From: andy@mcnish.demon.co.uk (Andy McNish) Subject: post-july 1st decks Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 14:39:38 GMT well i know we're all busily tuning our decks for the nationals qualifiers...but mine's ready so i've spent some time thinking about the likely effect of weatherlight and ice age / homelands coming into type 2 soon... the first thing is that there are so many cards it gives you a headache !! the second thing is that i expect to see a lot of LD decks post-july 1st. there isn't much in type 2 that really hurts LD - and what there is is really a bit fragile (Q. Ranger) , slow (lodestone bauble) or (in the case of the harvest wurm) next to useless unless you're playing vs LD. by contrast black, red and green now have 8 LD EACH !! -------------- alex@cgfarm.demon.co.uk interjected: I think it's 12 actually... Green: 4 Fallow Earth (okay, maybe not L_D_, but still...) 4 Thermokarst 4 Creeping Mold Red: 4 Pillage 4 Stone Rain $ Orcish Mine Black: 4 Icequake 4 Choking Sands 4 Blight And also Dwarven miner, Orcish settlers, Army ants and we could always include Conquer. -------------- Andy McNish cont.: B/R in particular will be fast , have min 12 LD (+tutors),big critters,lots of clearance,optional little critters that do more LD (ants,settlers,miners) and enough access to recursion/card drawing to keep the opponents land right down (bosium strip needs 6 mana to run LD - but when you do hit 6 you can be sure he won't see 2 mana again) but the biggest reason why LD will be so popular is that it avoids having to worry about your opponents deck - if the LD works - you win -simple.IA/WL combos giving you a headache ?? take all his lands off him and watch him try to get them to work :) the biggest problems used to be land tax (long gone) and inconsistency - now you can run 8 black with red for the 4 rains and clearance, i'm beginning to think it looks very nasty - i have to admit i was hoping for some decent LD hoser in weatherlight. the best around is still the winter orb- but artifacts are looking even more fragile in the new-type 2 and with rituals,LOTD's and shatters B/R was in a good positon to ignore the orbs already. -------------- csr100@york.ac.uk (Rudders) replied: I may step out a limb here, but I've an idea that green/red is more efficent, due to be able to add in anti-enchantment cards (such as creeping mold and Emerald Charm) as well as the speed from Walls of Root, AND the general effienency of Green creatures. I found this a problem when playing LD last year that I could lock 'em down for a while, but if they ever did get back land (possible even with 12-16 LD cards) I lacked the punch to deal with their other threats. -------------- J D Ruddle replied: I agree LD is looking really good, however I still have my doubts as to whever it is quick enough? Turn three for the earliest LD spell and it your opponent goes first they could have 4 land in play. Green weenie could cause it problems as it is possible to get lots of critters out on turn 3-4 plus lots of alternative mana sources. It may also have problems against mono blue depends how nice the LD runs. -------------- To Which Andy McNish wrote: er - with 8 black LD and 4 rituals you'll be much quicker post-july 1st - add in 4 rains and some LD critters and you see why i think B/R LD will cause trouble.quakes and contagions in the core will sort out the weenie decks -although of course - tinder wall is back in too :):) so R/G's pretty fast -------------- J D Ruddle replied: Okay I give in LD could be fast (I told you that the vast amount of cards was giving me a headache) although I'm not to keen on the idea using two cards to get rid of one. Also with B/R LD you could use a possible 16 non critter LD when you've added the usual amount of other stuff such as critter control and rituals this dosen't leave you to much space to fit in cards for the kill which I think could mean the opponent recovers in mid-game.