Overused Cards in EDH

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
The amount of games that I've seen that negate the 'T1 Sol wins games' premise is still far higher than the amount of games I've seen in which T1 Sol wins though.
I think that Sol Ring's magnitude as a problem is proportional to how tuned your deck is. I'm sure for cEDH or competitive players, it's an enormous advantage.

For my groups, it's the rare game that is 'ruined' by a T1 Sol Ring because our decks just aren't as focused/tuned. The occasional game is wrecked because someone tables an early walker whose ult is backbreaking. The one I can think of most recently was turn 2 Narset Transcendent into some blockers/countermagic.

But, I have had many more games where I was behind and a topdecked Sol Ring kind of got me back in the game.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
The amount of games that I've seen that negate the 'T1 Sol wins games' premise is still far higher than the amount of games I've seen in which T1 Sol wins though.
I think that Sol Ring's magnitude as a problem is proportional to how tuned your deck is. I'm sure for cEDH or competitive players, it's an enormous advantage.

For my groups, it's the rare game that is 'ruined' by a T1 Sol Ring because our decks just aren't as focused/tuned. The occasional game is wrecked because someone tables an early walker whose ult is backbreaking. The one I can think of most recently was turn 2 Narset Transcendent into some blockers/countermagic.

But, I have had many more games where I was behind and a topdecked Sol Ring kind of got me back in the game.
Yeah, granted that sounds gross and unfun. I like Narset as a character but every iteration of her to date is fun police in some way.

I personally think Sol is really only capable of the level of degeneracy of the deck you build around it and nothing more. In essence it offers you potential to do with what you will. If the game ends up being frustrating or unfun or just over too soon that's sort of on the player not the card. Like it's not even in the same camp as Rift, where so long as it's timed right the game is a foregone conclusion.

I get where everyone is coming from with it. I just think given it's ubiquity the argument ends up more feeling like feelbads because someone else got a great starting hand and you didn't. It's a big advantage yes, but a)it's not a given for every deck and b) the times where a games outcome can be placed solely on the head of a single card are far overstated. All this being said, I definitely see where it comes into this discussion. Because it isn't for every deck and it sees so much play it probably is deserving of mention here.

Anyway, we've derailed this thread. Carry on team.
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Post by materpillar » 4 years ago

What are some cards you are tired of seeing in EDH? I'm talking about the cards that hit the table and just make you roll your eyes out of sheer instinct.
Definitely Craterhoof Behemoth for me. I like my EDH to be mid-range slugfest battlecruiser fun where board states can get clogged and complicated. In these situations Craterhoof Behemoth is just "oops everyone is dead" without any decent way to interact unless you're playing blue or a very slim list of other cards.

Often times, games are just "Cool stuff is happening. Cool stuff is happening. Craterhoof happens, the table dies." Wooo. How original. I've never experienced this before. :sick:

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Definitely agree there. It's just such an easy win. There's not a single modicum of needing to play Craterhoof with any precision, talent or timing, it's just cast, swing, win. Very boring.
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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago

I don't necessarily think it's a 'must run' either. I don't run it in Nissa, it's be a waste of time at any stage of the game.
Can you expand on this a bit more? I've seen your decklist and honestly I can't think of a way in which Sol Ring|CMD WOULDN'T help your deck.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Cow31337Killer wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago

I don't necessarily think it's a 'must run' either. I don't run it in Nissa, it's be a waste of time at any stage of the game.
Can you expand on this a bit more? I've seen your decklist and honestly I can't think of a way in which Sol Ring|CMD WOULDN'T help your deck.
The deck doesn't care about artifacts, almost at all. It wants land drops, as many as possible ASAP. Among other things of course, but Sol doesn't fit into any of those categories. Early game, it's not a land, so I don't want it. Mid game it doesn't synergise with ETB triggers or land drops, so I don't want it. Late game it's seriously outclassed by some of the other mana generators I run in things like Nykthos, Itlimoc, Acolyte, Resurgent, Cobra, Voyage, and just generally having every land in the deck in play, so again, I just don't want it.

