I'm a little concerned with your mana-base (20 blue, 18 black, 12 red, 26 lands), in that you run 2 Anger of the Gods main, and also 2RR spells in the side-board. In a 26 land deck I would recommend 18 red sources for 1RR, 16 sources for 2RR, and 15 untapped red sources for a turn 1 Lightning Bolt.
For an example of setting up your mana, you may have a look at my blog-post on this site.
Night of Souls' Betrayal is a decent side-board card against many decks in the format, but it is a bit slow. Against pod, I side in 4 Rakdos Charm, which is really quite good in that match up. If you also run a few Shadow of Doubt and Surgical Extraction you will force the pod player to play a regular creature-based game, one which you will win most of the time.
Surgical Extraction feels to me to be more of a side-board card against specific threats. Unless you hit a card in their hand, it is net card disadvantage. I also don't like Thoughtseize, since it is too taxing on our life-total (*), with only Cruel Ultimatum to save us from game loss. Finally, Serum Visions has performed much better for me than Think Twice.
I don't think that Tron is much of a concern simply because no one plays it anymore.
That is true, especially in real-life competitive play, but it still seems to pop up on MTGO, probably due to the fact that it's a fairly cheap deck to build: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/8965
Molten Rain, Rain of Tears and Stone Rain are all CMC 3 land-destruction spells in our colors. For the fun factor, you could also try Acquire or Bribery, but now we're probably moving out of competitive and into casual.
Sowing Salt is quite good against Tron, but it is sometimes too slow. Therefore, Fulminator Mage may be more appropriate for us, especially since it attacks other problematic lands that you may be pitted against. If you really also need to extract it from their deck, we can always use Surgical Extraction/Extirpate.
Okay, so I think my numbers are pretty close to Frank Karsten's now. They are still a little different, but I think that is because he was using a simulation, whereas I am using exact math.
Here's the output, with the following assumptions:
Mulligan rules the same as Karsten's.
The tables are for on the *play*.
The 90% rule is relative to the land-drop percentages.
17 lands in 40-card deck, 24 lands in 60-card deck, 40 lands in 99-card deck.
@Spellsnare: Was that remark aimed at me? If so, what?? Where's that coming from -- I think I've only replied to elMochaLatte, and we've had many fruitful and constructive discussions in the past.
@el: We should probably take this "off-line", as they say, but again -- what does the (90% on the play) mean? I know for sure that it doesn't mean that 90% of the time (on the play), that you can tap for UUU, again because the chance of hitting 3 lands by turn 3 is less than 90%. I also checked to see if it means "you have three blue mana sources provided you have three or more lands in hand after drawing 3 cards", and it unfortunately doesn't mean that either (the math doesn't add up).
In short -- I can not put any value on his calculations, as his premise makes no sense at all to me. He surely is calculating something, but the only way I'll be able to understand what he is actually calculating is by examining his source-code.
Anyway, in the interest of staying on topic, I'll stop following up on this subject.
Nope, he meant specifically for his calculations to represent probabilities on the play, early on in his introduction he does preface his math with...
Okay, fair enough.
Also in the formula he is using ( H(k,n,K,N) ), he is using the value of 7 for the number of draws, further proving that his calculations are based on being on the play since 7 draws is representative of keeping a hand on the play.
It makes a fairly big difference in percentages, so it's important to keep this in mind.
I'm going to come back to this later after crunching the numbers and re-reading his article, I'm not entirely familiar with his formula but I believe that you're mistaking his evaluation/angle
Indeed. The problem is, what does his "minimum number of sources with respect to the 90% limit" mean exactly?
This isn't a combination of hitting the # of lands and the number of required color sources. He's calculating the probably of having UUU on t4, not 1UUU. He is calculating for the recommended numbers of colored sources in regards to mana intensity, not the casting cost as a whole
Yes, I think that was my point. So, if we agree on that then we have to realize that his numbers are not very useful with respect to knowing if one has enough red mana sources to cast spells like Anger of the Gods and Damnation.
By the way, I have read Karsten Frank's article carefully and found it to be quite misleading. I tested it with respect to my own analysis program, and found the following:
First, his calculations are based on being on the draw, not on the play.
Second, he is ignoring the factor of not hitting your land drops. In a 24-land deck, for instance, the chance of hitting the third land-drop is 85.59% on the draw (78.87% on the play), thus having any "90%" rule for cards with CMC >= 3 is quite frankly, ludicrous.
Third, the table that you referred to can not be used for spells with colorless mana symbols in it. It is a big difference being able to cast 1UUU and UUU. What his table really reflects is the latter, not the former.
Cheers.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm a little concerned with your mana-base (20 blue, 18 black, 12 red, 26 lands), in that you run 2 Anger of the Gods main, and also 2RR spells in the side-board. In a 26 land deck I would recommend 18 red sources for 1RR, 16 sources for 2RR, and 15 untapped red sources for a turn 1 Lightning Bolt.
For an example of setting up your mana, you may have a look at my blog-post on this site.
There's obviously also Grixis Delver that briefly was a thing.
(*): I had a game against a black/white deck facing 3 Thoughtseize and 2 Duress by turn 6. By then my opponent was at 11 life. I drew Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Snapcaster Mage, and with some help from Creeping Tar Pit he died the next turn. It goes to show that life-loss from shock-lands and cards like Thoughtseize can be very bad.
RG Tron: 2.24%
Mono U Tron: 0.64%
UW Tron: 0.32%
Krark-Clan Tron: 0.32%
Total: 3.52%
So, right now, about once in every 28 match-ups (3.5%).
That is true, especially in real-life competitive play, but it still seems to pop up on MTGO, probably due to the fact that it's a fairly cheap deck to build: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/8965
Here's the output, with the following assumptions:
Now, one interesting thing is that if you play 25 or 26 lands, then the minimum increases:
In short -- I can not put any value on his calculations, as his premise makes no sense at all to me. He surely is calculating something, but the only way I'll be able to understand what he is actually calculating is by examining his source-code.
Anyway, in the interest of staying on topic, I'll stop following up on this subject.
Okay, fair enough.
It makes a fairly big difference in percentages, so it's important to keep this in mind.
Indeed. The problem is, what does his "minimum number of sources with respect to the 90% limit" mean exactly?
Yes, I think that was my point. So, if we agree on that then we have to realize that his numbers are not very useful with respect to knowing if one has enough red mana sources to cast spells like Anger of the Gods and Damnation.
By the way, I have read Karsten Frank's article carefully and found it to be quite misleading. I tested it with respect to my own analysis program, and found the following:
First, his calculations are based on being on the draw, not on the play.
Second, he is ignoring the factor of not hitting your land drops. In a 24-land deck, for instance, the chance of hitting the third land-drop is 85.59% on the draw (78.87% on the play), thus having any "90%" rule for cards with CMC >= 3 is quite frankly, ludicrous.
Third, the table that you referred to can not be used for spells with colorless mana symbols in it. It is a big difference being able to cast 1UUU and UUU. What his table really reflects is the latter, not the former.
Cheers.