[Article] The Super Long Primer, part 1

[ErkBek]

"Twelve protection spells, 25 mana source, a stable mana base and a combo finish. Sounds a lot like Meandeck Gifts doesn’t it?"

http://blog.mtgchicago.com/?p=21

I decided to break the primer up into 2 articles so I could keep it as in depth and through as I wanted. This half is contains my list, explains card choices, and talks about how to play the deck.

-----------EDIT--------------

Check out the article on MTGChicago.com if possible. The more unique views the article gets the more I get paid. 

If you can't view it there, you can access the article here.

http://files-upload.com/files/682796/Article 4 - The Super Long Primer.doc

[breed]

I've just read the article. That's excellent! This is really well written with all explanations needed for players to understand how the decks works!

Good job!

[Nantuko]

Hi,
Im the only person that cant open the article???

Thanks

[Engine_number_9]

Hi,
Im the only person that cant open the article???

Thanks

No, I've got the same problem as well. Odd.

[Petro_Nor]

Me too.
Please kobefan can you emsure that the link is right orn paste here the article?
Thanks

[breed]

The link works great here (in France) with Firefox.

[Petro_Nor]

But here (in the basque country-Spain) it doesn't work, I can only reach to mtgchicago.com, and then the articles link doesn't works... I will try again later.

[breed]

And if you use this link: http://blog.mtgchicago.com/?p=21#more-21

[Pyromaniac]

It doesn't work for me either. I can reach mtgchicago.com fine but when I click on the articles section it times out

[Petro_Nor]

And if you use this link: http://blog.mtgchicago.com/?p=21#more-21

No way too. time out message. As I say previously I will thank to look it, her or whereever is possible.

[Arsenal]

Interesting read.  I'm quite unfamiliar with Long decks, so this was quite informative.  I really like the fact I get to play with Bargain and Necro; so many decks I've seen do not/can not play with these cards.  The fact that kobefan's build is relatively cheap to build (if 10-proxy is allowed in your local area) is a plus.

[ErkBek]

I'm not to sure what the deal is with Europeans being unable to access the site, hopefully we can get that worked out shortly. If you are unable to access the article shoot me a PM and I'll happily send you a copy.

The fact that kobefan's build is relatively cheap to build (if 10-proxy is allowed in your local area) is a plus.

That's been sort of a nice bonus of the Gush metagame. many decks in the format are only running 6-7 pieces of power.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

[B166ER]

I live in the U.S. and can't get either link to open.  :/

[Arsenal]

That's been sort of a nice bonus of the Gush metagame. many decks in the format are only running 6-7 pieces of power.

The Grim Tutors really put a hurt on the wallet too.  How do you feel with just one Merchant Scroll?  Ever draw it, wanting it to be something else?  Or have you ever wanted to run 2x?

[GUnit]

I'm in Canada and I can't read it either, or anything else on the site, beyond the homepage. 

[Pyromaniac]

Maybe you could host it somewhere else(private homepage or something) ? If not, I'd like to receive a copy please

[ErkBek]

Ok, the link doesn't work for some people. I'll post it here until we get it working for everyone since I've been flooded with PM's. It's been added to my opening post.

Let's stop talking about the site, more about the article. 

[GUnit]

I'm guessing that my playstyle (very reactive) has a lot to do with this, but the deck hasn't been testing very well for me on MWS. I feel like it's doing the same thing with its life total a lot of the time that GAT tries to do, but GAT does it better. I'm not saying this deck is worse, necessarily, but the way I'm playing it, GAT seems like a better choice for me.

[ErkBek]

I'm guessing that my playstyle (very reactive) has a lot to do with this, but the deck hasn't been testing very well for me on MWS. I feel like it's doing the same thing with its life total a lot of the time that GAT tries to do, but GAT does it better. I'm not saying this deck is worse, necessarily, but the way I'm playing it, GAT seems like a better choice for me.

You can't play reactively with this deck at all. You need to play proactively with Duress effects and by producing must counter threats.

While you can't really compare this deck to GAT all that much you can loosely say, instead of running creatures you run rituals and instead of running Gushes you run game winning threats.

