[SCD] Mutavault is not as good as you think it is.

[Link]

Ctrl+F: Battalion....

Wut.

It doesn't need tribal. It can be good by just attacking because of battalion. Being able to create a battalion while curving out is nice. I'd think AIR Battalion players will advocate that dropping the G for more reliable firefist, loyalist, and awesome dynacharges is definitely worth the color cut.

Its funny you should say "outclass" because firefist and loyalist is the definition of outclass stomping, both made much better with access to mutavault.


But yeah Alex is right that too many people are problem just throwing it in decks. I wouldn't play it in R/g (the popular one without firefist) with reckoners "because 20 colors for reckoner is enough" because there's actually no extra value other than making your mana base worse.

[Alex]

I just find it humorous that a couple days ago everyone was all ooooh patrick sullivan says it needs to be more threat dense and have more 1-2 drops then people hate on mutvault which is just that ( also saccing it to aristocrat in dosrakis seems to be pretty good tech.

It's as if you didn't read the majority of the thread.

[Pendulum]

Good points from you all. Obviously Mutavault is better with lords, but Standard don't have many. Except a whole tribe of lords...Slivers. I'm surprised no half-decent sliver deck have showed up yet.

I think the problem here is that Mutavault is like the worst thing to happen to a 3 or 4 color sliver deck for the reasons Alex has outlined, and fewer colors than that is too restrictive in your choices of what other slivers/cards to play. Pretty ironic but it seems like slivers want to avoid Mutavault more than most decks.

Hopefully someone here can clarify, is this thread specific to aggressive (or at least more aggressive) strategies or is it supposed to be all-archetype inclusive? The two decks I'm playing right now (midrange Aristocrats and UW
Superman control) I simply couldn't even fathom playing without Mutavault, and while I may have to mulligan because I don't have a specific combination of lands in my opening hand every once in a great while it certainly isn't as common as you seem to think it is, and is certainly worth the added threat. Heck, I played back in Zendikar, it was all about the late-game manland smackdown back then, why do you think that is no longer viable as a source of wins?

[Alex]

Zendikar manlands were leaps and bounds better than Mutavault. A 3/2 unblockable elemental for 1BU? (Creeping Tar Pit) 4/4 flying vigilant elemental for 5? (Celestial Colonnade) They actually had merit in the late game. A 2/2 isn't going to save you on turn 12.

Jund seems to win an awful lot of games with Raging Ravine. I doubt Mutavault will get you there like that, though.

It's unfair to compare Mutavault to Zendikar manlands anyway, I now realize. It's more appropriate to compare it to a land it more closely resembles: Inkmoth Nexus.

[Checkbox]

jesus fucking christ I was actually interested in a Standard thread then red's dick got involved somehow

[Pendulum]

jesus fucking christ I was actually interested in a Standard thread then red's dick got involved somehow

No matter where you go, it's beat you there.

[Checkbox]

You faggots worship his dick like 35% too much for my taste

[Pendulum]

Zendikar manlands were leaps and bounds better than Mutavault. A 3/2 unblockable elemental for 1BU? (Creeping Tar Pit) 4/4 flying vigilant elemental for 5? (Celestial Colonnade) They actually had merit in the late game. A 2/2 isn't going to save you on turn 12.

Jund seems to win an awful lot of games with Raging Ravine. I doubt Mutavault will get you there like that, though.

It's unfair to compare Mutavault to Zendikar manlands anyway, I now realize. It's more appropriate to compare it to a land it more closely resembles: Inkmoth Nexus.

Well, here's the thing: when my decks don't have a
very high threat density, opting for quality over quantity, Mutavault's value goes up immensely as that very late-game threat. Take the example of when I'm playing against this one guy who stuck a couple of Slaughter Games in his Maindeck at my local shop; as you imagine this is a pain in ass against a UW deck who's main win-con is Aetherling backed by Jaces; I'm usually able to maneuver the win game 1 because Mutavault applies pressure after board sweeper and I have solid board control, and it's not uncommon to have more than one Vault out. Then game 2, where I've sideboarded into a more diverse win package, Mutavault usually takes a block for Jace to keep him around, and there it's nice because I'm just spending a land.

So to my mind there's little doubt from my experience that Mutavault is good in decks where you're not as concerned with solid constant pressure, but I definitely get the fact that in aggressive strategy where you need to
keep your threat density as solid as possible. You seem extremely knowledgeable on the subject, so I'd like to know if you could help me understand where the line might lie, so to speak, on when having Mutavault is worth a lowering of your other, non-Vault threats, or if you disagree with an aspect of my philosophy.

