I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on the use of Extirpate, since it is a powerful new card in one of the decks main colors

I'd normally suggest a WHOIS lookup to find out what you can about who runs the site. However, I just did that and it appears that the domain was registered through a service called Domainsbyproxy.com which is a service that hides the personal information of the site owner by registering the domain for the person. So it's possibly that you're SOL. However, under the domainsbyproxy legal issues section they state that they will not protect your identity if you violate the law. So you might be able to get the information yet. However they will probably be stringant about making you provide proof that you've been wronged.

I think it's fairly silly to even be discussing this at this point with so little detail to even speculate on. "Peanut" is not the next set, "Pop" (Future Sight) is, and even if the author meant Pop, that's still months away. Peanut won't even be the next set after that, it's the next Big set and won't be released until after 10th ed

I doubt that 20 card sideboards would be something that MaRo would be referring to (though I could be wrong, having not read the article). Sideboards are a concept unique to tournament/organized play, which MaRo doesn't seem to have ever involved himself with in his role at WotC. Sideboards aren't a game rule, text search the comp rules, the word "sideboard" doesn't appear once, not even in reference to the Judgement Wishes

Go, very good game, I don't get to play it nearly enough.

My immediate thought would be to set up a VNC to an outside machine and controlling it from your desk at work. If that's blocked, I suppose using a proxy site would work. There are some listed at this article

http://www.theshadowsun.net/collection/view/21

Fish, some Stax variations, and Oath (as long as an Oath wasn't Duressed or countered ahead of time) off the top of my head don't seem to really mind getting hit with a mini Cranial Extraction because of the redundancy and flexibility. It seems like it's the combo decks (and Ichorid) that are getting punched in the face hardest

So this card was just leaked via an early draft in Russia, what do you guys think?

Simian Spirit Guide            2R
Creature - Ape Spirit   
Remove Simian Spirit Guide from the game: Add to your mana pool. Play this ability only if Simian Spirit Guide is in your hand.
2/2

An Elvish Spirit Guide timeshifted to red. Do you guys think this will see play over ESG or in any places ESG isn't?

I dropped after the 4th round. I wouldn't call myself representative of the others though as it was my first time with the deck in a tourney.

I scrubbed too. Anyone get the metagame breakdown though? I know there was a list floating around, but I didn't get the chance to read it over.

Hmm, I think I'd Fling that any day.

Amen

Hmm, I should be in assuming I can find a copy of Turnabout. Who would have thought that in a day where I bought 8 copies of Reset for $13 that I wouldn't be able to find one copy of Turnabout between Pastimes and another store. yeesh

Strange, Shandalar came up as a part of a dinner conversation while we were playing Type 4 after the last Meandeck Open in Columbus. Paul Mastriano said that one of his favorite decks went something along the lines of

15x Black Lotus
45x Ancestral Recall

Combo out turn 1 for the win

If you were to choose a green 2 power 1 drop, I would probably look at Skyshroud Elite before Jungle Lion since it's nearly always a 2/3

those screaming baby heads are hot

This part of the discussion is probably going to get moved to the rules forum, but I think I've got the solution to the 4WGD problem. It took about 15 steps (thats just the relevant steps, some of the inconsequential resolutions were compressed into 1 step) on 4 handwritten pages. I'll retype the solution here later in the day if people are interested (finals week, low on free time, blah).

EDIT: Here's the solution:
AOP is all other permanents
1.)
Stack:
t
cip4a
cip3a
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
WGD1-4, AOP

2.) Resolve cip4a, lp3a, lp2a, lp1a trigger
Stack:
t
lp1a
lp2a
lp3a
cip3a
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play: WGD4

RFG by cip4a:
WGD1-3
AOP

3.) Resolve lp1a, lp2a, lp3a, cip3a. lp4a triggers
Stack:
t
lp4a
cip2a
cip1a
b

RFG by cip4a:
WGD1-3
AOP

In Play: none

RFG by cip3a:
WGD4 (lp3a has already resolved, so this is gone forever)

4.) Resolve lp4a. triggers cip1b, cip2b, cip3b
Stack:
t
cip1b
cip2b
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
WGD1-3
AOP

