In the couple of weeks that I've dedicated myself pretty fully to playing block, I've actually met with one major frustration. I haven't gotten into many dailies yet because of my schedule (that'll be fixed next week), so I've been trying to test as much as I can to see what decks I like and how to play them well. Sometimes though, the people I'm playing in the Tournament Practice room leave something to be desired.
I've seen a ton of cards being played in a manner that I would just consider wrong. Almost always, this revolves around playing a card as fast as you can, like it's burning a hole in your hand, even though this is a slower format than most.
Forbidden Alchemy: This one isn't really a surprise. A lot of people never caught on that an on-the-play Turn 1: Island, Preordain was the correct play maybe a quarter of the time. Alchemy isn't nearly as bad, but I think that's only because it can't be cast on turn 1 so players have no choice but to learn more about what sort of card they're looking for before they play it. I do think that if you played a turn 2 Think Twice, a better turn 3 play is to flash back that Think Twice instead of playing the Forbidden Alchemy (unless you're sure you know what kind of card you need).
Desperate Ravings: This is the worst offender right now, I think. A lot of people seem desperate (no pun intended) to cast this spell as soon as humanly possible. A couple of days ago, I had this sequence happen on turn 2 no less than three times in the same day: Desperate Ravings, discard Burning Vengeance, concede. This is not the best card to play early in any deck unless your hand is full of trash, but then you should have probably taken a mulligan anyway.
Fiend Hunter: Again, people seem to want to cast this as fast as possible. I've had people playing RW cast Fiend Hunter to exile a 2/2 Wolf token only to have me cast a Tree of Redemption on the next turn. The Hunter has only one power. It's not a beatdown tool and should be used more as a removal spell than a creature.
Brimstone Volley: A lot of players seem to be fixated on this as a Garruk removal spell. In a game I played just a few minutes ago (also against RW), I played Garruk and killed an Instigator Gang, leaving Garruk on one loyalty. I had no creatures, and he had a Doomed Traveler. On his turn, he Volleyed Garruk to death and then attacked me with the Traveler. Thank you very much for that free 2-4 points of life. This sort of sequence is not unheard of.
I don't mean just to criticize, though. I know I don't have a good feel for playing Liliana of the Veil yet, and I'm sure that there are a few more cards that I haven't even thought about yet that I'm not playing as well as I could. So if you've noticed plays that keep being made that might be able to be made better, please post about them so we can all learn a bit.
While things are not fast, with all the flashback available you will often be using all your mana even in the later turns.
So even on turn two, I will often cast the ravings if I can, unless there is some critical card in my hand I can't lose because otherwise I am losing a turn of tempo. I agree on the think twice vs. alchemy call since flashback on TT costs the same as Alchemy.
I see a lot of people afraid to level Liliana up aggresively because they think there opponent has too many cards and he will pitch a useless card or land and you don't have a land to pitch. But they often underestimate the power of having Liliana with lots of counters on them. And they also forget that their Liliana deck usually has alot more flashback than their opponent - discarding a flashback card is like only losing half a cad. OTOH you do need to be careful using Liliana's discard against decks with a lot more flashback than you.
I'm gonna be happy with that because I generally level Liliana very aggressively. That's partly because I'd like to use her to 2-for-1, but also because I have dreams of someday using her ultimate. Okay, that's wrong, I've used her ultimate once.
As a Burning Vengeance player (though without enough time to play competitively right now), I'll chime in.
Forbidden Alchemy - You need to fill your graveyard and keep it filled so that you have fuel once you land a Vengeance. Flashing back Think Twice and leaving an empty graveyard is much worse than casting Alchemy and filling it up.
Desperate Ravings - If someone plays this, discards a Burning Vengeance, and concedes, I agree that they were probably wrong to cast it. Whether they like to scoop early, or whether they were in such a position that they were just dead, you don't say--but this doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong to cast it just because you might discard something useful. If the odds are in your favour, it's probably better to avoid the tempo loss and just cast it. That said, there are times that I hold off casting it because I know I need something to win (most of the time it's Blasphemous Act against aggro).
Brimstone Volley - I don't see how your example has anything to do with Volley as a card; that's just a bad play all around. It would probably be just as bad if he flashed back a Geistflame instead of attacking (thanks for the free 1/2 card).
Liliana of the Veil - I agree that people are too afraid to level her. The only time I think you should really be unwilling is if they have no cards and you have some cards. (Though this is coming from someone who doesn't play Liliana.)
