You have to look at each card individually. The number of standstills you play will not affect the odds of getting each individual standstill earlier or later. It simply means that you have more standstills to potentially draw early, and to draw late.Originally Posted by Star|Scream
The only case where the '4 or nothing' strategy applies is the self-synergy examples listed above. Muscle sliver in a MG stompy deck is another case - each muscle sliver you see in a game improves the effectiveness of the prior muscle slivers. Wastelands and other denial strategies can also follow this path.
A good question to test the '4 or nothing' strategy is "does each subsequent card improve on the prior cards I have drawn or in play?" In the case of standstill, this is a no.
Therefor, each standstill becomes 'less good' than the previous one. 1 copy is the most efficient, and 4 copies is the least. As stated, you also want to leave yourself freedom to board out bad/dead cards in a MU - this is easier to do with a smaller multiple.
So why isn't every list full of 1-ofs? In all honesty this is partially due to the fact that the human brain deals poorly with statistics and probabilities. More importantly, however, is that the opportunity cost of running 4 copies is less than the opportunity cost of using an inferior card.
Anybody else actually sat down and tried Phantasmal Image? I'm trying it in place of Sovereign and kind of liking it. There are less things than you think that target-kill the guy when the thing targeting him wouldn't kill him anyway (Among the few I've hit included Maze, Lavamancer pings when everything had toughness 3 or more, mirror match Reejerey triggers, and my own Jitte postboard.) It also sucks when he's the first Merfolk you have to drop.
The plus side for this is a very efficient guy who puts your entire deck's curve at 2 or less except for Merrow Reejerey. He's a neat Silvergill copier, he's a Lord, or he's just your opponent's best creature. I've made him Confidant a lot, a Terravore once, and he's a weird Stoneforge Mystic - He gets your Jitte, but he can't carry it. He plays very nice with Aether Vial, unlike Phyrexian Metamorph, and on more than one occasion I've used him to spam copy Cursecatchers against combo decks. I can't stress enough how good this is against certain matchups like Reanimator and Storm Combo.
Being removal for Legendary guys hasn't been terribly relevant outside of a couple random Progeniti, Emrakuls, and Vendilion Cliques. Had a chance to use it against a Jin-Gitaxias one time, but I just Dismembered it instead and used Image as another Cursecatcher.
I'mma keep messing around with it and see where it gets.
Just played earlier today in our place and made lots of mistakes. I knew I should have removed the standstill and made them in Kira. Fought 3 U/W/x variants of Stone-blade (SFM) and found out that they do run Standstill as well. I will post a few insights on the next days, I'm tired "/
This makes no sense. Go play some Magic and stop talking out your ass.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
I fail to see how your post counters the stated logic; the multiple you are running of a card does not affect the odds of you drawing the individual cards earlier or later, and Standstill lacks self-synergy. You can fling insults at me all you would like - it does nothing to change the math.
4 Standstills out of 60 cards = 6.67% part of the deck contains that card.
1 Standstill out of 60 cards = 1.67% part of the deck contains that card.
If I have more standstills, I am more likely to draw them since there are more. If that math is too complicated for you, perhaps I can get some building blocks I used as a child to show you...
Chuck is right. You rarely want to follow up Standstill with another Standstill. This absolutely wrecks your tempo at the moment you want to come back into the game by dropping fish men. I cannot argue with logic. I am going to run 1 Standstill.
List that top 16ed at Cincinnati had 2 metamorph, 2 Kira in the flex slots. Thoughts?
Kira looks really good but I'm not really sure with the Metamorph MD. Care to share why metamorph works MD?
Regarding Standstill: I know you can play less than 4, but Standstill into a counter into another Standstill is absolutely one of the sickest plays you can make. The danger of cool things. I think in a BW heavy environment (kind of like the one I'm in), Standstill has a role, but it's just not as good as being able to kill something with dismember or have that 13th and 14th lord or even Kira.
