I find amusing that someone who lamented how much KtK was high-variance, that hitting your 3rd drop and curving to 5 lands is so vital in KtK, would be so scathing in his opinion of taigam's scheming. When I'm playing delve cards, if I could draft a scheming with the guarantee that I would have it in my hand on turn two, I would always play it. Setting up your draws perfectly so that you get to play the on-curve spell every turn and get your land exactly on time the turn you need them is a great plan. Games are won by curving and getting good draws, which taigam's scheming does. It's only card disadvantage if the game goes so long that the early card quality matters less than having access to one more card.
I mean, if you think, like Phyrres obviously does, that taigam's scheming is such obvious crap due to that, then how do you ever justify playing first? Drawing first, with the extra card should be the obvious cornerstone of intelligent plays. Except playing first is often right. Yes, I'm comparing tempo to card quality + great curving, which is not entirely equivalent, but I've played enough to have seen that wins often come from drawing well in the early turns of the games.
I'm not calling taigam's scheming the second coming of draft kung-fu, but calling it trash and unplayable, is not where it's at either. I've played against good Sultai's decks, and both scheming and scout played important roles to set up their draws and fill the graveyard. Delve is only good with a filled graveyard and scheming ensure both that you get your delve cards earlier and have fuel to play them.
I find amusing that someone who lamented how much KtK was high-variance, that hitting your 3rd drop and curving to 5 lands is so vital in KtK, would be so scathing in his opinion of taigam's scheming. When I'm playing delve cards, if I could draft a scheming with the guarantee that I would have it in my hand on turn two, I would always play it. Setting up your draws perfectly so that you get to play the on-curve spell every turn and get your land exactly on time the turn you need them is a great plan. Games are won by curving and getting good draws, which taigam's scheming does. It's only card disadvantage if the game goes so long that the early card quality matters less than having access to one more card.
I mean, if you think, like Phyrres obviously does, that taigam's scheming is such obvious crap due to that, then how do you ever justify playing first? Drawing first, with the extra card should be the obvious cornerstone of intelligent plays. Except playing first is often right. Yes, I'm comparing tempo to card quality + great curving, which is not entirely equivalent, but I've played enough to have seen that wins often come from drawing well in the early turns of the games.
I'm not calling taigam's scheming the second coming of draft kung-fu, but calling it trash and unplayable, is not where it's at either. I've played against good Sultai's decks, and both scheming and scout played important roles to set up their draws and fill the graveyard. Delve is only good with a filled graveyard and scheming ensure both that you get your delve cards earlier and have fuel to play them.
None of what you posted is a defense of card disadvantage.
The cost to play Taiga's Scheming is four-fold:
1. Two mana
2. Loss of tempo
3. Card disadvantage
4. Using a card slot to play a 2-mana, tempo losing, card disadvantage card
You talk about 'smoothing out your draws,' but this a red herring. For it to smooth out your draw, you need to have it in your opening hand. If it's the 5th card on top of your library after drawing your opener, you might as well be drawing a blank card. You also need to have NOTHING good to play early, otherwise it doesn't help you at all.
But let's take the best case scenario. You have a bad draw with Scheming in hand. You think, 'Great, I've got this.' Turn two you drop a Scheming and look at the top 5 cards of your library and realize that you have no idea what cards you will need to draw because your opponent hasn't played anything yet. So you guess. Guess what? Now you are down a card, and you didn't affect the board at all, all while making an uninformed decision that will affect the next 3-5 turns. 'But all is not lost,' you say as you slam a Hooting Mandrills on turn 3! Then your opponent untaps and plays a 5 toughness blocker, a removal spell, or a morph that can eat your creature in a turn or 2.
I would bet that 98% of draft decks that include Taiga's Scheming in the main board fail to 3-0 a draft.
I'm not sure why I even bother replying since everyone who thinks scheming is straight unplayable has such a strong opinion about it. I mean when you claim that 'none of what I posted is s defense for card disadvantage', well, there is no room for arguing is it?
You basically claim that, in order:
1. Spending mana to play a card is a cost. Well duh, there ain't many good zero-cost spell in Magic, is there? How is that an argument at all?
2. Not playing a two drop and spending your turn two setting up your 3-5 next draws in perfect order is valueless.
3. No one is disputing scheming cost a card.
4. Gee, okay, you just repeated your first three point on one line. I guess repetition and aggregation creates an extra argument?
You then claim both that smoothing your draw is only valuable in the early game (hey, we'll have to disagree. Yes, I said I'd like to scheme on turn two, but that was not a claim that dropping useless land and getting your best-of-five next is worthless). You also claim, apparently, that having an opening hand that that has gas and action every turn is the norm. Well, I must be one unlucky player. In most of my FNM drafts, my hands are quite imperfect and often use my mana inefficiently because I don't always have the land drop and spell that perfectly my current mana.
You then set up a straw man that playing scheme on turn two is uselss because you need to know your opponent's future play to decide how to set up your library. No you don't. You can setup your draw and game plan without such info. In fact, the whole reason why scheming can be playable is wholly based on being synergistic with a particular deck and game plan. That is Delve. No one is arguing about playing in it in a Mardu deck. It's all about getting your delve deck ticking.
You also seem to have quite the obsession with hooting mandrills which, while being a very serviceable play, is hardly the best a delve deck does. In fact, in your earlier post you mentioned a turn-three sultai scavenger (which you apparently dismissed as being not-so-great play) which, in my experience, would be a very great play, as 3/3 flyer on turn 3 is really, really good in KtK.
TL;DR: multiple claims that are either obvious or irrelevant plus multiple straight-out dismissals and straw men.
Pierrebai, I appreciate your points. Regardless of my take on the format (variance, fast, grindy, whatever) I never want card disadvantage. You can argue virtual card advantage or card quality, but I guess I prefer to stick to the traditional definition. It's a card from my hand into the graveyard, that doesn't put another card in my hand or onto the board, or affect something on the board, or attack my opponent's hand. I'm going to be wary of that type of card every time. That formula has just never been good in Limited.
I've honestly never seen Scheming be good against me. Even when it's worked, it's been just OK. Even if you dump your library and get a Turn 3 Hooting Mandrills -- It's like Dark Ritual, you've invested 2 cards into that one creature and turned my spells into 2-for-1s against it. Even a bounce spell is a huge setback in that scenario, or a pump spell in combat, or really anything that gets in the way of your 4/4. If my deck rolls over to an early Delve creature, then it was just a bad deck with all small creatures and no good spells.
For investing two cards, you really need something more splashy than the common Delve guys. If you set up a Turn 3 Necropolis Fiend, OK now I'm on board. But that requires a very specific draw. (UBB, Scheming, Fiend in succession) and still gets straight up destroyed by a kill spell.
Most times the result is more middle of the road. You get your Delve guy a turn or two earlier, and smooth out your draws a little bit, but none of that is really compelling to me. I'm fine putting it in the "Not playable until people start beating me with it" category. I'd rather let others prove me wrong than experiment myself. I have seen it a handful of times and those decks have never defeated me. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I also don't have any evidence that it's secret tech.
