Lets talk about Thoughtseize....

[jj2423]

I liked Steve's premium article on what cards from Lorwyn will have an effect on the vintage format. Since we discussed in an earlier topic that a possible impact card may be Ponder (whether or not it takes Opt's or Mana Drain's slot in GAT), I thought that Thoughtseize still needed some debate. I personally would not replace Duress in my GAT deck with Thoughtseize due to the fact that it can fall victim to Misdirection (which is prevalent in today’s format with all the Gush decks), but I wanted to hear others opinions on this topic. I have also heard chatter that it may be used in addition to 3 or 4 Duress, in Long.dec builds. Would it ever be a viable option for GAT to run a 5th or 6th Duress type card (aka Thoughtseize)?

[cheddercaveman]

What I see with Thoughtseize is that subtly the life total is actually starting to matter.  In a vacuum, no I don't care about losing 2 life, I'd play that card to nab something like Magus of the Moon, or Welder, or any number of creatures that can't be caught be discard.  However, we have this older awesome card called Duress too, that does ALMOST the same thing without the life loss.  So, personally, just given the 2 cards you might say that Thoughtseize is still better.  However, lets look at the typical GAT or EmptyGifts deck...

Fastbond = LOTS of lifeloss
Fetches = lifeloss
FoW = lifeloss
Mana Crypt = lifeloss (if you use this, most don't)
Mana Vault = lifeloss (if you use this, most don't)
Vampiric Tutor = lifeloss
Thoughtseize = lifeloss

This doesn't even get into other decks running things like necropotence or dark confidant.  I think maybe thoughtseize is going to be ok lifeloss wise with all the other things, but the way I see this trend going, we may have to really think about it in the future.

[The Duressed]

A deck like GAT uses its life total as its combo fuel, so one can't haphazardly throw it away to just any card for perhaps a marginal gain. So what we'd all like to know, I think, is how useful Thoughtseize would actually be in terms of protecting the GAT combo (or just simply keeping the GAT player alive, I suppose, as well).

To be perfectly honest, in terms of protecting the combo, it's almost exactly the same as Duress. The only deck against which Thoughtseize would have considerable effect in this facet of play would be Fish or other creature-based control/aggro decks. It gets rid of evil baddies like Meddling Mage, Magus of the Moon, Aven Mindcensor, and Waterfront Bouncer. The question that you must ask yourself, therefore, would be, "How prevalent are those decks in my meta?"

However, there's the other use of Thoughtseize: keeping yourself alive. Ripping away a Goblin Welder from Stax or Protean Hulk from Flash could quite possibly save the game, if not the match. But my opinion is that Goblin Welder is only a small portion of the Stax "Own You" package. Flash has a little harder of a time recovering from a stolen Protean Hulk, but it's still fairly fast.

So it all boils down to weighing risks against rewards. Does playing Thoughtseize really get that much done for you? What would make it better or worse than a Duress, or a Misdirection, or a Mana Drain? Will this extra 2 life you volunteer to give away make a huge impact on your game plan?

To those of you who've begun testing this, please don't keep us in suspesnse. Let us know how it's gone! 

[ErkBek]

I see Thoughtseize fitting perfectly into Drainless GAT decks who's disruption was something like 4 FoW, 4 Duress, 2 MisD. These builds look on paper that they could use another couple disruption spells. I could see these builds going with anywhere between 5-7 duress effects. I could really see these builds picking up in popularity now that they've got Ponder.

[madmanmike25]

I can also see Thoughtseize merely replacing the 2 Mana Drains some GAT decks run. 

I agree that 8 Duress effects might be too many unless there is a deck that wants to run 2-3 Extirpates.

As a side note, I think the addition of cards like Thoughtseize and Ponder makes Chalice @ 1 an even better play for Stax.

[hauntedechos]

Hey folks,

My thoughts on Thoughtsieze is thus: Do you want more proactive disruption, or are you happier playing reactive control?  In terms of GAT, I agree that the life loss fact is something to consider very carefully. 

