Serum Visions is a controversial card. It is widely considered the best of the available one mana cantrips, better than Sleight of hand. Many decks feature this cantrip in winning lists. And yet, there is also widespread contempt for it's efficacy when compared to two banned cards (ponder and preordain).
These opposing evaluations of the card seem pervasive even in decklists. While we can count on URx Twin to employ the card consistently, some other blue decks eschew the card entirely or don't run it as a 4-of.
So what elements should one consider when playing Serum Visions? Why might 4 colour control and Ojutai control eschew it while sultai and other control decks are packing 4?
Why might one play more than 0 but less than 4?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
edit: Of course, banlist and reprint ideas are not for this thread. Please focus on the card Serum Visions. Thanks.
We need counterspell, ponder and preordinar to make modern a cool format, if not burn, affinity, bogles and other non-interactive decks will be the tier 1 forever and ever
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Modern: RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries Legacy:BRx Renimator Playing right now:Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
I'm thinking it has something to do with how proactive your deck is. If you are aggressively digging for a threat or a combo piece during the first couple of turns, then Visions does the job most efficient. If you're more reactive (with more counters, lands and flash dudes) then you mostly wanna hit your land drops and are not in a hurry cantripping into specific cards and can sit back the first couple of turns without doing much (because you're looking for answers and don't know which yet). At this point of the game stuff like Think Twice, Thirst for Knowledge, Electrolyze, Cryptic and Esper Charm become more appealing.
Really though, I think Badabingbadabum has all the right points. Unless you are playing proactively and needing to flip your delver or fin your combo card (Twin, Storm, Bloom Titan) there is no reason to play cards that just dig for better cards. Sure digging for the right card for a situation is good, but when your other cards are naturally good in any situation (ie: Cryptic Command) then you would just rather draw those powerful cards in the first place.
I think it can be summarized as Serum Visions finds you the cards to win the game, it doesn't win the game on its own. And when your gameplan is to win the game with only 1-2 specific cards in one turn, rather than 10 broad ones over a bunch of turns, Serum Visions is going to help find you those 1-2 specific cards that you need to win.
The problem with modern is card draw has to be cheap to be playable, and without card draw control loses due to the nature of the format and all the 2 for 1 threats
I brew a lot of (awful) control decks and for me the #1 deciding factor to play Serum Visions is whether I will have mana open turn 1. Many control decks want to run Celestial Colonnade, which can make casting Serum Visions awkward and often makes you run a turn behind the boardstate. Serum Visions just cantrips, in comparison to Preordain and Ponder which give you card selection on the same turn as you play them. Even though it's not ideal, I've found Anticipate to be better at finding the card you want on the turn you want it in those kinds of decks
Play Serum Visions if:
- you're playing a deck with 23 or fewer lands
- you're playing a pure combo deck
- you're playing Delver
Play Anticipate/any other 2-mana instant cantrip if:
- you're playing a deck with 25 or more lands
Play Sleight of Hand if:
- you're playing a pure combo deck AND you have already maxed out on Serum Visions
If your deck has less than 24 lands, it's probably going to need Serum Visions to hit its land drops. On the contrary, if your deck has more than 24 lands, not only is it NOT going to need help drawing into lands, it also won't have space for SV (because you have >= 2 lands more than the 23-land deck).
Generally SV is the best cantrip, because if you're digging for one card and have an extra draw (could be as simple as a draw step, or Gitaxian Probe), SV pushes 3 irrelevant cards out of the way. Sleight only pushes 2.
Sleight is better if you need one card immediately and you just lose if you don't draw it. This is more often a result of gameplay instead of deck construction.
Sleight is better than SV if it's turn 1 and the second card of your library from the top is a Lotus Bloom. Even then, with SV, you can just bottom-deck the Bloom, which is not as good as drawing + Suspending it, but still, SV removes 1 dead card from your deck until you shuffle it.
Thought Scour feeds your graveyard, so you'll want it if you're playing Storm, Grixis Delver (Snaps+Tasigur), or sometimes Twin (Grim Lavamancer, Snaps, Goyf/Tasigur - Thought Scour was better when they had Dig Through Time). Sadly Scapeshift can't make use of it, since milling Valakut/mountains means you might miss out on the kill, especially if the game goes long.
Serum Visions is a controversial card. It is widely considered the best of the available one mana cantrips, better than Sleight of hand. Many decks feature this cantrip in winning lists. And yet, there is also widespread contempt for it's efficacy when compared to two banned cards (ponder and preordain).
These opposing evaluations of the card seem pervasive even in decklists. While we can count on URx Twin to employ the card consistently, some other blue decks eschew the card entirely or don't run it as a 4-of.
So what elements should one consider when playing Serum Visions? Why might 4 colour control and Ojutai control eschew it while sultai and other control decks are packing 4?
