[New Card Discussion] Sadistic Sacrament

[nataz]

1. Negator's 2B manacost is actually much easier to hit on turn 1 because of 1 Simple card: Dark Ritual.
All you need to get a turn 1 5/5 is  a Ritual/Lotus and a land. Goyf only comes down on turn 1 with a mox and a land or a lotus. Total moxen in the deck = 2 (perhaps 3) and 1 Lotus. The odds of hitting an early Goyf are, therefore, slimmer.

Sure, but by turn 2 a goyf is much more likely to be played then a turn 2 negator.
 
All other combonaitons being equal the difference on turn two is chance of land + rit (the only 3 mana combonation that can't cast a goyf and can cast a negator) v. green mana source + any mana source on turn 2 for goyf. In other words, almost any 2 mana sources can cast a goyf whereas it will take a mana source + ritual or 3 mana sources to cast a negator. 

prob of negator on turn 1 > prob of goyf on turn 1
prob of negator on turn 1 and turn 2 < prob of goyf on turn 1 and turn 2.

[clayparson]

I understand that Negator can be played more easily on turn one, but once it is in play, I think Goyf is just better.  I don't see anything that Negator will do that Goyf can't once it makes it into play. 

It was also said that Goyf will generally be only a 1/2 on turn one.  Even if that is true (and I don't think it is), I think it is more important to be disrupting your opponent on turn one than maximizing your turn one aggressors.

[Miaou]

Code:

1. Negator's 2B manacost is actually much easier to hit on turn 1 because of 1 Simple card: Dark Ritual.

How often are you really going to go Land, Ritual, Negator if you have other turn one plays of say: Land, Duress.
Maybe I am playing the deck wrong, but I would rather get out of the gates with a turn 1 Duress/TS and stop any potential crazyness rather than gamble that my opponent doesn't do anything too broken.
I see Goyf/Negator do the same thing: clean up once you have disrupted your opponent enough. You need a fast clock to end the game, giving them the shortest possible window in which to come back in.

Against Fish, lets face it, you are most likely going to lose game one. That means that you need to win back to back games consistantly. That is the reason why I feel you need the whole package: Goyf + Bitterblossom + Jitte + Removal. You are going to play the control role, and Negator does a terrible job at that. Goyf on the other hand blocks other Goyfs, and is still an incredible beater against the rest of the field.

[Troy_Costisick]

The drawback of Negator is difficult to deal with IMO and hardly worth the effort in an environment where there are so many creatures being played.  If you're going to play him, why not play Bitter Ordeal too and use his drawback as an advantage.  Goyfe, Ashenmoor Gouger, or cards that are actually more disruptive to your opponent's strategy?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Or instead of playing disruption, maybe we could look at Sacrament as the ultimate Doomsday.  Doomsday + Gush -> win.  Sacrament by itself -> win.  Maybe just toss it directly into one of the old Doomsday builds in place of Doomsday and let Tendrils/EtW do what they do.  I rocked the aggro and stax-heavy St. Louis meta with the deck.

[TorpidNinja]

Or instead of playing disruption, maybe we could look at Sacrament as the ultimate Doomsday.  Doomsday + Gush -> win.  Sacrament by itself -> win.  Maybe just toss it directly into one of the old Doomsday builds in place of Doomsday and let Tendrils/EtW do what they do.  I rocked the aggro and stax-heavy St. Louis meta with the deck.

I apologize in advance for not really understanding your argument here.

On a good day with a Doomsday build, you cast DD and win either that turn or on the following turn with the combo. On a good day with Sacrament, you're eliminating key (pun unintended) components/win conditions. In the former you win immediately but, with the latter, you need additional plays to facilitate victory.

Further, while a DD deck might have a chance of stealing an early win from an aggro deck, an early Sacrament could grab, what? Null Rod, Some of their 'Goyfs or disruptive creatures? Or the Bazaars in Dredge (provided they haven't aggressively mulled into them?) That amounts to a Time Walk for them. And, of course, if you're already playing combo (G1), then you're praying for the same aggressive combo draws as the DD player anyway.

Now, the more I write - and check on T8s on Morphling.de - it does seem like a Sacrament would be really devastating to the general short-term metagame (my position comes from a very aggro-control oriented metagame.) Consider this T8 (http://morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1139) where every deck save for Bazaar would be rocked by an early Sacrament and, even then, you could cause significant damage to that Bazaar deck's game plan.

So, somewhat reversing my initial idea, does the presence of Sacrament guarantee more aggro-oriented T8s?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Doomsday (the card) was probably the single worst card in the entire deck and only really needed against dredge since it gave you a next turn win that they couldn't Therapy.  The point of my post is that with maindeck Bob, EtW, and some dedicated aggro hate, there's probably a ritual-fueled combo control deck that could be built around Sacrament.

It's a bit of a long explanation, but Doomsday wasn't much of a combo deck: it was a control deck that could start going off any time you had the balls to try.  And since I'm probably the only person to ever win a tournament with the deck, much less do so repeatedly, I'm just going to ask you to trust me on that one.

Anyways, Sadistic Sacrament is a Gush-era Doomsday player's wet dream since it's both combo and control in the same, easy to cast card.   My bet is that you can replace 3x Doomsday and 1x Gush with 4x Sacraments (since unlike Doomsday, you want to see more than one) and the remaining 2x Gush with Cabal Rits and have a viable deck.