Regarding Kira and Phyrexian Metamorph: I guess he really thought it was going to be a heavy Zoo/Emrakul meta...
And that singleton Squire is badass.
You either misread or misinterpreted my post. As noted, I am referring to the odds of drawing an individual standstill (ie odds of drawing SS1, SS2, SS3, SS4) earlier or later in the game. Running 4 copies simply increases the odds of seeing a standstill in any stage of the game; including SS2 does not mean you will see SS1 earlier.
A new poster (chuck) writes an intelligent analysis with factual statements to support his opinion (that Standstill isn't necessarily a 0-of or 4-of, and possibly shouldn't be included in the deck). You can disagree with his opinion, as some certainly have, but misinterpreting what he wrote, insulting him, and making inane statements is not the way to do so.
I keep hearing that merfolk is " dieing" becuase of batterskull, is this true?
Went to a local tournament this saturday. Had 20 players. This is the 3rd time I played this deck in a tournament so any suggestions would be appreciated!
The decklist:
13 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
4 Aether Vial
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Lord of Atlantis
1 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
1 Sower of Temptation
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
3 Dismember
Sideboard:
1 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Mind Harness
3 Pithing Needle
3 Spell Pierce
3 Echoing Truth
3 Submerge
The sideboard's a mess and I thought there was going to be a lot of green aggro for some reason so that's why there's the submerges and the control magics. The Sower also should have been another Kira or Soverign.
Round 1 - Christopher (U/W Landstill)
Game 1: I land a turn 1 cursecatcher and he decides to play turn 2 standstill with a factory in play. I waste the factory the next turn and just start swinging with the cursecatcher until he's at 12 life. For some reason, he decides to plow the cursecatcher during his main phase so I draw 3 cards off standstill and my notes say that he went from 12-7-3 and died.
Sideboard: -1 Sower of Temptation, -1 Kira, -3 Dismember, +3 Spell Pierce, +2 Echoing Truth. I never saw any stoneforge mystics so I removed all my creature kill conditions.
Game 2: I really don't remember this game as all he did early was needle naming vial and I never drew a vial the entire game. I think he attacked me with factories early on because he didn't have any color mana and I took advantage of that and just played a bunch of merfolk and wasted any duallands he drew immediately. His life totals went from 20-18-15-9-6-0 so i figured that must have been a chump block with a factory from 9-6.
1-0 (2-0)
Round 2 - Lyle (Merfolk)
He was playing with maindeck phantasmal images and they didn't look very impressive but maybe that's only because it's the merfolk mirror? I've also never played this matchup ever so my sideboarding was really, really bad.
Game 1: I didn't take any damage and it looks like I just got more lords than him as he kept on losing life in chunks of 4s and 5s.
Sideboard: -1 Sower of Temptation, -4 Lord of Atlantis, -1 Kira, -3 Daze, +3 Spell Pierce, +3 Pithing Needle, +3 Echoing Truth. Like I said, I totally didn't know how to sideboard for this matchup and thought the lords would be bad.
Game 2: I had an opening hand of a couple of counters and a commander and 2 reejereys but only 2 islands. I figured I would be able to draw into some islands but that didn't happen and he landed an early Jitte and I didn't have a counter for it. I tried to stop the jitte from gaining counters with echoing truths but it just wasn't enough and he ended up having a jitte with 4 counters and I didn't have any lords in play so he's able to kill all my guys no matter how i vial them in.
Sideboard: +4 Lord of Atlantis, +3 Daze, -3 Echoing Truth, -4 Mental Misstep. Again, I figured missteps is bad in this matchup as there's only 8 one drops. Pretty sure this was a bad idea but with my sideboard, I don't know how else to side.
Game 3: I had an opening hand of 4 lands and 3 creatures and I just kept on drawing islands while he played turn 1 vial and the game just grew out of hand as he dismembered one of my guys and then just overwhelmed me with lords while I kept on drawing lands. ugh.
