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@Perpetual - you've got the idea. As you've noticed, even a tribal 'aggro' deck can't adopt the same philosophy as the aggro decks of 1v1 20-life formats. Your opposition has multiple chances to draw some kind of sweeper each turn, and you have probably 5 times as much damage to deal before you win. You can't rely on the gas in your starting hand to go the bulk of the distance in 3 or 4 turns and then top-decking your way into lightning bolts to finish. In this format, aggro just means building up a dominating board position and overwhelming everyone. It takes many more turns, has to fight through more disruption, and has to be prepared to protect and rebuild several times. You need a massive resource supply to fuel that kind of aggression. In fact, I'd suggest that being the table's aggressor necessitaties MORE ramp and draw than a more defensive control or combo strategy.

Jan 13, 2013 -- 8:47AM, Disturbed185 wrote:

Can your next thread please be about when to switch the core strategy. I find that to be a bigger problem.

Hmm, I actually hadn't planned on making a 'next thread'. This one just something that I saw coming up again and again and had been thinking a long time about the best way to illustrate it. It's one thing to tell people they need more ramp/draw and hope they listen. It's another to help them to understand why. I hope this thread helped accomplish that for those who read it, and if anyone wants to make suggestions how to make it clearer I'd love to hear them.

Your question would come down to specifics...There are hundreds of possible core strategies, and there could be any one of dozens of things causing a deck to underperform. Without knowing more about the specific deck in question, I'd be just guessing in the dark at the direction it needs to go to improve. The short/cop-out answer would be to say if you've tried everything you can think of and the deck still just isn't as good as you want it to be, it's probably time to change what it's trying to do.

I could try to make some educated guesses based on other common biases I've seen. For example, many players seem to work too hard to avoid losing what they have, when often it's more efficient to just replace any losses. Hmm actually maybe that's an idea for a future post, right there. Also many people over-adjust for the slower format and lean too heavily on repeatable effects. For example I've seen both whispers of the muse and treasure trove suggested as good card draw engines in this format. I think they're awful. You can draw a whole lot more cards for less mana just by having a sufficient quantity of one-shot effects in your deck, and even a critical mass of one-shots isn't the best route to keep your hand stocked (the best is to tutor for something unfair, like necropotence ). Mana efficiency still matters!

Treasure Trove ... is it weird that I love the card but refuse to play it? Everytime I've tried it (its neat, casual and repeatable) I've rather just played Azure Mage ... I guess makes a big difference.

 

Jan 13, 2013 -- 11:33AM, niheloim wrote:

Treasure Trove ... is it weird that I love the card but refuse to play it? Everytime I've tried it (its neat, casual and repeatable) I've rather just played Azure Mage ... I guess makes a big difference. 

Paying 6 mana instead of 8 for the first card is a pretty big difference too. But to be honest I don't really like either. I'd rather just play little jace or blue honden for repeatable draw. At leat they don't suck up the mana that you want to be spending on actually playing all the cards you draw.

Jan 13, 2013 -- 11:37AM, bay_falconer wrote:

I have the same issue with Fecundity . Every deck I try to put it in (Ghave, Rith, Kresh), I end up saying no just because I'm afraid I'll deck myself.

Way back when Fecundity came out I was a big fan of it. Nowadays there are better green draw engines. By "better" I mean they benefit only me. Fecundity could be a bite-me-in-the-butt nightmare faced off against another token deck, or at a table where board wipes are common. 

BTW, Fecundity is a "may" effect, so you wouldn't deck yourself.

I'm actually looking for more non-green land ramp in the vein of Terrain Generator , Walking Atlas , Expedition Map and Solemn Simulacrum .  I do rely on rocks in non-green decks, perhaps more than I should.  Thawing Glaciers is a bit overpriced for me at the moment as well, and both of mine are already spoken for.