Sweeping Ice and Other Important Topics – Dazed and Confused
Posted by Steven Birklid
July 6, 2010 | 
61 comments
I was going to write a PTQ report, but honestly, there isn’t much to write about. I died in round 5, and there wasn’t much memorable that happened. I actually overslept for the 2.5k, so I guess I’m just left with my thoughts, and without Magical technology.
I will tell you what’s on my mind, however.
As per the title of this piece, I am confused about Daze. I simply don’t understand why people can’t beat it. Most Magic articles are between 1500 and 2000 words. This one could probably be finished in three or four.
Play.
More.
(Basic)
Land.
A month ago, I was oblivious about Legacy. Now, I’m obsessed. It’s all I think about.
You know what I think about?
Why in the WORLD is every single person’s deck SO BAD.
This is a format where you have access to nearly every card ever printed. OK, sure, [card necropotence]Necro[/card], [card yawgmoths bargain]Bargain[/card], [card skullclamp]Clamp[/card], [card oath of druids]Oath[/card], Tinker – and various other cards that were pretending to be Magic cards, but were actually from a different planet – are banned. WHO CARES. Combo is still the best, always has been the best, always will be the best. Why are people putting Wild Nacatl and Lord of Atlantis in their decks when there are multiple ways in the format to kill you on the first turn of the game.
Before I get massacred, just want to say I realize there are plenty of amazing disruption tools available, e.g., Force of Will, Daze, Stifle, Wasteland, etc. But also realize that most of that is mana disruption, and not that difficult to build with that in mind. Yet, people refuse to play more than like 18 lands in this format. The "control" decks play 22. It makes no sense to me. In Standard, Jund decks play upwards of 26 lands, the Bant decks have 25 and all their mana creatures, and the UG deck has 29 lands. Even the Mono-Red Hyper Aggressive Burn Deck plays 24-25 lands. Do Legacy players just not understand that Magic is a little more difficult when you can’t cast any spells? So many people are like, "Man! I got mana screwed again, stuck on one land to his Wasteland / Stifle draw, and got beaten down by like two Merfolk". Yeah bro, that really sucks. I really feel bad for you and your deck with 18 whole mana sources.
It’s almost like they are actually playing back in 1995 when every kid’s casual deck had 20 lands, and then if they wanted to add some sweet new card to their deck, they just added it without making the mana ratio better. Pretty soon their deck is 70-80 cards, but still only 20 lands. I see this a lot in Legacy. "Oh man, I really want to put this new card that just got printed into my sweet Legacy deck, but I like all the cards that were in there already. What do I do? I know, I’ll just cut some lands."
The "disruption" that people play in this format feels like Ponza to me. People don’t play Thoughtseize to disrupt the combo decks for some reason, they play Stone Rain. Sure, it costs one mana, but everything in Legacy is twice as cheap. I remember someone, I think it was Dan Paskins, said that Ponza’s only good matchup was the mirror, and even that matchup was only good when on the play. I feel like this is pretty accurate.
The only reason people win tournaments with these garbage Legacy Land Destruction decks (read: Merfolk) is because everyone else in the room is playing a deck with poorly constructed mana. When your two ways to win the game are 1) being on the play in the mirror, or 2) hoping your opponent constructed their deck incorrectly, it’s not a very good recipe for success. Although, the latter seems to be a pretty safe bet in most Legacy tournaments these days.
The only reason decks like Zoo and Aggro Loam and those awful Mono-Black midrange decks can even exist is because they get up in the morning, go to the kitchen, and fry up some fish to put in their omelet.
The problem with playing those decks because they prey on Merfolk is that Merfolk is bad too! Merfolk exists because a) it’s cheap, and b) "it beats combo." Well, a) that shouldn’t matter if you are actually trying to win a tournament, and b) no it doesn’t. At least, it wouldn’t if anyone built their deck correctly.
They way I see it, there are three pillars of the legacy metagame.
Red-based aggro (Zoo, Goblins, Dragon Stompy), Daze decks (New Horizons, Merfolk, Faeries, and the Bant Counterbalance decks. I would say that Stax falls into this category as well, despite not containing the card Daze), and Combo (Show and Tell, Reanimator, Enlightened Tutor Counterbalance decks, Dredge, ANT, Enchantress, Belcher, etc). The Natural Order Counterbalance deck is kind of a crossover between the last two, but I would say generally falls in the Daze section. I’m not sure what category the 43 Land decks fall into, but it probably has to be combo, since it is a Life from the Loam engine deck. As a somewhat obvious side note, I believe this is one of the very few decks in the format that plays enough lands.
Now, let’s break this down a little bit more. Generally, Aggro beats Daze, Daze beats combo, and Combo beats Aggro. This is the accepted wisdom. Now, let’s examine why this is so.
Aggro beats Daze by deploying threats that Daze decks are unprepared for, ie creatures. Daze decks are packed full of cards like Spell Pierce, Cursecatcher, Force of Will and, not surprisingly, Daze. Aggro decks are packed full of cards like Tarmogoyf, Goblin Ringleader, and Rakdos Pit Dragon. Since the Daze decks can’t really put pressure on the Aggro decks, it is pretty easy to minimize the effectiveness of Daze decks’ namesake card, which then leaves the Daze deck in a position where it has to fight undercosted giant creatures with 1/1s for 1 and 2/2s for 2. Whoops.
Daze beats combo because combo players build their decks incorrectly. If you are building a combo deck, you literally have to beat three cards: Wasteland, Daze, and Force of Will. I’m not exactly sure what the best way to do that is, specifically, but I know it begins by adding a freaking land. The Daze decks are basically just starting the game with Thorn of Amethyst in play. Combo decks can beat that card all the time, so why can’t they find a way to beat a Daze deck? People play way too many nonbasics in their decks, and then complain when they get blown out by Wasteland. They complain when they get lead with Underground Sea instead of a Misty Rainforest so they can "get more value out of their Brainstorm" and then get "sacked" by the Blood Moons and the accompanying [card magus of the moon]Magus[/card] with a fetch still in their hand. They complain when their first fetch land gets Stifled, so they are unable to Brainstorm or Ponder into a second land. Well, maybe you should play more lands. Maybe you should put a basic into play on the first turn. Maybe you should mulligan one-landers because they get blown out by cards that are insanely popular, instead of thinking, "One land and a Brainstorm? This hand is awesome!" like so many people do.
Combo beats Aggro because they are interacting on completely different axes. Have you ever played a deck with Dark Ritual against a deck with Kird Ape? It feels a lot like cheating.
Wild Nacatl, g…
You’re dead.
