First off, great stuff! You're doing a service to humanity by spending your time and effort to produce this awesome content. Thank you! I've watched several matches where one player is using a "Ponza" land destruction deck. So far, those decks win every game I've seen. Is land destruction so dominant that the player who uses it has an automatic advantage and is likely to win the game simply because they are playing a land destruction deck? Timmy, you mention in the conclusion of the final game that the match was, "very one sided". It's hard for ANY deck to do well when it doesn't have mana available to cast spells...Getting "mana screwed" is a pretty nasty flaw in the game design, and it's magnified by land destruction. The two things that seem to "spoil" the game in old school, in my own humble opinion, are land destruction and hand destruction decks/cards. It really doesn't seem to matter how well thought out and tight a deck is when your lands and random cards from your hand are being tossed into the graveyard every turn. Idk...it just seems...cheap and not fun to me. Any insight into this, and ways to combat it without having to build a specific deck to target it, would be much appreciated.
Thanks Indialien and you ask an interesting question. One of the reasons that my favorite format is the Swedish OS format is because of those two reasons. In Swedish, you only play with 1 strip mine and no Hymn To Tourach. This makes land destruction strategies and discard strategies less powerful. They're still good, but you usually have to combine them with other strategies.If you look at my Swedish tournament reports you can see that land destruction and discard decks play a small roll in most tournaments. Land destruction is a great add on strategy in Swedish, but in most cases not enough as a stand alone strategy to win a tournament. For example, th-cam.com/play/PLsGeV_wxUkUZFPDQ1czD6SH87vFsU9j09.html If we zoom in on X-Points specifically, there are a few reasons why discard and land destruction are so good. Discard is good because Hymn is only 1 point, so you can play with 4 Hymn and still have enough points to do other nasty stuff. Discard is extra good, because Moxen and Black Lotus are more expensive in the point system. Usually moxen are a great way to play out your hand before your opponent can start to discard or get enough mana to counter away the discard spells in the early game. Land destruction is good for pretty much the same reasons. If you have other mana generators next to your lands, like moxen and/or sol ring, land destruction isn't as painful. Another card that is great against land destruction is Land Tax and this card is also a card with points. The land destruction cards in Ponza all have 0 points. However, you can play underneath these two strategies by playing an aggro strategy, usually one that is mono coloured. For example, a mono coloured green deck only needs 1 green land to start casting elves and ramp into bigger stuff. You empty your hand quickly so discard becomes obsolete. Another important thing to note with X-points is that the point list is not set. Every couple of months the community revises the list and makes changes to try to improve the balance of the format. I am a big fan of FE btw. I just wish they would've designed Goblin Grenade and especially Hymn a little bit different. For example, Hymn for 2, but your opponent can choose instead of random. And a Grenade for 3 or 4 instead of 5 points. The best way to find out is by joining tournaments and play with what you love to find out what format and/or style fits you best. Anyway, these are just my 2cents :)
@@TimmytheSorcerer Wow! What a response! I appreciate you going into so much detail. I was originally drawn to x-points because it seemed more interesting to me since more decks are viable and you don't see the same cards in nearly every deck. But once I realized that land and hand destruction decks haven't really been touched much in x-points, it had me wondering if there was at least a way to combat it. It's funny that you mention using a green aggro deck as a way around land and hand D. I just made a mono green aggro deck several days ago for this very reason lol. It feels a bit bad though to have to build a deck around countering one specific strategy, or two strategies I suppose. But it is what it is. I'll look into Swedish again, but I remember being a bit put off by it because every deck is filled with power cards and decks felt too similar. Maybe the next x-points list will penalize land and hand D. Probably wishful thinking...but I can hope. Thanks again, dude!
Just a rules question. Ivory tower and black vise does not negate each other. Aktive players triggers go on the stack first then opponent. So aktive player would take damage from black vise before he gains life. Thus dying. Right?
@@Ostenkaer At a certain time in the rules you were dead if at zero at the end of the phase. Under those rules they would cancel each other. But now you don't even need to have the stack empty, just as soon as you hit zero.
Just a reminder how triggers happen, at around 15:00 with Stasis on 1 life with a Ivory Tower vs Black Vise: if he has 5 cards during his upkeep he will die before he gains life back. :-)
Good point, just like Spirit Link👍 btw, is there a way to stack it so that you gain the life first? You have priority, does that have any influence at all?
@@TimmytheSorcerer Sadly no way around death here. Its " all active player trigger go on stack. Then non active player go on stack. Then in reverse order they resolve. This means opponents Black Vise allways do dmg before the Ivory Tower lifegain." U can only choose the order of such "simultaniously" happen triggers if u control both of them.
