Personal Tutor WTF

[demonic effect]

This discussion is set in place to discuss two main issues:
      1.  The power level of personal tutor (recently unrestricted) vs. that of merchant scroll (recently restricted)
      2.  Possible decks that can exploit Personal tutor the most
This discussion is going to be a very generalized description of both issues as it is meant to merely start the brainstorming process for this insanely powerful card.  This is by no means a well established article designed to elicit set in stone principles.  Rather, I hope that this thread can be used to delegate the true power/viability of this card in today's meta.

On Sept 1, Personal tutor was finally unrestricted while not in the too distant past Merchant scroll was restricted.  At first glance, this stance seems to be a little awkard considering both cards are blue and can tutor for insanely powerful cards (not to mention that Personal Tutor costs 1 less).  As such, I will analyze the differences between the two since they do constitute vastly different playing styles/card structure that they attempt to search for.
      Differences: 1. Tutor for instant vs sorcery
                       2. Tutor for blue card only vs. any color sorcery
                       3. Get in hand immediately vs. on top of library.
                       4. Merchant scroll costs 1 more to play
1.  Tutor for Instant vs. Sorcery:
     The fact that both cards are blue, and blue is the god of instants and sorceries, means that both cards have an insane card pool to choose from merely by being blue.  Ultimately, instants tend to be cards that do not win the game whilst sorceries power tends to be higher but is limited to being played during your turn (this is not to say that Gifts does not -> to win or that scroll -> ancestral is not powerful, rather, that PT for tinker saves resources vs the Gifts player who has to scroll-> gifts -> tinker = expend massive resources to play the same card.)  Merchant scrolls main use, thus, tends to be limited to finding support cards (draw, removal, other tutors) etc... which help progress the game along like a bulldozer.  In contrast, Personal Tutor has the ability to grab Yawgmoth's Will, Burning tutor, Tinker, etc... directly allowing the PT player to simply win.  While there are sorceries that can help with draw/removal/tutoring, in general, the person running PT will most likely be focused on merely grabbing the winning card that happens to be a sorcery ultimately speeding the game up vastly.  To summarize, Merchant scroll players have an advantage in that their cards are instants and thus more interactive.  This allows the MS player to play MS, and then pass the turn with mana open giving them options to either play an instant like gifts, or, if the opponent plays a spell that needs to be countered or you realize that you need to draw more cards, you can substitute playing the card you searched for with the other card to ensure that you are still in a better game state than your opponent (interactivity because you are reacting to your opponenets moves).  PT, in contrast, forces you to decide to either go for the win because the card you tutor for is a sorcery and thus must be played on your turn or to wait and play a different card relying on your current hand strength to survive for the turn.  This is not to say that PT can't substitute a sorcery draw or bounce spell, but ultimately, those cards tend to be slightly weaker than their instant bretheren forcing you to decide between a good card and a less good card.

             Differences: MS gives you more options/more interactive whilst PT grabs stronger cards.
2.  MS only allows you to tutor for a blue card while PT allows you to tutor for any card.
     This seems to be both a boon and a downfall of PT.  Ultimately, MS would be infinately better had it been allowed to grab ANY instant.  However, the fact that it was limited to blue, its own color, and the color known to have by far the best instants in the game, is only a small draw back.  the main difference comes from the versatility that PT gains by being able to grab ANY sorcery.  AKA where MS decks had to house primarily blue to maximize the effect of MS (FoW was helped by this as an additional bonus), PT allows the deck to expand its focus to include whatever card it may need allowing the deck to house whatever set of combos to win that it wants.  Ex.  MS usually got either AR, or gifts.  PT can get tinker (one kill condition), Yawgmoth's will or Burning wish (another win condition), etc...  This allows the card to promote a varied kill condition ultimately making the PT deck harder to hate out.

3.  MS allows the card to be put directly into hand vs. on top.
      This is the biggest drawback of PT vs. MS.  Namely, with a lot of the cheap cantrips like BS or ponder gone, and the fact that the card doesn't go straight into hand definately limits the power of the PT player by forcing the PT player to either expend resources or time to get the card and making their "bomb" subject to hate in the form of a shuffle effect (extirpate as an ex) or even grindstone.  While this can be limited by effects like street wraith (questionable power even with PT) or draw, w/o the cheap cantrips this has become much more difficult.  There is no getting around this difference, PT is strictly worse in that the card goes on top of library instead of in hand.  While this can be a benefit when you tap out to play PT hoping to play your tinker the next turn and the opponent has a duress or thoughtsieze, this does not outwiegh the general overall cost that this incurs.

