Rubric Liturgy

[Bram]

A team effort, this one. Strangely, it emanates from the discussion about a red ESG. Contributors to the idea were Ephraim, Jamespr, Shadow-Walker and Laurie Cheers. I merely added a name, combined all suggestions to one card and did some of tha math. I believe it to be sufficiently different from the red ESG idea and interesting to warrant its own thread.

Rubric Liturgy
Instant
R
Return Rubric Liturgy to your hand, then discard a card at random. If Rubric Liturgy is discared this way, add RRR to your mana pool.

The name is a pun of sorts. Obviously the whole think is like a red Dark Ritual, so I wanted something like 'color/tone adjective + sacred rite noun'. Now a Rubric in church is a liturgical book. But Liturgy is not exlcusively a Christion term and may be used for various religious gatherings. Also, rubric is not only a liturgical book, but also a clor (a red ocher variant). Therefore, aside from soudning ominously Christian, Rubric Liturgy actually means 'Red Ritual'.

As for power levels: assuming you can make B on turn one, there's a 40% chance you can make BBB on turn one if you run 4 Dark Rituals. Let's use that as a benchmark.

So, assuming you run 4 Liturgies and can make R on turn one (which means you played either a land or a mox or something decreasing your total hand size to six cards), the chances of being able to make RRR on turn one with this are 6,7% (if you have 1 Liturgy on hand: 40,00% , or the chance of drawing 1 liturgy in the first 7 cards if you run 4 copies, times 1/6, or the chance of discarding it).

The chances of having multiple Liturgies on hand AND being able to use at least the first one (possibly enabling some mana insanity) are small:
 
- chance of 2 Liturgy on hand* and able to use 1 (RRR): 06,30% x 2/6 = 2,1%
- chance of 2 Liturgy on hand and able to use both (RRRRR): 2,1% x 1/5 = 0,42%

- chance of 3 Liturgy on hand and able to use 1 (RRR): 00,39% x 3/6 = 0,20%
- chance of 3 Liturgy on hand and able to use 2 (RRRRR): 00,39% x 3/6 x 2/5 = 0,08%
- chance of 3 Liturgy on hand and able to use 3 (RRRRRRR): 00,39% x 3/6 x 2/5 x 1/4 = 0,02%

- chance of 4 Liturgy on hand and able to use 1 (RRR): 00,0072% x 4/6 = 0,0048%
- chance of 4 Liturgy on hand and able to use 2 (RRRRR): 00,0072% x 4/6 x 3/5 = 0,0029%
- chance of 4 Liturgy on hand and able to use 3 (RRRRRRR): 00,0072% x 4/6 x 3/5 x 2/4= 0,0014%
- chance of 4 Liturgy on hand and able to use 4 (RRRRRRRRR): 00,0072% x 4/6 x 3/5 x 2/4 x 1/3 = 0,0005%

Summarizing:
- Total odds of making RRR (3) on turn one: 6,7% (once every 15 games)
- Total odds of making RRRRR (5) on turn one: 0,42% (once every 240 games)
- Total odds of making RRRRRRR (7) on turn one: 0,02% (once every 5000 games)
- Total odds of making RRRRRRRRR (9) on turn one: 0,0005% (once every 210000 games**)

Obviously, this card is good ONLY if:

a. it's late in the game when your hand is empty. I don't see this as a problem because midgame red mana accelleration saw print recently in Seething Song. We get an RR profit later on the game, no problem.

b. possibly in combo when you empty your hand on turn one. Please note that this card will NOT help you cast that first batch of artifacts and as such is only suited to pay for a draw-7 after you have already put all your fast mana on the table on turn one. I don't see this as a problem, either, because IF you can empty your hand on turn 1 with combo (say, DeathLong) then mana is the one thing you already have plenty of. You'd need some draw spell rather than this baby.

One of the reasons I like this is because it has a 'if at first you don't succeed...' thing going. You can spend tons of mana and wreck your whole hand in an attempt to make RRR (in most situations, ofcourse, it will only be useful to try it a maximum of two times. The second attempt increases the likelihood of success, but also decreases your hand size and the mana gain).

