Ah my bad, I looked a few pages back and saw nothing on it, and thought no one brought it up. I really got to get up to date with using the search thing.
Seems like most people are unimpressed and would rather what we already got.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
thanks for all the info guys. I decided to go half way, bought 2 thoughtseize and will use 2 duress. I figure at least thoughtseize will retain its value if I decide it's not worth it. Also, didn't even know distress existed, so thanks for that!
The big knock on distress is the mana cost. Two mana is a surprisingly big deal and many times you will get it and wished you could play it a turn earlier. At 2 mana you can be playing hymn to tourach which is lightyears better.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Spirit was playing well, but had the whole "dies to a stiff breeze" and "Golgari Charm is Damnation" syndrome going on. Then again, that was a problem that the whole deck was having.
Therefore, I replaced the more expensive trickery (Wisp, Mindcensor, Mangara) with a few resilient beaters that carry equipment well. In a format where everyone is sideboarding in -1/-1 effects, it hurts to have 3-drops that just keel over to it. By reducing the top end and making it beefier, we just keep Vial on 2 and represent any number of serious blowouts, such as Arbiter, Spirit, Avenger, a sandbagged Revoker, or Warder/Canonist out of the sideboard. Meanwhile, we can use our Wastelands and Ports more aggressively.
Thoughts?
Arbiter is kinda bad. His search thing hits us as well, making it very hard to get SFM to be any good, and is another nonbo with enlightened tutor that many people run. The fact that he is in the deck taking up your 4th revoker and thalia spot seems like its actually doing more hurt than good. If you are really worried about -1/-1 effects you could run honor of the pure, or just run some of the lads with bigger butts that are more useful. I would rather maindeck a cannonist than put arbiter in any day of the week. Also, Mangara shouldn't be dying to -1/-1 effects, generally you vial him in at opp's EOT and then use his ability and karakas so he's back in hand before your opponent is casting something to kill him. And wisp is just a good enough card that I would rather run it and have it die to -1/-1 effects than to have him never have existed in the first place. I find it odd that you want to build resiliency against -1/-1 effects and then take out the good cards with small butts, but leave in spirit. Not that spirit is bad, I just don't think its a better card in this deck than thalia or revoker.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Duress will do its job and and hit the problem cards you need it to most of the time. It depends on your deck and their deck, but generally if you are playing black you have plenty of access to creature removal so it will do fine. If you were taking this to a larger tournament, I would say pay the extra for at least inquisition, but if its just for casual, duress will do more than fine. I played it in my mono-black deck for gosh, 12 years now? And so far it hasn't let me down.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Mono-black discard like to win from the rack/shrieking affliction. its very powerful and can be easily built on a budget. Plus you get to run hymn to tourach which is one of the most ballin cards in magic.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
I can see why "Honor of the Pure" would be a "Win-more" card, but while I don't care about that card at all, there's a bad piece of logic that needs to be righted.
Sometimes a card that "only increases aggro" or "requires you to be ahead" is good to have. Tombstalker in Pox is a good example. You can't really pox while he's here and you have to have pretty well decimated their hand; however, you DO need to finish the game before they get back on their feet.
If D&T gets ahead, stalls, and they find land + boardwipe and come back; you lost despite saying "LOL I don't need no aggro Boy, I GOTS ME CONTROL!"
I get that the deck is aggro oriented in the first place; but it's a good reminder IMO that you should dismiss Honor because it doesn't do anything by itself and that drawing multiples of it would be disheartening when you just need a critter; not because it's an "aggro" card.
Which leads me to Brimaz and the above post; I also feel that relying on Jitte and Batterskull (or the 3/x flyers now) means there may be room for a 2-of "just a beater"; after all, that's all Avenger is. Brimaz, to me, takes up Avenger slots; but is then subject to comparison with Crusader and Vial issues.
Honestly, IMO, Brimaz should be looked at from the point of view of:
-If they have a Goyf, he can't attack or block
-Same with KotR
-Same with TNN
-etc..
