Vintage Adept Q&A #7: Completing the Trifecta

[Demonic Attorney]

This is my own question to the Adepts.  I think it's topical enough that it deserves attention before the metagame settles the issue. 

The tertiary form of disruption in blue-based control decks has shifted over the years.  Misdirection, Mana Leak, Commandeer, Duress, and Thoughtseize have all filled the spot at one time or another.  But now there's a new contender:  Spell Pierce.  Do you think it will overtake its competitors and claim a place alongside Force and Drain in the typical blue list?  Do you think metagame variations will have a major impact on its Vintage playability? 

[forests failed you]

In my opinion Spell Pierce seems much better suited as a card that Fish decks might want to play, rather than a card that Mana Drain decks would want. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

It may depend on the metagame.

[Demonic Attorney]

I disagree with the perfunctory statements above.  I think Spell Pierce shows significant promise as a maindeck disruption card.  The only metagame I can think of where I wouldn't use it would be one that was heavily skewed toward Fish, aggro, Goblins, or other creature decks.

First, Spell Pierce is a blue card and it's been made significantly tougher to run an effective array of draw spells while at the same time running a complement of blue cards sufficient to reliably support Force of Will.  Since basically all the good unrestricted draw spells are black, that's a big chunk out of your blue card contingent.  Adding Duress/Thoughtseize to that burden pushes you very close to the limit of ~20 blue cards to support Force.  Spell Pierce strikes me as an efficient solution to that dilemma.

Second, Spell Pierce's effect is often extremely strong in the early game.  Early threats like Ancestral, Time Vault, Oath of Druids, Tinker, etc. aren't typically accompanied by 2 extra acceleration mana to protect from Spell Pierce.  So in the early game, one blue mana is often all you need to have a hard counter online against early threats.  Also, Spell Pierce lends itself extremely well to the psychological threat that Daze and Disrupt used to.  After it hits once, the opponent usually becomes more conservative about running out unprotected threats, letting you bluff with a single Island open.

Conversely, Spell Pierce fits very well into an early game offensive strategy to protect your threats.  It's much, much easier to manage the mana to run out a threat on turn 1-2, plus U to fuel Spell Pierce, than it is to manage that amount, plus UU to fuel Drain.  And in the very early turns, Spell Pierce can often stop Force of Will without acceleration on the other side of the table.  Being able to turn off the archetypical early protection spell for your opponent can be hugely important.

Third, Spell Pierce gives you the tempo advantage that REB used to, and that Duress and Thoughtseize didn't.  If someone taps out to play a threat that you counter with Spell Pierce, that's a much bigger tempo advantage than if you just Duressed that same card away.  Spell Pierce, unlike REB, can hit Ritual -> Necro, Orchard/Mox -> Oath, or early Vault or Key in most situations.

Fourth, Spell Pierce and Mana Drain complement each other very well when used defensively.  UUU, in some situations, allows you to have double counter online with Drain and Spell Pierce.  For example.  Assume you're countering your opponent's threat, and not the other way around, and that access to mana resources is roughly equal.  Since the opponent tapped first, they're starting from a mana disadvantage. 

So if they tap 3 to play Tinker or Will or Twister, you can use UU to throw out Drain, and now they need to cut deeper into their mana to Drain back.  If they do, you can cancel that with Spell Pierce unless they had 7 mana to your 3 at the start of the exchange.  If they have Force instead of Drain, this still requires them to have 2 more mana than you and an extra blue card to invest in the counter war.

So, all told, I've been extremely impressed with Spell Pierce.  It's definitely found a home in all my blue decks since it became legal.

[Anusien]

I saw lots of players using Negate in Bomberman and it frustrated the hell out of me.  Negate was just too slow and didn't fit the right spot on the curve.  I switched to Duress/Thoughseize, and I've been big fans of those cards for a while.  The problem is that when you keep a hand with only Duress for action, you tend to fall behind.  Sure you can Duress one of their business spells, but then they draw their card and play the other business spell they have.

I love what Spell Pierce does.  It's something I want to cast the first time I can catch a relevant spell with it.  It's just something to try and buy a reprieve so I can do something cool on turn 2.  I like Pierce over Duress because it forces them to commit mana and also because it's blue.  The main problem with Thoughtseize is that if you haven't scouted, things go awkwardly when you expose a dual land on turn 1 to cast Duress and they untap and Wasteland you out of the game.

[Grand Inquisitor]

The only metagame I can think of where I wouldn't use it would be one that was heavily skewed toward Fish, aggro, Goblins, or other creature decks.

