Most pointless card : Aven Mindcensor.

Laeuftbeidir

Or : how to make your opponent run through his deck more quickly.
The card has the effect to exile a card from the library of the enemy, whenever he draws a card.
Each library has 40 cards. Whenever you reach the end of your library, a new deck is added. The library itself is totally random ( the possibilities to influence it are minimal = irrelevant).
It gets even worse : there are now options to benefit from exiled cards (f. ex. Gideon 3), so the only possible impact this card could have, is an advantage for the enemy.
Could you enlighten us, what the point behind it is, @brigby, @LakeStone, @Hibernum_JC ?
Maybe there will be other cards coming, changing the meta to make this card useful?


Btw, there is a common spell also exiling cards from the enemys library. This one is actually useful : you can cycle it away.

Thuran

It's not worthless! It is still a 3/2 flier for 10! That is solid enough to be playable in a blue-white skies deck, when you don't have acces to more powerful commons  

wereotter

We had another thread about this and I think many of us agree it needs to be the hate card it is in paper magic and shut down your opponent's ability to fetch cards. So no second ability for Kiora, Arlinn, and Tezzeret. No Dubious Challemge. No Gather the Pack...

Laeuftbeidir

Oh, I remember.. I looked at the last couple of pages, thought I remembered only a side discussion in another thread.. Sorry for the double post - but the card is pointless enough to be annoying in multiple threads.

Another option would be punishing fetched cards - by mana, damage to the Planeswalker, or - x/-x for the first enemys creature.. Whatever, but actually something useful.

But I'm actually most interested in what led to the design of the card.. There must be an idea behind it?

Steeme

Exiled creatures cannot be returned to the battlefield (Prized Amalgam, Scrapheap Scrounger, Embalm, etc.)

Laeuftbeidir

No, they can't, @steeme (unless you're facing Gideon). I don't argue against exiling itself, that feature makes the spells great that are exiling creatures on the battlefield!
But from the library, the effect is, statistically, nothing. Zero. Even if there are cards like these (or creatures with enbalm, more common now), there is no impact at all to the gameplay.

Fun fact - this card is even part of new Gideons expert deck.

Abenjes

it's very hard to see any initial benefit from the card when you've no idea what card you are exiling. if we could look at the next 3 cards in the opponents library all of a sudden these cards may have value.  

madwren

The design smacks of a lack of experience with paper Magic, really, so I'm willing to chalk it up to naivete.

BostonBubba

Lucky for me I've pulled 2 of them in around 20 packs.

Steeme

Laeuftbeidir said:

No, they can't, @steeme (unless you're facing Gideon). I don't argue against exiling itself, that feature makes the spells great that are exiling creatures on the battlefield!
But from the library, the effect is, statistically, nothing. Zero. Even if there are cards like these (or creatures with enbalm, more common now), there is no impact at all to the gameplay.

Fun fact - this card is even part of new Gideons expert deck.

Exiling from the library most definitely has a use if you know your opponent is running a graveyard recursion deck.  Yes, you don't get to "see" what is exiled, and you don't get to "choose", but that would be too powerful.

Instead, you have a mechanic which can regularly move cards from your opponent's library into exile.

Every deck starts with 40 cards.  Suppose he is running 5 creatures with Embalm.  That means there are 20 of them in his initial deck.

Now Aven Mindcensor will move a card to the exile every time he draws a card.  That means you could be moving creatures into exile.  If you don't move a creature into exile, then you could be moving the few supports / spells that he's carrying.  Granted that doesn't tell you much, but it can definitely mess up his momentum and consistency.

It is a niche card that will see very little play (if any) unless there is a specific PvP deck or PvE encounter that thrives off of graveyard recursion and draw.

Formulator

Fetch-Proof

Ridiculously OP Abilty

Tooled for the Current Meta

Laeuftbeidir

Steeme said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

No, they can't, @steeme (unless you're facing Gideon). I don't argue against exiling itself, that feature makes the spells great that are exiling creatures on the battlefield!
But from the library, the effect is, statistically, nothing. Zero. Even if there are cards like these (or creatures with enbalm, more common now), there is no impact at all to the gameplay.

Fun fact - this card is even part of new Gideons expert deck.

Exiling from the library most definitely has a use if you know your opponent is running a graveyard recursion deck.  Yes, you don't get to "see" what is exiled, and you don't get to "choose", but that would be too powerful.

Instead, you have a mechanic which can regularly move cards from your opponent's library into exile.

Every deck starts with 40 cards.  Suppose he is running 5 creatures with Embalm.  That means there are 20 of them in his initial deck.

Now Aven Mindcensor will move a card to the exile every time he draws a card.  That means you could be moving creatures into exile.  If you don't move a creature into exile, then you could be moving the few supports / spells that he's carrying.  Granted that doesn't tell you much, but it can definitely mess up his momentum and consistency.

It is a niche card that will see very little play (if any) unless there is a specific PvP deck or PvE encounter that thrives off of graveyard recursion and draw.

