I do expect folks to double down on their stance after testing these cards, and not because they are actually any good, but because it is easy for them to feel they were right when they have the ability to confirm their own thoughts without disproving the naysayers.
Good lord, what an awful take. I mean, the exact same thing could be said about the MDFC haters ...but nobody's making that argument because it's a complete garbage take.
My point regarding the Mimic was about rate, not function. So it's the same.
Opposite of my intentions with the comments about limited. Only pointing out that how they perform in cube will be independent from their performance in other formats. Correlation ≠ causation, and all that good stuff.
There's cool information that can be obtained by watching them in limited and standard. But the only thing that matters in the end is how well they do in the cube. Hopefully by watching the other formats I can learn some cool tricks of the trade to make them perform even better in cube.
Yes, Metamorph is better at being a Clone than Mimic is, and I don't think anyone is arguing that.
And there's a hell of a lot more to evaluating these cards than what pick order they fall in during their respective retail limited drafts. I'm interested in seeing how they play in cube. That will be what's telling in regards to how good they are in cube.
And I think the best of the MDFCs also have acceptable rates for the spells. A lot of folks have success with cards like Vraska's Contempt and the like ...the Mauling can also kill a creature for 4 mana (sometimes 3 even) and exchanges the 'walker removal option for the ability to be a land when you need one. Cloning one of my creatures for 3 mana is one of the modes I can use a Metamorph for, but with the Mimic, I don't lose life, it can't be shattered and I can play it as a land. I lose the creature side of Den Protector, but I can get the regrowth effect for less overall mana than that card and I can also play it as a land. Each example is pairing two slightly-less-than-optimal effects and rolling them up together to get value.
And I've also explained the reasons why I think the MDFC land option is better than cycling in the cases where the two mechanics really differ. What MDFCs can do to improve the quantity of keepable opening hands, improve the spell/land ratio and prevent losing games to screw/flood is just great value. Cycling helps with some of those issues, but it doesn't straight-up fix them, because there's a lot of consistency issues w/ random card replacement. We just don't seem to agree on these points, or how to value that aspect of the card. I think it's worth at least 1 in order to have access to those upsides. Other folks don't. And that's okay.
- I think most would agree that save a few exceptions, the spell sides of these dual type cards aren't really cubable because they are not powerful enough (and obviously not the land part by itself either). Thus the power present in the card comes solely from the flexibility, the increase in keepable hands, the mitigating the risk of flooding out. But will including cards like these in your deck lead to more wins? Not necessarily. You'll keep more hands, and also play more monocolored tapped lands and overcosted spells, which are real costs well proven to lose games.
I don't agree with this. This is the case for all modal cards. Lots of good cards with multiple options require you to overpay to have access to the effect, and lots of them are great. Izzet Charm, for example, is a collection of effects that are nowhere close to ever being worth 2 mana and 2 colors to have access to. But even though I'm overpaying for that Spell Pierce or overpaying for that creature-only Shock, the card is great because I have access to multiple options. MDFCs also give me multiple options, even if neither of the modes would be cubeworthy on their own. Flexibility, even when overcosted, wins games of Magic. My Izzet decks are better with Izzet Charm. My red decks are better with Abrade. My black decks are better with Collective Brutality. Those kinds of cards lead to wins. And MDFCs will too.
Quote from Fires »
- There is actual precedent for these cards (or pretty damn close to it), and I don't really understand the aversion to compare the two. Lonely Sandbar is either a tapped Island, or a Reach Through Mists. Yes, you lose Island synergy and it doesn't count as a spell, which makes it a little worse (though you do get the actually great Loam interaction). Reach Through Mists is overcosted by 1 to be cubable, a tax I've seen here advertised as reasonable. Who runs Lonely Sandbar? I actually really like the card, but a tapped Island instead of an untapped one is such a huge liability that they don't make it.
A cantrip (with no additional upside that doesn't provide any actual card selection) and a meaningful spell are two different things. I can cycle Lonely Sandbar, but that's not a meaningful spell in the same way the spell sides of MDFCs are. And that's part of the point here. This isn't cycling. This is something much different, and in my opinion, something much better.
A MDFC is a spell or a land. Lonely Sandbar is a Land or (maybe a spell, or maybe another land). Cycling is simply a different function than this mechanic.
Quote from Fires »
I've found this whole discussion somewhat frustrating as I seem pretty fully convinced of my side of it, and it looks like the other side feels the same way.
I don’t think the power level of these is something that makes searching for a land by caveat, impressive. Cute, but not impressive.
Correct. The subtle interactions are not in and of themselves the things that make these cards good. They do ad a little bit of additional synergy though, which is always cool to find.
I fully expect people to recant their praise for these cards to some extent, but if instead they double down - then good on them I guess.
Two things here. First, I expect the opposite to happen. Over the coming months, I expect more people to get on board with MDFCs being good and worthy of inclusion than those that are currently offering praise to recant their positions. And I think it'll be by a lot, actually.
Secondly, if folks start doubling down on their positions that support MDFCs ...it could be indicative that they're even better than we thought. If I had to wager an amount of money that mattered to me, I'd guess that there's actually more MDFCs that are worthy of cube inclusion than the community at large thinks, not less.
These are all, a pretty easy pass for me. None of them have enough power for me to consider the marginal gains as anything more than slight deck building boons that offer virtually no statistical leverage.
I think this statement is either A) not what you meant it to say, or B) it's simply false. If you don't think that access to MDFCs will offer a strategic advantage to the player that has access to them, I think that's plain false. If that's not what you meant, I don't know what you're saying ...I have no idea how to deconstruct your statement to have it mean something else. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your point? IDK.
