Optimizing Cunning Wish in Keeper

[CrazyCarl]

Sickening Dreams is a Sorcery.

As for Rack and Ruin/Peace and Quiet, I think I prefer the buyback on Allay and Shattering Pulse over getting 2 for 1 right away.

And as for Waylay, Fire/Ice or Edict just work better imo.

Carl

[CrazyCarl]

Tomorrow I am going to run a Skeletal Scrying in place of the 2nd plow in my sideboard.  I'll be writing a report too, so that should tell if it was useful or not.

I also want to add a second wish, but i'm very afraid of the deck relying on the Wishes for solutions, and then the Wishes being countered, leaving me without a main-deck solution to problem enchantments/artifacts(save Shaman of course).

Carl

[Big Blue]

Let me try to play advocatus diaboli and argue in favour of 4 cunning wishes!

1. It is a rather cheap Instant - of course, that alone is not spectacular; but it distinguishes this Wish from all others; you can play it EOT at your leisure, either proactively (Wishing for a REB against Control (provided you have active cards in your hand) or a BEB against Sligh is rarely a mistake, even if you do not need it at the moment) or, more likely, defensively after a thread appeared. Then you can eliminate the latter conveniently in your main phase, if you fell it is urgent or wait until the next EOT. Moreover, even against LD it is usually not that difficult to get 3 mana (2 lands, 1 Mox for instance). With 3 mana you can already Mis-D their Sinkhole or grab some SB card (even if you cannot play it on the same turn).

2. It is blue (oh, really?), which does not say much, but it definitely is an added bonus with 4-6 FoW/Mis-D's in The Deck. Let me elaborate a bit on this: Remember the 4 FoF decks? Why were they so good? Yes, FoF is broken. But this is only, say, 90% of the truth. The other 10% are: it is blue. With 4 FoF you could easily sacrifice the first one to a 1st turn Fow, the second one to draw a counter and (hopefully) the third one gave you the win (if not, you always had the fourth). Sacrificing restricted blue cards in this way is not nearly as convenient (sure, you DO remove Ancestral from the game if this is your only chance - but you'd rather prefer that that StoP in your hand were blue). With 20+ blue cards in your deck the probability of having to sacrifice a restricted card decreases. Surely, this argument alone is not sufficient, because if you follow it consequently you will end up with mono-U. But how many non-blue cards do really define a Keeper deck? Balance, Mindtwist, YawgWill, Tutor(s), Fire&Ice and sweet SB cards - so there is actually room for up to 24 blue cards in Keeper.

So the bottomline of point 2 is: a) with 4 Wishes you have no problem in sacrificing the first one to FoW, since you still have access to your SB and b) you CAN find room for them in Keeper without destroying this archetype. But only because you can do it does not imply it is good, right? Therefore, you have to continue reading...

3. It is flexible - now, I am not going to discuss this, as it has been discussed eloquently by many people in this thread. But let me stress again (since some people compare it to that card) that it is MUCH better than Spite/Malice (I hope that's the right one - you know, the U/B split card with 4 mana cc). First of all, the cc is lower (3 mana+something later or right now is much easier than 4 right now) and second, it is much more flexible, as you know too well. Just do not mess up your SB completely, ok? No point in being greedy and playing 15 Instants - reserve some slots for Small Red Creatures and possibly Kegs or Moat and COP: Red. Remember that the first Wish is likely to be removed from game and the second one often played defensively. The third one will probably grab your Stroke (or even FoF, see point 4 below), and as soon as you see your 4th Wish you have either already won, since you stabilized against aggro or you grab (another) REB for that final devastating counterwar. So, as I said, no need to include 4 copys of good Instants against all possible archetypes - 3 REB, 1 BEB, 1-2 StoP, 1 Disenchant-like card (and the Stroke and/or FoF) will be sufficient, but surely suggestions like Skeletal Scrying et al sound very interesting as well. Just don't overdo it, or you will weaken your SB too much and then the argument of winning game 1 but losing 2-3 gains enough spin to become actually true.

