I couple friends of mine met Nassif in person at the GP (one even played a casual match against him and got him to sign his playmat!) according to them the deck had 4 Colossal Might Maindeck. According to what they told me the rest seems pretty right.
4!! That's.. surprising. Though I guess the card is very good with Leeches and Sygg.
The tribal lands are another thing I was wondering about. Without a doubt there are enough to run Gil-Leaf Palace, but what about the Hovels? Is Nameless Inversion and Colossus, along with Ram-Gang, obviously, enough to support it? That makes 12 goblins, as opposed to 16 elves. Also, I would imagine there's some amount of at least Twilight Mire, as Nassif never seemed to have a problem casting turn 2 Putrid Leech.
Obviously I'm not claiming that this is exactly right, but probably pretty close. Note that the 25 land likely includes 4 Treetop Village, and 4 Savage Lands. Did anyone notice any Reflecting Pools? I was at the GP, but didn't get the chance to watch any of the featured matches except for the cluster of Fae that was top 8.
I don't think this makes any sense, people who are saying that Chapin has lost respect in their book.
Even if he had targeted some of his opponents creatures, giving them fear does nothing. It's pretty obvious what Chapin (who, you must admit, is a reasonably smart individual) was attempting to do with the command: that is, make his opponent lose 6 life and give all creatures he controls that are legal targets for the command fear. It's the opponent's fault completely for not blocking Colossus. Chapin in no way, shape, or form misrepresented the game state or other public information.
Seems to me that this is a restriction people place on themselves, making it harder to win. A form of the hot-topic word in the Speak Your Mind thread, which I will leave out of this post.
Hey, what do you think of playing Fathom Trawl instead of some 5 cost cascade spells or Ad Nauseam/Primal Command? While I shortly tested it, it's almost always just got the whole combo at once, opposed to those pesky 5 cost cascaders who most of time get extra assaults and nothing else for me.
The large problem with it is that it's another 5CC sorcery, on top of Primal Command and possibly Deny Reality, that, if countered, does nothing. With Ad Nauseam, you get an instant speed spell to cast at their upkeep or end of turn, forcing them to counter and leaving an opening or lose. With Deny Reality, they need to spend two cards to answer your one, assuming they're not playing Double Negative
Basically Fathom Trawl is a turn of you not doing anything.. which you can't really afford when you could be casting a relevant spell instead of finding them.
Important is that there'll be more hate MB against Swann than there was last week-end, I reckon.
This is what I'm most worried about; I've gone to Deny Reality maindeck over Bituminous Blast, and I'm playing one Primal Command Main. But which sideboard plan do you prefer? I'm trying the land-destruction package right now, but I've only gotten to test against Fae so far, and it hasn't been that impressive. Then again, I don't see how the other plan is much better against Fae, other than including Vexing Shusher.
I think the biggest question is which "version" to run- LSV's with Deny Reality x4, instead of Bituminous Blast x2 and Ad Nauseam x2. Also comes down to the sideboard; LD vs. more anti-hate.
Which one helps more with the Mirror and Fae matchups? These are the ones I see as hardest. It does seem that the LD board is pretty techy.. I'm leaning that way myself.
As far as Ad Nauseam vs. Deny Reality vs. Bituminous Blast, I agree with LSV on Deny Reality too. It's just much more versatile than B. Blast, in that you can bounce a piece of hate, or even bounce a land to your hand that makes your combo that much safer or just gets you an extra 2 to the dome. However, Ad Nauseam is just too good to pass up in my opinion.. especially in those hard-to-win matchups, like Fae, where it allows you to force something through a counter-wall, even on turn 5. If they don't counter Nauseam, you can usually go until you have 2 Assaults and a land that comes into play untapped, so you can force an Assault and have the land to kill them. I'm considering playing 2 MD and another 1 or 2 in the board, just because of this.
I think if the deck becomes for real, people might have to dig out their Thoughtseizes that have been tucked away in there Boards or Binders ever since Boat Brew was good. Now Boat Brew sucks.. MD Thoughtseize isn't that bad. Mind Shatter might end up in people's boards to try and Shatter them into topdecking mode. I think putting like 80 copies of the hate cards for it is wicked dumb. We don't even know if the deck is for real yet. Surely you will see it at PTQ's in the next couple of weeks, but I say we wait until Seattle next weekend and see if it top8's or wins there. If it does then we can go into drastic measures and try and come up with something to take care of it. Go find your Thoughtseizes.. and those who don't play black.. good luck
Have you played against the deck yet?
Sure, Thoughtseize is fine.. but we're talking about a deck that, while 40+cards are lands, 10 are Seismic Assault and possibly 12, if you count Deny Reality and Bituminous Blast. 4 of those Seismic Assaults are also 3/2 beaters, along with their manlands (usually about 6 of them). 4 copies of Swans, and 4 more ways to find it, too (counting Ad Nauseam and Bituminous Blast/Deny Reality, this doesn't include Spinerock Knoll).
