This is among the more interesting cards in the set, and one of the cards I've seen the most divided opinions on so far. What are our initial thoughts on this thing?
I think the most productive way to think of Channel Harm is as removal, rather than a combat trick. The typical worst case scenario for this card is your opponent having some way to eliminate the targetted creature, whether through a sac outlet or spending their own removal spell, at which point it becomes a six mana Divine Verdict that really doesn't require that the creature you want to kill be attacking or blocking, just that something they control is. So, evaluating it as a soft removal spell with upside, I think it's very powerful. There will very rarely be a boardstate where you get to six mana and can't kill the thing you need to kill with it, so the major factor is whether a six mana removal spell is worth it. The jump from five mana removal spells like Reach of Shadows, which are already in the range of "reasonable removal, but expensive", to six mana is not insignificant.
Well it's still part removal, part combat trick. But yea, it's more towards removal. I love that it costs 6, coz no one sees it coming, and best of all they wouldn't expect you to block that scum of a deathtouch rat.
Wally, while you accurately describe the low end of what Channel Harm can do, you're forgetting that to turn it into "a six mana Divine Verdict" your opponent also has to use up an instant speed removal spell (unless they have an on-board sacrifice effect, in which case casting Channel Harm is just a bad decision). And there is also the upside of your opponent not having instant speed removal, in which case you are often able to gang block one or two creatures and target another. In either case, it seems to me that Channel Harm is usually a 2-for-1 at the least, which makes it much better than Rite of the Serpent and other "reasonable removal, but expensive" spells we've seen recently.
It's obviously a very late game trick. Having and keeping up six mana is a lot. It enables you to alpha strike, either by making all block unfair or avoiding the strike back. It can still backfire in those cases. Removal is removal, but this is so very conditional: your opponent must 'agree' to deal damage by attacking or blocking, the amount must be enough to get rid of whatever you wanted to remove, ... it's very low tier removal.
I think it's one of the most consistent 2-for-1's in the format. If the opponent attacks at all it's at least a 2-for-1, and on the offense the opponent usually has to take a bunch of damage to play around it. It's expensive, though.
One thing about using it on defense, it's a good idea to cast before blocking to make sure it resolves. Banking on it to save you from lethal is not always the best decision. On offense, it's a little easier, as you can make the play when the opponent is a little more tapped out.
This card is bonkers. A common scenario is just Divine Verdict, which is good, but it's not a reach for this to be a complete blowout game-winner. I attack with my three 4/4s and you one-for-one block each with your 6/7 and two 4/3s. I cast this and oh good all 3 of your creatures die and mine all live.
If I am setting up just a Divine Verdict effect and in response to this you cast a removal spell on your creature who was targeted, then he has lost two cards to your one which I call a good deal for me. If this is my opponent's attack, then I should probably do this before I announce blockers so that I would be able to adjust blocks in case the spell fizzles, although there are other factors which might make it better for me to cast this after blocks are announced.
You really never know what you're getting from Channel Harm. Consider the range of possibilities:
1) You're dead before you get to 6 mana. Unlikely but does happen sometimes, and that's the downside to 6 mana anything.
2) One-sided Fog + Destroy target creature, which seems to be the most likely way this will work and seems like a fair deal.
3) Complicated combat step at parity can make it Plague Wind. Requires your opponent to be pretty clueless and not understand the implications of 5W untapped so I wouldn't expect this to happen often or against decent competition.
4) It gets countered after you declare your blocks, or its target leaves play before it resolves, and you get blown out.
The good news is that even if your opponent tries to play around it, unless they have one of the counters in #4, there's not too much they can do. In that regard, it reminds me of Kheru Spellsnatcher. Once you untap with the 6 mana up, you're going to get some sort of value. (Spellsnatcher being a lot better scenario since it can't be countered but the general idea holds up.)
Note: The comment that "no one sees it coming" assumes no one ever learns anything and stays as clueless as they were at the prerelease forever. Much like Dragonscale Boon, ambush-style instants like this gradually get worse as the format goes on.
One thing about using it on defense, it's a good idea to cast before blocking to make sure it resolves. Banking on it to save you from lethal is not always the best decision. On offense, it's a little easier, as you can make the play when the opponent is a little more tapped out.
This is fantastic advice. With this card in hand I'd want to set up blockers to kill one or more of their creatures in addition to killing the creature targeted by Channel Harm. But if Channel Harm got countered either directly or indirectly by removal of the target creature in response, then I could be in a world of pain as my blockers get slaughtered as well. Casting this before declaring blockers seems like it has very little downside and a whole lot of upside.
There is one corner case to keep in mind when you've got Channel Harm - Wild Slash completely blows you out, even if you were smart and cast it before declaring blockers.
So I guess Public Execution is a very close comparison to the typical use case for Channel Harm. Harm has more potential for a complete blowout and some more versatility, and Execution is more dependable as a removal spell, but I think most of the time they probably do a very similar thing. And if everybody else remembers Public Execution the way I do, it was good, but not so incredible that as to be cost-insensitive (i.e., it's value went down a lot if you already had some expensive stuff).
