Then report me!!! I'm saying the "hate" for Tron and its variants is based on an irrational dislike for a deck that obviously beats the pet decks of those so offended. Shocker, (gasp) someone has a different viewpoint than you, imagine that.
Look I hate the Chicago Cubs. I wish they would lose every game until the end of time. I just do. I get it that it doesn't make any sense, its totally irrational but at least I understand I'm irrational and I'm not going to claim everyone should think the same way based on my biased view of them. The same thing is happening in this thread. Its okay to hate a deck but to claim irrational views about it as absolute truths is delusional. I get it you don't like the deck you have to let it go. I will and don't look for a response, I'm done with the thread.
It's called commiseration. It feels good to know that a deck I hate for both rational and irrational reasons is also hated by others for the same and other reasons. Quit being such a turd in the punch bowl.
Public Mod Note
(Xaricore):
Infraction issued for trolling
So with the rising popularity of BW smallpox, I came to a realization, is there a way we can combine the best of both worlds with 8rack? possibly sacrifice some discard/removal for more recurring creatures and lingering souls? Basically attacking from multiple angles?
Somethings I feel we could add into 8 rack would be cards like
Flagstones
Bloodghast
Collected brutality
Lingering souls
With the heavy meta of tron and affinity and other misc decks with artifacts, maybe we can take wrench mind as a 2 of? for more of these cards?
You can try with souls but the mana curve becomes pretty top heavy. I had great success with Pox + Myth Realized to achieve the effect you are describing. Not to say that souls wont work - you should try both and see what you think.
^ were just talking about making the choice with the best odds possible and whiffing". And were really only talking about the extremes. To use an arbitrary number let's say if the odds are 80% or better in your favor, then that is the "right" call. If you hit the 20% fail, you still made the right choice and should make the same choice in the future if it comes up again. The ~20% is variance that is just part of magic. It keeps things interesting.
Kind of like when the monster rolls a 20 in D&D - PLayer: but wait! That's BS!!!
Tap Drain the Swamp and sacrifice it to destroy target Land an opponent controls that produces B mana. If you destroy a land in this manner you may search your library for a basic land card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
I've never died to T2 Inkmoth.
I have on the draw. Sure is fun to have one land on the board and lose. That's some real Magic there.
You're just trolling! Lands that produce black mana can't be combined to produce SEVEN black mana! It's not even a fair comparison and you know it. Also to be clear in my above Ghost Quarter 2 card, you BOTH get a basic land, your opponent gets one on the table, you get one in hand.
My two cents: First of all we need to define what "luck" is. For a quick and sloppy analysis we'll just associated it to randomness. Then good luck is having the randomness inexplicably tilt in your favor, bad luck is inexplicably against your interest. The randomness of a magic deck is significantly less than that of a deck of playing cards. So, even when putting two competing decks head to head, the amount randomness, purely in card draw would still be less than a deck of playing cards. Now there is another level of "luck" that is relevant and it comes in the form of meta gaming. Decks have good and bad matchups where a deck can be favored purely on design principle. Aggro is favored vs control but is not against tron type decks for example. Going into an unknown meta is a crap shoot. You can mitigate your chances by playing a tiered deck but ultimately until you familiarize yourself with the environment, it is significantly random.
Overall, I think people attribute way too much of the game to skill and ignore the luck aspect far too often because "being lucky" does very little to the ego...lol. Don't get me wrong: there is a significant amount of skill in the form of game intellect and moxie that the best players possess but ultimately a couple no land opening hands will end their day just as quickly as a novice.
I agree, I see it like this. You go to a 100 man tournament playing a control deck because aggro has been non existent in the meta, right call. Only 3 people show up playing aggro in that 100 man tournament, again verification you made the right call. Some how your first three Matchups are the Aggro players. I see this as unlucky not just a variance of chance. I guess a lot of this debate comes down to if you believe luck is something that can be measured or it is something more supernatural.
I agree 100% with this, and it's a real part of the game.
That said, I'm much more interested to see if Ktk will actually be able to see the light around his anecdote.
If Ghost Quarter were good enough we wouldn't be having this conversation. Ok so if a true colorless strip mine is too strong how about a modified GQ:
Ghost Quarter 2
~exactly the same as GQ1 except it only destroys OPPONENT's lands that produce colorless
If you destroy a land in this way, you may search your library for a basic land card and put it into your hand.
Now at least it replaces itself making it a 1 for 1, unlike GQ which is a 0 for 1. The land goes into your hand so you still suffer a development setback.
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
I've been on both sides of this kind of choice many times.
