This thread sort of assumes that you're already familiar with d0su's ground breaking Child of Alara Dreamcrusher. I've been working a lot with the mana base and early game plan using hypergeometic distributions, so I thought it best to make a new "primer" to share my findings since it's really too much information for a random post in d0su's thread.
Crunching the Numbers
As it turns out, it's impossible to optimize without a game plan. I decided I wanted a mana base that would enable me to drop CoA on turn 4 as often as possible and build on from there. I went with an 80% probability to achieve the steps necessary to do this.
1) If you want to be 80% likely to have at least 5 mana sources by turn 4 (the 11th card, not factoring for mulligans), you will need 53 mana sources in your deck. At least one of the 5 sources must be an acceleration piece, and it must be played on turn 3 at the latest.
2) If you want to be 80% likely to have at least 1 piece of mana acceleration by turn 3, you need to run a whopping 14 of them! The problem is that the ratio of acceleration to mana (53-14 = 39, 14:39 is a 1:2.8 ratio) is then way off (you want about 1:4 so you don't have to spend unnecessary mana just to make land drops). An elegant solution is to include blue cantrips to be played on turns 1-2. If you can dig for 3-4 cards more by turn 3, you can cut up to 4 of the 14 cards in favor of cantrips and still be 80% likely to net acceleration by turn 3. Actually, you'll get acceleration 67% of the time and the blue dig 13% of the time - but if you get the blue dig and no acceleration, you'll be 80% likely to find one of the 10 pieces in the top 3-4 cards. OTOH, if you get both the acceleration and the blue dig, you can use it to dig for land instead! This gives a much more reasonable 10:43 acceleration to mana ratio.
3) Since you may be using your first 2 turns to dig for acceleration or land, it stands to reason that you can't run too many 1-2 drops (such as guildgates and panoramas) among your 53 sources. To get no more than 2 of these by turn 2, 80% of the time, you can run a maximum of 18 - and 4 of those are already dedicated for the blue dig. This also limits the mana cost of non-ramping mana fixing in general to 2, if you want to count it among your 53 sources (thus Mycosynth Wellspring is fine but Armillary Sphere or Yavimaya Elder are not).
The 53 Mana Sources
Let's start with the 10 best ramp spells for this deck. IMO, these are the ones that best fit the bill:
The most debatable choice here is probably Search for Tomorrow, but as potential mana ramp for G, it's efficient enough to merit consideration even in full-power EDH decks. It also brings the land into play untapped, which opens up the possibility for 2 spells on turn 3. There are many other options if you prefer, such as Rampant Growth, but nothing else stood out to me.
As for the 18 turn 1-2 drops, let's list them by category (see deck list below for card links) : Blue Dig: We needed 4 here, and the best ones are Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain and Intuition. Other Spells: The only ones worthwhile IMO are Mycosynth Wellspring, Evolution Charm and Traumatic Visions = 3. Expedition Map is too expensive and takes up 2 slots (both the 1 and the 2 drop) while Traveller's Amulet/Wanderer's Twig are too bland. Multi Lands: Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Rupture Spire and Transguild Promenade = 4. I don't run Shimmering Grotto, because I can't count it against the turn 4 CoA plan. Command Tower is of course in the deck too, but doesn't take up turn space (just like basics). Panoramas and Guildgates: I want to run as few forests as possible as more than 2 green (or red or white) sources in play is redundant. However, I need to consistently have green mana on turn 3. My solution is to run the green competent guildgates (Simic, Golgari, Selesnya, Gruul) and the Bant and Jund panoramas (since they can fetch blue and black later, respectively). That's 6 more slots filled. Spell Lands: With only (18-4-3-4-6) 1 slot left, I can just barely shoehorn Halimar Depths into the mana base. Bojuka Bog would have been nice, but with no appealing means to search it out, I have decided to rely on other graveyard removal.
So far we have concluded a need for 53 cards, 10 of which are acceleration pieces, 4 blue dig and 3 other non-land fixers. This means we'll have a land total of 36. 12 of these (including Command Tower) will be non-basic, leaving 24 basic lands to configure in an optimal distribution to enable a turn 4 Child of Alara. The one I have arrived at is this:
The reason for this distribution is briefly the following. With 53 sources, there's an 80% chance to get at least 5 by turn 4, but there's actually an almost 60% chance that you will get more. If 2 of those sources are of the same kind (two Island for instance), the t4 CoA plan is thwarted 40% of the time, while requiring exact mana matching most of the other time. Hence, avoiding double dedicated mono sources of the same kind is crucial.
Islands and forests are the only important lands early on. With 7 Island and Command Tower + Simic Guildgate, Halimar Depths and Wilds/Expanse, you have roughly a 50% shot at a turn 1 blue dig spell such as Ponder, and slightly more than an 80% chance to cast one turn 2. At the same time, the risk for double dedicated blue by turn 4 is only 20% - to me this is the best compromise in numbers. With 5 forests and all the guildgates, panoramas and fixing available, we have a very reassuring 90-95% chance at a green source (before mulligans!) by turn 3.
With 6 swamps, there are plenty of black sources (especially since all that green fixing will go to blue and black in the midgame) while keeping the risk for double swamps by turn 4 low (13%). Going with slightly fewer forests in favor of a slightly higher number of mountains/plains matters little for the long game (they might as well all be colorless), but it does both increase the odds for the t4 CoA plan while also decreasing the risk for early double dedicated sources.
The partial Paris mulligan rules play very favorably with the t4 CoA plan, as it lets you ditch redundant lands, acceleration pieces, sacrifice outlets and other cards that are not needed for the early game plan in favor of ones that potentially are. This has a huge impact on the combined probability to pull the plan off. How much is beyond me to calculate, but I've been able to blow up CoA on turn 5 (if I wanted to) about 85% of the time when using a less tweaked mana base.
The Rest of the Deck
Card choices for the rest of the deck has been debated over some 30 pages in d0su's thread. For me the challenge is to cover as many bases as possible, using as few (but strong) cards as possible. I find the following table very useful both when tweaking and playing the deck:
The table covers the rest of the deck, apart from Forbidden Alchemy and the tutors themselves. I list the 1-2 most common tutor targets by category to keep the table small, though there is some overlap (I omit Mystical Teachings, indicating the instants in each category with italics instead). As you can see, I've made an effort to have strong tutor targets in every category for every tutor. This both increases the effective number of a certain effect, and improves the mana efficiency since there's less of a need to tutor for tutors. However, if there's a need for something very specific, I refer to the tutor conversions for the fastest route to acquire the missing piece.
Here's the complete decklist. I look forward to questions, comments or suggestions!
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
With that much mana needed to play Child on turn 4 most of the time, I wonder if it is worth it to be content with turn 5. Playing him on turn 4 is nice, but I usually don't even cast him until I have some counter backup. Conversely, the ability to get in general damage early might cut 25 turns off the late game where you have to win through infinite mana and card draw from the slower decks.
With that much mana, and fewer spells, the combo kill seems much better than the "card advantage kill". It gets the job done leaveing less time for shenanigans from the opponents. This post gave me a new line of thinking, since before the slowness of the deck made me want to slow it down more in order to ENSURE a long game victory, but by speeding it up, we can maybe get ahead of the Primordial spamfest that every EDH game has become since Gatecrash.
I run a similar amount of mana, but mine is much more blue/black slanted to win the late game.
tl;dr- Might try the combo version because it might be more consistent.
With that much mana needed to play Child on turn 4 most of the time, I wonder if it is worth it to be content with turn 5. Playing him on turn 4 is nice, but I usually don't even cast him until I have some counter backup. Conversely, the ability to get in general damage early might cut 25 turns off the late game where you have to win through infinite mana and card draw from the slower decks.
With that much mana, and fewer spells, the combo kill seems much better than the "card advantage kill". It gets the job done leaveing less time for shenanigans from the opponents. This post gave me a new line of thinking, since before the slowness of the deck made me want to slow it down more in order to ENSURE a long game victory, but by speeding it up, we can maybe get ahead of the Primordial spamfest that every EDH game has become since Gatecrash.
I run a similar amount of mana, but mine is much more blue/black slanted to win the late game.
tl;dr- Might try the combo version because it might be more consistent.
You refer to "that much mana" but note that you run a similar amount of mana... Actually, looking at your and d0su's lists in the other thread, I find:
So we run exactly the same number of sources, while d0su is the mana king at 57 sources! The 1-2 CC category combines blue cantrips with cheap mana fixing - I run more of those whereas you guys run more non-basics instead. We all run the same 7 ramp cards, but I also include Harrow, Primal Growth and Search for Tommorow. The "other" category are mana cards that don't fit into the t4 CoA plan, namely Krosan Tusker, Yavimaya Elder, Tilling Treefolk, Prophetic Prism and Horizon Spellbomb. I run 0 of these in favor of the ramp.
While the differences are small, this means I should have more mana earlier, whereas you will keep making your land drops a bit further into the game. I also enjoy a bit more flexibility thanks to a greater number of those blue dig spells and multipurpose land fetchers, whereas you will have to spend less when actual mana is needed (though you pay in tapped lands instead).
When counter back-up is necessary, a focus on ramp and early mana STILL means dropping CoA sooner than you'd otherwise be able too. Considering that fast meta games is a weakness for the deck, I'd say a mana base that minimizes these problems is preferable to even more durdling. Another thing is that when you drop CoA early, you often don't need to blow the baby up - people are careful not to overextend, meaning that Primordial slugfest takes longer to manifest. Meanwhile, you set up unfair cards like Mind Extraction, Undying Evil and Shade's Form.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
Very valid point. The reason I run mana getters that do not ramp is that they draw a fresh card at all times, which is important as sometimes you just don't have enough oomph to power through, and it helps after somebody wipes graveyards, which used to be the real killer even more than aggro decks.
I hate using ramp to make regular land drops as much as you do, so I feel 40 lands is a requirement. Drawing lands late game is also not as bad as drawing Harrow. Of course, by running Guildgates you get to fight Strip Mine even better than you could otherwise, and that was another problem from the early days.
Maybe the big difference is how we use Child? I use it almost strictly to wrath before I have 20 or so mana, and only attack if the coast is extremely clear. Life loss is permanent except for Devour Flesh and so I go with the extremely conservative route to victory.
Once set up, the durdle route to victory is a winner (barring an opponent having over 100 mana + Geth, as I learned), and once you are fully shielded, you then go for the Ghostly Flicker+ Torch them out plan. If that is not working, then it is time to use Child to attack 4 times per player for the win, Capsizing anything that gets in your way, Mind Extracting anyone who has a hand, and having 4 counters in hand while being able to fetch more from your grave easily.
If your plan is to beat them quickly, then your mana is far superior. If your plan is to beat all comers who have ages to find whatever is best against you, I prefer mine. But as I mentioned earlier, your victory plan might be better.
All this to say, if Worthy Cause were a common, you could be much more aggressive and win much more quickly, with an infinite use sac outlet and lifegain all in one.
To keep this on topic, I think different strategies need different manabases. OTOH, overanalysing is fun.
To keep this on topic, I think different strategies need different manabases. OTOH, overanalysing is fun.
Agreed on both! And in the spirit of overanalysing:
I hate using ramp to make regular land drops as much as you do, so I feel 40 lands is a requirement.
I used to think like this too, but my experience with Mistmeadow Witch made me reconsider and I have now been able to confirm my observations with calculations. 10% more or less land actually impacts your ability to make late game land drops very little:
Let's assume a game without draw/dig or mulligans - just keeping your 7 and topdecking (yes, I know it hurts, but humor me). By turn 10, you've seen and drawn 17 cards. If you're running 40 lands, the chances of missing a land drop by then is 93%. If you're running 36 lands as I do, the chances are 97% - worse, but not by much.
But CoA players are making their 10th land drops much more often than 10% of the time, so what's going on? First off, partial paris mulligans will let you consistently start out with more lands on average than your land count would suggest whenever needed (you can just erase those 0-2 land hands from the bell curve). Second, this deck sees a whole lot more than 17 cards by turn 10. Third, we're actually running 53 sources combined. Fourth, and most importantly (this is what I learned with the witch) we set up engines.
It's hard to quantify statistically the impact on making your land drops of being able to - say - recur Yavimaya Elder or even something simple like Intuition indefinetely. But we can assume that as long as you're willing to pay the cost of the engine and nobody disrupts it, you'll be making as many land drops as you like. Mulligans are hard to quantify without using Monte Carlo simulations (more advanced than my math skills unfortunately). But let's look at the other two points - cards seen and combined sources.
Assuming 2 draw/dig spells by turn 10 letting you see an additional 5 cards and draw 2 of them (a low figure, for argument's sake) and 53 sources, we're looking at a 90% probability of making your 10th land drop, and that's before accounting for mulligans and potential recursion engines! Comparing our builds, there's a small chance that I'm drawing a Harrow once in a while when you're drawing a guildgate, but that might not be a bad thing:
Drawing lands late game is also not as bad as drawing Harrow.
