'Mississippi River' (All In Creativity Technique Combo)

[Whoshim]

The difference between Bauble and those cards is that it is a low cost card to slip into a deck. At worst, it is a 2 mana colorless card that replaces itself. At best, it can shut down huge parts of decks, particularly Mississippi River. It is also tutorable via Urza's Saga. Those other cards are all 2 or more mana, and some are more than one color. They also have relatively little effect on some matchups

Bauble has at least some effect on every deck that I can think of - FoW, 0 mana artifacts, Grief, etc., etc. Even something like Death and Taxes, which plays mostly fairly, will likely run Solitude. Additionally, since Bauble can be turned off to gain at card at the cost of 1 mana, decks that would be hurt by it might still run it just to keep the opponent from doing things until they are ready.

I don't play Mississippi River, but I do worry about it after MH3 drops due to Bauble. I would hate to see the deck pushed out of the format.

[PirateKing]

Like FTW said, the new Vexing Bauble is obnoxious but it's nothing new. It'll be wait and see for how wide the adoption is with other decks.
I'm sure there are metas somewhere that are lousy with UW Control and Lands players that are unfriendly to Mississippi River, if that just becomes the norm everywhere with this card then our free win percentage might suffer.
But just Vexing Bauble alone won't save them, I can see many player windmilling it down turn 1 and thinking they're safe before getting humbled by an EOT Boseiju or Otawara.

I suspect there will be a window of hardship where everything is being tested and we'll see lots of stuff like Vexing Bauble played. But I'm not sure how many lists want a do-nothing card, especially as others have said, just about every deck has free spells now, so hobbling your own deck might not be the total positive inclusion I've heard it described as. I'll be just as perturbed by this card as a Lavinia or Sphere, but my answers remain the same.

[FTW]

Interestingly they also can't Force or Daze with Bauble out.

This line seems funny:
- build up to 7 mana
- cast Creative Technique
- Demonstrate
- Opponent's copy resolves first
- if opponent reveals Force (or anything relevant) it gets countered
- hold priority
- Boseiju the Bauble
- let 2 Creative Technique branches resolve

This line slows us down and doesn't work with 6cmc Cascade, but it's funny that it makes us better against their counters.

[Reeplcheep]

In the above line, the original creative technique will still be countered by the vexing bauble.

The most important part of this card is that you can get it t3 off of saga + it’s maindeckable. That means wasteland + saga beats an uninteractive hand even on the draw, making lands/pox/depths G1s much harder. As just a normal sideboard card it’s weaker than previous hate (at least if you aren’t running discover cards)

[PirateKing]

In the above line, the original creative technique will still be countered by the vexing bauble.

I'm not sure I follow how. Cast from hand, no part of a Creative Technique would interact with Vexing Bauble. The demonstrated copies get put on the stack, not cast. Vexing Bauble is blind to these, same as any Storm card. Whatever CT casts will be countered, sure (pro move to flip an Emralkul). But if you paid 5 for the original, how is Vexing Bauble a factor?

[Reeplcheep]

Sorry brain fart. I assumed you cascaded into technique.

[FTW]

Sorry brain fart. I assumed you cascaded into technique.

If you cascade into Technique, it's slightly worse.

You need 8 mana instead of 7. The 6cmc creature isn't countered, Cascade triggers, CT gets put on the stack and Demonstrate triggers. After the full stack resolves you'd only get 1 CT branch (Bauble counters the other) and the original starter creature, but opponent's free spell is still countered by their own Bauble. Not as good but it still lets you go off. In that case it's probably better to EOT Boseiju before casting the starter.

[PirateKing]

I've lost a game playing against Mississippi River when I was playing Pox, literally the first Demonstrate flipped a Nether Void and I was feeling unbeatable. Then their demonstrate copy resolves, flips some Cascade creature, trigger and all that, finds the next Creative Technique, cast, trigger (demonstrate), trigger (Nether Void). So they had 3 CTs that demonstrated would actually resolve, the original CTs and all the cascade creatures would be countered. The next flip from them? Emrakul >:|