Maybe it would be playable either with Lava Spike type spells or if it triggered on cast (like Guttersnipe), but since it requires the damage to actually be dealt, you're setting yourself up for throwing a burn spell at someone's face to try the 2 for 1 and getting blown out by removal or bounce. It's not just the terrible body that does nothing alone that makes it unplayable, it's how easily you get baited into wasting removal going for the face, in my opinion. No deck gets around that.
The argument could be made that you made them use removal on a two-drop. Of course, that's not a great argument. I've played Bronze Sable without shame before, and I would rather have a Firedancer in a deck with 5+ burn spells. The point here is that there are almost no absolutes in Limited, and few cards have no home... even Scornful Egotist had its uses.
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Maybe it would be playable either with Lava Spike type spells or if it triggered on cast (like Guttersnipe), but since it requires the damage to actually be dealt, you're setting yourself up for throwing a burn spell at someone's face to try the 2 for 1 and getting blown out by removal or bounce. It's not just the terrible body that does nothing alone that makes it unplayable, it's how easily you get baited into wasting removal going for the face, in my opinion. No deck gets around that.
The argument could be made that you made them use removal on a two-drop. Of course, that's not a great argument. I've played Bronze Sable without shame before, and I would rather have a Firedancer in a deck with 5+ burn spells. The point here is that there are almost no absolutes in Limited, and few cards have no home... even Scornful Egotist had its uses.
But you wouldn't just indiscriminately remove it. You'd wait until they tried to "get you" to do it - making it effectively a counterspell to save your own guy AND removal of a (bad) creature for just a little life. I'd much, much rather have a Bronze Sable or any of the other 2 drops I mentioned than it, even with 5+ burn spells. You're going to get more damage through clearing the way for a Sunchaser than throwing the burn at their face and using Firedancer to kill something. Besides, even with 5 burn spells, look at the actual odds. How often, in a 40 card deck where the games almost always end by turn 10 (given the type of deck we're talking about), are you going to have him and two burn spells in your first 17 AND actually be able to use them in the right order (as in, play him when it won't put you too far behind on board and when you have removal ready to follow up with)? Not to mention that he's an insanely bad topdeck.
The fact is that, while you are right that there are few absolutes in limited, this is one of them. A spell that does exactly nothing on its own, causes you to have to effectively misplay the cards that you need to go with it (throwing them at someone's face and hoping nothing goes wrong rather than just using them as removal) and still isn't a powerful effect when everything goes correctly isn't playable in limited. If you are playing him, you made a terrible mistake when drafting and didn't end up with 23 playables. Obviously any card can make your deck if you have too few playables, but that doesn't really mean he isn't unplayable.
The fact is that, while you are right that there are few absolutes in limited, this is one of them. A spell that does exactly nothing on its own and causes you to have to effectively misplay the cards that you need to go with it (throwing them at someone's face and hoping nothing goes wrong rather than just using them as removal) isn't playable in limited. If you are playing him, you made a terrible mistake when drafting and didn't end up with 23 playables. Obviously any card can make your deck if you have too few playables, but that doesn't really mean he isn't unplayable.
No offense, but this is simply linguistically incorrect. A 1/1 for two mana is not "nothing," and certainly not "exactly nothing." It's not a good card; we've been over that. But it does have a place. In fact, another user on this site described one just a few posts ago, and over the years I've come to believe he (she? man, pronouns are nervous things online...) knows what... uh... zhe is talking about.
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Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Again, no card does "nothing" and no card is "unplayable" if you want to be technical. That's not how people use that language when evaluating cards. Trying to use that against me is asinine. Would you argue that Darksteel Relic "did something" and wasn't unplayable in Scars block because you could turn on metalcraft with it?
The other person pointed out one deck that had probably too much burn to be good in the first place where it performed well. How many games do you think were played with the deck. How many times was it drawn, played and in play when a burn spell was used? I have trouble believing it was more than two or three games, even if the player was lucky - hardly a relevant sample size. I lost a game to Angel's Mercy once. It's still among the worst cards ever printed. That guy, however, played only three games with his deck, played it once and saw it win him a game once (100% of the times he's played it!). He probably walked away thinking it was a solid card. He was wrong.
If you honestly believe it'll net you more damage than running a 2/1 or a 2/2 in its place, which you can absolutely get as many of us needed, enjoy - you'll be making slightly worse decks than you could have.
