A Deck without Tutors

[BaronCappuccino]

I'm currently rebuilding Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder for the zillionth time, and it's still in draft mode on Archidekt. The first draft had me thinking that while I needed tutors, they could almost all be fun tutors with strings attached (but never a reveal clause), like Scheming Symmetry and Diabolic Intent, and then of course Razaketh, the Foulblooded as sort of a one card win condition, since Endrek is an aristocrats deck with a combo finish at heart. It was goldfishing well enough, but I think I discovered I actually don't like tutors. Today, I replaced all the tutors with draw - Razaketh swapped to Vilis, Broker of Blood, and some other big draw - Liliana's Standard Bearer, God-Eternal Bontu. It's a lot more fun. It single-handedly made about 50 cards in the deck a little more playable. Not a single card in my deck has me search my library. Of course, live opponents, if such will ever happen again, might prove the notion naive and/or stupid - I mean, black is the tutors color above all, but I can't deny that switching to draw makes what would've been throwaway turns waiting for the tutor a lot more engaging. It's still an aristocrats deck with a combo finish, but now relies on mass draw and ample redundancy. If your decks are starting to get boring, this could help.

[lyonhaert]

Of course, live opponents, if such will ever happen again, might prove the notion naive and/or stupid...

Not naive or stupid, just less linear... higher variance. The deck just won't be as consistent each time, and against decks that use tutors for consistency and linearity it might not perform quite as well. But, I've also found myself preferring higher variance to keep things from stagnating.

Draw over tutoring is one way (and it also solves a few issues, such as finding answers and making land drops), but I also like having less redundancy in the 99 and leaning toward one-of pieces that interact with many other pieces so I can build different value engines or whatever depending on what I draw (or mill). In my monoblack deck I was still running one or two tutors... not enough for linearity, but if I managed to find it I could hasten the endgame or avoid loss sometimes. I didn't encounter them very often, though, and more often had to dig with Vilis or Yawgmoth if I was in trouble (which was always much more fun anyway).

[Dunharrow]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

[DirkGently]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

It depends entirely on how the tutors are being used. If you're using them to find the same finishers over and over, that definitely gets old fast. But for some decks getting certain pieces in place is really just the starting point, and tutors are necessary for that.

[Jemolk]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

It depends entirely on how the tutors are being used. If you're using them to find the same finishers over and over, that definitely gets old fast. But for some decks getting certain pieces in place is really just the starting point, and tutors are necessary for that.

They can also be invaluable when someone else's deck is a little too reliably explosive and you need several wraths and a few counterspells just to keep them from spewing enough of their deck onto the board that they create a near-insurmountable advantage, but without actually having to build boardwipes&counters.dec.

Nothing wrong with building a deck without tutors, of course. You'd want a fair amount of draw to compensate, but that's generally fine so long as the pieces needed for winning/not dying aren't extremely specific.

[ilovesaprolings]

It's a lot more fun.

Congratulations! You are playing the format as it was intended! No wonder it's more fun.

[Dunharrow]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

It depends entirely on how the tutors are being used. If you're using them to find the same finishers over and over, that definitely gets old fast. But for some decks getting certain pieces in place is really just the starting point, and tutors are necessary for that.

Yes and no.
Very often you build thinking "I will tutor for my fun stuff", but then in practice you end up tutoring for whatever will win the game. So, to be able to tutor for your set-up pieces you kinda have to reduce the power level of your individual cards.

[lyonhaert]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

It depends entirely on how the tutors are being used. If you're using them to find the same finishers over and over, that definitely gets old fast. But for some decks getting certain pieces in place is really just the starting point, and tutors are necessary for that.

Yes and no.
Very often you build thinking "I will tutor for my fun stuff", but then in practice you end up tutoring for whatever will win the game. So, to be able to tutor for your set-up pieces you kinda have to reduce the power level of your individual cards.

Nah, this all comes down to the mindset of the person tutoring and their self-control. Some pilots don't have much self-control and will grab the 'best' thing, but please don't paint everybody (the general "you") with that brush. Watch me Demonic for a basic Swamp because I couldn't afford to miss a land drop early.

[Dunharrow]

It depends entirely on how the tutors are being used. If you're using them to find the same finishers over and over, that definitely gets old fast. But for some decks getting certain pieces in place is really just the starting point, and tutors are necessary for that.

