Mind Funeral Math?

Daffie999 · Joined: 08 Jun 2008 Posts: 26

Who would like to do the math?

Another post had me thinking about how Mind Funeral could be useful other than simply trying to mill. Obviously there could be some strategy involving your opponents graveyard, but I was thinking about the static number used with each Mind Funeral, four lands. The thought being that you could alter the probabilities of their deck to increase a flood or screw. Would it be different for a 20 land deck vs a 26 land deck?

Bftw · Joined: 29 May 2009 Posts: 30

i love you

onecleanceli · Joined: 27 Mar 2005 Posts: 397

are you wanting math values on probabilities of how many cards on average you're going to get, per mind funeral, pending how many lands are in their deck?

mTk-Away · Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 86

Roughly, every Cards/Lands card is a land. So, if you have 23 lands in 60 card deck, every 2.3rd ("two point third") land is a card.

So, you should pretty much mill for Cards/Lands*3.5 (that 3.5 comes from average beetween "third" and "fourth", as you may draw the first land anywhere beetween 1 and 3.5). In a 26 land deck that's about 8 cards.

This isn't of course real maths, but that's about the way it is.

onecleanceli · Joined: 27 Mar 2005 Posts: 397

just use simple numbers... take a 60 card deck, 20 lands... 1/3 of every card is a land.. mind funeral goes to 4 lands... if you hit a land first, and stay with the average percent, you'll end up getting 9 cards + the 4 lands, for a total of 13 cards... the more lands you have in the deck, the higher percent you'll hit a land over a non-land, so your average milled cards per funeral will be lower....

Bftw · Joined: 29 May 2009 Posts: 30

yes, much different, considering most all decks are 24-26 now.

nonetheless, the man is right, i usually average 7-8 easily, with some more rare 10's or 12's even. for a 1/u/b cost, there are ways to exploit it, believe me. and his name is puppateer clique. shhhhhhhh.

tcook589 · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 64

for 2 cards and 8 mana, I want to do something more than return a Rhox War Monk/ Murderous Redcap / Bloodbraid Elf, for one attack.

Give up on mind funeral, btfw.

The odds of milling the card they need into their graveyard and the odds of milling the cards they don't need into their graveyard are nearly the same.

As has been previously mentioned, you're not affecting the board, hand size, or life totals. Unless you plan to win by milling, cards that mill an opponent as their primary use are no good.

clayparson · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 59

man this card would wreck vintage belcher.

seriously though, i don't think it can be abused in any meaningful way.

weehood · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 77

yea, unless you plan to mill them out, it's not really a viable card

however, i've found it to be very efficient if milling is indeed your goal. in current T2, ive never seen it hit less than 8-10, and it seems to usually get 12-13+ not bad for 3 cmc. a nice plus for extended mill decks to suppliment glimpse the unthinkable.

getmatt201 · Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 95

mind funeral vs turbo fog = GG

Daffie999 · Joined: 08 Jun 2008 Posts: 26

What I was getting at was a form of land destruction. Not to gain tempo but to actually get rid of all your opponents lands. 1 card for 4 lands seems like a good place to start. Not that LD is a great strategy in the current meta. If a deck had 20 lands 2-3 funerals gets half their lands. Was just a thought.

As for what Bftw is saying, you probably won't like me much either... I agree with everyone else that you can't use mind funeral as a way to get rid of "bombs" in a deck. It's random! Unless you are manipulating their deck in some other way and then casting mind funeral to dump specific threats, it's just random! However, I will say that vs a control deck knowing that you just dumped 1-2 Ultimatums or a bunch of counters, removal, or burn does help you remove the "bluffing" element of magic. Games are won more often when you have a better idea what your opponent has in their hand... but still there are better cards for that than mind funeral.

weehood · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 77

@above: if you aim to do it based on land destruction, that will mathematically not be favorable mostly. you will on average mill 4 lands, and a proportional number of nonland cards. your opponent's deck will be left with the same density of lands as they had before. they will draw the same average amount of lands per draw, and unless they rely on playing every land in their deck, they really won't care until they are close to milling out.

TacoMaster · Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Posts: 25

DoomBring3r · Joined: 30 Apr 2009 Posts: 436

It's a nice tech for Turbogrinding to use, but honestly even so it implies splashing black and i don't think it makes worth for the loss of consistency.

Anyhow, i find Mind Funeral to be a random card in regards to the percentage, as it varies on the mill based in the deck you play against.

vs. Swanscade: it's not that good, the deck runs loads of lands.

vs. other 25-26ish land-decks aka all the rest, it's meh because it depends on your luck.

However, i find it devastatingly useful in Mws because y'know, the shuffler rocks; if you don't mill 4 lands in a row, you'll mill 20 cards and then the 4 lands in a row. :>

Bartok · Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 3

I created a formula to calculate the exact value for it for a danish magic site.

http://www.faraos.dk/magic/images/webboard_full.phtml?id=7625

The explanation is in danish, but the formula is the one with Px=Sigma something

The formula is for a 40 card limited deck with 17 lands where Px=9 1/9

but u can chance it to any deck setup

If u wanna chance it for another deck, change the numbers like this

17! switch 17 to the number of lands in the deck.
13! switch 13 to the number of lands in the deck -4
23! switch 23 to the number of nonlands in the deck
(23-x)! switch 23 to the number of nonlands in the deck
40! switch 40 to the number of cards in the deck
(36-x)! switch 36 to the number of cards in the deck - 4