[RtR] Epic Experiment - Soon restricted?

[policehq]

IF you're going to play Ancestral Knowledge, wouldn't you want to live the dream with some miracle cards?

[Troy_Costisick]

IF you're going to play Ancestral Knowledge, wouldn't you want to live the dream with some miracle cards?

Too expensive or have in the casting cost.   

[gkraigher]

A legacy doomsday pile- this new card, careful study, unearth, git probe, maniac pretty much assures victory first turn after doomsday with a mana requirement of UR2 on victory turn.  Neat.

Let me get this straight, you want to create a doomsday pile that is vulnerable to counterspell (against maniac), all creature removal (lightning bolt, swords to plowshares, vindicate, malestorm pulse)and wasteland (as you will need 3 black mana to cast doomsday and a red and a blue to cast this) when you could have a doomsday stack of shelldock island and emrakul which is susceptible only to wasteland.  Keep in mind you have to win 1 more game after they know your stack.  No thanks.  

[gkraigher]

Ok so you tap out for an Epic Experiment and flip over an Intuition, Seething Song, Manamorphose.

Do you not understand what variance is?

Sure you could flop the nuts.  But what happened to all the artifacts, creatures, lands, planeswalkers, enchantments, counterspellls, and discard in your deck?  Did they just vanish?

Even in the best case scenario, when you have mana drained a gush on your opponents turn and you untap to play this card with 5 extra mana.  You would have to draw a perfect 8 cards to win.  That is horrible variance.  

And yes, all counterspells you reveal in the flop are instantly worthless.  You choose all the cards you cast, then simultaneously (and in the order you choose) they will stack while the others go in your graveyard.  All counterspells you reveal would have to target one of your spells.  Once the effect resolves, your opponent will have priority and will be able to target any spell of his or her choice.  If they didn't already just counterspell this.  The more I think about it, there is justification for letting this spell resolve and saving your counterspells for the spells revealed.  Wow is this card horrible.  

[Prospero]

Guys, let's tone down the rhetoric a bit and remember to be respectful of everyone's opinions.

[Blue Lotus]

this is easily the best spell in magic to drain into.

[gkraigher]

this is easily the best spell in magic to drain into.

It is, except for the fact that the foundation of your deck is going into two separate directions.  You're objective with this card is a combo kill and all the counterspells you flip when you cast this card get in the way (because they will be in the graveyard when your opponent is playing his).  Unless you flip over 2 or more counterspells, with one targeting a real spell and the other targeting the original counter so that good spell resolves and your storm count is higher.   Even then, your storm count is only at like 5 or 6 which is not enough.  

[Blue Lotus]

this is easily the best spell in magic to drain into.

It is, except for the fact that the foundation of your deck is going into two separate directions.  You're objective with this card is a combo kill and all the counterspells you flip when you cast this card get in the way.  Unless you flip over 2 or more counterspells, with one targeting a real spell and the other targeting the original counter so that good spell resolves and your storm count is higher.   Even then, your storm count is only at like 5 or 6 which is not enough.  

Well, yes, you have to build your deck around the card. Just like every other engine in magic. You don't necessarily need to win when you cast this card, just get ridiculously ahead. This + 4 preordain is just an absurd way to rifle through your library and find yawgwin

From a design point of view, I think this is a very elegantly fixed desire. Desire was only SUPER broken when you could flip a desire off desire. This is not an option here.

[gkraigher]

but flipping over a yawg will with this card will happen and when it does what is your plan b?

I can't imagine you are going to be happy setting yourself up with a mystical tutor or a merchant scroll for an ancestral recall.  i mean if that was the case you could just as well cast opportunity at instant speed or if you wanted cards in the yard, a much more cost effective way of doing that would be strategic planning. 

[desolutionist]

Sure you could flop the nuts.

The nuts would be Ancestral Recall, Gifts Ungiven, Mind's Desire, Tinker, and Yawgmoth's Will.  Not 2 unrestricted commons and 1 unrestricted Intuition.

