izzet staticaster in the sideboard anyone? saw it in the SB of that PT winning uwr list, found it good against tokens and BB~ im running a list close to magicman's teachings list in the OP but with 1 Aotg, 1 damnation and 1 consume the meek in MB
So I played 6 rounds at a LGS, and fought robots, mill, twin, bogles, and storm.
Robots - Played them in back to back rounds, lost both rounds. Etched champion can only be matched with a field wipe. In some of the games, I never got it, in a few others, I never hit the mana.
Mill - I won the match by living the dream. I countered his initial burst of mill, then played ultimatum, which drew my 2nd ultimatum, which drew my third. Much ultimatum. So Cruel.
Bogles - I didn't have far // away. Lost pretty miserably.
Twin - Close close games. He got the combo off in game one. I tried to cruel ultimatum twice to no success. I added more counter spells and rakdos charm for game 2. I ran him out of gas, and killed him with a clique. In game 3, he hit all 4 snapcasters and all 4 lightning bolts. I learned that ultimatum is not a very good path to victory. Keeping open enough mana to protect the spell is very hard. I also learned that end of turn mystical teachings is actually risky. In game 3, I tapped out at the end of his turn for my teachings, and he slammed me with 2 bolts, then a 3rd snapcasted. Not very nice. I definitely think this matchup could use some batterskull action. He wore me down a bit with Tectonic Edge. I would like to run it, too, but with cruel ultimatum requiring a strict set of mana, idk if that's possible.
Storm - Game 1 I let him go for storm, only to bolt, snap, bolt for the win in response to his past in flames. In game 2, I hit a land pocket, and he stormed for a big grapeshot. In game 3, I played a pretty long counter war. It went my way when he countered rakdos charm targeting his graveyard, and I had the snapcaster to flash it back. Storm doesn't work without a graveyard, so I animated some lands and won.
I was not impressed by the storage lands. I got them to 2/3 a few times, but I'm not sure the mana was important.
Overall, the deck was fun to play, and it felt like I had some game against everything. The biggest problem with this deck is the complete lack of life gain other than our ultimatum. Against the very agro decks (robots, merfolk, zoo), not having a way to gain life until turn 7 or later is problematic.
Just use electrolyze on their end step to the face and draw a card if it becomes a dead card first game. I still find it plenty useful, then if it's useless against creatures in game one then it's easier to know which cards to sideboard out.
Alchemy is great. I wouldn't run less than 2. I'm switching to 4 augurs with the 2 alchemy to help dig for answers and provide some early blocking.
Yeah, alchemy is one potent sob. People are always complaining about not having Impulse and this is closest we can get. After playing with it for awhile, I now wish I switched out electrolyze for it way earlier
Unfortunately t3 we need to be playing answers or we're dead on opponent's turn 4 so having that dig is nice but a turn too late :/ I'm still going to try it in place of electrolyze, though.
I also took out my 4 Electrolyze's immediately following the bannings, but I instead put in 2 Counterflux (expecting more combo) and 2 Far // Away (should perhaps be Tribute to Hunger), and I really liked the change. Also, after having been beaten down too many times with Burn decks and Blue/Red combo decks, I additionally fit one Witchbane Orb in the side-board. That card has won me so many games that I am considering adding another in the side. I haven't experimented much with Forbidden Alchemy, but it seems like a decent digging can-trip with a late-game upside, and combos nicely with Snapcaster Mage.
Also, I like a 4/2 split between Mana Leak and Remand. Remand is such a neat trick and is quite mana-efficient. Note that I really see them as two very different spells, leaking is for disrupting their play, remanding is for disrupting their counters.
Unfortunately t3 we need to be playing answers or we're dead on opponent's turn 4 so having that dig is nice but a turn too late :/ I'm still going to try it in place of electrolyze, though.
I disagree with that, modern is tough but getting goldfished on t4 is actually kind of rare. It's even rarer still for electrolyze to be the the t3 play that prevents said goldfish
Unfortunately t3 we need to be playing answers or we're dead on opponent's turn 4 so having that dig is nice but a turn too late :/ I'm still going to try it in place of electrolyze, though.