Actually, Harrow has card parity and brings the 2 lands into play untapped, meaning it only costs 1 to cast - the same as a guildgate. What's more, a late game Harrow lets you weed out redundant WRG sources in favor of BU. So it's kind of like an instant speed Dimir Guildgate on steroids that you can tutor for with Mystical Teachings, if you're so inclined. As if all this wasn't enough, it actually RAMPS - so if you're still making your regular land drops, then more ramp for you. I'll be taking my 10th land by turn 8 then, if I draw a second acceleration piece, and even if I'm missing my turn 10 drop (not bloody likely considering the statistics above), I'm still at 11 land then, having enjoyed that mana for two full turns already.
Serioulsy, Harrow and Search for Tommorow are really solid as a one mana commitment when compared to the "worse" guildgates. More shuffling also makes Brainstorm better - yey!
Of course, by running Guildgates you get to fight Strip Mine even better than you could otherwise, and that was another problem from the early days
Harrow fights Strip Mine better than guildgates - just sayin' But seriously, the lands to avoid here are the Ravnica duals - most other options are equal IMO. Stopping Strip Mine recursion and cheating on the land drop rule is more crucial - which CoA and GY hate can usually help with thankfully.
Maybe the big difference is how we use Child? I use it almost strictly to wrath before I have 20 or so mana, and only attack if the coast is extremely clear. Life loss is permanent except for Devour Flesh and so I go with the extremely conservative route to victory.
Probably. As long as I'm attacking the top dog so as not to disrupt politics, I see attacking with CoA as a free sac outlet. I keep an instant speed removal at hand and mana open at all times and when I start to feel a need to sweep, I attack. He will either:
1) Take the damage. Win! I can always blow up CoA anyway if needed.
2) Block CoA dead. Win! Saved me a sac outlet it did.
3) Try exiling removal. Win! I responded to that StP with removal or counter, and drew it from his hand.
If someone counter attacks, they know I'll blow up CoA, and why should they if I'm beating on top dog?
Mind Extracting anyone who has a hand
Again our styles differ - Mind Extraction is something I try for quite early. I will use the attack + open sac outlet method above from turn 5, and then durdle to get Mind Extraction preferably with counter back up and cheap recursion like Undying Evil/Shade's Form. Around turn 8 or so, I'll extract the most counter heavy player and reset the world (whether needed or not) with CoA making a quick come back. Then proceed with the attack+open sac method again. Sorcery speed unconditional outlets make a great complement with instant speed outlets in this manner. At this point, my plan is usually to go for a recursion wizard and Mind Extract the next in line. With so many cards in this deck replacing themselves or more, I don't really feel a need to replenish my grip or set up engines until around turn 12-15, so until then I'm all about disrupting and killing the ones I don't want to get that far.
If your plan is to beat them quickly, then your mana is far superior. If your plan is to beat all comers who have ages to find whatever is best against you, I prefer mine. But as I mentioned earlier, your victory plan might be better.
Well give it a shot and see how you like it Your 53 card mana base is only about 10 cards off from mine, I don't think you need to change any of your business spells if you don't want to. Have you looked into the appended table? I think the only unorthodox choice there is Reality Acid. I use it in the Oblivion Ring/Revoke Existence slot (i.e. cards that can handle Humility and Darksteel Plate).
I've found it very synergistic in this deck:
1) It's good with CoA instead of being bad like Oblivion Ring. CoA speeds it up, while it allows CoA to handle lands and indestructible permanents.
2) It's a bad sac outlet for CoA in a pinch, which is still better than Oring/Revoke.
3) Forced sacrifice (and state based death with Tragic Slip in my list) plays better with Shade's Form as a means to handle (and steal) indestructible creatures.
4) It has all the engine potential of Oblivion Ring with Capsize and then some, requiring less exact timing and also hitting lands. As you've experience - having a second land killer in the deck can be quite useful!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
Let's assume a game without draw/dig or mulligans - just keeping your 7 and topdecking (yes, I know it hurts, but humor me). By turn 10, you've seen and drawn 17 cards. If you're running 40 lands, the chances of missing a land drop by then is 93%. If you're running 36 lands as I do, the chances are 97% - worse, but not by much.
...
... Mulligans are hard to quantify without using Monte Carlo simulations (more advanced than my math skills unfortunately). But let's look at the other two points - cards seen and combined sources.
Assuming 2 draw/dig spells by turn 10 letting you see an additional 5 cards and draw 2 of them (a low figure, for argument's sake) and 53 sources, we're looking at a 90% probability of making your 10th land drop, and that's before accounting for mulligans and potential recursion engines! Comparing our builds, there's a small chance that I'm drawing a Harrow once in a while when you're drawing a guildgate, but that might not be a bad thing:
...
Hey, I'm usually a lurker, but this analysis has been pretty interesting to me. When you've been doing calculations with the hypergeometric distributions, are they looking something like this?
Probability of x lands =
(combinations of x lands) times (possible combinations of nonlands so far) divided by (total possible combinations of cards drawn so far)
= (k choose x)*(99 - k choose n - x)/(99 choose n),
Where k is the total number of lands in the deck and n is the number of cards seen so far in the game (and the "chooses" mean combinations).
The above equation gives me a 92% chance of missing one (or more) land drops off top-decks when running 40 lands, and a 97% chance of missing one (or more) land drops off of 36 lands. At this point, I think we're in agreement.
When you switch to seeing 5 more cards (for a total of n = 22 cards seen at turn 10), as well as running 53 sources, I am not getting that same 10% figure. I get a 13% chance of missing one or more land drops.
Are you lumping lands/ramp spells/mana stones all into that 53 for your calculations? It seems like there needs to be a distinction between land and ramp. I'd be happy to program the simulations to see how mulligans on hands with low land counts change things, but I just want to make sure we agree on the model.
There are many like it, but this one gives several useful values for various probablities based on x (and the other parameters of course). By inspection however, your parameters appear sound.
Are you lumping lands/ramp spells/mana stones all into that 53 for your calculations?
Yes. It's a rough estimate, see below.
It seems like there needs to be a distinction between land and ramp. I'd be happy to program the simulations to see how mulligans on hands with low land counts change things, but I just want to make sure we agree on the model.
Such work would be fantastic! As you say however, there are a few modelling kinks to iron out:
1) First we have the actual land total - this should be pretty straightforward to model.
2) Then we have the "true landfetchers" - cards like Mycosynth Wellspring and Evolution Charm. These don't cost more to use than panoramas or Rupture Spire, so I think the model should simply count them as lands. Perhaps wellspring should even count as 2 land, especially if we're planning for an early CoA explosion?
3) The third category is draw/dig spells. In Legacy, decks like Threshold have proven that you can drastically cut land in favor of Brainstorm-like effects. I only counted the 1-2 CC ones (4 total in my list) among the 53 sources, because I could use them to dig for turn 3 ramp, which was their primary purpose in my game plan (finding other spells and land comes second). This category is a bit tricky, because you may be using them to find land if you really need to, or to find spells. You also have to consider the game plan. Using Foresee to find land probably doesn't come into play very often and normally around round 9-10 at the earliest, but of course if you're DESPERATE and have no other means to make your 5th land drop, maybe we should count Foresee as a mana source too from turn 5 and beyond? There's also the inherent statistical uncertainty in the dig - digging for three might not net you a land, even though the deck is more than a third land. For a roughly realistic model taking these things into account, I suggest counting half the total number of draw/dig spells as mana sources (regardless of how much they draw or how deep they dig), and no earlier than turn X where X is their CMC+1. So Foresee doesn't count towards making your first land drops, but it does count as half a land from turn 5 and beyond.
4) Then we have the ramp. This should really go on a "seperate meter" as the normal land drops, since they break the 1 land/turn rule. It would be hugely interesting to see not only the chance of making land drops by turn, but also ramping. You should probably count draw spells (point 3 above) as "half a ramp" spell too, since that's really what I'm doing with the 1-2 CMC dig - it stands to reason that a density of 10 true ramp spells and increasingly big draw/dig effects maintain approximately the same relationship for the first 10 turns at least. Since we need to factor some sort of game plan and other spells being played into this, how about checking for ramp on turns 3, 6, 9..? The chance for at least 1 ramp on turn 3 (here you can count the available 4 dig spells as true ramp - should net you 80% chance), getting 2 on turn 6 (true ramp + half total dig/draw - including Mulldrifter etc.), odds for having seen 1-3 ramp spells on turn 9 and so on. I hope you get the idea and agree that this is reasonable. It's up to you how you want to count Cultivate/Kodama's Reach (netting land for dropping as well - see Mycosynth Wellspring point 2 above), not too mention Far Wanderings (it's still just one slot, but if you get it mid-late game it ramps for 3).
5) To complicate things further, there are lots of tutors and recursion in the deck. Almost any tutor can find land or land tutors (for example, both Brainspoil and Merchant Scroll can find Traumatic Visions) and many can even find ramp. What's more, rather than finding another piece of ramp or draw/dig, you can just recur a previously played one. We have the same problem here as in point 3 - both the game plan matters as well as the fact that you're normally not tutoring for mana and might be more pressed to recur business spells like sac outlets (but the two coincide in Primal Growth). To get a fair value here, I probably wouldn't count any of these for mana purposes until turn 5-6-ish, and then I'd just count 25% of the total number of tutors (11 in my build) and recursion (10 in my build) AND bounce/flicker (which reuses recursion bears or cards like Mycosynth Wellspring and Farhaven Elf directly) (3 total). I think it's simplest to use the same figure (25% of total) for both the land and ramp "meters", though you're more likely do want to recur ramp as long as you're making your land drops.
Phew, that's quite a bit of modelling there And all this is before taking partial Paris mulls into account, not to mention the possibility to set up continous recursion engines (which is why I feel these numbers matter little after turns 12-15). Anyway, these are only some ideas - I'm sure you can make better model assumptions if you put your mind to it. I bid you happy programming, Warrior's Boots, and look forward to the results!
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
According to your model, I run 37 lands (9 non-basic, including fetches, all rainbow, 3 BUG guildgates, no Panoramas), the 4 blue digs, 8 of those 10 green ramps (all but Harrow and Search for Tomorrow) and Sylvan Ranger, Yavimaya Elder and Horizon Spellbomb. If you consider Darksteel Pendant (my pet card, along with Frog - glad you liked it too, lol) as a permanent mini-dig, I have 53 'mana sources'!!
I'm thinking about trading: Sylvan Ranger for Search for Tomorrow (wow, totally overlooked this one), Yavimaya Elder for Harrow and Horizon Spellbomb for Micosynth Wellspring,
and adding 1 more land and a Krosan Wayfarer (love it on Legacy Eggs deck, very nice 1-cmc ramp) so I'll have 55 'mana sources' (still thinking about Harrow, don't love it that much). I'm thinking about going aggro so this deck can improve on 1vs1 matches, as well as avoiding these Geth freak shows In addition, I discovered (or reminded?) I hate control decks (sorry Overheat ) so I will try to make this one more aggro-ish (even combo-ish if I return Nideovinja's FFtR + Restorer pieces), removing some counters and trying to keep 20 or so creatures.
Will calculate colour needs and some probabilities to fit the lands to my needs (still didn't buy the 3 mountain and 3 plain route, let's see), and tell you guys when my sig is dully updated.
Further deck details (card choices, etc.) will be put on the original thread.
Sounds like good changes overall Alexandre - glad I could show you some gems
On Krosan Wayfarer: You may also want to consider Explore. Depending on what Warrior's Boots finds re: mulligans and land total, these type of effects may be better than some ramp spells for fast builds.
Btw, this reminds me of another card I've started considering: Viscera Seer. This is a sac outlet that's found with both Dizzy Spell AND Vedalken Aethermage, and the cheapest and best option at 1 CMC that I could find. It's slightly better than - say - Red Elemental Blast for sacrificing since it has scry and is a creature (easier to recur), but more importantly it IS a wizard + you don't have to keep mana open. Without CoA it's obviously not as good as REB/Pyro. It competes with other slots of course, but I think it merits consideration (at least before the second red blast effect).
so I will try to make this one more aggro-ish (even combo-ish if I return Nideovinja's FFtR + Restorer pieces),
A pure aggro plan with CoA is too vulnerable to tuck effects IMO. I love having the combo and an X-spell to fall back on. Krosan Restorer is at least a bad Gilded Lotus on her own and FftR is like a bad Claustrophobia (both decent with an aggro plan). And it's hard to argue with tutoring for an X-spell when your land total > an opponent's life total - a useful fallback if the aggro plan goes bad.
