The mill is pretty much a straight downside to BaM. A 1/1 with any sword equipped kills just as fast if not faster than the mill from BaM, especially if you apply any significant damage+opponent fetches in the first 3 turns. The mill just ends up feeding the plethora of graveyard based and graveyard benefited strategies in legacy. Dredge, Storm, Reanimator. And almost all the fair decks use cards that love the yard as well, Goyf, Deathrite, SCM, Lingering Souls etc.
Top still works on their turn to trigger Miracles.
Also it's not exactly correct to compare Spirit of the Labyrinth to Notion Thief. The jump to 4cmc from 2cmc is absolutely critical as to why Notion Thief stopped seeing play after the initial hype.
Yeah. The difference between 2 and 4 mana is huge. Brainstorm decks are in a much better position to remove or counter a notion thief in response on turn 4 than they are on turn 2. Especially on the play, Labyrinth Spirit stands a much better chance of actually stopping the cantrips you haven't played yet.
Yeah. I don't think Banner is worth it until the meta composition of Jund vs blue decks does a 180. It's win more. It's only better than the equipments that are threats in their own right when your opponent has no removal and you have at least 2 creatures on the board. If you're in that situation, you're probably winning anyway. The only exception to this is the fact that its a tutorable soft answer to Golgari Charm, "soft" because they can still remove the carrier then charm the rest of your board.
I'm going to second this. Most of the decks you will play this to hurt have too many answers to it. It will be off the board before it hurts them and the three power, while nice, is not as useful on a creature without some sort of evasion.
The strength of hatebears for DnT is in two things. 1. The power of the hate, and 2. The sum of each hate piece is greater than the individual parts.
As pointed out, the spirit has little effect on storm on its own. It still has some effect though. It cuts off cantrips during the combo turn, if they still need something to complete the combo. (EG Past in Flames, plenty of mana and storm, but no tutor in yard) Your opponent won't always have it by turn 2/3, and you have other plays that restrict his actions in addition to the spirit.
The power of the spirit against storm is in combination with the other bears. You have canonist out? Well, now they can't cantrip into their permanent hate answer. You have Thalia? If they had more than one cantrip, they might still have one stranded in their hand. You have Revoker on LED? Now they might need to cantrip for different/more mana sources, except they can't.
Icing on the cake? A 3 power beater is definitely relevant against storm, because you need a clock.
Don't underestimate the card in DnT against storm decks.
This D&T guy (against UWR Delver) seems to be massively on tilt.
Yeah. Equipping Jitte over SoFaI was clearly inferior. He's forced to chump with SFM, because he loses it anyway. And, pro red cuts off removal. And, it lets you through blue blockers the following attack.
Honestly, I think both TES and ANT storm decks run like, enough colors to be considered 5-colors. Then again, I don't play against those decks often. And the few times I do play against them, it's always kinda confusing. :/ The Show and Tell deck, if I'm not mistaken, is an Omni-Tell variant. It always confuses me on what exactly Dead Guy Ale is. Can never quite remember. B/W stuff.dec?
That's pretty cool to see a nice mix of cards and decks at this tournament. Affinity in Top 4, Zombie Bombardment, Dead Guy Ale, 12Post, and you (:p).
Lol at Juzam Djinn winning. Must've been fun for the guy playing it. I wonder if it was that one guy who posted in either the Legacy forum or the Market Street forum, who said he didn't care how outdated the card is; he's getting a "perfect condition" one and playing it. Well, if it WAS him, congrats. lol
The cards to look for to distinguish TES and ANT are chiefly Burning Wish and Rite of Flame. TES in general plays "more colors" (mostly through more rainbow lands.) Both decks can technically play 5 colors, but ANT plays much less of anything that isn't U or B.