Gone:
WGD4

5. Resolve cip1b, triggers lp2b, lp3b
Stack:
t
lp2b
lp3b
cip2b
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
WGD1

RFG by cip1b:
WGD2-3
AOP

Gone: WGD4

6.) Resolve lp2b, lp3b, cip2b, lp1b triggers
Stack:
t
lp1b
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
none

RFG by cip1b:
WGD2-3
AOP

Gone:
WGD4
WGD1 (removed by cip2b where lp1b has already resolved)

7.) Resolve lp1b, triggers cip2c, cip3c
Stack:
t
cip2c
cip3c
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
WGD2-3
AOP

Gone:
WGD1
WGD4

8.) Resolve cip2c, triggers lp3c
stack:
t
lp3c
cip3c
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
WGD2

RFG by cip2c:
WGD3
AOP

Gone:
WGD1
WGD4

9.) Resolve lp3c, cip3c, triggers lp2c
stack:
t
lp2c
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
none

RFG by cip2c:
WGD3
AOP

Gone:
WGD1
WGD4
WGD2 (rfged by cip3c right after lp3c resolved)

10.) resolve lp2c, triggers cip3d
Stack:
t
cip3d
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In play:
WGD3
AOP

Gone:
WGD1
WGD2
WGD4

11.) resolve cip3d
stack:
t
cip3b
cip2a
cip1a
b

In Play:
WGD3

RFG by cip3d:
AOP

Gone:
WGD1
WGD2
WGD4

12.) Resolve cip3b, triggers lp3d
stack:
lp3d
cip2a
cip1a
b

In play:
none

RFG by cip3d:
AOP

Gone:
WGD1
WGD2
WGD3 (rfg by cip3b, finally it gets simple)
WGD4

13.) Resolve lp3d
stack:
t
cip2a
cip1a
b

In play:
AOP

Gone:
WGD1-4

14.) resolve cip2a
Stack:
t
cip1a
b

In play: none

Gone:
WGD1-4
AOP (rfged by cip2a)

15.) resolve cip1a
stack:
empty

In play:
none

Gone:
WGD1-4
AOP
(nothing happened)

End result: all 4 WGD and all of your permanents are RFG forever

just a minor nitpick, I believe it should read

Sacrifice Seal of Will: Counter target spell.

replacing the comma with a colon since it's an activated ability

Simon's deck has no md bounce or StPs. The Unicorn/Kami combination seems most likely to deal with Oath before it triggers since the only other answer in the deck to Oath is EngEx which is only good before it triggers

I've noticed some people advocating the inclusion of 4x Merch Scrolls in some versions of the deck. any thoughts? It seems that it would tighten up the combo matchup by allowing more flexible access to FoWs and Ancestral.

I had an absolute blast at this event despite just missing T8 at 9th. I'd love to see the MD Open go monthly


In his Top 8 Match with Trogdon he almost pulled it off. He replicated enough Shattering Spree with Mycosynth Lattice on the board to blow Trogdon's entire board. Made every single person in the room stop to watch. Trogdon had the R&R to blow up his lattice though.

Spellbomb isn't an answer to CotV@0, Aether Spellbomb only does creatures. Most Bomberman builds run Disenchant or Cunning Wish for Disenchant for this purpose. However, Bomberman's Engineered Explosives CAN deal with Chalice. They just cast it using colorless mana off a drain, Sol Ring, or Library, etc since using colorless mana changes the CMC of the spell on the stack but puts no sunburst counters on it

Mostly for the reasons you stated, tapping DSC, tapping Oath guys, he's also a house in the mirror and vs Ichorid. In a more standard fish build (UW, UWb), he doesn't strain the manabase the way splashing welder would. He's also blue, which means he pitches to Force. In addition, in more specific builds, he's a prime candidate to turn into a ninja, he's a wizard that sacs to Kai to hard counter things, and his second ability isn't always entirely irrelevant.

