cane thoughts

To answer your questions about my points Xypherous-Oxide
I consider a \"regular deck\" to be around 40-60 cards, contain aproximately 1/3 mana of one colour, enough splash to use the spare mana and a good mix of costs as far as spells/monsters goes (a bunch of 2-6 cost, small amounts of 7+ cost)

Given the above, 2 cards != 10 mana but more likely to be closer to 7 mana with a decent likely hood of one of them being splash. Given that many decks will be unlikely to have 5 effects out, even a fourth turn cane will speed up the rate you get mana generators and therefore the rate you can play cards.

About the cons
ubejasons point about the 70 damage lock is a good one, except that it is 70 damage plus 2 card draw, considering the other reusable to do damage (swords (5-120), cannon (20-100),shadehawk(60),warlock(60),lifeeater(160, lose life), considering the off coulour nature of cane, in a monocoulour deck it is actually easier (2 or 3 turns with a couple of generators) to play higher damaging effects then cane (4 turns with any number of generators) and the monsters are even easier, although they have drawbacks.Admitedly you could speed a cane out with 3 saccables, but the likelihood of getting that 4 card combo in 2 or less turns is low.

Zaen\'s arguement says that cane is strong because it destroys black rush
and similar monster heavy decks however, consider this, drop 1 monster, cane kills it, wait a few turns and drop 5 monsters, what does cane do then? The key is strategy, and frankly people who use the overly common beatdown style decks need to learn a strategy other than \"play my monster, attack my opponent\"


conclusion:
compared to similar damage dealing cards, cane has a similar price but more consistant and lower damage with a downside that is usable. Sure it is painful to some decks, but those decks can bypass it with little effort and will almost always benefit from it.

adendum:
bring back the 60 card decks, dont fear the cane

Well sorry, but most decks I see are 30-50 cards, usually 40 is the max for higher-level players. Anyway, creature-based decks, especially 30-card ones, can be damaged significantly by a cane.

I don\'t know what I meant by normal play, but I do know that any decks I\'ve tried to use a cane in that it has hindered me as often as helped my cause.

Also, I\'ve never once found the cane to be an annoyance when the opponent has played it. Perhaps I\'m just lucky with effect D, or decent sized creatures.

~> Leander.

The cane player is not sitting in some sort of vacuum while you wait a bunch of turns to be able to drop five monsters at once. What does the cane player do if you do that? He canes two lightweights or one heavyweight - the cane is undizzied, remember, since you\'ve waited a while to play a whole bunch of cretures at once - and then handily defends himself with creatures that he\'s been playing in the interim or had in play before, since he doesn\'t have to worry about waiting to play a bunch of monsters at once. Meanwhile, while you\'re holding off on playing anything, he\'s whomping on you with said monsters. (That said, if the cane player is in a bad draw, then holding off for a turn and playing something cheap to draw cane fire, then two fat guys can let you eke out a fair amount of damage. So it\'s not a useless plan. I\'ve even done it. With rather limited sucess.)

Interesting. Very well then. I shall proceed on doing a rather shaky numerical analysis on the card.

Cost: Cane of Kaayn\'Di

Cane of Kayn\'di.
4L 4G 4D.

Combined Off Color cost => Roughly 8 mana\'s worth of effectiveness.
(Using Tricolor 2/3 conversion from space burrito (2/2/2 -> 4))

Other Sniper Effects

Bakuga Cannon: 8G, Activation cost, Variable damage based on creatures.
Kyuukyubai: 10L, Activation cost, Variable damage based on health.
Mugendai: 10D, Activation cost, Variable damage based on health.
Backup: 7L, 4L Activation cost, Instant bounce, but no real effect.

\"Pure\" Shotgun Creatures

Ardam: 5L, 20 Damage. (45 hp)
Warlock: 5D, 30 Damage. (30 hp)

Note: Differentiating Sniper Effects from Shotgun Creatures is that Effect D must be implemented to destroy them, while Ardam and the Warlock have many many other weaknesses instead of straight out Effect D.

