Of Mana Drain and its place in Vintage

[arctic79]

So walk me through this.  Ideally I cast drain on turn 2 + Ideally absorb 2-3 colourless mana + Counter an opponent's spell + Turn 3 I cast Fact or Fiction or Gifts (or anything else) for U or 1U =  I lose card advantage and tempo.  Something doesn't add up here.   
I also get the impression that you think any deck that runs Drain doesn't do anything on turn 1 this is faulty logic on your part.  Have you also forgot that control decks bide time as per their design.  The whole idea of a control deck is to stall until you can play a bomb and win.  Drain also isn't the only weapon in your deck.  You have various other spells that are effective before UU is available.

[meadbert]

So I am going to go ahead and throw Hitman a bone here.  While, tournament results have clearly not backed up his claims, my personal testing has been backing it up.

I just finished running 32 decks through a gauntlet and only 1 Drain deck out of 8 finished in the top 10 while all 5 Ritual decks were in the top 13.
As a huge caveat I will point out that all 32 decklists were picked around June 21st and there was not a single Strategic Planning in the entire gauntlet, so this testing is neither cutting edge, nor even up to date.


I am starting to think that while Mana Drain and Null Rod are good cards, it is important to put enough faster cards into those decks.  This gets back to what Angry Pheldagriff was talking about when he started the "Bridging the Brainstorm Gap" thread.  I am not sure I know what the proper answer is.  Perhaps it is Strategic Planning, Duress or Wasteland.  What I am fairly sure of is that there is a Brainstorm Gap that does need to be bridged.

[bluemage55]

I am starting to think that while Mana Drain and Null Rod are good cards, it is important to put enough faster cards into those decks.  This gets back to what Angry Pheldagriff was talking about when he started the "Bridging the Brainstorm Gap" thread.  I am not sure I know what the proper answer is.  Perhaps it is Strategic Planning, Duress or Wasteland.  What I am fairly sure of is that there is a Brainstorm Gap that does need to be bridged.

Assuming hitman's arguments are correct (and I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing here, just speculating if they are), I suspect that the solution to the problem may lie in Duress effects.

I'm reminded of one of Smennen's decklists during one of the TMD Opens during the recent gush eras.  It ran 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Merchant Scrolll, 4 Duress, and 4 Thoughtseize, in order to ensure that a key threat could be negated (either with a duress effect, or drawing into FoW) by turn 1 on the play and turn 2 on the draw.

While this was designed for a faster meta that included Flash, the lesson may nevertheless hold true.  Duressing away a low-cost threat can often buy you enough time to get Drain or FoW up for a more expensive threat.  While this is less effective against Shops, where fetching black can open you up to Wasteland, and you're usually up against multiple 1st-turn threats, it is definitely valuable against TPS, which packs fewer actual threats in favor of acceleration.

Perhaps a return to Drain + Duress might be key, even without Gush to protect the mana base.  Between 4 FoW, 1 MisD, 4 Drain, 4 Thoughtseize, 1 BS, 1 Ponder, and 1 Scroll, it should be reasonably possible to ensure some sort of answer to most early threats.

[Yames]

While in some matches Duress and thoughtseize are MVPs, in a meta filled with Stax or Ichorid they tend to just suck. Even if the meta isn't "full" weakening those match ups significantly with dead cards may be a bad call as they already give you less then amazing match ups. So the issue is how bad do you want to make your Ichorid and or Stax match up by bumping up your ability to hose control or combo game plans. Usually after some testing you end up finding a balance. Much  like most decks are running right now. But hey, test it and prove me wrong. In the meantime I'd be very skeptical of the all out B hand ripping game plan.

[LordHomerCat]

Just thought I would add one point, for those of you who don't get to read Steve's articles.  To those who think Mana Drain decks are too slow for today's meta:

Archetype breakdown really doesn’t tell you everything. We need to look at the metagame by engine.

73 Mana Drain decks (36.5% of the metagame)
31 Workshop deck (15.5%)
31 Null Rod decks (15.5%)
26 Dark Ritual decks (13%)
20 Bazaar decks (10%)
19 Other Decks (10%)

Meta data from tourneys since the Gush restriction.  It seems like, as I stated, your conclusions do not follow from the evidence.

Also, my experience from playing Slaver was very anti-duress.  The card was always terrible when I tried it, and the mana denial plan was a million times better against Storm combo.  Duress is a much better offensive card than defensive.  8 Duress GAT had to deal with things like Flash, plus it had a ridiculous engine that let you just win out of nowhere constantly, which Slaver does not do.  Note that it also had Gushes to protect its manabase, and it never needed more than 2 lands anyway, so wasteland was not a big problem in that metagame.

