Um, obviously tempo loss happens.... In that statement, I was arguing that the tempo loss is not as severe as people think. Unless they play Man-o-War, they are still "skipping their turn" just to deal with it. This is something I don't think most people are considering when theory-testing the werewolves.
you're equating using removal to skipping a turn and that just isn't the same thing at all. if that were true, no one would play removal. skipping your turn and getting nothing out of is is very bad. using your turn (or part of your turn, a lot of removal is pretty cheap) to destroy an opponent's threat is actually pretty good. in fact, i've built plenty of decks that happily play removal on the opponent's creatures multiple turns in a row. aggro, control, and midrange all will play cheap removal and will be especially happy to play it if it means they get a time walk out of it. removal against a werewolf is great because it negates the turn they skipped and the mana they spent on it in the first place.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Well, you can play turn one Patrol and then, on turn two, pay echo, play a land and play another one drop. If your aggro deck is built with an optimal amount of 1-drops, that shouldn't be a problem. That's how you "play around" the echo drawback.
If you have 5 one drop permanents in your deck -- well above average -- the probability you have more than one in your first 8 cards is approximately .25. Seems like a problem.
Quote from calibretto »
I think you're missing the definition of "strictly better". A red 2/1 for R with no echo would be "strictly better". A red 3/2 for R with no drawback would be "strictly better". Waif may sometimes be better than a Goblin Patrol, but there is the possibility that it might spend a significant amount of time as a 1/1, which keeps it from being "strictly better".
Are you trying to be obtuse?
Quote from takiguy »
If they miss their 1 drop, it's strictly better than Goblin Patrol.
You're right, it's not strictly better... 'Strictly better' is commonly thrown around to exaggerate a card that is not in fact 'strictly better,' but only 'essentially better' in some sense. If they miss their one drop, Reckless Waif is 'essentially better' in a very strong sense.
Quote from calibretto »
So far Waif is the only werewolf I've seen in the cube. I drew it late and it flipped on my opponent's turn. The problem, however, was it played like any other aggressive creature. Even a 3/2 for one mana isn't that useful against an average late game board state.
Aggressive creatures have this intrinsic drawback. Reckless Waif is being compared against other aggressive creatures.
@wtwlf123
Quote from wtwlf123 »
And even when there was a flipped Mayor in play, it was far from "game over". His back side still dies to almost every removal spell in the cube.
I don't understand...it is bitterblossom that shoots out 3/3 beasts with no life loss (but no flying). Obviously they can just remove it, but it's a 2 drop. What more are you wanting?
Quote from wtwlf123 »
The only time it got to flip right away was T1 on the play against control, and even then it was killed off just like any other creature would've.
Except the fact that it bashed for 3 and was such a big threat quickly?
Quote from wtwlf123 »
If your playgroup struggles to build decks that curve out, werewolves are probably right up your alley.
Obvious insult is obvious.
Sorry for going against wtwlf123. I know it's a sacred sin on the cube forums, but some of the werewolves have been really good. If you don't want to try them/just want to listen to wtwlf's opinion, feel free. Going back to lurking and just posting on my cube thread.
If you have 5 one drop permanents in your deck -- well above average -- the probability you have more than one in your first 8 cards is approximately .25. Seems like a problem.
Are you trying to be obtuse?
You're right, it's not strictly better... 'Strictly better' is commonly thrown around to exaggerate a card that is not in fact 'strictly better,' but only 'essentially better' in some sense. If they miss their one drop, Reckless Waif is 'essentially better' in a very strong sense.
Aggressive creatures have this intrinsic drawback. Reckless Waif is being compared against other aggressive creatures.
@wtwlf123
I don't understand...it is bitterblossom that shoots out 3/3 beasts with no life loss (but no flying). Obviously they can just remove it, but it's a 2 drop. What more are you wanting?
Except the fact that it bashed for 3 and was such a big threat quickly?
Obvious insult is obvious.
Sorry for going against wtwlf123. I know it's a sacred sin on the cube forums, but some of the werewolves have been really good. If you don't want to try them/just want to listen to wtwlf's opinion, feel free. Going back to lurking and just posting on my cube thread.
Never feel sorry about stating your opinion. And noone is sacred inhere.
Seeing all this discussion of the werewolves and curving out made me curious about the actual numbers.
Let's say curving out means hitting a 1-drop, 2-drop, then a 3-drop (and the lands to cast them), but that all lands make all the colors and always come into play untapped and that you're always on the draw (since that only helps). Let's also assume there are 6 "dead" cards in your deck - cards that can't help you curve out (like 4+ drops or counterspells or cards that you don't want to play on curve like Pithing Needle); I think it's incredibly rare that there's a deck that's faster than this and even if there were it wouldn't do very well because having drops at 4 or more is important even to aggro. Then no matter the configuration of your deck you have at most a 40% chance of curving out (but this maximum is approached by a number of deck configurations like 7-7-6 seven one-drops, seven two-drops, six three-drops). The thing is, these numbers are nuts - very, very few decks run this many one-drops that are true one-drops and so on and there are a fair number of decks with more reactive spells. If you reduce the number of dead cards to 0, the odds of curving out go up to around 58%.
It's also worth noting that you can also flip your werewolves, not because you want to skip your turn, but because you can't curve out. On the play, the curve out numbers go down further, but the odds that both players curve out is at most ~15% (and this assumes both players were on the play).