But what happened to all the artifacts, creatures, lands, planeswalkers, enchantments, counterspellls, and discard in your deck?  Did they just vanish?

Only if you're smart enough to not play Tarmogoyf, Jace, Standstill, and Mana Drain in your Epic Experiment deck...

Even in the best case scenario, when you have mana drained a gush on your opponents turn and you untap to play this card with 5 extra mana.  You would have to draw a perfect 8 cards to win.  That is horrible variance.

 

All the cards you generally need are unrestricted, so if you do the math, the odds are definitely in your favor.  I definitely wouldn't be playing Mana Drain, but an Epic Experiment for 8 in the right deck will win the game. (period)  I have tested this against Workshops and once the Epic Experiment resolves, you're going to win the game.  It's really just that simple.

And yes, all counterspells you reveal in the flop are instantly worthless.  You choose all the cards you cast, then simultaneously (and in the order you choose) they will stack while the others go in your graveyard.  All counterspells you reveal would have to target one of your spells.  Once the effect resolves, your opponent will have priority and will be able to target any spell of his or her choice.  If they didn't already just counterspell this.  The more I think about it, there is justification for letting this spell resolve and saving your counterspells for the spells revealed.  Wow is this card horrible.  

Well we aren't exactly sure how that works yet but if they didn't counter my Epic Experiment why would they wait until I have a bunch of instant and sorceries that I can now cast for free?  Chances are it won't matter what they counter because I'm going to win anyway.

[gkraigher]

Well we aren't exactly sure how that works yet but if they didn't counter my Epic Experiment

The card works the same way all magic cards work.  Resolve the spell, resolve everything the words on the spell tell you to do, then go to the next priority or the next spell on the stack.  You can't play a mystical tutor after you draw 2 cards from bazaar of baghdad, but before discarding the 3.  Its the same thing.  

[serracollector]

So with the new Goblin that lowers the CC of instants and sorceries by 1, does it reduce the X in this?  Could u have 4 goblins, cast this for UR, and flip top 4 cards for free essentially?  Never was sure on cost reducers and X spells.

[gkraigher]

So with the new Goblin that lowers the CC of instants and sorceries by 1, does it reduce the X in this?  Could u have 4 goblins, cast this for UR, and flip top 4 cards for free essentially?  Never was sure on cost reducers and X spells.

yes.  you can also play nightscape familiar.  

[serracollector]

Would familiar reduce it by 2 since its blue and red?  If so....

[Saya]

Would familiar reduce it by 2 since its blue and red?  If so....

Familiar can't do so.How unfortunate.

[desolutionist]

Well we aren't exactly sure how that works yet but if they didn't counter my Epic Experiment

The card works the same way all magic cards work.  Resolve the spell, resolve everything the words on the spell tell you to do, then go to the next priority or the next spell on the stack.  You can't play a mystical tutor after you draw 2 cards from bazaar of baghdad, but before discarding the 3.  Its the same thing. 

I was referring to the simultaneousness of my counters being discarded.  You've got to tone it down a bit

[Delha]

Well we aren't exactly sure how that works yet but if they didn't counter my Epic Experiment

The card works the same way all magic cards work.  Resolve the spell, resolve everything the words on the spell tell you to do, then go to the next priority or the next spell on the stack.  You can't play a mystical tutor after you draw 2 cards from bazaar of baghdad, but before discarding the 3.  Its the same thing. 

I was referring to the simultaneousness of my counters being discarded.  You've got to tone it down a bit

Agreed that someone needs to chill out, but I'm quite confident that the counters cannot be held back.

Unless otherwise specified, spells that allow the casting of other spells during resolution force you decide immediately (eg. Brilliant Ultimatum). Mind's Desire is an  example of how this would need to be templated if it were to allow staggering of spells. In this case, you cast stuff, then stop and discard everything else. The opponent does not receive priority until after resolution (including the discard) is complete, so they never get the opportunity to counter while your cards are exiled.

[A.-1.]