If you're thinking in terms of dropping Nissa as early as possible, think again. She does nothing if you can't flip her, and Sol does nothing for that, so a T2 Nissa is ultimately useless. Ultimately, the best play I could have T1 would be Exploration, I just don't have a copy.
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Post by NZB2323 » 4 years ago

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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Definitely agree there. It's just such an easy win. There's not a single modicum of needing to play Craterhoof with any precision, talent or timing, it's just cast, swing, win. Very boring.
Lol I love how people complain that Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR is an "easy win" or requires "no talent" when you literally have to build up and maintain an entire board of creatures before the card even does anything. Even then, you're winning with COMBAT DAMAGE which is one of the EASIEST wincons to strategize against in EDH. Seriously, there's so many measures against Craterhoof and combat damage in general that people should be playing in their decks anyway. Honestly, I think the reverse of your statement is more accurate: If a player loses to Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR over and over again, maybe it says something about THEIR lack of timing and talent, and not the person playing Craterhoof.

That being said it is a very popular card so I can understand why people might be sick of seeing it so often haha

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Post by lyonhaert » 4 years ago

I think people get annoyed with Craterhoof for the same reason as overloaded Cyclonic Rift. Instead of having to make good tactical decisions about attacking in order to find a way through a defense, it just makes that whole combat easymode unless you have a counter.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Yeah, I mean it's not quite an 'oops I win' card, but it isn't really all that far off. All it really needs to have a huge impact is to resolve and for the caster to have a reasonable swathe of creatures to turn sideways. Because it's an ETB trigger it's easily abused too. It doesn't even need to attack itself like Pathbreaker Ibex.

I get the point though. There's enough counterspells, Torpor Orb effects, fog effects and Comeuppance effects that it's not a win on cast card for sure. Most of my decks pack enough tricks to mitigate it, I guess it's more when it drops super early and you wouldn't expect to necessarily have an answer ready that it gets gross. Which you have to admit, it's on color for. If any color could drop it in play super early it's green. Combine that with green being a great color for swarm with stuff like elfball, Avenger, saprolings and what have you. So yeah, maybe part of it is the environment it lives in too.
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Post by bobthefunny » 4 years ago

Cow31337Killer wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Definitely agree there. It's just such an easy win. There's not a single modicum of needing to play Craterhoof with any precision, talent or timing, it's just cast, swing, win. Very boring.
Lol I love how people complain that Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR is an "easy win" or requires "no talent" when you literally have to build up and maintain an entire board of creatures before the card even does anything. Even then, you're winning with COMBAT DAMAGE which is one of the EASIEST wincons to strategize against in EDH. Seriously, there's so many measures against Craterhoof and combat damage in general that people should be playing in their decks anyway. Honestly, I think the reverse of your statement is more accurate: If a player loses to Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR over and over again, maybe it says something about THEIR lack of timing and talent, and not the person playing Craterhoof.

That being said it is a very popular card so I can understand why people might be sick of seeing it so often haha
You DON'T need to maintain a board though is the point. You just need to have enough of a board at the start of a turn, that you count up and win. If the count isn't high enough, you don't play it until it is. At some point in the game, you will have more than zero creatures at the start of your turn. It's ridiculous to think that the board will be wiped every single turn. And there are enough token generators that even that won't do enough. I find it kind of crazy that people insist that it takes some sort of skill to have creatures alive on your board at the start of the turn - this isn't a situation where you're trying to assemble a specific piece - you just need SOMETHING to survive, and that's not necessarily skill - that's just time. There's enough cheap token producers as well that it's not unreasonable to be able to put out an additional 4-5 tokens at the end of someone's turn.

In the end, craterhoof isn't a combo, but it has the same feels to me as a combo. "Ok, I have assembled enough math, now I win." I'll even say that some combos are more interesting to me than craterhoof, because at least then the player has to demonstrate some amount of skill or decisions beyond "Is math high enough?"