[card tarmogoyf]Tarmogo[/card]…
YOU’RE DEAD! JEEZ!
It really is that simple. It’s also the main reason I don’t understand why combo decks can’t beat a Daze. It is literally the only thing you have to worry about, so why do you worry about anything else?
Let’s take a look-see at some of the manabases from the recent SCG Open Series in St. Louis.
1st place – Counterbalance with Enlightened Tutor, 22 lands, 9 fetchlands, 8 basics.
2nd place – Merfolk, 22 lands, 13 basics, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Wasteland
3rd place – Merfolk, 20 lands, 13 basics, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Wasteland
4th place – Goblins, 24 lands, 7 basics, 7 fetchlands, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Wasteland
5th place – Goblins, 24 lands, 4 basics, 8 fetchlands, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Wasteland
6th place – Belcher, 2 lands (exception to the rule of playing more lands, obviously)
7th place – Zoo, 21 lands, 3 basics, 10 fetchlands
8th place – Show and Tell, 20 lands, 4 basics, 6 fetchlands
9th place – Faeries, 19 lands, 3 basics, 6 fetches, 4 Wasteland
10th place – Zoo, same as above
11th place – Aluren, 24 lands, 6 basics, 9 fetchlands
12th place – Dream Halls, 17 lands, 5 basics, 7 fetchlands
13th place – Goblins, 22 lands, 4 basics, 7 fetchlands, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Wasteland
14th place – Merfolk, 20 lands, 12 basics, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Wasteland
15th place – Zoo, 20 lands, 3 basics, 10 fetchlands
16th place – New Horizons, 23 lands, 1 basic, 8 fetchlands, 4 Wasteland
The New Horizons deck, the Aluren deck, the Goblins decks, and maybe the Zoo decks have enough lands. Of those, the New Horizons deck plays far too many non-basics, and the Aluren deck is the only deck other than the one that won the tournament to play more than 1 of each basic land in a multicolored deck. The 8th, 9th, and 12th place decks are hideously undermanaed in every way, and even the 1st place deck could probably use at least one more land given that you want as many as possible to maximize [card senseis divining top]Top[/card] and [card thopter foundry]Thopter[/card]/[card sword of the meek]Sword[/card] combo. The fact that his mana was nearly immune to Wasteland seems to have helped at least a little bit though, since four of the seven other decks in the Top 8 had 4 of them. Maybe he’s on to something?
You mean constructing my mana base around the existence of Wasteland is going to help me beat decks with Wasteland? I would have never made such a connection! That is so next level!
The other way to attack the Merfolk decks seems to be beating them at their own game. If you can destroy their Aether Vial, they only have 12-13 lands that are any kind of help at casting their spells. It seems to me like they are just asking for it at that point. Boy that sure is a sweet Mutavault you have there. Oh, what’s that, your hand is full of Lord of Atlantis and Merfolk Sovereign and Coralhelm Commander? Yeah, sorry, but I don’t feel bad for you. At all.
I honestly don’t have a clue why Merfolk decks even exist, because their strategy is inherently pretty weak. Daze is easy enough to play around, they are just as vulnerable mana-wise as the decks they are "feeding on", and they have only 4 copies of Force of Will to protect themselves from all of the broken things that you can do in the format. Unless they live in Magical Christmas Land where every draw is Vial, double lord, Standstill, Daze, double Force, I feel like their deck is only as good as their opponents are bad. I wonder what they will do when the combo decks realize they should start playing Force of Will themselves, and a manabase that doesn’t suck. My guess is they get scooped up in a giant net and become the stars of the next episode of Deadliest Catch.
Steven Birklid
business_socks on MODO
ducktapeloser_182@hotmail.com
Special Extra: The Demonfire Story
This story was going to be my article last week but, admittedly, it’s a little low on relevant content so it got pushed back. It’s still a story worth telling, and a story worth hearing, so I’ve decided to include it here.
P.S. Don’t Demonfire You
Gather round the campfire kids, Grandpa’s gonna tell you a little story!
People have said that I’m a pretty good guy to have on a road trip, especially a Magic road trip. I have some pretty sweet stories hanging out in my back pocket that I like to whip out from time to time.
Now is one of those times.
I’ll say up front that this story is better told in person, but it is so unbelievable that it’s probably worth it anyway. I will also say this story doesn’t specifically relate to Magic skills or strategy or deck choice. It does have one very useful lesson though. You’ll see.
I don’t know who that Occam guy was, but he sure had a razor sharp wit.
This, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is the Demonfire Story.
Setting – US Nationals, Ravnica/Time Spiral Standard, Baltimore, Maryland. Round 3, FIGHT!
I had traveled to US Nationals with a fairly large contingent of Alaskan Magic players (or as large as such a contingent can be…). Some of us were playing in the main event, and others were playing in the last ever JSS Championship. So, I sit down for round three after just embarrassing Conley Woods in round two (sorry Conley, I had to, I just had to), and my opponent is my Chinese friend from Alaska, Wu Jia. Wu (his given name is Jia but everyone calls him Wu) and I are pretty good buddies and we are playing an exact 75 card mirror.
Somebody wins game one, and somebody else wins game two. It’s not really important. What is important is how game three went down.
He had a couple early dudes, but I eventually killed them, and he had taken a couple damage from lands/combat early. At the critical juncture of the game, my turn 6 first main phase, the board is as follows:
Wu: Seal of Fire, lands, 15 life, appx 4 cards in hand.
YT: 6 mana, 8 life, and a hand of Demonfire, Demonfire, Demonfire, and lands.
Well, here we go!
Demonfire you. 10-8
Draw, Rift Bolt you. 10-5
Demonfire you. 5-5
Draw, tank.
At this point, I have full confidence that I have won. I mean, who would slowroll in this spot? He ultimately says go, and I flash him the lethal Demonfire in my hand. He gives me a look as if to say "I dare you to put that spell on the stack, just wait and see what happens."
Queue Soliloquy:
Uh-oh. What does that mean? Every time I have ever played against Wu and shown him lethal he has scooped it up. Why is this time different?
I start to untap, tentatively, trying to figure out what is going on. Now my brain starts reeling.
Why wouldn't he just scoop ‘em up there? He must have lethal in response"¦ but then why wouldn't he just kill me on his turn? I was tapped out… He must be slowrolling me"¦ but why would he do that, we're friends? He doesn’t have a very good grasp on American humor, maybe he thinks slowrolling here would be funny? Maybe he doesn't know what life I'm at? No, when he Rift Bolted me last turn we verified life totals. And even if he had forgotten or something, surely if I play the Demonfire, he will double check all that and if he does have lethal I'll be dead"¦
End Soliloquy
I'm completely stumped here, but as I come out of the tank, I decide I just have to play the Demonfire and hope he was running the Big Chief Bluff’ems and doesn’t actually have it. As I start to tap my lands, I look up at him, and this is what I saw:
Wu is furiously flipping the cards in his hand, usually a pretty good sign of nerves, and generally a sign of weakness.
Flipflipflipflipflipflipflipflip
I can almost make out the cards, as they are so low to the surface of the table.
Flipflipflipflipflipflip
Then he stops. I can see the card he flipped to the top. You know how in combat a lot of players will flip their trick to the front of their hand before they figure out their blocks? Almost like they are afraid to forget about it, so they make sure it’s cocked and ready to fire? That’s what this was like. He flipped it to the front and was getting ready to fire it. And I saw it. Plain as day. I saw it as clearly as anything I have ever seen in my life. The top card of his hand was Incinerate. 10thEdition, dude-with-flaming-orifaces-Incinerate.
Requeue Soliloquy
He was slowrolling me! What a jerk! Guess I can’t play my Demonfire now, because then I’ll just be dead. How can I possibly win this game? Hope he continues to slowroll me and peel runner-runner instant speed burn spells? That seems pretty thin. Better than just dying though, I suppose?
End Soliloquy
I pass the turn. I cannot believe I’m doing this.
Wu draws, plays Rift Bolt, sacrifices his Seal of Fire, and kills me.
I am a little stunned, and ask him why he slowrolled me. He acts incredulous, saying he has no idea what that means or what I am talking about.
I explained that he had lethal last turn when I was tapped out and didn’t kill me, and I felt that was pretty unsporting.
WJ: I didn’t have the kill last turn! I topdecked Rift Bolt!
YT: Why didn’t you concede if you didn’t have it, then? Also, I’m not talking about Rift Bolt, I’m talking about Incinerate. I know you had it, I saw it in your hand when you were flipping through it.
WJ: I don't have Incinerate! Don't concede ’cause I bluff! See, look!
He showed me his hand.
Land, Land, [card hit]Hit/Run[/card], Hit/Run, Dark Confidant.
I was horrified. I couldn't figure out what happened or how it happened. As I reached for the slip I looked, ever-so-slowly, to my right and, sure enough, plain as day, as clearly as anything I have ever seen in my life, sat the top card of his graveyard:
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About This Author
Steven Birklid
A former Alaska native, Steve Birklid has made it onto the Pro Tour numerous times. He narrowly missed Top 8 at Grand Prix Seattle 2009 after starting off 11-0, and will undoubtedly rectify that in the future. &hellip
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amc says: July 6, 2010 @ 9:09 pm
i like this. a lot.
Blind Fremen says: July 6, 2010 @ 9:11 pm
Cool story bro.
Todd says: July 6, 2010 @ 10:22 pm
This is a really good article. I play fish at our local shop mostly because of budget constraints, but I truly hate the deck and think it’s a pile of trash. Your aggressive plans are so fragile and your defensive plans are even more so. I’m working on a homebrew U/B control deck for our Legacy meta and I think they’ll be stunned to see 24-26 lands in a Legacy deck.
Merman says: July 6, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
The deck you’re bashing posted the best win percentage in St. Louis…
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19667_Too_Much_Information_StarCityGamescom_Legacy_Open_St_Louis.html
Now most of this is irrelevant because the deck is actually just awfulbad now, but before the big unnecessary banning, choosing merfolk was choosing good matchups against good decks. If idiots wanted to bring Nacatl or Goblins to a tournament w/ t1 kills, they weren’t typically going to be the best players in the room (in addition to their crippling assumption that they’re about to blow you out cuz you’re on folk). Folk players could edge them out with their stupidity, while collecting huge returns on a baseline better matchup against the decks good players chose (anything with force of will).
But again, irrelevant. Anybody choosing folk before another good matchup emerges in the metagame is definitely messing up.
Kyle Boddy says: July 6, 2010 @ 11:17 pm
Great article. colinmc advocated playing 21 land in my SCG winning New Horizons list. It’s bad. 23 was barely enough, especially when you figure that Wasteland is not a full land and neither is Horizon Canopy.
Losing games to yourself is stupid.
Oddus says: July 7, 2010 @ 1:06 am
Great article and it hits the point hard!! And – additional thanks for a good laugh at the Combo-Aggro interaction dialogue))) I haven’t laughed that hard in a long while and it’s one of the reasons this article is in my bookmarks now.
On the point – it’s not that people don’t think about daze mostly – it’s that people don’t think mostly.. Age of netdecking has come and you just blindly copy a winner list. If you got two winner list – you sit down, bend your brain and combine them into something cool but totally unplayable, because this contraptions are usually only good in the air. So comes the morale – test and think for yourself, don’t copy blindly, cause you never know for sure why the man has won – intensive skill, pure luck, dumb opponents etc. (it might even be an 8 man tourney signed as 80..)
Hanni says: July 7, 2010 @ 1:45 am
This was the most ignorant article I think I’ve ever read. The author clearly knows very little about the Legacy format, and has alot to learn. There’s just too much idiocy in this article to even know where to begin critiquing it.
loucksj says: July 7, 2010 @ 2:01 am
You kids, get off my lawn!
yankeedave says: July 7, 2010 @ 2:27 am
I can understand where the idea comes from, but its yet another bitch and moan and call Legacy players eejits, but offer no new ideas or decks to help make the changes he is promoting. Maybe a sample deck with 24+ lands in it for the community to take away and test, rather than just calling us all idiots. Lead by example dude.
morkje says: July 7, 2010 @ 2:37 am
I think this was a bit harsh, but probably has a point to it.
It is strange the format doesnt addapt to the hate, but simple endures is.
When was the last time pro’s got to play(test) this format?
It is interesting what they would do with it, and if a “terrible” deck like Fish wouldn’t be played by them.
Maybe the problem with the format is that you need to defend yourself vs so much, there just isnt enough room.
marcus says: July 7, 2010 @ 2:43 am
Your story at the end is exactly what happend to me about 2 years ago XD only i had the incierate in my hand not it in his graveyard :/
menace says: July 7, 2010 @ 2:50 am
Merfolk are good against decks with Islands.. oh and that Vial thingy i am pretty sure helps in a format where the most played card is FoW..
GerryT says: July 7, 2010 @ 2:56 am
@ yankeedave: The whole article he is telling you how to make your mana bases better, how to build with Stifle/Daze/Wasteland in mind, but that’s cool. Keep playing your 18 land 4 Ponder/4 Brainstorm decks.
@ Birkastud: Glad you’re on the Legacy train.
Aeka says: July 7, 2010 @ 3:08 am
I think you’re forgetting that most of these lists play either 4 Ponder/4 Brainstorm or 4 Top/4 Brainstorm. If they need to hit an extra land drop to play around Daze, it isn’t usually difficult to find one. Playing more land in most of these decks would just dilute it the non-Daze matchups and make it harder to find a spell when you really need one. When playing 4 Ponders and 4 Brainstorms, 20 land is typically all you need to hit your first 3 land drops. Canadian Thresh used to play only 18 (with 4 Wastelands) and it was very successful, though it’s since been replaced by New Horizons in the meta.
Also, I don’t understand all this Merfolk hate lately. Merfolk can often be a fine metagame choice, and the Zoo matchup is nowhere near as hopeless as everyone seems to think it is. It performed great at the last SCG open.
I’m not a legacy player myself, but I keep up with it some, and I don’t really agree with your points here. Yeah, combo decks are often too greedy with their land count, but the decks listed in the top 16 here all have pretty reasonable amounts after you take into account the amount of card filtering they have, at least, in my opinion. The only one that really seems land light is the one Merfolk deck with 20 lands.
Nessaja says: July 7, 2010 @ 3:10 am
Cool story, but perhaps you should first go and win a tournament before you call the established order retarded, just a thought.
The legacy scene adapts pretty fast. If only there are only Wasteland immune manabases I’m fairly sure that that the nonbasic hating decks will die out sooner or later, causing the fringe manabases deck to resurge again. Voilá, a cycle.
yankeedave says: July 7, 2010 @ 3:46 am
@GerryT – I understood that point, but a little innovation from a respected source is always better than just telling us we are wrong. My skills do not lie in deck building, but in playing a deck that someone else with more skill than me has created.
And just as an aside – didn’t your deck that you finished 2nd at Atlanta with only have 17 lands, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Careful Study?
armlx says: July 7, 2010 @ 6:22 am
I really still can’t believe people actually build their decks like this. My favorites are the 18 land decks with 4 Wasteland. That support 3 colors of spells (or think they can).
Either that or the 2 color decks that just auto have 4x on color dual and then don’t have both on color basics.
Lorgalis says: July 7, 2010 @ 6:40 am
This “Cool story, but perhaps you should first go and win a tournament before you call the established order retarded, just a thought.”
and this:
“Also, I don't understand all this Merfolk hate lately. Merfolk can often be a fine metagame choice, and the Zoo matchup is nowhere near as hopeless as everyone seems to think it is. It performed great at the last SCG open.”
It seems you’re not very into Legacy. It seems that you’re mostly into standard and decided to make a Legacy article for a change. That’s nice, because as a legacy player, I like seeing more legacy articles. However, you should gather more information before making statements…specially when you make contemptuous statements. Otherwise you might look like a fool…;)
Trackback MTGBattlefield says: July 7, 2010 @ 6:43 am
Sweeping Ice and Other Important Topics – Dazed and Confused…
Your story has been summoned to the battlefield – Trackback from MTGBattlefield…
CahPahkah says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:11 am
Not to narc on your story, but two things:
1.) Shouldn’t the Rift Bolt that he cast have been on top of his graveyard?
and, more seriously
2.) Shouldn’t you have received a “Cheating – Hidden Information Violation” DQ anyway? I’m by no means an expert on tournament rules, but it sounds like you were aware of the possibility of seeing his cards as he flipped through his hand and focused on it in order to gain an advantage, which then informed your line of play. Would be curious to hear what other people think…
Zach says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:17 am
22 lands is ok in a counterbalance top Deck. I remember hearing that 4 brainstorm and 4 Top each count for one land (so that’s +2 “virtual” lands over 22 land in the deck).
I subscribe to a curve I heard awhile ago: 24 (Lands), 12 (1 drops), 12 (2 drops), 8 (3 drops), 4 (4 drops) give or take some numbers. Ctop Bant fits this pretty well (and it has to to have counterbalance optimal).
I think a good minimum for basic land numbers is that you should be able to cast all of the spells in the deck with only basics. So 2x Island, Forest, Plains is a minimum in C-Top Bant.
Zach says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:20 am
If more people took your advice, counterspell would become much better in the format. The format is probably slow enough for counterspell to function now (all of the combo decks but Belcher are not immune to it), but Daze has preference because of the predominance of tight manabases.
GtF says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:23 am
In a lot of these decks, drawing too many basic lands can hurt you just as much if not more as getting a nonbasic wasted. People don’t always build their decks to play around wasteland because a decent number of popular decks in legacy don’t play wasteland. It’s the same reason it was so difficult for you to identify the “poles” of the format, there are way too many decks. Building a deck for raw power as opposed to resilience to wasteland/daze is worth it a lot of the time. People play 25 lands or more in standard because there are spells that cost more than 3 mana in standard. Legacy is completely different. Saying a turboland deck in standard plays 29 lands is completely beside the point.
I do agree that merfolk sucks though. At least when they don’t play tarmogoyf.
FadingThought says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:35 am
While I don’t play merfolk, I do play goblins and I can tell you, combos are not all they are cracked up to be.
Turn 1 Lacky(on the play) can beat a turn 2 Iona all day long in the Reanimator match. Post board it is easier to deal with a combo than it is to deal with an agro deck.
People with you attitude generally are the people type those messages online like “gosh, if you played any worse” as my Fireblast in response to there turn 2 ANT combo kills them.
Agro decks have long kept combo decks in check and I don’t need more than 21 lands with 6 fetches to drop a turn 2 Siege-gang Commander that doesn’t care if I can’t cast red spells anymore. I’ll be happy to race you.
Zaiem says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:39 am
@CahPahkah: Usually people don’t put a spell in the graveyard after it’s dealt lethal. As for DQ for looking at hidden information, it’s only cheating if Steven goes out of his way to look at that information, like doing some weird thing when shuffling his opponent’s deck. If the opponent accidentally dips his hand too low or flashes you some cards while he’s shuffling his own deck, it’s totally legit.
Hugo Sousa says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:53 am
If you want to read what the real legacy players think about the article, go here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18171-Free-Article-Dazed-and-Confused&p=470469
If you want my opinion, you’ve shown a weak ammount of knowledge on the format.
Spike says: July 7, 2010 @ 8:37 am
Seriously, Steven, leave writing about Legacy to the people that actually understand this format. All other nonsense aside, but your comparison of Standard and Legacy manabases is probably the most stupid thing I’ve read in months.
Matt Sperling says: July 7, 2010 @ 8:52 am
Good article. Gets us thinking about manabases whether we agree or disagree. One thing I thought right away was “I wonder if I daze Brainstorm/Ponder as much as I should given that people are using them to find needed land. Good article, argumentative tone is welcome, it helps frame the issues and keeps me interested.
RandomCubed says: July 7, 2010 @ 9:18 am
Seems like youve run out of things to write, this article was redundant, boring, overall poor.
durrrr says: July 7, 2010 @ 9:28 am
Oh, Birklid, if only you were the first person to complain about how Legacy players “don’t play enough land.” From your article:
“The "control" decks play 22. It makes no sense to me. In Standard, Jund decks play upwards of 26 lands, the Bant decks have 25 and all their mana creatures, and the UG deck has 29 lands. Even the Mono-Red Hyper Aggressive Burn Deck plays 24-25 lands. Do Legacy players just not understand that Magic is a little more difficult when you can't cast any spells? ”
Here, I’ll let you in on the HUGE SECRET OF LEGACY:
The aggro decks top out at 2 and don’t want to draw more than 4 or 5 lands A GAME (and certainly don’t want to hit their land drops through turn 5). The control decks top out at 4, with Jace. There’s no Baneslayer in this format. There’s no Siege-Gang, no Sovereigns, no Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Every land past land 5 in a Counter/Top deck is absolutely awful, because it’s not like we have some huge mana sink that gets better with more mana. We just have Tops, cantrips, free counters, and 2 mana creatures. More recently, we have Jaces, so I guess casting Jace costs 4.
Do you really actually want 24-27 actual lands to cast your 2 drops? I mean, I hope everyone takes your advice, gets insanely flooded, and loses every blue mirror to people who can build their decks correctly and understand that there is a reason why people cut lands in Legacy. Here it is, so that someone can take away SOMETHING good from your article, even though it will be in comments section:
There are no good draw spells in Legacy that aren’t absurdly conditional, and so many games are decided by precise resource management, all the way down to how many lands each player draws.
If I draw and play seven lands and my opponent stops on 4 and we both have empty hands, it’s not “luck” that he also has a Counterbalance, Top, and Goyf in play to my stone nothing. I might’ve gotten flooded, but more than likely I just put too many lands in my deck. Given this article, maybe we can start calling it “losing the Birklid way”. I don’t know. Regardless, putting a bunch of lands in your deck in anticipation of cartwheeling into Stifle and Wasteland is godawful, because when they don’t have Stifle and Wasteland, your deck is slow and inconsistent on action, which is surprisingly relevant, given how fast this format works. Furthermore, decks are designed to be able to operate on 1 and 2 lands.
More brilliance from your article:
“The "disruption" that people play in this format feels like Ponza to me. People don't play Thoughtseize to disrupt the combo decks for some reason, they play Stone Rain.”
No, they play free Counterspell, free Force Spike, adjustable Chalice of the Void, and 4-turn clocks that don’t make you tap out. What games are you watching? Yeah, people play Wasteland, but that’s not the ONLY disruption they have. Even Goblins has some combination of Chalices, Thorns, Wastelands, Ports, and Moons. Are you just being willfully ignorant or belligerently asinine? I get that a lot of people are writing articles that whine nowadays, but they, at least, have a firm grasp of their subject matter.
From your article:
“The problem with playing those decks because they prey on Merfolk is that Merfolk is bad too! Merfolk exists because a) it's cheap, and b) "it beats combo." Well, a) that shouldn't matter if you are actually trying to win a tournament, and b) no it doesn't. At least, it wouldn't if anyone built their deck correctly.”
You’re hilarious. Also, idiotic. There’s this sweet deck with Counterbalances and Tops in it. There’s a couple different versions. If you ever read tournament coverage, you might see that it does well at some tournaments sometimes, and that some people play it. In other news, ISLANDWALK STILL GOOD AGAINST ISLANDS, MANY CREATURES GOOD AGAINST DECKS WITH VERY LITTLE REMOVAL. Holy shit, Birklid, I think I figured out why people play Merfolk. It isn’t to beat up on combo (which Counter/Top does a lot better than Merfolk, ask anyone), it’s because it beats up on Counter/Top and other blue decks! Wow! I would never have thought that a deck that plays a weird version of Grizzly Bears would play it for a REASON! Idiot.
From your article:
“Daze beats combo because combo players build their decks incorrectly. If you are building a combo deck, you literally have to beat three cards: Wasteland, Daze, and Force of Will.”
You’re retarded, Counterbalance is a card, read it sometime, get back to me. Oh, p.s.: IT FEATURED PROMINENTLY IN THE LAST THREE LEGACY GRAND PRIXS. If all combo had to do was beat Stone Rain, Force Spike, and Counterspell, then yes, adding 4 Tundras and 4 Orim’s Chants to every one of them would be a damn brilliant idea, but the thing is, they get locked out on turn 3 or 4 WITH Daze and Force backup, and so they have to compensate by becoming FASTER, which means DROPPING lands since you aren’t going to play them, and so making yourself more vulnerable to Wasteland. Real deep analysis I’m doing here.
From your article:
“You mean constructing my mana base around the existence of Wasteland is going to help me beat decks with Wasteland? I would have never made such a connection! That is so next level!”
Here, I’ll tell you how any self-respecting 3+-color deck tries to beat Wasteland: IT DOESN’T CUT DOWN ON DUAL LANDS. Here, I’ll give you an example:
You are playing 4 color Landstill. Say, Lewis Laskin’s version. Or maybe the 3 color version that finished 13th in St. Louis. I’m too lazy to look up the pilot’s name. Regardless, you could open a hand with 3 duals, or with 2 basics and a dual. Here’s the big secret, again: IF THEY HAVE A WASTELAND AND YOU HAVE A DUAL LAND, YOU’RE STILL LOSING THE DUAL LAND.
Think about that one for a second. You’re always losing your dual, but the way you build your deck is now affecting how well you can get by on the other two lands. Unless, of course, you’re so incredibly paranoid about Wasteland that you build your deck assuming that they will get two or more Wastelands a game and will always play the card Wasteland in their deck, in which case I can’t help you, because that’s a shitty assumption. Instead, I would rather have a Sea and a Trop in play, so that when I draw land, I can cast Pernicious Deed! Hurray Pernicious Deed! Instead, you seem to be advocating that we have Island + Swamp in play. Now we have to draw fetch or Trop, or we stare sadly at our three lands and no Pernicious Deed. That evil man with the Wastelands ruined our day.
