Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

[sigh]

Are there actually enough delirium cards that are playable to be a theme?

I don't think there has to be. I'm still exploring near-zero-consequence switches that more easily enable it. There are a few good delirium cards, and next set could flush it out.
Right now I'm lookin at:
Scourge wolf
Topplegeist
To the slaughter
Maybe inexorable blob

And might as well make it a little easier for even non-themed mechanics to get off the ground, right?

 

[Erik]

I was thinking of adding shardless agent myself, but less for delirium and more for enabling some weird decks like this:

Spoiler: bant company

Bant test

Or maybe I'm just trying to find any way possible to reintroduce thopter spy network and making master of etherium work.

As for delirium I added Scourge Wolf and Topplegeist, but think I'll remove topplegeist as white doesn't really have much support to get delirium. Red does though there's already the daretti, scrap savant, goblin welder, faithless looting package, (Magus of the Wheel too), and in multicolour both izzet charm, dack fayden and nahiri, the harbinger all loot.

 

[safra]

I was thinking of adding shardless agent myself, but less for delirium and more for enabling some weird decks like this:

I really like Shardless Agent, and I'd run her again in a heartbeat if I had a more proactive blue two-drop section (it's mostly counterspells, which you can just choose not to cast when you Cascade into them, but that still sucks). Erik's sample deck looks amazing! Being able to cascade on turn 2 after a dork on 1 leads to the most busted value plays. Still not sure Master of Etherium is strong in it outside of a couple circumstances (army of thopter tokens mostly) in which case a more agnostic anthem might help more. Thopter Spy Network looks solid though, but I'd personally leave the Sphinx in the board for more controlling decks. You've got better things to do with six mana!

What do we all think of this little gem? Continuing on my rampage of exploring delirium, it seems like the perfect time to think again about including this:





For me, it'd probably replace bounding krasis, which is a sweet card, but probably a little bit underperforming.

If you're on the fence about running the Agent I'd say absolutely go for it. She's a lot of fun, cast triggers quietly help non-cheaty archetypes, but she can be fun and cheaty in her own right. Being an artifact creature is often surprisingly relevant and it sounds like you're going to take advantage of that.

For fun, here's the Shardless Agent legacy deck I play:

Spoiler: Shardless Thopters

 

[sigh]

I'm loving that legacy deck! . Its the sort of deck I'd build if I wasn't gaga over D&T. Maybe with EMA I can start grabbing up some cool stuff and make it less of a pipe dream...

Sounds like a well liked switch, so I'll probably try er out. My blue section has some cool stuff like impulse and co. So that's a nifty upside.

 

[RavebornMuse]

I like Shardless Agent a lot (cascade in general is one of my favourite mechanics), but the problem I have with her is that it feels really bad to cascade into a counterspell, and in over here, odds are pretty high that you're gonna be running those, because is pretty much big-mana-and-counterspells territory. I'd love to give her a shot, I just worry about her sitting in the sideboard too often. I guess if I had like 1 counterspell, but more than 2 I can't see maindecking her if they're <CMC2. It doesn't help her case for a trial much that she's like $18, which is a bit steep for a test-drive. Maybe someday. I'd love to see who else has her running successfully in their environ, but I think it goes back to saf's point about there not being a lot of proactive 2-drops in .

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Obsessive Search is awesome. Is this card awesome too? The effect kinda sucks. Its not like Strategic Planning is making most lists. But, its a madness card that enables madness itself, it fills the graveyard and it gives you a little bit a card selection. Seems like a good package. Does this card make your 40 in a cube deck?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It doesn't enable madness itself, since you put the card directly into the graveyard, you don't discard it. Sorry, but I think this card is pretty bad.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Does this do anything?

 

[ahadabans]

Does this do anything?

Not in most riptide cubes because the mana curve is so low. This is probably playable in dragon cubes though.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Not in most riptide cubes because the mana curve is so low. This is probably playable in dragon cubes though.

