Well, if your opponent has an Elspeth out, that's one. Or Vanquish the Foul in their deck. Uncommon scenarios, true, but that's why we don't use the word "literally."
The larger point is that, yes, Ornitharch is a very good card, and no one is arguing otherwise. Five evasive power for five mana is, by definition, an above average card. However, it's not a slam pick over everything in the set, and it's frequent enough that an opponent can handle one of the modes that it becomes a little deeper than "dies to removal." A 3/3 flier for five mana is nice to have on the board, but that sort of thing wheels.
I don't think you understand what an "average play" is. The quality of the play doesn't vary given how dire the situation is.
The quality of the card doesn't vary based on situation. The quality of the play is entirely based on the situation at hand. Literally.
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The quality of the card doesn't vary based on situation. The quality of the play is entirely based on the situation at hand. Literally.
Except it doesn't. We're comparing it to average. Think about Elspeth again (I know you disagreed with the other guy and pointed out that Ornitharch does something, at least). Think about your average, solid draft deck that contains Ornitharch. How many of your cards are going to be better plays? It's not a good "play" really, at least not on its own, because it's just going to get wrathed, but what other cards would you have played to better effect? One, maybe two in your entire deck? How much worse are most of the other 20 cards? In what way is it not still an above average play.
Even in your situation, where the opponent has a Nessian Asp out, how many of your options are better than an Ornitharch? That's the entire point of the word "average." It can be a bad play and still be better than average if most of your options are absolutely terrible.
Ornitharch is literally always a better than average play in BTT. It's a creature that's vastly better than your average creature and has no downside or way to be truly abused by your opponent. That's all there is to it. There's never going to be a situation where you draw Ornitharch (short of a situation where you are mana screwed, in which case you don't really want any spells haha) and think to yourself: "Damn, I would have rather drawn any one of some ten or so other cards right now." How is that not "above average" by definition?
I'd love to hear when a 5/5 flier for 5 is a below-average limited play, though. In cube?
No one is giving you a 5/5 flyer for 5 unless they have removal to deal with it immediately. Far more likely they're giving you a 3/3 and 2 1/1s for 5 which is significantly easier to deal with in nearly any situation. Plenty of the sets removal can deal with it and a 3/3 is not hard to stop/trade with even in the air. I'm certainly not saying it's a "below average" play, but I think it's a bit overrated here.
And, to respond to another part of a different post, I have watched plenty of drafts, Channel Fireball among them. I'm not amazed by Ornitharch in action, it's as simple as that.
Ornitharch is literally always a better than average play in BTT. It's a creature that's vastly better than your average creature and has no downside or way to be truly abused by your opponent. That's all there is to it. There's never going to be a situation where you draw Ornitharch (short of a situation where you are mana screwed, in which case you don't really want any spells haha) and think to yourself: "Damn, I would have rather drawn any one of some ten or so other cards right now." How is that not "above average" by definition?
I can think of plenty of cards I'd rather have over Ornitharch. Most of them cost less than 5 mana. Whether we're talking Akroan Skyguard for a turn 2 play or a good enabler (God's Willing perhaps) there are countless situations that come to mind where I would rather have another card in hand than Ornitharch. Ornitharch is a fine card and I'd play it in all but the most nut draw decks sure but decent and good are definitely words I'd use to describe it alot of the time.
I agree that Ornitharch will almost always be an above-average play, but to insist that it is "literally always" so is not using the language correctly. In the Elspeth example, any card that isn't a 4+ power creature stands a good shot at being a better play.
We're not debating that the card is good; for my part, I'm pointing out that the game is so complex that terms like "literally never" can mislead less experienced players and, in general, absolutes are virtually never applicable to this massively complex game. Casting it into two open blue mana can be a below average play. Casting it instead of Bolting something can be a below-average play. Et cetera. It won't be very often, but there's a wide gulf between "unusual" and "literally never."
Ornitharch is five flying power for five mana; a good deal in any book. However, it's Tribute clause means that it can be dealt with by anything that can deal with a 5/5 flyer (Divine Verdict) or a 3/3 flyer and two 1/1 flyers (Graverobber Spider.) This is a very important part of assessing the card... the option is not beneficial to the caster; while it looks like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation to some drafters, it's closer in effect to having the designation "Artifact Creature," in that it's not often going to help you a bunch, but does open the card up to a whole new set of answers.
