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Thread: Escape Brain Freeze

  1. #241
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post

    Breach + Petal + Tomescour + 7 cards in graveyard = 99% Win
    Breach + Petal + Gamble/Entomb + 9 cards in graveyard = Win
    Breach + Gamble/Entomb + 12 cards in graveyard = Win
    Breach + LED + Tomescour = WIN

    Not sure what to do with this information but going off seems that Tome Scour might be better than Gamble/Entomb by requiring 2 less cards in graveyard
    I love the math here with petal. I was just thinking about what we could possibly used as LED 5-6 if we need it. However I'm not sure about Tome Scour over Gamble\Entomb since Gamble can fetch Breach in a pinch. I might just be wrong here but I think Gamble is more powerful for that slot.

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    I love the math here with petal. I was just thinking about what we could possibly used as LED 5-6 if we need it. However I'm not sure about Tome Scour over Gamble\Entomb since Gamble can fetch Breach in a pinch. I might just be wrong here but I think Gamble is more powerful for that slot.
    Missing LED isn't a big deal. You can mill yourself into it with BF/Scour/Emry. Or, once you build up enough graveyard, you escape Petal multiple times to make mana.

    Breach + Petal + BF + 0 cards in GY = win
    Petal -> Breach -> BF for 9+ cards -> Escape Petal -> Escape Petal -> Escape BF -> win

    We're fine without needing to search for LED. What's harder is also having Breach and a mill spell. Gamble pulls a lot of weight.

    Gamble + Petal + 6-12 cards in GY = good chance to win
    Gamble for Breach (67-86% chance to keep) -> Breach -> Petal -> Escape Gamble for BF -> Escape Petal -> Escape Petal -> Escape BF -> win

    This hand has 0 of the 3 combo pieces and still wins!!
    I assumed 3 lands, but each extra mana source would save 3 cards in GY.

  3. #243
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Gamble + Petal + 6-12 cards in GY = win
    Gamble for Breach (67-86% chance to keep) -> Breach -> Petal -> Escape Gamble for BF -> Escape Petal -> Escape Petal -> Escape BF -> win

    This hand has 0 of the 3 combo pieces and still wins!!
    I assumed 3 lands, but each extra mana source would save 3 cards in GY.
    It's lines like this that make me think this deck really has some legs for real competitive play. They also make me realize how bad at the deck I really am

  4. #244
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post


    That's why we run Tome Scour isn't it? BF is better, but we discovered having Tome Scour was better than running Entombs to Entomb for BF, so a few pages back we added Tome Scour and cut off-color Entomb. I got that idea from you!

    Scour might be better than Entomb, but not necessarily Gamble. Gamble's most useful mode is to put Underworld Breach in hand for 1 mana. Getting Breach online is usually the limiting factor. LED has redundancy (Petals or mill into LED). BF has redundancy (Wish for Tome Scour). Both can start off in the GY. Breach is the hardest card to set up.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    I love the math here with petal. I was just thinking about what we could possibly used as LED 5-6 if we need it. However I'm not sure about Tome Scour over Gamble\Entomb since Gamble can fetch Breach in a pinch. I might just be wrong here but I think Gamble is more powerful for that slot.
    Thanks guys! Just trying to think more about this deck and see if I can make it better in anyway - free free to discount any of these idea as they are purely theoretical and not based on playtesting, playing around an opponent or even general feel. It is strictly math and theory.

    So based on previous math it is pretty evident that Tomescour > Entomb. It simply costs less cards in grave to go off with Petal. Granted, you can't go off with Breach and Tomescour alone, but to go off with just Breach and entomb requires too many cards in the graveyard regardless.

    So the question is if Tomescour > Gamble, since my previous post treated gamble like entomb.

    So the scenarios are:

    Breach+Gamble
    Breach+Gamble+Petal
    Searching for Breach

    Breach+Gamble is:

    1R for Breach
    R for Gamble --> LED
    LED (assuming you're going off turn 3 with 3 mana sources (got to consider this turn 3 since if you have accel in the form of petal or LED you win through the other scenarios, thus this scenario is only for accel-less combo - so 3 cards plus 2 cards for breach and gamble) you have 4 cards in hand which means you have a 20% chance (since gamble gives you the card giving you 1/5 chance to discard the card) getting LED in grave which would require 3 cards to exile) --> R
    Gamble + 3 cards to exile (since you LEDed you have no hand so Gamble works like breach now) --> BF
    LED + 3 cards to exile --> create U
    BF + 3 cards to exile --> Win

    So Breach + Gamble + 80% of the time 9 cards in graveyard, 20% of the time 12 cards in graveyard (an average of 9.6 cards) = Win (turn 3)

    Breach+Gamble+Petal

    1R for Breach
    R for Gamble --> LED
    LED (assuming you're going off turn 2 since you have the accel from petal, percentage obviously goes up if you wait you have 3 cards in hand (breach, gamble, LED, Mana source, mana source, 3 left over cards) which means you have a 25% chance (since gamble gives you the card giving you 1/4 chance to discard the card) getting LED in grave which would require 3 cards to exile) --> R
    Gamble + 3 cards to exile (since you LEDed you have no hand so Gamble works like breach now) --> BF
    LED + 3 cards to exile --> create U
    BF + 3 cards to exile --> Win

    So Breach + Gamble + 75% of the time 9 cards in graveyard, 25% of the time 12 cards in graveyard (an average of 9.75 cards) = Win (win by 2)*

    *note this is higher than my last post, I think I did the math wrong in the last post by not accounting for the mana needed to get gamble back from the grave after the first use.

