Lot of flak for this card on youtube and CFB, got a 0.0 from LSV and a lot of real low ratings, but personally I have a differing opinion.
First of all, ignoring the conditions, how good does doom have to be to be worth it? I'd say only triggering twice. 3 damage for 3 mana is a totally fine rate, and splitting it up probably makes it slightly better. That would be like a C+ or B- if it always triggered twice imo. If it triggers 3 times, it's totally nuts already. 6 damage for 3 mana, and possible as good as a 3-for-1 is bonkers. if you get to 4...good god.
Ok, so the top end is there. So how hard is it to GET there? Triggering 2 and 3 should usually be a cakewalk for most decks. 4 is not unreasonable either. As long as you can get the first trigger, you've just bought a one-way ticket to value town. In fact, the potential upside is so strong, that I think you need to be willing to accept a certain percentage that you'll topdeck doom and be unable to trigger it, because the games where you can go off with it, it's going to be so insane. And even the games where you literally never trigger it, your opponent does still have to be worried about it, though that's a minor upside ofc.
Triggering the 1-drop on this is the key. Imo the question of "how good is imminent doom" is answered almost entirely by "how many playable 1-drops are there?" So, let's take a quick look.
First of all, to quickly go over amonkhet...a lot of the 1-drops in amonkhet ended up being playable, a lot more than initially speculated (as admitted on LR). Granted, some of those really need specific decks. But a lot don't. Just looking at commons, you've got:
bloodlust enciter - playable in aggressive decks
*cartouche of solidarity - probably worse with fewer trials, but still likely decent in fairly aggressive decks.
*cartouche of zeal - same.
*djeru's resolve - always pretty meh, but the cycling makes it kind of great here since you can use it when you have doom and cycle it when you don't need it, without loading up on 1-drop creatures that suck late-game.
*fan bearer - always great. festering mummy - always kind of bad, but not unplayable imo.
*honed kopesh - playable and colorless.
*magma spray - best case scenario basically. oashra cultivator - pretty awful, but occasionally playable-ish.
*sacred cat - pretty decent for aggro and vs aggro, doesn't hurt your deck much.
*scarab feast - another cycler, nice. Though the effect is usually worthless, so that's a bummer. but it's cheap to include in case you really end up needing to trigger that 1 super badly.
*shed weakness - usually not coming out turn 1 or 2 anyway, so you're not hurting by playing it T4 or later. slither blade - i mean...probably not. I don't want to stir that one up anyway.
*stinging shot - cycling AND powerful in niche cases. Could end up stranded sometimes, though.
*supernatural stamina - great trick for midgame to sandbag until you play doom. time to reflect - probably not in RW but I guess it's possible, HOU does have red zombies...
OK, now let's look at HOU, and let's include uncommons since it's a small set and we get 2x as many packs.
appeal // authority - probably not, but maybe in a real aggressive RG go-wide with maybe splash white? Definitely one that you aren't casting on 1 or 2. chandra's defeat - hey, red's popular, if you board this in it's pretty great with doom. claim // fame - I don't think this is great, but it's not that bad. You should have enough 1-2 drops that you'll hit something and have the upside of the back half, and it's easy to wait to cast, and on-color. Better still, it can trigger both 1 and 2! Talk about a sick T4 if you just traded your 2 drop and played doom. Eat your 3 drop for free and crush face please!
*crash through - sure it's bad air, but it's air that triggers doom, and doesn't cost a card, so I'd probably run it if I had doom.
*frilled sandwalla - meh, it's best T1 but it's ok afterwards I guess. Green seems like a bad pairing though. gideon's defeat - same as chandras, except this isn't red.
*kindled fury - looks fine, decent trick you can sandbag until after doom pretty easily. life goes on - not for long though. liliana's defeat - see chandras and gideons.
*proven combatant - unless you need to slam this early to block, this works fine for a trigger and isn't terrible imo.
*traveller's amulet - this is kind of perfect to sandbag if you have enough lands and have a doom in hand. I'd run it if I had a doom, probably.
*unsummon - perfect.
That's 6 playable 1-drops at common, with a few more at uncommon, in a small set, which means roughly 10% of cards you'll see are playable 1-drops. If you were really trying to get as many as possible, you'd probably end up with a lot just in the first 2 packs. Not that you should do this, ofc, but just as an example.
So how many 1-drops are necessary to make imminent doom "go off"? I'm going to guess at around 6 you're triggering it very reliably as long as you don't topdeck it with an empty hand (and if you're flooded and holding a traveller's amulet or smth, i'd say hold onto it if there's a doom in your deck). I think 5 is still fine. At 4 it's starting to get dicey, and at 3 you should not play it. So can you reasonably get 5-ish 1 drops that you're happy to play? I think that's very reasonable if you're building towards it. There are a lot of 1-drops that are unexciting but either harmless or functional and you can almost certainly get as late picks - crash through, traveller's amulet, djeru's resolve, shed weakness, supernatural stamina, etc. I think as color pairs go, blue is exciting because of unsummon and (to a lesser extent) proven combatant, though looking at amonkhet there's a lot of good white options and a few black. And of course red alone has decent playables between magma spray, kindled fury, traveller's amulet, and kopesh (yes, I realize magma spray is like 5 tiers above the others but they're all playable).
OK, so all that over with, is Imminent Doom good? I think it's a build-around A. You can't always play it when you draft it. But I think when it comes out and works, it will be totally bonkers. I think when you get it early (or late, since I assume the always-follow-the-set-review-never-try-anything-innovative crowd will be passing it instantly...which means the potential to get multiples is low but definitely nonzero, if you started with 1 there's around a 25% chance someone else opened one too) you can prioritize 1-drops (a bit, I mean don't go insane and pick crash through over abrade or something) and get it working a solid percentage of the time, and then once it's going, I think it's very likely to win the game, even without the dreamland scenario of getting to trigger it for 5 or 6, which is still totally possible, especially with cyclers.
tl;dr: I don't think imminent doom should be easily dismissed. I think it has some real potential, and unless there's something that's unconditionally great, I'm going to be taking it fairly early and give it a shot.
The problem with this analysis is that the Doom isn't 3 damage for 3 mana, it's spending a turn doing nothing on turn 3, and then get 1/2 damage off of it on turn 4 when your opponent is already aware of it and can counter it. A deck with 6+ 1 drops will tend to be very aggressive, and spending turn 3 doing nothing is the opposite of what you want to do in an aggressive strategy.
I'm sure there will be some decks where it's better than an F, but calling it a build around A seems ambitious. Drake Haven is a card that has the potential for that rating (although it didn't end up getting there due to AKH being a horrible aggrofest), and this card is clearly nowhere near as good as Drake Haven: both in terms of decks that can support it and the actual effect of the game.
The problem with this analysis is that the Doom isn't 3 damage for 3 mana, it's spending a turn doing nothing on turn 3, and then get 1/2 damage off of it on turn 4 when your opponent is already aware of it and can counter it. A deck with 6+ 1 drops will tend to be very aggressive, and spending turn 3 doing nothing is the opposite of what you want to do in an aggressive strategy.
I'm sure there will be some decks where it's better than an F, but calling it a build around A seems ambitious. Drake Haven is a card that has the potential for that rating (although it didn't end up getting there due to AKH being a horrible aggrofest), and this card is clearly nowhere near as good as Drake Haven: both in terms of decks that can support it and the actual effect of the game.
There's a few reasons I think it's more reasonable.
First of all, Drake haven isn't a great comparison. Drake haven required that you cycle a card (1-2 mana under most circumstances for total air, or worse, cycling a card you otherwise wanted to play) plus pay 1. From a TEMPO perspective, that's not amazing. Sure, you get a 2/2 flyer for 2-3 with a cantrip, which is a great deal, but from a tempo perspective it's still just a 2/2 for 2-3, which is not the best at countering early aggression.
Doom doesn't require any additional mana to activate, and you're casting spells that (usually? not break through or traveller's amulet, but most of the others) do something on their own. Even if it's just a 1 or 2 drop, there's a big difference between getting a cantrip 2/2 flyer for 2-3, and playing a 2/2 that shocks a creature for 2 (or god forbid, a 3/2 that bolts a creature when it etbs) when you're trying to stabilize the board. Drake haven is great for a longer game, but for a short game, I'd happily take some board control built into my creatures instead of card advantage in a heartbeat. The absolute dream for drake haven is 2 2/2s on turn 4, whereas the dream for doom is 2 creatures/removal/cantrips and at least 1, maybe 2 enemy creatures dead. That seems much, much stronger to me, and the amount of deck warping is arguably less than drake haven.
Also, doom goes pretty well, potentially, INTO an aggro deck. Rather than running a bunch of do-nothing cantrips only in your deck to enable your one rare, you're running the 1-2-3 curve you wanted to run anyway, except now you're getting a sick payoff for it too.
