[Card Discussion] Predict Vs Mental Note.

[DragoFireheart]

I see that Predict gives you card advantage if you set up your next draw correctly. Mental Note will quickly give you Threshold. This brings me to the inevitable question:

Which card is considered better for Thresh decks?

-Does it depend on which colors you are using or which cantrips you are using?
-How many of each does one normally use?
-What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Mental Note/Predict over Predict/Mental Note?
-Is there a 3rd cantrip slot [Assuming we run 4 BS and 4 Ponders] that would be better than Mental Note or Predict?
-Does the use of using Predict or Mental Note depend on what other cantrips we are using?
-If I am using 4 BS and 4 Ponders, would I use Predict or Mental Note? How many of each?

Something to keep in mind when I ask these questions is that I am a new-to-thresh player currently making a U/G semi-Budget deck [Can not splash a 3rd color ATM].

Any other general advice on using Predict, Mental Note or other cantrips would be more than welcome.

[Bovinious]

Predict, Mental Note just sucks sucks sucks, I'd rather play Sleight of Hand or Opt even...

[kicks_422]

Depends on personal playstyle, really. Mental Note is more aggro-ish, filling the yard to make your dudes monsters earlier. Predict on the other hand keeps you drawing more cards (assuming you have a good cantrip base to take advantage of it) for more answers and threats.

Personally, I'm with Predict on this one, especially for a red splash that runs Magma Jets (hey, it's my personal build). I don't know if Bardo still runs Mental Notes... If he does, he can defend Note a lot more than me.

[goobafish]

I have grown to hate mental note. I will normally run opt over it unless you run Portents, Tops or Serum Visions.

[Machinus]

These cards do completely different things. The comparison isn't sensible.

[technogeek5000]

Both of these cards suck. Once ponder comes out just play 4 storms, ponders, and portent

[kicks_422]

I think it's sensible - cantrips 9-12 after Brainstorm and Ponder.

[Silverdragon]

Predict seems obviously the better choice in lists with Counterbalance, especially those playing the Top/Balance Combo preboard. Even without Top you can reveal the top card with CB when your opponent plays a spell so you know what to name with Predict more often than ever. Sensei's Divining Top and Predict also synergize well.
Mental Note, as has already been said, takes the deck in a more aggressive direction. It is especially good if you also run Werebears in addition to 'Goyf and 'Goose.

So to sum it up it depends on your playing style and the non-cantrip cards you run besides the staples (like Goyf and Force).

Personally I'd play 4 BS, 4 Ponder, 4 Predict + CB/Top engine but in testing I also tried 4 BS, 4 SV, 4 Mental Note and it is not as bad as some people say it is.

[DragoFireheart]

The sort of deck I am making would be one that has both Goose and Bear, along with Goyf.

Should I use Mental Note over Predict to get Threshold faster?

[Bardo]

Excepts from my opus, One Thousand and One Cantrip Tales

Chapter XLVIII

No one heard the sound of the screeching tires, the grinding metal, the shower of "safety glass" that erupted from the windshield of the Ford pick-up when it slammed into the passenger side of the Aston Martin. All was deadly silent.

The smell of burnt rubber, diesel fuel and ozone lay heavy in the air. That's what I remember: this awful concoction of odor and that unreal silence.

While the next few moments will forever remain etched in my memory, everything was ghostly and surreal, stop-motion photography.

I remember the emptiness in Sheila's eyes, my fiance, the grotesque way her neck was bent, a thin trickle of blood running out of the corner of her mouth. Then everything turned black and I started descending into the void.

Chapter XLIX

Frantic cardboard hands were pulling on my broken arm. Sharp jets of pain running up my spine focused my senses. I hear a far off voice whisper: "Some minds are more open than others..." What the fuck does that even mean? I have no time, and not nearly enough blood left, to consider such esoteric matters.

The smell of diesel fuel was almost overpowering when I became conscious. While the sun was blinding my eyes as my body was dragged across the asphalt from the crash scene, I can just barely make out the art credit on my savior: Bradley Williams. The name doesn't ring a bell.

Struggling for air, later I'd discover that my left lung had been punctured by a rib, for the first time I get a view of the driver of the pick-up truck, the one who forever changed my life, leaving me partially paralyzed and so tragically taking the life of my true love: the sylphy soft watercolors of Rebecca Guay's "Predict" behind the wheel.

For the first, and last time in my life, I discovered the otherworldly depths of hatred and rage.

….

Well, that last sentence was somewhat embellished for dramatic effect, but that’s as I recall horrifying day on Route I-70, just outside of Salt Lake City.

[Wallace]

http://www.babsoninsight.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/562b69e64bfdee602c878a5d7c6e68d7/graphic/hands_clapping_closeup_200x250_0603.jpg


Bravo!!!! Bravo!!!!

[Obfuscate Freely]

No version of Threshold will run at optimal efficiency unless you can set up most of your early draws with manipulation spells, like Brainstorm, (Ponder,) Portent, and Serum Visions.

Playing those manipulation spells, and the utility spells they draw you into, will usually get you to threshold as a matter of course by the time you need your creatures to come online. Mental Note and Predict, both extremely poor as manipulation spells, are simply not necessary for this.

There will be games in which you do run out of spells to play, and thus have trouble reaching threshold. In these situations, Mental Note may look attractive, but having another manipulation spell, instead, would let you dig for business while getting you to threshold. Generally, playing more spells is a better way to fill the yard than milling the top of the deck, so there is little justification for running Mental Note over Portent, Serum Visions, or even Opt. Along with Brainstorm (and Ponder), those are the spells that you should rely on for getting to threshold.

Predict should not take slots away from manipulation spells, either. However, it is a fairly efficient way to generate card advantage, and therefore serves an important purpose of its own. I recommend running a full playset.

[dahcmai]

You could always just play Strategic Planning and do both. Sorcery is the only thing making this card not top of the heap.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Strategic Planning is awful. It's effect isn't even as good as Impulse's, and it's a sorcery, as well. Keep that card out of Threshold.

[Waikiki]

Predict is better in the counterbalance builds.
It also dodges chalice @ 1 (dont know if that is still played often)