Yes and no.
Very often you build thinking "I will tutor for my fun stuff", but then in practice you end up tutoring for whatever will win the game. So, to be able to tutor for your set-up pieces you kinda have to reduce the power level of your individual cards.

Nah, this all comes down to the mindset of the person tutoring and their self-control. Some pilots don't have much self-control and will grab the 'best' thing, but please don't paint everybody (the general "you") with that brush. Watch me Demonic for a basic Swamp because I couldn't afford to miss a land drop early.

That's not what I was arguing. I would say most people know that if they need a land they will tutor a land. Although I would argue that Swamp is probably not the best land in your deck!

My argument is more like - let's say my deck wants to set up Timestream Navigator and Progenitor Mimic. Do I DT for one of these pieces? What if I can just tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth and wreck my opponents?
You can choose to tutor for the fun card and not the 'I win' card, but most people follow the mantra: "build casually, play competitively".
to me not tutoring for the card that would win the game is the same as not countering my opponent's Praetor because I feel bad for winning.

so ya - to me if you want tutors to set up something cool, you kinda need to make sure you don't have bombs that are always better tutor targets.

[DirkGently]

Nah, this all comes down to the mindset of the person tutoring and their self-control. Some pilots don't have much self-control and will grab the 'best' thing, but please don't paint everybody (the general "you") with that brush. Watch me Demonic for a basic Swamp because I couldn't afford to miss a land drop early.

FWIW I disagree strongly here. If you have a winning tutor target, you should always tutor for that target. I will personally always go for the win if I have it, with the only exception (that I can think of) being if winning would require me to break a deal which I made. And I expect the same thing from my opponents.

however:

I think a large part of the art of deckbuilding is ensuring that the best way to win is the way in which you want the deck to function. If you want to put together timestream navigator + progenitor mimic (which imo doesn't sound like an interesting way to win either, but moving on) but keep winning off craterhoof, then just cut craterhoof. Why would you run it if you don't want to win that way? If you want to win that way occasionally but not tutor for it, then tailor your tutor suite to only hit the pieces you want them to be able to hit.

I wouldn't consider either of those things to be remotely close to what I was talking about, though, as they're both wincons. For a (very old) example that illustrates what I mean, I once had a Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck which revolved around using Conspiracy with a toolbox of critters to switch scion into. Without conspiracy the deck really didn't do much of anything, I might(?) have had 1 or 2 actual dragons and not much of a plan outside of scion. So I had to pack the deck with a lot of tutors to ensure I could get conspiracy onto the board - such a strategy wouldn't really be possible without them.

Personally I don't usually put generic win-the-game bombs into my decks, hardly ever. Hence my dumb title (my wins are unconditional). It's pretty rare that I build a tutor-heavy deck where I end up hitting the same wincons for that reason. Most of my decks run a decent number of tutors, but seldom do they find cards that outright win the game. At worst they find something that puts the nail in the coffin of a game I was already on the verge of winning, but which target usually depends on the situation. For decks like Golos (RIP) which did have the (usually inadvertent) potential to combo relatively efficiently, I generally choose specific tutors that can't hit those pieces, or eschew them altogether.

[Treamayne]

...I replaced all the tutors with draw ...It single-handedly made about 50 cards in the deck a little more playable. Not a single card in my deck has me search my library. ...

Depending on the definition of tutor, this describes most of my decks. Granted, at the far end of "Not a single card in my deck has me search my library" I don't qualify, since most decks have at least one of Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, and/or Expedition Map. However, at the Demonic Tutor end of the scale (search for any card/no reveal clause) I can think of only one deck with that type of tutor (Rakdos Demon Tribal runs DT, because it is on-theme). Most of my decks only have land search, or on-theme outliers like Sanctum of Ugin (Mono-Brown Golem tribal - focused on the massive golems with untap clauses).

I agree that minimal tutors leads to increased variance, which leads to increased challenge and increased fun. Personally, I do that by requiring any tutor in the maybe board to meet these requirements before I add it:
- It has to be on-theme
- It cannot grab a WinCon (except the loosely - gets a creature that can attack)
- It has to have at least 10 viable targets that I may want (situation/board state dependent)

If I have cast the tutor and gotten the same target three times, then I will either replace the tutor, or replace the card that I am after too often.

