I'll be honest, when I responded I had this thread open in another tab and referred to Actinium's explanation of the LRCast grading scale. I probably wouldn't have responded if someone hadn't posted that. If a thread like this is done again, it may be beneficial to write out the desired scale in the OP.
(And I hope no one takes that as a slight against CricketHunter, whom I'd like to thank for putting together this interesting activity. Just some constructive criticism for the future.)
Thanks for the suggestion, Dire Wombat!
It's been a blast to see the results roll in (look at all those cute little bell curves!) and I'm trying to figure out what to do differently for Khans of Torkair and would love suggestions on how to make this more fun/interesting.
If I had to do it again I'd probably write up this explanation in the first post (and like this time put a copy in the survey form):
A - Stone cold bomb
B - Strongly makes me want to play that color
C - Filler/Role-Players
D - Playable, but would rather not
F - Unplayable
I enjoy the interpretations of the scale and am absolutely fascinated by some of the responses. Speaking of which can some one explain the appeal of Generator Servant? It's currently sitting at B- on the community ratings, but I look at it and see Satyr Hedonist a card that was a C- to me.
Speaking of which can some one explain the appeal of Generator Servant? It's currently sitting at B- on the community ratings, but I look at it and see Satyr Hedonist a card that was a C- to me.
1) Hedonist is a gold card.
2) Hedonist doesn't give Haste.
3) Red is more aggro than Green.
4) Ramp in Green is nothing special. Ramp in Red is hard to find.
But it also speaks to the main weakness of the rating system, that it doesn't take into account the rest of your deck. Any set reviewer worth his salt will frequently make statements like "Good if you're aggro, useless otherwise." Frenzied Goblin comes to mind as a card that goes from terrible to quite dangerous as you ramp up the aggro. Generator Servant is probably a C+ in aggro and a C- in a more controlling build, because even if you're not trying to smash your opponent as quickly as possible, it's still a 2/X for 2. It's never "bad" and it does have random blowout potential.
The one awkward thing is that Red doesn't have a common 5-drop except one that already has Haste! So you do have to get a little creative with your blowout scenarios.
I think B- is a little high, but I think I put it at C+ (which I interpret as "the respectable kind of curve-filler").
My take is that Goblin Pikers are generally fine, especially in colors that don't get a ton of better 2-drops (like red), or that tend toward aggro strategies that need more low-drops (again like red). Any Goblin Piker that offers you some upside when it's sitting around blanked by your opponent's board in the mid-late game is going to be significantly better, though not stellar unless it's something like Azure Mage.
I also think Satyr Hedonist was a little better than it gets credit for in 3xTheros RG decks; you sometimes played Bronze Sable if you came up short on 2-drops, and the ability to cash an otherwise blank Hedonist in to monstrous a cyclops or snake early was a significant upside. The problem, IMO, is that RG wasn't usually all that good to begin with, so a card that was bad in every other archetype was just never going to impress.
Speaking of which can some one explain the appeal of Generator Servant? It's currently sitting at B- on the community ratings, but I look at it and see Satyr Hedonist a card that was a C- to me.
It also has the benefit of being linked to one of the more powerful synergies for the prerelease as well. It can make the red promo do a pretty darn good impression of Thundermaw Hellkite, maybe even a better one? That probably gives a bit of an overrated feel, though that synergy is going to happen quite a bit this weekend.
I like servant just because it's always a threat. I even think X/1s are a little weak this set, plenty of tokens and satyr wayfinders and forge devils and the occasional black cat and crippling blights and festerglooms and adding that last bit of super value to a cone of flame. It's also, as pointed out before, not that great with the only common 5 drop red creature and if you hadn't thought about it the odds of playing a different colored 5 drop on turn 3 is very low, most have a double colored cost which implies you would need to go mountain other land other land for your first 3 land drops, you can't have 2 mountains 1 of the other color or 3 of either on top of needing the servant and big creature, that's magical christmasland if ever it was a place.
