If it gives your opponents a way to finish you off, then it has drawn you a lot of cards and if that wasn't enough to avoid defeat then it's probably not this card's fault. This is the same issue some people have with Dark Confidant before they play with it. Yes, sometimes you die to your Confidant, but by definition the games where it's close to killing you it's given you the maximum advantage.
I would agree if there was some combo piece you could dig for that wins you the game on the spot. Necropotence was amazing because you were trading life for cards that inst-won the game for you
These days, there isn't such a combo in standard, so I don't think the value of drawing those cards is as high, especially with so much aggro out there or card that can sneak in 4 damage at instant speed (Boros Charm)
The lack of payoff/instant win cards you could dig for, making all your guys hurt you when there are so many sweepers out there, not being a may ability, and the BBB casting cost all lead me to believe this will be a $1 bin rare at best. Just my hunch.
I look at Dark Tutelage and Underworld Connections as the closest corollaries to this card in recent memory, and both are bulk rares no one plays worth less than .50
This is the same issue some people have with Dark Confidant before they play with it
Dark Confidant is a 2/1 beater, he only has B in his cost, your opponent can't trigger the life loss, and it's a lot easier for a black deck to remove a creature if they don't want it around anymore than an enchantment. Comparing this card to Dark Confidant is like comparing Burning Earth to Price of Progress.
To me the Art is frankly the weakest part of the card for me. I absolutely LOVE the BBB casting cost in general, so that actually makes this card more appealing. I try to play mono or as close to mono black as I can in modern... the problem being primarily that without proper nonbasic land hate, there really isn't a whole lot of point to it as it's so easy to splash and get more general effects. This is an effect that will want to be built around, color and deck wise... not something that will slide seemlessly into existing deck types.
Now I have been really trying to remain creatureless lately (dead cards in the opponents hands and nostalgia) but this card gives me a real reason to kick that concept to the curb and just rock the critters.
There are plenty of creatures in modern that will play nicely outside of black (like Kitchen Finks, Mulldrifter) assuming you want to push the mana base to support it, but some black creatures might actually become decent choices now like Augur of Skulls might be worth playing over wrench mind. It's slower, but solid on it's own and plays well with the prophecy. shriekmaw is another guy that i've typically avoided because of his inability to answer bob, deathrite or pestermite... but I could see running him none the less simply because of this card. Then there are other cards that just operate well and get better if they cantrip when they die.... like Vampire Nighthawk. Then there are corner case cards that I personally like but needed slightly stronger reasons to run, i.e. Vampire Hexmage. She can nuke planeswalkers, reset asenscions among various other things, or she can cycle herself. Not to mention token producers.
If necropotence is the engine in a deck, I feel like Prophecy is the oil. Necropotence was a beast, we will never see his like again, but Prophecy has the potential to turn various cogs and keep them turning through a game. Besides I would love to play a deck I could name: The Prophecy (go go walken movies)
Dark Prophecy meet Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker meet Dark Prophecy. This enchantment is going to work wonders with him as Commander.
That art is creepy as hell and flavour text too, poor animals This is what YMTC winner should have been, not that crappy discard thing. Black draw enchantments are always interesting.
Have you considered that maybe the reason they decided against so many "necropotence" variant cards and other draw type cards was because this card was just around the corner? No reason to allow the YMTC to be so similar to something just about to be spoiled.
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RIP Batman guy. I hope somebody picks up the slack now that you are gone. Sick children need their Batman.
Regardless of whether this card finds the right environment to be powerful or not, it's important to understand that paying a life for a card in constructed Magic is almost always a good deal. Cards that have the potential to be abused to draw multiple cards in a realistic Magic game situation are powerful.
The life loss is far from the issue with dark prohecy. The problem is that you need to jump though additional hoops just to get the card to actually DO anything for you.
Necropotence, griselbrand, and yawg's bargain draw you cards on the spot by themselves.
Dark Confidant, Phyrexian Arena, and bloodgift demon are guranteed to feed you a stream of cards with no outside help. The lower casting cost of confidant and arena make them far more playable in most scenarios, but at least you can depend on the demon to do his job if you ever stick him on the table.