As the control player, nothing terrifies me more than a quick clock when I don't have an immediate answer for it. I absolutely need to draw the answer quickly or I risk falling too far behind (or outright losing). The more draw steps I get without pressure, the more time I can spend sculpting my hand and drawing answers. There's not much more that I hated when playing Control than playing the "cross fingers and hope to draw the right answer" game. Whatever those percentage points are, they're not favorable, and not even half of a coin flip. Every draw step I get without pressure takes me closer to being able to control the game.
As the GDS player, if I jam an early Angler after multiple discard spells, I'm massively ahead and working with near perfect knowledge. I know you have no way of dealing with it and I know the chances of you drawing it are minimal (and increased with each successive draw). I am the aggressor and I set the pace of the game. You have to deal with this Angler right now or you likely lose, especially if I untap with Denial. As the aggressor, I have to pressure you and hope you whiff on your one draw step, because I am surely not winning the long game against a huge suite of card draw, removal, counters, and planeswalkers designed to wreck my deck. Also, Supreme Verdict is not stopped by Stubborn Denial. Knowing Verdict is in the deck, I want the Angler to get in as much as it can before dying. One less attack step means 5 less damage; that could be the deciding factor in a close game.
Yup exactly this.
The verdict isn't going away so I'd rather get some damage from my Angler and get it out of your hand as fast as possible. Doing what you suggest I get no damage out of angler. Jamming it now forces your hand on verdict and you only get 1 critter with it. Now the path is clear for my other beaters. Not to mention the push removing your wall and angler hitting for 10 possibility.
Waiting to cast the angler here is stupid, he will still die to Verdict. Sorry ktk you are just wrong about this. I also think you are wrong about your other scenario where the guy had a 77% chance to get his land.
These responses don't make a lot of sense. What does tapping out gain you? Remember, I have Wall to block for one turn, so Angler isn't even connecting until T5. Why open up that T3 to my outs? I didn't even add the two Gideon of the Trials copies which brick Angler forever and buy me even more time. Now we're up to about a 20% chance of me getting the out with no chance for the DS player to interact. By waiting, you only open yourself up to a topdecked Leak. SV into Leak doesn't even get there; you can actually still counter it with Spike-mode Denial! Is one extra swing on T5 worth opening yourself to that 20% chance of a blowout? The cost of waiting is a roughly 8% chance of a straight Leak topdeck.
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
When I play Modern, I don't want to allow my opponent to play to their outs. I want those outs as improbable as possible. More than doubling the chance of their out from 2/25 to 1/5 is a needlessly risky play.
So you would do nothing and drag the game out into the turns where i have no chance at all to win? No thanks. Maybe I have a fatal push or terminate for your wall so we are looking at 10 damage off angler. Now you are forced to tap out for supreme verdict, and maybe I play Kommand at your eot and basically win the game right there.
You have to play to win. Your line of thinking gives the grixis player no chance at all to win. I'm not buying it.
Surely play the Angler is the correct play in almost all cases. What's the advantage of waiting around for you to draw a counter spell or removal?
That's variance / luck / Magic / whatever you want to call it pure and simple.
I disagree here. If he waits, the only card he needs to worry about is Mana Leak. Most UW lists won't run more than 3 (format/metagame knowledge moment), and I can't even cantrip into them off Wall/Seas/Think Twice and have mana to cast it. So that means I need to topdeck either Leak (3 hits, 46 misses) or SV into Leak. That's about a 7% chance: much better odds than the 14% chance of hitting Path. Even if he doesn't know my exact list and assumes I'm running 4 Leaks or Knots, that's only a 9%-10% chance of a hit which is still much better than the 14% chance of that Path hit.
If I draw Verdict, he's losing Angler either way; is that extra 5 points of damage really worth it when he has K-Command to answer a sorcery speed Verdict anyway?
Also, my math above did not include the odds of drawing Detention Sphere. Those two copies increase all my hits dramatically, so now we're at a roughly 16%-17% chance of getting the removal spell.
So, what do you think? Should the opponent have waited to Angler on their T4 when they had guaranteed Denial backup? Or was it right to jam Angler there?
I loved playing aggressive decks when Think Twice, Azorius Charm, and Supreme Verdict reigned... Supreme... in Standard and had many scenarios that were similar to what you described. I also played Jund and the old BG Rock deck back then. Even though I've seen the results, I can say that what I would do in that scenario would depend a lot on what else was in my hand and what game of the match it was. In game 3 (or 2 if I lost 1) I would absolutely hold until I had Stubborn Denial backup. The analysis isn't even based on math. It's just a quick mental list check of what cards/draws crush me if I were to play the threat then, and how that differs the next turn.