While Combat Damage would be a fine and interactable amount of win con to deal with, Craterhoof puts it so high, so fast, that it becomes nearly un-interactable. Blockers? That's been mathed and theres enough to trample over - no interesting blocking step for you. Plowshares/Path to Exile/instant speed removal? No, single target creature interaction won't stop it. You literally need a counterspell (must play blue), a fog (admittedly, not enough played in Commander), or an instant speed wrath and enough mana up to cast it (Rout). Each of those is actually quite easy to forsee for the Craterhoof player, and generally avoid (not to mention that green can negate every one of those). If I'm playing white, I don't want to have to keep up 4-7 mana every turn just because the green player has a boatload of lands and might untap with a handful and a half of 1/1's. Not playing with 7 of your lands for the whole game is a quick way to lose the game. But then, having the player suddenly spit out a bunch of tokens, drop craterhoof, and give all his creatures +10/+10 is a quick way to die as well.

In the end, Craterhoof is a card that requires minimal and incidental set up (you want to be spitting out creatures anyways), and is interactable only in a very limited window, with a very limited amount of answers, that are generally locked to specific colors. It forces you to consider every green boardstate to be a threatening board state, and means that you need to consider wrathing a board of only 1/1's just in case, should you not have another answer. Is it bannable? maybe not, but I find it boring, and I don't run it, because I don't find it fun for either the opponents, or even for the player playing it. I have never seen someone satisfied by winning off a craterhoof "Whoof! That was a close one, you almost had me!" Just... no.

===

It's my same issue with Torment of Hailfire right now. On paper, it looked like it would be an interesting 'wrath' effect that gave your opponent some choices to make, and would cause a bit of interesting chaos and change up the board state. In reality, it doesn't get cast until (x-hand size)*3 = dead. Usually waiting until post-wrath effect, so that boards are fairly clean, then an x=14 usually is enough to get through the 4-5 cards in hand, 1-2 permanents, and 8x3=24 to take out whatever half of life people have remaining. It's like an exsanguinate, but cheaper.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Yep, that pretty well covers it.

As far as Torment goes, I acknowledge the issue mentioned. I very much prefer using it for synergy in a sacrifice oriented build a lá Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, but I totally get that I'm in the minority there. Mostly it's used as a mana sink/endgame finisher and that can be pretty underwhelming.
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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

bobthefunny wrote:
4 years ago
Cow31337Killer wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Definitely agree there. It's just such an easy win. There's not a single modicum of needing to play Craterhoof with any precision, talent or timing, it's just cast, swing, win. Very boring.
Lol I love how people complain that Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR is an "easy win" or requires "no talent" when you literally have to build up and maintain an entire board of creatures before the card even does anything. Even then, you're winning with COMBAT DAMAGE which is one of the EASIEST wincons to strategize against in EDH. Seriously, there's so many measures against Craterhoof and combat damage in general that people should be playing in their decks anyway. Honestly, I think the reverse of your statement is more accurate: If a player loses to Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR over and over again, maybe it says something about THEIR lack of timing and talent, and not the person playing Craterhoof.

That being said it is a very popular card so I can understand why people might be sick of seeing it so often haha
You DON'T need to maintain a board though is the point. You just need to have enough of a board at the start of a turn, that you count up and win. If the count isn't high enough, you don't play it until it is. At some point in the game, you will have more than zero creatures at the start of your turn. It's ridiculous to think that the board will be wiped every single turn. And there are enough token generators that even that won't do enough. I find it kind of crazy that people insist that it takes some sort of skill to have creatures alive on your board at the start of the turn - this isn't a situation where you're trying to assemble a specific piece - you just need SOMETHING to survive, and that's not necessarily skill - that's just time. There's enough cheap token producers as well that it's not unreasonable to be able to put out an additional 4-5 tokens at the end of someone's turn.

In the end, craterhoof isn't a combo, but it has the same feels to me as a combo. "Ok, I have assembled enough math, now I win." I'll even say that some combos are more interesting to me than craterhoof, because at least then the player has to demonstrate some amount of skill or decisions beyond "Is math high enough?"