After playing with this card I am a lot more sold on it. It's so, so powerful that the fact that it costs 6 is worth it. It gets better the more instants you have in your deck, since that makes it harder to play around. I wouldn't want too many 6 mana spells in my deck but being an instant definitely helps.
I had to play against a guy that had two last night and it is really difficult to play against. This is not a card you can really play around even when you know it's there. What are you supposed to do? Not attack? Yeah, that will win you a game really fast...
Yeah, it's important to remember that even if they kill your best creature with their six-mana spell, that's fair. I think that playing around Channel Harm, much like playing around Public Execution, is mostly a matter of avoiding the full blowout and accepting that they'll get to kill something with it. And unlike Public Execution, there may be cases with Channel Harm where you can still apply pressure without exposing your best creature to removal, though you're in pretty good shape if you have that luxury and taking that sort of line is probably too conservative unless you know they have it.
Yeah, it's important to remember that even if they kill your best creature with their six-mana spell, that's fair. I think that playing around Channel Harm, much like playing around Public Execution, is mostly a matter of avoiding the full blowout and accepting that they'll get to kill something with it. And unlike Public Execution, there may be cases with Channel Harm where you can still apply pressure without exposing your best creature to removal, though you're in pretty good shape if you have that luxury and taking that sort of line is probably too conservative unless you know they have it.
Any card that is going to force my opponent into these kinds of contortions is a good card. I was unenthusiastic about it when it was spoiled because of its cost but after having thought about it some more, the chances that it's going to cause blowouts is just too high to rate it anything less than a solid B. Yeah 6 mana is alot to keep up but keeping 5 up to threaten unmorph is pretty common anyway.
Channel Harm being an uncommon means that this is going to be one of the more annoying and frequent ways to get blown out, I expect.
Powerful combat tricks like this go well in a deck with other ways to use mana at instant speed (comment stolen from a recent LSV podcast). If you leave up 6 lands and one morph, your opponent just might think that you are ready to unmorph rather than ready to cast Channel Harm. That is one of the things I enjoy about having morph in the format, there are often plenty of things to do with mana even later in the game.
Yeah, it's important to remember that even if they kill your best creature with their six-mana spell, that's fair. I think that playing around Channel Harm, much like playing around Public Execution, is mostly a matter of avoiding the full blowout and accepting that they'll get to kill something with it. And unlike Public Execution, there may be cases with Channel Harm where you can still apply pressure without exposing your best creature to removal, though you're in pretty good shape if you have that luxury and taking that sort of line is probably too conservative unless you know they have it.
Any card that is going to force my opponent into these kinds of contortions is a good card. I was unenthusiastic about it when it was spoiled because of its cost but after having thought about it some more, the chances that it's going to cause blowouts is just too high to rate it anything less than a solid B. Yeah 6 mana is alot to keep up but keeping 5 up to threaten unmorph is pretty common anyway.
Channel Harm being an uncommon means that this is going to be one of the more annoying and frequent ways to get blown out, I expect.
Oh, certainly, I agree the card is good. I just mean that, provided you're not in too much trouble to begin with, it is often possible to limit your opponent's Channel to "respectable" rather than "devastating". And if you're ahead, depending on the board state, you can sometimes even sacrifice some tempo to force them into using Channel as suboptimal removal. But modest limitations like that don't mean it isn't very good.
Oh, certainly, I agree the card is good. I just mean that, provided you're not in too much trouble to begin with, it is often possible to limit your opponent's Channel to "respectable" rather than "devastating". And if you're ahead, depending on the board state, you can sometimes even sacrifice some tempo to force them into using Channel as suboptimal removal. But modest limitations like that don't mean it isn't very good.
Yeah sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't think it was a good card. It was more a general statement about the card, more in clarification of my own original evaluation of the card as "too expensive" than about your evaluation. Your description of how to play around it just caught my eye as the kind of thing that I really want my opponents to be doing to handle one card that I might or might not have in my hand.
The difficult part about handling Channel Harm is that your opponent can use it while he's crashing in. So I don't think this card is as simple as sitting back and attacking with one dude. This card is flexible.
And Public Execution is probably its mirror card for easy reference.
And Public Execution is probably its mirror card for easy reference.
I think in context Channel Harm seems better, if only because this is a set where 6 mana spells are cast with regularity. I think, but am not certain of this because I haven't played it alot, that M13 was alot faster than KTK/FRF and 6 mana was much more prohibitive.
Is FKK really that slow for you guys? Sealed, sure. But Draft?
Friday night I placed third with a Sultai Aggro deck, and 3 of the top 4 were solidly aggro strategies. I got to 6 mana one time all night but only because I couldn't find black mana and got stuck with all 4 of my black cards in hand. I lost that game the next turn. Had I found black the game would have been over even sooner. I've found that at my LGS anything above CMC 5 is more often a dead card than not.