Like you, I would have waited. I've made similar slower but safer plays in various matchups and been rewarded far more often than I've been punished. Examples include holding up extra mana in case Living End takes you off a land with Beast/Mage, playing around Judge's Familiar or Thalia in D&T, watching for Denial as a Force Spike against DS, etc. This gets back to De Mars' recent article about minimizing decisions that can immediately cost you a loss.
No way. You play the angler. The longer this game goes on the better chance UW has of taking control. Even if we use your best estimate of 17% chance of removal thats still 83% chance you brick for at least 1 turn. You casting Supreme Verdict to sweep a single angler is a trade thats in ultimately in my favor. No, you play the angler and hope for a swing or 2. If im the grixis play I need to get you in lethal range as fast as possible before you can cast a big ol sphinx's revelation, or start snapcastering cryptics.
Legend said it perfectly about the balance of the urza lands.
Memory lapse made a good point too about what people think when they hear "tron" deck, I agree that I don't think of e.tron or mono U tron either even though they both use the tron lands. I played mono U for a long time and assembling tron isn't top priority,its much slower.
Would tron be so hated if it wasn't for turn 3 karn? For the most part I feel that's what the issue is, not the lands themselves. Ugin, ulamog, emmy, all these huge threats are turn four or more.
Ban Karn and the deck changes from a polarized nightmare to a perfectly fair deck.
End result of this thread = BAN KARN!
I'll do it with a concurrent ban of Liliana of the Veil. Sounds good right? (I already know your answer)
Why bring up Liliana? We aren't even talking about that. Spam.
No need to play coy, you know what I'm asking. Would you agree to ban both Karn and LotV at the same time? If Karn is too oppressive as a possible turn 3 play then why isn't Lily too oppressive at a DEFINITE turn 3 play? Simple question and definitely in the bounds of the thread. I'm genuinely curious. Remember I LIKE 8rack and all its variants and still play my 8Rackdos deck on certain occasions. I hate Affinity but I'm not calling for a ban of anything in it. Heck Black has answers to planes walkers as well as discard. Try finding an answer to planeswalkers in colorless and about the only real answer are 7 cmc cards. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on Karn and move on.
Are you seriously comparing a turn 3 lili to a turn 3 karn? Really? For starters one costs 3 and was designed around being cast on the third turn. The other costs 7 and was never intended to land on turn 3. WOTC designs cards for standard play. Karn coming out on turn 3 is a byproduct of the eternal format where urza lands are still around. So yeah I think karn on turn 3 is a little more obnoxious than a lili on turn 3.
So your whole opinion on luck vs skill in Magic is clearly colored by your abject hatred for pro players. Got it, thanks for making that clear on page 4.
Hatred isn't the right word: shame, embarrassment, and pity feel more accurate.
And I think it's relevant. The discussion is about luck vs. skill, so the "pros" should be examined. But I feel they should be examined with a measured approach. Are they good at MTG? Yes absolutely. But are they measurably better than some of the experts that post here or are they just a small group of decent players that make the highly questionable life choice to go on tour to play MTG professionally? I think you know where I stand, but you should ask yourself how much weight you should be putting behind the opinion of a person like that.
Bottom line is luck and skill both play a huge role in this game. We don't have a Lebron James of MTG because the luck of variance makes consistency unattainable for any one person. But we also have skill playing enough of a part that a small group of "pros" can generally outplay the local yokels at various tourneys around the world. Especially when they get to skip by the early round where rogue decks could screw up they net decking strategies.
Legend said it perfectly about the balance of the urza lands.
Memory lapse made a good point too about what people think when they hear "tron" deck, I agree that I don't think of e.tron or mono U tron either even though they both use the tron lands. I played mono U for a long time and assembling tron isn't top priority,its much slower.
Would tron be so hated if it wasn't for turn 3 karn? For the most part I feel that's what the issue is, not the lands themselves. Ugin, ulamog, emmy, all these huge threats are turn four or more.
Ban Karn and the deck changes from a polarized nightmare to a perfectly fair deck.
End result of this thread = BAN KARN!
Sure if you call casting Ulamogs, Ugins, and other eldrazi essentially above curve still perfectly fair. Karn is not the reason the deck is hated.
All those thing are 1 turn slower and without the redundancy of Karn, far less of a problem. Turn 3 Karn is by far the greatest offender. Give us a colorless stripmine, or ban Karn and the deck becomes more fair. Also I've said multiple times before I have no problem with eldrazis in general.
