[OLD] UGr Threshold

[The Marco]

Anyone tested Book Burning? I know it does not cantrip, but it gives you Threshold with a single card or your opponent takes 6 damages. It's probably not that good but if anyone tested it I'd be interested to know if they liked it!

[quicksilver]

Anyone tested Book Burning? I know it does not cantrip, but it gives you Threshold with a single card or your opponent takes 6 damages. It's probably not that good but if anyone tested it I'd be interested to know if they liked it!

oh my God, I can't belive I have never thought of book burning before. So unless they have Book Burning, you do 6 damage to them. Then you also get instant threshold. Also if you are trying to deck them to win, omg, better than breaking your own standstill! And you can be like "Do you have Book Burning?" and they are all like "what?", and you say "Do you have Book Burning?" and they don't obviously so they take 6 and you get threshold.

[/sarcasm]

Reminds me of the time way back when, when an opponent played a thrid turn Barbarian Bully. He then discarded 5 cards at random to it and said "You don't have Barbarian Bully so you take 4 damage 5 times and you die". He also didn't notice the once per turn clause. It's funny how those cards, if you inserted some punctuation in just the right place, could become rather broken. Barbarian Bully would be insane if it said:
"Discard a card at random from your hand: Barbarian Bully gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Unless a player has Barbarian Bully, deal 4 damage to him or her"


Ok, no book burning is an aweful terrible card. The deck doesn't need to get threshold that bad that it will just throw away a card to do so (and two mana sorcery that uses an off color too).

[The Marco]

oh my God, I can't belive I have never thought of book burning before. So unless they have Book Burning, you do 6 damage to them. Then you also get instant threshold. Also if you are trying to deck them to win, omg, better than breaking your own standstill! And you can be like "Do you have Book Burning?" and they are all like "what?", and you say "Do you have Book Burning?" and they don't obviously so they take 6 and you get threshold.

[/sarcasm]

Reminds me of the time way back when, when an opponent played a thrid turn Barbarian Bully. He then discarded 5 cards at random to it and said "You don't have Barbarian Bully so you take 4 damage 5 times and you die". He also didn't notice the once per turn clause. It's funny how those cards, if you inserted some punctuation in just the right place, could become rather broken. Barbarian Bully would be insane if it said:
"Discard a card at random from your hand: Barbarian Bully gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Unless a player has Barbarian Bully, deal 4 damage to him or her"


Ok, no book burning is an aweful terrible card. The deck doesn't need to get threshold that bad that it will just throw away a card to do so (and two mana sorcery that uses an off color too).

Any actual testing with the card?

[quicksilver]

Any actual testing with the card?

No, it's just a really bad card. I would probably test mountain goat before I tested book burning.

[The Marco]

No, it's just a really bad card. I would probably test mountain goat before I tested book burning.

Right... I'm sure you would

[Firebrothers]

i tested with it before and i figures that mental note was strickly better, book burning does give you thresh in one turn but is often an overcommitment in your first few turns because it is a sorcery, if it was an instant it may be viable imo but for now i think thresh is fine without it

Proper use of capitalization and punctuation is required on these boards. Please use them. - Zilla

[The Marco]

i tested with it before and i figures that mental note was strickly better, book burning does give you thresh in one turn but is often an overcommitment in your first few turns because it is a sorcery, if it was an instant it may be viable imo but for now i think thresh is fine without it

Thanks man, that is the kind of intelligent comment backed by experience that is was looking for. I'm just trying to shake things up a little!

[AnwarA101]

No, it's just a really bad card. I would probably test mountain goat before I tested book burning.

Well isn't that a bit harsh. I think he meant to say that Book Burning doesn't do much to develop your early game. You might do 6 points of damage to your opponent, but that really won't matter against an aggro deck that is killing you right now. The real problem is that Book Burning doesn't replace itself like Mental Note and just like Mental Note it gives you no card selection. Though I really think that Mental Note is a misassignment role as well. This deck plays its early turns as a control deck and builds threshold while finding relevant spells for the current matchup. If you build threshold naturally (ie via good cantrips) you have a better hand and better control over what cards end up in your hand. If you do this threshold becomes an afterthought and not the main reason for a specific card like Mental Note or Book Burning.