The myth of the double 1-drop hand is also fairy pervasive - the odds of hitting double 1-drop is ~25% on the play with 5 1-drops in your deck, whereas the odds of going 1-drop, 1-drop or 2-drop (with 5 1-drops and 5 2-drops) are just shy of 50%. That's a substantial penalty for having to pay echo, ignoring the fact that two-drops are generally better than 1-drops (and more prevelent).
Since this is all straight theory, I went to the "Post the deck you played in the last cube draft" thread and picked out the decks from the last few pages that people said did very well. In the format of (1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop): percent of curving out on the draw, they were:
These decks included ones from people posting in this thread, so I'm hopeful they're representative. For couting costs, I'm counting basically anything at that cost, though Noxious Revival or Pithing Needle or Vines of Vastwood probably shouldn't count.
Note that these values are different than the "desperate werewolf stopping" values (the chance of playing anything on the first three turns). The chance of those decks making any drop for three straight turns on the draw are:
Lastly, if we compute average amount of Reckless Waif damage over the course of these three swings (with a goblin patrol or jackal pup doing 6) we get (assuming desperate werewolf stopping)
If we look at these decks from the perspective of someone reasonable (so discounting spells that you wouldn't want to cast at that point like vines of vastwood or pithing needle or often even tutors or cards that would kill almost all the 1 or 2 drops anyway like lightning bolt or doom blade), the numbers look much better, since in particular the number of 1-drops goes down substantially. Under these values we get:
I'm not entirely sure what the upshot of all of this is, but I think it's safe to guess that a turn 1 Reckless Waif will deal very comparable damage to that of a goblin patrol even against very good decks (and often more), without the echo cost. Note that the decks I selected all happened to be fairly aggressive and are close to a worst-case scenario - the Waif would do much more damage against blue control-type decks for example. So it looks like the Waif is close to (within 1 damage either way) of Goblin Patrol damage against aggressive decks and much better against control decks (like the 2/5/8 not counting counterspells in the deck thread would take an expected 8 damage, so over 40% more than the patrol) all without echo. It does have higher variance though, so it's not a strict upgrade by any means.
I think the point of this exercise is that no matter how good a deck builder you are, the laws of probability catch up to you - werewolves will flip against you and, if you're spending your turn casting spells, it's easy for your opponent to pass a turn where they have nothing or equip a sword or activate a man-land or wait to cast an instant removal or a million other things and use that time to flip their own werewolf.
Anecdotally, I've had a fair amount of luck with the werewolves - Mayor, Waif, and the Ranger have all been very, very good for me. Instigator Gang hasn't come up at all, but the Shepherd and the Outlaws were awful. Mayor has been far and away the best - I think sometimes we forget that he's just a 2-drop; that's pretty awesome for a must-kill threat, but I can understand if other people haven't had as much luck. Waif has been fine and my experiences have been in-line with the estimations above - some flips against aggro on turn 2 or 3 and easy flips against control though it dies like any 1-drop (though if they edict your Waif after you hit for 3 that's pretty awesome for you).
Wtwlf, I have a huge amount of respect for your cube and your views on the subject, but I don't think there's any reason to go after Taki personally for espousing a viewpoint you disagree with; that doesn't seem like a great way to promote discussion. I'd love to see the decks you tested the werewolves in and against (and I'll try and share a deck where they were good if I can dredge up one of the lists); it might provide some insight into what our groups are doing differently that's causing us to evaluate them in such different ways.
The idea of a cube deck that "consistently" curves out is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. You need 7 one drops before you even get a 50% chance of getting more than one in your opening hand. That and the "dies to removal" argument are two of the worst misconceptions that cube builders seem to buy into in my mind.
LegendaryFerrett, I must say that you are quickly becoming one of my favorite posters here. This + the Geist post are really solid posts and ones that are a great addition to this forum.
(FWIW, I've been lately trying out Mayor of Avabruck, Waif and Instigator Gang in my cube. Gang is competing in my cube with Moltensteel Dragon and Moltensteel is winning that fight, but the 4-drop slot is very competitive in red. The addition of the former 2 are pretty new so I've not much data on them.)
LegendaryFerrett, I must say that you are quickly becoming one of my favorite posters here. This + the Geist post are really solid posts and ones that are a great addition to this forum.
Seriously. Just excellent posts. I am very impressed with the consistent quality. Please keep it up, they are very thorough and well thought out.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
We've been very happy with Mayor, FWIW. I was thinking about trying Reckless Waif but was uncertain about how good it was. It's pretty well poised though, red can always use more quality one and two drops.
I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned it, but I'm pretty sure Werewolves are a lot better in a winston /winchester format, since decks will be less consistent, and so are more likely to miss things out on the curve. This might be contributing factor to why people are having such different experiences with werewolves.
I play almost exclusively winston and sealed, and they were still really terribad in testing.
Quote from takiguy »
I don't understand...it is bitterblossom that shoots out 3/3 beasts with no life loss (but no flying). Obviously they can just remove it, but it's a 2 drop. What more are you wanting?
Um, where to start... Bitterblossom always churns out tokens, instead of only working if it flips. And it's an enchantment, so it doesn't die to creature removal and burn. Mayor and Bitterblossom aren't even remotely comparable in the cube. Not even close. If 'Blossom was a creature that churned out tokens, it'd be FAR worse. Even if it made tokens every time it resolves (which the Mayor doesn't even come close to doing).
What more am I wanting? A 2-drop that doesn't spent the majority of it's time as a useless 1/1. That's not too much to ask, considering that every 2-drop I use meets that criteria, and the Mayor doesn't.
