So after playing against this deck in the tournament yesterday(was the finals, but neither game was close for them) and some more in testing before and after I'm curious to know what the plan is against control based Oath of Druids,
The pre-board plan is to do everything you can do prevent oath from resolving. The primary tactics here are: Force, Spell Piece, and Clique (to preemptively snatch it out), backed by things like Flusterstorm, Misd, Misstep, etc. I added the pair of Spell Pierces, as noted in the original post, solely for the Oath matchup. When playing Oath, the Gush pilot is using all of their resources to dig up relevant countermagic to the expense of all other lines of play. So, for example, if you know you are playing against Oath, you would play first turn Preordain looking for relevant countermagic rather than cast Delver.
Post-board, the plan shifts to finding and playing as many Cages as possible. Because the Oath pilot will have answers like Abrupt Decay, Grudge, Nature's Claim, the plan is to dig up as many Cages as fast as possible and simply play them in larger amounts than they can answer them, and with maximal countermagic. This plan generally works, as I've been able to defeat regular Control Oath in tournament the last time I faced it. Danny Friedman defeated me in the finals of the Vacaville tournament, but my slightly improved list made a big difference with maindeck Spell Pierces. He had Decay, etc. Essentially, the proper role for this deck is control against Oath.
Blue Angels
This deck has 4 worldwide Top 8 appearances in January - March according to Morphling.de. It's a fairly tiny part of the metagame, and doesn't exist in my metagame at all. If it does, I will worry about it then. It's a classic error to prepare for things that aren't there.
and any Sphere/Thorn/Thalia.
I think it's a mistake to lump those together. The plan for Thalia is to burn her. For Thorn, to race with dudes. For Sphere, to win post-board or squeeze micro advantages with cards like Delver, Pyromancer, Bolt, etc.
It has needed hyper potent hands to be proficient in those match ups.
I'm not sure what "proficient" means in this context, since proficiency implies a threshold performance, and magic matchups are all relative/relational. That said, the Oath matchup isn't that difficult if you know what you are doing, which role to play, and are focused on it. In fact, if the Delver player survives the first few turns, it should win as the virtual card advantage kicks in. With all of the digging, it's not hard to find additional Cages to shore up the first from Abrupt Decay and other removal.
It has performed amazing against Blue based decks that are trying to win through Tinker into BSC or TV/K and Storm variants. I see it performing well against things like BUG fish as well. However, anything featuring Cavern of Souls and/or a similarly efficient counter package is going to give it fits, not even getting into the impact of even 1 Sphere.
All Magic decks have bad or weaker matchups, otherwise they would be dominant. All Gush decks are naturally weak to Workshops for well-known reasons. That's why they SB so heavily against them.
Having a weak Workshop matchup is the price of the ticket, so to speak. That's why it's so important to have a strong Board plan. And, why Pyromancer is so critical, as it gives you actual chance against cards like Tangle Wire.
/sort of a derail, but I'm going to tie it back to the thread...
The software replicates the in-person experience
It's important for everyone to understand where Cockatrice is like in-person play and where it isn't. I think you're right that opponent quality is agnostic to either medium.
I don't agree with this for the reasons I already noted. People play less carefully, more sloppily, etc on the web platforms. They are also more experimental, etc. Josh Potucek just supported my claim here with his own play experience.
Here's where I find Cockatrice most different than in-person play:
- different and less information from other player
- interface is different in many ways than handling cardboard/assessing information in hand/board
- shuffler is a different type of 'random'
- software automates steps increasing volume/rate of play
I'd say that the first two make Cockatrice inferior for practicing the more nuanced strategy-based decisions. However, the more consistent shuffling and the higher volume of games you can get from quicker play make Cockatrice excellent for basic 'stress tests' to assess particular new cards, manabase and general matchup feel.
I think this post actually misses huge differences between tournament magic and online magic. The experience of playing in timed rounds, tighter rules, etc. The only way to really get good in tournaments is to play in tournaments.
Eg, my Cockatrice based testing has shown that this list has the stronger late-game that Smennen describes, but at a cost of increased mulligans and losses to strong mana-denial from the opposition. I've probably only played 20-30 games, so it's not a great sample, but it was noticeable compared with the higher land count URg versions.
This seems like a calculated risk on Steve's part, but it's a risk to be conscious of.
This deck has 14 lands and another post-board. That's the same ratio as every Grow deck I've ever (including post-2008), including those that I won the Vintage Champs with in 2007 and Top 3ed in 2011 (post-Golem).
It should have roughly the same mulligan rates as every other Grow deck with two counterbalancing differences: 1) by having slightly fewer Moxen, it means you probably can't keep hands like Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, that may have been keepable (although extremely questionable) in other Grow decks, 2) but this deck can win with only one total mana source over the course of the game because of Delver and 1cc countermagic. In the end, this deck should actually have less mulligans than any post-2008 Grow deck.
I'm not sure what you mean by mana denial strategies. By having more basics, it reduces vulnerability to cards like Wasteland. If you mean Sphere-effects, those things are devastating, but not much more so for this deck than any other recently successful Gush deck. (For example, I have the same total number mana sources in my 75 at AJ Grasso's 2nd Place RUG list from Vintage Champs at Eternal Weekend).
All Tempo decks are Aggro-Control decks.
But not all Aggro-Control decks are dedicated tempo decks. The problem with using tempo and Aggro-Control in the same context is that they become interchangeable terms(I myself am guilty of this). In fact, both terms are rather vague. It might help if you share what your personal definitions of Aggro-control decks and tempo-decks are.
Sure. Tempo is an effect generating through game play, while Aggro-Control is a classification category for decks/strategies.
I have no objection to the Wikipedia entry defining Aggro control: "Aggro-control deck is the aptly-named deck archetype for a hybrid between an aggro deck and a control deck. An aggro-control deck's game plan is to play enough creatures to kill the opponent in a reasonable number of turns (e.g. a "five-turn clock"), then protect those creatures through disruption for that many turns to win the game.
Famous examples of aggro-control decks include U/G Madness and Counter-Sliver."
Tempo is a form of advantage, not a deck archetype. It is something that is generated through specific interactions, just like card advantage is. When we call decks "tempo decks," are decks that do this really well and are focused on doing this well.
As I wrote on the Source and in many articles on SCG, a really classic example of tempo is playing a Juggernaut and Wastelanding the opponent to partially rewind the turn.