In a control deck, it's a bit more like drake haven, in that cards like crash through are equivalent to bad cyclers. But there's enough cards that go fine into a control deck, either because they're air, or they're removal, or they cycle when you don't need them, or they're generally solid defensive 1-drops, that I don't think it's crazy to end up with 6 1-drops even in a control deck. Even then, though, at least you're not paying for the trigger. And while the first trigger is unexciting, the second trigger is probably better than a 2/2 flyer vs aggro, and the third+ triggers are all totally insane, and not unrealistic at all.
As far as "your opponent is aware of it and can counter it"...counter it how exactly? By never playing their 1-3 drop creatures? That sounds....good for me? By keeping up mana for pump spells...also sounds good for me? Plus they've probably already played their most vulnerable creatures. And it's super plausible to stack the 1 and the 2 damage, so even a 3-toughness creature isn't safe. It even triggers on cast so there's (almost) no way to stop it going off. And once you're up to 3-4 counters...basically nothing they play is safe ever. If doom always stopped on 2 it would be meh-bad, even if it always triggered. But I think 3 is fairly easy with the right curve and already great, and your opponent will just be forever living in fear of a 4-drop.
This card is not meant for Limited. It's for Constructed. Wizards prints rares like that in most sets.
A deck needs more than 2 1-drops to have a reliable chance of actually getting the first (and therefore any) trigger. Generic midrangey and control decks would likely never get anything out of this card. To reliably get triggers, you need a high enough percentage of 1 and 2 cost cards that you'd be able to cast them in that order even after dropping this turn 3 or later. Sure, some decks satisfy that condition. The problem is that decks that have many 1-drops don't want a 3 cc slow grindy enchantment. They want cards that create immediate pressure. That means that this card doesn't slot into slow grindy decks and it doesn't slot into fast low curve decks. You'd have to build the entire deck around this card to run smoothly, and the deck might be very bad without it, so you'd need at least 2 copies of it in the deck. That means, ideally, opening 2 copies early in pack 1 and then sculpting your entire draft to optimize the triggers. Maybe then it'll be very strong. The other 99% of the time this just doesn't fit into decks.
This card is not meant for Limited. It's for Constructed. Wizards prints rares like that in most sets.
A deck needs more than 2 1-drops to have a reliable chance of actually getting the first (and therefore any) trigger. Generic midrangey and control decks would likely never get anything out of this card. To reliably get triggers, you need a high enough percentage of 1 and 2 cost cards that you'd be able to cast them in that order even after dropping this turn 3 or later. Sure, some decks satisfy that condition. The problem is that decks that have many 1-drops don't want a 3 cc slow grindy enchantment. They want cards that create immediate pressure. That means that this card doesn't slot into slow grindy decks and it doesn't slot into fast low curve decks. You'd have to build the entire deck around this card to run smoothly, and the deck might be very bad without it, so you'd need at least 2 copies of it in the deck. That means, ideally, opening 2 copies early in pack 1 and then sculpting your entire draft to optimize the triggers. Maybe then it'll be very strong. The other 99% of the time this just doesn't fit into decks.
I feel like you didn't read any of my posts.
I agree you need at least (imo) 5+ 1-drops to run it. That said, there are a decent number of common (and uncommon) 1-drops that are playable even in a control deck. And as for aggro decks, I don't think i'd discount the power that an enchantment like doom can offer for a fast curve out. It doesn't cost mana to activate and it can clear blockers or just go face. If you're running 6+ 1 drops and 6+ 2 drops I doubt you'd want to cut this. Immediate pressure is preferable I suppose, but even a (non-haste) creature isn't "immediate". This threatens removal of blockers on the next, and all future turns. That's sure to be "pressure".
First of all, Drake haven isn't a great comparison. Drake haven required that you cycle a card (1-2 mana under most circumstances for total air, or worse, cycling a card you otherwise wanted to play) plus pay 1. From a TEMPO perspective, that's not amazing. Sure, you get a 2/2 flyer for 2-3 with a cantrip, which is a great deal, but from a tempo perspective it's still just a 2/2 for 2-3, which is not the best at countering early aggression.
Doom doesn't require any additional mana to activate, and you're casting spells that (usually? not break through or traveller's amulet, but most of the others) do something on their own. Even if it's just a 1 or 2 drop, there's a big difference between getting a cantrip 2/2 flyer for 2-3, and playing a 2/2 that shocks a creature for 2 (or god forbid, a 3/2 that bolts a creature when it etbs) when you're trying to stabilize the board. Drake haven is great for a longer game, but for a short game, I'd happily take some board control built into my creatures instead of card advantage in a heartbeat. The absolute dream for drake haven is 2 2/2s on turn 4, whereas the dream for doom is 2 creatures/removal/cantrips and at least 1, maybe 2 enemy creatures dead.
I used Drake Haven as an example of how powerful a 3 mana do-nothing enchantment needs to be in order to even be considered as an A rating. I agree with you that in the ideal case, this card will outtempo drake haven, but that case will very infrequently happen.
That seems much, much stronger to me, and the amount of deck warping is arguably less than drake haven.
This card requires far more deck warping than Drake Haven: this statement is crazy to me. Drake Haven is a blue card that wants a ton of cyclers. There are many blue common cyclers that fit a control plan well, and the haven wants you to control the board. While you need to prioritize cyclers more highly, there are a ton of cards that enable drake haven and fit the controlling strategy that Drake Haven is trying to accomplish. This card, on the other hand, is completely the opposite of that. First, the card is a 3 mana do nothing enchantment in red, and given how red wants to be aggressive in every single format in the past however many years, there's an inherent issue with trying to fit this in any red deck (more on that later). Second of all, you're going to be forced to play a bunch of mediocre cards in order to reliably trigger it. The only red 1 drops in HOU are kindled fury and crash through. Crash Through is a fine enabler, Kindled Fury is complete garbage since a smart opponent would just play around it on turn 4. You can argue that you can just hold it for later, but that throws off your subsequent turns since you most likely don't have a 2 drop at sorcery speed to play. You mention 6 common 1 drops in HOU that are okay, but within specific color combos, UR is the only one that I could see working, since that has 4 1 drops (+ the ammy) that might be able to be played on turn 4 without losing horrendous value, so any decks with this card are probably limited to that.
Also, doom goes pretty well, potentially, INTO an aggro deck. Rather than running a bunch of do-nothing cantrips only in your deck to enable your one rare, you're running the 1-2-3 curve you wanted to run anyway, except now you're getting a sick payoff for it too.
Think about this some more: if you curve 1-2-this card, then you're going to be down a 1 drop and 2 drop to play on turn 4 after playing this card, which is very likely since now you need 2 1 and 2 drops in your hand by turn 4. There are going to be many games where you only have 1 1 drop or 1 2 drop in your hand and this card, then what? Are you going to hold off on playing your 1/2 drop in an aggro deck to get value out of this card later? Such a deck would need at least 6 1 drop and 8 2 drops to consistently guarantee having 1 1 drop and 2 2 drops + this in your hand, at which point you're not going to get that many 4+ drops to get ridiculous value out of it. You can argue that you only need to get to 3 for this card to be good, but that comes at a very large drafting and deckbuilding cost which I can't see being worth it in an aggro deck.
In a control deck, it's a bit more like drake haven, in that cards like crash through are equivalent to bad cyclers. But there's enough cards that go fine into a control deck, either because they're air, or they're removal, or they cycle when you don't need them, or they're generally solid defensive 1-drops, that I don't think it's crazy to end up with 6 1-drops even in a control deck. Even then, though, at least you're not paying for the trigger. And while the first trigger is unexciting, the second trigger is probably better than a 2/2 flyer vs aggro, and the third+ triggers are all totally insane, and not unrealistic at all.
There is a large cost to putting 6 1 drops in a control deck, and I'm not even sure what 1 drops you're talking about that fit well in a control shell. Kindled Fury is terrible in control, Crash Through is very mediocre but you need to play it to get enough 1 drops. Blue is the closest thing to having control 1 drops, and Unsummon is a terrible control card, and a 6 mana 4/4 in Proven Combatant is far from a good card. Also regarding Drake Haven, that card's strength is how it gives you inevitability and doesn't require you to play a bunch of terrible 1 drops in your deck. While this card can give you a ton of value throughout the game, the deckbuilding requirements of this card makes your overall deck far worse in a long matchup, which you can't really see from a direct comparison. Some sort of control shell will probably be where this card can shine, but it's hard for me to imagine a decklist where enabling this card is better than just drafting more consistent cards, since you sacrifice a lot of value in order to make this work.