Quote from takiguy »
Except the fact that it bashed for 3 and was such a big threat quickly?
One time out of 12. The other 11 times it was a Mons' Goblin Raiders. Whereas Goblin Patrol always bashes for 2 on T2.
Quote from takiguy »
Sorry for going against wtwlf123. I know it's a sacred sin on the cube forums, but some of the werewolves have been really good. If you don't want to try them/just want to listen to wtwlf's opinion, feel free. Going back to lurking and just posting on my cube thread.
It's not a problem to have a different opinion from mine, everybody disagrees with everybody else on at least a few points. All I'm posting is my opinion about werewolves after my testing. And I'm not suggesting that people don't test them for themselves.
Quote from meep »
The idea of a cube deck that "consistently" curves out is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
This makes me sad. I thought more cube decks had good curves. It's pretty rare that a deck in any theater fails to curve out (at least with costs 2/3 on). And even if they do happen to miss one spell in their curve, it has to happen when you have your wolf down on the table already. I didn't say the wolves never flipped. They all flipped at least once. They just don't do it with any reasonable consistency (even the 1-drop!) because most cube decks have great low-end curves (or so I thought, because ours do).
If you have 5 one drop permanents in your deck -- well above average -- the probability you have more than one in your first 8 cards is approximately .25. Seems like a problem.
When I draft aggro, I try to draft as many solid 1 and 2-drops as I can. I want to be able to churn out an immediate board state and apply as much pressure as possible; to come out of the gates swinging, so to speak. It's not always possible to just play a second 1-drop on turn two after paying echo, I realize that. I was merely pointing out how to "play around" the echo cost. Also, being able to reliably do this one of every four times I play Patrol on turn one doesn't seem too terrible to me.
You're right, it's not strictly better... 'Strictly better' is commonly thrown around to exaggerate a card that is not in fact 'strictly better,' but only 'essentially better' in some sense. If they miss their one drop, Reckless Waif is 'essentially better' in a very strong sense.
I haven't been able to play Waif on turn one yet, so I can't agree or disagree with this. In theory, though, I think this would probably be correct.
Aggressive creatures have this intrinsic drawback. Reckless Waif is being compared against other aggressive creatures.
Exactly, which is what it should be compared to. The problem with the werewolves is not how awesome their flip side is (if Waif was just a 3/2 for R, it'd be a shoe in), but more how reliably will they be flipped to the awesome side. I want Mayor to be a two mana 3/3 that churns out more 3/3s every turn. That's obviously ridiculous. But if he's spending a majority of the time as a 1/1 that does nothing, that's not worth the two mana or a slot in my cube. At that point a Grizzly Bears is a better option and we all know vanilla bears don't make the cut.
Werewolves are hard to evaluate on paper and need to be tested. I suspect that different groups will have different experiences with them. I look forward to being able to get some more testing in, since so far I haven't been able to play them optimally.
Waif PUNISHES slow draws like no other 1-drop. I kinda like that in an aggressive card, not gonna lie.
perhaps it's comparable to black vise in some ways? a bit inconsistent but with the potential for a lot of damage for the cost? vise is colorless and deals through blockers, but i think the comparison might be somewhat valuable.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I would like to add, after some testing games last night:
Waif PUNISHES slow draws like no other 1-drop. I kinda like that in an aggressive card, not gonna lie.
-AA
I was hoping this was gonna be the case with my testing, but I had no such luck. I played him three times on T1 against control, and he only flipped once. And that time, I did get to bash for three before he was killed by removal on T2, so he was really good in that game. Unfortunately, that was only one game out of about a dozen, and it was when I had him on T1 on the play against a control deck. The rest of the times (including the times where I played him on T1 but I was on the draw) he never flipped.
I was hoping this was gonna be the case with my testing, but I had no such luck. I played him three times on T1 against control, and he only flipped once. And that time, I did get to bash for three before he was killed by removal on T2, so he was really good in that game. Unfortunately, that was only one game out of about a dozen, and it was when I had him on T1 on the play against a control deck. The rest of the times (including the times where I played him on T1 but I was on the draw) he never flipped.
Are you counting the times that they killed him before he flipped or no?
Are you counting the times that they killed him before he flipped or no?
He never got killed before flipping (outside of dying in combat). There was no reason to remove him.
He resolved about a dozen times, and didn't flip much.
He was only played on T1 against control 3 times, and only one of those times was when I was on the play. He only flipped once (the time I was on the play) and the other two times, my opponent was able to curve out.
He never flipped against aggro or mid-range, even if played early.
I wanted to see more of him in my opening hand against control when I was on the play, but that only got to happen once. Only about a third of the matches are against hard control. And only half of those times you'll be on the play. But when those situations arise, he's good. He'll draw removal after bashing for 3 on T2, which is way ahead of the curve.
I'm going to be including Reckless Waif in every mono-red deck for a few weeks to see if he can compete with other cards.
We've been pretty happy with Mayor. I don't have hard statistics, but I'd say he's flipped maybe half the time (total, not on turn 2 or 3 or whatever). The cool thing about him is that he's a pretty good late game topdeck as opposed to Reckless Waif. He's actually at his finest when he flips with a stalled board. Your opponent needs to cast two spells to flip him back, and you can just let him flip back on your turn by not playing anything (if you really need to). Even if they draw spells from that point on (which is impossible), they're going to have to choose between flipping your guy and playing something immediate now to help them out (with a completely stalled board, it can become a subgame of if mayor flips or not, which is pretty fun). If they waste a burn spell on him, that's awesome because then they can't combine stuff to take out my larger guys or take out something equally devastating.