[noobslayer]

I share Anwar's sentiments. While yes, having thresh quick in some match-ups can be an advantage, I think overall card quality provided by more powerful spells like Predict will you see safely through more games.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

I also have to agree with Anwar... you don't want to focus on JUST getting theshold. That's when you start to run into problems and you begin making play mistakes just because you want seven cards in your graveyard. With overall smooth play and early well played cantrips, threshold will indeed come easier than you may think. Don't over extend with cards such as Book Burning, they are actually not as useful as they may appear to be.

[The Marco]

Good point Anwar,

Like I said, the card is probably not that great, but at the very least can be discussed (hopefully in a mature and polite way).

Just to stir things up a little any of you tested Strategic Planning.
I'm currently testing it in the draw 13 and 14 spot, with surprising results!
I'm pretty sure that card is better than Mountain Goat...

Any thoughts or actual testing of the card.

[Lego]

Just to stir things up a little any of you tested Strategic Planning.

Any thoughts or actual testing of the card.

I tested it for a little bit back when they first announced that Portal would be legal. It has two major drawbacks in my opinion:

1) It costs two
2) It's a sorcery

If a cantrip costs two in this deck, it better be drawing you more than one, or doing something else significant (which this arguably does, by adding to Threshold.) The big problem is that it's a sorcery, which is a rather large deal. For one less mana you get Mental Note at instant speed, which adds exactly as many cards to your graveyard and nets you exactly as many cards. After only a small amount of testing I decided that paying one more and attaching the drawback of Sorcery speed was not worth the one-time Sensei's Divining Top effect.

[AnwarA101]

I tested it for a little bit back when they first announced that Portal would be legal. It has two major drawbacks in my opinion:

1) It costs two
2) It's a sorcery

If a cantrip costs two in this deck, it better be drawing you more than one, or doing something else significant (which this arguably does, by adding to Threshold.) The big problem is that it's a sorcery, which is a rather large deal. For one less mana you get Mental Note at instant speed, which adds exactly as many cards to your graveyard and nets you exactly as many cards. After only a small amount of testing I decided that paying one more and attaching the drawback of Sorcery speed was not worth the one-time Sensei's Divining Top effect.

Yes Strategic Planning does cost 2 and that is a big drawback to the card, but I still think its better than Mental Note. At least Strategic Planning allows both card selection as well as building threshold. Mental Note provides no card selection at all. Strategic Planning should be more likely compared to Predict which puts 2 cards in the yard and with setup can draw you 2 cards as well. Strategic Planning puts 3 in the yard, but only 1 in your hand. I haven't tested with Strategic Planning, but I would be more inclined to test it rather than Mental Note.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Althought Strategic Planning is a sorcery, it obviousely does allow for better card selection than Mental Note, which provides none. I believe that it is purely a judgement call in the sense that you need to determine which you would rather have, an EOT 1cc cantrip that tosses two into the graveyard, or a 2cc sorcery that lets you dig through three cards, BUT leave you susceptible while tapping out on turn two unless you have Daze or FOW. I haven't been a fan of sorcerys in the deck with the exception of Serum Visions, but then again, I don't play this deck. It just seems like a turn 2 sorcery could have too many drawbacks.

[Sea R Hill]

Strategic planning sucks.

Why?

Because it is 2cc. You can't afford that in a ******** deck. Mental Note is quicker.

You still have brainstorm to choose cards. And if you have 2 mana during your turn play brainstorm then Mental Note and get rid of 2 dead cards (often lands...).

[Bryant Cook]

Strategic planning sucks.

Why?

Because it is 2cc. You can't afford that in a ******** deck. Mental Note is quicker.

You still have brainstorm to choose cards. And if you have 2 mana during your turn play brainstorm then Mental Note and get rid of 2 dead cards (often lands...).

You're often looking for lands when you cast cantrips. Mental note mills them away, hense why it doesn't belong. Just play predict and be good players.

[iOWN]

You're often looking for lands when you cast cantrips. Mental note mills them away, hense why it doesn't belong. Just play predict and be good players.