4. The FoF issue - now, this will be the most controversial point, but please think about it before your emotions trigger a shortcut to your fingers, happily ignoring the brain: if you play FoF in your SB, you can access it with the first or second Wish that you draw, i.e. much more frequently. Moreover, you will never have to sacrifice your only copy of FoF to FoW (sometimes you have no choice, right?) - you sacrifice Wish instead and patiently wait for the second Wish. Of course, no sane person should do this with Ancestral, as discussed in other posts above. You should try it with FoF, before dismissing this point (although I can perfectly understand everybody who is reluctant to put FoF into the SB). But what you should consider at least is putting Stroke to the SB (as also discussed in other posts). Because it is really a useless card in the early game (even if you finally HAVE stabilized with 4-5 mana, Stroke is not such a great card until mid- to endgame).

5. ok, I agree on some/most/all points, but why 4 and not just 1 or, say 2-3? Well, 1 is a bit random, I'd say. If you play 1 than you will most probably not change your SB at all and just hope for the best. 2-3 is more difficult to argue against. In fact, I believe that 2-3 is the perfect amount of Wishes in Keeper. But right now I want to argue in favour of 4, so forget about the last sentence. If (and probably only if) you play FoF in your SB 4 Wishes becomes a no-brainer. After all, that's the whole idea behind putting that broken card into your SB. Otherwise, I must admit that I find few convincing arguments in favour of 4, rather than 2-3.

6. Fine. although I do not agree yet, I'd like to try 4 Wishes in my Keeper deck. But what should I remove? Since I don't know your decklist by heart I can only give some typical suggestions: if you play 10 counterspells you can easily remove 1 (but keep all Mana Drains, FoWs and 1 Mis-D), since you trade that 1 Counterspells for potentially 3 REBs. If you play StoP you can easily remove it (or even them). Sure, sometimes you will wish for a StoP rather than to have to Wish for it, but note that you can Wish for multiple StoPs. Just be sure to keep Edict in your deck (after all, you want to be able to Tutor for Edict and F&I, so don't remove that 2 removal spells from your deck!). If you (still) play Regrowth you should remove it. After all, the point of Regrowth is its flexibility, but Cunning Wish is as flexible as Regrowth, I'd say, although I am aware that they do quite different things. But with Regrowth you have to hope for a good card in your graveyard (and it is NOT blue, so it is really completely dead in the first few turns), while with Wish you KNOW what is in your SB. Late-game Regrowth becomes incredibly good, but if you play Stroke in the SB so does Cunning Whish. If you play Vampiric you can also consider of converting it. If you play Impulse, that's also a possible replacement (I don't think you can play Impulse(s) AND Wishes in multiples). Some might even want to put their only Disenchant-effect into the SB, although I am not sure whether this is really a good idea. So playing 2-3 should be no problem for you, while playing 4 might need some tinkering, but still I believe it is possible.

7. OK, enough words, I want to see a decklist

Cunning Keeper (extreme version):

Blue: (21)
4 Mana Drain
4 FoW
4 Cunning Wish
1 Mis-D
2 Morphling
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Fire&Ice
1 Timetwister

Black:(6)
1 YawgWill
1 Mindtwist
1 Edict of your choice (I still prefer the Diabolic one)
1 Demonic
1 Vampiric (yes, I still play it)
1 Abyss

White:(2)
1 Balance
1 D.Blow

Red:(2)
1 Shaman
1 Dwarven Miner

Non-mana Artifact:(1)
1 ZOrb

Mana:(28)
7 SoLoMoxen
4 COB
4 Underground Sea
3 Vulcanic
3 Tundra
1 UP
1 Strip
4 Waste
1 LoA

SB:(15)
3 REB
1 Shaman
1 Dwarven Miner
1 BEB
1 Mis-D
1 FOF (I said "extreme version", right?)
1 Stroke
2 StoP
1 Disenchant
1 COP: Red
2 Powder Keg

This is an example that, indeed, it is possible to play 4 Wishes in Keeper, without destroying the deck. Whether it is better or worse than 0 or 2 Wishes must be tested experimentally. Since I really do believe that 2-3 Wishes is the optimal number I will provide a less extreme list:

Keeper ("normal" version):

The same deck as before, but with 2 Wishes removed and the FoF and Stroke inserted instead. This provides 2 additional SB slots.

I am aware that some of my main deck choices are NOT standard (besides the Wishes): Dwarven Miner, Timetwister and, for some reasons that I do not fully comprehend, Vampiric Tutor. Let me just point out that in my metagame and due to my play style these cards are good. If it helps to disentangle these choices from the Wishes issue you can imagine, for instance, 1 Braingeysir, 1 Sylvan and 1 Regrowth instead. But please let us not mix up these points with the topic of this thread - if anybody wants, we can start another thread on Why Dwarven Miner Is Go(o)d...

So to summarize: I wanted to argue in favour of 4 Wishes and maybe I have convinced some of you (excluding myself). In fact, I do believe that 2-3 Wishes is the optimum. 1 Wish is a bit lame. And 0 Wishes, while maybe the best solution, is not very innovative. Hopefully, future testing in tournaments will give us further clues about the exciting topic of Cunning Wish (come on, guys, I am at a High Energy Physics in Amsterdam right now, and ALL the talks end with a sentence like this, so forgive me, ok?).

[Freddie]

Big Blue:

I am glad that you are looking into different keeper card choices, in a practical and logical way.

I have a feeling that 4 Cunning Wishes are excessive, or extreme, but I think that if you feel that strongly about it, that you should just test the hell out of it.

I think that Shattering pulse and Allay are perhaps stronger in the SB either instead of the disenchant or inaddition to it.

Perhaps the MD dblow could be cut?

I am not personally in favor of this, but it would certainly put more weight on the cunning wish.

I think that the ForF in the SB is even more combersome then the Stroke, I don't think that you need both  taking up SB slots, perhaps 3 cunning and the ForF main, thus freeing up a SB slot?

I have not tested the Wishes at all, so keep us informed on how it goes.

Good luck.

-Freddie

[CrazyCarl]

What I have learned recently, that while yes, You can just Wish for a Swords to Plowshares instead of drawing it against say, control, and therefor not have a dead card, It's just far too slow against aggro.  I've been losing to bad aggro ALOT, mainly because my spot removal isn't plentiful/fast enough.

I like the idea of playing 2 Wishes and I'm sure that Shattering Pulse deserves a spot in the sideboard.  HOWEVER, Allay just doesn't cut it.  Aura Fracture is superior in every way EXCEPT it can't be wished for.  Fracture is just too good against Void, Back to Basics etc to not play.  And you can't really run both Fracture and Allay.

As for the Skeletal Scrying: It was horrid.  I wished for it ONCE in the tourney I left it in, and it was a superstar, but this was against a very slow deck that really didn't do anything.  As it is now, I'm playing Academy, but before that I had moved a Swords to Plowshares into my main deck and cut my artifact card drawer(It's just too slow in the aggro matchup).  It saddened me to cut Tome, but it just didn't pull it's weight.

Quote Perhaps the MD dblow could be cut?

I am not personally in favor of this, but it would certainly put more weight on the cunning wish.

This is one of the things I feared would happen: Keeper with Cunning Wish would become reliant upon it.  That means if the Wish gets countered, Keeper is unable to draw into the solution they need.  This means you HAVE to keep at least 1 Disenchant effect in the main deck.  As for Wishing for Counters, it just  uses too much mana to really be reliable.  I will be giving the Wish another shot when I rebuild my Keeper, but I'm not sure the Wish will stick around.

As for playing multiple Wishes: 2 seems fine.  4 Is excessive, 3 means you'll draw them too often, 2 seems OK.

Putting a Card Drawer in the sideboard: I think putting Stroke in the board, leaving Fact or Fiction and adding a Braingeyser seems  like a good idea, one which I will  test when I play Keeper again.  I oftentimes find Stroke to be a bit slow and clunky as compared to the Sorcery speed Geyser.  I'll of course tell you how it all works out if I do.

Carl

[Freddie]

What does your current MD and SB look like right now?

I know that you have left to play academy, I am just curious were you left off on your keeper.