[Alex]

That seems like a pretty abstract and forced viewpoint for the card just based on how much experience I have playing with control decks that played with colorless manlands in the past. When Inkmoth Nexus was around it was pretty popular to jam it into the "control" decks of that time, most notably UW Hexblade. It was effective because it gave Inkmoth Nexus pressure on a mostly empty board, but this had a lot to do with the presence of Sword of X and Y and less to do with Inkmoth itself. This didn't make Inkmoth a good choice for the deck, but when you had nothing else to work with you were going to play whatever was available at the time.

Considering that even a flying, infect manland was often not included in these lists because the pressure it provided was very corner-case at the cost of making your mana worse, it seems to me that a card with no evasion and no upside other than being a changeling just isn't
good enough. As I've said a bunch of times in this thread, the card needs other cards to be good, and that's pretty miserable when you consider just how many things out there just immediately kill it/outclass it before it can really do anything. If you can't really activate it on or around curve, and you can't get a lot of value out of it on turn 10+, why are you playing it?

If for some reason Slaughter Games is a card that you have a real issue with, playing Mutavault isn't the answer, varying your threats is the answer. Singleton win conditions, when powerful enough, are completely fine. It's unfortunate that you're only playing UW because you're really limiting the win cons you have access to, but opening red provides cards that Slaughter Games wouldn't even think to look for unless they knew about them ahead of time. (Aurelia, the Warleader, and Assemble the Legion, just off of the top of my head.)

[Pendulum]

But I don't have a problem with Slaughter Games because I play with Mutavault? I don't mind a grindy game as long as I still win.
I'm a bit confused as to why you would suggest that I add a third color to a deck when one of your main complaints against Mutavault is the inherent instability the card adds to mana bases?

[Alex]

But I don't have a problem with Slaughter Games because I play with Mutavault? I don't mind a grindy game as long as I still win.
I'm a bit confused as to why you would suggest that I add a third color to a deck when one of your main complaints against Mutavault is the inherent instability the card adds to mana bases?

You mean you're opposed to giving up a mediocre card in exchange for a plethora of other quality cards? Red has a lot more to offer you than Mutavault does.

[Pendulum]

But I don't have a problem with Slaughter Games because I play with Mutavault? I don't mind a grindy game as long as I still win.
I'm a bit confused as to why you would suggest that I add a third color to a deck when one of your main complaints against Mutavault is the inherent instability the card adds to mana bases?

You mean you're opposed to giving up a mediocre card in exchange for a plethora of other quality cards? Red has a lot more to offer you than Mutavault does.

Because it also doesn't mess with my mana base as much as adding additional colors would, it doesn't eat
up a valuable spell slot, and I don't need to?

[Alex]

You're playing in a block where playing a third color has almost no drawback. I'm failing to see how that can even be an argument. Unless your goal here is simply to be right for the sake of being right, in which case I concede.

[Pendulum]

I was hoping for feedback on my question, Alex (the question of if you feel it's possible to draw a line of reference for where Mutavault becomes valuable enough to start removing other lines of attack from your deck), and I thought I was providing an example of that to help you understand where I'm at cognitively. If you think the idea of UW Superman is a shit deck, I would disagree, and possibly defend its validity at least as far as a local meta is concerned, but you are free to tell me that. What I'm not getting is why you'd beat around the bush.

[Alex]

I was hoping for feedback on my question, Alex (the question of if you feel it's possible to draw a line of reference for where Mutavault becomes valuable enough to start removing other lines of attack from your deck), and I thought I was providing an example of that to help you understand where I'm at cognitively. If you think the idea of UW Superman is a shit deck, I would disagree, and possibly defend its validity at least as far as a local meta is concerned, but you are free to tell me that. What I'm not getting is why you'd beat around the bush.

Okay? I answered this question already; that line is when you start ignoring cards from a larger pool of cards simply to force Mutavaults into your mana base. I thought I was pretty clear on that
earlier in this thread.

Say what you will about UW being a deck, I'm telling you that adding a third color (black or red being the most intuitive) offers you a lot more than having Mutavaults. And while you can say "Mutavault doesn't take up card slots," that argument is based in the realm of already playing less colors for no value. I find it hard to believe that your deck couldn't benefit from cards like Doom Blade or Bonfire of the Damned, especially if your win condition is "protect Jace and Aetherling." You can find room.

[Pendulum]

Ah well I was hoping for a little clarification. I do not pretend to be a smart man, just a tenacious one; if I'm winning I don't see the need to change.

[redthirst]

You faggots worship his dick like 35% too much for my taste

Lies.

Ah well I was hoping for a little clarification. I do not pretend to be a smart man, just a tenacious one; if I'm winning I don't see the need to change.

