This is the part of the thread where a long time poster comes along to remind everyone that the majority of the people here are terrible at predicting card playability. Move along veterans.
Still here? Well let me remind you of some good ones. More people (or at least half) thought Jace, the Mind Sculptor was bad, or at least not playable because it was worse than original Jace Beleren. Stoneforge Mystic was janky because equipments are usually pointless. The scry lands in Theros were almost universally decried at first, with one of the prevailing attitudes being anger at Wizards for providing bad fixing.
We (and by that I actually mean most of you) are outright terrible at this.
Having said that, I'm not comparing this card to any powerhouse of any format. The potential exists for this card to be a format staple if one of the best decks in the format is trying to answer a 2 toughness threat while also probably wanting to recur that same 2 toughness threat. If the most important card of a matchup is something like this, after you get your first copy of your important creature, it's very likely that this card becomes the most optimal draw in the matchup after that, and the player who draws more will win the attrition matchup.
More likely, there will be a deck or two where this card is pretty good, and others where it is still borderline playable based solely on its inherent strength, and not synergy.
If this card doesn't see play in Standard, that's probably more a condemnation on a black red midrange decks ability to thrive moreso than it is a knock against this card. It's certainly good, those who can't see that probably don't build too many decks and aren't realistically good at spotting potential.
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Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
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This guy, would either eat up several turns worth of mana to get a slow permanent that relies on your already have some board presence (after wasting said mana), or dies without generating any advantage.
Returning a creature from your graveyard to your hand is almost always better than drawing a card. There's no chance of you bricking and drawing a land, or something you can't use...
Completely agree. I feel people are giving Kolaghan's Command a bad wrap and I believe it's just hard for players to determine how good recursion effects are until someone actually builds a deck and experiences it.
I really think people are't parsing it out correctly, to be honest. They look at X mode or Y mode and just write off the rest.
Really, it reads:
Choose One:
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Target Player Discards a card
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Destroy target artifact.
Deal 2 Damage to target creature or player. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Target Player Discards a card. Destroy target artifact.
Target player discards a card. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Destroy target artifact. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
The cases where all of these options are worthless, or even bad, is exceedingly rare. The fact that you get to choose from essentially six different modes makes it very versatile. It's a hell of a lot more versatile, in fact, than Atarka's Command. Atarkas Command does a few things very well and efficiently. Part of the cost of being so efficient, however, is that the abilities are extremely linear and lose value very quickly. Kolaghan's Command does a few things not quite as efficiently, but has more opportunity for upside by actually impacting and interacting with your opponent's board state. If your opponent has a developed board state in any many, Atarka's command does nothing at all aside from being maybe a combat trick if your opponent bites. Kolaghan's Command loses some of the "raw" power of Atarka's Command but allows you to interact with the board state more readily.
The question people are asking is "Would I pay three mana for any two of these abilities?" The question they should be asking is "would I pay 2 mana for any two of these abilities?" Because that is how charms and commands are designed. Not as two of the abilities being worth the cost, but as two of the abilities being worth one less than the cost. No choice of abilities on Cryptic Command are at all worth 4 mana, regardless of how you parse it out. Double so for UUU in it's cost. It's the range of options that is key, and in some matches some of the options are just terrible. Tapping down your opponent's team is horrendous against Burn, Control, and Scapeshift (And only just palatable against Amulet Bloom). All of the modes are horrendous against Burn, even. Countering a spell isn't even that great at 4 mana. Boomeranging a permanent may not be worthwhile. Yet it sees plenty of play in Modern (And likely would in standard).
The point is that a card which is rarely going to be completely dead, as well as interacts with the opponent's boardstate, on top of being card advantage in general is good. Particularly when it's an instant that costs 3. I dare say it's better than Atarka's command in many ways. I would rather a card actually do something to my opponent's board state. I would even say that this would see more play than Atarka's Command if B/R/x were a prominent archetype. It's not, and that's about the only reason it won't see Standard play.
Smeltshockdisentomb and one mode of funeral charm. these modes all cost 1 mana, the only one that isnt instant speed is disentomb.
all of them are commons.
all of them cost one.
if it costed 2 then i would like it alot more, it would be a red and black Destructive Revelry that can only hit artifacts but trades that by being able to hit dudes for two damage,it would be a baby blightning hitting the mana dork or possible thing bigger than a mana dork and taking a card out of their hand.it feels like it should be at two or part of a uncommon cycle of commands.
it should have been uncommon at three or rare at two or if instead of 2 damage if it was 3 like lightning strike it would deserve the rare slot and mana cost in my book.
but it seems like there HAD to be some sort of dumb rising mana cost in the cycle.
yes most of the time will be a 2 for 1 but it could of been a better 2 for 1 with a cheaper cost or higher damage.
its really disappointing to see after how amazing atarkas command is.
atakars does stuff that is spot on with its mana cost. it Lava Spikes,its Elvish Pioneer without the 1/1 attached to it, its Magnify but just your side, its part skullcrack or maybe just skullcrack. these cards also cost one and are common ( i imagine a card that listed opponents cant gain life this turn would cost just R),granted not all of them are instant speed (land drop and lava spike) but that makes the card better. its a great card, i cant wait till i can deal 3 damage to each opponent and drop a land, or get around pesky lifelink and give my dudes a tiny trumpet blast, or just having a little worse skull crack 5-8.