Cane Ability

35 damage lock (+) Card Draw ( -/+ ) No Activation (+) Splash ( - / + )

Other Effect Snipers

Kyuu: 10L (-) Activation cost: 1L (-) Variable Damage (-) High Damage (+++) Damage based on Opponent\'s life (++ / -)

Mugendai: 10D (-) Activation cost: 1D (-) Variable Damage (-) High Damage (+++) Damage based on Your Life (-- / +)

Bakuga Cannon: 8G (-) Activation Cost: Attack Decrease (-) Variable Damage (-) High Damage (++) Damage based on number of creatures (-)

Backup: 7L (+) Activation Cost: 4L (--) Instant Kill (++++) Doesn\'t get rid of the card (--) Targets both Effects and Creatures (++)

Attrition

Attrition is a term that I like to use for the \"Permanency\" of a solution. To put it simply, if you can destroy all the monsters in an opponent\'s deck, you have won because he has run out of ways to damage you.

Cane, Kyuu, Mugendai, Bakugai have this property.
Backup: No, however, Backup can lock up to two creatures at a time, instead of being based on life.

Definitive Explanations of Plus/Minus Analysis

Cane Relative Cost: Using the Summed Mana * 2/3 analysis, Cane\'s power should be around an 8 mana effect. Bakuga is an 8 mana effect that does roughly the same thing.

Damage:

Bakuga Damage: 10-50. (30 Average)
Cane Damage: 35 (35 Average)
Kyuu Sword Damage: (1-60) (30+ Average -> Damage Decrease Controllable)
Mugendai Sword Damage: (1-60) (Unknown Average)
Backup (Instant Kill)


In order of damages:
Backup > Kyuu (Controllabe 1-60) > Cane (35) > Bakuga (10-50, 30 average, Uncontrollable) > Mugendai (Uncontrollable 1-60)

Controllable: You have more control over the damage of the effect than your opponent. (Such as, the opponent\'s life.)

Uncontrollable: Your opponent has more control over the damage than you do. (Such as, number of monsters on field.)

Cost:

Cane Cost: Opponent\'s Controller draws a card. Used on opponent, negative effect comparable to a ToK or AL (-3L or -3G). Used on self, comparable to a ToK or AL (+3L or +3G) combined with a slime valley. Comparable to Rememberance (+1L) if used on a creature that cannot survive the card.

However, this also enables it to resemble a decking deck, attacking the opponent\'s deck count directly.

Bakuga Cost: -7 damage to all monster attacks. Always negative in every situation. Comparable to being half miasmed. Can be remedied with oozes, however, this does not grant you any positives.
Kyuu Sword: 1L activation. Always negative in every situation except possibly avoiding 3 damage from feedback.
Mugendai Sword: 1D activation. Always negative in every situation except possibly avoiding 3 damage from feedback.
Backup: 4L, always negative in every situation. Drains all generated mana with full field.

In order of sheer mana costs in normal play:
Backup > Cane > Kyuu/ Mugendai >= Bakuga

However: Cane can be used in such a way so that it\'s cost is a positive, making the cost order something like Kyuu > Bakuga > Cane.

Cane\'s cost also can be neutral if used in a decking sense. That would also make the order Kyuu > Bakuga > Cane.

Weaknesses

Cane is Weak to Puzzle Solve as well as all other effect D.

Kyuu, Mugendai, Bakuga is also weak to puzzle solve as well as all other Effect D.

Backup can Backup itself to be immune to Burn Burn. Backup is more resilient than all others.

Backup > Cane = Kyuu = Mugendai = Bakuga.

Summary

Cost to Summon:

Kyuu = Mugendai > Cane > Bakuga.

Damages:

Kyuu > Cane > Bakuga > Mugendai.
Deck: Cane > Kyuu = Bakuga = Mugendai

Activation Costs:

Cane > Kyuu = Mugendai > Bakuga

Used as Self Draw: (ToK)
However, alternative uses exist so that :

Kyuu = Mugendai > Bakuga > Cane.

Used as Self Cycle: (Rememberance):
Or, a use exists so that :

Kyuu = Mugendai = Cane > Bakuga.

Weakness:

Cane = Kyuu = Mugendai = Bakuga

Conclusion:

If Cane could not be used positively for yourself, than the ranking orders would appear to support that the cane is balanced. However, because the cane can be used positively for oneself, I am led to say that this then would simpler be a more solid card than either the Kyuu/Mugendai or Bakuga.

Thus, Cane is more powerful than any of these cards, at a similar cost or even less cost (Compared to Kyuu/Mugendai).

Given that Kyuukyoubai stirred up a great deal of controversy when it first came out, supporting that a card more powerful than it at less cost is balanced appears to me to be rather weak.

