Everybody's cool. We're cool. Let's assume innocent until proven otherwise.
Alfonzo: tell me your thoughts on this guy from your list:
Alfonzo: tell me your thoughts on this guy from your list:
General Minor Graveyard Support
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Let us dog pile the grave pulses a little bit more, for the fun of it.
I kind of suspect the grave pulses were generally kind of a limited focused design, where drafters would initially evaluate them as green impulses (strategic planning though is probably the better analogy), they would be playable because its limited, and than later end up reevaluating them as graveyard enablers:
Which is the problem I have with porting them over to higher powered cubes: their actual evaluation is pretty straight forward, since the power level of many cubes occludes them from ever really serving as practical hand smoothers. Conversely, its actually convincing to initially identity satyr wayfinder as a type of smoothing mana dork, or strategic planning as a hand smoother, and than reevaluate those cards later as graveyard enablers when you start to see other cards in the pack, or the more you play the cube.
I'm also not sure how realistic this theme is if we generally divorce graveyard recursion from the package. I can confirm what Lucre is saying, that accidentally milling key cards in a singleton based format, is going to be a deal breaker for some drafters, if not objectively bad. No one wants resolving satyr wayfinder to randomly cost them games. Some type of value reanimation, or recursion, helps create the feeling that the graveyard is an extension of the hand, and is the easiest (as well as most compact way) to broaden the theme from just being about casting undercosted delve cards, into something connected with an already likeable theme.
I kind of suspect the grave pulses were generally kind of a limited focused design, where drafters would initially evaluate them as green impulses (strategic planning though is probably the better analogy), they would be playable because its limited, and than later end up reevaluating them as graveyard enablers:
Which is the problem I have with porting them over to higher powered cubes: their actual evaluation is pretty straight forward, since the power level of many cubes occludes them from ever really serving as practical hand smoothers. Conversely, its actually convincing to initially identity satyr wayfinder as a type of smoothing mana dork, or strategic planning as a hand smoother, and than reevaluate those cards later as graveyard enablers when you start to see other cards in the pack, or the more you play the cube.
I'm also not sure how realistic this theme is if we generally divorce graveyard recursion from the package. I can confirm what Lucre is saying, that accidentally milling key cards in a singleton based format, is going to be a deal breaker for some drafters, if not objectively bad. No one wants resolving satyr wayfinder to randomly cost them games. Some type of value reanimation, or recursion, helps create the feeling that the graveyard is an extension of the hand, and is the easiest (as well as most compact way) to broaden the theme from just being about casting undercosted delve cards, into something connected with an already likeable theme.
I mean, in an ideal scenario these types of cards are cast on Turn 3 or 4 in tandem with a Delve spell. Turn 3 Grisly Salvage + Hooting Mandrills is not an embarrassing turn, and you'll have games where digging for your third land or digging for your finisher are amazing. There may also be a subset of games where it's not really where you want to be (mostly against aggro?), but I'm hoping that's just an element of sideboarding?
I'm not alfonzo but i like this guy. I use him as part of a Bant combo-land package (key players being kotr, retreat to coralhelm, and scapeshift). He blocks, he mills your opponent, or he mills you if thats what you want. Kind of a safe wheel for sure, but one a blue control player (or the guy who p1p1'd kotr) is happy to see.Everybody's cool. We're cool. Let's assume innocent until proven otherwise.
Alfonzo: tell me your thoughts on this guy from your list:
I have a problem with this thinking though because it's not logical. What gets dumped to the graveyard is fundamentally not important. By that I mean, statistically speaking if your deck loses if you don't draw card X, it's going to lose an equal number of times with or without resolving Satyr Wayfinder simply because it's over dependent on finding a specific card. This is really not much different than running something like Farseek in your deck. Because you stand a roughly equal chance with that card of shuffling away your critical card (i.e. it ends up on the bottom half of your deck and you never draw it whereas you would have had you not shuffled). It just looks worse with wayfinder because you see the card in your yard and you know right up front you are screwed. Build a better deck.
To your point Grillo, if your environment is OK with a 1/1 for 2 that increases your odds of making your 3rd land drop - if that is worth a slot in the average deck - then run Satyr Wayfinder because it's a sweet card. And any graveyard synergy you build into your deck will take that card from "acceptable filler" to "sweet ass synergy card" and it will feel really rewarding. If the WCS is not worth a slot, then your environment is probably too high powered to run it (though I really think you need to be very close to power max for that to be true).
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
In a singleton based format, where you may find yourself playing towards certain top decks to win, losing the ability to make those top decks can be a real cost, and thats the issue I've found certain drafters run into when they don't have recursive or reanimation options. Now whether thats logical or not I can't comment on, its just how I've seen people react to these cards.
