Discussion: Is Null Rod underplayed in Vintage?

[Buttons]

What are the best, and realistic, turn two plays that can make the most of your turn one Null Rod?

All the examples Nataz posted.

These are far better:

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Workshop, Crucible + Trinisphere.  You'd almost certainly have to draw Trinisphere for this to be a broken second turn play, as trinisphere is the norm for the first turn-play.

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Any land, Smokestack.

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Any land, Trinisphere.  (assuming you drew it, as you'd probably play it first turn, unless you were on the draw, and they had a crazy amount of artifact mana out, in which case this would probably be the correct play)

Turn one:  Wasteland, Mox, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Workshop, Crucible, abuse wasteland.

Turn one:  Workshop, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Red land, Crucible/Welder.

Or, the alternate:

Turn one:  Land, mox, Null Rod.
Turn two:  Workshop, Uba Mask.

All my examples involve workshop, but really, that's how ubastax is so good.

Sure this is one way of looking at it, but at the same time, if you could follow with orchard, wouldn't this be better?

Turn 1: Mox, orchard, Oath

You'd simply win THAT much faster.

No.  Not at all.  If you're on the draw, particularly, and your opponent is Grimlong, and they stall out, but have four moxes on the board, null rod is infinitely better.

If you're on the play, against any kind of combo, null rod is infinitely better.  That's probably it, though.

[nataz]

I don't really like most of your examples, because they (despite of certainly being nice plays) do not have specific synergy with the turn one Rod.

Although some of my examples were hardly ground breaking, at least on the issue of bazaar and welder, I disagree so hard it hurts. The entire point of rod is to steal tempo, by breaking the parity of the card. Since Null rod affects mana, the two most popular ways to abuse it would be to have 1) a mana base that can work with non-artifact acceleration (workshops), or to play a deck that simply does not use the artifact mana.

I have a question for you  cophos, what do you think was more troublesome after a 1st turn trini on the play, Jugg, or smokestax? Just because something does not actually deal damage, does not mean that it is not a threat.

Really, I think the breakthough card to combine with null rod (and goblin welder for that matter) is bazaar of baghdad. To be fair, I'm not sure if breakthough is the right word seeing how Dragon has used Null Rod in both the SB and the Maindeck on and off for years now, but still, its effect is impressive.

Allowing you to see three cards, turn 2 after a null rod is down for zero mana is pretty good, especially when you combine that with the fact that you still have your land drop from the previous turn to play with. This can let you drop a welder, shaman, tutor, etc with a "normal" land, and if you are lucky enough to have a WS it can nail you a crucible or chalice.

Furthermore, Bazaar allows you to cycle away dead moxen for more threats, and welder can cylce moxen into beatsticks/lock pieces (which is much easier to do with bazaar then with intuition/TFK in a worshop deck)


Null rod backs up the game state by a full turn, making TFK a turn 3 play, instead of a backbreaking turn 2 EOT. The same holds in principle for Inuition, and Gifts. So, while you are slowing everyone else's draw engine down, yours is up and running fine. Not to mention the fact that with 4x crucible, and 4x welder, your graveyard is basically an extention of your hand.


@ buttons

I didn't use Workshop in my examples because I thought we were trying to avoid the obvious beyond Workshop and Orchard. Steve also asked for common plays, so I tried not to use any restricted cards either.

[Buttons]

Null Rod won't be a broken card in a deck that doesn't have orchard or workshop, so the point is moot.

It's like saying FoW is good in a deck without blue cards.

[nataz]

I disagree.

I think with the right meta, null rod can be very powerful in underpowered decks like meandeck wins (I refuse to call it fish, if anything its RDW but with different colors), OFM (the real progression of fish), or in a deck like dragon, neither of which sport Workshop or Orchard. 

[cophos]

Although some of my examples were hardly ground breaking, at least on the issue of bazaar and welder, I disagree so hard it hurts.

I said "most" of your examples so I can live with this I guess.

I have a question for you  cophos, what do you think was more troublesome after a 1st turn trini on the play, Jugg, or smokestax?

Although the stack is obviously better in this particular situation this argument is completely flawed in this discussion, because: Rod won't stop your opponent casting FoW's, dropping tons of permanents and playing stuff like welders, brainstorm, crucial cards.

Really, I think the breakthough card to combine with null rod (and goblin welder for that matter) is bazaar of Baghdad.

This is one approach, successfully done by vroman before. (The welder- not dragonroute obviously. )

blah explaining uba stax

Never said it wasn't good , right?

Null rod backs up the game state by a full turn, making TFK a turn 3 play, instead of a backbreaking turn 2 EOT. The same holds in principle for Inuition, and Gifts. So, while you are slowing everyone else's draw engine down, yours is up and running fine. Not to mention the fact that with 4x crucible, and 4x welder, your graveyard is basically an extention of your hand.

Beating your opponent down while he's unable to react is pretty good too, right? In fact it seems slightly more effective than "maybe" a crucible lock et cetera.

