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Thread: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    I thought that Delver would like the scry rule more, but in my experience it's rarely impactful for them more than anyone else. Other than the ability to slightly smooth out their mana.

    I honestly feel this helps everyone, the new rule, the issue is how strong the inequity is felt. Decks like DnT will not gain as much as a deck like SnT. That I feel is the issue.
    Is this really true though? Like nearly anything, we are discussing matters of degree, but consider the following "general truths."

    Delver decks are better when they have a threat turn one (or very early). Death and Taxes is generally better when having Turn 1 Vial. The additional looks certainly increase the chances of this.

    Are these things more or less impactfully true than Show and Tell decks having their A+B more often? That's not clear at all. Nearly every deck will benefit from this, especially in post-board games.

    So, Show and Tell likely gets to "do it's thing" more often, but it's opponent does too. Now, that definitely means that if you are relying on a combo deck to fail to it's own inherent variance, you would be less likely to win on that basis, but if you run some kind of hate, you are more likely to see that hate and therefor more likely to win.

    There is a chance that this makes something like Thoughtseize (or whatever 1 mana discard) better in the meta, because combo decks will likely be mulling slightly more often and so be lower on protection/redundancy, while being higher on action. That means a turn 1 discard spell would seem more likely to snag an action spell rather than just a cantrip, generally speaking.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    Is this really true though? Like nearly anything, we are discussing matters of degree, but consider the following "general truths."
    Yes. Because your pairing off the idea of a midrange or Tempo decks optimal start against the plan to just kill you.

    I'll make you a trade, you get a turn one Vial and a turn two Thalia. I get a turn one Ponder and a turn two SnT. Dibs on the SnT.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    Yes. Because your pairing off the idea of a midrange or Tempo decks optimal start against the plan to just kill you.

    I'll make you a trade, you get a turn one Vial and a turn two Thalia. I get a turn one Ponder and a turn two SnT. Dibs on the SnT.
    Why would I want the Vial in that case though? Why not use my extra looks to find Karakas and/or Revoker?

    Now, if you are playing Omni, that would be different, I'd be after Thalia, or Prelate, or something else from my board.

    The point of my earlier post being, of course, that combo decks do get more consistent. So does every other deck. Is that consistency equal? Likely not, but that doesn't preclude the effect would not be comparable to some degree in the long term, with regards to winning matches/tournaments.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    I agree, as I said it will help everyone. But the effect is naturally unbalanced. It assists those who seek to use powerful and inconsistent effects most, then those who seek powerful and consistent effects second with everyone else gaining the lest.

    As for why that order. It's because your giving something to decks that don't have it (consistency to decks without it, thus increasing their power.) then helping those already playing broken strategies that's often can defend themselves. I don't feel this helps Opps for example more than it does ANT. Opps is going to run into that first Daze/Force while ANT will still strip your hand.

    After that you have the decks that are made on their own forced consistency. Decks that try and repeat the same effect many times in different cards. Those like Delver or DnT. These decks gain the lest because everything more or less already does the same job. So it's impact is nullified not because some individual cards are without impact, but because at a whole the cards are not as powerful as the other strategies that have gained a boost.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    I agree, as I said it will help everyone. But the effect is naturally unbalanced. It assists those who seek to use powerful and inconsistent effects most, then those who seek powerful and consistent effects second with everyone else gaining the lest.

    As for why that order. It's because your giving something to decks that don't have it (consistency to decks without it, thus increasing their power.) then helping those already playing broken strategies that's often can defend themselves. I don't feel this helps Opps for example more than it does ANT. Opps is going to run into that first Daze/Force while ANT will still strip your hand.
    The issue I see with this analysis though is that it presumes that in the final telling of Thing vs. Answer, the thing will always win out, regardless of how low it is mulliganed to. Going to 5 still seems likely to lose you the game versus an opponent who kept a decent 6, if their 6 had any answers. So, in the case of countermagic versus a Show and Tell, game 2, on the play, Daze is nearly as good as Force, giving the Delver deck 8 (or more, if Spell Pierce gets involved) to look for, versus Show and Tell looking for 4 (in the case of finding Show, Sneak attack is different, because it can't be accelerate out as quick). So, on average, the Delver deck is likely to have to mull less to interact than a Show and Tell deck would need to assemble A+B. Meaning that the redundant nature of "fair" decks is still an advantage, although, slightly less of one, in a given game, with the London Mulligan.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    After that you have the decks that are made on their own forced consistency. Decks that try and repeat the same effect many times in different cards. Those like Delver or DnT. These decks gain the lest because everything more or less already does the same job. So it's impact is nullified not because some individual cards are without impact, but because at a whole the cards are not as powerful as the other strategies that have gained a boost.
    The utility of many flexible things is still going to pay off in the long run, because you won't need to mulligan as often, leaving you higher on raw resources on average. And then you still get the option of mulliganing to specific answers if need be. Granted, being up in cards isn't any guarantee of success in any given game, but it is in the longer set of matches, mulliganing less is more likely to equate to more wins. Unless of course your deck is literally all Grizzly Bears, in which case you'll generally lose no matter what.