So, like a metagame where the top deck uses a creature as its draw engine and where the top metagame deck is one of the decks you listed? (ok, Oath provides an interesting wild card here)

I'm being snarky because I believe your original post is not only lacking in substance, but inappropriate.  Not because Spell Pierce isn't good.  It's fine.  However, I think its exactly like all the other cards you listed.  It has strengths and weaknesses...especially depending on whether lots of people decide to play it.

I see the VAQnA as a place to get targeted feedback from some of the long-timers on issues that can be debated intelligently.  I think many of us have a sense of what this card will do, but this discussion is likely to create more questions than answers.  It seems perfect for the Open Forum.


To address your post,

Spell Pierce is a blue card...a complement...to reliably support Force of Will

The Ubr Tez list that's been cleaning up since GenCon runs confidant for a draw engine and duress/seize for disruption.  This is a non-issue.

extremely strong in the early game

All of the cards you compare it to in your opening post do this.

Being able to turn off the archetypical early protection spell for your opponent can be hugely important

Ditto. (Also, here you compare to mana drain, which I don't think fits the goal of your original post)

tempo

Now we're getting somewhere.  This is where I would have started a discussion on Spell Pierce.  The card's design fits it between the pro-active nature of duress/seize and the even more tempo-oriented misdirection.  The way the metagame shakes down will directly inform this discussion.

[Demonic Attorney]

I'm being snarky because I believe your original post is not only lacking in substance, but inappropriate.  Not because Spell Pierce isn't good.  It's fine.  However, I think its exactly like all the other cards you listed.  It has strengths and weaknesses...especially depending on whether lots of people decide to play it.

That's a curious remark about substance, coming from someone who posted a one-sentence answer in this thread, and about propriety, since you're addressing the person who devised the Q&A system.  But sure, okay.

Yes, Spell Pierce has strengths and weaknesses.  I think all cards do.  Does this mean we shouldn't discuss their relative merits?

The Ubr Tez list that's been cleaning up since GenCon runs confidant for a draw engine and duress/seize for disruption.  This is a non-issue.

Any time you're ready to provide some of that substance that I'm lacking, be my guest.  As for your remark, just because a deck is winning doesn't mean it's optimized to the point where it can no longer be improved.  I played that list too-- I won and lost tournaments with it.  I definitely encountered situations where I had a Force but no blue card to stop a major offensive push; this was an issue that didn't come up nearly as often in Slaver, Gifts, or GAT-- decks with a bigger blue component.  Upping the blue card count could fix that problem, and if the draw engine is off the table, then the control engine could fill in the gaps.

And furthermore, I'd say that about 50% of the field in most tournaments I've seen has been UB Tez.  So small wonder the deck does well.  That's like saying Storm Ten was a resounding success because it top 4'ed Waterbury on the back of about a dozen Meandeckers playing it.  I'm not saying that the decks should be seen the same way, but representation influences performance as well as design quality.  And even then, I'm loathe to say that any deck is perfect and beyond the point where it can be improved, particularly by newly-printed cards.

All of the cards you compare it to in your opening post do this.

I know it's easier to formulate retorts to straw men as opposed to complete statements, but come on.  Yes, Duress/Seize are good early game threats.  But they're not blue and they don't fulfill that role and support Force at the same time.  They don't generate tempo, either.  Negate isn't fast enough.  REB and MisD aren't as broad as to be virtual hard counters in the early turns.

Ditto. (Also, here you compare to mana drain, which I don't think fits the goal of your original post)

 

As Anusien already mentioned, Spell Pierce does this without the need to fetch out a nonbasic to support Duress and open you to Wasteland.

Now we're getting somewhere.  This is where I would have started a discussion on Spell Pierce.  The card's design fits it between the pro-active nature of duress/seize and the even more tempo-oriented misdirection.  The way the metagame shakes down will directly inform this  discussion.

By all means, feel free to pick up the ball and run with it.

[Grand Inquisitor]

propriety

Maybe I'm way off, I'm taking from here:

discussion on TMD back towards strategy..., to get the Adepts back involved in community leadership, and to raise the standards for Vintage-related discussion on the whole.

My beef being with the bolded.  I just didn't think your opening post was very good and I called you on it.  I explained my brevity and either way, my lack of substance certainly doesn't excuse yours.

Any time you're ready to provide some of that substance that I'm lacking, be my guest.

Really?  Because at least to me these points are coming off as defensive and ridiculous.

(blue count)...an issue that didn't come up nearly as often in Slaver, Gifts, or GAT

Gifts and GAT are totally different animals.  These decks had access to brainstorm + merchant scroll (nevermind TFK) and GAT ran 20 or fewer lands.  Slaver is apt because it has more current incarnations and it often did have trouble pitching for FoW:

Probably the best example since it has NW which could be a proxy for a confidant draw engine (blue count = 19).

These lists are probably the ones you're referring to when you're talking about Slaver with a more comfortable blue count (22 and 21 respectively). 

As for the Tez lists, I have never heard a serious gripe about the blue count or not being able to pitch to FoW.  I haven't combed through the threads on TMD, maybe it was raised there, but really, I have no idea what you're talking about.

The Gencon list had a blue count of 23.  When my team mopped up the top three spots of a local event the lists had blue counts of 22, 23, 24.  Your list was rather unconventional and came in low with a blue count of 20.

just because a deck is winning doesn't mean it's optimized to the point where it can no longer be improved....And furthermore, I'd say that about 50% of the field in most tournaments I've seen has been UB Tez

Talk about straw men.  If you don't think Tez is the most dominant deck in the last six months then you're either insincere or not paying attention.  The number of people playing it is not a significant causative factor.  I think Smmenen may have been on to something when he claimed GAT was overplayed.  That's not the case here.  Also, recent events show that while Iona should make things interesting,Tez is still a beast.

tempo...Negate isn't fast enough.  REB and MisD aren't as broad as to be virtual hard counters in the early turns...without the need to fetch out a nonbasic

Exactly.  Your follow up posts did a much better job of fleshing out what's interesting about Spell Pierce.  Don't piss at me just because you never said it in the first place.  I'm pretty sure we have nearly identical opinions about Spell Pierce.  While relevant, it's not an overly complex card to apply.

By all means, feel free to pick up the ball and run with it.

Ok.  I think it may depend on the metagame.  The cards you mentioned in the intitial post, Misdirection, Mana Leak, Commandeer, Duress, and Thoughtseize were all chosen for reasons having to do with the other competing decks at the time.  Now that we have Spell Pierce, I certainly see reasons why some of these become lesser choices (e.g., Spell Pierce may have been a better trifecta for a mystic remora list trying to combat intuition-Tez...but probably not ANT).  Right now it looks like the three decks to consider are Tez, Oath and GWx Fish.  Storm combo, SCV and Dredge are lesser considerations, but still factors.*

I see it like this: If Tez remains dominant then Spell Pierce won't be as effective.  The simple reason being that when Tez isn't going the vault/key gambit route, it's playing a much more controlling game.  These games last longer and Spell Pierce won't be as effective.  Also, their early draw spell (if it isn't Ancestral) is Confidant.

Quasali Pridemage really puts GWx Fish in a decent position.  If it remains the metagame deck of choice, Spell Pierce is additionally weakened (being able to fetch out an early island doesn't improve the matchup enough).  If something happens to make Stax more viable, maybe this will be different.  However, I do think FFY is onto something.  There's a great opportunity to abuse Spell Pierce in a deck that makes the early game a permanent game state.  However, this is really different than the topic at hand.

Oath is the wild card here.  From what I've seen the list is really good, but not a runaway favorite.  Outside of Storm (and maybe Dragon), this is the only deck that can really leverage the early game responsiveness of Spell Pierce.  However, a prepared Tez list should be able to thwart early oaths (on average) and then Oath has additional poor mid/late game draws.  As has been stated elsewhere, three of the four major limitations of Oath still exist.

So in short, unless this basic metagame triangle gets broken much (or if your local scene is much different), I don't see much changing.  The one caveat I'll throw out is the European drain decks that kill with Tendrils or Brain Freeze and are more aggressive.  My take is that the standard Tez sideboard of REBs and Remoras solve this deck, but there may be a version which breaks this trend.  If that were the case, I could see another case for Spell pierce.


*This is just my take, and I haven't been playing much, just watching T8's.  Feel free to inform me better.

[Demonic Attorney]

Alright, let's try it your way.

substance

I posted five reasons why Spell Pierce warrants serious examination.  They spanned multiple paragraphs.  I'm not sure how that translates into lack of substance.  Your asseverational characterization about "defensive and ridiculous" is so insubstantial that it doesn't even merit a response.

Gifts and GAT are totally different animals.  These decks had access to brainstorm + merchant scroll (nevermind TFK)

Actually, this is exactly the point, and I believe I spelled it out pretty clearly when I talked about losing the ability to fit blue cards into the draw engine, and thus the benefit of having more of them in the control dimension of the deck.

As for Slaver, this list is on-point; I'm talking about the design implications of the restrictions going back to June '08 when the format lost Brainstorm.  Ever since then, finding an adequate complement of blue cards has been an issue for me, precisely because of the loss of a reliable, quality 4-8 blue cards (or more) in the draw engine.

