I'm wondering if anyone else feels that Mox Opal may actually be the best Mox in Vintage. A good many vintage decks run the full set of Moxes, Lotus, & Sol Ring, along with many other artifacts that are inexpensive to cast. It's pretty rare when a vintage deck can't activate Mox Opal on the first turn (at least in testing I have found that to be the case).
Also, in light of the fact that extra Mox Opals function the same as Lotus Petal (which is restricted), why hasn't Mox Opal been restricted in Vintage yet?
In my experience, playing combo decks that run the full artifact mana suite (moxen, lotus, petal, sol ring, mana crypt, mana vault) I still rarely have enough artifacts to make opal worth it, especially not first turn. I certainly wouldn't play more than 1 or 2. A lot of decks don't play many more artifacts than that maindeck, except maybe Sensei's divining top or Vault/key. Even if a deck was playing the lot of that, they probably don't need more accel and would rather play spells that do things. The only decks I can really see wanting them are Neo-academy and colored stax variants. And you don't see much of either of those. Some combo decks or tezz decks might want them, but not many.
I think the best Mox in vintage is whatever mox is on-color for your deck.
It really isn't that good, and most decks have way better options in terms of consistency. The only deck that probably wants to play Opal is a Workshop deck, and even then you probably only play one unless you're running Arcbound Ravager and then you can play more since they're better than just Lotus Petals at that point.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
With 15 artifacts (9 mox, lotus, ring, vault, crypt, petal, +1 opal) in your deck, the chances of drawing three or more in your opening 7 is ~23%.
With 18 artifacts (the above, all four opals), the chance is ~35%.
In order to have a 50% chance of drawing 3 or more artifacts in your opening hand, you need to have 22 artifacts in your deck (which is doable, just add like Vault, Key, Chrome, and Monolith to the above, but that still means half the time you won't have metalcraft to use this on t1.).
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I prefer chrome mox in my storm decks, but even so I rarely play an extra mox. Chrome moxen more reliably produce mana, and in my experience the card disadvantage doesn't matter that much. But in most cases I don't think the extra accel is needed in storm decks. Especially not ones that are playing Oath.
I prefer chrome mox in my storm decks, but even so I rarely play an extra mox. Chrome moxen more reliably produce mana, and in my experience the card disadvantage doesn't matter that much. But in most cases I don't think the extra accel is needed in storm decks. Especially not ones that are playing Oath.
Card disavantage doesn't matter? In the control matchup card disavantage is of the paramount importance, there is no way you are winning if you can't pressure them enough to get passed the initial wall of counters and slip a threat through... the whole essence of this deck is to basically transform Card advantage into tempo.
How is mana accel not important in a deck that runs 28-30 mana sources with only 11-12 of them being lands? Especially the artifact mana since it's what fuels the mind's desire/Tolarian academy/Bounce angle of the deck, Chrome mox is really bad with hurkyl's recall/repeal/chain of vapor to fuel your mind's desire whereas mox opal is very strong.
Oath in a combo deck is not so great, Burning oath is a bad storm deck and a bad oath deck. Either you play Griselbrand oath either you play a Long shell IMO. When has burning oath ever put up some top 8 results in a major tournament? Even Smennen was unable to top 8 at vintage worlds with that deck (and he's probably the person who pilots it best), but Reid Duke went top 4 with Grim long.
I didn't say mana accel wasn't important, I said one more peice of highly conditional mana accel wasn't needed. Also I've seen quite a few top 8's and top 4's with the burning oath deck, as well as a number of griselbrand oath storm decks without wish. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure Reid Duke's deck played 1 Chrome Mox and no Opal. I know you were saying that Reid Duke top 4ing with an Oath-less storm deck shows that Oath isn't great in storm decks but I think it is evidence in favor of Opal not always being the right choice as well. I think Smennen played the pitch version of his deck anyway, which I've found to be inferior (the good results I've seen and had with Oath in storm decks did not involve the pitch version of the deck.
