Yup, he's been mostly suckbag city for us. I think all green sections mostly play creature based G ramp decks, I've been really unimpressed with playing him on the early turns as it seems to be mostly a 3/3 elf for 2G.
Green midrange and aggro are popular archetypes in my group, it is never always some ramp deck. Rishkar has been very good, in the decks I play him in, he always has another target, and is good mana screw insurance too. There are quite a few green 3 drops I would cut before him. I had a cool mono green ramp deck, that sideboarded into a WG aggro/beatdown deck for slower match ups a few weeks ago, and Rishkar was MVP in not only pumping my one drops but helping me in an instance of missed land drop to cast my 5 drop a few turns later.
As a preface, I should disclaim that I really don't like randomized effects. I don't like Jack-in-the-Mox. I don't value Mana Crypt as a top 10 cube card. And I certainly feel precisely 0 excitement for Jadelight Ranger in cube. Even at its best it just seems "meh", but at its worst it's exactly what you don't want.
The reason why I cut elder was that he was so anemic when I needed the body and never wanted to spend 5 mana to draw 2 lands and a randomized m card. Too slow for me
Different strokes for different folks I guess. I don't think I've ever once been sad to cast a Yavimaya Elder, even when I'm mana flooded or behind on board.
Mana Crypt is not a 'randomised effect' though. You know 100% that you will get the benefit. Card is ridiculous.
Mana Crypt can be ridiculous, but it's all too often not, and it's precisely because of the randomness of the coin flip. It's patently and absurdly overrated because the ceiling is all people can see; I don't value it as being in the same echelon as Black Lotus and Sol Ring like others do. It's definitely not far behind (I view it in the 11-20 range of cube power), but there are so many games where you hemorrhage life points for a benefit that doesn't come close to surmounting the losses, and the best cube cards simply don't have that caveat attached.
Jadelight Ranger's floor and ceiling aren't nearly as black and white as Mana Crypt, but you absolutely must account for the random factor in your evaluations all the same.
Mana Crypt is nuts. I don't even play it and it's still nuts. Starting out with 3 mana instead of 1 is totally worth taking 1.5 dmg/turn.
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Mana Crypt is not a 'randomised effect' though. You know 100% that you will get the benefit. Card is ridiculous.
Mana Crypt can be ridiculous, but it's all too often not, and it's precisely because of the randomness of the coin flip. It's patently and absurdly overrated because the ceiling is all people can see; I don't value it as being in the same echelon as Black Lotus and Sol Ring like others do. It's definitely not far behind (I view it in the 11-20 range of cube power), but there are so many games where you hemorrhage life points for a benefit that doesn't come close to surmounting the losses, and the best cube cards simply don't have that caveat attached.
Jadelight Ranger's floor and ceiling aren't nearly as black and white as Mana Crypt, but you absolutely must account for the random factor in your evaluations all the same.
I’ve never done a frank karsten like break down of variance on an effect like mana crypt, but...
I would agree that a 50% lose 4 life is worse than 100% percent lose 2 life.
However the wording you chose implied that the randomness is a large contributing factor to its drawback and that I strongly disagree with.
The expected value loss of 1.5 life per turn is THE reason why it’s not a way better sol ring.
The variance (random distribution) in excess of that life less is fairly negligible imo.
I also agree that the randomness makes jade ranger worse than the average of its parts. I just disagree by how much.
Mana Crypt is not a 'randomised effect' though. You know 100% that you will get the benefit. Card is ridiculous.
Mana Crypt can be ridiculous, but it's all too often not, and it's precisely because of the randomness of the coin flip. It's patently and absurdly overrated because the ceiling is all people can see; I don't value it as being in the same echelon as Black Lotus and Sol Ring like others do. It's definitely not far behind (I view it in the 11-20 range of cube power), but there are so many games where you hemorrhage life points for a benefit that doesn't come close to surmounting the losses, and the best cube cards simply don't have that caveat attached.
Jadelight Ranger's floor and ceiling aren't nearly as black and white as Mana Crypt, but you absolutely must account for the random factor in your evaluations all the same.
I mean, we're talking about a free Sol Ring here. Mana Crypt in an opening hand is often GG the same way Sol Ring is, it just suffers from long grind games sometimes so it can be worse in control builds or decks that go long but can't gain life which I imagine is a minority of the decks.
Mana Crypt is not a 'randomised effect' though. You know 100% that you will get the benefit. Card is ridiculous.