I haven not been overly impressed with it. I love playing grindy sultai decks, but I vastly prefer to be running treasure cruises and dead drops to hooting mandrils and sultai scavengers, and its much less relevant to power those out quickly. I also feel like you need to be spending your turn 2 preparing to stabilize a lot of the time, and I really want to be playing an archer's parapet or a tapland and a dishonored ancestor, or even a highland game instead of putting myself down on both cards and tempo at the start.
@Phyrre56
I would raise similar objections to your evaluation. Calling Scheming playable doesn't equate to calling everything playable; in fact I've called a similar card (Scout the Borders) unplayable in this very thread for reasons I won't repeat in this post. It costs 2 mana in a format with an unusually low number of 2 drops and extremely high number of 3 drops; you'll also generally bin at least one card, so you get back mana that was likely to go unspent, possibly even gain mana in the medium/long run. It's card disadvantage, but so are many loot effects; looting is considered strong in limited, and I would argue binning + reordering is actually stronger for reasons I've also already explained ITT. The card only causes loss of tempo when it's cast instead of a creature or when it forces you to play a lower impact one, which is not all the time; delving out a high impact spell and fixing your next few draws will more than make up for this in most board states.
1. Spending mana to play a card is a cost. Well duh, there ain't many good zero-cost spell in Magic, is there? How is that an argument at all?
2. Not playing a two drop and spending your turn two setting up your 3-5 next draws in perfect order is valueless.
3. No one is disputing scheming cost a card.
4. Gee, okay, you just repeated your first three point on one line. I guess repetition and aggregation creates an extra argument?
I'll simply answer this part of the post since the rest of mine was not meant literally.
1. Two mana is a cost in the Sultai deck. In the early game, I would much rather play an Archer's Parapet, a Highland Game, a Smoke Teller, or a Wetland Sambar or Outlast a Disowned Ancestor than play Scheming. In the mid/late game, if you have 2 mana to spend on a spell that doesn't affect the board and doesn't get you a card until the following turn, then you're already stable and I would much rather have a creature, a removal spell, or card draw rather than card selection that will take several turns to pay off.
2. If you are waiting until turn 3 to cast a board impacting spell, there are a number of decks in the format that will not let you recover, especially if you're on the draw. Jeskai, Mardu, and Temur can all have you around the throat when they untap with 5 mana.
3. It costs a card? No, it is card disadvantage. That's not the same thing. Murderous Cut costs a card, but it can be a 2-for-1 or even a 3-for-1 in not unreasonable circumstances. Scheming is card disadvantage 100% of the time. You discard a card to manipulate your library and graveyard. That's it. Unless you are comboing with Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, you are behind on board and in cards by casting this card.
4. This is a tough concept for some people to get. The fact that a spell costs a card slot is an important consideration. It's why Ornithopter is a crappy card. You pay 0 mana for an 0/2 Flyer. Some people think 'Why not play it? It's free.' But it's not free. It's a card in your deck that isn't relevant in most boardstates. You cannot overlook the fact that to play Scheming, you must use one of you 22 nonland card slots to play a card that is only good if you are chaining it into a Delve spell which may or may not be in your hand.
4. This is a tough concept for some people to get. The fact that a spell costs a card slot is an important consideration. It's why Ornithopter is a crappy card. You pay 0 mana for an 0/2 Flyer. Some people think 'Why not play it? It's free.' But it's not free. It's a card in your deck that isn't relevant in most boardstates. You cannot overlook the fact that to play Scheming, you must use one of you 22 nonland card slots to play a card that is only good if you are chaining it into a Delve spell which may or may not be in your hand.
Interesting arguments, but I think you have to admit that your point (4) really is just a summary of points (1) - (3). Cards don't cost any "slots" unless you draw them (a card that would never have been drawn is meaningless during any game). And a card that is drawn already gets counted in your points (1), (2), and (3) in all relevant aspects.
Taigon's Scheming can, I think, do very relevant and important things at several points of several types of games:
(1) In a game that you can play it early (turn 2 or 3 or 4) when your deck would have very little chance of winning given the natural sequence of its next 5 draws, but a much better chance of winning with selected ordering of its next 5 draws. Example: a three land hand that misses its fourth land drops on draws 1 and 2. Knowing how often I lose because the first 12 cards at the top of my deck have a bad skew of land to castable spells (somewhere between 30% and 40% of matches, in my experience), I can absolutely see how Taigon's Scheming could turn what would be a completely hopeless game into one that you actually have a chance of winning.
(2) In top deck mode; whereas it doesn't help you immediately, it can vastly help starting on the next draw. Would I rather draw one dude that I can play into an empty board state, or no dudes right now but schedule two or three dudes over the next few turns? I think I'd take the latter every time.
(3) In delve decks, to do all of the above while enabling delve (I find "enabling delve" to be a bit overrated; delve tends to be enabled fairly effectively just as part of normal game play -- I very rarely can't delve when I want to because I don't have enough cards in the graveyard).
All that being said, I've never played Taigon's Scheming and never intend to, because I never feel comfortable unless I have at least 14 creatures, preferably 16+ creatures, in my deck, and so I am never willing to cut a creature for Taigon's Scheming (since I have a hard time getting 14 - 18 playable creatures to begin with), and I never feel like any of the non-creature spells I have are worse than Taigon's Scheming.
However, maybe 17 lands + Taigon's Scheming is better than 18 lands? (but only if you're heavy blue of course, 8+ blue lands)
[quote from="Ken Carson »"]
All that being said, I've never played Taigon's Scheming and never intend to, because I never feel comfortable unless I have at least 14 creatures, preferably 16+ creatures, in my deck, and so I am never willing to cut a creature for Taigon's Scheming (since I have a hard time getting 14 - 18 playable creatures to begin with), and I never feel like any of the non-creature spells I have are worse than Taigon's Scheming.
If this is your stance then I'm not sure why you're even arguing. You just said you've never seen a scenario where Taigam's scheming has been one of the best 22-23 cards in your pool.
Interesting arguments, but I think you have to admit that your point (4) really is just a summary of points (1) - (3). Cards don't cost any "slots" unless you draw them (a card that would never have been drawn is meaningless during any game). And a card that is drawn already gets counted in your points (1), (2), and (3) in all relevant aspects.
It's not though. If the card is not included in your deck, you cannot draw it. It's the reason you shouldn't play a Fugitive Wizard. 1 mana for a 1/1 is a fair deal, but it's just not worth drawing or playing on 95% of board states. By including such a card in your deck, you have effectively chosen to play with an almost blank card when even a Siege Mastadon would be a significant upgrade. The cost to play the card is more than the mana cost. It's how valuable the impact that card can make on an average board in relation to another card in your pool.
You're having to go through gymnastics to come up with board states in which Scheming is good. Just apply Quadrant theory:
Is it going in the developing phase? Mixed bag. It could combo into a Delve card, but you need to have that card in hand. It could filter your draws for a few turns, but it could also put you behind an aggressive or tempo-based deck because it does nothing to affect the board.
Is it good when you are losing the game? No. It doesn't affect the board at all, and you do not get any benefit until your next draw step.
Is it good when you are winning the game? No. It doesn't affect the board at all, and any creature, removal spell, or card draw spell will do more to enhance your board position/card advantage.
Is it good during a board stall? Again, a mixed bag. It could help you filter to better spells which will break the stall and it could dump 5 lands lands into your yard, but if you play this and your opponent takes control of the board, you are now behind.