In terms of Fish type decks (admittedly I am a U/W/B Fish player, in the face of U/R/Bana being the best Fish deck in today's meta), I have always thought that I needed more solid counters.  I typically have no use for the mana drain mana, an even harder time tapping 2 U sources, and other counter spells are simply not "hard counters".  This was solved for me when I started running 4 Duress, before planar came out and sent Ichorid through the roof.  What I'm getting at, is that even now, while I do have a love a hate relationship with Daze and it's weakening presence as the game meanders on, I THINK, I want 2 more Duress effects.  My only concern with this, is BoB flips.  This is the only piece that makes me think, do I want 1 or do I want 2?  Fish lacks a lot of "punch", as it was designed to, and while Duress has helped with that a bit, I think Fish almost NEEDS to fan open with a Duress effect on the play and to a slightly lesser effect on the draw.  And let's face it, the times that you are sad to see a Duress effect are.....anyone?....hrmm?..that's right, never.  So 5 Duress effects, with 1 being a loss of 2 life, doesn't seem that big of a deal to me, when compared to the benifits of it's effect.

just my 2 cents worth from a Fish player.
cheers
Mike

[TheKing23]

Personally, I think that Thoughtseize, while being extremely powerful in some key matchups and other formats, somewhat lacks in most decks in Vintage.  The lifeloss is key here, as everyone has pointed out, it fuels combos more largely.  I could see it being run as a 2-of accompaniment to a set of Duresses in GAT, but never taking the place of.  In a deck such as Fish, it may take the place of Duress, or be just the same 4/2 split.  Really, it boils down to a metagame decision.  It's strong against Flash, and Fish, but against almost every other deck, it is a Duress that you have to pay 2 life for. 

[Liam-K]

8 duress kinda hits a diminishing returns problem where after the first 1-2 there's nothing worth taking 1-for-1 and you'd rather be getting ahead instead of trying to put your opponent even further behind.  Especially in today's land-light decks it gets to the point where spending the colour to cast duress just means giving your opponent another chance to topdeck out of his raped hand sooner than you'd expect.  You want to make an opening then take it, not make an opening then try to leave it there as long as possible without using it.

[agesga]

Imagine you were playing a deck with 4 duress and 4 thoughtseize.
You decide to keep and opening hand with 1 duress and 1 thoughtseize, which one should be played first?
(Providing that you can't cast both in the same turn and you don't know what deck is running your opponent).

[TheKing23]

Duress, hands down.  It can't be Misdirectioned, and can figure out if you need to waste that 2 life to pull a more prominent threat, such as Protean Hulk, or Meddling Mage, etc...

[simo66]

Yeah.
And there are very few decks where the turn 1 creature will be a more pressing issue then the turn 1 spell.

[squeegee]

I agree with duress turn 1 as well.  Think about what you are trying to hit turn 1 on the play. 
Ancestral, Lotus, Force, Flash, Gush, Mis-D.
I dont think that Bob, Mage, Salvager, Trinks, Teeg, or many of the other creatures will be on that list.

Metalworker might be a good target.  Possibly Welder.  But even these cards will be accompanied by more dangerous cards in your average 6-7 card hand.  If not, the duress effect probably doesn't matter.

[linsi]

i just want to tell that thoughtseize won me a game against stax, cause i could choose magus of the moon on the play on turn 1, other cards in his hand were SoR and a thorn.

[Fake0ut]

I am for thoughtseize all the way, especially because of the recently R/G deck that has shown up.  And nabbing magus of the moon has helped me win a game as well.  In my opinion, against an unknown opponent there is no reason NOT to run it (unless the deck you're playing with doesn't care about creatures eg. oath).  Being misdirected sucks its true, but most decks that even run blue have only 1 MisD anyway.  It happens, but not that often.  The two life points can matter, and in fact they have for me, but I managed to strip a dryad that would have cost me more than 2 life if it had been played.  I just can't see not running it with the current metagame having more and more creatures.