Here a quick goldfish comparison between the 4 most popular fast combo decks in the format (at least I think they are... did I miss anything?). While it would be more relevant if a player with more experience had provided the numbers for each, they should be telling if we can assume that I am equally incompetent with each. (Personally I'd say I'm weakest with TES, and circumstances don't favour it as such anyway; see more below).
I apologise in advance for rambling, but testing data is fairly meaningless unless it's clear what was tested, and how. Here is what I did:
I played 100 goldfish games with every deck (50 on the play and 50 on the draw), aiming to win turn 4 at the very latest.
Anything past a turn 4 goldfish was counted as a loss (even if I had a 62-goblin army after much weirdness and cursing of MWS, or an active Belcher backed up by several blockers).
When going for Empty the Warrens, a first turn chain resulting in 10 goblins was considered acceptable only on the play. 14 was deemed good enough turn 2 on the draw, 12 at any time in between.
I never got a turn 3 Empty the Warrens for 20+, either because I couldn't or because I had a more immediate way to win.
Where applicable, I used versions that emphasised consistency over disruption; the exception being Xantid Swarm since The EPIC Storm doesn't make an awful lot of sense sense without it (at least not without other alterations). Having said that, if I played IGGy Pop under tournament conditions I would probably play Leyline of the Void maindeck.
Likewise, I opted to combo out immediately with TES rather than waiting for a turn to get a swarm online if the choice existed. No reason to punish the deck even further - 4 'dead' cards and stringent requirements for Empty the Warrens mayhem is already borderline unfair.
Generally, I played rather conservatively. Belcher and Spanish Inquisition in particular have the capability to be somewhat faster if your opponent is leering at you in a disturbing manner and you feel like you have to outrace the hate: the former by mulliganing more agressively, the latter by using draw-4s more recklessly. Naturally, this will result in more fizzles though.
If people are interested, I will go into details with notes on the individual decks (i'm not sure how much though. You can't really turn an overview over 4 very different decks into 4 simultaneous deck discussions...) but for raw speed and consistency, here the relevant number of cumulative kill/combo (the latter including a sufficient number of goblins) percentages turn 1 through 4.
Belcher (kill)................10/34/78/93
TES (kill)....................10/36/69/88
Spanish Inquisition.......41/68/83/90
IGGY Pop.....................9/44/88/96
Belcher (combo)..........41/72/85/93
TES (combo)...............21/61/83/88
Spanish Inquisition putting up the largest number of turn 1/2 wins by far shouldn't surprise anyone. What did impress me was the consistency (which, however, drops dramatically if you push the deck past its limits, which you likely will do in tournament settings. It is, after all, comparatively fragile).
Belcher only got a single turn 1 win on the play in 50 games, disappointing. On the other hand, Empty the Warrens was the dog's bollocks. Not only does it enable the deck to do something early on with frightening consistency (the 'combo out' numbers marginally surpass those of SI, without squanderíng precious life points) and it also means your opponent needs the correct hate to stop you.
TES was at a disadvantage anyway, had its Xantid swarms flapping about aimlessly, witnessed Belcher lay down more Goblins than it ever would and proceeded to do the only natural thing: it took it out on me with many near-misses and atrocious draws off brainstorm/plunge/returns. Well, the deck doesn't truly shine until someone to stop it so a lacklustre performance in a goldfishing contest isn't a real point against it.
IGGy Pop was as solid and consistent as always. There is little to say about this, other than that the Impulses weren't doing enough to justify abandoning Yawgmoth's Mindtwist.
Could you provide any decklists? You explained that Iggy has Impulse over Leyline and that TES is the original build but whats the Belcher list look like? Did it use terrible cards like Goblin Welder? Was it 2 color? Did you have Burning Wish or Living Wish?
Now playing real formats.
The Belcher list I used was red/green, running a full complement of Burning Wish, and 7 'terrible' cards in 3 Goblin Welder and 4 Wild Cantor. While the Welders were rather use-impaired in goldfishing, the Cantors made a modest but significant contribution even in a 2-colour list as free storm, mana storage, allowing me to make good use of multiple Tinder Walls and occasional colour filtering for wish targets.
