What does this deck look like today? If you don't play it anymore, then what hypothetical changes would you make to it based on the last two years of Magic cards?
I played maybe 10 solitaire games with this deck, and I have a couple of questions:
1. In general, I had to mulligan pretty aggressively to get a hand that could play a turn 3 Braids, and in some games I couldn't make it happen at all. At my count, there are 9 ways to do this: Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Dark Ritual, Fellwar Stone, Jet Medallion, Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and Sol Ring. In your experience, how consistently can you get one of these 9 cards into your opening hand? Am I just having a different experience with randomization, or are there more important cards currently occupying slots that could otherwise be dedicated to ramp?
2. What are your tutor targets? Perhaps a better question would be, what is the next thing you want to play after landing Braids? Not having opponents, I generally searched for Bitterblossom, so that I could proceed to play a normal game of Magic.
This is one of the shortcomings of solitaire play. If you were in an actual game, you'd be able take into consideration things like the cards your opponents have in hand (if you know they don't have any exile-based removal or bounce in hand, then dropping forge/disk/lattice T6 is the game-winning play), and how close your opponents are to winning (if one of your opponents has telegraphed that they're about to win next turn, you might lose the game before you have a chance to build an engine, so you're better off going straight for the win while you can).
I think this right here explains most of the things I don't—or can't—understand about piloting this deck, or even about playing competitive EDH in general. I've never sat at a table with any of the top tier commanders, yet they all claim to "win consistently on turns 2-5" or whatever (or just turn 2, in the case of Hermit Druid), and with numbers like these as my only benchmark, I find the results of goldfishing to be puzzling when my own numbers are higher. Since winning an EDH game most efficiently means getting one's combo off first, I'm getting stuck on these numbers right now, being otherwise unable to imagine the interactions taking place in a real game. Perhaps the answer to this question will make everything clear: how does Arcum win against a deck that is scheduled to go off sooner, such as Hermit Druid? There aren't a lot of counterspells here, so I can't imagine that the gameplan changes to: mulligan aggressively into countermagic...unless that is the new plan?
Reading this thread soon had me curious enough to try goldfishing the deck, and there are a couple of things I'm confused about.
1. The "first step to victory" is to play and secure Arcum, preferably with swiftfoot boots or lightning greaves already in play, or at least with a way to give him haste, such as thousand-year elixir or hall of the bandit lord, so that you can fetch either pair of shoes. However, the majority of fishes I've attempted leave me at the third option, relying on countermagic, and sometimes even with the implied fourth method of protection: crossing my fingers. Since the primer says to never play Arcum without something to back him up, I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing, since I only sometimes have a way to back him up on the turn I cast him. The only other way I can interpret these instructions is to not cast Arcum until I have a method of protection...but sometimes that turns out to be three, four, five, or even more turns down the line. What percentage of the time should this deck be hitting each of these options? And, what is the recommended play when stuck without any of the first three?
2. How often is it necessary to go through each step of each combo before dropping the disk? I remember one fish in particular where, on turn five, I had mycosynth lattice in hand, a dork, and a manland. If I searched for nevinyrral's disk during an opponent's end step, searched for darksteel forge on my turn, then dropped an island and cast mycosynth lattice from my hand, I would have had the final combo more easily than if I had gotten infinite mana, etc, etc. I realize that going the staff of domination route as a prelude to the "real" combo is a way to make it more resilient (instant speed draw, play counterspells, etc), but there were several notable fishes where choosing that path added one or more turns before the eventual victory.
3. I also remember a fish that had me experimenting with possessed portal and holding a copy artifact in hand. My curiosity got the better of me and I made a second portal, but trying to figure out how to use the cards in the deck to sustain both portals was too much for me to hold in my head while using an online interface (the interface didn't allow me to see all the cards at once and move them around like real Magic cards do). Have you ever copied a possessed portal? In either case, how have you or would you do so without losing to it yourself?
Last night I played my first game with this list, and the experience provoked some questions that I can't answer. If anyone who has played this deck can weigh in, I'd appreciate it.
1. Has anyone ever suspected or outright seen through your motives in the "everyone's ally" tactic? More importantly, what do you do when someone does figure you out? In the game I played, one person definitely realized I was trying to manipulate the table, whereas a second player definitely did not understand, so I ended up handing my graveyard to the oblivious player every time. I guess what I'm really asking for is more detail on how to play this deck politically, because I don't think I did a very good job last night. Also, how would you approach games against opponents who have already played against this deck?
