[BFZ] Kiora, Master of the Depths

[Chubby Rain]

Card Text:


+1: Untap up to one target creature and up to one target land.
-2: Reveal the top four cards of your library. You may put a creature card and/or a land card from among them into your hand. Put the rest into your graveyard.
-8: You get an emblem with "Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may have it fight target creature." Then put three 8/8 blue Octopus creature tokens onto the battlefield under your control.

Alright, I don't think I've ever made a spoiler thread before but I was mildly surprised that a blue planeswalker had been spoiled for almost a day with no thread created (almost positive one will pop up while I'm typing this). Thing is, I think Kiora might actually have a role in Vintage BUG Fish. I'm not going to go through and extensively dissect the abilities as such exercises generally produce poor results when it comes to card evaluation. I would like to note that the +1 ability synergizes with Deathrite Shaman and protects Kiora if you have something beefy like a Tasigur or a True-Name Nemesis in play. The -2 ability is the meat and potatoes of the card: it generates card advantage (BUG Fish has enough creatures and lands to make the two-for not incredibly rare), it fuels Delve and DRS, it plays incredibly well with Snapcaster Mage and Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy, and it finds utility lands like Wasteland and Strip Mine. Imagine the Magical Christmasland scenario of casting Kiora, +1 it to untap DRS and a land (keeping Abrupt Decay or a counterspell up), then -2 ing into Snapcaster + Wasteland or Tasigur + Wasteland. Is that enough to see play? Who knows...Card evaluation is a shot in the dark anyway. Still, I'm going to start with 1-2 in a BUG Fish shell to explore Kiora's viability.

[vaughnbros]

She's atrocious.  While her +1 is OK, it's worse than Ral Zareks.  Then her -2 is so incredibly limited and ultimate takes 5 turns to activate.

[Chubby Rain]

She's atrocious.  While her +1 is OK, it's worse than Ral Zareks.  Then her -2 is so incredibly limited and ultimate takes 5 turns to activate.

She has an ultimate?

[vaughnbros]

She's atrocious.  While her +1 is OK, it's worse than Ral Zareks.  Then her -2 is so incredibly limited and ultimate takes 5 turns to activate.

She has an ultimate?

I mean it's written in the card... Board sweep your opponent and get 3 8/8's

[Chubby Rain]

She's atrocious.  While her +1 is OK, it's worse than Ral Zareks.  Then her -2 is so incredibly limited and ultimate takes 5 turns to activate.

She has an ultimate?

I mean it's written in the card... Board sweep your opponent and get 3 8/8's

It was too long to read and the -2 makes it so unlikely that you'll actually ultimate her. Still...that probably ends the game against Shops.

[MaximumCDawg]

She's atrocious.  While her +1 is OK, it's worse than Ral Zareks.  Then her -2 is so incredibly limited and ultimate takes 5 turns to activate.

She has an ultimate?

Nah, I'm pretty sure she doesn't.

Anyway, the reason why we saw no thread for Kiora is that she's... not super interesting?  She has an untap ability and a draw ability.  You pointed out the interaction with Shaman, and that's really cool, but for G/B you could just have another Shaman, so... 

I dunno, the -2 is pretty nifty but you only get to do it twice unless you ramp her up.  It does KINDA protect her, though, since she digs up a dork. 

I dunno, I think I like Narset better, but Kiora's not terrible.  We seem to have  rash of decent 4cc walkers recently, I wonder what gives?

[gkraigher]

This card is way too narrow.  Can it be good?  Certainly.   But it can also do nothing.  

Let's assume each of these outcomes has an equal probability, then the expected payout for this card is:

1) win more (are you really even winning more with her +1?, I don't know)
2) sometimes yield card advantage
3) do nothing

this kind of variance is not what you want in a card for a 12 round tournament.   Even if payouts 1 and 2 were better, the 33% chance of the card doing nothing upon an activation is reason enough not to play it.  

I think the new Gideon has a better chance of seeing play in Vintage than this card does. 

[Chubby Rain]

Let's assume each of these outcomes has an equal probability...

