Mana Drain's Role in Vintage

[Will.fairbro]

I was hoping Vintage players could help clarify something for me.  I struggle understanding Mana Drain's role in Vintage.

I've had many years playing Blue decks in my Magic career, so I understand the card. Two mana Counterspell; that's great, but really... is it?

In a format of Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Force of Will etc., it seems incredibly slow, with the payoff being average, no?

I'm just trying to even understand what decks it slots into.  Recently I've taken to a Grixis list (Notion Thief, Dack, Jace, Time/Vault combo - with BDEV) with positive results, and I've had suggestions of "wow no Mana Drain?", or "you need to play Mana Drain". Is this because the norm in those lists are to play Mana Drain?

I've tried it and I'm just not really impressed with the card...

So as you can see I'm really trying to wrap my head around this one, and any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited title for clarity - Prospero

[Meddling Mike]

I am not sure that I'm the best person to write a reply to this. It's been a long time since I've played the card, but I'll try.

You mention that Mana Drain is a   Counterspell, but nothing else. Counterspell is a   counterspell, there's more text on Mana Drain and that's what makes Mana Drain unique and special. Not only are you trading your spell for their spell, but in the process you are also stealing their mana, draining their mana if you will. It can be a massive tempo swing. You can counter some spell of theirs and then return to your turn with an added resource boost. You can leverage this into casting an expensive spell either ahead of the curve or being able to cast that spell as well as keeping a counter up. Given the right combination of cards this can also be leveraged into winning the game. Ever win a counter war by Mana Draining somebody's Force of Will, gone back to your turn and cast Yawg Will for   and still having   in your pool and all your other mana untapped? It's an incredibly powerful play.

I understand why Mana Drain has fallen out of vogue. They've printed a lot of powerful counters since Mana Drain's heyday. The game and decks have shifted as well. It's not as much keeper decks sitting there and playing draw go. I think Mana Drain still has a place in the right decks in the right metagame though. It fills a niche that nothing else quite does. Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm/Mental Misstep are situational counters. Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm lose value as the game grinds on and paying the mana becomes less of an issue. All of them are useless with a Lodestone Golem on the stack. Force of Will is the unshakable gold standard for counters, but it requires you to have an additional blue card and 1 life point or   lying around. Even when it does the job it doesn't give you that mana boost next turn.

Whether or not Mana Drain is right for your deck is another question. I don't think that Drain is a must have for control decks the way it once was. I suppose it depends on if you expect to have the mana available to cast it and once you resolve it if you will have a high enough density of appropriate spells to dump that stolen mana into. Maybe try out one copy and see how it goes?

[desolutionist]

I think it depends on the deck. Mana Drain is a lot better if you want to power out something expensive such as Morphling.  Mana Drain is also better against mana denial strategies-- rather than something like Flusterstorm.

Right now people are clinging to Delver/Pyromancer style blue decks so it makes sense that Mana Drain doesn't necessarily follow.  If you were to play a big mana blue deck, which is totally viable, Mana Drain would probably be the best card in the deck

[jamestosetti]

I think Mana Drain is one of my favorite cards in Vintage. However, it isn't just a card that can be added to any blue deck in some random number with optimal results. Normally, the card is built into a strategy. The deck builder must ask themselves, "what do I want to happen as a result of this card resolving"? If your deck would benefit from ramp then Mana Drain is the perfect counter spell. I play a lot of Gush Tendrils, so I use the card to switch from the control role to the combo finish. Blue control decks normally want to use it to ramp into a Jace or Tezzeret among other things.

It is much more difficult to identify exactly what strategy various decks are implementing in Vintage than other formats. Sometimes it appears that the sheer power level of a card is the reason a deck wins, and that can be the case. More often than not, a more subtle strategy is being implemented, or it is just the rock, paper, scissors effect of the current meta. After one learns why Mana Drain is good then one can learn when it is good, and what strategies are currently using it too greater effect.

[Flash_Hulk]

I believe the main reason Mana Drain has fallen out of vogue is the evolution of the format; otherwise the card is simply busted.

"Big Blue" has been replaced by pure tempo driven Gush strategies that put emphasis on cheap efficient threats (Delver, Pyro, Mentor) and counters. Very few current blue decks can support keeping up UU for a hard counter, it's simply counter-intuitive.