4.  MS costs 1 more to play.
     This is generally useful in that with BS's restriction, there are less blue cards that you want to play with CC U... Ultimately, since MS is used to set up a bulldoze effect, and PT is looking for the quick win/bomb theory, the casting cost isn't a huge difference (it is more so now than when BS was not restricted).

Differences Summary:
         MS is a stronger card in that it allows you to recieve the card you want now, encourages interactivity, gives the MS player more "good" options, with little drawback from being color dependant since most good instants are sorceries.
          Pt Is a stronger card in that it gets, in general, strictly more powerful cards, expends less resources to win, gives the PT player varied win options by not being limited to blue, and fills the niche that BS left at the CC U slot...
Ultimately, I would venture to say that PT is stronger, but more limited and that its viability depends on the play style that people tend to prefer.

Possible deck ideas:  This is something I literally threw together in the last 30 minutes just to brainstorm possible options.  Clearly it is not optimal, the mana base in terms of the new moxes, dark rituals needs to be hammered out as well as the draw that I will use.  However, it does demonstrate an interesting idea that can be developed.  I'm hoping that this will spurn thought not only on the development of this deck, but as to others as well...

4x personal tutor
1x demonic tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor

1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Tinker
1x Darksteel Collosus
2x Tendril’s of agony

4x force of will
4x Duress
2x Thoughtseize

1x bounce/removal (sorcery)
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Rebuild

1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
3x Thirst for Knoweldge
2x Impulse

32 cards

4x  Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
1x Volcanic Island
4x Underground Sea
2x Island
1x Swamp

5x Mox
1x Lotus
4x Chrome Mox

4x Dark Ritual

Clearly the deck should look familiar to many.  The nice thing about this deck vs. other similar decks is the incredible ease in which one can find both a yawgmoth's will and tinker.  Aka, the objective is to play as much disruption/draw as possible until you can get a tinker or will online and go off.  PT helps find all three win cards (will, tinker, and tendril's) as well as serving as a utility card to find removal and draw (albeit not good oens vs. the cost)  If any of the win conditions fail, then the PT player should still be in a good position because their deck is still focused on disrupting the opponent, and drawing as quickly as possible, to find another win condition which is not subject to the same hate as the other (in general)...  As a result, the difference between this deck and many others is that you don't expend a TON of resources to find the kill condition allowing you to recover much easier.  If the opponent does halt your plans, hopefully you have crippled them enough and they have expended enough resources to leave you in a better situation to recover.

I could also see some variant of a tinker/transmute/PT deck being cooked up with DSC, PS, Grindstone all constitute the win.

I was not expecting this change on the B&R list and thus have not had time to truly test anything, but I am curious as to people's initial reaction to PT's power level, what decks it could find a place in, etc...  There is a lot of talk about the new moxes and timespiral however i think that this card deserves more credit than any of the others and thus deserves its own recognition.
 

[Hi-Val]

There's no real good sorcery-speed draw in this format. Deep Anal is about as close as we get. That's problem #1. You can't use PT to actually make an incremental gain, it's just a bad answer-finder or a middling bomb-finder. #2 is that outside of Will, there's really no sorcery that guarantees a win in Vintage. Even Will requires a bit of setup or time to actually be relevant.

If a deck is out there that will exploit Personal Tutor, it will involve getting Time Walk over and over again while killing with Tarmogoyfs.

[Phoenix888]

To the OP:  Why do you feel that people would run Personal Tutor in any amount when most decks don't even run a singleton Imperial Seal which is a far superior card?

[eightywpm]

outside of Will, there's really no sorcery that guarantees a win in Vintage.
If a deck is out there that will exploit Personal Tutor, it will involve getting Time Walk over and over again while killing with Tarmogoyfs.

I find this funny as personal tutor as a 4of can be found rather reliably.

Tinker => Colossus is pretty devistating, followed by a Time Walk it can be good game.  Throw the potential to find Regrowth or Recoup or Will to follow up the walk and you're in good shape.