Living Wish was a notable exclusion; which I am not certain to be the correct choice. I haven't missed it in goldfishing, but in real games the reduced threat density could become a problem that overshadows the advantages of greater consistency and a marginal speed boost.
SI was a fairly standard build geared towards speed, with 10 free creatures, 2 diabolic intent, 2 ill-gotten gains.
While the choices might seem odd, there was a reason for them: I systematically went for consistency first, speed second, resilence third as long as the resulting decklist seemed at all justifiable, mostly because I don't trust myself to make realistic mulligan decisions knowing there is no opponent to fight back otherwise. Emulating actual tournament play is beyond the scope I had in mind, which is also why I didn't include decks with a significant control angle.
How good are you with TES? It's probably the hardest to play of the 4.
Originally Posted by troopatroop
Living Wish changes the Belcher numbers, Living Wish -> Minions of the Wastes for 19 is a turn two kill and for 10 is a turn thee kill, Living Wish -> Ancient Tomb increases the number of turn 2 kills with Belcher.
Did the Burning Wish SB have Diminishing Returns? It increases the number of turn one and turn two wins with Goblins Charblecher and the number of turn 2 wins with Empty the Warrens.
OK, to forestall questions about what the other decks looked like... here is what I ran, along with detailed win percentages.
Belcher
2 Taiga
4 Land Grant
4 Simian Spirit Guides
4 Elvish Spirit Guides
4 Tinder Wall
4 Wild Cantor
3 Goblin Welder
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Burning Wish
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Diminishing Returns
2 Simplify
1 Cave-In
1 Pyroclasm
1 Deconstruct
On the play (Kill/Goblins)
Turn 1..... 2/28
Turn 2.....24/ 8
Turn 3.....20
Turn 4.....10
Doh!.........8
On the draw (Kill/Goblins)
Turn 1.....18/34
Turn 2.....26/ 6
Turn 3..... 6
Turn 4..... 6
Doh!........ 4
IGGy Pop
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Intuition
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Confidant
4 Orim's Chant
3 Defense Grid
2 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
On the Play
Turn 1..... 4
Turn 2.....22
Turn 3.....62
Turn 4..... 8
Doh!........ 4
On the Draw
Turn 1.....14
Turn 2.....48
Turn 3.....26
Turn 4..... 8
Doh!........ 4
Spanish Inquisition
2 Bayou
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
2 Ornithopter
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Tomb of Urami
On the Play
Turn 1.....30
Tuirn 2.....28
Turn 3.....20
Turn 4.....10
Doh!........12
On the Draw
Turn 1.....52
Turn 2.....13
Turn 3.....10
Turn 4..... 4
Doh!........ 8
TES
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Tomb of Urami
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Brainstorm
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Burning Wish
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Tranquility
2 Shattering Spree
4 Dark Confidant
1 Earthquake
1 Duress
On the Play (Kill/Goblins)
Turn 1.....10/ 4
Turn 2.....18/10
Turn 3.....36
Turn 4..... 8
Doh!........ 14
On the Draw (Kill/Goblins)
Turn 1.....10/18
Turn 2.....34/18
Turn 3..... 8
Turn 4..... 2
Doh!........10
I'm glad to see SI get a little bit of attention. I don't know how much time you have, but a build we've been playing recently was splash blue. It goes like this from the list you have posted:
-4 Land Grant
-2 Bayou
-1 Goblin Charbelcher
-2 Diabolic Intent
-2 Ornithopter
+2 Polluted Delta
+2 Flooded Strand
+2 Underground Sea
+1 Brain Freeze
+3 Meditate
+1 Tendrils of Agony
I'm fairly sure that it feels faster, but I don't keep track of my hands anymore. I might goldfish it a bit and get back to you with the results.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Against what decks are you going Living Wish-> Minions for 19? FS, Red Thresh, Gobbs, and Burn all have ways of dealing you one measly point of direct damage. Most other decks have ways of dealing with a 19/19. Yes, you can gain your life back from StP, but they're still gaining crazy good card advantage, card advantage that I'd rather not be giving them.
