[Single Card Discussion] Leyline of the Void

[49 Cents]

Correct. It doesn't affect yourself, that was my point..

[Manpriest]

Don't forget, though, that they tend to turn all of the invitational cards into creatures. I am not sure, come to think of it, that any have been released as non-creatures. So, this one will probably get revamped as well. 0/1 with that ability, maybe? Yay, lets make a more fragile card that dies to Zap...

Slightly off topic, but there was an article on this a while back that discussed this very thing.  It's not that they all get printed as creatures, just that most are submitted as creatures.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Since you HAVE to run 4 to make some use out of the "vanguard"-abillity, you are automatically playing with three dead cards in your deck.
Dozer

If your opponent is playing 4x Crucible of Worlds, you're already ahead.  4 Welders and 4 Crucibles, you're golden.  An awful lot of decks will roll over to this quality of graveyard hate; I can definitely see this being played.  Planar Void is generally ignored because of the double whammy of affecting you AND the cards still hitting the yard briefly; this solves both of those problems.  This is also potentially uncounterable, which is good.

[Machinus]

Unluckyman's Paradise was Tsuyoshi Fujita's submission for the Invitational.  He didn't win, and his card will not be printed (at least until he wins).

You are incorrect.

The Poll
The Result
Discussion

Continuing to be very OT, here is some information about R&D's nerfs for Fujita's card.

[cssamerican]

Unluckyman's Paradise was Tsuyoshi Fujita's submission for the Invitational.  He didn't win, and his card will not be printed (at least until he wins).

You are incorrect.

The Poll
The Result
Discussion

Continuing to be very OT, here is some information about R&D's nerfs for Fujita's card.

Well, those changes makes it pretty worthless in Vintage. The drawback of having to discard a card is pretty severe, but the fact that you will have 4 legendary lands that only tap for one colorless in your deck 60% of the time makes it unplayable in our format in my opinion.

[miss_bun]

i think that ill-gotten gains could make leyline of the void more useful.  i dunno, just a thought. 

[Petey4335]

For reference now that we know how it is worded from the FAQ:

Leyline of the Void
{B}
Enchantment
If Leyline of the Void is in your opening hand, you may begin the game
with it in play.
If a card would be put into an opponent's graveyard, remove it from the
game instead.

* Leyline of the Void affects cards that would be put into opponents'
graveyards from anywhere, not just from play.

* Leyline of the Void's effect prevents the cards from ever reaching
your opponents' graveyards, so abilities such as haunt never trigger.

* Your "opening hand" is the hand of cards you decide to start the game
with after taking any mulligans.

* After all players have decided not to take any more mulligans, players
choose Leylines to put into play, starting with the player who will be
going first and proceeding in turn order. Each player may choose any
number of Leylines. The cards are revealed and put into play at the same
time.

* Leylines that start the game in play aren't played as spells. They
can't be countered. After each player has exercised his or her option to
put Leylines into play, the first turn of the game begins.

* The player who will be going first chooses the relative timestamp
order of all Leylines that start the game in play.

[dskippy0]

OMG!  Do we have the makings of some kind of crazy ass Serum Powder Combo deck in the running here?   :lol:

So I realize you're joking here, but I think this raises an interesting point with a lot of hoser cards, particularly the Leyline cards since getting them in your opening hand gives you an even bigger advantage. The question I'm interested in is just how advantageous is it to open the game with a Leyline of the Void against the current type1 decks. Given that for a lot of decks, counter is the dominant means of control, resolving an uncouterable Leyline has a lot of advantages over Tormod's Crypt. Decks like Control Slaver, Gifts, and Dragon don't often run more than one card (Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor often) that can remove in-play enchantments. They rely mostly on counter to keep hosers from ruining their day. Just out of curiosity I calculated the probability of opening the game with a Leyline of the Void in play before the first turn assuming you are willing to mulligan down to one card in order to get it. It comes out to 86.5% If you add Serum Powder to the deck the probability goes to 94.3%.

Now granted running a transformational sideboard that sucks up 8 cards of your sideboard to hose graveyard decks is a big hit to your other machups. I'm wondering if anyone thinks the number of graveyard based decks in the environment are worth running such a strategy given that you can say with 95% confidence that you could win games 2 and 3. Or 85.6% if you're only dedicating 4 cards.