Ha, thanks Jimmy, though that's not to say that I didn't forget more than a few draw steps and Bob triggers

Hey man, congrats on making the Top 8 in the CoD double power tourney! I was there as well in the T8 (Justin Uy, with the UWB Vial Fish deck). I was planning on typing up a report anyway, so I figured I'd post it up on here. The list is Paul Nicolo's, who gave me quite a bit of advice via PM (Thanks Paul!). Though I pretty much got stomped in the Top 8 as well, I can't say I can complain as it was only my second vintage tourney since I got started in the format.

4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
1 Island

3 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Stormscape Apprentice
4 Meddling Mage
4 Voidmage Prodigy
4 Dark Confidant
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours

4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Sideboard:
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Annul
2 Disenchant
4 True Believer
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Energy Flux

I came back to town from college in Ohio (I live in a Chicago suburb) just the night before, so I haven't quite had the time to get the deck entirely together. I get to the site about half an hour before registration and buy the rest of my deck from Stasch. Starting to get a little nervous as I see a bunch of big name players starting to show up. I resign myself to doing something like 1-2 drop and watching the rest of the tourney for some more experience.

Round 1: Chris, 5c Ichorid
Game1: I haven't met Chris before, but he was a very friendly local player who, like me, was playing in only his second vintage tourney ever. I'm on the play, and he leads out with turn 0 Leyline of the Void. Whew, dead card, sweet. I raise an eyebrow and figure he's playing some sort of Ichorid and play accordingly. I lead out a Tundra into a first turn Vial and pass. He draws, drops first turn Chalice@0, Bazaar, activates it and says go dropping off Unmask, Therapy, Darkblast. I play Wasteland and waste his bazaar. He takes his turn, draws and says go. I Vial in Stormscape at his eot. He reads it and we make jokes about how irrelevant his second ability is. Next turn finds me Chalice@1 to stop his darkblasts and Cabal Therapy. I start bringing the beats. he's down to 9 before he finds another bazaar, but then he's back in business with me without a wasteland. I have StP for his first Ichorid, but Ashen Ghouls and another Ichorid are quickly eating at my life total. Stormscape Apprentice is being a house as a tapper in this match. After some chump blocks with less significant guys, I am down to tapped Kataki and Stormscape in play with him at 4 and me at 9 on his turn. He brings back 2x Ichorid and swings into me. I think for a moment and decide to take it. At his Eot I crack a strand into Underground Sea to Drain him for 1 with the Stormscape to 3 and attack for lethal on my turn. Guess that second ability wasn't as irrelevent as we thought.

Board:
-4 FoW
+2 T. Crypt
+1 Enlightened Tutor
+1 Umezawa's Jitte

Thoughts: I kind of wish I had the Silver Knights Paul used to run in the board, they would be excellent here. Though True Believe seems better in all other cases. Crypt, Tutor, and Jitte kinda go without saying. I board out FoWs since flipping one with Bob seems bad against aggro.

Game2: I have turn 1 E. Tutor for Tormod's Crypt and pop it with about 15 cards in his hard. I have one wasteland for an early bazaar, and he tries to go aggro with my crypt on the board using Putrid Imps. I choose to just let it go and attach into him. I waste his first bazaar. I don't want him to be able to actually drop psychatog so I go to Waste his City of Brass, but he Crop Rotations into another Bazaar, hmm, didn't see that coming, I'll make a note of it. He starts to make a comeback, but I dig deep with Bob and Ninjas and find my second crypt for the win.

Record: 1-0-0 (2-0-0)

Round 2: James King, ICBM Oath
Game 1:James seems like a cool guy, he introduces himself as a somewhat active member of ICBM. Well, I'm in for a ride then. He plays some moxen first turn, and I get the feeling I'm against some form of drain control. So I'm start to play around the drain. I resolve a first turn Vial. I vial out a Stormscape, then Bob. As he goes does some brainstorm/fetching to shape his hand. I turn Stormscape into a Ninja and am rolling in card advantage. I replay Stormscape. Then he drops Forbidden Orchard...Crap, that is not at all what I expected. I start swinging in because I know I'm suddenly in a race situation. He tutors up a Rushing River and bounces both of my guys. Aaaaand now I'm down on tempo, damn. I Vial Bob back out at his eot and turn Stormscape back into Ninja and replay Stormscape.  I'm holding back my Voidmage Prodigy with UU up just in case though. My patience is rewarded, On his next turn he goes to play Oath and I Vial out Kai and pop Voidmage. I'm lethal a few turns later.

Board:
-3 Swords
-1 Stormscape
+2 Disenchant
+2 Annul

Thoughts: I anticipate SSS coming in from the board, so I pull the swords and a stormscape. I leave two in since they're Wizards for Voidmage and conveniently turn into Ninjas. Disenchant and Annul are my sideboard hate vs Oath.

Game 2: On the draw, my hand is nuts. 2x Meddling Mage, Fow, and some other junk. He starts off with a Duress and pulls my FoW. I lead out a land and have a second turn Mage on Oath. On my next turn, I remember the Rushing River he showed me game 1 and drop my second Mage on Rushing River. The turn before I go lethal with mage and token beats, he explodes in a flurry of Brainstorms, TfK and other card draw. He later told me he was digging for his Massacre but failed to find it.

Record: 2-0-0 (4-0-0)

Round 3: Kevin Brewer, 5cUbaStax
Game 1: I know Kevin came up here with Vroman, so I am guessing he's playing UbaStax. He leads out with Bazaar and drops off UbaMask, Barbarian Ring, and Trike into the yard. My hand is slow, and I come out with Chalice @ 0, land, and pass. He gets shop, Crucible, plays barbarian Ring from the yard and plays Goblin Welder. I have StP for Welder, but little else. In a long drawn out game, he gets Stack on the board, eats all my permanents, and burns out all my guys with Barbarian Ring. Surprise of this game was his Crop Rotation for God's Eye. Seems pretty good with Stack and Crucible on board.

Board:
-4 Chalice
-3 Stormscape Apprrentice
-3 Ninja
+1 Enlightened Tutor
+1 Energy Flux
+2 Annul
+2 Crucible
+2 Disenchant
+2 Tormod's Crypt

Thoughts: While I am positive all of those cards come in from the board, I'm not sure I made the right decision on what to board out. Anyone have any thoughts?

Game 2: He has another early Crucible, but I have Disenchant. He gets Tangle Wire on the board, but I had Bob on the board already gaining me some card advantage. I get my own Crucible online and I Wastelock him. That's right, you heard it here first, Fish deck wastelocks Stax. He Ancestrals, and I allow it to resolve even though I have FoW + Blue card in hand. I figure that I can save FoW because his only legitimate threat to me his Balance at this point, and I can hit that with FoW and I can hit anything else with Annul or Disenchant. I win this one with a few guys on board.

Game 3: I have Disenchant and Annul in my opener to slow him down. I bring down Bob and Kataki off a Vial. Kataki bogs down his board as I attack in some more. Time gets called rather quickly, seems like time really flies when you're playing vintage. I have turns 1, 3 and 5, I do the math and figure out that I need to drop a 2 power guy turn 1 and swing for max damage each turn. I drop Meddling Mage and ponder for a while. I am out of disruption in my hand so I need to make this good. Tangle Wire and Balance seem like the only legitimate threats, so I name Tangle Wire. He Bazaars on his turns, but fails to find a balance. I win on turn 5.

After we finish game 3, he tells me that he would have conceded to me anyway so that he and Vroman could head home.

Record: 3-0-0 (6-1-0)

Round 4: Eric Becker, URBana Fish

ID

Record: 3-0-1 (6-1-0)

Round 5: Tommy Kolowith, Scepter Control?

ID

Record: 3-0-2 (6-1-0)

Top 8 (I think...):
Tommy Kolowith
Eric Becker
AJ Sacher
Myself (Justin Uy)
Jamison Bryant
Ben Robertson
Matt Morrison
David Carnhart

Quarters: Ben Roberts, MD Gifts

Game1: I am on the draw, so I miss my chance at Chalice at 0 being really effective. I have a quick Meddling Mage down on Tinker. I have to use my FoW to stop a Gifts, but he has another one which he uses to grab Lotus, Will, Recoup, Vault. I give him Lotus and Vault. He uses Chain of Vapor to bounce my Chalice and Tendrils me out.

Board:
-3 StP
-3 Stormscape Apprentice
+4 True Believer
+2 Tormod's Crypt

Thoughts: Ugh...painful matchup. Paul told me that boarding out Colossus hate against good Gifts players is often correct because they tend to lean more heavily on tendrils. So I went with this configuration.

Game 2: I have early Mage on Tendrils, but he Tinkers out Colossus and owns me. Well, that was a bad sideboard call.

Record: 3-1-2 (6-3-0)

All in all I had an absolute blast hanging out and playing. I can't say I'm disappointed with my performance in my 2nd tourney, but I know there's a lot of room for improvement.

As an aside, the moment of the night...
I walk over to watch TK play Jamison. TK has Scepter with Fire/Ice on the board and tells me it's his last win condition because Will and the Bus are in the graveyard. Tommy is in dominant position in this game with a full grip and Jamison living off the top of his deck. Then this exchanged occured...

TK: Tinker saccing Mox.
Jamison: Hard cast FoW.
TK: Ha! Tricked you! I'm out of targets

Absolutely hilarious. Anyway...

Props:
Jimmy McCarthy for loaning me the 4x Meddling Mages for the deck
Paul Nicolo for the deck advice
Stasch for buying my crappy cards and selling me what I needed to finish up the deck
All my opponents for being really cool
Lyle for getting me hooked on Vintage
TK for the moment of the night and winning power
Becker for winning


Slops:
Me for playing like a donkey most of the day
True Believer for not showing up/being useful most of the day
Lyle and Jimmy for not coming

No problem, always appreciate being namedropped in a big article I found rewriting the program very interesting as an excercise, I'm hoping it can be modified to other decks and situations from a statistical standpoint.

yeah, way to mise that Assassinate

heh, Just kidding, you played tight the whole night. I got to catch most of your matches with Adam and Dave too, gg.

What is your opinion on Sword of Fire and Ice in the aggro mirror as opposed to Jitte? I know it costs 1 more mana to cast initially, but I think the effect can be significantly more powerful as it makes your clocks bigger, gives them a psuedo evasion, and when it hits a player, it knocks out anything in fish short of a Grunt.

A very interesting program from a statistical perspective. I've done my best to convert it into a C++ program. Being a college student, I've got my copy of Visual Studio .NET sitting around, so I went ahead with it. I did change a few aspects of the original program logic for a few reasons, but the logic of determining the amount of mana in an individual hand remains the same (or it should have, go ahead and check my work, the Jets and Colts are playing right now, so my work quality may have slipped off towards the end). But anyway, here is the list of significant changed to the logic.

*I used a vector instead of an array, seemed significantly easier since I don't have to keep track of the size of things constantly.
*Changed the method by which the hand is constructed. Instead of selecting a random value from the array (vector) to start and selecting another and comparing it to every other value in the array, I randomly selected a value out of the vector, added it to the hand, and deleted it from the deck for each card. It's statistically identical to the previous method, but saves processing time because the processor isn't performing 60 additional (comparison) operations for cards 2 through 7 for each iteration (360 per iteration). After each iteration, the cards in hand are reinserted into the vector.
*3.69 seems a bit high for the true average. It might be an outlier. Just to be certain, I upped the iterations to 200,000
*Changed the single letter variables to more descriptive names to make it more understandable.

Away we goooo...

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <ctime>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
   //initialize variables
   int Iterations = 200000, handSize = 7;
   const double constMulligan = 2.85;
   const double constMullPercent = .5;
   vector <string> deck;
   srand(time(0));
   
   
   for(int i=1;i<=30;i++)
   {
      deck.push_back("SpellOrBazaar");
   }
   for(int i=1;i<=12;i++)
   {
      deck.push_back("OneManaLand");
   }
   for(int i=1;i<=4;i++)
   {
      deck.push_back("Workshop");
   }
   for(int i=1;i<=5;i++)
   {
      deck.push_back("Mox");
   }
   for(int i=1;i<=4;i++)
   {
      deck.push_back("CotV");
   }
   deck.push_back("Academy");
   deck.push_back("Crypt");
   deck.push_back("Vault");
   deck.push_back("Sol");
   deck.push_back("Lotus");
   //DECK IS GENERATED

   //card flags set

   vector <string> hand;//create the hand

   double TotalMana = 0;

   for(int k = 1;k<=Iterations;k++)
   {
      int AcademyFlag = 0;
      int LandFlag = 0;
      int AcademyHandMana = 0;
      int MoxCryptFlag = 0;
      int AcademyPumps = 0;
      int CotVFlag = 0;
      int ShopsFlag = 0;
      int ThisHandMana = 0;
      for(int i=1;i<=handSize;i++)
      {

         int randVar = rand()%deck.size(); //generate a number from 0 to 59
      
         string card = deck.at(randVar);

         if(card=="OneManaLand")
         {
            LandFlag = 1;   
         }//if it's a land, trip land flag
         if(card=="Workshop")
         {
            LandFlag = 1;
            ShopsFlag = 1;   
         }//if a shop, trip land flag and shop flag
         if(card=="Lotus")
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana+3;
            AcademyPumps = AcademyPumps++;   
         }//if lotus, add 3 to total mana and add 1 to academy pumps
         if(card=="Mox")
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana++;
            AcademyPumps = AcademyPumps++;
            MoxCryptFlag = 1;   
         }//if mox, add 1 to mana, 1 to academy pump, and trip mox/crypt flag
         if(card=="Crypt")
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana+2;
            AcademyPumps = AcademyPumps++;
            MoxCryptFlag = 1;   
         }//if crypt, add 2 to mana production, add 1 to academypump, and trip mox/crypt flag
         if(card=="Academy")
         {
            AcademyFlag = 1;   
         }//if TA, trip academy flag
         if(card=="CotV")
         {
            if(CotVFlag = 0)
            {
            AcademyPumps = AcademyPumps++;
            }
            CotVFlag = 1;
         }//If I draw CotV and I don't have one yet, add 1 to AcademyPump and trip CotV flag
      
         hand.push_back(card);
         //store the card in hand
         deck.erase(deck.begin() + randVar);
         //erase the card from the deck
      
      }//This loop will generate a single hand and trip flags


      for(int j=1;j<=hand.size();j++)
      {
         string card = hand.at(j-1);
         if(card == "OneManaLand" && ShopsFlag == 1)
         {
            //ignore a 1 mana land in favor of shop
         }
         if(card == "Sol" && (ThisHandMana > 0 || LandFlag == 1))   
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana++;
            if(MoxCryptFlag == 1)
            {
               AcademyPumps = AcademyPumps++;
            }
         }//if Sol Ring is castable, add 1 to mana, and if we have a mox or crypt add 1 to academy pumps
         if(card == "Vault" && (ThisHandMana > 0 || LandFlag == 1))   
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana+2;
            if(MoxCryptFlag == 1)
            {
               AcademyPumps = AcademyPumps++;
            }
         }//if vault is castable add 2 to mana, if we have mox or crypt, add 1 to academy pumps
      }//end the hand check loop
      
      if(ShopsFlag == 1)
      {
         LandFlag = 0;
      }
      if(AcademyFlag == 1)
      {
         AcademyHandMana = ThisHandMana + AcademyPumps;
      }
      if(LandFlag == 1)
      {
         if(AcademyHandMana > ThisHandMana + 1)
         {
            ThisHandMana = AcademyHandMana;
         }//if the mana generated by academy is greater than artifact mana+1, academyhandmana is total mana
         else
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana++;
         }//otherwise use the 1 mana land
      }
      if(ShopsFlag == 1)
      {
         if(AcademyHandMana > ThisHandMana+3)
         {
            ThisHandMana = AcademyHandMana;
         }//if Academy is better than Shop, use academyhandmana
         else
         {
            ThisHandMana = ThisHandMana+3;
         }//if shop is better, add 3 to mana
      }
      if(AcademyFlag == 1 && LandFlag == 0 && ShopsFlag == 0)
      {
         ThisHandMana = AcademyHandMana;
      }//if we only have academy, mana is academyhandmana

      
      if(ThisHandMana == 0)
      {
         ThisHandMana = constMulligan;
      }//mulligan our 0 mana hand into the mulligan constant
      
      if(ThisHandMana == 1)
      {
         ThisHandMana = constMulligan*constMullPercent + (1-constMullPercent);
      }//mulligan our 1 mana hand into the weighted mulligan constant


      TotalMana = TotalMana+ThisHandMana;

      int loopconst = handSize;
      for(int j=1;j<=handSize;j++)
      {
         deck.push_back(hand.at(0));
         hand.erase(hand.begin());
      }//toss the hand back in the deck
   }
   cout << "Average Mana: " << TotalMana/Iterations << endl;
}

After running this code three times (took about 2 minutes a piece, good thing I cut those 360 operations per iteration (72 million total) otherwise I'd have been here a while), I come up with a total average mana of 3.28266, 3.28941 and 3.28775. That's why I felt like 3.69 felt like an outlier. Of course I could have messed something up in translating the TiBasic Logic to C++, so feel free to check my work.

EDIT:
So I went back and reread the initial post and reworked the method. The code I posted reflects the code you posted in that some number of 7 card hands are generated, 2.85 is substituted for all 0 mana hands, and 1.925 is substitutded for all 1 mana hands yielding an average mana on the order of 3.28.

However, if I go back to the way to said it was initially done ...
simulate 100 five card hands, with average turn 1 mana Z
simulate 100 six card hands, where zero mana hands count for Z, and 1 mana hands count for (Z+1)/2, generating average Y
simulate 100 seven card hands, where zero mana hands count for Y, and 1 mana hands count for .75Y+.25, generating total average X.

I substituted 100 hands with 200000 hands in each case to get a more balanced sample mean. This yields...
Z = 2.475 (no mulligan rules)
Y = 2.955 (2.475 substituting for 0 mana hands, 1.7375 subsituting 1 mana hands)
X = 3.454 (2.955 substituting for 0 mana hands, 2.466 substituting 1 mana hands)

So using the code as I wrote it using your logic as a guide (which I still admit I may have made a transcription error at some point), I arrive at a mean of 3.28

Using the same program but running it for averages at 5, 6 and 7 card hands, I arrive at a mean of 3.454 mana.

I feel that the second figure is a better estimator of the true average mana of a starting hand since it relies on direct statistical data at 3 levels than on the a single projected constant at 1 level.

Just to elaborate, lines preceded by the ">" symbol was something Scott Marshall quoted from the original thread which posted the question, not something he said himself. As for him not seeming confident about his conclusion, I don't see how you could possibly make that statement. The first thing he said was "That is correct, for exactly that reason." I don't think he can be more conclusive than that. If you were referring to the judge posing the initial question, it hardly matters how confident he is in his response as Scott told him straight up that his answer is completely correct. You can trust Scott's judgement as a level 4 judge, you don't get to that level without being a hardcore rules guru for a long time.

I'm not sure what this debate is still about. It's been confirmed that You can't flashback a suspend card without a mana cost from your graveyard using recoup because Recoup sees a mana cost of {}, not

EDIT: Changed to reflect Anusien's addition, thanks for correcting my oversight

from the Time Spiral rules primer

These rules (213.1a and 401.1b, which are identical) will instead state that a nonexistent mana cost can't be paid.

You cannot pay Flashback {} because you cannot pay {} mana

Target sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. If you play that card this turn, its flashback cost becomes equal to its mana cost as you play it. (Mana cost includes color.)


Recoup looks for mana cost, not CMC. And it's been stated explicitly that while the CMC is 0, the mana cost is nonexistant and unpayable

Here is confirmation from Scott Marshall, Level 4 Judge, taken straight off the DCIJUDGE-L mailing list

> I had a bit of headache trying to figure out what happens with that interaction:
>   
<snip Wheel of Fate and Recoup text>
> But lately I thought that the wheel would gain a flashback cost of {},
> which can't be paid, so you wouldn't be able to play it.

That is correct, for exactly that reason.

With the cards that have no mana cost (including Evermind), it's
important to note whether an effect is looking for "mana cost" or
"converted mana cost".  In the former case, the mana cost is undefined
and can not be paid; in the latter case, the CMC is treated as zero.

EDIT: Added confirmation by Scott Marshall