It's either 2 for 1 (they lose a creature and you gain a creature; for a card) then a 4 for 2 (they discard 2 and you draw 2; they gain a creature and you lose a creature). It was a pretty well designed card for limited.
In the second case, the creature doesn't matter at all. So it would be a 4 for 1 (they discard 2, you draw 2, you're down a spell)
Or he tries to kill it some other means which is a 2 for 1. You invested one card and it gained you two cards (the dead creature and the removal spell your opponent used).
If the opponent chooses to discard two cards, it's a 4 for 2. You invested this card and it netted you four cards (the two discarded by your opponent and the two cards you drew).
4cmc is that awesome, which is why WOTC doesn't print such cards anymore.
im still the oppinion that a straight 4cmc mind control wouldnt be that awesome in current standard. without even giving haste. you should realise that todays standard is 1000 stronger than nearly every older standard, besides some few exceptions. and still think that this 4cmc mind control without downside, wouldnt be that meta breaking..
but this doesnt really matter since it is not a 4cmc mindcontrol without downside.
its a card which nearly never does what you want. there will be situations where your oppoent got this fatty you need to handle: he will just discard two.
then you want to draw some cards and let the opponent discard. too bad, you can have this creature cause i can handle it anyway.
so basicly its vexing devil 2.0. sounds awesome on paper, but in reality its just a bad card in nearly every environment.
Of course there is a difference between 2UU and 3UU, I have never claimed anything else. But I'm sure you'll agree that the "correct" cost for this type of effect is somewhere between 2UU and 3UU; it's not good enough at 3UU, maybe a bit too good at 2UU (hard to say).
Not necessarily. Stone Rain is a dangerous card, but it usually requires a second effect like it at three mana (Pillage, Molten Rain, etc.) to actually make a very unfun and annoying Land Destruction decks viable. However, at three mana Stone Rain is a viable potentially dangerous card for a Standard environment. Craterize at four mana is not.
I would not want to risk it with Mind Control because I have lived through the days when Vedalken Shackles was legal.
I see your point. Control Magic would probably be good in standard, maybe even very good. I doubt it would break it, though. Vedalken Shackles was stupid because it was endless Control Magics, a whole different breed.
Enter Soul Ransom: It is clearly inferior to Control magic. It may be inferior to Mind Control, but that is hard to prove. So how powerful is it? I guess only time will tell, but I'm not overly enthusiastic in a meta filled with Resto Angels, Thragtusks, cheap zombies, snapcasters, Angel of Serenity, and so on.
I don't think people fully understand how potentially powerful a card like Soul Ransom is. It's a forced bad trade for your opponent no matter how you look at it. Sure it's a "punisher" mechanic but these things have never really been so devastating. This is Bloodbraid into Blightning levels of card advantage for the same amount of mana and with less variance.
If your opponent plays a Thragtusk into this the line of play becomes much more difficult than they had bargained for. The only one-for-one trade is to destroy the enchantment itself, which isn't very common in most decks. If you play this on a Thundermaw Hellkite, it's very likely either a) your opponent doesn't have the cards in hand to get this back immediately, or b) your opponent still had cards in hand which meant that you are at a comfortable life total in order to sustain another hit and now you have a crippled opponent and a full grip with which to deal with the Hellkite and future threats. I'm not saying this is going to break standard but with so many powerful creatures roaming around right now this is a smart 1-2 of in a deck playing these colors.
The reason you'll never see Control Magic around again is that it's just too powerful right now. Creatures are the focus of the standard environment and Wizards doesn't want to punish people for playing them. This is the closest we'll ever see to a reprint of that card, and in some ways this can be considered superior.
Also for the people saying this will wreck combat math, once you get into the declare attackers step it's not like they can break the enchantment and then use it to block with, the creature is still tapped if you attack with it. If they break it at the beginning of combat then you can just move to main phase two and deal with it at sorcery speed or deal with it instantly before moving to attack step. For those of you saying "it'll just get countered", well that's kind of the point. They're forced to answer this card before it resolves otherwise it will force a bad answer in order to deal with it.
you realise, that the creatures gets not sacrificed do you?
that means the only thing that happens if your enemy has 2 or more cards in his hand is this:
you try to get his precious creauture. he does not want this to happen and discards 2. means your enchantment gets sacrificed, he gets his creature back and you draw 2.
this means its basicly 4cmc opponent discards 2 you draw 2, if your opponent wants you to. otherwise its a 4cmc mind control, which is not thaat awesome, cause you dont even get haste...
Like I said before Hymn to Tourach costs BB for 2 of your opponent's cards. There are several 1U cards that draw 2 cards but they all have a drawback. Even just 1UBB for both of these with no drawing drawback would be good. Knock a B down to 1 and you have a very nicely costed effect. Anyone who whines that the opponent gets to choose which cards they discard is just being daft and doesn't get hand destruction as a strategy. They MIGHT have two spare lands but the chances are that they do not.
