I think anyone that plays Chalice of the Void is following the same heuristic as I am, namely slamming Chalice of the Void on 1 the moment you can. But as with all heuristics, they can become outdated and wrong. I'm wondering under what conditions is it okay to play Chalice of the Void as your second play. Why I'm wondering about this is because following the heuristic of prioritizing chalice on one above all else, lures people into not playing one-drops in their chalice decks. This might explain why stompy-type lists have always been subpar.

So for argument sake, let's say I have a Goblin Welder and a Chalice in my opener as well as the mana to cast either. Do I sacrifice my ability to play Goblin Welder in exchange for allowing the opponent a one turn window to cast 1 drops, or do I shut the door immediately and lose my ability to recover artifacts for the remainder of the game. Are you really going to lose the game for that one turn window? The consensus is that turn one brainstorms are suboptimal, so it's not like we have to fear cantrips immediately and always. However you do open yourself up for Spell Pierce, Spell Snare and an extra draw for Force of Will.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that that turn one Chalice is more important, but I wonder if that is really the case. The exception to this rule is a deck playing Green Sun's Zenith or Cavern of Souls to circumvent the drawback.

If the value of Chalice of the Void diminishes after the first turn, then how effective is a Chalice of the Void drawn on turn 3? If the answer is, not too much, then that would suggest that Chalice of the Void is a bad card since you only open with it ~40% of the time. That means in 60% of the games you're drawing into chaff.

Another point is that, even if I play my Chalice of the Void with a Goblin Welder in hand, I'm only blanking 4 welders against potentially 20 cards of my opponent. That means I'm still ahead and I can run the risk of drawing both Welder and Chalice of the Void in my opener simultaneously.


So my question is, are we evaluating Chalice of the Void correctly and in how far can we ignore the design constraints put forth by Chalice of the Void.

I'm leaning towards the idea that Chalice decks can play 1 drops just like any other deck, as long as the impact upon resolution is assymetric enough to pull a win out.