Viability of Hard Control without a Draw Engine

[Smmenen]

While I doubt the original poster had intended for this to become a discussion about how one defines a draw engine, the very name of this thread invites such a discussion. So, I don't believe I'm being off-topic if I delve a bit into how one defines a draw engine.

Traditionally, a draw engine has been a way for a deck to get more cards from the deck into its hand, at a better ratio than one-for-one. And a draw engine is based on one or more unrestricted cards.

Thus, Gush and Dark Confidant are draw engines. Ancestral Recall, while an amazingly good draw spell, cannot rightly be considered an engine because there is only one copy of it in a deck (if Merchant Scroll were unrestricted, the synergy between those two might be considered a draw engine, however). Further, while Young Pyromancer does generate plenty of card advantage, he doesn't dig through the deck, and is therefore not a draw engine. Now, add in Skullclamp, and you have a draw engine. Brainstorm is not a draw engine, because while it does dig through the deck, it doesn't generate a better ratio than one-for-one.

With that aside, it is quite clear that this deck does, in fact, have a draw engine: Jace. Jace is a draw engine just as Gush and Bob are draw engines. In fact, you can't really make sense of Blue Angels as a deck unless you realize that Jace is its draw engine.

As draw engines often are, this deck runs auxiliary cards to support its engine. Mana Drain helps Jace arrive more quickly. Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice help remove creatures that would otherwise be dangerous to Jace. And Snapcaster Mage is happy to jump in front of an oncoming Tarmogoyf to give Jace one more turn.

In short, this is a Jace deck. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Rich, I have a question for you?  Is the Gushbond engine a draw engine?  If it is, how do you reconcile that with your claim that restricted cards can't constitute an engine, since Fastbond is restricted.  I'm curious how to reconcile that. 

I agree with your post, but I think "engine" analogy is a slippery metaphor, and not a sharply definable thing. 

[The Atog Lord]

Gush is the draw engine. If the deck is configured a certain way, Fastbond itself allows you to turn Gush into a combo piece as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Gush is the draw engine. If the deck is configured a certain way, Fastbond itself allows you to turn Gush into a combo piece as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards.

Gush is not 2cc...and the question most recently posed was "can control go without a 2cc  engine".  Gush is a 5cc (or 0cc) engine, and Jace IS certainly an engine that is 4cc as we have established.  Decks that run a crapload of draw 7s have an engine, and they all cost 3cc - and are restricted.  Are you going to tell me a deck with wheel, windfall, twister, thirst, necro, tinker->jar, and running the common 1cc staples DOESN'T have a draw engine?  That's just ridiculous.  Just because something doesn't cost 2 hardly makes it engineless.

Also, as I pointed out, I certainly consider snapcaster an engine, and not just for it's cc.  If someone ran bobs, and the bobs kept getting immediately killed, you have a 1-1 at best, yet there is no doubt that bob IS a draw engine.  Snap can be a 1-1, and most often is a 2-1.  It replaces itself with a card AND leaves you with a flashed body (and, no, that is not irrelevant - EVER)  In a deck where you try to protect jace and kill opposing jaces, that is relevant.  When you have the plan B of beating down with cliques and snaps, that is relevant.

"But bob can draw many cards over time!" you say.  True, but in a deck where jace can recur snapcaster's tricks, you can also get extra value.  Snap, for it's lack of being able to draw multiples on its own (as pointed out by the poster) can hold mana for drain, flashback a counterspell, or pick a target of choice as opposed to a random land or useless spell.  There are limitations to snap, but there are limitations to everything.  Someone pointed out that snapcaster is awful against oath.  Let me know how your "draw engine" bob does against oath - let's be real here.

I think the main problem is people are even wedded to the idea of card advantage as "draw engine".  "Card advantage" engine is all that really matters.  If a card was printed that said "1U, instant - return 2 cards from your grave to your hand", would that NOT be just as good as night's whisper?  You're not drawing, but your getting CA.  Further, you'r not drawing into random - how many times has the gush pilot bitched about drawing into 2 more lands? - but cards of choice that were at least worth the effort of casting once.  Being able to recur restricted bombs is also a huge boost over drawing random from the deck.  Yes, there are times where they can shut off your engine with RiP or DRS or whatever. They can also stop your "draw" with notion theif, chains of meph, plagiarize, etc.  They can kill your bob in any number of ways before it even replaces itself. Every tactic can be stifled, that doesn't make it NOT a useful CA engine.

I think semantics have stopped people from thinking about this the right way.  It is a jace engine deck with a secondary CA engine of snapcaster.  calling it engineless in any way is misleading.  It's just a 3c control deck with plenty of card advantage spells.

