I've been texting my friends about how great I think this card is.
It has obvious inclusions in the sideboards of Survival, Dredge, BUG Fish, and Oath. It makes green beaters like Tarmogoyf better. It has combo brew potential with things like Manamorphose and Regrowth. I'm excited.
I think it should be coded like a sudoku puzzle and include in it that the closest logical move may not be the best move (think of finding a local max but not the best local max and definitely not the absolute max), so there has to be an element of trying suboptimal moves, even after finding the most logical, in hope of discovering a better over all path.
I’ve never even taken any upper division courses yet. Yesterday I was watching an intro to mathematical modeling on YouTube. He presented code finding the most efficient route through 60 cities and he used a “temperature”, where the higher the temperature the more chance it would take the wrong path in hope of finding s better path. As the temperature cooled, it stopped seeking better paths. I’ll try to post the link then.
The comments in this thread leave me pleasantly reminded of a meta pre-Brainstorm restriction. I enjoyed then the accessibility of the four Brainstorms to tailor your hands at any point in the game, which allowed you to enact your decks strategy as a function of time (early, mid, late game). The restriction of Brainstorm took away that adaptability decks had. All of the blue decks were relegated to redesign because they had to operate under a condition of more randomness. Cards like Recoup, Tinker-Bot, and even Yawgmoth's Will became liabilities in too many situations to remain the auto-inclusions they once were.
If the comments in this thread are true, then the London mulligan rule should push blue decks slightly back toward their once more interesting history. It should be theoretically more forgiving to play Oath targets or cards like Recoup, because players can put "dead" cards back into the deck, like what was done with Brainstorm. New vintage players tend to overlook the power of Brainstorm because it's not netting any extra cards, but by putting back two useless cards, you are netting two useful cards. (Some people refer to the phenomenon as net virtual advantage). The new mulligan rule essentially has the desired effect of a free turn 1 Brainstorm.
Therefore in the context of virtual advantage, outfitting decks with more "situational" combos, and mitigating mana screw the London mulligan rule should have a positive effect on Vintage, specifically on the limitations of blue/combo deck construction. (Also a natural predator of Dredge decks)
This card is unplayable in a creature heavy format such as vintage.
edit unplayable might be harsh, since it could be a nice fringe tinker target out of the sideboard for against Weismann control or something
Imagine playing against Shops or dredge or Xerox. A Storm deck is trying to win on the last turn possible, with 5 life.
You’d be better off with Form of the Dragon.
I’ve played against a Prison style dredge a couple months ago online and I honestly thought it was more mainstream than it is given how good it seemed.
When I started playing Vintage back in 2006, your decks were genius. I actually played against you in 2012 Legacy champs round 2. You were on UW stoneforge and I was playing No RUG. I won, sorry about that.
Also definitely the kind of deck that seems up your alley. It’s hard to imagine someone wanting to play against this.
Has the new mulligan rule actually been implemented? I thought it was just an experiment?
Nothing that much better than Black Knight, other than Vampire Hexmage which has some other utilities.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is also one of my favs. Thrashing Wumpus a classic.
Dread of Night.
I like Chains of Mephistopheles against PO, since they usually don’t have enchantment removal against DPS. Chains shuts down much of their deck. You may need Karakas or Liliana against BW PO because they bring in Kambal.
Against Thalia, I like creatures. Phyrexian Obliterator, for his immunity to Ballista, as the finisher, and a collection of variable underlings such as Pack Rat, Black Knight, and Plague Spitter. This usually catches them off guard.
I haven’t played against the new card , Lavinia, but I would probably cut Dark Petition and go back to Burning Wish.
This card is really really good. This is coming from someone who plays 2-4 Cabal Therapies, Dark Confidants, Monastery Mentors, and other utility black creatures out of the sideboard. It’s unfortunate that the effect can only be used once per turn, but it DOES have menace, which combined with Bobs, supports the aggro plan.