So, I didn't get to play any blue at the events this weekend (I literally had 8! blue cards total in my first pool). However, I was certainly able to notice how big of an impact auras can have in this set. And, given a dearth of unconditional, instant speed removal, that impact may be here to stay. I my first pool, I was fortunate enough to have a Doom Blade and 2 Liturgy of Bloods that were able to clear out otherwise scary Lightning Talons, Mark of the Vampire, Dark Favor , etc.
So... with all of these enchantments giving the opportunity to outreach damage-based removal and Liturgy of Blood being the only truly unconditional kill spell, do you think we need to value Disperse and Time Ebb more highly than we might otherwise? Given, they're good on their own in a vacuum, but I think they may be even more important in this set with all of these auras flying around.
Anybody else picking these earlier than they would otherwise?
Disperse was the bomb for me this weekend. I had two Time Ebb as well, but ended up playing card drawing spells instead to try and make my deck a little more consistent. I did end up siding in a Time Ebb over my Opportunity against one opponent that just had a lot of auras, but mostly stayed with my Divination and Opportunity.
So I think your idea is probably a valid one. I'll definitely be grabbing Disperse early and may end up getting Time Ebb a little sooner or using it to shore up a removal suite.
--Jed
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L5R or MTG, if it's got Samurai, Knights or Soldiers, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
This is my sentiment exactly. One thing I was sure of going in was that Disperse and Time Ebb would be real players, considering that there's plenty of playable Auras to go around and not a whole lot of dependable removal.
Whether or not it worked does not validate the play. That's hindsight probability. Let's say I offered you a bet -- I'm going to flip a coin and if it's heads, I'll give you 1 dollar but if it's tails, you'll give me 2 dollars. This is obviously a terrible bet for you. Accepting it is a bad decision. You can't justify it afterwards by arguing that you won the flip, therefore you made the right decision.
Time Ebb effects always start off undervalued in limited formats, but then become top 3 picks in draft and auto-includes in sealed as the format develops.
Disperse is probably better. Time Ebb is the better tempo card, but Disperse is much more versatile. It can tempo and act as instant speed pseudo-removal when your opponent plays a trick or enchantment. Saving your creature is not out of line either.
Instant speed plus cheaper cost make Disperse a very good card. It definitely needs to be played if you are playing blue. Time Ebb is not as good but given lack of removal, if you playing it sets you up in a dominant position, you know you can't lose since you took their draw away.
Both are very good cards and should be played and picked up early in blue.
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There was one game where my opponent played Celestial Flare on my attacking Deathgaze Cockatrice, which had Mark of the Vampire on. It was going to be a 2-for-1, but fortunately I had a Disperse and bounced the enchantment (to my opponent's surprise).Some turns later I managed to draw and played another flier (Messager Drake), slapped the aura on it, triggered off Blightcaster to kill off his only flier-defense Deadly Recluse, and swung for the win.
TL;DR - Disperse is good in this set not just for getting rid of auras, but also for rescuing auras.
Time Ebb effects always start off undervalued in limited formats, but then become top 3 picks in draft and auto-includes in sealed as the format develops.
I think Grasp of Phantoms was actually overvalued when ISD draft first hit, though I'd agree with them for the most part being undervalued.
I won my prerelease and both of those were key cards for my deck. Even if my opponent wasn't playing any auras the tempo boost was usually more than they could handle (especially with Time Ebb) and the win wasn't far off.
Time Ebb effects always start off undervalued in limited formats, but then become top 3 picks in draft and auto-includes in sealed as the format develops.
Yeah, Excommunicate lit the world on fire both times it was a common in limited formats.
Time Ebb is fine, but its sorcery speed limits it considerably. Disperse is far, far better in most situations.
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Yeah, Excommunicate lit the world on fire both times it was a common in limited formats.
Time Ebb is fine, but its sorcery speed limits it considerably. Disperse is far, far better in most situations.
Yeah, Excommunicate was such a bomb that I totally forgot it existed.