[The Atog Lord]

Dragon, I gave a fairly long definition of a draw engine, and never did I say that a draw engine must use two-mana spells.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Dragon, I gave a fairly long definition of a draw engine, and never did I say that a draw engine must use two-mana spells.

That's fine, but either way, the perspective of most people is wrong here.  "draw" is no more important than "CA".  To win games, people need CA, not "draw".  Snapcaster is a CA engine, even if it's not a "draw" engine.  No matter what cc the draw engine is, if you have 4 draw spells, and I have 40 cards that draw nothing but give me a 2-for-1 with every card, I am winning that game.  CA is all that matters, and my point is that this deck in the OP has PLENTY of CA spells, regardless of whether they put cards from your library into your hand or not - so calling it engineless (and I'm not JUST referring to Jace) - is a misnomer.

And for clarity, this:

Quote from: forests failed you
I have noted in several articles that the Ux Control decks that tend to win events play 4x of an unrestricted, 2cc, card drawer -- Standstill, Dark Confidant.  I think that is more specifically what is being addressed here.  Can Ux work without a 2cc drawer.

is the guy I was referring to who mentioned a deck running without a 2cc draw engine - not you, Rich.

You actually acknowledge Jace is an engine, which is fine.  My point is that 4x snapcaster is another engine, though it is CA, not "draw", because in MOST cases it will give you a selective 2-for-1 (which is no worse than night's whisper or a bob that get's killed after only flipping 1 card).  Snap has the body of bob with the immediate CA of whisper - it is not strictly worse, nor better, than either of those two - and should be considered a CA engine, which is all that matters in vintage.

The part I DO disagree with you, though, is saying a "draw" engine, is not possible with restricted cards alone.

Traditionally, a draw engine has been a way for a deck to get more cards from the deck into its hand, at a better ratio than one-for-one. And a draw engine is based on one or more unrestricted cards.

Thus, Gush and Dark Confidant are draw engines. Ancestral Recall, while an amazingly good draw spell, cannot rightly be considered an engine because there is only one copy of it in a deck...

If I run a deck with Wheel, twister, thirst, windfall, ancestral, brainstorm, ponder, tinker/jar, necropotence, yawg will; are you going to say it has no draw engine?  Maybe you can't label it draw-7 engine or wheel engine, but you could certainly say it has a "restricted list" engine.  Clearly no argument could be made that such a deck wouldn't have as much draw, if not more, than a deck simply running 4 bobs (which according to your own post IS a draw engine).  I'd concede that said deck would be tough to label as far as a single card being the engine, but you couldn't say there is NO draw engine.  What if they printed 3 new cards functionally identical to thirst for knowledge - would you then say a deck with 4 thirst for knowledge is a "thirst deck" with a draw engine, and a deck running 1 copy of each of the 4 spells has NO draw engine?

Bazaar of baghdad is a good point to reference.  It does not generate positive net cards in hand, however in the right deck, it is CERTAINLY a CA engine (dredge, welder, etc.)

[Smmenen]

Rich's post defining a draw engine came at a coincidental time in which I'm revising/expanding Chapter 3 of my Gush book, which is on the Gushbond engine.

I hadn't really considered it before, but I'm trying to understand the contours of the "engine" metaphor in Magic.  I am now curious who first started using this metaphor.  I know that I've been using it for years, if not a decade or longer, and I have no memory of where or when I started using it.  I just sort of picked it up or intuited it.

Here's how I'm defining it in my revised chapter:

An ‘engine’ is widely used metaphor in the game of Magic to describe a continuous or relatively continuous process or system that is strategically significant. An engine can be used to generate card advantage, mana advantage, permanents, or any other productive end.   Restricted cards do not constitute ‘engines’ because they are unreliable and generally not continuous.  You can’t expect to naturally draw them in most games.  And you can’t play Ancestral Recall into more Ancestral Recalls.  

Must an engine be continuous? And what does it mean to be continuous?  

Dragon's point that a CA engine can exist, and not be a draw engine, is a good one.  

Where I disagree with Dragon is that CA is all that matters.  

There are other forms of advantage and other engines.  There are engines that generate tokens or mana or storm or virtual card advantage.  

In other words, there are mana engines, token engines, storm engines, etc.

We have typically referred to combos like Worldgorger Dragon combo as a mana engine.  Animate Dead on Worldgorger Dragon is the mana engine.  