By d0su's PM request, I've started working on a CoA primer in my blog (it's the only entry in there - feel free to visit and comment if you're interested in this deck).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
I've been thinking: If PDH decks with normal legendary commanders such as this one are to be played at regular EDH tables and not against non-legendary uncommon commanders, AND there is such a phenomenon as Peasant PDH allowing (usually) up to 8 uncommons - what's stopping us from adding a few clutch uncommons to the deck? Is it fairness (the other guys are playing titans and mana crypts)? Is it budget (8 uncommons will still make for a cheap deck)? Or is it just thinking inside a too narrow box?
Adding 8 uncommons and making this a Peasant Dreamcrusher instead also helps to close the commander-vs-cards power gap that is often brought up by haters those unimpressed with CoA as a choice for a PDH general. Just think about what uncommons could do for the deck:
Sacrifice outlets: Worthy Cause and Fallen Ideal would make the deck immensly more mana efficient and convenient. Recursion: Eternal Witness. Combining Gravedigger and Arcaheomancer in the same card means cards can be cut. I wouldn't be surprised if witness alone was enough to just slash away the entire double recursion bears + ghostly flicker mechanic that doesn't really play well with the CoA plan anyways, and just use Witness as a plug in to the creature engines. Also, Loyal Retainers if you can afford it. Tutors: Demonic Tutor! Tucked CoA would be a minor nuiscance instead of a struggle to dig either CoA or Brainspoil out. Demonic Tutor fits into 2 CMC transmute which in turn can be tutored with everything else, so now *everything* tutors for CoA. Also, Lim Dûl's Vault is a blue instant for Mystical Teachings/Merchant Scroll and not a bad card. Silver Bullets: Hello Beast Within! Also Controvert and Strip Mine.
What other uncommon gems did I miss? What do you think about the general idea of a Peasant Dreamcrusher? I think it could take the deck to the next level and potentially spare everyone from the very drawn out games that sometimes result from playing this.
EDIT: Cauldron Dance. With Child of Alara and Eternal Witness. Good times. Victimize is also both sac outlet and recursion.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
I've been thinking: If PDH decks with normal legendary commanders such as this one are to be played at regular EDH tables and not against non-legendary uncommon commanders, AND there is such a phenomenon as Peasant PDH allowing (usually) up to 8 uncommons - what's stopping us from adding a few clutch uncommons to the deck? Is it fairness (the other guys are playing titans and mana crypts)? Is it budget (8 uncommons will still make for a cheap deck)? Or is it just thinking inside a too narrow box?
Adding 8 uncommons and making this a Peasant Dreamcrusher instead also helps to close the commander-vs-cards power gap that is often brought up by haters those unimpressed with CoA as a choice for a PDH general. Just think about what uncommons could do for the deck:
Sacrifice outlets: Worthy Cause and Fallen Ideal would make the deck immensly more mana efficient and convenient. Recursion: Eternal Witness. Combining Gravedigger and Arcaheomancer in the same card means cards can be cut. I wouldn't be surprised if witness alone was enough to just slash away the entire double recursion bears + ghostly flicker mechanic that doesn't really play well with the CoA plan anyways, and just use Witness as a plug in to the creature engines. Also, Loyal Retainers if you can afford it. Tutors: Demonic Tutor! Tucked CoA would be a minor nuiscance instead of a struggle to dig either CoA or Brainspoil out. Demonic Tutor fits into 2 CMC transmute which in turn can be tutored with everything else, so now *everything* tutors for CoA. Also, Lim Dûl's Vault is a blue instant for Mystical Teachings/Merchant Scroll and not a bad card. Silver Bullets: Hello Beast Within! Also Controvert and Strip Mine.
What other uncommon gems did I miss? What do you think about the general idea of a Peasant Dreamcrusher? I think it could take the deck to the next level and potentially spare everyone from the very drawn out games that sometimes result from playing this.
EDIT: Cauldron Dance. With Child of Alara and Eternal Witness. Good times. Victimize is also both sac outlet and recursion.
The deck was originally commons because I built it out of cards in my pauper cube. The common theme is arbitrary; I see no reason why you couldn't add some uncommons or rares if you didn't care about such things. However, I personally feel like the deck would lose some of its charm. After all, I called it the Dreamcrusher because of how opponents would feel after their favorite deck got trounced by a stack of commons!
I don't think all commons is arbitary - there's a strong precedent in 60 card pauper formats after all, and among Commander playgroups all over the world. Peasant EDH is less popular but lists appear on these forums regularly, so it's also not an arbitrary format.
While the achievement of beating full power decks with only commons is greater and perhaps more satisfying, there's still a vast power gap to overcome by clever deck building and play skill even if you include a few uncommons. There's also the "mercy" aspect of not drawing the game out endlessly just to prove a point. I think there's a strong argument for making official primers in this forum format neutral (as in both Pauper and Peasant friendly), so I don't see why the new CoA primer shouldn't *also* consider uncommon options.
As for "adding a few rares", that's when I think we're stepping into arbitrary territory motivated only by budget reasons. A maximum of 8 uncommons can claim precedence as an actual subformat, and keeps the key mechanics of the deck intact and helps plug weaknesses - it builds on the vast play and build experience developed over 2-3 years. Once you allow yourself to add stuff like Life from the Loam and rare lands, the deck becomes unrecognizable and none of the old truths will hold.
My prognosis for the future is that "peasant" and "legendary general" PDH will merge to one format and "pauper" and "uncommon general" will merge to another. The first will be more of a controlled budget variant of regular EDH intented for traditional tables, and as a transition state in play groups until everyone has pauper decks to play with. It also allows those interested in PDH builds to play with those who aren't, in case a major transition never happens in the play group. Anyway, maybe that's what we'll see a couple of years from now.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
I don't think all commons is arbitary - there's a strong precedent in 60 card pauper formats after all, and among Commander playgroups all over the world. Peasant EDH is less popular but lists appear on these forums regularly, so it's also not an arbitrary format.
While the achievement of beating full power decks with only commons is greater and perhaps more satisfying, there's still a vast power gap to overcome by clever deck building and play skill even if you include a few uncommons. There's also the "mercy" aspect of not drawing the game out endlessly just to prove a point. I think there's a strong argument for making official primers in this forum format neutral (as in both Pauper and Peasant friendly), so I don't see why the new CoA primer shouldn't *also* consider uncommon options.
As for "adding a few rares", that's when I think we're stepping into arbitrary territory motivated only by budget reasons. A maximum of 8 uncommons can claim precedence as an actual subformat, and keeps the key mechanics of the deck intact and helps plug weaknesses - it builds on the vast play and build experience developed over 2-3 years. Once you allow yourself to add stuff like Life from the Loam and rare lands, the deck becomes unrecognizable and none of the old truths will hold.
My prognosis for the future is that "peasant" and "legendary general" PDH will merge to one format and "pauper" and "uncommon general" will merge to another. The first will be more of a controlled budget variant of regular EDH intented for traditional tables, and as a transition state in play groups until everyone has pauper decks to play with. It also allows those interested in PDH builds to play with those who aren't, in case a major transition never happens in the play group. Anyway, maybe that's what we'll see a couple of years from now.
That's an interesting prognosis, but I think I agree with it in theory. There needs to be compromise for the sake of the format, and I think the ideas presented here and in the other thread are as reasonable as any.
I've looked a bit more into uncommons this afternoon and thought we could discuss it a bit here so it's not something completely new when the new primer comes out.
Worthy Cause was mentioned already of course, but what I've looked at more is how mana efficient the whole cycle can be made - from sacrifice to sacrifice so to speak - including the whole recursion business. Worthy Cause recurring itself is great, meaning no time and mana wasted on recursion wizards or tutors to find other sac outlets, but can we do better?
Yes, we can!
Necromancy + Capsize. Now you have an instant speed Akroma's Vengance with buyback 3 at your disposal. You can even shave a mana if you're willing to use Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead instead, but as they don't have the flash option and come with drawbacks (plus the uncommon slots come at a premium and there's still no substitute for Capsize) I omit them.
So far I've found one other engine with similar mana efficiency that's sort of like the original Ghostly Flicker engine on crack:
Cauldron Dance + Eternal Witness. I had to write this down to figure out the cycle myself, so here it goes:
1. You finish your turn with CD and CoA in your hand with EW in the grave.
2. You cast CD in the next combat step as soon as you get priority, reanimating EW and putting CoA into play - all for 6 mana.
3. As EW etb, it returns CD to your hand - hence the Ghostly Flicker similarity.
4. Eot, EW returns to your hand and CoA blows up the world - the other players should now have unassuming offensive capabilities until it's your turn again.
5. Now it's your combat step and you cast CD again (6 more mana).
6. EW returns CD again and later dies, CoA attacks with haste on a mostly empty board and is returned to your hand.
7. See step 1.
For 12 mana/turn, you're blowing up the world and attacking with haste every turn. The "Eternal Dance" engine is not quite as efficient as Necromancy/Capsize - "NecroSize" lets you blow up the world at instant speed as often as you care to pay 9 mana, but Eternal Dance attacks for general damage meanwhile, which helps you actually win rather than just control the game.
Finally you have the Worthy Cause + Grim Harvest (Worthy Harvest?) way, requiring hard casting of CoA and so sorcery speed and no haste. One cycle costs 3+5+5=13 mana. However, I still think it merits inclusion since Grim Harvest is so resilient to counters. This means you will be able to push Eternal Witness through eventually and recur Mind Extraction in case a counter heavy player gets the upper hand.
I'd probably cut most of the other sac/recursion though, as I think you really want to be doing one of the above three once you set foot on Peasant ground. Worthy Cause, Necromancy, Eternal Witness and Cauldron Dance takes up 4 precious slots from the 8 uncommons, but I think they are worth it. Necromancy also steals dudes, Witness provide resilience to the combo and other engines and Cauldron Dance is essentially a more synergistic but more expensive Ghostly Flicker #2. Also consider:
Witness + Necromancy + recursion wizard + Ghostly Flicker: You steal a full power EDH fatty from your opp's GY with necromancy. You flicker the fatty, necro falls off, you get to keep control of the fatty. Then you flicker witness + wizard getting back necromancy. It's a peasant's Debtors' Knell! And very difficult to remove at that, since Flicker dodges spot removal.
As for the other slots, most of what uncommon has to offer as improvement comes in the form of tutors or disruption. Demonic Tutor, Lim Dûl's Vault, Mystical Tutor and perhaps also Worldly Tutor all look interesting. As for disruption, Hinder stands out, followed by the rather interesting Beast Within (small Wrecking Ball upgrade - meh, probably a waste of a good slot), Bant Charm (more tuck, somewhat hard to cast) and Controvert (appreciated early on in d0su's thread until it was discovered that it was an uncommon).
What are your thoughts on the 8 most powerful uncommons for the deck?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
Worthy Cause also has the huge benefit of gaining 6 life a pop.
8 uncommons?
You mentioned most of them, but you forgot the (U2, so sort of an uncommon, more than U1 for sure) extremely expensive Diamond Valley.
Cauldron Dance seems cool, but without E Wit it seems meh. Worthy Cause and Grim Harvest and Necromancy and Capsize all do something by themselves.
I would honestly give Riftsweeper a look if we can become godlike with only 7 uncommons. Although Pull from Eternity might be even better as it puts it in our "hand".
I would honestly give Riftsweeper a look if we can become godlike with only 7 uncommons. Although Pull from Eternity might be even better as it puts it in our "hand".
Interesting. I like it as part of the "godlike" concept, but can't we fight GY hate with redundancy already? Even if they manage to exile Capsize, Ghostly Flicker AND Grim Harvest, they still have a "fair" deck of rather good cards to worry about, including one-shot recursions, lots of tutors and an infinite combo. And suddenly dying by an X-spell. I'm just trying to imagine a board state where dredging up cards with Pull from Eternity will be the best/only path to victory.
You mentioned most of them, but you forgot the (U2, so sort of an uncommon, more than U1 for sure) extremely expensive Diamond Valley.
Ha! Well, it's listed as uncommon in Gatherer, so why not. Apart from the price, the problem I see with this is that the current build doesn't support it. Yeah, it's like a free Worthy Cause, but it costs you a land drop, so if you're using WC every three turns, it's even in mana. You'd need to run Expedition Map, Crop Rotation and Reap and Sow to tutor for it as readily as WC, and still you'd have problems if someone destroyed it and it has a huge target on it. If only there were more good lands, then we could adapt the shell to support it, but as it stands it probably fits better into a full power CoA list.
Cauldron Dance seems cool, but without E Wit it seems meh. Worthy Cause and Grim Harvest and Necromancy and Capsize all do something by themselves.
Yeah, it also works with any of the inst/sorc recursion bears, so it's pretty much like Ghostly Flicker in that it requires these to do anything. The problem with the Flicker engine is its anti-synergy with the whole blow up CoA thing. If you factor in the cost to rebuild the engine after a "reset", Cauldron Dance becomes cheaper than GF.
