6/6 vs 1/1
Doublestrike is awesome. Just imagine, attacking with a 4/4 doublestriker and your opponent can't block it. That's 8 damage instead of 4! Instead of taking 5 turns to kill him, you only need 2 and a half. So instead of from 20 to 16, then 16 to 12, you skip the intermediate step and you just go from 20 to 12. It's amazingly powerful.
Then there's lifelink, which I used to call "the poor-man's doublestrike". After all, instead of knocking an opponent down from 20 to 12, it just knocks him down from 20 to 16, and springs you up to 24 from 20. So the life difference is still 8, like double-strike, but you will still take 5 turns to kill your opponent. Sure, your opponent will take longer to kill you (see my article next week, "The Race to 20"), but the doublestrike method is so much better.
BUT... what happens if your opponent has a creature to block with, or even worse, a recurring creature to block with, like a saproling maker? Well, that's what today's article is about, entitled "6/6 vs 1/1".
The 6/6 is your creature, which you are attacking with. The 1/1 is the saproling on the other end. Now, a 6/6 is already great on its own, but what if it had other abilities? Imagine, 6/6, doublestrike deathtouch. OMG. So... so... the same?
Yes, the same. A 1/1 blocking a 6/6 will die, whether or not it was vanilla, or had deathtouch, or doublestrike, or whatever. So, there are some abilities that are useless on a 6/6, if it were to be blocked on a 1/1. So we have:
Miscellaneous/Evasive Abilities: Vigilance, Persist, Haste, Protection, Flying, Shadow, Fear, Shroud, etc.
Most of these are on a different level of judging. But in this case, Vigilance is ookay, Persist does nothing, Haste can't really be judged, and the other 5 are mostly used for Evasion. If the 1/1 can still block it, then the Evasive qualities aren't important.
There are a billion other abilities which I didn't mention... I guess most of the Ravnica ones and some of the new Alara ones are unimportant in these cases.
Bad: Wither, Deathtouch, First Strike, Doubestrike, Flanking, Bushido, Horsemanship, Indestructible, etc
These are bad qualities because in this case, a vanilla 6/6 being blocked on a 1/1 would be the same as a 6/6 with one of these abilities.
Good: Lifelink, Trample
The only good ones in this case are Trample, which gets damage through to the player, and Lifelink, which gains you the 6 life no matter whether or not your creature was blocked.
So... score 1 for Lifelink, 0 for Doublestrike! Note the above only counts for single abilities. Doublestrike AND Lifelink together would've been nice, but if we could only choose one, then Lifelink beats Doublestrike.
In the next example, we'll have a 1/1 attacking into a 6/6, or a 1/1 blocking a 6/6. Note the above also works for when a 1/1 wants to attack into a 6/6.
Persist is bad, because it's a 1/1. Vigilance is bad because no matter what, it can't block the next turn. Evasive ones are still evasive, but protection is good because it won't die, although technically it won't be blocked.
Bad: First Strike, Doublestrike, Trample, Flanking, Bushido, Horsemanship - none of these do anything
Good: Wither, Deathtouch, Lifelink, Indestructible
Pretty self-explanatory - and you see, Lifelink has been Good in both scenarios! Sure, you only gain 1 life and your guy dies, but the point of a 1/1 lifelinker has been done, so it counts as successful. And there you have it. I used to call it the poor man's doublestrike, but because of analyses like these, it's unfair to say that it's worse than Doublestrike, as it is clearly a contender.
Maybe we should've used a 3/3 so we could've given points to doublestrike and persist... but then we're getting too far beyond the scope of this article. But yes, a 3/3 doublestrike against a 6/6 is better than a 3/3 lifelink. But if you're on the winning side, you'd probably have that 6/6 and you're fighting against much smaller creatures, in which case Lifelink will always work out in your favour.
Then there's lifelink, which I used to call "the poor-man's doublestrike". After all, instead of knocking an opponent down from 20 to 12, it just knocks him down from 20 to 16, and springs you up to 24 from 20. So the life difference is still 8, like double-strike, but you will still take 5 turns to kill your opponent. Sure, your opponent will take longer to kill you (see my article next week, "The Race to 20"), but the doublestrike method is so much better.
BUT... what happens if your opponent has a creature to block with, or even worse, a recurring creature to block with, like a saproling maker? Well, that's what today's article is about, entitled "6/6 vs 1/1".
The 6/6 is your creature, which you are attacking with. The 1/1 is the saproling on the other end. Now, a 6/6 is already great on its own, but what if it had other abilities? Imagine, 6/6, doublestrike deathtouch. OMG. So... so... the same?
Yes, the same. A 1/1 blocking a 6/6 will die, whether or not it was vanilla, or had deathtouch, or doublestrike, or whatever. So, there are some abilities that are useless on a 6/6, if it were to be blocked on a 1/1. So we have:
Miscellaneous/Evasive Abilities: Vigilance, Persist, Haste, Protection, Flying, Shadow, Fear, Shroud, etc.
Most of these are on a different level of judging. But in this case, Vigilance is ookay, Persist does nothing, Haste can't really be judged, and the other 5 are mostly used for Evasion. If the 1/1 can still block it, then the Evasive qualities aren't important.
There are a billion other abilities which I didn't mention... I guess most of the Ravnica ones and some of the new Alara ones are unimportant in these cases.
Bad: Wither, Deathtouch, First Strike, Doubestrike, Flanking, Bushido, Horsemanship, Indestructible, etc
These are bad qualities because in this case, a vanilla 6/6 being blocked on a 1/1 would be the same as a 6/6 with one of these abilities.
Good: Lifelink, Trample
The only good ones in this case are Trample, which gets damage through to the player, and Lifelink, which gains you the 6 life no matter whether or not your creature was blocked.
So... score 1 for Lifelink, 0 for Doublestrike! Note the above only counts for single abilities. Doublestrike AND Lifelink together would've been nice, but if we could only choose one, then Lifelink beats Doublestrike.
In the next example, we'll have a 1/1 attacking into a 6/6, or a 1/1 blocking a 6/6. Note the above also works for when a 1/1 wants to attack into a 6/6.
Persist is bad, because it's a 1/1. Vigilance is bad because no matter what, it can't block the next turn. Evasive ones are still evasive, but protection is good because it won't die, although technically it won't be blocked.
Bad: First Strike, Doublestrike, Trample, Flanking, Bushido, Horsemanship - none of these do anything
Good: Wither, Deathtouch, Lifelink, Indestructible
Pretty self-explanatory - and you see, Lifelink has been Good in both scenarios! Sure, you only gain 1 life and your guy dies, but the point of a 1/1 lifelinker has been done, so it counts as successful. And there you have it. I used to call it the poor man's doublestrike, but because of analyses like these, it's unfair to say that it's worse than Doublestrike, as it is clearly a contender.
Maybe we should've used a 3/3 so we could've given points to doublestrike and persist... but then we're getting too far beyond the scope of this article. But yes, a 3/3 doublestrike against a 6/6 is better than a 3/3 lifelink. But if you're on the winning side, you'd probably have that 6/6 and you're fighting against much smaller creatures, in which case Lifelink will always work out in your favour.
posted by Unknown at 12:53 AM
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