Gush is a draw engine, but the Gushbond engine is a storm and mana engine as well as a draw engine.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Steve, when I said CA is all that matters, I meant in comparison to draw so I should have been more clear on that.  Mana and storm engines seem distinctly different from the CA/draw engines, but I don't really consider token or virtual CA to be different from CA.  If by virtual, you mean temporary (i.e. a trinisphere shutting out your opponent and all CA disappearing if trini is removed), then I see the difference.  Tokens are really additional cards though, so I see that as CA.  If a spell results in a 1/1 critter and another spell results in a 1/1 critter and 2x token 1/1s, then the latter is card advantage.  That token making card would most likely come at a higher cost and then comes the calculation of what cost is worth the additional CA, but it is still CA either way.

I do think CA is more important than draw, but meant CA is all that matters in Vintage in comparison to draw, not in comparison to EVERYTHING.  I should have clarified that, and hopefully this does.

[Smmenen]

virtual card advantage is a very broad concept that encompasses token production, but is far from limited to it. 

[MTGFan]

Dragon, I gave a fairly long definition of a draw engine, and never did I say that a draw engine must use two-mana spells.

That's fine, but either way, the perspective of most people is wrong here.  "draw" is no more important than "CA".  To win games, people need CA, not "draw".  Snapcaster is a CA engine, even if it's not a "draw" engine.  No matter what cc the draw engine is, if you have 4 draw spells, and I have 40 cards that draw nothing but give me a 2-for-1 with every card, I am winning that game.  CA is all that matters, and my point is that this deck in the OP has PLENTY of CA spells, regardless of whether they put cards from your library into your hand or not - so calling it engineless (and I'm not JUST referring to Jace) - is a misnomer.

Snapcaster is only ever card advantage if you consider the 2/1 body relevant in your particular match. And then, it is only card advantage in the sense that any creature body is card advantage if it cantrips i.e. - the same level of card advantage that a Silvergill Adept provides for a Merfolk deck.

Of course, a Dark Confidant that flips a single card and then dies provides that exact same level of card advantage. However, if you looked at the percentage of time that a Confidant lives to flip two or more cards, you'd find that to be a relatively high frequency occurrence. It's the situation in which the Confidant lives to flip two or more cards that provides his true value as a card advantage "engine".

This level of card advantage the Snapcaster Mage can never provide, as his upper ceiling is the same amount of card advantage provided by a Silvergill Adept. Of course, before you accuse me of saying that a Snapcaster Mage is no better than a Silvergill Adept, realize that a significant component of Snapcaster's playability is related to the *card quality* he provides with his "cantripping" effect. A Silvergill Adept generates a 2/1 body and a random card off the top of the deck, but Snapcaster generates that same 2/1 body and a specific, usually high-value target in your graveyard. It's the same exact quantity of card advantage, but a pretty big difference in card quality.

The ability of cards such as Dark Confidant, Standstill, and Jace to consistently and reliably generate +2 or more card advantage is what separates them as true "engines" from cards like Snapcaster Mage which merely "cantrip" and provide nothing more than a 2/1 body as their card advantage. A 2/1 body is technically card advantage, but one of the weakest forms of card advantage.

Again, people play Snapcaster primarily for card quality and not the meager card advantage provided by a free, but weak, creature body. It's simply not a card advantage engine. It belongs in the same class as other card quality calibrators such as Eternal Witness and Trinket Mage, which provide weak bodies as their only source of card advantage, but give the caster a powerful ability to recur specific, targeted answers from the graveyard (in the case of Witness/Snapcaster) or the ability to tutor for specific, targeted answers from the library (in the case of the Trinket Mage) - similar to what a tutor spell would do from the library, but with a body attached.

TL;DR - Snapcaster Mage is a stronger, better Eternal Witness, but does not belong in the same class as Dark Confidant or Jace or even Standstill as a true card advantage "engine".

[forests failed you]

While I doubt the original poster had intended for this to become a discussion about how one defines a draw engine, the very name of this thread invites such a discussion. So, I don't believe I'm being off-topic if I delve a bit into how one defines a draw engine.

Traditionally, a draw engine has been a way for a deck to get more cards from the deck into its hand, at a better ratio than one-for-one. And a draw engine is based on one or more unrestricted cards.

Thus, Gush and Dark Confidant are draw engines. Ancestral Recall, while an amazingly good draw spell, cannot rightly be considered an engine because there is only one copy of it in a deck (if Merchant Scroll were unrestricted, the synergy between those two might be considered a draw engine, however). Further, while Young Pyromancer does generate plenty of card advantage, he doesn't dig through the deck, and is therefore not a draw engine. Now, add in Skullclamp, and you have a draw engine. Brainstorm is not a draw engine, because while it does dig through the deck, it doesn't generate a better ratio than one-for-one.