He's powerful, but your fatness comes from SFM and your Goyf/TNN/KotR counter-beats come from flyers.
While we're on the topic of HOTP, might as well pitch in my two cents.
Honor of the pure is a creature enhancer, so its natural spot to be run in would be the slots that SFM and the equips take up. Any other spot and you're running way to much buff and not enough dudes. So it has to be looked at SFM and friends.
Both have their upsides, Honor is "faster" in that it just costs 2-3 mana where most of the time getting say, a jitte, requires a 4 mana investment to put into play and equip, as well as the 2 mana to (sometimes) play stoneforge. This usually takes at least 2 turns to get the thing in play and equipped. Honor does come out and give it's buff immediately. In terms or just power and toughness buff, it will give varying amounts based on how many lads you got on the field but will usually give similar-ish numbers on average to the equips. Yes, batterskull will usually give more, but a jitte will give less usually, so they come out about even in that department.
But the real match breaker is the one thing Honor doesn't do at all; abilities. All the equipment we run give some form of tech, jitte usually gives us removal and occasional lifegain on top of the +2/+2's, batterskull gives lifelink most importantly, as well as defensive abilities though vigilance, and the ability to bounce itself. Sword of ice and fire gives protection, card draw and removal/extra damage. Honor's main advantage is the fact that if it eats SFm's spot then you technically gain some spots as the 7 spots for SFM and equips is now only used by 4 cards. Honor is also a crap-ton cheaper than SFM and friends.
So end of the day, HOTP is faster and a good budget replacement, but the abilities provided by the equips are so powerful that we are willing to take a bit more time to get a more game changing effect. The equips are also more reliable in that the power/toughness they give is not going to change, Honor could give nothing if you got no guys, where a batterskull from a SFM would be an almost small army just from playing a stoneforge.
EDIT: my thoughts on brimaz;
He's a competent beater that compares to avenger and crusader. None of these three cards are better or worse than the other, each one shines in some matches, and is mediocre in others. I think you could run any combination of the three and not do much different than we have been doing before. He's a good card and most certainly runnable, but I don't think he is any significant amount better than the guys we already run.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
anyone happen to know the ruling on what happens with a smallpox that then triggers another ability such as basking rootwalla or wilt-leaf liege? I am asking more for what happens if you cast a smallpox with a waste not on the board, and your opponent discards a creature to it. Does the trigger go on top of the stack and resolve before the rest of the smallpox or does the smallpox finish resolving entirely before the other triggers get to take effect?
So end result, would my opponent discarding a creature give me a token via waste not before or after the creature sacrifice of smallpox? I understand that all 3 cards technically have different mechanics so there could be 3 somewhat varied results. Answers to any or all are helpful.
For reference, Waste Not has the ability "whenever an opponent discards a creature card, put a 2/2 zombie token onto the battlefield."
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
How about a LED sideboard with enchantment hate? It means the Spy doesn't get blocked unlike sides which include Dyrid Arbor.
I would say FoW is a very bad idea. It's just unnecessary dilution. This decks defends by Probing and Cabal Therapying; striping their hand before we combo out.
For all the reasons stated above, as well as the fact that if you are gunna go with LED you would probably be better off just running mana dredge. Breakthrough and careful study and faithless looting would also be good here too, but at that point you are basically just going to find yourself playing LEDge.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
You were the one saying it's always better to be aggressive. I was trying to show the pros and cons, not prove that one is always better.
If it's the end of the second turn and all you've done is discard a dredger then you will have 0 creatures in play and 0 Bridge from Below in the GY. You went out of your way to remind me of that fact.
I've already listed some situations where it's better to play aggressively. I absolutely do not dispute the fact that it's sometimes the right call. You're telling everyone not to do the math and just use the Street Wraith aggressively all the time, which is ironically the same over-generalization you accuse me of making.
Edit: This is a competitive section of the forum. Your personal emotions on MtG are simply irrelevant. A line of play either maximizes your odds of winning or it does not. At the very least, urging people to play in a particular way you most enjoy is actively harmful to them if/when that style is suboptimal.
