Subject: LD and other stuff Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1997 16:16:39 -0500 From: Pat Brokos I am not a huge player of LD, but I do know a good deal about the strategy involved, as my friend is. I've heard alot of discussion on these types of decks, and I'm not going to respond to each individual one, just address the basic issue of Card Drawing. I've seen cards like Howling Mine and Jayemdae Tome used. As far as I'm concerned, you have two choices-Necropotence and Well of Knowledge. Depending on the deck you play, a different card drawer will be right for you. The reasons behind these are that, as was mentioned, LD is all about time advantage. The opposing player will ALWAYS have more land in deck than you have LD. The trick is to keep him at a point where he doesn't have ENOUGH land to stop your threats. By playing Howling Mine, you double your opponent's chances of drawing a land every turn. Necropotence allows you to draw and cast multiple LD in one turn, plus it gives opponent no cards. Well is a slightly later game card, but the point is you should be able to draw 1-2 extra cards and use LD, while opponent gets 1 extra card he can't cast if he's lucky. When playing with Necropotence, it is important to be able to destroy your own Necropotence, and when playing LD, it is important to destroy any early creatures your opponent casts. Nevinyrral's Disk fits perfectly, and I suggest 4 in a Necro-LD deck. When playing Well, the Orcish Squateers obviously give a huge advantage, like a combined Ophidian/Hyppie. Again, I suggest 3-4 if you play more than 1 Well. However, since the idea is to deny your opponent cards more so than draw extras yourself, how about Agonizing Memories and Stunted Growth? Both of these cards give you card advantage and assure your opponent doesn't draw land for another 2-3 turns. If playing green, Fallow Earth can be used to both deny land( for 1 turn) and hold the game in stasis. For example, if I draw and cast Fallow Earth, then you draw and play the land, things are exactly as they were if I had never drawn the Fallow Earth. However, if I draw and cast Fallow Earth, attack with 2 Elves and an Emissary, then you draw and play the land, I have dealt 4 damage for free. On the topic of Zur's Wierding, I have found that to be more useful in an Armageddon-type LD, where you can set a complete lock quickly. Otherwise, they can simply deny you LD and your several kill cards(most LD decks don't use many) until you run out of life to deny them land. Stick with and Ants/Squatters combo, or, if you want to splash Blue, be creative and go with Desolation/Pendrell Mists. Just be sure you're kill can come from DD or you have enough land to maintain critters. As an example, this is the closest thing to LD I use: 4 Choking Sands 4 Icequake 3 Necropotence 4 Nevinyrral's Disk 3 Agonizing Memories 4 Drain Life 2 Steel Golem 2 Knight of Stromgald 2 Contagion 2 Nekrataal 2 Ihsan's Shade 4 Dark Ritual 4 Quicksand 2 Lake of the Dead 14 Swamp 4 Ebon Stronghold the sideboard changes often, but includes Dystopia, Mind Warp, Coercion, and Contagion. One other note-There is no rule to what sort of strategy may be posted here. Personally, I find this banter about advanced/basic much more annoying than skimming through a newbie's questions or a rules question that might belong somewhere else. As long as rules questions aren't a major problem, and they're not, just let it be. Also, notice my comments on the issue are 5 lines at the end of a long strategy article. Imitate this.