To be fair, it was in the wrong color and in a different environment. Time Ebb looks like a house in M14. But, you're right. I feel like an idiot for forgetting about Excommunicate.
There's definitely a right deck and a wrong deck for these cards. If I have a deck with a good curve that's always shooting for making my 2-3-4 drops, I'm slamming Disperse down into my pile. I'd first pick it if I already have all my on-curve picks together by pack three. But in a slower, more controlish deck I would prefer Time Ebb over Disperse, but still both cards are somewhat weaker.
Disperse is a strong card. I don't think anyone has too many doubts about that. Cheap, instant speed bounce makes for a great combat trick. Time Ebb is one of many weak categories of removal. Often, but by no means always, playable.
The thing with auras is, as more people draft bounce to deal with them, people will just start playing better. Playing the auras when people are tapped out, or only on Hexproof guys, kinda makes bounce a terrible answer. When people stop trying to Build-a-Bomb and start using them for tempo, Time Ebb will seem worse than ever.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Disperse is a strong card. I don't think anyone has too many doubts about that. Cheap, instant speed bounce makes for a great combat trick. Time Ebb is one of many weak categories of removal. Often, but by no means always, playable.
The thing with auras is, as more people draft bounce to deal with them, people will just start playing better. Playing the auras when people are tapped out, or only on Hexproof guys, kinda makes bounce a terrible answer. When people stop trying to Build-a-Bomb and start using them for tempo, Time Ebb will seem worse than ever.
Yeah, but the good thing about disperse is that if your opponent plays a mark of the vampire or something on a Gladecover Scout thinking it makes it an awesome beater, you can disperse the enchantment and block to kill the creature. i guess it doesn't work on Witchstalker as well since the disperse gives it a +1/+1 counter, but those are the only two hexproof creatures, right?
At the prerelease, Time Ebb was awesome for me, but being a sorcery was definitely relevant and there were times I wish I had a disperse instead. Both are tempo cards so when I curved out and had something to attack with after Time Ebb-ing an opponent's creature it was awesome. As a control card to deal with an enchanted creature it was still good, but felt inadequate.
Disperse is a strong card. I don't think anyone has too many doubts about that. Cheap, instant speed bounce makes for a great combat trick. Time Ebb is one of many weak categories of removal. Often, but by no means always, playable.
2 mana is hardly cheap bounce. Disperse is a weaker Unsummon, as the extra mana will be relevant more often than the ability to bounce a noncreature.
And it's not really a great combat trick. Let's look at some typical examples of where you would use combat tricks.
1. You attack and your opponent blocks, offering a trade. You use your trick to trade it 1-for-1 with your opponent's creature, saving your guy. Bouncing it instead means you're down a card.
2. You attack and your opponent double blocks. With a normal trick, you hope to trade the trick for your opponent's 2 creatures. With bounce, you're effectively trading 1-for-1,
Time Ebb is better because unlike bounce it's not generally card disadvantage. You don't need to find a situation which lets you take advantage of it to make good use of it. You can just use it as an Inaction Injunction which costs you 1 more but costs your opponent the entire cost of the target.
The important thing to realise about Disperse and other straight bounce spells is that their value varies massively with the environment. In a format like most Core Sets they're more or less at their weakest. Then at the other end of the spectrum there's Rise of the Eldrazi where Regress was really good despite costing three mana.
Innistrad had no Instant speed bounce at Common at all (unless you count Lost in the Mist, which you shouldn't), most likely because it would be too good.
So the question is to what extent the good auras in the set make Disperse a high pick, because normally Time Ebb would be the better card in a Core Set.
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Auras weren't nearly as prevalent or powerful in m10/11 and Alara.
Sure, but it's still a sorcery-speed answer to them. Not only is Disperse better against Auras in combat, but it's a better tempo option given its instant speed.
My issue is that Time Ebb is basically never a card I want when there's board parity. It's better than Disperse when there's a racing situation, sure, but this format is likely slow and durdley enough such that I'm almost always going to prefer playing a potentially reactive card like Disperse, given the choice.
