Vintage Adept Q & A #1: TPS Questions

[Smmenen]

1) You're playing this TPS list and your starting hand game 1 is this:

Time Walk, Tinker, Force of Will, Mana Crypt, Mox Pearl, Mox Jet, Vampiric Tutor.

You're on the play and don't know what you're up against.  Do you mulligan this hand?  What is your reasoning?

2) It's turn 3 with the above deck; You've just played Necropotence and need to restock your hand, due to a counterwar over your opponent's Yawgmoth's Will.  You binned your Tinker and the Ponder to play FoW and Misdirection.  You have Time Walk in hand, and Black Lotus, FoW, MisD, Ancestral Recall and Polluted Delta in the graveyard.  You're tapped out, and your life total is 18.  

Your opponent also has 2 Polluted Delta, Mana Drain and Force of Will in the bin.  There is an Oath in play, and the mana is USea, Trop and Orchard (Usea and Orchard are tapped). How many cards do you draw?

============================================================

1) The question is whether you mulligan this hand.  

What does this hand produce?  It produces, potentially, turn two Tinker.

The unknown question of most significance is whether you are on the play or the draw.  

Actually, the answer does not require an inspection of potential lines of play.    If we are on the play, then this hand produces turn two Tinker through a Force of Will.  If you are on the draw, this hand is even better.  

If you Vamp for Academy and resolve Tinker, then you can play Time Walk and have Force of WIll backup by tinkering away Mox Pearl.

Even against Workshop decks, which pack 4 Spheres, 1 Trinisphere, and potentially 4 Chalices to foil you, you have to bank on drawing lands (which you've sideboarded in).    I would keep this hand.  

2) I want to know why we faught over Yawgmoth's Will.   What good would that have done our opponent if they have virtuallly nothing in the 'yard?  Putting that aside, we can assume you will be taking 6-8 damage on your opponent's turn.   Let's assume you can't play Time Walk.   We have 10 life then to win the game.    At most, we will need to play Force of Will + Grim Tutor, which would cost us 4 life.  Under Necro, TIme Walk will be of little use unless we draw Chain of Vapor.  

So, at a minimum, we will Necro for 5.  More likely, i would necro for a 6.   We need to find a way to play Yawgmoth's Will, which means we might need to Necro into Imperial Seal or Vamp Tutor and play Time Walk to Necro for one more, bringing us to one.  

The only way we get boned is if we draw Grim Tutor *and* need to Force of Will backup.  I would almost certainly Necro for 6.  We only have one turn.  If our opponent Oath's up Akroma instead of Hellkite, we can Time Walk and necro for even more cards to try and win the game.

This is actually a pretty simple question.   I can explain in more detail if need be.  

[Marske]

I agree with everything Steve said about question number one. It's the same logic I would apply to keeping that hand. Which is actually pretty decent. As for the second question, I again agree and would take the same lines of play, although I have some small notes to add regarding to the answer Steve gave.

I want to know why we faught over Yawgmoth's Will.   What good would that have done our opponent if they have virtuallly nothing in the 'yard?  Putting that aside, we can assume you will be taking 6-8 damage on your opponent's turn.   Let's assume you can't play Time Walk.   We have 10 life then to win the game.    At most, we will need to play Force of Will + Grim Tutor, which would cost us 4 life.  Under Necro, TIme Walk will be of little use unless we draw Chain of Vapor. 

Fighting over Yawg. Will at that point would have been quite pointless with the information you gave us. This would mean that you made an error in judgement and didn't realize what was important. If you would have kept Tinker and Ponder which you binnend to win the counter war you would have even had a easier time winning. Any play revolving Ponder + Time walk to dig 4 cards deep and necro in the process would easily produce lines of play for you to win with.  You would also have Lotus still around (guessing you used it to play necro) so any tutor / bomb you draw withing that 4 cards could spell victory.

Imho you put yourself in a situation in which you really need some good tight play to get out of it, without any reason to do so. Realizing this as a mistake in judgement is a lesson which is important. Steve did explain how to get out of it but I just wanted to mention the fact that you shouldn't have been in it in the first place.