For 2UB you get either the creature of your choice and/or a 4 card swing in your advantage.
I fail to see what's wrong with this card.
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New Standard: WR Heroic Boros Soldiers
EDH: GW Sisay, UB Wrexial, WR Anax and Cymede (Coming soon)
Soul Ransom - How VERY interesting. Will it see Constructed play? More than I can say, since I generally play Limited.
But it is very effective, and I think it may have a place in Esper Control. Certainly you want a Blink effect or a sac engine in place. If you do, this card becomes double-plus unfun for the opponent.
The 'combat math' headache can also be avoided by pursuing a victory condition that does not strictly require with turning people sideways (e.g., Mill or Extort), or by grabbing a good ground creature to tie up the ground while you fly over them. Or unblockables, or whatever.
The only thing that sucks about soul ransom is the art. Aside from that, its a solid card. Plus it feels new. Not many cards can be credited with that. Good job, wizards.
Man, all these cards are underwhleming. Especially Grull Charm, man that is a waste of cardboard.
Soul Ransom should read: Opponent discards 2 cards, you draw 2 cards" which isn't bad for 4 in limited. The mind control effect is completely besides the point
I wish Soul Ransom's condition was 'discard three; draw three' instead!
But I can't have them all. Might be fun in constructed and is a pretty
solid aura.
Soul's Ransom is infinite times better if your opponent can only activate the ability on his turn. At any time makes it risky and therefore bad for constructed.
Soul's Ransom is infinite times better if your opponent can only activate the ability on his turn. At any time makes it risky and therefore bad for constructed.
Still will play the hell out of it in limited.
Well its a pretty big thing the -2/+2 card advantage, so on smaller guys you don't want that.
On game finishers, you probably will, which is the drawback of this card, it will never keep a game finisher.
Also, this way you have to plan if they can get the creature back in combat, so its actual good to be instant speed, as it adds more to the card.
Overall its not bad, but 4 mana is still a lot for something that might not do what you want it to do.
Also i kind of would like it more if you could play it on your own stuff, just to cycle cards, which would add another dimension to this card.
A funny extra might be that a player can discard 2,4,6 and more cards, to trigger it multiple times. While it might pretty much never be relevant, but it can "kill" your opponent with the forced carddraw.
In EDH it can be used as a political card, which is a nice thing ; if they can use the discard for themself, to get a dredge target or such, and you get to draw 2 cards.
In this perspective its a good card, but not pushed enough to see play in older formats, for that its simply too expensive and unrealiable.
I'm seeing some fun EDH uses for Soul Ransom. Sepulchral Primordial, while I wish was a zombie, is going into my Skullbriar as soon as I get one...
Edit: Gruul Charm looks a little underwhelming.
Edit2: Are people not reading Soul Ransom right? You control the creature it's enchanting. You get to sac it at your whim (if you have two cards your willing to discard for the draw/sac effect). I don't see it as a very Type2 viable card (but it has me thinking of some fun Seance builds...) however it would be great for EDH.
Soul ransom is very interesting. Will be a good card if there is a lot of good discard. The informer plays well with the duskmantle guildmage plays very well with it. The keyrune is interesting too, all in all good cards.
I'm seeing some fun EDH uses for Soul Ransom. Sepulchral Primordial, while I wish was a zombie, is going into my Skullbriar as soon as I get one...
Edit: Gruul Charm looks a little underwhelming.
Edit2: Are people not reading Soul Ransom right? You control the creature it's enchanting. You get to sac it at your whim (if you have two cards your willing to discard for the draw/sac effect). I don't see it as a very Type2 viable card (but it has me thinking of some fun Seance builds...) however it would be great for EDH.
The ability sacrifices Soul Ransom, not the creature.
Edit2: Are people not reading Soul Ransom right? You control the creature it's enchanting. You get to sac it at your whim (if you have two cards your willing to discard for the draw/sac effect). I don't see it as a very Type2 viable card (but it has me thinking of some fun Seance builds...) however it would be great for EDH.
Discard two cards: Soul Ransom's controller sacrifices it, then draws two cards. Only an opponent may activate this ability.
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The wedding is over. Now it's time for the honeymoon.
Soul Ransom is pretty good. It's Control Magic that says "Hey, if you want your creature back, discard 2 cards, and I get to draw 2."
Read people....read....
And no, this doesn't allow you to put Smiter in play, since you're the person controlling the discard ability. It needs to be an opponent that forces you to discard.
Soul Ransom is pretty good. It's Control Magic that says "Hey, if you want your creature back, discard 2 cards, and I get to draw 2."
Read people....read....