Spoiler alert
It’s because you let him.
End spoiler
Blood Moon isn’t nearly prevalent enough in this format to ACTUALLY play basics to respect it. The way you beat Wasteland is to max out on duals and cantrip into lands every time. If you cut fetchlands for basics, you might as well cut Brainstorm and Top (and Ponder, if you play it). If you do that, I hope I play against you, because you’re playing with 60 cards in a format where every blue mirror is just a race to the same 8-12 cards.
So, there you have it. Just to clarify, Steven: I don’t know you, I have nothing personal against you. I think you wrote a godawful article, and I’m pointing out why.
Dahcmai says: July 7, 2010 @ 9:28 am
I agree a lot of people play decks that have a land short out of greed. The majority of decks in Legacy run that way on purpose. They have a ton more card draw, sorting, and tutoring power than any extended or standard deck ever thought about. These aggro decks can get away with so little just because they barely have a thing in the deck costing more than 2 and play a lot of them for free. If you work up the amount of mana needed to cast 2cc reliably then counting a large portion of the deck will be played at 0 mana, you get the figures.
I kind of had to laugh at you bashing Merfolk. You’re taking cheap shots at a deck that regularly shows up in the top 8′s of Grand Prixs? It’s inexpensive, it’s fragile, but the thing works way better than it looks. I don’t play Merfolk, but I have played enough against it to know it’s not a joke. It’s clock is quite quick and you are pressured hard. You practically have to have a sweeper and a counter back up to win it. That or a lot of targeted removal. It’s not that great against combo actually, it’s main target is control decks. It’s quite amazing at destroying those.
I think this article can be knocked up to someone who plays Standard way more than Legacy and it showed.
Kyle Boddy says: July 7, 2010 @ 10:50 am
For those saying you should win a tournament before calling people retarded, well, I did win one. And you guys are retarded.
Mons Goblin Commenters says: July 7, 2010 @ 10:53 am
“Why don’t people in Legacy play more land?!?!” immediately followed by “everything in Legacy is TWICE as CHEAP”
I don’t think I’ve seen as much cognitive dissonance come out of Alaska since Sarah Palin.
Zach says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:18 am
@ Kyle: I agree the mana base (and the colorbase of too few good blue cards) in the New Horizons Deck is pretty bad. Any deck that plays force of will ought to play another blue card that is “broken” in that particular deck (Counterbalance, Show and Tell, Mystical Tutor) in order to be consistently sucessful in legacy. Force of Will needs to be used both offensively (forcing a big blue spell through) and defensively to be optimal. I don’t really understand the tempo thresh decks that don’t play blue cards that could create soft locks in a variety of games.
@ durr: on your comment of there being no good unconditional card advantage in Legacy. The cards that come closest to exceptions are:
1) Standstill in a landstill deck packing deeds and a lot of removal and countermagic. Note that Landstill isn’t so scared of getting flooded with lands in hand precisely because it has standstill and would like to attack with factories while keeping mana up to hardcast force of will.
2) Jace or other planeswalkers
3) Counterbalance (if it counters 2 spells, you have virtual and actual card advantage)
4) Predict (ala Sam Black)
5) Weathered Wayfarer + Fathom Seer (you can’t knock it until you’ve tried it)
6) Life from The Loam, Crucible
Parcher says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:22 am
“For those saying you should win a tournament before calling people retarded, well, I did win one. And you guys are retarded”
Yes, you won one. However, since it was a Legacy tournament, all of your opponents must have been retards. Since that is the sole population of any Legacy tournament. Winning a tournament by beating on retards does not entitle you to call other people retarded. You have to win a tournament in a real format to do that. It just makes you king of the retards. For a day.
durrrr says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:26 am
Zach:
1. Standstill is ABSURDLY conditional. You have to be kidding yourself if you call the card an unconditional draw 3. If it were an unconditional draw 3, everyone would play it.
2. They cost 4 or more. Daze is a card in this format. So is Wasteland, so is Stifle, and so is Wild Nacatl. Also, to do more than cantrip, you have to have it in play for two or three turns. Real good.
3. You just listed the conditions. It does not draw cards. It does not counter spells against certain decks. In fact, I would board it out against Goblins. Complete conditionality, all the way down to “what are the top three cards of my library?”
4. That is, I will admit, the closest you can come to card advantage. Needs another cantrip.
5. Yes I can because the cards are horrific. That deck is horrific, and 99 times out of 100, its pilots are horrific. Better players play decks that aren’t White Weenie with blue.
6. Absurdly conditional, slow.
Thanks for proving my point, Zach. Try looking up the word “unconditional,” then please find more cards that make my point for me. The card that comes closest is Fact or Fiction, and that card is way too slow for this format, which is why I made the assertion that I did. Furthermore, in blue mirrors, the reason that everyone races to Tarmogoyf and Counterbalance is because you have to counter Counterbalance or they gain huge edges, while Tarmogoyf kills you unless you have one of your own or a Swords to Plowshares.
armlx says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:00 pm
@durr:
1. 4C Landstill sucks precisely for the reasons in this article. Have you considered you maybe shouldn’t play Pernicious Deed if it means you lose to Wasteland? What does it honestly solve that you didn’t already have answers to?
2. If I built my deck remotely competently, those cards are basically unconditional. Your arguments are like saying a Forest is not unconditional mana as your deck is 40 Black Knights.
Exospaciac says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:14 pm
Maybe the Standard players should stick to writing about Standard.
You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about if you say things like:
“I honestly don't have a clue why Merfolk decks even exist, because their strategy is inherently pretty weak.”
durrrr says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
Ari: good questions.
1. Deed solves Landstill’s major problem, which is Counterbalance. Playing EE is sort of reasonable, but you give up a lot against aggressive decks and against a whole host of fringe decks. EE isn’t great against Merfolk, where they can play Vial, Mutavault, Lord, Rejeerey, and you struggle to get parity for more mana. Similarly, against Zoo, having them curve Nacatl, Goyf, Knight is pretty awkward for EEs. Sure, sometimes they go Lynx, Nacatl, Lion and your EE is sick, but you will pretty much always prefer Deed. It’s a far less conditional card in such an open format.
Also, you shouldn’t lose to Wasteland because you play cards like Life from the Loam or Crucible as well as just having a lot of dual lands. Playing a three color deck with more than 2 or 3 basics is a very iffy call. The reason decks lose to Wasteland is far more about color screw than about the number of lands they are left with. In other words, basics contribute greatly to Wasteland making you lose.