Sometimes, they have to kill more problematic stuff while the Mayor just continues to churn out 3/3s (or if he's stuck in 1/1 mode is a serious threat waiting).
------
Reckless Waif can't do any of these things. I'd imagine he'd flip much more than 50% of the time on turn one, especially against control (I would assume WTWLF123's numbers to be the exception and not the norm here), but the real argument against him (IMO) is how little he does in the late game, which other transforming cards don't have issues with.
I mean, Goblin Patrol doesn't do much in the late game either, so maybe that's not a giant strike against this guy. That's why I'm going to be inserting him in all our red decks for a few weeks.
I'd imagine he'd flip much more than 50% of the time on turn one, especially against control (I would assume WTWLF123's numbers to be the exception and not the norm here)
How often do you keep a hand that can't do anything until turn 3? It's pretty damn rare that a deck from any archetype would keep a hand without at least 2 cards in it that only cost 1 or 2 mana. And that includes control. Aggressive decks don't even want to wait a single turn to start curving out. And mid-range decks will be loaded with 2-3 CC cards. We just don't struggle to play cheap spells with our decks, and it hurts the reliability of the flip mechanic.
I'm not going to say that Waif is never good. Against control on T1 (particularly on the play) it's just about the best card you can see. But in the other matchups, outside of T1, or even simply being on the draw can really damage its value.
Larger cubes (say 540+) will get a lot of value from having extra 1CC creatures in red. It's not as deep as I'd like, even at 450, so I can only imagine it's a great card to see for larger cubes. But after testing it at the 450 level, there's simply nothing in my red section I wanna cut for it. It just lacks that level of consistency I'm looking for.
LegendaryFerrett, I must say that you are quickly becoming one of my favorite posters here. This + the Geist post are really solid posts and ones that are a great addition to this forum.
(FWIW, I've been lately trying out Mayor of Avabruck, Waif and Instigator Gang in my cube. Gang is competing in my cube with Moltensteel Dragon and Moltensteel is winning that fight, but the 4-drop slot is very competitive in red. The addition of the former 2 are pretty new so I've not much data on them.)
I also find it really confusing to think that most decks in cube don't have plays on turn 2-4. I've been watching for this over the last month or so since I had really high hopes for the werwolves. Many don't have turn one plays, but most decks start interacting with their opponent on turn 2 in some way. I'm either advancing my own game state or impeding my opponent's. Some of this can happen at instant speed, but if necessary I'll do it on my turn if it means not seeing the other side of a werewolf. The only exception to this is control who is trying to survive until he/she can swing tempo and stabilize the board lending itself to reactive playing which usually takes place on an opponent's turn, but not always.
Really, the werewolves are good against control, but against most other decks they will be removed before they flip. As far as cube is concerned I think that is the most important feature to look at. They have amazing potential, but they most likely won't stick around long enough for the potential to be seen.
This makes me sad. I thought more cube decks had good curves. It's pretty rare that a deck in any theater fails to curve out (at least with costs 2/3 on). And even if they do happen to miss one spell in their curve, it has to happen when you have your wolf down on the table already. I didn't say the wolves never flipped. They all flipped at least once. They just don't do it with any reasonable consistency (even the 1-drop!) because most cube decks have great low-end curves (or so I thought, because ours do).
Don't be sad. Good cube decks should have good curves. While not all decks can regularly provide a one drop, they should not have any trouble to cast something from turn two until turn five. Those spells won't always be on a perfect curve, but at least there should be at least one spell each turn. Decks that can't do that are just badly built or the player is really unlucky (mana screw does happen).
This means that Werewolves will only very seldomly transform early unless you skip your turn (which can be the right play, if you are holding a good instant).
I'm with you. If a creature is obviously female (and Reckless Waif is definitely female - in name, art and flavor text), then people should refer to those creatures as females.
Starslayer, while its true that decks with a reasonable curve will often play something on turns 2, 3, 4, and 5, it's actually not as likely as you might think. For the two decks you have in the "post a deck" thread (one tribal and the other a cool reanimate/tinker build), ignoring colored mana constraints, you're 73% and 44% likely to play something on those turns on the draw and 61% and 29% on the play. The expected waif damage against you is 4.9 and 8.0 (play/draw) for the merfolk deck (so 6.5 average) over the first three attacking turns as compared to a goblin patrol's 6 and 5.7 and 6.7 against the reanimate deck (so 6.2 average).
For the mayor, even with two decks with very good curves facing off against each other (so decks with lots of permanents at low costs, say Pringlesman's aggro deck at 6/7/4/4 from that thread), the chance of playing something on turns 2-5 is 85% on the draw and 75% on the play, so the chance of both of you playing things each turn is 64%, so the mayor flips for free 1/3 of the time. This ignores the fact that a lot of decks want to do things like pay echo, equip equipment, suspend guys, or play reactive cards, or that the player with mayor can prioritize these actions.
For a more reactive deck or the two decks you posted in that thread playing against Pringle's deck, the odds of both players curving out is around 50% for the merfolk deck and a little under 30% for the reanimator deck. So even with the aggressive deck never missing a beat, it's actually pretty likely that the mayor flips.