The value of the information is mostly this: 1 TES is much more likely to play Silence (and usually has it in game 1), 2 TES is faster (its Ad Naseam's are more explosive because the average CMC is much lower, and more fast mana from Rite of Flame), and 3 ANT plays more discard and can play a better long game through discard and a more stable mana base. Both decks play Past in Flames. Both decks fluctuate in the variety of sideboard cards from Abrupt Decay and Chain of Vapor to Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm. But, TES will play fewer different sideboard cards (So you can narrow down what they have for game 2 to 3) because it has a wishboard.
False. Modern was created in 2011. All but 3 of the cards that you listed were banned in 2011. So only 3 of those cards were banned after the first year of Modern's existence. And no, itisn't just "ban whatever is powerful".Delver wasn't banned when Delver decks were dominating the meta. Birthing Pod wasn't banned after Melira Pod won 3 GPs in a row. Deathrite Shaman wasn't banned after Scavenging Ooze made Jund the best deck again a few months ago. I don't know why people think that there are constant bans in Modern, but that is not true.
Whether or not the bans happened in 2012 or 2011 is irrelevant to the point being made. Wizards' choice of bans in 2011 reveals a lot about their intent with the format. It shows they actively want a diverse format (like legacy is naturally), but want similar power level among the cards being played. They also want a format that plays to turn 4 at a minimum, so fast and powerful early plays get the banhammer where they would not in legacy. Wizards definitely bans cards in modern for being too fast. The same is not true in legacy because it has better cheap and free disruption to stop the turn 1 and 2 kills.
What's the combo exactly here? Storm plays a bunch of spells into Tendrils. Elves play a bunch of spells into Craterhoof. High Tide plays a bunch of spells into USZ. Burn plays spells al on their ow merit - not to combo into anything.
Burn is just a bunch of independent spell and creature sources of damage - They have no synergy or reliance on eachother to be effective. They don't combine, they just accumulate like any other aggro deck.
Burn does not care about card advantage at all. The goal is to dump its hand into 20 direct damage as fast as possible. The deck does not care one lick about all the things that fair decks consider in selecting cards. I think a better word to illustrate combo vs noncombo is fair vs unfair. Burn's gameplan is fundamentally unfair. It's game plan is to convert cards into damage irrespective of CA. To play against burn you must gain life (by interacting with burn spells or just gaining actual life) or you die. Burn is pretty much a 7 card combo deck. This would be a terrible combo plan if burn wasn't composed of 40 nearly identical combo pieces and lands.
(I realize with a name like Stormscape master, maybe I should trust your storm judgement, but I have to sort-of argue to figure things out. You can imagine my professor's loved me :p)
I don't know; I mean LED is 3 mana (compared to Dark rit's 2 or some such) but it's just mana. IT and BW are win cons and the whole rest of the deck is mana or disruption. If I disrupt a win con I *know* they can't go off. If I disrupt mana I'm gonna see 8-12 goblins in response (the next turn.)
That's my interpretation anyway. Sometimes those goblins aren't a problem; other times I don't find an answer or it's too slow of an answer. For me; I feel like most of the time if I can get to T2 I have enough follow up (double discard, sphere of resistance, chalice@1, etc..) that the ride becomes much easier. Thanks for the tips! Maybe I'll be callin' LED tonight
@Lormander
I chain therapies a bit; but that only works so well if you get a single turn of interaction (read as: it doesn't.) A bloodghast often means I can quadruple therapy by T3 (similar to your experience) or triple with a mishra's factory (T1 cast, t2 cast, play mishra's => animate it, flashback)
I imagine i'll up my other T1 discard to 7 to help mitigate G1 issues.
I'd also like to add that mana is much more important to the decks. TES for example only runs 9 business spells maindeck (4 IT 4 BW and 1 Ad Nauseum), because the deck only really wants to have one in hand when its ready to go off with plenty of other mana to pay for the tutor+what you fetch to enable the win. The deck really needs a lot of mana to win, at least 6 or more. With only 2 lands out, you need at least 2-3 rituals (meaning dark rit or rite of flame) + a petal. LED makes reaching the mana needed so much easier because you just need to generate 5 or as little as 3 before the tutor and then activate the LED inresponse as long as your storm count is high enough.