Edit 2: T1: Opp plays land, spell. T1: You draw, discard. T2: Opp plays 2nd land, spell.
So yes, you have 0 creatures in play and 0 Bridge from Below at this point.
I love how this creatures in play part comes up now. If that's what you meant in your post the first time you probably should have specified that. There is a tad bit of a difference, and the way you worded it makes it sound otherwise.
The bit on play style is not about emotion. If someone is of a different play style it does actually matter. Every player builds their deck slightly differently and their lines of play differs so there is differences in play style that you have to consider within each archtype. Look at D&T for instance, some decks go for mirran crusader because he works well with equips and has good protections, while others go for avenger because it has 3 toughness and flies. One is more generally reliable but one has more potential offensive payout. Some lists run 3 mangara and some run none. Neither of these decks is better or worse than the other until look into the deep dark specifics. This is what I was talking about when I said you can't rule out someone else's playstyle just because its not yours. I'm not here to advocate for equallity here, I'm saying that my specific playstyle can't be ruled out just because you don't like it. I then go on to tell everyone why my playstyle is usually better. Is it a bit hypocritical, yes. But hypocite and wrong ain't synonyms. All your talk about how your up for making decisions and yet among all your evidence you put out you keep on going on about how the aggressive wraithing on turn 2 is almost never worth it. That and about half of what you were prattling on about wasn't even about turn 2.
But back to the actual problem at hand; If it's end of opp's second turn, there's two options. You either wraith or don't. Your whole arguments against wraithing are that 1. its a risk that it can wiff and 2. its not even going to have significant results. But the odds are actually quite good that it won't mess up, and the potential benefit is way more significant than you would like everyone to believe. I know this makes me a little bit of a hypocrite after what I just said in the above paragraph, but this is one of those times where you really shouldn't have much of a choice. The odds are good and the payoff is way too good that passing it up really isn't the best line of play 9 times out of 10. Call me a hypocrite and uncompetitive all you want but you still have yet to prove that wrong.
I don't care about the end result at this point, I know what it takes to win me games and what won't. If no one takes my advice then that's your problem. I don't even want the hypocrite to win. I want you to prove me wrong.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Since my above details of the 0 creatures 0 Bridge case were "not wrong" I'm going to just assume I've won this argument and move on.
Congratulations you won all the internets, all hail ajfirecracker who's ultimate knowledge has won every tournament ever. No need to play magic anymore, folks.
Oh but you never actually proved anything as to one playstyle (aggressive vs. careful) as actually being strictly better than the other. That 3 extra damage (or more if your dude turns into a zombie that can then attack next turn, so 5) can most certainly mean the difference of winning or losing. 5 potential extra damage is not something to just dismiss just so your argument looks better on the internet. The gamble of going for the little extra damage and, albeit unlikely, potential turn 2 kill give going for the early wraith play its merits. Telling people there is only one way someone should play their deck is simply naive. Obviously some people such as myself prefer to gamble (with an already risky deck) and take my chances at winning, and some people such as yourself prefer to go for consistancy.
EDIT: You also act like the wraith wiffing is going to happen significantly more than hitting good stuff, which is exactly the opposite of the actual odds. Your interest in winning internet arguements seems to be more important to you than actually telling people what's up.
EDIT AGAIN: 0 creatures and 0 bridges in yard is not the situation you will be in at end of Opp's second turn, unless you didn't discard a dredgeer or gorian for some odd reason
THIRD EDIT: After looking back at you post I take back what I said about you being right. You completely neglected the fact that it is quite possible to get more than 1 beater in the yard through gorian or good dredges, meaning the potential damage from an early start can get you anywhere between 1-10 potential extra damage within reasonable odds, and straight up lethal damage in fringe cases. And you also failed to note that a creature on turn 2 means you can cast a therapy a turn earlier than before which can be the difference between winning or losing against a ton of decks, like storm or belcher for starters.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
No, I am still right. You can make an informed decision. For example, if you have 0 Bridge from Below in the graveyard and 3+ creatures already, the extra upkeep (only for those 4-6 cards) is 3 damage if you're lucky, more likely nothing at all.
