When I'm splashing a Mind Twist into a deck that is otherwise without black, I don't want Swamps in my final 40 any more than I want Wastes to justify a C splash.
This. Excellent comparison.
Except that in my 540, if you drop a swamp or black multi land when playing a red green ramp deck, there are more than 70 possible cards you might have splashed for. Yes, I might have seen the Twist go around the table, but you may gave first picked it just as easily. When an out of place colorless source comes out, there are less than 10 cards I need to answer/play around. I don't think the comparison is apt because the scale is so different. Wtwlf's morph comparison is closer and I know there are people who chafe at the fact that there aren't enough 'good' morphs to make the hidden info.... hidden. As I said before, I'm going to run these and play it for myself before I judge, and hopefully Wizards puts out more of these as the years roll on until it isn't an issue at all.
I agree. Swamp can mean removal, tutors, really any of the dozens of single-black options you can have. A waste, on the other hand, is really narrow. The information given with wastes is absolutely 100% a real thing, as you can determine it's one of X spells in most cubes.
Is this a bad thing? No, it just is what it is, like steve_man says it's not about being sneaky but about the cards being solid enough to want to play them. It's alright if I figure out my opponent could be playing Vile Redeemer or whatever, because I'd be running that card because it's strong enough, the same way they can figure out I have Den Protector in a green deck or Stratus Dancer in blue.
I didn't say that the issue didn't exist, only that it didn't really matter. It forecasts far less information than a face-down card does, and that doesn't prevent those cards from being worthy of being played.
And you should be able to narrow a super-light black splash down to far fewer than 70 cards. At least, I would hope you could. The scale is narrower for C cards, but not enough to change how your opponent will play in a significant way. If they don't know if that Wastes in your otherwise WB deck means Eldrazi Displacer, Bearer of Silence, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher or Mirrorpool ...they haven't really garnered any information that's going to change how they play. Since all of those cards would need to be played around differently from one another. When you cast a face-down creature and have only UG mana available, your opponent can narrow that card down to either Stratus Dancer or Den Protector, which gives them a far more significant piece of information. And yet, the value of those cards doesn't suffer in a meaningful way. At all. Colorless is no different. In fact, it's even less of an impact on the way games play out. And 9 times out of 10, your C is coming from something other than a Wastes anyway, so you haven't telegraphed anything. The off-color nature of C cards actually adds a surprise factor to their value that's much more impactful than the information forfeited by playing a Wastes. It's much easier for your opponent to misplay into a Thought-Knot Seer they couldn't see coming than it is for them to change their avenue of play because they saw a wastes. The net difference there is still greatly in the benefit of the colorless cards.
I think it definitely matters, just not in a drastic or negative way, the same way that figuring out what a black or blue splash is for matters but not in a drastic or negative way. And knowing it could be one of those cards absolutely matters if I lose to X of them but not Y of them; instead of ignoring them and just playing my game, I can play around the cards I know I lose to and not worry about the ones I don't.
I never said the value diminishes, just that the value changes when you can try and figure out what they have based on what they're doing. A control deck might not play Vile Redeemer but is much more likely to play Mirrorpool; the bounce deck is much more likely to run Eldrazi Displacer over Bearer of Silence, and etc. This is information I can and have used in success to take different lines of play. You're right that the value doesn't suffer, but it's definitely different than playing around a black splash or anything like that because the options are typically much more limited.
Of course this is almost always mitigated when you don't need to run wastes, but not every draft deck can get to that point from my experience, or some may want to play one waste for Evolving Wilds or other narrow-but-real reasons. But yes, I agree that if you're not playing a waste in your draft deck, then that "information" a colorless source would provide is not worth taking account of unless they have no colorless sources and you can eliminate the x colorless-matters-cards your cube may run. And that these situations are not the majority of situations, but when they do occur you can usually figure out based on what their deck is trying to do which ones they could be playing, and plan accordingly.
I brought this up as a selling point to running Crumbling Vestige and its ilk as much as to complain about telegraphing info. For some cube managers this will be more relevant a topic. I don't run Sol Ring, Mana Crypt or Mana vault and there are other colorless producers that make some lists and not others. I hope we prompt thought about how relying on Wastes for colorless mana may be detrimental, even if in a small way, to gameplay. As I said before, I'm going to try City of Traitors and a few other cards like it when I add in the colorless matters stuff.
I think it definitely matters, just not in a drastic or negative way...
It matters, but not enough to have any impact whatsoever on my decision to support C cards or play Wastes. So in essence, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I didn't say that the issue didn't exist, only that it didn't really matter. It forecasts far less information than a face-down card does, and that doesn't prevent those cards from being worthy of being played.
And you should be able to narrow a super-light black splash down to far fewer than 70 cards. At least, I would hope you could. The scale is narrower for C cards, but not enough to change how your opponent will play in a significant way. If they don't know if that Wastes in your otherwise WB deck means Eldrazi Displacer, Bearer of Silence, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher or Mirrorpool ...they haven't really garnered any information that's going to change how they play. Since all of those cards would need to be played around differently from one another. When you cast a face-down creature and have only UG mana available, your opponent can narrow that card down to either Stratus Dancer or Den Protector, which gives them a far more significant piece of information. And yet, the value of those cards doesn't suffer in a meaningful way. At all. Colorless is no different. In fact, it's even less of an impact on the way games play out. And 9 times out of 10, your C is coming from something other than a Wastes anyway, so you haven't telegraphed anything. The off-color nature of C cards actually adds a surprise factor to their value that's much more impactful than the information forfeited by playing a Wastes. It's much easier for your opponent to misplay into a Thought-Knot Seer they couldn't see coming than it is for them to change their avenue of play because they saw a wastes. The net difference there is still greatly in the benefit of the colorless cards.
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I never said the value diminishes, just that the value changes when you can try and figure out what they have based on what they're doing. A control deck might not play Vile Redeemer but is much more likely to play Mirrorpool; the bounce deck is much more likely to run Eldrazi Displacer over Bearer of Silence, and etc. This is information I can and have used in success to take different lines of play. You're right that the value doesn't suffer, but it's definitely different than playing around a black splash or anything like that because the options are typically much more limited.
Of course this is almost always mitigated when you don't need to run wastes, but not every draft deck can get to that point from my experience, or some may want to play one waste for Evolving Wilds or other narrow-but-real reasons. But yes, I agree that if you're not playing a waste in your draft deck, then that "information" a colorless source would provide is not worth taking account of unless they have no colorless sources and you can eliminate the x colorless-matters-cards your cube may run. And that these situations are not the majority of situations, but when they do occur you can usually figure out based on what their deck is trying to do which ones they could be playing, and plan accordingly.
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It matters, but not enough to have any impact whatsoever on my decision to support C cards or play Wastes. So in essence, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
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