I disagree with that, modern is tough but getting goldfished on t4 is actually kind of rare. It's even rarer still for electrolyze to be the the t3 play that prevents said goldfish
Well T4 is usually possible if you're against storm or an actual 'combo' deck, however it takes real, real balls to try to go off as POD or Twin against untapped mana on turn 4 and is basically not correct to attempt to do so most of the time. I was playing last night against a POD opponent with about 10 lands in play all untapped and 6 cards in hand. He POD'd a redcap into revelark with Spike feeder in play where if he had gotten Thune the game was over as i was sitting on all lands. Granted he still won that game pretty handily, but my point is he was far to afraid to try and go off, which was the correct play on his part
By the way, I have read Karsten Frank's article carefully and found it to be quite misleading. I tested it with respect to my own analysis program, and found the following:
First, his calculations are based on being on the draw, not on the play.
Second, he is ignoring the factor of not hitting your land drops. In a 24-land deck, for instance, the chance of hitting the third land-drop is 85.59% on the draw (78.87% on the play), thus having any "90%" rule for cards with CMC >= 3 is quite frankly, ludicrous.
Third, the table that you referred to can not be used for spells with colorless mana symbols in it. It is a big difference being able to cast 1UUU and UUU. What his table really reflects is the latter, not the former.
By the way, I have read Karsten Frank's article carefully and found it to be quite misleading. I tested it with respect to my own analysis program, and found the following:
First, his calculations are based on being on the draw, not on the play.
Nope, he meant specifically for his calculations to represent probabilities on the play, early on in his introduction he does preface his math with...
"Now suppose that I want to have a 90% guarantee to be able to cast, say, a turn one Thoughtseize on the play, and that I'm trying to figure out how many black sources my 60-card deck needs. I could translate this in mathematical terms by saying that I want to find the smallest integer number of black sources, denoted by B, such that the probability of having at least one black source in a random 7-card opening hand is no smaller than 90%. Since this probability is 1-{(60-B)!/(60-B-7)!}/{60!/53!}, I am looking for the smallest integer B for which 1-{(60-B)!/(60-B-7)!}/{60!/53!}≥0.9. Straightforward calculation reveals that the solution is to play 16 black sources. If you have experience with mana bases, then this number may seem overly large, and you would be right. There is a problem with this approach. Indeed, under the same logic, the number of red sources required to cast a third-turn Boros Reckoner 90% of the time turns out to be 29, which is clearly excessive."
Also in the formula he is using ( H(k,n,K,N) ), he is using the value of 7 for the number of draws, further proving that his calculations are based on being on the play since 7 draws is representative of keeping a hand on the play.
Second, he is ignoring the factor of not hitting your land drops. In a 24-land deck, for instance, the chance of hitting the third land-drop is 85.59% on the draw (78.87% on the play), thus having any "90%" rule for cards with CMC >= 3 is quite frankly, ludicrous.
I'm going to come back to this later after crunching the numbers and re-reading his article, I'm not entirely familiar with his formula but I believe that you're mistaking his evaluation/angle
Third, the table that you referred to can not be used for spells with colorless mana symbols in it. It is a big difference being able to cast 1UUU and UUU. What his table really reflects is the latter, not the former.
This isn't a combination of hitting the # of lands and the number of required color sources. He's calculating the probably of having UUU on t4, not 1UUU. He is calculating for the recommended numbers of colored sources in regards to mana intensity, not the casting cost as a whole
Nope, he meant specifically for his calculations to represent probabilities on the play, early on in his introduction he does preface his math with...
Okay, fair enough.
Also in the formula he is using ( H(k,n,K,N) ), he is using the value of 7 for the number of draws, further proving that his calculations are based on being on the play since 7 draws is representative of keeping a hand on the play.
It makes a fairly big difference in percentages, so it's important to keep this in mind.
I'm going to come back to this later after crunching the numbers and re-reading his article, I'm not entirely familiar with his formula but I believe that you're mistaking his evaluation/angle
Indeed. The problem is, what does his "minimum number of sources with respect to the 90% limit" mean exactly?
This isn't a combination of hitting the # of lands and the number of required color sources. He's calculating the probably of having UUU on t4, not 1UUU. He is calculating for the recommended numbers of colored sources in regards to mana intensity, not the casting cost as a whole
Yes, I think that was my point. So, if we agree on that then we have to realize that his numbers are not very useful with respect to knowing if one has enough red mana sources to cast spells like Anger of the Gods and Damnation.