[bluemage55]

73 Mana Drain decks (36.5% of the metagame)
31 Workshop deck (15.5%)
31 Null Rod decks (15.5%)
26 Dark Ritual decks (13%)
20 Bazaar decks (10%)
19 Other Decks (10%)

Out of curiosity, is that the breakdown of the Top 8s, or of all decks played?

Also, my experience from playing Slaver was very anti-duress.  The card was always terrible when I tried it, and the mana denial plan was a million times better against Storm combo.

Must they be mutually exclusive?  Mana denial combined with Duress against the cheap/free threats can be very potent.

8 Duress GAT had to deal with things like Flash, plus it had a ridiculous engine that let you just win out of nowhere constantly, which Slaver does not do.

That's odd, I thought Tinker, Yawg, a midgame Welder, or a hardcasted robot tends to win out of nowhere.

Note that it also had Gushes to protect its manabase, and it never needed more than 2 lands anyway, so wasteland was not a big problem in that metagame.

Does not Slaver have plenty of artifact mana, basic lands, and Crucible (and possibly SB Needle @ Waste) to protect the manabase?  Or is this insufficient?

[nineisnoone]

Also, my experience from playing Slaver was very anti-duress.  The card was always terrible when I tried it, and the mana denial plan was a million times better against Storm combo.

Must they be mutually exclusive?  Mana denial combined with Duress against the cheap/free threats can be very potent.

8 Duress GAT had to deal with things like Flash, plus it had a ridiculous engine that let you just win out of nowhere constantly, which Slaver does not do.

That's odd, I thought Tinker, Yawg, a midgame Welder, or a hardcasted robot tends to win out of nowhere.

Note that it also had Gushes to protect its manabase, and it never needed more than 2 lands anyway, so wasteland was not a big problem in that metagame.

Does not Slaver have plenty of artifact mana, basic lands, and Crucible (and possibly SB Needle @ Waste) to protect the manabase?  Or is this insufficient?

My thoughts on Duress is that it is always better at capitalizing on weaknesses than building up an advantage.  Hence, it works better in combo or combo hybrid decks because you know your opponent's hand and board position, and can attack (or in the alternative decide it's best not to attack) with respect to that weakness.  Even though Slaver can "combo" to a certain extent, it's not nearly the same as GAT or Flash.  If you can't press the Duress advantage quickly, then it's benefits are lost to become negative.  You lost a play (to use Duress) under the assumption that losing that play was better then giving them their best play.  However, they keep drawing and making plays and eventually them making a sub-optimal play is less important than you losing a play.  And as far as exclusivity goes, it's just deck economics.

Slaver runs more mana because it needs more mana, so the fact that they run more is not relevant to itself.  Crucible is relevant to this, but Gush is leaps and bounds better than Crucible for a lot of reasons, so in this case its incomparable.

[zeus-online]

I find that in the control mirrors duress is often better mid/late game then early game....But, in the combo mirror you really just need to survive for a few turns and duress helps you do that.

Duress is also great a breaking the tension when two control decks are just sitting there drawing a couple of cards and building mana...If you do it at the right time, you might just win, but timing is very important for this, and you really need to do it before the opponent just goes nuts (since duress will be a dead card afterwards regardless of if you win the counterwar or not.)

/Zeus

[kalisia]

Mana Drain has never been so good than now. The re-restriction of Gush (and Merchant Scroll) has destroyed the two decks who were difficult match-ups for Drain decks : GaT and TTS. Because they were using ''low-casting cost '' draw/counter spells, it was more difficult to be able to play Mana Drain efficiently and quickly. Now, the meta as been slowed and Mana Drain is again the key-card of blue control decks.

[TracerBullet]

Mana Drain has never been so good than now. The re-restriction of Gush (and Merchant Scroll) has destroyed the two decks who were difficult match-ups for Drain decks : GaT and TTS. Because they were using ''low-casting cost '' draw/counter spells, it was more difficult to be able to play Mana Drain efficiently and quickly. Now, the meta as been slowed and Mana Drain is again the key-card of blue control decks.

I think by definition Gush based decks had some pretty large Drain targets, and you're ignoring the fact that removing the support spells for those decks also removed the support spells for Drain-based control (namely, Brainstorm and Merchant Scroll).