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The quality of the card doesn't vary based on situation. The quality of the play is entirely based on the situation at hand. Literally.
Except it doesn't. We're comparing it to average. Think about Elspeth again (I know you disagreed with the other guy and pointed out that Ornitharch does something, at least). Think about your average, solid draft deck that contains Ornitharch. How many of your cards are going to be better plays? It's not a good "play" really, at least not on its own, because it's just going to get wrathed, but what other cards would you have played to better effect? One, maybe two in your entire deck? How much worse are most of the other 20 cards? In what way is it not still an above average play.
Even in your situation, where the opponent has a Nessian Asp out, how many of your options are better than an Ornitharch? That's the entire point of the word "average." It can be a bad play and still be better than average if most of your options are absolutely terrible.
Ornitharch is literally always a better than average play in BTT. It's a creature that's vastly better than your average creature and has no downside or way to be truly abused by your opponent. That's all there is to it. There's never going to be a situation where you draw Ornitharch (short of a situation where you are mana screwed, in which case you don't really want any spells haha) and think to yourself: "Damn, I would have rather drawn any one of some ten or so other cards right now." How is that not "above average" by definition?
I think this is bang on in the case of Ornitharch, but the quality of plays and whether a particular card is worse than the average can and does vary situationally (Ornitharch doesn't become worse than average with Elspeth out, but it does become worse than Prescient Chimera), which is what you seemed to be denying before.
Shrug, perhaps I wasn't being clear. Sorry. I'm just trying to clarify that while a card may be a bad play in a given situation, that doesn't exclude it from being an above average play. If it's better on average than a random card in your deck, which Ornitharch is in every situation I can think of in BTT, than it's an above average play, regardless of the board state. That's not the case for all good creatures who can whiff (Demolok, for example late game against an opponent with plenty of land) or who have drawbacks (say, a creature Phyrexian Rager when the life loss makes him unplayable).
Any other opinions on Drown in Sorrow vs. Spiteful Returned?
I'd take the Drown in Sorrow, but I haven't played the format much recently. Returned is neat, but replaceable. I prefer to take rarer effects when possible (and sensible.)
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Probably the snake. Since RG isn't super fast you're going to end up casting the giant when opponent has 15+ life more often than I'd like. It's a reasonably close pick though.
I actually was faced with that very pick twice in a row the other night. I went with the Giant, but I picked it with about 2 seconds left. I think that there's about as close to 0 difference in card quality between the two as you can get. For me, they're both cards that are playable but very unexciting. I still like Lava Axe + 3/3 better than 4/4 + 4 life. Snake essentially never comes down as a 7/7. The only time it would is when you have lost. Thus far, I have never seen a 7/7 snake. Green has a great common 5 drop in Nessian Asp, and an really good uncommon (pretty much 5) drop in Nemesis of Mortals, so I think Snake is more easily replaceable as well. In red you have Stoneshock Giant as the only reasonable common/uncommon guy that fits Giant's spot on the curve. Wild Celebrants is pretty poop.
In that draft, I wound up switching to R/B in pack two anyway, so Giant over Snake worked out very well there.
I'd consider all four. I'd always take the Ornitharch. Probably always take the Fall. I think I'm taking Unraveler over Skyguard unless there's no other good white in the pack and I fancy my chances at cutting it. Probably Unraveler over Asphyxiate but I'm not certain that's right.
I think Courser over any of the four except maybe Ornitharch, even putting money aside which makes the rare a slam in practice. I suspect I'd take it over Ornitharch but in part because of expecting green to be easier to get into than white rather than being convinced on power level.
Pretty much what I'd do. I'd never take Asphyxiate over Unraveler, I'd always take Ornitharch over it. Skyguard and Fall would depend on what else is in the pack. If either would cut red or white's good cards completely, I'd grab either. If there were some other good white and red in the pack, and no black, I'd take Unraveler. It's a tossup if there's some of both or none of either.
Courser I'd definitely take first over the rest. The others are all easily replaceable types of cards (besides maybe Ornitharch).
Trivially easy Searing Blood. Satyr Firedancer is not playable in limited.
Niether its the BNG red trap. That I fell right into getting completely cut out of red for the next two packs from both sides
So what was the point of posting this again? The 'red trap' is by no means always a thing, particularly as more people have become aware of it. The whole premise of the thread is that those were the only two reasonable picks. If there was some other decent pick then throw it out there.
Niether its the BNG red trap. That I fell right into getting completely cut out of red for the next two packs from both sides
Firedancer is an awful card. Maybe if you were in triple BNG and already had a whole bunch of Bolts and Bloods, but even then, maybe not. There's no BNG red trap. Sometimes you get cut. You can control what you're passing to an extent, but you can't control what the player to your other side is doing in pack 1.
There is no such thing as "The Red Trap." Red is just as playable as any color. If you find yourself falling out of it alot you probably need to reevaluate what cards you take when.
As for the pick, Searing Blood is a super easy pick. Firedancer isn't just "not playable in limited" it's not playable in constructed either. It's a bad card.
There is no such thing as "The Red Trap." Red is just as playable as any color. If you find yourself falling out of it alot you probably need to reevaluate what cards you take when.
As for the pick, Searing Blood is a super easy pick. Firedancer isn't just "not playable in limited" it's not playable in constructed either. It's a bad card.
There is an excellent Boros burn deck that is making excellent use of Firedancer - several videos of it on Channel Fireball.
That said, it is a totally unplayable limited card.
It's actually nowhere near as bad as all that. In a deck with 5+ burn spells that hit the face (unlikely, but not unheard of) he's a serviceable early body that can give your removal spells some extra utility. He's particularly good if one of your face burn spells is Searing Blood, or my pet card for the format, Pinnacle of Rage.
(I mean, you definitely don't want to pick him early and he's certainly not the pick there, but I'm just saying.)
I would argue it's not good there either and the boros decks that don't run it are better (which if we look at top8s I think is pretty clearly shown). People just like to get overly cute with decks and want to put a card like Firedancer in even when it's not worth it (like the people who wanted to put it in legacy burn ).
That aside I wasn't really thinking of standard when I said that. I'm not a fan of standard so I often fail to take it into account with my posts.
I agree that it's not great in the W/R heroic decks, since those decks would normally rather have a glut of tricks rather than a glut of burn spells. I ran it in a creature-light U/R tempo deck that had 2 Bolt of Keranos, 2 Lightning Strike, Searing Blood, and Spark Jolt, plus a pair of Dragon Mantles and an Ordeal, and it performed above expectations. I'm not saying that it's fantastic or that you should pick it early, but it was definitely better in that specific situation than a random Impetuous Sunchaser or Coastline Chimera would have been, I think.
It takes a pretty solid amount of luck to end up with that much burn, and even then, it was probably just a cheap, slow Lava Axe attached to a worthless body. Hardly a quality card, even in the best case scenario. Maybe if the format had Lava Spikes, it'd be okay. The effect reads like you're adding removal to player burn, but that's not what's really happening in limited outside of Searing Blood (and how often do they have a <2 toughness guy and a <3 toughness guy with no pump/God's Willing/bounce/removal of their own?). You're actually getting damage to the face attached to SOME of your burn (Rage of Purphoros gains nothing, for example), which really isn't the same. Look at the difference in power levels of Lightning Bolt versus Lava Spike.
It takes a pretty solid amount of luck to end up with that much burn, and even then, it was probably just a cheap, slow Lava Axe attached to a worthless body. Hardly a quality card, even in the best case scenario. Maybe if the format had Lava Spikes, it'd be okay. The effect reads like you're adding removal to player burn, but that's not what's really happening in limited outside of Searing Blood (and how often do they have a <2 toughness guy and a <3 toughness guy with no pump/God's Willing/bounce/removal of their own?). You're actually getting damage to the face attached to SOME of your burn (Rage of Purphoros gains nothing, for example), which really isn't the same. Look at the difference in power levels of Lightning Bolt versus Lava Spike.
Sure, but OhDaisy!'s not arguing that it's the nuts; rather, that it's not quite the stone-unplayable card this thread is making it out to be.
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It takes a pretty solid amount of luck to end up with that much burn, and even then, it was probably just a cheap, slow Lava Axe attached to a worthless body. Hardly a quality card, even in the best case scenario. Maybe if the format had Lava Spikes, it'd be okay. The effect reads like you're adding removal to player burn, but that's not what's really happening in limited outside of Searing Blood (and how often do they have a <2 toughness guy and a <3 toughness guy with no pump/God's Willing/bounce/removal of their own?). You're actually getting damage to the face attached to SOME of your burn (Rage of Purphoros gains nothing, for example), which really isn't the same. Look at the difference in power levels of Lightning Bolt versus Lava Spike.
Sure, but OhDaisy!'s not arguing that it's the nuts; rather, that it's not quite the stone-unplayable card this thread is making it out to be.
Even in the decks it's okay in (sorry, but there are no limited decks where you'd call it good), you almost certainly have a better option unless you got cut completely in a color you initially tried to draft and are very short on playables. I'd rather have the 2/1 Satyr, the 2/1 that blows up artifacts, an Arena Athlete, a Sunchaser (I disagree that Sunchaser would be worse) or pretty much any other red 2 drop creature. If you have enough burn to make it do actual damage, you have enough burn to clear the way for these frail, little guys.
Maybe it would be playable either with Lava Spike type spells or if it triggered on cast (like Guttersnipe), but since it requires the damage to actually be dealt, you're setting yourself up for throwing a burn spell at someone's face to try the 2 for 1 and getting blown out by removal or bounce. It's not just the terrible body that does nothing alone that makes it unplayable, it's how easily you get baited into wasting removal going for the face, in my opinion. No deck gets around that.
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I don't think you understand what an "average play" is. The quality of the play doesn't vary given how dire the situation is.
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Except it doesn't. We're comparing it to average. Think about Elspeth again (I know you disagreed with the other guy and pointed out that Ornitharch does something, at least). Think about your average, solid draft deck that contains Ornitharch. How many of your cards are going to be better plays? It's not a good "play" really, at least not on its own, because it's just going to get wrathed, but what other cards would you have played to better effect? One, maybe two in your entire deck? How much worse are most of the other 20 cards? In what way is it not still an above average play.
Even in your situation, where the opponent has a Nessian Asp out, how many of your options are better than an Ornitharch? That's the entire point of the word "average." It can be a bad play and still be better than average if most of your options are absolutely terrible.
Ornitharch is literally always a better than average play in BTT. It's a creature that's vastly better than your average creature and has no downside or way to be truly abused by your opponent. That's all there is to it. There's never going to be a situation where you draw Ornitharch (short of a situation where you are mana screwed, in which case you don't really want any spells haha) and think to yourself: "Damn, I would have rather drawn any one of some ten or so other cards right now." How is that not "above average" by definition?
No one is giving you a 5/5 flyer for 5 unless they have removal to deal with it immediately. Far more likely they're giving you a 3/3 and 2 1/1s for 5 which is significantly easier to deal with in nearly any situation. Plenty of the sets removal can deal with it and a 3/3 is not hard to stop/trade with even in the air. I'm certainly not saying it's a "below average" play, but I think it's a bit overrated here.
And, to respond to another part of a different post, I have watched plenty of drafts, Channel Fireball among them. I'm not amazed by Ornitharch in action, it's as simple as that.
I can think of plenty of cards I'd rather have over Ornitharch. Most of them cost less than 5 mana. Whether we're talking Akroan Skyguard for a turn 2 play or a good enabler (God's Willing perhaps) there are countless situations that come to mind where I would rather have another card in hand than Ornitharch. Ornitharch is a fine card and I'd play it in all but the most nut draw decks sure but decent and good are definitely words I'd use to describe it alot of the time.
We're not debating that the card is good; for my part, I'm pointing out that the game is so complex that terms like "literally never" can mislead less experienced players and, in general, absolutes are virtually never applicable to this massively complex game. Casting it into two open blue mana can be a below average play. Casting it instead of Bolting something can be a below-average play. Et cetera. It won't be very often, but there's a wide gulf between "unusual" and "literally never."
Ornitharch is five flying power for five mana; a good deal in any book. However, it's Tribute clause means that it can be dealt with by anything that can deal with a 5/5 flyer (Divine Verdict) or a 3/3 flyer and two 1/1 flyers (Graverobber Spider.) This is a very important part of assessing the card... the option is not beneficial to the caster; while it looks like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation to some drafters, it's closer in effect to having the designation "Artifact Creature," in that it's not often going to help you a bunch, but does open the card up to a whole new set of answers.
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Shrug, perhaps I wasn't being clear. Sorry. I'm just trying to clarify that while a card may be a bad play in a given situation, that doesn't exclude it from being an above average play. If it's better on average than a random card in your deck, which Ornitharch is in every situation I can think of in BTT, than it's an above average play, regardless of the board state. That's not the case for all good creatures who can whiff (Demolok, for example late game against an opponent with plenty of land) or who have drawbacks (say, a creature Phyrexian Rager when the life loss makes him unplayable).
Glad we figured that out.
I'd take the Drown in Sorrow, but I haven't played the format much recently. Returned is neat, but replaceable. I prefer to take rarer effects when possible (and sensible.)
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P1p1, I'd take Drown in Sorrow. There are a lot of ways to craft a B/x deck such that Drown becomes one-sided.
Probably the snake. Since RG isn't super fast you're going to end up casting the giant when opponent has 15+ life more often than I'd like. It's a reasonably close pick though.
In that draft, I wound up switching to R/B in pack two anyway, so Giant over Snake worked out very well there.
1. Akroan Skyguard
2. Asphyxiate
3. Fall of the Hammer
4. Ornitharch
Bonus exercise: Same question, Courser of Kruphix.
Pretty much what I'd do. I'd never take Asphyxiate over Unraveler, I'd always take Ornitharch over it. Skyguard and Fall would depend on what else is in the pack. If either would cut red or white's good cards completely, I'd grab either. If there were some other good white and red in the pack, and no black, I'd take Unraveler. It's a tossup if there's some of both or none of either.
Courser I'd definitely take first over the rest. The others are all easily replaceable types of cards (besides maybe Ornitharch).
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Bolt of keranos
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EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
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Trivially easy Searing Blood. Satyr Firedancer is not playable in limited.
So what was the point of posting this again? The 'red trap' is by no means always a thing, particularly as more people have become aware of it. The whole premise of the thread is that those were the only two reasonable picks. If there was some other decent pick then throw it out there.
Firedancer is an awful card. Maybe if you were in triple BNG and already had a whole bunch of Bolts and Bloods, but even then, maybe not. There's no BNG red trap. Sometimes you get cut. You can control what you're passing to an extent, but you can't control what the player to your other side is doing in pack 1.
As for the pick, Searing Blood is a super easy pick. Firedancer isn't just "not playable in limited" it's not playable in constructed either. It's a bad card.
There is an excellent Boros burn deck that is making excellent use of Firedancer - several videos of it on Channel Fireball.
That said, it is a totally unplayable limited card.
(I mean, you definitely don't want to pick him early and he's certainly not the pick there, but I'm just saying.)
That aside I wasn't really thinking of standard when I said that. I'm not a fan of standard so I often fail to take it into account with my posts.
Sure, but OhDaisy!'s not arguing that it's the nuts; rather, that it's not quite the stone-unplayable card this thread is making it out to be.
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Even in the decks it's okay in (sorry, but there are no limited decks where you'd call it good), you almost certainly have a better option unless you got cut completely in a color you initially tried to draft and are very short on playables. I'd rather have the 2/1 Satyr, the 2/1 that blows up artifacts, an Arena Athlete, a Sunchaser (I disagree that Sunchaser would be worse) or pretty much any other red 2 drop creature. If you have enough burn to make it do actual damage, you have enough burn to clear the way for these frail, little guys.
Maybe it would be playable either with Lava Spike type spells or if it triggered on cast (like Guttersnipe), but since it requires the damage to actually be dealt, you're setting yourself up for throwing a burn spell at someone's face to try the 2 for 1 and getting blown out by removal or bounce. It's not just the terrible body that does nothing alone that makes it unplayable, it's how easily you get baited into wasting removal going for the face, in my opinion. No deck gets around that.