In addition to the extreme redundancy of the deck, as I mentioned in the post above, you can mulligan to a very hate-resistant hand (multiple business spells), because you're pretty much guaranteed to draw the land you need. Even if you kept a no-lander (which, admittedly, I wouldn't, but for the sake of example...) the ratio of land to nonland remaining in the deck is greater than 3:1. I like those odds.
This is addressed to those saying "It's just a metagame deck..."
What are the bad matchups? Doran, okay, but the deck is so fast.. T2 Doran happens MAYBE 30% of the time, while the Swans Cascade seems much more consistent. I'd put the matchup around even, but I'd say it wouldn't be too hard for the Swans deck to correct this game 2 and 3, with Path to Exiles or other such removal.
Fae can be a toughie, but the deck can also afford to mulligan into a high density of spells in its opener; keeping a one or two land hand is no problem, especially on the draw... You will draw the land you need. Near-guaranteed. It's very difficult for them to run you out of gas what with all the cascade, etc. and game 2/3 you can bring in Guttural Response and/or Vexing Shusher.
Post-SB the anti-hate seems very powerful, whether it's Scott-Vargas's land destruction plan or the more common Countryside Crusher. Anyway, do you guys have any ideas for more effective hate for the deck, aside from running 10+ copies of Meddling Mage, Pithing Needle, Runed Halo, or Thought Hemorrhage, which just seems incredibly dumb?
Why are we so attached to a "top 8"? If we were using a true Swiss system, there would be no cutoff at all. IE the leader at the end of Swiss rounds wins the tournament.
What advantage does a single elimination top 8 provide? If the top 8 was eliminated and it was strictly based on Swiss rounds, there would, of course, never be ID's as it would only hurt your standings.
The way I see it is that we only have top 8's to provide more interesting website coverage of the event, not to better prove "who is the best."
This would also affect "top X splits" in smaller tournaments which, depending on your viewpoint, could either be good or bad.
More rounds (or, in this case, T8, T16 or whatever the case may be) gives players who may have lost to manascrew or a horrible matchup a chance to show that they are better than someone who went undefeated by getting godly draws all day or playing matchups that amount to byes all day (like a RDW player playing straight Fae all day).
The objective is to eliminate some of the luck from the equation, I believe. The top 8 event coverage seems like just a bonus to me.
...
I agree, it is possible to play in such a way that you perform a natural draw. However it is also possible to design the rules in such a way that neither a Natural Draw, nor an Intentional Draw are as desirable as a straight out and out win is. And this is what I am trying to propose.
The system already is designed that way. Any draw is one point, while a win is three and a loss is zero.
Quote from XDarkAngelX »
As they say on the gaming forums, L2P. Add a F to that, and that's Learn 2 Play Faster. Or stop playing stupid control decks with one win condition.
So just eliminate what is a very viable strategy from the game because you don't like that it takes longer? There's no reason players should even be forced to play a deck that even tries to win. Although I see no point in playing except to win, you could play lifegain.dec that plans to cast Wheel of Sun and Moon on the opponent, or Donate a Pacifism'd Platinum Angel.
Basically, eliminating slow control from the format is like the scrub from the article someone posted in the "No respect for spike" or whatever thread saying "Control is cheap! Only aggro and combo and aggro-control."
4!! That's.. surprising. Though I guess the card is very good with Leeches and Sygg.
25 Land
Creatures:
4 Putrid Leech
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Chameleon Colossus
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
3 Sygg, River Cutthroat
4 Anathemancer
3 Magma Spray
4 Nameless Inversion
1 Colossal Might
4 Jund Charm
Obviously I'm not claiming that this is exactly right, but probably pretty close. Note that the 25 land likely includes 4 Treetop Village, and 4 Savage Lands. Did anyone notice any Reflecting Pools? I was at the GP, but didn't get the chance to watch any of the featured matches except for the cluster of Fae that was top 8.
Even if he had targeted some of his opponents creatures, giving them fear does nothing. It's pretty obvious what Chapin (who, you must admit, is a reasonably smart individual) was attempting to do with the command: that is, make his opponent lose 6 life and give all creatures he controls that are legal targets for the command fear. It's the opponent's fault completely for not blocking Colossus. Chapin in no way, shape, or form misrepresented the game state or other public information.
Seems to me that this is a restriction people place on themselves, making it harder to win. A form of the hot-topic word in the Speak Your Mind thread, which I will leave out of this post.
