Supreme Will and Cyclonic Rift are not sideboard cards. Mainboard cards should be useful in many different situations and offer flexibility, e.g., Supreme Will and Cyclonic Rift. Sideboard cards should be more narrow but therefore also more powerful. A good example is Hurkyls Recall for a card that is more narrow than Rift but a lot more powerful when you do bring it in. It does not make a lot of sense to put flexible but somewhat weak cards in your sb, those cards belong in the main.
As I've said many months ago: TKS is good when there is no efficient removal for it (no Push, Terminate,... only Path, Bolt) and TKS can dominate the board (no Goyf, Tasigur, Angler, Shadow, Reality Smasher... only 2/2s, 3/3s and such).
Basically ask yourself what kind of removal is popular in your meta and what kind creatures are on the board. There are certainly some metas where TKS shines. Solemn, Walking Ballista, Karn kind of compete with him over the same slot and are very strong and just straight better in some metas.
I guess it’s too hard trying to providing actual content in this thread. I end up being accused of trolling when I’m just stating the truth. I’m not the only one who tried to improve the deck (a mere Tier3 in its current configuration, because that’s exactly what it is) but people like to copy paste without trying anything to improve it. “Shok is doing that” doesn’t mean he’s definitively correct (and it’s not directed to Shok, great builder and player anyway). Many others left this thread because of the same attitude. I guess I’ll take a break, given that my contribute is not appreciated.
Love ya.
I know that feeling, hang in there. People are just argumentative and opinionated about stuff. There will always be people who disagree and disrespect, especially if you do things differently than others. The beauty of magic and u tron is that there are so many different ways to make it work for you and at the end of the day what really matters that you find something that works for you. So **** the haters and do you thing.
Should definitely drop some more details about your stats, 77% is a very nice number but the sample size matters a lot. Me and shok have had similiar numbers, but you might have a better sample size than either of us. Although it might be difficult to compare the competition if you're not playing on MTGO.
The first question: should I use the new Karn and how many should I play in my deck? I have one in my deck right now and the option to play another. Also I have Karn Liberated in my sideboard, would you replace that?
So your argument is that the percentage only changes a little bit, and that games go long.
First point makes no sense, as you are correct the change is small, but that applies to your perceived "better mana base" as well as the less consistency. So you can either say the better mana base matters or the percentage points barely change. You can't say both, that's hypocrisy and double standard.
Second of all about games going long: quite a few matchups only go long when we make them. If you don't find that Hurkyl's Recall in your top 10 cards the affinity match won't go long.
I am not saying you are wrong, perhaps the mana base is better, but for me the advantage is questionable while the disadvantage is obvious.
But you are less consistent overall. You are less likely to assemble tron, or draw any specific card. There's a reason 99% of the time you stick with the card minimum.
I didn't mean your numbers are random numbers, I think it is great you are doing this and it can definitely be a tool to be used to make better decisions.
It's more people look at some numbers they don't understand, so it's basically random numbers and then make to me bad assumptions.
I tried to point this out before but it seems like people are going way too crazy about this new data and interpreting things that do not necessarily follow from the data.
First of all correlation is not the same as causation.
Secondly, the data can be extremely misleading, you can't just look at the win% delta of a card and judge it on that, you have to examine the numbers and think about the context of the card. (See my earlier post about Hurkyl's Recall numbers, how misleading the numbers are!)
Thirdly, the data is about starting hands. Quite a lot of cards can be bad in your starting hand and still be good cards in the deck.
Then there is the issue of low sample size. People jump to conclusions when they see the data but then after 50 more matches are entered the data is completely different. Maybe be a bit more patient until there is more data.
I want to talk about the Island data because apparently it's a bad sign for the deck that island correlates with less win% than no Island?!
That's just nonsense and here's why:
So the correlation is hands I keep without Islands are better than hands I keep with Island. Now those who may not understand my 1st point about correlation =/= causation say "That means Island is bad!". No it doesn't mean that. The causation is actually the opposite way. The hands without Islands are better because I only keep really good hands without a blue source. It has nothing to do with how good an island is (yes absolutely ZERO) and depends 100% on my mulligan decision making. You can make a very good argument that I am keeping mediocre hands with a blue source too often and I am not keeping decent hands without a blue source enough. If I would change that behavior then this winrate delta would vanish! So how can this be an indicator of how good the card is when it depends mainly on how I mulligan...