    So before I go on . . . to recap at this point, so far other than the scenarios of Breach+Gamble+average 9.6 cards in graveyard by turn 3, Tomescour is better (you need less cards to off with Petal) on average than gamble BEFORE you have 4 mana sources (since if you have 4 mana sources you can win with just gamble and petal as FTW noted (Gamble for Breach (67-86% chance to keep*) -> Breach -> Petal -> Escape Gamble for BF -> Escape Petal -> Escape Petal -> Escape BF -> win (you need R for the first Gamble, 1R for breach, and R for the esacped gamble. . . yes you have petal so you can pull this off around turn 3. *Note I feel this must be at best 80%, lets say you're going off turn 3 with petal that 4 cards played for mana sources you drew 9 cards that leaves you at best 5 cards). Gamble though is better than Tomescour for its ability to FIND breach in the first place. So to see what is better before turn 3 on average we need to see what is the percentage that you end up using Gamble to find Breach before turn 3:

    Now the chance of gamble getting breach into hand is:

    Turn 1 - 83% (assuming you only played one mana source plus gamble)
    Turn 2 - 86% (assuming you only played one mana source plus gamble)
    Turn 3 - 88% (assuming you only played one mana source plus gamble)

    Now the chance of hitting breach naturally in the first 3 turns is:

    Turn 1 - 40%
    Turn 2 - 44.5%
    Turn 3 - 49%

    The chance of getting gamble in hand AND not getting breach in hand is:

    Turn 1 - 24%
    Turn 2 - 25%
    Turn 3 - 25%

    The chance of getting gamble in hand AND not getting breach in hand AND Gamble getting breach into hand:

    Turn 1 - 20%
    Turn 2 - 21.5%
    Turn 3 - 22%

    These percentages drop further if you're running enlightened tutor (since you can count the ET as a Breach . . . ).

    So looking at the above I feel I have to draw the conclusion that:

    Tomescour is better than Gamble at least 78% of the time before turn 3 . . . .

    Please feel free to argue against any of the math and assumptions in the above. Also please realize that I am not arguing against removing Gamble. But the above does make me think that Tomescour is a much much better card than we are giving it credit for. It is not just BF 5-8, but it is situationally better than Gamble (apparently a majority of the time!) and it can turn petal into LED 5-8 with 7 cards in the grave (for a 99% chance, you don't even need 7 cards if you want to 'gamble' and take off with less cards in the grave).

    EDIT:

    Moreover, what all these discussion on the Math show is the prime importance of getting cards into our grave - regardless of tomescour or Gamble. In fact given the efficiency that tomescour gets cards into the grave it works well with the gamble lines of play discussed above.

    So taking my "shell" from a couple pages back:

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    13-16 lands
    4 Lotus Petal
    0-6 Additional Accel
    - Mox Opal
    - Chrome Mox
    - Rituals

    4 LED
    4 Underworld Breach
    4 Brain Freeze
    2-4 Burning Wish
    0-2 Tome Scour

    4 Brainstorm
    0-6 Additional Cantrips
    -Ponder
    -Preordain

    4-10 Tutor
    -Gamble
    -Entomb
    -Enlightened tutor
    -Infernal Tutor
    -Wishclaw Talisman

    6-10 protection
    -Defense Grid
    -Veil of Summer
    -Pact of Negation
    -Thoughtseize
    -Duress
    -Silence
    -Etc.

    -Generally 20-25 Mana Sources between Lands/Accel
    -Generally 10-16 between Cantrips and Tutors
    -Artifact count for Mox Opal should be 16+ (Including Opals, Petals, LEDs that means at least 4+ more cheap artifacts)
    -If you are running 3CMC cards like Intuition, Land count needs to be 18+ and you need around 25+ Mana Sources between Lands/Accel
    -interaction cards like STP generally take/supplement the protection spots.
    I have a couple more observations:

    To get the ~7 cards in graveyard by turn 3 for Tomescour+Petal+Breach win, you need to be able to do something like this:

    Turn 1 - Fetch Land + Spell
    Turn 2 - Fetch Land + Spell + Spell
    Turn 3 - Fetch Land + Spell + (Petal+Tomescour+Breach)

    This means that the importance of cantrips is paramount. It also means that you need a lot of fetch lands in the deck as well. Assume that each of those spells is a cantrip, you need about 17 cantrips (for a good percentage) and about 13 Fetchlands. You can work with the fetch lands but assume that you max out with cantrip at about 12 . . .