This doesn't necessarily mean you should run them, but I'd strongly suggest giving them a real try. The waif should end up doing about the same damage as a goblin patrol (or a little more) on average without having to pay echo, though she has higher variance. The mayor is harder to evaluate, but I've had good luck with him. My instinct for both of them was the same as most people here - that they would be awful, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I've found them to be really tough to evaluate without playing them, but that in practice they're quite strong and maybe more importantly, quite a bit of fun. Even if they don't work out for you personally, it's a pretty low cost to proxy (or buy) them and try them out.
An example of a deck with mayor from a couple of days ago that was pretty good built by a friend of mine in a 5 man draft (4 packs of 11) was:
This wasn't the winning deck from that draft (a WB aggro deck won it), but it did fine and Mayor was an excellent part of the deck. If he didn't flip on his own, the land package usually gave the pilot something to do. Mayor into strip mine was quite good, for example. I don't think this is the best possible Mayor deck (or even that all the choices in it are right), but I at least wanted to add an example of a deck in which he was useful.
Another great post Ferret! Man, that is not even remotely what I've been seeing in testing though. Or while playing. Failing to curve out is pretty uncommon around here, for one reason or another. We run a really high concentration of low CC spells; even our control decks will only have 4-5 cards >3 CC.
There are a lot of creatures I'd rather have than the Mayor in that deck list above. Something that guarantees me value or has a more threatening average board impact (especially in a more aggressive deck build) would suit my playstyle a lot more. Sometimes the Mayor is amazing. Sometimes he's a 1/1 and complete garbage. I'm not okay with that level of inconsistency out of a card that's supposed to carry some weight for me.
Maybe that's got something to do with mulliganning? (not everything, of course)
Math is really useful, to a point. A 2/1 deals more than twice as much damage as a 1/1, for example (granted, a 3/2 deals more than 1.5 times as much as a 2/1 most of the time).
Mulliganning helps surprisingly little - I had my script try mulliganing if it failed to curve out (so after it already knew that it failed which a real person obviously can't do since it requires looking at the top few cards), and it made a small difference but losing a card is so bad for something like curving out. It does help, but not too much. Since the script doesn't factor in things like tapped lands or color requirements, it's all probably a wash, but you're right that math is only part of the story - it's really meant more as a guildeline in support of play experiences.
I think mostly it's perception bias on both sides. We've had Innistrad for like 3 weeks and played, what, a dozen drafts at most? I've seen the werewolves in ~5 decks and had great experiences with them, but the sample size is tiny. Wtwlf had them against a handful of decks and had a bad experience, but again the sample size is tiny. I even think our decks and groups are probably pretty similar - the deck above has 5 cards at cost >3 and that's not at all unusual for us either. It's probably partly the way things fell out in the particular games and partly the preferences of the particular groups.
There are so many cards that it's impossible to try every one for as much as we like so we judge off these small samples. So I think there isn't a "right" answer here - one of the coolest things in cube and in this forum is the diversity even among cubes with the goal of having the best cards in the game. I feel like a lot of that individuality comes from first impressions when you try new cards.
My main point is that at least on paper, the werewolves are good enough to warrant a look, so I'd encourage not just dismissing them out of hand. I think on this, Wtwlf and I are basically in agreement - he recommended that people test the cards a couple pages ago and I endorse that wholeheartedly. Some people will love them and some will hate them, but that's part of the fun, right?
you're equating using removal to skipping a turn and that just isn't the same thing at all. if that were true, no one would play removal. skipping your turn and getting nothing out of is is very bad. using your turn (or part of your turn, a lot of removal is pretty cheap) to destroy an opponent's threat is actually pretty good. in fact, i've built plenty of decks that happily play removal on the opponent's creatures multiple turns in a row. aggro, control, and midrange all will play cheap removal and will be especially happy to play it if it means they get a time walk out of it. removal against a werewolf is great because it negates the turn they skipped and the mana they spent on it in the first place.
If you have 5 one drop permanents in your deck -- well above average -- the probability you have more than one in your first 8 cards is approximately .25. Seems like a problem.
Are you trying to be obtuse?
You're right, it's not strictly better... 'Strictly better' is commonly thrown around to exaggerate a card that is not in fact 'strictly better,' but only 'essentially better' in some sense. If they miss their one drop, Reckless Waif is 'essentially better' in a very strong sense.
Aggressive creatures have this intrinsic drawback. Reckless Waif is being compared against other aggressive creatures.
@wtwlf123
I don't understand...it is bitterblossom that shoots out 3/3 beasts with no life loss (but no flying). Obviously they can just remove it, but it's a 2 drop. What more are you wanting?
Except the fact that it bashed for 3 and was such a big threat quickly?
Obvious insult is obvious.
My Cube Thread
Never feel sorry about stating your opinion. And noone is sacred inhere.
My Tribal cube
My 93/94 old school cube
My Artifact cube
My Hearthstone Quiz App for iOS
Let's say curving out means hitting a 1-drop, 2-drop, then a 3-drop (and the lands to cast them), but that all lands make all the colors and always come into play untapped and that you're always on the draw (since that only helps). Let's also assume there are 6 "dead" cards in your deck - cards that can't help you curve out (like 4+ drops or counterspells or cards that you don't want to play on curve like Pithing Needle); I think it's incredibly rare that there's a deck that's faster than this and even if there were it wouldn't do very well because having drops at 4 or more is important even to aggro. Then no matter the configuration of your deck you have at most a 40% chance of curving out (but this maximum is approached by a number of deck configurations like 7-7-6 seven one-drops, seven two-drops, six three-drops). The thing is, these numbers are nuts - very, very few decks run this many one-drops that are true one-drops and so on and there are a fair number of decks with more reactive spells. If you reduce the number of dead cards to 0, the odds of curving out go up to around 58%.
