Having more lands than the opponent does not mean that you are winning. If you are out of gas and are in topdeck mode, it doesn't matter how many lands you have.
No, but you can easily make an argument that if you're winning the resource battle and winning the card advantage battle you'll be in a better position to win the game more often than not. When you're in topdeck mode, having thinned out 3-9 lands from your deck and making sure you have the resources to cast all your topdecks is wonderful. If I'm being outresourced by my opponent, I don't mind drawing Land Tax at any stage in the game. Improving the quality of my topdecks by removing a grip of lands from my deck has a more profound impact than you'd think.
And the ceiling on Land Tax is absurd. Higher than any other card in the cube. And the average performance is still significantly higher than the vast majority of cube cards. Land Tax is akin to Mind Twist in that it has a huge variance in play. Early to mid-game it's stellar. Both are occasionally underwhelming topdecks. They both represent splashable card advantage that can impact the resource balance. Both are easily top-5 cards in their respective colors.
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Lol you know card advantage? As in classic card advantage? haha cards in hand aren't as vogue as 1995...
Card advantage will still have a tremendous impact on who wins the typical game. There's an incredible correlation between winning the card advantage battle and winning the game. You're assuming that card advantage only equates to cards in hand. It doesn't. At all. So feel free to dispel that notion at any time. Card advantage equates to gas and resources. Which does provide you with the board advantage that you seem to think is unrelated to card advantage for some reason.
Having more lands than the opponent does not mean that you are winning. If you are out of gas and are in topdeck mode, it doesn't matter how many lands you have.
No, but you can easily make an argument that if you're winning the resource battle and winning the card advantage battle you'll be in a better position to win the game more often than not. When you're in topdeck mode, having thinned out 3-9 lands from your deck and making sure you have the resources to cast all your topdecks is wonderful. If I'm being outresourced by my opponent, I don't mind drawing Land Tax at any stage in the game. Improving the quality of my topdecks by removing a grip of lands from my deck has a more profound impact than you'd think.
I have the feeling that you don't quite understand what I am saying. I never argued that the effect of Land Tax is bad. Even if you don't need many lands, the thinning alone is good and I never argued against this. So, no, I am not underestimating its profound impact. I don't have a problem with the card's effect itself, but rather with its condition. A condition that is far from trivial and that often prevents the effect from triggering.
Also, when I draw Tax while in topdeck mode (a rather common scenario for me, that I pointed out above), I have obviously thinned out zero lands from my deck at that point. And if my opponent then doesn't have more lands than me, I won't get any card advantage from Tax in the next few turns. What should I do to prevent this? Just stop playing lands after the fourth one or so to get Tax active once I draw it? That might never happen and I want to cast my spells right now, so that I don't fall behind.
And the ceiling on Land Tax is absurd. Higher than any other card in the cube. And the average performance is still significantly higher than the vast majority of cube cards. Land Tax is akin to Mind Twist in that it has a huge variance in play. Early to mid-game it's stellar. Both are occasionally underwhelming topdecks. They both represent splashable card advantage that can impact the resource balance. Both are easily top-5 cards in their respective colors.
Sure, I had games where I "drew" 12 basic lands with it which is obviously insane card advantage and if you look at the average amount of lands "drawn", then it would probably be around 3. Which is pretty good for a cost of only W. So, if you are just looking at the pretty good average performance and at the insane best case scenarios, it is a great card. However, I can't get over the fact that it does absolutely nothing half the time where it is drawn! This is way more important than the average performance for me. I hate cards that are absolutely insane one game and that do nothing during the next one and the main difference is when they are drawn. Putting Land Tax in my deck is like gambling: I have roughly equal chances to get some huge card advantage or to draw a dead card. Ugh.
I hate cards that are absolutely insane one game and that do nothing during the next one and the main difference is when they are drawn. Putting Land Tax in my deck is like gambling: I have roughly equal chances to get some huge card advantage or to draw a dead card. Ugh.
It sounds more like a personal issue with that sort of card than a logical critique of its playability. I mean, if I can pay £5 to enter a raffle that gets me £0 50% of the time and £20 50% of the time, then I'm entering that raffle every time
I would agree that it isn't truly dead half the time, maybe 20-30% tops. If you see it mid-game, it is very easy to play into it somehow. I would actually consider it dead less often than Black Lotus, which doesn't offer much advantage at all once I hit my 4th-6th land depending on deck.
The most egregiously binary card has to be Black Vise, which actually does nothing when not in your opening hand (other than with draw sevens). It's strong enough to warrant playing if that's OK with your group, but I could understand if not. It's OK to use a deck slot for a card that isn't equally good at all points in the game. In fact, that would make for boring Magic.
The other thing to consider (even more so with Vise because it's aggro exclusive) is how many cards you see in the average game. If the game runs ~7 turns, you'll see Land Tax in your opening hand more often than drawing it outside of its relevant timeframe. So the window of times for it to be a truly dead card (after you've made your 5th land drop, so maybe ~T6?) is really low. And the chances for it to be insane (opening hand) are really high by comparison. So it's certainly not 50/50 by any stretch of the imagination.
Yes, it is probably a personal issue. For me, the negative feelings of the "Oh god, this card does absolutely nothing!" moments are far more severe than the positive feeling of the "Yay! I am drawing lots of cards!" moments. If I get my free lands, the card does exactly what it is meant to do, so no big whoop, right? On the other hand, if it does nothing, it feels extra frustrating.
And for me, it has truly been 50/50, no stretch of the imagination involved. For example, in the last two cube drafts, I had Land Tax in a RWg Wildfire deck and in a Bw Pox deck (thought that it might help in case my opponents would rebuild their mana bases faster than myself), drew it in four games and got to trigger it not even once (lost two of those games, btw). That was extreme, but it hasn't been much better in the past. I don't have exact numbers of other drafters, but I have seen it rot around doing nothing for others, too. And it only gets picked by very few people in my draft group anyway. Friends who haven't played with the card in other formats almost never touch it. Tax is a common last pick in my cube, unless one of the players who has had experience with it in the past participates in the draft.
That's fine if you want to base it off unlucky experiences. Like saying that Mana Crypt is bad because you always lose the flips. That's fine, but it's not based on anything other than blind luck. It's mathematically improbable for you to be drawing this card only in the narrow windows where it's truly dead half the time.
It's mathematically improbable for you to be drawing this card only in the narrow windows where it's truly dead half the time.
And yet it happens so often.
“Million-to-one chances...crop up nine times out of ten.” Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
To be honest I haven't seen it be truly amazing around here (yet), but it works well with so many cards that I want to keep it. It's sad if it hasn't been working for you and your playgroup, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time until someone plays it, the card is insane, and everyone just wants to try in the next draft.
It's mathematically improbable for you to be drawing this card only in the narrow windows where it's truly dead half the time.
And yet it happens so often.
Did you cut all the mana accelerators like Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual and other cards that are dead in the exact same window as Land Tax? Or other high variance cards like Black Vise and Mind Twist? Or is it just some ungodly bad luck with one card that makes you evaluate it differently from all the other cards that have the same drawback?
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
It's mathematically improbable for you to be drawing this card only in the narrow windows where it's truly dead half the time.
And yet it happens so often.
“Million-to-one chances...crop up nine times out of ten.” Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
To be honest I haven't seen it be truly amazing around here (yet), but it works well with so many cards that I want to keep it. It's sad if it hasn't been working for you and your playgroup, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time until someone plays it, the card is insane, and everyone just wants to try in the next draft.
Well, there was that one game where I drew 12 lands with Land Tax... (You also get a thumbs up for the Pratchett quote!)
Did you cut all the mana accelerators like Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual and other cards that are dead in the exact same window as Land Tax? Or other high variance cards like Black Vise and Mind Twist? Or is it just some ungodly bad luck with one card that makes you evaluate it differently from all the other cards that have the same drawback?
I have cut Black Vise for the very same reason (though it recently came back) and I generally hate early mana acceleration like the ones you mention. I don't think that Mind Twist falls into that same category though.
I think when you draw Twist in the same window where Tax is bad, it's just as useless. Both spells have the ability to be broken, solid, mediocre and dead, all depending on various factors and usually correlating with the length of the game.
If there was ever a card I would put in the same realm as Ancestral Recall (My undisputed king of cards) it is Land Tax. I have been groaning for 20 years when I see that thing hit the table. Yes it requires more work than recall, but for 1 mana these two are tops. There have been dozens of times I have seen people strip mine themselves just to activate it.
There are lots of cute interactions like forbid, kjeldron outpost, stormbind, wild mongerl etc. but I don't think of this as a combo card. In the opening hand it is nuts but I would rather have it there or in top deck mode than a Mox. The variance is much lower than the accelerators.
When I have land tax in my deck and haven't drawn it I only play lands up to 1 less than the biggest thing I can draw. That usually means only 4-5 in play, my opponent will easily storm past that.
As far as which decks, I will play it everywhere, but usually a control play scoops it up first. In control on the play I just skip drop 2 or 3. In almost all control decks I am looking to be 2-3 cards ahead and 6 lands in play by turn 7. This card does that all by itself, improves my card draw, combos and so much more for 1 mana.
For aggro, it may not be as good but I will likely only be dropping 3 lands in a row, and land tax is so cheap it will fit in anywhere.