Damn straight.

[Alex]

Ah well I was hoping for a little clarification. I do not pretend to be a smart man, just a tenacious one; if I'm winning I don't see the need to change.

I'm not really sure how much clearer it gets than that, and I'm a wordsmith.

[Kazekirimaru]

You faggots worship his dick like 35% too much for my taste

Implying you have a taste for dick?

[hamfactorial]

Implying implications

[RedNihilist]

You faggots worship his dick like 35% too much for my taste

Hey man, don't be a dick.

[lorddax]

A woman can not not have any number of inches of Redthirst's dick in her

Fixed it for you.

[DarthStabber]

1 >implying that implications should not begin with ">" and be green.

2 pendulum has it dead on, don't fix what isn't broke, but do try to figure out why it's working, because it might be applicable to something else.

3 Playing more than one color is for sissies. And 4 of the colors are for sissies. Nothing wrong with sissies, I am just not one of them. Mutavault goes in my monored deck as a 2 of, and boros reckoner is only a sideboard card, so it's not likely to cause major issues.

4 There is never too much dick talk, magic is disproportionately a male hobby, and men are obsessed with dicks. The difference is that gay men like dicks, and straight men like their dicks in particular.

[Jack]

The difference is that gay men like dicks, and straight men like their dicks in particular.

^wisdom.

[zemanjaski]

This darhstabber guy is quickly becoming my favourite poster, bravo.

[DarthStabber]

I aim please (usually on the lower back).

[warwizard87]

I aim please (usually on the lower back).

giggity

[DarthStabber]

So i've been sac'ing mutavaults to my hammer lately. I makes it a bigger creature, and doesn't throw off colored sources. It came about as a vault was getting doombladed, and I had 3 open for a lightning bolt and a cackeler, intead I sac'd it for a token. Since they re supposed to become creature, may as well not get rid of redsources if I don't have to. Probbly wrong call, but i'm investigating atm.

[Jack]

It depends. I'll usually sac mountains until I only have three left. Also, Mutavault is pretty good on its own, so sometimes it just isn't worth it to lose a land to get a creature with one more power, unless you need to trade with an x/3.

[DarthStabber]

I am honestly of the optinion that vault should be counted as half a land half a spell. Thus my deck that wants 22 lands would be best off with 21 mountains and 2 mutavaults.

[Kaitscralt]

how did i just notice this thread. mutavault is not as what? wow.

[Alex]

how did i just notice this thread. mutavault is not as what? wow.

I'll give you a pass since we know you don't know how to read.

[zemanjaski]

All I do is calculate how many coloured sources I want (eg: 18 for RR on 2 or 21 for RR on 3) then how many land in total I need to hit my curve's top end on time (eg: 23 land for 3-4 x 4 drops; 25 land for 4x 5 drop); whateverr the difference is how many Mutavault ill run. It's one of the best cards in the format, but I won't spoil the integrity of my manabase to squeeze an extra copy or two in.

[DarthStabber]

I still don't agree with the title assertion. It's no Umezawa's Jitte, but it does valuable and powerful things in a variety of decks. It has limitations, but I don't believe that anyone is claiming it's a auto 4 of in every decks. It's an easy way to increase the threat density in aggressive decks, nothing more, nothing less.

[zemanjaski]

In Alex's defence a lot of clan members were running it as an auto 4-of regardless of other considerations, when he posted this. So while the thread might look a little silly now, at the time his concern was both warranted and appreciated.

[DarthStabber]

Duly noted. Don't why I'm surprized by people being stupid with decent non-basic land. Were it not reprinted inbetween "everything is gold" and "everything is double costed" it might have been an auto 4 of.

[Alex]

In Alex's defence a lot of clan members were running it as an auto 4-of regardless of other considerations, when he posted this. So while the thread might look a little silly now, at the time his concern was both warranted and appreciated.

Yeah, this. It was absurd to slam it as a 4-of in a world of perfect mana. It was cool in mono colored lists because it did a lot of the things we loved about Hellion Crucible, but it wasn't as good as the old manlands that forcing them was good.

I would force Creeping Tar Pit all day, but Mutavault...? Eh, not so much. I liked being able to play better actual spells in more colors than I did playing a pseudo-spell in the form of a land.

[DarthStabber]

I used to force a lot of [card]urza's factory[/card] into decks just for the late game potential, and it only ever came in handy about 2% of the time. Of course at that point mana was so close to perfect that 5-color control and domain aggro were things (f'n tromp the domains). Same with stalking stones, kher keep, and blinkmoth nexus. Still none of them have the place in my heart that keldon megaliths does.