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this article will be about helping newer players make card choices and understand efficiency.
when i first started to play magic the gathering i could not understand why anyone would play dark confidant, reanimate , or Fact or fiction. what made ponder, preordain and brainstorm ban worthy cards. well there are alot of reasons but the main one is that they are all extremely mana efficient cards. As in for what they do,you should have to pay more. card abilities are bench marked against earlier cards that do similar things.This helps us decide if a card is good or not and if its priced efficiently. For example you have wrath of god as the bench mark for destroy all creature spells. all destroy all creature spells are compared to this card. Its a good indicator if a card does more then wrath at the same price (supreme verdict) or costs less then wrath (toxic deluge or pernicious deed). this is 1 yard stick that you can measure the power of a card more effectively at. Another way of measuring how efficient a card is is to think of what is the smallest amount of effort or mana i can pay in order to get this done. so nature's claim is better then naturalize because it is a tempo play and allows you to get ahead in terms of time and card advantage. you can for example destroy his three cost enchantment and play a two drop turn 3. not only did he waste his last turn but he lost a card and fell behind in board state. vs naturalize all you got to do was destroy his enchantment. the match is equal because you lost your entire turn destroying his enchantment and you are both down a card with nothing on the field plus without that one drop you wasted the opportunity to advance. one drops is where advantage happens. if you were to naturalize then cast top or naturalize then cast an isamaru your winning.the second point is opportunity cost. opportunity cost is what is the next best thing i could have chosen when deck building and in play. So if i you play divination over fact or fiction the cost of divination is fact or fiction. or during your turn you will have multiple options. the cost of whatever you chose to do is the next best move. this concept is very important in all deck building and will massively improve how well you draft. The point being this, each of the cards you play and each of the plays you make needs to have the highest impact on your opponent you can at the most efficient price possible. so timing a removal spell or choosing instant speeds over sorcery so you can use magic at the end of opponents turn (especially against a control deck) are always of lowering your chosen plays opportunity cost. measure all moves in terms of how much resource am i effecting or does this allow me to affect vs how much im paying to do it. utilize all of your mana to give you advantage. thats where all those one drop spells come in handy, to fill all those holes where you have 5 mana and a 4 cost spell. when i say utilize all mana, i mean you should try and aim to have to untap as many lands as possible during your next untap phase. So by the end of your opponents turn all mana you could use is used.Do that and you will go a long way.here are some benchmarks costs for abilities. if it cost more there should be some pretty sweet upsides. if it costs less the draw backs or limitations shouldn't be to bad or narrow. like annul (counters only artifacts) is a bad card. swan song is awesome.they will be ranked bad better best.land destruction:3craterize(bad), parallax tide(better, though this card is fairy ridiculous also),strip mine(best)target removal: 2murder(bad), doom blade(better), swords to plowshares(best)mass removal:4plague wind(just about the worst),day of judgement (not bad), pernicious deed (best, alot of different cards could be put here.)counterspell: 2cancel (bad), arcane denial (better), force of will (best)draw: 1divination(bad), think twice(better), brainstorm(best, besides ancestral)
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I like that this covered tempo.
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Agreed. Well done!
Good article, could i print these for some would-be deckbuilders at the local shop?
yeah absolutley, but i would definatley cut paste over word for spelling and grammatical stuff though first.