The Chimera is just too vulnerable of a three drop to be reliable in a tempo deck. It dies to every legacy quality removal spell. And it relies on an opponent having no gravehate to speak of before it becomes better than delver. It actually does take time to build up cantrips and cheap countermagic in your graveyard. If you dump all your mana into making chimera huge when he comes in, then congrats when he gets removed and your opponent is still on 18/19 life on turn 4 against a tempo deck. Conversely, if you play other threats ahead of the chimera, he will be at best a 3/3 delver for 3 mana on the turn you drop him.
Geist is the only 3 drop that sees play in URx tempo and that's because it is so hard to answer and does 6 dmg a swing with little to no work.
Your answer that "it's one fewer removal spell for your other threats" applies to every possible threat. By that token, chimera is just worse than the other available threats in grixis.
I inferred that he made a judgment call with that prediction. The fact that Wizards added the rule may indicate they don't plan to include more stack shenanigans with cards like fiend hunter.
-snip
Cutting lands is out of the question. Even with a 21 land build, we sometimes run into mana problems, which is why we keep 3-cost spells to a bare minimum.
-snip
You can cut land if you preserve the original ratio of land to spells. With a 20 land deck, 1/3 of the deck is land. If you cut 4 flame rift, you also cut 2 land. Of the removed cards, you have 1/3 land 2/3 spells. The free cantrips are in a sense not even part of your deck. It's a way to "cheat" the 60 card deck rule. I would not advocate replacing only spells with cantrips because then you actually are reducing your threat density.
Also, to clarify, I referred to storm's use of probe, thinking more about belcher. That deck does get some additional benefits from probe: the information is more useful for them and the storm count is useful for the empty the warrens kill. But it also helps the deck because a 56 card belcher is going to be more consistent in finding its kill than a 60 belcher deck. That piece is something burn can benefit from too.
The reason I ask about statistics is that, when you use free cantrips in the manner I suggest, you have to run odds calculations when you look at an opener. An example:
Assuming your deck is 6 free cantrips (there are only 8 total available, urza's bauble is much more risky because you have to wait on the draw and you can't rely on it to find land if you have a nolander with some cantrips instead), 18 land, 36 spells. In such a deck, about half the time you will have some number of cantrips in your opening 7 (54/60)(53/59)(52/58)(51/57)(50/56)(49/55)(48/54)= about 46%
This opener is an illustration of the potential problem: 5 "bolts" 2 cantrips. Here there is around a (1- (31/49 x 30/48) = )49% chance that one of those cantrips will find at least one land. (i don't include the case of finding a cantrip, because a cantrip is just a redraw and it complicates the probability math beyond what I know how to do). You have to decide keep or mull a hand that could be quite good or terrible half the time. This case also illustrates the only potential downside of playing a 52 or 54 card deck. There are times when you draw the cantrip in your opener and you have to decide mull or keep from 6 cards + 1 unknown 7th card that is a land roughly 1/3 of the time and a burn spell roughly 2/3 of the time.
The only time the unknown nature of the cantrip card is relevant is during the mull decision. Every other time its draw again from the same odds you had before.
There is some merit to keeping the full spread of the weaker burn spells because they have situational usefulness. You can get lucky and have them at the perfect time, and they give you something to hope for if an opponent drops something you need to answer. Im skeptical of the reason you proffered for keeping flame rift around though. If your opponent drops leyline of sanctity on turn 0, the match against a burn deck is pretty much over already. Vortex and blowing up threats is the only realistic out in that situation.
Well another thing about free cantrips is that even a bad burn spell is a better top deck. When you need to finish an opponent off the last thing you want to do is topdeck a probe and draw into a mountain.