    So a shell taking place is:

    12 Fetch Lands lands
    4 Non-Fetch Lands
    4 Lotus Petal

    4 LED
    4 Underworld Breach
    4 Brain Freeze
    4 Tome Scour
    1 Burning Wish

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain

    4 Gamble
    4 Enlightened Tutor

    5 Protection

    It is markedly lower in protection than most builds which are about 8-9 on average, and the mana base is much weaker, BUT it seems that this build would be able to get the required cards in grave as possible and it doesn't have to make a choice between Gamble and Tomescour - although it you are going to add in more protection, we should.
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    So a shell taking place is:

    12 Fetch Lands lands
    4 Non-Fetch Lands
    4 Lotus Petal

    4 LED
    4 Underworld Breach
    4 Brain Freeze
    4 Tome Scour
    1 Burning Wish

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain

    4 Gamble
    4 Enlightened Tutor

    5 Protection
    Going down to 1 Burning Wish feels wrong to me.

    With the amount of self mill going on here, does Noxious Revival feel like it should have a place at the table? Or do we just MD an SR as our way to get UB back from the yard?


    EDIT: I also don't think we need 20 mana sources. We only need to find 3. Assuming 1 cantrip in our first two turns, that means we see the top 13 cards of our library. With only 18 manasources there's an 82% chance to find 3+. By going up to 20 sources we only improve that number to 89%.

  6. #246

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    Thanks guys! Just trying to think more about this deck and see if I can make it better in anyway - free free to discount any of these idea as they are purely theoretical and not based on playtesting, playing around an opponent or even general feel. It is strictly math and theory.

    So based on previous math it is pretty evident that Tomescour > Entomb. It simply costs less cards in grave to go off with Petal. Granted, you can't go off with Breach and Tomescour alone, but to go off with just Breach and entomb requires too many cards in the graveyard regardless.
    ...
    There is always the 'manual dredge' plan which (by default) self-mills on turns 1 and 2, and then goes off on turn 3. If you fire off a Tomb Scour or Memory Sluice on turn 1, and then a Glimpse the Unthinkable or Breaking (of Breaking // Entering) on turn 2, you'll have seen 1/3 of the deck between the initial 7, the cards drawn at the start of the turn, and the 12 milled cards. (Maybe a package that just runs 'mill 4 for U' cards is better. There are certainly plenty available.)

    Digging 20 cards deep still leaves a significant chance not to see Breach, so that wants to be supplemented with some kind of tutor effect. I'm not sure what kind of package would be best for that. Plausible ideas include Gamble and Enlightened Tutor.

  7. #247
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    Going down to 1 Burning Wish feels wrong to me.

    With the amount of self mill going on here, does Noxious Revival feel like it should have a place at the table? Or do we just MD an SR as our way to get UB back from the yard?


    EDIT: I also don't think we need 20 mana sources. We only need to find 3. Assuming 1 cantrip in our first two turns, that means we see the top 13 cards of our library. With only 18 manasources there's an 82% chance to find 3+. By going up to 20 sources we only improve that number to 89%.
    We actually don't have that much self mill. The "Spells" that you need to fill up the yard are mostly cantrips. You generally should be running CA neutral cards (ponder) vs negative CA (Faithless Looting) since even though the later fill up the yard they also make Gamble worse. Note, this isn't a problem if you get rid of gamble (which as my math above shows isn't a terrible option!).

    As for mana sources you're right that we can get away with less, especially if we're running 12+ cantrips. However, note that given the amount of cards you need in grave you are reliant on running lots of fetch lands. You can cut fetches but that makes the percentage of times you get the necessary graveyard cards drop and you can't really cut non-fetch lands since that makes it hard for the fetches to function. . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by rufus View Post
    There is always the 'manual dredge' plan which (by default) self-mills on turns 1 and 2, and then goes off on turn 3. If you fire off a Tomb Scour or Memory Sluice on turn 1, and then a Glimpse the Unthinkable or Breaking (of Breaking // Entering) on turn 2, you'll have seen 1/3 of the deck between the initial 7, the cards drawn at the start of the turn, and the 12 milled cards. (Maybe a package that just runs 'mill 4 for U' cards is better. There are certainly plenty available.)

    Digging 20 cards deep still leaves a significant chance not to see Breach, so that wants to be supplemented with some kind of tutor effect. I'm not sure what kind of package would be best for that. Plausible ideas include Gamble and Enlightened Tutor.
    Hmm, manual dredge doesn't really work because you need at least 3 mana sources to go off (unless you have the traditional Breach+LED+BF), so you're playing at least 2 lands. As for mill cards other than Tome Scour you can replace Ponder or Preordain in my list above with the cards you mentioned for a higher chance of better chance of filling up the grave to go off any numerous way. Not sure yet of the benefits of doing that versus the cantrips which can naturally get combo pieces into hand instead. Might do more math on that later

    EDIT 2:

    Okay here is my thinking on whether to replace the non-BS cantrips with Self Mill cards:

    The cantrips are used for only two reasons: first to stock up on cards in the graveyard and to find a missing combo piece. Self-mill cards are clearly better for the first reason. Now to explore if they are better it seems you need to do the math of [Chances cantrips draw you into missing combo piece] vs [Chance self-mill mills you into a missing combo piece]. This is tricky because the missing combo cards that can be drawn into include breach while the the combo cards you mill into specifically exclude breach. This means you are trying to find the [Chances cantrips draw you into missing combo piece ASSUMING you have two other combo pieces] vs [Chance self-mill mills you into a missing combo piece ASSUMING you have breach and the OTHER combo piece].