Why is it that when people don't want to do the math behind a probability, they default to a 50-50 (or a similar split) likelihood of said event(s) occuring? It's not just you, but a common fallacy that one frequently encounters on the interwebs...

...then the expected payout for this card is:

1) win more (are you really even winning more with her +1?, I don't know)
2) sometimes yield card advantage
3) do nothing

This is a gross oversimplification...In what circumstances are you "winning more" with this card? How does this differ from other Magic cards? Is drawing Ancestral Recall with 7 cards in hand against a hellbent opponent "winning more"? Similarly, in what circumstances does this card actually "do nothing"? Are you rolling dice to determine which ability to use? Are we running Kiora in a deck without creatures or lands or graveyard shenanigans? Not only do I not accept the premise that "these outcomes have an equal probability", I don't accept that these outcomes (except for the second one, I guess) are possible in a game of Magic.

this kind of variance is not what you want in a card for a 12 round tournament.   Even if payouts 1 and 2 were better, the 33% chance of the card doing nothing upon an activation is reason enough not to play it.

Again, are we +1'ing Kiora without creatures or lands in play whenever we roll a 1 or 2 with a 6-sided dice (in which case we are increasing Kiora's loyalty)? Even on the off-chance that you miss a creature or a land with the -2 ability, which I assume is 6.25% in what I also assume is Jimmy McCarthy's BUG Fish deck from the Champs preliminary (http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=17958&iddeck=135557)*, you are still putting 4 cards into the graveyard to fuel Delve and Snapcaster/Jace. Which is not nothing...

I think the new Gideon has a better chance of seeing play in Vintage than this card does. 

Then please create a thread explaining why you believe Gideon might see Vintage play...

*For the record, I'm also assuming the probability of hitting both a creature and a land is 0.45 in the same deck. Which is pretty sweet, actually.

[gkraigher]

dude, her +1 is terrible.  

for 4 mana, you are going to add 1 mana to your mana pool most of the time.  
you could have academy out, so maybe you get more.
you could use it is give your creature vigilance, but the value in doing that is rarely worth it.
you generally only get value when you have a land and deathrite shaman in play, to get 2 mana or other deathrite shananagins.  but for 4 mana, acting like a sisay's ring isn't that great.  

now, onto the probability.  

Using Jimmy McCarthy's Fish as a reference, here are the exact probabilities in a vacuum:

12 creature
18 lands

probability of drawing 1 creature 12/59 = .20, so the probability of not drawing a creature is 4/5 (or .8) of the time.  So you take (1-.8^4) and you .60 percert chance to draw a creature on 4 draws.
probability of drawing 1 land 18/59 = .31, so the probability of not drawing a land is 7/10 (or .7) of the time.  So you take (1-.7^4) and you get a .75 percent change to draw a land on 4 draws.  

so the probability of doing both is .6(.75) = .42 or 42% percent of the time you get both a land and a creature.  (So you were very close at 45%.)

the probability of drawing neither is .4*.25 = .10 or 10% of the time.  (this reperents a 60% increase from your prediction of 6.25%, so that estimate was not as close)

Both percentages were slightly worse than you had guessed, but better than I thought they would end up being before I posted the math.  

[vaughnbros]

Why is it that when people don't want to do the math behind a probability, they default to a 50-50 (or a similar split) likelihood of said event(s) occuring? It's not just you, but a common fallacy that one frequently encounters on the interwebs...

From a frequentist point of view 50-50, or equal probability, is actually not a bad assumption to make as it is the equivalent of assuming a null hypothesis.  But from the Bayesianist point of view with very basic of knowledge of the subject area assuming this is rather silly.  The reality is that this card is at least a 1 for 1 94.8% after resolution by what I've laid out below (assuming we are in a shell with 30 lands/creatures and that a 4 mana spell resolved is equal to a random land/creature in hand). 

the probability of drawing neither is .4*.25 = .10 or 10% of the time.  (this reperents a 60% increase from your prediction of 6.25%, so that estimate was not as close)

Both percentages were slightly worse than you had guessed, but better than I thought they would end up being before I posted the math.  