It's also worth noting that you can also flip your werewolves, not because you want to skip your turn, but because you can't curve out. On the play, the curve out numbers go down further, but the odds that both players curve out is at most ~15% (and this assumes both players were on the play).
The myth of the double 1-drop hand is also fairy pervasive - the odds of hitting double 1-drop is ~25% on the play with 5 1-drops in your deck, whereas the odds of going 1-drop, 1-drop or 2-drop (with 5 1-drops and 5 2-drops) are just shy of 50%. That's a substantial penalty for having to pay echo, ignoring the fact that two-drops are generally better than 1-drops (and more prevelent).
Since this is all straight theory, I went to the "Post the deck you played in the last cube draft" thread and picked out the decks from the last few pages that people said did very well. In the format of (1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop): percent of curving out on the draw, they were:
(7,6,2): 23%
(4,4,7): 27%
(3,10,5): 29%
(9,2,5): 23%
(6,6,6): 41%
These decks included ones from people posting in this thread, so I'm hopeful they're representative. For couting costs, I'm counting basically anything at that cost, though Noxious Revival or Pithing Needle or Vines of Vastwood probably shouldn't count.
Note that these values are different than the "desperate werewolf stopping" values (the chance of playing anything on the first three turns). The chance of those decks making any drop for three straight turns on the draw are:
(7,6,2): 70%
(4,4,7): 41%
(3,10,5): 44%
(9,2,5): 72%
(6,6,6): 67%
Lastly, if we compute average amount of Reckless Waif damage over the course of these three swings (with a goblin patrol or jackal pup doing 6) we get (assuming desperate werewolf stopping)
(7,6,2): 4.8
(4,4,7): 6.7
(3,10,5): 6.7
(9,2,5): 4.5
(6,6,6): 5.1
If we look at these decks from the perspective of someone reasonable (so discounting spells that you wouldn't want to cast at that point like vines of vastwood or pithing needle or often even tutors or cards that would kill almost all the 1 or 2 drops anyway like lightning bolt or doom blade), the numbers look much better, since in particular the number of 1-drops goes down substantially. Under these values we get:
(5,4,2): 6.2
(3,3,5): 7.7
(3,8,4): 6.9
(7,2,4): 5.5
(5,6,6): 5.7
I'm not entirely sure what the upshot of all of this is, but I think it's safe to guess that a turn 1 Reckless Waif will deal very comparable damage to that of a goblin patrol even against very good decks (and often more), without the echo cost. Note that the decks I selected all happened to be fairly aggressive and are close to a worst-case scenario - the Waif would do much more damage against blue control-type decks for example. So it looks like the Waif is close to (within 1 damage either way) of Goblin Patrol damage against aggressive decks and much better against control decks (like the 2/5/8 not counting counterspells in the deck thread would take an expected 8 damage, so over 40% more than the patrol) all without echo. It does have higher variance though, so it's not a strict upgrade by any means.
I think the point of this exercise is that no matter how good a deck builder you are, the laws of probability catch up to you - werewolves will flip against you and, if you're spending your turn casting spells, it's easy for your opponent to pass a turn where they have nothing or equip a sword or activate a man-land or wait to cast an instant removal or a million other things and use that time to flip their own werewolf.
Anecdotally, I've had a fair amount of luck with the werewolves - Mayor, Waif, and the Ranger have all been very, very good for me. Instigator Gang hasn't come up at all, but the Shepherd and the Outlaws were awful. Mayor has been far and away the best - I think sometimes we forget that he's just a 2-drop; that's pretty awesome for a must-kill threat, but I can understand if other people haven't had as much luck. Waif has been fine and my experiences have been in-line with the estimations above - some flips against aggro on turn 2 or 3 and easy flips against control though it dies like any 1-drop (though if they edict your Waif after you hit for 3 that's pretty awesome for you).
Wtwlf, I have a huge amount of respect for your cube and your views on the subject, but I don't think there's any reason to go after Taki personally for espousing a viewpoint you disagree with; that doesn't seem like a great way to promote discussion. I'd love to see the decks you tested the werewolves in and against (and I'll try and share a deck where they were good if I can dredge up one of the lists); it might provide some insight into what our groups are doing differently that's causing us to evaluate them in such different ways.
(FWIW, I've been lately trying out Mayor of Avabruck, Waif and Instigator Gang in my cube. Gang is competing in my cube with Moltensteel Dragon and Moltensteel is winning that fight, but the 4-drop slot is very competitive in red. The addition of the former 2 are pretty new so I've not much data on them.)
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
Seriously. Just excellent posts. I am very impressed with the consistent quality. Please keep it up, they are very thorough and well thought out.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
Blimpy's Aggro-Focused Cube (powered 360)
I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve my cube. Take a look and ask a question, or give a constructive critique whenever you can.
I play almost exclusively winston and sealed, and they were still really terribad in testing.
Um, where to start... Bitterblossom always churns out tokens, instead of only working if it flips. And it's an enchantment, so it doesn't die to creature removal and burn. Mayor and Bitterblossom aren't even remotely comparable in the cube. Not even close. If 'Blossom was a creature that churned out tokens, it'd be FAR worse. Even if it made tokens every time it resolves (which the Mayor doesn't even come close to doing).
What more am I wanting? A 2-drop that doesn't spent the majority of it's time as a useless 1/1. That's not too much to ask, considering that every 2-drop I use meets that criteria, and the Mayor doesn't.
