At the moment I have three copies of both Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy, but I can't get over the strength of knowing what my opponent has in hand and being able to counter it. Below is my current deck list:
Why no ponder? It's really ponder or probe (or some combination). I find the ability to dig and fix to be pretty huge in any control deck. The number of times I've pondered and opted to shuffle is non-trivial and has definitely saved me from top decking into garbage. It's just a good card. That said I do like the idea of thought scour to hose their ponder ... that's also fairly sexy.
I thought about Ponder, but it's sorcery-speed. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE fixing, but at least Gitaxian Probe doesn't "cost" anything. I can easily gain the life lost there with Tribute to Hunger.
And Thought Scour is a fantastic idea! I totally missed the fact it's a cantrip too. Definate inclusion into my sideboard for control matchups (where my 12-card removal suite might not be as effective).
Why no ponder? It's really ponder or probe (or some combination). I find the ability to dig and fix to be pretty huge in any control deck. The number of times I've pondered and opted to shuffle is non-trivial and has definitely saved me from top decking into garbage. It's just a good card. That said I do like the idea of thought scour to hose their ponder ... that's also fairly sexy.
@OP I run 4x Think Twice. 3x Forbidden Alchemy.
I wouldn't run Gitaxian as it doesn't net you card advantage it just is a cantrip (Like ponder). The aim of U/B control is to 1 for 1 your opponent as effectively as possible until they run out of threats/resources. You win this by having superior draw power than your opponent. Ponder and Gitaxian don't help towards this goal.
I know this is settled, but I have Visions of Beyond still swimming in my head, especially in a more aggressive meta. If only I could be sure of getting 20 cards in the graveyard quickly, but not with our miserly mill effects. Give us a faster mill that is not a PW begging to die next turn and I would run them in heartbeat.
Until then, 4 Think 2x, 3 No-No Alchemy, and 1 USZ it is.
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Would you care to explain this? Just stating this without reasoning doesn't help others. Perhaps it would be better in their particular build. I agree ponder is no Preordain, but as a digging spell, it's worthy of consideration and not to be dismissed out of hand
Would you care to explain this? Just stating this without reasoning doesn't help others. Perhaps it would be better in their particular build. I agree ponder is no Preordain, but as a digging spell, it's worthy of consideration and not to be dismissed out of hand
Did you not read the rest of my post in which I explained it? The idea of U/B control is to 1 for 1 your opponent as efficiently as possible whilst having superior card draw. With this you will inevitably come to a win when your opponent is drained of answers. Ponder does nothing to help this.
Also Preordain wasn't used as a digging spell in U/B because we don't have any combo pieces, it was used to filter through the deck and putting the cards you do NOT need at the bottom of your deck never to be seen. Ponder simply doesn't do this.
visions of beyond as noted by red-twister and maybe thought scour are the only two draw spells i would consider other than think twice and forbidden alchemy and then then visions of beyond is the only one that i would actually waste time on testing.
i think it's worth noting that in a lot of game twos tend to go long. visions of beyond as a two of might be worth consideration. in those games where you need your hand refreshed and are in top deck mode, getting 3 fresh cards from off the top seems pretty powerful. drawing too many multiples of any draw spells can be disastrous, so i think i would cut one think twice and maybe a forbidden alchemy for two visions of beyond.
Forbidden alchemy in the later turns is usually there looking for answers. sometimes you can't look for answers and play it at the same time with forbidden, via either flashing back from yard (bad example because visions doesn't even have flashback) or casting it for 3 from hand and not being able to cast your answer (say wurmcoil or grave titan)
for the more greedy people, you will get to practically refill your hand.
in the early turns with forbidden alchemy, you're not really looking for anything specific anyways, just another card, and it's possible you toss a card you may need.
Now i don't actually think that visions of beyond is a stunning card worth including over forbidden, but i do think it's worth a try.
Divination, gitaxian probe, ponder. All their worst drawbacks are the speed at which they are cast. visions is instant speed, so i would try it. Thought scour might be ok too, especially if your deck is very mill strategy based.
i would still really like to hear how people handle Solar Flare i have been surprise intercourse with that for a while now what is your gameplan and what do you sideboard in and out?
Probe can be cast for zero mana, so its Sorcery speed is of minimal consequence.