Sometimes I will level Lili even if I am the only one who has to discard. Getting her from say 2 counters to 3 is often worth a card in and of itself. I've used Liliana's ultimate several times. And much more often, having her on, or approaching with inevitability, 6 just gets the concede.
To be fair about Alchemy, the considerations about casting it in Burning Vengeance or U/G mill yourself are much different than in a "normal" deck. Ditto for ravings.
Also as a note, a general misplay I have personally made is discounting how much Flashback affects the game vs. some of the Flashback decks like U/G and Vengeance. But especially UG. Playing Jund, I have often played a traditionally conservative game vs. those decks once I am in what would normally be considered the drivers seat i.e. with them having no cards in hand and you having a ticking planeswalker or two. In non Inninistrad games you would feel no need to get a creature and win quickly - you just grind them out. But my god, I had no idea how deadly UG can be once it has a full greveyard and lots of mana even if you have a full mitt and planeswalkers. It only takes them drawing like one alchemy into Spider Spawning, then flash it back, and you are done without a sever the bloodline. I am now much more aggresive about say sacking a wolf with garruk to get a beater and end them fast. I had a guy go from nothing to 25 spiders on me in two turns.
Let me add one more...Gnaw to the Bone. This one should be pretty east for Dredge players to figure out, but apparently it's not. It's simple...you should never play this card if you're safely out of Brimstone Volley range. What's the use of playing it when you have 16 life, facing down an attack for 6 from a GW deck? The longer you hold it, the more creatures you get in your graveyard and the more value you get. It's a simple as that.
"Getting decent value" loses to "getting the best value." If you are knowingly playing cards in a suboptimal manner because what you're doing is "good enough," then you're asking to lose. Maybe it seems like gaining 14 life from a single spell is good enough, but how is it better than gaining 16 life?
If you want to use Gnaw on turn 4 because you're under pressure and want to be able to cast your Kessig Cagebreakers on turn 5, then yes, that makes sense. If you look across the table on turn for and see a Doomed Traveler and a Fiend Hunter while you're sitting at 16 life, it doesn't matter whether you're not going to have the mana free next turn, you don't cast the Gnaw anyway. That's the issue that I have...casting Gnaw to the Bone simply because you have the mana free to cast it.
Besides, Dredge is a deck with very little interaction and few answers to opponents' threats. More than once, I've won against it despite its player being at 45 life at some point in the game. Maybe of the Gnaw that had gotten him to 45 life had been held until he needed it, granting him that much extra life, he could have given himself a better chance to win.
This deck actually generally has an easy enough time with mana because it has a) eight mana creatures and b) Mulch. In my experience both playing with and against it, if it gets mana-screwed at the beginning, it's game over anyway, so mulligans are taken appropriately.
I should perhaps clarify the problem that I have with the way this card is played. The problem is - and this is somewhat universal in the time that I've spent playing in this format - that people play the same way without regard to what their opponents are playing.
I mentioned somewhere else that I spent a lot of time last week with GW tokens. This is a deck that cannot in any way, shape, or form get a "surprise" kill (the exception being Midnight Haunting, but that's exceedingly rare and still not at instant speed because it still requires an attack). If you have a Gnaw to the Bone in hand and four mana up, it is impossible for you to die to GW tokens except in the face of an overwhelming attack from which Gnaw wouldn't have saved you anyway. Since Dredge is not interactive, you don't need to leave mana up, and you're unlikely to tap out except to cast Spider Spawning, which is pretty impenetrable over the course of a single turn anyway. In other words, there is no way for a Dredge player to "accidentally" die to a tokens deck.
Against, say, RW, this is not the case. Against RW, the Dredge player needs to worry about damage that not only has reach but that comes at instant speed. He has to do his math based on what his opponent might have in hand rather than what he can already see on the table. He has to be careful, because if he casts a Gnaw in response to a Brimstone Volley, he might see a second Volley in response and die anyway.
So why, as a GW tokens player, have I constantly seen Dredge use Gnaw to the Bone like I'm playing some kind of burn deck?
It's particularly egregious in this case because, while RW has some difficulty with Gnaw, GW really doesn't because of its lack of one-time burn damage and because its pumped creatures can eventually overcome a bunch of spider tokens. Getting two extra points of life may matter little against RW but could mean a full extra turn against GW. Dredge is clearly in its best interest to maximize the value of a casting of Gnaw to the Bone against GW because a) it's not going to take an instant-speed loss, and b) it may actually need that extra life.
