Avacyn Restored Card Discussion [SIMMERING POT OF FECAL MATTER]

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I can't think of a single scenario where getting an additional turn would be bad. Temporal Mastery recycles itself, you get to drop another land, get another attack step, get additional counters on your planeswalker, get to drop equipment, equip it and attack with SFM. In the meantime, your opponent is twiddling fingers and lagging more and more behind.

There's absolutely no drawback to taking an additional turn. None. And chaining more than 1 of these will be ridiculous.

This card WILL get banned. Possibly in every relevant format, so better save your money.

I can't think of a single scenario where a 3/3 flyer is bad. Why haven't they banned Razor Hippogriff yet?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hint: Resources are finite and opportunity costs exist.

[Barook]

Another blue-based walker?

And I doubt that she'll be playable. 5 mana is too much, especially for so-so effects, even with a strong ultimate.

The only planeswalker that see actual play either

a) cost 3 mana (and Jace gets overshadowed by his brother JMS) or
b) cost 4 mana and have good abilities (e.g. JMS, Elspeth).

All other walkers are borderline playable at best.

Meanwhile, still waiting for a playable red walker. Is it really THAT hard to design a playable one?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Planeswalkers are stupid. I'd rather they focus the abilities closer together so that they resemble an actual card and not a shopping list of desired abilities, and avoid at all costs making a Planeswalker able to both protect itself and be a kill condition.

This makes it hard to make one playable in Legacy. Eh. Don't care. I'd rather they stop ruining Cube first. Besides, tighten up the concepts and it'd be easier to make the 2/3cc stuff. Liliana of the Veil was actually a pretty good example. Basically only good in Pox.

[bruizar]

I can't think of a single scenario where a 3/3 flyer is bad. Why haven't they banned Razor Hippogriff yet?

Read this response and had a wtf-moment, until i saw it was written by thesource's biggest troll.

Way to compare time walk with a flying war mammoth.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Read this response and had a wtf-moment, until i saw it was written by thesource's biggest troll.

Way to compare time walk with a flying war mammoth.

I know I hate comparisons too. Aaaargh they just make me so angry.

[bruizar]

Hint: Resources are finite and opportunity costs exist.

Please tell me what the opportunity cost of an extra turn is. Dont respond with 'you could have run threats instead', because by that logic people would be running 200 card decks in competitive magic, filled with threats.

Also, exactly how are you losing resources when you cast a time walk, other then smokestack scenarios? Resources are finite, yes. The last time i naturally decked myself in competitive , non-dredge magic must be 1997or something. That and cumulative upkeep are literally the only situations where your crappy logic applies. The millions of interactions that benefit from time walk surely outweigh your crappy rebuttal against time walk.

The storm mechanic, while storming, also doesnt really benefit from an extra turn. But even in storm based decks, having an extra turn is good because it allows you to set up. Miracle walk can only beplayed for its miracle cost when you draw it as the first card, this means you cast it and decide not to storm this turn but the next turn. The only time its bad is when you are drawing more than 1 card a turn and the first card isnt miracle walk. That said, you replied to someone that stated an extra turn has no downside, which is still true barring the above mentioned exceptions.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In an interesting note, one of my earliest memories of deckbuilding was when I tried to build a banding deck with Ornithopters and Woolly Mammoths and my brother and I got into a big argument over whether it could work and he complained that it was stupid to have elephants riding on ornithopters. Then we found out banding doesn't work that way, except now I guess it does or something.

This wasn't really relevant, but given your posting history I figured you would relate to that.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Please tell me what the opportunity cost of two extra turns is.

By itself? Nothing. As soon as they print a zero mana artifact that sacs to give you an extra turn, you should run four of them in every deck.

Dont respond with 'you could have run threats instead', because by that logic people would be running 200 card decks in competitive magic, filled with threats.

I would love you to try and diagram what you think this logical argument is that leads you to such conclusions.

Also, exactly how are you losing resources when you cast a time stretch, other then smokestack scenarios? Resources are finite, yes. The last time i naturally decked myself in competitive , non-dredge magic must be 1997or something. That and cumulative upkeep are literally the only situations where your crappy logic applies. The millions of interactions that benefit from time stretch surely outweigh your crappy rebuttal against time stretch

If you say something is crappy enough times maybe it will turn into an actual argument, and people will all say, "Wow, look at that bruizar, he sure is contributing actual arguments to the discussion."

