|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 12:19AM
#131
|
Date Joined:
May 24, 2003
|
Glaciers is prolly the closest, but I wouldn't rank any of those higher than kite, still. MAYBE demonic, vampiric, and imperial seal in theory, but they kite will still win you more games via consistency.
I'd rank Yawgwin, Necropotence, Demonic Tutor, and Divining Top above Kite (Lightning Greaves, Eternal Witness, and Reiterate would also be somewhere up there).
But that's if you guys are gonna continue being silly and ignore the invisitext :P
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 6:21AM
#132
|
Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2007
|
You mean the invisitext that said you'd put kite in top 10, which is what prompted this discussion?
Honestly, how often would you spend a turn 1/2 tutor fetching kite? If I was at high risk of mana-screw, then maybe I'd grab thaw or kite...but in most games there are about a dozen cards in any given deck I'd rather see.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 6:32AM
#133
|
- BCP5 Development Lead
- The Gathering Storm
- Never one to hesitate
- Desecration
Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2005
|
YOU MEAN JOURNEYER'S KITE ISN'T THE BEST EDH CARD OF ALL TIME!? 
Magic Volunteer Community Lead
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 6:44AM
#134
|
Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2007
|
Well...compare it to candles of leng  (in a deck with minimal basic lands obv). Pretty similar effect, at a similar cost to kite. You wouldn't put candles in your top 10 would you?
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 6:51AM
#135
|
- BCP5 Development Lead
- The Gathering Storm
- Never one to hesitate
- Desecration
Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2005
|
Actually, they're quite different effects.
Magic Volunteer Community Lead
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 7:17AM
#136
|
Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2007
|
nah not really, they both reveal a card and put it in your hand. One costs 4 for a random card, one costs 3 for a basic land. The random card is preferable in most cases, but whether it's worth paying an additional mana for is up for debate. Either way, the difference between those isn't as big as you might think.
I guess you could argue that kite includes a shuffle, making it better with divining top lol.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 10:32AM
#137
|
Date Joined:
May 24, 2003
|
Honestly, how often would you spend a turn 1/2 tutor fetching kite?
If I have a tutor and less than four lands, pretty much always.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 12:14PM
#138
|
Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2007
|
That's some serious kite-love. Can't say I'd do the same. For me, 1 land = mulligan, 2 lands and I would tutor either kite or thaws, 3 land would depend on the rest of my hand, but I'd be more likely to search out top and/or draw spells and make future land drops that way.
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 9:29PM
#139
|
Date Joined:
Feb 20, 2009
|
That's some serious kite-love. Can't say I'd do the same. For me, 1 land = mulligan, 2 lands and I would tutor either kite or thaws, 3 land would depend on the rest of my hand, but I'd be more likely to search out top and/or draw spells and make future land drops that way.
Top  only gives you land if one is in the top 3 cards of your deck, and even then, there's no guarantee that you'll get the color you need, and it forces you to waste your draw on a land instead of a spell.
Kite  gives you the land you need, provided it's basic, and doesn't waste a draw, plus it thins your deck at the same time, allowing you to draw spells more often without getting epically [mana]screwed.
As for Candles  , which would you rather reveal? The Overrun  you intend to use to win the game or the forest you need to cast it? Top gives you superior utility, minus the card draw, and doesn't make you give your potential plans away to your opponent.
Also, from a budget standpoint, Candles requires you to play a much more expensive deck just to not end up chucking all your lands or simply to get them back when you do. Instead of running, say, 10 Islands you would have to buy (more expensive) replacements like painlands, saclands, shocklands, dual lands, tri lands, etc., most of which are not exactly cheap.
Personally, I like this format for the simple reason that it's possible to be relatively competitive without spending an arm and a leg on cards since a lot of the staples are not big in the formats they are still legal in, and candles makes me spend money on the thing I hate spending money on most: LAND
|
|
|
|
4 years ago ::
Jul 21, 2009 - 2:05PM
#140
|
Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2007
|
enh, if I have 3 lands and tutor divining top into my hand turn 2, I'll see at least 5 new cards before I've actually missed a land drop. That gives very good odds of finding either a land, a draw spell, or a shuffle effect (tutor, rampant growth variant, fetchland, etc). Once a decent deck gets going you shouldn't have to worry about lands - you'll just draw into them naturally via draw spells/engines. Unless you're monored, I guess...and even then you can run top and scroll rack with shuffle effects to find mind's eye or other artifact card draw.
Plus, you get a 'bonus' land drop everytime you find a bounceland. I find I really only need to average drawing 1 extra card per turn - which most of my decks are capable of - to be in a position where I wouldn't use kite even if I had it in play.
As for candles...you can mix snow-covered land and regular land to dilute your basic count if you have to...I dunno I'm usually trying to figure out which non-basics to cut so that I can justify running thawing glaciers and whatnot...not the other way around.
I don't think I actually use candles in any of my decks btw, I was just using it as an example. I stand by my statement that it's very close in function to kite. They're both 2-mana artifacts that offer card advantage for a medium activation cost once per untap.
|
|
|