Bloodbraid Elf
Putrid Leech
Wren's Run Vanquisher
Maelstrom Pulse
Anathemancer
Bituminous Blast
Colossal Might
Chameleon Colossus
Kitchen Finks
Nameless Inversion
Sygg, River Cutthroat
That's what I've seen in coverage. Oh, yeah, and the lands include Savage Lands and Treetop Villages, no Vivids from what I can gather.
The large problem with it is that it's another 5CC sorcery, on top of Primal Command and possibly Deny Reality, that, if countered, does nothing. With Ad Nauseam, you get an instant speed spell to cast at their upkeep or end of turn, forcing them to counter and leaving an opening or lose. With Deny Reality, they need to spend two cards to answer your one, assuming they're not playing Double Negative
Basically Fathom Trawl is a turn of you not doing anything.. which you can't really afford when you could be casting a relevant spell instead of finding them.
This is what I'm most worried about; I've gone to Deny Reality maindeck over Bituminous Blast, and I'm playing one Primal Command Main. But which sideboard plan do you prefer? I'm trying the land-destruction package right now, but I've only gotten to test against Fae so far, and it hasn't been that impressive. Then again, I don't see how the other plan is much better against Fae, other than including Vexing Shusher.
Which one helps more with the Mirror and Fae matchups? These are the ones I see as hardest. It does seem that the LD board is pretty techy.. I'm leaning that way myself.
As far as Ad Nauseam vs. Deny Reality vs. Bituminous Blast, I agree with LSV on Deny Reality too. It's just much more versatile than B. Blast, in that you can bounce a piece of hate, or even bounce a land to your hand that makes your combo that much safer or just gets you an extra 2 to the dome. However, Ad Nauseam is just too good to pass up in my opinion.. especially in those hard-to-win matchups, like Fae, where it allows you to force something through a counter-wall, even on turn 5. If they don't counter Nauseam, you can usually go until you have 2 Assaults and a land that comes into play untapped, so you can force an Assault and have the land to kill them. I'm considering playing 2 MD and another 1 or 2 in the board, just because of this.
Have you played against the deck yet?
Sure, Thoughtseize is fine.. but we're talking about a deck that, while 40+cards are lands, 10 are Seismic Assault and possibly 12, if you count Deny Reality and Bituminous Blast. 4 of those Seismic Assaults are also 3/2 beaters, along with their manlands (usually about 6 of them). 4 copies of Swans, and 4 more ways to find it, too (counting Ad Nauseam and Bituminous Blast/Deny Reality, this doesn't include Spinerock Knoll).
In addition to the extreme redundancy of the deck, as I mentioned in the post above, you can mulligan to a very hate-resistant hand (multiple business spells), because you're pretty much guaranteed to draw the land you need. Even if you kept a no-lander (which, admittedly, I wouldn't, but for the sake of example...) the ratio of land to nonland remaining in the deck is greater than 3:1. I like those odds.
What are the bad matchups? Doran, okay, but the deck is so fast.. T2 Doran happens MAYBE 30% of the time, while the Swans Cascade seems much more consistent. I'd put the matchup around even, but I'd say it wouldn't be too hard for the Swans deck to correct this game 2 and 3, with Path to Exiles or other such removal.
Fae can be a toughie, but the deck can also afford to mulligan into a high density of spells in its opener; keeping a one or two land hand is no problem, especially on the draw... You will draw the land you need. Near-guaranteed. It's very difficult for them to run you out of gas what with all the cascade, etc. and game 2/3 you can bring in Guttural Response and/or Vexing Shusher.
Post-SB the anti-hate seems very powerful, whether it's Scott-Vargas's land destruction plan or the more common Countryside Crusher. Anyway, do you guys have any ideas for more effective hate for the deck, aside from running 10+ copies of Meddling Mage, Pithing Needle, Runed Halo, or Thought Hemorrhage, which just seems incredibly dumb?
You do mind it, it can be important relatively often; when it's coming into play off of a Warp World, for example.
More rounds (or, in this case, T8, T16 or whatever the case may be) gives players who may have lost to manascrew or a horrible matchup a chance to show that they are better than someone who went undefeated by getting godly draws all day or playing matchups that amount to byes all day (like a RDW player playing straight Fae all day).
The objective is to eliminate some of the luck from the equation, I believe. The top 8 event coverage seems like just a bonus to me.
The system already is designed that way. Any draw is one point, while a win is three and a loss is zero.
So just eliminate what is a very viable strategy from the game because you don't like that it takes longer? There's no reason players should even be forced to play a deck that even tries to win. Although I see no point in playing except to win, you could play lifegain.dec that plans to cast Wheel of Sun and Moon on the opponent, or Donate a Pacifism'd Platinum Angel.
Basically, eliminating slow control from the format is like the scrub from the article someone posted in the "No respect for spike" or whatever thread saying "Control is cheap! Only aggro and combo and aggro-control."