I didn't use Workshop in my examples because I thought we were trying to avoid the obvious beyond Workshop and Orchard.

I didn't use "random" nonsynergistic cards in my examples because I thought we were just trying to find the best use for Rod.

enjoy
-Phil

[Buttons]

Null Rod is good in dragon, fish, etc, but not broken, unless, of course, you're playing belcher/grimlong. 

[ELD]

How on earth is null rod good in dragon?

[PipOC]

How on earth is null rod good in dragon?

"Null Rod is good in dragon"

EDIT: I need to learn to read

[Dante]

How on earth is null rod good in dragon?

It's not even remotely good in Dragon (see exception below)- anyone who says so hasn't played the deck.

  Having played Dragon at lots of tournaments, I've lost more games (and fear) Null Rod more than Coffin Purge/Tormod's Crypt/insert graveyard hate here.  The only possible good use in Dragon is as a sideboard card vs xxxlong/Belcher, if you expect a field full of those OR to face them top 8.

[Whatever Works]

If Null Rod can effectively be played in broken decks like Stax... There is NOOO way that the card belongs in Fish anymore... Why? Because why play a card like that in fish when you can shove it in a deck that has brokeness.

Fish should be working toward finding ways to abuse Vial + jitte or hell even skullclamp before null rod ... Two years ago this would make no sense, but in todays metagame almost everyone runs 5+ basic lands, and answers to null rod, and unlike stax... Fish allows the opponent a long ammount of recovery time.

[Buttons]

I don't know what I meant, but I didn't mean dragon.

I was probably thinking of some other deck and typed dragon because I was talking with this kid about dragon on MWS right before I wrote that.  Probably.

Having played Dragon at lots of tournaments, I've lost more games (and fear) Null Rod more than Coffin Purge/Tormod's Crypt/insert graveyard hate here.  The only possible good use in Dragon is as a sideboard card vs xxxlong/Belcher, if you expect a field full of those OR to face them top 8.

Why?  All you need is dragon/animate dead.  I don't understand why null rod is so bad for you.  Sure, it's feared if your opponent has a smokestack or something, but you can always drop the moxes for sac targets.

Not exactly understanding why you would fear this more than Tormod's Crypt.  Was that an exaggeration?

Anyway, instead of me just reciting stories from now on, I'm going to save them.
How about not spamming the boards with apprentice logs.  If you want to use some anecdotal evidence to support a point, that's fine, but do it without pasting lines and lines of random unnecessary text. -Klep

[Evilkin]

If Null Rod can effectively be played in broken decks like Stax... There is NOOO way that the card belongs in Fish anymore... Why? Because why play a card like that in fish when you can shove it in a deck that has brokeness.

Fish should be working toward finding ways to abuse Vial + jitte or hell even skullclamp before null rod ... Two years ago this would make no sense, but in todays metagame almost everyone runs 5+ basic lands, and answers to null rod, and unlike stax... Fish allows the opponent a long ammount of recovery time.

I totally disagree.  In a Stax VS Fish match up the Null Rods are far more dead in the Stax players hand then they are in the Fish players.  If my opponents turn one play is something as terribly weak as Workshop plus Null Rod he is going to lose.

[Dante]

Having played Dragon at lots of tournaments, I've lost more games (and fear) Null Rod more than Coffin Purge/Tormod's Crypt/insert graveyard hate here.  The only possible good use in Dragon is as a sideboard card vs xxxlong/Belcher, if you expect a field full of those OR to face them top 8.

Why?  All you need is dragon/animate dead.  I don't understand why null rod is so bad for you.  Sure, it's feared if your opponent has a smokestack or something, but you can always drop the moxes for sac targets.

Not exactly understanding why you would fear this more than Tormod's Crypt.  Was that an exaggeration?

This gets to the essance of Dragon builds, but...

I fear null rod more than crypt because:

• decks that play null rod also play wasteland and typically other mana denial strategies (crucible, 3 or 2 sphere, tangle wire, daze) and/or counters
• Dragon is designed to be able to play through multiple "threats" to the strategy - counters, discard, graveyard hate, just discarding 1 dragon and 1 kill, leaving the rest in your hand/deck, etc,  - there's plenty of ways to go about it.  But it does this by overloading - opponent's EOT cast Necromancy/removal on graveyard hate, then on your own turn, untap and explode again for 2-3 spells.
• Null Rod shuts down your ability to do anything but once per turn (at least turns 1-3, especially if you have to lose a land drop to Bazaar).  Dragon decks rely on the artifact mana moreso than other decks to offset the land drop for Bazaar.  Only being able to play 1 spell per your turn and their turn is FAR worse than some graveyard hate card (permenant or spell) that you can/should play around.
• It's easier for Dragon to win against graveyard hate + backup than null rod + backup, because moreso with null rod, the backup is mana denial, not counters or trying to "win first"

Dante

[bebe]