If it *could be good* only during 2 phases (but might not be, unlike Elvish Mystic or Mystic of the Hidden Way which are always good in those specific phases and therefore included in decks for those particular phases), it's probably not a playable Magic card.
If this is your stance then I'm not sure why you're even arguing. You just said you've never seen a scenario where Taigam's scheming has been one of the best 22-23 cards in your pool.
Well I didn't think I was "arguing", just making points. I guess it's all a matter of semantics.
I just wanted to point out why I think it seems overzealous to say that the card is completely unplayable. Also I said "I never feel comfortable" specifically to indicate that my own arguments against Taigon's Scheming are based on my own play style and preferences, so the fact that I don't play it was not meant to be a strike against it, just more empirical evidence for those who judge cards based on collective evaluation (I didn't want the points I made to be construed as being a vote for or against the card).
Wow that was confusing. All I really mean is that I put out those points because they make sense to me, but with the complexity of card evaluation, I cannot be certain that Taigon's Scheming is really good or bad until I play with it alot, and my own play style and preferences have prevented me from playing it, so I can't offer any personal endorsement of the card.
Quote from Ken Carson » »
It's not though. If the card is not included in your deck, you cannot draw it. It's the reason you shouldn't play a Fugitive Wizard. 1 mana for a 1/1 is a fair deal, but it's just not worth drawing or playing on 95% of board states. By including such a card in your deck, you have effectively chosen to play with an almost blank card when even a Siege Mastadon would be a significant upgrade. The cost to play the card is more than the mana cost. It's how valuable the impact that card can make on an average board in relation to another card in your pool.
Well I don't want to turn this into a pointless debate so I'll just say that it seems to me that the logic here is circular - you evaluate the card's value based on how likely it is to lead to a winning game when drawn, and then use that evaluation to say that the card is "taking slots away" from better cards, and claim that this is another part of the evaluation against the card, but you cannot even get to the "taking slots away" argument without already having decided that the card is not good. The "taking away slots" argument depends upon the evaluation of the card, and cannot be used as an input to the evaluation of the card. The reasoning is circular.
However, I've said enough on this and I'm happy to leave you with the last word if you'd like to respond.
Quote from Ken Carson »
You're having to go through gymnastics to come up with board states in which Scheming is good.
I disagree. It wasn't hard to think of those situations (no mental gymnastics required), and they are very common situations in Magic from my experience.
Quote from Ken Carson »
Just apply Quadrant theory:
Is it going in the developing phase? Mixed bag. It could combo into a Delve card, but you need to have that card in hand. It could filter your draws for a few turns, but it could also put you behind an aggressive or tempo-based deck because it does nothing to affect the board.
Is it good when you are losing the game? No. It doesn't affect the board at all, and you do not get any benefit until your next draw step.
Is it good when you are winning the game? No. It doesn't affect the board at all, and any creature, removal spell, or card draw spell will do more to enhance your board position/card advantage.
Is it good during a board stall? Again, a mixed bag. It could help you filter to better spells which will break the stall and it could dump 5 lands lands into your yard, but if you play this and your opponent takes control of the board, you are now behind.
If it *could be good* only during 2 phases (but might not be, unlike Elvish Mystic or Mystic of the Hidden Way which are always good in those specific phases and therefore included in decks for those particular phases), it's probably not a playable Magic card.
I don't disagree with the fundamental basis of these points, but I do think some nuance is lost (i.e. there is some good to filtering and ordering your next 5 draws in every one of those parts of your quadrant, the amount of good being determined by the specifics of the situation, and the level of good-ness versus the goodness of the "average quality of the card that could have been drawn instead" is the topic of debate, and I think the nuance is really important here).
I believe the goldfish data is also a strike against the card, for what that's worth. I'd enjoy hearing anecdotal experiences with how this card works out in practice, in any case.
If this is your stance then I'm not sure why you're even arguing. You just said you've never seen a scenario where Taigam's scheming has been one of the best 22-23 cards in your pool.
Well I didn't think I was "arguing", just making points. I guess it's all a matter of semantics.
I just wanted to point out why I think it seems overzealous to say that the card is completely unplayable. Also I said "I never feel comfortable" specifically to indicate that my own arguments against Taigon's Scheming are based on my own play style and preferences, so the fact that I don't play it was not meant to be a strike against it, just more empirical evidence for those who judge cards based on collective evaluation (I didn't want the points I made to be construed as being a vote for or against the card).
I was trying to convince another player not to play two copies of Taigam's Scheming in their deck last night.
My chief point was that I spend most of my time in every game trying to engineer card advantage situations (2-for-1s). By casting scheming you're giving your opponent a free 1-for-0.
Hilarious that I would lose to exactly this card/deck tonight after posting in this discussion. My opponent went turn 2 Taigam's Scheming, dropping 4 lands into their graveyard (how's that for a single card preventing a loss from flood?) then turn 3 Taigam's Scheming (throwing I think 2 more lands and a creature into the graveyard). Of course turn 4 was Necropolis Fiend, and after that tons of control cards to back it up. It was the most delve heavy deck I have ever seen, with the 3/3 delve flyer played, the 4/4 delve ape played, a Treasure Cruise, a Bitter Revelations, etc. My opponent was down to 9 cards in their deck when I was still at 22.
As we have established...over and over and over again...every card does something, most cards even do something good in the right situations, but that doesn't mean you should play them.
Your opponent had 2 Schemings in his opening ~10 cards, which is the best case scenario. They are always better early. He also randomly had 6/10 lands at least in the next set of cards which isn't that crazy but still an above average amount. He also had Necropolis Fiend in his top 20 cards which is obviously a 50/50 proposition. And even despite all that fortunate luck, if you had say Smite the Monstrous for that Fiend or any number of other removal or bounce spells, he would have been so far behind!
Addressing the point of overzealousness -- I honestly feel it's the only way to combat the rampant use of Results Oriented and Best Case Scenario thinking. I've been hanging around these boards for a long time, and with every set there are pet cards that people love to defend. We've even had discussions about this phenomenon that so many people want to make bad cards good, rather than just accept that they are bad. I think it's because everyone is looking for an edge, and one way to do that is to find the diamond in the rough that no one else is playing, but the success rate on this is extremely low.
Of course no card is literally unplayable. You have free will, you can play it. But it's unplayable from a strategic point of view, from maximizing your deck quality. Good drafting should never leave you with Taigam's Scheming as your 22nd best card especially since the format has so many good commons. I'd play a Morph I couldn't flip up before Scheming. That's not hyperbole or semantics, that is literally how I value the card. Worse than a 2/2 for 3 with no other abilities.
Your opponent had 2 Schemings in his opening ~10 cards, which is the best case scenario. They are always better early. He also randomly had 6/10 lands at least in the next set of cards which isn't that crazy but still an above average amount. He also had Necropolis Fiend in his top 20 cards which is obviously a 50/50 proposition. And even despite all that fortunate luck, if you had say Smite the Monstrous for that Fiend or any number of other removal or bounce spells, he would have been so far behind!
I agree that this was what the best case of Taigan's Scheming looks like, I just thought it was funny (but frustrating!) to be on the losing end of the perfect draw with this card right after posting in this discussion.
I think I need to find a thread where people are talking about winning 10 drafts in a row, and go post in there. If I have to live the thread, I think I'd rather live that one ...