What cards you need varies on the game state and you could've very easily Preordained a card to the bottom you might need very soon, especially if you cast them early to dig for land. That said, it always has and always will be nearly the same card as Ponder. Ponder certainly doesn't hurt, seeing as how it cantrips for a paltry while boosting your card quality and/or digging for a specific answer. Good enough to slim the rest of your decklist down to fit it in? Maybe, maybe not. You can only use so many draw effects before all you're doing with your draw spells is drawing into more draw spells. ;[ Yo dawg...
There's no reason to be particularly obsessed over everything needing to be Instant speed in this day and age, though. Even so, some cheap cantrips for won't exactly cripple your ability to mostly play on your opponent's turn.
Correction: superior draw to have the right answer when needed. Incidently something that Ponder does better shown by Alexander Shearer here.
You need to put the card in context. which his article does not. a crucial part that all articles like Alexander Shearer's completely ignores is how deep into a deck you get.
starting from a ponder on the play turn 3, already played a think twice on turn 2.
ponder- 7 cards in opener. 3 cards from draws, cast ponder look at 3, draw one. you have viewed 13 cards. you have drawn 11 cards. turn 4, you draw your 12th card.
think twice- 7 cards in opener. 4 cards from draws, end of opponents turn, flash back think twice. You have now drawn 12 cards total, turn 4, you draw your 13th card. by the 5th turn, you have seen one more card than with ponder (14 vs 13)
not only are you a card ahead for the entire game, but you're more likely to draw your answer when you need it.
multiple copies of think twice simply compounds the issue. two copies of think twice vs two copies of ponder in the later turns, you've already negated the third copy of negate vs the third copy of ponder.
sure you can order the cards. but that's really not as powerful as it seems. best cast scenario, turn 3 you re arrange it so you get a mana leak this turn that you wouldn't draw for another two turns. or you get a doom blade to get rid of their turn 4 titan?
the real power of ponder comes from its shuffle ability if the top 3 were wiff wiff wiff. and even then, you're barely increasing your odds that the third isn't a wiff, where with think twice you're able to power through it...
Tempo decks and combo decks benefit greatly from being able to order their cards, where they can't afford to wiff even for a second. But in this draw go style deck, we can afford that luxury.
i would still really like to hear how people handle Solar Flare i have been surprise intercourse with that for a while now what is your gameplan and what do you sideboard in and out?
the real power of ponder comes from its shuffle ability if the top 3 were wiff wiff wiff. and even then, you're barely increasing your odds that the third isn't a wiff, where with think twice you're able to power through it...
Yes, that is the real power of ponder, it is MUCH much better than think twice in these scenarios. If you want to, "power through," a bad patch of cards, it's going to cost you 5 mana to make it two cards into said rough patch, where-as ponder gets you four cards in for 1 mana.
The real question about running ponder is, "do you need more card advantage." The answer to this, is not always, "yes."
You do win through card advantage in a control deck, but you can gain card advantage through a variety of ways, namely combining a flash-block snappy with removal, using sweepers, or reusable removal like Liliana.
If you manage to get just a couple cards ahead of most aggro decks, you've got the game in the bag, barring misfortune.
Ponder is a great card for:
Finding specific answers
Finding cards that will give you card advantage
Making sure you keep your advantage once you have it
So you could build a deck that works well with ponder, or you could build one that works with think twice, it just depends on whether finding specific cards, or having more cards is more important to your build.
I.e. Use ponder to get card advantage from other cards in your deck, while also having the ability to hunt for answers; use think twice to directly get card advantage, with less chance of it being specifically what you need right then.
So you could build a deck that works well with ponder, or you could build one that works with think twice, it just depends on whether finding specific cards, or having more cards is more important to your build.