[SolKanar]

In fact, playing this type of deck as a reactive player is a good exercise in breaking out of the "playstyle" shell.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Actually, I've been testing this deck a lot lately and I really like the way it plays. (probably not a surprise to those of you that know how much I enjoy playing combo-control). The article is a really good introduction to the deck, in my opinion, so thanks a lot for writing it. I especially agree on the way draw7's should be played. I nearly never win with DSC though, if Tendrils doesn't get removed some way, but that might be because I haven't been testing vs Stax much yet (and don't get me wrong, i don't advocate removing it, i remember playing Gifts vs Stax and you definitly need a second wincondition so as to not die if they hit Tendrils with Duress under Necro or if you have to spend a minor Tendrils under Necro once Will is already used up/unavailable. I do have a Tendrils SB to remove the DSC for against control, though). 

There is only one point where I completely disagree:

Hand 1) Polluted Delta, Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual, Duress, Imperial Seal

Ugh. Fizzle. This would really make a spicy opening 7, since you could Seal for Bargain on turn 1 and the cast it with Duress protection on turn 2, but unfortunately we’ll have to just Duress and then Seal here.

This hand is no fizzle and should, imo, be played very differently. It's great and should win turn 2 through FoW:

Turn 1 you go land, Ritual, Duress, Seal, Sol Ring. Turn two you drop Bargain with a leftover mana and no landdrop made. While I agree that you really always want to Duress turn 1 on the play, I don't really see the advantage of just Duressing.

PS: I'm in France, link works fine here.

[hauntedechos]

Well done Eric,

I haven't yet revised my article you looked at a few weeks ago, but certainly this shows me what kind of  information is benificial to the reader.

About your choice to run U/B:  I've come around to see the logic behind it.  I was approaching this deck from a fast storm deck from a year or two ago, this lead me to frustration with the deck as it wasn't comboing out as I expected it to.  I see that you really don't need the draw 7's as you aren't going for speed, you're really looking to win via Necro, Bargain, Will or a Tinker->DSC.  This is accomplished by early duress effects and the win protected via Force of Will, or leading off with a Duress effect.

My question to you is thus, if a deck like TMWA is playing 4 Duress and 3+ Thoughtseize with the possible REB and or Unmask, how does a slower deck like this hope to keep enough of a hand to win through all that?  The same question is applied to Ichorid game 2-3.

Thanks for your time Eric, I think I might have been fully converted from U/W/B Fish to this deck.

cheers
Michael

[Moxlotus]

Mon, that hand is a fizzle since you dont kill them that turn.  As Eric said, it would be a spicy opening 7, but it is a fizzle off a draw7 since you won't kill them this turn.

[ErkBek]

I just finished up part 2. It should be up sometime Thursday or Friday.

[Ufactor]

As someone who played MDGifts for almost a year, I'm still not sure I understand SuperLong.  What's the advantage of playing something like this over GrimLong, where you can max out on the number of rituals and duresses?

[ErkBek]

As someone who played MDGifts for almost a year, I'm still not sure I understand SuperLong.  What's the advantage of playing something like this over GrimLong, where you can max out on the number of rituals and duresses?

Grim Long pretty much can't beat GAT if the game goes past turn 2. You can't play a deck that has a terrible matchup against the best and most widely played deck in the format. Maxing out on Rituals is (28-30 mana sources) runs you into a problem of keeping up with GAT's card efficiency.

[ashiXIII]

Actually, I've been testing this deck a lot lately and I really like the way it plays. (probably not a surprise to those of you that know how much I enjoy playing combo-control). The article is a really good introduction to the deck, in my opinion, so thanks a lot for writing it. I especially agree on the way draw7's should be played. I nearly never win with DSC though, if Tendrils doesn't get removed some way, but that might be because I haven't been testing vs Stax much yet (and don't get me wrong, i don't advocate removing it, i remember playing Gifts vs Stax and you definitly need a second wincondition so as to not die if they hit Tendrils with Duress under Necro or if you have to spend a minor Tendrils under Necro once Will is already used up/unavailable. I do have a Tendrils SB to remove the DSC for against control, though). 

There is only one point where I completely disagree:

Hand 1) Polluted Delta, Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual, Duress, Imperial Seal

Ugh. Fizzle. This would really make a spicy opening 7, since you could Seal for Bargain on turn 1 and the cast it with Duress protection on turn 2, but unfortunately we’ll have to just Duress and then Seal here.

This hand is no fizzle and should, imo, be played very differently. It's great and should win turn 2 through FoW:

Turn 1 you go land, Ritual, Duress, Seal, Sol Ring. Turn two you drop Bargain with a leftover mana and no landdrop made. While I agree that you really always want to Duress turn 1 on the play, I don't really see the advantage of just Duressing.

PS: I'm in France, link works fine here.

I think the main problem with this line of play is that the Ritual gets countered if A) your opponent is capable of countering and B) doesn't suck at Magic: The Gathering.