thanks ! very helpful info
There is another underlying problem why it is so hard for new players to understand why cards like Fact or Fiction or Brainstorm are so good: They need to be coupled with other specific cards and advanced concepts and strategies. Cards and strategies that you and me take for granted, but aren't for beginners!Let's take Brainstorm - if you don't have a way to shuffle your library and if your deck isn't about combo or control, just a "regular" creature deck without any tricks, then Brainstorm actually isn't a good card! In that case it acts more like a one-shot Sylvan Library. But we are so used to play with fetchlands for example that most of our decks have ways to shuffle anyway, so we don't really question this part. And Fetchlands are also cards a newbie will wonder why they are so good - and that's understandable, because they in turn need a couple if conditions to be met. It is so easy to dismiss both Brainstorm and fetchies when their true potential will only be unfolded when played together.I still remember those old times when Necropotence just started to be played in tourneys and later on if it should be banned or not. The general gist of R&D was that Necropotence itself isn't the problem, the cards you draw with it are. I am among those that think R&D was right! See, Necro comes with a ton of drawbacks. Since you skip your regular draw you basically have to use it once (and therefore pay 1 life) just to ocunter the drawback each turn. Which means you are on a clock, an additional one: Your opponent is the other clock and each damage your opponent deals to you counts twice as much because it also means one less card for you. So, you will only succeed if you play the most (mana-)efficient cards there are because if you don't translate the cards you get with Necro into other resources, you will lose fast!So, what are the typical cards in Necrodecks? Depending on format and era you'll name Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach, Strip Mine, Mind Twist, Sink Hole. Look at them - all of them are ultra-efficient and each of those have either been banned in one format or the other or have been on the brink of being banned. All of them have been removed from the base sets for good reasons and never been reprinted outside of special editions like From the Vault. To back up my thesis I used to challange those that don't agree with this: You and me, let us both build a deck only using cards from Ice Age (and maybe Alliances and Coldsnap which are supposed to form a block). You do a Necrodeck. You will fail. Simply because in this environment you have Mind Warp instead of Mind Twist, Rain of Tears instead of Sink Hole, Abyssal Specter instead of Hypnotic Specter, Surging Dementia instead of Hymn to Tourach and absolutely no replacement for Strip Mine! Those aren't just inferior substitutes, they simply aren't able to fulfill their role because they are so slow! Destroying a land on turn 3 instead of turn 2 is a fundamental difference, if not for the fact alone that Necropotence itself costs 3 mana and competes for the drop on turn 3! No matter what you do, an IceAgeOnly Necrodeck will always lose to any other IceAgeOnly deck, simply because this environement doesn't have any other broken cards to play with.
this is all true. i bring up these specific cards because they are hailed for their power and its not immediately obvious why. In my last deck article i bring up the point that drawing cards doesnt win you games. i would love to have your comments on that thread.http://www.mtgvault.com/bakaburger1/decks/econ-mtg-diminishing-return/
Well said, as always Puschkin.
Another card I just thought about that might make noobs scratch their heads is Ad Nauseam. Initially it looks like a terrible card to be rare, but then when you actually demonstrate how it works, jaws tend to drop
http://www.mtgvault.com/jessie/decks/1st-turn-tendril-win/I can't get it to work, myself. Ad Nauseam. I guess I need to put money into it and get the Moxes with 0 mana. I always kill myself.I am like 0-12 with the deck! Paid 150 buck for the cards too! I only own like 3 or 4 of the over 100 decks I have posted on here.The 1st turn Tendril deck is one of them. It has been a huge disappointment for me.
http://www.mtgvault.com/kilgore23/decks/1st-turn-kill/That guy got it right. The main difference between his deck and my deck is he had the money to pay 200 dollars for 4 Mox Opal.
It looks like a good build. What exactly is it's problem?
I always kill myself trying to draw enough cards to storm for 20. I can't seem to get enough cards before I kill myself. I have had the first turn Ad Nauseam and 5 mana several times. I just keep nuking my life and never have enough cards to Storm with Tendrils.
Try dropping ad nauseam down to one copy. If you are trying to tutor it up, it helps to have few cards that cost mana. Also add another pact of negation and see if that helps too. You might maybe try misdirection too in case you get someone who saves a counterflux for tendrils
Yeah, more than once drawing into a Ad Nauseam killed me. Thing was...I wanted to draw it first turn and have 5 mana...for the first turn kill.Reducing the number will definitely allow me a few wins...but lessen the chance I will get that first turn kill.Regardless...being 0-12, something has to change.
First turn is more like a bonus. Turn 2 is far more likely, so don't worry so much about getting the turn 1 win. You are more likely to see things like force of will turn one.
The one guy I play Magic against...a few times a year, does not have cards like Force of Will/Counterflux. He plays stuff like Discard, Burn, Combo type decks. I just end up dying from drawing too many cards before I can use Tendrils. :( Thanks for the suggestions. You are spot on with them.
Anytime. If you ever want a second opinion then comment in a deck off mine and I will help out where I can
CAPATILIZE and you will get a +1 like from me.
what do you mean?
He means capitalize your comments I believe
Yeah my grammar is pretty bad...