While most of your numbers are roughly correct (not exact as the assumptions you are making on independence and replacement are not fully met).  10% is not the correct number for failing in this situation.  Its 5.2% (using your 59 cards).  http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx


Stats aside... Firstly the ultimate is irrelevant.  So looking at the +1 the most powerful thing that can be done with it is Stasis.  When we look at the -2 it couldn't be worse for a deck like Stasis, which plays 17 lands, no creatures, and has no interest in drawing lands after it resolves a walker.  Looking at the +1 most vintage decks it adds 1 mana and gives a creature vigilance, that is OK, but definitely not worth 4 mana.  The -2 is a bad impulse that can only find creatures (most decks don't play enough) and lands (I already have access to 5 mana...), in a creature heavy deck this ability is OK.  In summary, a creature heavy ramp deck this might be OK, but we are worlds away from such a deck existing in vintage and being OK in a non existent deck is not a great place to be.

[bactgudz]

dude, her +1 is terrible.  

for 4 mana, you are going to add 1 mana to your mana pool most of the time.  
you could have academy out, so maybe you get more.
you could use it is give your creature vigilance, but the value in doing that is rarely worth it.
you generally only get value when you have a land and deathrite shaman in play, to get 2 mana or other deathrite shananagins.  but for 4 mana, acting like a sisay's ring isn't that great.  

now, onto the probability.  

Using Jimmy McCarthy's Fish as a reference, here are the exact probabilities in a vacuum:

12 creature
18 lands

probability of drawing 1 creature 12/59 = .20, so the probability of not drawing a creature is 4/5 (or .8) of the time.  So you take (1-.8^4) and you .60 percert chance to draw a creature on 4 draws.
probability of drawing 1 land 18/59 = .31, so the probability of not drawing a land is 7/10 (or .7) of the time.  So you take (1-.7^4) and you get a .75 percent change to draw a land on 4 draws.  

so the probability of doing both is .6(.75) = .42 or 42% percent of the time you get both a land and a creature.  (So you were very close at 45%.)

the probability of drawing neither is .4*.25 = .10 or 10% of the time.  (this reperents a 60% increase from your prediction of 6.25%, so that estimate was not as close)

Both percentages were slightly worse than you had guessed, but better than I thought they would end up being before I posted the math.  

Not that Kiora is good, but she is better than a 10% whiff.  The above quote is a bit off primarily due to the facts that drawing a land in a 4 card hand and drawing a creature in a 4 card hand are not independent events so you cant just multiply probabilities based on those events, and that we are drawing without replacement.  This pretty much washes out when calculating the probability of drawing both (the real probability is about 42.8%), but the probability of drawing neither is around 5.62% not 10% [think of it as the fact that the card you just drew wasn't a land made it more likely that it was a creature and also that the next card you draw is a land].

The exact probability of drawing a specific amount of lands and critters in a 4 card hand from a 60 card deck with the composition above is:
4!*56!*12!*18!*30!/(60!*critters!*(12-critters)!*lands!*(18-lands)!*(4-lands-critters)!*(30-4+lands+critters)!)
evaluating this at lands=0, critters=0 is ~.0562

So drawing at least one of each is:
\sum_{lands=1..3,critters=1..4-lands}4!*56!*12!*18!*30!/(60!*critters!*(12-critters)!*lands!*(18-lands)!*(4-lands-critters)!*(30-4+lands+critters)!)~.428

Here's the full table for reference:
      lands
      0                   1                   2                   3                   4
critters 0   0.056199822   0.149866191   0.136485281   0.050201483   0.006275185
      1   0.099910794   0.192685103   0.112953336   0.020080593   
      2   0.058876004   0.073087453   0.020708112      
      3   0.013534713   0.008120828         
      4   0.001015104            

It is likely more realistic as well to evaluate the above when the deck is less than 60 cards and a certain number of lands and cirtters are already out of it, since you don't start with Kiora in play.