1-1 (3-2)
Round 3 - Mark (TES)
Game 1: This was just a slaughterfest. I missteped his turn 2 dark ritual and managed to play some creatures on turn 3 and he was able to resolve a xantid swarm. I had 2 cursecatchers, a lord and an adept in play so I was able to attack for 9 to drop him down to 6. He had two lands in play, one being a city of brass and on his next turn, he attacked with swarm and then tried casting rite of flame and I sacced a cursecatcher. He paid with city to go down to 5 and I sacced my other cursecatcher and he had no other mana sources and I had lethal on board next turn.
Sideboard: -1 kira, -1 Sower, -4 Aether Vial, +3 Spell Pierce, +3 Echoing Truth.
Game 2: I missteped an early duress so I can protect my hand. I got a relatively slow start and he did a turn 2 ponder and didn't play another land so on my turn I wasted his land. He drew and didn't play another land and I just started playing lord after lord and he couldn't do anything as he played a chrome mox but that was his only mana source and I had a spell pierce in hand for any ritual effects.
2-1 (5-2)
Round 4 - Pierre (RUG Goblins)
Game 1: Both of us had vials at 2 and were building up our armies. I had a reejerey and adept in play with 4 lands and he had a piledriver, warchief in play as well. I was winning on the damage race and wanted to press the tempo and had a commander in my hand and was debating if I should hardcast the commander and use the reejerey to tap the vial to prevent combat tricks or if i should just vial in the commander and lvl up to 4 and hope he doesn't have something devestating at vial for 2. I decide to risk it and vialed the commander in, lvled up to 4 and attacked. He vialed in a Stingscourger, bounced my commander, blocked the reejerey with stingscourger and adept with piledriver. Wow. I didn't think he would have the stingscourger in hand. So I ended up losing all my dudes while he kept his board clean and it was just a downward spiral from there as he just kept playing dudes and I kept drawing lands. *sigh*.
Sideboard: -4 Aether Vial, -1 sower, +3 Pithing Needle, +2 Mind Harness. Not sure what else I can side in for this matchup with my sideboard. I felt like it was going to be dreadful no matter what I tried anyways.
Game 2: He had turn 1 lackey but I had turn 2 commander so I could block. I saw that he only had 3 lands and started to fetch his duallands so I wasted both of his duallands to keep him down at 1 land, needled naming vial and his board was only the lackey, piledriver and a useless vial while I had a level 4 commander and a couple of lords on blocking duty. I just swung with the commander and he couldn't play any of his high casting goblins.
Game 3: I kept a hand with some creatures and 4 lands but no counters. I probably should have mulled but I thought being able to cast all my creatures now that I have no vial would be important so I kept. He had turn 1 lackey and I had turn 1 cursecatcher. Then he cast pyrokenesis in his main phase to kill my cursecatcher. I didn't have a force and he was able to lackey in a siege gang commander and cast a piledriver. I had a mind harness in hand so I stole the comander during my turn and he attacked with everybody during his turn. I blocked the piledriver with commander and then with the lackey trigger he played ringleader into 2 more goblins and hardcast another piledriver and that was it. there was going to be around 8 goblins in play next turn and I had nothing to deal with lackey and piledriver. I guess I should have mulled into a misstep or force against goblins?
2-2 (6-4)
Round 5 - Daniel (Mystic Zoo)
Round 1: I got slaughtered as I didn't have any creatures but only had dismemebers. I took 8 to kill 2 nacatls and went down to 2 and hoped he didn't have the 3rd bolt in hand (he had used 2 bolts to kill my guys earlier) and he did have another bolt. next game..