What i love is the kind of situation he puts your opponent in though. Do I trade my 2/2 with this? He didn't have a 5 drop for turn 3 but does that mean he doesn't have a 6 drop or maybe 2 three drops for turn 4? Do i burn my removal on this lowly piker just to be safe, especially if I'm maybe a little land screwed and don't think i can deal with a 5 or 6 drop unless i buy myself a few more turns? You can even do something like at 6 lands servant a hasted nimbus of the isles and the opponent will now think did he throw it away just for the haste or does it mean he's got the dissipate or whatever with the remaining 3 mana? Pretty much at any point generator servant makes people sweat bullets and with good reason.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
Nowhere does it say you "must" use A. But I interpreted it as a scale for commons in M15, not a scale for all cards of all rarities from all sets, and the instructions never said otherwise. That makes a huge difference. A "bomb" common is very different than a "bomb" in general. Clearly no common will be as good as Elspeth unless they make a serious mistake. Same with a "premium" removal, especially when you're talking about a core set since they started making Doom Blade-type cards and O-Ring-type cards uncommon instead of common. So I just took A as any top-tier first-pickable common, i.e. the commons that would get picked above most rares and uncommons. It looks like that is meant to be more of a B+/B rating though.
Same here. I feel sort of bad now, since I skewed the results a little. (though my ratings still tended to be about average, so I guess I was just being conservative.)
Nowhere does it say you "must" use A. But I interpreted it as a scale for commons in M15, not a scale for all cards of all rarities from all sets, and the instructions never said otherwise. That makes a huge difference. A "bomb" common is very different than a "bomb" in general. Clearly no common will be as good as Elspeth unless they make a serious mistake. Same with a "premium" removal, especially when you're talking about a core set since they started making Doom Blade-type cards and O-Ring-type cards uncommon instead of common. So I just took A as any top-tier first-pickable common, i.e. the commons that would get picked above most rares and uncommons. It looks like that is meant to be more of a B+/B rating though.
Same here. I feel sort of bad now, since I skewed the results a little. (though my ratings still tended to be about average, so I guess I was just being conservative.)
No need to feel bad in the slightest - different people will bring different internal scales to this regardless, and the fact that you put the extremes of your scale at different places is a perfectly valid way of looking at things.
I remember a quote about a pro who had the following ratings for cards:
(And I hope no one takes that as a slight against CricketHunter, whom I'd like to thank for putting together this interesting activity. Just some constructive criticism for the future.)
Especially this. I was mainly justifying my confusion over the ratings (and inherent ambiguity with rating scales) and suggesting some ways to avoid that in future, but it was in no way meant as a slight against CricketHunter. Thank you for your efforts in setting up the poll, managing the data, etc.!
Re: Phyrre
Maybe you would be able to answer his better with your experience in surveys... From my understanding even when people interpret scales consistently, they may not interpret them accurately. For example, if you asked people to self-rate their own performance, the average would probably be "above average". And even when they are given detailed instructions, they may not interpret them consistently. For example, when standardized exam graders are grading essays, the whole panel doesn't necessarily agree on the same grade, and this is among a pool of experts who are theoretically given the same precise instructions and rubrics. How do you rectify that with surveys asking random people to rate things on 1-5 scales? Just make n large enough, going with the most common interpretation of the scale and smoothing the rest out as "noise"?
Not to mention if you don't pull any 5 drop turn 3 you can always sacrifice your generator servant for a 2 + 3 drop with haste. People are going to get blown out when they realise you just gave two different guys haste and dropped them into burn range a turn earlier.
Yeah Servant is the real deal, because your opponent has to respect it.
If you don't have anything to go with it, it's a Goblin Piker with minor upside.
But there will definitely be games decided on turn 5 when this suddenly powers out a Siege Dragon, or when a weaker player uses one or even two of them to steal a win with something ridiculous and bad like In Garruk's Wake.
This creates a situation where even when you have nothing to do with it, your opponent has to respect the Servant, because they do not know that you aren't crafting a game plan around using it to set up one explosive turn. I would expect the Servant will often meet a Lightning Strike which is a trade you should be ecstatic about.
I'd rate it B on this scale. B- for the actual play implications, but B once you consider the built-in bluff.
I'm "stoked" about Red in this set but I think Generator Servant is just okay, pretty good, but not outstanding. Red already doesn't excel at CA as much and giving up a card to accelerate something isn't THAT good, that often. Otherwise, it's a Bronze Sable. Does it make the deck? Sure. Best common in the set as some have said? No way!