Would you consider 1UR: Choose 2 - Brainstorm, Preordain, Lightning Bolt, Pyroblast to be a weak card? All of them are common, only one is a sorcery, and all of them cost 1 mana. The actual effect matters a lot when evaluating cards.
The effects on Atarka's Command are not remotely worth 1 mana each. 3 of them are effects so weak that you wouldn't even think about siding them into a draft deck while Lava Spike relies on a critical mass of burn to be good. Kolaghan's Command is made up of a solid effect in Shock, 2 effects which only need a target to be good, and a mediocre effect that is at least a pseudo-cantrip. Saying they are all worth the same 1 mana is disingenuous.
Yes it could have been stronger. Even a card like Preordain, which is banned in Modern, "could have been stronger" by making it Ancestral Recall. It's incredibly easy to make a card stronger, that doesn't mean it should be.
This is one of the strongest RB cards ever printed and will be one of the strongest cards from the set and yet people think it's bad? This isn't even a new or unusual effect, it's basically Electrolyze,Ancient Grudge, or Snapcaster Mage. We've seen 2 for 1s that impact the board for 3 mana before, they are good.
If this card doesn't see play in Standard, that's probably more a condemnation on a black red midrange decks ability to thrive moreso than it is a knock against this card. It's certainly good, those who can't see that probably don't build too many decks and aren't realistically good at spotting potential.
Pretty much this.
The card does work against Aggro by at least killing one of their creatures (Rabblemaster, notably) and either stripping the last bits of their dwindling resources from their hand or returning a key blocker (Such as Seeker of the Way) to your hand.
It does work against Whip as it can destroy whip and get a mana dork out of the way, or combat trick them with a block/attack (Or at worst lessen the blunt of a Hornet queen, which turns a 3-4 turn clock into a 5 turn clock as well as making Bile Blight more manageable on the queen herself).
It does work against Midrange by forcing a discard during the draw step if they have trouble refueling their hand, reach on a creature, finishes off a planeswalker (Notably Sorin), goes straight to the face as a finisher, and nulling a removal spell (Which midrange really loathes doing).
It does work against control by stripping them of their hand (Where all their cards matter a great deal early on), dealing with a vault, and nulling spot removal, or finishing them off completely.
Against G/x Devotion, it hits Satyrs, Mystics, etc, strips them at instant speed (Which can matter as the deck often doesn't have a single piece of instant interaction, where a top decking situation means you have stripped them of their draw for a turn).
It's got a hell of a lot of utility going for it in a 3 mana instant, that is easily useful in a majority of the meta game right now. It doesn't do anything particularly well, but it hits enough things well enough to rarely be ever dead. I would happily run this in any R/B/x deck, in favor of a lot of other options in fact. You have the ability to have in your main deck hate for a wide range of decks. The only issue is that nobody right now is running B/R/x. If it doesn't see play, it's for this reason alone.
The question people are asking is "Would I pay three mana for any two of these abilities?" The question they should be asking is "would I pay 2 mana for any two of these abilities?" Because that is how charms and commands are designed. Not as two of the abilities being worth the cost, but as two of the abilities being worth one less than the cost. No choice of abilities on Cryptic Command are at all worth 4 mana, regardless of how you parse it out. Double so for UUU in it's cost. It's the range of options that is key, and in some matches some of the options are just terrible. Tapping down your opponent's team is horrendous against Burn, Control, and Scapeshift (And only just palatable against Amulet Bloom). All of the modes are horrendous against Burn, even. Countering a spell isn't even that great at 4 mana. Boomeranging a permanent may not be worthwhile. Yet it sees plenty of play in Modern (And likely would in standard).
While I agree with the general sentiment, Dismiss is very much worth 4 mana. It's in the class of pre-modern counterpsells that Wizards deems too powerful.
This is the part of the thread where a long time poster comes along to remind everyone that the majority of the people here are terrible at predicting card playability. Move along veterans.
Still here? Well let me remind you of some good ones. More people (or at least half) thought Jace, the Mind Sculptor was bad, or at least not playable because it was worse than original Jace Beleren. Stoneforge Mystic was janky because equipments are usually pointless. The scry lands in Theros were almost universally decried at first, with one of the prevailing attitudes being anger at Wizards for providing bad fixing.
We (and by that I actually mean most of you) are outright terrible at this.