Of course I'm using two specific decks a examples, but you can easily extend that to other decks. For instance, you would want to use Gnaw more judiciously in the mirror as opposed to against Burning Vengeance.
So I will concede, my initial problem ("using Gnaw before it's absolutely necessary") may be too simplistic. Instead, read it as "using Gnaw the same way against every opponent, whether it's the ideal way our not." If you have a chance of losing, use it. If not, don't.
Incidentally, I'm wrong above about Desperate Ravings as well, at least with regard to some decks. I'd still be careful playing it in a "combo" deck when your main card comes down as early as turn 3 anyway, but in a midrange/control deck with a lot of flashback, the loss of the card isn't nearly as bad as the card advantage is good.
Even in a combo deck if your holding 5 or 6 cards that means there is a 1/7th or 1/8th chance you lose your piece. The upside is a huge gain in tempo. Most of the time it is the appropriate play to roll the dice. Now im not sure about the rage concede when the bet backfires but some people just dont like to play out very bad luck situations. It is the same thing as the guy who picks up all his cards after he draws 3 lands/no lands after a couple turns, but it doesnt mean it was the wrong play at all.
for the very minimal risk you get stuff in your GY ready to be flashbacked. Honestly having your burning vengeance in hand is MORE a reason to desperate ravings T2
The gnaw flashback thing is a silly thing to complain about as a misplay. If you miss out on 2-4 life but get to drop a creature instead the next turn (instead of leaving up gnaw mana) its well worth it, and really you never know what rogue nonsense you are going to face. For example against GW post board its not impossible to think that purify the grave might be a factor.
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I've seen a ton of cards being played in a manner that I would just consider wrong. Almost always, this revolves around playing a card as fast as you can, like it's burning a hole in your hand, even though this is a slower format than most.
Forbidden Alchemy: This one isn't really a surprise. A lot of people never caught on that an on-the-play Turn 1: Island, Preordain was the correct play maybe a quarter of the time. Alchemy isn't nearly as bad, but I think that's only because it can't be cast on turn 1 so players have no choice but to learn more about what sort of card they're looking for before they play it. I do think that if you played a turn 2 Think Twice, a better turn 3 play is to flash back that Think Twice instead of playing the Forbidden Alchemy (unless you're sure you know what kind of card you need).
Desperate Ravings: This is the worst offender right now, I think. A lot of people seem desperate (no pun intended) to cast this spell as soon as humanly possible. A couple of days ago, I had this sequence happen on turn 2 no less than three times in the same day: Desperate Ravings, discard Burning Vengeance, concede. This is not the best card to play early in any deck unless your hand is full of trash, but then you should have probably taken a mulligan anyway.
Fiend Hunter: Again, people seem to want to cast this as fast as possible. I've had people playing RW cast Fiend Hunter to exile a 2/2 Wolf token only to have me cast a Tree of Redemption on the next turn. The Hunter has only one power. It's not a beatdown tool and should be used more as a removal spell than a creature.
Brimstone Volley: A lot of players seem to be fixated on this as a Garruk removal spell. In a game I played just a few minutes ago (also against RW), I played Garruk and killed an Instigator Gang, leaving Garruk on one loyalty. I had no creatures, and he had a Doomed Traveler. On his turn, he Volleyed Garruk to death and then attacked me with the Traveler. Thank you very much for that free 2-4 points of life. This sort of sequence is not unheard of.
I don't mean just to criticize, though. I know I don't have a good feel for playing Liliana of the Veil yet, and I'm sure that there are a few more cards that I haven't even thought about yet that I'm not playing as well as I could. So if you've noticed plays that keep being made that might be able to be made better, please post about them so we can all learn a bit.
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
So even on turn two, I will often cast the ravings if I can, unless there is some critical card in my hand I can't lose because otherwise I am losing a turn of tempo. I agree on the think twice vs. alchemy call since flashback on TT costs the same as Alchemy.
I see a lot of people afraid to level Liliana up aggresively because they think there opponent has too many cards and he will pitch a useless card or land and you don't have a land to pitch. But they often underestimate the power of having Liliana with lots of counters on them. And they also forget that their Liliana deck usually has alot more flashback than their opponent - discarding a flashback card is like only losing half a cad. OTOH you do need to be careful using Liliana's discard against decks with a lot more flashback than you.
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
Forbidden Alchemy - You need to fill your graveyard and keep it filled so that you have fuel once you land a Vengeance. Flashing back Think Twice and leaving an empty graveyard is much worse than casting Alchemy and filling it up.