    Again, I don't refute that combo decks and other turn 1 decks likely get more benefit from the London Mulligan. My point is just that is likely isn't some massive jump in win percentage, if the field is generally prepared for them.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    The issue I see with this analysis though is that it presumes that in the final telling of Thing vs. Answer, the thing will always win out, regardless of how low it is mulliganed to. Going to 5 still seems likely to lose you the game versus an opponent who kept a decent 6, if their 6 had any answers.
    But in the right deck it will. If I am running a deck with 3Ball, Chalice, Moon and let's say Bridge in it, I have the questions you will likely lose to if you don't have an answer. But you need an answer now to not only the first thing I play, but the second too. Because I can mull to five and have decent mana, then cast the Ball or Karn I draw.

    The issue with these decks is not that they can't win this way, they are fundamentally designed to do just that, it's been that going to 4 us so punishing you lose to yourself. Now I can go to 4, ditch 3 cards and have my mana work and my threat in hand. That's a titanic shift in power. Thing vs answer, I'm taking the thing. Because that first turn, my mana works and you lose two cards? Deal. You don't lose two cards? Thanks for playing.

    It doesn't matter if I mull to four if that Chalice mulls you to four too.

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    The utility of many flexible things is still going to pay off in the long run, because you won't need to mulligan as often, leaving you higher on raw resources on average. And then you still get the option of mulliganing to specific answers if need be.
    I will give you this. I think flexibly is already a core of deck building in the decks that have that ability (Decks not trying to blunt force consistency) and this let's those struggling with the ability to play and find limited numbers of high impact effect now have access.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    But in the right deck it will. If I am running a deck with 3Ball, Chalice, Moon and let's say Bridge in it, I have the questions you will likely lose to if you don't have an answer. But you need an answer now to not only the first thing I play, but the second too. Because I can mull to five and have decent mana, then cast the Ball or Karn I draw.

    The issue with these decks is not that they can't win this way, they are fundamentally designed to do just that, it's been that going to 4 us so punishing you lose to yourself. Now I can go to 4, ditch 3 cards and have my mana work and my threat in hand. That's a titanic shift in power. Thing vs answer, I'm taking the thing. Because that first turn, my mana works and you lose two cards? Deal. You don't lose two cards? Thanks for playing.

    It doesn't matter if I mull to four if that Chalice mulls you to four too.
    Well, that stands to our general understanding of Magic as of right now, but consider, that knowledge is built in with the premise of the current mulligan rule. I doesn't mean that the same intuition, or even general rule, will be born out over time with the London Mulligan.

    I have zero doubt that this rule benefits combo, or fast lock strategies. And that it benefits these strategies more than it does generally "fair" strategies.

    What isn't so clear, because we've never had such a situation before where opening hands were given so many looks to find specific elements, is if it amounts to a disproportionately greater win percentage. Again, it's not a question of if these "opening hand dependent" strategies get better, it's a question of asking do they get to the point of "better to the point of degeneracy." That is, so to speak, do they become so good that they preclude the notion of bothering to not play them?

    The answer to that question is unclear, again, in no small part because the rule is symmetrical in effect, even if not in practice. So we can naturally presume that versus a gold-fish, you mull with Sneak and Show until you have A+B. But versus real opponents, with decks that are (often) generally designed to be able to interact and hinder the opponent, the question of approaching things from "A+B at any cost" might not be a winning one, even if sometimes it will be.

    We can't really evaluate this from the standpoint of one game example either. It's a statistical probability across multiple iterations where the result of one iteration does not mean it stands in the next, because one iteration might answer Daze but not Force, might be weak the Chalice but strong to Blood Moon, might be weak on the Draw but strong on the Play. Not to mention the accompanying metagame shifts that can and will occur. So, it's hard to give a definitive answer to the question of, does this make strategies that benefit from the new rule overly powerful?

    I think, Day 1, Tournament 1, yes, fast combo and lock decks have an advantage. Day 150, Tournament Who-Know-How-Many, likely they have only a much smaller advantage. But that's why we play the games and not just talk about them. Let's see where it takes us.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    I will give you this. I think flexibly is already a core of deck building in the decks that have that ability (Decks not trying to blunt force consistency) and this let's those struggling with the ability to play and find limited numbers of high impact effect now have access.
    Well, again, we need to look at this from the standpoint of iterations over time. Pretty much any Magic deck can beat another in a given instance. Like the time I lost a game to a deck that literally contained nothing but functional reprints of Grizzly Bears and a few removal spells, while I had a fairly "optimal" Delver deck. Of course, to no one's surprise, Hymn to Tourach, Force of Will and Tarmogyf beat that ass in the other two games, because that is what happens over iterations: more consistent strategies win more consistently.

    I actually can't help but start to think of the London Mulligan as a stealth nerf to cantrips though. Because with the new rule, consistency (over game turns) is slightly minimized and interaction windows are truncated. Now, what that might mean is that Force of Will becomes even more essential in the meta, but I don't think that is deterministically true. It will remain to be seen. We'll all probably lose a bunch more games here and there to combo (and fast lock) decks, but I doubt if any sort of apocalypse will be visited upon us.

    I await being proven wrong. Or maybe not. But I seriously doubt this rule was run out there without it being essentially certain to become a new universal one. It's branded as a "test" just in case something catastrophic happens, but I don't buy that as likely to happen.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    ...
    I have zero doubt that this rule benefits combo, or fast lock strategies. And that it benefits these strategies more than it does generally "fair" strategies.
    ...
    I think it benefits "value" plays over "tempo" plays. So something like Shardless bug or modern tron that's built around x-for-1 plays should benefit more than something like burn that's trading cards for damage in a more linear way.

    Thinking in terms of "threat and answer" isn't really going to show that because the value of answers scales with the value of the threats they're dealing with.

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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by rufus View Post
    I think it benefits "value" plays over "tempo" plays. So something like Shardless bug or modern tron that's built around x-for-1 plays should benefit more than something like burn that's trading cards for damage in a more linear way.

    Thinking in terms of "threat and answer" isn't really going to show that because the value of answers scales with the value of the threats they're dealing with.
    That is a fair point. I guess I wonder though if there isn't a sort of "second order" effect here that does help Tempo more than it seems at first blush. For example, if the opponent mulls to 5, how many lands are they keeping? Does it mean they likely have to do something like fetch for a dual land? Does that make a Tempo deck's Wastelands better? How likely are they to be able to play around Daze, especially if the Tempo deck started Land, Delver?

    If they mulled to 5 and kept 3 lands, how badly does a Force of Will wreck them, since then they just have one dead card in hand? They are just working off hoping for a likely 3 of, off a top deck.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    That is a fair point. I guess I wonder though if there isn't a sort of "second order" effect here that does help Tempo more than it seems at first blush. ...
    Sure, but I'm not really talking about tempo on a 'deck strategy' scale. I'm talking more about someone deciding whether to slot in a Baleful Strix or a Tarmogoyf in a BUG deck.

    In terms of existing decks, it seems pretty clear that decks which already mulligan aggressively are the ones that are best-positioned to exploit stronger mulligans, but I don't have the impression that there's a strong correlation in mulligan rates with the aggro / combo / control archetypes.

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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by rufus View Post
    In terms of existing decks, it seems pretty clear that decks which already mulligan aggressively are the ones that are best-positioned to exploit stronger mulligans, but I don't have the impression that there's a strong correlation in mulligan rates with the aggro / combo / control archetypes.
    Hmm, I'm not quite sure what you mean here. You mean, in how often each archetype generally mulligans (under current rules)?
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    Hmm, I'm not quite sure what you mean here. You mean, in how often each archetype generally mulligans (under current rules)?
    Yep. Decks that mulligan more benefit more from better mulligans.

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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by rufus View Post
    Yep. Decks that mulligan more benefit more from better mulligans.
    OK, yeah, that is definitely true.

    What isn't as clear though is the following:

    How detrimental is the card disadvantage, even if you can find specific elements?