2. In order:
- Standstill is horrific against Zoo, Aether Vial, Lands, Dredge, and the mirror. Yeah, if you can build your deck to avoid the pairings gods, I salute you.
- Jace is horrific against Zoo, Aether Vial, Dredge, Ancient Tomb decks, mana denial, and Hymns. Again, pairings gods, deck construction, etc.
- You should get where this is going. Your card advantage engine should not be conditional upon what your opponent is playing. There is no Legacy equivalent of Mind Spring or Divination. Confidant is really bad in this metagame, or I wouldn’t be saying what I’m saying, because that’s the sort of thing I’m talking about.
Your analogy is pretty bad, considering that I’m talking about how all of Zach’s suggestions, Predict excepted, are incredibly dependent upon gaining some level of “interaction advantage” — Wasteland recursion relying upon your opponent both having and needing their lands, Counterbalance relying upon your opponent not playing a staggered curve, et cetera. To get us back to the original point I was making, this lack of unconditional advantage means that adding lands gives you comparatively fewer cards to play per game than your opponent, since your cards go one-for-one with very few exceptions. Those exceptions can decide games (an unanswered Tarmogoyf, Counterbalance, Crucible, Jace), but they can also be complete blanks.
The common point that I’m making against Zach’s suggestions is that none of these cards do ANYTHING against an opponent that is ahead on board. Certainly Standstill is complemented by a ton of removal, but you are making your card advantage engine conditional upon being ahead at the time you cast it. In Standard, UW can tap out for Mind Spring and come back. There’s nothing that does that in Legacy, and so the price for getting flooded is far greater. That’s the point I’m making. Address that, instead of telling me that I’m talking about putting Forest in a deck with Black Knight in it.
Anusien says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
I know you’re getting a lot of hate. I just want to say you’re basically 100% right on everything.
The history of Legacy is people playing terrible mana decks, somebody playing some mana denial deck to punish them, people building better decks so the mana denial decks fade, and then people getting lazy with their mana.
The only reason Pikula did as well at Philly as he did (not hating here, he correctly judged the metagame) is because people don’t play lands.
Cory says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
Is this some kind of joke? Have I been punked?
Zach says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:44 pm
@durr:
I looked the word up in Merriam Webster online.
unconditional: not conditional or limited
I just said “come closest” (fewest, most easily satisfied conditions). Ones that I forgot were Dark Confidant, Stoneforge Mystic.
When I think about it, every card drawing spell is conditional. You need two mana to cast Predict and you need to know the top card of your or your opponent’s library in order to gain card advantage from it. You also need it not to be countered.
There are draw spells that require more or fewer conditions that are more or less easily met given a certain context. Predict requires a condition that can be met by other cards like brainstorm and Top (perhaps jace or ponder) that you would be playing anyway given a certain strategy. That you are playing deck-manipulating cards in order to make predict better allows you to more often assemble the required cenerio to draw two cards off of it.
5. But those guys that designed it spent so much time testing it sound so confident when talking about it. That must mean . . . well I don’t know what it means other than they spent a lot of time developing the deck and sound confident.
Zach says: July 7, 2010 @ 12:53 pm
@ durr
Just read your post. You’re absolutely right that the innexpensive card advantage in the format doesn’t help you when you are behind. Pernicious deed is the only thing close to an exception because it helps you more the more permanents you destroy (assuming you aren’t dead to burn spells). As you can see from my last comment, the fact that not even deed necessarily helps you when you are behind kind of proves your point.
CalebD says: July 7, 2010 @ 1:07 pm
durr: he said “closest to exceptions.” Not sure why you’re going off on him. Also, Dark Confidant is a card. Also, in the decks that play LFTL, the card is not conditional at all. FoF needs 4 mana to do stuff. LFTL needs 2, as dredging will, inevitably, find more lands. Not the best case, but clearly the card isn’t conditional at all.
@ the article: If two UG/x decks with 1-2cc threats, 4-8 cantrips, and 8 free counterspels bump head to head, the deck that draws more relevant spels will win. I’ve played Stiflenought a good bit and, while it has a bit more resilience to wasteland thanks to stifles, the deck also loses more from drawing too many lands than too few.
A lot of the time, if an aggro deck has a bad matchup against a controllish deck with a lot of one on one removal, it’s correct for the aggro player to board out lands for creatures, hoping to win with an increased threat density. Sure, the mana is more fragile, but sometimes it’s necessary.
I used to dismiss merfolk as a bad deck, but, after testing like crazy for the past few weeks, I’ve come to begrudgingly respect the Folk. 1-It gets a lot better with correlhelm commander. The card pulls wins out of nowhere and gives the deck a +5% onto its game against a lot of decks, nothing to scoff at. 2-Unless my blue deck is runining Bolt and Firespout, and sometimes even then, it’s pretty hard to beat Folk. I might not be playing islands at GP Columbus for this very reason.
That said, the distilled message of the article is that a lot of people are losing to wasteland that shouldn’t be, and this is probably correct. I’m not sure why a lot of legacy players are whining. I mean, Birklid is an intelligent man and I appreciate his putting out controversial legacy content, as opposed to coddling us with vanilla innanities such as: “zoo will get better now that mystical tutor is banned.” Now those articles tick me off.
Aeka says: July 7, 2010 @ 3:29 pm
I totally agree a lot of people are losing to Daze/Wasteland when they shouldn’t be – but that’s largely due to play mistakes, not deck construction problems.
Adding more land to your deck certainly does make Daze/Wasteland/Stifle less relevant. It also hurts every matchup where you’re not up against Daze/Wasteland/Stifle. Sure, you can Brainstorm extra lands away, but you can’t Ponder or Top them away. What you can do, however, is Ponder and Top for extra lands when facing Daze/Wasteland/Stifle.
Mon, Goblin Chief says: July 7, 2010 @ 4:33 pm
While your advice (“add _a_ freaking land”) is probably the best advice you could give a lot of Legacy players, your analysis is severely lacking, especially when you criticize decks for not running 24+ lands like standard-decks. Most decks in that format curve from three to six and survive being flooded with seven or eight lands better than remaining at four mana. Legacy decks curve from one to three, even including the control-decks. if you hit seven land outside Landstill or Lands in a game with less than 15 turns, you’re usually just dead because lands don’t answer threats.
If you look at earlier (as in before wotc was all “let’s push midrange”) standard/extended manabases, you’ll see what I mean.
Cases in point:
Fujita’s 20:20:20 zoo at PT Honululu – higher curve than Legacy zoo, yet less land than half the Legacy Zoo decks. Also Fujita’s PT L.A. Boros deck that had a whopping (compared to Legacy zoo) eight 3-mana spells it wanted to hit turn 3 but only 21 lands.