[desolutionist]

The most important reason why Merchant Scroll was a really good tutor was because it could get Force of Will.  Personal Tutor cannot optimally find disruption so it isn't nearly as versatile.  Now that Brainstorm is restricted, it could see play as a 1, maybe 2 but will never be the backbone of a deck.

[misslehead3]

maybe there will be a deck formed around time walking enough times in a row to just win. maybe it will be URg because then you could recoup and regrowth and time walk and then do that enough timez, it could also play the painter kill if it needed to because that is a colorless combo.  any ideas?

[demonic effect]

personal tutor gives two benefits over imperial seal... 1. its blue.  Thus it works better with FoW, and fills the cc U slot that brainstorm left behind.  If merchant scroll had been another color it would not have been nearly as powerful even if it still searched for blue cards 2. Imperial seal forces you to lose life where PT does not... Ultimately life loss is not a huge deal, but, considering some deck ideas, life loss can matter. 

To Hi-Val...

I absolutely agree about the DA and draw issue as well answer finder...  That is why in my deck list I really didn't throw in any sorcery speed draw and was thinking about only 1 answer being sorcery (b/c it would still be useful even if clunkier than its counterparts simply because you could have it now vs. later).  In addition I agree about the Will argument which is why, the deck I was envisioning, would try to get tinker on line first, deal with their threats, and then finish them up with a small tendril's around mid-game...  Even though the deck I posted looks like a will deck, I would probably play it as a tinker deck first and fore-most depending on draw and match-up.  With tinker/DSC online, the opponent is on a clock while I still get to continue my game plan... draw, disrupt, and find bombs.  If they happen to remove the clock, hopefully they are either strapped on resources from my disruption and them having to find an answer allowing me time to recover and set up a nice Will...

As to your points...  there also are no instants that guarantee a win in vintage either.  Gifts requires a ton of mana, ancestral doesn't actually win you the game although it does help, etc...  If you had the option of scrolling for a gifts or going straight in and getting either tinker or will based upon the game state what would you do?  My point is that you can either find instants which allow you to find cards that do cool things or cards that win (the main win condition cards in decks now tend to be either permenants or sorceries)...  So instead of using MS to find instants that find permenants or sorceries... I figured I would just find the win condition and win...  Like I said, I know gifts is way more complicated than that and allows for the gifts player to use gifts to be incredibly more interactive than I'm letting on... but I did acknowledge that interactivity was on the side of MS...  Thats why decks based on PT have to have a different feel to them...

To desolutionist:
     MS was not good b/c it could get FoW...  FoW is definately a nice card to have, but that is not the #1 card it would get...  There are definately situations that you  know you need a FoW... but usually you don't know b/c you have no clue as to what is in their opening hand and by the time you realize you need one it is too late (MS is sorcery speed meaning you still have to pre-empt their spell by finding a counter to a spell they may or may not have).  However, I completely agree... PT may not be a 4of... I am just throwing that out there as a place to start.  Originally, MS wasn't a 4of either and people have played with many different #'s of them to great success.  I am merely saying that the card has a lot more potential than I think people think...

[Hi-Val]

I would much, much rather get Gifts than Will. If we're talking about MDG, I could use the Gifts to set up a win anyway and I could get Gifts to set myself up. Gifts is a ridiculous card that can put you in situations that are much better than having the Will. For example, ending up with Mana Drain and Mystical Tutor in my hand is ace.

I feel like you're calculating it like:

step 1: find Tinker/Will
step 2:
step 3: profit!

Vintage just doesn't work that way.

Merchant Scroll was good because it could get you FOW when you were down, Mana Drain when you were even, Ancestral when you were even, or Mystical Tutor when you were ahead. It also tracked down Hurks and Fire/Ice. Personal Tutor only really does something when you're in a position where Will can win you the game.

In any case, I encourage you to test against competent people and report your results. I reserve the right to be wrong about all of this.

