Strategy: One more time!!!! (part one)
Chris Warden
A few conclusions: the game is constantly evolving and new tactics and
strategies are always coming up. Because of this FLEXABILITY (to deal with
new stuff) is very important. So SPEED and FLEXABILITY are probably the most
important factors in a deck.
At an point in a playing season, certain decks will dominate. However I think
it is always goingt obe a flavor of the month for three reasons:
1) As a deck becomes really popular someone will come up with a counter
deck. And that counter deck will start to win tournaments until the
deck it counters begins to drop off.
2) if a certaina card combination becomes too deadly it will be made
either illegal or restricted by the Convocation.
3) if a certaina deck becomes too deadly WotC will create counter cards in
a new expansion.
I have seen a lot of deiscusion of creaturless decks. I used to play one, but
found it boring. It is rather stupid to play a deck that wins if you don't
enjoy playing it.
There has been a lot of discussion on the Netherovid/troll counter to the
Abyss. Soory to say that I don't have a Nethervoid and don't know what it does.
However--I predict that someone will come up with a nethervoid counter.
Robert Finkbeiner
Chris Warden <WAR...@SONOMA.EDU> wrote:
>
>
>
>I've been working on my tournament deck. It can ( in 5 out of 7 games)
>deliver 20 pts of damage in the span of six turns.
>
>That seems to be the standard. I wonder how much "faster" a deck can be?
>
>A consistent one turn kill is not possible with a legal deck.
>(or if it was it would be made illegal).
>A consistent two turn kill deck is also not possible (see above).
>
>We know that six is possible.
>
>This now gives us a range: 3-5.
>
>How can we get into the crucial 3-5 turn range?
>Do we want to?
>
>This leads to another question. No matter how good your deck is, your oppenent
>will on occasion survive. Some tournament decks are designed around
>that strategy: last the other guy out.
>
>So a fast deck needs some punch and/or protection in the later part of the game.
I once bilt a deck that did around 40 dammage by round 6 if the opponent
did not have the right defences. It was something like this.
4 birds of paradise
4 flying men
4 vampire bats
4 scybe sprites
4 ornithopters
4 unholy strength
4 giant growths
4 unstable mutations
1 ancestral recall
1 berserk
1 time walk
1 time twister
1 deamonic totur
1 regroth
1 wheel of fortune
1 recall
land/moxen/lotus (no sol ring)
This deck commonly hit the opponent with a 7/7 on round 2 and had one game
where it killed an opponent on round 3 with an ornathopter. he he
Eric R Reitz
Joshua N Kablack
Chris Warden <WAR...@SONOMA.EDU> wrote:
>
>
>
>I've been working on my tournament deck. It can ( in 5 out of 7 games)
>deliver 20 pts of damage in the span of six turns.
>
>That seems to be the standard. I wonder how much "faster" a deck can be?
-Assuming you are playing against an opponent who does nothing, it is
fairly easy to come up with a deck that can deal 20 points inside of 5
turns a majority of the time. Of course getting from turn 6 to turn 5
takes a considerably investment. Just add the moxes and the blue stuff to
the deck that was working in 6.
>
>A consistent one turn kill is not possible with a legal deck.
>(or if it was it would be made illegal).
>A consistent two turn kill deck is also not possible (see above).
>
>We know that six is possible.
Primarily through ape/elf/bolt decks or ritual/vault vampire decks;
although the white weenie/crusade/jihad deck is about this fast.
>This now gives us a range: 3-5.
>How can we get into the crucial 3-5 turn range?
The fastest pure damage deck I have seen was a 4 color
mine/vice/stormseeker/underworld dreams/bolt/spoiler deck-if the oppoenet
could not play a lot of cards very fast it could kill by turn 3-4,
unfortunately other fast decks were aided by all those mines and could
often counterstrike very hard. I've heard rumors that this sort of deck
can kill much quiker if tweaked, but I'm not sure I beleive them.
>Do we want to?
As players who want to win tourneys, yes. As players who want to have fun
an preserve the game, probably not.
>This leads to another question. No matter how good your deck is, your oppenent
>will on occasion survive. Some tournament decks are designed around
>that strategy: last the other guy out.
Unless you're doing something else besides waiting, you're going to lose.
Of course that doesn't mean that slowing tactics are invalid, merely that
they should be used as support for a more offensive strategy. A deck
consisiting merely of 28 counterspells, 8 lifegainers and 24 lands would
not likely be as effective as a deck containing 24 counterspells 4 drain
powers, 4 forks, 4 fireballs and 24 lands. The only was the first deck
could win would be on card attrition or concession, while the second deck
merely needs to wait for 2 islands, 3 mountains on its own side and a
total of 10 more untapped land on both sides in order to win.
>So a fast deck needs some punch and/or protection
> in the later part of the game.
That's why so very many tournament decks incorporate direct damage of one
form or another-useful early, useful late, useful on creatures or useful
on players.
-josh
Chris Warden
I've been working on my tournament deck. It can ( in 5 out of 7 games)
deliver 20 pts of damage in the span of six turns.
That seems to be the standard. I wonder how much "faster" a deck can be?
A consistent one turn kill is not possible with a legal deck.
(or if it was it would be made illegal).
A consistent two turn kill deck is also not possible (see above).
We know that six is possible.
This now gives us a range: 3-5.
How can we get into the crucial 3-5 turn range?
Do we want to?
This leads to another question. No matter how good your deck is, your oppenent
will on occasion survive. Some tournament decks are designed around
that strategy: last the other guy out.
So a fast deck needs some punch and/or protection in the later part of the game.