pokken wrote: ↑12 hours ago
It is very, very difficult to know if you are actually increasing your odds of winning by defecting.
And you shouldn't defect just to "play your cards" if it isn't actually helping you win. People have a massive bias toward taking actions in games even if it doesn't move the needle. Think hard about if it actually moves the needle is my advice.
Playing your cards does, generally, move you towards winning, while not playing your cards tends to have the opposite effect.
Against most tables, Rhystic doesn't significantly slow the game down--players start automatically noting whether they do or don't pay for the tax, or I can just observe that they played a 3-mana spell with only 3 mana sources available and go ahead and announce that I'm drawing my card. As an aside, I
hate when players with a
Mystic Remora insist on asking if players pay their tax when it's blindingly obvious that, no, they do not have an extra 4 mana lying around.
I play Rhystic in 3 decks at the moment (I think):
Captain N'ghathrod -- has a high-ish curve and tends to have difficulty holding up mana unless it has drawn into a lot of rocks, which makes it difficult to work in good draw spells on turns 4-8 or so, and, as a mill deck, naturally is a lightning rod for aggro/removal from the rest of the table most games. Rhystic fits the curve (coming down before Captain and the 4, 5, 6, and 7 mana horrors or big mill pieces), keeps cards in hand without having to keep devoting mana and cards to doing so, and doesn't really increase my threat profile by much, since I'm already public enemy #1 most games, even when behind.
The Ur-Dragon -- very similar to Cap'n: high curve, little-to-no excess mana to be spending on turns when propelling game plan forward, often already the biggest threat. This has the further benefit of being able to utilize a lot of extra cards drawn with
Sneak Attack, and can make some use of excess cards drawn and discarded with
Patriarch's Bidding and
Eerie Ultimatum.
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow -- cEDH; Rhystic is a stax/interaction piece designed to fuel the hand with free interaction to try and stop other players from winning. Also, it's cEDH--everyone is the threat almost all of the time, and Yuriko with a lot of cards in hand is less of a threat of winning and more of a significant deterrent, which everyone not actively trying to win tends to appreciate. It's decks like Blue-Farm you need to be highly concerned with when they drop Rhystic.
Rhystic in Captain is essentially a very fair card in a fairly fair deck--it's slow, has a cumbersome game plan, no infinites I'm trying to dig for, and few ways to make good use of a lot of excess resources in hand. In Ur, it's less so, since it can be explosive having a full, or over-full grip at times, but often is playing the same way: 1 threat/turn. In Yuriko, it's keeping pace with the environment. For the first 2, drawing the cards is the preferred plan by a wide margin, but slowing others down to more closely match the speed the deck is going (well, mostly Captain...dragons can go big kind of early) is a boon. In Yuriko, I'm sometimes happier with the tax version because it is a grindier cEDH deck that wants the game to go longer, and often has a full grip already (the diminishing returns
@DirkGently mentions).
Most of the time Rhystic is drawing more than 3 cards for 3 mana, which is an unbeatable rate. Some games it's absolutely bonkers, either against really bad players, or very efficient decks that are casting multiple spells a turn. And in some games it draws 0-2 cards, putting it at or under rate for card draw, but often above rate for a 1-sided
Sphere of Resistance. I don't normally like a lot of swingy randomness in my card choices where the floor is 'did nothing but eat removal', but with a ceiling and more importantly
average as high as Rhystic's, it's hard to argue for not playing it.
While it's true that it's sometimes a poor top deck later in the game, it's really only worse than another draw spell IF that draw spell gets you cards you can then use immediately. If you draw and cast
Painful Truths on turn 7 when you have 7 mana available, and everything you draw is 5+, then it did nothing for you. If it drew you 3 lands, and you already had a land in hand, it didn't do anything for you. The burst draw spells are better only if they draw you into something you can use immediately. Otherwise, Rhystic may get you those cards in the turn cycle to use next turn anyway.
When I play
against Rhystic, I try to pay the tax most of the time, even if opponents are not doing so. I think "bad" game play is when players cast multiple, low-impact spells each turn, and don't pay the tax for any. Giving a player an extra 1-2 cards per turn is, for sure, an issue, but it's not dramatically so--that's
Phyrexian Arena or
Sylvan Library territory (a not good card, and a very solid card that's stellar if you don't have to pay the life, respectively)--however, giving an opponent 4+ cards/turn
is a real problem, and I think
that should be avoided unless you're going for a win yourself (and even then, depending on the deck with Rhystic, you may be shooting yourself in the foot in the process). There's no clear 'right answer' most games. You could opt to always pay the tax and then sit on your hands instead of advancing your game, which most assuredly gives the edge to the Rhystic player, or you can slow down a little in order to pay the tax most of the time, which may or may not be giving Rhystic the edge, or you can propel yourself forward at max speed, ignoring Rhystic, which again, may or may not be favoring Rhystic.
I don't get it.
