You ought to cross post this to the Karn Forge thread, where I think you'll get more traction.
For your idea....I don't think it's bad idea, in that it's a legitimately castable spell that (1) the academy didn't even discuss and (2) is an effect that Karn Forge actually wants. However, it has a few problems. The biggest of which is that it's grid with suspend. Giving people a turn isn't the best idea in Vintage right now. While I'll freely admit to starting a lot of games with "grid, go", you also want the ability hit 6 mana on 1 (not the craziest thing in a Workshop+Grim Monolith deck!) and Grid+Threat your opponent. What I do think makes more sense is a single Hope of Ghirapur out of the board, if we're playing one at all, as a wishable Grid effect, which more-or-less ensures that you can set up for the follow-up wish for Lattice to end the game.
Also, re: the finals against Joe--I'm pretty sure I'm a big favorite if I hit mana off my top 3 draws, instead of more Karns. The problem there wasn't that I didn't have a grid effect, it was that Joe (very wisely) cut me off mana instead of trying to fight threats.
But they require a lot more cardboard to do anything. I would guess the average 7 from DPS kills a little faster and more resiliently than the average 7 from forge, in the sense of when the opponent is hard locked or actual dead. But it doesn’t do the same on 5 cards. Forge, Mox, Shop kills on 2 or 3 some decent percent of the time if the opponent doesn’t have good interaction. No storm hand of 3 cards does the same reliably.
That’s really the big difference—a lot of the Karn/Forge hands are legit 1 card combos, in the way Ad Nauseam is a 1 card combo (you just need mana and Ad Nauseam, everything else is a “I’ll sort it out later”). The mana production in Forge is a lot better than for DPS (see: Mishra’s Workshop), so it mulligans better and kills faster on average, when you take mulligans into account.
BUG with wasteland and 3+ ouphe mostly stomps forge. It’s really not good for forge, though if your opponent is casting lightning bolt/swords, you’re in for a bad time.
@iamactuallylvl1 said in Ain't No Rest for the Paradoxical - 11th Place Tournament Report - Vintage Champs 2018:
@ebgmtg karn has been slowly less impressive for me. I thought he would be a good plan versus jeskai but I have found him to be a liability versus dack. I would be looking to move away from him in the future. @ChubbyRain 's opinion may differ?
If Dack is your problem, I know what your issue is. Karn isn't there to tick down--he's there to just keep ticking up for a few turns. Paradoxical--even with the bonus card usually being a Mox--can overwhelm Jeskai if you get to just tick up Karn a bunch, then -1 and get an extra Will/Outcome to just have more stuff than they have answers. It was one of those very paradoxical "this isn't a threat, it's a howling mine" realizations.
@serracollector said in Survival Salad:
In the BUG Variants running 4 Dr. Shaman and Leovold, and ESG (Albeit not played most games for this purpose), could a Singleton Priest of Titania be a thing? Anything past her and another elf leads to enough consistent Mana (looking at you Orcish Lumberjack) to go off every turn right?
Priest of Titania is win more. 3 mana+Survival is realistically death already, and while it would be great to cast Hollow One, it's often better to just cycle it away and try to hit gas or a more castable card.
I'll offer an explanation: Often, it's a "I just started going off, and I guess at some point I'll let you know that you're dead. If you know you're dead, I guess you'd concede?" It's fun to just combo off, especially with outcomes.
It's very much not being rude, or showboating, or whatever. They came to have their fun, and by god, they intend to have it.
Now, in paper, I suppose I'd just scoop myself a lot faster--they are taking up precious time on the clock, and no judge can say they're not within their rights to keep taking game actions which are advancing the game state--but on MTGO? Fine, go nuts. If I get bored, I'll concede.
Because (1) it's a fantastic run hot deck (Cosmo's deck from champs, for example, doesn't have Preordain. It's going to fold on itself some medium percentage of the time, though I'm sure it's fantastic when it does not), and (2) it doesn't have any real champion online who is willing to grind the deck and get the 3 to 4 5-0 records it takes to get noticed. (and a big #3--it relies on your opponent not knowing what you're doing a little bit).
@spook said in Survival Salad:
@drstreetmention edited the "original" post -- although going through the decklists right now, Paul Callis who played "Junk Survival" to a 6-2 record played the same 60 as the winning Asia Vintage Champs-- so it really was Bant.
Cleaning up the data and moving people to the right category:
Bant Survival = 65% win rate (8 players)
RGwu Survival = 55% win rate (6 players with 1 or more Ancient Grudge and Chewer)
Other Survival = 75% win rate (1 player: FOW Leovold / Misstep)
Thanks for puttting this together. Not surprising to me in the least--the RGwu versions are far more matchup dependent, and that's not as good in a huge tournament like Champs. Bant was simply ultra stable and did well. FoW Survival was me, and I finished 8-2 (with 1 loss to, of all things, Blood Moons), good for the casual 75%. That's not really any sample size.
What I see from this is that--back of the napkin--is that you've got enough sample size that you're about 80% certain that bant was better against the champs field than RGwu, and 0 statistical certainty about anything about FoW Survival.
That said--every single version is notably north of 50%, so I'm quite certain that we had the best deck in the room, with a very decent conversion rate to the top 8.
@iamactuallylvl1 said in Ain't No Rest for the Paradoxical - 11th Place Tournament Report - Vintage Champs 2018:
@neo_altoid @CountDaBubba it is perfectly reasonable to play Dig and Cruise and up your blue count for FoW. This is what ecobaronen decided was the correct line. Personally my team liked dig, will, snap a small amount more.
Agreed on that. We felt Snapcaster was basically required, and it was "Pick 2 of Will, Cruise, and Dig"--and Will/Dig was what we (well, only Ryan, really, as BPK ended up on Oath,and I ended up on Survival)