[Discussion] Which Illustration Can Be More Strategic?

[Rascal]

What do you think, what is more strategic solution?

If you can choose from more variant of ilustration of one card (e.g. Hymn to Tourach, Giant Growth,....etc.) -> is cleverer to pick up to deck playset of the card with one/same ilustration or in some situations could be better to have different ilustrations of the same card?

What is your opinion and why?

[TrialByFire]

From a competitive standpoint, its good to have every set of one card in your deck be the same whether in Picture, border, foil/nonfoil, etc. This gives your opponent no comparitive advantage over you if they Therapy you or Duress and see your hand.

From a preference standpoint, this should not be in the FD forum

[Goaswerfraiejen]

From a competitive standpoint, its good to have every set of one card in your deck be the same whether in Picture, border, foil/nonfoil, etc. This gives your opponent no comparitive advantage over you if they Therapy you or Duress and see your hand.



Sorry, what? I don't see what difference it makes.

[Shtriga]

I'm slightly OCD with patterns and symmetry, so I'll always go with 4x of the same. not to mention that playing different illustrations can give your opponent some information (like, he glasses of urza's you and sees a van camp hymn and 2 random cards, then you draw a hoover hymn and play it, he will know exactly what you drew that turn and what you are holding in hand, where as if it was a van camp hymn, he wouldn't know you drew it that turn and would assume it was the fist one)

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Yeah, I just figured it out; I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble unless you care much, however, simply because your opponent should be able to guess your deck within the first few turns, meaning that he'll have a pretty good clue of what's going on. If you do something foolish like play the van Camp rather than Hoover Hymn, then it's as much the result of your misplay as it is your card's art. As long as you're careful, there should be no problem.

[Pinder]

Sorry, what? I don't see what difference it makes.

I think what he's saying is that if someone Therapies you, sees a foil version of a card in your hand (let's say, Tarmogoyf), then you untap, draw, and play a non-foil Tarmogoyf, they now know that you have another Tarmogoyf in your hand, and they also know that the non-foil Tarmogoyf was your topdeck for the turn, because it wasn't in your hand when they Therapied you.

If both Goyfs were foil (in which case you would be a lucky bastard), or if they were both non-foil (much more likely), then your opponent wouldn't know either of these things.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I think what he's saying is that if someone Therapies you, sees a foil version of a card in your hand (let's say, Tarmogoyf), then you untap, draw, and play a non-foil Tarmogoyf, they now know that you have another Tarmogoyf in your hand, and they also know that the non-foil Tarmogoyf was your topdeck for the turn, because it wasn't in your hand when they Therapied you.

If you both Goyfs were foil (in which case you would be a lucky bastard), or if they were both non-foil (much more likely), then your opponent wouldn't know either of these things.

Sarnathed, but that's a play mistake on your part rather than a problem with the cards. Granted, it's more likely to happen with different cards--but if you're careful, then it shouldn't be a problem.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Shouldn't you have just played the foil one first? I thought that you should use known information before unknown, even if they were both foil/non foil.

[Pinder]

Sarnathed, but that's a play mistake on your part...if you're careful, then it shouldn't be a problem.


Shouldn't you have just played the foil one first? I thought that you should use known information before unknown, even if they were both foil/non foil.


You're both completely right, and it usually makes little difference either way. But running uniform cards helps keep your head clear of these sort tiny decisions and lets you focus on more important things. Usually it's not a problem, and making that sort of decision should come naturally. But if there's even that little chance that it could screw you up and make a difference, wouldn't it be better to eliminate that chance altogether?

[Obfuscate Freely]

It's more likely to give your opponent unnecessary information later in the match than to do so within a single game. Say you draw and play a Hymn in the first game of your match. Now, if you draw and play what is clearly a different copy of Hymn in the second game, your opponent will immediately know that you play at least those two copies of Hymn in your deck. There is no reason to let him or her know that with certainty.

This can also come up from people scouting around during a tournament. If the guy you get paired against happened to glance over at your match the round before, and saw you play a different copy of Hymn than the one you draw this game, then he is also benefitting from your sloppy deck construction.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's just generally incorrect to give up even such a small potential advantage to your opponents. If you're paying to enter a tournament, you owe it to yourself to homogenize the playsets of cards in your deck.

