Why don't more people play Carpet of Flowers?

[Fastbond]

It owns back to basics.  It's extremely powerful and yet people don't use it.  Instead they use suboptimal cards like aura fracture.  Xantid Swarm only deals with the counterspell element of mono-u and keeper.  Carpet of Flowers attacks both counterspells and the mana denial.  At the very least one carpet of flowers and 3 xantid swarms is better than four xantid swarms.  Why don't you put at least one in every deck with green?

[Necrologia]

Because Xantid Swarm actively disrupts  your opponent, while Carpet of Flowers is just acceleration. Xantid Swarm keeps the opponent from Mana Draining your spells, Carpet of Flowers just gives you bigger spells for the opponent to Mana Drain.

[boasnapes]

I just looked this card up, and it looks very interesting, especially for the budget player. Necro has a good point about why people use Xantid swarms, but I disagree with his view on Carpet of Flowers.

Imagine playing this first turn in a mono green stompy deck against keeper. Second turn, you will potentially have four mana to play with, maybe more if using ESG's. Four mana in a low mana curved deck allows you to play multiple spells very early on in the game. This card could allow  for a very big advantage in budget aggro decks vs. control.

I'm going to test with it a bit and see what happens, but I would like to hear others thoughts on Carpet of Flowers.

For reference:

Carpet of Flowers / enchantment / G :
At the beginning of your pre-combat main phase, you may add up to X mana of any one color to your mana pool, where X is the number of islands target opponent controls.

boas-n-apes

[Fastbond]

Carpet of Flowers doesn't just allow you to cast bigger spells it allows you to cast multiple spells at once.  Thus, if one spell gets mana drained you can cast another.  Carpet of Flowers allows you to let spells like Gorilla Shaman resolve without really caring.  Xantid Swarm doesn't.  All your spells can be uncounterable but if you have no mana then it won't matter.  Carpet of Flowers allows you to overwhelm a counterwall.  Carpet of Flowers also attacks the mana denial elements.  Xantid swarm is stronger at the former but most of the time the latter is the reason that a combo player loses games.  

Carpet of Flowers isn't good in stompy because by the time you can cast it your hand should be empty.  Carpet of Flowers should be at least a one-of in every multi-colored deck's sideboard with green.

[BrokenDeck]

Of course, carpet of flowers also can make you mana burn.  That is really a turn off.  Imagine late game when you run out of gas, and have a carpet out.  The mana burn would kill you pretty fast.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Of course, carpet of flowers also can make you mana burn.  That is really a turn off.  Imagine late game when you run out of gas, and have a carpet out.  The mana burn would kill you pretty fast.

Read the card again. "Up to".

The reason people don't use it is that there's better ways to accelerate, like ESG and Moxen. Budget players should use this more than Vineyard, though. And this card has been used recently in mychoda.dec back in Kansas City.

[MuzzonoAmi]

Budget players don't run Carpet over Vineyards for consistency reasons. If everyone I ever played played blue-based decks, then Carpet would be the best choice. But since everyone doesn't, Vineyard is better.

[Cavocavi]

Carpet of Flowers then Urza's Rage. Booyah! Mana Drain that!!

[MadManiac21]

Um, yea...interesting idea on the urzas rage thought...

Anyways, Carpet of Flowers could actual be of some use in today's stompy decks, or green splash decks. Currently the big deck on the green campus is Big O. I think carpet could be a possible use in this deck from an intial view with no testing experience. Null rod and root maze hamper your mana, as your lands also come into play tap and your lone mox and lotus won't be accelerating anything with null rod in play. Carpet fixes your mana problems against any deck running blue, also allowing you to pitch excess lands to a bazaar if ou have yet to find multiple squees.

the only problem is that this is quite situational. its almost a "win more' card, as Big O/new hate-green decks have so many cards agianst blue decks. This is purly hypothetical talk, but mana accleration couldn't hurt the deck.