I don't know about you guys, but I like this a lot.

Current wording:

Rubric Liturgy
Instant
R
Return Rubric Liturgy to your hand, then discard a card at random. If a card named Rubric Liturgy is discared this way, add RRR to your mana pool.

Suggestions and/or comments?


------------------------------------------

*= read this as: '...chance of having AT LEAST x liturgies ever time.'
**= this means that if everyone would play a deck with 4 Rubric Liturgies in a 100-player tournament WITH playoffs, this would likely occur ONCE in every 200 tournaments. The question ofcourse remains if one of the 2 cards they have left will let them use nine red. 'Play Darksteel Forge. Go.'

[Jacob Orlove]

The "Rubric Liturgy" in the text refers to that specific card. However, if you are in fact holding two, there's no way to confirm that you discarded the specific copy that you played.

Try "If a card named Rubric Liturgy is discarded in this way..."

[Bram]

Yup. You're right. Changed.

[Shadow-Walker]

I like this alot though it seems somewhat weak.  My only (resonable) suggestion:
 "Return Rubric Liturgy to your hand, then discard a card at random. If a red card is discarded this way add R to your mana pool, if a card named Rubric Liturgy is discared this way, add an additional RR to your mana pool. "

Encourages red while giving a minor power boost.

[Laurie Cheers]

As I suggested in the other thread:

Return Rubric Liturgy to your hand, then discard a card at random. If you discard a card named Rubric Liturgy this way, add R to your mana pool, then add a further RR to your mana pool for each time you've played a spell named Rubric Liturgy this turn.

This would obviously need playtesting, but I think the disadvantage (it's so random, and it makes you discard useful cards) justifies the potentially large mana boost you can (if you're lucky, eventually) get from it.

[Bram]

It also requires reading the card three times. Personally, I like it as it is. Nice, simplem and weak. JUST the way mana accelletation should be these days.

[dandan]

I'd prefer RFG to discard. Mana acceleration is dangerous enough (even really bad fast mana like LED) but making it a Madness/Dragon/reanimation enabler too is asking for trouble. Note that this lets you Burning Wish for the YawgWin if you so desire.

I don't think the current version is overpowered but you can't be too careful with fast mana.

[Bram]

Indeed. No need to make this better. On a sidenote, while I lake the fact that this enables madness, surely you realise this is a HUGELY random outlet at best.

[dandan]

I acknowledge that. I also thought the drawback on LED was far too great to make it worth playing. Fast mana is dangerous stuff.

Whilst I like drawbacks that can be used in the right deck, putting stuff (even random stuff) in the graveyard right now looks like a drawback that might well be turned into an advantage. I think it highlights the design problem well as the current card is rubbish apart from when it isn't when it is very good indeed. I think it is probably better to use RFG than to accidently add a feature to an already volatile card.

Note too that the above probabilities are rather misleading as decks that run this will also run fast mana/free stuff and so vastly improve their odds of getting that RRR. Just plug 5MLSoCryptPetal in there and see what you get (then think about ESG/Ritual/LED). I am fine with the current power level but I think you are misleading us with probabilities which is wrong (use statistics for lies).

[Bram]

I agree with most of what you just said except fpr the part about my statistics.

They clearly state their assumptions and if they're misleading, it's because you igore these. The probabilities I stated are definitively correct as long as :
1. it's turn one
2. you drew 7 cards
3. you played only one permanent before playing the Liturgy and that permanent was either a land that produced R (or a Mox Ruby).

These percantages make no statements at all about what happens in later turns, or with mulliganed hands, or with breaking ANY of the assumptions I just mentioned as a matter of fact. Statistics don't lie. Staticians do. These figures just attempted to illustrate the unlikeliness of a turn one insanity and the card's low power level compared to dark ritual.

[dandan]

I agree with most of what you just said except fpr the part about my statistics.

They clearly state their assumptions and if they're misleading, it's because you igore these. The probabilities I stated are definitively correct as long as :
1. it's turn one
2. you drew 7 cards
3. you played only one permanent before playing the Liturgy and that permanent was either a land that produced R (or a Mox Ruby).

These percantages make no statements at all about what happens in later turns, or with mulliganed hands, or with breaking ANY of the assumptions I just mentioned as a matter of fact. Statistics don't lie. Staticians do. These figures just attempted to illustrate the unlikeliness of a turn one insanity and the card's low power level compared to dark ritual.

First of all they are probabilities rather than statistics. Statistics do not lie either but are commonly used to give a misleading impression. You used probabilities in exactly the same way. The conditions above are different to those you stated
"So, assuming you run 4 Liturgies and can make R on turn one (which means you played either a land or a mox or something decreasing your total hand size to six cards), the chances of being able to make RRR on turn one with this are 6,7%"
Here you ignore the possibility of lowering your hand size, above you specifically state that you do not reduce your hand size. Using your initial stated conditions I think the probability could be anywhere from 7-20% depending on the composition of your deck, it could be even higher.

The funny thing is agree with you that the probability of brokenness is low enough to make this card acceptable. However your probability calculations are about as honest as saying that a turn 1 Necro is very unlikely based on the chances of drawing a Black Lotus and Necro in your opening hand. The numbers are true but hardly a fair reflection of the true    situation as it is pretty likely that Dark Rituals are in such a deck, in exactly the same way that it is likely that other fast mana is in your Red Ritual deck.

[Ephraim]

Dandan, he doesn't ignore anything, nor does he mislead you by failing to state his assumptions. It would be a misleading statistic/probability for him to state "The chance of generating RRR on the first turn with this card is 6.7%" without stating any of his assumptions. However, he clearly indicates the conditions under which his statistics hold. That's as fair and as honest as a statistician can be. Whether you agree that his assumptions appropriately describe the average situation, you can't say that he tried to lie to you. If you think he's incorrectly described the situation, then you can develop a new set of assumptions and calculate a more rigorous statistic.

[Bram]

First of all they are probabilities rather than statistics.

Heh. Semantics, you argumentative Slovak! In The Netherlands, 'Statistiek' is the collective name for the arts of descriptive statistics and probability calculation. Also, I dare you to challenge me to the claim that, even in the correct English use of the word, the resulting percentages I calculated are in fact 'statistics'

The conditions above are different to those you stated

I'll admit to that. In my latter post, I specified them more precisely. Even so, it's up the people who interpret statistics to take the responsibility for questioning in which sitiations they are and are not valid at least as much as it is mine. I think I've been quite transparant in my calculations. I could have also simply said: 'The odds are 7% and if you disagree, you're WRONG!' (this would have been the Rudy way of doing things

The numbers are true but hardly a fair reflection of the true situation as it is pretty likely that Dark Rituals are in such a deck, in exactly the same way that it is likely that other fast mana is in your Red Ritual deck.

For turn one, this is simpy untrue. As a matter of fact, 'actual' odds are even lower, as I assumed you draw a red mana source in every turn one, seven card hand, which you likely won't. Over here, we only get to play one land per turn. And I don't know about you, but I don't see a lot of fast red mana floating around in my meta other than a Ruby and POSSIBLY a Petal or so. I'd be happy to calculate a possible increase in the odds given the 2 fast sources I just mentioned (or rather: I wouldn't be .

And again: I'm making no claims as to what happens later in the game as the possibilities are all but infinite.

*sigh*

[EDIT] LOL! TOTALLY missed Ephraim's post! Right on the money, dude!

Anyway...clock?

[dandan]

I actually used the term misleading rather than lie. I didn't misunderstand them but I think that I am rather more used to understanding statistics/probability than most readers (even though your average Magic player is almost certainly way above average in such things, the average is frighteningly bad).

I 100% agree about each reader taking personal responsibility for understanding what they read. However 'it's their own fault for being stupid' is not really avery positive attitude. I think it is fair to say that the majority of readers would get a false impression of the chance of getting RRR on turn 1 in a real game from reading Bram's post. It is prefectly fair for someone trying to show how a card isn't broken to show the likelihood of something happening in a vacumm (or in a deck without lots of fast mana to be more specific) just as it for me to point out the fact that his assumptions (and consequently probabilities) are different to the likely situation in fast combo decks.

I based the assumption of there being fast mana on the fact that every single competitive combo deck uses a large amount of fast mana. Fast mana doesn't need to be Red to reduce your chances of a bad Red Ritual, anything you can drop on turn 1 is good and using the mana to cast other stuff to further reduce your hand size or manipulate your hand is just gravy. I stand by my example of looking at Necro without Rituals if you want to consider combo without fast mana.
 
I admit that I overlooked the possibility of using the Red ritual in a Sligh/FCGesque deck where only Ruby is used as acceleration although in that case using 4 Red Ritual but not Black Lotus, Mox Diamond/ Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal seems more than odd. Of course the fact that fast mana from this card doesn't really help the Red deck that much (discard Lackey on turn 1 anyone?) might have influenced me.

Finally I believe it is clear that Bram is more than capable of taking a little ribbing and that I didn't actually say he was lying. See how easy it is to misread what someone said! Besides I was actually agreeing about the card (you should see how savage I am when I disagree).

Stats PS - Does it annoy you when the news says something like "42% of people are against the new reforms.."? Don't the 58% count?
Stats PPS I actually studied Statistics in my own time at O level (16 year old level) and often exam questions would give you tables of numbers and you had to present them in different ways to give different impressions (showing a 10% rise in house prices by drawing houses with 10% larger dimensions was a good way of making increases look larger - I still see that used a lot). Occasionally you had to use them to show completely opposite effects. This was easily the most useful subject I studied in my years at school.
Stats PPPS 87.7% of all statistics are made up.

[Bram]

I think it is fair to say that the majority of readers would get a false impression of the chance of getting RRR on turn 1 in a real game from reading Bram's post.

No they bloody well wouldn't! The only false The calculations are correct. The ONLY factor that could dilute them, is the MINIMAL chance of having a Lotus or Ruby on hand, which is offset even further by the false assumption that you'll always have a red-prodcuing land on your opening hand.

If you're so bloody convinced my percentages are off, then prove it instead of flaming mine using semantics and false arguments as your only weapons.

Now unless you post new percentages, I consider this discussion closed.

[Jacob Orlove]

There's plenty of other cards that could distort those statistics in a real game. Sure, if your deck was 56 mountains and 4 of these rituals, your statistics would be dead-on, but if they play like land grant, mox, bayou, tinder wall, welder, this, then they have a 33% chance of getting RRR without any discarding. Dandan's point is that while your statistics are technically correct, they could mislead the unfamiliar by neglecting most real in-game situations.

[Necrologia]

The ONLY factor that could dilute them, is the MINIMAL chance of having a Lotus or Ruby on hand, which is offset even further by the false assumption that you'll always have a red-prodcuing land on your opening hand.

So, assuming you run 4 Liturgies and can make R on turn one (which means you played either a land or a mox or something decreasing your total hand size to six cards), the chances of being able to make RRR on turn one with this are 6,7% (if you have 1 Liturgy on hand: 40,00% , or the chance of drawing 1 liturgy in the first 7 cards if you run 4 copies, times 1/6, or the chance of discarding it).

What about the rest of the Moxen (all 6 of em) and things like ESG, crypt, vault, and Sol Ring? I'm assuming your calculations are quite right, but the fact is you'll frequently have a better than 1 in 6 chance of discarding the Liturgy turn 1. There are so many ways to reduce your hand size before playing this that it's virtually impossible to calculate.

I'm really not a fan of this card. It seems that it's too risky for aggro to utilize effectively, but like any other fast mana combo doesn't really care about the drawback. Belcher would love yet another ritual, and Long loves as fat a graveyard as possible. The fact that this helps welder out also seems quite silly. Turn 1 welder, turn 2 liturgy seens very strong. Either it's acceleration for Juggy, or welder gets a toy to play with.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

[dandan]

I would just like to point out that despite my complain about the use of probabilities, I think the current version of this card is sufficiently unreliable in the early game to balance the potentially strong effect and for what it is worth I am fine with the card.

[Shadow-Walker]

It seems that it's too risky for aggro to utilize effectively

Which is why I suggested the change I did, it becomes considerably better in a deck like sligh while the change means next to nothing to combo.  Even as is its not all that amazing in combo.

[Bram]

like land grant, mox, bayou, tinder wall, welder, this, then they have a 33% chance of getting RRR without any discarding.

Why would you wanna play this and have a 33% chance of making RRR, wasting a Tinder Wall in the process, when your board position allows you to make RRR already? I guess I'm saing that yes, there are possible situations where it can be done, but as well as being somewhat unlikely, they'll almost never be useful.

What about the rest of the Moxen (all 6 of em) and things like ESG, crypt, vault, and Sol Ring?

For one thing, these don't make R so can't be used to play Liturgy. Hence I assume you're referring to emptying your hand by playing said artifacts before playing the Liturgy to increase odd of success. Sure, but:
1. that's covered by the assumptions in my calculations (read as: my numbers don't say anything about that situation), and
2. what the heck do you want to make RRR for when you have an assload of mana on the board? You'll be needing a business spell rather than this. Please note that the only way you can be 100% sure you get the RRR also means you'll gave nothing left to spend it on. Also: upping the probability to 50% (dumping your 5 cards on the board and having liturgy and 1 business spell like Wheel or something on hand) also means that if you use Rubric, you'll have a 50% chance of losing the business spell. Sure, you can first cast the Wheel and Liturgy in response, but in that scenario you wouldn't have needed the RRR to play the Wheel anyway. In this scenario, yes, it's decent (kind of like LED) but still hugely inferior to, say Dark Ritual.

Anyway, since the discussion seems to focus on if I'm bad at math or not rather than if this is overpowered, I'll assume noone has objections to the power level, so:

Clock.

[Necrologia]

what the heck do you want to make RRR for when you have an assload of mana on the board?

I'm talking in the sense of combo. Combo can never have too much mana floating.

I still don't like this. Worse than Dark Ritual isn't saying much, as that's a really strong card. The only decks I can see successfully using this card are combo decks, and printing combo only fast mana is a bad idea.

[Bram]

*sigh*

This is NOT a strong card. It is unpredictable as hell in a color that gets the 'randomness' part of the color pie. It makes fast mana in a color that makes fast mana. I've shown how this is NOT dangerous on turn one...even Jacob's Tinder Wall-type insanity will lead to only a 33% chance of making RRR.  It gets better later on, but that's OK since for mod to late game situations we already have Seething song which basically does the same thing, only more reliably. This card is balanced (perhaps weak) and in flavor for its color.

[dandan]

This card is to Dark Ritual what Spoils of the Vault is to Demonic Tutor. You get what you want but the 'fixed version' makes you play with fire in order to do it. I believe this card is so random it is perfectly acceptable. I also think Spoils is acceptable, go figure.

Short of activating a Charbelcher or responding to a Wish, you want a card in hand to cast after this Ritual. That means that in most games, your best chance scenario is this card not working half of the time. That means it costs an average of RR to go off. You can play 4 Desperate Ritiual if that floats your boat.
So if we are talking about casting a spell using this card, then this card is less efficient on average at making mana than a current card that Wizards have just printed. It is even less efficient in the early game.
If we are talking about activating something or responding to Wishes then you are talking about the situation where combo is in mid-flow and somewhat likely to go off anyway.

I don't think that anyone has a leg to stand on regarding this card and power level. It is weak. (that's not to say unusable as it has the potential to be stronger in very specific circumstances).
Regarding making fast mana, Red recently got this part of the pie and Wizards have shown that they are content to produce Red fast mana (see Desperate Ritual). It seems equally futile to argue that we shouldn't print fast mana if Wizards are doing it.
Finally this card in completely in flavour, as it fizzles often but has the big bang potential such a risky card should have.

[Jacob Orlove]

Yeah, I do think it's fine power-wise.

[Bram]

OK, clock then.

[Bram]

Closed and added.