I think the bluff factor is pretty huge. Red lacks 5-drops but most other colors (e.g. black) are full of them. Given how many people will choose black packs and the fact that everyone starts with an expensive promo, I'd rate this a B+ for Sealed Prerelease and C+ for regular draft. The value at the prerelease goes up dramatically. You'll never know when the servant is representing a T3 hasty Black promo or a T5 hasty Siege Dragon blowing up opponent's team. Or just any of the others. You DO know that everyone has some powerful fatty though, and Servant always represents that threat. Players will either get blown out by those plays or be paranoid about them and blow their best removal on a Goblin Piker. But watch out for Oppressive Rays seriously shutting this down for cheaps. And blue mages locking it out of commission with Frost Lynx for tempo.
Re: Phyrre
Maybe you would be able to answer his better with your experience in surveys... From my understanding even when people interpret scales consistently, they may not interpret them accurately. For example, if you asked people to self-rate their own performance, the average would probably be "above average". And even when they are given detailed instructions, they may not interpret them consistently. For example, when standardized exam graders are grading essays, the whole panel doesn't necessarily agree on the same grade, and this is among a pool of experts who are theoretically given the same precise instructions and rubrics. How do you rectify that with surveys asking random people to rate things on 1-5 scales? Just make n large enough, going with the most common interpretation of the scale and smoothing the rest out as "noise"?
For the first part, that's not a survey issue, that's a problem because it's difficult to rate something without objective information. The classic example is if you ask people how well they drive, ~80-90% will say they are above average. Of course that's unlikely, the truth is that the majority of us are average drivers but we have no objective information to determine good drivers. We know that bad drivers get in accidents and get pulled over by the police, but what do good drivers do better than average drivers? Do they more closely follow the speed limit? Leave a good distance between cars? Never take their eyes off the road? Probably all valid reasons, we just can't measure them -- so we end up overestimating our abilities. There's nothing to tell me I'm NOT a good driver, so sure I think I'm good!
We do see this effect in rating Magic cards occasionally, if a card has a truly innovative ability that we've never seen in play and can't compare to a known analog. Usually you'll only see this on a really strange Rare and people assume it's good because "Hey, they made it a Rare! It has to do something!"
For the second part, yes the idea is that with sufficient sample size, you'll smooth out the noise generated by individual opinions. That's unavoidable. The reason we're doing this poll is because there's no objective way to determine a Magic card's "worth." Some of us will be right, some will be a little off, some will be way off. But the idea of wisdom of crowds is that we're all trying our best, so over a large sample the average result will tend toward the truth. It doesn't always work, it's not gospel, but it's the best tool we have!
I think Generator Servant is slightly above average, but not great. If you use the ability then you are 2-for-1'ing yourself which is worth it to haste a bomb but there do not seem to be that many bombs in M15 (other than rares) so the likelihood of that in a specific game is small, and being out 2-for-1 if they remove what you cast with the servant is not fun.
And I don't see the threat of it as a big factor. The threat of a combat trick (especially the convoke for 0 mana ones) can be huge because it could affect my attacking or blocking but the threat of my opponent getting very lucky to have a dragon and the servant in his first 10 or so cards does not make me play differently.
Would you auto-use a Lightning Strike at end of turn 2 or other cheap good removal on a Generator Servant? My answer is clearly no, although I would not mind using cheap 1 point (or -1/-1) removal on it because that is what that sort of removal is for. This is all just my view, a random player.
The way I look at it, Generator Servant is no where near a P1P1 draft card. It's not even the best red common 2-Drop. However, come P2 or P3 if you've got some big Green or Black bombs to power it, suddenly their value skyrockets.
According to the graphs, the best common in the set is Lightning Strike followed by Frost Lynx. Triplicate Spirits has a lot of high ratings, but also has some Cs and even a D+.
According to the graphs, the best common in the set is Lightning Strike followed by Frost Lynx. Triplicate Spirits has a lot of high ratings, but also has some Cs and even a D+.
Do you think this is accurate?