I think the real question is whether to keep relying on these cards + a bunch of inst/sorc recursion bears at all once we add uncommons. With Worthy Cause and Necromancy/Capsize, there is a much reduced need to recur instants/sorceries since the most important ones recur themselves. Should the need arise, you can always "plug-in" Eternal Witness into Capsize/Grim Harvest and recur whatever card type you like, or tutor for Reclaim for a mana-efficient one shot deal.
OTOH, recovering any card for 3 mana with Ghostly Flicker is sweet, and Cauldron Dance is one of the most mana efficient ways to use CoA. The "Peasant's Knell" combo discussed above also requires at least one recursion wizard in addition to Eternal Witness to work. But perhaps that little idea is just being greedy when you could be just using Necromancy + Capsize to take what you need for as long as you need to.
Mystic Speculation and Mystic Retrieval are also worth a look.
Yeah, I saw Mystic Speculation and thought "If only it was an instant!". Mystic Retrieval competes with the recursion dorks IMO, but not well enough to merit an uncommon slot. I'd rather have the Ghostly Flicker engine.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
Do you not find GY hate as a problem? I find that running normally and then getting a random Bajuka Bog means several turns setting up again. Not out of greed, but because of hand size limit. Of course with uncommons, you could use the amazing Reliquary Tower to keep all those recursion guys in your hand, instead of storing them in the graveyard, which is what I do when I have more than 7 good cards.
Thee more uncommon lands the better, because then Reap/Rotation/Map become better.
Obviously, we would need more counterspells, as relying more on buyback almost forces that.
Another thought is that with the absurd power of uncommons at our disposal is that people think it is cute when you flicker Sea Gate Oracle and play Distrubed Burial, but with E Wit and Necromancy, you can't play the "I am just so innocent and not dangerous at all" card.
Also, meta question. Why can this deck beat decks with strictly better card choices? Is it good build, good strategy, good metagaming, or something else? It is a good build, of course, and dosu laid a good foundation. We have a plan to victory that only the cutthroatiest of 1v1 players can match. We fight on an axis not much seen in modern herp derp creature EDH. But something else is a possibility, and of course it could be a combination of all 3.
Do you not find GY hate as a problem? I find that running normally and then getting a random Bajuka Bog means several turns setting up again. Not out of greed, but because of hand size limit.
In Sweden there is a saying: "The farmer gets cocky when he has one harvest in the barn, one harvest in the fields and one harvest in the bank." I learned the truth in this ancient wisdom from my Mistmeadow Witch deck. You shouldn't commit more than one engine to the hand (barn), the battlefield (field) or the grave (bank) respectively.
If my hand contains a sac outlet, a recursion engine (perhaps combined with a necessary enabling board position), a suitable spell or two to go with said engine, and an extra tutor for back-up, I don't really care if my grave gets nuked. I never keep more than one engine card in the grave, and if I do, I try to always have an instant speed shot at saving it (Ghostly Flicker, Reclaim, Mystical Teachings in the yard for Reclaim etc) against random hate. I don't care if CoA occasionally gets exiled - that's what the command zone is for and the extra tax to play it is a one-time deal. Instant speed GY removal engines however (e.g. Bog + Flicker) must be dismantled a.s.a.p.
Running more tutors and dig and less card draw also keeps the hand size down. Brainstorm can actually be a good tutor target in this situation too (if you have no more pressing concerns) - just hide the gem you top decked back in your library if you're already good and get some removal or ramp that can solidify your position even more while reducing your hand size. I don't think Reliquary Tower is worth a slot - it just rewards sloppy hand maintenance and sets you up for discard blow outs. 7 cards is plenty, and you always have an extra slot in the command zone if your grave explodes with CoA in it.
Obviously, we would need more counterspells, as relying more on buyback almost forces that.
Not necessarily. As long as you're just swapping one-shot sac outlets for ones with buyback, you're just adding resiliency. You can still use Eternal Witness and the inst/sorc bears. But covering buyback spells for cheap with REB/pyro becomes another possibility with buyback, that's for sure. However, I still think Mind Extraction (and to a lesser extent Primal Growth) is the go-to solution for killing CoA when you expect counters to ruin your day.
Btw, what are your views on ditching the aura-based combo in favor of Peregrin Drake (with Ghostly Flicker and a recursion bear)? It's one more card on paper, but I think in practice it will be one card less as there's incentive to run and assemble a flicker engine anyway, and then you just need the drake. Demonic Tutor assembles the whole thing on its own (recursion bear, recursion bear, flicker, flicker it back -> drake), and since most of your tutors can transition to DT, it really isn't an issue.
The more I consider uncommons, the more sense it makes to keep one of the inst/sorc bears and ghostly flicker alongside E Wit. It gives you an extra super-cheap recursion engine, serves as back-up for the drake combo if E Wit gets exiled before, allows you to assemble the combo with just Demonic Tutor, and gives you the pseudo-knell option with necromancy for a reasonable mana investment.
Another thought is that with the absurd power of uncommons at our disposal is that people think it is cute when you flicker Sea Gate Oracle and play Distrubed Burial, but with E Wit and Necromancy, you can't play the "I am just so innocent and not dangerous at all" card.
True, but that only works at new tables anyway. I beat my friend's fully powered Mayael deck with my Momir Vig pauper in a quick 1v1 game and he alerted the rest of the table not to underestimate it when we sat down for multi, so the element of surprise with these decks if short-lived I'm afraid Anyway, if it's a new table, "no rares and mostly commons" probably goes a long way too, to get people to underestimate you for the moment.
Also, meta question. Why can this deck beat decks with strictly better card choices? Is it good build, good strategy, good metagaming, or something else? It is a good build, of course, and dosu laid a good foundation. We have a plan to victory that only the cutthroatiest of 1v1 players can match. We fight on an axis not much seen in modern herp derp creature EDH. But something else is a possibility, and of course it could be a combination of all 3.
I've thought about this too, and my best explanation for it is that it attacks the core assumptions people make about their own strategy.
1) Someone playing aggro will assume that once in a while, somebody will get in a wrath on turn 4-5 setting them back, but mostly they have a shot. They do not expect complete, instant speed wiping ALWAYS from turn 5 and beyond as often as necessary. They may have "some removal" to take out stuff like Ghostly Prison, but it won't be nearly enough to hande the CoA mechanic. And even most control decks will use permanents and/or creatures to win.
2) Someone playing control will play even better removal, counters and draw spells than we do, but they are mainly concerned with board control - our general single-handedly beats them at their own game. And they are generally not prepared to fight Mind Extraction recursion.
3) Someone playing combo, like aggro players, will accept that people will have instant speed removal or counters and plan for it. However, they usually won't plan for stopping instant speed removal engines that come on-line as early as turn 5, along with counters and counter engines too. Mind Extraction hurts them a lot too.
I've considered the tutors available with uncommons, and considering that slots are at a premium, I think Demonic Tutor + one other strong tutor will be optimal. Now, I want it to be able to find CoA in case it gets tucked and DT is exiled. Ideally, it should also be blue since that makes Merchant Scroll almost as good as DT in this deck. This leaves these options:
*Mystic Tutor: This would mean keeping Brainspoil which is only an option if enough 5 cmc cards remain, OR devoting an uncommon slot to Pull from Eternity to grab the exiled DT and having an all-purpose back-up.
*Worldly Tutor: Can't be found with Merchant Scroll, but you can use Dizzy Spell as a link if necessary (as with Brainspoil above, only there are more relevant 1 CMC targets). Has the benefit of also assembling the combo by itself (it can't fetch Ghostly Flicker directly, but it can fetch Drift of Phantasms).
*Lim Dûl's Vault: Best compared to Vampiric Tutor. Powerful but risky, and not something you'd want to recur over and over like our other tutors. I think it is greedy.
I'd say Mystic Tutor if there's room for PfE, otherwise Worldly Tutor wins out IMO. What do you think?
As for tutors to cut, I think Mystical Teachings, Vedalken Aethermage, Dimir House Guard and Brainspoil could all be cut, leaving a suite of:
Demonic Tutor
Mystical/Worldly Tutor
Merchant Scroll
Dizzy Spell
Muddle the Mixture
Shred Memory
Dimir Infiltrator
Drift of Phantasms
Perplex
The 2 CMC transmutes find DT and the 3 CMC transmutes assemble E Wit/Capsize/Necromancy. Dizzy Spell finds Mystical/Worldly or Worthy Cause. Merchant Scroll finds Capsize/Flicker and can transition to all three transmutes. Dimir House Guard and Aethermage only makes sense if you run Mystical Teachings as this can assemble the flicker engine if you have boat loads of mana, but now you can do that so much cheaper. Brainspoil was mainly run as an out to CoA tucking, but the above tutor set already gives us 7 outs, so we can ditch it and any targets we ran to make it work OK.
Ok, tl;dr - so far we have:
Worthy Cause
Eternal Witness
Necromancy
Demonic Tutor
Mystical/Worldly Tutor
= 5 slots
For the remaining three, I think Peregrine Drake is the top concern to make the combo part rock solid. The next in line pick is probably Hinder (just say no to those Geth experiences!). For the final slot, an argument can be made for Cauldron Dance, Pull from Eternity or some other disruption piece like Bant Charm/Controvert. What do you think will make us most godly?
EDIT: On second thought, Hinder may not be a solution to Geth and the like because people can run even more and better tutors than we do. So maybe it's not as clutch? Fortunately, with the space we save, we'll be able to run crap tonnes of GY hate if we wish. The more I think about it, the more Pull from Eternity grows on me. It solves so many scenarios! In fact, I think I'd rather have a way to get Necromancy/Capsize back than redundancy in Cauldron Dance. That makes my three last picks Peregrine Drake, Pull from Eternity and still one open slot that I don't really know what to do with to max out fully.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
I think you are underselling the tower. The main benefit is we can have access to an effect in hand without running through the entire engine again, which is good is all we have is Grim Harvest.
Edit: To clarify, I run into multiple situations per game where I wish I didn't have to discard or that I could be more mana efficient with graveyard recursions if it would not bring me above 7 cards. In my meta, where Blue is king and every deck is full of counters, I need at least 2 or 3 counters in hand to feel secure. What the tower would do is let me keep this hand without worry. Pyroblast, Counterspell, Death Denied, Izzet Chronarch, Child of Alara, Devour Flesh, Ghostly Flicker, Unmake.
There is nothing greedy about this hand. Having Chronarch lets me get a spell without worrying about running the whole chain over again, as you need to kill Child to combo with Harvest OR Death Denied. Two counters is minimum where I am from and one of them isn't even that great. Child is obviously needed, and storing him in the command zone cannot be done too much, as I save that for when he gets exiled. Devour Flesh is the best way to kill Child or stop voltron stupidity, Ghostly Flicker is great and tossing spells means I cannot get them for a long time, as it take about 15+ mana to churn a spell back with no card loss. Unmake stops Spearbreaker Behemoth, the ultimate annoying creature. Right now, I have to chuck Ghostly Flicker and know that this game will take a long time to win, as I cannot get it back until I get a second spell recursion guy.
I would rate Reliquary Tower above everything but E Wit, Necromancy, and Worthy Cause. Yes, that includes Demonic Tutor, as that is only a slight upgrade to the transmute cards we have now, because the transmute cards have a second purpose, even Dizzy Spell. That card won me a game by saving me 3 life four times, and affects combat a fair bit, especially with deathtouchers or gang blocks on Child. Obviously, with 8 uncommons, Demonic is in.
I already don't run the freed from the real combo, so drake isn't for me. Ghostly Flicker + bear is already a win if there is no pressure, so I think it is a win more. I would throw in Volcanic Geyser as an option, as sometimes the problem with Fireball is I cannot use it to kill a third player as then the other guy will win when I am tapped out from doing so.
Also, a real draw spell would be great, Opportunity and Tidings come to mind. I hate that you have to run real draw spells in case something goes wrong, because if you are separated from your graveyard, you are toast until you can get back in. Digging power is more important than raw cards drawn, so maybe Careful Consideration is what we are looking for.
Pyroblast, Counterspell, Death Denied, Izzet Chronarch, Child of Alara, Devour Flesh, Ghostly Flicker, Unmake.
Hm, in this situation I think I would just have played CoA. It's always on the board or in the GY for me (unless exiled) as I see no reason to bring it to hand unless you're playing it. If a counter war is started over it, all the better - free those hand slots up and regain a counter with Chronarch so you can also defend the sac outlet. Sac it, get back CoA and Izzet and perhaps smth else with Death Denied (which izzet returns) - that should keep you occupied for a few turns with no hand problems.
I would rate Reliquary Tower above everything but E Wit, Necromancy, and Worthy Cause. Yes, that includes Demonic Tutor, as that is only a slight upgrade to the transmute cards we have now, because the transmute cards have a second purpose, even Dizzy Spell. That card won me a game by saving me 3 life four times, and affects combat a fair bit, especially with deathtouchers or gang blocks on Child. Obviously, with 8 uncommons, Demonic is in.