    Best I can figure out the chances are:

    [Chance of drawing into Breach/Etutor/Tomescour/BF/Petal/LED (so 24 "combo cards" in opening hand]*[Chance of drawing one of the other "cogs" of the combo (so 16 "combo cards" (24 combo cards in total - 8 from what you first found)) in your opening hand]*[drawing into by turn 3 the other cog of the combo card (so 8 cards) ASSUMING at least 3 cantrips (so lets ASSUME a dig of at least 5)] VS. [Chance of drawing into breach on opening hand]*[Chance of drawing one of the other "cogs" of the combo in your opening hand]*[depending on mill card assuming you cast mill card by turn 3 - self milling (or drawing) the other cog (so 8 cards)]

    So the percentage for the first half is: (97.8*90.1*65.4) 57.6%, and assuming the three self-mill choices their percentage are:

    Sluice: (90.1*65.4*59.3) = 35%
    Entering: (90.1*65.4*70.6) = 42%
    Glimpse: (90.1*65.4*79.6) = 47%

    Per the above seems that running cantrips is better than self-mill in the specific scenario of finding your missing combo piece by at least 10% (as compared to Glimpse). Now this comes with a BIG assumption - that by running 12 cantrips that you're casting at least 3 cantrips - now that may not be true. Lets say you only get off 2 cantrips your percentage drops to 52% which is still better than if you just cast Glimpse.

    EDIT: Again, just to make clear my math and deck list is theory only. We have already discussed that the deck may need to be built differently due to playing around graveyard hate. My list is just trying to go for the most consistent, fastest list with protection. For this consistency I am relying on Tomescour to treat petal as a LED. This however makes the deck vulnerable to graveyard hate.
    Last edited by Cire; 01-13-2020 at 02:46 PM.
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  8. #248
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    Now the chance of gamble getting breach into hand is:

    Turn 1 - 83% (assuming you only played one mana source plus gamble)
    Turn 2 - 86% (assuming you only played one mana source plus gamble)
    Turn 3 - 88% (assuming you only played one mana source plus gamble)
    Turn 1 - 83% OTP, 86% OTD (playing land + Gamble)
    Turn 2 - 86% OTP, 88% OTD (playing T1 land + cantrip, T2 Gamble)
    Turn 3 - 88% OTD (playing T1 land + cantrip, T2 cantrip + land + cantrip)

    50% of games start OTD, don't forget that. For turn 2-3 you don't have to assume no plays. Cantrips are good T1-T2 plays and don't reduce hand size.

    Though Gamble can backfire by discarding non-Breach cards too, so Gamble's odds of whiffing are sometimes higher.



    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    Now the chance of hitting breach naturally in the first 3 turns is:
    Turn 1 - 40%
    Turn 2 - 44.5%
    Turn 3 - 49%

    The chance of getting gamble in hand AND not getting breach in hand is:
    Turn 1 - 24%
    Turn 2 - 25%
    Turn 3 - 25%

    The chance of getting gamble in hand AND not getting breach in hand AND Gamble getting breach into hand:
    Turn 1 - 20%
    Turn 2 - 21.5%
    Turn 3 - 22%

    These percentages drop further if you're running enlightened tutor (since you can count the ET as a Breach . . . ).

    So looking at the above I feel I have to draw the conclusion that:

    Tomescour is better than Gamble at least 78% of the time before turn 3 . . . .
    The math looks wrong. Where did the calculations come from?

    For simplicity, let's stick with the Turn 3 calculations only (same logic applies to the others). I assume the card is either Gamble or Tome Scour for a side-by-side comparison.

    TOTAL CHANCE = 100%
    Breach naturally = 49% (from your numbers, though it's higher with cantrips)
    No Breach = 51% (100-49)

    Breaking down the case where you don't draw Breach
    No Breach = 51%
    No Breach AND Gamble/Scour = 25% (from your numbers)
    No Breach, No Gamble/Scour = 26% (51-25)

    Breaking down the case with Gamble AND No Breach (where you can use Gamble to find Breach)
    No Breach AND Gamble = 25%
    Gamble finds Breach = 22% (from your numbers)
    Gamble whiffs = 3% (25-22)

    From there, your logic seems to be "Tome Scour > Gamble UNLESS Gamble finds Breach". So you go 100% - 22% = 78% that Tome Scour > Gamble.

    But that logic is flawed.

    By going 100-22, you give EVERYTHING other than "Gamble finds Breach" to Tome Scour. Including the cases where you never draw Gamble/Tome Scour (e.g. 26% of the time with No Breach and No Gamble/Scour). Neither Gamble nor Tome Scour would do anything because you don't draw them. Tome Scour doesn't win there. Both cards do nothing.

