Hi, all!
I have a question for you Legacy gurus out there. As the title suggests, I am interested to know what is currently the legacy deck which wins game 1 the most? For a specific reason, I am not at all interested in how that hypothetical deck performs in subsequent games, i.e. how prone it is to sideboard hate. Of course, I realize that there may be multiple decks which meet this criterion, so all contributions are more than welcome!
Dredge is probably #1 by far. In the hands of an excellent pilot who knows how to play around force of will, both Storm and Ad Nauseum are also incredibly powerful game 1, but are easier to disrupt because counterspells are useful against them, while they are all but useless against dredge. I disagree with the others (oops all spells, spanish inquisition, and belcher). Those three decks are certainly the FASTEST decks in legacy and capable of winning turn 1 (or "turn 0" if they go first), but they are less consistent and more fragile than dredge, Storm, and Ad Nauseum.
If you're good at it, I would say ANT. It packs enough discard to be able to play through counters. There are some things that are an automatic scoop,though like a trinisphere, chalice on 1,thalia,etc.
Game 1 win percentage, does not equal highest chance of a Turn 1 "win" whilst goldfishing.
I've read a huge amount of posts over the years (not in this thread thankfully) that suggest some people confuse the two
If you're good at it, I would say ANT. It packs enough discard to be able to play through counters. There are some things that are an automatic scoop,though like a trinisphere, chalice on 1,thalia,etc.
As a player of Dredge, Belcher, Oops & a few other fast combo decks, I would say Dredge and ANT aren't far apart.
FWIW, my pet-deck is LED-Dredge.
All the other decks named as having the best turn 1 so far, generally have glaring weaknesses to certain matchups.
Dredge probably has the smallest weakness given maindeck gravehate isn't too common, but the power of gravehate means seeing it in game1 is horrific.
Force is prolific, but is usually only a terminal play for the Storm player in the lesser version like PactSI & RG-Belcher.
If we're talking Dredge VS Storm, Dredge has few answers to storm and generally can't outrace them, given Dredge feels at least a turn too slow.
My vote for Dredge by a small margin to ANT, against opposing decks I would personally expect to see.
i've always thought decks with griselbrand game 1 were OP because they run force and can turn 1 with ritual
mainboard blood moon decks are pretty successful too
PS
i've been very successful with enchantress before board, it use to be the other way around and thats why i fell in love with the deck because i felt that i hate much more hate than my opponent but those days are long gone. most people can't answer solitary confinement
It's dredge. Most decks cannot interact with draw, discard, dredge in a meaningful way. I sure as hell wouldn't say storm combo of any sort has the highest turn 1 win % when countermagic and countertop exist all over the place in legacy. Yeah ANT is powerful. ANT can just lose to turn 1 top turn 2 CB whereas dredge laughs its ass off and says dredge, dredge, make more dudes, bash your teeth in until you die. Dredge is just as fast as storm combo when it draws LED too. Dredge can win a game without casting a single spell, something no other deck is capable of in legacy. That's why it's so busted and heavily favored game 1. You could call dredge the 2 game deck in all honesty as if it loses game 1 it's heavily disfavored in game 2 and when it wins game 1 it is just trying to win one of the following 2 games because it got game 1 scott free.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
It's dredge. Most decks cannot interact with draw, discard, dredge in a meaningful way. I sure as hell wouldn't say storm combo of any sort has the highest turn 1 win % when countermagic and countertop exist all over the place in legacy. Yeah ANT is powerful. ANT can just lose to turn 1 top turn 2 CB whereas dredge laughs its ass off and says dredge, dredge, make more dudes, bash your teeth in until you die. Dredge is just as fast as storm combo when it draws LED too. Dredge can win a game without casting a single spell, something no other deck is capable of in legacy. That's why it's so busted and heavily favored game 1. You could call dredge the 2 game deck in all honesty as if it loses game 1 it's heavily disfavored in game 2 and when it wins game 1 it is just trying to win one of the following 2 games because it got game 1 scott free.
ANT typically plays 7 maindeck discard spells with 4 git probe. Counter top rarely resolves game 1.
And this affects game 1 win rate in regards to the field how? Storm is not as resilient as dredge is game 1. You greatly oversimplify the storm v. miracles matchup having played it several times if you're on the draw you're heavily weak to turn 1 top turn 2 CB. A smart miracles player will also fight over a discard spell to protect countertop as, again, resolving countertop against storm is the single most important thing for miracles to do as without it they're usually helpless against storm and in game 1 it wins the game if you float a 2 on top usually as storm has no decays or anything to interact against resolved permanents game 1.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
As a storm player (TES), I find that I have a pretty solid G1 win percentage against a good chunk of decks. I attribute this to speed. While it does suck being on the draw against Miracles, TES is fast enough it can still go off T1 or provide disruption to keep Counterbalance/Top from sticking at least a portion of the time. When you opponent plays a T1 top, you know what's up. Still, you have an 8 card hand on the draw, and your opponent has 5 left now, at least one of which is probably another land, leaving you 4 cards left, one of which needs to be a CB for you to be in trouble if you can't go off or force a discard. The odds of getting both Top and CB by T2 is not that great, and even if that happens, there's no mana left to activate the top or cast a Spell Pierce, so at that point TES will get another turn where it has a reasonable chance of going off through a blind top, since a good chunk of the deck is land. T3 is where it gets hard, and the problem is that this is the turn ANT tends to be planning on going off. I don't like G1s against Miracles to go much farther than that without at least making a bunch of goblins and forcing them to try and find a Terminus, but the G1 against Miracles for me is not unfavorable by any means for me. Also, against non-miracles decks, Void Snare exists in the wishboard to deal with other permanents that might stick in G1. There's a big difference in the TES vs Miracles matchup and the ANT vs Miracles matchup in G1. In G2, I feel like the matchup gets more even for all parties involved, but I haven't had enough experience with ANT to speak to its G2 matchup.