2. This question might eclipse the scope of this thread and border on the philosophy of EDH as a whole, but what sort of reception has this deck had by your opponents? I thought the people in my game were salty by the amount of counterspells I recurred...until I started on the land destruction. I thought that any ending to a two-hour game would be welcome, but two out of three people were upset by the outcome (the oblivious player remained oblivious). I don't know, am I splitting hairs, here? Or is the social problem not this deck, but the people I played against? Maybe it's just my personality.
1. In general, I had to mulligan pretty aggressively to get a hand that could play a turn 3 Braids, and in some games I couldn't make it happen at all. At my count, there are 9 ways to do this: Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Dark Ritual, Fellwar Stone, Jet Medallion, Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and Sol Ring. In your experience, how consistently can you get one of these 9 cards into your opening hand? Am I just having a different experience with randomization, or are there more important cards currently occupying slots that could otherwise be dedicated to ramp?
2. What are your tutor targets? Perhaps a better question would be, what is the next thing you want to play after landing Braids? Not having opponents, I generally searched for Bitterblossom, so that I could proceed to play a normal game of Magic.
I think this right here explains most of the things I don't—or can't—understand about piloting this deck, or even about playing competitive EDH in general. I've never sat at a table with any of the top tier commanders, yet they all claim to "win consistently on turns 2-5" or whatever (or just turn 2, in the case of Hermit Druid), and with numbers like these as my only benchmark, I find the results of goldfishing to be puzzling when my own numbers are higher. Since winning an EDH game most efficiently means getting one's combo off first, I'm getting stuck on these numbers right now, being otherwise unable to imagine the interactions taking place in a real game. Perhaps the answer to this question will make everything clear: how does Arcum win against a deck that is scheduled to go off sooner, such as Hermit Druid? There aren't a lot of counterspells here, so I can't imagine that the gameplan changes to: mulligan aggressively into countermagic...unless that is the new plan?
1. The "first step to victory" is to play and secure Arcum, preferably with swiftfoot boots or lightning greaves already in play, or at least with a way to give him haste, such as thousand-year elixir or hall of the bandit lord, so that you can fetch either pair of shoes. However, the majority of fishes I've attempted leave me at the third option, relying on countermagic, and sometimes even with the implied fourth method of protection: crossing my fingers. Since the primer says to never play Arcum without something to back him up, I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing, since I only sometimes have a way to back him up on the turn I cast him. The only other way I can interpret these instructions is to not cast Arcum until I have a method of protection...but sometimes that turns out to be three, four, five, or even more turns down the line. What percentage of the time should this deck be hitting each of these options? And, what is the recommended play when stuck without any of the first three?
2. How often is it necessary to go through each step of each combo before dropping the disk? I remember one fish in particular where, on turn five, I had mycosynth lattice in hand, a dork, and a manland. If I searched for nevinyrral's disk during an opponent's end step, searched for darksteel forge on my turn, then dropped an island and cast mycosynth lattice from my hand, I would have had the final combo more easily than if I had gotten infinite mana, etc, etc. I realize that going the staff of domination route as a prelude to the "real" combo is a way to make it more resilient (instant speed draw, play counterspells, etc), but there were several notable fishes where choosing that path added one or more turns before the eventual victory.
3. I also remember a fish that had me experimenting with possessed portal and holding a copy artifact in hand. My curiosity got the better of me and I made a second portal, but trying to figure out how to use the cards in the deck to sustain both portals was too much for me to hold in my head while using an online interface (the interface didn't allow me to see all the cards at once and move them around like real Magic cards do). Have you ever copied a possessed portal? In either case, how have you or would you do so without losing to it yourself?
1. Has anyone ever suspected or outright seen through your motives in the "everyone's ally" tactic? More importantly, what do you do when someone does figure you out? In the game I played, one person definitely realized I was trying to manipulate the table, whereas a second player definitely did not understand, so I ended up handing my graveyard to the oblivious player every time. I guess what I'm really asking for is more detail on how to play this deck politically, because I don't think I did a very good job last night. Also, how would you approach games against opponents who have already played against this deck?
2. This question might eclipse the scope of this thread and border on the philosophy of EDH as a whole, but what sort of reception has this deck had by your opponents? I thought the people in my game were salty by the amount of counterspells I recurred...until I started on the land destruction. I thought that any ending to a two-hour game would be welcome, but two out of three people were upset by the outcome (the oblivious player remained oblivious). I don't know, am I splitting hairs, here? Or is the social problem not this deck, but the people I played against? Maybe it's just my personality.