I'm sure Obermeir has detailed statistics on the matter if you're interested in that side of the equation.
You have the same odds to draw a mountain or gas regardless, if you keep the ratio of lands to burn the same. The odds that change by using the cantrips are only the quality of the burn spell.
Yeah, I understand running some free cantrips introduces more unknown variables when you're deciding to mull. But after your first turn when you burn the cantrips and see what the rest of your opener is, you have the same opening 7 to plan your 20 damage around. Further cantrips just immediately draw the next card (which is the same situation when your deck has no cantrips).
The only relevant cost to gitaxian probe/street wraith is information when you're mulling. Is that too much to pay for the ability to run nothing but 1 mana burn "spells" + blast and price of progress. This is the cost benefit question Im asking. The primary reason to run the cantrips is to replace the weaker burn spells not get information from probe.
Has anyone done statistical work to figure out how much cantrips affect your mulling decisions? I understand you would rather know than take a calculated risk. The odds in burn are quite well calculated too, 1/3 land 2/3 burn spells (some of the spells have some restrictions, the creatures most notably). Im only bringing this up because the primer presents the cantrip option as a strictly bad idea. Other combo decks use free cantrips for consistency and storm, why shouldn't burn use them just for consistency as well?
The cantrips also add to the graveyard for GLM. And probe gives you some information (not usually relevant except perhaps when you need to choose between all in on fireblast and pray for no counter or hope for topdecks). Street Wraith is another target for stifle and a creature in your yard for deathrite/goyf, which is a downside.
I also don't think flame rift is a terrible burn spell, the bolts and blast in particular are just much more effficient. Isn't the deck better off when it draws 3 lands 5 bolts and a blast in the first 3 turns on the play than the same -1 bolt +1 flame rift/vortex? (I mentioned vortex also in my original post because I think its much better as a sideboard option now, so much abrupt decay in the meta).
I know the primer says its just a bad idea, but the explanation did not really say why. Free cantrips in burn? Can someone explain why its bad?
The only downside I see is less information when youre deciding to mulligan. Instead of land land bolt rift bolt blast GLM vortex, you see land land bolt rift bolt blast ? ?.
The primer's explanation seems to assume you cut either lands or spells somehow changing your threat density, when I thought the merit of free cantrips was a smaller deck. You cut the worst burn spells (looking at flame rift, and possibly moving vortex to the side), remove a commensurate amount of land, and now you have the same deck just all the burn is 1 card 1 mana for 3-4 dmg. I was looking at this list http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=53619 with 4 fewer lands, vortex in side in replacement of something (probly trade em with GLM when theyre useful) and nix the flame rifts.
Yeah. The difference between 2 and 4 mana is huge. Brainstorm decks are in a much better position to remove or counter a notion thief in response on turn 4 than they are on turn 2. Especially on the play, Labyrinth Spirit stands a much better chance of actually stopping the cantrips you haven't played yet.
The strength of hatebears for DnT is in two things. 1. The power of the hate, and 2. The sum of each hate piece is greater than the individual parts.
As pointed out, the spirit has little effect on storm on its own. It still has some effect though. It cuts off cantrips during the combo turn, if they still need something to complete the combo. (EG Past in Flames, plenty of mana and storm, but no tutor in yard) Your opponent won't always have it by turn 2/3, and you have other plays that restrict his actions in addition to the spirit.
The power of the spirit against storm is in combination with the other bears. You have canonist out? Well, now they can't cantrip into their permanent hate answer. You have Thalia? If they had more than one cantrip, they might still have one stranded in their hand. You have Revoker on LED? Now they might need to cantrip for different/more mana sources, except they can't.
Icing on the cake? A 3 power beater is definitely relevant against storm, because you need a clock.
Don't underestimate the card in DnT against storm decks.
Yeah. Equipping Jitte over SoFaI was clearly inferior. He's forced to chump with SFM, because he loses it anyway. And, pro red cuts off removal. And, it lets you through blue blockers the following attack.
