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Fundamental Turn

Zvi Mowshowitz wrote in the end of 1999:

It's the concept of the Fundamental Turn. Whenever I make a deck, I assign it a Fundamental Turn (FT). For beatdown or combination decks, the FT is the turn you kill your opponent. It's an easy concept and you have one number. For a control deck, each aspect can be said to have an FT. But the most important one is the turn in which the deck's strategy begins to work and you make up for any early disadvantage. For example, an old style U/W control deck might have FT of 4, since that's when it could cast Wrath of God and stabilize the board. A monoblue deck from UBC might have an FT of 5, since on turn 5 it could cast Treachery and Morphling. The game may not be over then, but that's when you win it. Similarly, any turn in which you do something that insures you will win the game becomes the FT. A Bargain deck that brings out Defense Grid on turn 1 half the time and turn 2 the other half would have an anti-control FT of 1.5 after sideboarding, assuming the control deck can't remove the Grid without giving the Bargain deck enough time to win.

Here is an interesting quote from Randy Buehler, head of Wizard's R&D in late 2003:

Currently, the best decks in the format [Extended] can kill a goldfish on turn 2 when they get a good draw, and they can kill on turn 3 fairly consistently. It's not possible to eliminate all the decks that can sometimes kill by turn 3, but the format would be a lot more fun and a lot more fair if turn-3 kills require a good draw and turn 4 is the norm (for the Combo decks, anyway). That should open up both beatdown and control as viable strategies.

"Killing a goldfish" means killing an opponent that does nothing to interfere. The combo decks in that environment are one turn faster than the fastest creature decks. As soon as a combo deck reliably can kill one turn faster than the fastest creature based deck, it becomes useless to play ceatures.

This quote is basically a policy statement to keep weeny beatdown viable, and also a statement that a good weeny aggro deck should be able to kill in four turns.

For a non-burn creature deck, a turn 4 kill is quite difficult to achieve, although a turn 5 kill is almost assured. Maybe mana acceleration via Chrome Mox could make them the crucial turn faster, while sacrificing a card in hand that will be useless after turn 4 anyway, if the goal is that you have to kill by that time, or be killed.

Take for example white weeny. There is only one 2-power creature for one mana in Savannah Lion, although there are lots for two mana now, with cool abilities like the flying, Protection: Black, etc. Unfortunately, for purpose of killing faster, only haste would matter, which is in red, so they might just as well be Grizzly Bears. Turn 1, Plains, Savannah Lions (2 power). Turn 2, Plains, attack for 2 (18), White Knight (2 power). Turn 3, Plains, attack for 4 (14), Leonin Skyhunter, Bonesplitter. Turn 4, Plains, Crusade, equip White Knight with Bonesplitter, attack for 5+3+3=13 (1). Too slow, and that was a fast hand. One mana was left, which could theoretically have been used to play Holy Strength for an additional damage, but that card is unrealistic in a constructed deck.

Now with Chrome Mox. Turn 1, Plains, Chrome Mox discarding a white card, Savannah Lion, Bonesplitter, 2 cards in hand. Turn 2, Plains, equip Lions, swing for four (16), White Knight, 1 card in hand. Turn 3, Leonin Skyhunter, swing for 6 (10), 1 card in hand, one mana left (which could be used to play another Lion or Bonesplitter). Turn 4, Crusade, swing for 5+3+3=11 (-1), 1 card in hand, one mana left. Yep, this would do.

How about U/G Madness? Turn 1, Forest, Basking Rootwalla, 5 cards in hand. Turn 2, attack for one (19), Forest, Wild Mongrel, 4 cards in hand. Turn 3, Island, discard Arrogant Wurm to play via Mongrel, attack for four (15), 3 cards in hand. Turn 4, pump Rootwalla, discard 4 cards via Mongrel, attack for 6+4+3=13(2). Too slow, and that was a fast hand too. Incidentially, it could just have been mono-green, so far. But we still have mana left, and could use it to counter the combo going of.

Now for some sligh. Turn 1, Mountain, Jackal Pup, 5 cards in hand. Turn 2, Mountain, Slith Firewalker, attack for three (17), four cards in hand. Turn 3, Mountain, Ball Lightening, attack for 10 (7), three cards in hand. Turn 4, attack for 5 (2), Shock (0), 2 mana left, three cards in hand (like Incinerate and Fireblast, which could reduce the life total into the deeply negative range at -7). No Problem here, even though this also was a perfect curve.

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