With that aside, it is quite clear that this deck does, in fact, have a draw engine: Jace. Jace is a draw engine just as Gush and Bob are draw engines. In fact, you can't really make sense of Blue Angels as a deck unless you realize that Jace is its draw engine.

As draw engines often are, this deck runs auxiliary cards to support its engine. Mana Drain helps Jace arrive more quickly. Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice help remove creatures that would otherwise be dangerous to Jace. And Snapcaster Mage is happy to jump in front of an oncoming Tarmogoyf to give Jace one more turn.

In short, this is a Jace deck. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Rich, I have a question for you?  Is the Gushbond engine a draw engine?  If it is, how do you reconcile that with your claim that restricted cards can't constitute an engine, since Fastbond is restricted.  I'm curious how to reconcile that. 

I agree with your post, but I think "engine" analogy is a slippery metaphor, and not a sharply definable thing. 

Various RUG Delver decks play Gush and don't play Fastbond.

[brianpk80]

The ability of cards such as Dark Confidant, Standstill, and Jace to consistently and reliably generate +2 or more card advantage is what separates them as true "engines" from cards like Snapcaster Mage which merely "cantrip" and provide nothing more than a 2/1 body as their card advantage. A 2/1 body is technically card advantage, but one of the weakest forms of card advantage.
...
TL;DR - Snapcaster Mage is a stronger, better Eternal Witness, but does not belong in the same class as Dark Confidant or Jace or even Standstill as a true card advantage "engine".

There are a lot of well expressed points in this post.  Two things I would point out though are that the 2/1 body has a lot more value these days when much interaction revolves around attacking and protecting planeswalkers.  The other point I'd make is that Snapcaster is not strictly superior to Witness; as mentioned before, Snapper has an effective casting cost of 1UU, 2UU, 1UBG, 1UR, 2UR, and so forth except in fringe cases like Gitaxian Probe and Surgical Extraction.  Also, he comes online much later in the game where Witness has targets right off the bat with Wastelands/Strip, Black Lotus, fetchlands, and then the restricted bombs which are not exiled and may be recurred subsequently.  He can also retrieve a nuked Time Vault and doesn't weaken Yawgmoth's Will.  What gives Snapper the edge overall is the Flash and ease of use in Big Blue decks whereas Eternal Witness belongs in less popular shells.  But the advantages Witness does have over Snapcaster are very relevant.   

[Smmenen]

While I doubt the original poster had intended for this to become a discussion about how one defines a draw engine, the very name of this thread invites such a discussion. So, I don't believe I'm being off-topic if I delve a bit into how one defines a draw engine.

Traditionally, a draw engine has been a way for a deck to get more cards from the deck into its hand, at a better ratio than one-for-one. And a draw engine is based on one or more unrestricted cards.

Thus, Gush and Dark Confidant are draw engines. Ancestral Recall, while an amazingly good draw spell, cannot rightly be considered an engine because there is only one copy of it in a deck (if Merchant Scroll were unrestricted, the synergy between those two might be considered a draw engine, however). Further, while Young Pyromancer does generate plenty of card advantage, he doesn't dig through the deck, and is therefore not a draw engine. Now, add in Skullclamp, and you have a draw engine. Brainstorm is not a draw engine, because while it does dig through the deck, it doesn't generate a better ratio than one-for-one.

With that aside, it is quite clear that this deck does, in fact, have a draw engine: Jace. Jace is a draw engine just as Gush and Bob are draw engines. In fact, you can't really make sense of Blue Angels as a deck unless you realize that Jace is its draw engine.

As draw engines often are, this deck runs auxiliary cards to support its engine. Mana Drain helps Jace arrive more quickly. Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice help remove creatures that would otherwise be dangerous to Jace. And Snapcaster Mage is happy to jump in front of an oncoming Tarmogoyf to give Jace one more turn.

In short, this is a Jace deck. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Rich, I have a question for you?  Is the Gushbond engine a draw engine?  If it is, how do you reconcile that with your claim that restricted cards can't constitute an engine, since Fastbond is restricted.  I'm curious how to reconcile that. 

I agree with your post, but I think "engine" analogy is a slippery metaphor, and not a sharply definable thing. 

Various RUG Delver decks play Gush and don't play Fastbond.

For sure.  original Grow decks in Extended and Vintage didn't use Fastbond either. 

@Rich: is Skullclamp a draw engine in a deck with only 1 Skullclamp?  What if there are 3-4 Trinket Mages to find it?

[The Atog Lord]

Great question, Steve. As with many questions like this, I think the correct answer is that it depends, but it may well be. I don't consider having a single Skullclamp in a deck to be a draw engine on its own. In Young Americans, it isn't really warping the rest of the deck around it -- it's just getting value. On the other hand, if you start to include more Trinket Mages and otherwise affecting the build in order to get and abuse Clamp more consistently, then yes it may be. As I said above:

if Merchant Scroll were unrestricted, the synergy between those two [Scroll and Ancestral] might be considered a draw engine

[MTGFan]

What separates a card as an "engine" is the ability to consistently and reliably make use of it so much so that it can form the lynchpin of the deck's strategy.

Singleton Skullclamps are no more an engine than a singleton Ancestral Recall. A singleton Skullclamp and 4 Trinket Mages, and plenty of x/1 creatures to attach Skullclamp to, *can* be a draw engine, however. If you have ways to tutor for a particular singleton and therefore reliably and consistently make use of it, then it transitions into an engine.

Ancestral Recall by itself is not a draw engine because it lacks that element of consistency and reliability. Ancestral Recall and 4 copies of Merchant Scroll, on the other hand, form the basis of a draw engine because the player can readily expect to generate at least +2 card advantage over the course of nearly every game due to the consistency of drawing Merchant Scroll.

On the other hand there are cards that the player can rely on, and generate what appears to be card advantage, but do not qualify as engines in my mind because the card advantage they generate is not strong enough. Snapcaster Mage and Eternal Witness are these types of psuedo-engines. If I could reliably count on Ancestral Recall to be in my graveyard all the time, then I could consider Snapcaster + Recall a draw engine. But I cannot. Snapcaster (and Witness) is nothing more than a card quality calibrator that has the potential to generate hard card advantage (I don't count generating the 2/1 body as the type of card advantage I want from an engine) only when targeting ephemeral singletons.

So the two qualities that define the card advantage engine, to me, are reliability (I can count on this to generate card advantage for me in nearly every game I play) and quality (it has to generate real card advantage for me - preferably at least +2, but +1 per usage can qualify as well - i.e. Gush without Fastbond, or Thoughtcast )

[vaughnbros]

Lets not over complicate things.

Google definition of Engine - A thing that is the agent or instrument of a particular process.

So a draw engine is an agent or instrument that is used to draw cards.  Bob, standstill, preordain, Jace, gush, skullclamp, rod of nin, sensei's divining top as well as many others are agents or instruments to draw cards. 

There is of course a different amount of reliability and potency to all of these draw engines.  Many people like to call the engines that are both reliable and draw engines, bob, Jace, and gush.  However, sensei's top, the most reliable, and skullclamp, the most potent, are no less draw engines than the others.

[serracollector]

So a deck with say 4 Entomb and 4 snapcaster/regrowth/eternal witness, with 1 Acall/Time Walk would be considered an "engine"?  You guys are making me start to think I should run 1 Acall/1 Skullclamp alongside 4 bob, 4 snap, 4 witness, 4 trinket mage, 4 entomb and 4 cavern of souls. Would unearth be considered an "engine" as well then since it can recur said bob/snap/witness/trinket mage? 

[brianpk80]

So a deck with say 4 Entomb and 4 snapcaster/regrowth/eternal witness, with 1 Acall/Time Walk would be considered an "engine"?  You guys are making me start to think I should run 1 Acall/1 Skullclamp alongside 4 bob, 4 snap, 4 witness, 4 trinket mage, 4 entomb and 4 cavern of souls. Would unearth be considered an "engine" as well then since it can recur said bob/snap/witness/trinket mage? 

It's mostly a matter of semantics here but yes technically, if you had some 4x that would consistently appear in hand to generate draw/CA, it would qualify as an "engine" under the definitions described here.  If it drew cards like Standstill or a 4x that found Ancestral Recall rather than just being something that filtered or reused silver bullets, it would be a "draw engine."  Whether or not it would be a good engine is another question entirely.  Even Skyship Weatherlight is now a real Vintage engine... 

[Samoht]

...snip...Even Skyship Weatherlight is now a real Vintage engine...  

Come now.

A "draw" engine is not a necessary evil for a control deck. Keeper existed for years without a dedicated draw engine. Generating advantages, card or otherwise, is all that is necessary for a controlling deck to succeed. Whether or not it is viable does not mean it is optimal.

[Smmenen]

So a deck with say 4 Entomb and 4 snapcaster/regrowth/eternal witness, with 1 Acall/Time Walk would be considered an "engine"?  You guys are making me start to think I should run 1 Acall/1 Skullclamp alongside 4 bob, 4 snap, 4 witness, 4 trinket mage, 4 entomb and 4 cavern of souls. Would unearth be considered an "engine" as well then since it can recur said bob/snap/witness/trinket mage?  

It's mostly a matter of semantics here

Bingo.  

Engine is a metaphor.  It's not a literal thing in this context.   Anytime you map A to B using metaphor, there will be gaps.  

I think the engine metaphor is a useful one, but the attempt to distill the metaphor into a technical definition is a bit... lacking...

Metaphors are useful to the extent they help us see the world in different and useful ways (and become heuristics).  But they lose utility when pressed into a technical definition, because that's not their purpose or their function...

I pressed the contours of Rich's definition because I am trying to develop a workable definition for the expanded, 3rd edition of my Gush book. I'm not satisfied with what I said in the previous edition.  

I agree that all draw engines need to be consistent and reliable, and they are also generally 'central' (whatever that might mean) to a deck's game plan.  But I think one element that is implicit, but needs to be explicit is that they also need to be more or less continuous -- meaning you use it more than once.  Whether that means activating Necro or Skullclamp or Jace more than once or chaining Facts or Gushes or triggering Ophidians or Bobs doesn't matter.  But what matters is that they are used more than once...

[The Atog Lord]

Socrates, perhaps the wisest man ever to live, was unable to define Justice in his great Republic. Given that, there is no shame in being unable to find a perfect definition of a draw engine. There will always be examples that are in a liminal state, or that push on the borders of the definition. Steve is entirely correct that "engine" is a metaphor.

I also agree that an engine is separated from a combo piece by how it is used. Yawgmoth's Bargain is a card that literally draws cards. However, in any successful deck that played four copies, it was not a draw engine. Once it arrived, the game ended immediately. Necropotence is able to function as both. In some decks, Necropotence arrives and the game is all but certain  to be over on the next turn. In other decks, however, Necropotence was played as a legitimate draw engine.

Likewise, Gush. Gush is a draw engine in any deck playing it, because those decks always have the ability to build incremental advantage using Gush. In many decks, however, Gush is also a combo piece. Generally, Fastbond is the card that facilitates turning Gush into a combo piece. Indeed, one of the great strengths of Gush as a draw engine is its ability to function as both a draw engine and a combo engine. Other Vintage-playable draw engines, such as Dark Confidant and Standstill, don't lend themselves to being a combo engine.

[Eastman]

Gush is the draw engine. If the deck is configured a certain way, Fastbond itself allows you to turn Gush into a combo piece as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards.

Isn't it that fastbond allow you to turn Gush into a tempo engine as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards?   I think the combo term references yet another concept--simply the interaction of different cards to create extreme advantages, whether card or tempo or position or something else.

[MTGFan]

Gush is the draw engine. If the deck is configured a certain way, Fastbond itself allows you to turn Gush into a combo piece as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards.

Isn't it that fastbond allow you to turn Gush into a tempo engine as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards?   I think the combo term references yet another concept--simply the interaction of different cards to create extreme advantages, whether card or tempo or position or something else.

Combo, as a concept, trades reliability guarantees for a more explosively accelerated gain in card advantage, tempo, or life loss (opponent).

Dark Confidant is reliable. You can play four of him in any deck, and cast him for the minor price of two mana. The card advantage gains afforded by this cards is incremental. This is not enough of a gain to fuel an immediate win.

Griselbrand, however, is less reliable. You cannot count on hard-casting him, and you must instead bend the design of your deck to fabricate a less reliable way (reanimate, show and tell, oath of druids) to bring him into play. However, once you do achieve this feat, the card advantage gains afforded by Griselbrand are massive bursts that are capable of fueling an immediate win.

Griselbrand and Dark Confidant fulfill the same roles in vastly different decks. By choosing Griselbrand over Dark Confidant you are choosing immediate gains over incremental gains. But by choosing Dark Confidant over Griselbrand you are choosing (in deck design, in drawing, in casting,  and in play) reliability over volatility.

It's like, in the stock market, the difference between blue chip stocks and growth stocks. Both fuilfill the same role for the investor but do it on opposite ends of the "reliability/volatility" continuum. The direct appeal of either one is tied to the mentality of the investor (and in the case of Dark Confidant vs. Griselbrand, the Magic player).

TL;DR - "Combo" engines exist in the same class of card as more traditional card advantage or tempo engines. They merely do it much faster - at the cost of diminished reliability.

[Smmenen]

Gush is the draw engine. If the deck is configured a certain way, Fastbond itself allows you to turn Gush into a combo piece as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards.

Isn't it that fastbond allow you to turn Gush into a tempo engine as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards?  

