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Gensuki posted:Fateseal is probably your best bet...Outside of that, there is exceedingly little that lets you control what your opponent draws... Maybe Donate something/cast something that makes them play with the top card of their library revealed and then some kind of "Target Player shuffles their library" artifact? (That has to exist right? There're thousands of artifacts...) It's a creature from Alliances. edit: also Lantern of Insight I guess though it sacrifices itself e;fb LGD fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 06:59
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Propitious Jerk posted:Speaking of red hitting itself to hit someone else; is there a good one drop option to replace goblin guide in modern mono-red burn? I was considering swiftspears as a budget option or maybe stromkirk nobles.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:00
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Gensuki posted:Fateseal is probably your best bet...Outside of that, there is exceedingly little that lets you control what your opponent draws... Maybe Donate something/cast something that makes them play with the top card of their library revealed and then some kind of "Target Player shuffles their library" artifact? (That has to exist right? There're thousands of artifacts...) Lantern of Insight! Two birds with one stone. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lantern+of+insight
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Oct 22, 2014 07:01
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neetengie posted:I can't speak much for Red since I don't play Red much but for Black yes, you will always do anything to win, no matter the cost, anything to gain more resources than your opponent, and it is always worth it. This feels like the actual flavour behind Black. "Let's do ANYTHING for power!!!" Olothreutes posted:In the scenario you are looking at either there is a mono-red mirror match being played, or the suicide black player knows to respect the 2-3 mountains and 2-3 cards in your hand, so they don't necro below X+1 life, where X is the amount of damage they expect the red deck to vomit at them. The thing is, usually these cards don't give you a choice. Dark Confidant forces you to keep drawing and losing life, and you have no way of knowing (without scrying) how much the next card is going to cost you. So you end up having to sacrifice one of your own creatures later on because you need to stop it from dealing more life damage to you since now Red got its 4th mountain out. mango sentinel posted:Also, gotta restate: your life is just another resource. Newer players in particular mis-value cards that involve paying life, but any time you can pay life instead of mana or a card, it's incredibly powerful because it lets you do "extra" things with those resources. You may think, "this puts me closer to my opponent killing me," when really it means you are putting yourself so far ahead of your opponent they won't get a chance to kill you. I would disagree, especially with the removal of mana burn. Having too much mana won't kill you, and drawing all of your cards is very hard when there are 40 cards minimum per deck. However, spending too much life will most certainly kill you. I agree that you can use life as a resource, but that doesn't mean you always should. It's also quite the gamble, since if you can't draw the cards you need in the allotted time (which you are reducing by harming yourself with your card drawing mechanic), you are most certainly just hastening your demise. DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:Card advantage is huge, and the development of card advantage theory is one of the most important innovations in Magic history. Definitely read up on it. Well obviously, if your Dark Confidant gamble pays off, that's awesome. There are a lot of cards where you gamble for something better than what you have. I'm just not the type of person to see that as a worthy thing. I would rather play it safe than hinging on luck. Sure, you may have perfect draws with your Dark Confidant, but I could also have perfect regular draws and just beat you before you can draw the cards you need or play the cards you had. I should probably read about card advantage, yes, but I am still just not comfortable with that kind of risk. The reason I liked playing control decks was precisely because I don't like the idea of the other player being easily able to kill me. I like controlling the game instead of hoping my gambles pay off. Lets Pickle posted:Also keep in mind that most decks that play Dark Confidant have most of their spells cost very little mana. You wouldn't play it in something like Commander because that is too much life loss. What's interesting is that making Dark Confidant cost 1 more mana and making it an enchantment makes it completely unplayable in any format. That makes sense, I guess, in a Black deck full of very cheap zombies/skeletons and the like. If you only lose 1 life per turn, it might be worth it to overrun your opponent by turn 10 with a massive undead army.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:20
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xeose4 posted:That makes sense, I guess, in a Black deck full of very cheap zombies/skeletons and the like. If you only lose 1 life per turn, it might be worth it to overrun your opponent by turn 10 with a massive undead army. Also keep in mind that you're not just throwing Bob into any deck. You can build your deck with him in mind, and it is pretty easy to arrange it so that the most he ever deals you in 1 turn is 2 damage. Black has a very nice amount of 2 mana destroy target creature spells, and they also have a lot of 1 mana, 2 power creatures. Failing all that, remember that the most likely thing for Dark Confidant to draw is a land. Lands make up ~30-40% of your deck, compared to any other card's ~5-10%
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Oct 22, 2014 07:27
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40 is the minimum for limited formats. It's still 60 cards for regular magic that you're used to. And dark confident is arguably one of the best creatures printed in the game. I know you disagree with a lot of the reasoning, but you kinda just need to play and see for yourself.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:27
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Well he's not $50+ because he loses you games. The most reckless move of all is giving your opponent more turns to win, and drawing less cards than your opponent means you'll hit your win condition later and give your opponent more chances to kill you.xeose4 posted:There are a lot of cards where you gamble for something better than what you have. I'm just not the type of person to see that as a worthy thing. I would rather play it safe than hinging on luck.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:40
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xeose4 posted:This feels like the actual flavour behind Black. "Let's do ANYTHING for power!!!"