To each his own. As I don't see the need for more than 7 cards, it's only natural that I don't see a reason to waste an uncommon slot on it. If your playstyle and environment puts a premium on 8+ cards, then go for it. I will enjoy my Peregrine Drake instead Demonic Tutor is a great "key stone" card in that it amplifies all your other tutors - now you can get anything with anything, and a lower "durdling cost" than when tutoring for tutors with the likes of Mystical Teachings.
I found a better choice than Mystical/Worldly tutor though: Congregation at Dawn. E Wit, Drake and Drift of Phantasms (for Ghostly Flicker). You could also to Mulldrifter, E Wit and Drift of Phantasms to assemble Necro/Capsize by recurring DoP with E Wit (using it twice). Many possibilities.
I already don't run the freed from the real combo, so drake isn't for me. Ghostly Flicker + bear is already a win if there is no pressure, so I think it is a win more. I would throw in Volcanic Geyser as an option, as sometimes the problem with Fireball is I cannot use it to kill a third player as then the other guy will win when I am tapped out from doing so.
Why not run a solid infinite mana combo instead - kill everyone and don't worry about tapping out?
Also, a real draw spell would be great, Opportunity and Tidings come to mind. I hate that you have to run real draw spells in case something goes wrong, because if you are separated from your graveyard, you are toast until you can get back in. Digging power is more important than raw cards drawn, so maybe Careful Consideration is what we are looking for.
Nah, I don't think these have anything on Rush of Knowledge or Foresee that can be had without the cost of an uncommon slot. With the tutoring package I'm assembling, you have many ways to recover though so I'm not sure pure draw is needed. I also steer clear of Death Denied to avoid flooding my grip.
My current uncommon list:
Worthy Cause
Necromancy
Eternal Witness
Demonic Tutor
Congregation at Dawn
Peregrine Drake
Pull from Eternity
?
EDIT: If you're looking for an instant speed fireball among uncommons, how about Suffer the Past. Seems like a card with potential!
EDIT2: Screw that, I didn't know Exsanguinate was uncommon! Quite an upgrade to the red x spells as far as win cons go, though I must say that the torch's taxing is great also.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
How about Imperial Recrutier at the uncommon slot. Sure, it takes away the whole budget appeal to the deck but having a tutor that gets just about any creature we could possibly want in our deck seems to right up this deck's alley. Also, if you happen to be in a relatively GY hate light metagame, Quiet Speculation seems like a solid choice. We get to tutor out 3 cards which also earns some consideration for an uncommon slot in the deck.
Imperial Recruiter is a decent card in this deck, but after Demonic Tutor and Congregation at Dawn, I'd much rather add Mystical Tutor to this deck if I wanted to use the last slot on more tutoring (which might not be a bad idea, depending on what can be found). We already have one tutor that fetches anything and one tutor that fetches three creatures for combo purposes - a cheap tutor that fetches either of those and tutors with Dizzy Spell to boot while also fetching 1/3 of the cards in the deck is preferable to another creature tutor for 3.
Quiet Speculation seems like a solid choice. We get to tutor out 3 cards which also earns some consideration for an uncommon slot in the deck.
I looked at it and also Buried Alive but Congregation was the only "tripple tutor" I managed to break. So I still think Mystical is better since it fetches something that's already broken (including Capsize, Ghostly Flicker and then some). But I'd like to do better. We already have awesome sac outlets, recursion, tutors, a get-out-of-jail free card and a rock solid infinite combo. I think what's needed most is a removal upgrade if it can be found - something that handles stuff that CoA can't. Instant speed, any target, exiling or forced sacrifice would be ideal, preferably uncounterable. Krosan Grip and Beast Within seem "meh" at best. It needs to be a lot better than the likes of Wrecking Ball, Unmake, Reality Acid or Revoke Existance to count. Anything I've missed?
EDIT: How about Anger? Could improve the voltron aspect of the deck quite a bit together with Rancor and Moldervine Cloak.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe! "At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted." [Click here for the articles!]
Crunching the Numbers
As it turns out, it's impossible to optimize without a game plan. I decided I wanted a mana base that would enable me to drop CoA on turn 4 as often as possible and build on from there. I went with an 80% probability to achieve the steps necessary to do this.
1) If you want to be 80% likely to have at least 5 mana sources by turn 4 (the 11th card, not factoring for mulligans), you will need 53 mana sources in your deck. At least one of the 5 sources must be an acceleration piece, and it must be played on turn 3 at the latest.
2) If you want to be 80% likely to have at least 1 piece of mana acceleration by turn 3, you need to run a whopping 14 of them! The problem is that the ratio of acceleration to mana (53-14 = 39, 14:39 is a 1:2.8 ratio) is then way off (you want about 1:4 so you don't have to spend unnecessary mana just to make land drops). An elegant solution is to include blue cantrips to be played on turns 1-2. If you can dig for 3-4 cards more by turn 3, you can cut up to 4 of the 14 cards in favor of cantrips and still be 80% likely to net acceleration by turn 3. Actually, you'll get acceleration 67% of the time and the blue dig 13% of the time - but if you get the blue dig and no acceleration, you'll be 80% likely to find one of the 10 pieces in the top 3-4 cards. OTOH, if you get both the acceleration and the blue dig, you can use it to dig for land instead! This gives a much more reasonable 10:43 acceleration to mana ratio.
3) Since you may be using your first 2 turns to dig for acceleration or land, it stands to reason that you can't run too many 1-2 drops (such as guildgates and panoramas) among your 53 sources. To get no more than 2 of these by turn 2, 80% of the time, you can run a maximum of 18 - and 4 of those are already dedicated for the blue dig. This also limits the mana cost of non-ramping mana fixing in general to 2, if you want to count it among your 53 sources (thus Mycosynth Wellspring is fine but Armillary Sphere or Yavimaya Elder are not).
The 53 Mana Sources
Let's start with the 10 best ramp spells for this deck. IMO, these are the ones that best fit the bill:
The most debatable choice here is probably Search for Tomorrow, but as potential mana ramp for G, it's efficient enough to merit consideration even in full-power EDH decks. It also brings the land into play untapped, which opens up the possibility for 2 spells on turn 3. There are many other options if you prefer, such as Rampant Growth, but nothing else stood out to me.
As for the 18 turn 1-2 drops, let's list them by category (see deck list below for card links) :
Blue Dig: We needed 4 here, and the best ones are Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain and Intuition.
Other Spells: The only ones worthwhile IMO are Mycosynth Wellspring, Evolution Charm and Traumatic Visions = 3. Expedition Map is too expensive and takes up 2 slots (both the 1 and the 2 drop) while Traveller's Amulet/Wanderer's Twig are too bland.
Multi Lands: Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Rupture Spire and Transguild Promenade = 4. I don't run Shimmering Grotto, because I can't count it against the turn 4 CoA plan. Command Tower is of course in the deck too, but doesn't take up turn space (just like basics).
Panoramas and Guildgates: I want to run as few forests as possible as more than 2 green (or red or white) sources in play is redundant. However, I need to consistently have green mana on turn 3. My solution is to run the green competent guildgates (Simic, Golgari, Selesnya, Gruul) and the Bant and Jund panoramas (since they can fetch blue and black later, respectively). That's 6 more slots filled.
Spell Lands: With only (18-4-3-4-6) 1 slot left, I can just barely shoehorn Halimar Depths into the mana base. Bojuka Bog would have been nice, but with no appealing means to search it out, I have decided to rely on other graveyard removal.
So far we have concluded a need for 53 cards, 10 of which are acceleration pieces, 4 blue dig and 3 other non-land fixers. This means we'll have a land total of 36. 12 of these (including Command Tower) will be non-basic, leaving 24 basic lands to configure in an optimal distribution to enable a turn 4 Child of Alara. The one I have arrived at is this:
Islands: 7
Swamps: 6
Forests: 5
Mountains: 3
Plains: 3
=24
The reason for this distribution is briefly the following. With 53 sources, there's an 80% chance to get at least 5 by turn 4, but there's actually an almost 60% chance that you will get more. If 2 of those sources are of the same kind (two Island for instance), the t4 CoA plan is thwarted 40% of the time, while requiring exact mana matching most of the other time. Hence, avoiding double dedicated mono sources of the same kind is crucial.
Islands and forests are the only important lands early on. With 7 Island and Command Tower + Simic Guildgate, Halimar Depths and Wilds/Expanse, you have roughly a 50% shot at a turn 1 blue dig spell such as Ponder, and slightly more than an 80% chance to cast one turn 2. At the same time, the risk for double dedicated blue by turn 4 is only 20% - to me this is the best compromise in numbers. With 5 forests and all the guildgates, panoramas and fixing available, we have a very reassuring 90-95% chance at a green source (before mulligans!) by turn 3.
With 6 swamps, there are plenty of black sources (especially since all that green fixing will go to blue and black in the midgame) while keeping the risk for double swamps by turn 4 low (13%). Going with slightly fewer forests in favor of a slightly higher number of mountains/plains matters little for the long game (they might as well all be colorless), but it does both increase the odds for the t4 CoA plan while also decreasing the risk for early double dedicated sources.
The partial Paris mulligan rules play very favorably with the t4 CoA plan, as it lets you ditch redundant lands, acceleration pieces, sacrifice outlets and other cards that are not needed for the early game plan in favor of ones that potentially are. This has a huge impact on the combined probability to pull the plan off. How much is beyond me to calculate, but I've been able to blow up CoA on turn 5 (if I wanted to) about 85% of the time when using a less tweaked mana base.
The Rest of the Deck
Card choices for the rest of the deck has been debated over some 30 pages in d0su's thread. For me the challenge is to cover as many bases as possible, using as few (but strong) cards as possible. I find the following table very useful both when tweaking and playing the deck:
The table covers the rest of the deck, apart from Forbidden Alchemy and the tutors themselves. I list the 1-2 most common tutor targets by category to keep the table small, though there is some overlap (I omit Mystical Teachings, indicating the instants in each category with italics instead). As you can see, I've made an effort to have strong tutor targets in every category for every tutor. This both increases the effective number of a certain effect, and improves the mana efficiency since there's less of a need to tutor for tutors. However, if there's a need for something very specific, I refer to the tutor conversions for the fastest route to acquire the missing piece.
Here's the complete decklist. I look forward to questions, comments or suggestions!
5 Child of Alara
CREATURES (16)
4 Archaeomancer
3 Cadaver Imp
2 Cavern Harpy
4 Dimir House Guard
2 Dimir Infiltrator
3 Drift of Phantasms
3 Farhaven Elf
5 Izzet Chronarch
3 Krosan Restorer
5 Mnemonic Wall
5 Mulldrifter
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Sakura-tribe Elder
3 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Spore Frog
2 Vedalken Aethermage
ARTIFACTS (4)
3 Darksteel Ingot
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Mycosynth Wellspring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
ENCHANTMENTS (3)
3 Freed from the Real
3 Reality Acid
3 Shade's Form
SORCERIES (13)
3 Cultivate
2 Disturbed Burial
3 Far Wanderings
4 Foresee
1 Kaervek's Torch
3 Kodama's Reach
2 Merchant Scroll
3 Mind Extraction
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
3 Primal Growth
5 Rush of Knowledge
3 Search for Tomorrow
1 Brainstorm
3 Capsize
2 Counterspell
2 Devour Flesh
1 Dizzy Spell
2 Evolution Charm
3 Faerie Trickery
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Ghostly Flicker
2 Grim Harvest
3 Harrow
2 Impulse
2 Muddle the Mixture
4 Mystical Teachings
2 Overrule
2 Perilous Research
3 Perplex
1 Pyroblast
1 Reclaim
4 Rewind
2 Shred Memory
3 Soul Manipulation
2 Terminate
1 Tragic Slip
5 Traumatic Visions
1 Undying Evil
4 Wrecking Ball
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Command Tower
1 Rupture Spire
1 Transguid Promenade
1 Halimar Depths
1 Bant Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Selesnya Guildgate
1 Simic Guildgate
5 Forest
7 Island
3 Mountain
3 Plains
6 Swamp
In addition, here are a few alternative card choices that I always have on my radar and occasionally play around with:
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
With that much mana, and fewer spells, the combo kill seems much better than the "card advantage kill". It gets the job done leaveing less time for shenanigans from the opponents. This post gave me a new line of thinking, since before the slowness of the deck made me want to slow it down more in order to ENSURE a long game victory, but by speeding it up, we can maybe get ahead of the Primordial spamfest that every EDH game has become since Gatecrash.
I run a similar amount of mana, but mine is much more blue/black slanted to win the late game.
tl;dr- Might try the combo version because it might be more consistent.
Turn 2 Two Goblin Guide
You refer to "that much mana" but note that you run a similar amount of mana... Actually, looking at your and d0su's lists in the other thread, I find:
*********LAND***1-2CC***RAMP***OTHER
d0su:*****41******4*******7******5=57
Overheat:*40*******3******7*******3=53
urdjur:****36******7******10******0=53
So we run exactly the same number of sources, while d0su is the mana king at 57 sources! The 1-2 CC category combines blue cantrips with cheap mana fixing - I run more of those whereas you guys run more non-basics instead. We all run the same 7 ramp cards, but I also include Harrow, Primal Growth and Search for Tommorow. The "other" category are mana cards that don't fit into the t4 CoA plan, namely Krosan Tusker, Yavimaya Elder, Tilling Treefolk, Prophetic Prism and Horizon Spellbomb. I run 0 of these in favor of the ramp.
While the differences are small, this means I should have more mana earlier, whereas you will keep making your land drops a bit further into the game. I also enjoy a bit more flexibility thanks to a greater number of those blue dig spells and multipurpose land fetchers, whereas you will have to spend less when actual mana is needed (though you pay in tapped lands instead).
When counter back-up is necessary, a focus on ramp and early mana STILL means dropping CoA sooner than you'd otherwise be able too. Considering that fast meta games is a weakness for the deck, I'd say a mana base that minimizes these problems is preferable to even more durdling. Another thing is that when you drop CoA early, you often don't need to blow the baby up - people are careful not to overextend, meaning that Primordial slugfest takes longer to manifest. Meanwhile, you set up unfair cards like Mind Extraction, Undying Evil and Shade's Form.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
I hate using ramp to make regular land drops as much as you do, so I feel 40 lands is a requirement. Drawing lands late game is also not as bad as drawing Harrow. Of course, by running Guildgates you get to fight Strip Mine even better than you could otherwise, and that was another problem from the early days.
Maybe the big difference is how we use Child? I use it almost strictly to wrath before I have 20 or so mana, and only attack if the coast is extremely clear. Life loss is permanent except for Devour Flesh and so I go with the extremely conservative route to victory.
Once set up, the durdle route to victory is a winner (barring an opponent having over 100 mana + Geth, as I learned), and once you are fully shielded, you then go for the Ghostly Flicker+ Torch them out plan. If that is not working, then it is time to use Child to attack 4 times per player for the win, Capsizing anything that gets in your way, Mind Extracting anyone who has a hand, and having 4 counters in hand while being able to fetch more from your grave easily.
If your plan is to beat them quickly, then your mana is far superior. If your plan is to beat all comers who have ages to find whatever is best against you, I prefer mine. But as I mentioned earlier, your victory plan might be better.
All this to say, if Worthy Cause were a common, you could be much more aggressive and win much more quickly, with an infinite use sac outlet and lifegain all in one.
To keep this on topic, I think different strategies need different manabases. OTOH, overanalysing is fun.
Turn 2 Two Goblin Guide
Agreed on both! And in the spirit of overanalysing:
I used to think like this too, but my experience with Mistmeadow Witch made me reconsider and I have now been able to confirm my observations with calculations. 10% more or less land actually impacts your ability to make late game land drops very little:
Let's assume a game without draw/dig or mulligans - just keeping your 7 and topdecking (yes, I know it hurts, but humor me). By turn 10, you've seen and drawn 17 cards. If you're running 40 lands, the chances of missing a land drop by then is 93%. If you're running 36 lands as I do, the chances are 97% - worse, but not by much.
But CoA players are making their 10th land drops much more often than 10% of the time, so what's going on? First off, partial paris mulligans will let you consistently start out with more lands on average than your land count would suggest whenever needed (you can just erase those 0-2 land hands from the bell curve). Second, this deck sees a whole lot more than 17 cards by turn 10. Third, we're actually running 53 sources combined. Fourth, and most importantly (this is what I learned with the witch) we set up engines.
It's hard to quantify statistically the impact on making your land drops of being able to - say - recur Yavimaya Elder or even something simple like Intuition indefinetely. But we can assume that as long as you're willing to pay the cost of the engine and nobody disrupts it, you'll be making as many land drops as you like. Mulligans are hard to quantify without using Monte Carlo simulations (more advanced than my math skills unfortunately). But let's look at the other two points - cards seen and combined sources.
Assuming 2 draw/dig spells by turn 10 letting you see an additional 5 cards and draw 2 of them (a low figure, for argument's sake) and 53 sources, we're looking at a 90% probability of making your 10th land drop, and that's before accounting for mulligans and potential recursion engines! Comparing our builds, there's a small chance that I'm drawing a Harrow once in a while when you're drawing a guildgate, but that might not be a bad thing:
Actually, Harrow has card parity and brings the 2 lands into play untapped, meaning it only costs 1 to cast - the same as a guildgate. What's more, a late game Harrow lets you weed out redundant WRG sources in favor of BU. So it's kind of like an instant speed Dimir Guildgate on steroids that you can tutor for with Mystical Teachings, if you're so inclined. As if all this wasn't enough, it actually RAMPS - so if you're still making your regular land drops, then more ramp for you. I'll be taking my 10th land by turn 8 then, if I draw a second acceleration piece, and even if I'm missing my turn 10 drop (not bloody likely considering the statistics above), I'm still at 11 land then, having enjoyed that mana for two full turns already.
Serioulsy, Harrow and Search for Tommorow are really solid as a one mana commitment when compared to the "worse" guildgates. More shuffling also makes Brainstorm better - yey!
Harrow fights Strip Mine better than guildgates - just sayin' But seriously, the lands to avoid here are the Ravnica duals - most other options are equal IMO. Stopping Strip Mine recursion and cheating on the land drop rule is more crucial - which CoA and GY hate can usually help with thankfully.
Probably. As long as I'm attacking the top dog so as not to disrupt politics, I see attacking with CoA as a free sac outlet. I keep an instant speed removal at hand and mana open at all times and when I start to feel a need to sweep, I attack. He will either:
1) Take the damage. Win! I can always blow up CoA anyway if needed.
2) Block CoA dead. Win! Saved me a sac outlet it did.
3) Try exiling removal. Win! I responded to that StP with removal or counter, and drew it from his hand.
If someone counter attacks, they know I'll blow up CoA, and why should they if I'm beating on top dog?
Again our styles differ - Mind Extraction is something I try for quite early. I will use the attack + open sac outlet method above from turn 5, and then durdle to get Mind Extraction preferably with counter back up and cheap recursion like Undying Evil/Shade's Form. Around turn 8 or so, I'll extract the most counter heavy player and reset the world (whether needed or not) with CoA making a quick come back. Then proceed with the attack+open sac method again. Sorcery speed unconditional outlets make a great complement with instant speed outlets in this manner. At this point, my plan is usually to go for a recursion wizard and Mind Extract the next in line. With so many cards in this deck replacing themselves or more, I don't really feel a need to replenish my grip or set up engines until around turn 12-15, so until then I'm all about disrupting and killing the ones I don't want to get that far.
Well give it a shot and see how you like it Your 53 card mana base is only about 10 cards off from mine, I don't think you need to change any of your business spells if you don't want to. Have you looked into the appended table? I think the only unorthodox choice there is Reality Acid. I use it in the Oblivion Ring/Revoke Existence slot (i.e. cards that can handle Humility and Darksteel Plate).
I've found it very synergistic in this deck:
1) It's good with CoA instead of being bad like Oblivion Ring. CoA speeds it up, while it allows CoA to handle lands and indestructible permanents.
2) It's a bad sac outlet for CoA in a pinch, which is still better than Oring/Revoke.
3) Forced sacrifice (and state based death with Tragic Slip in my list) plays better with Shade's Form as a means to handle (and steal) indestructible creatures.
4) It has all the engine potential of Oblivion Ring with Capsize and then some, requiring less exact timing and also hitting lands. As you've experience - having a second land killer in the deck can be quite useful!
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
Kudos urdjur!!!
Commander: Child of Alara BURGW, Adeliz, the Cinder Wind UR
Tiny Leaders: Gwafa, Hazid Profiteer UW
Regular Pauper: Stompy G, Mono-G Tron G, Infect G
Hey, I'm usually a lurker, but this analysis has been pretty interesting to me. When you've been doing calculations with the hypergeometric distributions, are they looking something like this?
Probability of x lands =
(combinations of x lands) times (possible combinations of nonlands so far) divided by (total possible combinations of cards drawn so far)
= (k choose x)*(99 - k choose n - x)/(99 choose n),
Where k is the total number of lands in the deck and n is the number of cards seen so far in the game (and the "chooses" mean combinations).
The above equation gives me a 92% chance of missing one (or more) land drops off top-decks when running 40 lands, and a 97% chance of missing one (or more) land drops off of 36 lands. At this point, I think we're in agreement.
When you switch to seeing 5 more cards (for a total of n = 22 cards seen at turn 10), as well as running 53 sources, I am not getting that same 10% figure. I get a 13% chance of missing one or more land drops.
Are you lumping lands/ramp spells/mana stones all into that 53 for your calculations? It seems like there needs to be a distinction between land and ramp. I'd be happy to program the simulations to see how mulligans on hands with low land counts change things, but I just want to make sure we agree on the model.
Thanks, looking forward to it!
I am blissfully unaware of what the calculations look like - I use a calculator:
http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
There are many like it, but this one gives several useful values for various probablities based on x (and the other parameters of course). By inspection however, your parameters appear sound.
Yes. It's a rough estimate, see below.
Such work would be fantastic! As you say however, there are a few modelling kinks to iron out:
1) First we have the actual land total - this should be pretty straightforward to model.
2) Then we have the "true landfetchers" - cards like Mycosynth Wellspring and Evolution Charm. These don't cost more to use than panoramas or Rupture Spire, so I think the model should simply count them as lands. Perhaps wellspring should even count as 2 land, especially if we're planning for an early CoA explosion?
3) The third category is draw/dig spells. In Legacy, decks like Threshold have proven that you can drastically cut land in favor of Brainstorm-like effects. I only counted the 1-2 CC ones (4 total in my list) among the 53 sources, because I could use them to dig for turn 3 ramp, which was their primary purpose in my game plan (finding other spells and land comes second). This category is a bit tricky, because you may be using them to find land if you really need to, or to find spells. You also have to consider the game plan. Using Foresee to find land probably doesn't come into play very often and normally around round 9-10 at the earliest, but of course if you're DESPERATE and have no other means to make your 5th land drop, maybe we should count Foresee as a mana source too from turn 5 and beyond? There's also the inherent statistical uncertainty in the dig - digging for three might not net you a land, even though the deck is more than a third land. For a roughly realistic model taking these things into account, I suggest counting half the total number of draw/dig spells as mana sources (regardless of how much they draw or how deep they dig), and no earlier than turn X where X is their CMC+1. So Foresee doesn't count towards making your first land drops, but it does count as half a land from turn 5 and beyond.
4) Then we have the ramp. This should really go on a "seperate meter" as the normal land drops, since they break the 1 land/turn rule. It would be hugely interesting to see not only the chance of making land drops by turn, but also ramping. You should probably count draw spells (point 3 above) as "half a ramp" spell too, since that's really what I'm doing with the 1-2 CMC dig - it stands to reason that a density of 10 true ramp spells and increasingly big draw/dig effects maintain approximately the same relationship for the first 10 turns at least. Since we need to factor some sort of game plan and other spells being played into this, how about checking for ramp on turns 3, 6, 9..? The chance for at least 1 ramp on turn 3 (here you can count the available 4 dig spells as true ramp - should net you 80% chance), getting 2 on turn 6 (true ramp + half total dig/draw - including Mulldrifter etc.), odds for having seen 1-3 ramp spells on turn 9 and so on. I hope you get the idea and agree that this is reasonable. It's up to you how you want to count Cultivate/Kodama's Reach (netting land for dropping as well - see Mycosynth Wellspring point 2 above), not too mention Far Wanderings (it's still just one slot, but if you get it mid-late game it ramps for 3).
5) To complicate things further, there are lots of tutors and recursion in the deck. Almost any tutor can find land or land tutors (for example, both Brainspoil and Merchant Scroll can find Traumatic Visions) and many can even find ramp. What's more, rather than finding another piece of ramp or draw/dig, you can just recur a previously played one. We have the same problem here as in point 3 - both the game plan matters as well as the fact that you're normally not tutoring for mana and might be more pressed to recur business spells like sac outlets (but the two coincide in Primal Growth). To get a fair value here, I probably wouldn't count any of these for mana purposes until turn 5-6-ish, and then I'd just count 25% of the total number of tutors (11 in my build) and recursion (10 in my build) AND bounce/flicker (which reuses recursion bears or cards like Mycosynth Wellspring and Farhaven Elf directly) (3 total). I think it's simplest to use the same figure (25% of total) for both the land and ramp "meters", though you're more likely do want to recur ramp as long as you're making your land drops.