Anyway, onto the point: Dredge is probably the best non-glass cannon G1 deck against a majority of the field. Its speed when LED is present is almost unmatched by anything that's not a glass cannon, though, again, TES can outrun it and is designed to do so. Their deck, by design, limits the ability for most interactive cards to be deployed against it. It doesn't care about countermagic and barely cares about discard spells (I've made many a Dredge player sad by Duressing their LED on the play). It does, however, suffer from a lot of hate in G2 and 3, hate that was meant for Reanimator decks, decks relying on Past in Flames engines, and other such issues. The worst thing for Dredge is that while it's probably the best deck to be wielding in a G1 against an unknown, it's one of the worst to be holding if you lost G1. Another tradeoff is that Dredge just doesn't do much interacting period, and as a result, while it does have some plans on how to beat Rest in Peace and friends, it's never going to be able to do much more than try and make you discard it or find one of its few ways to actually answer it. While Dredge is not a glass cannon deck, it's answers and resiliency are dependent on its speed coupled with its ability to make your interaction cards irrelevant. If you don't have a specific set of hate cards, it's not gonna be a good matchup for you.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Highest game 1 win percentage against another magic deck? LED-Dredge. As for the Quadlaser vs the Dread Return versions, I can't say - probably depends on the meta. The Dread Return version is obviously more explosive, especially with T1 LED + dredge 24 on the play, but Quadlaser is extremely consistent and pretty much ignores G1 disruption.
I agree with honorable mention to TES. With a good pilot, TES should have a better G1 win rate than ANT, just by being faster and dodging maindeck permanent hate or winning the die roll. By post-board, ANT is more consistent.
I have a question for you Legacy gurus out there. As the title suggests, I am interested to know what is currently the legacy deck which wins game 1 the most? For a specific reason, I am not at all interested in how that hypothetical deck performs in subsequent games, i.e. how prone it is to sideboard hate. Of course, I realize that there may be multiple decks which meet this criterion, so all contributions are more than welcome!
Modern: WURG Twin
Standard: Mardu Planeswalkers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/661834-mardu-planeswalker?comment=1
Monthly Proxy Legacy
Charlotte/Greensboro area, NC
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http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
I've read a huge amount of posts over the years (not in this thread thankfully) that suggest some people confuse the two
As a player of Dredge, Belcher, Oops & a few other fast combo decks, I would say Dredge and ANT aren't far apart.
FWIW, my pet-deck is LED-Dredge.
All the other decks named as having the best turn 1 so far, generally have glaring weaknesses to certain matchups.
Dredge probably has the smallest weakness given maindeck gravehate isn't too common, but the power of gravehate means seeing it in game1 is horrific.
Force is prolific, but is usually only a terminal play for the Storm player in the lesser version like PactSI & RG-Belcher.
If we're talking Dredge VS Storm, Dredge has few answers to storm and generally can't outrace them, given Dredge feels at least a turn too slow.
My vote for Dredge by a small margin to ANT, against opposing decks I would personally expect to see.
mainboard blood moon decks are pretty successful too
PS
i've been very successful with enchantress before board, it use to be the other way around and thats why i fell in love with the deck because i felt that i hate much more hate than my opponent but those days are long gone. most people can't answer solitary confinement
Currently Playing:
Retired
ANT typically plays 7 maindeck discard spells with 4 git probe. Counter top rarely resolves game 1.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Anyway, onto the point: Dredge is probably the best non-glass cannon G1 deck against a majority of the field. Its speed when LED is present is almost unmatched by anything that's not a glass cannon, though, again, TES can outrun it and is designed to do so. Their deck, by design, limits the ability for most interactive cards to be deployed against it. It doesn't care about countermagic and barely cares about discard spells (I've made many a Dredge player sad by Duressing their LED on the play). It does, however, suffer from a lot of hate in G2 and 3, hate that was meant for Reanimator decks, decks relying on Past in Flames engines, and other such issues. The worst thing for Dredge is that while it's probably the best deck to be wielding in a G1 against an unknown, it's one of the worst to be holding if you lost G1. Another tradeoff is that Dredge just doesn't do much interacting period, and as a result, while it does have some plans on how to beat Rest in Peace and friends, it's never going to be able to do much more than try and make you discard it or find one of its few ways to actually answer it. While Dredge is not a glass cannon deck, it's answers and resiliency are dependent on its speed coupled with its ability to make your interaction cards irrelevant. If you don't have a specific set of hate cards, it's not gonna be a good matchup for you.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I agree with honorable mention to TES. With a good pilot, TES should have a better G1 win rate than ANT, just by being faster and dodging maindeck permanent hate or winning the die roll. By post-board, ANT is more consistent.