As far as "your opponent is aware of it and can counter it"...counter it how exactly? By never playing their 1-3 drop creatures? That sounds....good for me? By keeping up mana for pump spells...also sounds good for me? Plus they've probably already played their most vulnerable creatures. And it's super plausible to stack the 1 and the 2 damage, so even a 3-toughness creature isn't safe. It even triggers on cast so there's (almost) no way to stop it going off. And once you're up to 3-4 counters...basically nothing they play is safe ever. If doom always stopped on 2 it would be meh-bad, even if it always triggered. But I think 3 is fairly easy with the right curve and already great, and your opponent will just be forever living in fear of a 4-drop.
Your opponent has a 4 mana 3/1 flier in hand, and you play this card. They choose not to play the flier and play something else instead so you don't get value out of the 1 damage ping. Sorry for using the word "counter", which is misleading: "play around" would have been the better choice. I'm not saying playing around this greatly nullifies the card, but if the ping doesn't kill a creature, then it's that much harder to get value out of this card.
Again, I'm not saying that this is an F in all situations: there are definitely specific draws in decks where this is an A card. It's just that those scenarios seem very rare and require you to build your deck in a very suboptimal way, so it's really hard to believe that this card will be good. I strongly encourage you to live the dream and try to build a deck around these: I hope I'm proven wrong and it actually ends up being a sleeper hit since I love off the wall strategies: it just has a ton of things stacked against it that I think this is more of a pyroconvergence than a Spider Spawning
I've seen drake haven decks running cards like compelling argument and scarab feast that do essentially nothing except activate drake haven, sometimes quite a few since those are the easiest to pick up since no one else wants them. And sure, I'm talking about running essentially the same thing with crash through, but the critical mass of 1-drops to make doom work is probably about 5, whereas drake haven is total trash with only 5 cyclers. Of course, some cyclers are already fine cards, but some 1 drops are already great one-drops (magma spray, fan bearer, unsummon - and yes, I would play unsummon in control in a heartbeat with all the combat tricks and ambuscades and overcomes and whatnot). But I think on balance for a control deck, the warping is similar or a bit less for doom. And unlike with drake haven, you're not throwing away as many picks on it - if you take drake haven and then only end up with 6 cyclers, I'd say you probably have to abandon it and likely waste most of those 6 picks. Whereas with doom, if you only pick up 3, you've only wasted 3 picks.
With aggro, I think the warping is pretty close to zero. You already wanted to play 1-drops, most likely.
As far as playing it in an aggro deck - I'd think that, if you have doom in hand and only 1 1-drop, that's the only time you sandbag it. If you don't have doom you don't, and it doesn't affect your play at all. If you have multiples, no problem there either. Sure, sometimes you'll play your only 1-drop then topdeck doom, but that seems like an acceptable risk for the power level, and you always have the possibility of getting another 1-drop later.
Personally I think proven combatant is mediocre but ok. a 1/1 for 1 is good tempo-wise, even if it's horrible value, and the back half is great value but horrible tempo. Not amazing but I think it'll do enough work. scares off 1-toughness blockers, chumps as necessary, then comes back when you're out of business as a significant board presence. Seems playable if not great, C- or so (which, as I just checked, is what LSV says too).
Kindled fury is I don't love for control but I think it's not wholly unplayable. If it's the difference between having enough 1-drops to enable doom and not, though, I'd probably try it. Defensively I don't like using tricks, but if you can force your opponent to either lose combat or spend their turn on a combat trick/removal to 2-for-1 vs your crappy creature and your crappy enabler, that seems not horrible to me. Plus, this is still red, so even a "control" deck is likely to have some aggressive potential if the opponent stumbles at all.
I'm definitely curious to try it out. It's very tough to evaluate, and maybe it will be too rare to be useful, but I do think people should be a lot more hesitant to dismiss it. If nothing else, it's almost certainly great in the dream scenario where you get 3x magma sprays and some traveler's amulets or something.
I thought it was clear my points stood in spite of them.
Aggro doesn't want it.
Also, doom goes pretty well, potentially, INTO an aggro deck. Rather than running a bunch of do-nothing cantrips only in your deck to enable your one rare, you're running the 1-2-3 curve you wanted to run anyway, except now you're getting a sick payoff for it too.
The curve is right, the tempo is wrong. Aggro doesn't want to have to sandbag a 1 drop, 2 drop and 3 drop in order to make optimal use of this card. It wants to dump its hand as fast as possible, so it may not have those drops left by the time this hits. It may be in topdeck mode. Aggro also needs its higher cost cards to have an immediate effect, not do something in future turns. Aggro needs to finish the game early, not develop incremental card advantage. Aggro would much rather pay 3 to play a creature (increases army size) or Open Fire (kill something now) than tap out for this, which does nothing this turn.
Consider this. Would aggro want a card that said "2R: If you have 3 cards of CMC 1, 2 and 3 each left in your library, you win the game in 7 turns"? Probably not. Even though it satisfies those conditions and fits the curve, aggro has no interest in the game lasting that long. It would prefer cards that help now. The curve is right, but the tempo is wrong.
In a control deck, it's a bit more like drake haven, in that cards like crash through are equivalent to bad cyclers. But there's enough cards that go fine into a control deck, either because they're air, or they're removal, or they cycle when you don't need them, or they're generally solid defensive 1-drops, that I don't think it's crazy to end up with 6 1-drops even in a control deck.
Yes, it's pretty crazy. How often do you end up drafting a control deck with 6 1-drops without intentionally building your whole deck around one card? Most control decks have a higher curve. 0-2 1-drops, which isn't enough for this to trigger consistently.
Like I said in my other comment, IF you draft to build around this early, it's possible. However, you'd be drafting a deck so radically different from most normal control decks that it would really need Doom in play to be worth using this deck over other decks. The deck would suck without it, because it'd have curve filler instead of cards you'd normally play in control. Even if the filler cantrips or cycles, it costs tempo and mana to dig through your deck instead of interacting with the aggro attackers coming at you. For this deck to be worth building, you'd want more than one Imminent Doom, so that you have one in play often enough to justify building around it. You wouldn't draft a control deck with 6 1-drops without already having Doom. So, like I already said, you'd need to draft 2 Dooms very early to consider going this way. That's a niche case. The rest of the time, the card seems awful.
This threatens removal of blockers on the next, and all future turns. That's sure to be "pressure".
No it doesn't. Because most of the time you are not going to topdeck in the following order: 1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop.
If you topdeck a 2-drop before the 1-drop, you're going to have to wait until you have a 1-drop to play either of them, which costs you a ton of pressure by holding back cards in aggro. The same with drawing a 3-drop before a 2-drop or drawing lands. On any future turn where you don't topdeck the exact CMC you need, this threatens nothing and creates no pressure, whereas a 3-drop creature at least creates consistent pressure every turn its alive.
To make this work, you can't rely on topdecks. You'll probably have to sandbag any 1-drop in your opener until Doom hits the field, so that you can guarantee you have a 1cc to start the chain. But that means holding back cards, which is bad in aggro, because you're giving up early game pressure to have some value later on. Even if you sandbag the 1cc, you might not topdeck a 2cc. So what do you do, not play your 2-drop on turn 2 and wait until this is out? Then you lose even more pressure! The problem is that to make Doom work, you have to make play decisions that make the aggro deck worse, losing pressure.
If you choose not to sandbag, then this threatens nothing on future turns. With 6 1cc in the deck and 1 already cast, you have approx 5/30=1/6 chance of drawing one. That means there's an 83% chance this threatens NOTHING on a future turn and creates 0 pressure. This card will continue to do absolutely nothing until you finally topdeck that 1 drop, which could take a while. Then it does nothing until you topdeck a 2 drop (or you sandbag one in between, losing pressure earlier). Every time you don't topdeck exactly what you need, the card does nothing. You have to draw both a 1-drop and then a 2-drop before it was even worth paying a card and 3 mana (which leaves you neutral on card advantage, but still behind on aggro tempo). Every other time you end in the red.
At this point I'm a lot more interested in trying the card out and seeing where the rubber hits the road than getting too much deeper in theorycraft, but I'll make a few points.
I think there are plenty of 1-drop cards that work well in aggro but don't come out turn 1. Any combat tricks, removal, even low-impact 1-drops like the 1/1 cat can probably be sandbagged without a big detrimental effect, should doom be in your opener. Sure, sandbagging a bloodlust inciter or similar is rough, but I think most 1-drops are worth holding if you know you're going to have an enabled doom.
Minor point, but doom always threatens to ping off creatures on future turns regardless of whether you sandbag your 1 drop. Even if you have no 1 drop in hand and are unable to ever activate doom, your opponent is going to play differently to avoid getting wrecked if you do have one or topdeck one, either by letting you bluff attacks through, or by playing different creatures to avoid getting pinged off. A threat is a possibility, not a guarantee. And you always have a possibility of activation. You could topdeck the right card, or (from your opponents POV) you might have one already.