I think the days of hard control decks that can support 2-4 Mana Drain are over, save perhaps Landstill. 

[MaximumCDawg]

There's another angle, which is that game-ending threats are now getting cheaper in blue decks.  The tempo you gain from a mana drain is smaller when you're winning with a card that costs U or 1R. 

I still wonder if it has a role to play in Mentor decks, though.

[Will.fairbro]

I think SelverOfDecrets has a similar mindset to where I'm coming from.

I think versus the majority of the field Mana Drain is respectable, but it's against other blue-based strategies where It can let you down.

The idea that against a Mentor/Pyro deck they can initiate from one card draw spell to the next, which develops into such an overwhelming advantage seems difficult for a Mana Drain to compete against.

Which spell are you suppose to Mana Drain?
How good are Preordain/Gush when you can't appropriately use them when having to leave mana open to possibly counter the 1 of 5 spells your opponent may cast.

This is where my difficulty lies.

Responses and feedback are appreciated, and encouraged.

[xouman]

Mana drain in a tempo build seems sub-par. Most of the time you are not confortable passing the turn with UU open and the mana that drain provides is often discarded. However in more cotrol oriented builds, Tezz, traditional grixis... is a powerful tool. The extra mana can be used for cheap gifts, can fuel planeswalkers, time vault combo, pay for y.will spells... even hardcast robot or pay for flusterstorm.

I specially remember one time playing elves vs tezz. I combo'ed in turn 3, but couldn't instawin (next turn he was facing 30 power on the table). While I was combo'ing my opponent played a drain on an uncounterable archdruid to have 3 mana next turn and won me with those 3 mana. Awesome.

[Smmenen]

The question is ambiguous.  Mana Drain's role in contemporary Vintage or the history of the format?

To answer the former question, just look at tournament data.  To answer the  latter, go read historical reports or histories of the format.  

[vaughnbros]

As many have stated already drain is a counterspell and a mana accelerator.  Decks that are not capable of taking advantage of both functions of the card are usually better served playing something different.  The latter function of the spell, mana acceleration, has become less useful as players began to cut things, like Tezzeret, Yawgmoth's will, and many of the other high mana spells from their decks.  If you add big spells back in, like Dromoka, Ojutai, Garruk, or Freyalise, the power of drain over other options quickly becomes very noticeable.

The question is ambiguous.  Mana Drain's role in contemporary Vintage or the history of the format?

To answer the former question, just look at tournament data.  To answer the former, go read historical reports or histories of the format. 

But how do I answer the latter question?

[NosferatuStuff]

Mana drain, beyond the obvious text, is a great tool in making opponents make sub-optimal plays.  Things like moving to second main phase to cast your spells or casting them specifically during first main phase can really make an opponent sweat.  I think just the threat of mana drain makes casting force of will much less of a no brainer and much more of an agonizing strategic decision.

Lets say I'm representing mana drain and you know I have it in my deck, 4 blue mana up I cast ancestral purposefully main phase 1.  Do you force?  Do I NEED that 5 mana for phase 2?  Is it a bluff?  When I pass and do the same thing in 2nd main, am I setting up my line of play for an even better ponder follow up?  Can you afford the tempo shift and should you just let it resolve? 

I think mana drain is currently under represented with new high converted mana spells like dig through time going around. 

[diopter]

In Standard competitive discussions there are a couple core principles:
- if your spot removal costs more than the threat you're dealing with you lose the trade
- making your opponent leave their mana open for an entire turn is amazing

These are principles of the "tempo" game of course. Mana Drain used to be an amazing tool at countering 2+ cost threats and then accelerating you by that much - an amazing swing in resources.

Now Mana Drain matches up poorly against several of the formats premier threats (Delver, LSG) and often you're forced to not leave the mana open for it because you need to dig for answers for the aforementioned.

Still quite good in Landstill because the deck is built to not play spells for long periods.
Still amazing in Blue Angels due to all the instant speed action.
Still decent in Bomberman due to the Trinket Mage -> Lotus interaction to sidestep the Time-Walk yourself issue.

