You're definitely the ideal advocate in this thread for Karn than. On a side note though, I do like seeing Board the Weatherlight actually seeing competitive play, as I think it's definitely the most charming card that's come up in this thread.Originally Posted by f7eleven
Congrats!
I can never claim to pilot anything perfectly, so I can't completely discount the "I'm not using Karn apprioriately" argument. I have used him a fair bit to success however, as has Kaono, and while I can't speak for him I do understand that his primary draw is a big dumb beater factory. I have won several games going T1 Chalice into T2 Karn, make a 4/4. T3 Make a 5/5, Opponent Scoops.
So I do not suspect my issues with running 4 of him maindeck are because I'm simply to hesitant to have him crank out the constructs, and at least based on the sound of it that's not Kaono's (or even cosmiccoil's a few pages back) either.
This is two issues, so let's break them apart, and first deal with "consistency".
"Consistency" is a bit of a vague concept we like to throw around without rigorously defining, obviously. Consistently ... do what? Clearly by having all 4-of's you'll more consistently have them in hand. On the other hand my 4x Grindstone, Painter, Splinter Twin, Deceiver Exarch, Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike deck with no draw or tutors obviously meets our definition of "inconsistent", so it's more than just reducing the names on the table of cards we could draw, it's also the combinatorics of how those cards come together.
So here is how I see Karn (in his role as a downtick engine - he can also uptick, but as you stated that's not 'what you're using him for').
He's a huge slab of muscle. He's going to take some games you were going to lose on the margins to card quality, and turn them into wins. He's also going to take some games that were going to be close, and turn them into huge shut-outs in your favor. He often represents a pair of slow Reality Smashers, or better. No one here is calling him a "bad card" (again, except for maybe cosmiccoil a few pages back, but even that doesn't strike me as fair representation).
But when it comes to consistency, here is how I also see Karn - In this context, he's the 8th 4-Drop in a deck very susceptible to Wasteland / Mana Denial. He's Legendary. And on a hand without critical mass of Artifacts, those Masters of Etherium he's dropping can look much, much less impressive, assuming he even gets to survive to make the 2nd.
I'm not denying he's powerful, the "thing he does" is great; but simultaneously, I don't think there's a lot of question that with respect to how consistently Karn is able to perform "at his best", with just the variable nature of what else is there to back him up, I think the shorthand for Karn's effect on the deck is quite clearly +Power (Fair) - Consistency. There are more "bad hands" that you can put Karn in to make him look like a waste of a card than most other cards in the deck; there's just a quantifiably greater number of things you need to plug into him to get that output.
So, I think calling a 4x Karn build more "inconsistent" than other options is a fair assessment. That doesn't automatically make it worse (I'd rather have a tank 30% of the time than two twigs at 60% in most instances), but as to not "understanding how a deck of all 4-of's" can be seen as less consistent than something else, I don't think that's actually that hard to see, particularly when you're comparing them to tutors.
Okay, so now let's talk about "Counterability".
A basic reality about this deck is that it's a lot of air and a key selection of Critical Threats. Because of Cavern of Souls, sometimes your opponent is unable to trade their counterspell for your Critical Threat. Because he's not a Human, Karn simply increases the opportunities your opponent has to do this.
... That's it. It's not a deal-breaker, but I think it's a pretty simple criticism, so I don't really understand how you're failing to see this as a dimension of the card.
Leaning so heavily on Karn simply is making the deck more inconsistent and more susceptible to counter-magic. Again, that's not all it's doing, you are getting rewarded as well, but even if you think it's a worthwhile trade I believe you should recognize this, as your statement above wasn't an argument for his strengths, but simply a claim not to recognize his drawbacks.
Let's go back to context here.
The argument was not "Oh man, Moon Stompy is a pushover if you do this". The argument was simply that running the Mono-White Karn List did not represent a notable improvement, as I was searching for the incentives to play Mono-White Karn in light of its drawbacks.
