[WAR] Karn the great creator
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Lattice is just a possible lock combo. My issue with karn is that it allows one player to play all 3 games with their sideboard.
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@ebgmtg the old wishes already allowed that and, for example, several legacy decks have been using this possibility for a long time.
To answer more broadly, Karn is strong but people just need some time to find the best way to deal with it. Is it more strong than, lets say, big Jace that allow a free brainstorm every turn ? It will definitively change things but i am not sure it deserves the axe.
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Sure the wishes have been around. Karn though is a permanent that grabs 2 cards with little effort and then sticks around to possibly grab more. All while being a one sided null rod. Its especially brutal when he comes down on T1 which from my experience happens pretty often. I'm sure things will adjust I'm just not sure it will be a positive adjustment in terms of diversity. Sorry should have elaborated more earlier.
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@ebgmtg said in [WAR] Karn the great creator:
Sure the wishes have been around. Karn though is a permanent that grabs 2 cards with little effort and then sticks around to possibly grab more.
2 cards with little effort?
After you put cards such as Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key into your deck, the high mana cost is slightly mitigated.
Then If you’re fortunate enough to have enough mana to tap out to cast it, it gets one card from your sideboard and then dies. Or you just lose by not having any meaningful interaction the turn you spent casting Karn.
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@ebgmtg
For what i tested so far (playing Karn and playing against Karn) an obvious way to deal with it is to play null rod actually. If you are not convinced, just have a look at all the mana artifacts such decks are running. Now if turn 1 Karn is your concern, getting a FOW turn 1 on your side is more probable than your opponent getting a Karn AND the mana to play it.
I made it short but i think that people overeact to it, but i can be wrong. -
@ebgmtg said in [WAR] Karn the great creator:
My issue with karn is that it allows one player to play all 3 games with their sideboard.
No it isn't. Burning and Cunning Wish also do that and we're fine with it. If Karn didn't have the Null Rod clause he'd be pretty mediocre.
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No need to overthink this. Karn and Narset both took existing playable cards (Null Rod and Leovold) and massively upgraded them. This parallels the massive upgrade that Lodestone was over Juggernaut. I’m fairly confident these cards will eventually get restricted, but it’ll probably be a couple of years as usual. I’m interested to see if someone can develop a deck that can counter the planeswalkers.
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There are decks that can counter the planeswalkers. They run these newfangled permanents called creatures. PWs have a helluva time against creatures. If creatures are unplayable in vintage and these PWs are making people scoop because they have no creatures...is it time that creatures DO have a place in vintage? Karn/Narset > PO > creatures > Karn/Narset.
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Oh wow!!! I can't believe any of the hundred of players on Magic Online didn't think of running...creatures. I can't believe no one tested the deck on cockatrice against their buddy before playing it in a tournament and realized how flawed it was.
It's always great when you have to listen to "players" on TMD who have little or no experience with the cards belittle those who actually compete in events. I never did hear back from @Protoaddict on if he played with Narset before weighing in on the cards powerlevel. @Thewhitedragon69 how many matches have you played with these "newfangled permanents called creatures" against Karn?
More than the BUG Fish player in the top 8? More than @GutoCmtt who plays BUG Survival and says that the Karn decks are rough matchups? More than the Ravager Shops guys that consistently lose in the top 8 to the Karn decks? Well, I'm sure your experience is more compelling than those tournament results...
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@zias I've been a player of red shops for a long time. I just jammed 4 Karn in place of some number of Null Rods/lock pieces. Karn is insane. He's really good. I like how he can win on his own, but is even better if the deck is built in a way that doesn't rely on him.
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Hey Matt it’s just discussion. I don’t discredit the MTGO results that’s why I’m testing with the lists!
I’m fine being part of a noob congregation on TMD. Doesn’t bother me the slightest.
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A discussion is fine, but there is a lot of mockery and condescension in this thread as part of a longstanding pattern towards MTGO players. And it's tiresome and unwarranted. Of course MTGO players are trying to beat Karn. And Narset. And everyone else. Of course they tried to play creatures. And Ceremonious Rejections. And Cratermakers. The prizes for winning a challenge are superior to most other regular Vintage events so the same incentives that drive players to innovate in paper exist on MTGO. In addition, the constraints that limit people from playing other decks are pretty much nonexistent on MTGO. I can play whatever pile I want and many other players either have full collections or rent their decks.
But yeah, your "discussion" was to compare Witchbane Orb to Diabolic Tutor rather than think of it as a setup piece to Mycosynth Lattice. Because, if you think about it, if your opponent floats mana in response to you casting Lattice, then casts the very common Hurkyl's Recall, you have to return all your artifacts to your hand. Which is now every permanent you own including Karn because of Mycosynth Lattice. And of course it's fast enough. It's two turns against PO with a Karn in play. What are they going to do? Dig for their one or two-of Chain of Vapor while you set up a two turn lock, the first piece makes it so that all of your Spheres and other artifacts can't be removed by their most common artifact removal spell? I'm guessing this didn't come up in your Cockatrice testing.