    * decks that play null rod also play wasteland and typically other mana denial strategies (crucible, 3 or 2 sphere, tangle wire, daze) and/or counters
    * Dragon is designed to be able to play through multiple "threats" to the strategy - counters, discard, graveyard hate, just discarding 1 dragon and 1 kill, leaving the rest in your hand/deck, etc,  - there's plenty of ways to go about it.  But it does this by overloading - opponent's EOT cast Necromancy/removal on graveyard hate, then on your own turn, untap and explode again for 2-3 spells.
    * Null Rod shuts down your ability to do anything but once per turn (at least turns 1-3, especially if you have to lose a land drop to Bazaar).  Dragon decks rely on the artifact mana moreso than other decks to offset the land drop for Bazaar.  Only being able to play 1 spell per your turn and their turn is FAR worse than some graveyard hate card (permenant or spell) that you can/should play around.
    * It's easier for Dragon to win against graveyard hate + backup than null rod + backup, because moreso with null rod, the backup is mana denial, not counters or trying to "win first"

Null Rod makes other cards more playable. This is why it was played in Fish. Daze becomes a much more signifact free counter with a Rod in play. A full compliment of Wastes and Strips become threatening instead of inconvenient. I found that the UB Fish build with Rods, Daze, Strips and disruption was well thought out and really rides the Null Rod advantage. Bird Sh*t does it as well - btw, Lam always touted the Daze/Rod combination in Toronto and convinced me to try it in the earliest Fish builds. So your analysis is spot on - the true synergistic cards are mana denial cards and free counters.

edit - the twom cards we should be discussing as underplayed are IMHO, Daze and Annul. Rarely in the right deck am a sorry to have drawn them.

[forests failed you]

I'm confused.

Null Rod is everywhere in Michigan, is it being underplayed in other regions around the US?

Hands down it is the most powerful anti control Stax lock component short of Trinisphere, and in decks that can consistently play and protect it, it is one of the most powerful cards in those types of decks.

I definately think that this card is going to grow in popularity as time goes on, its effect is extremely powerful and its implication within games is exceedingly fareaching. 

[Whatever Works]

If Null Rod can effectively be played in broken decks like Stax... There is NOOO way that the card belongs in Fish anymore... Why? Because why play a card like that in fish when you can shove it in a deck that has brokeness.

Fish should be working toward finding ways to abuse Vial + jitte or hell even skullclamp before null rod ... Two years ago this would make no sense, but in todays metagame almost everyone runs 5+ basic lands, and answers to null rod, and unlike stax... Fish allows the opponent a long ammount of recovery time.

I totally disagree.  In a Stax VS Fish match up the Null Rods are far more dead in the Stax players hand then they are in the Fish players.  If my opponents turn one play is something as terribly weak as Workshop plus Null Rod he is going to lose.

Your missing the point. The Fact is that Null Rod really doesnt hurt Stax all that much (to the point that it can run it without crippling its mana base). And obviously vs. fish w/null rod Stax will board it out... Null Rod does the same thing for stax that it does for fish vs. most matchups accept stax can go broke and fish cant... I just feel that Fish decks should be trying to abuse Vial/Jitte instead of null rod.

Kyle L

[Mark_Story]

I don't know if jitte and vial are as strong a plan as rod/chalice in fish anymore.  From what I've seen of the canadian OFM fish decks.  They play far more like prison with dudes, than beatdown with little gay men.  The vial jitte plan always seemed really slow to me.  In that vial takes a turn to get up and running.  Furthermore, Jitte is a huge tempo loss.  Where vial fish is equipping jitte, OFM is dropping seals or old man. 

It is also worthy of noting that OFM/rod fish destroys vial fish in the mirror.  I think the main difference is that vial fish uses cards to speed up its men, and is left with little left to disrupt the opponent.  Whereas rod fish is all about tearing up the opponents plan and beating with annoying men at the same time.

[austinnadz]

here's how I would envision a nice play:

turn 1
land + mox = null rod
turn 2
wasteland, duress go

or

turn 1
mishra's factory + mox = null rod
turn 2
land, attack for two
may not have the greatest synergy with null rod, but turn two beat for two is better than a turn two, go.

I would say off the duress, or the mini beats you've already got a good game going, you can duress away a counterspell or an oath, or you can just start to beat face. Oath of druids is also an excellent play, though that has already been mentioned.

A problem I've found with null rod is that it's almost a crutch. If I'm playing a deck that relies a lot on null rod, ie. fish I'm looking to get it out on turn one or two for sure. if I don't my game plan is kinda looking rough, because lord knows they are gonna go mox mox lotus broken on my ass and I may as well scoop. or, if I see an opening hand with mox, land, rod, I'm bound to keep it because everyone knows that a null rod first turn is pretty good normally. now I could have had crap in the rest of my hand, but I would rely on old faithful to help me out, and just sit behind a lousy null rod and do nothing the rest of the game.

now if I do have null rod out, I've lost my mana acceleration (God willing so have they), and when I do draw null rod off the top of my deck (which is bound to happen with slow fish) it's a dead card.