This card wasn't really on my radar and I wrote it off as a multiplayer-commander or casual card, but the following quote from Todd Steven's article today had me looking at it in a different light:
Experimental Frenzy is deceptively strong, and I'm very excited about this card. You'll want it to be the one of the last cards cast from your hand, of course, since you won't be able to play other cards in your hand, but it then has the potential to allow you to play many cards each turn. Since it says you may "play" the top card of your library, and not "cast" the top card of your library, you're able to play a land from your library as well.
This means that each turn you should effectively be able to not only hit your land drop but play each other card until you reveal a second land since you won't be able to play two lands in a turn. When you go to your next turn you will draw the land on top of your deck and proceed to play cards until you reveal your second land again. It won't matter that you can't play the card in your hand since it will be a land and you're hitting land drops anyway.
Yes, there will certainly be turns where you don't have enough mana to cast the couple spells before you find your second land, and that you may have to draw a spell you otherwise wanted to cast, but over the long run, you'll be playing more than two cards on average over each of your turns with Experimental Frenzy on the battlefield, allowing you to out-grind midrange and control decks. I think this is another card that's under-the-radar now, but when people start playing with it, they'll realize its power level.
Thoughts on the possibility that this card can translate to cube?
It's definitely a very unique card. I think I'll try it out because it seems like a house for a big gruup deck. Cards that scream great synergy to me:
Fetch lands
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And any other shuffle effect.
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I don't think wheel is in contention of being cut anywhere and magus of the wheel seems more like a beater that helps refill.
However the Blasting Cannons, Outpost Siege, and various Chandra compare better. They are all 4 mana and give a kind of repetitive card advantage. While I like that this can go off it doesn't seem as good as the Chandras for their other options. Outpost siege has a second ability which sometimes is clutch. Cannons is pretty bad and can't even get you lands.
So if you are playing Chandra, Pyromaster, Outpost Siege, or Blasting Cannons I think this is worth a try.
As a side not in cubes supporting storm or very into spells matter I would give this a look.
I think this card is worth revisiting - from what I've seen in constructed and limited for GRN, this card is bonkers. I think it's in a weird spot with cube, since spending 4 mana to not affect the board is bad (you're not afforded the same amount of time as regular limited). But you also don't have the same density of cheap burn effects, where Experimental Frenzy is at its best (like in constructed).
That said, I think the card is better than Outpost Siege (and hence better than Vance's Blasting Cannons). Outpost Siege nets you 2 cards per turn - one from your draw step and 1 from the enchantment. Frenzy removes your draw step, so how could it be better than either? Here's I think why:
1. It enables a steady stream of cards -- For you to stop playing cards off the top of your deck, one of two things will happen: either you've run out of mana, or you've run into your second land on top. I wrote a simulation that does the following: assume that we untap on turn n with Experimental Frenzy in play. How many cards can we play off the top of our deck?
I ran a simulation to help me figure this out (for the more technical, a Monte Carlo simulation with 1 million trials). Consider two decks:
A very aggressive aggro deck (16 lands, 8 1 drops, 8 2 drops, 6 3 drops, 2 4 drops)
A typical midrange deck (17 lands, 2 1 drops, 5 2 drops, 6 3 drops, 5 4 drops, 4 5 drops, 2 6 drops)
Produces the following results:
What does this show? It shows that, Experimental Frenzy gets you more than one card on average even if you play it on turn 4, even in a midrange deck. But that's not when you should play Frenzy - you play it when your hand is empty (probably around t6 or t7). At that point, you're getting at least 2 cards off Frenzy. This shows that in terms of raw card advantage, Frenzy is always better in aggro decks than Siege, and usually better in midrange decks.
2. The cards you draw are not lost -- After reading the above, you might say "So what? Frenzy isn't better in terms of card advantage than Siege/Cannons in a midrange deck until turn 7, and it locks me out of access to cards in my hand". But the cards in your hand are not lost. If I don't cast the card revealed off Siege, it's lost forever. I can continue to stockpile cards in my hand with Frenzy, and then pop Frenzy when the cards in my hand are good, regaining access to these cards. There's no real way to quantify this, but there is extra card advantage than what is just shown on the left graph. This is what pushes it above Siege generally imo.
Conclusions Outpost Siege and Experimental Frenzy are fundamentally different cards. I see Outpost Siege as a big midrange/control card - it's grindy, it's reliable, and it's mediocre (which is why most of us don't cube it). Frenzy is (mostly) unplayable in control; reactive cards, especially counterspells, do not pair well with Frenzy. But in decks that are mostly just pushing their own gameplan, like aggro and many proactive flavors of midrange/ramp, with just removal as reactive cards, I think that Frenzy is quite good (as shown above).
TL;DR - Frenzy is better in many decks than Outpost Siege is in those decks, even if Frenzy is bad in control. I personally think this makes Frenzy the better cube card:
Now, is it cubeable? Maybe not - slots are tight for a 4 cmc red card that does not the turn it hits play. It's a high variance card - the floor is abysmal but can be raised with the right deck. Its ceiling is enormous. I think it deserves more attention than it is getting. I'll be testing it, and I hope that it performs well.