Based on the post above (You'll forgive me for not taking the time to go back to your stream archive to get your exact current list), you're on 3 Disenchant Effects, and 1 Plains. That's 3 answers to a Chalice on 0, and only 1 extra source of the mana to cast them under a Blood Moon. If I'm boarding in at least 2 Vandals and 1 answer off of Trinket Mage (a repeatable one, no less), than including tutors I'm running 7 answers to a Chalice on 0, most of which are completely unaffected by a Blood Moon.
Yes, you are putting yourself in a position to be significantly worse at answering an opposing Chalice. In fact, your density of Chalice answers is less than the opponent's presumable density of Chalice, and I'm representing more than double the density of answers that you are.
Again, this doesn't mean that you're list is "wrong" in the big picture, but the question at hand that you are addressing was me failing to find a Moon Stompy based incentive to run the 4-Karn build. I think that still stands, I think the build I'm running compared to the 4-Karn builds to is simply better at answering Chalice of the Void, and despite the fact "I can't convince you", I don't think that's a very hard defense to make.
I'm not saying it's a great match-up, but yes, I'd rather have 7 answers and a bunch of Red Beaters - some of which are not stopped by an opposing Ensnaring Bridge, than a Plains, 3 Disenchants, and 4 Karn producing tokens quite easily stopped by a Bridge. You're right, Fiery Confluence is still a wrecking ball against me; frankly, I think it's a pretty big wrecking ball period, but I'm not evaluating the match-up as a whole. I'm just trying to identify the incentives of playing the 4x Karn Caleb style list, and judging these topics in isolation to find them.
And I stand by the conclusion that the 4x Karn List is all the things you're saying you don't recognize. It's less consistent, it's more vulnerable to counterspells, and it is weaker against many of its bad matchups, such as Moon Stompy.
This doesn't mean it's worse; I can name strengths as well. You know what Disenchant is great against that Humans with ETB effects are not? The card Humility. Also Karn - still a powerhouse.
My skepticism comes from this - At a basic level, I feel like the 4x Karn lists are trying to be a Better Eldrazi deck (not than Eldrazi, I mean than the other Bomberman lists); it's trying to out-muscle a lot of the other decks. Trying to find the best way to do that is valid choice, and you'll definitely win some games you would have otherwise lost, but at the same time, devoting more of the deck to expensive, legendary Eldrazi-Factories comes with some very real drawbacks (obviously, otherwise decks list Eldrazi Stompy would be far more prevalent).
I think running Karn maindeck is justifiable. It's not what I currently do, but depending on which games you're trying to win at the cost of which other games, I think it's easy to make the argument for it. If all the games you might play exist on a 2 dimensional plane, adding Karn, much like any other card, is just saying I want to improve my numbers with the games over here in this corner, at the cost of making me weaker in these other games over here. My skepticism comes from the fact that I see the drawbacks that it presents as clear enough that when you're, let's say, at 2x or 3x Karn maindeck, and you say "What I need is more Karn. I really, really want to overpower and win these games over here", that the marginal returns you're getting seem to get more overshadowed by the points of weakness you're letting become more and more prominent that you might not be seeing.
What then fails to alleviate my skepticism however is not your profession of love for Karn (the card is clearly powerful), or your results (as stated earlier, we're all talking about the same Core deck here which is good, and you simply being a good player and playing well will often overshadow the small nuances of the last dozen spell slots in the deck as long as those choices are reasonable), but the fact that when the topic is put to you, rather than talking up the value of Karn's strengths, or contextualizing the drawbacks as minimal, you effectively state that you don't see the drawbacks or "understand" how people could claim they are there. ... which is exactly the scenario my skepticism is resting in.
So I thank you for your defense (and I love hearing that you're running a Board the Weatherlight), but respectfully I don't really think you really addressed any of Karn's strengths or weaknesses in any real detail, or did a lot to alleviate the Karnskepticism.
EDIT: However, I admittedly don't want to actually convince you as much as encourage a more rigorous defense, because I don't want you stop playing a Board the Weatherlight and making Historic a real characteristic in Legacy, which remains awesome.
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