[zulander]

This is true, however if you remove the possibility of the error then you can't commit said error.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

It's more likely to give your opponent unnecessary information later in the match than to do so within a single game. Say you draw and play a Hymn in the first game of your match. Now, if you draw and play what is clearly a different copy of Hymn in the second game, your opponent will immediately know that you play at least those two copies of Hymn in your deck. There is no reason to let him or her know that with certainty.

This can also come up from people scouting around during a tournament. If the guy you get paired against happened to glance over at your match the round before, and saw you play a different copy of Hymn than the one you draw this game, then he is also benefitting from your sloppy deck construction.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's just generally incorrect to give up even such a small potential advantage to your opponents. If you're paying to enter a tournament, you owe it to yourself to homogenize the playsets of cards in your deck.

I'm not convinced that the above two examples are particularly good, however; if you see your opponent (or potential opponent) playing a Hymn, the proper assumption is that s/he has 3-4, and you should play around that. If your first match drags on and on and you only see one, then you might be justified in believing s/he has only 2-3. But really, you should have a pretty good idea of what your opponent is playing in the first few turns, and good cards tend to come in multiples of 3-4--knowing the archetype also helps you to narrow the list of likely numbers. If you play expecting 4 copies, then you should be more than capable of handling the deck if it only runs 3.


I do appreciate the point, however; I just think that it makes such a marginal difference that you shouldn't be beating yourself up about it. If you only have four Hymns and they have different pictures, just play them and make sure you don't make a sloppy mistake.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Hymn to Tourach isn't a particularly good example, no. I only used it because it had been mentioned in the thread previously.

For a better example, consider Siege-Gang Commander in Goblins. Making sure that every copy of that card is identical could easily make more than a marginal difference, since many lists drop to only one or two of them. If your opponent decides in a tight third game that he has to bank on that SGC in your graveyard being the only one in your deck, you'll be very happy that you didn't show him otherwise in the previous two games.

[dahcmai]

Play against me and you'll notice I pay attention to every single little nuance of your sleeves also. It's a large advantage knowing what people draw so playing with new sleeves and copies of cards that all look alike even in nicks and scratches is a good thing.

[Maveric78f]

Play against me and you'll notice I pay attention to every single little nuance of your sleeves also. It's a large advantage knowing what people draw so playing with new sleeves and copies of cards that all look alike even in nicks and scratches is a good thing.

Bluff. Except to know if the drawn cards are SB cards (usually SB sleeves are less damaged than the MD ones), I don't see how you can manage to do that in a 2/3 game.

[freakish777]

For a better example, consider Siege-Gang Commander in Goblins.

This is potentially the best example for this argument (card wise). If you play with 2 different artworks and play the first artwork in game 1, and the second artwork in game 2, your opponent now knows you're playing at least 2 SGCs. However, if you have just the one artwork, your opponent may think you have only the 1. Say in game 3 your opponent Thoughtseizes you on turn 1 and sees a SGC, and that your opponent's optimal strategy if there's only 1 SGC in your deck is to take it, and if not, to take something else (let's say Warchief), by playing 2 different artworks, you open yourself up to the possibility of your opponent being able to come to the optimal line of play because of the information you've given them, as opposed to giving them a coin-toss.

Of course this doesn't apply to just artwork, it applies to White Border vs. Black Border, varying editions, and foreign languages as well. It is a very minor part of play, but there's really not many good excuses for neglecting an area of something you want to be serious about.

[Bardo]

This is probably the best article on this topic:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10370.html

To not give up any % I make sure all of my cards are of the same edition/language, relative wear, non-foil, etc.

The only exception is my Winter edition Mishra's factory in Landstill. If I had the disposable $$, I'd immediately buy another three winter Factories. If I were playing in a GP tomorrow, I'd have to ghetto 4th ed. all of my Factories.

Edit. Otherwise, Ob Freely and Freakish's comments are pretty much all that needs to be said on the topic.


It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's just generally incorrect to give up even such a small potential advantage to your opponents. If you're paying to enter a tournament, you owe it to yourself to homogenize the playsets of cards in your deck.


Of course this doesn't apply to just artwork, it applies to White Border vs. Black Border, varying editions, and foreign languages as well. It is a very minor part of play, but there's really not many good excuses for neglecting an area of something you want to be serious about.