Dear Fateful End, 

<3

I play you in my Alles-2 Cube. You are my Lightning Bolt, my better Lightning Bolt, my Lightning Bolt with Scry 1. Lightning Bolt is one of the most iconic cards in our beautiful game. After all this time it is still up for contention in Vintage Cube top 50 lists. Lightning Bolt has more Pro Tour wins than Kai Budde himself. And to me, Lightning Bolt, is just a bit plain, a bit boring. Because I love you. 

You ask one of the big questions of life, what is Scry 1 worth? I never tried to quantify it myself, it makes you obviously better than Lightning Bolt in my Alles-2 Cube. But I asked myself today, how much better. There are quite some different online discussions on this to be found this subject. Legend has it Limited Resources popularised that Scry 1 is worth a 0.3 of a card. But that is just a legend. I like my answers to be a lot more scientific. When it comes to numbers and Magic there is only one true source to quote: Frank Karsten. So let me do just that: 

A cheap scry 1 effect in a 60-card deck with 18 black lands (or an 99-card deck with 30 black lands) counts as approximately 0.2 black sources.

I love mana bases. Like really, I go crazy for them. Some friends mock me for it, others indulge me to do deep dives into mana bases. I actually have a little print of Frank Karsten his mana base cheat sheet in my wallet to help me figure out my mana bases when drafting. So to me you are not a Lightning Bolt plus 0.3rd of a card. To me you are a Lightning Bolt with a 0.2667 land source strapped on it in a 16 land, 40 card deck. That is my kind of love language.

With love, 

Hanjo