You don't get to see - you don't get to choose - it isn't powerful.
I like your example. Let's say you play Aven right at the beginning of the game, and it remains there until the end. The enemys library consits of 50% creatures, 25% spells and 25% supports, adding up to 40 cards, to make it easy.
Every time he draws a card, a card is exiled.

The effect : the library shrinks to 20 cards. Since it was random, we can expect it to have again 40-60% creatures, 20-30% spells, same for supports. After the 20 cards are played, the next twenty cards come into play. This could slow him down, but could also speed him up. In the long run - no effect.

It is just like you'd have these cards all printed. You shuffle them. Take half of them to make two twenty card decks. Without looking at them : is one of the decks better than the other?

As long as he gets a card every turn, and a deck is added whenever he runs out of cards, the odds of pulling a specific card remain the same.

I like your general idea, by the way, but if this is the intended strategie of the card (and I agree, that this will probably be it), it's nuts.

Edit :
Or is the exile shared for both players? Playing Aven in Gideon would make sense in that case!

Steeme

Laeuftbeidir said:

Steeme said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

No, they can't, @steeme (unless you're facing Gideon). I don't argue against exiling itself, that feature makes the spells great that are exiling creatures on the battlefield!
But from the library, the effect is, statistically, nothing. Zero. Even if there are cards like these (or creatures with enbalm, more common now), there is no impact at all to the gameplay.

Fun fact - this card is even part of new Gideons expert deck.

Exiling from the library most definitely has a use if you know your opponent is running a graveyard recursion deck.  Yes, you don't get to "see" what is exiled, and you don't get to "choose", but that would be too powerful.

Instead, you have a mechanic which can regularly move cards from your opponent's library into exile.

Every deck starts with 40 cards.  Suppose he is running 5 creatures with Embalm.  That means there are 20 of them in his initial deck.

Now Aven Mindcensor will move a card to the exile every time he draws a card.  That means you could be moving creatures into exile.  If you don't move a creature into exile, then you could be moving the few supports / spells that he's carrying.  Granted that doesn't tell you much, but it can definitely mess up his momentum and consistency.

It is a niche card that will see very little play (if any) unless there is a specific PvP deck or PvE encounter that thrives off of graveyard recursion and draw.

You don't get to see - you don't get to choose - it isn't powerful.
I like your example. Let's say you play Aven right at the beginning of the game, and it remains there until the end. The enemys library consits of 50% creatures, 25% spells and 25% supports, adding up to 40 cards, to make it easy.
Every time he draws a card, a card is exiled.

The effect : the library shrinks to 20 cards. Since it was random, we can expect it to have again 40-60% creatures, 20-30% spells, same for supports. After the 20 cards are played, the next twenty cards come into play. This could slow him down, but could also speed him up. In the long run - no effect.

It is just like you'd have these cards all printed. You shuffle them. Take half of them to make two twenty card decks. Without looking at them : is one of the decks better than the other?

As long as he gets a card every turn, and a deck is added whenever he runs out of cards, the odds of pulling a specific card remain the same.

I like your general idea, by the way, but if this is the intended strategie of the card (and I agree, that this will probably be it), it's nuts.

Edit :
Or is the exile shared for both players? Playing Aven in Gideon would make sense in that case!

Suppose his deck relies on a "combo" (just like most other decks).

Take Olivia for example.  You want to play her first, then everything that comes after her gets buffed.

Now watch what happens when he plays his deck, only to find out that Olivia is not arriving "on time".  Where did she go?

Your argumentation is based on the supposition that each card in a player's deck is equally weighted and individually powerful.  You're not accounting for the fact that many decks rely on combos.

By exiling every second card, you will mess up the consistency of the deck.  Like I said, it doesn't tell you much, but think about how many times your deck was "shuffled poorly" and you struggled to find any combos in your deck.  That could be the effect of the Mindcensor.

Granted, alone it doesn't seem to do much.  Probably doesn't.  However it may itself be just another combo card.

__Adam

Sure, but you'll also exile other cards at the same rate which will shuffle the Olivia combo right back in.

Thuran

Or maybe olivia was the 3rd card from the top, and you just guaranteed that he will draw it. 

Laeuftbeidir

Steeme said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

Steeme said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

No, they can't, @steeme (unless you're facing Gideon). I don't argue against exiling itself, that feature makes the spells great that are exiling creatures on the battlefield!
But from the library, the effect is, statistically, nothing. Zero. Even if there are cards like these (or creatures with enbalm, more common now), there is no impact at all to the gameplay.

Fun fact - this card is even part of new Gideons expert deck.

Exiling from the library most definitely has a use if you know your opponent is running a graveyard recursion deck.  Yes, you don't get to "see" what is exiled, and you don't get to "choose", but that would be too powerful.

Instead, you have a mechanic which can regularly move cards from your opponent's library into exile.