[Eastman]

On question 1:  I agree with what's been said, I think the hand is a straight keep and the most likely play is vamp for Academy.

But I'd like to drill down just a bit more:  which artifacts do you play on the first turn, and when do you cast vamp?  I think obviously you want to play the jet and save Vamp until your opponent's turn, just in case you need to switch the plan up a bit.  But what about the Crypt and the Pearl?  Playing them now gives you protection from spheres and chalices, but reduces the storm count, costs 1.5 life, and gives an intelligent opponent information on which they could probably conclude that you were going to play academy.   I think that the answer really depends on what deck you're up against, and not knowing that, I'd probably take the middle ground: cast Jet and Pearl, hold Crypt, and pass the turn.   I'm very open to being convinced otherwise on that point however.

On question 2

First, I would really like to know which mana I have in play that is tapped out.  And I agree with Steve that I am curious why we bothered getting into this counter war over Yawg Will.  

Putting that aside, we can assume you will be taking 6-8 damage on your opponent's turn.  

I don't think this is right.  The opponent has an Orchard in play, so he will be pumping Helkite to attack for 9, and as much as 10 if he plays another orchard.

But, maybe the opponent isn't about to get Helkite, maybe it is only six.  The truth is, there are a LOT of variables left.  I would draw cards as conservatively as possible, and plan to use time walk and draw more next turn after I have more variables resolved (what opponent attacks for and what my first few draws are).   With the yard as stacked as it is and his counters depleted, I think there's a very very good chance I win the game so long as I get to untap with the cards I necro'd for, especially if I can walk and draw more.  Thus, I'd be very conservative and leave 3 life for grim/vamp+draw/seal+draw as well as 10 life for helkite damage, that means I only draw 4 this turn.  

[Yare]

1. This is an obvious keep, in my opinion, if you're on the play. This hand is almost a shoo in for turn two Tinker, with Force backup no less. While there are things that your opponent could do, you can't second guess your deck too much. I'm not really sure what else you're looking for besides just an explosive Tendrils hand. Don't restrict your deck to just the "normal" route of victory; the whole point of a deck like TPS is that there are many paths to win. Moreover, even if Tinker for Colossus/Leviathan isn't a great play, you have Jar, so perhaps that's how you go to get the win. You have to keep this hand; I just can't see ditching it.

On the draw, perhaps it's a little more dicey because you have to worry about Chalice, Duress, or whatever. I still think you keep it because you have Force to protect against whatever they throw at you if things don't look so good. Again, you have to trust your deck.

Regarding whether to dump the artifact mana on the table on turn one, that's kind of an issue all to itself. I generally err in favor of playing artifact mana rather than holding because it tends to keep more options open, in my opinion. Yeah you want to build storm, but that's what Memory Jar could be for. Besides, there's a chance you'll be getting Colossus/Leviathan here anyway.

2. I agree with the above analysis that there are a lot of variables here, so I feel like this question is really about general Necropotence principles. Make no mistake, Necropotence is a difficult card to play and I screw it up all the time. As a rule of thumb, I tend to hold back with Necropotence more than most in that I will draw enough cards to put me at 9 or 10 in hand (depending upon how many "garbage" cards I have in my hand, such as excessive lands and such) rather than just blowing it as hard as I think I can without dying to my opponent next turn. It's really about weighing immediate gain now versus being about to get more of that gain later. I mean, when you think about it, Necropotence can just be a small draw accelerator if you want. Ancestral every turn in exchange for 4 life? Yeah, sign me up. Don't feel like you have to just go nuts with Necropotence when you play it; it's ok to hold back some. That being said, there will be times where you just have to push it as hard as you can because you're going to lose. The trick is knowing when that is, which generally will only come with experience. Since Oath is on the table here, you don't have much time. As was discussed above, you have to make a judgment about how much damage you'll be taking next turn (perhaps you already know from an earlier game). You probably need to push right up against that limit here, though I sometimes allow for one extra life in case I need to fetch or Force.