PS I have subtly edited your post in my reply, see if you can spot the difference. Think of it as a game, although not like Magic or something you're terrible at.

[Hopo]

There's absolutely no drawback to taking an additional turn. None.

Of course not, but there are drawbacks in playing this particular card. You need to play basically uncastable cards that are only good when on top of your deck. You will take extra mulligans because of that. Also, the power of Time Walk comes from being able to use it when it actually matters and gives you benefit of breaking the symmetry, like when you're racing or looking for answers. You lose all that when you HAVE to cast it when you draw it, no matter if you have board position to take advantage of or not.

Miracle mechanic kind of explains why they eventually wanted to ban Mystical Tutor. Tutor would make these really unfair, unlike Brainstorm, which just makes them playable in general.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Hey bruizar I wrote this in the other thread, but since you're still saying silly things I thought maybe you hadn't read it. If there's any thing in there that confuses you I'll be happy to simplify it. I'm just trying to help the conversation along so you can maybe improve your understanding of the game a bit.

I mean I don't know what Time Walk does in Vintage, but do people play Cube? Because I don't think you'll find a lot of people who Cube regularly that will list Time Walk as a particularly strong first pick. I mean it's good, it's a fine card and if you can support blue reasonably you'll often run it, maybe even as your sole splash once in a while, but it's not worth bending over backwards for the way, say, a card like Ancestral Recall or Skullclamp is.

The important thing to remember about Time Walk is that it's only really good when you're able to do something else meaningful the turn you cast Time Walk. Otherwise it's just a free cycle. That turn when you're already committing two mana has to mean something else.

Now a free cycle isn't terrible. Time Walk makes up for the fact that it's not always amazing by always being, at worst, a wash, usually a free Explore at least. This is part of why it's so deservedly banned in Legacy, which I think much more resembles the power level of Cube than it does Vintage (the one oddity being the existence of combo, but in these archetypes Temporal Mastery seems quite bad for reasons already gone over.)

The problem, from the perspective of people complaining about how OP even a conditional Time Walk is, is that the conditional aspect of this card strips away the "always decent" aspect of the card. Because it requires some setup to be reasonably or reliably cast, Temporal Mastery will often be a dead card in your opening grip or your next two draws. That's 9 out of the maybe 11 cards you can rely on getting to see in an average Legacy game, and having one or more tossed aside just reduces your chances of living to see more. And for this risk you get a card that might do nothing still but be an Explore while you sit on no board or staring at an untapped army of blockers on the opponent's side.

So while Temporal Mastery seems to people to be a very cheap card, in effect I expect it to play more often, if it's to be powerful, as a more mid-rangey card and for that, no more powerful than, say, a lot of planeswalkers or equipment. Rather less, I imagine. Keep in mind that this effect sees absolutely no play in Legacy at five mana, and in fact Time Warp has barely ever even breached Standard play when it's been legal.

You also have the problem that whereas Time Walk lets you time it to best effect, when your opponent's pants are down, a naturally drawn Temporal Mastery has no such benefit.

In short, extra turns are useful but have a finite value. Perhaps for want of the mechanic showing up more often (for what it's worth, I thought I made a compelling argument that it should be a red mechanic during the GDSII, but God forbid Wizards take a shred of pie away from blue, even if it makes no sense flavor wise...), people are unfamiliar with what that value is, but given the conditions the card imposes I think there's scant reason for all the pants-shitting that seems to be going on atm. Perhaps anyone who's ever had a High Tide opponent tap out to cast and resolve a Meditate can verify this.

Or in shorter:

Sometimes Sinkhole or fuck, Shadow of Doubt is a two mana Time Walk. Doesn't mean those cards are busted or even good.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

First set in a while I'm considering buying a couple boxes of (missed out on Worldwake, kicked myself a bit). I'm seeing some Legacy playables (vexing devil, temporal mastery, crater hoof behemoth (in elves), demonic taskmaster begs for some black stompy strategies, griselbrand might be good enough for reanimator, sigarda is a fucking SICK GSZ target, etc).

