Comparing PitchLong with GWS Long

[Bongo]

As a fan of Storm Combo, the recent decklists of Tommy Kolowith and Eric Becker caught my eye.
Comparing the two decklists, I found the following different card choices (identical cards left out):


Becker (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=18128):

1 Tolarian Academy
1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand

1 Mana Vault
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Pact of Negation
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Street Wraith
1 Grim Tutor
2 Night's Whisper
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar


Kolowith (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=18148):

1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Underground Sea

2 Cabal Ritual
1 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Windfall
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Cruel Bargain
4 Force of Will


As I'm fairly new to Storm combo, I have quite a few questions:

1. What are the pro's and con's of each list?
2. Does Pitchlong lose a lot of speed and consistency in exchange for the Force protection?
3. Why no Academy in the Kolowith list?
4. Why Street Wraith in Becker's list, especially without Mystical?
5. Which deck is stronger in the current meta?

I would really appreciate it if the creators could explain their reasoning behind the differing card choices.

[XxtSundaybxX]

Since I have been playing pitchlong for as long as I can remember I will try and answer some of your questions. You do not lose any speed from force of will, the deck is actually faster because you don't need to take time to play duress, or spend the mana. From reading beckers thread I'm pretty sure he doesn't play mystical because he only plays a maindck swamp and not an island, making mystical weaker against decks that try to disable your manabase. I actually just played Pitchlong to a 5th place finish in a tourney last week defeating cary cup combo in the swiss, you can check out my list in the Pitchlong thread if your interested.

[Aneurysm]

Becker ended up cutting Mystical for I Seal, I'm pretty sure. He also cut down to two SW. They were mainly there in the beginning because they created a 56 card deck, as brainstorms were gone, but as we got more comfortable with the deck, we felt that other cards would be better in a couple of those slots.

Also, I haven't played TK's list, but I will in the near future. Having played with GWS Long from 6/20 up to today, I can tell you that it is a house in the current metagame, it's fun to play, and it demolishes control slaver. I hope Eric can answer the questions that I didn't.

[ErkBek]

It's GWS Long, not Cary Cup Combo. CCC was a joke.

While I don't have time to respond too all of you comments at the moment, I'd like to clear this up. Tommy's list is much more control based, it's very comparable to Scroll TPS (aka "The meandeck"). My list is far more aggressive. Tommy's list can pull off that "man plan" sideboard because of his stronger control base, while mine can't.

[Negator13]

Yeah, I'm interested to hear why TK chose of not to run Tinker/Jar, or Academy. I'm guessing both are because he doesn't run Mana Vault, and because there aren't 4 Brainstorms to shuffle back Jar anymore. Still, Tinker seems a lot better than Windfall.

[Bongo]

Thanks for the replies!

There are quite a few interesting card-choices and I would love to hear the reasoning behind them.

Is Wheel of Fortune in Becker's list reason enough to run red? Why no EtW, at least in the board if you're running red?
Why no Gifts Ungiven in GWS Long (in my limited play-testing, it has been a game-ending move most of the time)?
I'm also wondering about Tinker, wouldn't it be possible to include 1x DSC or 1x Sundering Titan in the board to complement the man-plan for additional applications beyond Memory Jar?

[Smmenen]

It's GWS Long, not Cary Cup Combo. CCC was a joke.

While I don't have time to respond too all of you comments at the moment, I'd like to clear this up. Tommy's list is much more control based, it's very comparable to Scroll TPS (aka "The meandeck"). My list is far more aggressive. Tommy's list can pull off that "man plan" sideboard because of his stronger control base, while mine can't.

That's interesting. 

I looked at his list and thought just the opposite.  I thought to myself when I saw the ICBM results "omg, I was totally wrong - Pitch Long still works."   His list has 3 Cabal Rituals and Windfall, which to me signaled an intent to win ASAP.   I wonder if I cued into the wrong cards.   

[M.Solymossy]

.  I thought to myself when I saw the ICBM results "omg, I was totally wrong - Pitch Long still works."   His list has 3 Cabal Rituals and Windfall, which to me signaled an intent to win ASAP.   I wonder if I cued into the wrong cards.   