Why might one play more than 0 but less than 4?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
edit: Of course, banlist and reprint ideas are not for this thread. Please focus on the card Serum Visions. Thanks.
Serum Visions is the best one mana cantrip availabe for modern.
It is better than Sleight of Hand because it allows you to dig further on your library than it since you get to see an additional card.
While I really like playing with Serum Visions, it's definitely weaker than Ponder and Preordain, but it's still a good card, and those cards were banned because they pushed some decks a bit too much.
izzetmage pretty much explained why and when you'd run the card. Thought Scour can be better if you are running graveyard stuff like Tasigur and Lingeri Souls.
I think those 4 colour control decks skip that kind of cards completely because they are better running a sheer amount of goodstuff disruption.
Playing Serum Visions won't allow you to do those, while you'd be able to cast Anticipate at any moment you don't find the need or opportunity to answer your opponent.
(what Torpf said)
Aggressive but redundant enough decks like Zoo or Merfolk don't use any kind of dig because they are redundant enough already, don't want to dig for specific cards so much as combo decks and don't really want to find that narrow answer, just beat your face.
Also worth noting that the scry ability increases in value for decks that don't want a lot of lands in play. Throwing lands to the bottom is one of its strengths, while more draw-go oriented decks both want lands and spells during most of the game, so the scry ability doesn't shine as heavily. Having spells that replaces themselves (like Electrolyze and Cryptic) is a better way to make sure you hit your land drops and don't run out of gas simultaneously.
Coming over from a format with better cantrips I looked around a bit then settled on serum visions to start with. Honestly I haven't been impressed. It wants to be in instant but its not and the 'dig' ability is deceptively false.
The best uses I've found are filling the yard and bottoming what you don't want NEXT turn. The scry ability is misleading though because too many things change in the board state often enough to make it meaningless.. at which point its like a blank card with a question mark in your hand. Just my impression but I've been spoiled with better cantrips so ymmv.
Anyway to me sleight of hand looks to be the better of the two when specifically looking for 1cc cantrips that see multiple cards. Otherwise I would just consider some number of quicken instead.
That said right now I'm not running either, instead I like anticipate. The cost is largely irrelevant due to instant speed, and you dont need to play draw-go to play this card. Options is options man and this one actually digs for what you need the last second before you need it making it the closest thing modern has to ponder/preordain/etc.
Anyway these reasons are IMO probably why you see the variance in the number of visions, i.e. its just not that good because it does jack-all the turn you need it outside of sheer blind luck and people tend to play follow the leader. For delver decks I can see the use, most anyone else not tempo oriented theres better cards IMO. I have seen a few people rocking sleight of hand and they swear by them over visions fwiw.
Honestly if wizards is so instant on modern having so few cantrips. Why not just ban Serum Visions and Unban Ponder. I honestly hate serum visions, but ponder is fine. I find sleight of hand a nicer card, just wish dug one deeper.
With respect to that particular Esper deck in the op, I wanted to touch on the idea that one might actually choose sleight of hand over serum visions based on a metric other than budget. They are obviously different cards so there is a bit of room to weigh each card's marginal benefits.
I think the above posters have probably found the salient consideration:
-If you are playing combo-control, you would play serum visions as a way to find your combo pieces.
-Pure control decks on the other hand, generally need a higher card quality in each slot, which serum visions neither satisfies nor benefits from.
Is this close to how everyone feels about the card?
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In a nutshell, but thats the crux of visions.. decks with high threat density (redundancy) dont need it and it doesn't help decks that rely on answers. Its literally a combo enabler or else just whats available for tempo to keep their velocity up by not flooding out on lands. There really is no true 'cantrip engine' atm unfortunately.
The other issue, which is a little more subtle, is how quickly the 1cc cantrips get outclassed once the game state progresses. They may be fine for turns 1-2 but beyond that your gonna wish you had something more powerful like instant speed digging otherwise they just end up hitting more of the same at the expense of your turn.
Question is if Ponder was unbanned whether hard control decks would run it (or if hard control would even exist at that point)? I remember playing UB Control in Standard when Ponder was legal (the only control deck back then) and all lists were basically set on 4 Think Twice, 3 Forbidden Alchemy, 1 Blue Sun's Zenith and 0 Ponder. There's some difference between Standard and Modern obviously, but the general feel is basically the same, though Standard is more grindy. In the other end of the spectrum we have Legacy Miracles that runs 4 Brainstorm and sometimes 4 Ponder. But this is probably due to the proactive nature of the deck (find a Top/Terminus and start floating it, find a SFM etc.) + the fact that it wants to assemble a combo (Counter/Top)
Keep it on current cards. Comparing preordain and ponder will probably come up for vaild reasons, but only compare them, dont get into ban list please.
