[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays - Time Walking Back to the Future

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14787.html

My article this week is about Fact or Fiction!  I build a 4 Fact or Fiction deck and throw it up against my gauntlet to see what happens.

Check it out.

Stephen

[andrewpate]

Steve, in 2004 you built a BBS deck in order to combat the Crucible decks.  You made top 8 at Worlds with that deck, using Ophidian in place of Fact or Fiction despite the prevalence of Fish and Workshop decks (read:  decks with blockers) at that time.  But that performance was never repeated, and the deck essentially evaporated after GenCon, as I recall.  You said, at that time, that the real power of the deck was in the mana denial (in this case, Back to Basics) and in the resistance to the dominant form of disruption (at that time, Wasteland).

Your new list certainly has what has proved, in the hands of Dan Yarrington and others, to be one of the strongest mana denial plans available in the form of Magus of the Moon.  However, we saw in 2004 that prepared players with basic lands and/or resistance to countermagic were able to deal with BBS pretty easily, and as Fish players moved away from Crucibles and from clunky manabases with too many nonbasics (and as other decks got better), the deck quit working.  In this metagame, with arguably the most counterspell-resistant deck in Vintage history (Ichorid) and high-pressure, heavily disruptive decks such as TMWA and Vincent Forino's Suicide Tendrils running tons of basic lands with which to handle Magus, do you really think that just beating Gush and a few other things will be able to secure a long-term metagame berth for BBS?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your reasoning and favor the unrestriction of Fact or Fiction.  But I'm skeptical about the chances of BBS performing well as anything but a secret weapon at this point.  Interactivity and diversity are good, and this unrestriction could be a catalyst for them, but I'm not sure that this is really "the Fact deck."

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

If Gush decks were roughly 20% of the metagame with approximately 25 copies of the deck in the field

Steve, how were you able to acertain that?  I wasn't aware that SCG was going to or had posted all the decklists from the competition.  Is there a deck type breakdown in a report somewhere that we could take a loot at?

Peace,

-Troy

[Smmenen]

Heya,

If Gush decks were roughly 20% of the metagame with approximately 25 copies of the deck in the field

Steve, how were you able to acertain that?  I wasn't aware that SCG was going to or had posted all the decklists from the competition.  Is there a deck type breakdown in a report somewhere that we could take a loot at?

Peace,

-Troy

No, that's my guess.   I've combed through so many vintage tournament stats and attended so many of these major vintage events over the last 6 years that I've become extremely adept at "eyeballing" tournament stats.   My actual guess is that about 18 or 19 decks had 4 Gush in them out of all 130, but it could have been as high as 25.   It's a rough guess from scoping out the field.

Stephen

[Kowal]

You made top 8 at Worlds with that deck, using Ophidian in place of Fact or Fiction despite the prevalence of Fish and Workshop decks (read:  decks with blockers) at that time.  But that performance was never repeated, and the deck essentially evaporated after GenCon, as I recall.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=19828.0

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=19588.0


And as far as I'm concerned, what killed the deck was a superior draw engine in the form of Thirst for Knowledge and superior threats in the form of Goblin Welder.  Control Slaver was what killed Ophidian as a viable strategy.

I have not read the article, as I do not subscribe to premium, but if the argument is whether or not a 4 FoF based deck would be able to compete with modern type one I'd have to give about the strongest no you could imagine.  FoF is a slow, clunky, miserable draw engine in an environment where you rarely ramp to 4 anyway.  Any FoF based deck would be mercilessly devastated by GAT, Flash, and Ichorid before it could cast a second FoF, and probably before it could cast a 4th.

That said, I don't doubt a 4 FoF deck would be viable if we randomly saw Bazaar, Flash, and Gush restricted.

[Smmenen]

As a general matter, I've been told to reply to posts on the scg forums, so I have.

I will reply to Kowal's post there.

However, decklists aren't premium.  Here is my 4 fact decklist:

BBS, 2007

UR Fact Control,

By Stephen Menendian
 
3 Meloku 
3 Magus of the Moon
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak

2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Powder Keg
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Volcanic Island
5 Fetchland
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
6 Islands

[Smmenen]

Thread Necromancy!

I have a good reason though.  This article is now FREE.   Enjoy!

[LotusHead]

Thread Necromancy!

I have a good reason though.  This article is now FREE.   Enjoy!

I enjoyed reading it and appreciate it when you make known when some great articles are free.