I think when you take doom, it's a speculative pick. I don't think it's something you can always run. I think it's similar to a drake haven, with fewer enablers but a lower enabler requirement. In terms of the actual impact I think it's similar, maybe even higher if you get a bit lucky, and in terms of the percentage of "air" you're adding to your deck (barring dream scenarios where you have a handful of great control 1-drops) it's fairly similar. Drake haven underperformed in amonkhet but I don't think we should dismiss another build-around 3-drop enchantment as being totally unplayable right out of the gate.
What I think is getting ignored in large effect is the high ceiling this card represents. Once you get over the 1-mana hump, I think it's going to be very plausible to get this to 4 or 5 in a mid or long game, tempo of the format permitting. And the damage this puts out in those games is fairly insane. Like, definitely-was-going-to-lose-badly to won-in-a-landslide kind of insane. I don't deny that there will be games where this sucks, it is a fairly high variance card. But you have to look at the whole scope of possibilities when evaluating the card, and figure out what the probability of each result is.
What I don't know, and what is probably very difficult to know, is how the odds stack up. I think with the right deck the odds can be good to hit a 2-drop, and a 3-drop, but all those odds do stack together. With 5 each of 1, 2, and 3-drops you've got something like 90% odds on drawing each within a reasonable length (8 turns) game, but those do add up, even if they're good probabilities, and of course there's games where you draw doom after playing your 1-drop and then your odds are worse, etc. And of course there's also the question of how much it's going to hurt your draft to take cards like traveller's amulet and crash through over C-level playable creatures. I guess my point is, it's going to be pretty tough to figure out whether those odds add up to something usable or something not, and I don't think fixating on the fail case OR the success case really gets closer to the truth without either getting some statistics off modo a month down the line, or doing a bunch of rather tedious calculations.
Yeah. As a Leyline on turn 0 this card would be great. Even if it had a significant drawback, like starting your opening hand with 1 fewer card or losing life, I would gladly run this if it could be played turn 0.
The problem is I think Dirk is overestimating the probabilities that it works as desired, which explains our differences of opinion on viability. Try it out and post results, but my math suggests the cases where it is amazing are rare flukes and the median case is being a dud.
With 5 each of 1, 2, and 3-drops you've got something like 90% odds on drawing each within a reasonable length (8 turns) game
Source? Also the problem is that you may have played all of them before you draw this card. What's the probability you draw or still have one of each AFTER you draw this one card? If you play this on 3, your opener needs a 1cc spell (not Bloodlust Inciter/Slither Blade) and TWO bears (because you're going to play one bear on turn 1). What's the probability of having 2 bears AND the 1cc spell (non-attacker) AND Doom AND enough lands by turn 3-4? A lot lower than 90%. And that ignores the cases where you could mathematically do it but it's strategically wrong to play Doom instead of playing a creature or removal that turn.
If we're talking about getting Doom out past turn 3-4, you won't have most cards left from your opener, so you'll have to topdeck that 1cc, 2cc and 3cc. The chances of seeing at least one of each by turn 8-10 might be high. What about drawing them in the right order? That's a huge factor. In half the cases where you topdeck all three of a 1, 2 and 3 cost after playing Doom, you will draw the 3cc before the 1cc (assuming 5 of each). In half the cases you draw the 2cc before the 1cc. Simple combinatorics suggests there's only a 1/6 chance (3! = 6) that you topdeck these cards in the right order (1 then 2 then 3) once you cast Doom. The other 5/6 of the time you draw them in the wrong order.
If Doom is out with 1 counter and you draw a 3 drop, do you not play it until you've found a 1cc and 2cc? If so, you're giving up tempo and board presence. If you play everything when you'd normally play it, you'd have to wait until you draw another 3 drop after you've drawn the 1 drop and then the 2 drop. The probability of that is much lower than 90%, because you'll likely need to draw more than one of each before it happens.
Do the math or try it out and see what happens. There's a good reason LSV and others are writing this card off though.
They knew Drake Haven would be a potential build-around, but also knew Faith of the Devoted would be bad (which it was).
I could code up a simulator in Python to estimate the odds...
Yeah. As a Leyline on turn 0 this card would be great. Even if it had a significant drawback, like starting your opening hand with 1 fewer card or losing life, I would gladly run this if it could be played turn 0.
The problem is I think Dirk is overestimating the probabilities that it works as desired, which explains our differences of opinion on viability. Try it out and post results, but my math suggests the cases where it is amazing are rare flukes and the median case is being a dud.
With 5 each of 1, 2, and 3-drops you've got something like 90% odds on drawing each within a reasonable length (8 turns) game
Source? Also the problem is that you may have played all of them before you draw this card. What's the probability you draw or still have one of each AFTER you draw this one card? If you play this on 3, your opener needs a 1cc spell (not Bloodlust Inciter/Slither Blade) and TWO bears (because you're going to play one bear on turn 1). What's the probability of having 2 bears AND the 1cc spell (non-attacker) AND Doom AND enough lands by turn 3-4? A lot lower than 90%. And that ignores the cases where you could mathematically do it but it's strategically wrong to play Doom instead of playing a creature or removal that turn.
If we're talking about getting Doom out past turn 3-4, you won't have most cards left from your opener, so you'll have to topdeck that 1cc, 2cc and 3cc. The chances of seeing at least one of each by turn 8-10 might be high. What about drawing them in the right order? That's a huge factor. In half the cases where you topdeck all three of a 1, 2 and 3 cost after playing Doom, you will draw the 3cc before the 1cc (assuming 5 of each). In half the cases you draw the 2cc before the 1cc. Simple combinatorics suggests there's only a 1/6 chance (3! = 6) that you topdeck these cards in the right order (1 then 2 then 3) once you cast Doom. The other 5/6 of the time you draw them in the wrong order.
If Doom is out with 1 counter and you draw a 3 drop, do you not play it until you've found a 1cc and 2cc? If so, you're giving up tempo and board presence. If you play everything when you'd normally play it, you'd have to wait until you draw another 3 drop after you've drawn the 1 drop and then the 2 drop. The probability of that is much lower than 90%, because you'll likely need to draw more than one of each before it happens.
Do the math or try it out and see what happens. There's a good reason LSV and others are writing this card off though.
They knew Drake Haven would be a potential build-around, but also knew Faith of the Devoted would be bad (which it was).
I could code up a simulator in Python to estimate the odds...
Ok, HOLD UP. LSV gave faith of the devoted a build-around 3.5 with the quote "I have faith that this is a great build-around." I was the one who said it was trash (before the prerelease, btw) on this very forum. RIGHT HERE.
Me being 100% dead right and LSV being 100% dead wrong doesn't prove that I'm going to be right this time, granted, but credit where @#$@# credit is due.
Also, just to be clear, I'm not saying doom is an A-level bomb. I'm just saying I think it's a reasonable build-around, and if you get it early and get the right cards I think it'll be worth running, and potentially quite good. The upside is there.
My approximation about odds to draw cards is way simpler than you're talking about. All I'm saying is that you'll draw a card of that cost, not that you'll draw it after doom or that it won't be a bloodlust inciter or whatever. 35/40 * 34/39 * 33/38... = ~10% chance (EDIT: actually it's 8.074%) to not draw a card you have 5 of by turn 8 (on the draw, 9 on the play). Obviously real life cases are way more complicated than that, I'm just trying to get a general feel for the odds. Magic players tend to want to generalize the odds, but this is definitely a card where the exact specifics of your deck will be critical. The difference between a 90%, 95%, and 80% chance to draw the cmc you need is a pretty big deal towards making it work (or not). Obviously getting closer to the real odds would better, but it's also way more complicated. If you want to take a stab at it, be my guest. My point is mostly that it's not 50% or something really abysmal that would definitely disqualify doom from working. And 5 cards is pretty reasonable for 1, 2, and 3 cmc.
Ofc the card will create some tension in which order you play your cards. I assume in the case where you don't have a 1 or a 2 drop and you're holding a 3, you probably just play the 3. There are definitely cases where it won't do anything, but the same is true of drake haven and drake haven is still a decent build-around. I think it'd be a little ambitious to say that doom will be equal to drake haven, but I don't think it's all THAT far behind.
What rubs me the wrong way about how this card is being evaluated is that no one (afaik) is really doing the work to make an informed decision. Everyone rating is just going with quick pithy arguments, like "well, you'll never have 1-drops in control" or "enchantments suck in aggro". This is not an easy card to rate, and the specifics of how many control-playable 1 drops, how highly those are being picked, how many 1-drop creatures in aggro can be waited to turn 4 to play, etc are going to have a big role in whether doom works, and how often it works. Everyone just wants to look at it and go "nope, doesn't seem feasible" without really thinking it through with any kind of detail, and the card evaluation community is pretty cannibalistic in its opinions, in that it's rare for someone to go against the grain of common consensus to any significant degree, especially on complicated cards.
You know what this really, really reminds me of? The rogue quest in hearthstone, if you're familiar. Nearly everyone (including me, that time, I'm not always on-target, and hearthstone isn't my forte) said it was total trash, worst of the quests. Too much setup, payoff not good enough. And now it's nerfed for being absurdly overpowered and dictating most of the metagame. People are way too quick to dismiss complicated cards rather than do the hard work and figure out the particulars that are necessary for a real evaluation.
The biggest deal with the card is that it costs you 3 and you absolutely need a 1 drop to get it started and follow it up with a 2 drop etc.
Most decks will just barely have a 1-drop if at all, lots of limited decks do not even have 1 drops.
Lots of them are also cards you really want to play early and not wait for your 3-drop enchantment to hit first, in which case the first 1 damage trigger will probably do almost nothing of value for you to begin with.
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The card would work splendid if the set had a lot more playable Aftermath cards that either had a 1 mana back or front side, but thats sadly not the case, which would make triggering it much easier and keep you flexible.
The card only delivers if you draw multiple cards at exactly the moment you need them in that order.
This is a recipe for disaster and the card just turns out to be unplayable.
I'm interested in this card. I think it's not going to work most of the time but when it does it's going to be really sweet. I like cards like that. And the opportunity cost of picking this up should not be very high because few people are going to be taking this card first pick, or even fifth for that matter. If you can pick this card up mid to late in the pack over some random filler that probably won't make the cut, why not? After that you can use CMC as a tie-breaker between similar power level picks and if you get there cool, and if not you didn't really give up much. Sure, if you go hard and start first picking Bloodlust Inciter over Ahn-Crop Crasher or whatever you're gonna have a bad time, but if you take a reasonable approach and don't go too crazy trying to force it I think you can end up with good results. I hesitate to even call this card a build around, though, as I don't think you actually want to build around it that much. Just pick it up late if you can and if the stars align in the right way put it in your deck. It's a weird card for sure.
At my first draft I cracked my pack and imminent doom was staring me right in the face. It was fate
Overall, to be totally honest, I wasn't terribly impressed. I built the deck to work around it as best I could, but it still wasn't quite the ideal curve. The best cards I ended up getting were all 4-drops, which sorta screwed up the curve a bit. As an aggro deck, a lot of games I was terrified I'd draw it with an empty hand, but I don't think I ever actually did in those situations.
I did get a little shafted by other inexperienced players overvaluing (I think? imo?) traveler's amulet. Saw some that I could have taken pick 2-3 or something and neither wheeled. Played one of the players with them in the last round and their deck was pretty awful. Meh. Also only ended up with 5 2-drops, which was less than I would have liked. Ended up going 2-1.
Did go off with it (up to 4) once or twice. While it was powerful, it did force me to play some things at awkward times. combat tricks especially (the 1-drop variety) I'd end up just burning so I could get the doom engine going, because I wanted to play my only other 2-drop or whatever.
I think the card kind of dies the death of a thousand cuts to many small things needing to go right. With the right deck, you're likely to have each individual thing go right, but if any single one of them DOESN'T, then the card doesn't work well. I don't think it's totally insane to run it, but I don't think it's a card to prioritize or build too heavily around. Take it when there's nothing else you'd play in the pack, and maybe consider a few 1-drops in otherwise dead packs to maybe enable it. That's probably around where it's supposed to exist.
Still, that's only one test. I'll probably be trying it again before the format is over. One thing that does give it some legs - if everyone else considers it unplayable, you're much more likely to end up getting the second one It's definitely a card that's fun to try to make work.
Standing guess: Imminent Doom is playable in a low-curve deck that wants to run four or five 1-drops anyways, mostly as a way of extracting extra value later in the game. Given the set, that means you're most likely to run Doom in UR Prowess (which naturally wants Unsummon and might be interested in Crash Through as R: draw a card, trigger prowess, get a sorcery in your graveyard for Countervailing Winds and the AKH payoffs) or running hot in the AKH pack (most likely in RW, given Fan Bearer and access to both 1-drop Cartouches). As Funkenstein noted above, this is a card that should be available late for any deck that does want it.
One idea, that hasn't been mentioned here yet, is the possibility to get the cards you needs after the Doom hit the board, or right before it hits the board, from your graveyard. Cards like Wander in Death or Claim // Fame will be played later, and if your deck has a reasonable number of early creatures, you'll have your 1- mana and 2-mana spells when you need them. C//F is even both of those in itself and an aggro deck can make good use of it. Gravedigger, Sacred Excavation, Scribe of the Mindful, and Bloodwater Entity could also be quite useful in that regard. Play your 1-drops and 2-drops, when its most useful. If the Doom comes around, chances are high, that some of those cards are in the yard, but if you also have a card to get them back it's much easier to start the chain or continue it.
I'm not saying, that getting the right cards at the right time won't still be difficult, or that the cards I mentioned are good picks, but rather, that you are not limited to topdecks or holding back the right cards to make the Doom work.
I passed this early last night, but now I've been mulling over its potential in GR beats with a couple Quarry Haulers.. they're only in one pack, but it seems reasonable to snag two. If the deck was largely 2-3 drops with a few combat tricks, I could a lot more potential in it than a deck that's hoping for things to line up naturally.
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I seen it used very effectively in a midrange/control R/B/U deck that ran a few Traveler's amulet, a few Crash Through, and at least one Proven Combatant. But the other times I have seen it, Imminent Doom has just been awful. I think in most decks that card is a solid "F", but if you're lucky to find the right support it is a solid "B+". Only a "B+" as it is almost always awful late game. The power is there it is just really hard to pull off effectively in limited. I would take a chance on it if I was in red and it was mid to late in the pack. I would not draft around it, and would cut it far more that play it BUT if the one drops was there, and if I wasn't strictly aggro, I would be very happy to play it.
I played against this card in some casual cross-pod games between rounds at FNM. My opponent played it on curve in two of the games and had a 1 and 2 mana spell to pick off my early board with, winning both games. I asked how many 1 drops he had and I think it was four. This card is high risk, high reward. I'm convinced it's not a 0.0, but I would not first pick it in a draft I cared about winning.
Lot of flak for this card on youtube and CFB, got a 0.0 from LSV and a lot of real low ratings, but personally I have a differing opinion.
First of all, ignoring the conditions, how good does doom have to be to be worth it? I'd say only triggering twice. 3 damage for 3 mana is a totally fine rate, and splitting it up probably makes it slightly better. That would be like a C+ or B- if it always triggered twice imo. If it triggers 3 times, it's totally nuts already. 6 damage for 3 mana, and possible as good as a 3-for-1 is bonkers. if you get to 4...good god.
Ok, so the top end is there. So how hard is it to GET there? Triggering 2 and 3 should usually be a cakewalk for most decks. 4 is not unreasonable either. As long as you can get the first trigger, you've just bought a one-way ticket to value town. In fact, the potential upside is so strong, that I think you need to be willing to accept a certain percentage that you'll topdeck doom and be unable to trigger it, because the games where you can go off with it, it's going to be so insane. And even the games where you literally never trigger it, your opponent does still have to be worried about it, though that's a minor upside ofc.
Triggering the 1-drop on this is the key. Imo the question of "how good is imminent doom" is answered almost entirely by "how many playable 1-drops are there?" So, let's take a quick look.
First of all, to quickly go over amonkhet...a lot of the 1-drops in amonkhet ended up being playable, a lot more than initially speculated (as admitted on LR). Granted, some of those really need specific decks. But a lot don't. Just looking at commons, you've got:
bloodlust enciter - playable in aggressive decks
*cartouche of solidarity - probably worse with fewer trials, but still likely decent in fairly aggressive decks.
*cartouche of zeal - same.
*djeru's resolve - always pretty meh, but the cycling makes it kind of great here since you can use it when you have doom and cycle it when you don't need it, without loading up on 1-drop creatures that suck late-game.
*fan bearer - always great.
festering mummy - always kind of bad, but not unplayable imo.
*honed kopesh - playable and colorless.
*magma spray - best case scenario basically.
oashra cultivator - pretty awful, but occasionally playable-ish.
*sacred cat - pretty decent for aggro and vs aggro, doesn't hurt your deck much.
*scarab feast - another cycler, nice. Though the effect is usually worthless, so that's a bummer. but it's cheap to include in case you really end up needing to trigger that 1 super badly.
*shed weakness - usually not coming out turn 1 or 2 anyway, so you're not hurting by playing it T4 or later.
slither blade - i mean...probably not. I don't want to stir that one up anyway.
*stinging shot - cycling AND powerful in niche cases. Could end up stranded sometimes, though.
*supernatural stamina - great trick for midgame to sandbag until you play doom.
time to reflect - probably not in RW but I guess it's possible, HOU does have red zombies...
OK, now let's look at HOU, and let's include uncommons since it's a small set and we get 2x as many packs.
appeal // authority - probably not, but maybe in a real aggressive RG go-wide with maybe splash white? Definitely one that you aren't casting on 1 or 2.
chandra's defeat - hey, red's popular, if you board this in it's pretty great with doom.
claim // fame - I don't think this is great, but it's not that bad. You should have enough 1-2 drops that you'll hit something and have the upside of the back half, and it's easy to wait to cast, and on-color. Better still, it can trigger both 1 and 2! Talk about a sick T4 if you just traded your 2 drop and played doom. Eat your 3 drop for free and crush face please!
*crash through - sure it's bad air, but it's air that triggers doom, and doesn't cost a card, so I'd probably run it if I had doom.
*frilled sandwalla - meh, it's best T1 but it's ok afterwards I guess. Green seems like a bad pairing though.
gideon's defeat - same as chandras, except this isn't red.
*kindled fury - looks fine, decent trick you can sandbag until after doom pretty easily.
life goes on - not for long though.
liliana's defeat - see chandras and gideons.
*proven combatant - unless you need to slam this early to block, this works fine for a trigger and isn't terrible imo.
*traveller's amulet - this is kind of perfect to sandbag if you have enough lands and have a doom in hand. I'd run it if I had a doom, probably.
*unsummon - perfect.
That's 6 playable 1-drops at common, with a few more at uncommon, in a small set, which means roughly 10% of cards you'll see are playable 1-drops. If you were really trying to get as many as possible, you'd probably end up with a lot just in the first 2 packs. Not that you should do this, ofc, but just as an example.
So how many 1-drops are necessary to make imminent doom "go off"? I'm going to guess at around 6 you're triggering it very reliably as long as you don't topdeck it with an empty hand (and if you're flooded and holding a traveller's amulet or smth, i'd say hold onto it if there's a doom in your deck). I think 5 is still fine. At 4 it's starting to get dicey, and at 3 you should not play it. So can you reasonably get 5-ish 1 drops that you're happy to play? I think that's very reasonable if you're building towards it. There are a lot of 1-drops that are unexciting but either harmless or functional and you can almost certainly get as late picks - crash through, traveller's amulet, djeru's resolve, shed weakness, supernatural stamina, etc. I think as color pairs go, blue is exciting because of unsummon and (to a lesser extent) proven combatant, though looking at amonkhet there's a lot of good white options and a few black. And of course red alone has decent playables between magma spray, kindled fury, traveller's amulet, and kopesh (yes, I realize magma spray is like 5 tiers above the others but they're all playable).
OK, so all that over with, is Imminent Doom good? I think it's a build-around A. You can't always play it when you draft it. But I think when it comes out and works, it will be totally bonkers. I think when you get it early (or late, since I assume the always-follow-the-set-review-never-try-anything-innovative crowd will be passing it instantly...which means the potential to get multiples is low but definitely nonzero, if you started with 1 there's around a 25% chance someone else opened one too) you can prioritize 1-drops (a bit, I mean don't go insane and pick crash through over abrade or something) and get it working a solid percentage of the time, and then once it's going, I think it's very likely to win the game, even without the dreamland scenario of getting to trigger it for 5 or 6, which is still totally possible, especially with cyclers.
tl;dr: I don't think imminent doom should be easily dismissed. I think it has some real potential, and unless there's something that's unconditionally great, I'm going to be taking it fairly early and give it a shot.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'm sure there will be some decks where it's better than an F, but calling it a build around A seems ambitious. Drake Haven is a card that has the potential for that rating (although it didn't end up getting there due to AKH being a horrible aggrofest), and this card is clearly nowhere near as good as Drake Haven: both in terms of decks that can support it and the actual effect of the game.
First of all, Drake haven isn't a great comparison. Drake haven required that you cycle a card (1-2 mana under most circumstances for total air, or worse, cycling a card you otherwise wanted to play) plus pay 1. From a TEMPO perspective, that's not amazing. Sure, you get a 2/2 flyer for 2-3 with a cantrip, which is a great deal, but from a tempo perspective it's still just a 2/2 for 2-3, which is not the best at countering early aggression.
Doom doesn't require any additional mana to activate, and you're casting spells that (usually? not break through or traveller's amulet, but most of the others) do something on their own. Even if it's just a 1 or 2 drop, there's a big difference between getting a cantrip 2/2 flyer for 2-3, and playing a 2/2 that shocks a creature for 2 (or god forbid, a 3/2 that bolts a creature when it etbs) when you're trying to stabilize the board. Drake haven is great for a longer game, but for a short game, I'd happily take some board control built into my creatures instead of card advantage in a heartbeat. The absolute dream for drake haven is 2 2/2s on turn 4, whereas the dream for doom is 2 creatures/removal/cantrips and at least 1, maybe 2 enemy creatures dead. That seems much, much stronger to me, and the amount of deck warping is arguably less than drake haven.
Also, doom goes pretty well, potentially, INTO an aggro deck. Rather than running a bunch of do-nothing cantrips only in your deck to enable your one rare, you're running the 1-2-3 curve you wanted to run anyway, except now you're getting a sick payoff for it too.
In a control deck, it's a bit more like drake haven, in that cards like crash through are equivalent to bad cyclers. But there's enough cards that go fine into a control deck, either because they're air, or they're removal, or they cycle when you don't need them, or they're generally solid defensive 1-drops, that I don't think it's crazy to end up with 6 1-drops even in a control deck. Even then, though, at least you're not paying for the trigger. And while the first trigger is unexciting, the second trigger is probably better than a 2/2 flyer vs aggro, and the third+ triggers are all totally insane, and not unrealistic at all.
As far as "your opponent is aware of it and can counter it"...counter it how exactly? By never playing their 1-3 drop creatures? That sounds....good for me? By keeping up mana for pump spells...also sounds good for me? Plus they've probably already played their most vulnerable creatures. And it's super plausible to stack the 1 and the 2 damage, so even a 3-toughness creature isn't safe. It even triggers on cast so there's (almost) no way to stop it going off. And once you're up to 3-4 counters...basically nothing they play is safe ever. If doom always stopped on 2 it would be meh-bad, even if it always triggered. But I think 3 is fairly easy with the right curve and already great, and your opponent will just be forever living in fear of a 4-drop.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
A deck needs more than 2 1-drops to have a reliable chance of actually getting the first (and therefore any) trigger. Generic midrangey and control decks would likely never get anything out of this card. To reliably get triggers, you need a high enough percentage of 1 and 2 cost cards that you'd be able to cast them in that order even after dropping this turn 3 or later. Sure, some decks satisfy that condition. The problem is that decks that have many 1-drops don't want a 3 cc slow grindy enchantment. They want cards that create immediate pressure. That means that this card doesn't slot into slow grindy decks and it doesn't slot into fast low curve decks. You'd have to build the entire deck around this card to run smoothly, and the deck might be very bad without it, so you'd need at least 2 copies of it in the deck. That means, ideally, opening 2 copies early in pack 1 and then sculpting your entire draft to optimize the triggers. Maybe then it'll be very strong. The other 99% of the time this just doesn't fit into decks.
I agree you need at least (imo) 5+ 1-drops to run it. That said, there are a decent number of common (and uncommon) 1-drops that are playable even in a control deck. And as for aggro decks, I don't think i'd discount the power that an enchantment like doom can offer for a fast curve out. It doesn't cost mana to activate and it can clear blockers or just go face. If you're running 6+ 1 drops and 6+ 2 drops I doubt you'd want to cut this. Immediate pressure is preferable I suppose, but even a (non-haste) creature isn't "immediate". This threatens removal of blockers on the next, and all future turns. That's sure to be "pressure".
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I used Drake Haven as an example of how powerful a 3 mana do-nothing enchantment needs to be in order to even be considered as an A rating. I agree with you that in the ideal case, this card will outtempo drake haven, but that case will very infrequently happen.
This card requires far more deck warping than Drake Haven: this statement is crazy to me. Drake Haven is a blue card that wants a ton of cyclers. There are many blue common cyclers that fit a control plan well, and the haven wants you to control the board. While you need to prioritize cyclers more highly, there are a ton of cards that enable drake haven and fit the controlling strategy that Drake Haven is trying to accomplish. This card, on the other hand, is completely the opposite of that. First, the card is a 3 mana do nothing enchantment in red, and given how red wants to be aggressive in every single format in the past however many years, there's an inherent issue with trying to fit this in any red deck (more on that later). Second of all, you're going to be forced to play a bunch of mediocre cards in order to reliably trigger it. The only red 1 drops in HOU are kindled fury and crash through. Crash Through is a fine enabler, Kindled Fury is complete garbage since a smart opponent would just play around it on turn 4. You can argue that you can just hold it for later, but that throws off your subsequent turns since you most likely don't have a 2 drop at sorcery speed to play. You mention 6 common 1 drops in HOU that are okay, but within specific color combos, UR is the only one that I could see working, since that has 4 1 drops (+ the ammy) that might be able to be played on turn 4 without losing horrendous value, so any decks with this card are probably limited to that.
