This card is so much worse in EDH than anywhere else. In EDH resources are plentiful and 10 life isn't even a damning swing there. In EDH the target has all the options available to them.
This is actually an excellent example of a card that's not "Good in EDH". (I swear to god if I see one more idiot asking "What isn't good in EDH hurrrr durrrr")
I guess in EDH you have access to a lot of recursion for incremental advantage so I suppose it could be "hysterical" in a deck with Eternal Witness, Mimic Vat, greenwarden of murasa, and cards of that ilk.
I guess it can be a sideboard card in a control deck. For the mirror, maybe. These decks fight over resources and often have a single PW or hexproof finisher in play.
If you can fire this off against a control deck, it's amazing. They are unlikely to have creatures or more than one planeswalker out, so for 3BB, you can make them sac a planeswalker and lose 5 life/discard two cards.
"If" being highly unlikely.
Just wait for them to tap out for a sweeper. It's pretty easy to fill up the board with threats early on for Abzan aggro or Jeskai (with Mantis Riders). Either they pay a lot of life or a lot of cards. Both options are very unpalatable to control.
So your master plan is to spend your turn 5 after a control deck spent their turn 4 or 5 killing all your creatures to make them lose 5 life and pitch the worst card in their hand?
Sounds fine to me, I don't mind going into your turn 6 with all my mana untapped and you having no board presence.
Plus, with control decks running some combination of Jace, Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise, discard isn't even 100% upside for you.
Wha...? No, those decks' plan is to beat face with creatures. But you see, in games of Magic: the Gathering, those creatures often just die to mass removal spells, colloquially referred to as "sweepers," and the control player has to tap out because he's in a tight spot and needs to get rid of those creatures ASAP. Once they do that, forcing them to sac a planeswalker and/or discard two/four cards and/or lose 5/10 life is a very, very crippling backup plan for Abzan aggro.
I'm just going with the scenario you set up. I don't know how you think an aggro deck is in good shape going into its sixth turn with no board presence and the control deck with all its mana untapped.
This card would be hilarious as a one-of in a 5 color Bring to Light list. They slip up and don't meet the conditions for not taking 10 at one point? BTL to shotgun em down for the win.
I'm not sure how Bring to Light decks win typically though. They would have to be chipping away at their opponents life if they wanted to set up a kill with this, which I suspect probably wouldn't work because my guess is that BTL lists up until now have been control. It does cost 5 after all. But BTL essentailly lets you run 5 copies of this while only having your deck bogged down by one. Would suck really bad to draw it though.
And that's not to even speak of chipping away at their board presence or hand size so they actually take the damage.
Yeah, that tech would be hilarious. Not good, hilarious.
The person above me mentioned this with BTL, and I think that's the only place this could have even a small chance of being played as a 1-of sideboard for grindy matchups (but even then, if you are playing BTL, you have a variety of usually-better options).
The main problem with this card is that the options are just too different. There is no scenario where you can force a specific choice (if there is only one way for the opponent to pay this, you have already won). This means that, for the card to be good, it would need to have an incredibly pushed impact/mana ratio, and this just doesn't have it. Any combination of these, with no choice, would be pretty worthwile at 5 mana and would have at least a chance to be played, with a few being busted. However, some would be questionable at best, and (most importantly) THEY WOULD BE IN DIFFERENT DECKS. This is useless against aggro, who will take the 10 and be happy for an extra turn of no interraction. Against a control or midrange deck, it will still net you card advantage (if you can pressure enough for 10 life to matter), but it will be in the weakest form possible. In general, answers and threats that create card advantage are better than pure CA spells, and non-targeted discard is usually weak (hence only the strongest card drawing spells or mass discard seeing play)
I guess in EDH you have access to a lot of recursion for incremental advantage so I suppose it could be "hysterical" in a deck with Eternal Witness, Mimic Vat, greenwarden of murasa, and cards of that ilk.
I'm just going with the scenario you set up. I don't know how you think an aggro deck is in good shape going into its sixth turn with no board presence and the control deck with all its mana untapped.
I'm not sure how Bring to Light decks win typically though. They would have to be chipping away at their opponents life if they wanted to set up a kill with this, which I suspect probably wouldn't work because my guess is that BTL lists up until now have been control. It does cost 5 after all. But BTL essentailly lets you run 5 copies of this while only having your deck bogged down by one. Would suck really bad to draw it though.
And that's not to even speak of chipping away at their board presence or hand size so they actually take the damage.
Yeah, that tech would be hilarious. Not good, hilarious.
The main problem with this card is that the options are just too different. There is no scenario where you can force a specific choice (if there is only one way for the opponent to pay this, you have already won). This means that, for the card to be good, it would need to have an incredibly pushed impact/mana ratio, and this just doesn't have it. Any combination of these, with no choice, would be pretty worthwile at 5 mana and would have at least a chance to be played, with a few being busted. However, some would be questionable at best, and (most importantly) THEY WOULD BE IN DIFFERENT DECKS. This is useless against aggro, who will take the 10 and be happy for an extra turn of no interraction. Against a control or midrange deck, it will still net you card advantage (if you can pressure enough for 10 life to matter), but it will be in the weakest form possible. In general, answers and threats that create card advantage are better than pure CA spells, and non-targeted discard is usually weak (hence only the strongest card drawing spells or mass discard seeing play)
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W