Two basics makes it very realistic to ignore Wasteland when you play 10 fetches as opposed to the 3 fetches in TES. TES is much, much more vulnerable to Wasteland than ANT. Any TES pilot will tell you that. You have to actively play around Wasteland. That is the price you play to gain access to Silence. If you play both decks in great depth, you will see this.
Just because random people play more discard spells doesn't mean that is correct. The fact of the matter is that people who put up results with TES are not making that change. This is because Silence is incredibly powerful. I never claimed that Silence is worse than discard. I just stated what each deck plays.
I put a modifier "if you are trying to compare them" and you ignored it. Doomsday has a number of other problems. These are different decks.
Read the words other people say, don't talk over them.
Granted TES's manabase is greedier than ANT's but since they're both 3 color (usually even 4 color decks) I feel like TES has a slight edge as it's more likely to be able to cast it's cards and not get color screwed by one wasteland or poor fetching early game. Although fetching the right lands come more easily with familiarity of the deck, it's a common way that beginners beat themselves.
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I've seen a moderate amount of TES decks that run 6 discard - 1 silence MB with another discard SB and some mixture of silences/swarms.
ANT plays 2 basics. It's very easy to ignore Wasteland while it is impossible with TES.
I'm really curious where you saw TES lists not playing the 4/3 MD split on Silence and discard. ANT runs 7 MD discard spells. Most TES lists run 5-6 between MD and side.
In the end, the major difference if you are trying to compare them as Storm decks is that ANT has a better long game than TES. The two decks are not comparable in reality. They fill very different niches in the format, in the same way that these decks are not the same as Belcher, SI or Doomsday.
This change is going to change nothing. It just some small tweeks. Calm down.
This change rewards having 4 Liliana of the Veil in the decks that play it. It allows Gaea's Cradle chains. People have pointed out many other interactions. Decks are going to change to take advantage of these interactions.
The main changes you need are that 4 Cavern of Souls is a must, at least 3 Goblin Piledrivers and 3 Gempalm Incinerators is a must (I run 4 of each, but 3 is the minimum I would run). Goblin Guide absolutely must be removed. It completely negates your mana denial strategy (with Ports and Wastelands the last thing you want is to give them more land). Goblin Arsonist is also effectively useless and should just be replaced with Gempalm Incinerators. Gempalms are uncounterable removal and in most situations kill a creature. They also happen instantly and cycle a card.
4 Piledriver is only a must in a metagame that is combo heavy. In a more fair metagame, you almost never want a 1/2 that can only fight Jace. You should adjust to your metagame. I usually see 2 in a fair metas and 3-4 in unfair metas. Incinerator should be a 3 for sure though since it is cantrip and removal. It's way too powerful to not have maindeck.
Geist is played in UW Tempo lists and in Stoneblade sideboards. There are other theoretical lists that could run him but in general there are a lot of cards that stop it from being effective. Last year Fred Edelkamp managed to use him just like a burn spell by chaining them. It has a place in Legacy but it is not the same as it was in other formats.
I didn't think of it that way, thanks. I just saw the counter spells and forces as "control" cards but I see now that they're really just there for the same purpose as duress/thoughtseize in a black based combo deck.
Hopefully you at least see where I'm coming from, though. Take Tron, for example. Is that a control deck or a combo deck? It certainly plays like a control deck. But also it can win very quickly and relies on interactions between a few cards to win the game over a turn or two once it plays its win con
Which tron deck? RG is essentially a ramp deck, which is a type of combo deck. In fact, RG tron is built with a large number of spells that simply cantrip. Very few cards in the RG tron deck actually control the board (All is Dust/OStone). UW/U tron is a control deck but it doesn't really have much of a combo. It seeks to control the board until it can loop Mindslaver.
I am fully aware of where you were coming from. But as a new player to Legacy, where decks are very different than Modern or Standard, I have to assume that you can differentiate. I am glad that this concept is more clear to you now. A stronger rule of thumb in Legacy for Combo vs Fair is that Fair decks play Wastelands. Decks that do not play Wasteland are either combo or straddle the line between fair and combo (Burn and Miracles are great examples of this).
So at this GP there are a few "combo-y" decks such as Elves. There are also some Sneak/Show decks, of course. (I don't particularly like counting Sneak/Show as a combo deck since it plays like more of a control deck that just has a low mana cost finisher...sort of how I don't really consider Scapeshift a full combo deck)
What I'm referring to is the all out combo decks. Belcher, ANT, Doomsday, TES, Dredge, etc. The decks that don't even play format staples like Force of Will because every card in the deck is working together to achieve some goal
How exactly is Sneak/Show a control deck? In many of its match ups it tries to win on turn 2-3. It doesn't use Emrakul as a just sweeper like Terminus in Miracles. They also load up on cards like Spell Pierce and Misdirection to protect their combo. If anything, Dredge is an aggro deck if you are viewing Sneak/Show as a control deck since many games of Dredge are won by making a large number of Zombies and passing the turn.
