Two Painful Quandries will end the game more quickly than two Racks will, though. Now imagine if you could do some shenanigans like turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Hymn to Tourach, turn 3 Dark Ritual into Painful Quandry, turn 4 Mind Twist whatever's left.
Of course there are "rules" against it. Wizards wants people to do more drafts to get at the last sets in a draft block. Doesn't stop every LGS who realizes people really want to open Worldwake so they run ZWW, though.
Hell, Jace would probably be a bit cheaper (not much, but a bit) if it was ZWW.
As already mentioned, the worst scenario is a 1-for-1.
Pretty much. Unless they hit it with Slice in Twain, the card advantage you get from playing the Golem (+0 to invest it onto the board, +2 tokens) cancels out with whatever removal they use on it (-1 to cast their removal spell, +3 dead creatures).
Chain Lightning currently sees play in Legacy, but Goblin Grenade doesn't. Admittedly, it certainly would be played if it were "Tribal Sorcery - Goblin", but it's not, so all it does is dilute Goblin Ringleader draws and can't be tutored up by Goblin Matron.
My point was basically that sheer output of a card ignoring secondary costs makes for an uneven comparison.
That has nothing to do with set size, it has to do with its placement in the block.
To be fair, set size is determined by placement in the block in that the first set is bigger than the next two. Zendikar block just unfortunately had the setup where it and Worldwake were essentially a two-set block with Rise being a separate standalone set in the same world (some kind of mishmash of the Lorwyn and Coldsnap situations).
Actually, being in a small set helped limit his price to "only" $80. If he had been in a larger set, 15 mythics instead of 10, and the same lack of quality of other cards, he'd cost 50% more.
Hardly. Drafts in Zendikar block went ZZZ then ZZW (I know some stores did ZWW, but I don't care) then RRR. Had Jace been in Zendikar, his relatively higher rarity would have been more than balanced out by the sheer volume of product being opened.
What people need to know is what is the probability that running fetch lands will cause the player to not draw a land and what is the expected life cost of that.
The article does expand on that subject, for those who read it:
Quote from Article »
The overall impact of fetch lands upon the number of extra spells, (as opposed to the true lands the fetch lands removed from the deck,) drawn is not nearly as high as the number life sacrificed for the effect. While the dead draws over the first 16 turns are not surprisingly negligible, over the first 16 turns we cannot realize, on average, a single extra card from our fetch lands. Even if we propagate this data further, the first card we see in the 4/16 case is not realized until around the 36th turn, and at an average cost of 2.8 life. The first card for 8/12 is realized on the 25th turn, but at a cost of 4.3 life.
Translation for those who aren't very math-inclined: Any "thinning" in the first 16 turns of play is a complete and utter placebo, even when you're running like 16 fetches.
Also, this comment isn't aimed at any specific person but more in general: Simply because the math looks like incomprehensible voodoo to those who aren't good at math doesn't mean it's wrong.
Finally, on a less serious/more anecdotal subject, there have been games where Valakut Titan has been able to hit me for 18 in one turn but not kill me on that same turn. Had I fetched twice in any of those games, I'd have lost immediately.
it also has a higher power level than dragon fodder, at half the cost and +50% output.
That's like saying Goblin Grenade is a higher power level than Chain Lightning. Fact is "half the cost" only looks at mana, not the costs involved in making the secondary permanent you sacrifice. At the very outside least, using a 0-cost artifact which serves no other function, it might as well read "as an additional cost to cast, discard a card." Or you drop a Memnite, which may or may not swing for 1, or a Mox Opal, which may or may not be able to tap for mana. Same result, though. It costs you another card. If you use an artifact that costs 1 but otherwise does nothing but power it, then the card may as well cost 1R and say "as an additional cost to cast, discard a card." It goes downhill from there.
Cute card in Limited as a way to make use of a dead Tumble Magnet or something, though.
now either that article is a fake or the Garrett Johnson on these forums is a fake.