This is not a thread about your feelings on the metagame. Please stop with the posts regarding the viability of control as an archtype; the banlist's role in modern; or any other topic that is not serum visions. Thanks.
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There are a number of reasons to run cantrips: to dig for specific cards (Twin), to assist some specific card in your deck (Delver, Young Pyromancer, Tasigur), to help set up your draws to play aggro or control depending on the matchup (BUG control), or simply to fill out your curve (UW control).
Many decks either don't need any of the above at all (UWR control) or they only need specific cards very late in the game (Scapeshift) so they use more expensive but more powerful spells to find them (Anticipate, Peer Through Depths) or they have better ways of finding what they want (UW Tron).
The question of how many to play is generally dictated by mana curve. In a perfect deck with perfect answers and perfect draws, you never need to cantrip (since you're already drawing exactly what you want). Cantrips allow a player to spend mana in order to get closer to the best possible draw. If a deck already has enough one drops and the curve is quite consistent, then it could play fewer cantrips because it will curve out more naturally and both wont have the time to cast the cantrip and wont need the cantrip as badly. The number you play ends up being a balance between deck consistency and how important it is to tap that Steam Vents for Serum Visions or Lightning Bolt on the early turns.
Serum visions lets you play fewer land and helps you dig. Great for decks like twin, delver, or storm that want to cycle through their deck fast. Drawing before you scry, though, makes it awful for any deck that actually wants/needs to set up their draws (i.e. control). Whether or not it's better than slight of hand is certainly debatable, but honestly neither are very good.
The problem was that modern had too many 1cmc cantrips, which very heavily enabled combo decks on top of making delver pretty stupid. Ponder and preordain were the best of the bunch, so they got the axe, which made sense. However, it left us with a card that is god-awful for anything other than the combo/delver lists. I think giving us ponder and banning visions instead would honestly be fine. It could be a huge boost to control (probably still not really viable, but closer) with a relatively small increase in power to combo and delver.
With twin being the top deck right now, though, I doubt they'd do anything to the ban list that would work in twins favor, even if it would help control more.
This is why we can't have nice things I guess. Every third post is myself or a mod asking people to stop derailing the thread, and sure enough it just won't stop.
Again, your opinion on the banlist or viability of control in the meta is not a relevant discussion for this thread. Please stick only to how to use the card Serum Visions.
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These opposing evaluations of the card seem pervasive even in decklists. While we can count on URx Twin to employ the card consistently, some other blue decks eschew the card entirely or don't run it as a 4-of.
Examples:Sultai Control, Esper Control, Blue Moon, U/W Control, 4 Colour Control, Ojutai Control, Temur Twin
So what elements should one consider when playing Serum Visions? Why might 4 colour control and Ojutai control eschew it while sultai and other control decks are packing 4?
Why might one play more than 0 but less than 4?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
edit: Of course, banlist and reprint ideas are not for this thread. Please focus on the card Serum Visions. Thanks.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron
R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries
Legacy:BRx Renimator
Playing right now: Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
Really though, I think Badabingbadabum has all the right points. Unless you are playing proactively and needing to flip your delver or fin your combo card (Twin, Storm, Bloom Titan) there is no reason to play cards that just dig for better cards. Sure digging for the right card for a situation is good, but when your other cards are naturally good in any situation (ie: Cryptic Command) then you would just rather draw those powerful cards in the first place.
I think it can be summarized as Serum Visions finds you the cards to win the game, it doesn't win the game on its own. And when your gameplan is to win the game with only 1-2 specific cards in one turn, rather than 10 broad ones over a bunch of turns, Serum Visions is going to help find you those 1-2 specific cards that you need to win.
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My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Thanks for the thoughts so far!
Anyone care an essay on why Esper control went with Sleight of hand over serum visions (or is it over anticipate)?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
- you're playing a deck with 23 or fewer lands
- you're playing a pure combo deck
- you're playing Delver
Play Anticipate/any other 2-mana instant cantrip if:
- you're playing a deck with 25 or more lands
Play Sleight of Hand if:
- you're playing a pure combo deck AND you have already maxed out on Serum Visions
If your deck has less than 24 lands, it's probably going to need Serum Visions to hit its land drops. On the contrary, if your deck has more than 24 lands, not only is it NOT going to need help drawing into lands, it also won't have space for SV (because you have >= 2 lands more than the 23-land deck).
Generally SV is the best cantrip, because if you're digging for one card and have an extra draw (could be as simple as a draw step, or Gitaxian Probe), SV pushes 3 irrelevant cards out of the way. Sleight only pushes 2.
Sleight is better if you need one card immediately and you just lose if you don't draw it. This is more often a result of gameplay instead of deck construction.
Sleight is better than SV if it's turn 1 and the second card of your library from the top is a Lotus Bloom. Even then, with SV, you can just bottom-deck the Bloom, which is not as good as drawing + Suspending it, but still, SV removes 1 dead card from your deck until you shuffle it.