Mana Crypt can be ridiculous, but it's all too often not, and it's precisely because of the randomness of the coin flip. It's patently and absurdly overrated because the ceiling is all people can see; I don't value it as being in the same echelon as Black Lotus and Sol Ring like others do. It's definitely not far behind (I view it in the 11-20 range of cube power), but there are so many games where you hemorrhage life points for a benefit that doesn't come close to surmounting the losses, and the best cube cards simply don't have that caveat attached.
Jadelight Ranger's floor and ceiling aren't nearly as black and white as Mana Crypt, but you absolutely must account for the random factor in your evaluations all the same.
I’ve never done a frank karsten like break down of variance on an effect like mana crypt, but...
I would agree that a 50% lose 4 life is worse than 100% percent lose 2 life.
However the wording you chose implied that the randomness is a large contributing factor to its drawback and that I strongly disagree with.
The expected value loss of 1.5 life per turn is THE reason why it’s not a way better sol ring.
The variance (random distribution) in excess of that life less is fairly negligible imo.
I also agree that the randomness makes jade ranger worse than the average of its parts. I just disagree by how much.
"Fairly negligible" is a strong choice of words. You'll never get a 100% equal distribution of coin flips even if you flipped 10,000 coins. To me, taking the statistical/mathematical approach to something with such a small sample size as an average game of magic is a tough game that I prefer to avoid if I can... like if you gave me a P1P1 with 5 Mox, Mana Crypt, Library, Mana Drain, Mind Twist, Mana Vault, I'm not taking Mana Crypt over any of those cards (well...maybe Mana Vault). That's just how I see Mana Crypt.
It's quite obviously more powerful than most cube cards, but people curse their luck when they lose 3-4 flips in a row and I just watch them like "you know you signed up for this as a possibility?". How often have you seen games, and be honest, come down to the outcome of one coin flip? The best cube cards don't even come close to exhibiting this amount of pressure on their owners. That's my point. My point is not that Mana Crypt isn't powerful, my point is not even that Mana Crypt isn't a top 20 cube card. My point is that it's a worse card than people say it is (not to group you in with them), because they see "free sol ring" and not "sometimes starting the game at 11 life". You can't wrangle the drawback by basing it on how a 50/50 outcome "should" operate. It's a lot harder to anticipate than expecting 1.5 damage per turn, yeah seeing it as the baseline for its drawback helps when making a pick, but it rarely plays out exactly like that.
I think a helpful tool to visualize my point would be to go to a coin flip generator website and flip 200 coins. Look at the patterns that emerge from the results. The first time I did this myself a few years ago, I saw just how few sections there were that alternated between heads and tails. You get these sections, even with a sample size of 200, where you get 11 tails and 1 heads. Sometimes the flips will be quite even and well-distributed. Sometimes there are more sections of 4 consecutive results than there are sections of 4 alternating results! This is with a sample size that is much larger than any game of magic. To me, it's this unpredictable aspect that makes me stay away from a card like Mana Crypt if I see that a more reliable option is available (like a Mox). I strive for consistency in all my cube decks, yeah I like to do cheeky nonsense shenanigans, but I don't like to hinge the outcome of a match on something I didn't control.
This discussion is actually making me question just what exactly the games-won-per-cast numbers on Mana Crypt look like compared to the top cube cards, because my years of personal experience with and against the card seem to conflate greatly with how it's perceived by others.
And, uh, to kinda bring it back around to the topic at hand, if I'm a green deck and I see Jadelight Ranger in the same pack with Tireless Tracker, Yavimaya Elder, and Courser of Kruphix, there's like, almost no deck I would draft that would value the Ranger above the others, for the same reasons I value actual cube power over Mana Crypt.
The best way to take no damage off your Mana Crypt is to sac it to Tinker T1 to get out your Sphinx of the Steel Wind or Myr Battlesphere.
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I think the difference here in rating Mana Crypt is the weight being put on losing flips vs the power of a free sol ring. Yeah, games have been lost to crypt, but the power of the card really makes up for that. I lost 4 flips to Mana Crypt in a game the other day and won, and I won cause of Mana Crypt, and I'd say most of the games where my opponents don't have all the answers is how that goes.
The difference for me is in where the variance is occurring. With Crypt, the variance is in the drawback, but I can rely 100% on the effect it'll provide for me. With this card, the variance is in the effect. And it's harder to justify slots in final 40's on cards where you're not even sure what they'll do for you when you cast them.
comeonBruh. MC is 100% a Top 10 card in cube. If you are playing Aggro/Beatdown or a more aggressive Midrange deck, it is better than a Sol Ring. The 1.5 damage you take is nothing compared to the outrageous tempo advantage you gain. Library, Moxens, Sol Ring are the only cards I will take over it since slower, grindy decks will still be an option for me.