Edit: note vaghnbros, you need the multivariate hypergeometric [the equation I wrote above] since you have 2"success" dimensions, that's why your calculator isn't quite right.  59 or 60 cards moves the solutions on the order of a thousandth of a percent.
Edit2edit:actually after checking, the 59 card success rate is a full percent more at 43.8%, off by a few decimals in my head.

[vaughnbros]

Edit: note vaghnbros, you need the multivariate hypergeometric [the equation I wrote above] since you have 2"success" dimensions, that's why your calculator isn't quite right.  59 or 60 cards moves the solutions on the order of a thousandth of a percent.

I have the 5.6% that you have with 60 cards.  We don't need the multivariate hypergeometric for determining a whiff since a whiff is binary (hit land/creature or don't hit land/creature).  But yes the multivariate hypergeometric should be used for determining the probability of having a choice of at least one creature or at least one land (or some other combinations).

[Chubby Rain]

Ugh, too much math. I'll just top 8 with this card like I did with Jace...

[vaughnbros]

Ugh, too much math. I'll just top 8 with this card like I did with Jace...

No top 8 with this one instead...



Its more of a challenge.

[Chubby Rain]

Does running it as a 1-of in the SB count?

[vaughnbros]

Does running it as a 1-of in the SB count?

Only if you actually board it in and have a tournament report to back that up.  But why would you want to do that in the first place?  It has so much synergy with graveyard cards.  I mean his +1 is only marginally worse than mill 1 card.

[gkraigher]

outside of stasis decks, why would you want to play kiora when you could play Jace, Architect of Thought.



You always get 2 cards when you -2 him, and he also does it twice, and he also has an irrelevant +1 ability (unless you are playing agianst young pyromancer)

And with him, you can even get cards like ancestral recall or time walk.  Why limit yourself to an additional deathrite shaman?

I don't understand why or how Kiora could possible be better than this card. 

[vaughnbros]

outside of stasis decks, why would you want to play kiora when you could play Jace, Architect of Thought.

Well you can't have 2 Jaces out at once.

[Chubby Rain]

outside of stasis decks, why would you want to play kiora when you could play Jace, Architect of Thought.

-snip image-

You always get 2 cards when you -2 him, and he also does it twice, and he also has an irrelevant +1 ability (unless you are playing agianst young pyromancer)

The fact that the extra cards are put into the graveyard is huge for a deck that runs Deathrite Shaman, Snapcaster Mage, Tasigur, Dig through Time, Treasure Cruise, and probably Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy by the time I'm done with it...

And with him, you can even get cards like ancestral recall or time walk.  Why limit yourself to an additional deathrite shaman?

Step 1: Take Snapcaster Mage
Step 2: Flashback Ancestral Recall
Step 3: Profit...

[gkraigher]

that's a fair point.  I didn't read that the cards went to the graveyard with the minus ability.  So there are a lot of synergies with that. 

[Chubby Rain]

that's a fair point.  I didn't read that the cards went to the graveyard with the minus ability.  So there are a lot of synergies with that. 

Yeah, I had to read the card twice as I assumed it functioned similarly to Jace, AoT. I don't think this card is universally playable in Vintage, but I think it has the potential to be very good in BUG Fish given the graveyard synergies, the high creature and land count (not to mention lands that function as spells), and the ability to get some value out of the +1 ability. I will certainly try to test this when the card is ultimately released.

[nedleeds]

I think Mystic Snake is better, seriously.

[Chubby Rain]

I think Mystic Snake is better, seriously.

And I disagree, seriously. Thank you for your input.

[serracollector]

I really like the fact that this not only untaps dr shaman but also fuels him. Being able to hit the opponent for four a turn should not be disregarded. It even has potential with cards like Grim Lavamancer and Crucible of Worlds alongside the snaps and delves of the world.

[Wagner]

Am I reading this wrong or does the ultimate create a loop? Don't the octopi also enter the battlefield, bringing more octopi?

The ultimate is just weak, you need to cast a creature and for it to resolve too. If for some reason you ultimate and your creature gets countered, you might need to wait a few more turns to get a creature for it to actually do anything.

Also, the flavor of the ultimate is pretty terrible. You have to cast a creature, then it fights another one, then octopi arrive and fight more creatures? What's happening in there?

