Keeper's Lifegain slot: would Ivory Tower fit?

[Anonymous]

I love the manadrain.  I respect almost everyone who posts here.  But I have seen some sillyness when it comes to keeper's life gain slot originally occupied by zuran orb.

has no one suggested running ivory tower?  

here are the advantages as I see them

1: Requires no mana or cost of any kind.  Drop it out and it goes.

2: Casting cost diversification.  All your moxen are zero.  Keg for zero used to take out all you moxen plus the zorb.  Mox Monkey will have to use three mana to kill it that could have been used to kill lots of crunchy moxen.

3: Keeper has lots of draw.  Keeper most often has lots of cards in hand.  Tower rewards you for having lots of cards in hand.  

4: Easy to cast.  1 colorless mana.  easy to get back with yawgmoth's will.  

5: can be cast before you need life early game,  and you can just sit back gaining fat life.

Cons

1: does not gain you any life when it is cast. you must wait at least one turn for it to be active.

2: if you run a build with out vampiric tutor (which I feel is a huge mistake) you only have one card that tutors for it.

oh well just my two cents worth on life gain in keeper.  Constant lifegain that does not require mana is good.

[Exeter]

Ivory Tower is not good if your hand is getting ripped apart by discard.

Ivory Tower is not good if you have to constantly expend cards to deal with an opponent's threats.

Ivory Tower is no good if it gets eaten by Sligh's Mox Monkey.

Ivory Tower doesn't cycle in a control matchup.

Add it all up, and that's why Ivory Tower sucks.

[Zelif]

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 04 2003,02:01)But I have seen some sillyness when it comes to keeper's life gain slot originally occupied by zuran orb.

has no one suggested running ivory tower?  

In the older, "draws-a-lot" version of keeper that i ran, I used to use it, as I could ignore a lot of threatage, while Abyss slowly chewed away at aggro. Hell, I could ignore a Morphling for a while.
Eventually, it became clear that the aggro was getting a hell of a lot MORE aggro. Let them run for a turn or three, and they were figuring out how to reload, overload, or just DUMP a load onto you.


Darren A. Dew
THE UNION

[Anonymous]

I agree with you totally darren.  I think though keeper must have some lifegain slot maindeck.

Exeter: to analyze your points

"Ivory Tower is not good if your hand is getting ripped apart by discard."

well nothing is good when your hand is being ripped apart by discard

"Ivory Tower is not good if you have to constantly expend cards to deal with an opponent's threats."

By that same argument tower is good, since it does not waste cards, lands, and mana to gain life.

"Ivory Tower is no good if it gets eaten by Sligh's Mox Monkey."

correct, neither are moxen, zorb, sol-ring, etc.  This is not really a valid argument either.

"Ivory Tower doesn't cycle in a control matchup."

Again not cycling is not a good excuse.  Abyss does not cycle.  STP and edict do not cycle against combo.

try it out first.  don't just discount it.

Often by the time keeper stabilizes it is at a deffinate life disadvantage.  Tower is life gain for 1 mana that you can play proactively before you need life.

But then again I have other "rogue" ideas about keeper.

I think keeper needs to run moat maindeck again.  Abyss and moat are the dynamic duo.  Stop their rush and eat it up.  Also abyss does not stop artifact fattness.  moat does.  and keeper can easily wish for ebony charm to get rid of wonder.

All I know is I have played against decks that ran tower for years and tower is definately something to strongly consider.  

look at the alternatives.

tutorable instants: one shot, require 2 cards.  can be countered.  take up mana.  take up slots in the sideboard.

zuran orb: suicidal to run in paragon because you have less land with the fetchlands.  that land you eat essentially costs you two lands and the chance of drawing into more mana if you need it is lessened.  destroying your own fragile mana base to survive lessens the chance you will actually have the mana to recover when you need it.

[Exeter]

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Exeter: to analyze your points

"Ivory Tower is not good if your hand is getting ripped apart by discard."

well nothing is good when your hand is being ripped apart by discard

Renewed Faith, while not *good* in the face of heavy discard, allows you to cycle into something better.  Ivory Tower does not.

Quote
"Ivory Tower is not good if you have to constantly expend cards to deal with an opponent's threats."

By that same argument tower is good, since it does not waste cards, lands, and mana to gain life.

No good aggro deck is going to let you sit on 7 cards.  Try it and see how much you lose.  (Note, if you have Moat and Abyss out, this doesn't apply, but you've likely won anyway, so it's not a point in favor of Ivory Tower.)

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"Ivory Tower is no good if it gets eaten by Sligh's Mox Monkey."

correct, neither are moxen, zorb, sol-ring, etc.  This is not really a valid argument either.

Yes it is.  With a Zorb, you can drop it and sac 3 lands immediately and gain 6 life (or whatever numbers you want).  With a Tower, you have to drop it early so that Mr. Mox Monkey can snack on it.

Quote
"Ivory Tower doesn't cycle in a control matchup."

Again not cycling is not a good excuse.  Abyss does not cycle.  STP and edict do not cycle against combo.

No, the Abyss does not cycle, but it does a lot more than gain life.  Renewed Faith, however, *does* cycle, which makes the cycling a relevant point.  Don't you get that?

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try it out first.  don't just discount it.

I have.

Quote
Often by the time keeper stabilizes it is at a deffinate life disadvantage.  Tower is life gain for 1 mana that you can play proactively before you need life.

Who cares if you're at a life disadvantage.  Every life point above the first is simply a resource to be used.  If you end the game at > 1 life, that just means you didn't use all your resources.

Quote
But then again I have other "rogue" ideas about keeper.

I think keeper needs to run moat maindeck again.  Abyss and moat are the dynamic duo.  Stop their rush and eat it up.  Also abyss does not stop artifact fattness.  moat does.  and keeper can easily wish for ebony charm to get rid of wonder.

This I can agree with.  I like Moat, but Moat is not the subject of discussion.

Quote
tutorable instants: one shot, require 2 cards.  can be countered.  take up mana.  take up slots in the sideboard.

Yes, it's one-shot.  So is Zuran Orb, often.  It doesn't require two cards if you don't tutor for it (and often you don't want to, you have better things to tutor for), and I think a non-blue deck is going to have a hard time casting a counterspell on Renewed Faith.  Sure, it takes up mana, but so does Ivory Tower, in a subtler way.

Say, for example, you draw Ivory Tower, Brainstorm, FoW, Land x3 and random blue card.  Now, You'd probably like to Brainstorm on turn 1, so, no Ivory Tower.  Similarly, you can easily draw stuff that would probably pre-empt Ivory Tower for another turn or so, which means no life gain until at least turn 3.  By then, you are mostly dead if facing Sligh and not super lucky.

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zuran orb: suicidal to run in paragon because you have less land with the fetchlands.  that land you eat essentially costs you two lands and the chance of drawing into more mana if you need it is lessened.  destroying your own fragile mana base to survive lessens the chance you will actually have the mana to recover when you need it.

I don't like Zuran Orb as much as Renewed Faith, because of the cycling, but I will just mention that you can sac fetchlands just as well as regular lands.

[Anonymous]

Why is a life gain slot even necessary?  Why not replace that with something that can solve the problem instead of just buying you more time?**  Lifegain strikes me as useless unless your metagame is dominated by sligh.  And in this case why not just MD some more effective sligh hate.

It seems to me that this slot could be better used as a solution/threat as opposed to simply stalling against sligh decks.

but.....if there must be life gain, i definitely feel that ivory tower is sub-optimal.  Early game i think its going to be ignored in favor of more proactive plays, its use mid-game would be minimal and by the late game keeper should have control and not need it.  I think the possible effect of renewed faith is minimal but at least it cycles if you dont need it.

** caveat: im just getting back into magic after 7 years off and i've only recently started reading up on the current state of the game....so sorry if this issue has already been dealt with

[Schmakt]

In some of the more recent versions, Zuran Orb has become COP: Red anyway...

The problem I see with Ivory Tower is just that you can't gain a lot of life at once.  Usually, I'm glad to see ZOrb show up when I'm about dead.  Ivory Tower can't help me there.  Don't get me wrong, I'd like to run Ivory Tower, but it just doesn't have the ability to be as explosive as ZOrb does.

[Milton]

Ivory Tower can be a good option, but it is somewhat limiting.  Here's why:

First, you are tempted to not deal with threats, counter spells and empty your hand simply because you want to keep that life gaining total.  

Second, a good aggro deck will force you to deal with it's threats, causing you to deplete your hand to Edict, Fire/Ice, Plow, Wish, Abyss or counter your way to stability.  This most likley will deplete your hand and will make Ivory Tower useless.  

Zuran Orb, however, can be used while you are stabalizing and are forced to deal with threats.  It can give you that extra turn or two.  It makes opponents Wastelands less good.  Also, it turns your otherwise useless Wastelands into two life against mono-color aggro decks.

[Anonymous]

Exeter:  I'm not try to attack.  I want you to know that off the bat.  It is next to immpossible to determine if people are being sarcastic, polite, or pissy when all you are reading is next.  Let me just let you know that my mode is set on polite so please interperate all comments as such.

Basically I see keeper's life gain options each have costs and benifits that suit different playing styles.

I often find that when I drop, abyss/moat aggainst very fast decks that I am close to snuffing it.  If I can get back a little life buffer I can loosen up a little and not worry about them topdecking into badness.  

basically it looks like this to me.

Renewed faith:

Pros:

you get the life then and there.

you can cycle it if you don't need it.

cost you only one card to use (the card itself) and is only 3 mana

Cons: will gain you 6 and only 6 life.  Unless you yawg will it.

Zuran Orb: (which most builds don't run anyway)

Pros:
comes out for free and waits till you need it.

gains you instant life for no mana cost.

makes land D sting a bit less.

Cons:

eats the lands out of an already crystalline mana base

destroys one of your most important resources.

easy bait for mox monkey

Ivory tower

pros:

requires no mana activation and eats up no resources.

can come out early an establish a life buffer proactively

only one colorless mana to cast.  yawg will able.

does not gain a set about of life, it keeps working for you

cons:

requires you to have more than 4 cards in hand to have any benefit

despite requiring 3 mana it is still mox-monkey-able

does not gain you any life when you cast it.  it must wait a full turn before you start to see any benefit.

again to further keep the peace.

It is clearly a question of playing style (not skill).  I am not making any critiques of anyones playing skill.  Different playing styles require different card choices.  My friend cullen is a total control player.  It is funny as hell to watch him play an aggro deck.  He is very, very good player, but he does not play aggro well.  Its his playing style, he is too cautious.

I am an aggro player at heart.  I play keeper from the prospective of years of experience playing aggro beating control (does that make any sense???).

As more and more well tuned aggro decks come out of the wood works (fetch lands are making it cheaper and easier for multi color aggro) I belive personally that keeper will need to make some changes in order to remain the deck that has no auto losses (I guess that's the best term to use with out using the tier no-no words).

I think that zorb is no longer a viable option due to the fetch lands.  

Renewed faith in the sideboard is not a bad option or even maindeck.  Though personally I would run Ivory Tower.

well as long as I have the floor I will throw out someother things that I would like everyone's imput on.  some of these are odd, so please do not just discount them out right, give arguements that specifically deal with that card.  Please, please, please, no one use the mana drain target arguement or the misdirection argument.  If those were reasons not to run a card then mindtwist, stroke, and geyser would be out of keeper (and hey isn't morphling a fat 5 mana drain target too.)  This is not a targeted response at anyone.

Moat:

should be in the main deck again. Period end of story.  This one I am firm on.  I run moat main in my build and it is a life saver (literally!)

Burning wish:  

lets you yawgmoth's will twice.  lets you use  cards that you have yawg willed.  lets you grab sideboard cards life cunning wish does.  
Run a pyroclasm in the board vs fast aggro.  
Haunting Echoes in the board vs everything.  if you get a window to stabilize, echoes wins the game.  I have only lost one game ever where I haunting echoed (of course I run mine main, but I am crazy!).  
Cleansing meditation vs parfait/enchantress/B2B?

Void:  

Void  Sorcery   BR3    

Choose a number. Destroy all artifacts and creatures with converted mana cost equal to that number. Then target player reveals his or her hand and discards from it all nonland cards with converted mana cost equal to the number.  

I have been experimenting with this card.  It started a joke for casual play.  But the fact that it hits the board and their hand means it is never a dead draw.  

Against TNT name 4, bye, bye juggs, core, sui-chi, and then they discard all the ones they have in hand.

Against sligh and stompy it super funny.  name one!  it kills cursed scroll, mox monkey, pup, kird, nimble mongoose, cadet, etc and then it makes them discard rancor, bolt, chain, and all the critters with 1 casting cost in hand.

The important thing to realize is that the mana cost of BR3 is super cheap considering what it does.  What mana cost would you pay for a card that kills cursed scroll, pup, and mox monkey and makes them discard 2 bolts all in one juicy card.

Lobotomy:

This is a pet card.  Darren (Zelif) will post on this one.  He used to run it and it is awesome against combo and even good against aggro.  Again the important to remember is that it can get non basic lands.  If you cast it early against a multicolored deck you can cut them off from a color all together.  Duress on steriods.

Haunting Echoes:

BB3 is a big, big casting cost.  but again what price would you but on a card that eats away they graveyard of all cards other than basic lands, then... searches their library for copies of all those cards and removes them from the game too!  Cullen played a haunting echoes in his sideboard at the last tourney (main deck wish to get it.) and he won every match that he haunting echoed in.  

Celestial Dawn:

in the main deck? Is this viable?  It makes non basic land D against keeper useless.  Makes everything easier to cast.   Bloodmoon and B2B don't do squat.  The cons of course is that your wastelands and LOA don't do anything anymore and force of will has to be hard cast.  

Well there's my 2.5 cents worth.  Thanks for reading a long post.  I am not trying to criticize anyone or start any flame wars so please remember that as you read this.  I am posting this here because I respect the forum and value its opinions.  This is a place to be evolutionary and constructive.  

love
Evil Bill

[Zelif]

I want to add only a couple things. I really did like using the Tower for so long, as even when I had a dead hand, I could kinda wait it out. Also, Tower is one of the only T1able artifacts that Null Rod doesn't hate.
Point two, I used (and still use) Zuran orb, due to the high pain involved with POP.
Ah, on the Lobotomy note, its been QUITE some time since I ran it main, but it was a great mind-wrecker! I ran a MD Cap at the time, too, so you can imagine the eyeballs!

Darren A. Dew
THE UNION

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Ok...lets see if I can post without making an ass outta myself like last time...

Zuran Orb is strictly better than ivory tower for many reasons (some are the same as stated above)
First off, ivory tower's effect is like a sorcery. while you do have potential to gain massive life, you also give the aggro player a turn to kill you, whereas with zuran orb, you can instantly gain life.

Second...like many have said, having a consistent hand of 7 will not occur very often. Aggro will force you to react to certain cards they play, or will simply make you discard cards...thus negating the ivory tower.

Third...Zuran Orb has AMAZING synergy with balance. Although the tower is good w/ library/ancestral, etc, I like the balance/orb combo a bit better. Against aggro, you set them back alot (especially when playing a deck running on few mana). Against control, both the tower and zorb are pretty weak, as the threats don't come till mid-late game.

Last...as schmakt said, ivory tower is not explosive enough. In the long run, you will gain more life, but it's short term that you need. Against sligh, for instance, zurna orb can get you 4 crucial life that you need to stay alive one more turn to take control.

Well, hope that helps....

[Anonymous]

I agree with everyone.  I think is a contender for the slot though.  I have had problems with zorb, but like Zelif said, it is tech vs POP and like Clown said it does have great tech with balance (one of my personal favorite tricks also).  

I will say this though, as an aggro player a zorb on the board doesn't piss me off as much as seeing tower come out early.  I just keep pressure on you and turn all of my attacks into stone rains!  

and Clown sorry again that we got into that little micro flame war.  (waving white flag...)

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

eh...no need for apologies...it's all in the past

[Zelif]

Quote (Clown of Tresserhorn @ Feb. 05 2003,21:24)eh...no need for apologies...it's all in the past

I love that line. Whats that orangutan's name?


Darren A. Dew
THE UNION

[Anonymous]

I have always played with the ZOrb and have considered playing the tower but I feel like aggro is everywhere and trying to keep up with aggro means playing spells and that negates the ivory tower strenghts, I feel the argument over the two really has to do with the metagame.  

White Trash, that was a great analytical peice you did and would like to second the idea of playing moat nowadays.  It's the first white card I would put on my list of Keeper.  TNT w/o wonder is done for with moat on the table.  I also like the idea of playing Burning Wish, I would like to see a serious thread started on this card for Keeper, actually when I first saw all the wishes I had liked the Burning over the Cunning in Keeper.  I think you also bring up some good points with Echos and Void, the only problem I see is the cc.  First you gotta wish for them then cast them, seems a bit expensive to me but would like to hear more about how they work in Keeper before I make any judgements.  

Z

[Anonymous]

actually I am totally insane and I often run Echoes and Void main deck.

Burning wish for pyroclams has saved many an ass.

Burning wish is also great for going for a second yawg will.

Shatterstorm and wrath of god are also sideboard possibilities

[Puschkin]

Echoes, Shatterstorm and Void? Aren´t those a BIT to expensive?
And who needs to Yawg Will twice?

[Anonymous]

I completely agree with the original post here.  I have seen convincing arguments that Zuran Orb should be out, but I have seen no systematic evaluation of what should go in its place.

The first thing to remember is that there is no reason that whatever replaces it needs to gain life, any more than Regrowth's replacement needs to get cards from the graveyard.

That being said, here are some options that basically mimic the zorb's purpose of keeping Keeper alive against an overload of burn and small critters.  Some of these have been discussed in these forums, some have not.  I would love to see more of them discussed.

Cyclers:
Renewed Faith
Rune of Protection: Red
Fire/Ice

Cunning Targets:
Heroic Reunion
Samite Minstration
Blue Elemental Blast

Cards that stay in your hand vs. Control:
Swords to Plowshares
Circle of Protection: Red
Masticore

I am sure there are more cards out there.  Obviously some of these are more general cards than others, and some are pretty easy to dismiss (Heroic Reunion in builds without green) but I still would like to see some clear, articulate discussion of this.

I will start by discussing a couple cards I have personal experiance with.

Rune of Protection: Red - This card is an benchmark to which Renewed Faith can be compared.  Vs. decks that aren't red they are roughly comperable, both costing 2 to cycle.  RF costs an off color mana, but gains two life.

Vs. Red, though, is where the comparison gets interesting.  The Rune is very white mana hungry, obviously.  It can only really be considered in decks that run enough white to cast moat or celestial dawn.  In those decks, though, is it worth it?

Frankly, I am not sure.  I have tested these two a bit and my results were inconclusive.  The Rune is very nice when red gets one of its big plays, like PoP or Piledriver, through.  But I am not sure whether the loss of tempo that the Rune causes is worth that advantage.

Masticore seems also to have some potential as an anti-slight maindeck card (obviously).  Although it does not stop the burn it does help with the random losses due to topdecked PoP by ending the game.  Against non-Sligh decks it does not cycle, but it presents a strong threat that generally must be dealt with quickly.

I would love to hear other people's thoughts on how best to cope with Keeper's structural weakness vs. instant speed burn and small creatures.  Is the only way to suck up a dead card in every other matchup ala COP:Red?  Is Renewed Faith enough given Red's big damage spells?  Are keeper players better off to write the red matchup entirely in the first game and rely on a strong sideboard?

Leo