I mean, it's an emotion that's not based in statistics. Unless you have arranged your library somehow, its contents are random and milling a piece is not functionally really different from shuffling it to the bottom.
That said I'm reintroducing Regrowth to my format. That Morph Eternal Witness is also an option.
That said I'm reintroducing Regrowth to my format. That Morph Eternal Witness is also an option.
Den Protector is amazing, get on that immediately. Semi-evasive body and instant speed Regrowth is great. Going Morph + Regrowth in one turn isn't embarrassing at all either since you get a decent body and usually get back a difference maker.
I really need to try Den Protector. I have yet to hear anyone say it's not worth running. It just looks clunky at 5 mana for the regrowth (even if the body is semi-evasive).
Fair enough on the perception thing with Satyr Wayfinder. But those who haven't tried it, please do. I was very skeptical of that card before I tried it and I now consider it nigh-uncuttable. I have an extreme love for graveyard decks though, so am certainly biased in that regard. But even in light graveyard decks I'm plenty happy to run this because it's so good at preventing mana screw.
Fair enough on the perception thing with Satyr Wayfinder. But those who haven't tried it, please do. I was very skeptical of that card before I tried it and I now consider it nigh-uncuttable. I have an extreme love for graveyard decks though, so am certainly biased in that regard. But even in light graveyard decks I'm plenty happy to run this because it's so good at preventing mana screw.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
It is functionally different though, in the absence of the ability to recur from the yard: you lose the ability to ever play it. I understand the argument, but its not uncommon to base entire lines of play around potential top decks, especially when you are behind. Removing the potential to draw outs from certain situations can be a big deal. I'm glad to see though you are adding some recursive pieces to address that.
To answer your question from before, where sort of the average scenario is digging for lands or creatures, if we're now evaluating these cards as cantrips, we can't really get away from the huge disparity in power level between these grave pulses and what blue is running. Ponder, preordain, brainstorm, and even cards like serum visions, think twice, impulse, or strategic planning, all make mulch and friends look pretty janky. I think this is really the elephant in the room as regards the grave pulses and their playability.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
There are lots of cards that wouldn't be playable in other colours. Ponder and Preordain are among the best instances of the best effect in the best colour. 'Gather the Pack isn't as good as Brainstorm' isn't an argument against it; 90% of the cards in most of our Cubes are worse than Brainstorm.
I can confirm that I am indeed a cheeky chappy and moreover I wasn't sure if I had been clear.
I'm feeling a little misquoted but I'm gonna dive in anyway. Lets throw around this word statistically when we are talking about our likelyhood to see cards worth searching for in decks full of IMPULSES and TUTORS that generally go for 10-20 turn value/attrition wins. Like we are even talking about impulse style cards here people, can we live a little and evaluate as if our subject here isn't playing a mono white deck?
The other thing is like, we build our decks around certain synergies and lines, we build them to be able to realize those lines hopefully and usually we give them the tools to take a little of that out of the hands of fate, say by redundancy or by card selection or recursion. In a singleton format key cards can feel pretty essential and to give players all the tools to play with their stupid graveyards except the one that lets them buy back one of the most essential parts of their decks (high pick or ubiquitous value creatures) seems completely backward to me. "Great I got two lands off this mulch I guess if I had binned a shite card like spider spawning I'd feel better but I really wish I had that thragtusk right now...."
Like how many gameplans is a mulch actually helping? The lands aren't that hot going late and 2 is like the most important time you have to be making tempo positive or equal plays with a 2cc spell. Get something in the way of their attackers or it might not matter what you've mulched into lol.
Anyhow one thing we can glean from this is that cards like unburial rites and eternal witness help, they do, but they aren't enough to make this feel entirely fun and safe. There IS risk involved in durlding around with your graveyard and its not just being tempo negative. Give players good things to do and cards to help dig them out of the mess they stumbled into while non-interactively playing with their graveyard. Sometimes I look at riptide cubes and I feel like the tools are there to play a value mini game with yourself but not the ones to actually win a game unless you are playing gravecrawlers.
Unless your library is very thin, though - i.e., less than ten cards - playing towards very specific top decks is a low percentage line, anyways. I understand that when you're way behind, a 4% chance of coming back is more than 0%, but I see it as more akin to conditional probability. That is to say, if you could view the top 5 cards of your remaining 20 card library, you would know your exact percentages of topdecking over the next few turns, and if the desired card isn't amongst them, you're actually 0% to win, not 4%.
However, I completely agree that there's a subset of players who see milling and self-milling as "removal", and while it isn't logical, I understand the psychological effect. I'm not sure how much you should cater your design to their whims, though, especially if you're a fan of self-mill.