[msg67183]

Am I reading this wrong or does the ultimate create a loop? Don't the octopi also enter the battlefield, bringing more octopi?

The ultimate is just weak, you need to cast a creature and for it to resolve too. If for some reason you ultimate and your creature gets countered, you might need to wait a few more turns to get a creature for it to actually do anything.

Also, the flavor of the ultimate is pretty terrible. You have to cast a creature, then it fights another one, then octopi arrive and fight more creatures? What's happening in there?

The ultimate does two things seperately. It gives you the emblem that says "whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may have it fight target creature" then another, seperate trigger happens, giving you three 8/8 Octopus tokens. You don't get the Octopus tokens every time a creature enters.

[Wagner]

Am I reading this wrong or does the ultimate create a loop? Don't the octopi also enter the battlefield, bringing more octopi?

The ultimate is just weak, you need to cast a creature and for it to resolve too. If for some reason you ultimate and your creature gets countered, you might need to wait a few more turns to get a creature for it to actually do anything.

Also, the flavor of the ultimate is pretty terrible. You have to cast a creature, then it fights another one, then octopi arrive and fight more creatures? What's happening in there?

The ultimate does two things seperately. It gives you the emblem that says "whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may have it fight target creature" then another, seperate trigger happens, giving you three 8/8 Octopus tokens. You don't get the Octopus tokens every time a creature enters.

Awww, got it, then it's much better than I thought, but I still don't think this card is any good.

[xouman]

I like kiora more than the Arquitect, but costing 4 puts her in confrontation with jace and cannot be overlooked. As said drs seems a must with kiora, and it would be nice to have other creatures with tapping abilities (lavamancer comes to mind as well as other shooters, also devout witness or viashino heretic, any manland...). Tolarian or active library would also benefit.

Having about 95% of success drawing anything is nice, even if it's a land. If you don't know what to do with extra lands play fayden, mindsculptor or the new prodigy.

Finally the ultimate is a game winner. Maybe not instantanelly, but having 3 8/8 creatures is awesome, unless you are facing a horde of tokens. Fayden's ultimate if worse imho, and fayden is quite played...

[nyghtrunner]

Finally the ultimate is a game winner. Maybe not instantanelly, but having 3 8/8 creatures is awesome, unless you are facing a horde of tokens. Fayden's ultimate if worse imho, and fayden is quite played...

Fayden has an ultimate?

In all seriousness, Fayden is played because he costs , and because his -2 naturally preys on Shops (and random jewelry, acting as a random Wasteland), while his +1 is all kinds of good. Looting isn't quite the same as drawing, but free access to double loot/turn is pretty insane, and with the Delve cards, it starts to border on insane, because it's an effective +1, draw 2 cards, add to your pool, discard the junk in your hand. The only times I dislike Dack's +1 are when I have 1 card in hand going into the turn. Or perhaps if I already have a winning position and a perfectly sculpted 7, in which case, Dack doesn't really matter.

Fayden is played for his +1 and -2 abilities, not for his -6.

And Kiora shouldn't be played for the ultimate either. Truthfully, no Planeswalker should ever be used for the ultimate alone, unless you're going for some kind of Doubling Season/Superfriends Combo in EDH. Or going for the flavor win of being the only person to ever ultimate Tybalt.

As for Kiora in Vintage... If it has a place, BUG Fishes seems the natural fit, but I do think I find myself largely in agreement with others in that it's a bit underpowered @cc . But I don't deny that there's good synergy in some kind of TasiBUG.

[xouman]

I use fayden's second ability when possible. It's not a wasteland by any means. With wasteland you get +0 CA (you destroy a permanent, losing another in the meantime). With fayden you get +2 CA (you "destroy" a permanent and win one in the process at no cost!!! ). With expensive spells (auriok in my case, but also planeswalkers, paid fows...) it's really nice.

And despite fayden's ultimate is usually useless, cards as fire//ice can take profit of it (both sides). While nobody will play fayden because of his ultimate, it's a tool to take into account in extreme situations.