I don't think that's necessarily a case of "best-case scenario," but rather a deck that wants Scheming as it's 20-22 card/cards. If you have a mess of powerful delve cards, it's going to become a lot more playable, obviously.
Similar to Trumpet Blast and the like, it's never going to be played by skilled players in a deck that doesn't specifically want it; of course, the decks that want Scheming are few and far between. In general it's strict card disadvantage and I hate that.
EDIT: also, I don't buy the argument that the card/draw quality improvement it provides balances the inherent disadvantage out... if you have literally nothing else to put in the two-drop slot, well, then, okay, but I would rather play a Wetland Sambar.
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I like the card a lot. It has helped me win games. It is not something I am going to first pick and is often the last card cut from ym deck, but I am never unhappy to have it in my deck.
Scheming was one of my happy birthdays last week (pack 2 iirc) last week and it ultimately made the cut. I had a lot of 2 drops for once (fastest Sultai list I've ever seen), and cut a CMC < 3 creature for the first time in this format (Embodiment of Spring). Only one delve spell because they dried up a lot earlier than usual. Even in that deck it was good (binned crap, reordered good stuff).
I still have serious doubts about 2+ schemings, but I'm convinced this card is a sleeper. One of the better cards that you will realistically get in the last 4 or so picks. People see it and think Index, which actually is garbage and will often make a very lackluster hate pick instead of taking an entirely playable card.
I had a lot of 2 drops for once (fastest Sultai list I've ever seen), and cut a CMC < 3 creature for the first time in this format (Embodiment of Spring). Only one delve spell because they dried up a lot earlier than usual. Even in that deck it was good (binned crap, reordered good stuff).
Are two drops really all that? You mean that you'd rather play Embodiment of Spring over other cards (which is what you implied when you said that it's the first time you've cut a 2 drop - surely you've had Embodiments that you haven't cut before?) that are much more powerful but happen to lie at the 3 drop slot or above?
I must be awful because I only play 2 drops when I believe they are good cards. I guess if you really insist on having critical mass of 2 drops because you believe that the key to winning is to have a creature to play on turn 2, then OK. I don't believe that though. Also I guess I fundamentally don't want Magic to be a game of "whoever plays the most creatures first wins" so I don't really try to play that way.
I'll simply answer this part of the post since the rest of mine was not meant literally.
1. Two mana is a cost in the Sultai deck. In the early game, I would much rather play an Archer's Parapet, a Highland Game, a Smoke Teller, or a Wetland Sambar or Outlast a Disowned Ancestor than play Scheming. In the mid/late game, if you have 2 mana to spend on a spell that doesn't affect the board and doesn't get you a card until the following turn, then you're already stable and I would much rather have a creature, a removal spell, or card draw rather than card selection that will take several turns to pay off.
2. If you are waiting until turn 3 to cast a board impacting spell, there are a number of decks in the format that will not let you recover, especially if you're on the draw. Jeskai, Mardu, and Temur can all have you around the throat when they untap with 5 mana.
3. It costs a card? No, it is card disadvantage. That's not the same thing. Murderous Cut costs a card, but it can be a 2-for-1 or even a 3-for-1 in not unreasonable circumstances. Scheming is card disadvantage 100% of the time. You discard a card to manipulate your library and graveyard. That's it. Unless you are comboing with Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, you are behind on board and in cards by casting this card.
4. This is a tough concept for some people to get. The fact that a spell costs a card slot is an important consideration. It's why Ornithopter is a crappy card. You pay 0 mana for an 0/2 Flyer. Some people think 'Why not play it? It's free.' But it's not free. It's a card in your deck that isn't relevant in most boardstates. You cannot overlook the fact that to play Scheming, you must use one of you 22 nonland card slots to play a card that is only good if you are chaining it into a Delve spell which may or may not be in your hand.
I find your arguments very confusing.
1. Half of this is a complete strawman: using parapet and ancestor is a bit disingenuous since they're very good two-drops. I could say that I'd never play parapet because i'd rather play deathdealer. In the right deck though, I'd rather play scheming than sambar. Note: that's not the same as saying I'd not run any two-drops, which a lot of people seem to think is the same thing, for some reason. Which leads to...
2. That's complete hyperbole. You're basically saying that not having a two-drop on turn two loses to more than half the clans. Bollock.
3. Congratulation for your love of synonyms. Thanks for teaching me the concept of card disadvantage. First time I hear about it. Then again, maybe you could gain by not be condescending? You *really* think I don't know what card disadvantage is? I wrote point 3 with the exact intention of acknowledging that taigam's scheming is card disadvantage. Obviously, my communication skills need some work.
4. You're stating that to play a card in you deck, you need to play the card in your deck. Look, again, either you're super-condescending or like to just point out the obvious, but otherwise, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You then go on to simply state that one should not play bad cards. Circular argument much? 'I don't like the card and think it's bad, so playing the card is bad.' Hum, okay?
You're basically arguing from your own standpoint. That's not how arguing works. You can't simply state things that revolves around saying 'If you accept my point-of-view that the card is bad, then it's bad because: you need to spend mana, you need to spend a card, you need to spend a card slot in your deck.' THESE ARE NOT ARGUMENTS WHY A CARD IS BAD. These are all givens. Almost no card in the entire history of magic don't cost mana, don't cost a card when you play it, don't cost a spot in your deck.
The only relevant argument, which I had already stated, and every one in their right mind would agree with is that taigam's scheming is card disadvantage the turn it gets played. Simple reading of the card show this much. It's not a new discovery.
The whole and only thing that can be under discussion about taigam's scheming is: does filling your graveyard and getting rid of cards you don't what to draw in your zero-to-five next turns worth it?
That's all that is under discussion because that's what the card does.
Some people think that KtK is not a blazing fast format and in the right deck, pushing aside the chaff while enabling delve can be worthy of a card that costs two mana. I've played against Sultai's deck that played scheming and scout to chain into delve cards and keep drawing their good cards. It's a card selection / deck thinning effect. A lot of people in this thread think it is never a valuable effect, even in this set. Everyone had the right of their opinion. But don't offer empty arguments to validate it.
Are two drops really all that? You mean that you'd rather play Embodiment of Spring over other cards (which is what you implied when you said that it's the first time you've cut a 2 drop - surely you've had Embodiments that you haven't cut before?) that are much more powerful but happen to lie at the 3 drop slot or above?
I must be awful because I only play 2 drops when I believe they are good cards. I guess if you really insist on having critical mass of 2 drops because you believe that the key to winning is to have a creature to play on turn 2, then OK. I don't believe that though. Also I guess I fundamentally don't want Magic to be a game of "whoever plays the most creatures first wins" so I don't really try to play that way.
In all my other KTK drafts, 2 drops were so scarce that I had never cut a creature that cost less than 3, which I believe I've mentioned ITT before. 2/1s and 2/2s for 2 are the bread and butter of most limited formats, so the fact that I've only been drafting 1 or 2 most weeks has made triple Khans really weird for me. Embodiment happened to be the first cheap creature to get the axe (mana fixing in my splash color seemed really bad), which was a bit tangential.
The thrust of my post is that my deck was not the prototypical Scheming-friendly build and the card still carried its weight. It had competition in the 2 mana slot for once and was only technically feeding delve (singleton Mandrills).