My point being that most combo decks, especially ones with a 2-mana "I Win" sort of spell, don't need one extra piece of unreliable mana acceleration.
I prefer chrome mox in my storm decks, but even so I rarely play an extra mox. Chrome moxen more reliably produce mana, and in my experience the card disadvantage doesn't matter that much. But in most cases I don't think the extra accel is needed in storm decks. Especially not ones that are playing Oath.
Card disavantage doesn't matter? In the control matchup card disavantage is of the paramount importance, there is no way you are winning if you can't pressure them enough to get passed the initial wall of counters and slip a threat through... the whole essence of this deck is to basically transform Card advantage into tempo.
How is mana accel not important in a deck that runs 28-30 mana sources with only 11-12 of them being lands? Especially the artifact mana since it's what fuels the mind's desire/Tolarian academy/Bounce angle of the deck, Chrome mox is really bad with hurkyl's recall/repeal/chain of vapor to fuel your mind's desire whereas mox opal is very strong.
Oath in a combo deck is not so great, Burning oath is a bad storm deck and a bad oath deck. Either you play Griselbrand oath either you play a Long shell IMO. When has burning oath ever put up some top 8 results in a major tournament? Even Smennen was unable to top 8 at vintage worlds with that deck (and he's probably the person who pilots it best), but Reid Duke went top 4 with Grim long.
I didn't say mana accel wasn't important, I said one more peice of highly conditional mana accel wasn't needed. Also I've seen quite a few top 8's and top 4's with the burning oath deck, as well as a number of griselbrand oath storm decks without wish. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure Reid Duke's deck played 1 Chrome Mox and no Opal. I know you were saying that Reid Duke top 4ing with an Oath-less storm deck shows that Oath isn't great in storm decks but I think it is evidence in favor of Opal not always being the right choice as well. I think Smennen played the pitch version of his deck anyway, which I've found to be inferior (the good results I've seen and had with Oath in storm decks did not involve the pitch version of the deck.
My point being that most combo decks, especially ones with a 2-mana "I Win" sort of spell, don't need one extra piece of unreliable mana acceleration.
As far as large tournaments go, there have not been many top 8 or top 4 finishes with Burning Oath. Sub-15 man tournaments are hardly indicative of this. If there were larger ones, I might have missed it and I apologize if so. It's also worth noting that most people agree that Chrome Mox was sub-optimal in that list. For example, in Menendian's podcast, this card choice is discussed. Sure, he still top 4'd with the list but player skill accounts for a lot and Reid Duke has to be one of the best players in the world. So it didn't end up mattering that the list was slightly sub-optimal.
This is just a roundabout way of saying that there is no sense in placing so much importance in the exact list of a winning decklist as there can be many factors contributing to a card's inclusion or exclusion.
As far as large tournaments go, there have not been many top 8 or top 4 finishes with Burning Oath. Sub-15 man tournaments are hardly indicative of this. If there were larger ones, I might have missed it and I apologize if so. It's also worth noting that most people agree that Chrome Mox was sub-optimal in that list. For example, in Menendian's podcast, this card choice is discussed. Sure, he still top 4'd with the list but player skill accounts for a lot and Reid Duke has to be one of the best players in the world. So it didn't end up mattering that the list was slightly sub-optimal.
This is just a roundabout way of saying that there is no sense in placing so much importance in the exact list of a winning decklist as there can be many factors contributing to a card's inclusion or exclusion.
I don't disagree with you. At the time, most people though Reid Duke's whole list was suboptimal, maybe more than slightly so. Now that it's had some success people's opinions have chnaged. I think all of this conversation points to the fact that 1 Mox Opal vs 1 Chrome Mox vs 1 <other non-P9 free mana accel> probably doesn't make much difference and depends largely on deck construction choices. Most decks don't play more than 1 of these types of cards, maybe 2 at most. To tie it back in more to the topic of the thread, most decks don't play 4. Even Vintage Affinity (Genesis Chamber Shops) only usually plays 1. Turbo Tezz plays 1 or 2 at most. Decks aren't abusing 4 of them, so it certainly doesn't need to be restricted.