While Combat Damage would be a fine and interactable amount of win con to deal with, Craterhoof puts it so high, so fast, that it becomes nearly un-interactable. Blockers? That's been mathed and theres enough to trample over - no interesting blocking step for you. Plowshares/Path to Exile/instant speed removal? No, single target creature interaction won't stop it. You literally need a counterspell (must play blue), a fog (admittedly, not enough played in Commander), or an instant speed wrath and enough mana up to cast it (Rout). Each of those is actually quite easy to forsee for the Craterhoof player, and generally avoid (not to mention that green can negate every one of those). If I'm playing white, I don't want to have to keep up 4-7 mana every turn just because the green player has a boatload of lands and might untap with a handful and a half of 1/1's. Not playing with 7 of your lands for the whole game is a quick way to lose the game. But then, having the player suddenly spit out a bunch of tokens, drop craterhoof, and give all his creatures +10/+10 is a quick way to die as well.

In the end, Craterhoof is a card that requires minimal and incidental set up (you want to be spitting out creatures anyways), and is interactable only in a very limited window, with a very limited amount of answers, that are generally locked to specific colors. It forces you to consider every green boardstate to be a threatening board state, and means that you need to consider wrathing a board of only 1/1's just in case, should you not have another answer. Is it bannable? maybe not, but I find it boring, and I don't run it, because I don't find it fun for either the opponents, or even for the player playing it. I have never seen someone satisfied by winning off a craterhoof "Whoof! That was a close one, you almost had me!" Just... no.

===

It's my same issue with Torment of Hailfire right now. On paper, it looked like it would be an interesting 'wrath' effect that gave your opponent some choices to make, and would cause a bit of interesting chaos and change up the board state. In reality, it doesn't get cast until (x-hand size)*3 = dead. Usually waiting until post-wrath effect, so that boards are fairly clean, then an x=14 usually is enough to get through the 4-5 cards in hand, 1-2 permanents, and 8x3=24 to take out whatever half of life people have remaining. It's like an exsanguinate, but cheaper.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Man, like....at best that comment is really reductive, at worst it's just rude in my opinion. If it's a joke my apologies, but it doesn't read all that well. Idc either way, I game online and that can get pretty toxic, so no skin off my nose, just saying.
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Post by Dragonlover » 4 years ago

Won't lie, I'm bored of losing to Torment of Hailfire at the moment.

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Post by JoeyB11223 » 4 years ago

Hailfire is obviously pretty good, though recently I've had several situations where I've survived a hailfire and still been in a situation to come back from it pretty well, when an exsanguinate for the same cost would have basically finished me. Obviously it depends on your deck, but if you're against a significant token (creatures, treasures, clues etc) generator or card draw engine, it can be more lacklustre than you'd think at times when they can spread it out.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Dragonlover wrote:
4 years ago
Won't lie, I'm bored of losing to Torment of Hailfire at the moment.

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I had a whole long ban thread about this card at some point and while my conclusion is it's not quite bannable I just really detest the design of the card. Making your wincon "Make a crapload of mana and then hope no one has a counterspell" is irritating as a strategy, since counterspells become mandatory now, or people have to aggressively attack your mana (often focusing targeted land destruction combined with grave hate).

There're a few spells like that but not many that are nearly as mana efficient (debt to the deathless being the closest option. It's just really sloppy and annoying design. One card winconditions that must be answered on the stack are not my favorite.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

I dunno, Debt to the Deathless is still pretty up there. The only reason it's not played more it the color density. Otherwise twice X is pretty impactful and can totally finish games on the spot. In some ways you expect it less because it isn't as prevalent.

But yeah, totally understand how these cards become pet peeves. They do end up being disappointing ways to win that don't end up enjoyable for the table.
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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Man, like....at best that comment is really reductive, at worst it's just rude in my opinion. If it's a joke my apologies, but it doesn't read all that well. Idc either way, I game online and that can get pretty toxic, so no skin off my nose, just saying.
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Post by gilrad » 4 years ago

A long time a go, I used to have similar feelings toward Genesis Wave, though I haven't seen it in a while these days.

They all what I like to call non-incremental win conditions. Either you meet the conditions to use the card to win the game, or you wait until you do meet the requirements. I'm not a huge fan of the design because it brings all the isolated board building of combo decks in a package different enough you can justify bringing it to a no-combo table. Since they don't discretely step over any gameplay philosophy lines, they're often conflated as just "strong cards".

And we all know the correct response to people complaining about strong cards is to just play better, amirite?