With the huge caveat that as an MTGO player my ratings have to be pure theory craft right now - I can totally buy that Lightning Strike is the best common. I have trouble looking at the graphs to assess card ratings so I use this view:
1
Red Commons [Lightning Strike] B+ 10.13 1.10
2
White Commons [Triplicate Spirits] B 9.27 1.65
3
Green Commons [Elvish Mystic] B 9.02 1.47
4
Black Commons [Flesh to Dust] B 8.85 1.38
5
Blue Commons [Frost Lynx] B 8.74 1.36
6
Blue Commons [Welkin Tern] B 8.58 1.41
7
Black Commons [Accursed Spirit] B- 8.49 1.12
8
White Commons [Raise the Alarm] B- 8.13 1.50
9
Red Commons [Generator Servant] B- 8.10 1.87
10
Red Commons [Borderland Marauder] B- 8.04 1.53
And looking at the top 10, I can see arguments for these being the premium commons in the colors. I still think Generator Servant is overrated - but I don't think by much, I mean it's clearly at least a C+ as a piker, in red, with upside - but honestly I'd much rather have a 3/2 attacker for 2. Also I'm not sure I love Elvish Mystic in a format where the common green fattie has convoke.
I'm surprised by Elvish Mystic. Don't people realize almost every creature has the same ability? There are very few expensive relevant spells that don't have Convoke.
Green has plenty of expensive things without convoke. At common and uncommon we have:
Ancient Silverback
Carnivorous Moss Beast (not a great card, but sometimes you just need a big thing)
Charging Rhino
Restock (ok, not the best card to ramp into casting a turn early)
And obviously once you add in rares there is plenty of stuff.
I do agree that mystic may be a tad overvalued because of convoke, but surely it is hyperbole to say that "every creature has the same ability).
Mystic may be slightly over-valued, but honestly the 1 cmc mana dork is always good. A turn 1 Elvish Mystic either puts you a whole turn ahead tempo wise or catches you up to the player that drew first. I can't think of anything I'd rather see in my opening hand.
Mystic may be slightly over-valued, but honestly the 1 cmc mana dork is always good. A turn 1 Elvish Mystic either puts you a whole turn ahead tempo wise or catches you up to the player that drew first. I can't think of anything I'd rather see in my opening hand.
You may be right there. Green in M14 was pretty mediocre though. There are only 3 green commons in the top 30 winning-est commons and most of them like Hunt the Weak were probably played by other colors as a splash. And that was a weird set overall.
Mystic may be slightly over-valued, but honestly the 1 cmc mana dork is always good. A turn 1 Elvish Mystic either puts you a whole turn ahead tempo wise or catches you up to the player that drew first. I can't think of anything I'd rather see in my opening hand.
However, drawing Elvish Mystic after turn 3 is pretty much a dead draw. That's a tough tradeoff. If you consistently want to run it on turn 1, you probably need to be a green heavy deck with at least 9 Forests. Yeah, if you have Elvish Mystic + Forest in your opener then it is the best turn 1 play you can make. However, the advantage quickly fades. And assuming the average limited game goes about 7-10 turns, you're more likely to topdeck Mystic than have it in your opener. I'm not saying it's not still a very good card but I wouldn't rank it in top 5 commons.
Thanks for the suggestion, Dire Wombat!
It's been a blast to see the results roll in (look at all those cute little bell curves!) and I'm trying to figure out what to do differently for Khans of Torkair and would love suggestions on how to make this more fun/interesting.
If I had to do it again I'd probably write up this explanation in the first post (and like this time put a copy in the survey form):
A - Stone cold bomb
B - Strongly makes me want to play that color
C - Filler/Role-Players
D - Playable, but would rather not
F - Unplayable
I enjoy the interpretations of the scale and am absolutely fascinated by some of the responses. Speaking of which can some one explain the appeal of Generator Servant? It's currently sitting at B- on the community ratings, but I look at it and see Satyr Hedonist a card that was a C- to me.
1) Hedonist is a gold card.
2) Hedonist doesn't give Haste.
3) Red is more aggro than Green.
4) Ramp in Green is nothing special. Ramp in Red is hard to find.