The only time self-mill actually has a real negative effect is when you fail to find - you milled your last Island before you cracked Flooded Strand, or you dumped your Noble Hierarch before casting Green Sun's Zenith for 1. That sort of thing. But I think any graveyard shenanigans that you add to your cube more than make up for this downside.
Grillo, I see what you are saying. Let's suppose a card needs to provide X value to be playable. Let's call X 1.0. If Grisly Salvage put one card into your hand and the rest on the bottom, it would give you value of some amount. Digging for land early and creatures late is kind of exactly what these decks want to do, and we can debate about what the value of that is exactly. Let's say it's 0.8 (whatever).
Then the question is, can players in our environment build decks where the 4 cards put into the graveyard generate at least 0.2 value. If not, can we change something to make that happen? The obvious payoff for our cubes is Delve, with some side benefits. If I hit a Lingering Souls high on the train to value town. Ideally we could find more diverse generically maindeckable cards that are happy to sit in the yard.
As a side note, the only reason something like Impulse doesn't see much play is because there are so many other strong cards of that variety in blue. Anticipate is a pretty strong play in Standard right now, and I think this sort of digging is even better in limited. When I play BFZ limited Anticipate is such a huge card for smoothing out what I want my deck to do at any given stage of the game.
Then the question is, can players in our environment build decks where the 4 cards put into the graveyard generate at least 0.2 value. If not, can we change something to make that happen? The obvious payoff for our cubes is Delve, with some side benefits. If I hit a Lingering Souls high on the train to value town. Ideally we could find more diverse generically maindeckable cards that are happy to sit in the yard.
As a side note, the only reason something like Impulse doesn't see much play is because there are so many other strong cards of that variety in blue. Anticipate is a pretty strong play in Standard right now, and I think this sort of digging is even better in limited. When I play BFZ limited Anticipate is such a huge card for smoothing out what I want my deck to do at any given stage of the game.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Power disparities can be pretty significant. For example, when the "gather the pack" deck gets matched up against the brainstorm deck, its going to be a big deal, especially if both decks are on a control or midrange plan. The gather the pack deck is going to have a hard time not looking like an underpowered version of what the blue deck is doing. Thats really the concern here, at least as far the cards go as cantrips.
Edit: Jason, yes, and the more graveyard focused the cube becomes, the easier it is to justify the graveyard pulses for that reason. I do think that there is a potential danger also with these types of effects leaning too much towards the card advantage end of the strategic spectrum, when you really want something more tempo focused.
That's my argument against running Mulch. Unless you have a graveyard theme, it's a really bad Impulse (a card I already don't really care for). Satyr Wayfinder is a body (so blocks, picks up equipment, etc.) with a stapled on effect that is generally net positive in every single deck and potentially very synergistic if you run a any graveyard interactions. But you also can't be a clown and play it at the wrong time. For example, if you have an opening hand of 5 lands, wayfinder and something else. I'd mulligan that. You don't want more land, so playing wayfinder T2 is basically hosing you (get ready for 4 cards you need straight to the yard). On the other hand, if you have 2 land, wayfinder and 4 other business spells. As long as one land is a forest, I'm salivating to play that hand where I'm usually nervous about 2 land hands. I'm more inclined to build my decks land light with wayfinder in much the same way I would with mana elves.
Unless you're talking about mulch lol. Very little upside on that dude.
EDIT: I think I'm gonna start referring to any under-performing or disappointing card as Mulch from now on. Augur of Bolas not hitting this draft? He's Mulch now. Skirsdag High Priest just a 1/2 all match? Sounds like Mulch to me! Only have 2 drops to hit with your unburial rights? Mulch is letting you down again.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Well have I ever! Necromancy deserves nothing but praise! There's two in my cube even!
This is like that "can't block" argument from a page or two back. Why are we strawmanning Mulch here when that's not even a card actually being considered for inclusion?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I also don't get 'you wouldn't play Impulse so...', Impulse is great! If you run 587 Brainstorms it's hard to find room, but instant speed on an effect like that is a big deal
We aren't strawmanning mulch, mulch is literally this depressing. I am just talking about how depressing mulch is because someone decided to argue with my example of how mulch can feel like a total trash baby.
If you want stirring insights that apply more broadly move to the last paragraph or so of the post where I address accusations of cheekiness.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Augur of Bolas actually reads "look at the bottom three cards of your library." I hate that card so much.
If you run shriekmaw and mulldrifter or any number of other cards that are fun and great and are modal you probably should be running necromancy.
If you are really that afraid of reanimator, I for one pity you, and I also think there is enough hot product enchantment hate and bounce (and removal duh) to make you feel comfortable with mild changes.
Now does anyone wana talk about running 2x goyf 2x compulsive or thirst?
Lucas, you might not want to hear this, but I legit had people tell me that 1x goyf wasn't even necessary.