Sideboard: -3 Force of Will, -3 Daze, -1 Sower, -3 Aether Vial, +3 Submerge, +3 Spell Pierce, +2 Mind Harness, +2 Pithing Needle
Round 2: This was a real grind as I managed to misstep all of his early nacatls and was able to cast a bunch of creatures to get him to lower life but he was managed to cast lightning helix twice to gain 6 life. He was able to get a batterskull in play via mystic but I was able to submerge to token away. I thought I was close to winning when I had a lvl 4 commander plus a lord and and adept but he was able to kill all my creatures except the commander and he had a thrun and goyf in play. He was at 7 and I was at 9. I was getting really frustrated as he had 4 lands in play so he can almost equip thrun and i just attacked with my commander and two 3/3 mutavaults and the mutavaults just died needlessly to the thrun and goyf as they both has more than 3 toughness. He was at 3 though so if he didn't draw a plow or a land, I would win next turn as the goyf was only a 3/4. He drew for his turn and we went to the next game as it wasn't a plow or a land.
Round 3: This game I actually dealt 12 damage to myself as I missteped twice and dismembered twice to put myself at 8 and he was able to attack with an exalted batterskull once to put me down to 3. Thankfully, I was able to amass a bunch of lords + lvl 4 commander and was able to submerge the ooze token again and attacked for 12 damage when he was at 11.
3-2 (8-5)
So after all that, I ended up coming into 9th place. *sigh*
I'll probably change the Mind Harness and Threads to 2 Jittes and something else and maybe the submerges as well as it wasn't relevant at all other than against the zoo matchup. any suggestions on what to do against the mirror and goblins??
However, including SS2 means that you WILL see SS2 _or_ SS1 earlier than you would with just SS1
When you have a card you want to see within your opening 9-10 cards, you want as many in there as legally possible.
I believe you are trying to refute the gambler's fallacy, where the last dice roll has no bearing on the next dice roll, but it doesn't really apply here. Once you draw the first 7 cards the deck is no longer random. Each card has a finite position, and the odds that you will draw a given card does in fact change based on which card you drew last, obviously.
Please read and take in before responding:
You want the highest chance of seeing this card early. Putting 4 in your deck gives you that chance.
This is not entirely true. Chaining Standstills can be a very powerful way to control the tempo of the game and/or slant it in your favor. For example you go turn one vial, turn two standstill, then you can at your discretion vial in merfolk to gain board presence. Once you opponent breaks your turn two standstill, you, more than likely, can counter their spell. This should leave them with a still empty or near empty board. In you subsequent turn, you can use your extra mana (X-1U) to cast a dude or two and still keep your opponent on lock down by playing a second standstill. I have seen this strategy keep opponents completely off the board. In games where you don't hit counter magic off of standstill, you should be hitting more lords. This allows you to develop a stronger board presence faster. I would have to disagree and say that chaining standstills can be very powerful. But ultimately, I think it is a bit of a personal choice.
Legacy
Grixis Delver
Vintage
Mono Mentor
Team Leovold
I guess I was a bit impolite earlier; my bad...
However, what Chuck is saying still doesn't make sense. This is because each copy of Standstill is functionally identical in your deck-- "SS1" and "SS2" do exactly the same thing (IE they represent one more copy of the card Standstill. Each copy you add occupies another 1/60 of the individual cards of your deck.) Assuming you want to play Standstill early in the game, in order to further increase the advantage of having a better board presence than your opponent (this is generally how this deck uses this card most effectively) then you would want to have as high a probability of having Standstill in your opening hand as possible. If you want to have as high a probability of having Standstill in your opening hand as possible, then you want to run more copies of the same card, so each card you draw will have a greater probability of being a copy of Standstill.
Anyways, that's about all I have to say about it. Chuck, please don't argue with me about this any more. You're entitled to your opinion, except when it's just mathematically wrong (because then it's no longer an opinion, it's a fallacy.)
