Skullclamp's apparent absence in Type 1

[Thissa2]

Why isnt Skullclamp being used in T1 aggro? This is a question I have been pondering for the past... 3 minutes, and it continued to perplex me until I began writing this post. Type 1 "aggro decks" appear to be inherently different from Type 2 aggro decks. It seems like, in Type 2,
there are many more board sweepers in the metagame, and there are no ways for aggro decks to deal with them except overwhelming the opposing decks with fuel. Most decks labeled aggro in Type 1, therefore, are very different from Type 2 aggro decks such as Goblins and Ravager. I have come to the conclusion, in the 3 minutes, that with the exception of Food Chain Goblins and MitDem Ravager, all Type 1 aggro decks deemed viable are actually Aggro-Control decks. I have also come to the conclusion in the 3 minutes that aggro-control decks aren't exactly good with Skullclamp. Part of the Aggro-Control decks nature seems to be to counter or preclude the opponent's options for winning and not-dying with their massive board advantage. Aggro decks, in Type 2 at least, don't really try to take away the options of the defending deck, but instead try to be too fast for those options.
Aggro-Control decks in Type 1 seem to take away the opponent's options/win by gaining control of the board... and Skullclamp weakens your board rather than strengthens it. Sure, you can make your board better by playing the freshly drawn cards off the clamp into play, but this takes time and mana, and aggro-control decks need to deny their opponent of as much time as possible.

I was looking at the modular thread, which seemed to me like
a very typical aggro-control deck, capable of amassing very powerful board advantage and thus winning. It doesn't run Skullclamp, and it doesn't seem like Clamp would be as good as the seemingly slower Sword of Fire and Ice.

This is because Skullclamp is actually slower in improving your board advantage.

Sure, it gives you fuel to deal with the slings and arrows of removal and countermagic, but your board is left with less, because you can't drop your entire hand all at once to reinvigorate it until the next turn. Skullclamp gives time to your opponent, and in Type 1 decks are very good at abusing time.

Don't get me wrong at all. I'm not calling Skullclamp bad at all. I've played WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much Type 2 in the past few months to say that. I'm just saying that it's not stellar in Aggro-Control. Please O Vintage Adepts, do not eat my unborn children (I will find a girl who looks somewhat like a girl with a fetish for nerds yet!)

These tenets of Aggro-Control that I've been naming hold true with
Fish too. Aggro-Control decks really neeeed board advantage to win,
and if an aggro-control deck doesnt have board advantage, it is losing.
One reason why Standstill is better than Brainstorm in aggro-control decks is that Brainstorm isn't nearly as effective at helping you attain board advantage as Standstill is at allowing you to retain board advantage. Board advantage is very easy to attain with Fish, and making it even stronger is a very important thing.

One reason why Pernicious Deed is so good against aggro-control decks (if it resolves ) is that it really shuts down their momentum and destroys board advantage instantly. Aggro-Control has been so sucessful
in Type 1 largely due to a lack of effective board sweepers that Aggro-Control decks don't have answers to. (Pernicious Deed is like the only one, and it doesn't work against every situation)
The only viable aggro-control deck that I can think of in Type 2, R/G Beasts, has a terrible time dealing with board sweepers in Type 2 as well.

Hmm... I appear to have drifted off the subject of Skullclamp and into  random subjects pertaining to Aggro-Control. And this post is getting long. So let me conclude:

For Skullclamp to be useful in a Type 1 deck, the deck must...

A. Not be Aggro-Control, but instead pure aggro or Aggro-Combo.
B. Not already have a very effective draw engine that allows the deck
to overwhelm the opponent. (sorry FCG.)
C. Be synergistic with Skullclamp, like how T2 Ravager and Goblins are.

Soo... For an AGGRO/aggro-combo (remember, im not talking about pure Combo decks)
deck to work well with Skullclamp in Type 1, it must fit all three of those criteria.

Yep. That means that Skullclamp is officially good in Type 1 Ravager affinity (not modular), which happens
to look exactly the same as Type 2 Ravager affinity.

So... I guess the only thing to say now is to start deckbuilding with these rules in mind...

...If you can find a creature base that has enough raw synergy and power to form the base of a pure aggro/aggro-combo deck BESIDES the affinity creatures and goblins.


Good Luck!

(edit: ...i didnt know it was possible to have this many run-on sentences in one post)

[skecreatoR]

I liked the entire post, but it seemed you drew too many parallels to Type2 when playing Type1.

