...I am soooo clooose to finishing this deck.... only 16 cards remaining, and 9 of those are Plains! What's the community consensus on which Basic Plains is the most beautiful?
i always use the Jung Park zendikar plains, but the Tempest ones are pretty amazing too. here's my favourite
you are way more experienced in playing this deck than I am. One of the most important separators of good and bad players is how to mulligan. I have randomly generated a whole bunch of starting hands with the danish list, minus cavern and with an extra canopy, and provided comments why I would keep them and why not. In each time, I consider decisions regarding a totally unknown meta and zero knowledge whatsoever of what my opponent is playing. Could you please comment on my decisions? I think this will greatly help my understanding of the deck.
I'll wrap spoiler tags around each hand to reduce an allready huge post...
A no-brainer I think. I would lead with a T1 plains, vial. T2 I'd go for port with a possibility of plowing stuff. Solid hand with lots of disruption and power, both on the play and draw.
This hand provides me with a lot of mana denial, but I think I'm gonna pass. If I knew What i was up against i'd might keep it, but a FoW on StP leaves me with just about nothing. Had there been some kind of creature instead of a waste i'd have kept it as well.
I'd keep this. The solid mana is allways a pleasure and mother of runes are powerfull against many decks. There isn't too much disruption, but revoker could be held back to make sure it matters when it does land. OK hand I guess.
It's a keeper. Plains, vial, go is nice. Next turns i can go for mana denial using waste, laying fat threats by vialling stoneforge and do general nasty business with the fliers. Solid hand and about as good as it gets.
Another keeper. I think this hand lacks the raw power the previous one did, but still has plenty of tools to mess with a lot of decks. Karakas is great against combo, vial wins against counter decks and the mana denial is remains a treat to see in your opener. I generally dislike mangara in my opening 7, since you wouldn't want it so early. Still, all the pieces for a nice mangara softlock are in your hand, which is reassuring.
Yay, another keeper! So far so good. No mana denial, but thalia is just so good against many decks. The first one might get removed or whatever, but using karakas you could make the second one stick (or the first one if you want to be carefull about it.) Flickerwisp and StP deal with opposing threats.
This is a fine hand, I'd keep it. Vial + mana denial + stoneforge is allways a treat. The plow will provide with a response to opposing trouble, while canopy might fetch another card. We have plenty of W in our pool, the way it looks.
This again a tough one. No W mana! Activating mystic, playing StP... I think i'd mulligan this. I just don't like hands without at least a single source of W mana.... What do you guys think?
Keep. Plenty of disruption, 2 lands and a vial. I have several ways the game could unfold and ways of responding to those situations. A third land instead of any of the other cards (except for vial though) would have been nice, but still quite solid.
Getting double flickerwisp without white sources sucks, but this hand has the possibility to really tax the other guy. A single extra land could delay him SO much, using thalia and two ports. I'd keep it.
fine hand. It's a little waste sensitive, but Vial +mother + mystic is really cool. Also, I like the mindcensor since it might carry a nice sword.
That's it for now. Out of the 15 random hands, I wouldn't have to think much about 10 hands, 2 were quite hard (hands 8 and 9) and 3 were clear mulligans IMO (10, 11 and 13).
hand 1: keep
hand 2: I'd definitely keep this. You have a turn 1 vial and huge amounts of mana denial, plus a StP, which means you can almost certainly slow down your opponent enough to start drawing creatures.
hand 3: keep
hand 4: keep
hand 5: keep
hand 6: keep. Multiple Thalias is actually pretty good most of the time, since it's such a high priority target for most decks that it's good against.
hand 7: keep
hand 8: keep. Canopy lifeloss isn't really a problem when you have Vial and two other lands, since you won't need to tap them all that much
hand 9: I'd definitely keep this. My rationale is basically that if I draw any white source in the first few turns (which is a pretty good chance), or if my vial sticks (which is likely), then this hand is ridiculously good. even if neither of those things happen, I can stall for a while with Port, and I still have Revoker available.
hand 10: I would consider keeping if Karakas was a Plains, but as-is this is a mulligan.
hand 11: yep mull
hand 12: amazing hand, keep
hand 13: yep mull
hand 14: keep
hand 15: keep
What do you guys think of these hands and my anlyses? Are there any hands you would keep on the play but not on the draw or the other way around? Why?