One time out of 12. The other 11 times it was a Mons' Goblin Raiders. Whereas Goblin Patrol always bashes for 2 on T2.
It's not a problem to have a different opinion from mine, everybody disagrees with everybody else on at least a few points. All I'm posting is my opinion about werewolves after my testing. And I'm not suggesting that people don't test them for themselves.
This makes me sad. I thought more cube decks had good curves. It's pretty rare that a deck in any theater fails to curve out (at least with costs 2/3 on). And even if they do happen to miss one spell in their curve, it has to happen when you have your wolf down on the table already. I didn't say the wolves never flipped. They all flipped at least once. They just don't do it with any reasonable consistency (even the 1-drop!) because most cube decks have great low-end curves (or so I thought, because ours do).
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
When I draft aggro, I try to draft as many solid 1 and 2-drops as I can. I want to be able to churn out an immediate board state and apply as much pressure as possible; to come out of the gates swinging, so to speak. It's not always possible to just play a second 1-drop on turn two after paying echo, I realize that. I was merely pointing out how to "play around" the echo cost. Also, being able to reliably do this one of every four times I play Patrol on turn one doesn't seem too terrible to me.
No. You used the term "strictly better", when this is clearly not a case of one card being "strictly better" than another.
I haven't been able to play Waif on turn one yet, so I can't agree or disagree with this. In theory, though, I think this would probably be correct.
Exactly, which is what it should be compared to. The problem with the werewolves is not how awesome their flip side is (if Waif was just a 3/2 for R, it'd be a shoe in), but more how reliably will they be flipped to the awesome side. I want Mayor to be a two mana 3/3 that churns out more 3/3s every turn. That's obviously ridiculous. But if he's spending a majority of the time as a 1/1 that does nothing, that's not worth the two mana or a slot in my cube. At that point a Grizzly Bears is a better option and we all know vanilla bears don't make the cut.
Werewolves are hard to evaluate on paper and need to be tested. I suspect that different groups will have different experiences with them. I look forward to being able to get some more testing in, since so far I haven't been able to play them optimally.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
Waif PUNISHES slow draws like no other 1-drop. I kinda like that in an aggressive card, not gonna lie.
-AA
I use descriptive language. Assume that I'm being nice and respectful. (I'll tell you when I'm not.)
My Cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9029
perhaps it's comparable to black vise in some ways? a bit inconsistent but with the potential for a lot of damage for the cost? vise is colorless and deals through blockers, but i think the comparison might be somewhat valuable.
(CubeTutor & MTGS)
360 Peasant Cube!
Custom Cube
RWU Miracles RWU
I was hoping this was gonna be the case with my testing, but I had no such luck. I played him three times on T1 against control, and he only flipped once. And that time, I did get to bash for three before he was killed by removal on T2, so he was really good in that game. Unfortunately, that was only one game out of about a dozen, and it was when I had him on T1 on the play against a control deck. The rest of the times (including the times where I played him on T1 but I was on the draw) he never flipped.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Are you counting the times that they killed him before he flipped or no?
(CubeTutor & MTGS)
360 Peasant Cube!
Custom Cube
RWU Miracles RWU
He never got killed before flipping (outside of dying in combat). There was no reason to remove him.
He resolved about a dozen times, and didn't flip much.
He was only played on T1 against control 3 times, and only one of those times was when I was on the play. He only flipped once (the time I was on the play) and the other two times, my opponent was able to curve out.
He never flipped against aggro or mid-range, even if played early.
I wanted to see more of him in my opening hand against control when I was on the play, but that only got to happen once. Only about a third of the matches are against hard control. And only half of those times you'll be on the play. But when those situations arise, he's good. He'll draw removal after bashing for 3 on T2, which is way ahead of the curve.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
We've been pretty happy with Mayor. I don't have hard statistics, but I'd say he's flipped maybe half the time (total, not on turn 2 or 3 or whatever). The cool thing about him is that he's a pretty good late game topdeck as opposed to Reckless Waif. He's actually at his finest when he flips with a stalled board. Your opponent needs to cast two spells to flip him back, and you can just let him flip back on your turn by not playing anything (if you really need to). Even if they draw spells from that point on (which is impossible), they're going to have to choose between flipping your guy and playing something immediate now to help them out (with a completely stalled board, it can become a subgame of if mayor flips or not, which is pretty fun). If they waste a burn spell on him, that's awesome because then they can't combine stuff to take out my larger guys or take out something equally devastating.
Sometimes, they have to kill more problematic stuff while the Mayor just continues to churn out 3/3s (or if he's stuck in 1/1 mode is a serious threat waiting).
------
Reckless Waif can't do any of these things. I'd imagine he'd flip much more than 50% of the time on turn one, especially against control (I would assume WTWLF123's numbers to be the exception and not the norm here), but the real argument against him (IMO) is how little he does in the late game, which other transforming cards don't have issues with.
I mean, Goblin Patrol doesn't do much in the late game either, so maybe that's not a giant strike against this guy. That's why I'm going to be inserting him in all our red decks for a few weeks.
Blimpy's Aggro-Focused Cube (powered 360)
I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve my cube. Take a look and ask a question, or give a constructive critique whenever you can.
How often do you keep a hand that can't do anything until turn 3? It's pretty damn rare that a deck from any archetype would keep a hand without at least 2 cards in it that only cost 1 or 2 mana. And that includes control. Aggressive decks don't even want to wait a single turn to start curving out. And mid-range decks will be loaded with 2-3 CC cards. We just don't struggle to play cheap spells with our decks, and it hurts the reliability of the flip mechanic.
