<3Originally Posted by Koby
I shoulda thrown in the disclaimer that I did not think it was purely luck that I lost, it still stings to have to throw back otherwise decent hands...but I am a big boy and know how variance works and know better than to blame solely it for my losses. The mulligans sucked, but I definitely shouldn't have even been in that position-- if I didn't make the following misplay vs deathblade:
I have uncracked fetch, DRS in play... cabal therapy in hand with not much else but I had a clock on my opponent in the form of DRS (my other dudes died to a zealous), but I just got done using my abrupt decay so I couldn't feasibly deal with a jitte or similar hitting the board. I cast the therapy and blind named true name nemesis since it seemed like the one card I couldn't beat in that situation (the other option was stoneforge but I was willing to miss on that one).... then he revealed land land stoneforge (somewhat expected). So I went to crack my fetch to grab a dryad arbor to flash back my therapy and he's like IN RESPONSE TO FETCHING. I looked over and my head instantly hurt a bit...he definitely had a DRS of his own in play... he took out my therapy and proceeded to untap upkeep draw windmillslamstoneforge. SIGH.
The game went long, but he shoulda been staring at two lands for the foreseeable future instead of applying pressure with his second best creature...it was a close game and I fully accept that I messed that one up. If I just fetch before I cast cabal from my hand, things probably go much more differently. Live and learn, that is a mistake I WONT ever make again.
sorry for the sob story, but I had to know if anyone had progenitus magnets for fingers like I seem to. Glad to know it's not just me danyul.. even tho I wish it was neither of us.
edit: btw Julian, I didn't have ruric in vs DnT... my plan was +3 decay, +1 NO, +1 prog, +1 harmonic and -1 of a lot of duders and a hoof. The ruric thar+progenitus mulligan happened earlier in the event vs a RUG Delver player. Sad times.
Since it was asked, here is the generic "formula" of calculating the probability of a card in a deck:
variables: c = number of copies; h = hand size; d = deck size
P(card) = 1 - [(d-c)!(d-h)!] / [(d-c-h)!d!]
For h = 7 and d = 60:
P(c=1) = 0.1167
P(c=2) = 0.2215
P(c=3) = 0.3154
P(c=4) = 0.3995
...
62 cards seems even more tech than 61 to lower the percentages :P
Goldfishing is fun :P
T1: Misty->Bayou, DRS.
T2: Glimpse, Quirion, untap+return, Heritage. Nettle, Nettle, rest is history.
Some minutes later, DRS+Hoof swing. +26 pump, 16 cards left in deck XD
Fair aggro deck, totes.
And that's why I love to pilot the little green folk!
Meh, I was trying to sketch a somewhat realistic scenario. I thought wanting to slam a Bane on an artifact or enchantment infested field was too obvious a thing to mention. I could already envision the posts stating "That's all fine and dandy, but when does that ever happen?", lol.
I'm wondering though - if, given that board state, you were to draw a NO rather than a GSZ, would you still opt to go Shaman over Bane? Assuming we don't have a Wirewood Symbiote on the battlefield :).
And same question, only difference is our opponent having a Batterskull in play together with the Jitte? Again we draw the NO and don't have the Symbiote on the battlefield (it got killed rather brutally somewhere along the way).
Oh and yes, I'm definetely drawn to the Danger of Cool Things :D. If I had a middle name, it'd be Timmy!
Optimizing for the 5% scenario instead of the 95%. The slot that would go to Bane would be better than Bane in 95% of the cases, basically no matter what you replace.
It isn't specifically the 5% scenario. I'm trying to identify the line on where a card might become playable/preferable over others rather then considering a card outright unplayable. After that line's found, you can determine whether it's a 5%, a 10% or a whatever % scenario. Wirewood Symbiote getting killed/countered or otherwise molested on the spot is a 95% scenario, yet still we keep playing the silly buggers for the 5% where they're allowed to stay on the field.
I mean, we might come to the conclusion that the line is at an opponent having 2 artifacts/enchantments in play, or each time your opponent has an enchantment on the field (for those not running Pridemage/Sliver), or in every occasion that an opponent has acces to Spellskite-shenanigans, or only when an opponent has 3/4 or even 5+ artifacts/enchantments on the battlefield, I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out and that's why I'm asking for your input. I'm trying to find out where said line lies and whether that makes it worth the slot or not
In the first scenario, the difference is so subtle that it doesn't really matter. They both kill the thing. You are just asking if I would like a 3/3 vs a 2/2. In the second scenario, I'm under less pressure (compared to a Jitte) to block the equipped creature so I might just take a few Batterskull hits and see if I can draw into better options before pulling the trigger on NO. Also, if they are smart they will leave 3 mana up, making it even harder to hit their equipment.