I.e. Use ponder to get card advantage from other cards in your deck, while also having the ability to hunt for answers; use think twice to directly get card advantage, with less chance of it being specifically what you need right then.
that's my point exactly... if this was in just standard type 2 you would have an argument of ponder vs think twice... but this is UBx control. We're not trying to combo out or keep up any sort of tempo. We're trying to make it into the late game. ponder isn't bad in this style deck, it's just not good.
say you play a liliana turn 3, have a bunch of business in your hand (5 or 6 drops) along with 1-2 lands and a ponder/think twice... what do you discard? ponder can get you land or whatever else you need... who says you're going to miss a land drop anyways? might as well discard a land.
keeping both land and dropping a think twice in the yard not only allows you to make your land drops no problem, but allows you to see a card farther ahead than ponder would have once you get a chance to flash it back.
say it's turn 3 and you top deck a ponder, and have a dissipate as your only counter in hand? or maybe a tribute to hunger as your only answer to an impending thrun/Huntmaster of the Fells. well, looks like you have to pass without pondering... they play the thrun or hunstmaster, it was a good pass and you come out ahead... but say they don't just run it out there, and just play a growth or something and pass it back? well now think twice gains a marginal advantage.
as the game moves on. the think twice is your go to guy. not only does it allow you to keep more mana open meaning more options, but it also ends up negating ponders ability to see more cards all together. when you're not looking for cards is when think twice is much much MUCH better than ponder, because 2 turns after casting ponder, you're already seeing a card deeper than you would with ponder... every single turn.
Here's another scenario... turn 2 think twice, turn 3/4/5 or 6 you flash it back. turn 10 you need an answer soon, and top deck a think twice... you main phase a think twice, and wiff... maybe hit. end of their turn flash it back. and then beginning of turn you draw a card for turn.
in total you have seen 7 cards in your opening hand + 11 draw steps and 4 extra cards off think twice. not to mention they are all in your hand/played. and by turn 11, all your mana is open. what does this mean? you have seen and drawn 22 cards.
now exact same scenario with ponder. turn 3 ponder. turn 10 you need an answer, and top deck THE CARD BEFORE PONDER (remember, you flashed back think twice and now are a card ahead, so you won't even draw that ponder for another draw step.) you pass the turn, and then you draw ponder... Well where are you at this point?
You have played one ponder drawing one card. you have had 11 draw steps and a 7 card opening hand.
so you have seen/drawn 19 cards before casting ponder you cast ponder, and see another 3 cards... how many cards have you seen? 22. that's right. only 22 cards. there is the scenario where ponder becomes better than think twice, because you can now shuffle those 3 cards back into your deck and draw a fresh one. so in total you have seen an extra card, bringing you to 23 cards seen, but only 19 cards drawn.
what's the final analysis?
well as far as "having the right card at the right time" think twice wins... because after you flash back think twice, you are always ahead a full other draw step greatly increasing your chances of naturally drawing you answer, or another answer (such as a counter) so you didn't need to bother in the first place.
after the second think twice, you're 2 full draw steps ahead of ponder... so as far as "keeping the lead." think twice wins again.
other negligible benefits of think twice include synergy with liliana and forbidden alchemy... when you cast alchemy, you have no problem taking a kill spells or land and binning a think twice only to bring you even more card advantage. when you have a Liliana in play, discarding only half a card is much better than discarding a while card.
These are just some of the ways that think twice is way better of a choice than ponder IN THIS STYLE DECK... ponder has a home in combo and tempo, but it's not so hot in pure control decks like UBx
i would still really like to hear how people handle Solar Flare i have been surprise intercourse with that for a while now what is your gameplan and what do you sideboard in and out?
I like people saying that Probe is free. In a delver list, sure, probe is free, but paying 2 life in a control list vs. any kind of aggro is a terrible, terrible idea and you deserve to lose for it. Life is a resource just as much as mana is, although finite, and knowing how to spend it effectively is just as important as knowing how to best spend your mana.
The problem with Ponder is that we like our removal curve to swing nicely, and any sorcery speed draw deeply interferes with that. I'm not going to tap out on turn one to play a ponder if I have a Slip, I'm not going to do so on t2 if I have a leak/gofor, not on t3 if I need to BSZ for 1, drop a Lili, Tribute, and so forth. Think Twice lets us fill in gaps in our removal curve where we have no answers or they don't play anything noteworthy, while also not giving away what we may or may not have by tapping mana on our turn.
Visions seems okay, but it also fills the exact same role as a USZ as a late-game engine that can't fireball. Since they are both pretty bad in early hands, I'd say you can't reliably run both, and USZ seems strictly better on a stabilized board. Maybe a 1 Visions 1 USZ split would work, but only because you can cantrip away the Visions if you need to (which seems bad and not worth the card).