Is it normal that deflecting palm be so low? Seemed like a good card to me. The other cards truly are bad, except the savant, which I thought I read people liked. (I guess I'm saying that goldfish data tend to be fishy.)
1. Half of this is a complete strawman: using parapet and ancestor is a bit disingenuous since they're very good two-drops. I could say that I'd never play parapet because i'd rather play deathdealer. In the right deck though, I'd rather play scheming than sambar. Note: that's not the same as saying I'd not run any two-drops, which a lot of people seem to think is the same thing, for some reason. Which leads to...
Every card I listed is a common. Your Parapet vs. Deathdealer is an obvious red herring as the former is a common and the latter is a rare. Talk about a straw man argument! I listed 5 common 1 and 2-drop Sultai creatures that I would include over the first Scheming. They seemed the best thing to compare Scheming to since it is also a common. So 5-to-1 these creatures are opened to a single Scheming. If you'd like to debate that Scheming is a better card than any of the 5 I have mentioned, we can have that conversation.
2. That's complete hyperbole. You're basically saying that not having a two-drop on turn two loses to more than half the clans. Bollock.
No, I said there are some decks in those clans that will not allow you to spend your first few turns fiddling with your library and graveyard. Mardu decks can Raid out 3-5 creatures by turn 4, and they have the pump spells and removal to win from there. Jeskai and Temur decks can play the tempo game and keep you so off-balance with removal and bounce that if you don't commit things to the board you will be unable to make use of the top few cards of your library.
Certainly, not all decks in those clans will beat you by turn 5, but the fact that those decks do exist is a strong deterrent to playing a card like Scheming which doesn't do a thing to slow down an aggro or tempo deck.
3. Congratulation for your love of synonyms. Thanks for teaching me the concept of card disadvantage. First time I hear about it. Then again, maybe you could gain by not be condescending? You *really* think I don't know what card disadvantage is? I wrote point 3 with the exact intention of acknowledging that taigam's scheming is card disadvantage. Obviously, my communication skills need some work.
So if you agree that Scheming is card disadvantage and yet argue that it is good, can you please list all the Limited playable cards that have built in card disadvantage? The only one that comes to mind is Act of Treason. Got any others?
4. You're stating that to play a card in you deck, you need to play the card in your deck. Look, again, either you're super-condescending or like to just point out the obvious, but otherwise, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You then go on to simply state that one should not play bad cards. Circular argument much? 'I don't like the card and think it's bad, so playing the card is bad.' Hum, okay?
I'll try to explain this the best way I know how. In KTK, you get 22-23 nonland card slots. You are probably going to draw about 9-11 of those nonland cards in a given game of Khans (average game ends on turn 9.8). In Magic, there are numerous situations in which you will draws these spells. Almost all cards are better in one situation than the rest (the exception is bombs) and many cards are good in multiple situations (most creatures and removal fit here). There is a smaller subset of cards that are good in only a few situations. For example, Act of Treason is really only good when stealing the opponent's creature will end the game with a lethal attack. But if you are going to include a card that is really only good in a few select situations, it MUST have an exponentially high impact on the game in that situation AND that situation MUST occur reasonably often enough to warrant inclusion.
Scheming is a card that is middling to good in a very small subset of situations. It is OK if you have a rough draw that includes Scheming and the land necessary to cast it (very rare occurrence). This becomes much less good if your opponent is playing a fast, tempo-oriented deck, so the occurrences become even more rare. It is good if you have a strong Delve creature, Scheming in hand, the land to cast both spells, and your opponent doesn't have removal for your creature (very, very rare occurrence). It is good if you are at a boardstall situation that can wait an additional turn before you take control of the game (happens occasionally).
So basically, in one semi-occasional situation, the card can be good. In two others, it can be OK, but they are very, very rare. The ones mentioned in this thread (turn 3 Necropolis Fiend) will happen less than 1% of the time in decks that contain 1 of each card, so they aren't worth discussing. If the card is going to be below average to bad in about 85% of games, it's not worth a card slot UNLESS in that other 15% it is so good that you more or less cannot lose the game. This is where Act of Treason is playable and Scheming falls short.
You're basically arguing from your own standpoint. That's not how arguing works. You can't simply state things that revolves around saying 'If you accept my point-of-view that the card is bad, then it's bad because: you need to spend mana, you need to spend a card, you need to spend a card slot in your deck.' THESE ARE NOT ARGUMENTS WHY A CARD IS BAD. These are all givens. Almost no card in the entire history of magic don't cost mana, don't cost a card when you play it, don't cost a spot in your deck.
The only relevant argument, which I had already stated, and every one in their right mind would agree with is that taigam's scheming is card disadvantage the turn it gets played. Simple reading of the card show this much. It's not a new discovery.
The whole and only thing that can be under discussion about taigam's scheming is: does filling your graveyard and getting rid of cards you don't what to draw in your zero-to-five next turns worth it?
That's all that is under discussion because that's what the card does.
I'll give you this argument. Would you play the following card? 0 Schemer's Paradise - Enchantment 1U: Discard a card. You may look at the top 5 cards of your library and put any number of them into the graveyard. Put the rest back on top of your library in any order. Activate this ability only when you could cast a sorcery.
Some people think that KtK is not a blazing fast format and in the right deck, pushing aside the chaff while enabling delve can be worthy of a card that costs two mana. I've played against Sultai's deck that played scheming and scout to chain into delve cards and keep drawing their good cards. It's a card selection / deck thinning effect. A lot of people in this thread think it is never a valuable effect, even in this set. Everyone had the right of their opinion. But don't offer empty arguments to validate it.
If the format isn't blazing fast, then why not play the card that replaces itself (Scout the Borders) or the ones that are actually card advantage (Rakshasa's Secret and Bitter Revelation)? Scout digs you just as far and replaces itself. Secret and Revelation don't dig as far, but you immediately affect your opponent's hand or your own and you still enable Delve with 3 cards. Card selection and deck thinning are fine as things stapled onto bodies (Satyr Wayfinder) or lands (Temple of Abandon and the cycle) or mana fixing (Traveler's Amulet), but it's just not worth a card on its own.
Is it normal that deflecting palm be so low? Seemed like a good card to me. The other cards truly are bad, except the savant, which I thought I read people liked. (I guess I'm saying that goldfish data tend to be fishy.)
I don't think Deflecting Palm is even a mediocre card, and I haven't seen anyone claim that before. It suffers from the bias where the times that it works are very memorable, and oftentimes it just doesn't get cast in the situations where it can't get the job done.
The main problem is that it only prevents damage to you, and only deals damage back to the other player. If they're playing small creatures, it might be like Deal 3 damage to a player, gain 3 life at best which would not be a good card. It's a good quadrant theory card -- obviously terrible in development, parity, and when you're losing. You have to really craft a scenario that makes it good.
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I mean, if you think, like Phyrres obviously does, that taigam's scheming is such obvious crap due to that, then how do you ever justify playing first? Drawing first, with the extra card should be the obvious cornerstone of intelligent plays. Except playing first is often right. Yes, I'm comparing tempo to card quality + great curving, which is not entirely equivalent, but I've played enough to have seen that wins often come from drawing well in the early turns of the games.