And no, this doesn't allow you to put Smiter in play, since you're the person controlling the discard ability. It needs to be an opponent that forces you to discard.
not quite...
it's control magic, and it reads "if I want my creature back and don't have a removal, nor enchantment hate, nor a bigger threat and I'm worried it will cost the game, then I discard two and let you draw two..."
It basically transforms every situation where control magic would be REALLY relevant into a nice card advantage that can be relevant or not, and every situation where control magic would be meh into... well... control magic
And I know why you fail. You deconstruct the card into two cards and then analyze those two cards. But that's not the way the game works. Yes, we would play 1U: draw two. Some decks would also play 1B:discard two. But that doesn't mean that we would play 2UB: draw two, they discard two.
But that's not all. You also fail to understand that the card we're talking about doesn't even necessarily do that. It might just end up taking one of their lingering souls tokens instead. Giving the opponent the choice of what your card does is usually a very bad idea.
Imagine, if you will, there was a chess piece that could move diagonally, vertically, horizontally AND jump like a knight (as in the variant called amazon queen) BUT your opponent got to chose every turn which mode it was in. Can we agree that the piece would never be truly useful unless your opponent messed up or was in such a bind that each mode was bad for him?
That's what punisher cards are like.
But surely there comes a point where both effects are so bloody strong that you're going to win no matter which one you get. I think there are a lot of situations where Soul Ransom fits that bill. I don't think there is an equivalent situation in chess.
Minor quibble not related to your post: The second choice is a little better than mindculling, since your opponent doesn't get to use it if they have less than 2 cards, whereas an actual discard spell would just be dead.
Do you think this card would see constructed play?
This is closer: 2UB Sorcery
Your opponent discards 2 cards, then you draw X cards, where X is 4 minus the number they discarded.
IMO, that card is absurd for 4 mana. Like, even better than draw 4.
Whut? You do know that 4cc control magic is completely busted by todays standards?
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
In the second case, the creature doesn't matter at all. So it would be a 4 for 1 (they discard 2, you draw 2, you're down a spell)
Mind Control was not good enough at 3UU, so Control Magic would probably not break standard...
The difference between 4cc and 5cc is huge. The same reason that glory seeker saw no play and Isamaru, hound of konda did.
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
im still the oppinion that a straight 4cmc mind control wouldnt be that awesome in current standard. without even giving haste. you should realise that todays standard is 1000 stronger than nearly every older standard, besides some few exceptions. and still think that this 4cmc mind control without downside, wouldnt be that meta breaking..
but this doesnt really matter since it is not a 4cmc mindcontrol without downside.
its a card which nearly never does what you want. there will be situations where your oppoent got this fatty you need to handle: he will just discard two.
then you want to draw some cards and let the opponent discard. too bad, you can have this creature cause i can handle it anyway.
so basicly its vexing devil 2.0. sounds awesome on paper, but in reality its just a bad card in nearly every environment.
That's a nice waste of smiters.
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
Of course there is a difference between 2UU and 3UU, I have never claimed anything else. But I'm sure you'll agree that the "correct" cost for this type of effect is somewhere between 2UU and 3UU; it's not good enough at 3UU, maybe a bit too good at 2UU (hard to say).
Are you implying that Stone Rain would break standard?
Nope. You control the abbility. The opponent simply controls the permanent. It works the same as oona's prowler.
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
I see your point. Control Magic would probably be good in standard, maybe even very good. I doubt it would break it, though. Vedalken Shackles was stupid because it was endless Control Magics, a whole different breed.
Enter Soul Ransom: It is clearly inferior to Control magic. It may be inferior to Mind Control, but that is hard to prove. So how powerful is it? I guess only time will tell, but I'm not overly enthusiastic in a meta filled with Resto Angels, Thragtusks, cheap zombies, snapcasters, Angel of Serenity, and so on.
If your opponent plays a Thragtusk into this the line of play becomes much more difficult than they had bargained for. The only one-for-one trade is to destroy the enchantment itself, which isn't very common in most decks. If you play this on a Thundermaw Hellkite, it's very likely either a) your opponent doesn't have the cards in hand to get this back immediately, or b) your opponent still had cards in hand which meant that you are at a comfortable life total in order to sustain another hit and now you have a crippled opponent and a full grip with which to deal with the Hellkite and future threats. I'm not saying this is going to break standard but with so many powerful creatures roaming around right now this is a smart 1-2 of in a deck playing these colors.
The reason you'll never see Control Magic around again is that it's just too powerful right now. Creatures are the focus of the standard environment and Wizards doesn't want to punish people for playing them. This is the closest we'll ever see to a reprint of that card, and in some ways this can be considered superior.