A few notes to help people decide what to think of that article:
1) The "Garrett Johnson" in that thread registered in December 2009. The "Garrett Johnson" who wrote the article did so in June 2003. However, the "Garret Johnson" in that thread posted on December 8, 2009 that he hadn't gone to any tournaments before and wondered if promo versions of a card were tournament legal.
2) The professor cited in the opening paragraph is, according to Google, Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, and has been teaching there for the past 10 years. Both people claiming to be named Garrett Johnson claim to live in California. Amusingly, the professor in question has his own "mathemagics" program where he "[performs] rapid mental calculations faster than a calculator." This is noted in the fetchland article as the inspiration for the article's name.
3) The math in the articles (there are 4 on tcgplayer) checks out as near as I can tell. The logic behind the assumptions he puts into his Monte Cristo simulations is quite sound.
Either way, you're only deluding yourself if you think spending unnecessary money on fetchlands for mono-colour decks is going to help you in any significant number of games. Is it the end of the world to run it? Of course not. Will the increased presence of money rares give a false sense of increased status to the deck? You better believe it.
Also, I was going to make this into point 4, but it's rather subjective: To this day, I haven't seen any mathematical proofs saying that running fetchlands without some other benefit (landfall, KotR, colour fixing, etc) is worth the investment of life. You'd think that the "use fetchlands in every deck" thumpers would be very quick to pull up such an unassailable defence as a mathematical proof.
Wizards isn't convincing me that in none of the "infinite" planes of existence there isn't one that would be a serviceable urban fantasy or steampunk setting. Guns don't even have to be that powerful (what's buckshot to a huge, scaled wurm?), and any "it ruins the setting" only means it ruins a D&D-like swords-and-sorcery setting, not ruins the "fantasy" genre. Just make them mean you inherently have first strike or something.
Last time i checked, Pyromancers Ascension didn't die to creature removal. Matter of fact if your deck was chock full of terminates Pyros were sitting pretty.
For the uninitiated, that's called virtual card advantage. If your opponent draws a card which is literally useless (e.g. a Terminate when you run no creatures), it's as if they didn't draw a card at all. Anyone who wants to see the logical extreme of this concept should have a look at how Legacy Burn operates, because it's more or less just Mountains, 16 Bolts, and a few other burn spells.
By the logic of some of the counter posts in this thread the only decks that can win in the game ever are ones running bloodghast and vengevine, because they do die to removal but come back.
That simply provides an example of threat density. You see it to a lesser extent in RDW, which runs Hellspark Elemental and Hell's Thunder because you get two uses of the same creature. The concept is essentially the same either way. Your opponent spends their removal to stop some damage, but doesn't (usually) completely remove the creature. This is card advantage on the part of the aggro deck. Card advantage wins games. Card disadvantage loses games. This concept has been known for many years and never stops being true.
People making silly arguments like this need to think through what they're saying. No one's saying that creatures are a worthless strategy. They're saying that putting all your eggs in one fragile basket is a bad strategy, because literally any creature can be removed.
There's a reason why Summoning Trap into Emrakul is a good play and why "pile a bunch of buffs onto one 1/2 without evasion and swing" is a bad one.
Of course there are "rules" against it. Wizards wants people to do more drafts to get at the last sets in a draft block. Doesn't stop every LGS who realizes people really want to open Worldwake so they run ZWW, though.
Hell, Jace would probably be a bit cheaper (not much, but a bit) if it was ZWW.
Pretty much. Unless they hit it with Slice in Twain, the card advantage you get from playing the Golem (+0 to invest it onto the board, +2 tokens) cancels out with whatever removal they use on it (-1 to cast their removal spell, +3 dead creatures).
My point was basically that sheer output of a card ignoring secondary costs makes for an uneven comparison.
To be fair, set size is determined by placement in the block in that the first set is bigger than the next two. Zendikar block just unfortunately had the setup where it and Worldwake were essentially a two-set block with Rise being a separate standalone set in the same world (some kind of mishmash of the Lorwyn and Coldsnap situations).
More constructive posts, please.