Anyone have an example of a basic, fetch-less mana base? what cards are good for a fetchless manabase? Playsets of shocks? scars? filters? any replies will be appreciated
Jumping in the bandwagon here, more demoralizing is a cruel ultimatum into a snapcaster cruel ultimatum with the snapcaster you just picked from your gy
Which in turn draws you into another cruel ultimatum
This isn't a combination of hitting the # of lands and the number of required color sources. He's calculating the probably of having UUU on t4, not 1UUU. He is calculating for the recommended numbers of colored sources in regards to mana intensity, not the casting cost as a whole
Yes, I think that was my point. So, if we agree on that then we have to realize that his numbers are not very useful with respect to knowing if one has enough red mana sources to cast spells like Anger of the Gods and Damnation.
They are useful numbers. If you want to reliably (90% on the play) have access to UUU in order to cast cryptic command then make sure you have 21 blue sources. It's different than the probability of hitting the land drops, but calculating the probability of hitting triple blue by turn 4 is very valuable
@el: We should probably take this "off-line", as they say, but again -- what does the (90% on the play) mean? I know for sure that it doesn't mean that 90% of the time (on the play), that you can tap for UUU, again because the chance of hitting 3 lands by turn 3 is less than 90%. I also checked to see if it means "you have three blue mana sources provided you have three or more lands in hand after drawing 3 cards", and it unfortunately doesn't mean that either (the math doesn't add up).
In short -- I can not put any value on his calculations, as his premise makes no sense at all to me. He surely is calculating something, but the only way I'll be able to understand what he is actually calculating is by examining his source-code.
Anyway, in the interest of staying on topic, I'll stop following up on this subject.
In the interest of educating those who might think like you. The point of the charts isn't to make sure you have enough total mana sources. The point is to make sure you have enough colored sources to cast them. You use said chart in addition to a chart like the one provided here http://www.kibble.net/magic/magic10.php.
So I want a 70% chance with no additional card drawing done by myself to have 4 lands on turn 4, while simultaneously having a 90% chance without additional card drawing of having the triple blue to cast cryptic. I use the initial charts to know I need 21/22 sources of blue, and the chart from kibble to know I need 26 lands. So this means in a mono blue deck I could run 22 islands and 4 utility lands to satisfy the requirements of what I want. Dual colored deck I now need to devote some of those slots to dual producing lands and maybe I don't get to run utility. Moving on to triple color decks maybe I don't get to run utility lands at all, or maybe my access to two fetch lands (UWR) enables me to still run a copy of tectonic edge whereas decks with only one on-color fetch (grixis) won't. This is all simple stuff. It needs to be talked about in order to explain why a deck like UWR has the ability to run cryptic and tectonic while grixis does not.
I don't think he meant to he passive aggressive lol. I'm actually looking forward to going over the equations when I get home to back up my points and those of the author because the author might have a flaw or he just didn't fully interperet correctly. Regardless, I have been having tons of success after following the guidelines
@Spellsnare: Was that remark aimed at me? If so, what?? Where's that coming from -- I think I've only replied to elMochaLatte, and we've had many fruitful and constructive discussions in the past.
oh and threads of disloyalty?
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | URPhoenixUR | UWMiraclesUW |GBRJundGBR | UBFaeriesUB | UBWAd NauseumUBW |GBRWBlueless ShadowGBRW |
MTGA
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | UTempoU
My list:
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Augar of Bolas
1 Vendilion Clique
Instants/Sorc
3 Cryptic Command
1 Counterflux
3 Manaleak
3 Spell Snare
1 Terminate
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Damnation
1 Consume the Meek
4 Lightning bolt
3 Electralize
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Mystical Teachings
2 Think twice
1 Magma Spray
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
2 Steam Vents
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Crumbling Necropolis (needs to be reflecting pool)
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Graven Cairns
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Molten Slagheap
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Sowing Salt
1 Counterflux
2 Dispel
2 Rakdos Charm
1 Consume the Meek
2 Spellskite
4 _ (Something that should have been "far//away")
So I played 6 rounds at a LGS, and fought robots, mill, twin, bogles, and storm.