Off the top of my head, the only types of hands I'd keep on the play but not on the draw are ones that are highly Vial-reliant, like
On the play, the only thing you're really scared of is Force on the Vial. on the draw, your opponent could easily have Thoughtseize, Daze, Spell Pierce, brainstorm -> Force/Daze, etc etc, all of which wrecks you. Ever since Return to Ravnica I've been a bit more nervous about keeping hands like this, but I think it's still worthwhile.
one other note: When my hand contains a Port, a Plains and a Vial, I usually lead off with Port -> Vial rather than Plains -> Vial, whereas you did the opposite, e.g. on hand 1. It's a very minor difference but it gives the opponent a little less information about what deck I'm playing (could be goblins), and since we don't have any WW spells it doesn't cut me off from casting anything T2. usually you want to be porting on turn 2 if you have a vial out anyway
yeah, I've gotten in the habit of always porting fetchlands when I can't effectively use it for mana denial otherwise. most of the time people respond by cracking the fetchland immediately, which I think is very rarely the correct play when you have a lot of mana
You should actually port in response to the high tide. You also have thalia and bird. If you run crusader you have a very legitimate clock. It's not as bad as you think, as they are rather slow and mana denial is extremely effective against them.
you can also port their fetchlands before the combo turn. if they sac in response, their Brainstorms, etc get a little bit weaker; if they don't, you can finally get some value out of Wasteland
The more I think about it, the more I like Grafdigger's cage as a 1-of in the side. It hoses elves, tin fins, traditional gy decks (reanimator and dredge), and it's also quite strong against MUD, Storm versions running past in flames, Esper (stops both snapcaster and lingering souls flashback). It's a very versatile card that gives us another much needed turn 1 play against a variety of decks, some of which are actually pretty hard MU's.
grafdigger's cage is also quite good against Nic Fit, which was pretty relevant a few months ago. stops Green Sun's Zenith, Cabal Therapy flashback and all sorts of other annoying stuff
Not only that, but he can counter a force of will. My favorite thing to do against blue decks game 1 is to force them to force of will my thalia, and then vial in a judge's familiar to counter their force of will.
so
familiar = 1
Force of will = 2
2 for 1 (and, chances are they've lost a brainstorm or a jace, so it's actually more like an infinity for 1)
what if the oppo has Zombie Musher in their sideboard
i always use the Jung Park zendikar plains, but the Tempest ones are pretty amazing too. here's my favourite
hand 1: keep
hand 2: I'd definitely keep this. You have a turn 1 vial and huge amounts of mana denial, plus a StP, which means you can almost certainly slow down your opponent enough to start drawing creatures.
hand 3: keep
hand 4: keep
hand 5: keep
hand 6: keep. Multiple Thalias is actually pretty good most of the time, since it's such a high priority target for most decks that it's good against.
hand 7: keep
hand 8: keep. Canopy lifeloss isn't really a problem when you have Vial and two other lands, since you won't need to tap them all that much
hand 9: I'd definitely keep this. My rationale is basically that if I draw any white source in the first few turns (which is a pretty good chance), or if my vial sticks (which is likely), then this hand is ridiculously good. even if neither of those things happen, I can stall for a while with Port, and I still have Revoker available.
hand 10: I would consider keeping if Karakas was a Plains, but as-is this is a mulligan.
hand 11: yep mull
hand 12: amazing hand, keep
hand 13: yep mull
hand 14: keep
hand 15: keep
Off the top of my head, the only types of hands I'd keep on the play but not on the draw are ones that are highly Vial-reliant, like
Karakas
Vial
Mother
Thalia
Stoneforge
Revoker
Flickerwisp
On the play, the only thing you're really scared of is Force on the Vial. on the draw, your opponent could easily have Thoughtseize, Daze, Spell Pierce, brainstorm -> Force/Daze, etc etc, all of which wrecks you. Ever since Return to Ravnica I've been a bit more nervous about keeping hands like this, but I think it's still worthwhile.
one other note: When my hand contains a Port, a Plains and a Vial, I usually lead off with Port -> Vial rather than Plains -> Vial, whereas you did the opposite, e.g. on hand 1. It's a very minor difference but it gives the opponent a little less information about what deck I'm playing (could be goblins), and since we don't have any WW spells it doesn't cut me off from casting anything T2. usually you want to be porting on turn 2 if you have a vial out anyway
you can also port their fetchlands before the combo turn. if they sac in response, their Brainstorms, etc get a little bit weaker; if they don't, you can finally get some value out of Wasteland
grafdigger's cage is also quite good against Nic Fit, which was pretty relevant a few months ago. stops Green Sun's Zenith, Cabal Therapy flashback and all sorts of other annoying stuff
RIP still gives substantial value even if it gets Decayed immediately
no
i can't imagine why
can you find space for the 4th revoker?
coldsnap precon one looks the best imo
Infraction for spam
-:pops:
force of will is already a 2 for 1 in our favour