I checked, and it hits 121/450 cards in my cube, so just over 25%. If that percentage carries over to decks (which it probably doesn't) you're talking about an average of 6 targets per deck, or 15%. By turn three villain will have had at least 22.5% of its deck in its hand, which means that you will have a target (but not a lot of choice) most of the time if you fire this off before turn four? I guess the other options have a way greater chance of hitting though, so you're not wrong. Thanks!

 

[Eric Chan]

I think it has a pretty decent chance of whiffing, cast on any turn other than turn one. Most Riptide cubes have pretty low curves, and not a lot of spells with mana costs above three, which might make this dicier than in your traditional cube.

Assume that 30% of your cube has a cmc of 4 or greater (my own is closer to 27%, but I'll round up). Then further assume that your opponent's deck's curve also follows this ratio - that is, of their 23 non-land spells, 30% cost 4 or more. Then, using a hypergeometric calculator, and some ugly ass tables:

Population size (# of cards in deck): 40
Number of successes (30% x 23): ~7
Number of successes in sample: 1

Sample Size ___ P(X >= 1)
____ 7 __________ 77%
____ 6 __________ 71%

____ 5 __________64%
____ 4 __________55%
____ 3 __________45%
____ 2 __________32%
____ 1 __________18%

Even on turn one, you have roughly a 23% chance of getting a zero-for-one against a random opponent, which doesn't strike me as a card being worthy of a slot.

Maybe it has merit as a purely sideboard card, against the big ramp and control decks, though.

 

[ahadabans]

I checked, and it hits 121/450 cards in my cube, so just over 25%. If that percentage carries over to decks (which it probably doesn't) you're talking about an average of 6 targets per deck, or 15%. By turn three villain will have had at least 22.5% of its deck in its hand, which means that you will have a target (but not a lot of choice) most of the time if you fire this off before turn four? I guess the other options have a way greater chance of hitting though, so you're not wrong. Thanks!

It will have wild variance though. Because against an aggro deck, it will whiff 98% of the time (super loose fucking math). Against control, it will be better than thoughtseize (seasoned with hyperbola).

That's a bit too much variance for my taste, by YMMV.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It will have wild variance though. Because against an aggro deck, it will whiff 98% of the time (super loose fucking math). Against control, it will be better than thoughtseize (seasoned with hyperbola).

That's a bit too much variance for my taste, by YMMV.

Lol So basically, if you're looking for a tool that hits control but not aggro, and don't mind running sideboard cards, this is an option? Meh, I'm less impressed then 30 minutes ago

 

[Eric Chan]

Oops, my math was off. My cube is actually 32% cmc 4 or greater, when looking purely at spells; I mistakenly arrived at 27% because I'd also counted all the lands. But, uh, those numbers are still in the ballpark!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Most Riptide cubes have pretty low curves, and not a lot of spells with mana costs above three, which might make this dicier than in your traditional cube.

Assume that 30% of your cube has a cmc of 4 or greater (my own is closer to 27%, but I'll round up).

Just for reference, because I thought it'ld be fun (do note that X spells are valued at X=5 for purposes of cmc in CubeTutor, but stuff like suspend spells are, at least in my cube, valued at the actual casting cost (i.e. the suspend cost), so these numbers are probably slightly off, and this includes lands of course):

Khans of Alara (my cube): 121/450 = 27%
MTGO Vintage Cube Dec '15 to Jan '16: 186/540 = 34%
Ben's Cube (the Ben of CubeTutor fame): 243/720 = 34%
wtwlf123's Cube (a pretty traditional powered cube, of mtgs fame): 145/540 = 27%
The N00b Cube (of Milo the Gathering fame): 129/474 = 27%

Huh. The MTGO Vintage cube (which is, well, we all know what we think of the Vintage cube) and Ben's own cube (which is 720 cards) are predictably higher, but wtwlf's cube, my cube and the N00b cube all clock in at 27%! I wonder if 27 is some number a well-tended small to medium cube naturally arrives at?