Living Wish for Ancient Tomb on turn one costs 2 mana, and since you can only play one land a turn the only way you're gaining a solid 2 mana on turn two is with the combination of Chrome Mox-Land, which is the probability of getting one of 4x(chrome), 6x(land), and ?x(Living Wish) all in your starting hand. Odds are that isn't going to happen, and you'll end up with one of each of 10x(permanent source of mana) ?x(Spirit Guide/Lotus Petal) and ?x(Living Wish). This means that you only get a netgain of +1 mana on turn two, meaning that Living Wish->Ancient Tomb is only as good as a Desperate Ritual. If that +1 Mana was the difference between winning that turn and winning on turn one, Desperate Ritual would have won it for you on turn one.
So yes, Living Wish->Ancient Tomb does increase the number of turn two kills... by taking away from the number of turn one kills. Delayed Desperate Ritual=Frownz.
Lastly, why Ancient Tomb>City of Traitors? 2-4 life can mean the difference between games, even in this deck.
As for the actual Belcher list Iranon used, I think it's comparitively worse than CRET Belcher. Goblin Welder is hated/played around/easily dealt with, and isn't nearly as good/necessary as Xantid Swarm is in TES/Leyline of the Void is in Iggy, so why run it? It just seems like it adds an outlet for their spot removal for no real reason.
Removing Dark Ritual also seems to make the deck slower/worse.
Belcher sb:
Why is there no Empty the Warrens in here? That basically neglects the entire concept of using LED with Burning Wish (aside from Dreturns), not to mention it's also a win condition.4 Xantid Swarm
4 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Diminishing Returns
2 Simplify
1 Cave-In
1 Pyroclasm
1 Deconstruct
@ Diablos: My bad. Of course there was an EtW there, and one less Shattering Spree. EtW was the most wished-for card, naturally.
@ CalebD: Goblin Welder is a direct result of my disaffection with Living Wish, which you seem to share. There just isn't really much left in Red/Green (and if someone mentions Orcish Lumberjack, I will slap them).
Dark Ritual is a wonderful accelerant; even though it can bottleneck your mana engine early on. I found bad Belches ending in a Bayou quite an annoyance though; together these factors made me drop black.
@ Emidln: I will certainly give it a try, although I can't say speed is my main concern (although I brewed up a B/r list with Kobolds as a theoretical exercise. Now THAT was fast... otherwise, the advantage of a Burning Wish Toolbox was overshadowed by a lack of good blockers though).
While the reliance on Fetch lands looks good against counters, it has no outs to True Believer and seems weaker to Pyrostatic Pillar, while being stronger against counterspells pre-board.
I use Minion of the Wastes when I have to, or during games 2/3 when the opponent has SBed out his otherwise worthless Swords to Plowshares for Pithing Needle and Engineered Explosives. Minion of the Wastes for 19 or 10+/- is a choice, if the opponent can remove the creature, then 19 is the right choice, if the opponent can deal direct damage then 10+/- is the right choice.
Belcher draws Land Grant or Taiga less than 50% of the time, that means that more than 50% of the time there is no land on the board, so casting Living Wish is at worst 3 cards for 2 mana that puts a land on the board that will produce 2 mana to cast Belcher and 2 mana to activate Belcher on the following turn; a net gain of 4 mana for 2 mana and a card. When the deck does draw a Land or a Taiga, Living Wish is either a win condition, a Goblin Welder, Wasteland, removal or at worst one card and passing the turn for an additional 2 mana on the second turn and 3 permanent mana on the board.
I use Ancient Tomb because the deck can still top deck a Land Grant or a Taiga on the second turn, and sacrificing the land isn't a good idea in case the deck has to pass the turn or gets Stifled.
Dark Ritual and Bayou are awful, misfiring Belcher and losing to Tin-Street Hooligan is absolutely unacceptable.