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Post by ilovesaprolings » 4 years ago

Cow31337Killer wrote:
4 years ago
when you literally have to build up and maintain an entire board of creatures before the card even does anything.
Maybe to some people having a board state is not a sign of "talent" or "you should win" but it's just the way the game should be played?
I for one was tired of seeing a boardstate of 5 5/5 turning into letal because of craterhoof. I used it in my token deck too and i cut it for cards like end-raze forerunners, which apperently require more talent than createrhoof and surely make up for interesting games

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Post by materpillar » 4 years ago

Cow31337Killer wrote:
4 years ago
Lol I love how people complain that Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR is an "easy win" or requires "no talent" when you literally have to build up and maintain an entire board of creatures before the card even does anything. Even then, you're winning with COMBAT DAMAGE which is one of the EASIEST wincons to strategize against in EDH. Seriously, there's so many measures against Craterhoof and combat damage in general that people should be playing in their decks anyway. Honestly, I think the reverse of your statement is more accurate: If a player loses to Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR over and over again, maybe it says something about THEIR lack of timing and talent, and not the person playing Craterhoof.

That being said it is a very popular card so I can understand why people might be sick of seeing it so often haha
Craterhoof Behemoth is technically combat damage, but it doesn't feel like combat damage to me. Look at Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts. You create an infinite number of hasty conscripts and then win with combat damage. You won with "combat damage" but you weren't winning with combat damage you're winning with an "oops I killed the table" button. There is effectively no difference in my mind between casting Tooth and Nail for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion or Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR. In fact, of all three of the examples here, the only one that you can't use path to exile to disrupt is Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR assuming they have a handful of grizzly bears sitting around.


Part of my deck design philosophy in EDH is to create fun and interesting games for not just myself but for everyone I play with. This personal philosophy is something that Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR specifically preys on and exploits. For example, I tend to play a handful of instant speed catch-all removal spells and 2-3 wrath spells in every deck with minimal tutors. I've found that an over abundance of wrath spells in a meta-game makes creature based decks incredibly dull to run and dramatically increases the average length of the game. I find that everyone has much more fun in EDH if there isn't a wrath spell hitting every single round. This means that people tend to have boardstates that fill up creatures, which is exactly where Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR becomes "oops everyone is dead". So I could increase the number of board clears in my decks specifically because of Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR, but then it would decrease the quality of everyone's enjoyment of the game.

People tend to enjoy having their spells actually resolve and do something and then you anguished unmaking them or whatever. As a result I tend to have my removal lean towards variants like this, because getting counterspelled is waaaaay less enjoyable. Guess what, Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR is effectively immune to instant speed non-counterspell removal. So I could increase the number of counterspells in my decks specifically because of Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR, but then it would decrease the quality of everyone's enjoyment of the game.

I could also go under the hoof with aggressive comboing, or stop board states from developing to a level where it becomes lethal with something like stax or oppressive control. However, you'll be suprised to learn both of these would drastically decrease the quality of everyone's enjoyment of the game.

My current favorite EDH deck to play is my changeling tribal deck. Literally every card in it except chromatic lantern is a changeling or makes me say a creature type when I play a changeling. You know how many on theme answers there are to craterhoof behemoth? Psychic Trance, literally the only card I'm aware of is Psychic Trance. I could compromise my deck theme, and warp my deckbuilding specifically to allow me to answer Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR more consistently, but no. I refuse.


Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR's mere existence in a meta-game is warping. It is the single-most efficient win-condition in a non-competitive metagame since it dramatically lowers the critical mass of boardstate required to win the game. It's mere existance forces a every deck in the metagame to migrate towards are more streamlined gameplan otherwise they'll just lose because their winconditions are so much more clunky. The drastically reduces pet cards and wonky gameplans because they're just not efficient enough to handle a Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR. The more streamlined a metagame becomes the less diverse and more repetitive the gameplay. I abhor this. I abhor Craterhoof Behemoth|AVR. every time I see it I get vaguely annoyed.

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Post by onering » 4 years ago

lyonhaert wrote:
4 years ago
I think people get annoyed with Craterhoof for the same reason as overloaded Cyclonic Rift. Instead of having to make good tactical decisions about attacking in order to find a way through a defense, it just makes that whole combat easymode unless you have a counter.

