Leyline of Anticipation

[BruiZar]

you shouldnt bank on this for its first turn effect. You should bank on this to make time walk, imperial seal, ponder, preordain, timetwister, wheel of fortune, demonic tutor, merchant scroll, goblin welder, regrowth, duress, thoughtseize, yawgmoth's will, oath of druids, careful study, tinker, dark confidant, top, tormod's crypt, relic, moxen, petal, mana crypt and every counter spell stronger. Why? Because you keep up counter mana until EOT, then cast all your stuff and untap on your turn.

It is the ultimate control card. If you are playing the control mirror, the player with the leyline has a clear advantage over the the one without. It is not win more. The card doesn't win anything on its own. It's a card that upgrades nearly half the cards in your deck for free putting you in the position to control the game by keeping your mana up.

I think this card can definately also see some play in some sort of new high tide deck in legacy, where it can take advantage of Reset and High Tide.

[Cyberpunker]

you shouldnt bank on this for its first turn effect. You should bank on this to make time walk, imperial seal, ponder, preordain, timetwister, wheel of fortune, demonic tutor, merchant scroll, goblin welder, regrowth, duress, thoughtseize, yawgmoth's will, oath of druids, careful study, tinker, dark confidant, top, tormod's crypt, relic, moxen, petal, mana crypt and every counter spell stronger. Why? Because you keep up counter mana until EOT, then cast all your stuff and untap on your turn.

It is the ultimate control card. If you are playing the control mirror, the player with the leyline has a clear advantage over the the one without. It is not win more. The card doesn't win anything on its own. It's a card that upgrades nearly half the cards in your deck for free putting you in the position to control the game by keeping your mana up.

I think this card can definately also see some play in some sort of new high tide deck in legacy, where it can take advantage of Reset and High Tide.

You may very well be right. The one concern I have is that your opponent will have more cards than you if you run Leyline. Leyline itself is -1 card advantage. And in the control mirror, it could mean that I have 1 more counter or 1 more threat than you do as a result.

[Delha]

Yeah, but it also means that you can choose to start on the upside of every single counter war. Instead of running your threat out into the mana they left untapped, you can Scroll/DT in response to their EOT draw spells.

I see lots of potential here, but it also wouldn't surprise me if it's too hard to break efficiently. Any new card has a pretty high bar to meet in order to see competitive Vintage play.

[JR]

you shouldnt bank on this for its first turn effect. You should bank on this to make time walk, imperial seal, ponder, preordain, timetwister, wheel of fortune, demonic tutor, merchant scroll, goblin welder, regrowth, duress, thoughtseize, yawgmoth's will, oath of druids, careful study, tinker, dark confidant, top, tormod's crypt, relic, moxen, petal, mana crypt and every counter spell stronger. Why? Because you keep up counter mana until EOT, then cast all your stuff and untap on your turn.

It is the ultimate control card. If you are playing the control mirror, the player with the leyline has a clear advantage over the the one without. It is not win more. The card doesn't win anything on its own. It's a card that upgrades nearly half the cards in your deck for free putting you in the position to control the game by keeping your mana up.

I think this card can definately also see some play in some sort of new high tide deck in legacy, where it can take advantage of Reset and High Tide.

While I happen to think this card has alot of great potential, one place i do not see it fitting is into a control deck. With the exception of Merchant Scroll and Demonic Tutor, every card I really want in a control mirror is an instant anyway. I would hate to have this card in my deck in a control mirror because a) if its in my opening hand, which is optimal, I'm already down a card in the control mirror and b) it means I am running 4 less cards that would potentially be game breaking than my opponent, so his control deck has strictly better card quality than mine. That is a seemingly less than desirable situation.

Look at it this way: if someone said to you, "You have to play the control mirror, and all your spells are instant speed for the rest of the game, but you have to start the game with a six card hand and you have to run three Hakim Loreweaver in your deck" I don't think you'd be exactly thrilled about the prospect, nor would anyone be saying "Hakim isn't a terrible top deck; remember, he picthes to Force of Will".

Just my thoughts.

[bb-g]

Personally I think this card has the wost value in Combo-decks. Using the stormcount of the opponent to kill at instant speek seems very sick. I don't know if this card can be broken for Vintage play, but i guess i would try it in a comboshell.

[nineisnoone]

you shouldnt bank on this for its first turn effect. You should bank on this to make time walk, imperial seal, ponder, preordain, timetwister, wheel of fortune, demonic tutor, merchant scroll, goblin welder, regrowth, duress, thoughtseize, yawgmoth's will, oath of druids, careful study, tinker, dark confidant, top, tormod's crypt, relic, moxen, petal, mana crypt and every counter spell stronger. Why? Because you keep up counter mana until EOT, then cast all your stuff and untap on your turn.

It is the ultimate control card. If you are playing the control mirror, the player with the leyline has a clear advantage over the the one without. It is not win more. The card doesn't win anything on its own. It's a card that upgrades nearly half the cards in your deck for free putting you in the position to control the game by keeping your mana up.

I think this card can definately also see some play in some sort of new high tide deck in legacy, where it can take advantage of Reset and High Tide.

You are definitely right it is great in the control mirror, but I wouldn't call it a control card, I'd call it an anti-control card.  If you have this and they don't, Mana Drain sort of becomes trash (exaggeration, but it's significantly worse).  But if they aren't running anything at instant speed, it's sort of rubbish.  The only reason why it is effectively a control card is because counterspells are so ubiquitous in Vintage.

Personally I think this card has the wost value in Combo-decks. Using the stormcount of the opponent to kill at instant speek seems very sick. I don't know if this card can be broken for Vintage play, but i guess i would try it in a comboshell.

Oh god, I hadn't even considered that.  So good.

[Delha]

Why do people not read before posting? It's not like this is 15 pages deep.

Comboing out at instant speed came up four posts into the thread.

[vassago]

After reading through this, and really thinking about it, I think that this cards isn't as cool as I originally thought. It might be a sideboard card at best.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

I like mulling to six so that I can Ponder EOT. At least this shores up Combo/Control's worst matchup (Shops) by not doing anything outside turn 1 on the draw. Hey wait a minute isn't running more mana sources (Gemstone Caverns if you want to do OMGTRIXONURTURN) a better way to win those matchups? Nevermind they're not new. I like where this is going let's cut business and protection for this cute spells. Yawgmoth's Will aint got nuthin on Tarpan in the cuteness department.

[nineisnoone]

Why do people not read before posting? It's not like this is 15 pages deep.

Comboing out at instant speed came up four posts into the thread.

If that is referencing me, I was aware of that.  It just didn't click in my mind that opponent's spells would contribute to the Storm count as well.  I apologize (?) for not being so quick to realize that I guess?

After reading through this, and really thinking about it, I think that this cards isn't as cool as I originally thought. It might be a sideboard card at best.

I see it as being a strong contender for Ichorid and Shops.  Not too long ago there was rumbling about blue shops packing Force of Will with some of the other blue stuff that was printed (kinda janky admittedly), though in general I think it's a great card for Shops.  I really have no idea why people are talking about it against shops as there are better things to do. It's bad for Oath and Fish (and assorted aggro control variants).  Oath doesn't want to shift into the control role. Creatures at instant speed are kinda neat, but not really all that big a deal.  It's playable in Tezz, but I don't think it's really all that worth it.  I'm not good at making Storm decks so don't ask me what it would look like, but this card allows them to shift into a control role on the virtue of this card alone which makes it well worth a look at.

[Troy_Costisick]

you shouldnt bank on this for its first turn effect. You should bank on this to make time walk, imperial seal, ponder, preordain, timetwister, wheel of fortune, demonic tutor, merchant scroll, goblin welder, regrowth, duress, thoughtseize, yawgmoth's will, oath of druids, careful study, tinker, dark confidant, top, tormod's crypt, relic, moxen, petal, mana crypt and every counter spell stronger. Why? Because you keep up counter mana until EOT, then cast all your stuff and untap on your turn.

It is the ultimate control card. If you are playing the control mirror, the player with the leyline has a clear advantage over the the one without. It is not win more. The card doesn't win anything on its own. It's a card that upgrades nearly half the cards in your deck for free putting you in the position to control the game by keeping your mana up.

I think this card can definately also see some play in some sort of new high tide deck in legacy, where it can take advantage of Reset and High Tide.

So what you're saying is, back to Draw-Go?

[BruiZar]

I'm thinking out loud here, but bear with me. Tezzcast can probably take great advantage of this. instant speed Thoughtcast is very good, coupled with Confidants it is going to be hard to beat once the game extends. (instant speed Night´s Whisper is good too). Consequently, Transmute Artifact, Trinket Mage and Tinker are all very strong as they can get pithing needle, explosives, tormod's crypt lotus and vault key. Having so many ways to get a tormods crypt and a needle for bazaar and an explosives to kill tokens available preboard means you do not have to board aggressive against dredge. This frees up SB Slots for other matchups. (Oath TPS and SHOP) which means duress/Thoughtseize should go in, because they are good against Oath and TPS. Now, you can nearly completely dedicate your board against workshop, which you sometimes randomly win from by just dropping the leyline and jewelry before spheres tie you down. The Duress/Thoughtseize can be replaced for H.Recall/Rebuild. This should give you enough time to figure out a way to play vault key and win from there.

[Grand Inquisitor]

This will aid workshop strategies the most and maybe dredge as well.

Both can use bazaar to discard dead draws later.  Workshop being able to open with chalice @ 0 and (playing the most acceleration) potentially drop spheres is savage.  More is that they can now (in addition to stealing turn 1's on the draw) play a threat EOT and then untap and play a 2nd lock piece.

The limitation is whether sacrificing 1 card for this opportunity is worth it.  It sounds terrifying from the perspective of a control player.  Provided the numbers work out, good prison players should have an insurmountable advantage with this card.

[MEATROCKET]

Wait! End of your draw step! Mind Bomb...and Balance!

I like this card for sure, but I like a lot of terrible cards.  Not sayin this card is terrible, but I'll let other people try to figure out if it's worth playing seriously 

[JR]

Can someone explain why they think this breaks the control mirror? I honestly do not understand where people are coming from. Read my previous post for why. I mean honestly, what gets cut for this?

JR.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

I'm thinking out loud here, but bear with me. Tezzcast can probably take great advantage of this. instant speed Thoughtcast is very good, coupled with Confidants it is going to be hard to beat once the game extends. (instant speed Night´s Whisper is good too). Consequently, Transmute Artifact, Trinket Mage and Tinker are all very strong as they can get pithing needle, explosives, tormod's crypt lotus and vault key. Having so many ways to get a tormods crypt and a needle for bazaar and an explosives to kill tokens available preboard means you do not have to board aggressive against dredge. This frees up SB Slots for other matchups. (Oath TPS and SHOP) which means duress/Thoughtseize should go in, because they are good against Oath and TPS. Now, you can nearly completely dedicate your board against workshop, which you sometimes randomly win from by just dropping the leyline and jewelry before spheres tie you down. The Duress/Thoughtseize can be replaced for H.Recall/Rebuild. This should give you enough time to figure out a way to play vault key and win from there.

So you want to make a tezz list that runs leyline of fail and a bunch of anti-dredge cards maindeck with a sideboard built to beat the rest of the meta? I like where this is going even more.

[credmond]

Agreeing and building on what GI said . . .

This thing would probably go best in a Bazaar Stax deck packing 4x serum powder, 4x chalice, 4x bazaar, 4x welder, and plenty of other 4 ofs depending on the meta. Likely also 4x sphere, 4x golem, 4x crucible, 4 x smokestack, and 3 x karn. I also would include 4x leyline of the void in the sideboard to swap in against dredge.