[Rane]

Maybe you don't know this because STOMPY DOES NOT NEED MANA.  It's the entire philosophy stompy runs by.  Stompy runs by the fact that it can empty it's hand first or second turn, and henceforth only requires one land to run by.  Carpet of flowers would NOT be cast first or second turn cause it would net you 2 mana at the most -1 for casting it, and then be useless there on in.  It's complete crap in Stompy.

On that note it's complete crap in any deck.  This card is conditional in that it only works against heavy blue decks, so that automatically retires it to the SB, meaning it has to cope with a problem or really shine in a certain matchup that troubles you.  This card definatly does not do either.  It is only effective when your oppenent has a lot of mana.  If blue has a lot of mana they've probably one.  AT this point in time even if they have an empty hand and seem screwed, you don't care about doubling you 6 mana to 12 or more every turn.  You want to pick up you last bolt or Decree or Shade or whatever your win condition is.  Seeing carpet of flowers will only make you frown.  It's a crap card it T1.

Note:  Too anyone who is about to type 'but it can make you things like Decree bigger'.  That in turn means it's an overkill card, so should be automatically disregarded completely.  Decree doesn't care if it's cast for 6 or 6 million.  If it didn't get stifled that late in the game then they win anyway.

[Fastbond]

On that note it's complete crap in any deck.  This card is conditional in that it only works against heavy blue decks, so that automatically retires it to the SB, meaning it has to cope with a problem or really shine in a certain matchup that troubles you.  This card definatly does not do either.  It is only effective when your oppenent has a lot of mana.  If blue has a lot of mana they've probably one.  AT this point in time even if they have an empty hand and seem screwed, you don't care about doubling you 6 mana to 12 or more every turn.  You want to pick up you last bolt or Decree or Shade or whatever your win condition is.  Seeing carpet of flowers will only make you frown.  It's a crap card it T1.
.

It is not complete crap in any deck and they do not need a lot of mana for it to be good.  It is a great card with cantrips and even better with card draw.  For one green mana, you nullify back to basics, wasteland, gorilla shaman, null rod, stifle, and so on.  It is great against the mana denial elements of fish, mono-u control, and keeper.  Even if carpet only generates one or two extra mana then it is at least as good as sol ring.  Two mana is all you need to cast an extra spell to break the counter wall.

Carpet of flowers is not a win more card it is a win now card.  It's at least better than red elemental blast against back to basics.

[boasnapes]

First off I'd like to state that I used stompy merely as an example of how it COULD be used, and I don't think it was a bad one at that. I wasn't suggesting in any way that it should be used in stompy. Second, this is obviously a sideboard card, that should go without mention, and only as a 2-3 of.

I think that some decks could make very good use of it, both early on, and later in the game. If your facing alot of strip effects, this helps recover from them. If your mana/colored screwed, this helps to keep you running. If played early on, it will most surely accelerate your game.

I think this card needs to be carefully considered when building budget/multicolored decks. It is definitly not a game winner or a card that is going to swing the game in your favor all the time, but it may well be a very useful card none-the-less.

One last note, this card seems to be only useful to the budget player. If I owned power(outside of my LoA, P10) I wouldn't even take a second glance at this. It does offer a form of acceleration for the budget player to consider, and it may well be a good one at that. I'd like to hear if anyone has ever tested it, otherwise we may never know for sure if it is useful or not.

boas-n-apes

[Dr. Sylvan]

It was a keystone of the cooperb Enchantress sideboard for a long time. There's no question it's a decent tool in the right deck/metagame. I'm guessing it won't be all that prominent in the near future, though, because the metagame has plenty of decks powered by the mighty brown and green creatures of doom rather than islands.

[Rane]

In any real Type 1 metagame it's pointless.  There is and always will be power and several other cards better than this.  If you choose not to believe me fine, serves me right for posting in the Newbie Forums and trying to help people.