My thought are this: If I'm playing storm in a shops-saturated environment, and if I decide I want that one extra piece of mana accel, I'd probably pick Chrome Mox since it more reliably produces mana. If I'm playing storm in a control-saturated environment, and if I decide I want that one extra piece of mana accel, I'd probably pick Mox Opal, since the card disadvantage is undesirable here and slightly less-reliable mana production is not as big an issue. If I was taking storm into an unknown environment, and really under most circumstances, I'd probably choose not to have that extra piece of accel and instead opt for another broken card or a Thoughtseize or something that would be more consistently useful. Other decks don't need these cards, which to me indicates that they are not the best Moxes in Vintage.
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Also, in light of the fact that extra Mox Opals function the same as Lotus Petal (which is restricted), why hasn't Mox Opal been restricted in Vintage yet?
I think the best Mox in vintage is whatever mox is on-color for your deck.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
With 18 artifacts (the above, all four opals), the chance is ~35%.
In order to have a 50% chance of drawing 3 or more artifacts in your opening hand, you need to have 22 artifacts in your deck (which is doable, just add like Vault, Key, Chrome, and Monolith to the above, but that still means half the time you won't have metalcraft to use this on t1.).
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I didn't say mana accel wasn't important, I said one more peice of highly conditional mana accel wasn't needed. Also I've seen quite a few top 8's and top 4's with the burning oath deck, as well as a number of griselbrand oath storm decks without wish. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure Reid Duke's deck played 1 Chrome Mox and no Opal. I know you were saying that Reid Duke top 4ing with an Oath-less storm deck shows that Oath isn't great in storm decks but I think it is evidence in favor of Opal not always being the right choice as well. I think Smennen played the pitch version of his deck anyway, which I've found to be inferior (the good results I've seen and had with Oath in storm decks did not involve the pitch version of the deck.
My point being that most combo decks, especially ones with a 2-mana "I Win" sort of spell, don't need one extra piece of unreliable mana acceleration.
As far as large tournaments go, there have not been many top 8 or top 4 finishes with Burning Oath. Sub-15 man tournaments are hardly indicative of this. If there were larger ones, I might have missed it and I apologize if so. It's also worth noting that most people agree that Chrome Mox was sub-optimal in that list. For example, in Menendian's podcast, this card choice is discussed. Sure, he still top 4'd with the list but player skill accounts for a lot and Reid Duke has to be one of the best players in the world. So it didn't end up mattering that the list was slightly sub-optimal.
This is just a roundabout way of saying that there is no sense in placing so much importance in the exact list of a winning decklist as there can be many factors contributing to a card's inclusion or exclusion.
I don't disagree with you. At the time, most people though Reid Duke's whole list was suboptimal, maybe more than slightly so. Now that it's had some success people's opinions have chnaged. I think all of this conversation points to the fact that 1 Mox Opal vs 1 Chrome Mox vs 1 <other non-P9 free mana accel> probably doesn't make much difference and depends largely on deck construction choices. Most decks don't play more than 1 of these types of cards, maybe 2 at most. To tie it back in more to the topic of the thread, most decks don't play 4. Even Vintage Affinity (Genesis Chamber Shops) only usually plays 1. Turbo Tezz plays 1 or 2 at most. Decks aren't abusing 4 of them, so it certainly doesn't need to be restricted.
My thought are this: If I'm playing storm in a shops-saturated environment, and if I decide I want that one extra piece of mana accel, I'd probably pick Chrome Mox since it more reliably produces mana. If I'm playing storm in a control-saturated environment, and if I decide I want that one extra piece of mana accel, I'd probably pick Mox Opal, since the card disadvantage is undesirable here and slightly less-reliable mana production is not as big an issue. If I was taking storm into an unknown environment, and really under most circumstances, I'd probably choose not to have that extra piece of accel and instead opt for another broken card or a Thoughtseize or something that would be more consistently useful. Other decks don't need these cards, which to me indicates that they are not the best Moxes in Vintage.