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Different strokes for different folks I guess. I don't think I've ever once been sad to cast a Yavimaya Elder, even when I'm mana flooded or behind on board.
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Yeah I'll take a few lightning bolts and random game losses for a free sol ring, the latter will win a lot more than the former will lose.
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Mana Crypt can be ridiculous, but it's all too often not, and it's precisely because of the randomness of the coin flip. It's patently and absurdly overrated because the ceiling is all people can see; I don't value it as being in the same echelon as Black Lotus and Sol Ring like others do. It's definitely not far behind (I view it in the 11-20 range of cube power), but there are so many games where you hemorrhage life points for a benefit that doesn't come close to surmounting the losses, and the best cube cards simply don't have that caveat attached.
Jadelight Ranger's floor and ceiling aren't nearly as black and white as Mana Crypt, but you absolutely must account for the random factor in your evaluations all the same.
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I’ve never done a frank karsten like break down of variance on an effect like mana crypt, but...
I would agree that a 50% lose 4 life is worse than 100% percent lose 2 life.
However the wording you chose implied that the randomness is a large contributing factor to its drawback and that I strongly disagree with.
The expected value loss of 1.5 life per turn is THE reason why it’s not a way better sol ring.
The variance (random distribution) in excess of that life less is fairly negligible imo.
I also agree that the randomness makes jade ranger worse than the average of its parts. I just disagree by how much.
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I mean, we're talking about a free Sol Ring here. Mana Crypt in an opening hand is often GG the same way Sol Ring is, it just suffers from long grind games sometimes so it can be worse in control builds or decks that go long but can't gain life which I imagine is a minority of the decks.
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"Fairly negligible" is a strong choice of words. You'll never get a 100% equal distribution of coin flips even if you flipped 10,000 coins. To me, taking the statistical/mathematical approach to something with such a small sample size as an average game of magic is a tough game that I prefer to avoid if I can... like if you gave me a P1P1 with 5 Mox, Mana Crypt, Library, Mana Drain, Mind Twist, Mana Vault, I'm not taking Mana Crypt over any of those cards (well...maybe Mana Vault). That's just how I see Mana Crypt.
It's quite obviously more powerful than most cube cards, but people curse their luck when they lose 3-4 flips in a row and I just watch them like "you know you signed up for this as a possibility?". How often have you seen games, and be honest, come down to the outcome of one coin flip? The best cube cards don't even come close to exhibiting this amount of pressure on their owners. That's my point. My point is not that Mana Crypt isn't powerful, my point is not even that Mana Crypt isn't a top 20 cube card. My point is that it's a worse card than people say it is (not to group you in with them), because they see "free sol ring" and not "sometimes starting the game at 11 life". You can't wrangle the drawback by basing it on how a 50/50 outcome "should" operate. It's a lot harder to anticipate than expecting 1.5 damage per turn, yeah seeing it as the baseline for its drawback helps when making a pick, but it rarely plays out exactly like that.
I think a helpful tool to visualize my point would be to go to a coin flip generator website and flip 200 coins. Look at the patterns that emerge from the results. The first time I did this myself a few years ago, I saw just how few sections there were that alternated between heads and tails. You get these sections, even with a sample size of 200, where you get 11 tails and 1 heads. Sometimes the flips will be quite even and well-distributed. Sometimes there are more sections of 4 consecutive results than there are sections of 4 alternating results! This is with a sample size that is much larger than any game of magic. To me, it's this unpredictable aspect that makes me stay away from a card like Mana Crypt if I see that a more reliable option is available (like a Mox). I strive for consistency in all my cube decks, yeah I like to do cheeky nonsense shenanigans, but I don't like to hinge the outcome of a match on something I didn't control.
This discussion is actually making me question just what exactly the games-won-per-cast numbers on Mana Crypt look like compared to the top cube cards, because my years of personal experience with and against the card seem to conflate greatly with how it's perceived by others.
And, uh, to kinda bring it back around to the topic at hand, if I'm a green deck and I see Jadelight Ranger in the same pack with Tireless Tracker, Yavimaya Elder, and Courser of Kruphix, there's like, almost no deck I would draft that would value the Ranger above the others, for the same reasons I value actual cube power over Mana Crypt.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Please draft my Cube! I'll draft yours in return! http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/86999