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Oct 22, 2014 07:42
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Yeah I hope you're playing devil's advocate to try to understand why Dark Confidant is such a good card, rather than actually arguing that it isn't. I think you should leave the thread for a while and watch some videos, then come back and have some more informed discussion.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:42
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Tell me what you think of Force of Will.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:47
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If I had 4 bobs, I'd be running them in my modern burn list.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:52
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Babylon Astronaut posted:The most reckless move of all is giving your opponent more turns to win These are words to live by, well put!
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Oct 22, 2014 07:53
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I would argue that Bob is no longer as good as it used to be in a lot of the formats it frequents; it's really only in one or two decks in Legacy, and one in Modern.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:56
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quote:I would disagree, especially with the removal of mana burn. Having too much mana won't kill you, and drawing all of your cards is very hard when there are 40 cards minimum per deck. However, spending too much life will most certainly kill you. I agree that you can use life as a resource, but that doesn't mean you always should. The difference is that with mana you're limited by the one-land-per-turn rule and how many lands you draw, but you start out with 20 life. Paying life lets you do more things in a turn.
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Oct 22, 2014 07:59
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xeose4 posted:
You may just have to take our word for it. Or, if you don't want to do that, let the market speak for itself: It's an insanely good ability. It's fine if you want to hang back and find that out for yourself.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:00
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xeose4 posted:It's also quite the gamble, since if you can't draw the cards you need in the allotted time (which you are reducing by harming yourself with your card drawing mechanic), you are most certainly just hastening your demise. When your deck is constructed so your highest CMC card is around 4-5 and you have the ability to mix up what's on top of your library with certain 1 CMC cards, it stops being a gamble and becomes you losing an average of 1.5-2 life a turn. And if that bothers you, then swing at them for 2 with Bob.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:02
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Saw someone running siege rhino in a modern junk deck on MODO tonight. They also splashed at least 1 island for treasure cruise, in a deck that had goyfs. Also seems like 75% of my matches tonight were against some variation of U/R Pyrodelver. Already kinda tired of seeing that deck now.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:07
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TheKingofSprings posted:And if that bothers you, then swing at them for 2 with Bob. Yeah, this is also key. You can get rid of Bob basically any time you want just by swinging in with him; if your opponent doesn't block then, hey, you're hitting them for 2 a turn.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:09
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xeose4 posted:I would disagree, especially with the removal of mana burn. Having too much mana won't kill you, and drawing all of your cards is very hard when there are 40 cards minimum per deck. However, spending too much life will most certainly kill you. I agree that you can use life as a resource, but that doesn't mean you always should. You keep calling Dark Confidant "gambling." Every card choice is a gamble on how well it fills it role in winning you the game. Call it a gamble if you want, but players have run the odds and know it's a gamble they are heavily favored to win. TheKingofSprings posted:I would argue that Bob is no longer as good as it used to be in a lot of the formats it frequents; it's really only in one or two decks in Legacy, and one in Modern. I wonder how much of this has to do with Goyf. mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 08:10
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Babylon Astronaut posted:The most reckless move of all is giving your opponent more turns to win So late game decks aren't a thing at all anymore? Or delay/stall decks? Babylon Astronaut posted:You shuffle your deck before playing right? Wouldn't having more cards mean that the odds are better than having less? You could say that waiting around to topdeck the card you need is relying on a miracle. Isn't this why blue has so much looking at your deck, card-searching and card-drawing? At least that's the way I used to play Blue. newtestleper posted:Yeah I hope you're playing devil's advocate to try to understand why Dark Confidant is such a good card, rather than actually arguing that it isn't. I think you should leave the thread for a while and watch some videos, then come back and have some more informed discussion. I'm not arguing it's not a good card, I just didn't understand why it was so good, but apparently the answer is "it works really well when you plan your deck around it", like neetengie explained, which makes perfect sense. Babylon Astronaut posted:Tell me what you think of Force of Will. Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. vOv posted:The difference is that with mana you're limited by the one-land-per-turn rule and how many lands you draw, but you start out with 20 life. Paying life lets you do more things in a turn. Fair enough! I can't argue with that logic. E: mango sentinel posted:You keep calling Dark Confidant "gambling." Every card choice is a gamble on how well it fills it role in winning you the game. Call it a gamble if you want, but players have run the odds and know it's a gamble they are heavily favored to win. Like I said, not gonna argue with the facts. Clearly it's a very sought-after card that works, particularly when you build your deck around it. xeose4 fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 08:15
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Propitious Jerk posted:Speaking of red hitting itself to hit someone else; is there a good one drop option to replace goblin guide in modern mono-red burn? I was considering swiftspears as a budget option or maybe stromkirk nobles. Swiftspear is so good, it's not a "budget option" it's just legitimately one of the best red creatures ever.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:17
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xeose4 posted:Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. Not trying to dogpile or anything, but really? You don't see how a hard counter you can cast during your opponent's first turn when they're playing first, or when you're tapped out, or just without tapping any mana at all, might be preferable to Counterspell?