Having said that, I'm not comparing this card to any powerhouse of any format. The potential exists for this card to be a format staple if one of the best decks in the format is trying to answer a 2 toughness threat while also probably wanting to recur that same 2 toughness threat. If the most important card of a matchup is something like this, after you get your first copy of your important creature, it's very likely that this card becomes the most optimal draw in the matchup after that, and the player who draws more will win the attrition matchup.
More likely, there will be a deck or two where this card is pretty good, and others where it is still borderline playable based solely on its inherent strength, and not synergy.
If this card doesn't see play in Standard, that's probably more a condemnation on a black red midrange decks ability to thrive moreso than it is a knock against this card. It's certainly good, those who can't see that probably don't build too many decks and aren't realistically good at spotting potential.
Yep. Pretty much my thought. I'm going to say the same thing I said with Pharika. I like the card but I find it tricky to evaluate. Someone with more experience and skill in card evaluation with me is going to have to figure out what to do with this if anyone does. I'm just laughing because I remember how good everyone thought War-Name Aspirant was going to be (myself included) and it's done nothing. Then all the people who complained about Dig Through Time.
Still here? Well let me remind you of some good ones. More people (or at least half) thought Jace, the Mind Sculptor was bad, or at least not playable because it was worse than original Jace Beleren. Stoneforge Mystic was janky because equipments are usually pointless. The scry lands in Theros were almost universally decried at first, with one of the prevailing attitudes being anger at Wizards for providing bad fixing.
Stoneforge mystic was not that good at the time it was printed. You could basically only fetch 3 cmc cards or less with it (there were more expensive equipments, but not any good ones). Batterskull broke it. That said, it was quite clear, to me, that mystic would be good at some point and I did get one early (for edh - tutoring skullclamp was the thing back then).
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"Hail to the speaker, hail to the knower; joy to he who has understood, delight to they who have listened." - Odin
It's a flexible card for sure, but I wouldn't pay more than 1 mana for any of these modes, and I certainly wouldn't pay more than 2 mana for any two of these modes. All of the things that this card does are things that you want to cast for 1-2 mana at most
You do realize you can pick the card with Clique? So this is basically take their worst card, only relevant if theyre hellbent and its sorcery speed.
...Uh, hello? What the hell? I wasn't comparing this card to Clique at all. He was asking a rules question about discard and similar effects during the draw step, and I used Clique as an example. Did you even understand the context of our posts?
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Modal spells are inherently good. They are like manlands cannot really make bad ones. We all are gauging them up against CC but really these are designed a whole lot better. Useful and effective but not format defining like the original cycle was. All in all happy to see them all.
adding 2 1 mana cards together is usually easily worth 3 mana, for example electrolyze-> forked bolt+ unplayable draw spell thats not even worth 1 mana,
dismiss which was and is a fine card pays a 1.5 mana premium to draw a card thats fine also, divination is also a fine example, where 2 1 mana draw 1's are infinitely worse then a 3 mana draw 3(even if that card still isnt great).
you just can't evaluate cards like that, 2 1 mana spells combined generally are fairly priced at 3, and if their solid 1 mana spells they are overpowered at 3.
All of the examples that you listed draw cards, while Kolaghan's Command only draws a card if you have a creature worth Disentombing.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that paying an extra premium for additional effects isn't usually worth it. I'm saying that I wouldn't want to pay that extra premium for this specific set of modes.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
It's a flexible card for sure, but I wouldn't pay more than 1 mana for any of these modes, and I certainly wouldn't pay more than 2 mana for any two of these modes. All of the things that this card does are things that you want to cast for 1-2 mana at most
I would certainly pay two mana for Shock+Shatter, Shock+Discard, Shock+Raise Dead, etc. The inherent card advantage out of those three choices alone is worthwhile. Considering that it can be Shatter+Raise Dead, or Discard+ Raise Dead, or Shatter+Discard if more relevant is good as well. Any two of the modes are worth two mana by simple virtue of being instant speed card advantage and board state interaction (Not just a single answer for a single card). Having the option for any two of those modes, as relevant, at instant speed, is entirely worth the one mana premium attached.
Returning a creature from your graveyard to your hand is almost always better than drawing a card. There's no chance of you bricking and drawing a land, or something you can't use...
Completely agree. I feel people are giving Kolaghan's Command a bad wrap and I believe it's just hard for players to determine how good recursion effects are until someone actually builds a deck and experiences it.
I really think people are't parsing it out correctly, to be honest. They look at X mode or Y mode and just write off the rest.
Really, it reads:
Choose One:
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Target Player Discards a card
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Destroy target artifact.
Deal 2 Damage to target creature or player. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Target Player Discards a card. Destroy target artifact.
Target player discards a card. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Destroy target artifact. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
The cases where all of these options are worthless, or even bad, is exceedingly rare. The fact that you get to choose from essentially six different modes makes it very versatile. It's a hell of a lot more versatile, in fact, than Atarka's Command. Atarkas Command does a few things very well and efficiently. Part of the cost of being so efficient, however, is that the abilities are extremely linear and lose value very quickly. Kolaghan's Command does a few things not quite as efficiently, but has more opportunity for upside by actually impacting and interacting with your opponent's board state. If your opponent has a developed board state in any many, Atarka's command does nothing at all aside from being maybe a combat trick if your opponent bites. Kolaghan's Command loses some of the "raw" power of Atarka's Command but allows you to interact with the board state more readily.
The question people are asking is "Would I pay three mana for any two of these abilities?" The question they should be asking is "would I pay 2 mana for any two of these abilities?" Because that is how charms and commands are designed. Not as two of the abilities being worth the cost, but as two of the abilities being worth one less than the cost. No choice of abilities on Cryptic Command are at all worth 4 mana, regardless of how you parse it out. Double so for UUU in it's cost. It's the range of options that is key, and in some matches some of the options are just terrible. Tapping down your opponent's team is horrendous against Burn, Control, and Scapeshift (And only just palatable against Amulet Bloom). All of the modes are horrendous against Burn, even. Countering a spell isn't even that great at 4 mana. Boomeranging a permanent may not be worthwhile. Yet it sees plenty of play in Modern (And likely would in standard).
The point is that a card which is rarely going to be completely dead, as well as interacts with the opponent's boardstate, on top of being card advantage in general is good. Particularly when it's an instant that costs 3. I dare say it's better than Atarka's command in many ways. I would rather a card actually do something to my opponent's board state. I would even say that this would see more play than Atarka's Command if B/R/x were a prominent archetype. It's not, and that's about the only reason it won't see Standard play.
Actually dismiss is a card, so that blows the cryptic argument. I'd also argue "counter a spell, bounce a permanent" and "Tap all their dudes, counter a spell" would be valid (if narrow) 4 mana cards. Also, "bounce a thing, draw a card" is into the roil, which is 4 cost to do that (and slightly more flexible as you can 2-cost it, and slightly less as it can't bounce land). Indeed one might argue that the reason cryptic sees so much play is that *any* combination of its 4 modes is (a) valid, and (b) worth about 4 mana, if not quite so heavy on the blue. Cryptic is, granted, pushed pretty hard, but trying to claim its modes are not worth 4 is...misguided.
This card is ok. It's not great, it will see some play. It could have had a little more juice. If it had dealt three, I'd have been happy with it; but at the moment all four modes are kind of mediocre. Discard being instant speed isn't super relevant; 2 damage on turn three is a bit meh; destroying artifacts is good but not great; and raise dead has rarely if ever been a real card.
edit: Compare this to atarka's command (on which more-or-less any pair of modes feels fair at 2 except possibly the unlikely "play a land, no lifegain this turn" mode), simulgars command which again feels not unreasonable at 5 for most modes, and Oj's command, which is a little more situational than those 2 but a lot closer to an actual card as well. (COunter a dude, put a two power dude onto the battlefield would certainly cost 4 in the modern era, as would (and does!) counter a creature, draw a card).
Still here? Well let me remind you of some good ones. More people (or at least half) thought Jace, the Mind Sculptor was bad, or at least not playable because it was worse than original Jace Beleren. Stoneforge Mystic was janky because equipments are usually pointless. The scry lands in Theros were almost universally decried at first, with one of the prevailing attitudes being anger at Wizards for providing bad fixing.
Stoneforge mystic was not that good at the time it was printed. You could basically only fetch 3 cmc cards or less with it (there were more expensive equipments, but not any good ones). Batterskull broke it. That said, it was quite clear, to me, that mystic would be good at some point and I did get one early (for edh - tutoring skullclamp was the thing back then).
Agreed, but this helps make my point. Many people are quick to dismiss a card because the card doesn't neatly slide into an existing archetype. This thinking is natural, the scientific process wants proof. The fault lies in the assumption that the metagame will not change. I agree with you about Mystic, it wasn't initially sought after because all of the support cards weren't available yet. The mistake then was that a certain percentage of people are going to equate current unplayability with the cards inherent power level. This same thing happens literally every single spoiler season. I thought Valakut was going to be good, but that card had even less people on its side than this command does. People thought so little of that card that it was mostly ignored as chaff. I immediately built a sweet mono red control deck that revolved around Valakut for pseudo card advantage and I ended up placing second at a 60+ person extremely competitive FNM. This proved some value, but I was shortsighted and my deck was very short lived. Very soon after, the pairing of Valakut and Primeval Titan proved to be the most powerful thing to do in standard. Funnily enough, most people forget that Primeval Titan was ALSO derided by a large portion of players as the worst of the cycle because it was the only one that didn't immediately slide into an existing archetype. Those in favor of the card had the same message, 'I'm not really sure what Primeval Titan is going to do exactly, but the card has abuse potential.'
Back to the immediate topic of the command. More than half of the cards that this command will share a standard with haven't been released yet. Even so, I may have already found a place to use it, while also finding a place for two other extremely powerful yet underplayed cards. I've been trying to make a Mardu deck work for a few weeks, messing around with Soulfire Grandmaster and its ilk but the deck just isn't quite good enough to get over the hump. I just got back from GP Miami where I saw an interesting tokens version doing quite well that sported Raise the Alarm, Hordling Outburst, Rabblemaster and Brutal Hordechief. This deck certainly took advantage of the Hordechief and if you could recur that or a Rabblemaster with the command, you could continue to overwhelm your opponent with card advantage and pressure, especially with the mainboard Outpost Sieges. I believe that this deck could also finally be the answer to 'where does monastery mentor go?' Spell heavy deck that wants to take advantage of tokens and also has a way to recur the fragile 2/2 seems like a plan. Add a high end to pump the team with something like Kolaghan (fate reforged version) Soul of Theros (which you could actually discard from your hand if need with the command) or Sorin.
Maybe this deck sucks (I actually think it sounds quite good) and maybe the deck is good but gets blanked by something else that I also can't see yet. Either way, I feel like Ive demonstrated that with a little thinking you can find ways to make this card really good.
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This guy, would either eat up several turns worth of mana to get a slow permanent that relies on your already have some board presence (after wasting said mana), or dies without generating any advantage.
I would certainly pay two mana for Shock+Shatter, Shock+Discard, Shock+Raise Dead, etc. The inherent card advantage out of those three choices alone is worthwhile. Considering that it can be Shatter+Raise Dead, or Discard+ Raise Dead, or Shatter+Discard if more relevant is good as well. Any two of the modes are worth two mana by simple virtue of being instant speed card advantage and board state interaction (Not just a single answer for a single card). Having the option for any two of those modes, as relevant, at instant speed, is entirely worth the one mana premium attached.
See, this post is logical and sensible enough to make me rethink the card.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
From 0 to 10 where 6 is Standard playable, 7 good in standard, 8 modern playable and so on... I think this is more a 7 than a 6.
Consider that i don't have idea of the current Standard meta.
- L
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I like the card but I'm a bit dissapointed at the same time. I mean, it's obviously a good card (it's hard for a card that lets you choose 2 effects from 4 options to be bad), but for some reason I was expecting something else. Artifact destruction was a given and a discard effect was very likely, but I was expecting some kind of harder removal (Doom Blade or whatever).
Anyway, the more I think about the card, the more I like it. I guess it's so flexible that it won't need a very specific meta to have a place. It should see play.
I like the card but I'm a bit dissapointed at the same time. I mean, it's obviously a good card (it's hard for a card that lets you choose 2 effects from 4 options to be bad), but for some reason I was expecting something else. Artifact destruction was a given and a discard effect was very likely, but I was expecting some kind of harder removal (Doom Blade or whatever).
Anyway, the more I think about the card, the more I like it. I guess it's so flexible that it won't need a very specific meta to have a place. It should see play.
If it did 3 damage instead of 2 it would be pushed.
If the removal option was ANY stronger than that, the card would be very stupidly broken.
These spoiler threads are always painful to read. Filled with smug dismissals of others' opinions and incredibly overinflated views of card evaluation ability.
Personally, I like this card. It's versatile and I love instant speed discard. It certainly isn't pushed, but it isn't bad, either.
Yes anyone who gets this just bulk it out to me, the card is so bad. Really, what a bad card.
I swear some of the people on this forum don't actually play the actual game, just talk in the abstract. Card is excellent and going to be a 2 for 1 more times than not. It's hard to get a 2 for 1 for only 3 mana most of the time.
deals 2 damage to target creature or player
Is a Shock which costs R
no matter which module you choose, you're essentially paying 1RB for 2 mana worth of effects.
OK, you're just spending one card and Instant Speed discard is pretty powerful as it can be essentially a time walk in the right conditions. disentomb effects tend to never see play, artifact hate in a flexible card is nice to have and shock is a pretty subpar removal, but removal is still removal.
Should this card cost BR it would be really awesome.
for 1BR I'm not really sure...
I guess Atarka's and Ojutai's Command are still ahead in power.
This card is VERY likely to see lots of play in standard, at 1RB I guess it won't see much play in modern.
deals 2 damage to target creature or player
Is a Shock which costs R
no matter which module you choose, you're essentially paying 1RB for 2 mana worth of effects.
OK, you're just spending one card and Instant Speed discard is pretty powerful as it can be essentially a time walk in the right conditions. disentomb effects tend to never see play, artifact hate in a flexible card is nice to have and shock is a pretty subpar removal, but removal is still removal.