The cards to look for to distinguish TES and ANT are chiefly Burning Wish and Rite of Flame. TES in general plays "more colors" (mostly through more rainbow lands.) Both decks can technically play 5 colors, but ANT plays much less of anything that isn't U or B.
The value of the information is mostly this: 1 TES is much more likely to play Silence (and usually has it in game 1), 2 TES is faster (its Ad Naseam's are more explosive because the average CMC is much lower, and more fast mana from Rite of Flame), and 3 ANT plays more discard and can play a better long game through discard and a more stable mana base. Both decks play Past in Flames. Both decks fluctuate in the variety of sideboard cards from Abrupt Decay and Chain of Vapor to Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm. But, TES will play fewer different sideboard cards (So you can narrow down what they have for game 2 to 3) because it has a wishboard.
Whether or not the bans happened in 2012 or 2011 is irrelevant to the point being made. Wizards' choice of bans in 2011 reveals a lot about their intent with the format. It shows they actively want a diverse format (like legacy is naturally), but want similar power level among the cards being played. They also want a format that plays to turn 4 at a minimum, so fast and powerful early plays get the banhammer where they would not in legacy. Wizards definitely bans cards in modern for being too fast. The same is not true in legacy because it has better cheap and free disruption to stop the turn 1 and 2 kills.
Burn does not care about card advantage at all. The goal is to dump its hand into 20 direct damage as fast as possible. The deck does not care one lick about all the things that fair decks consider in selecting cards. I think a better word to illustrate combo vs noncombo is fair vs unfair. Burn's gameplan is fundamentally unfair. It's game plan is to convert cards into damage irrespective of CA. To play against burn you must gain life (by interacting with burn spells or just gaining actual life) or you die. Burn is pretty much a 7 card combo deck. This would be a terrible combo plan if burn wasn't composed of 40 nearly identical combo pieces and lands.
I'd also like to add that mana is much more important to the decks. TES for example only runs 9 business spells maindeck (4 IT 4 BW and 1 Ad Nauseum), because the deck only really wants to have one in hand when its ready to go off with plenty of other mana to pay for the tutor+what you fetch to enable the win. The deck really needs a lot of mana to win, at least 6 or more. With only 2 lands out, you need at least 2-3 rituals (meaning dark rit or rite of flame) + a petal. LED makes reaching the mana needed so much easier because you just need to generate 5 or as little as 3 before the tutor and then activate the LED inresponse as long as your storm count is high enough.
I really reccommend reading The Heart of the Storm series of TES tournament reports to get a feel for how valuable LED is to TES and how bad multiple tutor hands look to the deck. They're also very detailed and well written. Here's the third one: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25918-Heart-of-the-Storm-3-Day-of-the-Tentacle
The rest are in that tournament report forum.
Geist is the only 3 drop that sees play in URx tempo and that's because it is so hard to answer and does 6 dmg a swing with little to no work.
Your answer that "it's one fewer removal spell for your other threats" applies to every possible threat. By that token, chimera is just worse than the other available threats in grixis.
I inferred that he made a judgment call with that prediction. The fact that Wizards added the rule may indicate they don't plan to include more stack shenanigans with cards like fiend hunter.
You can cut land if you preserve the original ratio of land to spells. With a 20 land deck, 1/3 of the deck is land. If you cut 4 flame rift, you also cut 2 land. Of the removed cards, you have 1/3 land 2/3 spells. The free cantrips are in a sense not even part of your deck. It's a way to "cheat" the 60 card deck rule. I would not advocate replacing only spells with cantrips because then you actually are reducing your threat density.
Also, to clarify, I referred to storm's use of probe, thinking more about belcher. That deck does get some additional benefits from probe: the information is more useful for them and the storm count is useful for the empty the warrens kill. But it also helps the deck because a 56 card belcher is going to be more consistent in finding its kill than a 60 belcher deck. That piece is something burn can benefit from too.