11:53 The ponza player attacks with erhnam, the stasis player takes 4 damage, 4 life left, then the ponza player plays a berserk to do lethal damage, then the stasis player responds with a boomerang.. but he never took back the 4 life he first took from the erhnam BEFORE the berserk. He cannot only take 4 damage and still boomerang the erhnam to prevent lethal. He either took 8 damage or took none, correct?
The stasis deck is a bit weak. I can't see how it plans to win! It needs vises or Serras or something... maybe a couple of time elementals to boomerang the stasises? A couple of wrath of gods?
I would take out 3 or 4 of the counter magic and maybe an ivory tower and add 4 black vise. It seems impossible to win without black vise or Sierra angel.
I think ponza is about land destruction and usually has red in it as well for the stone rains. This is the name that Loekie gave the deck so 🤷♂️ @loekie any chance to enlighten us? 😂
MtgGoldfish has a short here on youtube that explains where the name comes from. just look up where did the deck name ponza come from. short version is it was named after a food.
Check out more X-points games here, th-cam.com/play/PLsGeV_wxUkUanKWvTIPVezX7IvpygOyig.html&si=RW5eo_qnMt88_8H8
First off, great stuff! You're doing a service to humanity by spending your time and effort to produce this awesome content. Thank you!
I've watched several matches where one player is using a "Ponza" land destruction deck. So far, those decks win every game I've seen. Is land destruction so dominant that the player who uses it has an automatic advantage and is likely to win the game simply because they are playing a land destruction deck? Timmy, you mention in the conclusion of the final game that the match was, "very one sided". It's hard for ANY deck to do well when it doesn't have mana available to cast spells...Getting "mana screwed" is a pretty nasty flaw in the game design, and it's magnified by land destruction.
The two things that seem to "spoil" the game in old school, in my own humble opinion, are land destruction and hand destruction decks/cards.
It really doesn't seem to matter how well thought out and tight a deck is when your lands and random cards from your hand are being tossed into the graveyard every turn. Idk...it just seems...cheap and not fun to me.
Any insight into this, and ways to combat it without having to build a specific deck to target it, would be much appreciated.
Thanks Indialien and you ask an interesting question. One of the reasons that my favorite format is the Swedish OS format is because of those two reasons.
In Swedish, you only play with 1 strip mine and no Hymn To Tourach. This makes land destruction strategies and discard strategies less powerful. They're still good, but you usually have to combine them with other strategies.If you look at my Swedish tournament reports you can see that land destruction and discard decks play a small roll in most tournaments. Land destruction is a great add on strategy in Swedish, but in most cases not enough as a stand alone strategy to win a tournament. For example, th-cam.com/play/PLsGeV_wxUkUZFPDQ1czD6SH87vFsU9j09.html
If we zoom in on X-Points specifically, there are a few reasons why discard and land destruction are so good. Discard is good because Hymn is only 1 point, so you can play with 4 Hymn and still have enough points to do other nasty stuff. Discard is extra good, because Moxen and Black Lotus are more expensive in the point system. Usually moxen are a great way to play out your hand before your opponent can start to discard or get enough mana to counter away the discard spells in the early game. Land destruction is good for pretty much the same reasons. If you have other mana generators next to your lands, like moxen and/or sol ring, land destruction isn't as painful. Another card that is great against land destruction is Land Tax and this card is also a card with points. The land destruction cards in Ponza all have 0 points. However, you can play underneath these two strategies by playing an aggro strategy, usually one that is mono coloured. For example, a mono coloured green deck only needs 1 green land to start casting elves and ramp into bigger stuff. You empty your hand quickly so discard becomes obsolete. Another important thing to note with X-points is that the point list is not set. Every couple of months the community revises the list and makes changes to try to improve the balance of the format.
I am a big fan of FE btw. I just wish they would've designed Goblin Grenade and especially Hymn a little bit different. For example, Hymn for 2, but your opponent can choose instead of random. And a Grenade for 3 or 4 instead of 5 points.
The best way to find out is by joining tournaments and play with what you love to find out what format and/or style fits you best.
Anyway, these are just my 2cents :)
@@TimmytheSorcerer Wow! What a response! I appreciate you going into so much detail.
I was originally drawn to x-points because it seemed more interesting to me since more decks are viable and you don't see the same cards in nearly every deck. But once I realized that land and hand destruction decks haven't really been touched much in x-points, it had me wondering if there was at least a way to combat it.
It's funny that you mention using a green aggro deck as a way around land and hand D. I just made a mono green aggro deck several days ago for this very reason lol. It feels a bit bad though to have to build a deck around countering one specific strategy, or two strategies I suppose. But it is what it is.
