Well, if you are experienced enough I guess no deck is complicated to play. So I would say checking if experienced players find a deck hard to play is a bad way of assessing if the deck is complicated to play or not. If I had a friend who I just told the basic rules of MTG and I then let him play with EPIC storm and say a white weenie deck, I'm pretty sure he would find the weenie deck much easier to play. I'm not saying this is the most complicated to play (It seems players of every combo deck thinks their choice is the hardest to play), but it is definitely takes more skills than playing say weenie and burn decks. Yours truly
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I think I will go with raggedjoe here. TES is considered an established competitive deck in legacy and to say it is inconsistent is in my opinion wrong. As earlier stated I'm no expert, but I can combo of turn 2-3 most of the time. Having tried a few sample hands here on mtgvault is not a good way to asses if this is a viable deck (I don't know if you have actually played the deck thegreenestberg). I started out sitting with counters to keep track of mana, counting on my fingers and using obscene amounts of time to figure this deck out (goldfishing by myself). To your last point, I totally agree. There is no direct correlation between difficulty and success. But I will disagree that TES is inconsistent and only works in vintage. Peace out
Just an example opening hand and how I would play it (I am by no means an expert!) Hand: Duress, Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, LED, Infernal Tutor, Gemstone Mine, City of Brass 1. Play Gemstone Mine, Duress for protection. Pass turn 2. Draw Orim's Chant, Play City of Brass, Lotus Petal and LED, tap both lands play Rite of Flame, sac Lotus Petal. You now have RRBB floating and a storm count of 3. Play Infernal Tutor, crack LED for BBB. BBBBR floating. Find Ad Nauseam and play it. Storm count now 5. Get enough cards to play 5 more spells and tutor or wish for Tendrils. Turn 2 win with Duress protection. If more protection was needed you could wait till turn 3 (Draw Dark Ritual) and play Orim's Chant for more protection.
Lion's Eye Diamond + Infernal Tutor = Black Lotus + Demonic Tutor. You cast LED. You then cast Infernal Tutor and in response you activate LED. LED is a mana source and does not go on the stack and the cost (Discarding your hand) is payed right away. When your Infernal Tutor resolves you have no cards in hand and are thus Hellbent, enabling you to seach for any card. Pretty sweet Off course you can't use the LED to pay for your Infernal Tutor
Hi Larsulberg I'm trying to keep a tight manacurve on this deck, hitting 54 CMC and 120 damage. The current deck is at 53 CMC and 122 damage so there is some room for improvement... I have not playtested against whenie but you are probably right that more mass removal should be added. As for Slagstorm I think I would rather increase the number of Flamebreaks as that hits everything. Pyroclasm might be swapped for Magma Jet as CMC and damage are equal. For a noncreature version, Slagstorm and pyroclasm should definitely be added, maybe I'll post such a instant/sorcery version later on. It so happens that I will be playing today :-) so I will try the pyroclasms an see how the deck fares. Thanks for the input, MadsHolger
I agree with DedWards that the Goblin Ruinblaster could go no problem. You already have more than enough LD I would say. Nice with the creatures I think I will add some to my Jokulhaups deck: http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=142977. You might still be a little short on mana as 10 of your 22 lands are still producing colorless mana...
Well, only had two Brainstorm so it'll be 4 Lim-Dül's Vault and 2 Brainstorm for now. It should be possible to acquire a few more brainstorm which I will add at the point I get them.
Changes: Removed - 3 Arcane Denial - 5 Islands - 1 Howling Mine - 1 Thwart - 1 Root Maze Added - 3 Lim-Dül's Vault - 3 Underground Sea - 1 Underground river - 1 Bayou - 3 Brainstorm I have just read the errata on Lim-Dul's vault (as someone here used the card) and I must admit that I never understood the card back when I played (I still don't understand the card :-). It now seems as a nice addition to speed up the lock combo and the brainstorm is added for the same reason. Added underground sea and river, why not 4 sea? I only own 3 and don't see me buying a new in the foreseeable future. I also only own 1 bayou. But one Sea and one more bayou would probably fit nicely. Maybe some of the new double lands where if you have a svamp or island they come in untapped... I will come back after playtesting this, which could take a while as I'm 31, finishing my PhD this spring and have two kids :-!
Seeing that it hard to get any comments/advice here (which is totally understandable given the amount of decks that run through the front page on a daily basis) I will try to give myself some advice. Original deck list: Artifacts: 4x Howling Mine Enchantments 3x Jace's Erasure 4x Root Maze 4x Stasis Land: 14x Island 4x Forsaken City 4x Tropical Island Spells: 3x Daze 4x Echoing Truth 3x Thwart 2x Unsummon 3x Arcane Denial 4x Counterspell 4x Force of Will
I have only recently taken up magic again, played back around 4th edition so I'm not really up to date on the creatures and creatures are a lot better now than back then. I myself used Storm seeker but a max 7 damage for 4 mana is less than what a lot of R burn will give you, 4 Lightning bolt and 4 incinerate will give the deck a bit more bite and then a few bigger creatures. I also think you need to look at your manabase... 12 LD lands leaves you with very little colored mana sources, cut the Tectonic Edge and add more forest and mountains. You would like to remove your opponents lands well before he/she hits 4 lands.
I love LD myself but the trouble with LD decks is that one (read me) sometimes forget that you don't win games by destroying land. In my opinion you have a tad to meny LD in your deck and a little to few cards that will grant you the victory. So I would suggest taking some out and adding some creatures or spell that will do some damage and get your opponent to 0 life. Also I would lose the birds for some 4 Llanowar Elves and 4 Fyndhorn Elves giving you a more consistent starting hand with mana acceleration and they can peck a few lifes also which the birds cant. I don't know if you are trying to keep this in a certain format, but I believe strip mine is restricted in vintage and banned in the rest of the formats. Best of luck