Underworld connections effectively has an additional mana cost, but you at least get the choice to use that mana however you like and you can always depend on the choice to use it feed you a card. Again, its utility is bound up in one nice self-contained package, no outside help required. I've also enjoyed its optional nature in a brew with Nocturnus. Nothing like the freedom to keep the topdeck card black until after you're done using your vamps or immediately drawing the topdeck land for another chance to reveal a black card. But again, regardless of what the rest of the board looks like, I can depend on always having the ability to use this to draw me cards and dig for that one spell I need to perform a reversal.
Dark prophecy differs from all the above. By itself IT DOES NOTHING. Without creatures to kill, it won't draw you any cards. But its worse than that. The creatures have to be YOUR creatures, so your board state is weakened every time you actually get to draw a card.
If I'm losing, then I'm probably struggling to get any dudes on the board and consequently prophecy isn't pulling much weight. If I'm already winning, then it might be able to help me win more by making it harder for my opponent to shfit the tables, but there are better cards for me to be running in that slot that help me get into an advantageous position in the first place.
Finally, I can maybe see this as a piece of some combo. Some kind of revolvling door of death/undeath that turns this into Yawgmoth's Bargain to fetch me a card that instantly wins.....but that is still a far cry from necropotence and yawg's bargain. Finding them individually allowed you to assemble the entire combo to win. Here I need to stick prophecy, then assemble the revolving door, and finally dig for the wincon all the while hoping that my opponent can't disrupt this.
No thanks. This is probably the worst attempt at a draw engine in recent history.
Lame wanted another Sliver or a Sliver enchantment, this does nothing really other than any deck that can dance out creatures and return them to play. Probably EDH material at best or some side deck if Theros has a lot of token generation and sac outlets.
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Regardless of whether this card finds the right environment to be powerful or not, it's important to understand that paying a life for a card in constructed Magic is almost always a good deal. Cards that have the potential to be abused to draw multiple cards in a realistic Magic game situation are powerful.
You are not paying a life for a card. You are losing a creature, losing a life, and getting a card. I see a big difference there.
Valarin made the specific point that the major thing holding this card back is the fact that it's a 'may.'
It's *not* a may, that's the problem. I have you at three life, you have three guys on board that could swing for lethal, my sweeper just won me the game.
In the current environment I don't see any home for the card, especially at it's mana cost.
It's *not* a may, that's the problem. I have you at three life, you have three guys on board that could swing for lethal, my sweeper just won me the game.
Why are you still complaining about this? Its a drawback you adjust for, just like any other black card. You can either play aggro and get an extra boost in steam to end the game or you can play tokens/mid and have the lifegain be negligible through lifegain. Might as well hate on Bitterblossom because it's not a creature.
This card will not being as good as necropotence... we will never see good ol' boys ilk again.
That said this card fills a different purpose. It's not an engine or a weapon... its the oil keeping things running.
It requires a build around, but not on the combo only level some people suggest. It requires creatures to be useful, and cards to mitigate life loss. If you are losing creatures to an opponents 1 for 1 spells you will gain card advantage. If you are losing/trading blockers you have the chance to draw removal, or better threats. If you're opponent decides to use sweepers against you, you will refill your hand. Why people are arguing that this isn't useful is beyond me. No it's not going to be as straight forward as phyrexian arena, but this has the potential to give you more.
meh card. Fecundity never saw that much play either and that was the far better combo card. This not being two sided doesn't matter much in the comparison because it's mostly a sideboard type of card anyway you want against control.
Standard viability is kind of screwed by the manacost probably as I don't think aristocrats will want to warp enough towards black to really play this. In zombies it's fine of course but that still won't be a deck unless some rediculous zombies are yet to be spoiled.
Just as likely is the scenario where I have YOU at 3 life and even when you topdeck your sweeper, casting it to kill every creature I have in play, I draw enough cards to finish you off next turn. This is ignoring any possible way I can abuse the card other than 'play lots of creatures and sideboard this in against control.'
I guess time will tell. I'm sticking by my "see's no play/$1 bin junk rare" prediction.
Dark Prophecy - BBB
Enchantment (R)
Whenever a creature you control dies, you draw a card and lose 1 life.
Fecundity - 2G
Enchantment (U)
Whenever a creature dies, that creature's controller may draw a card.
Fecundity is far easier to put in decks and pay the mana cost, doesn't lose you any life, is optional, and is only uncommon.
Dark Prophecy doesn't benefit the opponent.