I'm pretty sure the Pros found colourless eldrazi when no one else did. Sure, with colourless eldrazi in the meta other eldrazi builds were ended up being superior - but those were found by pros as well.
And you're totally wrong. Eldrazi was an established archetype well before the "Eldrazi Winter" when every "pro" adopted the deck. People were experimenting with everything from colorless to black, blue and eventually what became bant eldrazi. The pros settled on colorless, mostly. That doesn't mean the pros invented colorless. Pros are not to be revered or emulated. They are to be questioned about their life choices and silently mocked (my opinion).
Can I ask you how many Pro Players you've played before or known as a person? Because I have played many Pro Players in the past. They are most certainly much better than the average player and have even slight edges over the seasoned Grinder/Semi Pro Player. They have dedicated more time than most people. They have practiced at a high level for a long time. They have many natural skills in the game as well. Sorry, I just don't buy that they are about the same skill as you and me. There is honestly no Pro that I've played more than 4 times before that I have above a 50% win rate against. And my win percentage is 65.4% as of today at kavu.ru, (gone down a bit in the past 2 years) which is not too shabby.
Joe Lossett is local, although he's hardly around anymore. There are others who I won't name that I see consistently top 8ing PPTQs and even GPs occasionally (more Semi Pro than full Pro).
And why would we mock them for doing what they love? I have a *****ty job. I'm a teacher, yes, someone with a Master's Degree that only makes a teacher's salary (which McDonald's managers would probably also laugh at with you). But I have peace of mind doing what I enjoy doing and what I'm good at. I don't need to be like others that have degrees and are making triple figures to be happy. I'm sorry, but that last sentence about "silently mocked" really struck a chord with me. I honestly don't care who thinks I'm stupid for having a low paying job. It's what I want to do, at least at this point in life. (and yes, I spent a lot of money for school to not get much back in return. I'm not telling others that it's smart to do so, but I will tell others to follow what they enjoy.)
You are not anywhere close to them. You are a teacher, and yes you probably should make more money. You are working a regular job making your ends meet. Furthermore you are actually helping future adults, making lasting impressions aka "doing good".
What good are these pros doing? They are the epitome of selfishness, avoiding actual work to try and squeak out a pathetic existence playing a damn fantasy card game. And I absolutely LOVE that fantasy card card! But if either of my sons came to me and told me they wanted to play MTG for a living I would square their asses away faster than you can say Fatal Push.
It's one thing to work a job you love even though it pays *****, because you love it and it has meaning. It's another thing to try and play a game to pay your bills. I'm sorry but the idea of doing that is ridiculous to me. Anyone who would choose to do this has bad judgment and life skills, is lazy and selfish and not too bright. It would be one thing if the 150~ "pros" all had endorsement contracts, sponsors and millions of dollars. But they don't, because it's not a legit professional sport. It's just a game. A great game to be sure, but it's just a hobby. You don't escape real life by dumping whole future into what should be just a hobby.
Now that we have established that, I think we can look at what the pros are doing in a whole new context ie take it with a huge grain of salt.
So 77% chance of drawing the land if you do all the math. But on the fly there is no hard math to review before you make a decision. Like in poker, experts play by "feel". Keeping a 2 lander in hopes of drawing a 3rd land "feels" like a solid choice to me. The math makes it as close as you can get to a safe bet that you're likely to find in MTG. Is it a guarantee? No, but nothing is a guarantee.
Now I believe that ktk is a good player and as such he should probably retract his earlier statement. IMO he just got a bad case of hindsight being an exact science.
They also go by math. In this case the math works out, and a good poker player knows he has X outs and there's Y cards remaining to do the math. I have from time to time done the math on sketchy hands after the fact to reaffirm/deny my decisions.
Actual outs are always unknown, thus any on the fly math is sketchy at best. To continue the poker example you may think you have 8 outs left but your opponents are holding 4 of those 8. Your estimate is off by 50%. It certainly does give the play a "feel" for what's left in the deck, which was my point.
It's called commiseration. It feels good to know that a deck I hate for both rational and irrational reasons is also hated by others for the same and other reasons. Quit being such a turd in the punch bowl.
You can try with souls but the mana curve becomes pretty top heavy. I had great success with Pox + Myth Realized to achieve the effect you are describing. Not to say that souls wont work - you should try both and see what you think.
Kind of like when the monster rolls a 20 in D&D - PLayer: but wait! That's BS!!!