Except the this isn't really true at all about either card. Yes, there are situations where you topdeck either card and can win with it. Waiting for that moment is going to lose you a lot more games than the cards will win you. Actually thinking about how to use them and doing exactly what you pretend they discourage makes both cards a lot better (and they are already good to begin with). Rift is usually more valuable as a way to save the game from a combo, or a Hoof, or some other nonsense, with the ability to clear the way for lethal being a bonus. As for Hoof, being smart with attacks and getting in incidental damage can dramatically increase the board states in which a resolved Hoof is gg, making it less likely that you'll get your board wiped (or comboed out) before you can drop the Hoof. Hoof especially is the sort of card that you only really see when it's threatening a win, which gives the illusion that it's hard to interact with, when the reality is that people successfully interact with it all the time, they just don't realize they've done so as the Hoof sits in their opponents hand waiting for a lethal boardstate that never comes (which is another thing, because sometimes it's better to pull the trigger on it when it isn't lethal if you can mop up the remainder later and it's unlikely you'll be able to finish building the board to lethal, and sometimes it's best to pull the trigger and take out the most dangerous couple of players who are poised to win and take your chances with whoever's left). Yeah, these cards can be played as fire and forget and still perform, but doing so ensures that your leaving a lot of their potential on the table.

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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 4 years ago

onering wrote:
4 years ago
Except the this isn't really true at all about either card. Yes, there are situations where you topdeck either card and can win with it. Waiting for that moment is going to lose you a lot more games than the cards will win you. Actually thinking about how to use them and doing exactly what you pretend they discourage makes both cards a lot better (and they are already good to begin with). Rift is usually more valuable as a way to save the game from a combo, or a Hoof, or some other nonsense, with the ability to clear the way for lethal being a bonus.
I tend to disagree with you here in regards to Rift. In my personal experience difference between Rift's floor and ceiling isn't particularly wide. You cast it and you gain a massive tempo advantage with zero boardstate analysis required. Again, my experience is in a much more unrefined battleship metagame. The more cutthroat the decks and the lower the curve, the less impactful and more nuanced its use becomes.

onering wrote:
4 years ago
As for Hoof, being smart with attacks and getting in incidental damage can dramatically increase the board states in which a resolved Hoof is gg, making it less likely that you'll get your board wiped (or comboed out) before you can drop the Hoof. Hoof especially is the sort of card that you only really see when it's threatening a win, which gives the illusion that it's hard to interact with, when the reality is that people successfully interact with it all the time, they just don't realize they've done so as the Hoof sits in their opponents hand waiting for a lethal boardstate that never comes (which is another thing, because sometimes it's better to pull the trigger on it when it isn't lethal if you can mop up the remainder later and it's unlikely you'll be able to finish building the board to lethal, and sometimes it's best to pull the trigger and take out the most dangerous couple of players who are poised to win and take your chances with whoever's left). Yeah, these cards can be played as fire and forget and still perform, but doing so ensures that your leaving a lot of their potential on the table.
My experience is slightly different. There is an immense amount of time my opponent goes Survival of the Fittest/Tooth and Nail/Demonic Tutor, my immediate thought is "well, if he has Craterhoof Behemoth in his deck everyone is just dead now and there's nothing anyone can do." Often this is in a clogged boardstate, through removal, in a situation that no other creature would have remotely close to a similar effect.

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Post by onering » 4 years ago

In a low power barttlecruiser meta, both cards are going to dominate, because both cards are on the high end of power in the format. One thing I'd note is that whenever I see T&N it's game over unless you have a specific instant speed answer (and while Hoof plus Avenger is one way it happens, there are a number of other 2 card combos it fetches, some of which are more reliable than Hoof). Meanwhile, survival is also going to fetch out combos with ease. If your seeing Hoof pop out off of those to end games, then Hoof is just one option of many they could be going for to get the same effect of ending the game suddenly. The problem in your meta doesn't seem to be Hoof, but that "tutor for the win" has crept into your barttlecruiser meta.

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