With the cards OhDaisy mentioned (2 Bolt of Keranos, 2 Lightning Strike, Searing Blood, and Spark Jolt, plus a pair of Dragon Mantles and an Ordeal) I would gladly play Imperious Sunchaser or Coastline Chimera over Satyr Firedancer. Sunchaser wears Mantle and Ordeal well and Chimera is a massive wall (that also wears the mantles and ordeal well). Seems good. Satyr? Doesn't wear either effect well and the extra damage it might generate is frankly not nearly enough to make up for it IMO.
I like that some of the arguments against playing the card boil down to, "It opens you up to getting blown out if you don't play correctly."
I'm not here to tell you you pick or play the card if you're convinced of your immutable correctness. I am here to tell you that I've had some success with the card, played for and against me, and that it's nowhere close to unplayable under correct (and admittedly unlikely) circumstances.
I like that some of the arguments against playing the card boil down to, "It opens you up to getting blown out if you don't play correctly."
Of course the card forces you to play incorrectly to actually do anything so there is that... What you're saying is "Don't use it unless your opponent is tapped out/can't have an instant speed response" which is fine but it's just one more limit on the card's playability.
Then again getting blown out was never the part of the card I cared about. IMO it doesn't do enough even when it works to make up for the cost of playing a 1/1 for 2 that doesn't have text unless other cards align just so.
I'm not here to tell you you pick or play the card if you're convinced of your immutable correctness. I am here to tell you that I've had some success with the card, played for and against me, and that it's nowhere close to unplayable under correct (and admittedly unlikely) circumstances.
*Shrug* The same could be said back to you. I don't read your comments as being especially open minded either and we're merely telling you our experiences with the card. I've yet to see a deck that wants it in constructed (with multiple 4x burn spells) much less limited and I've never seen it work for or against me.
Again, no card does "nothing" and no card is "unplayable" if you want to be technical. That's not how people use that language when evaluating cards. Trying to use that against me is asinine.
Careful, this is pretty close to flaming. Also, I'm not "against" you... we're debating the merit of a Magic the Gathering card.
While "unplayable" is generally taken to mean "rarely better than a 24th land," and as such is a term we, as a community, have attributed a more specific meaning to, phrases like "exactly nothing" and "literally (whatever)" have no such special connotation. One of the issues with communicating online is that we only have your written word to go with.. so if you want the community responding to something like "a 1/1 is not worth a card," it is best to write that and not expect others to read different words than you wrote.
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Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Except you're not. You're debating my use of hyperbole. You said absolutely nothing about the card except "it could be okay with a lot of burn" two posts ago - which I've demonstrated isn't even accurate. Also, nothing I said even remotely resembled flaming. Your decision to argue about my word choice rather than the merits of the card was indeed a foolish way to argue your point.
The card is barely worth a card even in the ideal scenario. You're almost never actually going to see a deck that can get the ideal scenario (probably closer to 6-7 2-3 damage burn spells) and even if you do, you won't get to use it in a way that makes it worth more than a card - draw it early and use at least two spells with it out - to make up for the far more frequent occurrence of you casting no burn spells with it out or, even worse, wasting a burn spell on someone's face and getting blown out by a removal spell or bounce.
What do you think is actually going to happen with it? Think about the only even remotely reasonable scenarios. First, you could draw no burn after playing it or topdeck it too late to have any burn to use still and it was worth about a half a card (less than half of a Gather the Townsfolk). Second, you could get it removed in response to burning your opponent's face in the hopes of 2 for 1ing and it was worth maybe a Lava Spike for an extra mana (or worse, you could get absolutely blown out by removal/bounce as I said before) - hardly worth a card in limited, just look at Bump in the Night. Third, you could actually use it effectively for 2-3 damage and basically you got one card out of it - a 1/1 that deals 3 damage - effectively a 2 mana Furnace Scamp. I'll call it a decent card. Fourth, you get 2-3 uses out of it for maybe 5-8 damage. Finally, it's worth about two cards at a very good price. Yay..?
Scenarios 1 and 3 look the most common to me with 2 probably being the next most common and 4 being the least (particularly since, in scenario 4, you were probably pretty far ahead drawing 3 burn spells before you needed to use the 1/1 in combat anyway). I'd like my cards to always be worth a card, not often less and sometimes more. Thanks.