If you really want to philosophically stick to your guns on this issue though, I suppose you could always go down to one copy each of Force of Will, Silvergill Adept, Coralhelm Commander, Aether Vial, Wasteland, Mutavault, Mental Misstep, etc, etc. Then you can really go crazy "optimizing" the deck with all your "opportunity costs" because all of a sudden you would have a bunch of slots to tech out the deck-list with some super-sweet one-of's.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Typically, I have not wanted to see multiples of standstill in a game unless I had a turn 1 vial. In truth, however, I normally play a version without standstill. If standstill is a card with self-synergy (at least up to 4 copies), then the '4 or nothing' argument is valid - and one I certainly will not argue against.
It is also true that the more cards you draw, the earlier 'average' turn you will see a given card in your deck. If a card is 20/60, obviously drawing 3 cards will let you see that card 3 turns earlier. It gets a bit more complicated, as when the standstills are broken is important to the degree the rest of your deck gets slanted forward, or even possibly backwards. When they are broken is dependent on the deck you are playing against; a mathematical analysis would be different for each deck. I thought mentioning all of this would muddle the waters since we were referring to the odds of seeing it in your opening 7. In attempting to being succinct I omitted this, but in longer games it can have a noticeable effect. To clarify belatedly, my argument applied to the statement "then you would want to have as high a probability of having Standstill in your opening hand as possible".
I feel like this is beating a dead horse, but I'll give it another whack.If you really want to philosophically stick to your guns on this issue though, I suppose you could always go down to one copy each of Force of Will, Silvergill Adept, Coralhelm Commander, Aether Vial, Wasteland, Mutavault, Mental Misstep, etc, etc. Then you can really go crazy "optimizing" the deck with all your "opportunity costs" because all of a sudden you would have a bunch of slots to tech out the deck-list with some super-sweet one-of's.
Assume there is no limit of 4 for a given card in merfolk. You wouldn't play 30 Aether Vial, or 50 Force of Will. This is because most cards lack self-synergy, and become less efficient beyond the first. There is also a cost of running an inferior card in its place. The reason I would never run singletons of the above cards, is because the cost of running an inferior card is greater than the lost efficiency from running another multiple. For each of those cards there would be a sweet spot (where the lines intersect) of the proper number to run. In the cards you listed, the intersection would be above 4.
For some reason - if you blame my inability to convey my point or poor communication skills I won't argue - you seem to be misinterpreting what I have been saying.
There is a ~40% chance you will see at least one card with 4 multiples in your opening, and ~11% chance with a singleton. It is linear, not exponential. You are giving yourself more chances to draw a standstill; you are increasing the chance to see *a* copy, not *all* copies in your opening hand.
Chuck, with all due respect, it's like you and everyone else are arguing two different things.
We get that the subsequent standstills you draw in like T6 or T7 won't be as effective as a T2 standstill. But to maximize the odds of getting to that T2 standstill, you want as many legal copies as possible. That's why people are saying it's all or nothing with standstill - the optimal turn to stick it is turn 2, when there's hardly any board presence. I will concede that the following standstills will be more awkward (unless you're chaining them - that's hot), but you'll be drawing 3 cards off of Standstill number 1, so that should cover you nicely. I know we're giving us more chances to draw a standstill -that's precisely what standstill advocates are talking about.
At any rate, I think having those 4 slots open for Dismembers/Kiras/Other meta calls is far more valuable. Deadguy Ale hurts a lot, and standstill just isn't as effective when they have their own mini-vial. I don't know what other matchups that start off slow enough for a Standstill to be amazing that don't have some way of operating under the standstill or just bashing through regardless.
What happened to the simple logic of:
1 of = tech card that can be tutored for or acts as a 5th card (ex path)
2 of = you like the card and would like to see it but not mandatory. You never really want to see two.
3 of = you want to see it but not multiples necessarily
4 of = you want the card every game and you want multiples
I remember learning something along these lines for card choices. Its bland and not very descriptive but it's a general guidline. Can we drop the whole standstill is a 4 or nothing card? Standstill has been bickered about for a long time and everything that has been said about it has been said. Instead of making a new silly argument about the same old card can we talk more about new stuff. Like the illusion dude.
Talking about standstill is not progressive or productive anymore.
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