[demonic effect]

fair enough... first, i want to apologize... I alluded to the fact that gifts.dec was more interactive and that MS was able to get better interactive cards.  I did not want to make this into a Gifts.dec discussion because those days have changed (at least in terms of that style of play)...  I mean we could talk about gifts.dec vs. the best PT deck to arise in the next year or two in today's meta but that will take a year or two of development to hammer it out the way gifts.dec was... the way that started was through a forum like this.  I apologize because I know that MS and gifts interact in different ways than I was discussing... And I was not discussing those issues because those days are over but I must allude to them to get the point across... its why we discuss Long.dec of old vs. Long.dec of today but only in their effective meta...  PT has a vastly different feel to it than MS.  It is not a card that you use primarily for Interactive computations... its a card that you want to make the other person react to you.  It plays more like a combo deck than combo/control in that it searches for cards to win... Winning may be a really powerful card like Will.  It may be Tinker.  It may be Mind's Desire, Tendril's of Agony, or DT to find a card that you need to win.  It doesn't matter what you are looking for, PT is looking for a card to win and those cards happen to be sorceries for this particular deck.  It may be a Painter's.dec.  But maybe you are missing a combo piece... How do you get it?  PT for tinker for Combo -> win as an example.  The advantages of the PT style of play (alluded to earlier) is that you get a style of play that has versatility because powerful sorceries like tinker and Will (as an example) don't take up many slots to create a win condition.  You must deal with two different strategies than before 1. no fixers like ponder and BS to help you leaving a Turn  1 or 1 1/2 play uncertain and 2. instead of 9 (4x MS, 4x Gifts, 1x card to win) ways to get the win conditions you have 5.  Hence the deck needs alternate strategies, cannot hope to find the right answer and thus out interact them etc...  The deck needs to be more focused and Hence a combo deck comes to mind.  The deck I listed and thus you are referring to as the only sign of a strategic PT deck as, i admitted, was only thrown together in 30 minutes.  I through it together on the basis of PT being more of a combo deck in the long style variant.  With initial playtesting (albeit very minor) I found I was looking for Tinker more.  It just has that feel to me but that is a preference not a deterrminate.  That is not to say that something like a PT deck for Tinker and Transmute Artifiacts in some form of Painter or some new and exciting combo of its own is not viable.  Point is, and the reason I left out a specific Gifts restriction and why I emphasize the parts about CC U taking over brainstorms spot is because if nothing else, while its true brainstorm did serve multiple functions in terms of hiding cards, a true fixer especially with shuffle effects, etc... PT in a post-brainstorm/ponder era can fill a niche where people are looking to set up something up for later, or attempting to disrupt first turn.  PT serves as a card to establish a clock or, albeit not as efficiently as MS since its card DA, disrupt.  However, PT is 1 CC less than MS and can be played first turn like BS as a fixer where either you are on the play and are setting up turn 2 tinker -> DSC with disruption or you are on the draw and need the first PT to grab a bounce to bounce their turn 1 play which, because you often only have 1 mana turn 1 (ie no mox) means you have the disrupt for turn two just like MS would have had plus you have more mana free that turn to help with no mox hands...  I am not saying that MS is not a better card.  But the MS we knew, was also played with BS, Ponder, Gifts, etc... all unrestricted.  I am talking about now where, because of the restriction of BS and Ponder, there is now a hole left between the CC U spot and Turn 2 where MS comes in handy.  PT fills that gap for me.  There are definately issues with it since PT is not as good as either.  But it does Serve a role in both which creates a degree of versatility that neither of the other two have too...

Still the argument is why not Imperial Seal... PT is blue.  Thus, it can pitch to FoW.  Especially with the restriction of auto-include and semiauto-include ponder the need for blue cards in a deck has increased.  Taking out a role that MS and BS used to fill and replacing that with Imperial Seal just doesn't seem to be as good.  Especially since, as I've been describing it, With fixers being decreased decks are looking to either set themselves up for later like draw or looking for some sort of disruption for turn 1 like null rod, CotV, duress etc...  As such, forcing these decks which are preparing for the long haul to suddenly deal with a bomb that comes off the draw on turn 2 that their turn 1 plans didn't prepare for (b/c you want your deck to be versatile) which sorceries CAN fulfill.  Tinker in a painter.deck is not unreasonable to ask for.  5 tinkers would be better right? if the idea is to set up the combo and win? obviously each deck will have its own feel to it (I realize that the deck just described does work well with I. Seal, i'm merely using it as an example of an alternate deck that can use PT if designed for it).  The whole point of this discussion is to figure out how to break PT... Instead of thinking I did a TON of tests across various archetypes across generations to determine this article... i did not...  I also admitted that at the beginning...  I want to figure out how to break this card.  There are clear ads and disads to this card as with any card.  Exploit those and we have a new deck

[zeus-online]

I think Personal tutor would be better in a control shell then a combo shell....There's ofcourse the possibility of making a turbo-tinker deck, with 4 personal tutor, 1 mystical, 1 vampiric, 1 imperial seal, 1 demonic, that's 8 tutors which can find tinker.
I'd imagine it being like, tutor for tinker, cast tinker, tutor for time walk...