It's more like "if you have a lot of burn *and* your opponent is playing a lot of low toughness creatures", so it probably is reasonable in the sideboard of such a deck, but 'sideboard card in a deck that has a lot of something that is pretty hard to get' is, obviously, about as niche as it gets.
Standard is a different animal. The fact that very nearly every tier 1 standard deck is playing 4 mutavaults makes it a playable card when you are running 12-15 cards that can go to the face, in my opinion, but I suppose that's for another forum.
Last time I checked 2/1 for two has never been horribly unplayable. Certainly bad but I could easily see myself playing a bronze sable
In an aggressive red deck with lots of burn, a 2/1 isn't even really bad. Especially since basically all of them have at least slight upside. Destroying an artifact late, getting an extra damage through when it trades sometimes with Trample, occasionally making something not block or whatever. Even Bronze Sable has the added benefit of blocking and trading with Cavern Lampaid.
I actually think Fall is a better card in this format than Arbiter, so I'd easily take that. Gigantic, generic fliers lose some of their luster when everyone has gigantic things, fliers or otherwise. Fall is almost always nuts, and your first pick dragon fits with it as well.
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I'd take Arbiter in a vaccuum, because I durdle like a turtle, but in that case you'd be nuts to consider an off-color six-drop over on color removal. Nuts, I say!
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
I've got almost all Black and Red cards so far and my notable cards are as follows -
Fall of the Hammer, 2x Servant of Tyramet, Drown in Sorrow, Kragma Butcher, Bolt of Keranos, Gray Merchant, Disciple of Phenax, Purphoros' Emissary, Ill-Tempered Cyclops
I believe that either card would fit with what I already have well, so what's your pick here?
Agree. The Emmissary is good too, but not so ridiculous I'd pass up the best cheap removal in the set for it. A second Gary vs Lightning Strike would be a lot tougher...
Graverobber Spider vs Aerie Worshipers? I saw this on a mtgoacademy stream and he picked the spider cause the ability is strong. I don't get this reasoning as that puts you into 2 colors and Worshipers has to be better, and even if your in G/B Worshipers still might be better. You can watch it here: http://www.mtgoacademy.com/simon-says-68-sustainability-btt-8-4/
I don't even get his P1P3, Butcher and Sudden Storm are close so idk, I guess Butcher goes better with his first two picks.
Graverobber Spider vs Aerie Worshipers? I saw this on a mtgoacademy stream and he picked the spider cause the ability is strong. I don't get this reasoning as that puts you into 2 colors and Worshipers has to be better, and even if your in G/B Worshipers still might be better. You can watch it here: http://www.mtgoacademy.com/simon-says-68-sustainability-btt-8-4/
I don't even get his P1P3, Butcher and Sudden Storm are close so idk, I guess Butcher goes better with his first two picks.
Why isn't Fall of the Hammer a consideration P1P1? He says he doesn't like passing Fated Conflagaration, but the first thing he says is that he doesn't even like the card because of the color requirements. I've seen the card 4th-5th pick, if not later, presumably for the same reasons. Even if someone does commit to heavy red early on (which feels like a trap to me), aren't you going to be cutting red in P1 enough so that they may even drop Fated entirely? Similarly to the response I got in the signalling thread I created, why would that even matter anyways?
Graverobber Spider vs Aerie Worshipers? I saw this on a mtgoacademy stream and he picked the spider cause the ability is strong. I don't get this reasoning as that puts you into 2 colors and Worshipers has to be better, and even if your in G/B Worshipers still might be better. You can watch it here: http://www.mtgoacademy.com/simon-says-68-sustainability-btt-8-4/
I don't even get his P1P3, Butcher and Sudden Storm are close so idk, I guess Butcher goes better with his first two picks.
Why isn't Fall of the Hammer a consideration P1P1? He says he doesn't like passing Fated Conflagaration, but the first thing he says is that he doesn't even like the card because of the color requirements. I've seen the card 4th-5th pick, if not later, presumably for the same reasons. Even if someone does commit to heavy red early on (which feels like a trap to me), aren't you going to be cutting red in P1 enough so that they may even drop Fated entirely? Similarly to the response I got in the signalling thread I created, why would that even matter anyways?
it probably would be for me, if anything I think it's between Fall, Aerie, or even Reap, with the Spider being 4th. He said he didn't like Fall cause he'd be passing Fated which makes zero sense.
