What makes Tez better than Bargain and Desire in Drain Control decks?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Most likely Tez, Bargain and Desire are fairly similar in power and the ability to get to BB or Storm with Ritual is just enough to push Bargain and Desire over the top in TPS.

Just a nitpick, but I'd say they are clearly nowhere near each other in terms of power.  Bargain and Desire are worlds beyond Tezzeret in terms of power, which should be evidenced by their restriction and the fact Tezz is not.

This isn't self-evident.  Tez wins the turn after you play it in any format where Time Vault isn't banned.  Mind's Desire wins immediately IF you have sufficient storm and hit powerful, proactive spells.  One of the best things to turn over with Desire is another Desire which is at the core of its restriction.   Unrestricted Desire is an archetype while Tez is 2-3 cards in a control shell.   

Bargain essentially reads "Draw cards equal to your life total - 1."  It and Necropotence are vastly more efficient card drawing than Ancestral ignoring their prohibitive costs.  When you fail to win on the spot after resolving this card, you started with a low life total, had a *terrible* deck, or got extremely unlikely.  Given the ubiquity of fast mana and the back-breaking effects you can play with fast mana in this format, a 6 colorless mana version with split second would immediately get a slot in every deck in the format.  That's not true of similar versions of Tez or Mind's Desire. That said, colorless, uncounterable Tez would likely see play in Stax and Fish long before colorless, uncounterable Desire.

[Purple Hat]

The argument claiming Tez has too many cards that are mana/reactive to make Desire worth it may be a fallacious argument.
TPS generally runs as many reactive/mana cards than Tez does.

Tez has a few extra lands and Drains, but TPS runs 6 Rituals and an extract piece of artifact acceration or 2.

Lists with Pierces change that somewhat.

this doesn't make sense to me.  Turning over 3 rituals with desire yields 9 mana and 3 storm.  turning over 3 lands yields 1 mana if you haven't used your land drop.

The inconsistency, I think, is that Tezz lists and drain decks in general, are still built on the underlying weisman philosophy of incremental advantage.  Even a slower ritual deck like TPS that likes to sculpt their hand are built around creating and exploiting momentary gaps to end the game.

Drain decks play extra lands so they can get UU up early.  Once you commit to that you're kinda stuck with the incremental advantage philosophy because extra lands make your deck better in the late game while in those slots you could otherwise be playing spells to seize advantage.  Other than gifts, have you ever tried to build a good storm deck with 17 lands in it for vintage?  

I don't think the issue is Drains vs Rituals or Tezz vs Bargain/Desire.  I think the difference is the land slots.

[Rico Suave]

This isn't self-evident.  Tez wins the turn after you play it in any format where Time Vault isn't banned. 

No, first you have to be running Time Vault, which is the entire core of this discussion.  Vault does not fit into every deck, and TPS is one of those decks it does not fit in. 

[pierce]

tezz reads: win the game in one turn if unmolested.

bargain reads: draw a ton of cards.

desire reads: is this extended 2008/09? no? bummer

bargain works best in combo due to this (as does desire), but it is by no means a guaranteed win. it's a probable win, but less so than tezz. some may argue this, to good logic, but i've lost plenty of games where i dropped bargain but fewer where i dropped tezz.

[M.Solymossy]

Tezzeret:  Wins the Game.

Bargain:  Draws cards that may win the game, but might kill you thanks to opposing damage.

Desire:  Hit or miss to win the game.


In Poker Terms.

Tezzeret = AA's
Bargain = KK's
Desire: = AK

[pierce]

Tezzeret:  Wins the Game.

Bargain:  Draws cards that may win the game, but might kill you thanks to opposing damage.

Desire:  Hit or miss to win the game.


In Poker Terms.

Tezzeret = AA's
Bargain = KK's
Desire: = AK

i played TEPS at at PTQ and used poker chips to count mana/storm. i shoved them towards my opponent when i cast desire and announced that I was all in. desire is really an odds game, but you can stack the odds in your favor. vintage doesn't really allow for this at the moment, with the spheres and such running wild and time vault/key being a faster way to win than the elegant tendrils kill.

bargain too is an odds game, though more favored.

tezz is like AA in that the odds will generally be in your favor when you put your tournament life on it. the KK and AK analogy makes zero sense to those of us who play poker to pay our bills though.
EDIT: i mean, you see people on tv flipping coins with AK all the time, but generally players that understand the game want to avoid that. i'm guessing you used AK to illustrate the idea that if you hit you win, and miss you lose, but mostly when AK gets it in there it's trying to do it vs worse Aces and worse Kings (as a 3:1 favorite).

another overlooked factor so far is that tezz can be run as a 4 of if so desired. the others cannot. if bargain or desire were unrestricted, there would be a drastic metagame shift.

[kalisia]

Tezzeret:  Wins the Game.

Bargain:  Draws cards that may win the game, but might kill you thanks to opposing damage.

Desire:  Hit or miss to win the game.


In Poker Terms.

Tezzeret = AA's
Bargain = KK's
Desire: = AK

I don't agree with this approach.
You think about these cards as if we were in a neutral metagame, where each of these three spells would face problems with the exact same probability.
Deal with Tezzeret, with an enchantment like Bargain, or with a Storm spell are completely different things.
The global vintage metagame is completely Artifact-oriented, I mean you will find 20 times more artifact-hate cards, than enchantment-hate cards, and than storm-hate cards in the maindecks and the sideboards of the other players.
Once Bargain is on play, there are few chances to lose the game.
When Desire is cast at 5 or 6 storm, same conclusion.
But concerning Tezzeret, (compared to the two other cards), the more difficult part of the job is not to cast it, it is to keep it alive one turn with at least two counters on it.
As so many cards can deal easily with it (Explosives, Needle, Nature's Claim, Krosan Grip, Pyroblast, REB...without forgetting the strong Ancient Grudge...), that you can't say  "Tezzeret : Wins the game".
The correct sentence should be (as written before) : "Tezzeret : wins the game if not molested", which are usually much harder conditions to obtain. I write this comparing the issue to Bargain and Desire, that are almost "unmolestable". We can't ignore that Tezzeret can be in trouble with a simple 1/1 or 2/2 on the other side, whereas Desire and Bargain don't care with that.

[M.Solymossy]

EDIT: i mean, you see people on tv flipping coins with AK all the time, but generally players that understand the game want to avoid that. i'm guessing you used AK to illustrate the idea that if you hit you win, and miss you lose, but mostly when AK gets it in there it's trying to do it vs worse Aces and worse Kings (as a 3:1 favorite). 

I used those Analogies to show that to the normal fish at the table, AK or KK is a fine hand.   But you definitely don't want that, as opposed to AA.  Any any good poker player will understand that you don't want to shove-em-in when you got AK or KK.