[The Atog Lord]

Fundamentally, Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm are very different cards that perform different functions. From the language of the initial comparison between these two cards, I assume that the comparison is between their utility in a combo deck. As a combo player who has played Xantid Swarm, I can say that it has several advantages over the Carpet.

Combo decks can often achieve victory over control decks by overwhelming their defenses. “If I don’t counter this, my counters won’t be doing anything anyways” is how a control player often responds to a Swarm being cast against him. If a control player does not deal with the Swarm, then all of his counter magic is rendered useless until he does. If a control player does counter the Swarm, then the one casting cost insect has traded for a counter, which is almost always the most one can hope for from a card, anyway.

On the argument that the Carpet will help to overwhelm the control deck’s defenses. Most counterspells are very inexpensive. Manadrain costs only two mana, while the ubiquitous Force of Will tends not to cost any mana at all. Moreover, the argument that Carpet allows a combo deck to overwhelm a control deck assumes that the combo deck has enough threats in hand to take advantage of the additional mana provided by the Carpet. In other words, the Carpet allows a combo deck to “go off” if its additional mana allows the combo deck to cast more threats than the control deck is able to handle; on the other hand, the Swarm allows a combo deck to “go off” simply by casting a single threat.

A further argument in favor of the Swarm is that while it produces card advantage, the Carpet does not. The Swarm, once active against a control player, provides card advantage by rendering useless the counter magic and other such disruption (such as stifle) which the control player is holding. For instance, a control player may be holding a pair of Manadrains while facing a Swarm; but because of the swarm, those Drains might as well not exist during the combo player’s turn. Thus, the Swarm generates card advantage.

[MadManiac21]

@Rane: maybe you didn't get what I was saying. I didn't mean stompy needs the mana, that deck is total crap. I'm saying the newer green decks, such as Big O, could use the mana boost. Not mana intensive? They may need to 1) Regnerate Troll Ascetic 2) help cast those multiple arrogant wurms they just survivaled for 3) cast mulitple anti-blue cards in one turn, making a control player pick between the worst of two evils. Mind you, this is still HYPOTHETICAL as I have done zero testing with it.

@Boasnapes: I definately agree that this helps against strip effects, but your average green deck doesnt run too many non-basics. More specifically, Big O or GPR (the only two decks I'm really talking about) are not going to be hurt by the mana acceleration. This talks about another note in your response, that you would run the p10 over this in a second if you owned them. My question to that is though; Why? Both of these decks are running Null rods AND Root mazes in MULTIPLES, whether it be in the maindeck or in the sideboard. Power has no synegy with either of those cards (as they are part of a long list that you are 'hating on") while Carpet completely gets around them.

@Atog Lord: Carpet most definately doesn't belong in a combo deck. Xantid swarm is much more effective (for all the reasons you pointed out).  Don't know many combo decks that splash green other for Swarm and ESG. Even though carpet could possibly help with mana difficulties, it just isn't up to par with anything else in the deck. It a) doesn't help you win the game the turn you cast it or 2) stop your opponent from doing anything during your next turn (ala Xantd swarm).

@Dr. Sylvan: It all depends upon where you play. Yes, there are the might brown decks of death, but the decks I'm specifically talking about (Big O and GPR) have SO many cards against them, it's ridiculous. What does wMud say when you're packing MD null rod, root maze, and even ground seal? Scoop? And this would mainly go as an add on the the mighty green creature decks of death, helping you pump out faster threats then they do. As for seeing islands, yes it is conditional. Then again I play in NE, and if you don't run into islands evey other round in the area, you've obviously enetered a parallel universe.

Looking at other decks that could utilize this (i.e. control decks that splash green and need mana) may include Moobius' Snakes or recently played Alabama Black Snake (if anyone plays this/these deck(s) besides for him please respond as to your thoughts on this card), Oath like or Emeral Alive builds also. This is just brainstorming, but what looks to have made ridiculous decks lately is people going, "Oh look at this...lets try that jank out.... It Rules!"