I think that's very close.  The Gushbond engine is a storm engine, draw engine, and mana engine. 

Card advantage is merely one form of advantage.  In the 3rd edition of my Gush book, I argue that Gush provides 4 dimension of advantage, and the Gushbond engine provides each of those and more. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

I argue that Gush provides 4 dimension of advantage

I think Gushbond.engine is an extremely unique and powerful option in Vintage.  However, what I see as missing from this discussion is a useful language or accounting of how all these dimensions weigh against the detractions.  Ie, unless you can show both sides of playing Gush/Bob/etc in a way that can be articulated both within a given strategy and then as that strategy plays out against the metagame, then this seems like a lot of everyone cheering on their own horse.

More directly towards the OP, I played Blue Angels this Saturday and can vouch for a hard control shell's ability to succeed without a big 2cc advantage spell (although I did modify to include 2x Snapcaster Mage).  The reason it works well here is that the game state this deck's win condition is looking for is further back than almost anything besides Landstill (maybe even more than landstill).  This means it can plan and play different trades always trying to stretch out the game.  This puts a lot of pressure on the opponent to establish something and to enter into risky trades all along the way.

[Eastman]

Gush is the draw engine. If the deck is configured a certain way, Fastbond itself allows you to turn Gush into a combo piece as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards.

Isn't it that fastbond allow you to turn Gush into a tempo engine as well, quickly trading life for mana and cards?  

I think that's very close.

Ten years and 900 posts later, agreement!  Well, very close to agreement anyways. This is an occasion.  

[Smmenen]

I argue that Gush provides 4 dimension of advantage

I think Gushbond.engine is an extremely unique and powerful option in Vintage.  However, what I see as missing from this discussion is a useful language or accounting of how all these dimensions weigh against the detractions.  Ie, unless you can show both sides of playing Gush/Bob/etc in a way that can be articulated both within a given strategy and then as that strategy plays out against the metagame, then this seems like a lot of everyone cheering on their own horse.

  My Gush book covers the drawbacks of Gush as well. 

[TheWhiteDragon]

Dang, Smem....pimping that book hard, aren't you?

Perhaps just explain the concept briefly.  Pros, cons, done.

[Smmenen]

Re-reading this thread, and thinking more deeply about some of the questions and ideas here:

Taking the OP on: can you have a hard control deck without a draw engine?  Yes.  But what you do need is a source of card advantage, virtual or real.  

Mono blue control decks could win games by using Back to Basics to acquire virtual card advantage, much as decks today might use Crucible + Strip/Waste to do the same.  

That said, the Deck only used Jayomdae Tome as a draw engine, but it used Gesyer, Ancestral, and Disrupting Scepter as sources of card advantage.  Scepter wasn't the draw engine, but it was a source of card advantage (as was Moat).  

Keeper decks went to 1 or 0 Tomes, but, one could argue, that Tome + Stroke + Geyser constituted, collectively, a draw engine.  One of those cards would be drawn and used.  

The Deck would have LOVED Jace.  It's the ultimate Weissman card.   It's the best Jayomdae Tome ever.  

Your deck has 4 Snapcaster Mages, which are a source of virtual and real card advantage.  

***

Now I want to talk about this draw engine question.  I think a draw engine has at least two components:

1) it has to be reliable

2) it has to be continuous or iterative.

What gets confusing is that there are, broadly speaking, two basic forms of draw (this is a distinction I make in the first chapter of my Gush book):  

1) incremental, recurring sources of card draw (Jayomdae Tome, Ophidian, Bob, Ophidian, Bazaar + Squees, Jace, Skullclamp, etc)

2) burst forms of card advantage (Ancestral Recall, Braingeyser, Stroke, Fact, Gush, Thirst, Standstill)

The former are naturally iterative and recursive.  the latter are not.   That means that the former naturally satisfy the iterative element.  

This conversation gets really complicated when there are examples that don't fit neatly into both categories.  There is a third category of strange conditional card draw, that you might put Standstill or Skullclamp into.   A similar question might be posed for Intuition + AK or DA.  AKs are an engine, but they are a recursive engine, yet they seem to bleed the distinction between recursive and burst.  The first two are closer to recursive, and the last two seem more like burst spells.  Yet, like Facting into Facts, they can be drawn into each other.

But take Necropotence.  For the first five years of its existence, it was mostly used to power mono black aggro decks (until Donate was printed).  It was used recursively over turns, as AtogLord described in this thread.   Yet, it can also be used just a huge burst of card draw.  In fact, it's often both - draw 3-5 cards per turn recursively.  