I'm not calling taigam's scheming the second coming of draft kung-fu, but calling it trash and unplayable, is not where it's at either. I've played against good Sultai's decks, and both scheming and scout played important roles to set up their draws and fill the graveyard. Delve is only good with a filled graveyard and scheming ensure both that you get your delve cards earlier and have fuel to play them.
None of what you posted is a defense of card disadvantage.
The cost to play Taiga's Scheming is four-fold:
1. Two mana
2. Loss of tempo
3. Card disadvantage
4. Using a card slot to play a 2-mana, tempo losing, card disadvantage card
You talk about 'smoothing out your draws,' but this a red herring. For it to smooth out your draw, you need to have it in your opening hand. If it's the 5th card on top of your library after drawing your opener, you might as well be drawing a blank card. You also need to have NOTHING good to play early, otherwise it doesn't help you at all.
But let's take the best case scenario. You have a bad draw with Scheming in hand. You think, 'Great, I've got this.' Turn two you drop a Scheming and look at the top 5 cards of your library and realize that you have no idea what cards you will need to draw because your opponent hasn't played anything yet. So you guess. Guess what? Now you are down a card, and you didn't affect the board at all, all while making an uninformed decision that will affect the next 3-5 turns. 'But all is not lost,' you say as you slam a Hooting Mandrills on turn 3! Then your opponent untaps and plays a 5 toughness blocker, a removal spell, or a morph that can eat your creature in a turn or 2.
I would bet that 98% of draft decks that include Taiga's Scheming in the main board fail to 3-0 a draft.
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You basically claim that, in order:
1. Spending mana to play a card is a cost. Well duh, there ain't many good zero-cost spell in Magic, is there? How is that an argument at all?
2. Not playing a two drop and spending your turn two setting up your 3-5 next draws in perfect order is valueless.
3. No one is disputing scheming cost a card.
4. Gee, okay, you just repeated your first three point on one line. I guess repetition and aggregation creates an extra argument?
You then claim both that smoothing your draw is only valuable in the early game (hey, we'll have to disagree. Yes, I said I'd like to scheme on turn two, but that was not a claim that dropping useless land and getting your best-of-five next is worthless). You also claim, apparently, that having an opening hand that that has gas and action every turn is the norm. Well, I must be one unlucky player. In most of my FNM drafts, my hands are quite imperfect and often use my mana inefficiently because I don't always have the land drop and spell that perfectly my current mana.
You then set up a straw man that playing scheme on turn two is uselss because you need to know your opponent's future play to decide how to set up your library. No you don't. You can setup your draw and game plan without such info. In fact, the whole reason why scheming can be playable is wholly based on being synergistic with a particular deck and game plan. That is Delve. No one is arguing about playing in it in a Mardu deck. It's all about getting your delve deck ticking.
You also seem to have quite the obsession with hooting mandrills which, while being a very serviceable play, is hardly the best a delve deck does. In fact, in your earlier post you mentioned a turn-three sultai scavenger (which you apparently dismissed as being not-so-great play) which, in my experience, would be a very great play, as 3/3 flyer on turn 3 is really, really good in KtK.
TL;DR: multiple claims that are either obvious or irrelevant plus multiple straight-out dismissals and straw men.
I've honestly never seen Scheming be good against me. Even when it's worked, it's been just OK. Even if you dump your library and get a Turn 3 Hooting Mandrills -- It's like Dark Ritual, you've invested 2 cards into that one creature and turned my spells into 2-for-1s against it. Even a bounce spell is a huge setback in that scenario, or a pump spell in combat, or really anything that gets in the way of your 4/4. If my deck rolls over to an early Delve creature, then it was just a bad deck with all small creatures and no good spells.
For investing two cards, you really need something more splashy than the common Delve guys. If you set up a Turn 3 Necropolis Fiend, OK now I'm on board. But that requires a very specific draw. (UBB, Scheming, Fiend in succession) and still gets straight up destroyed by a kill spell.
Most times the result is more middle of the road. You get your Delve guy a turn or two earlier, and smooth out your draws a little bit, but none of that is really compelling to me. I'm fine putting it in the "Not playable until people start beating me with it" category. I'd rather let others prove me wrong than experiment myself. I have seen it a handful of times and those decks have never defeated me. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I also don't have any evidence that it's secret tech.
I would raise similar objections to your evaluation. Calling Scheming playable doesn't equate to calling everything playable; in fact I've called a similar card (Scout the Borders) unplayable in this very thread for reasons I won't repeat in this post. It costs 2 mana in a format with an unusually low number of 2 drops and extremely high number of 3 drops; you'll also generally bin at least one card, so you get back mana that was likely to go unspent, possibly even gain mana in the medium/long run. It's card disadvantage, but so are many loot effects; looting is considered strong in limited, and I would argue binning + reordering is actually stronger for reasons I've also already explained ITT. The card only causes loss of tempo when it's cast instead of a creature or when it forces you to play a lower impact one, which is not all the time; delving out a high impact spell and fixing your next few draws will more than make up for this in most board states.
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I'll simply answer this part of the post since the rest of mine was not meant literally.
1. Two mana is a cost in the Sultai deck. In the early game, I would much rather play an Archer's Parapet, a Highland Game, a Smoke Teller, or a Wetland Sambar or Outlast a Disowned Ancestor than play Scheming. In the mid/late game, if you have 2 mana to spend on a spell that doesn't affect the board and doesn't get you a card until the following turn, then you're already stable and I would much rather have a creature, a removal spell, or card draw rather than card selection that will take several turns to pay off.
2. If you are waiting until turn 3 to cast a board impacting spell, there are a number of decks in the format that will not let you recover, especially if you're on the draw. Jeskai, Mardu, and Temur can all have you around the throat when they untap with 5 mana.
3. It costs a card? No, it is card disadvantage. That's not the same thing. Murderous Cut costs a card, but it can be a 2-for-1 or even a 3-for-1 in not unreasonable circumstances. Scheming is card disadvantage 100% of the time. You discard a card to manipulate your library and graveyard. That's it. Unless you are comboing with Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, you are behind on board and in cards by casting this card.
4. This is a tough concept for some people to get. The fact that a spell costs a card slot is an important consideration. It's why Ornithopter is a crappy card. You pay 0 mana for an 0/2 Flyer. Some people think 'Why not play it? It's free.' But it's not free. It's a card in your deck that isn't relevant in most boardstates. You cannot overlook the fact that to play Scheming, you must use one of you 22 nonland card slots to play a card that is only good if you are chaining it into a Delve spell which may or may not be in your hand.
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Interesting arguments, but I think you have to admit that your point (4) really is just a summary of points (1) - (3). Cards don't cost any "slots" unless you draw them (a card that would never have been drawn is meaningless during any game). And a card that is drawn already gets counted in your points (1), (2), and (3) in all relevant aspects.
Taigon's Scheming can, I think, do very relevant and important things at several points of several types of games:
(1) In a game that you can play it early (turn 2 or 3 or 4) when your deck would have very little chance of winning given the natural sequence of its next 5 draws, but a much better chance of winning with selected ordering of its next 5 draws. Example: a three land hand that misses its fourth land drops on draws 1 and 2. Knowing how often I lose because the first 12 cards at the top of my deck have a bad skew of land to castable spells (somewhere between 30% and 40% of matches, in my experience), I can absolutely see how Taigon's Scheming could turn what would be a completely hopeless game into one that you actually have a chance of winning.