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i think this card is better than it looks. if you can dump your hand and lay this down you can just go off.
Futuresight effects are really powerful and getting a discount and an easier casting cost makes this something to consider. If i'm testing Risk Factor maybe this is worth testing as well.
Great work on the charts and gathered information, Tjornon.
I can't wait to play this card. Top and scroll rack could make utter nonsense with this thing if someone decide a control route, although, probably still bad.
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I’ve been playing 3 copies of it in standard since before the set even dropped, and it’s been really good, but only in hyper-aggreive red aggro decks with lots of cheap burn. Card is good, but I don’t think it would hold up in a cube setting. Who knows though, maybe I’m wrong and it’s just as good here as it is in standard.
I’ve seen it’s power in standard , but I’m skeptical for cube. I’d be very surprised if it was good enough for a medium sized powered cube. Though less confident in larger lists or mid+ unpowered.
It’s much better in slower/grindier formats.
The card varies dramatically in power level depending on the deck and format, and needs a bit of a build around to be great. I’ve seen it be pretty bad in standard in decks not built to abuse it.
Imo it’s very narrow, but it’s upside power could be high enough to justify an include.
If it finds a home in tighter cubes , it’ll be because of how good it can be in random midrange brews...
Here's my very limited findings so far:
- wtwlf mentioned fastbond, so I threw together a gruul deck. It felt like you can go off like a combo deck if you can acquire fastbond and heartbeat/manaflare. It made me wonder how well this would work in a lands deck, should a cube support it. I felt also that scroll rack was great to throw beast within back on top of my deck at instant speed. Top didn't see any play, but I could guess it wouldn't be bad either.
I'll probably try it in storm, but i have low expectations.
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It was actually the loss of the Future Sight effects that hurt Fastbond's performance in my cube. Might be worth bringing the package back with more cards like Experimental Frenzy to take advantage of those kinds of explosive combos.
Decided to test it, and the sample is small, but after playing with it a bit, my interest has been thoroughly piqued.
Both times I've seen it resolve it was bat***** insane, straight up busted. Once in a red agro deck and another in a 3 color mardu agro-midrange deck with a base of red.
In a previous post, I noted some of the factors that make the card worse than in standard, but I've now seen some factors that make the card better than in standard.
-Fetchlands. Saving one for when you resolve the frenzy has a large influence on sculpting your draws.
-Lower CMC decks. Depends a lot on how you design your cube, but I compared the average cmc of the decks that main decked frenzy in my cube vs standard decks that run multiple copies and they were quite a bit lower.
-More cards that can sculpt the top card of your library. JTMS, Sensei's top, treasure map, scroll rack.
-Artifact power. Moxen can break the 1 land per turn restriction, and further allow you to "go off".
-Fastbond/Oracle of mul daya, can break the 1 land per turn restriction (as mentioned by Wtwlf)
Also, going off with the card is very fun. Every time you look at the top of the deck is an exciting gamble. It truly feels like you are cheating when you run well. Excited to test it further.. Not recommending it yet cause its a small sample with a high variance card.
It's been absolutely phenomenal for us, and I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon. We've had two different combo-build-around decks with it alongside cards like Fastbond or Scroll Rack. It's been played in some Jund-style decks as a lategame card advantage engine (although was only okay there, but not embarrassing). And it's been at the top end of red aggro, where it was also fantastic!
We play Frenzy too where it’s ok, but how has Scroll Rack been doing for you? How does it work in cube and what decks does it see play in? Is it good enough with frenzy that it’s worth building around?
Frenzy has been pretty great for my group so far. It sees play in the following decks:
1 - top-end of Red-Aggro
2 - Splash in G decks for source of card advantage, and especially sought after splash in G decks with Fastbond
3 - Artifact decks with a ton of mana can play the card, but U card advantage is often better there. However, with Top or Scroll Rack, then Frenzy becomes a phenomenal card for those decks.
It's most commonly played in mono red, but it's a nice combo-piece to look for when you have something that goes with it!
Thoughts on the possibility that this card can translate to cube?
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Fetch lands
Oracle of mul daya
Prime Time
Eureka
And any other shuffle effect.
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However the Blasting Cannons, Outpost Siege, and various Chandra compare better. They are all 4 mana and give a kind of repetitive card advantage. While I like that this can go off it doesn't seem as good as the Chandras for their other options. Outpost siege has a second ability which sometimes is clutch. Cannons is pretty bad and can't even get you lands.
So if you are playing Chandra, Pyromaster, Outpost Siege, or Blasting Cannons I think this is worth a try.
As a side not in cubes supporting storm or very into spells matter I would give this a look.
That said, I think the card is better than Outpost Siege (and hence better than Vance's Blasting Cannons). Outpost Siege nets you 2 cards per turn - one from your draw step and 1 from the enchantment. Frenzy removes your draw step, so how could it be better than either? Here's I think why:
1. It enables a steady stream of cards -- For you to stop playing cards off the top of your deck, one of two things will happen: either you've run out of mana, or you've run into your second land on top. I wrote a simulation that does the following: assume that we untap on turn n with Experimental Frenzy in play. How many cards can we play off the top of our deck?
I ran a simulation to help me figure this out (for the more technical, a Monte Carlo simulation with 1 million trials). Consider two decks:
A very aggressive aggro deck (16 lands, 8 1 drops, 8 2 drops, 6 3 drops, 2 4 drops)
A typical midrange deck (17 lands, 2 1 drops, 5 2 drops, 6 3 drops, 5 4 drops, 4 5 drops, 2 6 drops)
Produces the following results:
What does this show? It shows that, Experimental Frenzy gets you more than one card on average even if you play it on turn 4, even in a midrange deck. But that's not when you should play Frenzy - you play it when your hand is empty (probably around t6 or t7). At that point, you're getting at least 2 cards off Frenzy. This shows that in terms of raw card advantage, Frenzy is always better in aggro decks than Siege, and usually better in midrange decks.
2. The cards you draw are not lost -- After reading the above, you might say "So what? Frenzy isn't better in terms of card advantage than Siege/Cannons in a midrange deck until turn 7, and it locks me out of access to cards in my hand". But the cards in your hand are not lost. If I don't cast the card revealed off Siege, it's lost forever. I can continue to stockpile cards in my hand with Frenzy, and then pop Frenzy when the cards in my hand are good, regaining access to these cards. There's no real way to quantify this, but there is extra card advantage than what is just shown on the left graph. This is what pushes it above Siege generally imo.
Conclusions
Outpost Siege and Experimental Frenzy are fundamentally different cards. I see Outpost Siege as a big midrange/control card - it's grindy, it's reliable, and it's mediocre (which is why most of us don't cube it). Frenzy is (mostly) unplayable in control; reactive cards, especially counterspells, do not pair well with Frenzy. But in decks that are mostly just pushing their own gameplan, like aggro and many proactive flavors of midrange/ramp, with just removal as reactive cards, I think that Frenzy is quite good (as shown above).
TL;DR - Frenzy is better in many decks than Outpost Siege is in those decks, even if Frenzy is bad in control. I personally think this makes Frenzy the better cube card:
Now, is it cubeable? Maybe not - slots are tight for a 4 cmc red card that does not the turn it hits play. It's a high variance card - the floor is abysmal but can be raised with the right deck. Its ceiling is enormous. I think it deserves more attention than it is getting. I'll be testing it, and I hope that it performs well.
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
Futuresight effects are really powerful and getting a discount and an easier casting cost makes this something to consider. If i'm testing Risk Factor maybe this is worth testing as well.
Tjornan does an awesome job of the break down.
I can't wait to play this card. Top and scroll rack could make utter nonsense with this thing if someone decide a control route, although, probably still bad.
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It’s much better in slower/grindier formats.
The card varies dramatically in power level depending on the deck and format, and needs a bit of a build around to be great. I’ve seen it be pretty bad in standard in decks not built to abuse it.
Imo it’s very narrow, but it’s upside power could be high enough to justify an include.
If it finds a home in tighter cubes , it’ll be because of how good it can be in random midrange brews...
but it will be an optional card for sure.
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- wtwlf mentioned fastbond, so I threw together a gruul deck. It felt like you can go off like a combo deck if you can acquire fastbond and heartbeat/manaflare. It made me wonder how well this would work in a lands deck, should a cube support it. I felt also that scroll rack was great to throw beast within back on top of my deck at instant speed. Top didn't see any play, but I could guess it wouldn't be bad either.
I'll probably try it in storm, but i have low expectations.
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Both times I've seen it resolve it was bat***** insane, straight up busted. Once in a red agro deck and another in a 3 color mardu agro-midrange deck with a base of red.
In a previous post, I noted some of the factors that make the card worse than in standard, but I've now seen some factors that make the card better than in standard.
-Fetchlands. Saving one for when you resolve the frenzy has a large influence on sculpting your draws.
-Lower CMC decks. Depends a lot on how you design your cube, but I compared the average cmc of the decks that main decked frenzy in my cube vs standard decks that run multiple copies and they were quite a bit lower.
-More cards that can sculpt the top card of your library. JTMS, Sensei's top, treasure map, scroll rack.
-Artifact power. Moxen can break the 1 land per turn restriction, and further allow you to "go off".
-Fastbond/Oracle of mul daya, can break the 1 land per turn restriction (as mentioned by Wtwlf)
Also, going off with the card is very fun. Every time you look at the top of the deck is an exciting gamble. It truly feels like you are cheating when you run well. Excited to test it further.. Not recommending it yet cause its a small sample with a high variance card.
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1 - top-end of Red-Aggro
2 - Splash in G decks for source of card advantage, and especially sought after splash in G decks with Fastbond
3 - Artifact decks with a ton of mana can play the card, but U card advantage is often better there. However, with Top or Scroll Rack, then Frenzy becomes a phenomenal card for those decks.
It's most commonly played in mono red, but it's a nice combo-piece to look for when you have something that goes with it!
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