Think about this some more: if you curve 1-2-this card, then you're going to be down a 1 drop and 2 drop to play on turn 4 after playing this card, which is very likely since now you need 2 1 and 2 drops in your hand by turn 4. There are going to be many games where you only have 1 1 drop or 1 2 drop in your hand and this card, then what? Are you going to hold off on playing your 1/2 drop in an aggro deck to get value out of this card later? Such a deck would need at least 6 1 drop and 8 2 drops to consistently guarantee having 1 1 drop and 2 2 drops + this in your hand, at which point you're not going to get that many 4+ drops to get ridiculous value out of it. You can argue that you only need to get to 3 for this card to be good, but that comes at a very large drafting and deckbuilding cost which I can't see being worth it in an aggro deck.
There is a large cost to putting 6 1 drops in a control deck, and I'm not even sure what 1 drops you're talking about that fit well in a control shell. Kindled Fury is terrible in control, Crash Through is very mediocre but you need to play it to get enough 1 drops. Blue is the closest thing to having control 1 drops, and Unsummon is a terrible control card, and a 6 mana 4/4 in Proven Combatant is far from a good card. Also regarding Drake Haven, that card's strength is how it gives you inevitability and doesn't require you to play a bunch of terrible 1 drops in your deck. While this card can give you a ton of value throughout the game, the deckbuilding requirements of this card makes your overall deck far worse in a long matchup, which you can't really see from a direct comparison. Some sort of control shell will probably be where this card can shine, but it's hard for me to imagine a decklist where enabling this card is better than just drafting more consistent cards, since you sacrifice a lot of value in order to make this work.
Your opponent has a 4 mana 3/1 flier in hand, and you play this card. They choose not to play the flier and play something else instead so you don't get value out of the 1 damage ping. Sorry for using the word "counter", which is misleading: "play around" would have been the better choice. I'm not saying playing around this greatly nullifies the card, but if the ping doesn't kill a creature, then it's that much harder to get value out of this card.
Again, I'm not saying that this is an F in all situations: there are definitely specific draws in decks where this is an A card. It's just that those scenarios seem very rare and require you to build your deck in a very suboptimal way, so it's really hard to believe that this card will be good. I strongly encourage you to live the dream and try to build a deck around these: I hope I'm proven wrong and it actually ends up being a sleeper hit since I love off the wall strategies: it just has a ton of things stacked against it that I think this is more of a pyroconvergence than a Spider Spawning
With aggro, I think the warping is pretty close to zero. You already wanted to play 1-drops, most likely.
As far as playing it in an aggro deck - I'd think that, if you have doom in hand and only 1 1-drop, that's the only time you sandbag it. If you don't have doom you don't, and it doesn't affect your play at all. If you have multiples, no problem there either. Sure, sometimes you'll play your only 1-drop then topdeck doom, but that seems like an acceptable risk for the power level, and you always have the possibility of getting another 1-drop later.
Personally I think proven combatant is mediocre but ok. a 1/1 for 1 is good tempo-wise, even if it's horrible value, and the back half is great value but horrible tempo. Not amazing but I think it'll do enough work. scares off 1-toughness blockers, chumps as necessary, then comes back when you're out of business as a significant board presence. Seems playable if not great, C- or so (which, as I just checked, is what LSV says too).
Kindled fury is I don't love for control but I think it's not wholly unplayable. If it's the difference between having enough 1-drops to enable doom and not, though, I'd probably try it. Defensively I don't like using tricks, but if you can force your opponent to either lose combat or spend their turn on a combat trick/removal to 2-for-1 vs your crappy creature and your crappy enabler, that seems not horrible to me. Plus, this is still red, so even a "control" deck is likely to have some aggressive potential if the opponent stumbles at all.
I'm definitely curious to try it out. It's very tough to evaluate, and maybe it will be too rare to be useful, but I do think people should be a lot more hesitant to dismiss it. If nothing else, it's almost certainly great in the dream scenario where you get 3x magma sprays and some traveler's amulets or something.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I thought it was clear my points stood in spite of them.
Aggro doesn't want it.
The curve is right, the tempo is wrong. Aggro doesn't want to have to sandbag a 1 drop, 2 drop and 3 drop in order to make optimal use of this card. It wants to dump its hand as fast as possible, so it may not have those drops left by the time this hits. It may be in topdeck mode. Aggro also needs its higher cost cards to have an immediate effect, not do something in future turns. Aggro needs to finish the game early, not develop incremental card advantage. Aggro would much rather pay 3 to play a creature (increases army size) or Open Fire (kill something now) than tap out for this, which does nothing this turn.
Consider this. Would aggro want a card that said "2R: If you have 3 cards of CMC 1, 2 and 3 each left in your library, you win the game in 7 turns"? Probably not. Even though it satisfies those conditions and fits the curve, aggro has no interest in the game lasting that long. It would prefer cards that help now. The curve is right, but the tempo is wrong.
Yes, it's pretty crazy. How often do you end up drafting a control deck with 6 1-drops without intentionally building your whole deck around one card? Most control decks have a higher curve. 0-2 1-drops, which isn't enough for this to trigger consistently.
Like I said in my other comment, IF you draft to build around this early, it's possible. However, you'd be drafting a deck so radically different from most normal control decks that it would really need Doom in play to be worth using this deck over other decks. The deck would suck without it, because it'd have curve filler instead of cards you'd normally play in control. Even if the filler cantrips or cycles, it costs tempo and mana to dig through your deck instead of interacting with the aggro attackers coming at you. For this deck to be worth building, you'd want more than one Imminent Doom, so that you have one in play often enough to justify building around it. You wouldn't draft a control deck with 6 1-drops without already having Doom. So, like I already said, you'd need to draft 2 Dooms very early to consider going this way. That's a niche case. The rest of the time, the card seems awful.
No it doesn't. Because most of the time you are not going to topdeck in the following order: 1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop.
If you topdeck a 2-drop before the 1-drop, you're going to have to wait until you have a 1-drop to play either of them, which costs you a ton of pressure by holding back cards in aggro. The same with drawing a 3-drop before a 2-drop or drawing lands. On any future turn where you don't topdeck the exact CMC you need, this threatens nothing and creates no pressure, whereas a 3-drop creature at least creates consistent pressure every turn its alive.
To make this work, you can't rely on topdecks. You'll probably have to sandbag any 1-drop in your opener until Doom hits the field, so that you can guarantee you have a 1cc to start the chain. But that means holding back cards, which is bad in aggro, because you're giving up early game pressure to have some value later on. Even if you sandbag the 1cc, you might not topdeck a 2cc. So what do you do, not play your 2-drop on turn 2 and wait until this is out? Then you lose even more pressure! The problem is that to make Doom work, you have to make play decisions that make the aggro deck worse, losing pressure.
If you choose not to sandbag, then this threatens nothing on future turns. With 6 1cc in the deck and 1 already cast, you have approx 5/30=1/6 chance of drawing one. That means there's an 83% chance this threatens NOTHING on a future turn and creates 0 pressure. This card will continue to do absolutely nothing until you finally topdeck that 1 drop, which could take a while. Then it does nothing until you topdeck a 2 drop (or you sandbag one in between, losing pressure earlier). Every time you don't topdeck exactly what you need, the card does nothing. You have to draw both a 1-drop and then a 2-drop before it was even worth paying a card and 3 mana (which leaves you neutral on card advantage, but still behind on aggro tempo). Every other time you end in the red.
I think there are plenty of 1-drop cards that work well in aggro but don't come out turn 1. Any combat tricks, removal, even low-impact 1-drops like the 1/1 cat can probably be sandbagged without a big detrimental effect, should doom be in your opener. Sure, sandbagging a bloodlust inciter or similar is rough, but I think most 1-drops are worth holding if you know you're going to have an enabled doom.
Minor point, but doom always threatens to ping off creatures on future turns regardless of whether you sandbag your 1 drop. Even if you have no 1 drop in hand and are unable to ever activate doom, your opponent is going to play differently to avoid getting wrecked if you do have one or topdeck one, either by letting you bluff attacks through, or by playing different creatures to avoid getting pinged off. A threat is a possibility, not a guarantee. And you always have a possibility of activation. You could topdeck the right card, or (from your opponents POV) you might have one already.
I think when you take doom, it's a speculative pick. I don't think it's something you can always run. I think it's similar to a drake haven, with fewer enablers but a lower enabler requirement. In terms of the actual impact I think it's similar, maybe even higher if you get a bit lucky, and in terms of the percentage of "air" you're adding to your deck (barring dream scenarios where you have a handful of great control 1-drops) it's fairly similar. Drake haven underperformed in amonkhet but I don't think we should dismiss another build-around 3-drop enchantment as being totally unplayable right out of the gate.