I'll look into Swedish again, but I remember being a bit put off by it because every deck is filled with power cards and decks felt too similar. Maybe the next x-points list will penalize land and hand D. Probably wishful thinking...but I can hope.
Thanks again, dude!
So stoked to have found some 93/94 content here on youtube, what a game!
Welcome to the channel 👯♀️👯♀️👯♀️
The howling mine in game two was mvp for Louis. Carddraw for an aggro deck is just awesome!
Owwwe, I love Stasis, and this was a SUPER ROUGH matchup! Way to fight til the last though!
Thanks for posting!
Love that black green deck
Green/black deck will win. Looking forward to a huge beatdown
Game 1 over: BAAM
Knock out !!!
love the art of kismet!
🙌
Just a rules question. Ivory tower and black vise does not negate each other. Aktive players triggers go on the stack first then opponent. So aktive player would take damage from black vise before he gains life. Thus dying. Right?
Yes. Saw this too. Dead to vise before tower gain.
@@active_ate9183 yeah had to check up, i suppose you are used to them negating eachother, but very relevant when black vise Dam is lethal
Thanks for mentioning this. I was wondering as well.
@@Ostenkaer At a certain time in the rules you were dead if at zero at the end of the phase. Under those rules they would cancel each other. But now you don't even need to have the stack empty, just as soon as you hit zero.
@@active_ate9183 yeah I know. I played when the stack wasnt a Thing and also when combat damage went on the stack
Just a reminder how triggers happen, at around 15:00 with Stasis on 1 life with a Ivory Tower vs Black Vise: if he has 5 cards during his upkeep he will die before he gains life back. :-)
Overall big thanks to U Timmy and the players for more content! Allways great to watch
Good point, just like Spirit Link👍 btw, is there a way to stack it so that you gain the life first? You have priority, does that have any influence at all?
@@TimmytheSorcerer Sadly no way around death here. Its " all active player trigger go on stack. Then non active player go on stack. Then in reverse order they resolve. This means opponents Black Vise allways do dmg before the Ivory Tower lifegain."
U can only choose the order of such "simultaniously" happen triggers if u control both of them.
crushed and trampled the opponent! 😮
🐘
@@TimmytheSorcerer 😊
At 24.25 he is not using the pendelhaven I think to boost, but he taps because he remembers the Kismet I believe
Well spotted
Gotta root for any deck that’s running 4 Juzams 😺
Epic 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Am I missing something, or did he tap an Island and a Plains to cast Counterspell on the Juzam? 9:34
10:40 on the Chaos Orb, too. That doesn't look like another Island.
It’s a dual land, Tundra, taps for W and U 👍
Oh, duh. I missed that part. 😅
No worries 🍻
This is an old one! Still at a 7 point cap, now up to 10.
Yeah, it’s pretty old, one that got stuck on the shelf :)
11:53 The ponza player attacks with erhnam, the stasis player takes 4 damage, 4 life left, then the ponza player plays a berserk to do lethal damage, then the stasis player responds with a boomerang.. but he never took back the 4 life he first took from the erhnam BEFORE the berserk. He cannot only take 4 damage and still boomerang the erhnam to prevent lethal. He either took 8 damage or took none, correct?
I agree. He should have taken 8 or 0 damage.
Absolutely right, should’ve stayed on 8 👍
The stasis deck is a bit weak. I can't see how it plans to win! It needs vises or Serras or something... maybe a couple of time elementals to boomerang the stasises? A couple of wrath of gods?
I think he was trying something new and see how far he could go with the ultimate control plan.
I would take out 3 or 4 of the counter magic and maybe an ivory tower and add 4 black vise. It seems impossible to win without black vise or Sierra angel.
I always thought Ponza was red/green? No? How did Ponza get it's name anyway? Never made any sense to me....assuming some pro player or team?
I think ponza is about land destruction and usually has red in it as well for the stone rains. This is the name that Loekie gave the deck so 🤷♂️ @loekie any chance to enlighten us? 😂
@@TimmytheSorcerer errrr I am not sure either. Thought LD = ponza
MtgGoldfish has a short here on youtube that explains where the name comes from. just look up where did the deck name ponza come from. short version is it was named after a food.
its true control player are twisted
I know they are good but I hated stasis decks. Just no fun.
I know what you mean, but as long as I only play against one every now and then, it’s all good.
I find your opinion about stasis players very offending…..
😂 let’s talk about it over a beer 🍻
Or 16 this weekend 😂😂😂
Let’s both play stasis and take a shot for every turn that we don’t do anything 😂😂😂