(2) In top deck mode; whereas it doesn't help you immediately, it can vastly help starting on the next draw. Would I rather draw one dude that I can play into an empty board state, or no dudes right now but schedule two or three dudes over the next few turns? I think I'd take the latter every time.
(3) In delve decks, to do all of the above while enabling delve (I find "enabling delve" to be a bit overrated; delve tends to be enabled fairly effectively just as part of normal game play -- I very rarely can't delve when I want to because I don't have enough cards in the graveyard).
All that being said, I've never played Taigon's Scheming and never intend to, because I never feel comfortable unless I have at least 14 creatures, preferably 16+ creatures, in my deck, and so I am never willing to cut a creature for Taigon's Scheming (since I have a hard time getting 14 - 18 playable creatures to begin with), and I never feel like any of the non-creature spells I have are worse than Taigon's Scheming.
However, maybe 17 lands + Taigon's Scheming is better than 18 lands? (but only if you're heavy blue of course, 8+ blue lands)
If this is your stance then I'm not sure why you're even arguing. You just said you've never seen a scenario where Taigam's scheming has been one of the best 22-23 cards in your pool.
It's not though. If the card is not included in your deck, you cannot draw it. It's the reason you shouldn't play a Fugitive Wizard. 1 mana for a 1/1 is a fair deal, but it's just not worth drawing or playing on 95% of board states. By including such a card in your deck, you have effectively chosen to play with an almost blank card when even a Siege Mastadon would be a significant upgrade. The cost to play the card is more than the mana cost. It's how valuable the impact that card can make on an average board in relation to another card in your pool.
You're having to go through gymnastics to come up with board states in which Scheming is good. Just apply Quadrant theory:
Is it going in the developing phase? Mixed bag. It could combo into a Delve card, but you need to have that card in hand. It could filter your draws for a few turns, but it could also put you behind an aggressive or tempo-based deck because it does nothing to affect the board.
Is it good when you are losing the game? No. It doesn't affect the board at all, and you do not get any benefit until your next draw step.
Is it good when you are winning the game? No. It doesn't affect the board at all, and any creature, removal spell, or card draw spell will do more to enhance your board position/card advantage.
Is it good during a board stall? Again, a mixed bag. It could help you filter to better spells which will break the stall and it could dump 5 lands lands into your yard, but if you play this and your opponent takes control of the board, you are now behind.
If it *could be good* only during 2 phases (but might not be, unlike Elvish Mystic or Mystic of the Hidden Way which are always good in those specific phases and therefore included in decks for those particular phases), it's probably not a playable Magic card.
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Well I didn't think I was "arguing", just making points. I guess it's all a matter of semantics.
I just wanted to point out why I think it seems overzealous to say that the card is completely unplayable. Also I said "I never feel comfortable" specifically to indicate that my own arguments against Taigon's Scheming are based on my own play style and preferences, so the fact that I don't play it was not meant to be a strike against it, just more empirical evidence for those who judge cards based on collective evaluation (I didn't want the points I made to be construed as being a vote for or against the card).
Wow that was confusing. All I really mean is that I put out those points because they make sense to me, but with the complexity of card evaluation, I cannot be certain that Taigon's Scheming is really good or bad until I play with it alot, and my own play style and preferences have prevented me from playing it, so I can't offer any personal endorsement of the card.
Well I don't want to turn this into a pointless debate so I'll just say that it seems to me that the logic here is circular - you evaluate the card's value based on how likely it is to lead to a winning game when drawn, and then use that evaluation to say that the card is "taking slots away" from better cards, and claim that this is another part of the evaluation against the card, but you cannot even get to the "taking slots away" argument without already having decided that the card is not good. The "taking away slots" argument depends upon the evaluation of the card, and cannot be used as an input to the evaluation of the card. The reasoning is circular.
However, I've said enough on this and I'm happy to leave you with the last word if you'd like to respond.
I disagree. It wasn't hard to think of those situations (no mental gymnastics required), and they are very common situations in Magic from my experience.
I don't disagree with the fundamental basis of these points, but I do think some nuance is lost (i.e. there is some good to filtering and ordering your next 5 draws in every one of those parts of your quadrant, the amount of good being determined by the specifics of the situation, and the level of good-ness versus the goodness of the "average quality of the card that could have been drawn instead" is the topic of debate, and I think the nuance is really important here).
I believe the goldfish data is also a strike against the card, for what that's worth. I'd enjoy hearing anecdotal experiences with how this card works out in practice, in any case.
Fair enough.
My chief point was that I spend most of my time in every game trying to engineer card advantage situations (2-for-1s). By casting scheming you're giving your opponent a free 1-for-0.
Your opponent had 2 Schemings in his opening ~10 cards, which is the best case scenario. They are always better early. He also randomly had 6/10 lands at least in the next set of cards which isn't that crazy but still an above average amount. He also had Necropolis Fiend in his top 20 cards which is obviously a 50/50 proposition. And even despite all that fortunate luck, if you had say Smite the Monstrous for that Fiend or any number of other removal or bounce spells, he would have been so far behind!
Addressing the point of overzealousness -- I honestly feel it's the only way to combat the rampant use of Results Oriented and Best Case Scenario thinking. I've been hanging around these boards for a long time, and with every set there are pet cards that people love to defend. We've even had discussions about this phenomenon that so many people want to make bad cards good, rather than just accept that they are bad. I think it's because everyone is looking for an edge, and one way to do that is to find the diamond in the rough that no one else is playing, but the success rate on this is extremely low.
Of course no card is literally unplayable. You have free will, you can play it. But it's unplayable from a strategic point of view, from maximizing your deck quality. Good drafting should never leave you with Taigam's Scheming as your 22nd best card especially since the format has so many good commons. I'd play a Morph I couldn't flip up before Scheming. That's not hyperbole or semantics, that is literally how I value the card. Worse than a 2/2 for 3 with no other abilities.
I agree that this was what the best case of Taigan's Scheming looks like, I just thought it was funny (but frustrating!) to be on the losing end of the perfect draw with this card right after posting in this discussion.
I think I need to find a thread where people are talking about winning 10 drafts in a row, and go post in there. If I have to live the thread, I think I'd rather live that one ...
Similar to Trumpet Blast and the like, it's never going to be played by skilled players in a deck that doesn't specifically want it; of course, the decks that want Scheming are few and far between. In general it's strict card disadvantage and I hate that.
EDIT: also, I don't buy the argument that the card/draw quality improvement it provides balances the inherent disadvantage out... if you have literally nothing else to put in the two-drop slot, well, then, okay, but I would rather play a Wetland Sambar.
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I still have serious doubts about 2+ schemings, but I'm convinced this card is a sleeper. One of the better cards that you will realistically get in the last 4 or so picks. People see it and think Index, which actually is garbage and will often make a very lackluster hate pick instead of taking an entirely playable card.
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Are two drops really all that? You mean that you'd rather play Embodiment of Spring over other cards (which is what you implied when you said that it's the first time you've cut a 2 drop - surely you've had Embodiments that you haven't cut before?) that are much more powerful but happen to lie at the 3 drop slot or above?
I must be awful because I only play 2 drops when I believe they are good cards. I guess if you really insist on having critical mass of 2 drops because you believe that the key to winning is to have a creature to play on turn 2, then OK. I don't believe that though. Also I guess I fundamentally don't want Magic to be a game of "whoever plays the most creatures first wins" so I don't really try to play that way.