You're just trolling! Lands that produce black mana can't be combined to produce SEVEN black mana! It's not even a fair comparison and you know it. Also to be clear in my above Ghost Quarter 2 card, you BOTH get a basic land, your opponent gets one on the table, you get one in hand.
Seems pretty balanced to me.
I agree 100% with this, and it's a real part of the game.
That said, I'm much more interested to see if Ktk will actually be able to see the light around his anecdote.
Ghost Quarter 2
~exactly the same as GQ1 except it only destroys OPPONENT's lands that produce colorless
If you destroy a land in this way, you may search your library for a basic land card and put it into your hand.
Now at least it replaces itself making it a 1 for 1, unlike GQ which is a 0 for 1. The land goes into your hand so you still suffer a development setback.
The verdict isn't going away so I'd rather get some damage from my Angler and get it out of your hand as fast as possible. Doing what you suggest I get no damage out of angler. Jamming it now forces your hand on verdict and you only get 1 critter with it. Now the path is clear for my other beaters. Not to mention the push removing your wall and angler hitting for 10 possibility.
Waiting to cast the angler here is stupid, he will still die to Verdict. Sorry ktk you are just wrong about this. I also think you are wrong about your other scenario where the guy had a 77% chance to get his land.
Hmm.
So you would do nothing and drag the game out into the turns where i have no chance at all to win? No thanks. Maybe I have a fatal push or terminate for your wall so we are looking at 10 damage off angler. Now you are forced to tap out for supreme verdict, and maybe I play Kommand at your eot and basically win the game right there.
You have to play to win. Your line of thinking gives the grixis player no chance at all to win. I'm not buying it.
No way. You play the angler. The longer this game goes on the better chance UW has of taking control. Even if we use your best estimate of 17% chance of removal thats still 83% chance you brick for at least 1 turn. You casting Supreme Verdict to sweep a single angler is a trade thats in ultimately in my favor. No, you play the angler and hope for a swing or 2. If im the grixis play I need to get you in lethal range as fast as possible before you can cast a big ol sphinx's revelation, or start snapcastering cryptics.
You hitting a 17% rip is luck.
That's variance / luck / Magic / whatever you want to call it pure and simple.
Are you seriously comparing a turn 3 lili to a turn 3 karn? Really? For starters one costs 3 and was designed around being cast on the third turn. The other costs 7 and was never intended to land on turn 3. WOTC designs cards for standard play. Karn coming out on turn 3 is a byproduct of the eternal format where urza lands are still around. So yeah I think karn on turn 3 is a little more obnoxious than a lili on turn 3.
And I think it's relevant. The discussion is about luck vs. skill, so the "pros" should be examined. But I feel they should be examined with a measured approach. Are they good at MTG? Yes absolutely. But are they measurably better than some of the experts that post here or are they just a small group of decent players that make the highly questionable life choice to go on tour to play MTG professionally? I think you know where I stand, but you should ask yourself how much weight you should be putting behind the opinion of a person like that.
Bottom line is luck and skill both play a huge role in this game. We don't have a Lebron James of MTG because the luck of variance makes consistency unattainable for any one person. But we also have skill playing enough of a part that a small group of "pros" can generally outplay the local yokels at various tourneys around the world. Especially when they get to skip by the early round where rogue decks could screw up they net decking strategies.
All those thing are 1 turn slower and without the redundancy of Karn, far less of a problem. Turn 3 Karn is by far the greatest offender. Give us a colorless stripmine, or ban Karn and the deck becomes more fair. Also I've said multiple times before I have no problem with eldrazis in general.
You are not anywhere close to them. You are a teacher, and yes you probably should make more money. You are working a regular job making your ends meet. Furthermore you are actually helping future adults, making lasting impressions aka "doing good".
What good are these pros doing? They are the epitome of selfishness, avoiding actual work to try and squeak out a pathetic existence playing a damn fantasy card game. And I absolutely LOVE that fantasy card card! But if either of my sons came to me and told me they wanted to play MTG for a living I would square their asses away faster than you can say Fatal Push.
It's one thing to work a job you love even though it pays *****, because you love it and it has meaning. It's another thing to try and play a game to pay your bills. I'm sorry but the idea of doing that is ridiculous to me. Anyone who would choose to do this has bad judgment and life skills, is lazy and selfish and not too bright. It would be one thing if the 150~ "pros" all had endorsement contracts, sponsors and millions of dollars. But they don't, because it's not a legit professional sport. It's just a game. A great game to be sure, but it's just a hobby. You don't escape real life by dumping whole future into what should be just a hobby.
Now that we have established that, I think we can look at what the pros are doing in a whole new context ie take it with a huge grain of salt.