Simlarly, if you have 0 creatures and 0 Bridge from Below, the extra upkeep is probably just a few damage, not actually anything substantive.
If your hand is full of dredgers, the risk of whiffing is quite high - so don't push the deck unless you have to.
If you're in a winning position, but only have 1 type of dredger (as in the examples we discussed) you might hold it so you can make hate whiff.
On the other hand I will tend to use SW more aggressively if it's a tight creature matchup and I need the bodies - or if I just need one more body to combo out.
It may be "hard" to play well, but that's no excuse for failing to make good choices.
You have bridges and other cards in your yard on your opponent's turn 2? OP was asking whether it was better for the blind wraith cycle on the opp's second turn, FYI. So yes, what you said wasn't wrong, it's just not on topic. For everything other than the end of opp's second turn you are quite right.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
An extra turn (Timewalk) would get you an extra card draw and an extra attack step. An early Street Wraith gets neither, as I showed. The benefit is more likely going to be 1 Ichorid animation than anything resembling a full turn.
It is sometimes worth the risk, but not always - I was trying to discuss the trade-offs and when each decision should be made.
It should be exceedingly obvious that knowing the pros/cons of a line of play and deciding accordingly is better than blindly picking whatever usually works and always doing that.
While it is lovely to know the pros and cons, the decision making is awfully hard to do when you know nothing about the arrangement of cards on top of your deck. If we had ways to see those cards with a top or something you would be right in trying to maximize wraith's draw. But we don't, so we have to play the odds. 9 times out of 10 the early wraith will give us the head start we need and very rarely does it wiff. Since we have know way of knowing what were gunna dredge the right line of play should be to go for it baring knowledge of hate or something that would change your mind.
and most of our creatures have haste so an ichorid or shadow recursion means we basically do get an "extra" attack phase, since you'll be attacking with nothing if you don't recur it.
It is sometimes worth the risk, but not always - I was trying to discuss the trade-offs and when each decision should be made.
While this is true, the number of times it's worth is much more than the times when its not. Since we have no way of knowing what were gunna dredge you do have to make a blind call in a sense.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Summation: If RiP and Leylines are being handed out like candy, play something else.
You are right, if there's little hate then dredge is a fine deck. Unfortunately that's not the case. Any tourny that's not just at your LGS is going to have experienced players who know better than to leave home without good yard hate. That and RiP is huge in any group with white decks. D&T has been rocking the big tournies lately and they are packing a deck full of hate. In fringe cases RiP is even a main decked card to stop gooses and goyfs and as part of the helm combo.
Not trying to say the deck is bad or anything, but Legacy is all about the metagame and we're sitting on the uglier side of the status quo.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Ah my bad, I looked a few pages back and saw nothing on it, and thought no one brought it up. I really got to get up to date with using the search thing.
Seems like most people are unimpressed and would rather what we already got.
Legendary Artifact - Equipment
Equipped creature gets +3/+3.
Whenever equipped creature blocks or becomes blocked by one or more creatures, you may exile one of those creatures.
Opponents can't cast cards with the same name as cards exiled with Godsend.
Equip 3
cost- 1 W W
looks like it could definitely be interesting
The big knock on distress is the mana cost. Two mana is a surprisingly big deal and many times you will get it and wished you could play it a turn earlier. At 2 mana you can be playing hymn to tourach which is lightyears better.
Arbiter is kinda bad. His search thing hits us as well, making it very hard to get SFM to be any good, and is another nonbo with enlightened tutor that many people run. The fact that he is in the deck taking up your 4th revoker and thalia spot seems like its actually doing more hurt than good. If you are really worried about -1/-1 effects you could run honor of the pure, or just run some of the lads with bigger butts that are more useful. I would rather maindeck a cannonist than put arbiter in any day of the week. Also, Mangara shouldn't be dying to -1/-1 effects, generally you vial him in at opp's EOT and then use his ability and karakas so he's back in hand before your opponent is casting something to kill him. And wisp is just a good enough card that I would rather run it and have it die to -1/-1 effects than to have him never have existed in the first place. I find it odd that you want to build resiliency against -1/-1 effects and then take out the good cards with small butts, but leave in spirit. Not that spirit is bad, I just don't think its a better card in this deck than thalia or revoker.