However a deck like that would be very narrow, which is pretty bad in T1.

But looking at the options for a control shell we have:
Balance
Regrowth
Time walk
Tinker
Yawgmoth's will
Timetwister
Mind twist

Timetwister could be used to regain card advantage, but in order to get card-advantage out of timetwister you have to be able to develop your board faster then your opponent.

There's also the control mirror, where top-deck tutors generally sucks...Running 7 top-deck tutors sounds rather awfull in the control mirror.

I think most combo decks would rather run grim tutors then personal tutors to be honest, since it's just a plain better card, and it's much easier to go: Tutor, will, tutor, tendrils with grim tutor then personal tutor...in a sence  is harder to get then  in storm combo decks....And with personal tutor you'd even need a draw spell to get the card you put on top.
Another thing to note about personal tutor in storm decks is that it can't find lotus, which is often the first thing that people tutor for.

I really think that personal tutor won't lead to anything degenerate, however it might find a home, although maybe not as a 4-off.

/Zeus

[desolutionist]

To desolutionist:
     MS was not good b/c it could get FoW...  FoW is definately a nice card to have, but that is not the #1 card it would get...  There are definately situations that you  know you need a FoW... but usually you don't know b/c you have no clue as to what is in their opening hand and by the time you realize you need one it is too late

Heh.  If you're not going to win, Merchant Scroll for Force of Will is like the best thing you can do with your mana.

I am merely saying that the card has a lot more potential than I think people think...

It's definitely a fine card.  Tutors are inherently broken in Vintage.  It's one of those cards that probably just won't make the cut ultimately. 

[Hi-Val]

Hit the enter key a bit more, that last post just got the tl;dr treatment.

Personal Tutor is just too hard to exploit. I'd want Future Sight in play.

[LotusHead]

Hit the enter key a bit more, that last post just got the tl;dr treatment.

Personal Tutor is just too hard to exploit. I'd want Future Sight in play.

If in a control shell, personal tutor would obviously want a combo finish (Tendrils mainly), and I thought that Quicken might possibly see play here. It cantrips, it's awesome with Duress EOT, and basically only sucks turn 0 and 1. I thought of this only after someone mentioned Street Wraith. I'm a shop player with Bomberman roots so take that into consideration.

[Lemnear]

hmmmm ... your say'n something. Mono Blue Shop could be interesting or even a 5c shell would benefit from it. I could see 2nd turn Tinker->Titan becoming a very common play for future staxx'. Demonic, Vamp. and ISeal could get company to make cards like Balance, Tinker, Walk etc. much more present in play.

I could imagine that PT would fit much better in a deck like this than in control or combo. Since the new restriction list is announced people talking 'bout PT as replacement for the missing gap Ponder and Brainstorm left in many decks causing Pitch Long to run cards like FoF and Gifts to regain their blue-count. IMO the result of the (forced) adding of more mana expensive cards and the lack of mana/configuration-fixing especially in Tendrils-decks, is that TPS, Long etc. became damn slow -> slowing down makes Drain a real thread so they need more protection -> adding Duress etc. etc. etc. I'd make a cut here.

The main Problem is the diabolic combination of being a Sorcery (meaning to wait a whole round for the tutored card), carddisadvantage (could be fatal in Control) and imo most of all the revealing of the tutored card.

Yes, Mystical and Scroll revealed the tutored card too so there's no surprise for the opponent but they could rarely react. PT gives an opponent a whole round (I ignore all following draw like Wraith) to prepare 4 the revealed Sorcery lay'n top of your library, shout'n "I'm comin'!"

Sure you could throw 1-2 into a deck but no-one does in the past. Increasing the playable stock to 4 means giving players the ability to use it as ... say ... engine of a deck but I doubt it could fulfill that requirements. Neither it could replace Brainstorm. BS/Ponder + FoW in hand gives you options to counter or dig, PT + FoW doesn't