I probably wouldn't play Channel Harm; I certainly wouldn't pick it highly.
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[center]AKA Leon What I'm Currently Playing: Vintage:UW Mentor Legacy:UG Infect Modern:UX MUD Standard: N/A
Oh no, I forgot about using this card on offense, I automatically think of Fog cards on defense. If my opponent attacks into me with 6 lands untapped, there's nothing much unusual about that, but if the attack seems unusual in that he is making seemingly non-profitable attacks then the warning lights will need to go up. It could be something other than Channel Harm, though, especially in FRF-KTK-KTK where there are other cards which could promote the attacks. This is going to be a tough card to play around as an opponent, I think.
I think the thing that makes it most difficult to play around is that it can punish you for playing around other tricks. Like, if your opponent telegraphs a trick by attacking some smaller creatures into your board of an untapped bomb and similarly small creatures, one way to beat the trick is to block with the smaller creatures, thus keeping your bomb out of combat and at worst trading your little dudes with either the trick or their dudes. But a properly set up channel harm at that point will kill your bomb, and also turn the trades into your creatures getting eaten. So yeah... attacks into or from six open mana really need to be wary of this card, I feel.
This is among the more interesting cards in the set, and one of the cards I've seen the most divided opinions on so far. What are our initial thoughts on this thing?
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
One thing about using it on defense, it's a good idea to cast before blocking to make sure it resolves. Banking on it to save you from lethal is not always the best decision. On offense, it's a little easier, as you can make the play when the opponent is a little more tapped out.
If I am setting up just a Divine Verdict effect and in response to this you cast a removal spell on your creature who was targeted, then he has lost two cards to your one which I call a good deal for me. If this is my opponent's attack, then I should probably do this before I announce blockers so that I would be able to adjust blocks in case the spell fizzles, although there are other factors which might make it better for me to cast this after blocks are announced.
1) You're dead before you get to 6 mana. Unlikely but does happen sometimes, and that's the downside to 6 mana anything.
2) One-sided Fog + Destroy target creature, which seems to be the most likely way this will work and seems like a fair deal.
3) Complicated combat step at parity can make it Plague Wind. Requires your opponent to be pretty clueless and not understand the implications of 5W untapped so I wouldn't expect this to happen often or against decent competition.
4) It gets countered after you declare your blocks, or its target leaves play before it resolves, and you get blown out.
The good news is that even if your opponent tries to play around it, unless they have one of the counters in #4, there's not too much they can do. In that regard, it reminds me of Kheru Spellsnatcher. Once you untap with the 6 mana up, you're going to get some sort of value. (Spellsnatcher being a lot better scenario since it can't be countered but the general idea holds up.)
Note: The comment that "no one sees it coming" assumes no one ever learns anything and stays as clueless as they were at the prerelease forever. Much like Dragonscale Boon, ambush-style instants like this gradually get worse as the format goes on.
This is fantastic advice. With this card in hand I'd want to set up blockers to kill one or more of their creatures in addition to killing the creature targeted by Channel Harm. But if Channel Harm got countered either directly or indirectly by removal of the target creature in response, then I could be in a world of pain as my blockers get slaughtered as well. Casting this before declaring blockers seems like it has very little downside and a whole lot of upside.
Any card that is going to force my opponent into these kinds of contortions is a good card. I was unenthusiastic about it when it was spoiled because of its cost but after having thought about it some more, the chances that it's going to cause blowouts is just too high to rate it anything less than a solid B. Yeah 6 mana is alot to keep up but keeping 5 up to threaten unmorph is pretty common anyway.
Channel Harm being an uncommon means that this is going to be one of the more annoying and frequent ways to get blown out, I expect.
Yeah sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't think it was a good card. It was more a general statement about the card, more in clarification of my own original evaluation of the card as "too expensive" than about your evaluation. Your description of how to play around it just caught my eye as the kind of thing that I really want my opponents to be doing to handle one card that I might or might not have in my hand.
And Public Execution is probably its mirror card for easy reference.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I think in context Channel Harm seems better, if only because this is a set where 6 mana spells are cast with regularity. I think, but am not certain of this because I haven't played it alot, that M13 was alot faster than KTK/FRF and 6 mana was much more prohibitive.
Friday night I placed third with a Sultai Aggro deck, and 3 of the top 4 were solidly aggro strategies. I got to 6 mana one time all night but only because I couldn't find black mana and got stuck with all 4 of my black cards in hand. I lost that game the next turn. Had I found black the game would have been over even sooner. I've found that at my LGS anything above CMC 5 is more often a dead card than not.
I probably wouldn't play Channel Harm; I certainly wouldn't pick it highly.
What I'm Currently Playing:
Vintage:UW Mentor
Legacy:UG Infect
Modern:UX MUD
Standard: N/A