Also for the people saying this will wreck combat math, once you get into the declare attackers step it's not like they can break the enchantment and then use it to block with, the creature is still tapped if you attack with it. If they break it at the beginning of combat then you can just move to main phase two and deal with it at sorcery speed or deal with it instantly before moving to attack step. For those of you saying "it'll just get countered", well that's kind of the point. They're forced to answer this card before it resolves otherwise it will force a bad answer in order to deal with it.
Like I said before Hymn to Tourach costs BB for 2 of your opponent's cards. There are several 1U cards that draw 2 cards but they all have a drawback. Even just 1UBB for both of these with no drawing drawback would be good. Knock a B down to 1 and you have a very nicely costed effect. Anyone who whines that the opponent gets to choose which cards they discard is just being daft and doesn't get hand destruction as a strategy. They MIGHT have two spare lands but the chances are that they do not.
For 2UB you get either the creature of your choice and/or a 4 card swing in your advantage.
I fail to see what's wrong with this card.
EDH: GW Sisay, UB Wrexial, WR Anax and Cymede (Coming soon)
Casual: GW Elephants
But it is very effective, and I think it may have a place in Esper Control. Certainly you want a Blink effect or a sac engine in place. If you do, this card becomes double-plus unfun for the opponent.
The 'combat math' headache can also be avoided by pursuing a victory condition that does not strictly require with turning people sideways (e.g., Mill or Extort), or by grabbing a good ground creature to tie up the ground while you fly over them. Or unblockables, or whatever.
Orzhov Keyrune - 4, please.
Gruul Charm - Anti-control, for sure and certain.
Soul Ransom should read: Opponent discards 2 cards, you draw 2 cards" which isn't bad for 4 in limited. The mind control effect is completely besides the point
But I can't have them all. Might be fun in constructed and is a pretty
solid aura.
WUR Enduring Ideal RUW
GGG Stompy Crux GGG
-- Elder Dragon Highlander --
UBU
Grimgrin, Zombie HordeUBURWR
Jor Kadeen TronRWRBRU Sedris Beatdown URB
UUU Llawan, Empress of "No" UUU
WBW Vish Kal Tron WBW
GRG Thromok Token GRG
RRR Zo-Zu, Hater of Everything RRR
Still will play the hell out of it in limited.
My wife was on MTV with this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUutIZg2EpU
Well its a pretty big thing the -2/+2 card advantage, so on smaller guys you don't want that.
On game finishers, you probably will, which is the drawback of this card, it will never keep a game finisher.
Also, this way you have to plan if they can get the creature back in combat, so its actual good to be instant speed, as it adds more to the card.
Overall its not bad, but 4 mana is still a lot for something that might not do what you want it to do.
Also i kind of would like it more if you could play it on your own stuff, just to cycle cards, which would add another dimension to this card.
A funny extra might be that a player can discard 2,4,6 and more cards, to trigger it multiple times. While it might pretty much never be relevant, but it can "kill" your opponent with the forced carddraw.
In EDH it can be used as a political card, which is a nice thing ; if they can use the discard for themself, to get a dredge target or such, and you get to draw 2 cards.
In this perspective its a good card, but not pushed enough to see play in older formats, for that its simply too expensive and unrealiable.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Edit: Gruul Charm looks a little underwhelming.
Edit2: Are people not reading Soul Ransom right? You control the creature it's enchanting. You get to sac it at your whim (if you have two cards your willing to discard for the draw/sac effect). I don't see it as a very Type2 viable card (but it has me thinking of some fun Seance builds...) however it would be great for EDH.
The ability sacrifices Soul Ransom, not the creature.
Discard two cards: Soul Ransom's controller sacrifices it, then draws two cards. Only an opponent may activate this ability.
Thanks to Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures!
Soul Ransom is pretty good. It's Control Magic that says "Hey, if you want your creature back, discard 2 cards, and I get to draw 2."
Read people....read....
And no, this doesn't allow you to put Smiter in play, since you're the person controlling the discard ability. It needs to be an opponent that forces you to discard.
not quite...
it's control magic, and it reads "if I want my creature back and don't have a removal, nor enchantment hate, nor a bigger threat and I'm worried it will cost the game, then I discard two and let you draw two..."
It basically transforms every situation where control magic would be REALLY relevant into a nice card advantage that can be relevant or not, and every situation where control magic would be meh into... well... control magic
But surely there comes a point where both effects are so bloody strong that you're going to win no matter which one you get. I think there are a lot of situations where Soul Ransom fits that bill. I don't think there is an equivalent situation in chess.
Minor quibble not related to your post: The second choice is a little better than mindculling, since your opponent doesn't get to use it if they have less than 2 cards, whereas an actual discard spell would just be dead.
Do you think this card would see constructed play?
This is closer: 2UB Sorcery
Your opponent discards 2 cards, then you draw X cards, where X is 4 minus the number they discarded.
IMO, that card is absurd for 4 mana. Like, even better than draw 4.