Desperate Ravings - If someone plays this, discards a Burning Vengeance, and concedes, I agree that they were probably wrong to cast it. Whether they like to scoop early, or whether they were in such a position that they were just dead, you don't say--but this doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong to cast it just because you might discard something useful. If the odds are in your favour, it's probably better to avoid the tempo loss and just cast it. That said, there are times that I hold off casting it because I know I need something to win (most of the time it's Blasphemous Act against aggro).
Brimstone Volley - I don't see how your example has anything to do with Volley as a card; that's just a bad play all around. It would probably be just as bad if he flashed back a Geistflame instead of attacking (thanks for the free 1/2 card).
Liliana of the Veil - I agree that people are too afraid to level her. The only time I think you should really be unwilling is if they have no cards and you have some cards. (Though this is coming from someone who doesn't play Liliana.)
UW UW Gideon Control WU
UWR Loose Control RWU
GR Scapeshift RG
RU Storm UR
To be fair about Alchemy, the considerations about casting it in Burning Vengeance or U/G mill yourself are much different than in a "normal" deck. Ditto for ravings.
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
If you want to use Gnaw on turn 4 because you're under pressure and want to be able to cast your Kessig Cagebreakers on turn 5, then yes, that makes sense. If you look across the table on turn for and see a Doomed Traveler and a Fiend Hunter while you're sitting at 16 life, it doesn't matter whether you're not going to have the mana free next turn, you don't cast the Gnaw anyway. That's the issue that I have...casting Gnaw to the Bone simply because you have the mana free to cast it.
Besides, Dredge is a deck with very little interaction and few answers to opponents' threats. More than once, I've won against it despite its player being at 45 life at some point in the game. Maybe of the Gnaw that had gotten him to 45 life had been held until he needed it, granting him that much extra life, he could have given himself a better chance to win.
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
I should perhaps clarify the problem that I have with the way this card is played. The problem is - and this is somewhat universal in the time that I've spent playing in this format - that people play the same way without regard to what their opponents are playing.
I mentioned somewhere else that I spent a lot of time last week with GW tokens. This is a deck that cannot in any way, shape, or form get a "surprise" kill (the exception being Midnight Haunting, but that's exceedingly rare and still not at instant speed because it still requires an attack). If you have a Gnaw to the Bone in hand and four mana up, it is impossible for you to die to GW tokens except in the face of an overwhelming attack from which Gnaw wouldn't have saved you anyway. Since Dredge is not interactive, you don't need to leave mana up, and you're unlikely to tap out except to cast Spider Spawning, which is pretty impenetrable over the course of a single turn anyway. In other words, there is no way for a Dredge player to "accidentally" die to a tokens deck.
Against, say, RW, this is not the case. Against RW, the Dredge player needs to worry about damage that not only has reach but that comes at instant speed. He has to do his math based on what his opponent might have in hand rather than what he can already see on the table. He has to be careful, because if he casts a Gnaw in response to a Brimstone Volley, he might see a second Volley in response and die anyway.
So why, as a GW tokens player, have I constantly seen Dredge use Gnaw to the Bone like I'm playing some kind of burn deck?
It's particularly egregious in this case because, while RW has some difficulty with Gnaw, GW really doesn't because of its lack of one-time burn damage and because its pumped creatures can eventually overcome a bunch of spider tokens. Getting two extra points of life may matter little against RW but could mean a full extra turn against GW. Dredge is clearly in its best interest to maximize the value of a casting of Gnaw to the Bone against GW because a) it's not going to take an instant-speed loss, and b) it may actually need that extra life.
Of course I'm using two specific decks a examples, but you can easily extend that to other decks. For instance, you would want to use Gnaw more judiciously in the mirror as opposed to against Burning Vengeance.
So I will concede, my initial problem ("using Gnaw before it's absolutely necessary") may be too simplistic. Instead, read it as "using Gnaw the same way against every opponent, whether it's the ideal way our not." If you have a chance of losing, use it. If not, don't.
I hope that makes my complaint a bit clearer.
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
for the very minimal risk you get stuff in your GY ready to be flashbacked. Honestly having your burning vengeance in hand is MORE a reason to desperate ravings T2
The gnaw flashback thing is a silly thing to complain about as a misplay. If you miss out on 2-4 life but get to drop a creature instead the next turn (instead of leaving up gnaw mana) its well worth it, and really you never know what rogue nonsense you are going to face. For example against GW post board its not impossible to think that purify the grave might be a factor.