Looking For a Better Card Drawing Engine.

[InsaneScrub]

I have been playtesting some decks like, smeanslaver, tog, and dragon.  Their is no question that the card drawing engines of these decks are awesome.  The real question is, can we come up with a better card drawing engine.  I have been looking at concentrate, and it seems while the card does cost 2UU, tome was played, and it cost 8 mana to get 1 card, now that we are in a very fast type 1 environment, I would think the card could be utilized even.  Though it's a sorcery, 3 cards is still pretty powerful honestly.  The reason I am asking if we can make a better card drawing engine than those in place, is because I really do like to draw cards, and gain an advantage over my opponent, yet I don't like the decks mentioned earlier.

The best engine you can put together would be appreciated.  I deck list is not needed, but feel free to talk about the drawing mechanics, and as to why you feel the engine is powerful or very good.

[Toad]

There is no best draw engine. Intuition+AK is strong but sucks in Slavery and Keeper. Skeletal Scrying is strong but sucks in Slavery and Tog. Thirst for Knowledge is strong but sucks in Tog. Bazaar+Squee is strong but sucks in these decks.

Nevertheless, Concentrate is bad. 4CC sorceries are *huh*. Jayemdae Tome was played when nothing better was available.

[Ric_Flair]

Right now there are four premiere card drawing engines in Vintage, they are:

Brainstorm/Fetchlands:

While this is not exactly a draw engine, it is a card quality engine, its power is based on how cheap the parts are to play and how good they are independent of each other.  JP pointed out a while ago, this combination makes all sorts of slow control decks possible.  

AK/Intuition:

While not as cheap as the first engine, this engine is a real powerhouse.  First it allows you to draw tons of cards.  Second, it allows you to tutor for stuff as well.  I would include in this engine at least 1 Deep Analysis, as getting it in the yard is a good thing.  The only issue is that this engine is popular and using it first can give an opponent a huge benefit.

Thirst of Knowledge/Artifacts:

With the abundance of artifacts, the power of Welder, and the potential cost avoidance this is rapidly becoming the most powerful new engine.  It makes Slaver possible.  

Squee/Bazaar:

This is a good engine for non-blue decks.  It is much less consistent than the other engines, but once it is working it is really good.  

There are others, but these are the best.  

Ugh...what a generic post.

[Shadow Ninja]

Skeletal Scrying is strong but sucks in Tog.

Isn't one-for-oneing cards in the graveyard for cards to hand beneficial to the Tog?  It doubles the damage those cards were worth, while refilling your hand with potentially awesome cards.  Seems to me that's not a bad trade at all.

[Ric_Flair]

Skeletal Scrying is strong but sucks in Tog.

Isn't one-for-oneing cards in the graveyard for cards to hand beneficial to the Tog?  It doubles the damage those cards were worth, while refilling your hand with potentially awesome cards.  Seems to me that's not a bad trade at all.

The issue isn't the card conversion, it is the mana cost.  Why pay XB when an AK is so much more efficient?

[Toad]

Skeletal Scrying is expensive for Tog (most builds don't run Fact or Fiction maindeck and Fact is better in Tog) and it only doubles the damage if it resolves.

[Shadow Ninja]

Skeletal Scrying is expensive for Tog (most builds don't run Fact or Fiction maindeck and Fact is better in Tog) and it only doubles the damage if it resolves.

Yeah, that whole resolving thing does tend to be an issue.  Alright, I see your point.

[newager]

It isn't just mana cost for Scyring either.  That's not that big a deal for a Tog deck that's trying to play pure control.  In fact, that's quite good.

The problem is the overall plan of Tog.  Scyring is better if it's playing control, but Tog also plays combo, aggro-control, aggro, combo-control, aggro-combo...  It just sucks playing Scyring if the deck is trying to play anything other than control, which limits the deck that othewise is the most versitle deck possably ever created.

[jpmeyer]

Well, the real reason it sucks is because you're never going to be making X a very large number.  If you're not doing that, you've got a card that

a) costs twice as much as AK, or
b) isn't pseudo-uncounterable like Deep Analysis, or
c) doesn't let you search as well as FoF, or
d) doesn't let you cast it for free like Gush

[thorme]

The best engine you can put together would be appreciated.  I deck list is not needed, but feel free to talk about the drawing mechanics, and as to why you feel the engine is powerful or very good.

You may look into the under-utilized Aladdin's Lamp / Rush of Knowledge engine.


More seriously, there have been some attempts to use Isochron Scepter / Fire and Ice as a card-drawing mechanism.  I'm not sure how successful any of these efforts have been, given the prevelance of artifact hate in the current meta.  Still, once rolling, there is no doubt as to the power of this engine, and the utility of also being able to kill small critters w/ the Fire (welder, for example).

[Meddling Mike]

If you're just looking for broken ways to get extreme card advantage and aren't too concerned about how viable it is, why not run some MD plagarize, Your Plagarize + Opponent's Brainstorm = Ancestral for you + Hymn de Tourach for them, I've seen Samite Healer pull that on Kerz once, it was glorious.

[xzero]

More seriously, there have been some attempts to use Isochron Scepter / Fire and Ice as a card-drawing mechanism. I'm not sure how successful any of these efforts have been, given the prevelance of artifact hate in the current meta.

There are cards called Chalice of the Void, Damping Matrix, and Null Rod.

[Lucentspirit]

I can't beleive no one has mentioned Land Tax / Scroll Rack.

Ok.... I CAN beleive no has mentioned it because it's about as limited a draw engine as you can find. BUT....As far as card drawing goes it's amazing. In the days parfait was considered playable this draw engine was what made the deck viable.

[Kowal]

If you can get away with Tax/Rack, you might as well bring up Sylvan/Abundance and Pursuit of Knowledge/Brainstorm.

[carlossb]

What about the use of Thirst for Knowledge in recent lists of GAT?

[Smmenen]

The two most inherently powerful draw engines in Type One are:

1) Using Draw7s, Necro, and broken cards like Bargain and Desire

2) Brainstorm and Fetchlands.

AK/ Accumulated Knowledge is probably third.  

Everything else has been restricted:

Fact, Gush, and eventually Thirst probably.  Draw Engines are the things which fuel the best deck and that is why you can't built a better one unless it is based upon very unique/narrow synergies.

Steve

[Masticor]

There are several other Draw engines :
- Modern ones like Skullclamp in Aggro Decks or in combination with cheap critters and Genesis Chamber.
- Grafted Skullcap in MUD Decks.
- Meditates in the old StaX build


@smmenen : You missed the Bazaar (squee) drawing engine which is really strong in Decks like Dragon, Madness and (reanimator).

[Jacob Orlove]

Curiosity is SO GOOD. It's like those other engines, except you draw more cards. Seriously.

Sword of Fire and Ice is hot too.

Standstill, however, is not card drawing. It only thinks it is.

[firebird365]

Standstill is virtual card drawing.

And, of course, you forgot the aggro draw-engine of choice, the draw step.

[jpmeyer]

I can't beleive no one has mentioned Land Tax / Scroll Rack.

Ok.... I CAN beleive no has mentioned it because it's about as limited a draw engine as you can find. BUT....As far as card drawing goes it's amazing. In the days parfait was considered playable this draw engine was what made the deck viable.

Tax/Rack has the Standstill problem in that it only draws you cards if your opponent lets them draw you cards.

[Shadow Ninja]

I can't beleive no one has mentioned Land Tax / Scroll Rack.

Ok.... I CAN beleive no has mentioned it because it's about as limited a draw engine as you can find. BUT....As far as card drawing goes it's amazing. In the days parfait was considered playable this draw engine was what made the deck viable.

Tax/Rack has the Standstill problem in that it only draws you cards if your opponent lets them draw you cards.

Dude, you're right.  The solution here is to run Mindslaver recursion, so you can force them to drop a land every turn, thus making your engine not suck!  :lol:

[Purple Hat]

so it's not technically drawing but what about Survival/Squee?  it's certainly an engine.  but probably card selection not card drawing.

[The Atog Lord]

If you want to see a deck which was hyper-focused on its card drawing engine, take a look at old Extended Trix. (I know, technically, there was no drawing involved with Necro). This deck ran 4 Necros, as well as 4 Demonic Consults to fetch them, and 4 Vamp Tutors to find the Necros. The deck's game plan was to find and resolve the Necro. From there, losing became rather difficult.

A similar strategy is found in modern Rector decks. The prime focus of the deck is the resolution of its draw engine.

[Swanky]

Is Skullclamp typically avoided due to the large amounts of artifact hate and the fact that the decks that would best utilize it run Null Rods, or are there other reasons?

[dicemanx]

To make Skullclamp work you need many X/1 creatures. That's a big problem, because x/1 creatures are too weak on their own without Clamp. Furthermore, to get card advantage, you need to kill off those creatures. This costs you too much time and mana. Finally, the fact that Skullclamp is an artifact is a big strike against it.

Tax/Rack has the Standstill problem in that it only draws you cards if your opponent lets them draw you cards.

This statement is misleading in that it suggests that both are weak card advantage engines. Standstill, when resolved by a Landstill or gay/r deck, typically results in a sizeable gain. Such decks running Standstill are built to accomodate the time delay in drawing cards. Tax/Rack is more difficult to set up, but its one of the most powerful engines once it gets going. So, I'm sorry, but it's perfectly legitimate to label them as card drawing.

The thing to keep in mind is that the strength of the card drawing engine is intimately related to the rest of the deck and the synergies that exist within it. For instance, Thirst for Knowledge would not be as powerful without Welder recursion, and Bazaar/Squee is terrible without the synergies created by cards like Intuition/Lim-Dul's Vault/Compulsion (Dragon) or Mongrel/Survival (O.Stompy). Therefore, when designing a new deck or when trying to come up with a new engine (or resuscitating an old one), the overall synergy with the rest of the deck is very important.

[pox_reborn]

concentrate is too much of a liability with a card called mana drain around. The other engines are either uncounterable or are really waste of a threat to waste a counter on. Some exceptions are  like draw 7's but card advantage is so massive it can't be ignored. Brainstorm is meager and bazaar s uncounterable. Ak/intuition can be argued but its instant speed compared to a sorcery that requires tapping on your turn which no blue deck like to do.

[InsaneScrub]

I have read what everyone has discussed, and carefully considered the options, but I would like to argue about one card in particular.

Skeletal Scrying cost BX to draw X cards at the cost 1 life / card, and -1 card in your grave, ultimately it is costly, but that doesn't mean it isn't good enough.  Quite frankly I see the card as insanely powerful, but not bah roken.

I still think Concentrate is a utilizable card with mana drain. turn 2 drain turn 3 concentrate seems very viable to me.

When I asked for a list of card drawing engines not in place, not many people responded, maybe that is because I wasn't more descriptive in what I asked for.

Card Drawing list #1

4 Brainstorms
4 Thirst For Knowledge
2 Skeletal Scrying
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Urza's Bauble

This is a list I came up with, but the problem with it, is it's slow, and takes up way too many slots in a deck.  But it does, surprisingly, have some insane draw power behind it.  This list is a better example of what I am looking for in a list of card drawing engines.  I am more focused on control decks than anything.  I love togs engine, but to me it's just not feasible for control.  I would like to find an engine that doesn't have too many slots taken up that can supply some serious threat to tog in draw power.

[jpmeyer]

Concentrate is like Skeletal Scrying, except 1) not an instant and 2) requires more colored mana.