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

Yes, by definition, Gush decks had large spells, as Gush has cmc 5 obviously.
In reality however, this looks a bit different, when speaking of low-casting-cost spells in GAT: Gush doesn't require you to pay mana to cast it. This means two things: It's fast and not the only spell to be played in a turn, and not blindly into possible drains. Gush decks usually ran a lot of duress effects, and it's easy to play one before gushing because it's free to play.
Also, the high-cc spells of now are likely to be bombs (fact, Gifts, TfK) that usually can't play a duress for protection (as thei're more often played in your opponent's turn and the decks running less duress than gush decks.)

And yes, blue in general was hit by removing BS and scroll. It's still the best colour though, and the new best strategy (for blue shells) is TfK + Drains now.
(As opposed to Duress+Gush, as you could say as a simplification)

[skrwbal]

this may seem to be a little off subject but from my view a tezzerett control deck with drain and a heavy counter package i.e. 4 force 4 drain 3 stifle seems like it would be really good. because not only would you have all the control you would need you would also have the tez to dig for what ever answers you would need. Drain seem ridiculous because it allows you to drop the walker so fast.

[hitman]

Gush doesn't require you to pay mana to cast it. This means two things: It's fast and not the only spell to be played in a turn, and not blindly into possible drains. Gush decks usually ran a lot of duress effects, and it's easy to play one before gushing because it's free to play.

This is what I've been trying to say.  Everyone has been saying that Mana Drain is fast and can counter spells and produce mana and ...............  The thing is the disruption other decks use is more mana efficient and faster than Drain.  Even though a Gush player had to wait until the second Island was in play to Gush, Mana Drain still sucked, even though it had a huge juicy target.  Even though, we don't have silly Gushes and Scrolls anymore, we still have the same kind of disruption and fast, albeit not always as fast as Gush, win conditions.  Even though the extreme has been taken out of the equation to some extent, I think Mana Drain is still a step behind-the-curve. 

People keep bringing up results and for good reason but has anyone broken down the metagame to discern why Drains do well where they do?  Where TPS is played in roughly the same numbers as Drain decks, like ICBM tournaments, Blue Bell and and Baltimore, TPS comes out on top.  Where Fish and Oath are played in large numbers, like Europe, Drains don't do so hot, either.  As much as some might claim they have an amazing Ichorid matchup, I can't imagine a Drain player being too happy about having to face it.  My questions earlier were, "What matchups do Drains really shine in?  Why are they being played in such large numbers?"  I still haven't gotten an adequate answer to those questions.

this may seem to be a little off subject but from my view a tezzerett control deck with drain and a heavy counter package i.e. 4 force 4 drain 3 stifle seems like it would be really good. because not only would you have all the control you would need you would also have the tez to dig for what ever answers you would need. Drain seem ridiculous because it allows you to drop the walker so fast.

While Tezzeret may be exciting, it doesn't overcome this fundamental problem of high mana dependance.  As long as decks are dependent on large amounts of mana in play, they're not going to be doing enough early enough.  The closest a Drain deck has come to a smoothly transitioned strategy is Painter because its strategy revolves around lower casting cards that have a greater effect when they resolve.  Tapping three mana to Thirst isn't as good as tapping three mana and dropping Grindstone and Painter.   If Vintage is a format of compressed time due to the power level of the cards played, wouldn't it be correct to think that decks that incorporate faster strategies and use their mana more efficiently early on will do the best?  All Tezzeret seems to be is a slower Oath of Druids.  Both don't "win" until your next turn.  It's just that one is faster and easier to play with backup than the other and isn't hurt by Null Rod.  All Tezzeret decks look to me like worse Oath of Druids decks. 

[hauntedechos]

@ hitman:  Is that to say that Fish and TMWA contain the best strategy?  As far as I know they play the most efficient spells for the mana invested, yet they take much longer to win because they win through the attack step.  I'm not sure about that so please clarify for me.  certainly I am not trying to bait anything here.


Haunted.

[hitman]

Some strategies will be much stronger than others.  I'm saying the cheaper and faster you can go while maintaining a powerful deck will be the best.  Just being cheap isn't enough in and of itself but we have several, fast, powerful strategies that don't require you do be underwhelming for the sake of speed.  The Gush decks epitomized what I'm talking about.  Because they were cheap and powerful, you were able to disrupt and overwhelm quickly.  You don't really have that as a reliable gameplan with most Drain decks because you either have enough mana to disrupt or overwhelm but not both until the mid-late game.  Why bother putting it off so long?  When other decks are able to adequately disrupt and win before an opposing deck, what inherent advantage is there to playing Drain-based decks?