The question comes back to me is: what degree of reliability needs to exist before we can call something "an engine" -- a card engine, mana engine, whatever.  

Rich originally suggested, in answer to my question about Gushbond, that restricted cards or singletons don't constitute engines. But he seemed to hedge as to whether that was true of Skullclamp + a bunch of Trinket Mages OR even Ancestral Recall + 4 Merchant Scroll.  

I don't consider having a single Skullclamp in a deck to be a draw engine on its own. In Young Americans, it isn't really warping the rest of the deck around it -- it's just getting value. On the other hand, if you start to include more Trinket Mages and otherwise affecting the build in order to get and abuse Clamp more consistently, then yes it may be. As I said above:

if Merchant Scroll were unrestricted, the synergy between those two [Scroll and Ancestral] might be considered a draw engine

What, then, about Necropotence + 4 E. tutor?  

That would seem to satisfy the same ground as 1 Skullclamp + 4 Trinket Mage, at least in theory, if not practice.  

I'm struggling here because in my Chapter on the Gushbond engine, I assert that restricted cards or singletons don't generally constitute "engines," yet these exceptions undermine that assertion, not to mention the fact that I describe the Gushbond engine as an engine.   If it's an engine, and engines need to be both continuous and reliable, how can that be true if fastbond is restricted?  I'm struggling to reconcile that seeming contradiction...

TL;DR - "Combo" engines exist in the same class of card as more traditional card advantage or tempo engines. They merely do it much faster - at the cost of diminished reliability.

I'm not sure.   First of all, I don't really know what a ' combo engine' is.  Rich described it as an engine that wins the game immediately.  Yet, Gushbond doesn't always work that way, just like Necro doesn't.  Sometimes, you Gush with Fastbond for a turn or three before you find Yawg Will and win.  

I prefer to describe engines as engines or with a modifer: mana engine, draw engine, mana engine, storm engine, etc.  I don't know exactly what is meant by 'combo engine.'  A combo must take a specific form, mustn't it?  Animate Dead on Dragon is a mana engine.  Fastbond + Gush is all of the above.  Necro is a draw engine.

If we define a combo engine as merely faster, I'm not sure that holds water over a variety of contexts.  

A second objection: why must a combo engine be less reliable?  Is Necropotence, unrestricted, really somehow less reliable then other draw engines?  

And, how do we measure reliability?  Reliability can be measured by how often you draw it in your opening hand or first few draws.  But with cards like Trinket Mage or Merchant Scroll unrestricted, that metric may  not work.  

Or, was Jayomdae Tome a draw engine for The Deck as a 2 of, but not as a one-of?  These are tough questions.  I welcome thoughts on possible answers. 

[thecapn]

Can't you define 4 Trinket Mage or 4 Enlightened Tutor  in the examples above just as a tutor engine? Typically you are going to get Skullclamp or Necropotence but sometimes you just get Black Lotus instead. Hence tutor engine rather than draw engine.

[Smmenen]

I suppose it is possible to have a tutor engine, although that would just be a virtual card advantage engine.  I'm thinking Aladdin's Lamp with infinite mana here

I spoke with Kevin and I'd like to revise some earlier thoughts.  

One area of confusion in this thread is the issue of whether singletons or restricted cards can constituted a draw engine.  It started when Rich said this:

And a draw engine is based on one or more unrestricted cards.

I think my assumption or reading of this assertion was that restricted cards or singleton's can't be draw engines because they 1) aren't reliable (unlikely to draw it in the opening hand or first few draws), and 2) aren't continuous or relatively continuous (i.e. iterative).  

I've decided that (1) is wrong.   Reliability is NOT a criteria for constituted a draw engine or any engine.   It merely describes the consistency of that engine.  An engine is an engine regardless of whether it is reliable or even sees play.

However, Rich is correct that restricted cards generally do not constitute engines, but not because they aren't reliable; it's because they aren't continuous or relatively continuous (iterative).  To the extent that this is not true, such as the case with Skullclamp, they can't be engines.

If Skullclamp were restricted in Vintage, it could still be an engine because, it could be used iteratively (over and over again).  Burst draw spells generally can't be, but there are exceptions (Regrowthing them, putting Ancestral on Isochron Scepter, etc).  

Anyway, they key answer to my question earlier in this thread is that restricted cards can be part of an engine or an engine themselves, but only if there is a way to recur them or otherwise reuse them iteratively.  

To that extent, I guess I disagree with Rich that Gushbond isn't an engine.  Gush is a draw engine, but Gushbond is also an engine: it's a draw engine, mana engine, tempo engine, and storm engine, among other forms.