Midrange can just pick a good time based on game pace. Mid range vs aggro is probably the worst scenerio as you dont really want to take the time off and they wont play more lands than you. But that is only one matchup, when on the play and Land Tax isn't in my opening hand.
I think I know why you dislike Land Tax. It has more to do with how you have crafted your cube. It is not a good or bad thing because you make your cube to suit your group and your tastes. I see a lot of synergy vs power discussions on the boards. Some players, myself included, prefer cards that require more setup in the deckbuilding and drafting to mitigate downsides and achieve maximum power. Other cubers disdain cards that ride in sideboards or are frequently last picked when not in the right deck. I see you as a Brimaz player. It is a card that everyone thought snap include right away, not really for any tricks or combos, but just because of raw power, an expectation of high quality that it will bring to a deck. I am more of a tinker player, not just that I like to support combos but the idea that I would rather have cards that make a deck greater than a sum of it's parts.
Also with the midrange slugfest that are more likely in your cube, the bad times for land tax do increase. Just not 50% (IMO).
I can see where wtwlf's and dschumm's argument is going, and I accept it. Land Tax is just not good in my cube. I think any cube designer knows his cube best, and does what's best for it.
It's not about hating the card, it's just not right for some cubes.
In a typical game of magic, how good is this card when you are on the play?
What decks is it not very good in for a typical game of magic (because you don't want to purposely miss land drops hoping your opponent can't afford to miss theirs?)
On the play, is it ever a good play to skip your second land drop with this card out?
On the play, is it ever a good play to skip your second land drop with this card out?
Oh, hell yes. Think of skipping your land drop as casting Standstill. Do it when you think you have the advantage, or will have the advantage if no more lands hit the board. If they do play a land, you get to draw 3. Even better, if you're wrong, all they get is a minor tempo bump (as opposed to the dreaded Standstill self break).
Also, feel free to skip your first land drop if you have mox pearl or diamond.
Sometimes. But more often, I'll find the best place to skip a land drop without it having a huge impact on my curve, and skip it there. Usually passing on my 3rd or 4th land drop, and capping my opponent until they elect to have me activate it. I'd gladly seek out the best place in the curve to skip a land drop if it means activating Land Tax. It's kinda like finding the best place in the curve to play an ETBT land when you're on the play. It will vary from game to game.
The only time it has ever been actively bad for me was against a deck with lots of elves, gaea's cradle, and plow under. I tried skipping land drop 3 only to see him lay a cradle and plow under my two lands. That was too much tempo to recover from. But on the whole the decks that can punish you enough are very, very rare.
No, but you can easily make an argument that if you're winning the resource battle and winning the card advantage battle you'll be in a better position to win the game more often than not. When you're in topdeck mode, having thinned out 3-9 lands from your deck and making sure you have the resources to cast all your topdecks is wonderful. If I'm being outresourced by my opponent, I don't mind drawing Land Tax at any stage in the game. Improving the quality of my topdecks by removing a grip of lands from my deck has a more profound impact than you'd think.
And the ceiling on Land Tax is absurd. Higher than any other card in the cube. And the average performance is still significantly higher than the vast majority of cube cards. Land Tax is akin to Mind Twist in that it has a huge variance in play. Early to mid-game it's stellar. Both are occasionally underwhelming topdecks. They both represent splashable card advantage that can impact the resource balance. Both are easily top-5 cards in their respective colors.
Card advantage will still have a tremendous impact on who wins the typical game. There's an incredible correlation between winning the card advantage battle and winning the game. You're assuming that card advantage only equates to cards in hand. It doesn't. At all. So feel free to dispel that notion at any time. Card advantage equates to gas and resources. Which does provide you with the board advantage that you seem to think is unrelated to card advantage for some reason.
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Also, when I draw Tax while in topdeck mode (a rather common scenario for me, that I pointed out above), I have obviously thinned out zero lands from my deck at that point. And if my opponent then doesn't have more lands than me, I won't get any card advantage from Tax in the next few turns. What should I do to prevent this? Just stop playing lands after the fourth one or so to get Tax active once I draw it? That might never happen and I want to cast my spells right now, so that I don't fall behind.
Sure, I had games where I "drew" 12 basic lands with it which is obviously insane card advantage and if you look at the average amount of lands "drawn", then it would probably be around 3. Which is pretty good for a cost of only W. So, if you are just looking at the pretty good average performance and at the insane best case scenarios, it is a great card. However, I can't get over the fact that it does absolutely nothing half the time where it is drawn! This is way more important than the average performance for me. I hate cards that are absolutely insane one game and that do nothing during the next one and the main difference is when they are drawn. Putting Land Tax in my deck is like gambling: I have roughly equal chances to get some huge card advantage or to draw a dead card. Ugh.