Should this card cost BR it would be really awesome.
for 1BR I'm not really sure...
I guess Atarka's and Ojutai's Command are still ahead in power.
This card is VERY likely to see lots of play in standard, at 1RB I guess it won't see much play in modern.
I agree with others, this seems to be a tough card to evaluate. The thing is, Disentomb is a sorcery effect, this is an instant speed spell, so that kind of throws the idea that every effect is a 1-mana effect out the window. Most instant speed Disentomb effects are 2 mana (although most also have some other upside... but then again, this card has a lot of upside, because there are 4 modes to choose from).
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This is the part of the thread where a long time poster comes along to remind everyone that the majority of the people here are terrible at predicting card playability. Move along veterans.
Still here? Well let me remind you of some good ones. More people (or at least half) thought Jace, the Mind Sculptor was bad, or at least not playable because it was worse than original Jace Beleren. Stoneforge Mystic was janky because equipments are usually pointless. The scry lands in Theros were almost universally decried at first, with one of the prevailing attitudes being anger at Wizards for providing bad fixing.
We (and by that I actually mean most of you) are outright terrible at this.
Having said that, I'm not comparing this card to any powerhouse of any format. The potential exists for this card to be a format staple if one of the best decks in the format is trying to answer a 2 toughness threat while also probably wanting to recur that same 2 toughness threat. If the most important card of a matchup is something like this, after you get your first copy of your important creature, it's very likely that this card becomes the most optimal draw in the matchup after that, and the player who draws more will win the attrition matchup.
More likely, there will be a deck or two where this card is pretty good, and others where it is still borderline playable based solely on its inherent strength, and not synergy.
If this card doesn't see play in Standard, that's probably more a condemnation on a black red midrange decks ability to thrive moreso than it is a knock against this card. It's certainly good, those who can't see that probably don't build too many decks and aren't realistically good at spotting potential.
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Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
I really think people are't parsing it out correctly, to be honest. They look at X mode or Y mode and just write off the rest.
Really, it reads:
Choose One:
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Target Player Discards a card
Deal 2 damage to target creature or player. Destroy target artifact.
Deal 2 Damage to target creature or player. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Target Player Discards a card. Destroy target artifact.
Target player discards a card. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Destroy target artifact. Return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.
The cases where all of these options are worthless, or even bad, is exceedingly rare. The fact that you get to choose from essentially six different modes makes it very versatile. It's a hell of a lot more versatile, in fact, than Atarka's Command. Atarkas Command does a few things very well and efficiently. Part of the cost of being so efficient, however, is that the abilities are extremely linear and lose value very quickly. Kolaghan's Command does a few things not quite as efficiently, but has more opportunity for upside by actually impacting and interacting with your opponent's board state. If your opponent has a developed board state in any many, Atarka's command does nothing at all aside from being maybe a combat trick if your opponent bites. Kolaghan's Command loses some of the "raw" power of Atarka's Command but allows you to interact with the board state more readily.
The question people are asking is "Would I pay three mana for any two of these abilities?" The question they should be asking is "would I pay 2 mana for any two of these abilities?" Because that is how charms and commands are designed. Not as two of the abilities being worth the cost, but as two of the abilities being worth one less than the cost. No choice of abilities on Cryptic Command are at all worth 4 mana, regardless of how you parse it out. Double so for UUU in it's cost. It's the range of options that is key, and in some matches some of the options are just terrible. Tapping down your opponent's team is horrendous against Burn, Control, and Scapeshift (And only just palatable against Amulet Bloom). All of the modes are horrendous against Burn, even. Countering a spell isn't even that great at 4 mana. Boomeranging a permanent may not be worthwhile. Yet it sees plenty of play in Modern (And likely would in standard).
The point is that a card which is rarely going to be completely dead, as well as interacts with the opponent's boardstate, on top of being card advantage in general is good. Particularly when it's an instant that costs 3. I dare say it's better than Atarka's command in many ways. I would rather a card actually do something to my opponent's board state. I would even say that this would see more play than Atarka's Command if B/R/x were a prominent archetype. It's not, and that's about the only reason it won't see Standard play.
Would you consider 1UR: Choose 2 - Brainstorm, Preordain, Lightning Bolt, Pyroblast to be a weak card? All of them are common, only one is a sorcery, and all of them cost 1 mana. The actual effect matters a lot when evaluating cards.
The effects on Atarka's Command are not remotely worth 1 mana each. 3 of them are effects so weak that you wouldn't even think about siding them into a draft deck while Lava Spike relies on a critical mass of burn to be good. Kolaghan's Command is made up of a solid effect in Shock, 2 effects which only need a target to be good, and a mediocre effect that is at least a pseudo-cantrip. Saying they are all worth the same 1 mana is disingenuous.
