Most Interesting Decks to Play

Your definition certainly is much different. I believe most people see toolbox as meaning diverse, with the idea of increasing versatility. Aura Absorption isn't situational, it's versatile and helps to make more toolboxy Kiasyd decks.

Well...

I don't think Aura Absorption is a typical toolbox card. It's primarily stealth, which adds to the Kiasyd S/B plan. As a bonus, you get intercept at superior which is occasionally very useful, but that's not the main goal of playing the card.

What that versatility does is make Aura Absorption a *very good* card and not a toolbox card. Similar as to why Govern is such a great card as it bleeds, bloats and accelerates all on the same card.

On the flipside, Far Mastery is what I consider a typical toolbox card, because that card is going to be dead a lot of the time, but when it's good, it's REALLY good and I certainly don't mind playing one as a 1-of in a 70 card deck. Compare to Entrancement here, which I think is just a very good card because its primary function is to forward a deck's gameplan, but can be used as anti-ally tech if so required.

Perfect Paragon is another example of a good card - it's primary function is to help pushing votes through, but it can be used as pseudo-stealth if so required. On the other side we have Scalpel Tongue, which is an amazing card if you get to use it (and I actually won a tournament once off of the back of it), but it's situational because it requires someone else to do something before it's useable and thus will be dead in your hand at some point. I'm perfectly fine playing 5 Perfect Paragon in my 70 card deck, but would never play more than 2 Scalpel Tongue and would likely leave it as a 1-of to keep the surprise factor without adding to much noise to my deck.

Now, if your assertion is "good decks play good cards and a lot of good cards are versatile thus good decks are toolboxes" then ye... I think we're playing the game on a different planet.

I see toolbox as something that can do more than one thing consistently.

Then about 99,9% of all decks in the TWDA are toolbox decks by that definition. So ye, my assumption was right. In your world there are two types of deck: tunnel-vision one-trick pony decks (and toolbox decks. I will just disagree with that then.

I always saw (and played...) toolbox decks not as decks with lots of situational cards but able to do a little bit of everything without excelling in a particular field, thus being able to play whatever your opponent has worst defense to. Basically is a deck full of soft counters.

Isn't that pretty close to what I'm saying anyway? Regardless of how many ways you twist and turn it, being a trader of all, master of none type of deck (which is what I'd describe as a toolbox) is going to cost you something, somewhere. Every deck has a gameplan and every turn should be dedicated to forwarding said gameplan. If you have multiple gameplans and options, or softcounters as you want, then you always run the risk of drawing the wrong half of your deck.

Inexperienced players will write that off to "bad luck" while in reality it's just a deckbuilding choice.

The problem is that you introduced an assertion - "Toolbox decks suck" - that doesn't mean what most folks think you mean.

Suck isn't the word I used. I have merely stated that playing toolbox decks is, on average, not the optimal choice. That's not to say you should't be playing them, by all means go ahead. It's just an illusion that toolbox decks are somehow better than streamlined and well-established, more focused archtypes.

They may be better in that one game or that one tournament, but not on average and not in the long run.

Izaak wrote:

On the flipside, Far Mastery is what I consider a typical toolbox card, because that card is going to be dead a lot of the time, but when it's good, it's REALLY good and I certainly don't mind playing one as a 1-of in a 70 card deck.

So what, then, is your definition of a silver bullet card?

I enjoy playing vote decks that work without fatties. Those are just too predictable.

On the other hand, I don't particularly enjoy playing vote decks because every dingus thinks they deserve a handout from me.

Eh Izaak what are you talking about with Under the Skin? It doesn't require anyone else to do anything, all you have to do is pass a vote and you can tap any vampire you want as an action modifier. The vampire doesn't actually need to have votes for you to be able to target them with under the skin.

Eh Izaak what are you talking about with Under the Skin?

That was supposed to be Scalpel Tongue. I changed it.

So what, then, is your definition of a silver bullet card?

The definition according to the MTG wiki, which works fine for VTES:

A silver bullet is a specific solution card. It is incredibly powerful against a certain type of card or archetype, but useless or inefficient otherwise.

I suppose that you could call Far Mastery that, so there is a bit of a slippery slope. Then again, by that exact definition even Deflection is a silver bullet, which it's clearly not, as you are pretty much guaranteed to be bled at some point.

So let's rephrase that a bit: Silver bullets are cards that totally hose someone's strategy when played but are so narrow in their application that they're unlikely to ever pay off. I'm talking cards on the level of Visiccitude Poisoning and Trochomancy here.

Izaak wrote:

So what, then, is your definition of a silver bullet card?

The definition according to the MTG wiki, which works fine for VTES:

A silver bullet is a specific solution card. It is incredibly powerful against a certain type of card or archetype, but useless or inefficient otherwise.

I suppose that you could call Far Mastery that, so there is a bit of a slippery slope. Then again, by that exact definition even Deflection is a silver bullet, which it's clearly not, as you are pretty much guaranteed to be bled at some point.

So let's rephrase that a bit: Silver bullets are cards that totally hose someone's strategy when played but are so narrow in their application that they're unlikely to ever pay off. I'm talking cards on the level of Visiccitude Poisoning and Trochomancy here.

Trochomancy is at least +bleed. Children of Osiris is another good one.

Edit: Why when I hit Cancel does it post anyway? ARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!