That isn't anywhere near enough to outweigh the numerous and significant drawbacks over Fecundity. The proper cost for this card was 1B. Or, make it optional. Or, no lifeloss. Or, make it common.
Checked the first forty posts, didn't see the obvious mentioned: Dark Prophecy is there for flavor reasons. You can pay its casting cost exactly by first casting a Dark Ritual.
I suspect it may see sideboard play in zombies against control and some play in edh. other than that it's sort of meh. I like the card, but triple black, and bad versus aggro is not a very good combination. If only it had flash.
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regardless its going into pretty much all of my black edh decks that don't run infinite recursion combos.
This. I can't run it in Ghave because I run a few infinite recursion combos as win cons (eg Bitter Ordeal) Other than that I'll need them for every black deck I have.
This card might be kind of meh for normal 60 card formats, but in EDH this is going to shine.
While Triple Black is still less than desireable outside of monoB, with the abundance of mana fixing and dualies in EDH, it's still very doable in 2 color, and 3 color. In dedicated sac decks, this card will be nuts. I'm going to use it for my Chainer deck, and will consider it for my Sedris deck also.
I would agree if there was some combo piece you could dig for that wins you the game on the spot. Necropotence was amazing because you were trading life for cards that inst-won the game for you
These days, there isn't such a combo in standard, so I don't think the value of drawing those cards is as high, especially with so much aggro out there or card that can sneak in 4 damage at instant speed (Boros Charm)
The lack of payoff/instant win cards you could dig for, making all your guys hurt you when there are so many sweepers out there, not being a may ability, and the BBB casting cost all lead me to believe this will be a $1 bin rare at best. Just my hunch.
I look at Dark Tutelage and Underworld Connections as the closest corollaries to this card in recent memory, and both are bulk rares no one plays worth less than .50
Dark Confidant is a 2/1 beater, he only has B in his cost, your opponent can't trigger the life loss, and it's a lot easier for a black deck to remove a creature if they don't want it around anymore than an enchantment. Comparing this card to Dark Confidant is like comparing Burning Earth to Price of Progress.
Now I have been really trying to remain creatureless lately (dead cards in the opponents hands and nostalgia) but this card gives me a real reason to kick that concept to the curb and just rock the critters.
There are plenty of creatures in modern that will play nicely outside of black (like Kitchen Finks, Mulldrifter) assuming you want to push the mana base to support it, but some black creatures might actually become decent choices now like Augur of Skulls might be worth playing over wrench mind. It's slower, but solid on it's own and plays well with the prophecy. shriekmaw is another guy that i've typically avoided because of his inability to answer bob, deathrite or pestermite... but I could see running him none the less simply because of this card. Then there are other cards that just operate well and get better if they cantrip when they die.... like Vampire Nighthawk. Then there are corner case cards that I personally like but needed slightly stronger reasons to run, i.e. Vampire Hexmage. She can nuke planeswalkers, reset asenscions among various other things, or she can cycle herself. Not to mention token producers.
If necropotence is the engine in a deck, I feel like Prophecy is the oil. Necropotence was a beast, we will never see his like again, but Prophecy has the potential to turn various cogs and keep them turning through a game. Besides I would love to play a deck I could name: The Prophecy (go go walken movies)
GWU Rafiq
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WBR Kaalia (Archived)
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Have you considered that maybe the reason they decided against so many "necropotence" variant cards and other draw type cards was because this card was just around the corner? No reason to allow the YMTC to be so similar to something just about to be spoiled.
RIP Batman guy. I hope somebody picks up the slack now that you are gone. Sick children need their Batman.
But then it wouldn't have the black theme of "forced negatives in an age of all positives".
The life loss is far from the issue with dark prohecy. The problem is that you need to jump though additional hoops just to get the card to actually DO anything for you.
Necropotence, griselbrand, and yawg's bargain draw you cards on the spot by themselves.
Dark Confidant, Phyrexian Arena, and bloodgift demon are guranteed to feed you a stream of cards with no outside help. The lower casting cost of confidant and arena make them far more playable in most scenarios, but at least you can depend on the demon to do his job if you ever stick him on the table.
Underworld connections effectively has an additional mana cost, but you at least get the choice to use that mana however you like and you can always depend on the choice to use it feed you a card. Again, its utility is bound up in one nice self-contained package, no outside help required. I've also enjoyed its optional nature in a brew with Nocturnus. Nothing like the freedom to keep the topdeck card black until after you're done using your vamps or immediately drawing the topdeck land for another chance to reveal a black card. But again, regardless of what the rest of the board looks like, I can depend on always having the ability to use this to draw me cards and dig for that one spell I need to perform a reversal.