Thirst being worse than Supreme Will is another thing that kind of annoys me, or rather how people react to this. It doesn't mean you should cut Thirst, it just means Supreme Will is a better early game card, but imo Thirst is still the better mid and late game card, by far, and I wouldn't run less than 4. All the threats (Mindslaver, Angel, Ugin, Engine, Gearhulk) I expect to have negative correlation because they are bad cards in the starting hand. Same for Snapcaster. Those are still great cards you should be running.
The data is cool to have but I really don't agree with how it is being used, what weird ideas people have. It seems people blindly follow some random numbers rather than think themselves.
I played
R1 Humans
R2 Gx Tron
R3 Gx Tron
R4 Jund
R5 Humans
R6 WB Eldrazi and Taxes
R7 Lanternless
R8 UR Phoenix
Top8 Burn
Everything will be on my youtube.
Basically ask yourself what kind of removal is popular in your meta and what kind creatures are on the board. There are certainly some metas where TKS shines. Solemn, Walking Ballista, Karn kind of compete with him over the same slot and are very strong and just straight better in some metas.
I know that feeling, hang in there. People are just argumentative and opinionated about stuff. There will always be people who disagree and disrespect, especially if you do things differently than others. The beauty of magic and u tron is that there are so many different ways to make it work for you and at the end of the day what really matters that you find something that works for you. So **** the haters and do you thing.
o7
First point makes no sense, as you are correct the change is small, but that applies to your perceived "better mana base" as well as the less consistency. So you can either say the better mana base matters or the percentage points barely change. You can't say both, that's hypocrisy and double standard.
Second of all about games going long: quite a few matchups only go long when we make them. If you don't find that Hurkyl's Recall in your top 10 cards the affinity match won't go long.
I am not saying you are wrong, perhaps the mana base is better, but for me the advantage is questionable while the disadvantage is obvious.
It's more people look at some numbers they don't understand, so it's basically random numbers and then make to me bad assumptions.
There are also more U Tron matches on the Magic Gathering Strat Channel where I played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2yiMyr7Tn8&list=PL2jQrD9SkZONsMYAXyOa8yy-_wn65bE9o
First of all correlation is not the same as causation.
Secondly, the data can be extremely misleading, you can't just look at the win% delta of a card and judge it on that, you have to examine the numbers and think about the context of the card. (See my earlier post about Hurkyl's Recall numbers, how misleading the numbers are!)
Thirdly, the data is about starting hands. Quite a lot of cards can be bad in your starting hand and still be good cards in the deck.
Then there is the issue of low sample size. People jump to conclusions when they see the data but then after 50 more matches are entered the data is completely different. Maybe be a bit more patient until there is more data.
I want to talk about the Island data because apparently it's a bad sign for the deck that island correlates with less win% than no Island?!
That's just nonsense and here's why:
So the correlation is hands I keep without Islands are better than hands I keep with Island. Now those who may not understand my 1st point about correlation =/= causation say "That means Island is bad!". No it doesn't mean that. The causation is actually the opposite way. The hands without Islands are better because I only keep really good hands without a blue source. It has nothing to do with how good an island is (yes absolutely ZERO) and depends 100% on my mulligan decision making. You can make a very good argument that I am keeping mediocre hands with a blue source too often and I am not keeping decent hands without a blue source enough. If I would change that behavior then this winrate delta would vanish! So how can this be an indicator of how good the card is when it depends mainly on how I mulligan...
Thirst being worse than Supreme Will is another thing that kind of annoys me, or rather how people react to this. It doesn't mean you should cut Thirst, it just means Supreme Will is a better early game card, but imo Thirst is still the better mid and late game card, by far, and I wouldn't run less than 4. All the threats (Mindslaver, Angel, Ugin, Engine, Gearhulk) I expect to have negative correlation because they are bad cards in the starting hand. Same for Snapcaster. Those are still great cards you should be running.
The data is cool to have but I really don't agree with how it is being used, what weird ideas people have. It seems people blindly follow some random numbers rather than think themselves.