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Oct 22, 2014 08:21
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xeose4 posted:Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. A big thing to consider is that in general, mana efficiency > card advantage > life. There are few things in Magic more mana efficient than a free counterspell.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:23
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xeose4 posted:Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. Sounds like you're misreading this - you can pay 1 life plus an additional card instead of paying the mana cost.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:23
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xeose4 posted:So late game decks aren't a thing at all anymore? Or delay/stall decks? quote:Isn't this why blue has so much looking at your deck, card-searching and card-drawing? At least that's the way I used to play Blue. quote:Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. I want to point out that this isn't supposed to be dog pile on the new guy, evaluating life costs is the quintessential newbie mistake. It took reanimate to get it to click with a friend when I pointed out that you would pay 15 life and one black for an Emrakul all day every day.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:24
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xeose4 posted:So late game decks aren't a thing at all anymore? Or delay/stall decks? xeose4 posted:Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. Islands aren't blue.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:24
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Hopping Ghost posted:Not trying to dogpile or anything, but really? You don't see how a hard counterspell you can cast during your opponent's first turn when they're playing first, or when you're tapped out, or just without tapping any mana at all, might be preferable to Counterspell? I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive? I admit I hadn't thought about the whole "Casting it during the first turn when they're playing first". That's definitely useful, but are there really that many 1-drops that are worth it?
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Oct 22, 2014 08:26
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xeose4 posted:Desperate last-ditch card for when you run out of actual counterspells? Unless you can pay an island as "a blue card" in which case I don't understand why it's so expensive when the regular counterspell is UU and this doesn't do anything fancier. I would expect to see the life-paying and discarding mechanic on a counterspell that is cheaper than the standard counterspell, not more expensive. xeose4 posted:I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive?
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Oct 22, 2014 08:27
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xeose4 posted:I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive? Ok, daze is pretty cheap and is unlikely to ever drop in price. Get a playset of them, screw around with your friends and you will understand really quickly why force of will is even better. Turn 1 delver, their turn 1, daze is heavenly. Do it enough and they will waste their first turn just to avoid looking dumb. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 08:28
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Chamale posted:Swiftspear is so good, it's not a "budget option" it's just legitimately one of the best red creatures ever. Well they are considerably cheaper to pick up than Goblin Guides. Looks like I need to track some down.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:31
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xeose4 posted:I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive? It's the best because it lets you stop turn 1 plays (which in legacy can be huge), and protect spells you tap out for. You tap all your mana to cast your game winning spell, they try to counter it, you can force of will to counter their counterspell. It's way more easy to observe this card's power. Go watch LSV's legacy games on youtube and you will quickly understand why Force is so absurdly good.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:33
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xeose4 posted:I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive? The reason FoW costs more than Counterspell is because it has an alternate cost. If FoW had a mana cost of 1U then it'd be better than Counterspell in every way possible; this way, it's not always better because if you don't have another blue card to pitch to it, Counterspell is easier to cast. (FoW is still better than Counterspell, though, because it means that your opponent always has to worry that you're going to counter their win condition as long as you have at least two cards in hand even if you're tapped out.)