I do agree with you Steve that Tommy's intent is to not allow his opponent the turns s/he needs to get the game back.  I don't think you cued into the wrong cards.  But at the same time, I think calling this list Pitchlong might actually be wrong in itself, because it looks more TPS'ish to me.  But it does have grim tutors, which other than Cruel Bargain I think are the weakest cards in his list.   

[Tha Gunslinga]

From what I recall seeing, Tommy plays more slowly post-board vs Slaver; using the creatures to win or at least to force the opponent to deal with them or lose.  He brought out FoW vs Slaver I'm pretty sure.  I'll see if I can get him to post here.

[The Atog Lord]

Great thread topic. When I saw the list Tommy played, my first question was whether he'd have been better off splashing Green for Tarmogoyf, rather than using Negator. Goyf is fairly similar to a Negator who costs one less and whose drawback is costing green. In either case, props to Tommy for figuring out how to make Pitchlong work post-restriction.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Negator was absolutely insane in the games I saw; I don't think altering his manabase for green would have been worth it, especially since it makes graveyard hate relevant.

[Bongo]

1. What are the pro's and con's of each list?
5. Which deck is stronger in the current meta?

Sorry to quote myself, but I'd really like an answer to those two questions in particular.
While testing both lists, here are a few things I noticed:


GWS Long

- Night's Whisper is very good at keeping up the "flow"
- The additional Draw 7s were nice, but not always game-breaking
- Street Wraith sucks
- Pact of Negation as a single-ton is a bit random and a double-edged sword if you have to protect a Draw 7
- Needs 1 more basic land against mana disruption


Pitch Long:

- Gifts is broken
- Cruel Bargain is surprisingly useful
- Basics were very good
- Grim Tutors were meh
- Merchant Scroll was meh


My testing was very limited, so please correct me if I'm wrong. Becker and Kolowith are both world-class players, so there must be a reason why they included those cards. I hope both players voice their opinion.
In both versions I felt that Grim Tutor uses a lot of resources, which slows down the deck. It was only good when I had abundant mana (and in that case I found Gifts better).

What are your experiences?

[XxtSundaybxX]

I don't think that either list is "better" for the meta than the other. They both have they're advantages and disadvantages against different decks. What i think it comes down to is play style and comfortability. I played GWSLong in a tourney about a month ago and i lost a few games to lucky topdecks after resolving necro, as well as being on the draw against oath and shops(chalice,sphere). These few reasons are why i personally like Force of Will over Duress. I then played Pitchlong in a tourney and placed 5th, with Force of Will being absolutely better than duress in every situation i could think of. I was also playing a single duress in the maindeck.

I do have to disagree with you on grim tutor. I love grim tutor, and i love seeing it off a draw 7 even more. What could you replace it with?

Merchant scroll is still undecided in my pitchlong list as of right now but it has helped me win a few games

I'm not sure if I will ever run gifts in a long shell. The card is absolutely busted, but majority of the time I am already winning by the time i could cast it.

I think street wraith is one of those cards that is helpful in the deck while learning to play it, and once you get the hang of the deck and how it runs it can be cut for other cards. I recently dropped my street wraiths for windfall(blue count) and another duress.

I hope this helps answer your question

[Bongo]

I don't want to slay a sacred cow, but is it possible to remove the 4 Duress in Kolowith's list and replace it with more draw like Tinker/Jar and 2 Night's Whisper?
The additional draw would help getting the blue cards for Force and recover faster from disruption.

Playing Grim Tutor required a Ritual most of the time, and getting the Tutor countered was major frowns. I'll probably still leave it in, since it can find Lotus or Will.
The nice thing about Night's Whisper was that I could frequently play it on the first turn with a Mox (or with a Ritual, and have B open to continue chaining spells).

[Shean]

I was testing a version of GrimLong to bring to the ICBM Open but decided to play CS instead.  From what I saw, TK's version is much more resilient to the most common hate right now (Thorn, A. Lab, Wasteland, Chalice).  However, it still has the potency to win quickly.  I think the choice between these two decks is a metagame choice.  If you believe that there will be a lot of hate against combo, play PitchLong; if not, play GrimLong.