Hardly. Drafts in Zendikar block went ZZZ then ZZW (I know some stores did ZWW, but I don't care) then RRR. Had Jace been in Zendikar, his relatively higher rarity would have been more than balanced out by the sheer volume of product being opened.
The article does expand on that subject, for those who read it:
Translation for those who aren't very math-inclined: Any "thinning" in the first 16 turns of play is a complete and utter placebo, even when you're running like 16 fetches.
Also, this comment isn't aimed at any specific person but more in general: Simply because the math looks like incomprehensible voodoo to those who aren't good at math doesn't mean it's wrong.
Finally, on a less serious/more anecdotal subject, there have been games where Valakut Titan has been able to hit me for 18 in one turn but not kill me on that same turn. Had I fetched twice in any of those games, I'd have lost immediately.
That's like saying Goblin Grenade is a higher power level than Chain Lightning. Fact is "half the cost" only looks at mana, not the costs involved in making the secondary permanent you sacrifice. At the very outside least, using a 0-cost artifact which serves no other function, it might as well read "as an additional cost to cast, discard a card." Or you drop a Memnite, which may or may not swing for 1, or a Mox Opal, which may or may not be able to tap for mana. Same result, though. It costs you another card. If you use an artifact that costs 1 but otherwise does nothing but power it, then the card may as well cost 1R and say "as an additional cost to cast, discard a card." It goes downhill from there.
Cute card in Limited as a way to make use of a dead Tumble Magnet or something, though.
It also didn't make you sacrifice an artifact just to cast it.
All his abilities are highly useful in U/W Control. Koth, on the other hand... I've got nothing to defend him.
A few notes to help people decide what to think of that article:
1) The "Garrett Johnson" in that thread registered in December 2009. The "Garrett Johnson" who wrote the article did so in June 2003. However, the "Garret Johnson" in that thread posted on December 8, 2009 that he hadn't gone to any tournaments before and wondered if promo versions of a card were tournament legal.
2) The professor cited in the opening paragraph is, according to Google, Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, and has been teaching there for the past 10 years. Both people claiming to be named Garrett Johnson claim to live in California. Amusingly, the professor in question has his own "mathemagics" program where he "[performs] rapid mental calculations faster than a calculator." This is noted in the fetchland article as the inspiration for the article's name.
3) The math in the articles (there are 4 on tcgplayer) checks out as near as I can tell. The logic behind the assumptions he puts into his Monte Cristo simulations is quite sound.
Either way, you're only deluding yourself if you think spending unnecessary money on fetchlands for mono-colour decks is going to help you in any significant number of games. Is it the end of the world to run it? Of course not. Will the increased presence of money rares give a false sense of increased status to the deck? You better believe it.
Also, I was going to make this into point 4, but it's rather subjective: To this day, I haven't seen any mathematical proofs saying that running fetchlands without some other benefit (landfall, KotR, colour fixing, etc) is worth the investment of life. You'd think that the "use fetchlands in every deck" thumpers would be very quick to pull up such an unassailable defence as a mathematical proof.
For the uninitiated, that's called virtual card advantage. If your opponent draws a card which is literally useless (e.g. a Terminate when you run no creatures), it's as if they didn't draw a card at all. Anyone who wants to see the logical extreme of this concept should have a look at how Legacy Burn operates, because it's more or less just Mountains, 16 Bolts, and a few other burn spells.
That simply provides an example of threat density. You see it to a lesser extent in RDW, which runs Hellspark Elemental and Hell's Thunder because you get two uses of the same creature. The concept is essentially the same either way. Your opponent spends their removal to stop some damage, but doesn't (usually) completely remove the creature. This is card advantage on the part of the aggro deck. Card advantage wins games. Card disadvantage loses games. This concept has been known for many years and never stops being true.
People making silly arguments like this need to think through what they're saying. No one's saying that creatures are a worthless strategy. They're saying that putting all your eggs in one fragile basket is a bad strategy, because literally any creature can be removed.
There's a reason why Summoning Trap into Emrakul is a good play and why "pile a bunch of buffs onto one 1/2 without evasion and swing" is a bad one.