It just sounds odd to me that an opponent wouldn't get a chance to counter any of the spells exiled. Your explanation makes sense though, and this set already has lots of 'cannot be countered' cards. Even if that is the case, I'm skeptical this card will be Vintage playable.

[gkraigher]

It just sounds odd to me that an opponent wouldn't get a chance to counter any of the spells exiled. Your explanation makes sense though, and this set already has lots of 'cannot be countered' cards. Even if that is the case, I'm skeptical this card will be Vintage playable.

No you opponent gets his choice of which spells he wants to counter, as all the cards brought from exile will stack simultaniously in the order you choose.  The counters you reveal will not have targets (unless you want to target your own spells) so they will go to the graveyard, thus becoming irrelevant. 

[Delha]

It just sounds odd to me that an opponent wouldn't get a chance to counter any of the spells exiled. Your explanation makes sense though, and this set already has lots of 'cannot be countered' cards. Even if that is the case, I'm skeptical this card will be Vintage playable.

It's not that they can't counter ever. They just don't get to counter until Experiment has finished resolving (which includes the discarding of uncast spells in exile). The resolution of Experiment just puts the spells on the stack, after which players get priority and all the stuff you cast from exile starts resolving like normal.

[A.-1.]

Thank you for clarifying. I was really confused with the unique wording of the card at first.

[Worldslayer]

We actually agree here, Desolutionist, at least in regards to this card being completely absurd. I think the biggest sticking point everybody's hung up on is the Desire comparison, which is close but not entirely accurate. This is more limited in scope, obviously, but requires only deck construction and a bunch of mana to work instead of a storm count. I don't know about running this is an absolutely pure hyper aggressive ritual combo shell (though that's probably a thing too), but it immediately stuck out to me as something a deck like Drain Tendrils would run, or even a normal big blue deck. All DT ever wanted to do was counter and Duress everything forever, Mana Drain something large, then switch modes, cast a ridiculous spell and kill the bad guy: this kind of fits right in there. It already ran a small number of rituals and most artifact mana accelerants, which suck to flop on your Experiment but are great at casting it for an arbitrarily large number. If you're just grinding the game out to dust, and both you and Evil are nearly depleted, I'd rather topdeck this than Desire a significant number of times.

In Big Blue, especially while everyone's still having fun with the Burning Wish Blue phase of the format, how is this not a runnable card as at least a 1 of? All of Big Blue's spells are ridiculous. Even if you whiff on like, 3/6 of your experiment later in the game, you're still desiring three cards in a deck mostly composed of the most ridiculous spells printed. 4 lands a tutor and a tinker off x=6 still assemble vaultkey (or if its a topdeck tutor assemble it next turn), hitting walk or recall or even Wishes is fine...in a normal big blue deck it almost doesn't matter if half of your flop is a whiff, because the other half is probably dumb enough that the whiffs are irrelevant.

I like this card. A lot. Between this and Burning Wish I really want to try and make UR Tide a vintage thing, (though if were being honest i'll probably just cop out and continue playing ANT because vintage has turned me into a masochist).

URx Pyromancer is also a deck i've been playing that might like this (and/or wish. They really do seem to go hand in hand at first blush), though I was focused on looping Time Walk then storming. Copying an Experiment in a deck full of instants and sorceries then copying every single one you Experiment into seems incredibly strong. Ascension kind of quadruples Experiments effectiveness that way.

[gkraigher]

I just realized another reason why this card is awful.  If your opponent has a sphere effect in play, you will have to pay +1 for each spell you want to cast.  Ha.

[Delha]

I just realized another reason why this card is awful.  If your opponent has a sphere effect in play, you will have to pay +1 for each spell you want to cast.  Ha.

Uh... yeah? It works exactly like the card people have spent the last two pages comparing it to.

[ELD]

Dragonstorm seems like a way better card.  I was surprised to see that it has not started out as a bulk mythic, but I suspect it will end up that way. 