Here's my math if you want to check it:

// Probability of opening the game with Leyline given L leylines, S serum powders, H handsize, and D cards in deck
P(_,_,0,_) = 0 // if the hand size is zero there's zero probability.
P(L, S, H, D) =
   // Probability of getting a Leyline in the hand
    P-card(L, H, D) +
   // Probability of getting a serum powder and no leyline times the probability of getting the card in a new hand after you powder
    P-snl (L, S, H, D) * P(L,S-1,H,D-H) +
   // The probability of getting neither leyline nor powder time the probability of getting the card after you mulligan.
    (1 - P-card(L+S,H,D)) * P(L,S,H-1,D)

// Probabiliy of drawing a card from a deck with N occurances, Handsize H and deck size D
P-card(N, H, D) = 1 - ((d - n)! * (d - h)!) / ((d - n - h)! * (d - h) !

// Probability of drawing a card drawing a serum powerder S, without a Leyline L, in hand size H and deck size D
P-snl(_, _, 0, _) = 0 // if the hand size is zero there's zero probability
P-snl(L, S, H, D) =
   // Probability of getting a serum powered time the probability of not getting leyline in the rest of the hand
   (/ s d) * (1 - P-card(L,H-1,D-1))  +
   // Probability of getting neither in the opening hand times the probability of getting serumpowered and no leyline in the rest of the cards
   (/ (d - s - l) d) * P-snl(L, S, H-1, D-1)

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

So I realize you're joking here, but I think this raises an interesting point with a lot of hoser cards, particularly the Leyline cards since getting them in your opening hand gives you an even bigger advantage. The question I'm interested in is just how advantageous is it to open the game with a Leyline of the Void against the current type1 decks. Given that for a lot of decks, counter is the dominant means of control, resolving an uncouterable Leyline has a lot of advantages over Tormod's Crypt. Decks like Control Slaver, Gifts, and Dragon don't often run more than one card (Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor often) that can remove in-play enchantments. They rely mostly on counter to keep hosers from ruining their day. Just out of curiosity I calculated the probability of opening the game with a Leyline of the Void in play before the first turn assuming you are willing to mulligan down to one card in order to get it. It comes out to 86.5% If you add Serum Powder to the deck the probability goes to 94.3%.

Now granted running a transformational sideboard that sucks up 8 cards of your sideboard to hose graveyard decks is a big hit to your other machups. I'm wondering if anyone thinks the number of graveyard based decks in the environment are worth running such a strategy given that you can say with 95% confidence that you could win games 2 and 3. Or 85.6% if you're only dedicating 4 cards.

I can't think of any deck that one would win against by mulling to 1 to get a leyline into play.  Mulling to anything below 5 will probably cause one to lose.  Ichorid deck or dragon could probably win by hard casting it's creatures, while gifts would just tinker ftw.

Not to say that these decks aren't hurt at all by leyline, but leyline is not enough to win one the game on it's own.  It's certainly not worth devoting 8 (or maybe even 4) sideboard slots simply for graveyard hate in a couple of matchups. 

There's also the fact that tormod's crypt is so cheap it is difficult to counter on it's own anyway, and the fact that it is free ALL the time and RFGs the current graveyard instead of imposing a replacement effect that only affects future cards makes it useful when drawn later in the game as well. 

Also keep in mind that removal directed towards crypt will simply result in one activating the crypt in response, while recasting a layline on one's own turn with 2BB is more difficult (not the mention that one's opponent has at least 1 turn to abuse his/her graveyard).

So, in conclusion, I am not sure that leyline itself is a good sideboard card, and sideboarding serum powder to complement it would simply be absolutely horrible.

[PucktheCat]

Also keep in mind that removal directed towards crypt will simply result in one activating the crypt in response, while recasting a layline on one's own turn with 2BB is more difficult (not the mention that one's opponent has at least 1 turn to abuse his/her graveyard).

While I agree with most everything you said, this is a silly argument.  When a Crypt is activated in response to bounce, it removes all cards that were in the grave before the bounce but none of the ones played after.  When you bounce a Leyline it will have already removed all cards that were put in the yard before the bounce.  The result is the same.  Any cards you that hit the grave before you find bounce are gone and any cards you play after the bounce are not.  Obviously this ignores the possiblity of a Goblin Welder in play, or a second Crypt in hand, but in the simple situation where a deck wants to bounce graveyard hate so it can build a graveyard for a turn and win, Leyline and Crypt are very nearly the same card.

[Jacob Orlove]

Don't bump threads that are over two months old, dskippy0. Warning, and thread closed. [/b]