I don't know if this card is good or not, but you have to consider that PTE is a 1-for-1 that Evolving Wildses them, but this card isn't a trade that does so. You're up on (V)CA until they remove it or outclass it.
I think your algorithm gives a pretty high 1-lander keep rate, elcon. You might want to try fewer lands. Ignoring mulligans, the likelihood that you have exactly 3 lands in your top 10 cards is maximized by having L/60 = 3/10 (as you'd expect!). Similarly, to maximize the probability of having 3 lands in your top 9 cards, you should have solve(L/60=3/9) lands in your 60-card deck.
To add to the mathematics, if your mulligan criteria are: (1) mulligan all sevens, sixes, and fives with 0 or more than 3 lands, (2) mulligan all fives with more than 2 lands, and (3) mulligan all sevens, sixes, and fives with 1 land with probability p, then--to optimize your average starting hand size--you should run 22/21/20/19/18/17/16 lands if p is less than the following values (but not less than each of the previous): 0.12/0.30/0.48/0.65/0.82/0.99/1.01. To estimate how many lands you should run, draw 6 cards from a 41 non-land deck many times and determine the proportion of keeps, then look to the above table.
Does anyone have an alternative mulligan criterion set? I enjoy computing these things.
I made a comprehensive sideboarding guide for Burn, and I would like to share it with you in order to get some feedback into my sideboard plan and to help you out with sideboarding.
Also, I would like to notice that this guide is particular to my decklist, and it is on the beginning of the guide.
I hope it helps you out!
I'm not going to give you all of my suggestions, but there are some fundamental disagreements between my sideboard strategy and yours.
On the draw, you can often take out 1-2 lands depending on what your curve looks like after board. Specifically, I run 20 lands because I want to hit 3 lands in my first 9 cards (3 turns). It isn't a coincidence that 3/9 = 20/60. On the draw, you have an extra look (10 cards), so you only need 18 lands to give a similar probability of finding exactly 3 lands in your first 3 turns. If I had bridges in my board or something like that, or if some of my 1-mana spells are getting upgraded to 2-mana spells, then I might shave only 1 or even 0 lands on the draw. Keep this in mind, because it alleviates some of the stress when you feel like you're overboarding.
Against creature decks that gum up the ground and GB(x) midrange decks with infinite removal, I often take out many of my creatures, at least on the draw. Guide and Eidolon suck vs. Merfolk on the draw, similarly Swiftspear and Guide against Jund or Junk on the draw. In these cases, I don't want to draw 0-2 damage cards. Instead, I'd like to see bolts and paths etc. This often leaves you with 8 slots to play with.
There were 9 Grixis Shadow lists in the posted top 32s (or 36 for one of the GPs) this weekend, good for 9% of the top meta. That's a healthy percentage, but not anywhere near danger territory unless WotC is dumb and combines all the DS variants together like they did with Twin. Anyway, here is the average numbers of each card played between the 9 lists:
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Death's Shadow
3.8 Street Wraith
2 Gurmag Angler
1.9 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Fulminator Mage
.4 Izzet Staticaster
.2 Stillmoon Cavalier
.1 Tombstalker
.1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
.1 Ranger of Eos
Sorceries
4 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
2.2 Collective Brutality
1.8 Inquisition of Kozilek
1.2 Anger of the Gods
.3 Lingering Souls
.1 Dreadbore
.1 Damnation
This is actually 77 cards because there were a few cards tied for the last couple slots, so you need to cut two. There was only 1 player playing the white splash, which I think isn't the best thing to do, so the Strand should just be a 4th Tarn, and we can cut the Souls. For the last cut, only 4/9 players were playing Fulminator, so I think that's the last cut. So I think the average list looks something like this:
So if you count, you'll notice this is 61 cards in the main and 14 in the sideboard. Only 2 lists were running Temur Battle Rage, and both cut Bolts for them in the main, so you either cut a Bolt or a TBR (or cut 2 Bolts and play 2 TBR). This means there's one extra slot open in the sideboard. In my opinion, the best options are a 3rd Brutality, 3rd Rejection, or 2nd sweeper. Of course, this isn't gospel, so everyone's free to tinker as they wish, but I think this is the starting point for us going forward.
I think Karsten's aggregate method would be better than this average-and-round strategy. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
If you don't have Revolt, Landfall, Grim Lavamancer, or a second color in your deck, then it is not worth running fetchlands. Please see http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096 (not my article). Basically, you're paying several life in most games to draw less than one action card in few games. This could conceivably be worth it, but if your fetching has cost you a draw step by increasing your opponent's clock, then you're definitely behind. Also, this is Modern, so most decks plan to kill you with damage.
I'm actually finding that there's a dearth of sideboard cards I really want to bring in. I have 4 Path for Eldrazi/Shadow/Finks, 4 Rev for Affinity/Lantern/Merfolk, 2 Palm for Affinity/Shadow, 2 Relic for Abzan/Control/Dredge/Shadow, and 2 Kataki (soon to be Mentor) for double-tap artifact hate. My 15th sideboard card was a Lavaman that was frankly performing pretty poorly. I guess I could jam a 1-of Kor Firewalker in there for the mirror, but it isn't quite as common as it once was. I'm not really seeing a "better sideboard card" to invest in.
KFW is training wheels. Unless your meta is jam-packed with Burn, just play better than your opponent.
You're just being argumentative. You can't really be claiming that the video isn't productive because stubborn people won't watch it to gain insight. If that's the case, then any comment someone makes here that doesn't get responded to didn't advance the discussion. That's ludicrous.
I benefited from watching the video, and so would anyone who watches it. It has plenty to good content.
My point is that people can benefit from watching the video. If you're not going to add something valuable to the discussion about Modern Burn, then don't respond to me. We're derailing the thread.
But it is clickbait. It might have valuable arguments in the video, but it was posted here solely for clicks and ad views. The guy's post history is loaded with low effort posts like that (mostly Legacy Merfolk match videos). This is why some forums (like reddit) have a 9:1 rule, where you have to contribute 9 non-self-promoting posts if you're going to post one self-promoting thing like this. One post out of nowhere with a link to youtube is just shameless self-promotion, regardless of whether the video is worth watching or not.
Fine, it's shameless self-promotion. Who cares? The link has valuable information that will help the discussion about Modern Burn far more than complaining about click bait does, right? These several posts complaining about this guy's post are content-free. His post--albeit made for selfish reasons--can actually advance the discussion.
To be fair, it's not just click-bait. The video contains some good arguments. Maybe none of it is new, but it contains basically all of the information anyone here has contributed in the last several days.
Does anyone have an alternative mulligan criterion set? I enjoy computing these things.
I'm not going to give you all of my suggestions, but there are some fundamental disagreements between my sideboard strategy and yours.
On the draw, you can often take out 1-2 lands depending on what your curve looks like after board. Specifically, I run 20 lands because I want to hit 3 lands in my first 9 cards (3 turns). It isn't a coincidence that 3/9 = 20/60. On the draw, you have an extra look (10 cards), so you only need 18 lands to give a similar probability of finding exactly 3 lands in your first 3 turns. If I had bridges in my board or something like that, or if some of my 1-mana spells are getting upgraded to 2-mana spells, then I might shave only 1 or even 0 lands on the draw. Keep this in mind, because it alleviates some of the stress when you feel like you're overboarding.
Against creature decks that gum up the ground and GB(x) midrange decks with infinite removal, I often take out many of my creatures, at least on the draw. Guide and Eidolon suck vs. Merfolk on the draw, similarly Swiftspear and Guide against Jund or Junk on the draw. In these cases, I don't want to draw 0-2 damage cards. Instead, I'd like to see bolts and paths etc. This often leaves you with 8 slots to play with.
I think Karsten's aggregate method would be better than this average-and-round strategy. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
It being Ensnaring Bridge.
Are you in FOS? This deck has exactly the same cards as a deck I brewed up. Crazy haha.
KFW is training wheels. Unless your meta is jam-packed with Burn, just play better than your opponent.
I benefited from watching the video, and so would anyone who watches it. It has plenty to good content.
My point is that people can benefit from watching the video. If you're not going to add something valuable to the discussion about Modern Burn, then don't respond to me. We're derailing the thread.
Fine, it's shameless self-promotion. Who cares? The link has valuable information that will help the discussion about Modern Burn far more than complaining about click bait does, right? These several posts complaining about this guy's post are content-free. His post--albeit made for selfish reasons--can actually advance the discussion.