[Fëanor]

all good points so far....cept the ones that suck

question you may want to ask yourself is: How many people play blu (and for that matter how many people play blu duals/islands in their blu) in my area?

if you end up playing strict MUD and dragon etc., chances you find an island or two is somewhat unlikely. this card would give you one or two mana at the most against good decks, making it sufficiently lower par than vineyard (besides its obvious drawback of giving mana to your opponent).

this point is very important. if you SB this card, youll use it for what in tier one? keeper, uhm....some combo dex maybe. and truth of the matter, its way too slow against combo: combo uses power, which can be used as mana immeadiately, and sometimes goes off before you get the mana you spent on carpet of flowers, wasting your 1st turn...furthermore, since your opponent only played one land, or id assume, youd only be getting compensation for an enchantment that doesnt do anything, in a sense...not until the next turn at least. by next turn, turn three for you. dragon has intuitioned and is ready to necromancy for the win. congratulations, you just wasted turn one and technically turn two and lost the game!!!

granted, if you end up playing anything but keeper or some heavy blue build, then your CoF will be useless in your SB as well. did you take out artifact destruction to put them in or just your tormods crypt, or was it your null rod you SBed out in order to use your wonderful CoF which wont net you practically anything until mid game????

if you do end up playing a deck that nets you an extra one or two each turn, then playing it would be fun, but what would you use the mana for anyway? if you need the mana from CoF, then youd have played it MD. if you dont need the mana, then why are you playing it?

the proof lies in the number of posts the card has recieved here. the uses have become so limited that it seems like it would only ever be used once, possibly twice at any popular tournament. if you end up playing this card casual or if you like to play the newbs at your store who play some wierd blue control creation with boomerangs and treachery, then it would be broken, but thats not whats in type one, usually its never in type one. if you ever did run into one of these decks in type one, it shouldnt be so hard to beat them anyway, not to mention, since they would have a high counter count, the swarm would probably be a better choice to SB in against them.

hope this clears somethings up

peace

[Rane]

@ Feanor -
It's nice to see that there are intelligent users in the Newbie Forum.

@ Everyone else -
What Feanor said.

[boasnapes]

@ MadManiac21: I myself run a R/G beats deck, with 13 non-basics (taiga, fetchlands, 5 strips). This card would be very useful in a situation where my lands were stripped, and with the growing number of people running 5 strips(+ stifle in control), I may well consider using this SB.
On to your other note, I believe this card is almost purely for the budget player. Anyone running Big O or GPR is not playing budget IMO. Bazzars are what?? Like 70 a piece. Thats about half the price of my deck, including my one berserk. And they are running four. I think this is what sets us apart in regards to Carpet of flowers, you see it as a tool in a powered deck, whereas I see it  useful mostly to the budget player. If I had P9,  carpet of flowers would not be as useful to me, I would already have the best mana accelerants in the game(BIG O and GPR are exceptions to this, for reasons you stated above). As a budget player though, I can see how it would give me a boost in certain matchups that I otherwise would have had a hard time with.
happy posting
boas-n-apes

[BreathWeapon]

I think Carpet of Flowers makes an excellent sideboard option in Survival-Mask, leading to highly explosive early game plays against Control and preventing color screw in a Wasteland/Null Rod/Stifle/Bloodmoon dominated environment. The excessive use of Fire/Ice, Scepter Control, in the format has greatly debilitated Birds of Paradise, so the Carpet of Flowers seems like a suitable SB answer. Madness also immediately comes to mind, the loss of LED as a color fixer is a big hit to the deck IMO.

Carpet of Flowers obviously loses some umph in environments that see Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop, but I think its atleast a consideration for any multi-colored Aggro deck, other than stompy, in a Control dominant field ... which is what post Jan 1st is all about.

I'd also like to see what Tog can do with Carpet of Flowers in the Control Mirror. It may sound crazy, but it would be interesting to play test. Xantid Swarms just aren't as good as I had hoped for in the Control Mirror ,Fire/Ice, so I figure the carpet may be another avenue to explore.