I second this. The majority of my attention from the time I started playing Legacy has been on this deck. I can confidently say that I've spent as more time working on this deck than just about anybody (perhaps emidln and company excluded). This is the list I'm going to try out post-Future Sight:
2 Bayou
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
2 Tombstalker
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Infernal Contract
3 Cruel Bargain
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin Charbelcher
Side:
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Duress
2 Tombstalker
2 Tomb of Urami
3 Naturalize
Cabal Therapy is a HUGE card for improving the consistency of this deck. It slows the goldfish down a couple turns, but it vastly improves the "fragility" you mentioned earlier. Also, Tombstalker will be an awesome addition to this deck. I may even try to find a way to fit in 4x Street Wraith.
I've had a lot of success with this deck. I think it's underrated.
Have people tried cutting the 0cc creatures and Culling the Weak and just building a deck with turn 2 to 4 kills with disruption? Being able to double Tendrils and bait Force of Wills with Ritual->Draw 4 seems good against control and aggro-control to me.
Basic concept list,
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Brainstorm
4 Unmask
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
11 Lands
I've thought about something like that, but I haven't tested it. It certainly looks like it's worth a try. I'd still include 1 EtW, though.
I figure the opponent wont know what I'm piloting, if all I do is cast Duress or Brainstorm on the first turn, and I can Unmask him to discard the Meddling Mage if I have to. I've got a Tomb of Urami in case Meddling Mage names Tendrils, and there are 4 Warrens and 3 other Tomb of Urami in the board.
SB
4 Empty the Warrens
1 Bad Lands
3 Tomb of Urami
1 Diminishing Returns
4 Chain of Vapor
4xTomb of Urami is an awesome SB card, Swords to Plowshares is SBed out and it avoids all of the Goblin remove, and it can be SBed in to increase the land count.
I haven't figured it all out, but it seems promising as it is.
I'd like to thank you for doing this, it is very interesting to see actual data. Legacy, in particular, suffers from a lot of sit-and-thinkers compared to actual testers. This combo comparison is valuable for me to look at.
How long did it take you to test this? Why were you motivated to test it?
Thanks again!
I tried many possible variations of Contract Tendrils because I respect the sheer power of the deck concept. Sacrificing speed for resilency seems good on paper because the deck has plenty of the former and rather little of the latter, but I couldn't make it work in practice.
Force of Will is not adressed effectively in this fashion unless we are talking exlusively about Solidarity. Force of Will without a clock only delays the inevitable - it sets your opponent back considerably, and a resolved draw-4 can give you enough hideously broken things to overpower a typical counter wall.
Since you typically burn a lot of your own life points, a clock in addition to disruption becomes relevant and by extension so does the time the free blockers buy you.
Moreover, draw-4s overpower non-specific hate because any card you draw is either stupidly powerful or an enabler to cast your doom spells (and free creatures are such an enabler as well, doubly so if you run diabolic intent). When you fizzle, your position is often akin to having a Belcher on the table - you might be unable to do anything meaningful now, but that can turn into a win with a decent topdeck. SI has the added bonus that the odds are usually harder to calculate for an opponent.
By running protection that doesn't help winning outright, you water down an aspect of the deck that is a tremendous help for what you are trying to achieve by the alterations in the first place.
Now for the proactive hate which can really do a number on the deck: Your ungodly speed gives your opponent a very short time window to play it. Going off in their face is better than playing disruption yourself. Having them discard a Sphere of Resistance only to see a topdecked True Believer enter the picture sucks (with the list I ran, I can at least try to belch it to death... lists optimised for a heavy disruption package will probably have to abandon that option).
The old adage that there are no wrong threats, just wrong answers is very true for fast combo in my opinion. 'Do you have Force' becomes 'Do you have Force or cheap Discard?' which becomes... 'Do you have anything at all?', because we have to take a decent clock into account, Direct Damage is even worse.
Ok, so far that was a little one-sided. Disruption can be quite helpful in one specific situation: When an opponent can and will mulligan agressively into something backbreaking, and when our own disruption can answer most of the usual suspects.
