Hmm... I seem to recall someone saying (and refusing to be convinced otherwise) that restricting Fact or Ficition would do nothing...
First game my deck consistantly feeds me junk and Parrot topdecds a fact or fiction after a depleating counterwar. Thats the end of things as i don't topdeck anythigng remotely helpfull.
Second and third games, my deck gives me balanced draws and a get down what i want. Second game morphling comes by very early and parrot can't do anything about it. Third game we are both mana low, with parrot low on counters. Parrot ancestrals, i ancestral in response, with me ending up with one and the other countered. I lay down morphling soon after for the win.
Well, thats that. Thats also the third tournament that monoblue has won on BD in a row.
Parrot and I started and ended this tournament together. Go Cincinnati Monoblue!
Both Parrot's and my present decks are much improved now. My deck name has changed though... it is now Restrictfactorfiction.dec
22.)Acolytec- Necroblue
19 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
5 Moxen
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Morphling
4 Powder Keg
2 Back to Basics
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Mana Leak
Sideboard:
3 Masticore
2 Back to Basics
3 Control Magic
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Flash Counter
2 Gainsay
24.) Deranged Parrot
4 Morphling
4 Powder Keg
4 Fact or Fiction
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Mana Drain
4 Misdirection
4 Dissipate
R Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
R Mox Sapphire
R Grim Monolith
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring
17 Island
Sideboard
4 Back to Basics
4 Hydroblast
4 Gainsay
3 Masticore
Well, it's official. Mono-blue must be fixed. I'm done with it for a while, though- I'll probably work on NecroTubbies for T1ToC4, as blue is just getting dumb.
I wonder if the success of mono-blue will help it or kill it? Will everyone play it because it's the best? Will everyone play to beat it? Will everyone who played it play something else because it's no fun? So many questions.
It's just too damn annoying. If Necro Tubbies is going to appear in ToC4 I'm not playing WW!!
WK:play a metagamed WW 8)
White ahs enough hosers against black i'd say 8)
WW should be Tubbies' worst matchup with pro-black and tons of Disenchants.
Does anyone know who at wizards actually does the restrictions? Maybe we could at least talk to them about FoF in type one. Surely no-one disagrees with fact or fiction now? C'mon - broken card drawer. No contest.
You know... I simply wonder why Zvi didn't have more luck in the Invitational.
Zvi's deck sucked compared to the decks that Parrot and I are running now is why.
JP: I played it for a while and now I play something else because it is no fun. It feels like playing Keeper against a Kid's deck, apart from mirror matches and vs. DARK Keeper: You win constantly, but it is not really a challenge. It is almost like goldfishing.
Congratz guys, great Tourney.
I still say FoF doesn't need to be restricted and I don't think mono-U (while much too powerful for a mono-colored deck) is quite as dominant as people say. All that being said, congratulations to both players for doing so well.
--Matt
I contend that it is Force of Will, and not Fact or Fiction that allows Mono-U (and control in general) to continue to dominate T1. I think that if it was restricted, we'd see enough shift to aggro decks to increase the variance of decks that can be Tier 1.
Fact or Fiction is very good though. I just think that its ability to draw you into a FoW is what breaks it.
You are neglecting evidence, Matt.
Mono-U IS dominating the field. Maybe not in your metagame. But in mine and in the BD-ToC's (3 mono-U in the top 4 - come on, I mean, there IS a huge luck factor, but 3 mono-U in top 4 is not just luck; and its not the first time, that mono-U wins BD-ToC).
You can beat it with certain decks and a grain of luck - even combo CAN beat mono-U occasionally. And with some skill you can manage to win games against mono-U which you ought to loose. But that's skill or luck and not the deck. With an equal distribution of luck and skill between both sides, mono-U has 50/50 in its worst matchups (mirror, good mono-B, really good Keeper) and up to 90/10 in its easy ones. I don't know about Stompy, though. Never played with mono-U against Stompy. But I guess, Keg and Masticore are somewhat unpleasant.
"My deck name has changed though... it is now Restrictfactorfiction.dec"
Hmm... I seem to recall someone saying (and refusing to be convinced otherwise) that restricting Fact or Ficition would do nothing...