[Fastbond]

You're wrong in saying that combo has enough power in the form of moxes, etc.  Combo can never have enough power.  You never draw the amount of moxes you need.  Carpet makes combo faster and more consistent post sideboard.  You can count on getting one mox in your opening hand and that's it.  Two mana turn one and three mana turn two is usually not enough to go off.

Both Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers produce card advantage.  But, Carpet of Flowers doubles as an anti-mana denial card and an anti-counter spell card.  Carpet of Flowers also combos really well with storm cards.  Against keeper just killing their counterspells does not get rid of all the threats.  For keeper, carpet of flowers > xantid swarm because they don't have many counterspells. Keeper might not even draw a counterspell the whole game. Against URPhid the main threat is blood moon and xantid swarm doesn't deal with that at all.  Carpet of Flowers forces them to slow down their game by not letting them play islands.  Both Carpet and Swarm are not the best cards in this matchup but carpet is better in the matchup than swarm.

Against mono-u, carpet is the anti-back to basics card.  With any storm combo cards carpet will destroy mono-u.

Grow-a-tog same as keeper.

[Matt]

You could have just said 'virtual card advantage'.

What about Carpet of Flowers+Quicksilver Fountain? Someone should investigate that.

[Dr. Sylvan]

What about Carpet of Flowers+Quicksilver Fountain? Someone should investigate that.

A slow two-card combo that--not just doesn't win the game--but produces mana only after you have a lot of it.

Investigation complete.

[Matt]

I'm sure it'll make a fun casual deck, though, so all is not lost.

[Necrologia]

Fastbond, I disagree with much of what you said in your last post, so I’ll take it point by point.

Both Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers produce card advantage.

Swarm obviously produces card advantage by shutting down all reactive spells your opponent draws, but how on earth does carpet of flowers do so? It lets you cast more spells in a turn gaining you tempo, but that’s not card advantage. Just look at Dark Ritual. Massive tempo boost, but it’s actually card disadvantage. If there's something I'm missing, please correct me.

But, Carpet of Flowers doubles as an anti-mana denial card and an anti-counter spell card.

So Carpet of Flowers generates card advantage by shutting down the opponent’s counters? As far as I can see Swarm does it much better. Lets look at the scenarios:

1)With Carpet of Flowers you wait until you have 2 must counters, hope the opponent hasn’t managed to get 2 counters in that length of time and use your Carpet mana to cast one right after the other.
2) With Swarm you attack and cast the single must counter in your hand.

Both result in you resolving a spell, except Xantid Swarm always works, and does so without draining all the decent spells out of your deck. I’d rather cast a draw 7, knowing that I still have some in my library than waste two to get a single draw. The only instance where this can come back to haunt you is when the opponent manages to eliminate the Swarm after they’ve been hoarding counters for a few turns. There are two things that minimize this though: if the control player has been unable to respond to what you’ve been doing for a few turns, you’d better be well on your way to winning, and trading repeatedly into Mana Drain is not the way to get ahead.

Against keeper just killing their counterspells does not get rid of all the threats.

This is true. Fortunately Xantid swarm covers not just counters but every single reactive spell they have, as well as preventing them from casting various card draw spells eot. It also forces them to play everything during the main phase of their turn, significantly changing the way the deck is supposed to run.

For keeper, carpet of flowers > xantid swarm because they don't have many counterspells. Keeper might not even draw a counterspell the whole game.

Those two lines were by far the hardest for me to swallow out of your entire post. Not only is it implying that you yourself see Swarm as a better anti-counterspell measure yourself, but you’ve also managed to supply the single worst argument ever. Keeper not drawing any counters is also known as “mana screw” and if you’re relying on that to win you might want to reevaluate your entire argument.