With respect to Tez, I don't know what to tell you.  I ran the Confidant build in Pandemonium and split for 1st, and then at Myriad and missed t8.  In both cases, not being able to Force a critical threat came up at least once.  Also, I'll note that Eastman's list runs a sizeable complement of blue answer cards; in designing my own version, this was something I wanted to get away from and thus ran into issues filling out the blue count.

Tez is still a beast.

Ick.  I don't take my breakfast with red herring.  To recap:  I said that there always room to improve even a winning deck.  You responded:  Tez is winning!  My reply: Even if you take Tez's performance at face value, that's not evidence that the deck can't be improved further, particularly through the addition of newly-printed cards, and especially to fix known issues with the deck that at least I have experienced.  Your retort:  "Look how well Tez is doing!"  Yeah, great.  Like I said- even if it won every single tournament from here to Gencon 2086, that doesn't mean that all 60 cards in it are perfect and there is no room for improvement.

Don't piss at me just because you never said it in the first place.  

I didn't include my answer to my own question in the original post because no one else who has submitted questions has done that and I didn't want to put my thumb on the scale of where the discussion went.  My first answer identified five (5) (cinco) (funf) (cinq) reasons why the card merited examination.  I understand you didn't like some of them, but that hardly translates into lack of substance.

As for the rest of what you said, those are fine points, but I'll add that, with the exception of Thoughtseize, none of the other form of tertiary disruption deal with early Confidant, either.  I'll grant you that Spell Pierce isn't as good in the late game, but I will say that in my testing experience, and as I noted above, intense counterwars often create mana constraints that Spell Pierce fits nicely into.  

At first I thought the same thing you did, that Spell Pierce was narrowed by really only shining in the early-early/mid game, but testing has surprised me at how many occasions there are for it to be effective outside that context.  Would I board it out against Fish?  You bet. (although game one, it could at least conceivably catch an early Null Rod, one of Fish's strongest openers)  And it goes without saying that it's one of many dead control cards against Dredge.  But other than that I think that SP has at least passable applications in every other matchup you listed, with the possible exception of SCV, only because I don't test against it and can't speak with any confidence about how the matchup plays out.

[Grand Inquisitor]

As for Slaver, this list is on-point; I'm talking about the design implications of the restrictions going back to June '08 when the format lost Brainstorm

Sure, I tried for a list that was also post-TFK, but I'm in complete agreement that the significant design constraint change dates to 6/08.

I guess I didn't understand you and wasn't trying to sidetrack with the Tez results.  My point is that when evaluating Spell Pierce, I find it's casting cost and ability to answer key spells to be miles ahead of the fact that I need to ramp blue counts in these lists.  If you've had different experiences, so be it.

didn't want to put my thumb on the scale

Ok, I can get behind this.  I'd just add that (1) since we seem to suffer from lack of engagement lately and (2) this forum is full of big boys, that I think the more you give people to respond to, the better.

none of the other form of tertiary disruption deal with early Confidant, either

Except Mana Leak, but sure.  That's a key reason we settled on Thoughtseize, actually.  Since the summer the Metagame has diversified slightly away from Dark Confidant, but he's still a huge factor.

intense counterwars often create mana constraints that Spell Pierce fits nicely into

That's what I expected too, but I haven't found that.  It's wierd, but I notice a larger emergent issue in control mirrors since TFK was restricted.  I find the big plays either come early (where, Spell Pierce is strong), or much further down the road, like turn 5+ (where it's not at all).  Games tend not to have people build big hands and have a midgame counter war.  More often people win early, or everyone get drained early and it's topdecking in the late game.  Again, most of testing is from over a month ago and this could change a lot if a majority of control players start running spell pierce (as opposed to duress/seize which thins hands down).

...edit: derf, this is probably a direct consequence of losing all the blue hand sculptors.

dead control cards against Dredge

Strangely, I think this could be a solid card post-board against dredge.  They rarely have extra mana to pay and it protects your hate for less resources than a FoW.

[Rico Suave]

In a deck that is designed to be aggressive, and I don't mean attacking with creatures but rather with spells and a way to leverage early tempo into a win, Spell Pierce presents an amazing option.

The difference between U and UU cannot be underestimated.  For the purposes of tempo, Spell Pierce is clearly a better card than even Mana Drain.  