[ErkBek]

Actually, I've been testing this deck a lot lately and I really like the way it plays. (probably not a surprise to those of you that know how much I enjoy playing combo-control). The article is a really good introduction to the deck, in my opinion, so thanks a lot for writing it. I especially agree on the way draw7's should be played. I nearly never win with DSC though, if Tendrils doesn't get removed some way, but that might be because I haven't been testing vs Stax much yet (and don't get me wrong, i don't advocate removing it, i remember playing Gifts vs Stax and you definitly need a second wincondition so as to not die if they hit Tendrils with Duress under Necro or if you have to spend a minor Tendrils under Necro once Will is already used up/unavailable. I do have a Tendrils SB to remove the DSC for against control, though). 

There is only one point where I completely disagree:

Hand 1) Polluted Delta, Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual, Duress, Imperial Seal

Ugh. Fizzle. This would really make a spicy opening 7, since you could Seal for Bargain on turn 1 and the cast it with Duress protection on turn 2, but unfortunately we’ll have to just Duress and then Seal here.

This hand is no fizzle and should, imo, be played very differently. It's great and should win turn 2 through FoW:

Turn 1 you go land, Ritual, Duress, Seal, Sol Ring. Turn two you drop Bargain with a leftover mana and no landdrop made. While I agree that you really always want to Duress turn 1 on the play, I don't really see the advantage of just Duressing.

PS: I'm in France, link works fine here.

I think the main problem with this line of play is that the Ritual gets countered if A) your opponent is capable of countering and B) doesn't suck at Magic: The Gathering.

Again, that hand was a sample draw7 hand, not opening 7 hand. I gave 5 sample draw7 hands in the article to demonstrate that you can't always count on converting them into a kill. Also, Mon's given play was on turn 1. Just because your opponent doesn't have a FoW doesn't mean they suck at Magic the Gathering.

[Ufactor]

Grim Long pretty much can't beat GAT if the game goes past turn 2. You can't play a deck that has a terrible matchup against the best and most widely played deck in the format. Maxing out on Rituals is (28-30 mana sources) runs you into a problem of keeping up with GAT's card efficiency.

Well, that is to say that, GrimLong isn't built to win on any other turns besides turn one and turn two.  After that, GrimLong sucks against just about anything, except Dorothy the Goldfish.

It just seems that, what differentiates SuperLong from previous incarnations of either PitchLong or MDG is it's reliance on rituals and duresses - cards that are more advantageous in a strictly linear deck like GL.

It also seems Force of Will is very, well...um, forced into this deck. Please, DO NOT mistake this as saying FoW is bad.. surely, it is still the best counterspell in the game.  What I am saying is that SuperLong seems to be factionalized between blue cards to support FoW, black cards to maximize rituals and 6-8 artifacts to support Tinker.

Out of those three schisms, FoW, and the blue cards needed to accomodate it, appears to be the most strained and contrived.  Usually this means either not having cards to pitch, or pitching what could be your only business because it is blue. (I fully understand, however, that Ponder is mostly irrelevant after turn two, and that Hurkyl's Recall, Mystical Tutor, Mind's Desire, and *occasionally* Time Walk are expendable. There are still many other instances when you can't RFG Brainstorm because you absolutely need to dig for land, or shuffle away stinkers, like Darksteel Colossus.  Ancestral, Tinker and *usually* Timetwister are the cards that you cannot afford to get rid of.)  Isn't it just simpler to eliminate one source of inconsistency in the deck, play 8 Duress (possibly with REB in the sideboard), and not worry about the rest?

[pyr0ma5ta]

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the off color Moxen in other Long builds with the Rituals in SuperLong.  The other Long builds also run Rituals, so it's more accurate to describe it as -3 moxes, +3 Ponder.  I'm glad you cut that Desire nonsense, it's so bad in this deck (Gifts has been turning out to be awesome in testing).  Along the vein of things that are bad in this deck, however, unfortunately includes the draw-7s.  The power level of the deck is so low that post-timetwister, you frequently burn on mana or just cast Duress before passing the turn.  Memory Jar is so much better because you can Brainstorm/Ponder and break in response, which is usually good enough to get there.  From my testing, SuperLong is much more stable than GrimLong but feels simply underpowered compared to PitchLong decks from a few months ago.  However, the stable mana base makes SL strictly better than GL against the rising Stax/9-sphere MUD decks. 

In other news, the website seems to have changed and the link to the articles section is, uh, gone?