So, perhaps, rewording Gospel\'s quote to analysis:

\"So it\'s GREAT against some decks and only so-so for others? Seems weird to me.\"

X-O, there\'s some things in your logic I don\'t quite understand.

1) Why do you think Mugendai Yaiba\'s life controlability factor is such a major downside? I never considered it to be any worse than the Kyuukyoku Yaiba.

2) If I add up the points you give, I don\'t come to the same conclusion. I actually have to say that I think the K-sword is stronger than the Cane. Both Yaiba allow for efficient splashing, where the Cane drastically decreases the ability to splash. Of course, this is a deck building difference. If you have a monocolour creature deck supported by a Cane, that\'s about the same thing as a monocolour Yaiba deck supported by (splash) creatures. In these scenarios, the activation cost for the Yaiba is hardly relevant.

I have yet to see the first deck that uses every aspect of the Cane. A deck that uses a generator of some sort in combination with the Cane to draw you cards, while targeting the opponent\'s creatures every once in while to deck them.
The versatility the Cane has is not as great as some people call it. True, it can do many things. But it\'s only effective if you focus on one of these things. A single Cane, with one use a turn, can\'t supply you cards and deck your opponent at the same time.

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:If Cane could not be used positively for yourself, than the ranking orders would appear to support that the cane is balanced.

This, and the thing about focusing the Cane on a certain objective, makes me think I could somewhat convince you. Just think about it.

I\'m having the hardest time finding the right words for what I meant to say in English, sorry for that.

K-Sword is better because it helps you when you\'re losing.
M-Sword is worse because it only helps you win faster.

Bakuga Cannon\'s damage is eminently controllable, with oozes and valleys out. Also, on those cards, the attack damage doesn\'t have a very large effect.

I think the Cane, because of its versatility, is undercosted. (See previous arguments as to its versatility)

the cane lacks a sac value, sac can be a very important issue. If you play a Holy Beacon it pratically wastes 5 mana of each color for that player, while all the other sniper effects can regain most of the mana back and as stated before cane soaks up most of your splash so you wont be necessarly able to use a effect D on the beacon.

Personally i don\'t use it becuase i don\'t find it as good as you all seem to claim it to be. Iv\'e never had problems taking it down or getting around it without too much trouble and it greatly hinders the other player if they soley rely on it and it gets destroyed.

Yes, of course, the Holy Beacon counters the effect effectively. That\'s what it\'s there for, isn\'t it? And it\'d only waste 4 mana of each color.

I have yet to see this giant splash vacuum sucking that the cane does. It\'s not as if Cane repeatedly drains your splash mana over and over and over. By turn 6 you can pop a cane and still have mana for effect D, assuming no gens at all.

Bakuga Cannon requires Valleys and Oozes to negate it\'s downsides. However, that does require a significant combination with the Bakuga.

Mugendai/Kyuukyou Yaiba have their own quirks. The major reason is that Mugendai\'s ability is only controllable if you devote time to pump your own life at cost to yourself. Kyuu\'s ability is far easier to control because all you have to do is not attack your opponent. It is true that the opponent could life eater himself to avoid your kyuu, but on a general whole, Mugendai\'s ability in damage is far harder to control.

And of course Kyuu should be better straight up. It costs more mana than Cane. It *should* be stronger in all respects.

Let\'s have a little thought experiment: If a card has three uses, and another card has one, and they are the same cost, even if the card that has three uses can\'t be used for all three at once, are these two cards balanced?

Another thought experiment: If we take a variable card, and strip it of all it\'s uses to one focused use, does it become more or less powerful? And if so, would the new focused use (ignoring variability) be a greater effect or a lesser effect than the original?

the ability for the cane do multiple stuff is negated by the fact you are most likely only able to use 1 of its uses the entire game, as stated before by others. Even then the cane works if your strategy revolves around it, and it falls apart just as easy if it doesn\'t show up or is destroyed. Its the same as basing a deck on rushing shadehawk prime out as fast as you can, it can totally dominate for you as long as it remains or your opponant can\'t counter it, but if it fails you are left almost helpless to your enemy.

I like your points XO, however you did forget 1 thing which gospel has pointed out: for any of the variations of use that the cane has you can really only use one of them in a deck. The decking aspect mostl works in a decking deck, the self help aspect only works in a deck that does mind its monsters taking 35 damage a turn and the sniper aspect is easily bettered by ksword at the least, and more likely then not by msword too.

I really dont see the problem people have with the cane, I like it the way it is.