While we're on the topic of HOTP, might as well pitch in my two cents.
Honor of the pure is a creature enhancer, so its natural spot to be run in would be the slots that SFM and the equips take up. Any other spot and you're running way to much buff and not enough dudes. So it has to be looked at SFM and friends.
Both have their upsides, Honor is "faster" in that it just costs 2-3 mana where most of the time getting say, a jitte, requires a 4 mana investment to put into play and equip, as well as the 2 mana to (sometimes) play stoneforge. This usually takes at least 2 turns to get the thing in play and equipped. Honor does come out and give it's buff immediately. In terms or just power and toughness buff, it will give varying amounts based on how many lads you got on the field but will usually give similar-ish numbers on average to the equips. Yes, batterskull will usually give more, but a jitte will give less usually, so they come out about even in that department.
But the real match breaker is the one thing Honor doesn't do at all; abilities. All the equipment we run give some form of tech, jitte usually gives us removal and occasional lifegain on top of the +2/+2's, batterskull gives lifelink most importantly, as well as defensive abilities though vigilance, and the ability to bounce itself. Sword of ice and fire gives protection, card draw and removal/extra damage. Honor's main advantage is the fact that if it eats SFm's spot then you technically gain some spots as the 7 spots for SFM and equips is now only used by 4 cards. Honor is also a crap-ton cheaper than SFM and friends.
So end of the day, HOTP is faster and a good budget replacement, but the abilities provided by the equips are so powerful that we are willing to take a bit more time to get a more game changing effect. The equips are also more reliable in that the power/toughness they give is not going to change, Honor could give nothing if you got no guys, where a batterskull from a SFM would be an almost small army just from playing a stoneforge.
EDIT: my thoughts on brimaz;
He's a competent beater that compares to avenger and crusader. None of these three cards are better or worse than the other, each one shines in some matches, and is mediocre in others. I think you could run any combination of the three and not do much different than we have been doing before. He's a good card and most certainly runnable, but I don't think he is any significant amount better than the guys we already run.
So end result, would my opponent discarding a creature give me a token via waste not before or after the creature sacrifice of smallpox? I understand that all 3 cards technically have different mechanics so there could be 3 somewhat varied results. Answers to any or all are helpful.
For reference, Waste Not has the ability "whenever an opponent discards a creature card, put a 2/2 zombie token onto the battlefield."
For all the reasons stated above, as well as the fact that if you are gunna go with LED you would probably be better off just running mana dredge. Breakthrough and careful study and faithless looting would also be good here too, but at that point you are basically just going to find yourself playing LEDge.
I love how this creatures in play part comes up now. If that's what you meant in your post the first time you probably should have specified that. There is a tad bit of a difference, and the way you worded it makes it sound otherwise.
The bit on play style is not about emotion. If someone is of a different play style it does actually matter. Every player builds their deck slightly differently and their lines of play differs so there is differences in play style that you have to consider within each archtype. Look at D&T for instance, some decks go for mirran crusader because he works well with equips and has good protections, while others go for avenger because it has 3 toughness and flies. One is more generally reliable but one has more potential offensive payout. Some lists run 3 mangara and some run none. Neither of these decks is better or worse than the other until look into the deep dark specifics. This is what I was talking about when I said you can't rule out someone else's playstyle just because its not yours. I'm not here to advocate for equallity here, I'm saying that my specific playstyle can't be ruled out just because you don't like it. I then go on to tell everyone why my playstyle is usually better. Is it a bit hypocritical, yes. But hypocite and wrong ain't synonyms. All your talk about how your up for making decisions and yet among all your evidence you put out you keep on going on about how the aggressive wraithing on turn 2 is almost never worth it. That and about half of what you were prattling on about wasn't even about turn 2.