Dark prophecy differs from all the above. By itself IT DOES NOTHING. Without creatures to kill, it won't draw you any cards. But its worse than that. The creatures have to be YOUR creatures, so your board state is weakened every time you actually get to draw a card.
If I'm losing, then I'm probably struggling to get any dudes on the board and consequently prophecy isn't pulling much weight. If I'm already winning, then it might be able to help me win more by making it harder for my opponent to shfit the tables, but there are better cards for me to be running in that slot that help me get into an advantageous position in the first place.
Finally, I can maybe see this as a piece of some combo. Some kind of revolvling door of death/undeath that turns this into Yawgmoth's Bargain to fetch me a card that instantly wins.....but that is still a far cry from necropotence and yawg's bargain. Finding them individually allowed you to assemble the entire combo to win. Here I need to stick prophecy, then assemble the revolving door, and finally dig for the wincon all the while hoping that my opponent can't disrupt this.
No thanks. This is probably the worst attempt at a draw engine in recent history.
Doesn't fit the flavor of black.
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Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
It actually makes me happy for punishing 3+ color decks from running whatever the heck they want.
You are not paying a life for a card. You are losing a creature, losing a life, and getting a card. I see a big difference there.
It's *not* a may, that's the problem. I have you at three life, you have three guys on board that could swing for lethal, my sweeper just won me the game.
In the current environment I don't see any home for the card, especially at it's mana cost.
Why are you still complaining about this? Its a drawback you adjust for, just like any other black card. You can either play aggro and get an extra boost in steam to end the game or you can play tokens/mid and have the lifegain be negligible through lifegain. Might as well hate on Bitterblossom because it's not a creature.
I guess that's why mine didn't get taken
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That said this card fills a different purpose. It's not an engine or a weapon... its the oil keeping things running.
It requires a build around, but not on the combo only level some people suggest. It requires creatures to be useful, and cards to mitigate life loss. If you are losing creatures to an opponents 1 for 1 spells you will gain card advantage. If you are losing/trading blockers you have the chance to draw removal, or better threats. If you're opponent decides to use sweepers against you, you will refill your hand. Why people are arguing that this isn't useful is beyond me. No it's not going to be as straight forward as phyrexian arena, but this has the potential to give you more.
Believe it or not, this is entirely a good thing.
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
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RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
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Standard viability is kind of screwed by the manacost probably as I don't think aristocrats will want to warp enough towards black to really play this. In zombies it's fine of course but that still won't be a deck unless some rediculous zombies are yet to be spoiled.
I guess time will tell. I'm sticking by my "see's no play/$1 bin junk rare" prediction.
Fecundity - 2G
Enchantment (U)
Whenever a creature dies, that creature's controller may draw a card.
Fecundity is far easier to put in decks and pay the mana cost, doesn't lose you any life, is optional, and is only uncommon.
Dark Prophecy doesn't benefit the opponent.
That isn't anywhere near enough to outweigh the numerous and significant drawbacks over Fecundity. The proper cost for this card was 1B. Or, make it optional. Or, no lifeloss. Or, make it common.
In other words, junk rare bin.
.
This isn't unplayable until ^ that card rotates.
This. I can't run it in Ghave because I run a few infinite recursion combos as win cons (eg Bitter Ordeal) Other than that I'll need them for every black deck I have.
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R Daretti, Scrap Savant
WBR Zurgo Helmsmasher Equipment
BBB Erebos, God of the Dead Goodstuff
UBG The Mimeoplasm
URG All Creatures Animar, Soul of Elements
WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion sac and combo
WUB Sydri, Galvanic Genius
WUG Rafiq of the Many Aggro-Control
UBR Nekusar, The Mindrazer
WRG Mayael, the Anima
Casual:
BB Ad Nauseam Combo
BB Burn
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While Triple Black is still less than desireable outside of monoB, with the abundance of mana fixing and dualies in EDH, it's still very doable in 2 color, and 3 color. In dedicated sac decks, this card will be nuts. I'm going to use it for my Chainer deck, and will consider it for my Sedris deck also.
UBRSedris, the Necromancer KingUBR