I don't think there's any stage of the game I'm unhappy to have Read the Bones in hand. Easy to cast on t3 and always awesome to draw it when you've 10+ lands out.
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I prefer the ability to steadily generate cards over turns instead of drawing a couple cards right now.
Would you rather start with Future Sight or Night's Whisper in your opening grip? Obviously landing a Phyrexian Arena on turn 2 and riding it for 10 turns is going to be superior to Sign in Blood, but that's an unfair comparison. You have to look at two things: the draw per mana cost, and the immediacy. Engines tend to be much better at draw per mana cost, assuming they stick around, but their immediacy is generally lacking (Future Sight is kind of an exception which elevates it greatly). That's what's so amazing about these cheap cantrips, their draw per mana is fairly okay but their immediacy is what makes them great.
Then again, I think cramming Brainstorm/Ponder/etc into every blue deck is stupid, so what to I know?
I mean, I didn't say it.
Blue's cantrips, like the Black lose two/draw two cards, are versatile and powerful at every stage of the game. I've often read that those lose two/draw twos are Black's cantrips, which isn't a bad comparison. As Hunding Gjornersen intimated, they both dig for early land drops and turn into powerful card selection for cheap in the late game.
I do not recall ever saying the black draw spells were bad, simply that I don't run them. Granted, I never really got to the point of the thread, which was which black-lose-life draw spell do you prefer, but I just wanted to state my opinion on the matter: the OP seemed to assume that all black decks are running some sort of variation on that card type (sorry if I got that wrong), and I wanted to offer a counter. As you said, the power of gradual draw is more relevant the longer you can use it, and that is what I prefer about them. I comprehend that drawing cards now is better if you need cards now.
As for my comment on blue cantrips, I suppose "stupid" was not the best word I could have used, "silly" might have been more apt. As with the previous chunk of text, I understand that the card manipulation provided by Brainstorm and friends is powerful, I just do not want to put them in every blue deck I build. Having played Magic for any amount of time, I understand that drawing cards is powerful at all points in the game.
When drawing in my non-blue black decks, I prefer things like Lyzolda/Reassembling Skeleton or Grim Backwoods with Ondu Giant variants. Yes they take a long time to get going, but I like that aspect of them. The theme of this whole thread seemed to be preference, if we are instead talking about technically best I will rescind my statements.
Sign in Blood and Night's Whisper are good deals for their mana costs and I'm not against running those, but if I'm paying 3+ mana for a draw spell that doesn't impact the board somehow, I feel like I could be finding my card advantage in another way than just drawing cards.
However, Read the Bones has a home in Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, because scry is important for the goblin man.
Both types of effects are useful, of course, but you have to be aware that yes, your card could die to a boardwipe right away, or just eat a removal spell. (The doublers Thought Reflection and Alhammarret's Archive are huge targets.) The latter isn't all that bad, since they'll use it on something, regardless of what you do, but it is annoying.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I run Night's Whisper and Read the Bones in virtually every black deck I have. Sign in Blood always makes the cut in mono-B decks, too. These cards are waaaaaay under-rated in this format, often even by people who support them. Consider Armillary Sphere. Especially in budget and/or non-green decks, this dinky little artifact is in extremely wide use as a way to fix colors and hit land drops early in the game. It's very very good at that task, making most 2-land opening hands that include it perfectly keepable. I was really high on this card for a long time, running it in every deck I had. Things were great, at first. I was hitting land drops, had the right colors to cast my spells, and enjoyed the benefits of going up a card. But then I started drawing Armillary Sphere on turns 10-12, where it's essentially a paper-weight. That's when it occurred to me that Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood and Read the Bones also let you keep a lot of land-light hands while not stinking up the place when drawn later in the game. These cards add consistency to your early game and card advantage (and in the case of Read the Bones, substantial card selection) to your mid and late games.
I think this best explains why these cards are good. It also explains why Ponder/Preordain/Serum Visions/Brainstorm are good. Any kind of early game draw is awesome for purposes of keeping your early game on track. If you don't need it then you cash it in for gas once you get down to 2 or 3 cards in hand. You don't get that kind of versatility out of cards like Phyrexian Arena (which offers other advantages) and I think that is personally why I like them so much. When Read the Bones was released I bought a copy for every single Commander deck I have with black in it and to date, they all still have their copy intact. The ability to scry before draw, as someone else has mentioned, is the real key to the cards power. Its basically a Black Preordain that nets you an extra card for 2 more mana.