But back to the actual problem at hand; If it's end of opp's second turn, there's two options. You either wraith or don't. Your whole arguments against wraithing are that 1. its a risk that it can wiff and 2. its not even going to have significant results. But the odds are actually quite good that it won't mess up, and the potential benefit is way more significant than you would like everyone to believe. I know this makes me a little bit of a hypocrite after what I just said in the above paragraph, but this is one of those times where you really shouldn't have much of a choice. The odds are good and the payoff is way too good that passing it up really isn't the best line of play 9 times out of 10. Call me a hypocrite and uncompetitive all you want but you still have yet to prove that wrong.
I don't care about the end result at this point, I know what it takes to win me games and what won't. If no one takes my advice then that's your problem. I don't even want the hypocrite to win. I want you to prove me wrong.
Congratulations you won all the internets, all hail ajfirecracker who's ultimate knowledge has won every tournament ever. No need to play magic anymore, folks.
Oh but you never actually proved anything as to one playstyle (aggressive vs. careful) as actually being strictly better than the other. That 3 extra damage (or more if your dude turns into a zombie that can then attack next turn, so 5) can most certainly mean the difference of winning or losing. 5 potential extra damage is not something to just dismiss just so your argument looks better on the internet. The gamble of going for the little extra damage and, albeit unlikely, potential turn 2 kill give going for the early wraith play its merits. Telling people there is only one way someone should play their deck is simply naive. Obviously some people such as myself prefer to gamble (with an already risky deck) and take my chances at winning, and some people such as yourself prefer to go for consistancy.
EDIT: You also act like the wraith wiffing is going to happen significantly more than hitting good stuff, which is exactly the opposite of the actual odds. Your interest in winning internet arguements seems to be more important to you than actually telling people what's up.
EDIT AGAIN: 0 creatures and 0 bridges in yard is not the situation you will be in at end of Opp's second turn, unless you didn't discard a dredgeer or gorian for some odd reason
THIRD EDIT: After looking back at you post I take back what I said about you being right. You completely neglected the fact that it is quite possible to get more than 1 beater in the yard through gorian or good dredges, meaning the potential damage from an early start can get you anywhere between 1-10 potential extra damage within reasonable odds, and straight up lethal damage in fringe cases. And you also failed to note that a creature on turn 2 means you can cast a therapy a turn earlier than before which can be the difference between winning or losing against a ton of decks, like storm or belcher for starters.
You have bridges and other cards in your yard on your opponent's turn 2? OP was asking whether it was better for the blind wraith cycle on the opp's second turn, FYI. So yes, what you said wasn't wrong, it's just not on topic. For everything other than the end of opp's second turn you are quite right.
While it is lovely to know the pros and cons, the decision making is awfully hard to do when you know nothing about the arrangement of cards on top of your deck. If we had ways to see those cards with a top or something you would be right in trying to maximize wraith's draw. But we don't, so we have to play the odds. 9 times out of 10 the early wraith will give us the head start we need and very rarely does it wiff. Since we have know way of knowing what were gunna dredge the right line of play should be to go for it baring knowledge of hate or something that would change your mind.
and most of our creatures have haste so an ichorid or shadow recursion means we basically do get an "extra" attack phase, since you'll be attacking with nothing if you don't recur it.
While this is true, the number of times it's worth is much more than the times when its not. Since we have no way of knowing what were gunna dredge you do have to make a blind call in a sense.
You are right, if there's little hate then dredge is a fine deck. Unfortunately that's not the case. Any tourny that's not just at your LGS is going to have experienced players who know better than to leave home without good yard hate. That and RiP is huge in any group with white decks. D&T has been rocking the big tournies lately and they are packing a deck full of hate. In fringe cases RiP is even a main decked card to stop gooses and goyfs and as part of the helm combo.
Not trying to say the deck is bad or anything, but Legacy is all about the metagame and we're sitting on the uglier side of the status quo.