All of the above are also harder control decks and devote more space to removal, thus complementing Drain's weakness against 3/2's and 5/3's

[youhavenogame]

In Standard competitive discussions there are a couple core principles:
- if your spot removal costs more than the threat you're dealing with you lose the trade
- making your opponent leave their mana open for an entire turn is amazing

Lots to learn you Vintage players have. (sorry if my attempt to sound like Yoda fails, I never watched the original Star Wars movies but only the terribly localized version for foreigners)

When I started playing Vintage exactly one year ago I already felt like Mana Drain was an overrated card. It had its merits if you just played straight into it, but once you started playing around it, your opponent was either forced to keep the 2 mana up without developing their board much, or to tap out at some point, realizing that they would probably never get value out of it, or they were forced to counter whatever I played - they had to use it eventually. Counterspell never felt as clunky as it did in Vintage, where people could just fire off a number of threats in a single turn, or stop it with answers that cost 1 Mana.

While Drain was not exactly great, it still was a fine card before the advance of Gush based Delve(r). You might think that hitting a 5-8 Mana card with Drain feels spicy, but once they go off with a Dig they have assembled enough ressources to just counter the Drain or not care. Until that point, gl and hf with keeping 2 up each turn...

[jamestosetti]

In Standard competitive discussions there are a couple core principles:
- if your spot removal costs more than the threat you're dealing with you lose the trade
- making your opponent leave their mana open for an entire turn is amazing

Lots to learn you Vintage players have. (sorry if my attempt to sound like Yoda fails, I never watched the original Star Wars movies but only the terribly localized version for foreigners)

When I started playing Vintage exactly one year ago I already felt like Mana Drain was an overrated card. It had its merits if you just played straight into it, but once you started playing around it, your opponent was either forced to keep the 2 mana up without developing their board much, or to tap out at some point, realizing that they would probably never get value out of it, or they were forced to counter whatever I played - they had to use it eventually. Counterspell never felt as clunky as it did in Vintage, where people could just fire off a number of threats in a single turn, or stop it with answers that cost 1 Mana.

While Drain was not exactly great, it still was a fine card before the advance of Gush based Delve(r). You might think that hitting a 5-8 Mana card with Drain feels spicy, but once they go off with a Dig they have assembled enough ressources to just counter the Drain or not care. Until that point, gl and hf with keeping 2 up each turn...

Mana Drain is still really good. It is probably one of the more difficult cards to incorporate into a strategy successfully though. On top of that, when the format changes, the use of Mana Drain will change. When I started playing Vintage I though the card was overrated. I had to find decks that used it to great effect, and it was mainly just a counter wall back then. Its been a while since I have used more than one. I think the last deck that used two or three that I played was Oath, and the card was really good in it. I will have to start looking for good uses for the card as more than a one of in different decks. I am sure that most experienced players will testify to the strength of the card even in today's meta.

[Smmenen]

I don't think mana generation is the reason to run Mana Drain over other counterspells.  Rather, I think that the desire to have a hard counterspell rather than a conditional one, and the lack of a tempo or combo role (and therefore wanting Fluster to protect threats), are more important factors. 

[jamestosetti]

I don't think mana generation is the reason to run Mana Drain over other counterspells.  Rather, I think that the desire to have a hard counterspell rather than a conditional one, and the lack of a tempo or combo role (and therefore wanting Fluster to protect threats), are more important factors. 

I wanted to mention this, but I just thought it was an assumption. A player would be surprised how nice it can be to have the ability to just say go because of a hard counter. However, Counterspell is not played over Mana Drain for a reason. I was looking though my deck lists for the Oath List. I need to start working with that one again, but it was using 3 Drains, 2 Jace, Yawgmoth's Will, 2 Dig Through Time. I've been working on another list for quite a while, and I am not very eager to play Oath right now. It is set up to deal with most of the hate being played though.

[Smmenen]

I don't think mana generation is the reason to run Mana Drain over other counterspells.  Rather, I think that the desire to have a hard counterspell rather than a conditional one, and the lack of a tempo or combo role (and therefore wanting Fluster to protect threats), are more important factors. 

I wanted to mention this, but I just thought it was an assumption. A player would be surprised how nice it can be to have the ability to just say go because of a hard counter. However, Counterspell is not played over Mana Drain for a reason.

It's strictly inferior in a format without mana burn. 

[LotusHead]

This has been a fascinating discussion.

Mana Drain can be a tool to develop your board, if you need that mana boost. Many decks want to work off very little mana anyways, so Drain not needed.

But most important, I am happy that Roll is now Role in the title thread.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Mana drain is the nut high in bomberman...js