TurboZvi, eloquently unplayable
Yesterday I subscribed to this newsgroup for the first time.
I must say I'm quite amused.
First of all, let me reassure everyone. TurboZvi is not a scam. It is not a hoax. It is not intended to send people on wild goose chases and make them alter their sideboards. Everything I put in the Dojo post is true. I did do a 25-game goldfish test, and the mean kill was turn 5, and there were only 3 games not done by turn 6. And I could do it again.
If anyone out there is not achieving these type of kills, they do not understand how the deck sets up. If the deck is dying on you after you cast Mana Severance and Meditate (and Dream Halls) on a regular basis, you do not understand how the deck wins. This deck will seem awful if you don't understand many key strategies.
The following is a sampling of the questions I've gotton:
Q. How does it win, I don't get it? A. By recursing with the Blessing /Memories combo, drawing extra cards with Sift and Meditate, and decking him with Inspiration and Lobotomy.
Q. When do I sacrifice a lotus petal before the combo? A. To cast any card advantage card.
Q. How many lands do I sacrifice when casting Dream Halls? A. All of them.
Q. How do I not lose the Gaia's Blessings? A. Discard them with Sift whenever possible, and keep track of Lotus Petals at all times. If you let two reach the graveyard, start casting memories immediatly, and if you draw the 3rd somehow, cast it off 2 petals.
Q. How early do I cast Mana Severance? A. Whenever you have 7 mana against a non-blue deck, or 5 mana against a Wastelandless non-blue deck. Always remove all land, or leave 4 in as insurance if you hold extra blue.
Q. When do I try to win? A. Only when you need to. Like ProspBloom, don't hurry.
Q. When do I start to kill him? A. Only when you have the game 100% in hand.
Q. How do I not run out of time? A. Sideboard in extra kill, like Inspiration and Lobotomy. For slower players, you can SB Vision Charm.
Q. What happens if I don't draw carddraw? A. You can use Impulse or Intuition to get out of a lot of tight spots, or even cast Gaia's Blessing. Remember, if you can wait to the last min, your chances of failing shrink even furthar.
Q. What do I do if I need to win, but don't have mana severance? A. Use Ancestral Memories, then Meditate, then Sift to try and find it. If you can spare Intuition, do that instead. If you have Memories and 2 Blue cards instead of Severance and 1, you're probably OK.
Q. Why the Sideboard? A. It's anti-counterspell, since the deck is fast enough turnwise. It also gives you extra land for waiting games and LD and lets you hide the white. Hydroblast is the last nail in sligh's coffin.
Q. What can I Sideboard out? A. 2 Sift, 1 Intution (try to avoid this), 4 Island (only for 4 Adakar Wastes), Lobotomy (if adding Abeyance), 1 Mana Severance (waiting matches), Counterspell, Impulse. Try to SB as few cards as you can, not counting Adakar/Island swaps.
Q. What was the exact deck listing anyway?
A.
Q. Why no Vision Charm? A. My opponent's Gaia's Blessing, and its being useless before the combo.
Q. Why no Flux? A. My opponent can use it too well.
Q. Why no Doomsday? A. Tried to make it work, couldn't. Maybe someone else will.
Q. Why no multiples of kill cards? A. They hurt the combo, and you don't need them.
Q. Why no TimeWarp? A. TimeWarp/Meditate is NOT a combo.
Q. Why no Prosperity? A. X is 0, and even if you're tapping mana giving your opponent cards can be really, really bad under Dream Halls.
Q. Why doesn't it lose to Sligh? A. It's faster.
Q. Why doesn't it lose to Counters? A. Sometimes it does, but those decks often give you enough time to run the "bloom inquisition". Can I Sift? Can I Intuition? Can I Memories? Green light sonny boy, what's it goona be? And Abyeance helps a lot.
Q. Why doesn't it lose to Disenchant? A. The extra turn you get (as opposed to Sligh) lets you back up the combo with a counter. You have a counter for majority of turn 5 wins anyway if you want one.
Q. Why doesn't it lose to Necro? A. It can anti-Hymn with its carddraw, and gets too much time.
TurboZvi is real, it is deadly, and it has a steadily growing number of players who understand and respect it, and many of them are playing it.
Don't say I didn't warn you!
Zvi Mowshowitz Team Legion Creater of "TurboZvi" zsm3@columbia.edu