The reason I ask about statistics is that, when you use free cantrips in the manner I suggest, you have to run odds calculations when you look at an opener. An example:
Assuming your deck is 6 free cantrips (there are only 8 total available, urza's bauble is much more risky because you have to wait on the draw and you can't rely on it to find land if you have a nolander with some cantrips instead), 18 land, 36 spells. In such a deck, about half the time you will have some number of cantrips in your opening 7 (54/60)(53/59)(52/58)(51/57)(50/56)(49/55)(48/54)= about 46%
This opener is an illustration of the potential problem: 5 "bolts" 2 cantrips. Here there is around a (1- (31/49 x 30/48) = )49% chance that one of those cantrips will find at least one land. (i don't include the case of finding a cantrip, because a cantrip is just a redraw and it complicates the probability math beyond what I know how to do). You have to decide keep or mull a hand that could be quite good or terrible half the time. This case also illustrates the only potential downside of playing a 52 or 54 card deck. There are times when you draw the cantrip in your opener and you have to decide mull or keep from 6 cards + 1 unknown 7th card that is a land roughly 1/3 of the time and a burn spell roughly 2/3 of the time.
The only time the unknown nature of the cantrip card is relevant is during the mull decision. Every other time its draw again from the same odds you had before.
There is some merit to keeping the full spread of the weaker burn spells because they have situational usefulness. You can get lucky and have them at the perfect time, and they give you something to hope for if an opponent drops something you need to answer. Im skeptical of the reason you proffered for keeping flame rift around though. If your opponent drops leyline of sanctity on turn 0, the match against a burn deck is pretty much over already. Vortex and blowing up threats is the only realistic out in that situation.
You have the same odds to draw a mountain or gas regardless, if you keep the ratio of lands to burn the same. The odds that change by using the cantrips are only the quality of the burn spell.
The only relevant cost to gitaxian probe/street wraith is information when you're mulling. Is that too much to pay for the ability to run nothing but 1 mana burn "spells" + blast and price of progress. This is the cost benefit question Im asking. The primary reason to run the cantrips is to replace the weaker burn spells not get information from probe.
Has anyone done statistical work to figure out how much cantrips affect your mulling decisions? I understand you would rather know than take a calculated risk. The odds in burn are quite well calculated too, 1/3 land 2/3 burn spells (some of the spells have some restrictions, the creatures most notably). Im only bringing this up because the primer presents the cantrip option as a strictly bad idea. Other combo decks use free cantrips for consistency and storm, why shouldn't burn use them just for consistency as well?
The cantrips also add to the graveyard for GLM. And probe gives you some information (not usually relevant except perhaps when you need to choose between all in on fireblast and pray for no counter or hope for topdecks). Street Wraith is another target for stifle and a creature in your yard for deathrite/goyf, which is a downside.
I also don't think flame rift is a terrible burn spell, the bolts and blast in particular are just much more effficient. Isn't the deck better off when it draws 3 lands 5 bolts and a blast in the first 3 turns on the play than the same -1 bolt +1 flame rift/vortex? (I mentioned vortex also in my original post because I think its much better as a sideboard option now, so much abrupt decay in the meta).
The only downside I see is less information when youre deciding to mulligan. Instead of land land bolt rift bolt blast GLM vortex, you see land land bolt rift bolt blast ? ?.
The primer's explanation seems to assume you cut either lands or spells somehow changing your threat density, when I thought the merit of free cantrips was a smaller deck. You cut the worst burn spells (looking at flame rift, and possibly moving vortex to the side), remove a commensurate amount of land, and now you have the same deck just all the burn is 1 card 1 mana for 3-4 dmg. I was looking at this list http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=53619 with 4 fewer lands, vortex in side in replacement of something (probly trade em with GLM when theyre useful) and nix the flame rifts.