Anything that interacts with resources not in play can be interpreted as "telling you that you can't play the game". This doesn't just appear in Blue but Blue does it more often than other colors (Black being the second-most often). But being able to interact with resources not in play is precisely the beauty of MtG compared to other TCGs.

Alaric

France45622 Posts

September 10 2015 21:20 GMT

#10348

The card doesn't need to be good. Its effect is obnoxious—not because it mills you, I don't mind sphinx's tutelage (till it mills you for 9 cards, 0K). But because I find it ridiculously undercosted for how much it can bone you, both because of how much it mills immediatly, and because the cards it uses are free to cast.
I got boned because it milled me for 3 lands, and allowed the guy to cast my unholy hunger and one of my read the bones. Later on I needed to either sac a creature, or one more mana to sac a priest then bring it back on board in the same turn. One land for any of these 3 turns and I'd have won the game.

That card, and also the green one that destroys a land to get one in play tapped. Get it by that if you're not playing aggro with a spare land and it feels like you receive a sticky note saying "You're not allowed to play." It doesn't need to be that good: it's just incredibly frustrating.

Considering how often I concede to mana screw/flood/mulliganing to 5 or less, or a play that puts me in such a situation (3 lands are enough for my aura deck for example, but they destroy one and I don't draw any for my next two turns, something like that), I'm wondering how much time I'd spend actually playing with paper MtG.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

September 10 2015 21:24 GMT

#10349

In limited, you basically never trigger the Spell Mastery effect. And when you actually manage to hit an Instant or Sorcery (there's a significant chance of whiffing in Limited given the creature/spell balance), the absolute best case is usually casting a removal spell for more than it actually costs. More often, you'll end up getting a combat trick you have to play at sorcery speed that isn't actually worth 4 mana.

In constructed, the conditions for it getting value are much more likely, but then you're playing constructed. There's tons of shit at 4 mana that has blowout potential in the right situations in every format.

WaveofShadow

Canada31495 Posts

September 10 2015 21:43 GMT

#10350

The only time I was ever able to use it was that insane U/B control deck I had the other day in magical Christmas land.

EDH is EDH where anything and everything sees some use so I wasn't referring to that, and as far as standard and modern goes, unless I'm missing something huge, I don't 'know nothing.' it doesn't see play. Period.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

September 10 2015 21:44 GMT

#10351

Alaric one thing to remember is that the card you get isn't really "free to cast". You're paying 4 mana, which is way more than "mill 7" is worth. If you only pull a 1 or 2 mana combat trick at sorcery speed, you're actually getting less than your mana's worth.

Alaric

France45622 Posts

September 10 2015 23:32 GMT

#10352

It's 4 and not 3? I misread that cost then. But 3 to "steal" a sorcery or instant isn't necessarily that bad (considering you also deprive your opponent from it).
Of course, being on the receiving end of it 2 out of 3 times while I was playing a deck with some scrying only helped the guy get value from it, so my experience with it is biased. Stuff like Liliana's + ability (each player discards once) would annoy me too, but since I know she's on the board I'm "warned", or there are ways to play around it.
Actually I'd compare it with Fel Reaver in Hearthstone: sure you end up discarding, but you know it, and you can play around it/prepare for it (you don't do it against a warrior who's gonna play a bunch of cards then execute it for example).

But Talent of the Telepath comes "from nowhere", discards a bunch of stuff you could have used (or not), and then he benefits from it instead.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

September 10 2015 23:38 GMT

#10353

On September 11 2015 08:32 Alaric wrote:
It's 4 and not 3? I misread that cost then. But 3 to "steal" a sorcery or instant isn't necessarily that bad (considering you also deprive your opponent from it).

Except not because milled cards are not resources already acquired by the opposing player, so there's nothing they have that they're losing. Mill "feels" bad to bad players because they think they are being deprived of a resource when they're not. Milling is not directly depriving an opponent of resources because cards not yet drawn are not resources of direct value. The cards in your deck are random, so milling the top 7 cards does not cause a loss for the opposing player because on average cards 8-14 are just as good as cards 1-7 unless you use Ponder/Brainstorm/Sensei's Divining Top/etc. Even then, the value of "resetting" these effects is very minimal in casual play and weaker formats, and it's only in formats with very high power level where this kind of effect is meaningful (typically achieved through combining shuffle effects with those cards).

There's some value to this line of reasoning in limited when most cards are one-ofs so milling a removal spell means they never see it. But as I said, there's a ton of the time where in limited you just whiff because creature/spell balance in most limited decks is heavily skewed toward creatures, and a ton of the time the only spells you'll hit are combat tricks that are incredibly low value cast at sorcery speed. Hitting an actually valuable spell is essentially dumb luck.

Ketara

United States15065 Posts

September 10 2015 23:44 GMT

#10354

From my experience playing hundreds of mill druid games in hearthstone, milling the opponent and getting him to discard cards only becomes effective when he runs out of cards. Yeah you might get part of some combo he wants, but that's essentially dumb luck, and reducing the number of cards in his deck doesn't do anything because he still has 10 cards in his hand to play.

You're basically making a bet that you'll survive long enough for him to get to zero cards, and then milling default wins you the game, but does nothing before then.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

September 10 2015 23:46 GMT

#10355

Also remember that in HS it's far more likely to cause a player to lose access to a card because a) you only run 2-ofs of any card so it's more likely for you to luck out and mill both copies of a card, whereas in Magic you run up to 4 copies, and b) you don't have 30-40% of your deck as lands that due to their frequency in a deck are essentially not "valuable" cards to mill.

For the most part you should just treat milling like a second life total. Changes in actual draw quality due to milling better or worse cards is just variance/luck and in the average case, milling does not impact card access/draw quality whatsoever.