Lash of the Whip
Sip of Hemlock

Expensive removal.
My gut feeling is that you want a mix of both in your deck. So if I already had one I would take the other. Not sure what I would do if I already had one of each.

Obviously if you are splashing black you have to take the Lash. Are there other secondary colors for which you would prefer one of the other? I guess in BG you might have a bunch of spare mana in the seat cushions and not care about the higher cost of Sip.

Over on "that other site" it was pointed out (indirectly) that since Lash was splashable, it's probably picked more. Not that Sip of Hemlock wheels very often.

So, let's look at the pros of each of them:

lash:
-cheaper by 1 mana
-instant (but bestow says **** you).
-less color commitment (but it's a 6 drop, so I don't know how important this is).
-kills regenerators/indestructibles (asphodel wanderer, deathbellow raider, sentry of the underworld, anything with boon of erebos, 2x kills gods, 1x+viper's kiss kills thassa, purphoros)


sip:
-shocks face
-kills creatures with 5+ toughness and creatures bestowed with enough auras to give them 5+ toughness (although using lash as a combat trick can deal with those sometimes).

The one mana less and instant speed makes lash significantly better than sip imo. The difference between 5 and 6 mana is often 2 or 3 turns and even when you do hit your 6th land on turn 6, a lot can happen in that 1 turn difference. Instant speed means you can kill stuff in response to auras, which is pretty significant in this format.

I'd pick 2 lashes before I pick sip over lash and only if I don't already have a sip. Being able to kill anything is still good, but I don't want sips clogging up my starting hands.

5-toughness is the Magic Number in Theros Limited - but it's also hard to get up to, which is why people feel pretty safe at 4. The two are equivalent for straight-up kill-value in about 60% of cases, with the Sip being better in 30%, and worse in 10% (by my experience).

The nice thing about the Whip is that you can combo it with mid-sized creatures to still turn it into an effectively "kill anything" spell, and it has instant-speed and is 1 cmc cheaper (plus easier to cast).


End of the day, definitely the Whip unless I already have 3 other Whips.

I'm actually a big fan of Sip of Hemlock. It's saved my rear many, many times from monsters (literal or no) that Lash simply would not do me any good against. Not that Lash is bad, mind -- it will always find a target, the problem being that it might not be the target you really want dead.

Ideally, I'll have a couple to a few of each, of course, but for taking my very first black removal piece, I want Sip.

Sip is waaaaaaay better.

How can people assess unconditional removal for one more mana as strictly worse than 5-mana removal that probably can't kill their 5-drop? I get that blocking is the way to kill things in this set, but even with the whip it's easy to read and still requires setting up.

Sip all the way.

No one said anything about strictly worse.

That said, the difference between 5 mana and 6 mana is often 2 turns, if not 3 (it's pretty rare that you hit every land drop on your first 6 turns). So true, whip may not be able to kill their 5 drop without help, but by the time sip can kill that same 5 drop, that 5 drop might have killed you.

Instant speed is also pretty damn relevant in a format full of combat tricks and auras.

Your first statement ("I'd pick two," etc.) reads like you'd pass hemlocks until you got a 2nd whip. I'd say that's a fairly aggressive preference.

This is an 18-land limited environment. I don't think a land is a two-turn difference in a black deck running sip. Also, you're generally tapping out in this format, so keeping mana open to cast a meh combat trick is already a losing strategy.

EDIT: Well, OK, you're not always tapping out in this format, fine. But the grindier decks--ones that want sip--don't mind the tempo loss from sorcery speed unconditional removal.

I've always picked Whip over Sip.
I almost always run 3 colors, so I prefer the single black to double black,
then again I rarely have trouble getting to double black.

I do still prefer it being an instant, though.
Chances are, you'll eventually get to topdeck mode,
and at that point you can bluff whip with lands in hand if you've used it before in the match.

Yes, I prefer whip, no questions. I didn't say whip is strictly better though. If I thought whip was strictly better, I'd always pick whip over sip. That's not the case. I pick sip over whip if I already have two whips. So I do see sip having its advantages.


Even with 18 lands, I highly doubt you'll regularly get your 6th land turn 6, although I don't have the supporting probabilities right now. I'll try to look them up.


Here's the thing. If you're going to use your removal spell anyway, in most cases, you lose nothing by waiting at your opponent's eot (yes, I know there are situations where you should play your instant speed removal on your own turn). So I don't know why you'd think keeping 5 mana open to play your removal during your opponent's turn (or during your own combat) is any worse than casting your removal on your own turn. The advantage is that by waiting on your opponent's turn, you may be able to kill a bigger creature than usual (if he attacks into your blockers) or getting a 2 for 1 on a combat trick or a non-bestow aura (even if you kill something in response to a bestow aura, you still have a significant advantage, considering they just paid, on average, 3 more mana for their creature).

That's not even considering the times when you have multiple options at instant speed (other combat tricks, monstrosity, etc.)

Overall though, it's about mana curve. I don't want my deck to be full of 6 mana removal. I don't want to wait till turn 7 or 8 before interacting with their creatures. I do want sip in my black decks, but I'd rather have 3 whips and 1 sip than 3 sips and 1 whip. My choice may differ if it's 3rd pack and I haven't gotten any removal yet, but at that point, it'll be very context dependent.

I don't think it's a contest. Whip is fine if you land-go, leave your mana open, and stop someone from voltron-ing a threat. But that's the only time I'd call it situationally better--and that's a strange "better" because it implies you're playing a heroic deck that doesn't have a threat by the time you've hit your fifth land drop. Otherwise, lash only removes a bomb if you two-for-one yourself while blocking or manage to catch a heroic dude before they go off. One card to kill anything is almost always better, even if it only costs one more.

Drafted last night. Took half the Sips I saw. Took none of the lashes I saw. Dropped zero games.

Drafted last night. Took half the Sips I saw. Took none of the lashes I saw. Dropped zero games.

It's so true he posted it twice.

Proves nothing unless you can ask your parallel universe self if he dropped any when he took half the whips he saw and none of the sips.

Also, we don't know how many "half of the sips" is. Half of 0 is 0. Anything more than that shows that I can take whip over sip at least once and still get enough sips.



I don't know what kind of strange meta you play where all the creatures have 5+ toughness, or where killing a creature with 4 or less toughness is a waste of time. I don't know how bad a player someone has to be for you to arrive to the conclusion that using a whip when blocking is automatically a 2 for 1. Have you tried blocking that 6/6 with a 3/3 instead of with a 2/2?

EDIT:

I supposed I shouldn't flame here.

Agree to disagree again, Fil ol' buddy ol' pal ol' friend o' mine.

I could ask the current reality me that once had triple Lash in his deck and lost in the first round. Or all of my friends who have also falling into the "Lash is a mid-pick removal spell" trap.

Its fine in Sealed, but in Draft it commonly just falls flat because Heroic dudes build up too fast, and a lot of stuff ends up being out of Lash range with a single Bestow spell. I'd rather just kill things instead of jumping through hoops.

And I just won a draft with 2 whips and no sips.

Anecdotal evidence proves nothing.

It only proves things when I use it