Oh, and Time Ebb is way worse if Auras aren't in the equation. Auras are certainly playable in M14, but they aren't omnipresent.
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So the question is to what extent the good auras in the set make Disperse a high pick, because normally Time Ebb would be the better card in a Core Set.
I don't think this is really relevant, since auras getting played more makes both Disperse and Ebb better.
Sure, but it's still a sorcery-speed answer to them. Not only is Disperse better against Auras in combat, but it's a better tempo option given its instant speed.
My issue is that Time Ebb is basically never a card I want when there's board parity. It's better than Disperse when there's a racing situation, sure, but this format is likely slow and durdley enough such that I'm almost always going to prefer playing a potentially reactive card like Disperse, given the choice.
Oh, and Time Ebb is way worse if Auras aren't in the equation. Auras are certainly playable in M14, but they aren't omnipresent.
Huh?
In a slow format, why would you want the card with inherent card disadvantage? Yes, Disperse is better tempo. This makes it better in fast formats, where games are often decided by tempo. In slower formats, games are generally decided by card advantage, so Time Ebb is much better.
Neither card provides equity. I'm really confused at this notion that either is anywhere near card advantage. Both are by definition card disadvantage, as they don't actually eliminate a threat at the cost of a card. Ebb is slightly closer, for sure, but it gives you far less opportunity for actual play, as you have basically no opportunity to take advantage of plays during your opponent's turn.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted that you would say a card like Time Ebb is better than a card with way more pervasive play options and significantly more opportunities to actually become card parity, or even card advantage, in favor of a card that does essentially nothing in a slow, durdley game. When games become drudges like this, eliminating a draw tends to do very, very little. For a reference, look back at how suboptimal Excommunicate was in, say, M10 limited. Sure, the possibility of nuking an Aura makes it a bit more palatable, but given that both cards do this, that point is relatively moot. Being able to save your creature from a removal spell, bounce a planeswalker, enchantment, or equipment on your opponent's turn or during your combat, and allowing for more abusive setups with Archaeomancer are all way more valuable in a long, drawn out game than wasting a card to have your opponent redraw and replay a threat.
Hell, playing Disperse on their creature during their end step often provides an incredibly similar de facto board shift as Time Ebbing on your turn. Do you really think that Ebb is flat out better? The set hasn't been out for long, but I refuse to believe that sorcery speed anything is better than a far more diverse, if slightly less direct card advantage giving alternative, especially when that alternative costs 1 less.
As a slight comparison, consider Quag Sickness (with a bunch of Swamps, for argument's sake) vs. Doom Blade. Sickness has the advantage of killing black creatures and negating the effect of regeneration, all at sorcery speed for 3 mana, but I don't think anyone could argue for picking it over Doom Blade, even with the instant's real disadvantages in comparison.
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Neither card provides equity. I'm really confused at this notion that either is anywhere near card advantage. Both are by definition card disadvantage, as they don't actually eliminate a threat at the cost of a card. Ebb is slightly closer, for sure, but it gives you far less opportunity for actual play, as you have basically no opportunity to take advantage of plays during your opponent's turn.
Disperse is card disadvantage, but Time Ebb is not. If you Time Ebb a random creature it's a 1-for-1. You've spent the a card, but your opponent effectively loses his or her next draw step.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted that you would say a card like Time Ebb is better than a card with way more pervasive play options and significantly more opportunities to actually become card parity, or even card advantage, in favor of a card that does essentially nothing in a slow, durdley game.
Because of the inherent card disadvantage, it's much harder to get card advantage out of Disperse. If you disperse Random Creature enchanted with Random Aura, it's a 1-for-1. If you Time Ebb it, it's a 2-for-1.
When games become drudges like this, eliminating a draw tends to do very, very little. For a reference, look back at how suboptimal Excommunicate was in, say, M10 limited.
As a slight comparison, consider Quag Sickness (with a bunch of Swamps, for argument's sake) vs. Doom Blade. Sickness has the advantage of killing black creatures and negating the effect of regeneration, all at sorcery speed for 3 mana, but I don't think anyone could argue for picking it over Doom Blade, even with the instant's real disadvantages in comparison.
Because there isn't a CA difference between the two.
Calling Time Ebb card parity is really, really skewing what card parity really means. If you want to go by the book like that, then it looks like you've got me, but unless you're racing, Time Ebbing a dude does insanely little in the grand scheme. The link you provided is really misleading. The decks that want Excommunicate in that format are often hyper aggressive, and they ended up with enough low drop soldiers to justify its inclusion. The chart says absolutely nothing about the actual, in game effectiveness of the cards in question. Hell, there's a pretty good chance that a bunch of those decks that contained Overrun either built them poorly (3-color or something of the sort, a common mistake in M10 limited) or simply drew them less often, as Excommunicate was a common and thus was much more likely to show up in multiples. In the end, we don't know, but the implication that Excommunicate was better than Overrun in that format is patently ludicrous.
The only time I find that Ebb is just better is in 2 circumstances:
1. I'm in a race, beating away with fliers, and I can spare a turn or 3 mana to Fog a little and force them to have an answer in hand, or
2. My opponent played an aura on his creature, and I have little to no chance of blowing him out in combat with Disperse.
Other than those, it's easy to mitigate the "card disadvantage" of Disperse (literally true, functionally debatable when compared to Time Ebb), while Time Ebb has a nigh meaningless effect on the game. Negating a draw step is flat out not worth a card, and during states of board parity, all Ebb does is deny a card and give the opponent the option to recreate said board state or simply play something else. That might be card parity in the literal definition of the term, but so would this card:
Card Parity All-Star
U
Sorcery
Target player skips their next draw phase.
Would you play that card? That effect is flat out not worth its weight in cardboard, and while Time Ebb obviously does more than that, unless you can blow someone out with it, given the presence of auras or a game state in which tempo and answers matter, it ends up not being anywhere near worth the card investment. Disperse suffers in overall value during these situations as well, but it has utility that can easily mitigate its comparable card disadvantage (again, relative to Time Ebb, and I still don't think the difference is so cut and dry functionally) given its speed and lower cost. It can do a metric ton of things that Time Ebb will never be able to, and a good number of those are very, very relevant and valuable in any given match of limited Magic.
If you evaluate in such a vacuum according to the raw definitions of card advantage, then sure, Time Ebb clearly comes out on top. I don't think this is realistic, high level evaluation, though, which is the lens through which we're debating.
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Time Ebb seems like most of its value is comes from being in a red deck which would have the most use for getting blockers out of the way. Disperse is more flexible despite not guaranteeing a card.
Act of Treason is similar to a degree to Time Ebb.
Those who are viewing Disperse as weak are a little misguided. If I Disperse my opponent's creature in response to an aura, how is this card disadvantage? If I Disperse my opponent's equipment or aura in response to a block that allows my creature to kill his, how is this card disadvantage? When used as a combat trick, there are situations where Disperse will be superior and others where it will be inferior. This does not make the card weak or naturally disadvantageous, despite the times when someone might use the card to less than its full potential.
It's not completely appropriate to compare the card to Unsummon, because Disperse can target so much more than Unsummon can. If you happen to have Jace, for example, you can activate Jace, Disperse Jace, then recast Jace for another activation. While not necessarily a common play, this could allow for a victory when your opponent would otherwise win with lethal damage (note that you can also save a planeswalker with Disperse). You can also bounce troublesome enchantments, or you can save your Pacifism in response to a sweeper. As an instant, Disperse gives its caster a lot of options as far as when and how best to use it.
This is not to say that it's per se better or worse than Time Ebb. Both cards have their uses. Sometimes the right play is to put a useless creature back on top of their library to prevent them from drawing an answer to your threat(s) that will kill them next turn. That said, while at this stage of the format I would like to have both cards available if I'm in blue, I would lean towards Disperse for the flexibility and the lower cost, with Time Ebb gaining value if I have a mill plan or some serious beatdown.
As a side note, I would caution about assuming the format is slow. My sealed deck during the prerelease was capable of some pretty explosive starts that ended the game around turn 6. A dedicated draft deck could probably increase the consistency by quite a bit.
Calling Time Ebb card parity is really, really skewing what card parity really means.
No, that's exactly what card parity means. You spend a card to deny your opponent a card.
The link you provided is really misleading. The decks that want Excommunicate in that format are often hyper aggressive, and they ended up with enough low drop soldiers to justify its inclusion. The chart says absolutely nothing about the actual, in game effectiveness of the cards in question. Hell, there's a pretty good chance that a bunch of those decks that contained Overrun either built them poorly (3-color or something of the sort, a common mistake in M10 limited) or simply drew them less often, as Excommunicate was a common and thus was much more likely to show up in multiples. In the end, we don't know, but the implication that Excommunicate was better than Overrun in that format is patently ludicrous.
If you don't want to compare it to Overrun, compare it to every other common in the set. It performed better than all of them except Pacifism.
Can you really come up with excuses as to why the data is biased towards Excommunicate over every other non-Pacifism common?
Negating a draw step is flat out not worth a card, and during states of board parity, all Ebb does is deny a card and give the opponent the option to recreate said board state or simply play something else. That might be card parity in the literal definition of the term, but so would this card:
Card Parity All-Star
U
Sorcery
Target player skips their next draw phase.
Would you play that card? That effect is flat out not worth its weight in cardboard, and while Time Ebb obviously does more than that, unless you can blow someone out with it, given the presence of auras or a game state in which tempo and answers matter, it ends up not being anywhere near worth the card investment.
That's a straw-man. A better comparision would be Inaction Injunction, which was playable though not spectacular in RTR and full-block Limited. Time Ebb similarly stops a creature from blocking and (unless it has haste) attacking the next turn, without costing you a card. However, Time Ebb has 2 key advantages. The first is that it gets rid of any counters/auras on the creature (giving it 241 potential). The second is that the opponent has to repay the cost of the creature to get it back into play. So Ebb is a much stronger card overall.
So, I didn't get to play any blue at the events this weekend (I literally had 8! blue cards total in my first pool). However, I was certainly able to notice how big of an impact auras can have in this set. And, given a dearth of unconditional, instant speed removal, that impact may be here to stay. I my first pool, I was fortunate enough to have a Doom Blade and 2 Liturgy of Bloods that were able to clear out otherwise scary Lightning Talons, Mark of the Vampire, Dark Favor , etc.
So... with all of these enchantments giving the opportunity to outreach damage-based removal and Liturgy of Blood being the only truly unconditional kill spell, do you think we need to value Disperse and Time Ebb more highly than we might otherwise? Given, they're good on their own in a vacuum, but I think they may be even more important in this set with all of these auras flying around.
Anybody else picking these earlier than they would otherwise?
So I think your idea is probably a valid one. I'll definitely be grabbing Disperse early and may end up getting Time Ebb a little sooner or using it to shore up a removal suite.
--Jed
L5R or MTG, if it's got Samurai, Knights or Soldiers, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
Both are very good cards and should be played and picked up early in blue.
โLazav
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TL;DR - Disperse is good in this set not just for getting rid of auras, but also for rescuing auras.
I think Grasp of Phantoms was actually overvalued when ISD draft first hit, though I'd agree with them for the most part being undervalued.
Yeah, Excommunicate lit the world on fire both times it was a common in limited formats.
Time Ebb is fine, but its sorcery speed limits it considerably. Disperse is far, far better in most situations.
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Yeah, Excommunicate was such a bomb that I totally forgot it existed.
To be fair, it was in the wrong color and in a different environment. Time Ebb looks like a house in M14. But, you're right. I feel like an idiot for forgetting about Excommunicate.
The thing with auras is, as more people draft bounce to deal with them, people will just start playing better. Playing the auras when people are tapped out, or only on Hexproof guys, kinda makes bounce a terrible answer. When people stop trying to Build-a-Bomb and start using them for tempo, Time Ebb will seem worse than ever.
Yeah, but the good thing about disperse is that if your opponent plays a mark of the vampire or something on a Gladecover Scout thinking it makes it an awesome beater, you can disperse the enchantment and block to kill the creature. i guess it doesn't work on Witchstalker as well since the disperse gives it a +1/+1 counter, but those are the only two hexproof creatures, right?
At the prerelease, Time Ebb was awesome for me, but being a sorcery was definitely relevant and there were times I wish I had a disperse instead. Both are tempo cards so when I curved out and had something to attack with after Time Ebb-ing an opponent's creature it was awesome. As a control card to deal with an enchanted creature it was still good, but felt inadequate.
2 mana is hardly cheap bounce. Disperse is a weaker Unsummon, as the extra mana will be relevant more often than the ability to bounce a noncreature.
And it's not really a great combat trick. Let's look at some typical examples of where you would use combat tricks.
1. You attack and your opponent blocks, offering a trade. You use your trick to trade it 1-for-1 with your opponent's creature, saving your guy. Bouncing it instead means you're down a card.
2. You attack and your opponent double blocks. With a normal trick, you hope to trade the trick for your opponent's 2 creatures. With bounce, you're effectively trading 1-for-1,
Time Ebb is better because unlike bounce it's not generally card disadvantage. You don't need to find a situation which lets you take advantage of it to make good use of it. You can just use it as an Inaction Injunction which costs you 1 more but costs your opponent the entire cost of the target.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
Innistrad had no Instant speed bounce at Common at all (unless you count Lost in the Mist, which you shouldn't), most likely because it would be too good.
So the question is to what extent the good auras in the set make Disperse a high pick, because normally Time Ebb would be the better card in a Core Set.
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Auras weren't nearly as prevalent or powerful in m10/11 and Alara.
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Sure, but it's still a sorcery-speed answer to them. Not only is Disperse better against Auras in combat, but it's a better tempo option given its instant speed.
My issue is that Time Ebb is basically never a card I want when there's board parity. It's better than Disperse when there's a racing situation, sure, but this format is likely slow and durdley enough such that I'm almost always going to prefer playing a potentially reactive card like Disperse, given the choice.
Oh, and Time Ebb is way worse if Auras aren't in the equation. Auras are certainly playable in M14, but they aren't omnipresent.
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I don't think this is really relevant, since auras getting played more makes both Disperse and Ebb better.
Huh?
In a slow format, why would you want the card with inherent card disadvantage? Yes, Disperse is better tempo. This makes it better in fast formats, where games are often decided by tempo. In slower formats, games are generally decided by card advantage, so Time Ebb is much better.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
I'm absolutely flabbergasted that you would say a card like Time Ebb is better than a card with way more pervasive play options and significantly more opportunities to actually become card parity, or even card advantage, in favor of a card that does essentially nothing in a slow, durdley game. When games become drudges like this, eliminating a draw tends to do very, very little. For a reference, look back at how suboptimal Excommunicate was in, say, M10 limited. Sure, the possibility of nuking an Aura makes it a bit more palatable, but given that both cards do this, that point is relatively moot. Being able to save your creature from a removal spell, bounce a planeswalker, enchantment, or equipment on your opponent's turn or during your combat, and allowing for more abusive setups with Archaeomancer are all way more valuable in a long, drawn out game than wasting a card to have your opponent redraw and replay a threat.
Hell, playing Disperse on their creature during their end step often provides an incredibly similar de facto board shift as Time Ebbing on your turn. Do you really think that Ebb is flat out better? The set hasn't been out for long, but I refuse to believe that sorcery speed anything is better than a far more diverse, if slightly less direct card advantage giving alternative, especially when that alternative costs 1 less.
As a slight comparison, consider Quag Sickness (with a bunch of Swamps, for argument's sake) vs. Doom Blade. Sickness has the advantage of killing black creatures and negating the effect of regeneration, all at sorcery speed for 3 mana, but I don't think anyone could argue for picking it over Doom Blade, even with the instant's real disadvantages in comparison.
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Disperse is card disadvantage, but Time Ebb is not. If you Time Ebb a random creature it's a 1-for-1. You've spent the a card, but your opponent effectively loses his or her next draw step.
Because of the inherent card disadvantage, it's much harder to get card advantage out of Disperse. If you disperse Random Creature enchanted with Random Aura, it's a 1-for-1. If you Time Ebb it, it's a 2-for-1.
Quite the opposite. We have hard data on this; in M10 sealed, Excommunicate was better than Overrun.
Because there isn't a CA difference between the two.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
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The only time I find that Ebb is just better is in 2 circumstances:
1. I'm in a race, beating away with fliers, and I can spare a turn or 3 mana to Fog a little and force them to have an answer in hand, or
2. My opponent played an aura on his creature, and I have little to no chance of blowing him out in combat with Disperse.
Other than those, it's easy to mitigate the "card disadvantage" of Disperse (literally true, functionally debatable when compared to Time Ebb), while Time Ebb has a nigh meaningless effect on the game. Negating a draw step is flat out not worth a card, and during states of board parity, all Ebb does is deny a card and give the opponent the option to recreate said board state or simply play something else. That might be card parity in the literal definition of the term, but so would this card:
Card Parity All-Star
U
Sorcery
Target player skips their next draw phase.
Would you play that card? That effect is flat out not worth its weight in cardboard, and while Time Ebb obviously does more than that, unless you can blow someone out with it, given the presence of auras or a game state in which tempo and answers matter, it ends up not being anywhere near worth the card investment. Disperse suffers in overall value during these situations as well, but it has utility that can easily mitigate its comparable card disadvantage (again, relative to Time Ebb, and I still don't think the difference is so cut and dry functionally) given its speed and lower cost. It can do a metric ton of things that Time Ebb will never be able to, and a good number of those are very, very relevant and valuable in any given match of limited Magic.
If you evaluate in such a vacuum according to the raw definitions of card advantage, then sure, Time Ebb clearly comes out on top. I don't think this is realistic, high level evaluation, though, which is the lens through which we're debating.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
Act of Treason is similar to a degree to Time Ebb.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
It's not completely appropriate to compare the card to Unsummon, because Disperse can target so much more than Unsummon can. If you happen to have Jace, for example, you can activate Jace, Disperse Jace, then recast Jace for another activation. While not necessarily a common play, this could allow for a victory when your opponent would otherwise win with lethal damage (note that you can also save a planeswalker with Disperse). You can also bounce troublesome enchantments, or you can save your Pacifism in response to a sweeper. As an instant, Disperse gives its caster a lot of options as far as when and how best to use it.
This is not to say that it's per se better or worse than Time Ebb. Both cards have their uses. Sometimes the right play is to put a useless creature back on top of their library to prevent them from drawing an answer to your threat(s) that will kill them next turn. That said, while at this stage of the format I would like to have both cards available if I'm in blue, I would lean towards Disperse for the flexibility and the lower cost, with Time Ebb gaining value if I have a mill plan or some serious beatdown.
As a side note, I would caution about assuming the format is slow. My sealed deck during the prerelease was capable of some pretty explosive starts that ended the game around turn 6. A dedicated draft deck could probably increase the consistency by quite a bit.
No, that's exactly what card parity means. You spend a card to deny your opponent a card.
If you don't want to compare it to Overrun, compare it to every other common in the set. It performed better than all of them except Pacifism.
Can you really come up with excuses as to why the data is biased towards Excommunicate over every other non-Pacifism common?
That's a straw-man. A better comparision would be Inaction Injunction, which was playable though not spectacular in RTR and full-block Limited. Time Ebb similarly stops a creature from blocking and (unless it has haste) attacking the next turn, without costing you a card. However, Time Ebb has 2 key advantages. The first is that it gets rid of any counters/auras on the creature (giving it 241 potential). The second is that the opponent has to repay the cost of the creature to get it back into play. So Ebb is a much stronger card overall.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
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