1) Shops - Running shops + full artifact acceleration means you get the biggest return out of this card. All of your cards become instant speed. Most other decks only have a portion of their cards affected by this card (ie they are alreay instant anway).

2) Serum Powder - Running powder means you can powder for hands that have leyline of anticipation when you are on the draw to sneak wins from opponents that otherwise would combo off on the first turn. Putting locks into play at instant speed is brutal. Also you can powder regulary for meatier lock hands when you are on the play and leyline of aniticipation isn't as critical to have.

3) 4 of style deck - Running lots of 4 ofs with actual win conditions means you can powder safely. Powder doesn't really work in a highlander deck.

4) Bazaar - Running bazaar means you can bazaar it away when its not in your opening draw. This is real important. Other decks have to deal with 4 dead cards lurking in their deck 60% of the time (assuming a highlander deck with no powder). Bazaar minimizes the drawbacks of this card.

5) Leyline of the Void - Swapping in and out for leyline of the void plan against certain decks is an economical (and brutal) sideboard plan against dredge since you are already running powder.

6) Chalice of the Void - Playing your moxes and then casting chalice at zero and/or chalice at one at instant speed when your opponent is on the play is godlike.

Wondering if this actually would work in a bazaar stax shell? Well, leyline of the void + powder is already known to work well and this is essentially the same thing.

Other decks that can abuse this card when combined with powder are ... belcher, 3 card monte.


This card seems to shore up the biggest weakness of shop decks . . . losing the die roll.

[Cyberpunker]

This card is pretty good if you build the right deck around it. With Preordains and Night's Whispers at instant speed. You have a great deck.

[M.Solymossy]

This card is pretty good if you build the right deck around it. With Preordains and Night's Whispers at instant speed. You have a great deck.

But when you don't actually hit the leyline?   You just have Preordains and Night's Whispers at Preordain and Night's Whisper speeds.  NOT worth the 4 dead cards.

[Spacebalzz]

While I don't think this card will end up becoming a Vintage staple, I agree with Smennen that its value lies in its ability to stimulate thought.  This card is "intriguing" and will most likely remain so as new cards come out.  One of the first things I'll look at when a new set comes out is "Are there any cards in here that might be synergistic with Leyline of Anticipation?"  Personally, as it stands in Vintage, I feel that this probably works best as a sideboard card for dredge (especially the blue variants), by giving dredges answers instant speed as well as giving Therapy and Dread Return instant speed, giving those two cards a vast degree more versatility.  The added ability to deal with Leyline on Turn 0 (rare but possible) may increase the dredge win rate in games 2 and 3.

I wouldn't go so far to say that I'm in the camp of nay-sayers here, but I agree that the card's applications remain to be seen.  More succinctly, I feel that the card isn't "down right broken" as Tolarian Academy or YawgWill were when they entered the metagame.  This card, in relation to its impact on Vintage, is probably closer to that of Theda Adel.  I recall a similar thread (with some yays and some nays) debating the impact of the card on Vintage.  As it stands now, though many here felt the card would be fantastic for fish, it turned out to be difficult to resolve and hasn't seen an exorbitant amount of play.

Although I feel the impact on Vintage will be quite short of cataclysmic, I believe this card's impact on Legacy may be.  The fact that Lotus Petal is unrestricted, gives way to a slew of Turn 0 moves like Spell Snare/Pierce, as well as being able to Brainstorm (also not restricted) in response to Duress/Thoughtseize.  Moreover, the effect on Blue Dredge Decks will be phenomenal, giving rise to Turn 0 Breakthrough and Careful Study, allowing you to dredge on your first draw (an amazing move in a format without Bazaar).