    There is little doubt, that the disadvantage of sheer resources, if your opponent is a functionally a goldfish. But most Legacy decks are purposely made to not be goldfish in the early turns.

    So, we are back to unclear territory again, where the overall effect is not clear, even if it is trivially true that the London Mulligan benefits combo-style, opening hand "dependent," decks more so prima facie. We don't know how often a Delver deck might often London Mull versus a Combo deck London Mulling. My guess is "likely less" and therefor "more" likely to win, but that depends on numerous factors, not the least of which is 'number of relevant sideboard cards' and 'relative impact of said cards.'
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    I think combo decks generally want a lot of cards in hands because it improves their brainstorms and thus the ability to sculpt their hands. Aggressive mulligans for combo decks will presumably end up being worst even with the london mulligan, then not mulliganing

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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Elves will like London mulls for sure. They have a low initial source count, but tons of raw CA and high impact plays to dig themselves out of a hole. One of the worst parts of the deck is that it doesn't mulligan well.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by bruizar View Post
    I think combo decks generally want a lot of cards in hands because it improves their brainstorms and thus the ability to sculpt their hands. Aggressive mulligans for combo decks will presumably end up being worst even with the london mulligan, then not mulliganing
    If they like brainstorm, a draw seven brainstorm is probably something else they'd like. Of course it's worse than not mulliganing but no one is saying draw seven keep seven is worse than draw seven keep six.

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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Brian Braun-Duin's perspective.

    Frank Karsten wrote an article a few years ago, back when the data was still available, that took in bot-scraped games from Magic Online and, accounting for the Vancouver scry, determined that you had a 40% chance to win on six cards, 25-28% chance to win on five, and 13-15% chance to win on four cards. Saffron Olive also posted numbers from 85,000 games that provided similar results of 39%, 26% and 13%.

    I personally think those numbers are lower than what they should be in a perfect world. Opening a hand and seeing no land immediately reduces your chance to win by 20%. Opening a second hand and seeing no land then immediately reduces your chances by another 30%. You're half as likely to win with five cards as you are on seven, barring any other information.


    If this new system makes it so that a mulligan to six cards means you have a 45% chance to win, and a mulligan to five cards means you have a 35% chance to win, is that so bad? It doesn't seem bad to me. In fact it seems like a big improvement. I'm all for anything that reduces “non-games” and increases the chance that every game played involves both players having a chance.


    But what if it ends up being way better than that? What if it makes certain decks too good? What if formats drastically shift toward decks that can better take advantage of this rule and the improved six- and five-card hands they would see?
    Keep in mind though, those number are compiled with the old rules and so each successive mulligan gave one "less looks."

    The easiest implication for this rule change is that decks that mulligan more often get a boost because they now will have access to better hands on six, five, and four cards. This means decks like Tron that often get clunky hands will be improved, as will various combo strategies like Dredge and other degeneracy.

    That's level one. Level two is that decks that punish opposing decks for mulliganing will also get significantly better. So while your Tron opponent might be smug in the knowledge that their five-card hand can assemble Tron on turn three, your deck that casts Thoughtseize on turn one and strips them of the only relevant card in their hand can also be fairly pleased that they now have significantly fewer resources to work with. This benefits highly interactive decks like Grixis Death's Shadow.
    The first is that mulligans are still a disadvantage. Even if this new rule improves your odds of winning on a mulligan, chances are you're still worse off than just by keeping seven cards. If going to five cards is now something that gives you, say, 35% chance to win instead of 25%, that's still way worse than keeping seven cards, and decks that more consistently keep seven cards will have a leg up in this regard, as they always have.

    People greatly underestimate the value of raw resources. Sure, your five-card hand might be the “nuts,” but if your opponent plays two interactive spells, then you're completely out of gas and have no follow-up. Compare that to a seven-card hand where you might still have more plays to make afterward. Your four-card hand of Mountain, Simian Spirit Guide, Electrodominance, Restore Balance sounds like liquid-hot fire, but what if your opponent just casts Thoughtseize or wins the topdeck war? What if you can't find that combination of cards by your mull to four and you throw away the match because you're playing an incredibly inconsistent and easily disrupted combo deck?
    It's entirely possible that I'm wrong and this rule change ends up being too good. I don't think I am, but I'm open to the idea. With that being said, I think the willingness to try out a rule like this is amazing. I love the fact that they are willing to take a big risk, because the current Vancouver scry simply isn't doing nearly enough in my book, and I love to see them push the envelope and see if they can't find something that more effectively balances out games of Magic and makes a higher percentage of games fun.