Also, I don't believe that FoW is always better than Duress.  Duress only takes one card out of your hand while FoW takes 2.  Especially after Necroing for cards, I would rather keep the 1 Duress and an extra bomb, rather than a FoW and food to play it.

Then again, when I play combo, I tend to play it quite a bit more aggressively than TK did (at least more so than he did in our finals match, but that may have been dependent upon his hand).  I tend to be more proactive than reactive, which may explain why I prefer Duress over FoW.

[ashiXIII]

Pitch Long has more of an edge against Shops and the mirror, where Grim Long has the edge against CS and Ichorid. If you're a very good player, overall I think Grim Long is better. If you're newer to combo, Pitch Long is probably the way to go.

[LordHomerCat]

Pitch Long has more of an edge against Shops and the mirror, where Grim Long has the edge against CS and Ichorid. If you're a very good player, overall I think Grim Long is better. If you're newer to combo, Pitch Long is probably the way to go.

I disagree.  I think Pitchlong will end up stronger against CS and other Drain decks, while Grim Long will be stronger in matches against counter-less decks.  Old school Pitchlong tore non-scroll blue decks to pieces, and I think it will continue that way.  It's really hard to beat pitchlong pre-board with control slaver.

[ashiXIII]

Pitch Long has more of an edge against Shops and the mirror, where Grim Long has the edge against CS and Ichorid. If you're a very good player, overall I think Grim Long is better. If you're newer to combo, Pitch Long is probably the way to go.

I disagree.  I think Pitchlong will end up stronger against CS and other Drain decks, while Grim Long will be stronger in matches against counter-less decks.  Old school Pitchlong tore non-scroll blue decks to pieces, and I think it will continue that way.  It's really hard to beat pitchlong pre-board with control slaver.

I didn't say it was a bad matchup for Pitch Long, just that I think it's even better for Grim Long.

[XxtSundaybxX]

Maybe its just me, but i feel that grimlong has a better CS matchup than Pitchlong. This is also assuming the games goes beyond turn 2 for the CS player, because FoW + drain is often better than pitchlongs single FoW. Duress lets you strip therye hand. Also Grimlong can just keep throwing bombs at its opponents until one resolves since it plays more bombs than majority of Pitchlong lists.

[Gekoratel]

Grim Long has historically been known to have a better matchup against Drain decks than Pitch, Pitch was designed to combat Workshop decks since it had a much more stable manabase than 5c Grim.  Duress is better than Force against Drains because; its not a loss of card advantage, gives you information, doesn't force you to remove a threat when going for early win, the list goes on.  Also as Sunday said Grim is better at throwing bombs against Drain decks than Pitch.  Honestly if Pitch had a better MU against Drain decks then I don't think there would be any motivation to run Grim Long over Pitch.

[LordHomerCat]

Grim Long has historically been known to have a better matchup against Drain decks than Pitch, Pitch was designed to combat Workshop decks since it had a much more stable manabase than 5c Grim.  Duress is better than Force against Drains because; its not a loss of card advantage, gives you information, doesn't force you to remove a threat when going for early win, the list goes on.  Also as Sunday said Grim is better at throwing bombs against Drain decks than Pitch.  Honestly if Pitch had a better MU against Drain decks then I don't think there would be any motivation to run Grim Long over Pitch.

On that last point:  If you recall, last time this was an actual issue, no one played Grim Long.  That's because Pitchlong was better in all the relevant matchups.  The manabase thing was an improvement against shop decks, but there were plenty of people who played 2.5color Grimlong as well (Droba, for example) so that was not pitchlong-specific.  If TK's pitchlong list is as 'consistent' as the Grimlong lists going around (which isn't exactly a difficult threshold to achieve sadly), then I don't see much of any reason to play Grimlong.  Pitchlong is much much better in the mirror, it's probably better game 1 against shops since you don't have as many dead duress effects, and personally I would rather play Pitchlong against Slaver than Grimlong.  Maybe my experience there is wrong, but playing Slaver against Pitchlong has been much harder for me then playing against Grimlong.