But it also speaks to the main weakness of the rating system, that it doesn't take into account the rest of your deck. Any set reviewer worth his salt will frequently make statements like "Good if you're aggro, useless otherwise." Frenzied Goblin comes to mind as a card that goes from terrible to quite dangerous as you ramp up the aggro. Generator Servant is probably a C+ in aggro and a C- in a more controlling build, because even if you're not trying to smash your opponent as quickly as possible, it's still a 2/X for 2. It's never "bad" and it does have random blowout potential.
The one awkward thing is that Red doesn't have a common 5-drop except one that already has Haste! So you do have to get a little creative with your blowout scenarios.
My take is that Goblin Pikers are generally fine, especially in colors that don't get a ton of better 2-drops (like red), or that tend toward aggro strategies that need more low-drops (again like red). Any Goblin Piker that offers you some upside when it's sitting around blanked by your opponent's board in the mid-late game is going to be significantly better, though not stellar unless it's something like Azure Mage.
I also think Satyr Hedonist was a little better than it gets credit for in 3xTheros RG decks; you sometimes played Bronze Sable if you came up short on 2-drops, and the ability to cash an otherwise blank Hedonist in to monstrous a cyclops or snake early was a significant upside. The problem, IMO, is that RG wasn't usually all that good to begin with, so a card that was bad in every other archetype was just never going to impress.
It also has the benefit of being linked to one of the more powerful synergies for the prerelease as well. It can make the red promo do a pretty darn good impression of Thundermaw Hellkite, maybe even a better one? That probably gives a bit of an overrated feel, though that synergy is going to happen quite a bit this weekend.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
What i love is the kind of situation he puts your opponent in though. Do I trade my 2/2 with this? He didn't have a 5 drop for turn 3 but does that mean he doesn't have a 6 drop or maybe 2 three drops for turn 4? Do i burn my removal on this lowly piker just to be safe, especially if I'm maybe a little land screwed and don't think i can deal with a 5 or 6 drop unless i buy myself a few more turns? You can even do something like at 6 lands servant a hasted nimbus of the isles and the opponent will now think did he throw it away just for the haste or does it mean he's got the dissipate or whatever with the remaining 3 mana? Pretty much at any point generator servant makes people sweat bullets and with good reason.
Same here. I feel sort of bad now, since I skewed the results a little. (though my ratings still tended to be about average, so I guess I was just being conservative.)
No need to feel bad in the slightest - different people will bring different internal scales to this regardless, and the fact that you put the extremes of your scale at different places is a perfectly valid way of looking at things.
I remember a quote about a pro who had the following ratings for cards:
Garbage
Hot Steaming Garbage
Really bad
Terrible
and
Playable
Especially this. I was mainly justifying my confusion over the ratings (and inherent ambiguity with rating scales) and suggesting some ways to avoid that in future, but it was in no way meant as a slight against CricketHunter. Thank you for your efforts in setting up the poll, managing the data, etc.!
Re: Phyrre
Maybe you would be able to answer his better with your experience in surveys... From my understanding even when people interpret scales consistently, they may not interpret them accurately. For example, if you asked people to self-rate their own performance, the average would probably be "above average". And even when they are given detailed instructions, they may not interpret them consistently. For example, when standardized exam graders are grading essays, the whole panel doesn't necessarily agree on the same grade, and this is among a pool of experts who are theoretically given the same precise instructions and rubrics. How do you rectify that with surveys asking random people to rate things on 1-5 scales? Just make n large enough, going with the most common interpretation of the scale and smoothing the rest out as "noise"?
I definitely expect this card to sit around B.
If you don't have anything to go with it, it's a Goblin Piker with minor upside.
But there will definitely be games decided on turn 5 when this suddenly powers out a Siege Dragon, or when a weaker player uses one or even two of them to steal a win with something ridiculous and bad like In Garruk's Wake.
This creates a situation where even when you have nothing to do with it, your opponent has to respect the Servant, because they do not know that you aren't crafting a game plan around using it to set up one explosive turn. I would expect the Servant will often meet a Lightning Strike which is a trade you should be ecstatic about.
I'd rate it B on this scale. B- for the actual play implications, but B once you consider the built-in bluff.