Regardless, I'm happy that Wizards took the time and effort to give us a card that will inspire creativity and improvisation in the Vintage community.  Being somewhat removed from Magic, its cards like this that draw me back into thinking about/playing the game, get me reading TMD again, and building/testing new decks.  Do I want to test a control deck that can Duress/Thoughtseize/Hymn off a Lotus Petal/Mox/Lotus before my opponent draws a card?  Yes please.  Instant speed storm?  Worth a try.  Turbo Zvi with Dream Halls?  It'll probably be s***, but it'll be fun to try.  In the end, cards like this are what have kept me interested in Magic as I grow older and have less time for the game because of work, family, etc.

...but that's just my interpretation, of the situation.

[zeus-online]

This card is the second coming of Quicken, and we all saw how good that one was.  Cool in theory, in reality just a dead slot.  This one doesn't even cantrip.

Why dosn't themanadrain have a thumbs up button like Facebook?

This is the best and truest statement in this thread.

Leyline of anticipation is going to suck for competetive play.

In order for it to be usefull you have to start with it in your opener, and since you'd probably not want to design a deck around that, then you have to be able to win without it....Thus decreasing the need and power of the card.

[Cyberpunker]

This card cannot work in Oath where there are enough dead draws as it is. It can however in theory work in a Tezzeret deck that focuses on control.

The amazing thing about Leyline of Anticipation is that you will win every single gamble when you play control. What I mean is in situations where you have to debate whether to hold back on Drain mana or play your threat (ie Confidant, Demonic Tutor, Jace, Tezzeret, Vault etc), you can with Leyline of Anticipation play as if you always guess right. You will always hold back on counter mana and then cast your threats EOT if you did not have to counter on that turn.

This results in tempo gain that can win you the game. In the control mirror, the opponent has to always guess(or read) right in order to fight your Leyline of Anticipation, while you have a convenient shortcut via Leyline.

Of course your deck would have to be able to win without Leyline resolving. And that is the main challenge when it comes to building a deck around this card.

[BruiZar]

I think the best advantage of this leyline is that it pitches to FoW. Normally, this is a stupid statement, but in the case of Leylines it is very relevant. Some have said bazaar or serum powders are needed to play this, but Force of Will has a very similar effect to that.

What i expect will happen is that this card will not get the proper testing it deserves and will become a sleeper card because everybody has considered using it but no strong deck evolved from it (cause no one's actually testing it). This happens more often. 2 camps take a stance for or against a card and until the card is proven, the naysayers disregard the potential of a card simply because the burden of proof is with the people that do like the card. This happened to Jace, The Mindsculptor as well and you can still look that up in the original thread I posted

[Killane]

This card cannot work in Oath where there are enough dead draws as it is. It can however in theory work in a Tezzeret deck that focuses on control.

The amazing thing about Leyline of Anticipation is that you will win every single gamble when you play control. What I mean is in situations where you have to debate whether to hold back on Drain mana or play your threat (ie Confidant, Demonic Tutor, Jace, Tezzeret, Vault etc), you can with Leyline of Anticipation play as if you always guess right. You will always hold back on counter mana and then cast your threats EOT if you did not have to counter on that turn.

This results in tempo gain that can win you the game. In the control mirror, the opponent has to always guess(or read) right in order to fight your Leyline of Anticipation, while you have a convenient shortcut via Leyline.

Of course your deck would have to be able to win without Leyline resolving. And that is the main challenge when it comes to building a deck around this card.

this is true. Anyone ever play against Faeiries in standard? The ability to play everything at EOT results in sooo many wins it's absurd becuase it becomes extraordinairilly difficult for your opponent to play around anything

[MaximumCDawg]

How about running a Drain deck with the following:

Leyline of Anticipation
Raven's Crime
Gemstone Cavern

Bear with me here.  The idea would be that Gemstone Cavern and Leyline both let you get the jump on the opponent even by playing first; it will be rare that you don't have at least one in your opening grip (8 x 7 / 60 = 93%).  Starting with a Cavern is so-so but gets you to Drain mana on turn 1.  Starting with a Leyline lets you vomit your moxen.  Starting with both and you're duressing them on their own first draw step.

Raven's Crime works with both of these cards.  If the game ever goes to topdeck mode, suddenly every land you draw lets you Crime then during the draw step.  Extra Caverns can be pitched to Crime.  