[nineisnoone]

I just think your method of trying to evaluate it is wrong.  Mana Drain is not a combo piece, nor is it just a disruption piece.  It's both of these things at times (true), but Mana Drain is more about resource generation than anything else.  It's like Ancestral Recall.  It's not a combo piece (well outside of a Doomsday stack), it just transforms resources.  And it does so at a ridiculously efficient rate.  What other spell uses an opponent's resource (a spell), 1 card, 2 mana, and translate that into additional resources for you?  There's no other unrestricted spell that generate resources at that kind of rate (except Workshop I guess). 

Drain decks are less based on designing a deck around the best strategy, but in fact around the best card.  The simple reason why Drain didn't see play in the Gush era was because Gush was the best card at the time, which didn't play that well with Mana Drain.  Even back when it was Flash/Gush dominating the field, Gush was the best card, but Flash was still likely the best deck. 

[hitman]

Drain decks are less based on designing a deck around the best strategy, but in fact around the best card. 

I agree Drain decks should be doing this but in what way are Drain decks abusing "the best card" better than another deck?  A deck with a slower start should eventually have some overwhelming effect that overcompensates for the lack of effects earlier on.  What cards do Drain decks abuse that are better than the other top tier cards?  I think you'll be hard pressed to say Thirst for Knowledge and Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition are better than Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain.  I think you'd even be hard pressed to say they're better than Null Rod when Null Rod tends to beat up on Drain-based decks. 

[bluemage55]

I agree Drain decks should be doing this but in what way are Drain decks abusing "the best card" better than another deck?  A deck with a slower start should eventually have some overwhelming effect that overcompensates for the lack of effects earlier on.  What cards do Drain decks abuse that are better than the other top tier cards?  I think you'll be hard pressed to say Thirst for Knowledge and Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition are better than Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain.  I think you'd even be hard pressed to say they're better than Null Rod when Null Rod tends to beat up on Drain-based decks. 

What you're missing is the contrasting resource investment.  The reason Mana Drain is powerful is that it is not only a counter, but an acclerator.  That's why Smemmen's Ten Principles of Vintage included as principle 4 that Drain is one of the edifices of Vinage.

Whereas Dark Ritual -> Necropotence results in a powerful effect, it nevertheless forces you to invest 2 cards most of the time, resulting in -1 CA if you don't resolve it (or if it gets Duressed and Ritual sits in your hand).

By contrast Mana Drain counters a card, and on top of that gives you free mana.  In this way, it's Counterspell and Dark Ritual rolled into one.  It's incredibly powerful and efficient for UU, and the fact that it's blue only makes it stronger.

While Drain -> TfK doesn't look flashy, the functional result is approximately +2 CA.  You expend two spells (-2), counter a threat (+1 or more depending on resources invested by opponents), provide free mana for the TfK (+1, as a functional equivalent to Ritual/Petal/Blotus/etc.), and resolve TfK (+2 or +3, along with card filtering).  That makes the combined play about as brutal as Ancestral, with the potential to be more or less powerful depending on the circumstances.

[nineisnoone]

Drain decks are less based on designing a deck around the best strategy, but in fact around the best card. 

I agree Drain decks should be doing this but in what way are Drain decks abusing "the best card" better than another deck?...

I think you'll be hard pressed to say Thirst for Knowledge and Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition are better than Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Bargain.

Sorry meant best unrestricted card, i.e. Mana Drain > Dark Ritual.

What you're missing is the contrasting resource investment.  The reason Mana Drain is powerful is that it is not only a counter, but an acclerator.  That's why Smemmen's Ten Principles of Vintage included as principle 4 that Drain is one of the edifices of Vinage.

Whereas Dark Ritual -> Necropotence results in a powerful effect, it nevertheless forces you to invest 2 cards most of the time, resulting in -1 CA if you don't resolve it (or if it gets Duressed and Ritual sits in your hand).

By contrast Mana Drain counters a card, and on top of that gives you free mana.  In this way, it's Counterspell and Dark Ritual rolled into one.  It's incredibly powerful and efficient for UU, and the fact that it's blue only makes it stronger.

While Drain -> TfK doesn't look flashy, the functional result is approximately +2 CA.  You expend two spells (-2), counter a threat (+1 or more depending on resources invested by opponents), provide free mana for the TfK (+1, as a functional equivalent to Ritual/Petal/Blotus/etc.), and resolve TfK (+2 or +3, along with card filtering).  That makes the combined play about as brutal as Ancestral, with the potential to be more or less powerful depending on the circumstances.

Pretty much said it.