    What about when you have Breach (49%) but never draw Gamble/Tome Scour? Both cards are dead there too. Let's break that one down.
    Breach naturally = 49%
    Breach AND Gamble/Tome Scour = 24% (I guessed... it's probably close)
    Breach, No Gamble/Tome Scour = 25%


    Breaking down all the cases...

    TOTAL = 100%
    Breach AND Gamble/Scour = 24% (Scour combos with Breach faster than Gamble does)
    Breach, No Gamble/Scour = 25% (both cards do nothing)
    No Breach, No Gamble/Scour = 26% (both cards do nothing)
    No Breach AND Gamble AND Gamble finds Breach = 22% (Gamble worked)
    No Breach AND Gamble but Gamble whiffs = 3% (Gamble missed)

    You gave the 22% to Gamble and the others (24+25+26+3=88%) to Tome Scour.

    But when you break it down that way, you realize 51% of the time (25+26) you don't even draw Gamble/Scour so both cards do nothing. It's unfair to give those points to Tome Scour. That 51% makes up a big part of your 78%! You only really care about the other 49% of the time when you actually draw the Gamble/Scour, so let's stick to those conditional odds.

    22/49=45% of the time Gamble finds Breach when you don't have it.
    3/49=6% of the time Gamble whiffs
    24/49=49% of the time you already have Breach and Tome Scour leads to a faster win than Gamble

    When Gamble whiffs, would Tome Scour do better? Tome Scour is a dead card without Breach and it can't find Breach. Both cards fail there, so Tome Scour shouldn't win that either.

    That's only 49% Tome Scour is more efficient, 6% both cards suck, 45% Gamble saves you when you couldn't draw Breach.

    But there's still a flaw in the logic. Those times you naturally found Breach, is Tome Scour always better? It takes less GY size than Gambling for both LED and Brain Freeze. But what if you also have Brain Freeze? Or have multiple Tome Scours? Tome Scour is basically dead if you have BF or dead in multiples.

    Breach + BF + Gamble > Breach + BF + Tome Scour
    Breach + Gamble + Gamble > Breach + Tome Scour + Tome Scour

    What if Breach #1 gets countered or discarded? Gambling for a 2nd could be useful. Tome Scour can't do that. Having Breach in hand doesn't make Gamble useless.

    So the case where you have Breach needs to be broken up too, and in some of those Gamble is better, others Tome Scour is better.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    So the question is if Tomescour > Gamble, since my previous post treated gamble like entomb.
    So far we've just compared them for assembling combo chains, but Gamble does more than that.

    Gamble -> Burning Wish -> SB answer
    Gamble -> Echoing Truth or Silent Gravestone (postboard)
    Gamble -> Scalding Tarn (I've had to do this sometimes when stuck on lands)
    Gamble -> Defense Grid for protection

    It has a lot of modes. That doesn't mean it's optimal to run 4 Gamble. I just think you're understating what Gamble can do in these comparisons, by only comparing it to goldfishing combo chains with Tome Scour and ignoring other modes. Entomb is easier for Tome Scour to beat, because it only puts the card to GY, giving it fewer modes. Most of the time it's a tutor for BF or LED. In those cases, Tome Scour leads to faster wins than a card that only tutors for combo pieces to the graveyard (it takes escape fuel to use those cards, so tutoring to the GY has a price). But Gamble has more modes for us than Entomb.

    Overall, I just think it's complicated and the math isn't as clear-cut in favor of Tome Scour. Tome Scour is a weak magic card outside our combo and virtually dead in multiples. Yes, it can lead to some more efficient combo lines than tutoring for pieces, but it also means having a Tome Scour in hand all those other times. When you already have Brain Freeze or have multiple Tome Scours, what do they do?

    I think the best way around this is to play multiple Burning Wish with Tome Scour in the Wishboard. That way we gain all those lines where Tome Scour wins faster without being stuck with those hands where Tome Scour is dead due to multiples, Brain Freeze, or no Breach!

    Going down to 1 Wish seems bad. Burning Wish > Tome Scour.

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    That's only 49% Tome Scour is more efficient, 6% both cards suck, 45% Gamble saves you when you couldn't draw Breach.

    . . .

    Overall, I just think it's complicated and the math isn't as clear-cut in favor of Tome Scour.
    This is completely right - thanks for fixing the logic (except I would give that 6% to tomescour since it still feeds your grave at least - but yeah they both suck in that scenario). Also, as I note there are a lot of assumptions in play and it also depends on what you're building the deck for. 3-4 Tomescour does mean you're more susceptible to graveyard hate. However, I think you can't discount the fact that Tomescour is way more efficient than I think we are used to thinking - per the math it seems that if you run a million games the slight edge goes to Tomescour not gamble (again assuming only golfishing before turn 3). So far I have posted a deck list that runs both. In fact tomescour makes gamble better as it feeds the Gamble Only line as well.

    Now, the question is whether running 4 Tomescour + 1 Wish is better or worse than running 2-4 Burning Wishes + 1-3 Tome Scour. Not sure, clearly different functions. Tomescour is a combo card that can also feed other combo lines while Wish is for answers (or can even find tomescour!). Let me think about it a bit more!