Yes it could have been stronger. Even a card like Preordain, which is banned in Modern, "could have been stronger" by making it Ancestral Recall. It's incredibly easy to make a card stronger, that doesn't mean it should be.
This is one of the strongest RB cards ever printed and will be one of the strongest cards from the set and yet people think it's bad? This isn't even a new or unusual effect, it's basically Electrolyze,Ancient Grudge, or Snapcaster Mage. We've seen 2 for 1s that impact the board for 3 mana before, they are good.
Pretty much this.
The card does work against Aggro by at least killing one of their creatures (Rabblemaster, notably) and either stripping the last bits of their dwindling resources from their hand or returning a key blocker (Such as Seeker of the Way) to your hand.
It does work against Whip as it can destroy whip and get a mana dork out of the way, or combat trick them with a block/attack (Or at worst lessen the blunt of a Hornet queen, which turns a 3-4 turn clock into a 5 turn clock as well as making Bile Blight more manageable on the queen herself).
It does work against Midrange by forcing a discard during the draw step if they have trouble refueling their hand, reach on a creature, finishes off a planeswalker (Notably Sorin), goes straight to the face as a finisher, and nulling a removal spell (Which midrange really loathes doing).
It does work against control by stripping them of their hand (Where all their cards matter a great deal early on), dealing with a vault, and nulling spot removal, or finishing them off completely.
Against G/x Devotion, it hits Satyrs, Mystics, etc, strips them at instant speed (Which can matter as the deck often doesn't have a single piece of instant interaction, where a top decking situation means you have stripped them of their draw for a turn).
It's got a hell of a lot of utility going for it in a 3 mana instant, that is easily useful in a majority of the meta game right now. It doesn't do anything particularly well, but it hits enough things well enough to rarely be ever dead. I would happily run this in any R/B/x deck, in favor of a lot of other options in fact. You have the ability to have in your main deck hate for a wide range of decks. The only issue is that nobody right now is running B/R/x. If it doesn't see play, it's for this reason alone.
While I agree with the general sentiment, Dismiss is very much worth 4 mana. It's in the class of pre-modern counterpsells that Wizards deems too powerful.
Card is ok for the build; but modal cards are difficult to make work. When you have a deck that needs the utility modes all in one card - great.
I do not think it will see play in Standard; but it would in some fringe modern and EDH or singleton formats.
In limited or sealed? if these are your colors - you take the card.
Yep. Pretty much my thought. I'm going to say the same thing I said with Pharika. I like the card but I find it tricky to evaluate. Someone with more experience and skill in card evaluation with me is going to have to figure out what to do with this if anyone does. I'm just laughing because I remember how good everyone thought War-Name Aspirant was going to be (myself included) and it's done nothing. Then all the people who complained about Dig Through Time.
Stoneforge mystic was not that good at the time it was printed. You could basically only fetch 3 cmc cards or less with it (there were more expensive equipments, but not any good ones). Batterskull broke it. That said, it was quite clear, to me, that mystic would be good at some point and I did get one early (for edh - tutoring skullclamp was the thing back then).
...Uh, hello? What the hell? I wasn't comparing this card to Clique at all. He was asking a rules question about discard and similar effects during the draw step, and I used Clique as an example. Did you even understand the context of our posts?
All of the examples that you listed draw cards, while Kolaghan's Command only draws a card if you have a creature worth Disentombing.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that paying an extra premium for additional effects isn't usually worth it. I'm saying that I wouldn't want to pay that extra premium for this specific set of modes.
I would certainly pay two mana for Shock+Shatter, Shock+Discard, Shock+Raise Dead, etc. The inherent card advantage out of those three choices alone is worthwhile. Considering that it can be Shatter+Raise Dead, or Discard+ Raise Dead, or Shatter+Discard if more relevant is good as well. Any two of the modes are worth two mana by simple virtue of being instant speed card advantage and board state interaction (Not just a single answer for a single card). Having the option for any two of those modes, as relevant, at instant speed, is entirely worth the one mana premium attached.
Actually dismiss is a card, so that blows the cryptic argument. I'd also argue "counter a spell, bounce a permanent" and "Tap all their dudes, counter a spell" would be valid (if narrow) 4 mana cards. Also, "bounce a thing, draw a card" is into the roil, which is 4 cost to do that (and slightly more flexible as you can 2-cost it, and slightly less as it can't bounce land). Indeed one might argue that the reason cryptic sees so much play is that *any* combination of its 4 modes is (a) valid, and (b) worth about 4 mana, if not quite so heavy on the blue. Cryptic is, granted, pushed pretty hard, but trying to claim its modes are not worth 4 is...misguided.