Thanks.
-Freddie

[CrazyCarl]

I think it was this:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
1 Counterspell
2 Morphling
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 The Abyss
1 Mind Twist
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance
1 Dismantling Blow

1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library

1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Fire/Ice

1 Zuran Orb

1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
4 Underground Sea
4 City of Brass
--Sideboard--
1 Aura Fracture
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Misdirection
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Circle of Protection: Black
2 Dwarven Miner

Really the only change was to add a Plow MD over the Tome and to change Allay to Aura Fracture(when I can find a foil one ;\)

Carl

[Big Blue]

Carl: I believe that in your deck list you can easily cut the Counterspell for a 2nd Wish. After all, you have 2 potential REBs. And grabbing a REB proactively does make sense, if you have enough playable cards in your hand - so Wish is not just a bad counterspell for UR2.

As for the perfect number of Wishes - I also think 2 is optimal and probably you can get away with 3 with Stroke in the SB, as suggested by Freddie.

Still, I'd like to test the 4 Wish idea with FoF SB, but since at the moment obtaining 4 Wishes seems a bit unrealistic considering its T2 impact I hoped that somebody else would do real tests in tournaments (wink, wink).  I will try to get at least 2 Wishes ASAP.

Regarding the StoP issue: I do not play a single StoP MD ever since FoF appeared (I needed room then and after FoF-restriction somehow StoP never made a come-back) and I seem to get away with it, even against "bad aggro". IMO, F&I+Edict+Balance are enough to stabilize in the early game. Yes, sometimes I wish I had a StoP somewhere in my deck - but I am too happy with Dwarven Miner (which more or less occupies the StoP-slot).

[CrazyCarl]

Maybe other people get better mana draws than myself, but most of the time when i'm playing(ESPECIALLY vs. bad aggro) I find it hard to find the time to cast an early Cunning Wish.  Cunning Wish does not shine in the aggro matchup. It's primarily there to provide utility against decks like Stacker, Enchantress(with allay anyways as long as you can stop Groves), and Parfait, while minimizing dead cards in the control mirror(which is why the Wish occupied the Swords slot).

HOWEVER, I don't play at Neutral Ground or some other control infested area.  I play at a store full of aggro with 4-5 fully powered decks.  Therefore, making the deck stronger vs control is really stupid since i'll be playing mainly against aggro decks.

As for cutting Counterspell to fit in another Wish, I think that's a poor card to cut.  I'd rather pay UU than pay 2UR to counter a blue spell  AND to be able to counter anything else(like Sylvan Library, Replenish, that kinda stuff).

Also, the Wish in my deck is meant to be a reactive card, unlike other tutors which can go for the Morphling or Mind Twist to just smash your opponent.  Wish goes for something that will either stall them, neutralize a threat, or wreak some enchantments/artifacts.

Carl

[Big Blue]

I concede that in a control-light environment Wishes are probably not very helpful (but in such an environment you must be GOD with Academy!). So yes, play StoP and Counterspell in the 2 virtual Wishes slots. But then, why bother with Wish at all? In your case 0 Wishes seems to be best. But may I point out that a control-free environment is quite unusual (in fact, it is a Paradise!).

That being said, let me re-iterate my argument against Wish being a (bad) UR2-counterspell: often control-mirrors develop the same way: both sides play draw-go and some lands for a couple of rounds. At a certain point somebody starts EOT-counterwars and shortly afterwards somebody (not necessarily the same person)  tries to force through a "finisher". A cheap REB at that point can be crucial. So grabbing an eotREB proactively DOES make sense in such situations. In fact, it does make sense whenever you have a couple of "active cards" (like other counterspells, YawgWill, Mindtwist, Morphling etc.). Of course, when you have reached the topdecking contest and you get a Wish, Wishing for a REB usually is NOT the best play available (he could topdeck a Dwarven Miner, for instance). But in that part of the game usually both sides have collected about 6 mana, so the cc-issue is of less importance.

[CrazyCarl]

I think you might have misunderstood me.  My environment is in no way control free.  Lately, i've been the only person playing control, but that's because the other control players have been busy.