The line is less about what is in play (since we cannot predict that) and more about what my opponent's deck is trying to do as a whole. And with that said, the "line" is less a line and more of a blurry spectrum. I can't give you a specific boardstate in which Bane is preferable. I can only emphasize that Bane should drastically turn the game in your favor. You are using a lot of resources to get it into play and outside of its super-disenchant effect it isn't usually going to affect the board the way a Hoof would. If all a Bane does is negate a Jitte then I wouldn't bring it in because we have plenty of ways to stall a Jitte. But if Bane severely hampers my opponent's board (think MUD, Affinity, Enchantress, Tezzerator) then sure, I would bring it in.It isn't specifically the 5% scenario. I'm trying to identify the line on where a card might become playable/preferable over others rather then considering a card outright unplayable. After that line's found, you can determine whether it's a 5%, a 10% or a whatever % scenario. Wirewood Symbiote getting killed/countered or otherwise molested on the spot is a 95% scenario, yet still we keep playing the silly buggers for the 5% where they're allowed to stay on the field
I mean, we might come to the conclusion that the line is at an opponent having 2 artifacts/enchantments in play, or each time your opponent has an enchantment on the field (for those not running Pridemage/Sliver), or in every occasion that an opponent has acces to Spellskite-shenanigans, or only when an opponent has 3/4 or even 5+ artifacts/enchantments on the battlefield, I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out and that's why I'm asking for your input. I'm trying to find out where said line lies and whether that makes it worth the slot or not
I might sound like I am poopooing your Bane-love and in some ways I am. But know that I am also actively looking for opportunities to play it. I am just leaving it out of my 75 until one of those opportunities presents itself.
Elves Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2EVsdw2
Hate to say it, but Bane is really only a thing when facing Affinity or Enchantress. Now since this is not Modern I do not expect to see the first and I really could care less about the second.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
The complete disregard of opportunity costs when discussing niche cards like Bane is really getting out of hand.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
It's fine, I enjoy the discussion it brings up and the effort you put into making your case
Even though the affinity/enchantress bit might be thought of as common knowledge and therefor seem too obvious to mention it's never a bad thing to regurgitate the common knowledge every now and again, making sure we're all on the same page on what that common knowledge should be and whether that knowledge is still relevant. For all we know, we might start hearing people say "Yeah, well, I just faced 3 enchantress decks the other day" and the next person piles on "Oh, yeah, me to. I lost those matches. How did you fare?". If working in software development has taught me anything, it's that the assumption everyone is aware of the common knowledge is a dangerous one. As is the assumption that the parts of that knowledge that matter never change.
That being said...
Enlighten us then
The point of having any discussion, especially for higly competitive decks like this, is to find that one little needle that'll improve the deck in the haystack that is called our cardpool/meta. You can expect to pick up a straw rather then the needle in 99 out of 100 attempts, but not making the effort to examine the thing you picked up will only hurt your needle-finding in the end.
I kinda stepped away from the last part of the thread.
I've played elves for the past 2 years (almost) now.
Im a firm believer that Julian's list (it's about as close to mine as it can be) is the most stable version with answers to most(if not all) decks.
I can't justify Bane. I just dont see it. MD and SB slots are so valuable, i wouldn't dilute my deck with something that could see potential use when we have elves that do all of those things.
Opportunity cost means that it's of no inherent value discussing the benefits of a certain cards without also clearly stating which matchups you want to improve with it and most importantly why + why you will be willing to accept the loss of other valueable sideboard cards and which one exactly. There are literally dozens of very good sideboard cards and a case can be made for everyone of them. Ichneumon Druid for example is pretty good against Solidarity.
Therefore, if you think Bane is worth it, the best thing to do would be to provide a sideboard + mention your maindeck configuration. And after that you need to convince people that it's worth including a very niche card in the deck over something that is that much better (EV-wise) like Viridian Shaman.
So stay in your metaphor: we're not looking for a needle in a haystack. We've got plenty of those but can't use all of them.