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I think that three mana is a pretty bad place for one-use draw spells personally. The thing is that on turns 1 through 3, you rarely need MORE cards, what you might need is BETTER cards. That's why a turn 1 Brainstorm is so good. Sign in Blood is good in this format more because it lets you see two more cards than because it's card advantage, IMO. The thing with 3 CMC draw spells is that, while Read the Bones provides excellent card selection, you have to cast it on a turn when you'd rather be doing something else. I think of turn 3 as being the vital turn to be starting to build a board presence in (less-competitive) EDH. I'd rather be casting a creature than a draw spell. Plus, when you draw Read the Bones on turn 6, it being 3 CMC rather than 2 CMC is a big deal in terms of being able to cast it and do something else as well. I dislike 3 CMC ramp for the same reason.
Turn 5 or 6, of course, is when you really start needing more cards, but that's when you want the BIG draw spells like Necrologia (or when you want to have cast Phyrexian Arena three turns ago).
tl;dr - My feeling is that one-off draw spells should either be cheap enough that it's almost free to cycle them mid-game, or big enough that they give you a proper hand refill.
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UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Clearly someone who unfamiliar with Bane of Progress and Austere Command.
On phasing:
I mean sure Austere Command hits Lyzolda and Reassembling Skeleton, but those cards can come back.
I do not recall ever saying the black draw spells were bad, simply that I don't run them. Granted, I never really got to the point of the thread, which was which black-lose-life draw spell do you prefer, but I just wanted to state my opinion on the matter: the OP seemed to assume that all black decks are running some sort of variation on that card type (sorry if I got that wrong), and I wanted to offer a counter. As you said, the power of gradual draw is more relevant the longer you can use it, and that is what I prefer about them. I comprehend that drawing cards now is better if you need cards now.
As for my comment on blue cantrips, I suppose "stupid" was not the best word I could have used, "silly" might have been more apt. As with the previous chunk of text, I understand that the card manipulation provided by Brainstorm and friends is powerful, I just do not want to put them in every blue deck I build. Having played Magic for any amount of time, I understand that drawing cards is powerful at all points in the game.
When drawing in my non-blue black decks, I prefer things like Lyzolda/Reassembling Skeleton or Grim Backwoods with Ondu Giant variants. Yes they take a long time to get going, but I like that aspect of them. The theme of this whole thread seemed to be preference, if we are instead talking about technically best I will rescind my statements.
Sorry for my tone.
However, Read the Bones has a home in Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, because scry is important for the goblin man.
I was more referring to cards like Phyrexian Arena and Dark Confidant.
Both types of effects are useful, of course, but you have to be aware that yes, your card could die to a boardwipe right away, or just eat a removal spell. (The doublers Thought Reflection and Alhammarret's Archive are huge targets.) The latter isn't all that bad, since they'll use it on something, regardless of what you do, but it is annoying.
On phasing:
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
I think this best explains why these cards are good. It also explains why Ponder/Preordain/Serum Visions/Brainstorm are good. Any kind of early game draw is awesome for purposes of keeping your early game on track. If you don't need it then you cash it in for gas once you get down to 2 or 3 cards in hand. You don't get that kind of versatility out of cards like Phyrexian Arena (which offers other advantages) and I think that is personally why I like them so much. When Read the Bones was released I bought a copy for every single Commander deck I have with black in it and to date, they all still have their copy intact. The ability to scry before draw, as someone else has mentioned, is the real key to the cards power. Its basically a Black Preordain that nets you an extra card for 2 more mana.
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Turn 5 or 6, of course, is when you really start needing more cards, but that's when you want the BIG draw spells like Necrologia (or when you want to have cast Phyrexian Arena three turns ago).
tl;dr - My feeling is that one-off draw spells should either be cheap enough that it's almost free to cycle them mid-game, or big enough that they give you a proper hand refill.