 

[safra]

I'm at 29% (89/302), which is quite close to that number as well.

I still don't think Appetite for Brains is reliably good though; Duress hits most of the same important targets, is relevant earlier, and is more likely to offer the caster a choice of targets (I have 67% which is a little high, but still much more than 27)

 

[Jason Waddell]

Somebody get Wadds in here to run some stats. I pulled numbers on average drafts from his cube. Conservatively (meaning I'm giving delirium all the help I can), decks in his environment (as of his last cubetutor update) ran 50/50 splits of creatures and spells. Assuming 17 land, that gives you 12 noncreatures and 11 creatures.

What are the odds I have the cards in hand by say, turn three or so, to trigger delirium assuming I drafted an average number of fetchlands (what is this number, 3?) and was a drafting god and split my 12 noncreatures as evenly as possible among all other card types? We probably also want to skew for some percentage of our creatures being enchantments or artifacts, but I haven't checked the averages on those numbers yet.

Do you have any enchantment creatures or multi-cardtype cards? Also, isn't the issue not getting them into your hand, but, into your graveyard? Putting most enchantments into the yard is going to be a hard sell.

 

[sigh]

I think the desire to look at getting things into hand is because the easiest way to get things into the yard is through the hand (inst, sorc, fetches, for instance). Also some of the best delirium enablers are draw-discard spells like faithless looting, where you can pitch that fourth type.

 

[psly4mne]

The best time to cast Appetite for Brains is not on turn 1. It's on turn 3-4, right before your opponent has a chance to play their 4 drops. That brings the probability of hitting something to 86-93% depending on assumptions. I still think the card is too narrow, but it's better than it's being made out to be.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

The best time to cast Appetite for Brains is not on turn 1. It's on turn 3-4, right before your opponent has a chance to play their 4 drops. That brings the probability of hitting something to 86-93% depending on assumptions. I still think the card is too narrow, but it's better than it's being made out to be.

Casting it on t3-4 quite possibly hamstrings your own board development however, because you can't naturally curve out your 3- or 4-drop that way.

 

[Eric Chan]

The best time to cast Appetite for Brains is not on turn 1. It's on turn 3-4, right before your opponent has a chance to play their 4 drops. That brings the probability of hitting something to 86-93% depending on assumptions. I still think the card is too narrow, but it's better than it's being made out to be.

Interesting! That's a great point I hadn't considered. I have no idea how to model this, but using a very simplified assumption that the opponent has drawn 10 total cards before you cast Appetite for Brains, but has yet to cast any of the four-drops or bigger in their hand, that bumps your probability of a hit up to 89%.

I mean, this isn't the most practical example - I'm still making the assumption that a random opponent will have 7 cards with cmc 4 or greater, but we all know that some decks will have more, and other decks will have nothing, or next to nothing. But I think it's a little more justifiable now as a valid sideboard option, not unlike Duress.

 

[CML]

The best time to cast Appetite for Brains is not on turn 1. It's on turn 3-4, right before your opponent has a chance to play their 4 drops. That brings the probability of hitting something to 86-93% depending on assumptions. I still think the card is too narrow, but it's better than it's being made out to be.

On one hand that makes sense

On the other hand everyone always whiffs with it all the time so idk

Despise sucks too

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, the major downside with all of these targeted discard spells is that their value goes way downhill if you don't cast them exactly on some optimal turn X. Even the likes of Inquisition of Kozilek can whiff.

 

[genericco]

Despise and Duress and the like don't reliably hit enough for me to ever want to maindeck them, but on the other hand I'm not sure I like the play on 1.000 batter Thoughtseize either. For me the sweet spot is Blackmail and Inquisition of Kozilek.

 

[Eric Chan]

I will say I really enjoy Blackmail - I can't remember who first suggested it on these boards, but it's been a great addition. It's not as powerful as the staples, Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, but a) it never whiffs, b) it can hit lands, c) both players feel like they have some say in the matter, and d) it's fun to try and figure out the optimal turn to cast it. Just a superb design.