You also have 4 mother of runes to protect it and sword of light and shadow generally, post board you get more teegs and sometimes something like choke as well. Also even in mavericks "prime" it very rarely ran tarmogoyf, and it very rarely runs it today.Originally Posted by Lemnear
I like the fact that he has Zeniths (and thus the Arbor) and Vials in the same deck. I have always wanted to go t1 Vial into t1 Arbor in a tournament. Living the dream with that opening is very strong, and the 4 virtual mana on turn 2 occurs with no card disadvantage.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Wonderland:
T1:Fetch, Vial + Dryad arbor from Vial
T2:Tick Vial, Fetch, KotR opponent respond with StP you respond with Safekeeper from Vial
Yeap,a dream :D
Thanks for all the input everyone. I think I'll probably just go with Death and Taxes. I've basically got Burn built so I'll try to win myself some store credit and trade for some of the D&T staples.
Except the fact that vial in itself is card disadvantage.
Its not. Its like saying playing a land is card disadvantage. Its not a thread by itself...
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Drawing a vial mid-game is one of the worst things that can happen to you. I'll just leave it at that.
I can think of a lot worse things than "drawing a vial mid-game".
Vial's are not redundant, especially not when your opponent is willing to spend Abrupt Decays, Force of Wills and Council's Judgements to get rid of them.
A vial does nothing to ameliorate the immediate board state and it doesn't come online for at least a turn after it is played and often 2 turns. It doesn't help you cast another spell the turn it is drawn. It is frequently redundant with another vial already on the board and doesn't combo with that vial in most builds in any meaningful way.
It's just a very bad mid-game draw in most cases, worse than a land most of the time and a land is the definition of a bad mid-game draw.
I don't mean to disparage the card, and I hate to agree with FoolofaTook (I really, really do), but there is a reason you don't start every BUG Delver list with 4*Aether Vial. Vial is largely strategic advantage, and usually only fails to be card disadvantage if you can goad your opponent into wasting a piece of removal on it.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
Vial is a mana source. It seems strange to call a mana source card disadvantage.
Fine, then consider it a mana source. And then consider that you're replacing four pieces of business with four additional pieces of mana.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
Sure, Vial isn't the best draw mid-/lategame, but it's far from useless. If I can set up two Vials in D&T, I'm a happy camper, since my mana is free for other stuff.
And the whole card disadvantage discussion is stupid. Who cares? You play Vial in decks specifically designed to take advantage of it. And the discussion completely disregards that it can turn your creatures into pseudo-removal for attackers, or surprise kill Planeswalkers, all while also blanking their counters (aka virtual card advantage because their draws are dead). What's next? Calling equipment card disadvantage?
Running it in a deck with 4 GSZ seems subpar, though, since they don't synergize that well.
Reading the last few posts makes me feel like reading an erratic card discussion thread for the Darksteel set spoiler.
Interesting note: Aether Vial was ignored by almost everyone for months after its release. Even after people started to recognize how broken it was, players had a hard time categorizing what the card did. Nobody really called it acceleration back then.
Mirrodin was an incredibly interesting expansion. It had so many cards that did things nothing else had ever done before. It is not surprising that they banned so many cards in Standard and eventually Extended also. They really had too many new things all going on at once. Artifact lands plus all the dozens of cards that pushed the envelope but did not get axed, but also Arcbound Ravager and Skullclamp in Darksteel a few months later. It was in this environment that Aether Vial was eventually recognized.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Vial is really good in the first turn or two and when your opponent is playing counters. When it works as acceleration and disruption at the same time it is at the highpoint of it's value. I don't argue that it's not a good card in the right lists however it's highly conditional in it's value and it loses value as a topdeck faster than most cards as the game state matures.
It's a great card in D&T because a turn 1 vial is frequently a game-winning play although that may not become apparent for several turns. In lists that are already playing other ways to bring creatures into play directly from the library it's a bad option in my opinion. It's value is with cards in your hand and mechanisms to put creatures into play that do not involve having them in your hand weaken vial's overall value.
Survival of the Fittest was a great card with Aether Vial because the combo came on line early and you could take any creature in your hand and turn it into the toolbox creature you needed with a vial in play. I just don't see any combo that works well enough at this point to justify playing vials other than as acceleration and early disruption. There is value in a deployed vial at any point during a game, however that value is generally less than just having a deployed creature instead. Often the value is less than having anything but another land deployed at that point.
The list being discussed used both vials and Green Sun's Zenith in combination. That's the perfect example of a lack of synergy in motion. Drawing a Green Sun's Zenith with a vial in play is much less valuable than just drawing a creature in that situation. Drawing a vial with Green Sun's Zenith in hand is usually less valuable than just drawing another land to enable a bigger GSZ or avoiding re-enabling your opponent's Dazes and Spell Pierces in the mid-game.
It's just not a good synergy in my opinion.
Whew, didn't intent this thread to turn into a Vial debate. It was supposed to be about deciding to build DnT or Maverick!
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My understanding back in the day was that Mav had some trouble with Miracles. Is that no longer the case? The Maverick players I speak to tell me that Miracles is not such a hard matchup. If Miracles is not a bad matchup for Maverick, what is?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Miracles is still a piss poor match-up. It's not strictly unfair or unwinnable, but I would say that Maverick comes out the underdog in the match-up. And it's basically the same problem that every other Junk/Rock/Jund build has. You can drop your Teeg. You can keep pressing threats and bears and hate. But at the end of the day they can just keep their fetches uncracked and Entreat for a relatively flawless victory. Or Jace lock. Or whatever.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
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