Robots - Played them in back to back rounds, lost both rounds. Etched champion can only be matched with a field wipe. In some of the games, I never got it, in a few others, I never hit the mana.
Mill - I won the match by living the dream. I countered his initial burst of mill, then played ultimatum, which drew my 2nd ultimatum, which drew my third. Much ultimatum. So Cruel.
Bogles - I didn't have far // away. Lost pretty miserably.
Twin - Close close games. He got the combo off in game one. I tried to cruel ultimatum twice to no success. I added more counter spells and rakdos charm for game 2. I ran him out of gas, and killed him with a clique. In game 3, he hit all 4 snapcasters and all 4 lightning bolts. I learned that ultimatum is not a very good path to victory. Keeping open enough mana to protect the spell is very hard. I also learned that end of turn mystical teachings is actually risky. In game 3, I tapped out at the end of his turn for my teachings, and he slammed me with 2 bolts, then a 3rd snapcasted. Not very nice. I definitely think this matchup could use some batterskull action. He wore me down a bit with Tectonic Edge. I would like to run it, too, but with cruel ultimatum requiring a strict set of mana, idk if that's possible.
Storm - Game 1 I let him go for storm, only to bolt, snap, bolt for the win in response to his past in flames. In game 2, I hit a land pocket, and he stormed for a big grapeshot. In game 3, I played a pretty long counter war. It went my way when he countered rakdos charm targeting his graveyard, and I had the snapcaster to flash it back. Storm doesn't work without a graveyard, so I animated some lands and won.
Cards I would like to try: Remand, Batterskull, Far // Away. Cards I need to cut: Magma Spray.
I was not impressed by the storage lands. I got them to 2/3 a few times, but I'm not sure the mana was important.
Overall, the deck was fun to play, and it felt like I had some game against everything. The biggest problem with this deck is the complete lack of life gain other than our ultimatum. Against the very agro decks (robots, merfolk, zoo), not having a way to gain life until turn 7 or later is problematic.
Yeah, alchemy is one potent sob. People are always complaining about not having Impulse and this is closest we can get. After playing with it for awhile, I now wish I switched out electrolyze for it way earlier
I also took out my 4 Electrolyze's immediately following the bannings, but I instead put in 2 Counterflux (expecting more combo) and 2 Far // Away (should perhaps be Tribute to Hunger), and I really liked the change. Also, after having been beaten down too many times with Burn decks and Blue/Red combo decks, I additionally fit one Witchbane Orb in the side-board. That card has won me so many games that I am considering adding another in the side. I haven't experimented much with Forbidden Alchemy, but it seems like a decent digging can-trip with a late-game upside, and combos nicely with Snapcaster Mage.
Also, I like a 4/2 split between Mana Leak and Remand. Remand is such a neat trick and is quite mana-efficient. Note that I really see them as two very different spells, leaking is for disrupting their play, remanding is for disrupting their counters.
Burn is still a tough match-up without an efficient source of life gain. I am not sure if it is correct to side-board for it, but it is possible to look into other possibilities, like e.g. Elixir of Immortality (also good against Mill), Consuming Vapors, Bloodchief Ascension, Tendrils of Corruption, Suffer the Past/Crypt Incursion and even Vampire Nighthawk (it will at least save you one bolt to your dome).
I disagree with that, modern is tough but getting goldfished on t4 is actually kind of rare. It's even rarer still for electrolyze to be the the t3 play that prevents said goldfish
Well T4 is usually possible if you're against storm or an actual 'combo' deck, however it takes real, real balls to try to go off as POD or Twin against untapped mana on turn 4 and is basically not correct to attempt to do so most of the time. I was playing last night against a POD opponent with about 10 lands in play all untapped and 6 cards in hand. He POD'd a redcap into revelark with Spike feeder in play where if he had gotten Thune the game was over as i was sitting on all lands. Granted he still won that game pretty handily, but my point is he was far to afraid to try and go off, which was the correct play on his part
4 Augur of Bolas
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Batterskull
2 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Cryptic Command
2 Damnation
2 Electrolyze
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
1 Repeal
4 Serum Visions
2 Terminate
1 Thoughtflare
1 Blood Crypt
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Darkslick Shores
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Dreadship Reef
2 Drowned Catacomb
1 Halimar Depths
1 Island
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
2 Combust
1 Countersquall
1 Deathmark
2 Mana Leak
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Shattering Spree
2 Sowing Salt
Any comments?