    Edit:

    Since this is a very varied question I simplified it to the following: What percentage is wishing for tome scour better than tomescour to try to go off. It is impossible IMO to check all the other scenarios (i.e. wishing for an answer or tomescouring for cards in grave to set up another line). So the only thing the following math checks for it when would you rather have (Petal/LED+Breach+WISH+2 mana sources) over (Petal/LED+Breach+Tomescour+2 mana sources). The two scenarios are equivalent by turn 3 since you can wish for tomescour, so really the only time you would prefer the later is on turn 2. As such it seems to be a simple formula i.e. chance of getting Petal/LED+Breach in hand by turn 2 which is about 31.4% (you are assuming here that one of the other cards in your opening hand is wish/Scour). That means that in a deck that includes 4 LED, 4 Petal, 4 Breach, 16 Lands, that you would rather see a tomescour over a burning wish only about 31.4% of the time. This does make it clear that you would rather run 4 wishes than running 4 tomescour.

    However as noted above you would rather see tomescour slightly more than Gamble (again only under the assumption of going off). So taking my list from above:

    +3 Burning Wish
    -1 Tomescour (since you need one to be wished for)
    -1 Gamble (even with all the other uses Gamble I think the fact that for going off you want to see Tomescour > Gamble (slightly like it was noted its really just about 4% "better") means that you shouldn't run more Gambles than you run Tomescours
    -1 Preordain

    I'll test out that list and let you know how it runs in real life and not just theory.
    Last edited by Cire; 01-13-2020 at 04:21 PM.
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  10. #250

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    ...
    Hmm, manual dredge doesn't really work because you need at least 3 mana sources to go off (unless you have the traditional Breach+LED+BF), so you're playing at least 2 lands. As for mill cards other than Tome Scour you can replace Ponder or Preordain in my list above with the cards you mentioned for a higher chance of better chance of filling up the grave to go off any numerous way. Not sure yet of the benefits of doing that versus the cantrips which can naturally get combo pieces into hand instead. Might do more math on that later
    Once Underworld Breach is on the field, the deck can play LED or lotus petal from the GY. With a full four of each, the chance of finding at least one in 20 cards is around 97%.

    Okay here is my thinking on whether to replace the non-BS cantrips with Self Mill cards:

    The cantrips are used for only two reasons: first to stock up on cards in theo:cards o:top o:library o:into o:graveyard o:rest sort:cmc f:legacy graveyard and to find a missing combo piece. Self-mill cards are clearly better for the first reason. Now to explore if they are better it seems you need to do the math of [Chances cantrips draw you into missing combo piece] vs [Chance self-mill mills you into a missing combo piece]. This is tricky because the missing combo cards that can be drawn into include breach while the the combo cards you mill into specifically exclude breach. This means you are trying to find the [Chances cantrips draw you into missing combo piece ASSUMING you have two other combo pieces] vs [Chance self-mill mills you into a missing combo piece ASSUMING you have breach and the OTHER combo piece].
    In my mind there are at three categories of cards to cast in preparation:

    1. Typical cantrips like Brainstorm and Ponder (maybe Portent or Preordain if you're desperate)
    2. Loot effects like Careful study and Faithless Looting
    3. Self-mill stuff like Tome Scour and Memory Sluice (there are a lot of these)

    There's also Thought Scour/Mental Note, and if you want to go deep, there's also some odd stuff like Contingency Plan or Commune with the Gods.

    If the plan is going to include going off with petal a significant fraction of the time, you're going to want to include 8 cards from category 3.

    Digging 20 cards deep isn't enough to reliably find a 4-of so, there has to be some kind of tutor to supplement Breach. There's not a lot of mana to spare, the most credible options are: Gamble, Enlightened Tutor and Scheming Symmetry

    So a "dredge lite" list might be something like


    4 Tome Scour
    4 Stream of Thought

    4 Careful Study
    4 Faithless Looting

    4 Lion's Eye Diamond
    4 Lotus Petal

    4 Underworld Breach
    4 Enlightened Tutor

    3 Brain Freeze
    1 Thassa's Oracle

    4 Noxious Revival
    4 Force of Will

    3 Volcanic Island
    3 Tundra
    1 Plateau
    1 Island

    4 Arid Mesa
    4 Scalding Tarn

  11. #251
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by rufus View Post
    If the plan is going to include going off with petal a significant fraction of the time, you're going to want to include 8 cards from category 3.
    The plan is that if you do not have LED and instead have a petal the deck should be built to still be able to win if it also has a BF/Scour and Breach. You can do it with BF with 4 mana, and you can do it with Tomescour with 3 mana + 1 card in exile for 75% and X additional cards in exile for each about additional 4%s.

    So to reach 99% you need about 7 cards in grave before going off. The way to achieve that is:

    Turn 1 - Fetch Land + Spell
    Turn 2 - Fetch Land + Spell + Spell
    Turn 3 - Fetch Land + Spell + (Petal+Tomescour+Breach).