In a deck that runs 19 lands, Ponder is a 1cc spell that helps set up delver flips, or find the answer you need right at that moment. It's about controlling your draw with card selection. It is not about card advantage or card draw. That's why it works in a tempo deck like the one in the OP. As for control decks like UB control -- which is really what most of us are talking about here -- AngelsRNG is right. It's terrible. Both TT and FA draw two cards, netting us +1, if you flash them back. Moreover, they are good in the mirror or if you mill yourself.
Gitaxian Probe is good in that tempo deck for a completely different reason.That deck is an aggro-control deck which means that playing it correctly means playing pressure cards and then controlling the board until you finish counting to 20. Knowing when to overcommit or when to hold back to dodge the Day of Judgment my oppo is holding has won me several matches. Again, a mere cantrip in UB control fails to offer the ROI we are going for. We don't care what they are holding. We either counter it or we let it resolve and we kill it. We don't need to care about it until we see it. Again TT and FA are better because they actually draw cards rather than merely replacing themselves. Think of Probe like this -- you are playing with a 56 card deck instead of 60 and you trade two life (maybe) for a little more intel that you can use to shape your game plan. In the right deck, the deck that wants to run 56 cards, that is killer. Our deck is NOT that deck (although the deck in the OP most certainly is and should be in the Delver thread with the other Spirits decks). It's just like old stype Miracle Grow and all it's cantrips or Stompy decks running Mishra's Bauble (although I seriously doubt any of you are familiar with that deck).
Visions of Beyond -- do I even need to go there? Again? You are only sure of the cantrip effect. You can't be sure of the Ancestral. Moreover, it's not going to help you find BSZ on T3. I have won matches I would have otherwise lost by casting FA for BSZ on T3. I see people making the argument that it's good in the mirror, but I think that's incorrect. After playing several mirror matches I find that I don't actually care about the cards in my hand much. If both players are competent then they are on the mill plan throughout, so really nothing gets played except draw spells as you dig for your Drownyards/Ghost 1/4s. Winning is about the land drops and almost nothing ever gets countered so once against FA is the most important card because it lets you search for your lands.
Just my $0.02.
/M
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
Does a control deck want to cantrip? or run more answers? personally, i think of control decks as "answer all" decks. Even though current builds are very good at answering aggro and tempo decks, it still has a strong ability to stand toe to toe with other control decks... and why is that? certainly not because of cantrips, it's simple because we run more answers. we run cards like think twice and forbidden so we can have a lot more directions of attack or defense. If you're struggling for an answer wishing you had a ponder late in the game, it's likely because you were behind one or two draw steps, meaning the answer you could have drawn a turn earlier is already past its expiration date.
*spoiler* just because it's an article on a pro magic player website DOES NOT MEAN their analysis is correct.
Think twice is not the go to draw card even in a control deck... if i ran red for any reason, i would definitely be playing some number of faithless and ravings and maybe 1-2 forbidden. but for UB i'm completely happy with think twice.
i would still really like to hear how people handle Solar Flare i have been surprise intercourse with that for a while now what is your gameplan and what do you sideboard in and out?
After playing several mirror matches I find that I don't actually care about the cards in my hand much. If both players are competent then they are on the mill plan throughout, so really nothing gets played except draw spells as you dig for your Drownyards/Ghost 1/4s. Winning is about the land drops and almost nothing ever gets countered so once against FA is the most important card because it lets you search for your lands.
Does that mean Ponder is better because it can see the same number of cards as FA but doesn't auto-Drownyard you for it?
"Ponder is worse than Think Twice because it's not card advantage!"
"If I was in red, I would definitely be playing some number of Faithless Looting."
¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿:Psyduck:????????????
Does that mean Ponder is better because it can see the same number of cards as FA but doesn't auto-Drownyard you for it?
...Yeah looting is horrendous in control, and I don't know that ravings is where you want to go either. Random discard seems bad when the idea is to hold the right answer for the right moment.
Raving's can dig you out of a hole much easier then think twice and at less cost then forbidden alchemy. I am a huge fan of Raving's as the discard may be at random but there is also a lower % chance to discard something you actually don't want to assuming you have around 5 cards in hand (going to 7 with ravings before the discard)
Desperate raving's has given me the bad discard I won't deny that, but in all the games I have used it, those few bad discards are far outweighed by the amount of answer's I have received from it.