This card is ok. It's not great, it will see some play. It could have had a little more juice. If it had dealt three, I'd have been happy with it; but at the moment all four modes are kind of mediocre. Discard being instant speed isn't super relevant; 2 damage on turn three is a bit meh; destroying artifacts is good but not great; and raise dead has rarely if ever been a real card.
edit: Compare this to atarka's command (on which more-or-less any pair of modes feels fair at 2 except possibly the unlikely "play a land, no lifegain this turn" mode), simulgars command which again feels not unreasonable at 5 for most modes, and Oj's command, which is a little more situational than those 2 but a lot closer to an actual card as well. (COunter a dude, put a two power dude onto the battlefield would certainly cost 4 in the modern era, as would (and does!) counter a creature, draw a card).
Agreed, but this helps make my point. Many people are quick to dismiss a card because the card doesn't neatly slide into an existing archetype. This thinking is natural, the scientific process wants proof. The fault lies in the assumption that the metagame will not change. I agree with you about Mystic, it wasn't initially sought after because all of the support cards weren't available yet. The mistake then was that a certain percentage of people are going to equate current unplayability with the cards inherent power level. This same thing happens literally every single spoiler season. I thought Valakut was going to be good, but that card had even less people on its side than this command does. People thought so little of that card that it was mostly ignored as chaff. I immediately built a sweet mono red control deck that revolved around Valakut for pseudo card advantage and I ended up placing second at a 60+ person extremely competitive FNM. This proved some value, but I was shortsighted and my deck was very short lived. Very soon after, the pairing of Valakut and Primeval Titan proved to be the most powerful thing to do in standard. Funnily enough, most people forget that Primeval Titan was ALSO derided by a large portion of players as the worst of the cycle because it was the only one that didn't immediately slide into an existing archetype. Those in favor of the card had the same message, 'I'm not really sure what Primeval Titan is going to do exactly, but the card has abuse potential.'
Back to the immediate topic of the command. More than half of the cards that this command will share a standard with haven't been released yet. Even so, I may have already found a place to use it, while also finding a place for two other extremely powerful yet underplayed cards. I've been trying to make a Mardu deck work for a few weeks, messing around with Soulfire Grandmaster and its ilk but the deck just isn't quite good enough to get over the hump. I just got back from GP Miami where I saw an interesting tokens version doing quite well that sported Raise the Alarm, Hordling Outburst, Rabblemaster and Brutal Hordechief. This deck certainly took advantage of the Hordechief and if you could recur that or a Rabblemaster with the command, you could continue to overwhelm your opponent with card advantage and pressure, especially with the mainboard Outpost Sieges. I believe that this deck could also finally be the answer to 'where does monastery mentor go?' Spell heavy deck that wants to take advantage of tokens and also has a way to recur the fragile 2/2 seems like a plan. Add a high end to pump the team with something like Kolaghan (fate reforged version) Soul of Theros (which you could actually discard from your hand if need with the command) or Sorin.
Maybe this deck sucks (I actually think it sounds quite good) and maybe the deck is good but gets blanked by something else that I also can't see yet. Either way, I feel like Ive demonstrated that with a little thinking you can find ways to make this card really good.
Rules Advisor as of 4/23/10
Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
See, this post is logical and sensible enough to make me rethink the card.
Consider that i don't have idea of the current Standard meta.
- L
"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
Anyway, the more I think about the card, the more I like it. I guess it's so flexible that it won't need a very specific meta to have a place. It should see play.
If it did 3 damage instead of 2 it would be pushed.
If the removal option was ANY stronger than that, the card would be very stupidly broken.
Personally, I like this card. It's versatile and I love instant speed discard. It certainly isn't pushed, but it isn't bad, either.
Legacy
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I swear some of the people on this forum don't actually play the actual game, just talk in the abstract. Card is excellent and going to be a 2 for 1 more times than not. It's hard to get a 2 for 1 for only 3 mana most of the time.
Let's analyse.
Return target creature card from graveyard to hand
is a Disentomb which costs B
Target player discards a card
is a Raven's Crime, which costs B
Destroy target artifact
is a Crush which costs R
deals 2 damage to target creature or player
Is a Shock which costs R
no matter which module you choose, you're essentially paying 1RB for 2 mana worth of effects.
OK, you're just spending one card and Instant Speed discard is pretty powerful as it can be essentially a time walk in the right conditions.
disentomb effects tend to never see play, artifact hate in a flexible card is nice to have and shock is a pretty subpar removal, but removal is still removal.
Should this card cost BR it would be really awesome.
for 1BR I'm not really sure...
I guess Atarka's and Ojutai's Command are still ahead in power.
This card is VERY likely to see lots of play in standard, at 1RB I guess it won't see much play in modern.
I agree with others, this seems to be a tough card to evaluate. The thing is, Disentomb is a sorcery effect, this is an instant speed spell, so that kind of throws the idea that every effect is a 1-mana effect out the window. Most instant speed Disentomb effects are 2 mana (although most also have some other upside... but then again, this card has a lot of upside, because there are 4 modes to choose from).