MTG Salvation

I'm considering nevinyrral's disk or powder keg
as a board sweeping card for a permission blue deck.

I see that powder keg costs half as much to get out
as nevinyrral's disk and it leaves my enchantments alone.
However, not being able to deal creatures of varying mana costs
seems like a pretty big downside.

Which do you think is better?

Thanks,
Nick

Personally I love Nevinyrral's Disk I run a playset in my End Days deck.

Just make sure you can rebuild quicker than your opponent and the downside of the Disk doesn't matter as much. Powder keg on the other hand can be a big issue. What do you do when they have a 6 cmc creature out and you have only managed to get 2 counters on Keg? If it was disk you could nuke the field anyway.

Thanks for your input.

Yea, i feel that same way.

I don't understand the preference for Powder Keg
over Nevinyrral's Disk in permission blue.

Powder Keg, and its modern equivalent Ratchet Bomb, could have their merit in a blue deck. You can sac it Powder Keg on zero to deal with manlands, which would otherwise be quite troublesome for blue decks since they are an uncounterable source of damage. Note that Ratchet Bomb can also hit Planeswalkers which Powder Keg and Nevinyrral's Disk can not.

Powder Keg/Ratchet Bomb are quite good versus fast aggro decks because all their creatures have low casting costs between 1-3 CMC (eg. Goblin Guide, Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape, Champion of the Parish, etc). Using Nevinyrral's Disk on turn 5 might be too slow against any aggro deck worth their weight in gold.

Like you said, Nevinyrral's Disk is much better against decks with a higher curve or permanents with varied CMC's.

Quote from h87 »

Thanks for your input.

Yea, i feel that same way.

I don't understand the preference for Powder Keg
over Nevinyrral's Disk in permission blue.

I think there's charm in playing the Keg early and let it grow to the number you're comfortable with, and destroy only those of that number. Some mono-blue permission uses enchantment and those type of decks would prefer keeping their enchantments with Keg than destroying them with Disk.

Powder Keg hits lands (such as artifact lands or man lands), Ratchet Bomb does not hit lands, but can be cranked up faster if you can untap it and it kills walkers. In addition there is also Engineered Explosives which can be more mana intensive, but also very flexible. Larry Niven's Disk doesn't hit Walkers (which can be used to your advantage or can be a disadvantage). Also you can set up a board state that creates an indestructible disk (or regenerate it) to get multiple uses whereas the others must be sacrificed. So really it depends on what type of deck you are building and what is giving you trouble.

If you have trouble with the fast aggro then disk may not be the answer. If you are running a lot of early removal but lack the reach of late game, then Disk may be what you need. If you are getting overwhelmed in the early game by affinity, goblins or zoo then consider one of the other options. Powder Keg is killer if you see a lot of artifact lands.

Thanks for the help, guys.

I understand now.

There is a dilemma with my MUC deck. I need Propaganda's to deal
with the aggro decks that i play against almost exclusively.
A lot of these decks have a high mana curve, so Nevinyrral's Disk
is the best choice, but it will kill my Propaganda's.

Is the board sweeping ability of Nevinyrral's Disk against a high
mana curve aggro deck more important than the Propaganda's?

I guess I'm just gonna have to play with both and see what works out.

Thanks,
Nick

You could also use Isochron Scepter and Boomerang as a means of early game defense to go along with your Propaganda and late game to protect your cards from Nevinyrral's Disk