Does that mean Ponder is better because it can see the same number of cards as FA but doesn't auto-Drownyard you for it?
That's an excellent point and well worth considering. I prefer FA because it digs one deeper, it's instant speed and you can use it twice or still use it if it gets milled away.
I remember having this same discussion about the value of Impulse -- of course I was usually using it as a crappy tutor to find my next copy of Stasis or in desperation to find STP/Wrath/Counterpsell/FOW or Arcane Denial. That was a long time ago, but the situation is eerily similar. True card advantage options are very limited, just like they were back then, so you use what you can find and FA/TT/BSZ are the best we have at hand.
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
...Yeah looting is horrendous in control, and I don't know that ravings is where you want to go either. Random discard seems bad when the idea is to hold the right answer for the right moment.
But I digress....
oh man, you have no idea what you're missing. One of my favorite cards when i was playing 5cc solar flare is faithless looting and desperate ravings.
those cards are so much freaking fun to play with, and efficient as hell. (again, you must put it in the contest of the deck)
in fast games, they make sure i hit all my land drops and find threats to impact the board asap.
in slow games, i just keep a few lands in my hand, the second i top deck a faithless looting, it's pretty much bonkers. same goes for ravings. that card is insane when you need it. flashed from the yard, it's insane. Discarding a card at random is so so worth it.
red has some of the best draw engines in the game (obviously not for UB control). You just have to find the right home for them. Which is about the same that i have to say for ponder, gitaxian probe, and think twice... they are all powerful draw engines, in their respective decks. And hands down without a doubt, think twice is where you want to be in UB control.
i would still really like to hear how people handle Solar Flare i have been surprise intercourse with that for a while now what is your gameplan and what do you sideboard in and out?
I just dug something up towards the blanket statement that "Ponder is terrible in UB" which is as helpful as ChannelFireball articles that can be shortened into "play better". (I like Shearer because he writes useful stuff.)
You have a nuanced reasoning which I can only applaud and agree with.
In both posts in this thread I explained my reasoning.
Also completely agree with TylerDC in this thread.
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4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
6 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
4 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Drogskol Captain
2 Dungeon Geists
3 Phantasmal Image
3 Snapcaster Mage
// Spells
4 Doom Blade
3 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Mana Leak
4 Midnight Haunting
3 Think Twice
4 Tragic Slip
4 Tribute to Hunger
And Thought Scour is a fantastic idea! I totally missed the fact it's a cantrip too. Definate inclusion into my sideboard for control matchups (where my 12-card removal suite might not be as effective).
Ponder is terrible in UB. Move along.
@OP I run 4x Think Twice. 3x Forbidden Alchemy.
I wouldn't run Gitaxian as it doesn't net you card advantage it just is a cantrip (Like ponder). The aim of U/B control is to 1 for 1 your opponent as effectively as possible until they run out of threats/resources. You win this by having superior draw power than your opponent. Ponder and Gitaxian don't help towards this goal.
Until then, 4 Think 2x, 3 No-No Alchemy, and 1 USZ it is.
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Would you care to explain this? Just stating this without reasoning doesn't help others. Perhaps it would be better in their particular build. I agree ponder is no Preordain, but as a digging spell, it's worthy of consideration and not to be dismissed out of hand
Did you not read the rest of my post in which I explained it? The idea of U/B control is to 1 for 1 your opponent as efficiently as possible whilst having superior card draw. With this you will inevitably come to a win when your opponent is drained of answers. Ponder does nothing to help this.
Also Preordain wasn't used as a digging spell in U/B because we don't have any combo pieces, it was used to filter through the deck and putting the cards you do NOT need at the bottom of your deck never to be seen. Ponder simply doesn't do this.
i think it's worth noting that in a lot of game twos tend to go long. visions of beyond as a two of might be worth consideration. in those games where you need your hand refreshed and are in top deck mode, getting 3 fresh cards from off the top seems pretty powerful. drawing too many multiples of any draw spells can be disastrous, so i think i would cut one think twice and maybe a forbidden alchemy for two visions of beyond.