Last edited by Julian23; 12-19-2013 at 03:42 PM.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
Hello everyone,
I apologies if this was already discussed in this very dense thread, but what about a blue splash? Did somebody try that before? By blue splash I mean to have access to Envelop post side board, which is a quite good card against our bad match-ups and the mirror match. Along the line of inserting blue cards in the deck, what about Gitaxian Probe? I know that the card can lead to keep bad hands because it hides information, however it looks quite good in a combo deck which has access to cabal therapy post side board.
TW
The problem with playing counters is that it is too reactive. Elves is a deck that wants to tap out every turn (especially when racing against other combo decks). Discard allows you to disrupt their game-plan without potentially dazing yourself each turn. Cabal therapy is a common sb card due to it's flashback synergy. Gitaxian probe is used in storm variants as pseudo protection against FoW and to generate a free storm count. This deck is more resilient against counters due to its aggro plan and card draw. Moreover, the extra storm count generated is irrelevant and might even be a liability against random people bringing in MbT. The loss of 2 life also worsens the tempo match-up, potentially going from even to slightly unfavorable.
Fair enough
Okay, let's go with your own BoM list (including it's sideboard), since it's considered a perfectly good list (and, more importantly, it's accessible to anyone).
Your article over on SCG tells us your sideboard was this:
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pithing Needle
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Progenitus
1 Natural Order
Since Elves is becoming more popular at the moment, the match-up I'd be most interested in improving is the UW(r) Miracles MU. To fight that deck, you bring in the Abrupt Decays, the Peedles and the NO-Pro package. I'd say you could trade one of the Cabal Therapies for a Bane of Progress, this would give you a second out next to your Progenitus. Examining a couple of UW Miracles decks on SCG I found one even playing RiP + Energy Field. Also, the Miracles lists that uses a red splash seems to play Bloodmoon in the sideboard. At this point we could simply trade a Cabal Therapy for a fourth Abrupt Decay since the Miracle deck is running too many targets for 2 Thoughtseize and 3 Abrupt Decay to handle, but when using a Bane of Progress we essentially turn our 4 Natural Orders (we board the fourth one in for this MU anyway) into potential (albeit expensive and a bit more difficult to land) Abrupt Decays that could take care of multiple Abrupt Decay-targets in one fell swoop. The most pressing reason not NO-ing for Progenitus every single time you're able to, is Terminus. The first time you NO, you can be sure of it your opponent has a Terminus on the top of his/her library, ready to ship your Progenitus back into your deck. A Progenitus getting Terminus'd doesn't net you anything whilst Terminus-ing a Bane of Progress will most likely already have cost them one or more artifacts/enchantments and putting it back in your library will mean they'll be losing a number of cards again in the future as well. This way you also get to use 4 (they board in their fourth Terminus for this MU, obviously) of their own cards against them. So... my reason to want to include a Bane in the sideboard is that it manages to turn 4 of your own cards into much needed removal and also manages to use 4 of your opponent's cards against them.
With that being said, I understand that cutting a Therapy hurts other MU's (Storm/Sneak & Show/Omni-tell/Reanimator) a bit, but I don't think that one Therapy can make that much of an impact on those decks. Against Storm, the Mindbreak Traps are the biggest hitters, against Sneak & Show it's Peedle (and incidentally, when they Show a Sneak, you could Show the Bane that would have been that Cabal Therapy), against Omni-tell Bane actually becomes pretty big if you again manage to Show it onto the battlefield when you'd have that specific Cabal Therapy in hand (especially if you run a Fierce Empath over the fourth Elvish Visionary - you could NO/GSZ/Empath it into your hand, meaning you virtually run 10 Banes to stop whatever they Show into play, probably incidentally also improving that particular MU) which just leaves us down a bit on Reanimator, which isn't played all that much nowadays.
So there's the opportunity-cost bit. If you don't mind, I'll skip over the bit about decks playing bigger numbers of artifacts (D&T, Affinity & Painted Servant mostly) where you could run a Shaman in conjunction with a Bane for some tailor-made havoc/overkill.
Also:
I know, I just like to expand my needle collection. Though somehow I only manage to find those in a haystack
If Progenitus isn't solid enough and you want something with more value against some nasty permanents i would run Woodfall Primus or Terastodon over any Bane of Progress Stuff. Primus also survives Liliana-Edict or Supreme Verdict-Sweepers and Trample is a good keyword to overrun any TNN or small utility creatures.
