"Wasteland is not an issue with 8-10 non-basics"
Really? Why the OINK is that? If you have 8-10 non-basics that means you will draw one. That means I`ll have a target for my wasteland. I dont care if you draw two because I probably won`t draw two wastelands.
[EDIT: Easy, Giz. Watch the four-letter words. - Istanbul]
So your statement is meaningless. If you said 'because I only have 2/3 nonbasics, then it would have made sense'.
"Port is annoying, but then yadda yadda yadda..."
Yeah but your combo cant, can it. So it will slow you a turn, or more, because the port screws you over twice if you intend on leaving mana for counters. By which time they`ve Wastelanded a land to slow you another turn, and maybe drew another Wasteland or Port to slow you another turn. All of those turns you are losing 4/5 life per turn.
And yes they DO have Pyroblasts. Lots of them.
Have you been to many PTQ`s in this season?
The Reanimator decks have been hosed out of the field virtually immediately because 60%+ of decks run 4 maindeck Phyrexian Furnace.
Ive been to two PTQs and not seen a single Rock+Millions deck.
And almost everybody is playing blue-based decks like MiracleGro, Draw-Go, Dumbo Drop, Donate, Stasis, Turboland, Oath. The only popular non-blue deck is 8-Disks, which Sligh beats the living turd out of anyway.
"Bottle Gnomes really aren't a problem, because after gaining 20 life from the first illusions, it is not too hard to hold their pups at bay for a fewmore turns to combo again, or find a fire/ice to do them lethal damage."
Cant agree there. It takes two Fire/Ice to kill them, for a start. Ellis had that problem because he Inuitiioned into his kill, got it off, but Tu was on 3 life. So Ellis then had to find either two of his Fire/Ices or his 1 remaining Donate - neither of which he could usefully find rapidly - and he was lucky to draw into his second Fire/Ice on the last turn.
And I`ve played Sligh decks which, because of Ports, have delayed the game long enough to be able to upkeep the Donate long enough to deal you 20 damage from a mixture of Pups and Fireblasts before your first kill ever goes off.
Sligh beats Donate.
Just as you think you know better than Isty I think I know better than you.
Sligh takes Donate to the toolshed and whips it like a government mule.