If I wanted repetitive games, I'd play 60-card 1v1 formats.

[BaronCappuccino]

One hope I have, is that by switching to draw, my attempts at winning aren't preceded by as much windup (picturing an old Popeye cartoon with a three second spinning arm before the haymaker), and I might have better luck in actual games. For some reason, black feels so natural and at home with big, over the top windup preceding its haymakers - between rituals and tutors, nobody advertises "the next card is definitely worth your attention" like black. I long ago dropped ritual style mana production after reinventing the wheel from not learning from others' mistakes. May as well test my opponents' threat perception, instead of handing my opponents the answer sheet.

[FoxOfWar]

I don't really play non-basic-land tutors, preferring to build on draw and effect redundancy.

This has affected my philosophy in the sense that I steer away from decks with singular wincons, much preferring to build incremental snowballs of doom of some sort. A *lot* of my decks can be loosely described as "do game action X as many times as possible, find everything that helps make it happen or benefits from it", often combined with some sort of self-imposed limitation because my brain works in a "can I make this stupid thing work in a game" kind of way.

[NZB2323]

In a lot of black decks I tutor for Necropotence, so I still get that variance.

My pauper Edric deck doesn't play any tutors outside of land tutors, and it's super fun to play.

[Outcryqq]

Glad you're enjoying the new style of deck! I agree with everyone's thoughts on the topic of tutors, and the topic has been discussed a lot. I think, for me, it really depends on your play group - I have a group that generally does not like tutors, and so most of my decks do not have non-basic tutors. If my group were not that way, I'd probably feel more obligated to run them.

[hyalopterouslemur]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

It depends entirely on how the tutors are being used. If you're using them to find the same finishers over and over, that definitely gets old fast. But for some decks getting certain pieces in place is really just the starting point, and tutors are necessary for that.

A lot of it is when. If a game goes on for an hour, combos become kind of useful to just end things?

But each game is a unique mental challenge because each deck is. Combo decks, you have to disrupt it before it goes off. Stax decks, you have to operare under the Stax player's rules. And so on.

[Gashnaw]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

While i agree. Removing vampiric and demonic will hinder my dragon deck so much. I dont always tutor the same cards (but i do have a short.list. usually a mana rock or one of my value dragons (morophon, gnawbone, tiamat) but i may need teferis protection. Recursion spells.
Hurts too much

[Dunharrow]

This is why I want the best tutors banned. It is so much more fun to not be tutoring the same things over and over game after game.

While i agree. Removing vampiric and demonic will hinder my dragon deck so much. I dont always tutor the same cards (but i do have a short.list. usually a mana rock or one of my value dragons (morophon, gnawbone, tiamat) but i may need teferis protection. Recursion spells.
Hurts too much

It changes the way we build, for sure... but you can always play worse tutors

[UnfulfilledDesires]

Personally, I've removed tutors from a number of my casual decks over the last year or two. I go so far as to eschew anything that causes a shuffle, because shuffling takes time & puts wear on sleeves. I find these decks easier & more fun to play as a result.

[Dunharrow]

Personally, I've removed tutors from a number of my casual decks over the last year or two. I go so far as to eschew anything that causes a shuffle, because shuffling takes time & puts wear on sleeves. I find these decks easier & more fun to play as a result.

So I have a lot of decks and often lend them to friends. I have realized that tutors are played wrong 99% of the time because they don't know the deck well enough. I remember my friend used Chord of Calling in my Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck to tutor Sidisi, Undead Vizier lol. I believe the right play was Spore Frog.
So making it easier to play is a huge advantage!

I think about 5 / 20 decks of mine will keep tutors. They are mostly my 90%+ decks, though my two RB decks are like 60% decks and they use a lot of tutors in order to function.

[pokken]

So I have been cutting general purpose tutors out of a lot of decks - stuff like Mystical Tutor and Vampiric Tutor that are basically just goodstuff. But man do I love me some narrow tutors that have fun deckbuilding requirements. Stuff like Imperial Recruiter and Ranger of Eos and Thalia's Lancers.

I'd love it if they'd print more of this kinda stuff.

And I'd love it even more if they did more of the Dig Through Time approach that shortens resolution time. Stuff like Courageous Outrider Militia Bugler.

The "seek" mechanic that only works online is kind of nice conceptually too.