Skullclamp is first of all based on the fact that the creature dies, a very rare ocation in Type1. A totally creature-based mirror is very rare and in FCG it is about who resolves the most powerful goblins the fastest. We need to manage our resources as efficient as possible, and making a creature equipped + letting it die is not in our interest. Of course it gives -1 in toughness, but it isn't really viable either to pop your Lackey or Welder.

Don't get me wrong at all. I'm not calling Skullclamp bad at all. I've played WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much Type 2 in the past few months to say that. I'm just saying that it's not stellar in Aggro-Control. Please O Vintage Adepts, do not eat my unborn children (I will find a girl who looks somewhat like a girl with a fetish for nerds yet!)

I think you prove my point right here. I don't think anyone are saying that Clamp is a bad card, just that it doesn't fit that well into Type1. One big difference is that T2 surely is a much slower format. I don't get why somebody say T2 is fast, I always end up looking for some action and it rarely happens. Even Ravager at its prime is much slower then anything in Type1 (Not counting the rare bursts of madness.). The thing with T2 is that every card is worse then its T1 counterparts. Take Vex over Mana Drain. Which is totally wicked considering the other? As the aggro elements get better, so does the control elements, and in such an envirroment the Clamp does not cut it.

First of all, as already mentioned, you don't want your creatures to die:

Fish(Using the U/R version as example):

Grim Lavamancer - want to stay alive as long as possible. No clamp.
Cloud of Faeries - Why would you want to kill it?
Spiketail Hatchling - The one card you could clamp, if it had higher toughness.
Voidmage - No reason to kill it.
The manlands - No.

This was one example, but I think it is quite proving. As we have the largest cardpool, we also have the best creatures available. And the best creatures are those who control the game the most based on their casting cost. Goblin Welder is an excellent example there.

C. Be synergistic with Skullclamp, like how T2 Ravager and Goblins are.

The decks in Block/T2 are designed with synergy in mind. When using a cardpool consisting of approx. 550 cards, the design of decks is already very limited. Goblins work because every card in the deck is very synergistic and, funny enough, all from the same set.

Yep. That means that Skullclamp is officially good in Type 1 Ravager affinity (not modular), which happens
to look exactly the same as Type 2 Ravager affinity.

And even there it is quite awful, and people drop the count below 4.

Skull Clamp is first of all good because of the synergy in block. In t1, it is another weak card drawer which is also very conditional.

[Negator]

Null Rod.

[VGB]

It might see play in T1 if that Carnival of Kobolds deck ever gets off the ground.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

The biggest Problem imo is that you have to run tons of 1 toughness creatures to make it worthwile. And those either suck in t1 or are not something you'd want to clamp (Welder was already mentioned). And if they are available, like in fish (which imo would love skullclamp), Null Rod is more important.

[Jacob Orlove]

Basic discussion. Moved to newbie.

[Matt]

Creatures don't die. They're either countered or ignored, or occasionally Welded out of existence, but they rarely actually die, meaning that Clamp is no good for recovering from sweeper spells - because there ARE no sweeper spells. Except Deed, and that is its own set of issues.

[Machinus]

While clearly everyone thinks that aggro is completely unviable, skullclamp increases the consistency and power of decks like goblin sligh. I think its general absence is not something that should be suprising, but rather the fact that it gives aggro decks an edge (however insignificant) that they need is something to be happy about.

[Corvel]

Skull Clamp just can't generate the same type of card adventage in type 1 as it can it type 2 because of the speed of the curent type 1 format. Add to this the fact that artifact dectruction and Null Rod are not at all uncommon and Skull Clamp can't really keep up with the standards of the format.

[TrixR4Kidz]

I'm suprised noone is mentioning that skullclamp in type 1 just isn't as powerful as it is in type 2, type 2 doesn't have brainstorms, recall, and skeletal scryings for example, yes most of those cards are used in control based decks, but it is always my believe that if you aren't running a control based deck, you aren't winning.  The only serious play I ever see skull clamp in for type 1, is some sort of combo deck as mentioned before.  Other then that,  look at the big decks in the type 1 format, you can rarely ever attack into a creature to kill, Tog attacks when he wants to end the game, angel will fly over your equipped creature, slaver will slaver lock you and the card drawing won't matter.  Slots in type 1 are far too important to be putting a card that isn't TYPE 1 material...