Comments on: Testing the Mind Sculptor: The Data

By: SOU Organization

SOU Organization — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 17:06:06 +0000

In reply to David Ernenwein. I have the most experience with Grixis decks (Delver, Control, and a bit of Shadow.) I wouldn't mind doing Affinity though.

By: David Ernenwein

David Ernenwein — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 00:48:40 +0000

In reply to SOU Organization. It will be a while before I start this again, but thank you for the offer I'll keep it in mind. What decks do you play?

By: eot_factorfiction

eot_factorfiction — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 21:50:22 +0000

This is exactly the result I have predicted previously, and advocated on /r/modernmagic vociferously.

Adding JTMS to the format punishes other decks trying to play fair Magic, while greatly benefiting very fast linear decks (Infect, etc) and big mana ramp, like Tron.

Blue needs a strong proactive card… against the fast linear decks and big mana decks, not the midrange stuff. For the former, something akin to Force of Will or a Remand that bounces the spell (instead of countering, to prevent the Cavern clause) would be ideal. For the latter, a fast resilient clock that can be maindecked.

By: SOU Organization

SOU Organization — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 22:50:53 +0000

Well done David! Really appreciate all the hard work that went into this. As far as results go, it seems to me (and, I believe, Wizards as well) that hurting fair decks while leaving unfair ones untouched is a bad idea, and for that reason I would oppose a JTMS unban, even a temporary one as suggested. I think Preordain is a much more promising option for helping control, since it hurts aggro and unfair decks more than fair ones, doesn’t pose a financial problem like Jace, and has striking similarities to a particular green card selection engine that remains unbanned. Also, Preordain slots into a much wider range of strategies that Jace, which promotes format diversity. I think yours is the most logical, data-based JTMS argument I’ve seen so far. Thanks for crunching the numbers!

P.S. Idk how you’ve been testing, but I wouldn’t mind crunching some matches on Cockatrice if you ever wanted to test Preordain. Email me if you’re interested.

By: David Ernenwein

David Ernenwein — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 22:44:04 +0000

In reply to wpgstevo. I did some exploratory testing with Tron and it didn't seem interesting. Jace, like all planeswalkers, can't compete with Karn and Ugin.Building the deck so that it could plausibly win made no sense at the time. If I were doing this now with more counter heavy decks then Tron would be part of the gauntlet.

By: wpgstevo

wpgstevo — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 21:51:39 +0000

Thanks for all the hard work! Your conclusion is in line with the results and the expectations. The card is an excellent finisher against fair decks, yet in the weak matchups it offers little improvement. Likely a mistake not to include some version of tron, but then at the time the test was started there was a different context from-which to choose test cases.

Great work!

By: Gino Killiko

Gino Killiko — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 20:12:58 +0000

It’s unfortunate that the results didn’t give a more definitive answer, but I’m still really glad you did this, it was very interesting. Even though having to re-ban GGT probably felt like a failure to WOTC, I think it proves that sometimes it can be worth experimenting, and although Jace isn’t the first card I’d like to see come off the list (I still think Preordain would have a more “even” effect on control decks, allowing them to find their answers more consistently early in the game vs all kinds of decks, rather than just crushing midrange), I’d happily see Wizards unban Jace for a test period, and worst case scenario, send him packing if necessary.