    Running your "category 2 or 3" cards can take the place of at least two of the above "spell" slots, maybe even three. However, how often would that be preferable to running more cantrips? Also, how important is it to have 99% win rate with this line anyway - for example just with the Fetchlands (3 cards to exile) you'll have 83% win chance with this line, add 1 "Spell" (a cantrip for example) and you have 87% win chance with this line. If replacing "Category 1" cards with "Category 2 or 3 cards" weakens the deck in other areas but brings you closer to 99%, is it worth it?
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
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  12. #252

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I'm a long time source lurker, this new deck made me make an account. I wonder what people think about Wipe Away in a protection slot.
    The way I see it, the deck is really resistant to counterspells in general. We play out of the graveyard without exiling spells, and can generate tons of mana off of escaping LEDs or lotus petals so more the hate that we would need to worry about are things like Tormod's Crypt and Abrupt Decay anything that can target the graveyard, or destroys breach without giving us a chance to pact.

    Wipe Away is uncounterable, and allows us to replay breach in the event of an abrupt decay. Downside, it's mad expensive. I don't think it can work alone as protection because it is 5 mana to get around abrupt decay. As well, I've seen manamorphose discussed, but what do people think about running pyretic ritual as well? Morphose and ritual together allow us to get mana at instant speed. Otherwise we basically lose to abrupt decay, because most of the deck operates at sorcery speed, the mana coming mostly from GY artifacts that is. Again, haven't thought these out much, but want to test them tonight, and wondering what people think.

  13. #253
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    IMO its too expensive. The combo roughly takes 2-3 mana to go off. Sometimes even 4 depending on the line. We only run roughly 20-25 lands/accel. We just won't have the mana to cast a 3 mana spell and then go off . . .
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  14. #254
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by jonastobias View Post
    I'm a long time source lurker, this new deck made me make an account. I wonder what people think about Wipe Away in a protection slot.
    The way I see it, the deck is really resistant to counterspells in general. We play out of the graveyard without exiling spells, and can generate tons of mana off of escaping LEDs or lotus petals so more the hate that we would need to worry about are things like Tormod's Crypt and Abrupt Decay anything that can target the graveyard, or destroys breach without giving us a chance to pact.

    Wipe Away is uncounterable, and allows us to replay breach in the event of an abrupt decay. Downside, it's mad expensive. I don't think it can work alone as protection because it is 5 mana to get around abrupt decay. As well, I've seen manamorphose discussed, but what do people think about running pyretic ritual as well? Morphose and ritual together allow us to get mana at instant speed. Otherwise we basically lose to abrupt decay, because most of the deck operates at sorcery speed, the mana coming mostly from GY artifacts that is. Again, haven't thought these out much, but want to test them tonight, and wondering what people think.
    It's a good idea, but like Cire said, it's just not realistic to have that much mana open for Wipe Away. 3 mana is a lot.

    I think Silence/Abeyance and Defense Grid are a better way to beat Abrupt Decay, Surgical Extraction and other instant tricks. They're not uncounterable, but if you get countered then you don't have to go off yet.

    For Tormod's Crypt effects, we can either Pithing Needle it or try to destroy it before going off (e.g. Burning Wish for Shenanigans).

  15. #255
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by rufus View Post
    1. Typical cantrips like Brainstorm and Ponder (maybe Portent or Preordain if you're desperate)
    2. Loot effects like Careful study and Faithless Looting
    3. Self-mill stuff like Tome Scour and Memory Sluice (there are a lot of these)
    I tested Faithless Looting. The card disadvantage hurts. Most of the time I wanted any cantrip more, even Preordain (digs 1 card deeper). The deck needs a few mana sources and pieces to go off, so losing cards hurts.

    Don't forget Brain Freeze as self-mill. It mills 9-12 for 2 mana at instant speed, before the combo turn. If you haven't playtested the deck much, it's easy to miss how much Brain Freeze will mill you. I didn't realize it either until I tested more (dozens of matches vs blue decks + hundreds of goldfish hands). Give it a shot. Between the deck's cheap spells and the opponent's spells, it's not hard to set it up with a few storm.

    Emry, Lurker of the Loch might be the next-best after Brain Freeze and Tome Scour, especially in lists with more artifact mana. AngryBacon and I have started testing Emry more.


    If the plan is going to include going off with petal a significant fraction of the time, you're going to want to include 8 cards from category 3.
    Petal combos with Brain Freeze even better than it does with Tome Scour! The main combo is with LED though. Category 3 may combo with Petal, but Category 1 finds primary combo pieces better.