I think I see your point on using the Wish proactively, however I haven't played Keeper in a while(But I might play it again soon) So I haven't tested that way out yet.

Again, as for the second Wish: I've come to the conclusion that rather than cut a generally useful card(Like D-Blow) for the wish, I'll cut a bad removal spell, aka Diabolic Edict.  This could be a problem against a VERY early Morphling, but I don't think it'll make that big of a differance most of the time.  When I rebuild Keeper, I think i'll try that out.  It seems interesting anyways.

Carl

[Big Blue]

Yes, I also believe that cutting D-Blow is very bad.

For me the 2 canonical choices are 1 Counterspell and 1 Creature removal spell, since Wish can be both and you replace each of these slots with potentially 2 of  them (so 1 Counter for 2 potential REBs or 2 potential StoPs, not to mention other SB tricks). I would rather keep the Edict and kick the StoP, but maybe you are right - if the Edict you play is Diabolic then it could be worthwhile to keep StoP and move Edict to the SB. I think, I will try that in the next tourney (provided I finally acquire 2 Wishes for a reasonable price).

[Zelif]

I will add my two cents here, because I have tried it, and it worked quite well. I play a "Dark Keeper", and use 4 Force, 4 Mana Drain, 1 Counter and a Teferi's MD. Also one DIsenchant. I typically SB 2 BEB, Diabolic Edict, 2 Dismantling Blow, Misdirrection and a couple Annuls. So, Cunning Wish was an easy fit for me, especially in our metagame, which is not so much aggro, and tons of combo and control, with Reanimator/Keeper/Donate decks weighing in heavily.
I tweaked my SB to: 2 BEB, Diabolic Edict, Misdirection, Hibernation, Teferi's Response, Hurkyl's Recall, 3 Annul, 2 Dismantling, and a favorite "Silver Bullet", Interdict. 13 instants! Cunning Wish usually helped me win game one, more than it helped come back in games 2 and 3. Although, it "secured victory" regularly in game two. Some of the faces, when you Hibernate 3 Wall of Roots, 2 Birds, and a couple peewees, all at instant speed, is remarkable. Even the cost of Misdirecting an early Ancestral is devastatingly powerful, especially in the mirror matchup, as typical "Keeper peeple" will take a bad draw with Ancestral.
I like Wish mostly for its speed, with alternate casting cost buddies, and devastating psychological effect. A great aggro player all but conceded to me, upon Hibernation, as it severely rattled him, and there was no way he was getting a Lyrist past my counters to get at The lovely Abyss. Anyway, I like it. I rarely use it to "retrieve" a removed card, but in a bind, you could do that also.
Hasta

Zelif

[Big Blue]

And how many Wishes do you play? Just one, or two, or... ?

[CrazyCarl]

Alright, i've fixed up my deck:

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Cunning Wish(It's in the slot of the 10th counter currently)
2 Morphling
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Braingeyser
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 The Abyss

1 Balance
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Dismantling Blow

1 Sylvan Library
1 Regrowth

1 Zuran Orb
1 Fire/Ice

1 Gorilla Shaman

1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
4 Underground Sea
4 City of Brass

SB:
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Dwarven Miner
1 Shattering Pulse
2 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Circle of Protection: Black
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Aura Fracture
1 Compost
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Misdirection
1 Teferi's Response

My MD is nothing groundbreaking, and neither is my SB really .

However, I think this may be the best way to build Keeper with a Wish without watering down the deck and making it too vulnerable to what I've briliantly named "Wish Syndrome"; making a deck to reliant on Wishing for it's solutions(Such as with moving Dismantling Blow to the sideboard as was suggested earlier in this thread).  I think the configuration as it stands is best able to utilize the Wish.

Aura Fracture Vs Allay: I defended Allay for a long time... until I woke up and realized how damn powerful Fracture really is.  Allay may be a decent card, but it just doesn't compare to Aura Fracture.

No Counterspell: Like I said earlier, I'm using the Wish now in the 10th counterspell slot, turning what would've been Counterspell into an Uber-Counter.  Have you ever had a Counterspell in hand whilst being bashed in the skull by a Morphling or Mishra's Factory?  I have.  It's annoying.  I think the Wish might be the perfect addition to Keeper as the 10th "Counterspell".  The only thing it won't be able to deal with are enchantments and non-blue, non-targetted sorceries and Instants.  But I don't think it'll be a problem.

Braingeyser instead of Vampiric: This really isn't Wish related, but I changed it due to some advice and my lack of satisfication with the amount of card drawing my deck had.

I'm playing in a Type 1 tomorrow with this list(Possibly with Mishra's Factories instead of the Lotus and a Volcanic or Tundra if I don't get my Lotus tomorrow) and I plan on writing a report.  If nothing else, I'll try to report back to this thread on how it worked out for me.

Carl

[carl]

Quote (CrazyCarl @ Aug. 08 2002,08:40)Alright, i've fixed up my deck:
My MD is nothing groundbreaking, and neither is my SB really .

Hmm... apart from the mana, you have the same main deck as what I played in Duelmen last month

You play Academy and the 4th Underground Sea where I have 2 extra Tundra (I wanted to be able to cast Moat vs TnT each time I drew it).

Quote
Aura Fracture Vs Allay: I defended Allay for a long time... until I woke up and realized how damn powerful Fracture really is.  Allay may be a decent card, but it just doesn't compare to Aura Fracture.

I am still not sold on Aura Fracture. Could you please elaborate?
It's card disadvantage and usually you are annoyed by one enchantment.

Good look in the tourney.

[CrazyCarl]

Quote I am still not sold on Aura Fracture. Could you please elaborate?
It's card disadvantage and usually you are annoyed by one enchantment.

It's card disadvantage, yes, but you are trading Cities of Brass for Chokes, Cities of Solitude, Sacred Mesas, Humilities, Worships, Back to Basics etc.  It's definately worth it.  It's the fact that it stays on the table and is reusable that makes it so powerful.

Carl

[Fishhead]

Yep, in the same way that the Monkey is a Silver Bullet against all cheap artifacts your opponent has played/will play; so Aura Fracture is against Enchantments.  Unfortunately, its a lot more painful to use than the Monkey, but still when you need that Silver Bullet there is no substitute.  

Once its in play, its a constant thorn in your opponents side, unlike Allay which can be countered or fizzled each time it is bought-back.

[CrazyCarl]

Getting "countered upon resolution" wasn't really Allay's problem.  It was the fact that it cost 5 mana .  It's just that Aura Fracture is much more mana efficent that really makes it better.

Carl

[Zelif]

Quote (Big Blue @ Aug. 06 2002,07:08)And how many Wishes do you play? Just one, or two, or... ?

Sorry for the delay, Big Blue. I was only playing one, originally, because usually it pushed my deck over. I may play a second, however.
My real interest is in creating "sideboarded restricted card" decks with, say Burning Wish, to abuse them heartily. I am focussing more on Burning Wish at the moment, until someone exploits Cunning Wish further than I've already seen.


Zelif

[Big Blue]

Burning Wish seems to be difficult to abuse in Keeper - you want the broken sorcery cards in the deck and not in the SB, after all. Moreover, it is neither an instant nor blue, which makes it inferior as compared to Cunning Wish (at least in Keeper).

There might be some weird combo-ish deck with, say, Balance in the SB and 4 "virtual" Balances MD, but that's a separate issue...

[Zelif]

Quote (Big Blue @ Aug. 13 2002,12:45)
Burning Wish seems to be difficult to abuse in Keeper - you want the broken sorcery cards in the deck and not in the SB, after all. Moreover, it is neither an instant nor blue, which makes it inferior as compared to Cunning Wish (at least in Keeper).

Especially as I play a redless "Dark Keeper", as I said. All hats off to Cunning Wish, but Burning Wish is making me chomp at the bit to fork (ahem) into blue-red, especially with the slow decay of "Keeper control".

Quote here might be some weird combo-ish deck with, say, Balance in the SB and 4 "virtual" Balances MD, but that's a separate issue..."

