Card Advantage
General forum
Posted on June 6, 2010, 1:16 a.m. by zerotimestatechamp
There is a right and a wrong way to achieve card advantage. It the card you are playing to give you card advantage is worth significantly less than a normal card you may just be wasting mana. Card advantage also greatly benefits in longer games. Recently I've been obsessed with card advantage and have build these decks: Rapid Bant, Common General EDH-Beast Draw, Draw Wall Eldrazi, Enchantress's advantage, and Zealot il-Vec's Controlling Rebels . My question: When does card advantage win?
Card advantage isn't just about drawing cards, although drawing is a staple way to gain advantage. It considers not only how many cards are in your hand in comparison to your opp. but also how many cards it cost you to deal with your opponents cards. If your using 2 cards a turn from your hand, or from the battlefield, to deal with 1 of each card your opp. plays, then despite you drawing each turn it would be difficult to gain 'card advantage'. In this way card advantage also considers the cards in play, or available to each player also, such as a deck that plays from the graveyard has the option of bringing back a creature or two giving them card advantage as they are not playing from their hand. A great example of this would be: your playing your draw wall against your zealot deck. Draw wall has an aven squire out and 4 cards in hand, zealot has lin sivvi and 4 cards in hand. Draw wall draws and drops ulamog, gaining adantage. Zealot, draws, taps lin sivvi bringing out big game hunter, destroying ulamog, and giving zealot the advantage of an extra card on the field, and an extra card in hand. draw wall is then playing catch up. Card advantage is less of a tactic, although there are tactics which make it easier to gain card advantage which many of your decks utilise, and more of a game state, an indication of who has the upper hand. so card advantage really depends on the cards you are playing or are able to play to put your opp. on the back foot and make it easier for yourself to win: to answer your question, it is not a 'winning condition' so to speak.
June 6, 2010 7:24 a.m.
Check out cards like Epic Struggle , Spiraling Embers , Aeon Chronicler or even Barren Glory which utilise card advantage or disadvantage. (like your Defense of the Heart works off of the opp.s card advantage.
June 6, 2010 7:31 a.m.
zerotimestatechamp says... #5
I've been trying self sufficient card advantage for the most part. I don't like having to rely on the opponent to have a lot of creatures. If he/she runs none whatsoever then all my Wrath of God s are dead draws. I'm trying to build against as many threats as possible. Also, I like cards that are playable early-game but still useful late-game. I can't stand a card like Savannah Lions because if it isn't in my starting hand its just a chump blocker. Thanks for your time!
June 6, 2010 5:13 p.m.
Hmm, Card Advantage is something that is dependent on the deck in question.
If your playing blue, you always want card advantage but you want some mana open to make your opponent think of the possibility that your holding a counterspell or something that will play off what they are attempting to acheive.
If your playing Red, your wanting cards in your hand to be able to continue dropping threats... (Something Red was NEVER good at lol)
Almost every deck loves to have cards.
Oh the days of Phyrexian Tyranny + card:Teferi's Puzzle Box... How fun it was NOT to have Card Advantage... Or rather... Skip your draw step :D
June 8, 2010 2:48 a.m.
necroignis says... #7
Card advantage is definately based on what deck your playing it in. i have a casual play deck that is usually playing top deck by turn four. at which point the drawn card is discarded for an activated ability and cast for madness for effect but the deck is madness/discard and has a couple of [[nilihist knocking my opponent's life total pretty hard
July 6, 2010 12:17 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #8
I find it helpful to think in terms of card EFFICIENCY rather than card advantage. To illustrate, if I filled my deck with 24 Islands and nothing but spells that draw cards, you might say I have great card ADVANTAGE (aka, I am drawing/playing more cards than my opponent), but the cards are essentially worthless to me because I'm not drawing anything that helps me win the game.
So what is efficiency? Let's say I have a very simple red-blue deck that has only TWO kinds of spells- red direct damage spells and blue draw spells. In that case, my draw spells become more EFFICIENT and my card advantage actually means something because I'm drawing and playing cards that help me win the game. In fact, in terms of achieving my objective, it may well be that the blue draw spells are actually more efficient than any given red burn spell- if my opponent has still got a bunch of life, would I rather draw a Tidings or a Lightning Bolt ? It depends of course, but if you can average it out so that the Tidings will, on average, draw you enough burn spells to do 7 or 8 damage, you'd probably prefer it to the single Lightning Bolt . If it averages out so that Tidings nets you less than 3 damage in cards, then even though it gets you more card ADVANTAGE, it does not maxmize your card EFFICIENCY, which is what you really want to do.
It is true that most decks benefit from card advantage, so let me clarify that I'm not disputing that. It's just that card advantage is only one factor that goes into card EFFICIENCY, and efficiency is what you want to maximize. Some decks operate better by sacrificing card advantage for other virtues, like speed, static advantages, control, etc.
July 6, 2010 5:47 p.m.
AaronCreek says... #9
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/zegana-edh-16-01-14-1/
Any comments help.Thanks!
zerotimestatechamp says... #2
The reason I ask is because I am most likely doing it wrong.
June 6, 2010 2:21 a.m.