    The biggest point to me, and the one where most people objecting to this lose me, is that I don't see the harm in trying. I don't see a problem with them trying out a new change that has the potential to be awesome, even if it carries some risk. While it is possible that it will be a rough Mythic Championship if this rule doesn't pan out, that will affect about 400 people, which is a small drop in the pond when it comes to Magic. I can understand people playing in that event, especially those playing in their first Premier Event, being upset about this. But I don't understand people who aren't affected being upset about something that might make Magic significantly better in the long run.


    I also think that it will work out. I think that this rule will be fine and at the end of the day, decks that punish people trying to abuse this rule unsuccessfully will end up coming out on top over the decks that try to abuse it. Being down on resources, after all, is still a huge price to pay. Modern, year after year, has proven itself to be a format that can adapt to new emerging strategies and find ways to exploit them. I doubt decks that aren't already good will suddenly become good from this.
    I think Brian makes some good points (and not just because they mostly agree with my own evaluation of things) but I do think he somewhat misleadingly construes the nature of Thing vs. Answer. That is, we already know, that almost always, it's better to do the Thing, rather than try to stop people doing the Thing. (The "biggest" example of this was the Affinity heydays, where you could build a deck to stop Affinity, but at the end of day, it was just better to play Affinity yourself.)

    Ross Merriam mentioned this yesterday in SCG's stream (where he and Todd were playing some Legacy practice). What I think Ross gets further right though is that this is only first order analysis, so it would only explain things if the metagame was a fixed proposition. If we take what Patrick Chapin generally called "Next Level" analysis, where we build not into the meta shift itself, but to counter the shift itself, we can consider things beyond the second order effect. So, if those Thing decks are get an edge on Answer decks, where does the meta go? More Answers in Answer decks likely swings the pendulum, and so what then does the meta do against Answer decks? Now we have the third order effect as our metagame.

    If anyone thinks they know what the third order effect will be, they are delusional. You can have a guess, you can have a hypothesis, you can have an informed, analytical analysis, but no one knows. It is nearly impossible to predict exactly the second order effect, let alone the third. Not to even speak of the fourth and so on.
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    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    I found BBD's article to be insightful, but I think he's seriously underestimating the power of A+B combos and almost totally disregarding opening-hand effects. Chancellor of the Annex is going to become phenomenally stupid in T1 combo decks (EDIT: as will Leyline of the Void against things that care about it). If he thought losing the die roll was bad already...
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    Just in time for Valentines Day 💝

    Roses are red, violets are blue
    Omae wa mou shindeiru
    Quote Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit View Post
    Quick question, are you also still waiting for the great pumpkin it did you finally pick it in once December hit?
    Quote Originally Posted by iatee View Post
    I am tired of malicious top 8s and it is time to put an end to the practice.

  19. #79

    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    I think at the end of the day, it’s a good mulligan rule for lower power formats, and possibly format warping for higher power formats.

    Deck construction for say standard wouldn’t change; but it’d warp deck construction for legacy and vintage. If I were on delver, I’d drop down to maybe even 17, 16 lands, drop some number of cantrips and go more disruption heavy. Mulligan rules shouldn’t warp the game of magic, I think.

    But this Is all conjecture. We’ll see what actually happens before at least I’ll go up in arms about it.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
    EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer

  20. #80

    Re: MYTHIC CHAMPIONSHIP London new mulligan rule test in Modern & Limited

    Quote Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce View Post
    I found BBD's article to be insightful, but I think he's seriously underestimating the power of A+B combos and almost totally disregarding opening-hand effects. Chancellor of the Annex is going to become phenomenally stupid in T1 combo decks (EDIT: as will Leyline of the Void against things that care about it). If he thought losing the die roll was bad already...
    Yup agree 100%, buy into unplayable chunderbucket pile now or you'll be sorry once this rule is in effect .
    Quote Originally Posted by Laser Brains View Post
    With the printing of Gigantosaurus, Thrashing Brontodon and Steel Leaf Champion the deck has evolved from good to very competitive. Anyway, give it a few play tests if you are interested and let me know what you think.

    Winter Maze
    Quote Originally Posted by CptHaddock View Post
    With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

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