Ruel’s winning Tog-deck at the same PT L.A. – 23 lands in a deck with worse cantrips that even wants to FoF instead of going for CB like most Legacy decks.
What you have to realize is that Legacy as a format is far closer to the environment these decks existed in than to current standard.
As has been pointed out multiple times, flooding out is a far greater danger in a format that has a million cantrips to assure landdrops, curves that max out at 3 (sometimes a few 4-drops) and no playable true drawspells to compensate for having hit a landglut (aside from a very few that ask you to warp your deck around them). You simply cannot risk Pondering/Brainstorming into three lands on a regular basis and still hope to win a tournament. Sure you won’t get screwed by the tempo-decks any more. Instead you’ll loose to all those decks that don’t attack your mana because you hit lands instead of business.
That being said, I see far too many players cutting that one land they shouldn’t from decks that have already pushed their mana as far as possible. Building your manabase right is a tight balancing act in Legacy where you have to take care to be exactly greedy enough. Too greedy and you get screwed, not greedy enough and you flood out too often.
Kyle Boddy says: July 7, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
“Yes, you won one. However, since it was a Legacy tournament, all of your opponents must have been retards.”
Most of them were pretty bad.
And yes, it makes me king of the retards. Because as anyone who watched the ggslive coverage could tell you, I played quite poorly in many spots (especially vs. Matt Nass, whom you all hate).
But I knew that less than 23 lands was wrong. And that’s not a Legacy thing. That’s a constructed Magic thing.
Legacy posts are great. It’s like all the people who clutch to that format who don’t do well in anything else come out of the woodwork to bash writers. Birklid’s article has plenty of holes in it, but if the general message of it was: “Play more lands,” then he’s right.
LOL @ Legacy Donks says: July 7, 2010 @ 9:53 pm
Look at the menagerie of awful. This article was fine.
JulianB says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:23 pm
Please for the love of god lead out with your misty rainforest instead of usea, fetch a basic island, cast brainstorm and brick against me all day long.
Also most decks in legacy can possibly win on 2 lands (and even 1), but if you flood DI it’s difficult to win if you aren’t playing brainstorm.
Deck’s aren’t killing you on turn 1 right now, and the ones that do lose to force of will, so I’m not entirely sure why you’re knocking wild nacatl as zoo is fine now. It doesn’t just beat merfolk, I’ll take my turn 1 nacatl turn 2 pridemage draw against your dazeless deck and watch you fumble with your dick with your clunky mana heavy deck.
It’s also pretty funny watching you list reasons why cards are terrible, and then you go ahead and mention rakdos pit-dragon and blood moon. Have you been on the fucking moon recently? People put down the pit-dragons awhile ago, please pick real decks for your arguments.
Rob Anybody says: July 8, 2010 @ 1:55 am
As funny as the story at the end was, this article’s arrogant tone made it unpleasant to read.
Patrick S Becerra says: July 9, 2010 @ 7:45 am
This is garbage. See MTGthesource.com for relevant info on Legacy.
jbrennan says: July 9, 2010 @ 11:05 am
We are eagerly awaiting your Columbus Top 8 appearance with the new 8-basics-26-land TES deck!
tim says: July 9, 2010 @ 9:24 pm
yes kyle maybe you think new horizons is terrible, and you won with that monstrosity becuase everyone else around you is terrible, do you really think the answer is a 26 land deck? How come everyone else who plays the deck plays 23 as well, is it because everyone else even dave price is an idiot?
For the author there are thousands of people playing legacy, to say you are better than them without much legacy experiance is delusion of the highest order.
And besides this, the your is completely deragatory and unprofessional. Saying people may be overlooking some points is fine, telling everyone they are terrible and you are the messiah isn’t.
menace says: July 10, 2010 @ 3:48 am
Kyle you’re AWESOME BRO!!!!! Can i have teh T-SHIRT?
andrejs prost says: July 10, 2010 @ 9:48 am
sigh, wtf steve, your making Alaska look bad.
Mike Torrisi says: July 10, 2010 @ 11:26 am
No one on the “Legacy players are terrible” side has bothered to address the argument that is ubiquitous between actual Legacy players posts, namely that you’re more likely to lose to a lack of business spells than a lack of lands. A properly constructed Legacy mana base is absolutely going to lose to tempo decks. Because in those matchups where those tempo elements aren’t present, you lose to flood. And those matchups are FAR more prevalent. You talk about how bad Nacatl and Lord of Atlantis are against a format where you can be killed on turn 1 in one breath and then suggest packing less business spells into your deck. So when you do play against Storm or Belcher (which really aren’t that prevalent because contrary to what a lot of non-Legacy think, they’re not that good) and you’ve got a 4 land grip and rip #5 off the top, you will lose. And since you will face more non-tempo decks than tempo decks (and because tempo decks will not always draw into a heavy disruption package) you will lose a lot more games building around Waste/Stifle/Daze than just ignoring them. Graveyard dependent strategies like Lands/Thopter/Reanimator/Dredge etc. make up a larger portion of the field than tempo decks but people don’t main GY hate because dedicating slots that are dead in other matchups is unacceptable. The field is too wide to hope to get paired against any given deck more than twice, even at a 10 round tournament.
Pingback Sweeping Ice and Other Important Topics - Magical Christmas (Basic) Land | ChannelFireball.com says: July 12, 2010 @ 8:57 pm
[...] I understand that haters gonna hate, but I would like to address and clarify some of the issues that came up as a result of last week’s article. [...]
randomnub says: July 13, 2010 @ 12:12 pm
i dont get the story. It makes no sense. How would a incinerate be in his graveyard when the last spell he played was a rift bolt? What I get out of the story is that he discarded the Incinerate before showing you the hand or something.
wut says: July 13, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
yeah I don’t get the story either. enlighten us?
petalup says: July 16, 2010 @ 5:23 pm
A relevant comment from some user on some forum:
“And also, because some of us, you know, actually enjoy playing this game, rather than using it as a masturbatory exercise through which to attain (rather small) amounts of prize money, boost our (ultimately meaningless) player ratings, or travel (almost always at our own expense) to (not very) exotic locales. I seriously wish someone would just smack the fucking guy”
I think “the guy” is the author of this article… I also think many people agree with this poster… some of them pro players…
petalup says: July 16, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
“Author of the article has played Legacy two or three times at my local store. He plays hypergenesis combo and gets angry if you have force of will or if you flip a land off your counterbalance to counter his win. True story.”