I'm not going to say that Waif is never good. Against control on T1 (particularly on the play) it's just about the best card you can see. But in the other matchups, outside of T1, or even simply being on the draw can really damage its value.
Larger cubes (say 540+) will get a lot of value from having extra 1CC creatures in red. It's not as deep as I'd like, even at 450, so I can only imagine it's a great card to see for larger cubes. But after testing it at the 450 level, there's simply nothing in my red section I wanna cut for it. It just lacks that level of consistency I'm looking for.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Bravo Ferrett, keep this up.
http://hgcube.blogspot.com/ (help me Make my Custom CUBE!)
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=382498
The "Make a Proxy Thread
Redit Proxy Article "current gallery"
MY LEGACY ALTERS
Really, the werewolves are good against control, but against most other decks they will be removed before they flip. As far as cube is concerned I think that is the most important feature to look at. They have amazing potential, but they most likely won't stick around long enough for the potential to be seen.
360 Unpowered Cube | Cubetutor
Don't be sad. Good cube decks should have good curves. While not all decks can regularly provide a one drop, they should not have any trouble to cast something from turn two until turn five. Those spells won't always be on a perfect curve, but at least there should be at least one spell each turn. Decks that can't do that are just badly built or the player is really unlucky (mana screw does happen).
This means that Werewolves will only very seldomly transform early unless you skip your turn (which can be the right play, if you are holding a good instant).
I'm with you. If a creature is obviously female (and Reckless Waif is definitely female - in name, art and flavor text), then people should refer to those creatures as females.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
For the mayor, even with two decks with very good curves facing off against each other (so decks with lots of permanents at low costs, say Pringlesman's aggro deck at 6/7/4/4 from that thread), the chance of playing something on turns 2-5 is 85% on the draw and 75% on the play, so the chance of both of you playing things each turn is 64%, so the mayor flips for free 1/3 of the time. This ignores the fact that a lot of decks want to do things like pay echo, equip equipment, suspend guys, or play reactive cards, or that the player with mayor can prioritize these actions.
For a more reactive deck or the two decks you posted in that thread playing against Pringle's deck, the odds of both players curving out is around 50% for the merfolk deck and a little under 30% for the reanimator deck. So even with the aggressive deck never missing a beat, it's actually pretty likely that the mayor flips.
This doesn't necessarily mean you should run them, but I'd strongly suggest giving them a real try. The waif should end up doing about the same damage as a goblin patrol (or a little more) on average without having to pay echo, though she has higher variance. The mayor is harder to evaluate, but I've had good luck with him. My instinct for both of them was the same as most people here - that they would be awful, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I've found them to be really tough to evaluate without playing them, but that in practice they're quite strong and maybe more importantly, quite a bit of fun. Even if they don't work out for you personally, it's a pretty low cost to proxy (or buy) them and try them out.
An example of a deck with mayor from a couple of days ago that was pretty good built by a friend of mine in a 5 man draft (4 packs of 11) was:
1 Greater Gargadon
1 Hellspark Elemental
1 Mayor of Avabruck
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Wild Mongrel
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Hearth Kami
1 Chandra's Phoenix
1 Hell's Thunder
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Bonesplitter
1 Burst Lightning
1 Chain Lightning
1 Grim Monolith
1 Arc Trail
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pillage
1 Beast Within
1 Plow Under
3 Mountain
4 Forest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Grand Coliseum
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Kessig Wolf Run
This wasn't the winning deck from that draft (a WB aggro deck won it), but it did fine and Mayor was an excellent part of the deck. If he didn't flip on his own, the land package usually gave the pilot something to do. Mayor into strip mine was quite good, for example. I don't think this is the best possible Mayor deck (or even that all the choices in it are right), but I at least wanted to add an example of a deck in which he was useful.
There are a lot of creatures I'd rather have than the Mayor in that deck list above. Something that guarantees me value or has a more threatening average board impact (especially in a more aggressive deck build) would suit my playstyle a lot more. Sometimes the Mayor is amazing. Sometimes he's a 1/1 and complete garbage. I'm not okay with that level of inconsistency out of a card that's supposed to carry some weight for me.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Math is really useful, to a point. A 2/1 deals more than twice as much damage as a 1/1, for example (granted, a 3/2 deals more than 1.5 times as much as a 2/1 most of the time).
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I think mostly it's perception bias on both sides. We've had Innistrad for like 3 weeks and played, what, a dozen drafts at most? I've seen the werewolves in ~5 decks and had great experiences with them, but the sample size is tiny. Wtwlf had them against a handful of decks and had a bad experience, but again the sample size is tiny. I even think our decks and groups are probably pretty similar - the deck above has 5 cards at cost >3 and that's not at all unusual for us either. It's probably partly the way things fell out in the particular games and partly the preferences of the particular groups.
There are so many cards that it's impossible to try every one for as much as we like so we judge off these small samples. So I think there isn't a "right" answer here - one of the coolest things in cube and in this forum is the diversity even among cubes with the goal of having the best cards in the game. I feel like a lot of that individuality comes from first impressions when you try new cards.
My main point is that at least on paper, the werewolves are good enough to warrant a look, so I'd encourage not just dismissing them out of hand. I think on this, Wtwlf and I are basically in agreement - he recommended that people test the cards a couple pages ago and I endorse that wholeheartedly. Some people will love them and some will hate them, but that's part of the fun, right?