Phew, that's quite a bit of modelling there And all this is before taking partial Paris mulls into account, not to mention the possibility to set up continous recursion engines (which is why I feel these numbers matter little after turns 12-15). Anyway, these are only some ideas - I'm sure you can make better model assumptions if you put your mind to it. I bid you happy programming, Warrior's Boots, and look forward to the results!
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
According to your model, I run 37 lands (9 non-basic, including fetches, all rainbow, 3 BUG guildgates, no Panoramas), the 4 blue digs, 8 of those 10 green ramps (all but Harrow and Search for Tomorrow) and Sylvan Ranger, Yavimaya Elder and Horizon Spellbomb. If you consider Darksteel Pendant (my pet card, along with Frog - glad you liked it too, lol) as a permanent mini-dig, I have 53 'mana sources'!!
I'm thinking about trading:
Sylvan Ranger for Search for Tomorrow (wow, totally overlooked this one),
Yavimaya Elder for Harrow and
Horizon Spellbomb for Micosynth Wellspring,
and adding 1 more land and a Krosan Wayfarer (love it on Legacy Eggs deck, very nice 1-cmc ramp) so I'll have 55 'mana sources' (still thinking about Harrow, don't love it that much). I'm thinking about going aggro so this deck can improve on 1vs1 matches, as well as avoiding these Geth freak shows In addition, I discovered (or reminded?) I hate control decks (sorry Overheat ) so I will try to make this one more aggro-ish (even combo-ish if I return Nideovinja's FFtR + Restorer pieces), removing some counters and trying to keep 20 or so creatures.
Will calculate colour needs and some probabilities to fit the lands to my needs (still didn't buy the 3 mountain and 3 plain route, let's see), and tell you guys when my sig is dully updated.
Further deck details (card choices, etc.) will be put on the original thread.
Let the overanalysis roll!
Cheers,
Alexandre
Commander: Child of Alara BURGW, Adeliz, the Cinder Wind UR
Tiny Leaders: Gwafa, Hazid Profiteer UW
Regular Pauper: Stompy G, Mono-G Tron G, Infect G
On Krosan Wayfarer: You may also want to consider Explore. Depending on what Warrior's Boots finds re: mulligans and land total, these type of effects may be better than some ramp spells for fast builds.
Btw, this reminds me of another card I've started considering: Viscera Seer. This is a sac outlet that's found with both Dizzy Spell AND Vedalken Aethermage, and the cheapest and best option at 1 CMC that I could find. It's slightly better than - say - Red Elemental Blast for sacrificing since it has scry and is a creature (easier to recur), but more importantly it IS a wizard + you don't have to keep mana open. Without CoA it's obviously not as good as REB/Pyro. It competes with other slots of course, but I think it merits consideration (at least before the second red blast effect).
A pure aggro plan with CoA is too vulnerable to tuck effects IMO. I love having the combo and an X-spell to fall back on. Krosan Restorer is at least a bad Gilded Lotus on her own and FftR is like a bad Claustrophobia (both decent with an aggro plan). And it's hard to argue with tutoring for an X-spell when your land total > an opponent's life total - a useful fallback if the aggro plan goes bad.
By d0su's PM request, I've started working on a CoA primer in my blog (it's the only entry in there - feel free to visit and comment if you're interested in this deck).
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
Adding 8 uncommons and making this a Peasant Dreamcrusher instead also helps to close the commander-vs-cards power gap that is often brought up by
hatersthose unimpressed with CoA as a choice for a PDH general. Just think about what uncommons could do for the deck:Sacrifice outlets: Worthy Cause and Fallen Ideal would make the deck immensly more mana efficient and convenient.
Recursion: Eternal Witness. Combining Gravedigger and Arcaheomancer in the same card means cards can be cut. I wouldn't be surprised if witness alone was enough to just slash away the entire double recursion bears + ghostly flicker mechanic that doesn't really play well with the CoA plan anyways, and just use Witness as a plug in to the creature engines. Also, Loyal Retainers if you can afford it.
Tutors: Demonic Tutor! Tucked CoA would be a minor nuiscance instead of a struggle to dig either CoA or Brainspoil out. Demonic Tutor fits into 2 CMC transmute which in turn can be tutored with everything else, so now *everything* tutors for CoA. Also, Lim Dûl's Vault is a blue instant for Mystical Teachings/Merchant Scroll and not a bad card.
Silver Bullets: Hello Beast Within! Also Controvert and Strip Mine.
What other uncommon gems did I miss? What do you think about the general idea of a Peasant Dreamcrusher? I think it could take the deck to the next level and potentially spare everyone from the very drawn out games that sometimes result from playing this.
EDIT: Cauldron Dance. With Child of Alara and Eternal Witness. Good times. Victimize is also both sac outlet and recursion.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
The deck was originally commons because I built it out of cards in my pauper cube. The common theme is arbitrary; I see no reason why you couldn't add some uncommons or rares if you didn't care about such things. However, I personally feel like the deck would lose some of its charm. After all, I called it the Dreamcrusher because of how opponents would feel after their favorite deck got trounced by a stack of commons!
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
I prefer to keep it all commons though, because it makes it more fun to win.
Turn 2 Two Goblin Guide
While the achievement of beating full power decks with only commons is greater and perhaps more satisfying, there's still a vast power gap to overcome by clever deck building and play skill even if you include a few uncommons. There's also the "mercy" aspect of not drawing the game out endlessly just to prove a point. I think there's a strong argument for making official primers in this forum format neutral (as in both Pauper and Peasant friendly), so I don't see why the new CoA primer shouldn't *also* consider uncommon options.
As for "adding a few rares", that's when I think we're stepping into arbitrary territory motivated only by budget reasons. A maximum of 8 uncommons can claim precedence as an actual subformat, and keeps the key mechanics of the deck intact and helps plug weaknesses - it builds on the vast play and build experience developed over 2-3 years. Once you allow yourself to add stuff like Life from the Loam and rare lands, the deck becomes unrecognizable and none of the old truths will hold.
My prognosis for the future is that "peasant" and "legendary general" PDH will merge to one format and "pauper" and "uncommon general" will merge to another. The first will be more of a controlled budget variant of regular EDH intented for traditional tables, and as a transition state in play groups until everyone has pauper decks to play with. It also allows those interested in PDH builds to play with those who aren't, in case a major transition never happens in the play group. Anyway, maybe that's what we'll see a couple of years from now.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
That's an interesting prognosis, but I think I agree with it in theory. There needs to be compromise for the sake of the format, and I think the ideas presented here and in the other thread are as reasonable as any.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
Worthy Cause was mentioned already of course, but what I've looked at more is how mana efficient the whole cycle can be made - from sacrifice to sacrifice so to speak - including the whole recursion business. Worthy Cause recurring itself is great, meaning no time and mana wasted on recursion wizards or tutors to find other sac outlets, but can we do better?
Yes, we can!
Necromancy + Capsize. Now you have an instant speed Akroma's Vengance with buyback 3 at your disposal. You can even shave a mana if you're willing to use Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead instead, but as they don't have the flash option and come with drawbacks (plus the uncommon slots come at a premium and there's still no substitute for Capsize) I omit them.
So far I've found one other engine with similar mana efficiency that's sort of like the original Ghostly Flicker engine on crack:
Cauldron Dance + Eternal Witness. I had to write this down to figure out the cycle myself, so here it goes:
1. You finish your turn with CD and CoA in your hand with EW in the grave.
2. You cast CD in the next combat step as soon as you get priority, reanimating EW and putting CoA into play - all for 6 mana.
3. As EW etb, it returns CD to your hand - hence the Ghostly Flicker similarity.
4. Eot, EW returns to your hand and CoA blows up the world - the other players should now have unassuming offensive capabilities until it's your turn again.
5. Now it's your combat step and you cast CD again (6 more mana).
6. EW returns CD again and later dies, CoA attacks with haste on a mostly empty board and is returned to your hand.
7. See step 1.
For 12 mana/turn, you're blowing up the world and attacking with haste every turn. The "Eternal Dance" engine is not quite as efficient as Necromancy/Capsize - "NecroSize" lets you blow up the world at instant speed as often as you care to pay 9 mana, but Eternal Dance attacks for general damage meanwhile, which helps you actually win rather than just control the game.
Finally you have the Worthy Cause + Grim Harvest (Worthy Harvest?) way, requiring hard casting of CoA and so sorcery speed and no haste. One cycle costs 3+5+5=13 mana. However, I still think it merits inclusion since Grim Harvest is so resilient to counters. This means you will be able to push Eternal Witness through eventually and recur Mind Extraction in case a counter heavy player gets the upper hand.
I'd probably cut most of the other sac/recursion though, as I think you really want to be doing one of the above three once you set foot on Peasant ground. Worthy Cause, Necromancy, Eternal Witness and Cauldron Dance takes up 4 precious slots from the 8 uncommons, but I think they are worth it. Necromancy also steals dudes, Witness provide resilience to the combo and other engines and Cauldron Dance is essentially a more synergistic but more expensive Ghostly Flicker #2. Also consider:
Witness + Necromancy + recursion wizard + Ghostly Flicker: You steal a full power EDH fatty from your opp's GY with necromancy. You flicker the fatty, necro falls off, you get to keep control of the fatty. Then you flicker witness + wizard getting back necromancy. It's a peasant's Debtors' Knell! And very difficult to remove at that, since Flicker dodges spot removal.
As for the other slots, most of what uncommon has to offer as improvement comes in the form of tutors or disruption. Demonic Tutor, Lim Dûl's Vault, Mystical Tutor and perhaps also Worldly Tutor all look interesting. As for disruption, Hinder stands out, followed by the rather interesting Beast Within (small Wrecking Ball upgrade - meh, probably a waste of a good slot), Bant Charm (more tuck, somewhat hard to cast) and Controvert (appreciated early on in d0su's thread until it was discovered that it was an uncommon).
What are your thoughts on the 8 most powerful uncommons for the deck?
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
8 uncommons?
You mentioned most of them, but you forgot the (U2, so sort of an uncommon, more than U1 for sure) extremely expensive Diamond Valley.
Cauldron Dance seems cool, but without E Wit it seems meh. Worthy Cause and Grim Harvest and Necromancy and Capsize all do something by themselves.
I would honestly give Riftsweeper a look if we can become godlike with only 7 uncommons. Although Pull from Eternity might be even better as it puts it in our "hand".
Mystic Speculation and Mystic Retrieval are also worth a look.
Turn 2 Two Goblin Guide
Interesting. I like it as part of the "godlike" concept, but can't we fight GY hate with redundancy already? Even if they manage to exile Capsize, Ghostly Flicker AND Grim Harvest, they still have a "fair" deck of rather good cards to worry about, including one-shot recursions, lots of tutors and an infinite combo. And suddenly dying by an X-spell. I'm just trying to imagine a board state where dredging up cards with Pull from Eternity will be the best/only path to victory.
Ha! Well, it's listed as uncommon in Gatherer, so why not. Apart from the price, the problem I see with this is that the current build doesn't support it. Yeah, it's like a free Worthy Cause, but it costs you a land drop, so if you're using WC every three turns, it's even in mana. You'd need to run Expedition Map, Crop Rotation and Reap and Sow to tutor for it as readily as WC, and still you'd have problems if someone destroyed it and it has a huge target on it. If only there were more good lands, then we could adapt the shell to support it, but as it stands it probably fits better into a full power CoA list.
Yeah, it also works with any of the inst/sorc recursion bears, so it's pretty much like Ghostly Flicker in that it requires these to do anything. The problem with the Flicker engine is its anti-synergy with the whole blow up CoA thing. If you factor in the cost to rebuild the engine after a "reset", Cauldron Dance becomes cheaper than GF.
I think the real question is whether to keep relying on these cards + a bunch of inst/sorc recursion bears at all once we add uncommons. With Worthy Cause and Necromancy/Capsize, there is a much reduced need to recur instants/sorceries since the most important ones recur themselves. Should the need arise, you can always "plug-in" Eternal Witness into Capsize/Grim Harvest and recur whatever card type you like, or tutor for Reclaim for a mana-efficient one shot deal.
OTOH, recovering any card for 3 mana with Ghostly Flicker is sweet, and Cauldron Dance is one of the most mana efficient ways to use CoA. The "Peasant's Knell" combo discussed above also requires at least one recursion wizard in addition to Eternal Witness to work. But perhaps that little idea is just being greedy when you could be just using Necromancy + Capsize to take what you need for as long as you need to.
Yeah, I saw Mystic Speculation and thought "If only it was an instant!". Mystic Retrieval competes with the recursion dorks IMO, but not well enough to merit an uncommon slot. I'd rather have the Ghostly Flicker engine.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
Thee more uncommon lands the better, because then Reap/Rotation/Map become better.
Obviously, we would need more counterspells, as relying more on buyback almost forces that.