Graverobber Spider vs Aerie Worshipers? I saw this on a mtgoacademy stream and he picked the spider cause the ability is strong. I don't get this reasoning as that puts you into 2 colors and Worshipers has to be better, and even if your in G/B Worshipers still might be better. You can watch it here: http://www.mtgoacademy.com/simon-says-68-sustainability-btt-8-4/
I don't even get his P1P3, Butcher and Sudden Storm are close so idk, I guess Butcher goes better with his first two picks.
Why isn't Fall of the Hammer a consideration P1P1? He says he doesn't like passing Fated Conflagaration, but the first thing he says is that he doesn't even like the card because of the color requirements. I've seen the card 4th-5th pick, if not later, presumably for the same reasons. Even if someone does commit to heavy red early on (which feels like a trap to me), aren't you going to be cutting red in P1 enough so that they may even drop Fated entirely? Similarly to the response I got in the signalling thread I created, why would that even matter anyways?
it probably would be for me, if anything I think it's between Fall, Aerie, or even Reap, with the Spider being 4th. He said he didn't like Fall cause he'd be passing Fated which makes zero sense.
Watching the video more, he literally says "I don't really care if red is being drafted on my left" in regards to the Kragma Butcher he took third, which I found humorous.
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The argument could be made that you made them use removal on a two-drop. Of course, that's not a great argument. I've played Bronze Sable without shame before, and I would rather have a Firedancer in a deck with 5+ burn spells. The point here is that there are almost no absolutes in Limited, and few cards have no home... even Scornful Egotist had its uses.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
But you wouldn't just indiscriminately remove it. You'd wait until they tried to "get you" to do it - making it effectively a counterspell to save your own guy AND removal of a (bad) creature for just a little life. I'd much, much rather have a Bronze Sable or any of the other 2 drops I mentioned than it, even with 5+ burn spells. You're going to get more damage through clearing the way for a Sunchaser than throwing the burn at their face and using Firedancer to kill something. Besides, even with 5 burn spells, look at the actual odds. How often, in a 40 card deck where the games almost always end by turn 10 (given the type of deck we're talking about), are you going to have him and two burn spells in your first 17 AND actually be able to use them in the right order (as in, play him when it won't put you too far behind on board and when you have removal ready to follow up with)? Not to mention that he's an insanely bad topdeck.
The fact is that, while you are right that there are few absolutes in limited, this is one of them. A spell that does exactly nothing on its own, causes you to have to effectively misplay the cards that you need to go with it (throwing them at someone's face and hoping nothing goes wrong rather than just using them as removal) and still isn't a powerful effect when everything goes correctly isn't playable in limited. If you are playing him, you made a terrible mistake when drafting and didn't end up with 23 playables. Obviously any card can make your deck if you have too few playables, but that doesn't really mean he isn't unplayable.
No offense, but this is simply linguistically incorrect. A 1/1 for two mana is not "nothing," and certainly not "exactly nothing." It's not a good card; we've been over that. But it does have a place. In fact, another user on this site described one just a few posts ago, and over the years I've come to believe he (she? man, pronouns are nervous things online...) knows what... uh... zhe is talking about.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
The other person pointed out one deck that had probably too much burn to be good in the first place where it performed well. How many games do you think were played with the deck. How many times was it drawn, played and in play when a burn spell was used? I have trouble believing it was more than two or three games, even if the player was lucky - hardly a relevant sample size. I lost a game to Angel's Mercy once. It's still among the worst cards ever printed. That guy, however, played only three games with his deck, played it once and saw it win him a game once (100% of the times he's played it!). He probably walked away thinking it was a solid card. He was wrong.
If you honestly believe it'll net you more damage than running a 2/1 or a 2/2 in its place, which you can absolutely get as many of us needed, enjoy - you'll be making slightly worse decks than you could have.
I'm not here to tell you you pick or play the card if you're convinced of your immutable correctness. I am here to tell you that I've had some success with the card, played for and against me, and that it's nowhere close to unplayable under correct (and admittedly unlikely) circumstances.
Of course the card forces you to play incorrectly to actually do anything so there is that... What you're saying is "Don't use it unless your opponent is tapped out/can't have an instant speed response" which is fine but it's just one more limit on the card's playability.
Then again getting blown out was never the part of the card I cared about. IMO it doesn't do enough even when it works to make up for the cost of playing a 1/1 for 2 that doesn't have text unless other cards align just so.
*Shrug* The same could be said back to you. I don't read your comments as being especially open minded either and we're merely telling you our experiences with the card. I've yet to see a deck that wants it in constructed (with multiple 4x burn spells) much less limited and I've never seen it work for or against me.
Careful, this is pretty close to flaming. Also, I'm not "against" you... we're debating the merit of a Magic the Gathering card.
While "unplayable" is generally taken to mean "rarely better than a 24th land," and as such is a term we, as a community, have attributed a more specific meaning to, phrases like "exactly nothing" and "literally (whatever)" have no such special connotation. One of the issues with communicating online is that we only have your written word to go with.. so if you want the community responding to something like "a 1/1 is not worth a card," it is best to write that and not expect others to read different words than you wrote.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
The card is barely worth a card even in the ideal scenario. You're almost never actually going to see a deck that can get the ideal scenario (probably closer to 6-7 2-3 damage burn spells) and even if you do, you won't get to use it in a way that makes it worth more than a card - draw it early and use at least two spells with it out - to make up for the far more frequent occurrence of you casting no burn spells with it out or, even worse, wasting a burn spell on someone's face and getting blown out by a removal spell or bounce.
What do you think is actually going to happen with it? Think about the only even remotely reasonable scenarios. First, you could draw no burn after playing it or topdeck it too late to have any burn to use still and it was worth about a half a card (less than half of a Gather the Townsfolk). Second, you could get it removed in response to burning your opponent's face in the hopes of 2 for 1ing and it was worth maybe a Lava Spike for an extra mana (or worse, you could get absolutely blown out by removal/bounce as I said before) - hardly worth a card in limited, just look at Bump in the Night. Third, you could actually use it effectively for 2-3 damage and basically you got one card out of it - a 1/1 that deals 3 damage - effectively a 2 mana Furnace Scamp. I'll call it a decent card. Fourth, you get 2-3 uses out of it for maybe 5-8 damage. Finally, it's worth about two cards at a very good price. Yay..?
Scenarios 1 and 3 look the most common to me with 2 probably being the next most common and 4 being the least (particularly since, in scenario 4, you were probably pretty far ahead drawing 3 burn spells before you needed to use the 1/1 in combat anyway). I'd like my cards to always be worth a card, not often less and sometimes more. Thanks.
Standard is a different animal. The fact that very nearly every tier 1 standard deck is playing 4 mutavaults makes it a playable card when you are running 12-15 cards that can go to the face, in my opinion, but I suppose that's for another forum.
In an aggressive red deck with lots of burn, a 2/1 isn't even really bad. Especially since basically all of them have at least slight upside. Destroying an artifact late, getting an extra damage through when it trades sometimes with Trample, occasionally making something not block or whatever. Even Bronze Sable has the added benefit of blocking and trading with Cavern Lampaid.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
I've got almost all Black and Red cards so far and my notable cards are as follows -
Fall of the Hammer, 2x Servant of Tyramet, Drown in Sorrow, Kragma Butcher, Bolt of Keranos, Gray Merchant, Disciple of Phenax, Purphoros' Emissary, Ill-Tempered Cyclops
I believe that either card would fit with what I already have well, so what's your pick here?
Agree. The Emmissary is good too, but not so ridiculous I'd pass up the best cheap removal in the set for it. A second Gary vs Lightning Strike would be a lot tougher...
I don't even get his P1P3, Butcher and Sudden Storm are close so idk, I guess Butcher goes better with his first two picks.
Why isn't Fall of the Hammer a consideration P1P1? He says he doesn't like passing Fated Conflagaration, but the first thing he says is that he doesn't even like the card because of the color requirements. I've seen the card 4th-5th pick, if not later, presumably for the same reasons. Even if someone does commit to heavy red early on (which feels like a trap to me), aren't you going to be cutting red in P1 enough so that they may even drop Fated entirely? Similarly to the response I got in the signalling thread I created, why would that even matter anyways?
it probably would be for me, if anything I think it's between Fall, Aerie, or even Reap, with the Spider being 4th. He said he didn't like Fall cause he'd be passing Fated which makes zero sense.
Watching the video more, he literally says "I don't really care if red is being drafted on my left" in regards to the Kragma Butcher he took third, which I found humorous.