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Yes you're right, I tend to have a condescending tone in my writing. I often have to undo that during the revision process for my English essays. I also think I've been a brat online over the years and as I become more mature I'm trying to make more of an effort to not be.
Let it be known that I have more respect for MTGO results than anyone. Before Wizards published MTGO deck-lists, I used to be one of those who would scour over replays of Kamigawa Extended tournaments to try and copy the decks for my local game store events. I have more appreciation for the competitiveness of MTGO than anyone I know.
That said, Vintage is my format and I understand it well. I will always be a skeptic over what others are doing. I try to understand what other people are doing/thinking and why, but I also try to think for myself. I don't think I could ever accept someone else's perspective as my own without thinking it through first.
As far as Cockatrice. I'm using it for a couple reasons. The most significant reason is I'm trying to help my friend, who isn't as entrenched in the format as us, get ready for NYSE. Part of the preparation includes me playing as the Karn deck so my friend can practice against what I assume will be the most popular deck. Another major reason is I have a mac. I know from experience that running MTGO on a virtual machine just sucks. Cockatrice is proving to be a lot faster and easier for deck-building and testing. It doesn't have all the glory of a high stake tournament, but it is serving its purpose.
So here's to me toning down the hyperbole
Oh yeah and the Modern Horizons cards are on Cockatrice. So thats cool.
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@desolutionist Understand it's sort of missing your point, but wanted to take an opportunity to plug panard's MTGO docker image, which has been near-flawless for me.
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It's always great when you have to listen to "players" on TMD who have little or no experience with the cards belittle those who actually compete in events. I never did hear back from @Protoaddict on if he played with Narset before weighing in on the cards powerlevel. @Thewhitedragon69 how many matches have you played with these "newfangled permanents called creatures" against Karn?
I did play with Narset and against. Typically not a blue player but overall my feelings were it was solid but not backbreaking. I won't pretend I tried playing a large sample size of different decks or anything, but my experience has been in blue on blue matches she is a countermagic magnet just like every other walker, and much like most resolved walkers will win you the game if you don't stop it. They attack on totally different vectors but I found that a resolved JTMS as an example was probably just as important to a player winning a game as a resolved Narset, and no one has called for Jaces banning in years. I can also 100% imagine scenarios where a resolved Jace/Teferi/Ashiok is better than Narset based on my testing, so it is hard for me to point at one thing over the other.
I will also say that I think a deck that was inclined to play Leovold, even with his demanding mana cost, is probably better off keeping him first before they go to Narset. If you want you can Cavern him in to eliminate the counterspell issue, he can kill an opposing Narset, he can draw you more over the course of a game, and he protects himself a bit better with the card draw in response to the targeting.
Karn on the other hand I need to test against more. The Lattice lock is the thing that scares me the most about him, because most other decks can be built out to deal with sideboard cards, and having it as an option that can never be restricted away is strong. Based on the lists I have seen though and knowing what is coming out in MH1, I actually think there are a few artifact strategies that are very well positioned right now including the aforementioned Tinker/Trash for Treasure for Sphynx of the steel wind that can beat that list. I really don't think hes too strong just yet because decks in the past have been able to run maindeck hate cards and other decks have still fought through it, and they got to play them without having to spend 4 mana first. If anything I love that the card enables a new pillar of deck that does not need workshops.
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@chubbyrain My point is, it's beatable. Creatures do a fine job against Karn. I don't understand why karn is a menace that's restrictable when there are ways to take him out without too much trouble. If you play a creature light deck like PO, sure you're going to get rolled...but lots of other strategies get through him no problem.
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@chubbyrain You don't have to play on MTGO to test...there are other platforms. Just because I don't play MtGO doesn't mean I don't play often. Why would I have little or no experience with the card because I don't play on MtGO?
And yes, I run creatures often. That's likely why I see these cards as not a big problem.
I suppose if you think blue draw, shops, and dredge are the only viable decks in vintage and if you play something else, you are a noob....then sure, you're going to struggle against a card that says "you can't play blue draw" or "your mana-storm rocks are bricks." I'll just noob along with my creatures and shrug off Karn and Narset.
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@thewhitedragon69 yeah, you can always play a deck that beats Karn and Narset and has a 35-40% winrate against the rest of the field. That should solve the problem.
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@fsecco
Very elaborate, expensive Rock-Paper-Scissors.
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@vaughnbros yeah if you really think Magic is that maybe it's time to rethink you involvement with the game
I know you're being sarcastic though