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
That was me. Most of my comments / thoughts can be found on page 67.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/221764-cruel-control?page=67
By the way, I have read Karsten Frank's article carefully and found it to be quite misleading. I tested it with respect to my own analysis program, and found the following:
First, his calculations are based on being on the draw, not on the play.
Second, he is ignoring the factor of not hitting your land drops. In a 24-land deck, for instance, the chance of hitting the third land-drop is 85.59% on the draw (78.87% on the play), thus having any "90%" rule for cards with CMC >= 3 is quite frankly, ludicrous.
Third, the table that you referred to can not be used for spells with colorless mana symbols in it. It is a big difference being able to cast 1UUU and UUU. What his table really reflects is the latter, not the former.
Cheers.
Nope, he meant specifically for his calculations to represent probabilities on the play, early on in his introduction he does preface his math with...
"Now suppose that I want to have a 90% guarantee to be able to cast, say, a turn one Thoughtseize on the play, and that I'm trying to figure out how many black sources my 60-card deck needs. I could translate this in mathematical terms by saying that I want to find the smallest integer number of black sources, denoted by B, such that the probability of having at least one black source in a random 7-card opening hand is no smaller than 90%. Since this probability is 1-{(60-B)!/(60-B-7)!}/{60!/53!}, I am looking for the smallest integer B for which 1-{(60-B)!/(60-B-7)!}/{60!/53!}≥0.9. Straightforward calculation reveals that the solution is to play 16 black sources. If you have experience with mana bases, then this number may seem overly large, and you would be right. There is a problem with this approach. Indeed, under the same logic, the number of red sources required to cast a third-turn Boros Reckoner 90% of the time turns out to be 29, which is clearly excessive."
Also in the formula he is using ( H(k,n,K,N) ), he is using the value of 7 for the number of draws, further proving that his calculations are based on being on the play since 7 draws is representative of keeping a hand on the play.
I'm going to come back to this later after crunching the numbers and re-reading his article, I'm not entirely familiar with his formula but I believe that you're mistaking his evaluation/angle
This isn't a combination of hitting the # of lands and the number of required color sources. He's calculating the probably of having UUU on t4, not 1UUU. He is calculating for the recommended numbers of colored sources in regards to mana intensity, not the casting cost as a whole
Okay, fair enough.
It makes a fairly big difference in percentages, so it's important to keep this in mind.
Indeed. The problem is, what does his "minimum number of sources with respect to the 90% limit" mean exactly?
Yes, I think that was my point. So, if we agree on that then we have to realize that his numbers are not very useful with respect to knowing if one has enough red mana sources to cast spells like Anger of the Gods and Damnation.
They are useful numbers. If you want to reliably (90% on the play) have access to UUU in order to cast cryptic command then make sure you have 21 blue sources. It's different than the probability of hitting the land drops, but calculating the probability of hitting triple blue by turn 4 is very valuable
In short -- I can not put any value on his calculations, as his premise makes no sense at all to me. He surely is calculating something, but the only way I'll be able to understand what he is actually calculating is by examining his source-code.
Anyway, in the interest of staying on topic, I'll stop following up on this subject.
So I want a 70% chance with no additional card drawing done by myself to have 4 lands on turn 4, while simultaneously having a 90% chance without additional card drawing of having the triple blue to cast cryptic. I use the initial charts to know I need 21/22 sources of blue, and the chart from kibble to know I need 26 lands. So this means in a mono blue deck I could run 22 islands and 4 utility lands to satisfy the requirements of what I want. Dual colored deck I now need to devote some of those slots to dual producing lands and maybe I don't get to run utility. Moving on to triple color decks maybe I don't get to run utility lands at all, or maybe my access to two fetch lands (UWR) enables me to still run a copy of tectonic edge whereas decks with only one on-color fetch (grixis) won't. This is all simple stuff. It needs to be talked about in order to explain why a deck like UWR has the ability to run cryptic and tectonic while grixis does not.
Edit: No need to be a passive aggressive dick.