Forbidden alchemy in the later turns is usually there looking for answers. sometimes you can't look for answers and play it at the same time with forbidden, via either flashing back from yard (bad example because visions doesn't even have flashback) or casting it for 3 from hand and not being able to cast your answer (say wurmcoil or grave titan)
for the more greedy people, you will get to practically refill your hand.
in the early turns with forbidden alchemy, you're not really looking for anything specific anyways, just another card, and it's possible you toss a card you may need.
Now i don't actually think that visions of beyond is a stunning card worth including over forbidden, but i do think it's worth a try.
Divination, gitaxian probe, ponder. All their worst drawbacks are the speed at which they are cast. visions is instant speed, so i would try it. Thought scour might be ok too, especially if your deck is very mill strategy based.
What cards you need varies on the game state and you could've very easily Preordained a card to the bottom you might need very soon, especially if you cast them early to dig for land. That said, it always has and always will be nearly the same card as Ponder. Ponder certainly doesn't hurt, seeing as how it cantrips for a paltry while boosting your card quality and/or digging for a specific answer. Good enough to slim the rest of your decklist down to fit it in? Maybe, maybe not. You can only use so many draw effects before all you're doing with your draw spells is drawing into more draw spells. ;[ Yo dawg...
There's no reason to be particularly obsessed over everything needing to be Instant speed in this day and age, though. Even so, some cheap cantrips for won't exactly cripple your ability to mostly play on your opponent's turn.
You need to put the card in context. which his article does not. a crucial part that all articles like Alexander Shearer's completely ignores is how deep into a deck you get.
starting from a ponder on the play turn 3, already played a think twice on turn 2.
ponder- 7 cards in opener. 3 cards from draws, cast ponder look at 3, draw one. you have viewed 13 cards. you have drawn 11 cards. turn 4, you draw your 12th card.
think twice- 7 cards in opener. 4 cards from draws, end of opponents turn, flash back think twice. You have now drawn 12 cards total, turn 4, you draw your 13th card. by the 5th turn, you have seen one more card than with ponder (14 vs 13)
not only are you a card ahead for the entire game, but you're more likely to draw your answer when you need it.
multiple copies of think twice simply compounds the issue. two copies of think twice vs two copies of ponder in the later turns, you've already negated the third copy of negate vs the third copy of ponder.
sure you can order the cards. but that's really not as powerful as it seems. best cast scenario, turn 3 you re arrange it so you get a mana leak this turn that you wouldn't draw for another two turns. or you get a doom blade to get rid of their turn 4 titan?
the real power of ponder comes from its shuffle ability if the top 3 were wiff wiff wiff. and even then, you're barely increasing your odds that the third isn't a wiff, where with think twice you're able to power through it...
Tempo decks and combo decks benefit greatly from being able to order their cards, where they can't afford to wiff even for a second. But in this draw go style deck, we can afford that luxury.
Yes, that is the real power of ponder, it is MUCH much better than think twice in these scenarios. If you want to, "power through," a bad patch of cards, it's going to cost you 5 mana to make it two cards into said rough patch, where-as ponder gets you four cards in for 1 mana.
The real question about running ponder is, "do you need more card advantage." The answer to this, is not always, "yes."
You do win through card advantage in a control deck, but you can gain card advantage through a variety of ways, namely combining a flash-block snappy with removal, using sweepers, or reusable removal like Liliana.
If you manage to get just a couple cards ahead of most aggro decks, you've got the game in the bag, barring misfortune.
Ponder is a great card for:
Finding specific answers
Finding cards that will give you card advantage
Making sure you keep your advantage once you have it
So you could build a deck that works well with ponder, or you could build one that works with think twice, it just depends on whether finding specific cards, or having more cards is more important to your build.
