MTG Salvation

The dies to removal argument is absolutely valid, and that comparison is not great. The reason being:

-The value you're getting for one mana means that you're at minimum getting a 1 mana trade for a 1 mana card, so you're not losing a lot of momentum in that regard. It sucks to lose your 5/3 for 1 to lightning bolt, but you only paid one mana for it and that's a real thing. If Old Man is answered by a cheaper card, you are losing momentum/tempo/value for your investment, and a lot of cards answer old man, especially before you get to use it.
-A 5/3 flying for 1 is going to be great on its own and will block/trade with so many creatures that cost more than 1, whereas Old Man requires you to wait a turn before you get any investment for three mana in addition to not trading/blocking favorably for it's costing being a 2/3 for 1UU. Losing your investment to removal without any return is a real concern when comparing broken cards, and losing my three drop to lightning bolt is a lot more devastating than losing my 1 drop. If Old man had 4 toughness he would be that much better because he dies to that much less, but it must be considered what he dies to since he is a creature that gives your opponent a whole turn to answer before he does anything, barring Lightning Greaves scenarios.
-Both Library and Skullclamp are cards that can be used immediately once they hit the board, and when they are they are immediately validating your investment. In addition, not nearly as many cards answer those two, meaning they take over games much quicker and viciously than Old Man would consistently. Unless your cube is skewed to be unbalanced in favoring artifact/land removal versus creature removal, so many more things kill Old Man versus artifacts/lands.

I agree that Old Man is probably too strong for peasant, but I would run Old Man a million years before I would run Library or Skullclamp, and there is enough removal in peasant that it can go checked often that it could be fine as a ceiling. Perhaps my argument was presented in the most basic fashion, but it's totally valid if we're making similar comparisons. EDIT: The more I think about it, the more Old Man seems like an acceptable ceiling for peasant, though something worth keeping an eye on.

Old Man is fine. Good enough to be a P1P1 material or close to it, but definitely not as good as a lot of staple CUbe cards.

If it wasn't like 60+ bucks (and also not really an 'uncommon' in a lot of peoples' minds), it would show up a lot more often.

Is old man better than Control Magic?

No.

It most certainly is not

So then it isnt too strong for peasant. Control magic I can "imagine" being too strong, but only borderline so at best.

Yeah Control Magic is definitely right on the border of too strong. I've been thinking of downgrading to Mind Control just to make it a little fairer but the Terese Nielsen art keeps pulling me back in.

It's not on the boarder of too strong. It's just right. I'd not first pick it.

You what? It's easily top5 blue cards.

Uh yeah, what

There's like ~2 cards I'd P1P1 over Control Magic in most CUbes

I wouldn't P1P1 control magic. Such heavy committal to blue. I'd P2P1 it no problem

I could see how that might be a small issue if you weren't using my high level draft strategy.

Seriously though, I think "staying open" is overrated. If you take the best card P1P1, your deck will be better on average. A 1st pick Swords or something is no more valuable if you're cut off of white so splashability should be a very low priority. Even if Blue is a secondary colour, a turn6 Control Magic isn't much worse than a turn4 one.

Good thing you have 44 other picks to make a good non-blue deck if that's the way the draft turns out.

But seriously, if there's ten Pack One situations with Control Magic, I'm pretty sure it's far and away the "right" pick in at least eight of them.

Yeah there are a lot of really easy P1P1 control magic's. 2 symbols on a 4 drop is far from the end of the world.

Not P1P1-ing Control Magic due to color concerns sounds crazy to me.

Quote from leadfeather89 »

I wouldn't P1P1 control magic. Such heavy committal to winning, and I don't like winning.

What a weird thing for you to type

To each their own, I guess. I'm okay with being in a minority.

I mean you have stuff like Skullclamp/Library/Warhammer/Mana Drain that most lists don't, but looking at the rest of your 360 list I still can't fathom being unhappy to take a P1P1 Control Magic nearly every time it shows up.

Feel free to be like "eh whatever, drop it"... but it's just such a surprising card evaluation from a person who's a community staple. It's like BrownDog dropping a little side comment about how Fireball is better than Lightning Bolt or something

Staying open is a thing, but as others have mentioned it's more important to not stay committed to that first pick than it is to stay open with that first pick. Ben Stark has written and said a lot of great things about first picks vs the rest of your draft, and I find that he's right when he says you should really take the most powerful card you can p1p1 as long as you are ready to go in another direction completely if it presents itself.

anyone got strong feelings towards evolutionary escalation? i like the card but i'm having a hard time deciding whether it's actually good or not.

I don't think it's worth the hastle.

I'd be interested to hear how it goes for anybody who has the balls to try sleeving it, but I'm too scared of the bad scenario to try it myself.

I can't imagine it being a consistently good card. Like... Prosperity for +1/+1 counters is not an effect I want.

I guess Howling Mine is the better comparison, but... yeah, still not a desirable effect.