In order to not mill lands away with Predict (even though players often Predict them) you have to first use Visions/Brainstorm to stack first, right? So in the same situation, you can Brainstorm, put back two cards you don't want, and then Mental Note. Predict holds nothing above Mental Note.

Mental Note - One Mana - 0 Card Advantage - +3 Thresh - Instant
Predict - Two Mana - 0 to +1 Card Advantage - +2 Thresh - Instant

It really isn't that different.

I actually run both in the same deck sometimes. (4 Brainstorm, 4 Visions, 4 Note, 2 Predict.)

As far as cantrips go, I've been considering even Opt. It doesn't do much in the way of Threshold, but it provides choice at instant speed (a tad bit less than Serum Visions, but instant speed nonetheless).

[Bryant Cook]

In order to not mill lands away with Predict (even though players often Predict them) you have to first use Visions/Brainstorm to stack first, right? So in the same situation, you can Brainstorm, put back two cards you don't want, and then Mental Note. Predict holds nothing above Mental Note.

Mental Note - One Mana - 0 Card Advantage - +3 Thresh - Instant
Predict - Two Mana - 0 to +1 Card Advantage - +2 Thresh - Instant

It really isn't that different.

I actually run both in the same deck sometimes. (4 Brainstorm, 4 Visions, 4 Note, 2 Predict.)

As far as cantrips go, I've been considering even Opt. It doesn't do much in the way of Threshold, but it provides choice at instant speed (a tad bit less than Serum Visions, but instant speed nonetheless).

Sorry, but cards in hand>cards in graveyard. Card quality is everything, and mental note doesn't help the least bit. It's random, and it'll never change, unless you're playing portent with it. Then you'll have to cast mental note the same turn to draw that 1 card you wanted. Then you'll get a random card off of portent. The fact of the matter is mental note doesn't belong here.

[iOWN]

Sorry, but cards in hand>cards in graveyard. Card quality is everything, and mental note doesn't help the least bit. It's random, and it'll never change, unless you're playing portent with it. Then you'll have to cast mental note the same turn to draw that 1 card you wanted. Then you'll get a random card off of portent. The fact of the matter is mental note doesn't belong here.

Predict is just as random as Mental Note is. In order to have it be any better (in fact, it's worse without it) you have to have stacked the deck. Well, if you stacked the deck, you can Mental Note away the cards you don't want and draw one. At instant speed for one mana.

Like it says in the original post, Gro was an archetype based off of the idea that control can function on a low land count if it uses cantrips and free counters. Any cantrips casting two are pretty much situational, since the deck wants to run without needing lands.

Predict eats up your mana. With a casting cost of two, you're going to need at least have three lands out anyways before you can even make full use of it. The difference with Mental Note is that it can be cast any time during the game, quickly gets Thresh, and will still leave you open mana. Predict interferes with playing any win conditions, and takes another cantrip to stack before use. I'd say I would rather see a Note most of the time.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Predict is just as random as Mental Note is. In order to have it be any better (in fact, it's worse without it) you have to have stacked the deck. Well, if you stacked the deck, you can Mental Note away the cards you don't want and draw one. At instant speed for one mana.

What's important is that Predict is much better with setup, because drawing 2 cards is better than drawing 1. Without setup, Predict might be worse, but the number of times you actually have to cast a blind Predict is very low.

Like it says in the original post, Gro was an archetype based off of the idea that control can function on a low land count if it uses cantrips and free counters. Any cantrips casting two are pretty much situational, since the deck wants to run without needing lands.

Predict eats up your mana. With a casting cost of two, you're going to need at least have three lands out anyways before you can even make full use of it.

Since it costs two, you only need two lands to play it. Gro really wants to make the second-turn land drop, anyway, so that isn't an issue.

The difference with Mental Note is that it can be cast any time during the game, quickly gets Thresh, and will still leave you open mana. Predict interferes with playing any win conditions, and takes another cantrip to stack before use. I'd say I would rather see a Note most of the time.

The difference with Predict is that it is actually decent throughout the game, instead of being better than marginal only in the first few turns. It's also pretty absurd to claim that a 2cc instant "interferes with playing any win conditions," and I can say from experience that I would hardly ever rather see Mental Note than Predict (or Brainstorm, Portent, or Serum Visions, for that matter).