There is no point in putting one-ofs in your deck as alternative fourth copy of another card and calling that a change. You are braking the consistency of having 4 copies, aka you reduce the chance of getting an opening hand with a Wrench Mind in it. Diluting a perfectly solid card for another (more expensive, I might add) Raven's Crime is absolutely not worth it, based on the premise they might discard a land (which a lot of people will, if that means having their important spell).
If you want to use Psychic Miasma, man up and replace all of the Wrenches (or any other card that tickles your fancy) and test it. Yes, with that exact idea that at some point they will be discarding lands if it's between that or a strong creature/spell, and you'll be your cards back for free. Of course, you will inevitably come to the conclusion that this interaction is not even half as strong as what Wrench Mind provides, but have the guts to test it out.
This is the same reason as why we don't put Mire's Toll as a singleton, a fourth copy of Thoughtseize or Inquisition. Yes, later in the game, when we have more swamps than they have cards in their hand, it's strictly better - gets rid of any card you want. Except you compromise the integrity of your early game on the offchance you might get to the stage where it shines without picking the threats from their hand.
If "if"s and "but"s were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Marry Christmas.
10 games against a wide variety of decks is not a serious test, of course. It's the bare minimum that has to be covered before we can begin talking about those things. That's the entire point.
I'm sorry, Memory, but I can't silently stand by any longer. This splash thing has gone absolutely out of control.
So, I'm going to (try) establish once and for all which splashes are good and bad. I'll do what nobody else seems willing to. Test the crap out of them. It's easy to come in, talking about Lingering Souls or Phyrexian Metamorph. But where is your proof of concept? Where are the results? As some of the people have mentioned before, it's good to bring new(?) things to the table, but they need weight behind them. Yet I still don't think splashes (or even, as ktk mentioned, changes to the core) should be overlooked. Yes, generally speaking more colours leads to pain, but the most competitive decks out there run at least 2 colours, with the majority being 3-coloured (on that note, dolzero, even if you don't have to take damage to run more than one colour, the most optimal way to do so includes hurting yourself, no matter what you say). After all, as long as it's above zero, life is a resource and should be treated as such.
Now, how am I going to approach this? I'll start with the red splash because it looks most promising to me (yes, the red one, you fools!). No, it won't include crap like Blightning. I'll play 10 matches total with each splash. 6 against the top tier, most competitive decks right now, 2 against random gimmick-based brews to test if it's solid enough to resist shenanigans (although that will probably be true, we've seen the core shell prove itself time and again) and 2 against the mirror (we have to prove it improves the deck in any way, right?). Those numbers may vary over time. I'll provide detailed "reports" of the most interesting matches, always including at least 3 against competitive decks and 1 against the mirror (those detailed reports will usually be of the toughest matchups and hardest games). The rest of the matches will be represented by a summary in which I describe in general how the matchup felt and went. We are talking about paper magic here, just want to put it out there. The opponents I'll be facing are some of the best magic players in my country, including the four members of the Bulgarian national team (which sounds cool but it's actually not a big deal, we never get far at Worlds).
Of course, not all splashes will be successful (as expected). Keep in mind no "pet cards" will be tested - we are talking about trying to bring the power level up, not accommodating random crap into the 8Rack shell. I've read about all sorts of weird stuff here, including Phyrexian Metamorph, which was honestly hilarious.
Anyway, that's it from me for now, I'll do the red splash tests tomorrow and report how they went. If for some reason anyone is opposed to actually providing proof for the usefulness of splashes and wants to just spam with nothing but vain ideas and jibber-jabber, please remember how Duels of the Planeswalkers teaches you that "you are a planeswalker" and target yourself with Dreadbore.
If you want to use Psychic Miasma, man up and replace all of the Wrenches (or any other card that tickles your fancy) and test it. Yes, with that exact idea that at some point they will be discarding lands if it's between that or a strong creature/spell, and you'll be your cards back for free. Of course, you will inevitably come to the conclusion that this interaction is not even half as strong as what Wrench Mind provides, but have the guts to test it out.
This is the same reason as why we don't put Mire's Toll as a singleton, a fourth copy of Thoughtseize or Inquisition. Yes, later in the game, when we have more swamps than they have cards in their hand, it's strictly better - gets rid of any card you want. Except you compromise the integrity of your early game on the offchance you might get to the stage where it shines without picking the threats from their hand.
If "if"s and "but"s were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Marry Christmas.
I'm sorry, Memory, but I can't silently stand by any longer. This splash thing has gone absolutely out of control.
So, I'm going to (try) establish once and for all which splashes are good and bad. I'll do what nobody else seems willing to. Test the crap out of them. It's easy to come in, talking about Lingering Souls or Phyrexian Metamorph. But where is your proof of concept? Where are the results? As some of the people have mentioned before, it's good to bring new(?) things to the table, but they need weight behind them. Yet I still don't think splashes (or even, as ktk mentioned, changes to the core) should be overlooked. Yes, generally speaking more colours leads to pain, but the most competitive decks out there run at least 2 colours, with the majority being 3-coloured (on that note, dolzero, even if you don't have to take damage to run more than one colour, the most optimal way to do so includes hurting yourself, no matter what you say). After all, as long as it's above zero, life is a resource and should be treated as such.
Now, how am I going to approach this? I'll start with the red splash because it looks most promising to me (yes, the red one, you fools!). No, it won't include crap like Blightning. I'll play 10 matches total with each splash. 6 against the top tier, most competitive decks right now, 2 against random gimmick-based brews to test if it's solid enough to resist shenanigans (although that will probably be true, we've seen the core shell prove itself time and again) and 2 against the mirror (we have to prove it improves the deck in any way, right?). Those numbers may vary over time. I'll provide detailed "reports" of the most interesting matches, always including at least 3 against competitive decks and 1 against the mirror (those detailed reports will usually be of the toughest matchups and hardest games). The rest of the matches will be represented by a summary in which I describe in general how the matchup felt and went. We are talking about paper magic here, just want to put it out there. The opponents I'll be facing are some of the best magic players in my country, including the four members of the Bulgarian national team (which sounds cool but it's actually not a big deal, we never get far at Worlds).
Of course, not all splashes will be successful (as expected). Keep in mind no "pet cards" will be tested - we are talking about trying to bring the power level up, not accommodating random crap into the 8Rack shell. I've read about all sorts of weird stuff here, including Phyrexian Metamorph, which was honestly hilarious.
Anyway, that's it from me for now, I'll do the red splash tests tomorrow and report how they went. If for some reason anyone is opposed to actually providing proof for the usefulness of splashes and wants to just spam with nothing but vain ideas and jibber-jabber, please remember how Duels of the Planeswalkers teaches you that "you are a planeswalker" and target yourself with Dreadbore.