Try Pulse of the Forge. It blanks walkers pretty good and typically recurs itself, while threatening four to the face. That'll teach some players to be more cautious.
Yikes. I can run that, the 2nd ability is nice. I take it go for face and hope they redirect to walker? My distribution of red is good because the deck I run the aggressive package in is my Saskia deck which high red drops go for Stormbreath or Kiki. Might drop push.
Correct. You point Pulse of the Forge at their face. Assuming it resolves, you have the option of assigning the 4 damage that would have hit them to a planeswalker they control. Then, if they have more life than you do, return Pulse to it's owner's hand. It's my own bit of secret tech/hidden gem.
Wow. I should really acquire a foil copy, tbh...I like my signature cards getting foiled.
And may I remind people, if you're in blue, run counterspells. Hell, you'd be surprised how many times a simple Daze or Mana Leak has screwed my opponents over.
Maaannnn. way more people need to learn to respect the Daze. As much as they should respect the Bolt. Would save them so many embarrassing "oops" situations.
The kicker: I was playing Derevi, so you know: Winter Orb, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Rising Waters. Which means all those Force Spike variants are effectively hard counters if you're impatient, and "bounce an island" is less a cost than an added bonus.
And absolutely when running removal, divide your removal into
The last category is the least useful (unless it's also a cheap instant that hits a lot), but occasionally can be. Each has a separate role in your deck.
All in all, I'd say, reading this forum, most people don't realize how many combos would be stopped with just an instant. (This is also a big reason Bargain is banned but Necro isn't, BTW.) Or something proactive like, well Rule of Law.
Well said. I know people laugh but I don't mind tossing in Lightning Bolt around the table as part of my removal. Hits a dork, hits Arcum Dagsson, hits a Animar, Soul of Elementsso I think its justified. My removal I'm trying to sell myself is Fatal Push. Can never get it to do work so might turn it into a Thoughtseize.
Oh, Lightning Bolt is incredible. People scoff because they're too narrow minded "oh wahhh you can't play any kind of burn..." when truth is, people need to respect the burn. Put a little bit of fear back in these players' eyes when they realize they can't be completely suicidal with their life points.
Try Pulse of the Forge. It blanks walkers pretty good and typically recurs itself, while threatening four to the face. That'll teach some players to be more cautious.
Yep. Recurrable anti-planeswalker tech that's only "bad" in a deck like Licia or Brion Stoutarm where you'll be gaining a bunch of life. (And of course, in a RG deck, you can make sure they have more life.)
While we're talking about recursion, I had a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck, I ran Pyrohemia. I still do in any deck that runs Gisela or any red or black (with Pestilence, of course) deck that runs Akroma's Memorial. Like, why wouldn't you want a reusable boardwipe that you can make one-sided really easily? (And in Voltron decks, all you need is one of the right sword, proving once again that Sword of Body and Mind is never the right sword.)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I think we all nailed the ingredients of the mixture – threat, answer and draw. The concentration of each ingredient ought to correspond to your strategy and the pace of your deck. If you have high answer density, then you need more draw and your threats can be slower and more resilient (e.g. Control). But if you have a lower answer density, then it should be because you have more threat density (creatures, tutors for combo’s, etc).
For a Tribal deck, you could honestly do either one. There will be a style of Edgar where you have 4-5 spot removal cards only, then a lot of vampires at 2-3cmc with ways to get Edgar on the field sooner to start piling counters. There would also be a style where there are a lot more answers, but the threats you run either contain draw and answers themselves, and are supplemented with a bit of resiliency like recursion.
There is no wrong way between the two, just the wrong way to do each. If you don’t have very much removal, don’t expect to win if it takes you to Turn 5 or so to start building a board. You won’t have anything to do in the early turns. And if you have a bunch of removal, it’s hard to expect your threats to go the distance without ways to protect them.
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Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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So take damage to dome or lose / weaken their walker? not bad.
Correct. You point Pulse of the Forge at their face. Assuming it resolves, you have the option of assigning the 4 damage that would have hit them to a planeswalker they control. Then, if they have more life than you do, return Pulse to it's owner's hand. It's my own bit of secret tech/hidden gem.
Wow. I should really acquire a foil copy, tbh...I like my signature cards getting foiled.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Yep. Recurrable anti-planeswalker tech that's only "bad" in a deck like Licia or Brion Stoutarm where you'll be gaining a bunch of life. (And of course, in a RG deck, you can make sure they have more life.)
It's really funny, Animar is very vulnerable to burn, since it starts with one toughness, and is completely invulnerable to the more common Swords to Plowshares, Doom Blade, Putrefy, Hero's Downfall, Vindicate shtick.
While we're talking about recursion, I had a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck, I ran Pyrohemia. I still do in any deck that runs Gisela or any red or black (with Pestilence, of course) deck that runs Akroma's Memorial. Like, why wouldn't you want a reusable boardwipe that you can make one-sided really easily? (And in Voltron decks, all you need is one of the right sword, proving once again that Sword of Body and Mind is never the right sword.)
On phasing:
For a Tribal deck, you could honestly do either one. There will be a style of Edgar where you have 4-5 spot removal cards only, then a lot of vampires at 2-3cmc with ways to get Edgar on the field sooner to start piling counters. There would also be a style where there are a lot more answers, but the threats you run either contain draw and answers themselves, and are supplemented with a bit of resiliency like recursion.
There is no wrong way between the two, just the wrong way to do each. If you don’t have very much removal, don’t expect to win if it takes you to Turn 5 or so to start building a board. You won’t have anything to do in the early turns. And if you have a bunch of removal, it’s hard to expect your threats to go the distance without ways to protect them.