The Comboist Manifesto Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Oversoul
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Mooseman
Isengar Tussle
Okay, I have a question (referenced in your latest article) about keeping Land Tax banned.
You quote an article in 2007 (in more than one of your articles) that stated:
"Any environment where the correct play involves not putting out your first land should be avoided"
Now granted there are moxes and stuff, but why would your first land drop be a problem for Land Tax (by either player), would it not be the second one that may or may not be held back?
You quote an article in 2007 (in more than one of your articles) that stated:
"Any environment where the correct play involves not putting out your first land should be avoided"
Now granted there are moxes and stuff, but why would your first land drop be a problem for Land Tax (by either player), would it not be the second one that may or may not be held back?
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
You have that right. In the event that keeping first-turn Land Tax offline becomes such a priority that one wants to hold a land drop back to achieve it, that land drop would be the second, and not the first. One could potentially use Mox Diamond to drop first-turn Land Tax and have it active right away. One could use a regular land drop to get mana for Land Tax, but then sacrifice that land to Zuran Orb, enabling Land Tax. There are some other possibilities, but these situations are...
A: Corner cases that wouldn't normally persuade one to avoid a first land drop as a matter of course.
B: Irrelevant in Legacy.
I seem to remember arguing that holding back early land drops is generally a sort of rookie mistake against Land Tax decks. To the uninitiated, it may seem as though allowing Land Tax to trigger would give its controller insurmountable card advantage, and that the only way to play around it would be to wait until the player with Land Tax has more lands out. While it could pay off for a very efficient aggro deck that can churn out threats with only one land, this approach would normally play right into the hands of the Land Tax player. Historically, Land Tax decks were control decks (sometimes with a bit of control-combo thrown in). Holding back land drops to keep Land Tax offline enables the Land Tax player to slow the game down and establish control, winning even without Land Tax against an opponent who is voluntarily forfeiting tempo. On top of that, holding back just one land drop might not be enough, since the Land Tax player could cull lands (as with Zuran Orb) and get Land Tax online again. The reason that Land Tax didn't dominate tournament play even in its own prime was that turning the virtual card advantage from Land Tax into a real board presence took time. The most successful Land Tax decks dug up a bunch of plains, then used Scroll Rack to trade some for business cards, and then played those business cards to keep up a board presence. While the Land Tax player was doing that, the opponent wasn't merely sitting idle, but was presumably trying to win the game. Tax/Rack wasn't a bad engine, and first turn Land Tax into big card advantage in later turns was, in some cases, a force to be reckoned with, but it simply wasn't the case that Land Tax created an environment in which putting out first lands was something to be avoided.
I've made reference to this line by Forsythe because I think it displays a blatantly wrong understanding of a card by a person at WotC who was in a position of making decisions regarding that card's tournament legality. Now, I don't think that Aaron Forsythe is stupid or that he doesn't understand the game. He was a successful tournament player way back when I was new to the game. I know that I've liked some of his work in set design and such. But it seems that he sometimes goes too far in trying to make points about matters he doesn't actually understand. And this was one of those times.
A: Corner cases that wouldn't normally persuade one to avoid a first land drop as a matter of course.
B: Irrelevant in Legacy.
I seem to remember arguing that holding back early land drops is generally a sort of rookie mistake against Land Tax decks. To the uninitiated, it may seem as though allowing Land Tax to trigger would give its controller insurmountable card advantage, and that the only way to play around it would be to wait until the player with Land Tax has more lands out. While it could pay off for a very efficient aggro deck that can churn out threats with only one land, this approach would normally play right into the hands of the Land Tax player. Historically, Land Tax decks were control decks (sometimes with a bit of control-combo thrown in). Holding back land drops to keep Land Tax offline enables the Land Tax player to slow the game down and establish control, winning even without Land Tax against an opponent who is voluntarily forfeiting tempo. On top of that, holding back just one land drop might not be enough, since the Land Tax player could cull lands (as with Zuran Orb) and get Land Tax online again. The reason that Land Tax didn't dominate tournament play even in its own prime was that turning the virtual card advantage from Land Tax into a real board presence took time. The most successful Land Tax decks dug up a bunch of plains, then used Scroll Rack to trade some for business cards, and then played those business cards to keep up a board presence. While the Land Tax player was doing that, the opponent wasn't merely sitting idle, but was presumably trying to win the game. Tax/Rack wasn't a bad engine, and first turn Land Tax into big card advantage in later turns was, in some cases, a force to be reckoned with, but it simply wasn't the case that Land Tax created an environment in which putting out first lands was something to be avoided.
I've made reference to this line by Forsythe because I think it displays a blatantly wrong understanding of a card by a person at WotC who was in a position of making decisions regarding that card's tournament legality. Now, I don't think that Aaron Forsythe is stupid or that he doesn't understand the game. He was a successful tournament player way back when I was new to the game. I know that I've liked some of his work in set design and such. But it seems that he sometimes goes too far in trying to make points about matters he doesn't actually understand. And this was one of those times.
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
New article submitted. Yeah, took long enough. I alluded to it, but there have been some obstacles to my aspirations of continuing this series. My crazy work schedule is the biggest factor, but I also recently moved and changed computers, then kept putting off a return. While I do really like some of the articles I've written for this, the style I was employing became too time-consuming. So I'm switching to a more open format, writing about whatever I can, whenever I can, without worrying about whether I'll be able to turn it into a 4,000 word article or whatever...
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
Excellent. I've now updated the first post of this thread to include every article in The Comboist Manifesto. It had been out of date, so woe betide anyone who checks the first post of this thread at some point before today and after whenever it was that I last updated it.
Oversoul
The Tentacled One
I was checking on my latest article for some reason, and I noticed that there is an error. I don't believe that it was there originally, but I'm guessing that it appeared when I was editing the article through e-mail, as the transition from Open Office document to email messes with stuff. Sometimes I don't bother to fix these, but this time around, I tried to clean up the extraneous line breaks and such. Presumably because I was on a laptop for that article, I hit the touchpad and accidentally added a new line break while cleaning up the other ones. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be too bothered by this. The line break happened in a list of cards, separating a card name across two lines, which is an annoying mistake, but also not really a big deal ordinarily. However, by sheer coincidence, both words in the card name that got broken up across two lines are themselves card names. This meant that in a list of cards I was grouping together, part of the Legacy banned list, "Sentinel Dispatch" became "Sentinel" and "Dispatch." Readers who are familiar with the Conspiracy set would easily spot the error and understand what I meant, but new players or Spiderman could easily be confused by this unfortunate mistake.
So, to be clear, this card is not banned in Legacy...
...and this card is not banned in Legacy either...
...but this card is...
So, to be clear, this card is not banned in Legacy...
...and this card is not banned in Legacy either...
...but this card is...