TEAM MtG Berlin
But the Primus will quite often do the same job as an Abrupt Decay and for the trample-bit you've got your Craterhoof. Also, the decks playing Liliana are often pretty good MU's anyway (Shardless BUG & Jund), leaving just Supreme Verdict, which is often only played as 1-off (or 2-off after SB).
I just want to address the bolded items.Fair enough
Okay, let's go with your own BoM list (including it's sideboard), since it's considered a perfectly good list (and, more importantly, it's accessible to anyone).
Your article over on SCG tells us your sideboard was this:
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pithing Needle
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Progenitus
1 Natural Order
Since Elves is becoming more popular at the moment, the match-up I'd be most interested in improving is the UW(r) Miracles MU. To fight that deck, you bring in the Abrupt Decays, the Peedles and the NO-Pro package. I'd say you could trade one of the Cabal Therapies for a Bane of Progress, this would give you a second out next to your Progenitus. Examining a couple of UW Miracles decks on SCG I found one even playing RiP + Energy Field. Also, the Miracles lists that uses a red splash seems to play Bloodmoon in the sideboard. At this point we could simply trade a Cabal Therapy for a fourth Abrupt Decay since the Miracle deck is running too many targets for 2 Thoughtseize and 3 Abrupt Decay to handle, but when using a Bane of Progress we essentially turn our 4 Natural Orders (we board the fourth one in for this MU anyway) into potential (albeit expensive and a bit more difficult to land) Abrupt Decays that could take care of multiple Abrupt Decay-targets in one fell swoop. The most pressing reason not NO-ing for Progenitus every single time you're able to, is Terminus. The first time you NO, you can be sure of it your opponent has a Terminus on the top of his/her library, ready to ship your Progenitus back into your deck. A Progenitus getting Terminus'd doesn't net you anything whilst Terminus-ing a Bane of Progress will most likely already have cost them one or more artifacts/enchantments and putting it back in your library will mean they'll be losing a number of cards again in the future as well. This way you also get to use 4 (they board in their fourth Terminus for this MU, obviously) of their own cards against them. So... my reason to want to include a Bane in the sideboard is that it manages to turn 4 of your own cards into much needed removal and also manages to use 4 of your opponent's cards against them.
With that being said, I understand that cutting a Therapy hurts other MU's (Storm/Sneak & Show/Omni-tell/Reanimator) a bit, but I don't think that one Therapy can make that much of an impact on those decks. Against Storm, the Mindbreak Traps are the biggest hitters, against Sneak & Show it's Peedle (and incidentally, when they Show a Sneak, you could Show the Bane that would have been that Cabal Therapy), against Omni-tell Bane actually becomes pretty big if you again manage to Show it onto the battlefield when you'd have that specific Cabal Therapy in hand (especially if you run a Fierce Empath over the fourth Elvish Visionary - you could NO/GSZ/Empath it into your hand, meaning you virtually run 10 Banes to stop whatever they Show into play, probably incidentally also improving that particular MU) which just leaves us down a bit on Reanimator, which isn't played all that much nowadays.
Enchantments in UWr Miracles: The problem with trying to game UWr Miracles with a card like Bane is that there is a lot of leeway in that particular deck's construction. Some splash red, some don't. Some play RiP maindeck for value, some play RiP with cards like Energy Field and Helm of Obedience to be a more involved combo card, and the rest SB the card. Some that splash red have Blood Moon, some just use it for Pyroclasm and REB. Playing a mediocre NO target to kill at most three enchantments and very possibly only one enchantment doesn't strike me as a good idea. Unless you have very specific insight on what Miracles players in your meta play, I don't believe that Bane will do that much work against a Miracles player that may or may not be packing lots of enchantments. I suggest a Krosan Grip or two instead because that card hits more things that spells doom for Elves (i.e. Moat, Humility).
Omnitell and Reanimator: Unless your meta has a significant population of Omnitell, don't worry about the deck. I got all hot and bothered when this deck came out, but I think it's success has been short-lived. It was the reason I actually played Harmonic Sliver instead of Qasali Pridemage at GP:DC, but I realized after the GP how silly my line of thinking was and have since switched back to Pridemage. I'd actually reckon Reanimator saw more play and probably did better at the GP than Omnitell did, but I don't have proof of that.
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