I find your arguments very confusing.
1. Half of this is a complete strawman: using parapet and ancestor is a bit disingenuous since they're very good two-drops. I could say that I'd never play parapet because i'd rather play deathdealer. In the right deck though, I'd rather play scheming than sambar. Note: that's not the same as saying I'd not run any two-drops, which a lot of people seem to think is the same thing, for some reason. Which leads to...
2. That's complete hyperbole. You're basically saying that not having a two-drop on turn two loses to more than half the clans. Bollock.
3. Congratulation for your love of synonyms. Thanks for teaching me the concept of card disadvantage. First time I hear about it. Then again, maybe you could gain by not be condescending? You *really* think I don't know what card disadvantage is? I wrote point 3 with the exact intention of acknowledging that taigam's scheming is card disadvantage. Obviously, my communication skills need some work.
4. You're stating that to play a card in you deck, you need to play the card in your deck. Look, again, either you're super-condescending or like to just point out the obvious, but otherwise, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You then go on to simply state that one should not play bad cards. Circular argument much? 'I don't like the card and think it's bad, so playing the card is bad.' Hum, okay?
You're basically arguing from your own standpoint. That's not how arguing works. You can't simply state things that revolves around saying 'If you accept my point-of-view that the card is bad, then it's bad because: you need to spend mana, you need to spend a card, you need to spend a card slot in your deck.' THESE ARE NOT ARGUMENTS WHY A CARD IS BAD. These are all givens. Almost no card in the entire history of magic don't cost mana, don't cost a card when you play it, don't cost a spot in your deck.
The only relevant argument, which I had already stated, and every one in their right mind would agree with is that taigam's scheming is card disadvantage the turn it gets played. Simple reading of the card show this much. It's not a new discovery.
The whole and only thing that can be under discussion about taigam's scheming is: does filling your graveyard and getting rid of cards you don't what to draw in your zero-to-five next turns worth it?
That's all that is under discussion because that's what the card does.
Some people think that KtK is not a blazing fast format and in the right deck, pushing aside the chaff while enabling delve can be worthy of a card that costs two mana. I've played against Sultai's deck that played scheming and scout to chain into delve cards and keep drawing their good cards. It's a card selection / deck thinning effect. A lot of people in this thread think it is never a valuable effect, even in this set. Everyone had the right of their opinion. But don't offer empty arguments to validate it.
In all my other KTK drafts, 2 drops were so scarce that I had never cut a creature that cost less than 3, which I believe I've mentioned ITT before. 2/1s and 2/2s for 2 are the bread and butter of most limited formats, so the fact that I've only been drafting 1 or 2 most weeks has made triple Khans really weird for me. Embodiment happened to be the first cheap creature to get the axe (mana fixing in my splash color seemed really bad), which was a bit tangential.
The thrust of my post is that my deck was not the prototypical Scheming-friendly build and the card still carried its weight. It had competition in the 2 mana slot for once and was only technically feeding delve (singleton Mandrills).
Pauper: Burn
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Marath, Will of the Wild - Ramp/Combo | Anafenza the Foremost - French | Uril, the Miststalker - Voltron | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Goodstuff
Ghost Council of Orzhov - Tokens | Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - Control | Isamaru, Hound of Konda - Tiny Leaders
Disowned Ancestor: 52%
Highland Game: 52%
Wetland Sambar: 52%
Archer's Parapet: 52%
Smoke Teller: 51%
No, I said there are some decks in those clans that will not allow you to spend your first few turns fiddling with your library and graveyard. Mardu decks can Raid out 3-5 creatures by turn 4, and they have the pump spells and removal to win from there. Jeskai and Temur decks can play the tempo game and keep you so off-balance with removal and bounce that if you don't commit things to the board you will be unable to make use of the top few cards of your library.
Certainly, not all decks in those clans will beat you by turn 5, but the fact that those decks do exist is a strong deterrent to playing a card like Scheming which doesn't do a thing to slow down an aggro or tempo deck.
So if you agree that Scheming is card disadvantage and yet argue that it is good, can you please list all the Limited playable cards that have built in card disadvantage? The only one that comes to mind is Act of Treason. Got any others?
I'll try to explain this the best way I know how. In KTK, you get 22-23 nonland card slots. You are probably going to draw about 9-11 of those nonland cards in a given game of Khans (average game ends on turn 9.8). In Magic, there are numerous situations in which you will draws these spells. Almost all cards are better in one situation than the rest (the exception is bombs) and many cards are good in multiple situations (most creatures and removal fit here). There is a smaller subset of cards that are good in only a few situations. For example, Act of Treason is really only good when stealing the opponent's creature will end the game with a lethal attack. But if you are going to include a card that is really only good in a few select situations, it MUST have an exponentially high impact on the game in that situation AND that situation MUST occur reasonably often enough to warrant inclusion.
Scheming is a card that is middling to good in a very small subset of situations. It is OK if you have a rough draw that includes Scheming and the land necessary to cast it (very rare occurrence). This becomes much less good if your opponent is playing a fast, tempo-oriented deck, so the occurrences become even more rare. It is good if you have a strong Delve creature, Scheming in hand, the land to cast both spells, and your opponent doesn't have removal for your creature (very, very rare occurrence). It is good if you are at a boardstall situation that can wait an additional turn before you take control of the game (happens occasionally).
So basically, in one semi-occasional situation, the card can be good. In two others, it can be OK, but they are very, very rare. The ones mentioned in this thread (turn 3 Necropolis Fiend) will happen less than 1% of the time in decks that contain 1 of each card, so they aren't worth discussing. If the card is going to be below average to bad in about 85% of games, it's not worth a card slot UNLESS in that other 15% it is so good that you more or less cannot lose the game. This is where Act of Treason is playable and Scheming falls short.
I'll give you this argument. Would you play the following card?
0 Schemer's Paradise - Enchantment
1U: Discard a card. You may look at the top 5 cards of your library and put any number of them into the graveyard. Put the rest back on top of your library in any order. Activate this ability only when you could cast a sorcery.
If the format isn't blazing fast, then why not play the card that replaces itself (Scout the Borders) or the ones that are actually card advantage (Rakshasa's Secret and Bitter Revelation)? Scout digs you just as far and replaces itself. Secret and Revelation don't dig as far, but you immediately affect your opponent's hand or your own and you still enable Delve with 3 cards. Card selection and deck thinning are fine as things stapled onto bodies (Satyr Wayfinder) or lands (Temple of Abandon and the cycle) or mana fixing (Traveler's Amulet), but it's just not worth a card on its own.
Bitter Revelation: 58%
Rakshasa's Secret: 55%
Scout the Borders: 53%
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I don't think Deflecting Palm is even a mediocre card, and I haven't seen anyone claim that before. It suffers from the bias where the times that it works are very memorable, and oftentimes it just doesn't get cast in the situations where it can't get the job done.
The main problem is that it only prevents damage to you, and only deals damage back to the other player. If they're playing small creatures, it might be like Deal 3 damage to a player, gain 3 life at best which would not be a good card. It's a good quadrant theory card -- obviously terrible in development, parity, and when you're losing. You have to really craft a scenario that makes it good.