the semi-finals.  He had mulled, and led with Lotus.  I had force, and a solid hand.  I thought for a second.  Now, considering he was playing pitch long, I knew his threat density was moderate.  I also knew he had mulled, which meant less options.  I hadn't seen him play duress all tourament, so I figured that the likelyhood of him playing something I couldn't force was low enough.  I also had a Mystical in hand, and I wanted to tutor recall.  Considering he had Mis-Ds in his deck, I knew I would want a counter up.  Furthermore, he had played lotus very casually.  This, of course, could be a pschycological ploy, however, taking everything into account, I allowed the lotus.  He proceded to go mox, land, go.  That force would go on to win me the game, essentially, 2 turns later.

The proper play when playing lotus is simply to be consistant.  Always a) act like it means everything, or b) act like it means nothing.  As long as you give no tells, you cannot be read, and you deny that aspect of the decission.

I would like to note that, when playing combo, playing lotus first should not, at least in my eyes, be any more indicative of a counter.  This is simply because for the most part, there is no reason to drop an early land when the deck is capable of using that card in hand for brainstoming purposes, and that land drop for a more important land (such as an Academy at some later point, post desire, etc, etc.).

The "counter lotus" decission, for me, is usually met with "no" unless a few conditions are met: It is past turn 1, my opponant is mana-lite; my opponant is playing duresses; my opponant is playing a very fast deck and suicidal deck; my opponant is comboing off, and seems to require one type of mana.