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It sounds more like a personal issue with that sort of card than a logical critique of its playability. I mean, if I can pay £5 to enter a raffle that gets me £0 50% of the time and £20 50% of the time, then I'm entering that raffle every time
I would agree that it isn't truly dead half the time, maybe 20-30% tops. If you see it mid-game, it is very easy to play into it somehow. I would actually consider it dead less often than Black Lotus, which doesn't offer much advantage at all once I hit my 4th-6th land depending on deck.
The most egregiously binary card has to be Black Vise, which actually does nothing when not in your opening hand (other than with draw sevens). It's strong enough to warrant playing if that's OK with your group, but I could understand if not. It's OK to use a deck slot for a card that isn't equally good at all points in the game. In fact, that would make for boring Magic.
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And for me, it has truly been 50/50, no stretch of the imagination involved. For example, in the last two cube drafts, I had Land Tax in a RWg Wildfire deck and in a Bw Pox deck (thought that it might help in case my opponents would rebuild their mana bases faster than myself), drew it in four games and got to trigger it not even once (lost two of those games, btw). That was extreme, but it hasn't been much better in the past. I don't have exact numbers of other drafters, but I have seen it rot around doing nothing for others, too. And it only gets picked by very few people in my draft group anyway. Friends who haven't played with the card in other formats almost never touch it. Tax is a common last pick in my cube, unless one of the players who has had experience with it in the past participates in the draft.
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“Million-to-one chances...crop up nine times out of ten.” Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
To be honest I haven't seen it be truly amazing around here (yet), but it works well with so many cards that I want to keep it. It's sad if it hasn't been working for you and your playgroup, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time until someone plays it, the card is insane, and everyone just wants to try in the next draft.
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Did you cut all the mana accelerators like Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual and other cards that are dead in the exact same window as Land Tax? Or other high variance cards like Black Vise and Mind Twist? Or is it just some ungodly bad luck with one card that makes you evaluate it differently from all the other cards that have the same drawback?
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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I have cut Black Vise for the very same reason (though it recently came back) and I generally hate early mana acceleration like the ones you mention. I don't think that Mind Twist falls into that same category though.
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and probably ten more cards I'm forgetting.
Well, there are 5 others:
Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest
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Mox, scroll rack, lots of artifact mana, kor skyfisher, brainstorm . sylvan library, forbid come to mind.
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There are lots of cute interactions like forbid, kjeldron outpost, stormbind, wild mongerl etc. but I don't think of this as a combo card. In the opening hand it is nuts but I would rather have it there or in top deck mode than a Mox. The variance is much lower than the accelerators.
When I have land tax in my deck and haven't drawn it I only play lands up to 1 less than the biggest thing I can draw. That usually means only 4-5 in play, my opponent will easily storm past that.
As far as which decks, I will play it everywhere, but usually a control play scoops it up first. In control on the play I just skip drop 2 or 3. In almost all control decks I am looking to be 2-3 cards ahead and 6 lands in play by turn 7. This card does that all by itself, improves my card draw, combos and so much more for 1 mana.
For aggro, it may not be as good but I will likely only be dropping 3 lands in a row, and land tax is so cheap it will fit in anywhere.
Midrange can just pick a good time based on game pace. Mid range vs aggro is probably the worst scenerio as you dont really want to take the time off and they wont play more lands than you. But that is only one matchup, when on the play and Land Tax isn't in my opening hand.
I think I know why you dislike Land Tax. It has more to do with how you have crafted your cube. It is not a good or bad thing because you make your cube to suit your group and your tastes. I see a lot of synergy vs power discussions on the boards. Some players, myself included, prefer cards that require more setup in the deckbuilding and drafting to mitigate downsides and achieve maximum power. Other cubers disdain cards that ride in sideboards or are frequently last picked when not in the right deck. I see you as a Brimaz player. It is a card that everyone thought snap include right away, not really for any tricks or combos, but just because of raw power, an expectation of high quality that it will bring to a deck. I am more of a tinker player, not just that I like to support combos but the idea that I would rather have cards that make a deck greater than a sum of it's parts.
Also with the midrange slugfest that are more likely in your cube, the bad times for land tax do increase. Just not 50% (IMO).
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To be fair, it's more like four cards a turn.
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What decks is it not very good in for a typical game of magic (because you don't want to purposely miss land drops hoping your opponent can't afford to miss theirs?)
On the play, is it ever a good play to skip your second land drop with this card out?
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Oh, hell yes. Think of skipping your land drop as casting Standstill. Do it when you think you have the advantage, or will have the advantage if no more lands hit the board. If they do play a land, you get to draw 3. Even better, if you're wrong, all they get is a minor tempo bump (as opposed to the dreaded Standstill self break).
Also, feel free to skip your first land drop if you have mox pearl or diamond.
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