I.e. Use ponder to get card advantage from other cards in your deck, while also having the ability to hunt for answers; use think twice to directly get card advantage, with less chance of it being specifically what you need right then.
that's my point exactly... if this was in just standard type 2 you would have an argument of ponder vs think twice... but this is UBx control. We're not trying to combo out or keep up any sort of tempo. We're trying to make it into the late game. ponder isn't bad in this style deck, it's just not good.
say you play a liliana turn 3, have a bunch of business in your hand (5 or 6 drops) along with 1-2 lands and a ponder/think twice... what do you discard? ponder can get you land or whatever else you need... who says you're going to miss a land drop anyways? might as well discard a land.
keeping both land and dropping a think twice in the yard not only allows you to make your land drops no problem, but allows you to see a card farther ahead than ponder would have once you get a chance to flash it back.
say it's turn 3 and you top deck a ponder, and have a dissipate as your only counter in hand? or maybe a tribute to hunger as your only answer to an impending thrun/Huntmaster of the Fells. well, looks like you have to pass without pondering... they play the thrun or hunstmaster, it was a good pass and you come out ahead... but say they don't just run it out there, and just play a growth or something and pass it back? well now think twice gains a marginal advantage.
as the game moves on. the think twice is your go to guy. not only does it allow you to keep more mana open meaning more options, but it also ends up negating ponders ability to see more cards all together. when you're not looking for cards is when think twice is much much MUCH better than ponder, because 2 turns after casting ponder, you're already seeing a card deeper than you would with ponder... every single turn.
Here's another scenario... turn 2 think twice, turn 3/4/5 or 6 you flash it back. turn 10 you need an answer soon, and top deck a think twice... you main phase a think twice, and wiff... maybe hit. end of their turn flash it back. and then beginning of turn you draw a card for turn.
in total you have seen 7 cards in your opening hand + 11 draw steps and 4 extra cards off think twice. not to mention they are all in your hand/played. and by turn 11, all your mana is open. what does this mean? you have seen and drawn 22 cards.
now exact same scenario with ponder. turn 3 ponder. turn 10 you need an answer, and top deck THE CARD BEFORE PONDER (remember, you flashed back think twice and now are a card ahead, so you won't even draw that ponder for another draw step.) you pass the turn, and then you draw ponder... Well where are you at this point?
You have played one ponder drawing one card. you have had 11 draw steps and a 7 card opening hand.
so you have seen/drawn 19 cards before casting ponder you cast ponder, and see another 3 cards... how many cards have you seen? 22. that's right. only 22 cards. there is the scenario where ponder becomes better than think twice, because you can now shuffle those 3 cards back into your deck and draw a fresh one. so in total you have seen an extra card, bringing you to 23 cards seen, but only 19 cards drawn.
what's the final analysis?
well as far as "having the right card at the right time" think twice wins... because after you flash back think twice, you are always ahead a full other draw step greatly increasing your chances of naturally drawing you answer, or another answer (such as a counter) so you didn't need to bother in the first place.
after the second think twice, you're 2 full draw steps ahead of ponder... so as far as "keeping the lead." think twice wins again.
other negligible benefits of think twice include synergy with liliana and forbidden alchemy... when you cast alchemy, you have no problem taking a kill spells or land and binning a think twice only to bring you even more card advantage. when you have a Liliana in play, discarding only half a card is much better than discarding a while card.
These are just some of the ways that think twice is way better of a choice than ponder IN THIS STYLE DECK... ponder has a home in combo and tempo, but it's not so hot in pure control decks like UBx
The problem with Ponder is that we like our removal curve to swing nicely, and any sorcery speed draw deeply interferes with that. I'm not going to tap out on turn one to play a ponder if I have a Slip, I'm not going to do so on t2 if I have a leak/gofor, not on t3 if I need to BSZ for 1, drop a Lili, Tribute, and so forth. Think Twice lets us fill in gaps in our removal curve where we have no answers or they don't play anything noteworthy, while also not giving away what we may or may not have by tapping mana on our turn.
Visions seems okay, but it also fills the exact same role as a USZ as a late-game engine that can't fireball. Since they are both pretty bad in early hands, I'd say you can't reliably run both, and USZ seems strictly better on a stabilized board. Maybe a 1 Visions 1 USZ split would work, but only because you can cantrip away the Visions if you need to (which seems bad and not worth the card).