I was thinking moreover the straight out terrifying power of Overmaster and Burning Wish in an outright burn deck with, say, Wheel of Fortune and Yawgmoth's Will built into the SB. As you said, however, an entirely different discussion.

[Smmenen]

Because Keeper decks see so little really radical changes, single card changes in Keeper are a big deal.

The NG boys removal of Vampiric becomes a big deal as did the addition of Mind Twist when it became unbanned.  

As such, I think Carl and others who began using Cunning Wish in Keeper this summer have stumbled upon another "big deal."  

JP was always searching for some nifty signiture card which would really catch on: for a while Duress did the trick with RDK.  Then he started running Holistic Wisdom.  And the last I heard he was using Whispers of the muse.  

For a very long time I loved Duress Keeper.  But, eventually as the furor died down, I came to see the error of my views.  

However, at this point I think Cunning Wish is absolutely perfect for Keeper.  It's just so darn good.  It fits the major theme Keeper quite well: versatility.  

Stephen Menendian

[cooberp]

I don't know what slow decay of Keeper control you're talking about, but it sure ain't in Magic the Gathering's Vintage format.

[CrazyCarl]

What most of the advocates of Burning Wish are failing to realize is that Wishes are vulnerable to countermagic: Counter the wish, no topdecking the card later on.  This is even more true of Burning Wish.

As I am using it now, Cunning Wish is like a versatile counterspell, being able to handle anything from creatures, to artifacts, to spells.  However, Burning Wish is absolutely horrible(as is Cunning Wish) at fetching restricted cards.  How would you like it if your opponent countered your Burning Wish, leaving you without the possibility of topdecking Yawgmoth's Will, Mind Twist, or heaven forbid Balance?  You'd probably cry ;\

I've said this a few times, and Stephen backed me up on it.  The Wish just adds a bit more versatilty where(at least what i've replaced it with) there was just a vanilla Counterspell before, which I have liked ALOT more than the vanilla Counterspell.

Carl

[Big Blue]

Quote The Wish just adds a bit more versatilty

The Quote just adds a bit more to the eternal list of understatements  

Cunning Wish is EXTREMELY versatile - and it is blue and an instant - what more do you want for U2? Since fortunately "Yes, Sir!"-posts are not welcome here I won't write how much I agree with Smmenen's post...

Many of us now seem to agree that at least 1 Cunning Wish in Keeper is good; my question is: provided you can fit them into your deck, would not 2-3 Wishes be optimal?

2, if you don't make any other changes in your deck or the SB.

3, if you play Stroke in the SB.

(and 4, if you follow the - probably misguided - FoF-route discussed earlier)

Regarding the issue "what to take out for Cunning Wishes" I refer to previous posts - typically it will be the 10th Counterspell and the 3rd spot removal (typically 1 StoP), if you plan to play 2 Wishes (+Stroke, if you want to play 3).

@CrazyCarl: Not that I disagree on Burning Wish being bad for Keeper, but your argument is a bit flawed:

Quote Counter the wish, no topdecking the card later on.

Right. But: "Counter the card, no topdecking the card later on." (neglecting interactions with Regrowth and YawgWill); moreover, the idea of Burning Wish is, I believe, to play 4 of them, in order to have 4 "virtual" copies of whatever you put into your SB for brokenness - again, I am not saying that this is a good idea for Keeper - but simpler counter-arguments against Burning Wish in Keeper are

1.) the wrong colour (every non-blue spell in Keeper has to compete with good cards of 4 colours, such as Regrowth, Sylvan, Dwarven Miner, etc. for approx. 10-12 non-U slots, while each blue spell has "just" the blue card pool for competition; moreover, each additional blue card adds to the synergy with FoW/Mis-D)

2.) the wrong speed (instant is just so much better)

3.) the wrong concept (you can add Cunning Wish to Keeper without any changes in deck or SB, except for the 1 slot you need; however, adding other Wishes would mean to completely rearrange SB and/or MD (especially the mana base), which is not likely to be a good thing)

[Spike85]

Ok it's Sunday 11 AM and I have absolutely nothing to do, so I decided to make a post about Cunning Wish in Keeper. I separated CCW's list to have a better idea of what the deck needs most in Game 1.
Against Aggro: [Suicide/Sligh/Zoo(or other multi-color aggro)]
I think it needs spot removal. So the Edict/StP seem good
Against Combo: (Mainly Trix and the occasional Tide/WD+Animate Dead)
Wishing for ReB/MisD might save you, but it comes at a high cost
Against Control: (mirror/mono-U)
For the mirror Wish helps to get Edict/ReB/MisD
And for MonoU ReB/MisD
Against Stacker/Tubbies variants you get the Pulse

You do have some nasty tricks for sure.
What I doubt is, will the Wish _really_ save your ass?
Like, against aggro the cc is quite high. If you also consider the cost of the spell you get too, you give up a lot of tempo (at least 4 mana) which, with the exeption of Stacker, is more than what your opponent paid to lay that threat. And against Stacker, the threat costs 4 mana too but they have the Workshop.


In T2 (sorry for the blasphemy, but i have to use this example ) Tog decks have had success because that deck really abuses C.Wish since it can not only get SB cards, but also remove cards to Tog (that's why it runs 2-3 Wishes) plus the format is (obviously) a lot slower than type 1.

I know the formats are totally different, but I think you get my point. If i wanted to go to a t1 tourney with Keeper, I'd prefer to make a metagame call and include something else instead of the Wish.

Just my 0.02$
spike85

[Dozer]

Quote If i wanted to go to a t1 tourney with Keeper, I'd prefer to make a metagame call and include something else instead of the Wish.

I disagree. I've been playing Cunnign Wish for a couple of months now, and I have more and more deviated my sideboard to it, even though I am running only one copy. I have 10 instants in my sideboard, which is better than all pre-metagaming. It's the ultimate versatility: Why restrict yourself to having only one metagame card available in the first gameif can have ten? You never know which matchup you might encounter, and short of maindecking the tenth counterspell there is nothing you to cover all eventualities in one card except for Cunning Wish.

My current sideboard looks like this:
non-wishable:
1 Dwarven Miner
1 Aura Fracture
1 Moat
1 Circle of Protection: Red
wishable:
1 Ebony Charm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Shattering Pulse/ Rack and Ruin --> not sold on either one
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Misdirection
1 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Flaming Gambit

I made two recent changes: First, I am trying Ebony Charm in place of Tormod's Crypt. Usually, there is only a couple of cards that really bother or are dangerous, so unless someone has four Squees and two Krovikan Horrors in his graveyard, the Charm works as well as anything. Removing three cards also is enough to prevent Will from turning the game (usually). This is still subject to testing, though.

The second change was the elimination of Teferi's Response and the inclusion of a 2nd Misdirection. I never used the Response anyway, and since Mis-D does the same job against Sinkholes, I felt good with that. Mis-D cannot destroy Dwarven Miner, though, but that's rarely an issue compared to misdirecting Strokes, Ancestrals and REB's.
Wishing for a Mis-D also helps against Combo.

Flaming Gambit is there for the use with the Power Artifact + Griom Monolith-combo. It's flashback makes it viable, because when you threaten to deal 20 damage to a player, the creature he chooses is likely to die, and you can then flashback to hit the player directly. RR for the flashback is not an issue with 4 Volcanics in my mana base.

Dozer

[cooberp]

Um, Power Artifact is not played in Type One.  At least not in any optimal deck.

[jpmeyer]

The only problem that I have with Cunning Wish is that I end up having most of my sideboard space devoted to permanents.  I want a CoP: Red, Aegis of Honor, Caltrops, Powder Keg, Ensnaring Bridge, Aura Fracture, and Scrying Glass.  This leaves me with 8 slots.  REB will obviously take up 3-4.  StP is a given.  Perish could become Hibernation.  One needs to be Disenchant.

Now I have just 2 slots left to play with, and I have too many ideas.  Misdirection, Teferi's Response, Shattering Pulse, Diabolic Edict, and Vampiric Tutor all spring to mind.

If you can get everything you want/need into your sideboard, then definetly play Cunning Wish.  I can't seem to make it fit my needs though.