So I had this opening hand the other night on cockatrice:
black lotus, demonic tutor, tinker, mana crypt, time vault, fetchland, echoing truth
It was game 1 against an unknown deck. Do you:
- crack fetch for a sea, play crypt and DT up a force and go for the combo t2
or
-
Go for lotus, crypt, tinker for key, play vault, use fetch and just go for the T1 combo?
-
Slow play it, dropping fetch and lotus and drawing a few turns to sculpt a more stable hand.
If you go for it and either tinker or key get countered you are kind of dead in the water. If you are playing shops or hate bears style deck with a null rod or a sphere effect and a strip effect, you are dead in the water if you don't go for it. (sphere effect means you get the pieces on the board but unless you draw a land, have to pass the turn before you can activate with a single land in play which is vulnerable to a strip).
Slow playing it means combo could go off in your face turn 2 before you know what hits you.
For the record I went for it and my opponent said, "g2?" without me seeing any of his deck. I think this is actually easier to decide in the later rounds of a tournament as you may have an idea of what your opponent is on. But completely blind each archtype you are likely to see suggest a different route to victory for the same cards. I thought the hand was very interesting from this perspective and was curious how others would approach it. Say its round 1 of a tournament vs an unknown opponent.