I'm pretty sure it isn't worth the 6 potentially dead draws, but there's undeniabily some good interactions here.

//EDIT

Something like this maybe:

Drain Control

Speedy   (4)

   4   Leyline of Anticipation
   
Disruption   (20)

   3    Raven’s Crime
   4   Duress
   2   Thoughtseize
   2   Mana Drain
   4   Spell Pierce
   4    Force of Will   
   1   Misdirection

Card Advantage (7)

   3   Dark Confidant
   1   Brainstorm
   1   Ponder
   1   Windfall

Tutor   (4)

   1   Demonic Consultation
   1   Vampiric Tutor
   1   Mystical Tutor   

Win Cond (2)

   1   The Rack
   1   Morphling

Mana (24)

   4   Gemstone Cavern
   4   Polluted Delta
   4   Underground Sea
   7   Island
   5   Swamp

The idea being to keep the board under control with x20 discard and counter effects, then eventually get a semi-solid lock with Raven's Crime and Leyline, then win with Morphling or Rack, old school.

[vassago]

Why dosn't themanadrain have a thumbs up button like Facebook?

I think the mods should make this happen.

[Ruven]

erm quick correction on your math, the chances to having one of those 8 cards in your oppening is 65.4% not 93%. so the whole idea is probably not that viable imo...

(btw assume this, if you would have 12 cards you're looking at, your math would suggest that its 12 x 7 /60 = 140%, which is obviously impossible...)

[MaximumCDawg]

erm quick correction on your math, the chances to having one of those 8 cards in your oppening is 65.4% not 93%. so the whole idea is probably not that viable imo...

(btw assume this, if you would have 12 cards you're looking at, your math would suggest that its 12 x 7 /60 = 140%, which is obviously impossible...)

oh, duh, 7 + 8, not 7 x 8.  You're right.

Which brings up another point; is the correct formula to determine if a card is in your opening hand derived by assuming you draw 7 simultaneously, or that you draw one at a time (i.e. a big long decision tree)?

[Ruven]

honestly: I don't know. I use this tool here (http://reya.de/pages/service/probabilities) to calculate opening hands, but its in german..(erm, first white field is decksize, second is the number of cards you want to see to odds of drawing them, the table at the bottom shows you the percentage)

I don't think 7+8 is correct either though, erm, my guess would be that, you take the chance of each card drawn sepratly and then use some higher math formula to determine the percentage.

[Yare]

The probability of each draw is calculated independently and then you combine these in a certain way to ascertain the total probability of drawing at least one copy of the "good cards."

Cards you want to draw = good cards, let initial number of good cards be variable "G"
Cards you aren't looking to draw = bad cards, let initial number of bad cards be variable "B"
Let initial number of cards in the deck be variable "D"

For one draw from a deck of cards, the probability of:
Drawing a good card in that one draw is G/D
Drawing a bad card in that one draw is B/D

You probably already knew that.

The trick is in the combination.

If you want to draw at least one copy (and possibly more) of the good cards from your deck on 7 draws, the formula is:

P = 1 - ((B/D) * (B-1)/(D-1) * (B-2)/(D-2) * (B-3)/(D-3) * (B-4)/(D-4) * (B-5)/(D-5) * (B-6)/(D-6))

So, let's say you have 4 good cards in a standard deck of 60 cards and you want to draw at least one good card in your opening hand

G = 4
B = 56
D = 60

P = 1 - ((56/60) * (55/59) * (54/58) * (53/57) * (52/56) * (51/55) * (50/54)) = 1 - .60 = .40 = 40%

For more or fewer draws, just put in or remove fractions as appropriate. There are more complex calculations that can be done (like figuring out the probability of getting exactly 2 copies in the opening draw), but I don't know how to do those. If these calculations are too much for you (or if you just want to do some of the harder combinations without much of the work), MWS has a utility that will figure out the probability of getting a certain set of cards in your opening hand for you.