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Oct 22, 2014 08:34
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xeose4 posted:This feels like the actual flavour behind Black. "Let's do ANYTHING for power!!!" Dark Confidant's flavor text is literally, "Greatness, at any cost." It's the blackest flavor text. Fingers McLongDong posted:Saw someone running siege rhino in a modern junk deck on MODO tonight. They also splashed at least 1 island for treasure cruise, in a deck that had goyfs. I've played it in 9/12 of my matches so far with my newer deck. The others were UR I've been watching CFB's videos over the last few days, and it looks so boring. Caleb Durward's Nic Fit matches were 2 Viking Funeral, 2 Miracles. LSV has played nothing but Burn and UR Burn in both of his UR Burn videos.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:35
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xeose4 posted:I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive? Its perk is tremendous, so it has to have some drawbacks. A hard (by which I mean it doesn't have a built-in way for the opponent to nullify it, like Daze and Mana Leak do) counter you could cast for free when you can't spare any mana but for a low cost when you can would be too good. quote:admit I hadn't thought about the whole "Casting it during the first turn when they're playing first". That's definitely useful, but are there really that many 1-drops that are worth it? In the formats where Force is legal, there are several turn one plays that may be worth countering.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:35
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xeose4 posted:I don't get why it has a mana cost, or why it's so expensive. If it's a counterspell designed to let you cast it when you're tapped out so you are never paying its actual mana cost, why is it so expensive? It isn't even just about one mana drops. Cards like simian/elvish spirit guide, lotus petal, dark ritual, grim monolith, lions eye diamond, et al. allow your opponent to potentially make 5-6 mana or more on their first turn. There is a goon favorite combo deck called breakfast burrito that relies entirely on being able to make 4+ mana on turn one (with zero lands in the deck) and then killing your opponent immediately. Unless they can counter you, which essentially requires force of will in their hand. It's a gamble to play the deck, you essentially are playing force of will roulette, if they have it you lose, otherwise they lose. This heavily influences the price, but also force of will was printed a long time ago in a set that wasn't printed nearly as much as current sets are printed. There just aren't that many of them so scarcity is also a factor in the price. E: Lets try this. You are playing blue, your opponent is playing black and has a dark confidant in play. He attacks with it every turn, do you block it (assuming in this case that blocking it means it will die, your walls strategy is a different case)? If you block it, he stops losing life. This seems counter to your goals, but he stops getting extra cards. Now the field is more level. If you don't block it, you take 2 damage a turn and he draws an extra card every turn, sometimes losing some life but maybe not because lands have 0 cmc. Now he's drawing through those lands that would otherwise be dead draws and is seeing twice as many cards as you are for zero mana after the initial cost. He's probably drawing bigger threats now and/or removal for your threats and doing it twice as fast as he otherwise would. You can keep up with his draws, but it costs you a card and several mana each turn, mana and cards that you aren't spending to kill him. All this has to take into account as well that the black player knows exactly which cards are in his deck and which ones are answers to his current problems. He is digging for them twice as fast, and will likely find them. Also, black has a number of ways to gain life as well, so the loss of life can be offset in some ways as well. Olothreutes fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 08:36
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Also, that was the mana cost of the rest of the cycle except pyrokinesis which was one more to make it fair. I don't think they really thought the pitch spells through.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:36
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mango sentinel posted:It's expensive because the alternate cost is so good and that's the mode they want players to use. They don't want it to have the alternate cost AND be Counterspell. It's already the best counter, but that would even more crazy. Actually Mana Drain fights it pretty loving hard for that position. Dunno if there's a clear winner but one is banned in Legacy.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:37
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TheKingofSprings posted:Actually Mana Drain fights it pretty loving hard for that position. Mana Drain is banned because it's miserable to play against, not necessarily for power level. Take Mana Drain out of Legacy, and eh. Counterspell is close enough (and also almost never played.) Take Force out and the format is ruined.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:41
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suicidesteve posted:Dark Confidant's flavor text is literally, "Greatness, at any cost." It's the blackest flavor text. I may have played the same WUR delver guy, I eventually lost that in game 3 when he cruised twice and ate me up with card advantage. I'm trying out modern's version of Death and Taxes right now, it's actually a really fun deck. Won most matches tonight, lost against a few delver players and the junk player. I'm seriously considering making major changes to my sideboard for this wave of delver decks, but what would be good? I'm already using 2 RiP in the side, and I boarded in 2 ghostly prison's to fair success earlier.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:42
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The thing is, the baseline power level for Legacy/Vintage would be considered fantastically broken in any other format. When there are decks that outright win on turn one or two if left unmolested, the ability to counter any spell even if you're tapped out is very valuable. Not that it wouldn't also be valuable in a more sane format. Being able to cast something without paying mana for it has always been extremely powerful (and also something Wizards tend to trip over again and again when designing new cards that also turn out to be broken). That's also why Force of Will is more "important" to the format than Mana Drain even though the latter is arguably more powerful: there are too many decks that you have to be able to disrupt early on if you don't want to just lose immediately.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:42
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