Even the cards I'm not personally interested in seem like good "trade fodder fares" for the most part, and it seems like the set will have some impact on Standard (which I don't play so I'll just trade that shit). Anyone else think this set might be a pretty good investment in terms of gaining value?

[bruizar]

Of course not, but there are drawbacks in playing this particular card. You need to play basically uncastable cards that are only good when on top of your deck. You will take extra mulligans because of that. Also, the power of Time Walk comes from being able to use it when it actually matters and gives you benefit of breaking the symmetry, like when you're racing or looking for answers. You lose all that when you HAVE to cast it when you draw it, no matter if you have board position to take advantage of or not.

Miracle mechanic kind of explains why they eventually wanted to ban Mystical Tutor. Tutor would make these really unfair, unlike Brainstorm, which just makes them playable in general.

I'd suggest running a hypergeometric distribution to calculate the odds of drawing a miracle walk and having it in hour opening hand. That will reveal what the optimal number of miraclE walks is. Your argument about having to play it direcy when you draw it is pretty much silly. Early game it cycles, qbsolutely 0 loss heree (accelerste into a relevant board/land drops), later, it becomes randomly broken allowing you to do things like bounce 2 creatures With jace and attack for lethalz

[JDK]

Meanwhile, still waiting for a playable red walker. Is it really THAT hard to design a playable one?

Koth would like to have a word with you.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Koth is legit worse than 2/3 of the Chandras.

[264505]

First set in a while I'm considering buying a couple boxes of (missed out on Worldwake, kicked myself a bit). I'm seeing some Legacy playables (vexing devil, temporal mastery, crater hoof behemoth (in elves), demonic taskmaster begs for some black stompy strategies, griselbrand might be good enough for reanimator, sigarda is a fucking SICK GSZ target, etc).

Even the cards I'm not personally interested in seem like good "trade fodder fares" for the most part, and it seems like the set will have some impact on Standard (which I don't play so I'll just trade that shit). Anyone else think this set might be a pretty good investment in terms of gaining value?

They have yet to spoil the second walker in the set, so it potentially could be. The sets that tend to keep their value have either a really high % of money mythics (see New Phyrexia) or have a number of really playable rares and uncommons that you can open and trade.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Koth is legit worse than 2/3 of the Chandras.

In what? Cube? Koth is at least playable in Standard which is much more than anyone can say of any other red PW.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

In what? Cube? Koth is at least playable in Standard which is much more than anyone can say of any other red PW.

No, in Legacy. I mean I wouldn't play any of them really, but I guess it's a difference of speed. Koth is pretty much only good on offense, which is kind of a joke in Legacy because he costs four mana. The two cheaper Chandras aren't fantastic but would win you some games in mid-rangey decks with red due to their superior utility.

[Hopo]

I'd suggest running a hypergeometric distribution to calculate the odds of drawing a miracle walk and having it in hour opening hand. That will reveal what the optimal number of miraclE walks is. Your argument about having to play it direcy when you draw it is pretty much silly. Early game it cycles, qbsolutely 0 loss heree (accelerste into a relevant board/land drops), later, it becomes randomly broken allowing you to do things like bounce 2 creatures With jace and attack for lethalz

What's so silly about that? There's a huge difference in playing Time walk when you have 2 lands on board comparing to having a Batterskull or Jace on board. That's where real Time Walk shines. You can use it when you really need it. What I tried to say is that casting Time Walk as soon as you have the chance is usually (if ever) not optimal.
Also, regarding statistics, by the time you have 2 lands in play there's basically a 50% chance (49,85% to be precise) that you have already naturally drawn a copy if you play it as a 4-of. On the draw it's even higher. Of course, for example in blade control 4 is most likely a wrong number.

I'm sure some Jace-oriented control deck will find a way to play a few copies, but that's quite different to falling of the sky or ruining the format or something like that. There could even be Turbofogish deck emerging, but the format has so many tools to handle these kind of cards that it's not even funny.

[dontbiteitholmes]

No, in Legacy. I mean I wouldn't play any of them really, but I guess it's a difference of speed. Koth is pretty much only good on offense, which is kind of a joke in Legacy because he costs four mana. The two cheaper Chandras aren't fantastic but would win you some games in mid-rangey decks with red due to their superior utility.

I wouldn't be caught dead playing any red PW in Legacy, but at least Koth is good in one constructed format as opposed to zero.