Every deck starts with 40 cards.  Suppose he is running 5 creatures with Embalm.  That means there are 20 of them in his initial deck.

Now Aven Mindcensor will move a card to the exile every time he draws a card.  That means you could be moving creatures into exile.  If you don't move a creature into exile, then you could be moving the few supports / spells that he's carrying.  Granted that doesn't tell you much, but it can definitely mess up his momentum and consistency.

It is a niche card that will see very little play (if any) unless there is a specific PvP deck or PvE encounter that thrives off of graveyard recursion and draw.

You don't get to see - you don't get to choose - it isn't powerful.
I like your example. Let's say you play Aven right at the beginning of the game, and it remains there until the end. The enemys library consits of 50% creatures, 25% spells and 25% supports, adding up to 40 cards, to make it easy.
Every time he draws a card, a card is exiled.

The effect : the library shrinks to 20 cards. Since it was random, we can expect it to have again 40-60% creatures, 20-30% spells, same for supports. After the 20 cards are played, the next twenty cards come into play. This could slow him down, but could also speed him up. In the long run - no effect.

It is just like you'd have these cards all printed. You shuffle them. Take half of them to make two twenty card decks. Without looking at them : is one of the decks better than the other?

As long as he gets a card every turn, and a deck is added whenever he runs out of cards, the odds of pulling a specific card remain the same.

I like your general idea, by the way, but if this is the intended strategie of the card (and I agree, that this will probably be it), it's nuts.

Edit :
Or is the exile shared for both players? Playing Aven in Gideon would make sense in that case!

Suppose his deck relies on a "combo" (just like most other decks).

Take Olivia for example.  You want to play her first, then everything that comes after her gets buffed.

Now watch what happens when he plays his deck, only to find out that Olivia is not arriving "on time".  Where did she go?

Your argumentation is based on the supposition that each card in a player's deck is equally weighted and individually powerful.  You're not accounting for the fact that many decks rely on combos.

By exiling every second card, you will mess up the consistency of the deck.  Like I said, it doesn't tell you much, but think about how many times your deck was "shuffled poorly" and you struggled to find any combos in your deck.  That could be the effect of the Mindcensor.

Granted, alone it doesn't seem to do much.  Probably doesn't.  However it may itself be just another combo card.

Yeah, if there will be a way implemented to manipulate the library, it might become a good combo card. Actually, that is the point of this thread.. I want to understand the intention behind the design.

My argument is not based on the individual powers of the cards : its based on randomness.
Without Aven : your enemy gets a random card. Next round he gets a random card.
With Aven : your enemy gets a random card. A random card is destroyed. And so on.

To use a specific card :
Example Olivia : 4 Olivias in 40 cards = 10% to pull her.
With Aven, the deck has 20 cards (of course, it has forty cards, but it makes the explanation more easy.).
You can destroy zero, one, two, three or four of these, resulting in probabilities of 0-20% to pull her. 10% is still the expectation,
5% or 15%, and 0% or 20% are equally probably. This effect will nullify itself on the long term, and can on the short term be neutral, an advantage or disadvantage. That's what I mean with : it does nothing.

srfin

The best way to think about this is to consider the possible draws after going through 40 cards.

The normal situation is:

• After drawing 20 cards: You will have seen between 0 and 4 copies of any given card.
• After drawing 40 cards: You will have seen exactly 4 copies of each card in your deck.

With Aven Mindcensor in play:

• After drawing 20 cards: You will have seen between 0 and 4 copies of any given card (no change).
• After drawing 40 cards: You will have seen between 0 and 8 copies of any given card.
  

On average you'll still see 4 copies per card in every 40, but there is no longer a guarantee and there can be very high variance (in theory you might see 0 of some card or a run of 8-in-a-row of another). This is potentially a big change, but not very useful since there is no control.

Laeuftbeidir

That actually summarized it very well, and I have to admit, more easy to read than my approach @srfin!

Szamsziel

If... 1) opp didn't fetch anything,  2) there is no bug with library (I've already had 5 copies of card without any fetch) then maybe the calculations are ok

wereotter

Szamsziel said:

If... 1) opp didn't fetch anything,  2) there is no bug with library (I've already had 5 copies of card without any fetch) then maybe the calculations are ok

True.... now that cycling is a thing, I've been able to count more than 4 copies of certain cards coming up in rotation before even 1 of others show up. The 40-card deck seems to be a myth, and more likely it just does a 10% chance that any card you put into the list is the next to be drawn.

Laeuftbeidir

wereotter said:

Szamsziel said:

If... 1) opp didn't fetch anything,  2) there is no bug with library (I've already had 5 copies of card without any fetch) then maybe the calculations are ok

True.... now that cycling is a thing, I've been able to count more than 4 copies of certain cards coming up in rotation before even 1 of others show up. The 40-card deck seems to be a myth, and more likely it just does a 10% chance that any card you put into the list is the next to be drawn.

But that.. That would make Aven totally useless!