Another thought is that with the absurd power of uncommons at our disposal is that people think it is cute when you flicker Sea Gate Oracle and play Distrubed Burial, but with E Wit and Necromancy, you can't play the "I am just so innocent and not dangerous at all" card.
Also, meta question. Why can this deck beat decks with strictly better card choices? Is it good build, good strategy, good metagaming, or something else? It is a good build, of course, and dosu laid a good foundation. We have a plan to victory that only the cutthroatiest of 1v1 players can match. We fight on an axis not much seen in modern herp derp creature EDH. But something else is a possibility, and of course it could be a combination of all 3.
Turn 2 Two Goblin Guide
In Sweden there is a saying: "The farmer gets cocky when he has one harvest in the barn, one harvest in the fields and one harvest in the bank." I learned the truth in this ancient wisdom from my Mistmeadow Witch deck. You shouldn't commit more than one engine to the hand (barn), the battlefield (field) or the grave (bank) respectively.
If my hand contains a sac outlet, a recursion engine (perhaps combined with a necessary enabling board position), a suitable spell or two to go with said engine, and an extra tutor for back-up, I don't really care if my grave gets nuked. I never keep more than one engine card in the grave, and if I do, I try to always have an instant speed shot at saving it (Ghostly Flicker, Reclaim, Mystical Teachings in the yard for Reclaim etc) against random hate. I don't care if CoA occasionally gets exiled - that's what the command zone is for and the extra tax to play it is a one-time deal. Instant speed GY removal engines however (e.g. Bog + Flicker) must be dismantled a.s.a.p.
Running more tutors and dig and less card draw also keeps the hand size down. Brainstorm can actually be a good tutor target in this situation too (if you have no more pressing concerns) - just hide the gem you top decked back in your library if you're already good and get some removal or ramp that can solidify your position even more while reducing your hand size. I don't think Reliquary Tower is worth a slot - it just rewards sloppy hand maintenance and sets you up for discard blow outs. 7 cards is plenty, and you always have an extra slot in the command zone if your grave explodes with CoA in it.
Not necessarily. As long as you're just swapping one-shot sac outlets for ones with buyback, you're just adding resiliency. You can still use Eternal Witness and the inst/sorc bears. But covering buyback spells for cheap with REB/pyro becomes another possibility with buyback, that's for sure. However, I still think Mind Extraction (and to a lesser extent Primal Growth) is the go-to solution for killing CoA when you expect counters to ruin your day.
Btw, what are your views on ditching the aura-based combo in favor of Peregrin Drake (with Ghostly Flicker and a recursion bear)? It's one more card on paper, but I think in practice it will be one card less as there's incentive to run and assemble a flicker engine anyway, and then you just need the drake. Demonic Tutor assembles the whole thing on its own (recursion bear, recursion bear, flicker, flicker it back -> drake), and since most of your tutors can transition to DT, it really isn't an issue.
The more I consider uncommons, the more sense it makes to keep one of the inst/sorc bears and ghostly flicker alongside E Wit. It gives you an extra super-cheap recursion engine, serves as back-up for the drake combo if E Wit gets exiled before, allows you to assemble the combo with just Demonic Tutor, and gives you the pseudo-knell option with necromancy for a reasonable mana investment.
True, but that only works at new tables anyway. I beat my friend's fully powered Mayael deck with my Momir Vig pauper in a quick 1v1 game and he alerted the rest of the table not to underestimate it when we sat down for multi, so the element of surprise with these decks if short-lived I'm afraid Anyway, if it's a new table, "no rares and mostly commons" probably goes a long way too, to get people to underestimate you for the moment.
I've thought about this too, and my best explanation for it is that it attacks the core assumptions people make about their own strategy.
1) Someone playing aggro will assume that once in a while, somebody will get in a wrath on turn 4-5 setting them back, but mostly they have a shot. They do not expect complete, instant speed wiping ALWAYS from turn 5 and beyond as often as necessary. They may have "some removal" to take out stuff like Ghostly Prison, but it won't be nearly enough to hande the CoA mechanic. And even most control decks will use permanents and/or creatures to win.
2) Someone playing control will play even better removal, counters and draw spells than we do, but they are mainly concerned with board control - our general single-handedly beats them at their own game. And they are generally not prepared to fight Mind Extraction recursion.
3) Someone playing combo, like aggro players, will accept that people will have instant speed removal or counters and plan for it. However, they usually won't plan for stopping instant speed removal engines that come on-line as early as turn 5, along with counters and counter engines too. Mind Extraction hurts them a lot too.
I've considered the tutors available with uncommons, and considering that slots are at a premium, I think Demonic Tutor + one other strong tutor will be optimal. Now, I want it to be able to find CoA in case it gets tucked and DT is exiled. Ideally, it should also be blue since that makes Merchant Scroll almost as good as DT in this deck. This leaves these options:
*Mystic Tutor: This would mean keeping Brainspoil which is only an option if enough 5 cmc cards remain, OR devoting an uncommon slot to Pull from Eternity to grab the exiled DT and having an all-purpose back-up.
*Worldly Tutor: Can't be found with Merchant Scroll, but you can use Dizzy Spell as a link if necessary (as with Brainspoil above, only there are more relevant 1 CMC targets). Has the benefit of also assembling the combo by itself (it can't fetch Ghostly Flicker directly, but it can fetch Drift of Phantasms).
*Lim Dûl's Vault: Best compared to Vampiric Tutor. Powerful but risky, and not something you'd want to recur over and over like our other tutors. I think it is greedy.
I'd say Mystic Tutor if there's room for PfE, otherwise Worldly Tutor wins out IMO. What do you think?
As for tutors to cut, I think Mystical Teachings, Vedalken Aethermage, Dimir House Guard and Brainspoil could all be cut, leaving a suite of:
Demonic Tutor
Mystical/Worldly Tutor
Merchant Scroll
Dizzy Spell
Muddle the Mixture
Shred Memory
Dimir Infiltrator
Drift of Phantasms
Perplex
The 2 CMC transmutes find DT and the 3 CMC transmutes assemble E Wit/Capsize/Necromancy. Dizzy Spell finds Mystical/Worldly or Worthy Cause. Merchant Scroll finds Capsize/Flicker and can transition to all three transmutes. Dimir House Guard and Aethermage only makes sense if you run Mystical Teachings as this can assemble the flicker engine if you have boat loads of mana, but now you can do that so much cheaper. Brainspoil was mainly run as an out to CoA tucking, but the above tutor set already gives us 7 outs, so we can ditch it and any targets we ran to make it work OK.
Ok, tl;dr - so far we have:
Worthy Cause
Eternal Witness
Necromancy
Demonic Tutor
Mystical/Worldly Tutor
= 5 slots
For the remaining three, I think Peregrine Drake is the top concern to make the combo part rock solid. The next in line pick is probably Hinder (just say no to those Geth experiences!). For the final slot, an argument can be made for Cauldron Dance, Pull from Eternity or some other disruption piece like Bant Charm/Controvert. What do you think will make us most godly?
EDIT: On second thought, Hinder may not be a solution to Geth and the like because people can run even more and better tutors than we do. So maybe it's not as clutch? Fortunately, with the space we save, we'll be able to run crap tonnes of GY hate if we wish. The more I think about it, the more Pull from Eternity grows on me. It solves so many scenarios! In fact, I think I'd rather have a way to get Necromancy/Capsize back than redundancy in Cauldron Dance. That makes my three last picks Peregrine Drake, Pull from Eternity and still one open slot that I don't really know what to do with to max out fully.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
Edit: To clarify, I run into multiple situations per game where I wish I didn't have to discard or that I could be more mana efficient with graveyard recursions if it would not bring me above 7 cards. In my meta, where Blue is king and every deck is full of counters, I need at least 2 or 3 counters in hand to feel secure. What the tower would do is let me keep this hand without worry. Pyroblast, Counterspell, Death Denied, Izzet Chronarch, Child of Alara, Devour Flesh, Ghostly Flicker, Unmake.
There is nothing greedy about this hand. Having Chronarch lets me get a spell without worrying about running the whole chain over again, as you need to kill Child to combo with Harvest OR Death Denied. Two counters is minimum where I am from and one of them isn't even that great. Child is obviously needed, and storing him in the command zone cannot be done too much, as I save that for when he gets exiled. Devour Flesh is the best way to kill Child or stop voltron stupidity, Ghostly Flicker is great and tossing spells means I cannot get them for a long time, as it take about 15+ mana to churn a spell back with no card loss. Unmake stops Spearbreaker Behemoth, the ultimate annoying creature. Right now, I have to chuck Ghostly Flicker and know that this game will take a long time to win, as I cannot get it back until I get a second spell recursion guy.
I would rate Reliquary Tower above everything but E Wit, Necromancy, and Worthy Cause. Yes, that includes Demonic Tutor, as that is only a slight upgrade to the transmute cards we have now, because the transmute cards have a second purpose, even Dizzy Spell. That card won me a game by saving me 3 life four times, and affects combat a fair bit, especially with deathtouchers or gang blocks on Child. Obviously, with 8 uncommons, Demonic is in.
I already don't run the freed from the real combo, so drake isn't for me. Ghostly Flicker + bear is already a win if there is no pressure, so I think it is a win more. I would throw in Volcanic Geyser as an option, as sometimes the problem with Fireball is I cannot use it to kill a third player as then the other guy will win when I am tapped out from doing so.
Also, a real draw spell would be great, Opportunity and Tidings come to mind. I hate that you have to run real draw spells in case something goes wrong, because if you are separated from your graveyard, you are toast until you can get back in. Digging power is more important than raw cards drawn, so maybe Careful Consideration is what we are looking for.
Turn 2 Two Goblin Guide
Hm, in this situation I think I would just have played CoA. It's always on the board or in the GY for me (unless exiled) as I see no reason to bring it to hand unless you're playing it. If a counter war is started over it, all the better - free those hand slots up and regain a counter with Chronarch so you can also defend the sac outlet. Sac it, get back CoA and Izzet and perhaps smth else with Death Denied (which izzet returns) - that should keep you occupied for a few turns with no hand problems.
To each his own. As I don't see the need for more than 7 cards, it's only natural that I don't see a reason to waste an uncommon slot on it. If your playstyle and environment puts a premium on 8+ cards, then go for it. I will enjoy my Peregrine Drake instead Demonic Tutor is a great "key stone" card in that it amplifies all your other tutors - now you can get anything with anything, and a lower "durdling cost" than when tutoring for tutors with the likes of Mystical Teachings.
I found a better choice than Mystical/Worldly tutor though: Congregation at Dawn. E Wit, Drake and Drift of Phantasms (for Ghostly Flicker). You could also to Mulldrifter, E Wit and Drift of Phantasms to assemble Necro/Capsize by recurring DoP with E Wit (using it twice). Many possibilities.
Why not run a solid infinite mana combo instead - kill everyone and don't worry about tapping out?
Nah, I don't think these have anything on Rush of Knowledge or Foresee that can be had without the cost of an uncommon slot. With the tutoring package I'm assembling, you have many ways to recover though so I'm not sure pure draw is needed. I also steer clear of Death Denied to avoid flooding my grip.
My current uncommon list:
Worthy Cause
Necromancy
Eternal Witness
Demonic Tutor
Congregation at Dawn
Peregrine Drake
Pull from Eternity
?
EDIT: If you're looking for an instant speed fireball among uncommons, how about Suffer the Past. Seems like a card with potential!
EDIT2: Screw that, I didn't know Exsanguinate was uncommon! Quite an upgrade to the red x spells as far as win cons go, though I must say that the torch's taxing is great also.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
CURRENT DECKS
WUBRG Child of Alara, Pauper Dreamcrusher GRBUW | BGU Muldrotha, Dreamcrusher REDUX UGB | WUB Dreamcrusher Pt. III: Nevinyrral's Disco BUW
I looked at it and also Buried Alive but Congregation was the only "tripple tutor" I managed to break. So I still think Mystical is better since it fetches something that's already broken (including Capsize, Ghostly Flicker and then some). But I'd like to do better. We already have awesome sac outlets, recursion, tutors, a get-out-of-jail free card and a rock solid infinite combo. I think what's needed most is a removal upgrade if it can be found - something that handles stuff that CoA can't. Instant speed, any target, exiling or forced sacrifice would be ideal, preferably uncounterable. Krosan Grip and Beast Within seem "meh" at best. It needs to be a lot better than the likes of Wrecking Ball, Unmake, Reality Acid or Revoke Existance to count. Anything I've missed?
EDIT: How about Anger? Could improve the voltron aspect of the deck quite a bit together with Rancor and Moldervine Cloak.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
CURRENT DECKS
WUBRG Child of Alara, Pauper Dreamcrusher GRBUW | BGU Muldrotha, Dreamcrusher REDUX UGB | WUB Dreamcrusher Pt. III: Nevinyrral's Disco BUW