[Killane]

It just sounds odd to me that an opponent wouldn't get a chance to counter any of the spells exiled. Your explanation makes sense though, and this set already has lots of 'cannot be countered' cards. Even if that is the case, I'm skeptical this card will be Vintage playable.

It's not that they can't counter ever. They just don't get to counter until Experiment has finished resolving (which includes the discarding of uncast spells in exile). The resolution of Experiment just puts the spells on the stack, after which players get priority and all the stuff you cast from exile starts resolving like normal.

The only way to make your whole stack uncounterable, barring nonsense like already having Teferi in play, would be to put a split-second card that you've hit at the bottom of the stack. This is the only spell I can think of that lets you put a bunch of spells on top of a split-second spell on the stack.

If this deck exists, it might want Wipe Away.

[nineisnoone]

It just sounds odd to me that an opponent wouldn't get a chance to counter any of the spells exiled. Your explanation makes sense though, and this set already has lots of 'cannot be countered' cards. Even if that is the case, I'm skeptical this card will be Vintage playable.

It's not that they can't counter ever. They just don't get to counter until Experiment has finished resolving (which includes the discarding of uncast spells in exile). The resolution of Experiment just puts the spells on the stack, after which players get priority and all the stuff you cast from exile starts resolving like normal.

The only way to make your whole stack uncounterable, barring nonsense like already having Teferi in play, would be to put a split-second card that you've hit at the bottom of the stack. This is the only spell I can think of that lets you put a bunch of spells on top of a split-second spell on the stack.

If this deck exists, it might want Wipe Away.

pretty sure that wouldn't work and that it would only apply to the spell with split-second. correct me if i'm wrong...

[Tempus]

Because you cast the spells and don't put them on the stack, after you cast a card with split second you wouldn't be allowed to cast any other spells and you would put the rest in the graveyard.

Cause can't always wins

[MaximumCDawg]

Can someone explain why this is supposed to be good...? I've read the thread, and I still don't get it. 

I thought that Menedian's analysis in his podcast was pretty spot-on.  He looked at what you're casting this for and what you get.  Assume your deck has 20 mana sources, and a small amount (say, 10) of other permanents.  Half the cards in your deck are dead to Experiment.  (I'm not looking at decks like Belcher, where this would work, because I cannot imagine a Belcher player wanting to bottleneck his win with this card instead of just, you know, winning.  Maybe I'm wrong...?)

1UR - Doing this blind will fizzle more often than not.  If you can manipulate the top card of your library to be a 1 casting cost instant or sorcery, then you spent 1UR, plus whatever you used to topdeck the card, and in return you drew a card and made 1 mana of the right color.  Functionally you're not even getting a payoff as good as Peek.  Terrible.

2UR - Instead of casting Jace, you're flipping two cards and maybe getting one spell that costs 1 or 2 mana cast out of it.  Something close to a UR draw 1... that's still pretty awful.

3UR - Now we're looking at 3, and likely casting ALL of the instants and sorceries you pull.  Okay, so now you're drawing 1 to 2 cards and functionally getting 1 to 4 mana to play them immediately.  Something like a 1UR or UR draw 2, which is actually not terrible.

4UR - Now Experiment is ALMOST as good as Compulsive Research! Whee!  Now you're probably casting 2 cards, effectively making 1 - 4 mana depending on the cards, and so we're looking at a pretty reliable draw 2 for 1UR.

xUR - Basically, you're getting this benefit as the spell scales up:  Draw x/2 cards and add mana to your mana pool somewhere between X/2 and X*2.

Is it fun to cast this with X equals 10?  Maybe?  But I fail to see how this card is the best at what it does at any point in the curve.  And that's the barometer for Vintage, isnt it?  I just don't get it.

[Killane]

Because you cast the spells and don't put them on the stack, after you cast a card with split second you wouldn't be allowed to cast any other spells and you would put the rest in the graveyard.

Cause can't always wins

I think you're wrong. Because you're casting during the resolution of the spell, I think it allows you to do all of it. Not certain. Judge?