In my opinion, it is justifiable to leave this until game 2 and 3. In many match-ups I side in Xantid Swarms, Cabal Therapy, or both. In the version I run, 2 creatures and Diabolic Intent are safe to board out without upsetting much. If I suspect graveyard hate, out go the Ill-Gotten Gains. If those stay in, 2 Contracts can be cut if I face a significant amount of reactive and proactive hate and want to have both protection cards.
It bears mentioning that Xantid Swarm is still a cheap creature that can be sacced for Culling the Weak, and that Cabal Therapy can do triple duty: removing a proactive hate during the setup stage, probe for the most inconvenient reactive hate before going off and increasing storm for free.
A card which increases resilency by providing varied answers to common problems is Burning Wish. It also speeds you up by being another efficient tutor.
Gobbling up Sideboard slots isn't much of a problem in my opinion, colour requriements are. Apart from Massacre, few fetchable silver bullets are black, most are red, some tempting options totally off-colour. I'm not convinced it's worth reworking the entire manabase, but if you are willing to do this I would look no further. With the usual 2-Duals, 4-Fetches approach, you need to include something horrible like Simian Spirit Guide or Kobolds to make this work as intended.
The problem I have with "The Spanish Inquisition" is that it's designed to win on turn one, but instead of just using win conditions and acceleration ala Belcher, it uses 0cc creatures, sacrifice based tutors and acceleration and relies on drawing cards. Why bother? There's nothing wrong with using Draw 4's in combo, even when their included in other combo decks they're a respectable bomb, it's just a question of whether or not a deck based on Draw 4's is viable, and what that deck "should" look like.
The turn one "Force or no Force" argument doesn't take game two into account; game 2 the opponent can mulligan into his Force of Will or his Stifle, the two cards that are the universal answers to all of combo's threats, and combo must have an answer to this.
Adding disruption into the MD isn't worthless, because taking the time to Xantid Swarm or Duress etc. prevents game one losses to Force of Will, and it answers one important question "what deck does the opponent have?" People will scoop after a turn one Tendrils of Agony or Goblin Charbelcher kill, and people can scoop after an Empty the Warrens or Minion of the Wastes etc. That leaves the combo deck at a conundrum about what to do with its side boarding, or as I call it the "MD Tendrils Effect."
Edit: Duress isn't a serious MD consideration in this format, IMO, because most aggro-control and control decks are going to use Stifle before Duress, Goblins, and the opponent is going to get a chance to Duress you when you are on the draw any way.
I've seen Belcher absorb a Duress on the draw and still win on the next turn; combo decks can be built to absorb the loss of one card, it's when the final card is lost that the combo is SOL.
I'm glad you found this of interest.
I prefer to sit down and think myself most of the time. Goldfishing is a far cry from real play, and actual playtesting for enough matches to have statisitically significant results is a draining and arduous process. Testing is a necessary evil I will undertake when I believe sitting down to think won't get me anywhere further.
One motivation was opponents mocking me for playing 'bad inconsistent decks', then accusing me of being 'an incredible lucksack' when I thought I had in fact average to slightly weak draws. I wanted to know if turn-1-decks were truly as inconsistent as people said they were.
SI fizzling turn 1 and never recovering with a hand that was practically guaranteed to kill turn 3 with a decent chance of becoming lethal turn 2 doesn't imply inconsistency. Neither does Belcher mulling a hand that will belch on turn 3 into one that will ETW for a metric fuckton turn 2 into junk. It implies you weren't confident in your deck's resilence.
Resilence is a different matter entirely, and one that warrants 'sitting down and thinking' as well as real playtesting... and is beyond the scope of this. Discard, Counters, Pyrostatic Pillar, Cave-In, True Believer, Meddling Mage, Taxing Effects... resilence can mean many different things. Each of these will affect the match-ups, to dfferent degrees.
That's why I agree totally cutting disruption/protection is a mistake. Your argument for maindecking it has merit, but that detracts from the deck's consistency. Most matches you don't need it for are favourable anyway... this is essentially 'proactive sideboarding' and metagame-dependent.
Reworking the entire deck to make this a part of my overall game plan did not result in anything that satisfied me so far.
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