  16. #256
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I have a very different experience with Faithless Looting. And I encourage people not to be on mill cards like Tome Scour, especially without Echo of Eons. The selection while discarding in Faithless Looting makes it better than Mental Note with cards like Emry and Echo, it's also castable off which I find myself float pretty often post-Echo with double LEDs (for Breach, Gamble, Burning Wish). If you don't like Faithless looting, I'd suggest Breakthrough instead. When favoring mill cards over Gamble and cantrips in general, do note that those don't help you find sideboard cards.
    - 1 Emry, 1 Faithless Looting, 2 Manamorphose are my testing slots
    - 1 Consign and 1 Wear // Tear used to be 2 copies of Chain of Vapor. A friend of mine mentioned them being a liability allowing opponent to bounce Breach, potentially. I think that can almost always be played around however, by bouncing the hate pìece before resolving the Breach, but I might be missing something. Chain of Vapor can bounce Breach when resigned to pass the turn, or in response to removal.
    - I had 2 slots for 2 copies of Serenity but replaced one with Teferi's Realm, expecting the 15th land that I added to be enough to support it. Equipoise is less good than it looks

    A couple more unordered notes:

    - Considering a Plateau (lost me a game), instead of either a basic or a fetchland, but fetchlands are paramount and all of the 3 basics enables longer games against Delver and other blue wasteland decks
    - Shattering Spree could be replaced with By Force, Meltdown or Shenanigans. They all have pros and cons, so I'll make a table with those in to compare and pick one more easily based on the deck itself. Similarly to what We've done here https://ddftwiki.netlify.com/appendices/removal-tables/
    - Emry is greatly underrated and maybe warrants a second Defense Grid
    - Idris Elba is nuts, does bounce hate pieces, can be recovered with Reclamation. And even enables instant speed wins (imagine your Burning Wish exiled and opponent under Veil) during their upkeep
    - The 2 copies of Manamorphose are the weakest additions to the list in my opinion, they do have pros like fixing colors post-Echo, or make more monks. They also enable some little edges like drawing whatever you tutor for at instant speed. But more importantly they do next to nothing in your starting hand other than maybe put one extra card in your graveyard and maybe 1 extra Storm count for a value Brain Freeze
    - I still think Thassa's Oracle is win-more and much worse than Burning Wish at least in game 1
    - Haven't had time to test Experimental Frenzy

  17. #257
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by AngryBacon View Post
    I have a very different experience with Faithless Looting. And I encourage people not to be on mill cards like Tome Scour, especially without Echo of Eons. The selection while discarding in Faithless Looting makes it better than Mental Note with cards like Emry and Echo, it's also castable off which I find myself float pretty often post-Echo with double LEDs (for Breach, Gamble, Burning Wish). If you don't like Faithless looting, I'd suggest Breakthrough instead. When favoring mill cards over Gamble and cantrips in general, do note that those don't help you find sideboard cards.


    ...


    A couple more unordered notes:

    - Considering a Plateau (lost me a game), instead of either a basic or a fetchland, but fetchlands are paramount and all of the 3 basics enables longer games against Delver and other blue wasteland decks
    - Shattering Spree could be replaced with By Force, Meltdown or Shenanigans. They all have pros and cons, so I'll make a table with those in to compare and pick one more easily based on the deck itself. Similarly to what We've done here https://ddftwiki.netlify.com/appendices/removal-tables/
    - Emry is greatly underrated and maybe warrants a second Defense Grid
    - Idris Elba is nuts, does bounce hate pieces, can be recovered with Reclamation. And even enables instant speed wins (imagine your Burning Wish exiled and opponent under Veil) during their upkeep
    - The 2 copies of Manamorphose are the weakest additions to the list in my opinion, they do have pros like fixing colors post-Echo, or make more monks. They also enable some little edges like drawing whatever you tutor for at instant speed. But more importantly they do next to nothing in your starting hand other than maybe put one extra card in your graveyard and maybe 1 extra Storm count for a value Brain Freeze
    - I still think Thassa's Oracle is win-more and much worse than Burning Wish at least in game 1
    - Haven't had time to test Experimental Frenzy
    Why exactly is Emry good here? She doesn't have haste, so she isn't particularly good on the combo turn, and she only returns artifacts, so she doesn't really enable the combo more than tome scour does. I feel like I'm missing something important when it comes to including her.

    What is "Idris Elba"?

  18. #258
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    What is "Idris Elba"?
    A joke name for Teferi, Time Raveler.
    "The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
    Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order

  19. #259
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    Why exactly is Emry good here? She doesn't have haste, so she isn't particularly good on the combo turn, and she only returns artifacts, so she doesn't really enable the combo more than tome scour does. I feel like I'm missing something important when it comes to including her.
    She often functions as a dork or as an extra Black Lotus. The mill 4 ability is very relevant, and you can also often repeat it for thanks to the rule of Legendary. Redundancy with Defense Grid too. ie. Bait countermagic with Defense Grid, only to cast Emry right after

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    What is "Idris Elba"?
    I was referring to Teferi, Time Raveler :-)

  20. #260

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    I tested Faithless Looting. The card disadvantage hurts. ...
    Yeah, looking at it critically, it seems like Brainstorm is basically always better before Breach hits the table since you can just cast the extra card from hand instead of the graveyard. (The only way brainstorm is at all worse is if you end up casting and using LED from the graveyard so the +1 card you have gets discarded.) And, after Breach hits the table, Faithless looting isn't doing enough to credibly extend the combo.

    ...Don't forget Brain Freeze as self-mill. ...
    The concern is more that you can't cantrip into brain freeze on turn 2 without fast mana, so it's not a reliable way to self-mill for a turn 3 win.

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