For the first part, that's not a survey issue, that's a problem because it's difficult to rate something without objective information. The classic example is if you ask people how well they drive, ~80-90% will say they are above average. Of course that's unlikely, the truth is that the majority of us are average drivers but we have no objective information to determine good drivers. We know that bad drivers get in accidents and get pulled over by the police, but what do good drivers do better than average drivers? Do they more closely follow the speed limit? Leave a good distance between cars? Never take their eyes off the road? Probably all valid reasons, we just can't measure them -- so we end up overestimating our abilities. There's nothing to tell me I'm NOT a good driver, so sure I think I'm good!
We do see this effect in rating Magic cards occasionally, if a card has a truly innovative ability that we've never seen in play and can't compare to a known analog. Usually you'll only see this on a really strange Rare and people assume it's good because "Hey, they made it a Rare! It has to do something!"
For the second part, yes the idea is that with sufficient sample size, you'll smooth out the noise generated by individual opinions. That's unavoidable. The reason we're doing this poll is because there's no objective way to determine a Magic card's "worth." Some of us will be right, some will be a little off, some will be way off. But the idea of wisdom of crowds is that we're all trying our best, so over a large sample the average result will tend toward the truth. It doesn't always work, it's not gospel, but it's the best tool we have!
Also I'm still looking for suggestions about to how to improve the interface/result reporting.
And I don't see the threat of it as a big factor. The threat of a combat trick (especially the convoke for 0 mana ones) can be huge because it could affect my attacking or blocking but the threat of my opponent getting very lucky to have a dragon and the servant in his first 10 or so cards does not make me play differently.
Would you auto-use a Lightning Strike at end of turn 2 or other cheap good removal on a Generator Servant? My answer is clearly no, although I would not mind using cheap 1 point (or -1/-1) removal on it because that is what that sort of removal is for. This is all just my view, a random player.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
Do you think this is accurate?
With the huge caveat that as an MTGO player my ratings have to be pure theory craft right now - I can totally buy that Lightning Strike is the best common. I have trouble looking at the graphs to assess card ratings so I use this view:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_ZdBVXiHLW55FUfFJsYBPgHnuUeXqgTii_PML9Px8VM/pubhtml#
Here are the top 10 commons as of this moment:
1
Red Commons [Lightning Strike] B+ 10.13 1.10
2
White Commons [Triplicate Spirits] B 9.27 1.65
3
Green Commons [Elvish Mystic] B 9.02 1.47
4
Black Commons [Flesh to Dust] B 8.85 1.38
5
Blue Commons [Frost Lynx] B 8.74 1.36
6
Blue Commons [Welkin Tern] B 8.58 1.41
7
Black Commons [Accursed Spirit] B- 8.49 1.12
8
White Commons [Raise the Alarm] B- 8.13 1.50
9
Red Commons [Generator Servant] B- 8.10 1.87
10
Red Commons [Borderland Marauder] B- 8.04 1.53
And looking at the top 10, I can see arguments for these being the premium commons in the colors. I still think Generator Servant is overrated - but I don't think by much, I mean it's clearly at least a C+ as a piker, in red, with upside - but honestly I'd much rather have a 3/2 attacker for 2. Also I'm not sure I love Elvish Mystic in a format where the common green fattie has convoke.
Ancient Silverback
Carnivorous Moss Beast (not a great card, but sometimes you just need a big thing)
Charging Rhino
Restock (ok, not the best card to ramp into casting a turn early)
And obviously once you add in rares there is plenty of stuff.
I do agree that mystic may be a tad overvalued because of convoke, but surely it is hyperbole to say that "every creature has the same ability).
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
That's probably true - maybe it's just the fact that he was really bad in M14: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/limited/cards/draft/m14_m14_m14#online
That's probably clouding my judgment of Mystic.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
However, drawing Elvish Mystic after turn 3 is pretty much a dead draw. That's a tough tradeoff. If you consistently want to run it on turn 1, you probably need to be a green heavy deck with at least 9 Forests. Yeah, if you have Elvish Mystic + Forest in your opener then it is the best turn 1 play you can make. However, the advantage quickly fades. And assuming the average limited game goes about 7-10 turns, you're more likely to topdeck Mystic than have it in your opener. I'm not saying it's not still a very good card but I wouldn't rank it in top 5 commons.