I was playing some blue Drain-based mirrors with a good friend, and we were both playing identical lists that had Drains and each of us also had one copy of Spell Pierce just to try it out.  The lists themselves weren't typical Tezz lists but instead had more combo potential; think Drain Tendrils for purposes of this discussion.  At the end of the series I couldn't help but note that over the course of all those games, Mana Drain was cast a grand total of once - and it was off a Black Lotus.  Spell Pierce however was critical in not just one but two games, neither of which Mana Drain would have been castable in the same situation, and it meant the difference between victory and defeat in both of those games.  

Could it have been a fluke?  Sure.  Either way it sparked our interests.  So on a whim, we both decided to test taking the Drains out altogether and play Spell Pierce in its stead.  

So far the card has proved almost invaluable.  You now have permission on turn 1 outside of Force.  No longer do you have to spend your first turn doing nothing with Drain in hand, now you can take an active role in stopping those "lucky" Ancestrals and Oaths and Smokestacks and Necropotences that are designed to hit play before you get UU up.  No longer do you need to get UUU to cast Ancestral with protection, but instead you can do it as soon as you get UU.  The bonus is that by having your permission come online a turn earlier, the rest of your deck can safely come online a full turn earlier too.  This coincidentally makes a lot of situations preemptively solve themselves, since having an inherently faster deck will solve much of the answers that your opponents could play simply because they don't have the time or mana to play them at the appropriate moment.

When you are able to leverage early tempo into a win, having a cheaper and more tempo-efficient counter goes a long way towards that goal.  The card's tempo builds on itself.  Countering a first turn Mana Crypt, Black Lotus, or Sol Ring can go a long way towards further dividends down the road.  Not only have you potentially delayed their business spells by 2 or 3 turns, at which point the game might be over anyway, but maybe your opponent might need to pitch a blue spell to Force instead of hard-casting it!

This is not to say that every deck with Mana Drains should all suddenly drop their Drains and play Spell Pierce.  In many situations Spell Pierce will function exactly like Drain.  In some situations it will be worse, as your opponent might cast Will with more than enough mana to pay the 2 for Pierce.  You could even run both in the same list if you want.  What I do is ask myself in-game whether Drain would do a better, equal, or worse job than Spell Pierce.  

Ultimately if your deck or your opponent is capable of going broken, and let's face it every deck in Vintage is, having your permission online a full turn earlier is HUGE.  

[vroman]

Rico Suave is right. Spell Pierce is better than Mana Drain. We aren't in the days when you needed Drain mana to hard cast a Mindslaver, or consistently generate a game-winning Gifts pile. When was the last time you actually spent Drain mana in a dramatic fashion? The Time Vault Happens plan is so cheap that Mana Drain is only marginally better than Counterspell.
Spell Pierce is much more tactically relevant in modern Vintage. Its more about making short-term aggressive moves, than big-swing over-powering moves.
Let me make an analogy to a metagame situation from our recent history.
Remember shortly after Lorwyn, when Gush was rampant and there were decks running close to 16x Brainstorm+Ponder+Duress+Thoughtseize?
So you win the roll and every game is
1. Fetch out an Underground Sea
2. Duress/Thoughtseize opponent before they have a mana in play -OR- Ponder or hold U open for Brainstorm, so when they Duress, you have either protected your hand or at least prepared a comeback top-deck
3. Having either knocked out their best card, or parried their disruption, proceed to tutor for Recall or Gush and amplify the initial advantage until victory

Mana Drain rarely figured into this sequence of plays because the order of the first two spells hitting each other's hands greatly decided who would follow the steepest card advantage curve.

So nowadays, I contend a similar dynamic exists. Spell Pierce doubles the likelihood you will be able to pick off their Recall, and doubles your ability to protect your own Recall. If you are playing Pierce and they are playing Drain, I contend you will get 6 card swings over the mutual Recall skirmish in the neighborhood of 75% of the time. In light of this topic, I am going to start recording the frequency of double Recall counter victories.

[TheBrassMan]

partially because of this thread I've tried Spell Pierces instead of Mana Drains for two small events, and was pleasantly surprised.  They have multiple times been useful where drain wouldn't, and haven't yet been stuck unusable in hand (though they have been boarded out where drain might not have been).  That said I'm not sure another one for one answer spell is really what any decks in vintage want right now, or how much worse it gets if universally expected (though I predict not that much, it wasn't really a surprise to any of my opponents recently).  Similar to how new Oath Creatures or Ichorid hate are improvements, but rarely change the shape of a meta in any perceivable way, I think Pierce is a fine card, nothing to be embarrassed about running, who's value obviously changes given the rest of your deck and your perceived meta, but it remains to be seen if it's universally more useful than a REB or a Duress.  (way to talk a lot and not actually say anything, Andy)