NOTE: I’m aware that Keeper’s goal is not to counter every spell you play, but the instances when they can’t draw a single counter are more often mana screw than not. After a quick glance at Zherbus’s latest build I count over a dozen draw and tutor effects along side the 8 counters. That essentially leaves the mana base and a handful of removal spells.

Against URPhid the main threat is blood moon and xantid swarm doesn't deal with that at all. Carpet of Flowers forces them to slow down their game by not letting them play islands. Both Carpet and Swarm are not the best cards in this matchup but carpet is better in the matchup than swarm.

UrPhid is a control deck. As such, it wants to slow the game down, and you playing a Carpet of Flowers is not going to do it. In fact, the reason it has any effect on control at all is because Carpet speeds the game up. By giving you more mana, more stuff happens in the turn, making it harder for the UrPhid player to maintain control. Besides, seeing as how Urphid mana bases are generally 5 wastes, 1 library, and some islands I can’t see how  a carpet of Flowers is going to affect how they play their mana much. It’s not like they run a whole lot of non-island sources of blue mana, and trusting that you can consistently draw your Mox Sapphire is an even worse plan than hoping that the opposing control deck won’t draw counters.

What it comes down to is this: Carpet of Flowers acts as an anti-control card by speeding your game up. The more your play, the harder it is for them to do their little counter thing. Xantid Swarm, however, doesn’t just make it harder for them to counter, it makes it impossible, as well as stopping the various FOFEOTYL plays. Carpet of Flowers isn’t a bad card. I just don’t see how you can say it’s consistently a better card against control decks than Swarm.

EDIT: Gotta get used to these new boards.

[Razor]

MadManiac21:
      
Anyways, Carpet of Flowers could actual be of some use in today's stompy decks, or green splash decks. Currently the big deck on the green campus is Big O. I think carpet could be a possible use in this deck from an intial view with no testing experience. Null rod and root maze hamper your mana, as your lands also come into play tap and your lone mox and lotus won't be accelerating anything with null rod in play. Carpet fixes your mana problems against any deck running blue, also allowing you to pitch excess lands to a bazaar if ou have yet to find multiple squees.   the only problem is that this is quite situational. its almost a "win more' card, as Big O/new hate-green decks have so many cards agianst blue decks. This is purly hypothetical talk, but mana accleration couldn't hurt the deck.

MadManiac21: @Rane: maybe you didn't get what I was saying. I didn't mean stompy needs the mana, that deck is total crap. I'm saying the newer green decks, such as Big O, could use the mana boost. Not mana intensive? They may need to 1) Regnerate Troll Ascetic 2) help cast those multiple arrogant wurms they just survivaled for 3) cast mulitple anti-blue cards in one turn, making a control player pick between the worst of two evils. Mind you, this is still HYPOTHETICAL as I have done zero testing with it.

Diceman_X has posted a decent rogue deck called Skull.Dec which abuses Carpet mana post-SB to make fat creatures happen.  If Sneak Attack, or Eureka won't do it, maybe hardcasting them via Carpet will.

As for Oshawa Stompy using Carpets SB, well, one early draft did (like just 4 weeks ago).  But, since the deck was already owning the few varieties of blue deck I tested it against I decided it was wasting valuable Sideboard space.  That's right, Vineyards were almost Carpets in the early versions of Oshawa Stompy.  In late December, 2003 islands + island-duals were stoopid-popular, don't forget.

I think Carpets will shine in Skull.Dec, and future Eureka decks, however.

[Hi-Val]

I would look at Carpet to be played in decks that didn't use power for other reasons than budget. For example, if you were concocting G/U Grow with Null Rods, it can be incredibly useful.

However, I echo previous sentiments and feel that this card is the best replacement for Birds of Paradise. Although siding out all the birds removes the chance of flying Shifters, the mana base is far more stable. I myself wouldn't mind survivaling five times during my turn against Keeper or dropping Gigapede 2-3 turn. Keeper would Fire away my birds anyway, so I think that the Carpet would work best here.