A combo deck is just deck that tries to generate a board winning position in a single turn or with a small number of cards. ANT, Doomsday and TES all play 8-10 disruption spells (like Sneak/Show) to protect their combo. Control decks try to prevent their opponent from killing them or gaining board control until they have enough resources to do it themselves. Most combo decks do not care about their life total very much or only care in specific situations.
In any case, there is actually a lot of combo right now. You choosing your own classification of the decks is just making it hard to see that clearly. Sneak/Show in particular is popular because of the large number of Storm combo decks that have popped up.
TES is fine against FoW decks. If you are able to pilot it well enough, you should be 50-50 against FoW decks. BUG decks can be a tad more difficult because of the combination of discard and permission.
The bad match ups for Storm combo decks are usually Stompy decks (MUD/Dragon Stompy/Faerie Stompy) since they have locks and pressure. They can end a game quickly. This is especially true of Lodestone Golem and Chalice of the Void in the same board.
Other combo decks (non-Storm) have totally different match ups. Show and Tell decks tend to be much weaker against discard than permission. Reanimator and Dredge obviously gets stopped by grave hate.
Two basics makes it very realistic to ignore Wasteland when you play 10 fetches as opposed to the 3 fetches in TES. TES is much, much more vulnerable to Wasteland than ANT. Any TES pilot will tell you that. You have to actively play around Wasteland. That is the price you play to gain access to Silence. If you play both decks in great depth, you will see this.
Just because random people play more discard spells doesn't mean that is correct. The fact of the matter is that people who put up results with TES are not making that change. This is because Silence is incredibly powerful. I never claimed that Silence is worse than discard. I just stated what each deck plays.
I put a modifier "if you are trying to compare them" and you ignored it. Doomsday has a number of other problems. These are different decks.
Read the words other people say, don't talk over them.
ANT plays 2 basics. It's very easy to ignore Wasteland while it is impossible with TES.
I'm really curious where you saw TES lists not playing the 4/3 MD split on Silence and discard. ANT runs 7 MD discard spells. Most TES lists run 5-6 between MD and side.
In the end, the major difference if you are trying to compare them as Storm decks is that ANT has a better long game than TES. The two decks are not comparable in reality. They fill very different niches in the format, in the same way that these decks are not the same as Belcher, SI or Doomsday.
Pretty sure Jund is still a deck. Though it eats walkers with ease.
This change rewards having 4 Liliana of the Veil in the decks that play it. It allows Gaea's Cradle chains. People have pointed out many other interactions. Decks are going to change to take advantage of these interactions.
4 Piledriver is only a must in a metagame that is combo heavy. In a more fair metagame, you almost never want a 1/2 that can only fight Jace. You should adjust to your metagame. I usually see 2 in a fair metas and 3-4 in unfair metas. Incinerator should be a 3 for sure though since it is cantrip and removal. It's way too powerful to not have maindeck.
Which tron deck? RG is essentially a ramp deck, which is a type of combo deck. In fact, RG tron is built with a large number of spells that simply cantrip. Very few cards in the RG tron deck actually control the board (All is Dust/OStone). UW/U tron is a control deck but it doesn't really have much of a combo. It seeks to control the board until it can loop Mindslaver.
I am fully aware of where you were coming from. But as a new player to Legacy, where decks are very different than Modern or Standard, I have to assume that you can differentiate. I am glad that this concept is more clear to you now. A stronger rule of thumb in Legacy for Combo vs Fair is that Fair decks play Wastelands. Decks that do not play Wasteland are either combo or straddle the line between fair and combo (Burn and Miracles are great examples of this).
How exactly is Sneak/Show a control deck? In many of its match ups it tries to win on turn 2-3. It doesn't use Emrakul as a just sweeper like Terminus in Miracles. They also load up on cards like Spell Pierce and Misdirection to protect their combo. If anything, Dredge is an aggro deck if you are viewing Sneak/Show as a control deck since many games of Dredge are won by making a large number of Zombies and passing the turn.
A combo deck is just deck that tries to generate a board winning position in a single turn or with a small number of cards. ANT, Doomsday and TES all play 8-10 disruption spells (like Sneak/Show) to protect their combo. Control decks try to prevent their opponent from killing them or gaining board control until they have enough resources to do it themselves. Most combo decks do not care about their life total very much or only care in specific situations.
In any case, there is actually a lot of combo right now. You choosing your own classification of the decks is just making it hard to see that clearly. Sneak/Show in particular is popular because of the large number of Storm combo decks that have popped up.
We're still trying to finish this one up. Once we do, I'll start a new thread for sign ups.
The bad match ups for Storm combo decks are usually Stompy decks (MUD/Dragon Stompy/Faerie Stompy) since they have locks and pressure. They can end a game quickly. This is especially true of Lodestone Golem and Chalice of the Void in the same board.
Other combo decks (non-Storm) have totally different match ups. Show and Tell decks tend to be much weaker against discard than permission. Reanimator and Dredge obviously gets stopped by grave hate.
I'm gonna drop him. It's been too long.
Shoot me a deck code and I'll make the swap.