What I think is getting ignored in large effect is the high ceiling this card represents. Once you get over the 1-mana hump, I think it's going to be very plausible to get this to 4 or 5 in a mid or long game, tempo of the format permitting. And the damage this puts out in those games is fairly insane. Like, definitely-was-going-to-lose-badly to won-in-a-landslide kind of insane. I don't deny that there will be games where this sucks, it is a fairly high variance card. But you have to look at the whole scope of possibilities when evaluating the card, and figure out what the probability of each result is.
What I don't know, and what is probably very difficult to know, is how the odds stack up. I think with the right deck the odds can be good to hit a 2-drop, and a 3-drop, but all those odds do stack together. With 5 each of 1, 2, and 3-drops you've got something like 90% odds on drawing each within a reasonable length (8 turns) game, but those do add up, even if they're good probabilities, and of course there's games where you draw doom after playing your 1-drop and then your odds are worse, etc. And of course there's also the question of how much it's going to hurt your draft to take cards like traveller's amulet and crash through over C-level playable creatures. I guess my point is, it's going to be pretty tough to figure out whether those odds add up to something usable or something not, and I don't think fixating on the fail case OR the success case really gets closer to the truth without either getting some statistics off modo a month down the line, or doing a bunch of rather tedious calculations.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The problem is I think Dirk is overestimating the probabilities that it works as desired, which explains our differences of opinion on viability. Try it out and post results, but my math suggests the cases where it is amazing are rare flukes and the median case is being a dud.
Source? Also the problem is that you may have played all of them before you draw this card. What's the probability you draw or still have one of each AFTER you draw this one card? If you play this on 3, your opener needs a 1cc spell (not Bloodlust Inciter/Slither Blade) and TWO bears (because you're going to play one bear on turn 1). What's the probability of having 2 bears AND the 1cc spell (non-attacker) AND Doom AND enough lands by turn 3-4? A lot lower than 90%. And that ignores the cases where you could mathematically do it but it's strategically wrong to play Doom instead of playing a creature or removal that turn.
If we're talking about getting Doom out past turn 3-4, you won't have most cards left from your opener, so you'll have to topdeck that 1cc, 2cc and 3cc. The chances of seeing at least one of each by turn 8-10 might be high. What about drawing them in the right order? That's a huge factor. In half the cases where you topdeck all three of a 1, 2 and 3 cost after playing Doom, you will draw the 3cc before the 1cc (assuming 5 of each). In half the cases you draw the 2cc before the 1cc. Simple combinatorics suggests there's only a 1/6 chance (3! = 6) that you topdeck these cards in the right order (1 then 2 then 3) once you cast Doom. The other 5/6 of the time you draw them in the wrong order.
If Doom is out with 1 counter and you draw a 3 drop, do you not play it until you've found a 1cc and 2cc? If so, you're giving up tempo and board presence. If you play everything when you'd normally play it, you'd have to wait until you draw another 3 drop after you've drawn the 1 drop and then the 2 drop. The probability of that is much lower than 90%, because you'll likely need to draw more than one of each before it happens.
Do the math or try it out and see what happens. There's a good reason LSV and others are writing this card off though.
They knew Drake Haven would be a potential build-around, but also knew Faith of the Devoted would be bad (which it was).
I could code up a simulator in Python to estimate the odds...
Me being 100% dead right and LSV being 100% dead wrong doesn't prove that I'm going to be right this time, granted, but credit where @#$@# credit is due.
Also, just to be clear, I'm not saying doom is an A-level bomb. I'm just saying I think it's a reasonable build-around, and if you get it early and get the right cards I think it'll be worth running, and potentially quite good. The upside is there.
My approximation about odds to draw cards is way simpler than you're talking about. All I'm saying is that you'll draw a card of that cost, not that you'll draw it after doom or that it won't be a bloodlust inciter or whatever. 35/40 * 34/39 * 33/38... = ~10% chance (EDIT: actually it's 8.074%) to not draw a card you have 5 of by turn 8 (on the draw, 9 on the play). Obviously real life cases are way more complicated than that, I'm just trying to get a general feel for the odds. Magic players tend to want to generalize the odds, but this is definitely a card where the exact specifics of your deck will be critical. The difference between a 90%, 95%, and 80% chance to draw the cmc you need is a pretty big deal towards making it work (or not). Obviously getting closer to the real odds would better, but it's also way more complicated. If you want to take a stab at it, be my guest. My point is mostly that it's not 50% or something really abysmal that would definitely disqualify doom from working. And 5 cards is pretty reasonable for 1, 2, and 3 cmc.
Ofc the card will create some tension in which order you play your cards. I assume in the case where you don't have a 1 or a 2 drop and you're holding a 3, you probably just play the 3. There are definitely cases where it won't do anything, but the same is true of drake haven and drake haven is still a decent build-around. I think it'd be a little ambitious to say that doom will be equal to drake haven, but I don't think it's all THAT far behind.
What rubs me the wrong way about how this card is being evaluated is that no one (afaik) is really doing the work to make an informed decision. Everyone rating is just going with quick pithy arguments, like "well, you'll never have 1-drops in control" or "enchantments suck in aggro". This is not an easy card to rate, and the specifics of how many control-playable 1 drops, how highly those are being picked, how many 1-drop creatures in aggro can be waited to turn 4 to play, etc are going to have a big role in whether doom works, and how often it works. Everyone just wants to look at it and go "nope, doesn't seem feasible" without really thinking it through with any kind of detail, and the card evaluation community is pretty cannibalistic in its opinions, in that it's rare for someone to go against the grain of common consensus to any significant degree, especially on complicated cards.
You know what this really, really reminds me of? The rogue quest in hearthstone, if you're familiar. Nearly everyone (including me, that time, I'm not always on-target, and hearthstone isn't my forte) said it was total trash, worst of the quests. Too much setup, payoff not good enough. And now it's nerfed for being absurdly overpowered and dictating most of the metagame. People are way too quick to dismiss complicated cards rather than do the hard work and figure out the particulars that are necessary for a real evaluation.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Most decks will just barely have a 1-drop if at all, lots of limited decks do not even have 1 drops.
Lots of them are also cards you really want to play early and not wait for your 3-drop enchantment to hit first, in which case the first 1 damage trigger will probably do almost nothing of value for you to begin with.
----
The card would work splendid if the set had a lot more playable Aftermath cards that either had a 1 mana back or front side, but thats sadly not the case, which would make triggering it much easier and keep you flexible.
The card only delivers if you draw multiple cards at exactly the moment you need them in that order.
This is a recipe for disaster and the card just turns out to be unplayable.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Overall, to be totally honest, I wasn't terribly impressed. I built the deck to work around it as best I could, but it still wasn't quite the ideal curve. The best cards I ended up getting were all 4-drops, which sorta screwed up the curve a bit. As an aggro deck, a lot of games I was terrified I'd draw it with an empty hand, but I don't think I ever actually did in those situations.
I did get a little shafted by other inexperienced players overvaluing (I think? imo?) traveler's amulet. Saw some that I could have taken pick 2-3 or something and neither wheeled. Played one of the players with them in the last round and their deck was pretty awful. Meh. Also only ended up with 5 2-drops, which was less than I would have liked. Ended up going 2-1.
Did go off with it (up to 4) once or twice. While it was powerful, it did force me to play some things at awkward times. combat tricks especially (the 1-drop variety) I'd end up just burning so I could get the doom engine going, because I wanted to play my only other 2-drop or whatever.
I think the card kind of dies the death of a thousand cuts to many small things needing to go right. With the right deck, you're likely to have each individual thing go right, but if any single one of them DOESN'T, then the card doesn't work well. I don't think it's totally insane to run it, but I don't think it's a card to prioritize or build too heavily around. Take it when there's nothing else you'd play in the pack, and maybe consider a few 1-drops in otherwise dead packs to maybe enable it. That's probably around where it's supposed to exist.
Still, that's only one test. I'll probably be trying it again before the format is over. One thing that does give it some legs - if everyone else considers it unplayable, you're much more likely to end up getting the second one It's definitely a card that's fun to try to make work.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
(Dream start for a Doom deck is probably T2 Firebrand Archer/Spellweaver Eternal, T3 Thorned Moloch/Bloodwater Entity, T4 Doom + Unsummon or Magma Spray.)
It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
That much said about magical Christmas land magic.
Should be a lifetime achievement awarded for that.
----
Yes the deck was terrible, but thats not the point ;P
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I'm not saying, that getting the right cards at the right time won't still be difficult, or that the cards I mentioned are good picks, but rather, that you are not limited to topdecks or holding back the right cards to make the Doom work.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
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
Pauper: Burn
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Marath, Will of the Wild - Ramp/Combo | Anafenza the Foremost - French | Uril, the Miststalker - Voltron | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Goodstuff
Ghost Council of Orzhov - Tokens | Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - Control | Isamaru, Hound of Konda - Tiny Leaders