Cane + Creature Generator: Best with Slime Valley.
2 uses, single deck: Slime Valley (Very Common)

Decking: Cane does deck damage. Doesn\'t mean that the deck has to be a decking deck. Any deck with a small amount of card is doubly threatened by the cane because they have even less time to play more creatures.

So, you\'re saying, if a card has 3 uses, but I only use one because I\'m focusing on other things, that it\'s balanced simply because I don\'t use those uses?

I don\'t care if you never used Ophelia as a damage lock, or if you\'ve never used Slime Valley for mana. They still have those uses and that still counts toward them as a + for the card, rather than a neutral.

Just wondering. Has any of you ever run into a situation where the extra card drawn by the oponent is worse for you than not doing the 35 damage?

What I mean is, is there any deck against which you shouldn\'t use a cane? The most I\'ve run into is one where the effect was negated.

Obviously, you don\'t use it on oposing gloops and such, but that won\'t kill you most of the time.

My point is, I\'ve mentioned that cane, as is, can be devastating against some decks. I\'ve yet to see anyone argue that there is any deck against which it doesn\'t work. If there were some deck against which it is counterproductive, I might consider it as not overpowered, but as it stands, the argument seems to be that it\'s a good against most decks and devastating against others.

At most the extra draw makes you get effect D quicker, assuming you have enough of them.

FWIW, I still think the swords are overpowered, but at least they have some drawbacks and can be countered by damaging the player. I do have more respect for the bakuga cannon since it requires some comboing skills.

Zaen Wrote:Just wondering. Has any of you ever run into a situation where the extra card drawn by the oponent is worse for you than not doing the 35 damage?

What I mean is, is there any deck against which you shouldn\'t use a cane? The most I\'ve run into is one where the effect was negated.

Try using Cane against a large deck with 36+ life creatures. Light beatdown, grey beatdown, both can gain from playing against a Cane.

I admit that the Cane is a strong card, but it\'s not too strong. I don\'t know who I am trying to convince other than X-O here. I think most people got used to the Cane, like they got used to the Yaiba. I never had to get used to it though, as my first impression was that it was a somewhat weak card. This might just be because of the tricolorness of this card... I can\'t make a deck that uses Swimsuit properly, either.


And an entirely different question: how long, in turns, does an average game of CMC take to complete? I don\'t think many of the games I play get past turn 10. So the Cane, on average, uses up half your splash mana. I\'m sure this isn\'t all that bad if the rest of your deck splash is undizziers and burns, but if you want to splash in a smash hopes or a tremorcall, or even a ToK or AL, this can get anywhere from somewhat annoying to seriously hindering your play.

cane has troubles with any deck that runs more then 40 cards. Then the \"drawback\" of drawing cant be used to deck anywhere near as easily. Golems can absolutely destroy any deck that relies on cane for removal, I mean Golems sort of relies on a 1:1 ratio of golems to buckets, so if you are drawing 2 cards a turn that can only be a good thing.

The reason I like cane so much is that it give an incentive to actually building decks of a decent size, while small decks can just be scaled larger by adding more of the same cards, at least there is a possibility that larger decks will lead to more variety.

Saying that Cane is okay simply because Beatdown decks are good against it is preety limited as a form of argument.

Why?

Beatdown decks are good against EVERYTHING currently, remember?

I mean.. Light Beatdown? Grey Beatdown? Hello?

I know you guys play those types of decks, and okay, fine, your deck types of choice are strong against them. That\'s great and all, but you still haven\'t addressed the issue of variability at all, besides saying \"I find it hard to use it more than one way.\"

Look, maybe you\'re misunderstanding me. I\'m not saying that Cane is some godly over the top card. I\'m saying compared to Kyuu, Cane is a lot easier to use in many respects and has variability on top of it. I may groan when I see a Kyuu, but the Kyuu sword is a significant investment that the Cane seems to lack. It\'s far less costly to play a Cane early than trying to play a Kyuu or Bakuga early, and the Cane has *more* uses than them? Cognitive dissonance.

Tri color rush, small decks, ability decks, other sniper decks, (and generally dark beatdown as a whole) seriously gets hurt by cane. Light Beatdown and Grey beatdown are preety robust by themselves and by themselves they don\'t lose to much.

If somehow, Kyuu/Mugendai/Bakuga had this tremendous synergy with other cards that Cane does with slime valleys and generators, then I\'d be arguing against Effect Based Snipers as a whole, but right now, only the Cane has this Synergy. Somehow not counting the Synergy as a plus for the card seems to be an oversight.

