Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Make 4 evasive tokens for 5 mana in 2 colours that want tokens? I'm intrigued by Beacon of Creation and just added it to my fit-it-in list, but evasion is really tasty and flashback gives me life
lingering souls can end a game quicker and beacon of creation gums up the board, I think is a pretty significant difference.
how unfair is this card?
how unfair is this card?
How many crybabies draft with you? If that number is more than 0: it's TOTALLY UNFAIR and NOT FUN AT ALL!!!!
I love it though. It's very stylish.
That said: personally, I cut it a bit ago, and I don't really miss it. The double black was too frustrating and random pitch-2 is very who-cares in a format filled with great playables (where randomly pitching 2 isn't often extremely punishing). It can totally lead to really funny moments but I prefer targetted discard a lot, lot, lot more. YPMV and I'm always pondering trying it again, but yeah, it's kinda whatever to me, I'm just a sucker for cubable Susan Van Camp pieces
I cut Hymn for similar reasons. BB is awkward for hand disruption, the randomness meant people wanted to run targeted discard over it for reliability. It has the potential to be a blowout, but you basically have to win two coin tosses to get that. My players have definitely preferred less randomness.
I was going to cut it, but then someone had their hand ripped apart by Thoughtseize into Inquisition of Kozilek into Hymn to Tourach like two drafts ago. It's staying.
I did the same thing tanner k. did once, to a lovable guy who always plays GWx blink, and yeah... I felt so mean i never did it again. Now hymn is sitting in my "pandora" box with sneak attack and channel.
Fair. I was actually trying to paint it as awful- did a poor job. I'd love beacon if it were white/plains- 1/1s have no synergy in my green
Totally gross IMO- random discard is one of the erratic, least-fun mechanics in magic. Especially on turn two.
So what's a good turn two hand disruption card? Wrench Mind?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Seriously though, why do you need a turn two hand disruption card? There are plenty of better options at one.
I'm already gonna run 3 thoughtseizes so, I'm prodding around for more.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Unnerving Gaze
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose up to one noncreature, nonland card and up to one creature card from it. That player discards those cards. You lose 2 life.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Seriously though, why do you need a turn two hand disruption card? There are plenty of better options at one.
Its just a question of how you feel about negative variance. Thoughtseize is the better card because it generates a certain percentage of free wins when it hits weak hands or mulligans. I'm not sure its better at producing compelling games of magic, however.
Thoughtseize also can easily slot into decks with little strategic consideration. Its again the "the better" card for this reason, but maybe not if you want more focused decks (especially midrange).
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Actual card advantage.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Rise // Fall would be perfect if it cost BB (and is pretty good anyway)
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
The trick with the card being to target a fetch and crack it in response.
Since we are already ok with land destruction in certain guises, I was wondering if this also might play a role in pressuring high curve decks.
You don't want to fill up your red section with stone rain clones, but this seems like a sufficently unique approach that it might be a decent addition. Running this alongside pillage or molten rain seems reasonable, and not too oppressive. Than in black you have smallpox as well as a couple two drops that can both attack or go into grindy midrange or aggressive decks. That makes the none blocking black one and two drops feel somewhat less awkward on the section.
Yeah I'm currently on the Boom // Bust Molten Rain Avalanche Riders plan myself and it's pretty awesome. I keep wanting to bring Smallpox back in but I've settled for making it a G/R plan
Chris Taylor
Contributor
smallpox is a lot harder to leaverage
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Thanks guys, two more cards I would like some opinions on:
The first as a way to approach the discard problem by rolling it up as a sub theme of the counters decks. The second as to whether it has any play to it in a black based aggressive/midrangish attrition deck.
The first as a way to approach the discard problem by rolling it up as a sub theme of the counters decks. The second as to whether it has any play to it in a black based aggressive/midrangish attrition deck.
Cunning Lethomancer as a slow one dimensional low power liliana of the veil?
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I have played Ooana's Blackguard fairly extensively. I sharpied out the rogue text on the account of the fact that bitterblossom is about the last card in my list that needs a narrow combo to make it stronger. Reckless Waif didn't like that decision, but she works for me so she had to deal with it.
I didn't particularly like how it played. Very rarely would you get a situation where Blackguard came down midgame with dudes on board that could get through where the discarded cards or forced blocks made a difference in the winning the game. In fact, I can't remember that happening at all.
Instead, what I remember is someone going cloudfin->blackguard and winning off of there 1 mana hypnotic specter if the opponent didn't have removal or blackguard coming down later on and having minimal impact because the required elements didn't line up (having a dude with counters on board that the opponent can't remove or favorably block or the dude only getting in once before the blackguard or dude gets removed making it a convoluted Wrench Mind variant).
I guess if I didn't run evasive one drops that can get counters and sharpied something different on top (even if I cut bitterblossom my comparatively large cube only has 5 rogues) then the card might have play, but I'm pretty cold on it at the moment. Unlike the other counter lords it doesn't "change the math" on the table and when you are committing multiple creatures to the board to get an effect I'm not sure you can afford to be subtle.
I didn't particularly like how it played. Very rarely would you get a situation where Blackguard came down midgame with dudes on board that could get through where the discarded cards or forced blocks made a difference in the winning the game. In fact, I can't remember that happening at all.
Instead, what I remember is someone going cloudfin->blackguard and winning off of there 1 mana hypnotic specter if the opponent didn't have removal or blackguard coming down later on and having minimal impact because the required elements didn't line up (having a dude with counters on board that the opponent can't remove or favorably block or the dude only getting in once before the blackguard or dude gets removed making it a convoluted Wrench Mind variant).
I guess if I didn't run evasive one drops that can get counters and sharpied something different on top (even if I cut bitterblossom my comparatively large cube only has 5 rogues) then the card might have play, but I'm pretty cold on it at the moment. Unlike the other counter lords it doesn't "change the math" on the table and when you are committing multiple creatures to the board to get an effect I'm not sure you can afford to be subtle.
Lingering souls doesn't gum up the bored? I often use that thing to buy like 3 turns.
Under normal circumstances beacon sorta says your opponent will never have a better lategame than you, you're gonna see it more than once over a long game and its gonna get better and better as you draw it successively. It adds a lot of control potential to green too. I thought you guys were really into your blasting stations and anthems and that other sorta garbage.