Let's look at the top 8
1-Mono-blue (Acolytec)
2-Mono-blue (Deranged Parrot)
3-Mono-blue (Nukramento)
4-Hatred (Bob)
5-Keeper (Me)
6-Mono-blue (Burning Ice)
7-Petting Zoo (Jelal)
8-Petting Zoo (Arex)
9-Mono-blue (mikephoen)
Not only were there 3 mono-blues in the top 4, but there were also mono-blue decks at 6th and 9th. 9TH WAS MONO-BLUE'S WORST FINISH. I was the only Keeper in the top 8. And I was playing a super-hate version that still went 0-2 againts XL-U (but did win sweep Ice Blue Zoo and Forbiddian.)
What this comfortingly also says is that Zoo is viable.
Weidert- Force of Will is sided out against every aggressive deck except for monoblack. Force would make for an interesting restriction in my opinion, but would nearly kill keeper- I'm not sure if people would like that.
Matt- My worst matchup is a mirror match. My best matchup is everything else.
Jelel- I know, I know. After you argued that fact should be restricted, I started to really pay attention to what happened when I played it. I realized that it really did make a big differnce that it was a fact and not an ophidean or something else. Thus, I recanted
JP: My mono-blue was different however... I only used 6 counters....
"What this comfortingly also says is that Zoo is viable."
But it says that blue beats it. Is that really comfort? :P
If it makes you feel better, I probably won't be playing mono-blue next time around and niether is Nuk, and Mike's deck is an anachronism, even if it did place ninth.
What we really need is for the people who say that mono-blue _isn't_ dominant (ie Azhrei, Matt) to play in the next ToC and prove it .
Hey, mono-blue is strong.
Fact or Fiction is strong, but the card that makes this deck so tough against a lot of the field is Back to Basics.
B2B is such a hoser against so many T1 decks. Force of Will makes it a maindeckable card, because in the mirror, you can just pitch B2B for FoW.
I'm not sure restricting FoF is an answer, but it wouldn't hurt/help that much. FoW is the reason the DCI let Mind Twist and Channel off the Banned list, so I think it's safe.
I know it sounds strange, but if you restricted the B2B, would that balance the field against the deck?
However, that goes against every reason the DCI restricts/bans cards, because a card needs to be broken in a varity of decks to be considered. B2B just really belongs in this style (mono-blue) deck and helps it (unfairly?) against so much of the field.
Blue has the most powerful restricted cards, so much so that almost every deck at least splashes blue to use them in T1. B2B makes it difficult for any other deck to have access to these spells. It's like a one-way Winter Orb for any deck that's not mono-colored.
That's why it's so good, as someone said on one of the other threads here, B2B should have been a green card.
I know it sounds strange, and isn't the obvious choice ... but play a mono-blue deck without B2B and see if that helps even the environment.
As always, I reserve the right to be wrong.
DPR
I really wish B2B had never been printed. It has the totally crippling, debilitating effect of the best color-hosing enchantments, without being color specific... Which means that it has the potential to seriously hurt a lot of decktypes (those which use a lot of non-basics); I really dislike the way this crimps deck design (well, mine at least).
Maybe to even things out, WOTC should print this:
Advanced Training
W2
Enchantment
If the only colored-mana producing lands a player controls are basic lands of only one type, that player's lands don't untap during his/her untap step.
"Staying among the familiar may be comforting, but in the end stunts one's development." - Thermite, angry multicolor archmage
I thought MonoBlue had some weaknesses; most notably Butter Knives or Teletubbies style discard+fat ceatures? I'd expect the serious end of the meta-game to shift for the next T1ToC towards this sort of anti-blue beatdown. I think the calls for various restrictions are a bit premature until this happens.
I agree with DPR, and Azhrei who said that Back to Basics should have been green. B2B is probably the biggest hoser I have played against with Keeper, and I play red! Think about it. I sure like Thermites idea, that would be some good.
Thermite's card should also be green.
Isn't basic land hosing out of color for green? I think there was a white sorcery from Invasion or Planeshift that made players sacrifice all lands except one of each basic type... Global Ruin? So there's at least some precedent for a card like "Advanced Training" to be white.
I'm glad at least Giovanni liked the idea. May never see print, but we can dream...
The second big (non-basic) land hoser was green. Anyone remember Primal Order from Homelands? Mmmm, memories.
Yeah, Primal Order was a terror... A friend of mine from back in the college dorm days used to play with it... I don't remember ever actually taking damage from it, because you have to realize that this guy was playing like 100+ card decks. So its frequency of actually getting into play may have been rather low.