Quote:Beatdown decks are good against EVERYTHING currently, remember?

Nope. There are ways against beatdown...soulsphere, decent stall, be it dizzier or sniper lock...or just a lot of phantom galgys/skeletal pugilists to take care of those pesky birds and golems.

Don\'t really want to get into this then, but fine. Go counter birds and winged golems for me with those three deck types you\'ve mentioned.

Don\'t get me wrong, I\'m not saying they can\'t be defeated.

I\'m just saying that they\'re good (robust) against everything. Speed. Monocolor. Enough space to pack Effect D and Locations to not slow them down. Not enough variance to have seriously bad draws, and nor do they rely on getting things out early or depending on one solitary effect for defense.

And they don\'t all die horribly to a single mountain range. etc.

No seriously exploitable flaws. Any counter to it would probably stop any other deck preety much. With snipers you have time. With soulsphere, they don\'t have creatures. With Black Heavy Hitters, They\'re weak to light damage. Beatdown doesn\'t have a serious weakness to it that can exploited to any good measure at this point. Put it another way, they\'re so plain vanilla that a specific counter to them would have to be effects. And that\'s what effect D is for, no?

that wasnt my point, I only mentioned that beacause:

zaen Wrote:I\'ve yet to see anyone argue that there is any deck against which it doesn\'t work.

My main point is and always will be that cane is an interesting card that poromotes a bit of thought as far as deck building. Partly by promoting larger deck sizes and partly by bein a strange sort of card.

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:Saying that Cane is okay simply because Beatdown decks are good against it is preety limited as a form of argument.

Why?

Beatdown decks are good against EVERYTHING currently, remember?

I mean.. Light Beatdown? Grey Beatdown? Hello?

I know you guys play those types of decks, and okay, fine, your deck types of choice are strong against them. That\'s great and all, but you still haven\'t addressed the issue of variability at all, besides saying \"I find it hard to use it more than one way.\"

Honestly.. I have like... 12 decks? And no difficulties with beating Canes (and no, they\'re not all beatstick decks. I don\'t even have a light beatdown deck). However, Yaiba can scare the crap out of me and I don\'t think they\'re that much more expensive because the Yaiba are mainly monocolour and can fit into a deck a lot easier.

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:Look, maybe you\'re misunderstanding me. I\'m not saying that Cane is some godly over the top card. I\'m saying compared to Kyuu, Cane is a lot easier to use in many respects and has variability on top of it. I may groan when I see a Kyuu, but the Kyuu sword is a significant investment that the Cane seems to lack. It\'s far less costly to play a Cane early than trying to play a Kyuu or Bakuga early, and the Cane has *more* uses than them? Cognitive dissonance.

Why are you so convinced that the Cane is a lot easier to use in many respects? You\'re clearly mentioning this aside from the versatility. And how come the K-sword is a \'serious investment\' where the Cane isn\'t? At least with the Yaiba you\'re not risking a total loss when you no longer need the card (then you can just sac it, right?). True, there\'s effect destruction, but both the Cane and the Yaiba cost about the same (Cane costs a little less for a lot less damage).

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:Tri color rush, small decks, ability decks, other sniper decks, (and generally dark beatdown as a whole) seriously gets hurt by cane. Light Beatdown and Grey beatdown are preety robust by themselves and by themselves they don\'t lose to much.

Can\'t argue with you on that. But, what exactly is wrong with that? Diplomacy works extremely well against beatdown, but not against tricolor rush, ability decks or sniper decks. Swimsuit works extremely well against beatdown, slow ability creatures and large creatures. There are plenty of purpose-specific cards that work this way. Want to nerf them all? Because this one isn\'t that much better than the rest.

Xypherous-Oxide Wrote:If somehow, Kyuu/Mugendai/Bakuga had this tremendous synergy with other cards that Cane does with slime valleys and generators, then I\'d be arguing against Effect Based Snipers as a whole, but right now, only the Cane has this Synergy. Somehow not counting the Synergy as a plus for the card seems to be an oversight.

That \'tremendous synergy\' sounds like you\'re predicting the end of the world as we know it. I\'m sorry X-O, but you\'re either seeing ghosts, or other things I can\'t see. Your opinion is worth quite a bit to me, but in this case almost everyone else is against you as well.