An all-new, all-different You Make the Play: What play would you make? What play do you think he made? What is the right play?
The situation:
Round Eight of the New York State Championships.
You are playing Fae, consensus best-or-second-best deck in the format.
Game One you won against a donkey with a Jund Mana Ramp deck utilizing some combination of Bitterblossom, Spellstutter Sprite, Mistbind Clique, &c. You know, how your deck rolls.
Game Two was highly improbable. Your opponent kept a hand full of expensive spells, but only two lands and a Rampant Growth. He could theoretically start playing his ponderous three mana spells (Civic Wayfinder, Kitchen Finks, stuff like that) if you let him play the Rampant Growth. Strategically, you took it with a first turn Thoughtseize.
Donk slumped back in his chair. No action.
Yep, he missed his third land drop, too. He had nothing going on.
Yet somehow he topdecked a land or two and managed to draw out of it.
The rest of the game went a long murder of Chameleons, Cloudthreshers, & Finks; from your side a succession of Puppeteer Cliques keeping you alive by slowing down the Chameleons. Your Mistbind Cliques took forever to show up… Not until after he resolved a Mind Shatter with Gutteral Response backup. The game was long and increasingly awkward from both sides — with your blocking way too many times with Bitterblossom tokens — but he eventually pulled it out by attacking over and over.
So onto Game Three…
You are on the play and open up on Thoughtseize.
This is what you see:
He has four assorted lands [note: I don’t really remember what lands they were. -MichaelJ]; you can take one of…
- Civic Wayfinder
Gift of the Gargantuan
Rampant Growth
Wow, a relatively slow hand. This is your opportunity to lock up 6-2 and potentially sneak into the coveted last spot in the Top 8.
Once again you have the opportunity to snag a first turn Rampant Growth, the only play he can make before turn three.
But… What card do you take?
LOVE
MIKE
12 comments ↓
I take the Gift. I don’t know what else is in my hand but without some way to get some card advantage I am just going to crush you if I have a Dismiss
While it is tempting to take the Rampant in order to slow his mana development, the reality is he has no action to use that mana acceleration for, save the Treetop Village (assuming it is actually there).
The Gift seems the straightforward play, as it gives our opponent the greatest chance of finding a spell we’d actually care about, though we DO get a chance to see it.
However, the Wayfinder can also function as a beater for our opponent, and if I have a slow hand (or removal light), that could be a problem when paired with a Village.
What is also important is to look at what our opponent’s scripted play might be. I believe the Jund player wants to go turn 1 tap land, turn 2 Growth, turn 3 three-drop (Gift or Wayfinder) plus the other tap land. Note this will likely result in our opponent having at least his 5th and 6th lands in hand (including quad green), allowing his deck’s bombs to come online and enabling full-cost Cloudthreshers.
In this case, taking the Growth leads to a disruption of our opponent’s plan and may still be an effective time walk, as there is a significant difference between fetching a land to hand and a land to play.
I would probably take the Gift, hoping to keep my opponent from anything dangerous, but I would feel tempted to take the Growth. If I was removal-light, I’m pretty sure I’d still take the Gift over the Wayfinder, since most things he could find would be much harder to deal with than the 2/2 Elf.
I take the civic wayfinder. I think that he took the gift.
It might change depending on whats in my hand.
You definitely take the Gifts there. Not only is Gifts a 2-for-1 in itself, but it also represents another possible threat he could find with it.
Absent knowing what’s in my own hand, I take the Gift. The Wayfinder and Growth both ramp the opponent’s deck up, but don’t get them to threat mana before I get to Cryptic Mana. Wayfinder dies nicely to Agony Warp, and the Warp won’t be much use against the bigger threats that the Gift will grab.
If the sequence of plays is:
Me: Thoughtseize
Them: Land
Me: Bitterblossom
Them: Rampant Growth
I’m fine with that, and I prefer that they not be able to dig four cards deeper into their deck for a threat and a land on turn three.
Thats an interesting one. Id forget about Growth right at the start – its not achieving anything, he will still play his 3cc drop/accelerator on turn 3. It seems that he is banking on a Gift getting something wrecking like thresher to stop you, and at first glance that would be my pick in the vacuum.
However:
1) you are on the play, its unlikely he will be able to play threaths till you have 4 lands in play, and you have 2 turns to get some bitterblossom/cliques/whatever into play and just counter his play on t4 (either by hard counter or mistbinding)
2) Gift is essentially just a card advantage play, but doesnt do much vs tempo play, while civic wayfinder accelerates you into possible turn4 thresher and also puts some minimal threat on the table.
With above in mind, i am definately taking civic wayfinder if i have hand with something like bitter/spellstutter/command/misbind in it. Odds are he wont be able to do anything before its too late for him to com back. If i have more of a slow/control hand i am taking gargantuan.
I’d just say “GO”!
Whoops, wrong thread! Gift is my choice here.
I don’t care about Rampant Growth or Civic Wayfinder. If I could go back in time I would even WAIT for a third turn Thoughtseize, assuming he would be in his second turn, waiting for a better chance to hit a Kitchen Finks/Thresher/Colossus.
Mostly, I’d feel annoyed for wasting my Toughtsieze on that hand, but I’d take Gift – it’s clearly the most powerful card in your hand. Rampant Growth speeds you up faster, but since you have no other threats, there’s no guarantee you’re going to draw another. But Gift sure makes it more likely.
Surely I choose Gift because the card advantaje of this spell it’s awesome.
With this option, at 90% it’s a 3×1 for only one mana and 2 life…
i would say gift. it’s the only thing that can draw this n00b (;P) any threats besides his main step. so i take gift here, knowing that he can’t created conventional “threats” without it.
[…] is the follow-up to “You Make the Play – How Do You Spend Your Thoughtseize?” … a discussion as to which card a first-turn Thoughtseize SHOULD take given these […]
I would say the Gift. He has plenty of land already and the Civic Wayfinder is the easiest creature for us to deal with. Gift gives him the best opportunity to find a Chameleon or a Cloudthresher and, seeing how as he took game 2 on the back of the green fatties, I want to try and keep those cards out of his hand.
I’m guessing that our hand has a turn 2 Bitterblossom or something as we otherwise would probably hold off on casting Thoughtsieze until turn 2 in order to give us a better chance of nabbing something relevant.
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