Gitaxian Probe is good in that tempo deck for a completely different reason.That deck is an aggro-control deck which means that playing it correctly means playing pressure cards and then controlling the board until you finish counting to 20. Knowing when to overcommit or when to hold back to dodge the Day of Judgment my oppo is holding has won me several matches. Again, a mere cantrip in UB control fails to offer the ROI we are going for. We don't care what they are holding. We either counter it or we let it resolve and we kill it. We don't need to care about it until we see it. Again TT and FA are better because they actually draw cards rather than merely replacing themselves. Think of Probe like this -- you are playing with a 56 card deck instead of 60 and you trade two life (maybe) for a little more intel that you can use to shape your game plan. In the right deck, the deck that wants to run 56 cards, that is killer. Our deck is NOT that deck (although the deck in the OP most certainly is and should be in the Delver thread with the other Spirits decks). It's just like old stype Miracle Grow and all it's cantrips or Stompy decks running Mishra's Bauble (although I seriously doubt any of you are familiar with that deck).
Visions of Beyond -- do I even need to go there? Again? You are only sure of the cantrip effect. You can't be sure of the Ancestral. Moreover, it's not going to help you find BSZ on T3. I have won matches I would have otherwise lost by casting FA for BSZ on T3. I see people making the argument that it's good in the mirror, but I think that's incorrect. After playing several mirror matches I find that I don't actually care about the cards in my hand much. If both players are competent then they are on the mill plan throughout, so really nothing gets played except draw spells as you dig for your Drownyards/Ghost 1/4s. Winning is about the land drops and almost nothing ever gets countered so once against FA is the most important card because it lets you search for your lands.
Just my $0.02.
/M
Does a control deck want to cantrip? or run more answers? personally, i think of control decks as "answer all" decks. Even though current builds are very good at answering aggro and tempo decks, it still has a strong ability to stand toe to toe with other control decks... and why is that? certainly not because of cantrips, it's simple because we run more answers. we run cards like think twice and forbidden so we can have a lot more directions of attack or defense. If you're struggling for an answer wishing you had a ponder late in the game, it's likely because you were behind one or two draw steps, meaning the answer you could have drawn a turn earlier is already past its expiration date.
*spoiler* just because it's an article on a pro magic player website DOES NOT MEAN their analysis is correct.
Think twice is not the go to draw card even in a control deck... if i ran red for any reason, i would definitely be playing some number of faithless and ravings and maybe 1-2 forbidden. but for UB i'm completely happy with think twice.
"If I was in red, I would definitely be playing some number of Faithless Looting."
¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿:Psyduck:????????????
Does that mean Ponder is better because it can see the same number of cards as FA but doesn't auto-Drownyard you for it?
...Yeah looting is horrendous in control, and I don't know that ravings is where you want to go either. Random discard seems bad when the idea is to hold the right answer for the right moment.
But I digress....
4 Think Twice
2 Desperate Ravings
2 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Raving's can dig you out of a hole much easier then think twice and at less cost then forbidden alchemy. I am a huge fan of Raving's as the discard may be at random but there is also a lower % chance to discard something you actually don't want to assuming you have around 5 cards in hand (going to 7 with ravings before the discard)
Desperate raving's has given me the bad discard I won't deny that, but in all the games I have used it, those few bad discards are far outweighed by the amount of answer's I have received from it.
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That's an excellent point and well worth considering. I prefer FA because it digs one deeper, it's instant speed and you can use it twice or still use it if it gets milled away.
I remember having this same discussion about the value of Impulse -- of course I was usually using it as a crappy tutor to find my next copy of Stasis or in desperation to find STP/Wrath/Counterpsell/FOW or Arcane Denial. That was a long time ago, but the situation is eerily similar. True card advantage options are very limited, just like they were back then, so you use what you can find and FA/TT/BSZ are the best we have at hand.
oh man, you have no idea what you're missing. One of my favorite cards when i was playing 5cc solar flare is faithless looting and desperate ravings.
those cards are so much freaking fun to play with, and efficient as hell. (again, you must put it in the contest of the deck)
in fast games, they make sure i hit all my land drops and find threats to impact the board asap.
in slow games, i just keep a few lands in my hand, the second i top deck a faithless looting, it's pretty much bonkers. same goes for ravings. that card is insane when you need it. flashed from the yard, it's insane. Discarding a card at random is so so worth it.
red has some of the best draw engines in the game (obviously not for UB control). You just have to find the right home for them. Which is about the same that i have to say for ponder, gitaxian probe, and think twice... they are all powerful draw engines, in their respective decks. And hands down without a doubt, think twice is where you want to be in UB control.
In both posts in this thread I explained my reasoning.
Also completely agree with TylerDC in this thread.