General Fight Club

Tzenmoroth

Tzenmoroth

Do you want your players splashing blue for countermagic or having to be more dedicated to blue? That's a pretty philosophical question. You probably run Spell Shrivel if you want decks that are primarily another color to be able to get a "hard" counter more easily, or if you like the idea of low CMC spells resolving more easily later in the game, which seems legit given how generally bad they're going to be. Tweaking the countermagic so that Doge always resolves later on could make for some interesting late games.

Taxing counterspells are also generally more fun to play with since they can feel more like they could have been played around, granted they're super powerful if played around, but I see a lot of "dammit, didn't play around it" from force spikes and mana leaks, instead of "welp, they had a counterspell". Granted at a tax of 4 mana, this is probably a super minor point.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, I agree about the philosophical thing being the main distinction. I think Spell Shrivel will be functionally superior almost all the time, and I kind of like the aesthetic of it more, if only because I really like the look of Devoid spells.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I don't currently run Dissipate, but I have run it. When I did, I wanted some latent Gravecrawler hate.

By "more" 3-mana counters, I'm only really running like 2 at the moment, and they both have {1}{U}{U} cost.
 
Laz

Laz

Developer
Get aboard the Complicate train!

(Though I never actually get to cycle it, which makes me sad. My opponent always seems to casts something I need to counter with 1-2 mana up.)
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

That's kind of a powerlevel question imo because Prison Term is infinitely better than Statis Snare. I love Term because it's a bit of a puzzle for your opponent to figure out how to get out of, and you have to make tough decisions on when to move it to a new creature a lot of the time since Riptide cubes aren't super bomb-oriented. I love it.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Onderzeeboot said:
Flash is pretty good as well though...
Click to expand...

It's a worse Banishing Light and the flash does not push it over the edge for me at all.

Light:
+ any nonland permanent
+ single {W} casting cost
- sorcery speed (I personally like making control decide between when to tap-out and when to hold, but it's true that sorcery speed is a downside)
- permanent comes back on removal


Snare:
- only creatures
- double {W}{W} casting cost
+ instant speed
- creature comes back on removal

If I'm paying 3 mana to conditionally remove a creature at instant speed in white with a {W}{W} casting cost, it had better be Wing Shards (which is super rad and often leads to lots of interesting decisions on both sides; how long to hold/how to maximize value vs what to feed the edict when it hits, super great tension A++)
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
RavebornMuse said:
It's a worse Banishing Light and the flash does not push it over the edge for me at all.
Click to expand...
But we were comparing Prison Term and Stasis Snare, not Banishing Light and Stasis Snare. You're saying Term is infinitely better, but that's not necessarily true, since there are certain cases that do come up in cube games where the flash on Snare would make a difference. I mean, Banishing Light is better than Prison Term as well, so, whatever?
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Onderzeeboot said:
But we were comparing Prison Term and Stasis Snare, not Banishing Light and Stasis Snare. You're saying Term is infinitely better, but that's not necessarily true, since there are certain cases that do come up in cube games where the flash on Snare would make a difference. I mean, Banishing Light is better than Prison Term as well, so, whatever?
Click to expand...

I evaluate all cards I consider of a similar type together and consider how they perform in my own environment. I have no doubt that there is probably some scenario out there where Snare outperforms Term, but I don't comment in Fight Club to speculate what other's formats are like, I evaluate from the perspective of my own environ, which I am typically much better versed in. Feel free to discard any such opinions as you'd like; they're just opinions, and you're certainly welcome to use whatever evaluation approach you find most helpful.

Re: my own evaluation scale, I find Term better than O-Ring, and I find O-Ring better than Light, which I consider better than Snare. Wing Shards falls below Term and above O-Ring. But again, that's just my own method of evaluation: on a spectrum within my own tastes/environ rather than literal either/or scenarios.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
RavebornMuse said:
I evaluate all cards I consider of a similar type together and consider how they perform in my own environment. I have no doubt that there is probably some scenario out there where Snare outperforms Term, but I don't comment in Fight Club to speculate what other's formats are like, I evaluate from the perspective of my own environ, which I am typically much better versed in. Feel free to discard any such opinions as you'd like; they're just opinions, and you're certainly welcome to use whatever evaluation approach you find most helpful.

Re: my own evaluation scale, I find Term better than O-Ring, and I find O-Ring better than Light, which I consider better than Snare. Wing Shards falls below Term and above O-Ring. But again, that's just my own method of evaluation: on a spectrum within my own tastes/environ rather than literal either/or scenarios.
Click to expand...
As an aura it's vulnerable to bounce, unlike O-Ring (and Snare), increasing the number of decks that can deal with it by a huge factor (especially in a multicolor environment like mine). I have only played the card in casual (and Shadowmoor limited), never in cube, and a long time ago at that, so maybe I'm just misevaluating the card, but I'm surprised you value it that high!
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I'll jump in to back Prison Term, too; its ability to shift among targets is underrated, but means that you can deploy it at the first possible chance and not worry about losing value. In aggro, you can happily drop it on your opponent's turn two Augur of Bolas, tap your little men and keep attacking, without worrying too much about their next follow-up play. Likewise, in control, you can immediately stabilize even if that means plopping it on their middling two-drop, safe in the knowledge that you're still protected against larger threats. It's got the downsides that you've listed, to be sure, but I feel like its upsides more than make up for the fact that it's an aura.
 
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