I was able to grab a much needed land with Imperial Recruiter thanks to Glasspool Mimic being a 0/0 creature in one of my games testing with it already. I mean, it didn't feel amazing, but I was able to make my land drop for the turn. There's TONS of these kinds of little interactions floating around, and it'll take us a long time to discover them all.
I wouldn't speak for everyone if I were you because I think Shelldock Isle is medicore at best and is super overrated and know a good amount of others who share similar thoughts.
That was along the lines of what I said before I changed my reply to "Nevermind, not worth it, lol".
I agree that there will likely be a few times where it will be confusing. I'm just not super worried about it. I wish you and your group the best of luck with new player MDFC interactions!
I wanted to put this in its own post cause it's pretty absurd - as written, you can't play these off the top with Courser, but you can with Muly Duly. However, Courser has apparently had an oracle change at some point to just say "lands" instead of "land cards," so you can actually play these with courser, but you'd only know that if you decided to randomly check the oracle text for Courser. If you looked at the rulings on these MDF cards, and the rules themselves for these MDF cars themselves, everything you read would tell you Courser couldn't play these cards.
While mildly annoying, there are other cards in the cube already where Oracle text changes their function. Burn spells that don't have an "any target" errata still read creature or player, and without checking oracle text, you wouldn't know that you can target planeswalkers with them. Searing Spear can hit 'walkers, FYI. Creature type erratas matter too, and there are some that don't have current printings. And so on. It's a bummer, but we'll learn it and get over it, just like all the other oracle text changes that impact function.
Thanks for apologizing. I've had to do it a couple of times over a few threads myself regarding this topic.
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Good lord, what an awful take. I mean, the exact same thing could be said about the MDFC haters ...but nobody's making that argument because it's a complete garbage take.
But whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.
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Opposite of my intentions with the comments about limited. Only pointing out that how they perform in cube will be independent from their performance in other formats. Correlation ≠ causation, and all that good stuff.
There's cool information that can be obtained by watching them in limited and standard. But the only thing that matters in the end is how well they do in the cube. Hopefully by watching the other formats I can learn some cool tricks of the trade to make them perform even better in cube.
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And there's a hell of a lot more to evaluating these cards than what pick order they fall in during their respective retail limited drafts. I'm interested in seeing how they play in cube. That will be what's telling in regards to how good they are in cube.
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And I've also explained the reasons why I think the MDFC land option is better than cycling in the cases where the two mechanics really differ. What MDFCs can do to improve the quantity of keepable opening hands, improve the spell/land ratio and prevent losing games to screw/flood is just great value. Cycling helps with some of those issues, but it doesn't straight-up fix them, because there's a lot of consistency issues w/ random card replacement. We just don't seem to agree on these points, or how to value that aspect of the card. I think it's worth at least 1 in order to have access to those upsides. Other folks don't. And that's okay.
So ya, time will tell, I guess.
Cheers, and thanks for the good discussion.
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I don't agree with this. This is the case for all modal cards. Lots of good cards with multiple options require you to overpay to have access to the effect, and lots of them are great. Izzet Charm, for example, is a collection of effects that are nowhere close to ever being worth 2 mana and 2 colors to have access to. But even though I'm overpaying for that Spell Pierce or overpaying for that creature-only Shock, the card is great because I have access to multiple options. MDFCs also give me multiple options, even if neither of the modes would be cubeworthy on their own. Flexibility, even when overcosted, wins games of Magic. My Izzet decks are better with Izzet Charm. My red decks are better with Abrade. My black decks are better with Collective Brutality. Those kinds of cards lead to wins. And MDFCs will too.
A cantrip (with no additional upside that doesn't provide any actual card selection) and a meaningful spell are two different things. I can cycle Lonely Sandbar, but that's not a meaningful spell in the same way the spell sides of MDFCs are. And that's part of the point here. This isn't cycling. This is something much different, and in my opinion, something much better.
A MDFC is a spell or a land. Lonely Sandbar is a Land or (maybe a spell, or maybe another land). Cycling is simply a different function than this mechanic.
Tell me about it.
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Correct. The subtle interactions are not in and of themselves the things that make these cards good. They do ad a little bit of additional synergy though, which is always cool to find.
Two things here. First, I expect the opposite to happen. Over the coming months, I expect more people to get on board with MDFCs being good and worthy of inclusion than those that are currently offering praise to recant their positions. And I think it'll be by a lot, actually.
Secondly, if folks start doubling down on their positions that support MDFCs ...it could be indicative that they're even better than we thought. If I had to wager an amount of money that mattered to me, I'd guess that there's actually more MDFCs that are worthy of cube inclusion than the community at large thinks, not less.
I think this statement is either A) not what you meant it to say, or B) it's simply false. If you don't think that access to MDFCs will offer a strategic advantage to the player that has access to them, I think that's plain false. If that's not what you meant, I don't know what you're saying ...I have no idea how to deconstruct your statement to have it mean something else. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your point? IDK.
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That was along the lines of what I said before I changed my reply to "Nevermind, not worth it, lol".
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1. You can play them as a land any time you could play a land (from any zone).
2. They're never "land cards" in any zone other than the battlefield.
...Once you follow those two rules, I think they're relatively intuitive and easy to understand. I'm not concerned with it.
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While mildly annoying, there are other cards in the cube already where Oracle text changes their function. Burn spells that don't have an "any target" errata still read creature or player, and without checking oracle text, you wouldn't know that you can target planeswalkers with them. Searing Spear can hit 'walkers, FYI. Creature type erratas matter too, and there are some that don't have current printings. And so on. It's a bummer, but we'll learn it and get over it, just like all the other oracle text changes that impact function.
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Should be relatively intuitive.
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