Thought Scour feeds your graveyard, so you'll want it if you're playing Storm, Grixis Delver (Snaps+Tasigur), or sometimes Twin (Grim Lavamancer, Snaps, Goyf/Tasigur - Thought Scour was better when they had Dig Through Time). Sadly Scapeshift can't make use of it, since milling Valakut/mountains means you might miss out on the kill, especially if the game goes long.
It's supposed to be Serum Visions.
Why didn't he play SV then?
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Big Johnny.
Serum Visions is the best one mana cantrip availabe for modern.
It is better than Sleight of Hand because it allows you to dig further on your library than it since you get to see an additional card.
While I really like playing with Serum Visions, it's definitely weaker than Ponder and Preordain, but it's still a good card, and those cards were banned because they pushed some decks a bit too much.
izzetmage pretty much explained why and when you'd run the card.
Thought Scour can be better if you are running graveyard stuff like Tasigur and Lingeri Souls.
I think those 4 colour control decks skip that kind of cards completely because they are better running a sheer amount of goodstuff disruption.
And IMO, Anticipate supports better draw go styles.
For example, if you want to be able to interact with your opponent with Spell Snare, Lightning Bolt, Spell Pierce turn one; andRemand, Mana Leak, Shadow of Doubt, Lightning Helix turn two.
Playing Serum Visions won't allow you to do those, while you'd be able to cast Anticipate at any moment you don't find the need or opportunity to answer your opponent.
(what Torpf said)
Aggressive but redundant enough decks like Zoo or Merfolk don't use any kind of dig because they are redundant enough already, don't want to dig for specific cards so much as combo decks and don't really want to find that narrow answer, just beat your face.
The best uses I've found are filling the yard and bottoming what you don't want NEXT turn. The scry ability is misleading though because too many things change in the board state often enough to make it meaningless.. at which point its like a blank card with a question mark in your hand. Just my impression but I've been spoiled with better cantrips so ymmv.
Anyway to me sleight of hand looks to be the better of the two when specifically looking for 1cc cantrips that see multiple cards. Otherwise I would just consider some number of quicken instead.
That said right now I'm not running either, instead I like anticipate. The cost is largely irrelevant due to instant speed, and you dont need to play draw-go to play this card. Options is options man and this one actually digs for what you need the last second before you need it making it the closest thing modern has to ponder/preordain/etc.
Anyway these reasons are IMO probably why you see the variance in the number of visions, i.e. its just not that good because it does jack-all the turn you need it outside of sheer blind luck and people tend to play follow the leader. For delver decks I can see the use, most anyone else not tempo oriented theres better cards IMO. I have seen a few people rocking sleight of hand and they swear by them over visions fwiw.
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I think the above posters have probably found the salient consideration:
-If you are playing combo-control, you would play serum visions as a way to find your combo pieces.
-Pure control decks on the other hand, generally need a higher card quality in each slot, which serum visions neither satisfies nor benefits from.
Is this close to how everyone feels about the card?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
The other issue, which is a little more subtle, is how quickly the 1cc cantrips get outclassed once the game state progresses. They may be fine for turns 1-2 but beyond that your gonna wish you had something more powerful like instant speed digging otherwise they just end up hitting more of the same at the expense of your turn.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Many decks either don't need any of the above at all (UWR control) or they only need specific cards very late in the game (Scapeshift) so they use more expensive but more powerful spells to find them (Anticipate, Peer Through Depths) or they have better ways of finding what they want (UW Tron).
The question of how many to play is generally dictated by mana curve. In a perfect deck with perfect answers and perfect draws, you never need to cantrip (since you're already drawing exactly what you want). Cantrips allow a player to spend mana in order to get closer to the best possible draw. If a deck already has enough one drops and the curve is quite consistent, then it could play fewer cantrips because it will curve out more naturally and both wont have the time to cast the cantrip and wont need the cantrip as badly. The number you play ends up being a balance between deck consistency and how important it is to tap that Steam Vents for Serum Visions or Lightning Bolt on the early turns.
The problem was that modern had too many 1cmc cantrips, which very heavily enabled combo decks on top of making delver pretty stupid. Ponder and preordain were the best of the bunch, so they got the axe, which made sense. However, it left us with a card that is god-awful for anything other than the combo/delver lists. I think giving us ponder and banning visions instead would honestly be fine. It could be a huge boost to control (probably still not really viable, but closer) with a relatively small increase in power to combo and delver.
With twin being the top deck right now, though, I doubt they'd do anything to the ban list that would work in twins favor, even if it would help control more.
Again, your opinion on the banlist or viability of control in the meta is not a relevant discussion for this thread. Please stick only to how to use the card Serum Visions.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG