[Discussion] Black Lotus or Mox Sapphire in U/R Fish?

[JDawg13]

This discussion seems like a rather important one to bring up if we truly want to optimize a Fish deck.  I'm going to try to go through and compare the two and come to a conclusion of which is superior.

Amount of mana produced:
Black Lotus: UUU, generally the turn it comes into play.  Can be used to play a Null Rod in addition to something else, all on the same turn.

Mox Sapphire: Varies.  Generally no more than UUUU, at a rate of one a turn.  By that point, you should be in a position where it no longer matters, or have a Null Rod in play.  On the other end, it sometimes gives no more than U, when you use it first turn to play a Null Rod.

Advantage: Black Lotus.  It produces around the same amount of mana, sometimes more, sometimes less, and does it all on the turn you draw it.

Tempo advantage:
Black Lotus:  Large.  Allows you to do incredible tempo-advantageous things when played first turn.  Land, Lotus, Cloud of Faeries, untap land, Curiosity, Standstill/Null Rod: incredible tempo advantage for you.  Considering Fish is based almost entirely around gaining early tempo, this is early mana is incredibly important.

Mox Sapphire:  Small.  Adds a single extra mana to your early development when played first turn.  Land, Sapphire, Cloud of Faeries, untap land, Curiosity.  Next turn: Land, Standstill/Null Rod.  Some tempo advantage for you, but not nearly as much as with the Lotus.  Also, if you cast a Null Rod with a Sapphire, you negate some of the tempo advantage that you had over your opponent.  Odds are your opponent is running more artifact mana than you, so it still gains you tempo, but it still isn't as much as the Lotus gives you.

Advantage:  Black Lotus.  Most tempo advantageous card in the game.

Resiliency to hate:
Black Lotus: Will never be killed by an opponent's artifact destruction spell/ability.  You play it and sacrifice it before your opponent gets a chance to do anything about it.

Mox Sapphire: Will almost never be killed by an opponent's artifact destruction spell/ability.  You get at least one use out of it before an opponent can do anything about it.  It does still die to opposing Mox Monkeys, however.

Advantage: Black Lotus.  Resilient to all artifact destruction in the game.

Liability against opposing Goblin Welders:
Black Lotus: Existant.  An opponent weilding Goblin Welders can make your Black Lotus work against you.  You cast a Null Rod off the Lotus, he/she welds in the Lotus for the Rod.  Now, this is may seem like a bad thing, however, think about the tempo advantage you gain in that situation.  You use your Lotus to cast a Null Rod and something else.  Your opponent plays a Goblin Welder.  You get a turn to attack/draw.  Your opponent welds out the Rod for the Lotus, and possibly casts a draw spell or something else.  You then get another use out of your Black Lotus to do more tempo-advantageous stuff, while your opponent took time to play and use the Welder in order to get rid of your Null Rod.  I honestly wouldn't mind my opponent doing this to me.

Mox Sapphire.  Non-existant.  The Sapphire will more than likely remain in play, making it a non-liability against Welders.

Advantage:  Mox Sapphire, but by a narrow margin.

Usefulness when drawn late in the game:
Black Lotus: Large.  Lets you do many extra things that you may not have had the mana to do otherwise, ie. activate manlands, use Grim Lavamancer, cast more draw spells, etc.

Mox Sapphire: Small.  Just as good as drawing a land in that situation.  Will let you do one more thing than you were able to do last turn, and you can't use it for the Lavamancer.

Advantage: Black Lotus.  Simply more useful when you draw it later on.

Overall, I have to give the advantage to the Black Lotus.  It is simply way too tempo-advantageous not to be used.  Let us not forget that Fish is built to win by establishing lots of early game tempo and then winning with the board position that it built early in the game.  Don't let yourself think that "Fish isn't supposed to be explosive" or anything of that nature.  Fish is not supposed to "explosive" or win early in the game, but it is supposed to establish lots of early tempo, and the Black Lotus is a much better way in which to do that than is Mox Sapphire.

[PucktheCat]

You keep putting this in terms of Mox or Lotus.  There are 59 other cards in the deck that also need to be compared with Mox before it is cut.

U/G Madness and WTF have both run more than one artifact source successfully.

There is also at least a possible question of including Mox Ruby.

At any rate, testing will tell.

Leo

[JDawg13]

Ok, I agree that we have to look at the other 59 cards in the deck.  But I've been looking at all these Fish decklists and they all run only the Sapphire.  I'm just saying that these people would be better served if they were running the Lotus.

[Klep]

Why does it have to be Mox OR Lotus?  Why can't it be Mox AND Lotus?

[PucktheCat]

On the actual issue of the post, I have to say I do find the case for not running Lotus hard to make, devil's advocate though I may be.  The Welder argument does seem weak to me.

I think you are wrong on the late game analysis though.  While it is often irrelevant because both are equally hosed by Null Rod, the Mox is generally better for the kinds of mana costs you typically see in the late game - basically casting what you draw and activating man-lands each turn.  Lotus is best when you have many cards in hand and you want to drop them all at once, Mox is best when you have smaller costs each turn.  The late game is clearly more the latter than the former.

For testing purposes, I think about 1/3 of the time we see any given one-of in this deck it is in our opening hand and 2/3 it is drawn later in the game.  That is based on an assumption that in a typcical game this deck sees around 21 cards before the fundamental turn - 7 in opening hand, 14 drawn later.

The psuedo-mathmatical formula for the inclusion of Lotus would then be:

1/3(Lotus goodness in opening hand) + 2/3(Lotus goodness when drawn later) = total Lotus goodness

I think that the first part of the formula is clearly positive (ie, Lotus is better than the average card in the deck when in the opening hand) but there is at least a chance that the second part is negative (Lotus may very well be worse than another island/fetch when drawn later).

Leo

[JDawg13]

@Klep: It doesn't necessarily have to be just one or the other.  I just wanted to show that all the Fish decks out there that have been running just the Mox would have been better served running the Lotus if they were only willing to dedicate one slot to artifact mana.  

@Puck: You may very well be right about the late game point.  I'm starting to think that they both belong, and more testing will hopefully show one way or the other.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Quite simply, U/R is not a deck that wins in a few turns; the most insane you can get is laying sapphire and a man land to cast standstill and swing next turn. If you had a lotus instead, then I guess you could play spiketail as well and maybe not have the resources to activate the man land. Fish is not a deck of doing a whole bunch of broken stuff on one turn, that's tog and slaver. In Fish your gameplan is to disrupt your opponent sufficiently while putting something of a clock on him and as such black lotus is rarely better and often worse than a land because it does not help you with maintaining tempo over your opponent, which is essential for being able to pay activations and stay enough ahead of your opponent that standstills and daze and spiketail are still good and you can make  use of your seldom seen hard-counters. I would seriously contemplate even putting the mox in the deck because of the goblin welder/null rod arguments already presented and because the extra mana so rarely helps with anything except turn one, and even then just having an island and either stifle or ancestral in hand tickles my fancy just fine. To simplify my argument, black lotus is not needed because it doesn't help with the containment/escalation policies of the deck (perhaps the deck should be called "Revenge of the 1950's")

[Suckamouf37]

I don't see why Fish shouldn't run Lotus.  I don't see why any deck wouldn't run Lotus.  I know that fish tries to play a long, grinding game where it wears you down, but Lotus is too good not to play.  Think about going 1st turn Factory, Lotus, Null Rod, Standstill.

It is important to remember that Fish is also a Tempo deck, and what's a better Tempo card than Lotus?

[Plainswalker]

I think both Lotus and Saphire should be included, it may not be about explosion, but setting up early is, and that turn 1 Null Rod vs a turn 2 Null Rod can make all the difference. The only part I really disagreed with was this:

Liability against opposing Goblin Welders:
Black Lotus: Existant. An opponent weilding Goblin Welders can make your Black Lotus work against you. You cast a Null Rod off the Lotus, he/she welds in the Lotus for the Rod. Now, this is may seem like a bad thing, however, think about the tempo advantage you gain in that situation. You use your Lotus to cast a Null Rod and something else. Your opponent plays a Goblin Welder. You get a turn to attack/draw. Your opponent welds out the Rod for the Lotus, and possibly casts a draw spell or something else. You then get another use out of your Black Lotus to do more tempo-advantageous stuff, while your opponent took time to play and use the Welder in order to get rid of your Null Rod. I honestly wouldn't mind my opponent doing this to me.

Mox Sapphire. Non-existant. The Sapphire will more than likely remain in play, making it a non-liability against Welders.

Many Slaver decks run Shaman now for the mirror and most other decks with Welders run some way that will put stuff in your yard, be it Karn, or Smokestack or a draw 7.  Also, any good player will not weld in your lotus during your main phase or anything, but at the end of your turn and then go crazy on you.

[wuaffiliate]

the deck simply doesnt need lotus, it isnt hurt by adding it, but having an extra permament source in a deck than runs 24 mana sources that NEED consistant permanent mana sources is better in my oppinion than having an explosive 1st turn.

there are far too few broken first turns to justify playing lotus.

[OPColby]

I've been playing Landstill for quite some time which also utilizes the standstill engine.

Both are good, but Lotus is better.  It's the best card in magic.  Absolutely every deck can benefit off using a lotus instead of something else.

I'm also not a big advocate of EXACTLY 60 cards in a deck.  61 cards isn't bad.  I forget the statistic posted on how much that 1 card affects your deck, I think it was 0.2%.  Something like that.

Why does any deck play Lotus?  Easy:  First turn advantage.  It's useful in places other than your opening hand, but let's all get real.  That's the reason it's in the deck.

Is the Lotus as useful in Fish mid-game as it is in Slavery?  Of course not.  But is it still useful?  Yes.

Is the Lotus as useful in Fish early-game as it is in Slavery?  OF COURSE NOT.  But is it still useful?  HECK YEAH.

Check it out:

volcanic island, lotus, null rod, standstill, go.

That's not "broken," as in an earth winning combo broken, but that will happen fairly often.

Or how about:

volcanic island, lotus, cloud of faeries, grim lavamancer, standstill.

Umm.  Yeah.

Even though it might not be as broken as comboing out with dragon first turn with lotus, it's still a big, big play for Fish.

It's very justifiable to run Lotus.

[wuaffiliate]

GAT can use the "scrying engine" in drawing, but isnt nearly the same deck as GermBus. Because you have "experience" with landstill doesnt mean that in any way converts to GayR.

Those scenarios your presented can just happen on turn2, which will yeild you 1 more land possible to draw. Lotus is a one time shot, its a non permanent source in a deck that doesnt have as solid of a mana base as some would like.

volcanic island, lotus, null rod, standstill, go.

OR: turn 1 volc, turn 2 land, null rod. wins just a well. but you can pitch standstill to fow/misd.

volcanic island, lotus, cloud of faeries, grim lavamancer, standstill.

OR: turn1: volc, grim, turn2: island, cloud, standstill.

there is no reason to play lotus in fish it doesnt justify losing a permanent mana source. landstill runs 27-29 mana sources, it can afford to use lotus.

[OPColby]

There is a large difference between turn 1 and turn 2.

If you go first, unless they have a force of will, a first turn standstill nearly guarantees you a land and two spells.

With Lotus/Standstill, you have a better chance of getting a permanent mana source than you do with a Sapphire/Standstill.

Let me explain:

First turn, you're holding:

Two Volcs, a Sapphire, Cloud o' faeries, null rod, grim lavamancer, and a standstill.

Or:

Two volcs, a Lotus, Cloud o' Fae, null rod, grim lava, and a standstill.

With the first, you can't play a threat AND standstill.  Go ahead, try.  With the second, you can play, *gasp*  TWO THREATS, and a standstill.

With the first, they don't need to cast any spells, thereby not giving you any immediate card advantage.  With the second, they have to.

Let's take another example, shall we?

You have in your hand the exact same as above, but now one of the volcanics is a Mishra's.

Which one wins out?  If you said, "Still the Lotus," you'd be right.

What 'stable manabase' are you talking about when your Mox freaking Sapphire is tapped to bring one of your 3 MD null rods into play?  The Sapphire does jack.  That's not a 'stable manabase.'  That's not any more stable, and in fact less stable, than running a Lotus.

Sure, a Lotus doesn't do anything either when you have a Null Rod in play, so what's the difference?  Lotus is ten times better before you have a Rod in play.  Case closed.

I don't see the argument.  I just don't.  Well, maybe I do, but I don't agree in the slightest.

Wait, hold on.  Now let's talk about the difference between turn 1 and turn 2.

You're playing dragon.  It's game 3.  You have the aforementioned hand.

Okay.  You can do the following:

First turn, you put down a cloud of faeries and a grim lavamancer, but no null rod or standstill because you don't have the Lotus burst.

Dragon kills you on their first turn.  Yep, and you can't do anything about it, because you didn't draw into a FoW.

Okay:

You put down a standstill and no threats.

You now can't lay down any threats.  You don't have a Mishra's in your hand.  Dragon chills out and gains enough card advantage through Bazaar in the next two turns to make you nuts.  They duress you a bunch of times after they break your standstill, then kill you.

Now, let's say you did everything with the Lotus:

You establish threats, AND have a standstill down which draws into a FoW, wait, AND an REB.  You win the game because you didn't lay down a grim lavamancer and had a red mana to counter whatever they had.

The end.

[M]

Neither Lotus nor Sapphire should be in the deck anyway.
If you want to be active on turn 1, play with Flying Men/Stifle instead of Spiketail/Daze.

[wuaffiliate]

sapphire should most deffinately be in the deck.

DRAGON WILL NEVER KILL YOU ON THEIR FIRST TURN EVER, NEVER. HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED TYPE ONE BEFORE?

dragon is lucky to be a turn 3-4 deck, fish generally has no problem with fish, and adding lotus will NOT help that match one bit, because you have your mana base already established when dragon goes off. the dragon vs gayr match is on the fence, its 50/50 and adding lotus in no way makes that better. having a standstill and a cloud out doesnt matter vs dragon lol 1 damage a turn means nothing vs combo. you want to beat down quickly, id much rather see curiosity.

using sapphire to cast a turn 1 rod is no different than using lotus. in this case using sapphire leaves you with extra mana when they deal with rod, lotus just leaves you wanting to topdeck more mana sources. rod does not resolve all the time.

laying a standstill with no threats vs dragon isnt bad at all, ive won many games that way, and lost few. Reb doesnt matter vs dragon at all also, i think you are mistaken.

you need to play the deck to make an accurate comment on this. you obviously dont know how gayr plays out and you have absolutely no idea about its matchups. you thinking dragon can kill turn 1 is also another hint that you dont know much about t1 all together.

[Covetous]

When I first saw people playing sapphire in GayR, I almost crapped my pants.  "What the hell do you run a lone mox in a deck with null rod, when you are telling me you need stable mana sources?" was my immediate reply.  I agree that in the mox-or-lotus question, lotus is better in terms of tempo early game.  But, the need for permanent sources cannot be overlooked.  I personally would cut the mox/lotus for (gasp) a Shivan Reef.  No, I'm serious.  The deck can have problems with getting enough red, and the Reef can help with those problems.  

It seems to me that people can't make up their minds about which issue is more important--tempo advantage or manabase stability.  Everyone is saying that the deck needs a more stable manabase, so why run a source that you generally will turn off with no help from the opponent?  Tempo.  But if tempo is the reason to run the mox, then why not run the lotus due to the increased tempo advantage off the lotus?  Manabase stability.  In this situation, the two stated goals are at odds with one another.  If you want manabase stability, run more basics or some shivan reefs (a number not greater than two).  If you want tempo, run a either lotus or a lotus and a mox.  I honestly believe that the welder argument is valid--I play a lot of slaver and I play versus fish a lot (which I HATE) and assuming that I have an active welder (which can be a stretch with counters and grim), I'd rather give fish another lotus (or ten) than a null rod.  So, I believe that the vulnerability to opposing welders is a valid argument for shunning the most valuable card in the game.  But, let's be fair, on the other hand, GayR exists and is better than mono-U because grim effectively works against welders.  And let's not forget that the lotus feeds the grim.  

So, there are a lot of arguments both for and against inclusion of lotus, mox, both or neither.  It generally comes down to which aspects of the deck you deem important: tempo or stability.  I personally think that the mox is sub-optimal (did I actually just say that--blasphemy!) in this deck, but that's just my opinion.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

The problem with lotus is that it is only good before turn two (when you want null rod) in very limited circumstances. let's see what lotus plus land first turn gets you:

Here's a sample hand I just drew from appr.:

Daze
Standstill
Force
Strip
Null
G Shaman
Volc

now lets sub in lotus for strip

that gives us null rod standstill first turn with this still in hand

Daze
Force
G Shaman

The next four cards are (in order):

Island
Curiosity
Mishra's Factory
Cloud of Faeries

Don't get me wrong, this is excellent goldfish, but fish needs to interact with an opponent. So here's a sample hand for tog

AK
Volc
Demonic tutor
Mind Twist
Underground Sea
Mox Pearl
G Shaman
Mox Sapphire

Now, the most obvious problem with this is that the tog player probably doesn't play a mox monkey with no targets to break a standstill, especially when they have no FoW. So here's what turn two looks like for Fish (after tog said Underground Sea, go):

Board:
Volc, Null Rod, Standstill
Hand:
Daze, Force, Shaman, Curiosity, Island

Island, go

Tog turn two
Draw FoW
play Volc, go (as the control deck, there isn't any need to break the standstill until Fish is actually "winning" on the board

Fish turn three
draw and play Mishra's Factory, go

Tog turn three
Draw and play Library of Alexandria, go

At this point, tog is going to be drawing more cards and probably finding an answer for that late mishra's factory, or possibly just go off soon. Now, the problem we see is that the standstill was pretty much symetrical until we got the Factory, but at that point tog was in a position to get its own thing going and the fact of the matter is that having a strip would have been better than the lotus because it would have been first turn monkey, second turn standstill, because null rod isn't really imperative right now. Also, the strip would have killed a land, underground sea, to ensure that tog wouldn't get deed online in the near future, limiting it to cunning wish for firestorm or what have you. Fish is not about tons of things going on turn one, it is about staying ahead of your opponent for the entire game.

[yodoblec]

I believe that Black Lotus shouldn't be included just because it gives you a good start, but then you really just slow down which isn't what fish wants to do. Your deck should be getting more control over the board and good hand position, but Lotus just doesn't do it as good as sapphire.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

EXACTLY!

[dicemanx]

Nonsense.

Sapphire and Lotus, if you have them, should certainly go into Fish/Gay-r. Lotus is a no-brainer in my opinion - Fish is choked at the 2-cc slot, and the potential to power out two quick threats/card drawing early outweighs any nonsense of "mana consistency" or lack of synergy with Null Rod or Standstill. If you're worried about stable, permanent mana sources, remember that quick card drawing can help you a *lot* in this department. There is a huge difference between playing a 2nd turn creature, 3rd turn card draw (Standstill/Curiosity) compared to playing those cards in a span of 1 turn. Also, the difference between a 1st and 2nd turn Null Rod can be *huge* against Workshop decks or draw7/Belcher combo.

If you're not including Lotus or Sapphire, you're either on a budget or you're not maximizing the potential of this deck. If you own a Lotus, it should go in *every* competitive deck, no question. I'd go so far as to say that even the Ruby should be heavily considered in Gay/r.

[JDawg13]

now lets sub in lotus for strip

This is just silly.  I don't play Lotus in place of Strip Mine.  That's a terrible example, as you can't just randomly substitute the Black Lotus for a random card in your opening hand.  I would keep this hand, and strip the Library when my opponent played it.

Fish is not about tons of things going on turn one, it is about staying ahead of your opponent for the entire game.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  You want to do a bunch of things on turn one, because it puts you on the path to staying ahead of your opponent for the rest of the game.  The faster you develop your tempo, the better off you are for the rest of the game.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

This is just silly. I don't play Lotus in place of Strip Mine. That's a terrible example, as you can't just randomly substitute the Black Lotus for a random card in your opening hand. I would keep this hand, and strip the Library when my opponent played it.

That's exactly my point! the whole idea was to show the inferiority of Black Lotus in Fish by demonstrating how having a land is better. I also don't think it's quite fair to say that I "randomly substitute[d] the Black Lotus for a random card" what I did was replace a mana source in my hand drawn from a deck not running lotus with the mana source in question i.e., Black Lotus. I'm not attempting to present this as conclusive evidence that in five rounds of swiss one deck will do better than the other, the idea was just to provide a brief example of how having land or lotus in the opening hand is different and I most definately did not intend to imply that if you were building the deck you would run lotus over strip. However, while we're on the topic, what do you take out for the lotus? Taking out a wasteland would be ill-advised, and the mana base is already dubious. The 100% correct way to find out which card is better would be to number crunch all of the probabilities and statistics of having black lotus in combination with the cards that allow it to make the deck explosive versus having a land  (O Doctor Sylvan, wherefor art thou?).

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. You want to do a bunch of things on turn one, because it puts you on the path to staying ahead of your opponent for the rest of the game. The faster you develop your tempo, the better off you are for the rest of the game.

What I'm trying to say is that everyone's focus seems to be on the early game exclusively, which is preposterous because as my experiment has shown, the explosiveness of black lotus turn one was completely inferior to having the strip, because the game proceeded to slow down to the point that both decks in the matchup were in the same position and therefore Fish was not staying ahead. Tempo is about more than just the early turns, it's about where you are relative to your opponent and lotus does not help you maintain this advantage. The idea that establishing tempo advantage quickly will preserve it for the rest of the game is just incorrect; tog and slaver, to name a few, can snatch the game back in the mid to late game regardless of how good your first turn may have been.

If you're worried about stable, permanent mana sources, remember that quick card drawing can help you a *lot* in this department.

As demonstrated above, in many matchups your card drawing doesn't really work without the consistent mana behind it; standstill only works when you force your opponent to break it, which requires having a winning position on the board when you cast it, which limits the synergy with one-shot mana from lotus.

If you own a Lotus, it should go in *every* competitive deck, no question

This is absolutely not true. Making broad, sweeping, non-specific generalizations like this stifles development. You may as well say that all lawn care companies should use Mexicans.

[PucktheCat]

I have to say that after testing it, Lotus did not impress me at all.

Gay/r is made up of these basic catagories of spells:

Cheap creatures:
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faerie
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman

Free Disruption:
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle

Null Rods:
4 Null Rod

Cheap Draw:
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Curiosity
1 Ancestral Recall

Land:
24 of these, less some artifact mana.  These aren't relevant for this discussion.

I think everyone will agree that the cheap disruption and land aren't accelerated by Lotus.  That leaves the draw, creatures and Null Rods.

The Null Rods are probably the most important thing that is sped up by Lotus, followed closely by Standstill.  Both of these cards cost two mana and are substantially more potent dropped first turn than second.  If you have a lot of Draw-7 or Belcher in your metagame first turn Null Rod is particularly important.

Curiosity is stronger when cast using Lotus but not much, mostly because there is usually a target for it a turn earlier.  One turn earlier means one more card, which pays for the Lotus.  Basically, this is a wash, but the Lotus helps a little here.

Ancestral isn't helped much at all by Lotus - it will draw you three whenever you cast it, and sooner isn't much better than later.

That leaves the creatures.  This is what I was a bit surprised to find in my testing - for the most part the creatures suck with Lotus.

5 of them cost R, which makes them very hard to cast with Lotus.  Most often you will cast one of these with a land and cast something else with the lotus, but sometimes you will be stuck with a very weak play.  The Clouds effectively become 1cc when cast turn one with Lotus, which isn't anything to write home about.  The Spiketail and Voidmage are both accelerated by the Lotus, especaially the Voidmage, which is otherwise the hardest spell to cast in the deck.

Here is the real kicker though - accelerating out the creatures doesn't DO much.  In most cases it gets an extra 1-2 damage.  With Spiketail it may disrupt your opponent somewhat.  It may get a Lavamancer ready a turn earlier.  None of that particularly impresses me.

Most of the time Lotus generates 1-2 truly effective mana on the first turn.  It may actually be used to cast 3 mana worth of spells but generally some of them won't really be fully effective - things like casting Curiosity on a creature with summoning sickness or paying for a Cloud of Faeries even though they are usually free - then it disappears.  That isn't useless, but it is fairly weak.  Mox Sapphire often does the most important part of Lotus's job (casting a first turn Standstill with a Mishras or a first turn Null Rod against a deck dependant on a fast win with artifact mana) and serves as a permanent source of mana when that is what you need.

Now, having done that work, let me clairify what people mean when they say this deck wants "permanent mana sources."  I think this statement is true but I also think that it is misunderstood.  I know I didn't understand it until I did some testing.  What they mean is: this deck wants as few mana sources as it can possibly get away with, and to do that all of them need to be permanent.

This deck has given up an enormous amount of card quality in order to run the cheapest spells it can.  It hopes to make up for this quality synergetic card draw, but also by less mana sources that don't affect the game than other decks.  In place of Moxen, etc it runs Wasteland and Mishra's Factory - cards that maintain card economy in addition to serving as mana sources.

There are two possible things to replace with Lotus, both conceptually and as a practical matter - a blue source or a non-blue source (aka, something that actually affects the opponent in a direct way).  If you replace a blue source then you hope to keep hands with the Lotus and no other blue source.  That simply doesn't work - this deck can't reliably draw into another U source in one turn even with a Standstill.

The other option is to replace a spell, in which case you will mulligan hands that have only Lotus for blue mana.  In this case you will use a card to accelerate out all your spells and then . . . what?  Many times you will have simply accelerated out everything you have and you will prematurly enter topdeck mode.  That wouldn't be bad, except you used up a card to get there.

This deck wants to be optimized to have one blue source on the table and Lotus forces you to have two sources instead.

The decks that Lotus is great in, decks like Hulk, Lotus doesn't so much accelerate the deck as let it simply do more things than the other deck.  Often the spell cast with Lotus simply wouldn't have time to be cast at all without the extra three mana.  In that sense, Lotus activates a card that otherwise would have remained inactive due to lack of mana.  In this deck it is very rare for a card to be delayed for more than a turn or two due to a shortage of mana, so Lotus represents a lack of card economy without much of a balancing gain of effect on the game.

In the article where Smmenen proposed Lotus be put in Gay/r he also suggested that each card in the deck feels like a fraction of each card in Hulk.  I think that is true, but he forgets that each card in the deck also costs less, in general, than the competing card in Hulk.  Intuition for AK may be worth two Standstill (generously speaking) but Standstill costs three less mana - essentially a free lotus.  Most of the creatures are 1/1, traditionally regarded as a fraction of a card, but they are so cheap that they make up the other fraction of a card with another fractional effect, a casting cost low enough that it essentially represents a free mana or two.

Almost every card in the deck has an under-par performance for a single card in typically understood terms - even force of will is nothing but a two for one in your opponent's favor.  They make up for this by being dirt cheap to cast.  When you throw away a whole card making them free, though, you aren't getting a bargain.  There is only so much card quality you can lose to mana efficiency before you simply don't have the quantity of effect needed to win a game of magic, and Lotus takes Gay/r from having just enough, just in time, to having too little a bit faster.

I know some people will say that all this proves is that Mox Sapphire should go too, because it is shut off by Null Rod and therefore not a "permanent source."  That is missing the point.  Except for the Null Rod issue, Mox Sapphire is basically strictly superior to another Island (not quite, because of removal, but close).  Null Rod stops the Mox Sapphire, but you control when you cast it, so it will never leave you with NO blue sources and, more to the point, Null Rod will nearly always hurt your opponent a lot more than it will hurt you.  Bascially, the deal is, a whole lot of the battle is simply getting Null Rod into play, after that you are often in the drivers seat.  You want your deck to be as good as possible without the Null Rod so that you can acually play without it.  Cutting Sapphire because of Null Rod is like a small version of people playing Despotic Scepter in Necro decks - if you have out your key permanent just win, don't worry about little things like how you are going to get rid of your Necro.

Leo

[Phantom Tape Worm]

If I don't run lotus in my build, then lotus is sub-optimal  It's really that simple


There is no reason to think any of this through, simply follow my lead and do as I do.  Forget type 1 truisms like "every deck should run black lotus".  Forget about the possibility of turn 1 null rods vs decks like draw7 or belcher.  And definitely forget about ridiculous abstractions like "tempo" and the "fundamental turn".  I have been through the wilderness with gay/r, and I have learned its secrets.  I urge you all to cast out your ivory tower theories and follow me, for I have experienced all gay/r has to offer.  Follow me my children, for I am the creator; I am the beginning and the way.

[dicemanx]

As demonstrated above, in many matchups your card drawing doesn't really work without the consistent mana behind it; standstill only works when you force your opponent to break it, which requires having a winning position on the board when you cast it, which limits the synergy with one-shot mana from lotus.

Are you for real dude? This is all I really needed to read from you to understand that you've either never played the deck, or haven't been playing it correctly, or you aren't playing against top-tiered T1 decks. This is reminiscent of the old discussions about the down-side of the Lotus in Ankh-Sligh decks, before people came to their senses and asked themselves why the hell they aren't using a broken card to accelerate their early development.

This is absolutely not true. Making broad, sweeping, non-specific generalizations like this stifles development. You may as well say that all lawn care companies should use Mexicans

Can you even identify *one* competitive deck that doesn't benefit from a Lotus? If not, then I've hardly made a "broad, sweeping, blah, blah blah generalization".

And Stifling development? What are you talking about?

If I don't run lotus in my build, then lotus is sub-optimal It's really that simple.

Don't confuse the poor lads, PTW .

[OPColby]

Umm...

Dragon can goldfish on turn 1...

Whatever that guy was talking about was weird...

Umm...have you ever seen:

Lotus, for black, blue producing land, mox anything, thirst for knowledge to put dragon/laquatus in the graveyard, then animate dead?

Dragon can kill on first turn.

[MarkPharaoh]

I personally don't think Lotus is that great in a deck like this.  Unlike Landstill, Fish, Gay/R, wants a low amount of mana sources on the table as possible.  Lotus can accelerate your first turn but it can then cripple your development in the next few turns if your Rod/Still was countered turn1 or you draw your Lotus with Rod/Still already on the table.

[OPColby]

I could be absolutely wrong about Lotus.  I've never played U/R Fish, even though I've seen in played many times and I've played against it a good bit.

Mox Sapphire is crap if you draw it mid-game with a null rod or standstill out.  It's just as worthless as Lotus, probably moreso, because when that standstill breaks, and you get 3 cards in your hand, what if all 3 are spells?  What if one is another standstill?  Does Fish have the capability to empty it's hand and then play another standstill with a mox sapphire?  Probably not.  But with a Lotus?  Yeah.  Lotus wins again.

[wuaffiliate]

I'm absolutely wrong about Lotus.  I've never played U/R Fish. I also have illusions that Dragon is a consistant turn 1 deck, im stupid. i <3 the cack.

i agree completely, if you dont know anything about a deck its better not to comment at all. It is also ludacris to say that lotus should be played in gayr on principal, because its a type1 deck.

[JuJu]

To Translate this the best I can. This thread has been


          GEKAAPT[/b]


For the stupid people it's Hijacked in Dutch :lol: