Similarly, Standard isn't really that impacted by Cage. Sure, Snapcaster decks will get irritated post-board and maybe have to find an answer to it, but there's not really a Tier-1 'graveyard' deck.
And the Cage has made sure there won't be. It's not really that surprising that there wasn't a Tier 1 graveyard deck with only 1/3 of Innistrad cards out yet. But for those who were looking forward to playing a fun themed deck, this card hoses those strats (gy, burn vengeance) at a cheap cost in any deck.
Tell black aggro decks how to play "around" light of day lol.
Light of Day is also a lame card that never should've been printed and there will almost certainly never be a similar card printed again. (although to answer the question, targeted discard, siding in artifact creatures or burn).
Pointing out a bad card doesn't justify another one, nor do I think Light and Day and Grafdigger's Cage are really different on hosing level.
Wizards is terrified of combo winter, but rather than do the hard work and make sure the set is balanced by adequate testing and revision, they've opted to go the easy way and given all the other decks a magic bullet in case combo ever gets decent - before it ever did. The card is just a product of fear and laziness. Well done, wizards.
I'll have to agree with you there. This card was a lazy print and just covers their butts JUST IN CASE they missed something. They want to pump out the sets and making designs like this helps them do that. It'd be nice if they would give combo a little wiggle room, but I get where you're coming from.
From a hosing perspective, I'm surprised this was just a one costing artifact and had no color to it like white or black that care about taking things out of graveyards.
I'll have to agree with you there. This card was a lazy print and just covers their butts JUST IN CASE they missed something. They want to pump out the sets and making designs like this helps them do that. It'd be nice if they would give combo a little wiggle room, but I get where you're coming from.
Well, considering that the last Tier 1 combo deck in Standard was a whole one set ago, I think they are giving it enough wiggle room.
my point was just to disarm the argument that Melira was ineffective against infect. She was useless because Dismember was so much better and way more flexible.
She was useless because even if Infect was a good deck, it would play around her without having to sideboard in a single card. She dies to doom blade, and even when she's on the table they can still swing away and deal normal damage- shes just like an undercosted lifegain, not turning off their mechanics and ability to cast spells. She was only available to a single color and none of the rest. Even without dismember, she would never have been useful as a hoser.
Now this card, in comparison, is not easy to remove for the decks that will face it. They will not be able to kill it in mainboard- they'll have to side in answers specifically for it, already putting them at a huge disadvantage- reactionary to reactionary, running even more narrow hosers to counter their wide-open hoser. Then they'll find it much harder to remove because while on the table, their deck cannot operate- you can't use dig spells like faithless looting and forbidden alchemy's flashback, you can't use pod's toolbox to search for an answer, you can't flashback a grudge- this 1 artifact protects itself. And while its on the table, it completely shuts down those strategies- they really can't win anymore than an aggro deck could get past a moat with a singleton inkmoth nexus. And this card is available to all colors, not just green, and doesn't give you the option to play around it.
The problem is that in the way as it is, Grafdigger Cage hurts many archtypes. If they wanted to make a card that locks down dredge and flashback, as well as persist and undying they could easily print something like this Tombstone 4
Artifact (R)
If a card would be put into a graveyard from the battlefield, exile it instead.
If a card would be returned from a graveyard into a player's hand or onto the batllefield, exile it instead.
That's it!
Horrible, no one would play with that janky ass card.
And if you're playing against dredge, by the time you have 4 mana you're already dead.
So where is the in block hoser for tokens? Considering how ridiculous they are going to be between Sorin and Vault. Oh that's right they only want to hate on strategies they aren't trying to force.
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BWhen hell is full the dead shall walk the earth.B
So where is the in block hoser for tokens? Considering how ridiculous they are going to be between Sorin and Vault. Oh that's right they only want to hate on strategies they aren't trying to force.
that addage may be true, but the problem is that it inherently makes GY-based decks a waste of time, because if they ever get close to competitive they can easily be beaten back down. Unless you're satisfied with playing a semi-competitive (at best) deck just to take the road less traveled, there's no reason to want to make a graveyard deck for competitive events.
Personally I think this is just lazy design. Rather than craft a graveyard based set that's balanced, they put a glass ceiling on how powerful graveyard decks can be - they can never be tier 1 because then this card will be omnipresent and they'll be crushed.
Wizards is terrified of combo winter, but rather than do the hard work and make sure the set is balanced by adequate testing and revision, they've opted to go the easy way and given all the other decks a magic bullet in case combo ever gets decent - before it ever did. The card is just a product of fear and laziness. Well done, wizards.
The other thing is, no matter how much they try to test beforehand, we're going to have millions of people tinkering with it for 2 years. They could put their best people on it for years and still not find everything that we could. This makes it certain that we don't have another combo winter. You can call it laziness if you like, I think they'd call it good business sense.
All that said:
#1. People should have seen this coming. Graveyard mechanics always need a solid check or they get out of hand. There's just no way around it.
#2. People should have seen this coming. Graveyard hate fits the theme just as much as graveyard manipulation. There's a reason black traditionally specializes in both.
Well, considering that the last Tier 1 combo deck in Standard was a whole one set ago, I think they are giving it enough wiggle room.
I really don't see why people consider combo to cover both unusual, synergistic decks focused around certain mechanics/cards, like vengeance, and 2-card instant-wins like exarch. Losing to exarch on turn 4 every game because a good hoser hasn't been printed would be very annoying for someone looking to have fun at an FNM. But losing on turn 15 after a tense back and forth with BV seems completely fair.
What, because there was an annoying deck 6 months ago that had a strategy that, though very dissimilar, shares an over-generalized archetype title with a deck that exists today, that deck can't be a viable tourney deck?
I've never seen wizards try to make aggro decks unplayable because they were the best in the last season. And exarch wasn't even really the best.
The other thing is, no matter how much they try to test beforehand, we're going to have millions of people tinkering with it for 2 years. They could put their best people on it for years and still not find everything that we could. This makes it certain that we don't have another combo winter. You can call it laziness if you like, I think they'd call it good business sense.
All that said:
#1. People should have seen this coming. Graveyard mechanics always need a solid check or they get out of hand. There's just no way around it.
#2. People should have seen this coming. Graveyard hate fits the theme just as much as graveyard manipulation. There's a reason black traditionally specializes in both.
#4. Graveyard mechanics still get to work, sideboard 4-of hate is still just 4 cards in 60 and you have the tools to get rid of it.
#5. This isn't going to do much to decks that use the grave as a subtheme, it just keeps things from getting out of hand, so who cares.
#6. People are really blowing this out of perportion.
#7. This also has a lot of other implications... dude put together a pretty good list.
I call it like I see it. If wizards can keep the game balanced for limited, a much harder challenge that standard imo, since you can't disregard 70% of the cards, then I think they can run a few playtests with some well-made combo decks and see if it stacks up. If they were worried about combo, then they shouldn't have printed combo-enabling cards.
1 - except that there IS no tier-1 deck that abuses the grave yet. and now they can't even be tier 2.
2 - yet this thing is colorless, not black. Making this cost 2-3 would have made it an acceptable hoser without making it nearly unanswerable for some decks.
3 - yes, much preferrable. It's expensive after the first turn, harder to tutor, and doesn't block what's already in the grave.
4 - and if you don't, you lose. and those anti-hate cards are otherwise wasted. And the decks, as mentioned, were never top-tier to begin with. If combo got to tier 1 and they printed this next set, fair enough. they killed it before it ever got a chance to fly.
So where is the in block hoser for tokens? Considering how ridiculous they are going to be between Sorin and Vault. Oh that's right they only want to hate on strategies they aren't trying to force.
Sorry I misspoke. I know nothing about Vintage. I was speaking strictly about Legacy, Modern and Standard because those are the formats in the "lime light".
Horrible, no one would play with that janky ass card.
And if you're playing against dredge, by the time you have 4 mana you're already dead.
FAIL
I saw dredge decks. They don't kill on the forth turn. Explain, please, how an average dredge deck can kill before one can get 4 mana, specially in legacy.
I seriously never understand the hardcore QQ over this card.
"but it's stupid hosing a block's mechanics within that block, especially when most of the colors that would use said mechanics won't have answers to it." Wait what?
Blue has answers, green has answers, red has answers, white has answers; it's not possible for that statement to be true. There is Ratchet Bomb as a possible answer too, when it wouldn't be if it cost 3. Not that Mono Black graveyard shenanigans was looking to be a viable deck anyways.
Just think if lorywn block had Engineered Plague? Would the fae have gotten out of hand? I think not. I aplaud wizards for making a hoser like this. I think that they obviously playtested these graveyard decks and felt that a hoser was needed
I saw dredge decks. They don't kill on the forth turn. Explain, please, how an average dredge deck can kill before one can get 4 mana, specially in legacy.
any decent hand should get you a kill by 3 if un interrupted, on a good hand by 1-2. guess it just depends if you are running LED's or not
To be honest, red is in quite a need for a good sweeper this block that doesn't destroy its strategy.
ok if you mean red as in RDW, you're winning with Shrine of Easy Button, not your dudes, so if you have to sideboard the Slagstorms for one match then boo-hoo.
if you're talking about RG or RU you can race with ramp and titans or just burn/counter their best stuff?
i didnt think red had problems dealing with small dudes in standard currently
Honestly the only decks that are going to struggle with this are black decks in standard, but even than they can easily splash red or blue in order to deal with it and Mental Mistep is still a card.
Every color has a way to deal with this card in Standard, and legacy dredge is better off being hosed by Leyline of the Void.
Mental Misstep isnt really that great in standard since its pretty slow these days, its great to counter a few key spells in a few good decks, but it wont answer this card all the time.
Itl stop gy decks for a bit, then people will stop playing them and play this less, then gy decks come back, the circle of playability
ok if you mean red as in RDW, you're winning with Shrine of Easy Button, not your dudes, so if you have to sideboard the Slagstorms for one match then boo-hoo.
if you're talking about RG or RU you can race with ramp and titans or just burn/counter their best stuff?
i didnt think red had problems dealing with small dudes in standard currently
I think he's talking about block constructed, where Blasphemous Act is the red sweeper. Red has sweepers in standard.
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And the Cage has made sure there won't be. It's not really that surprising that there wasn't a Tier 1 graveyard deck with only 1/3 of Innistrad cards out yet. But for those who were looking forward to playing a fun themed deck, this card hoses those strats (gy, burn vengeance) at a cheap cost in any deck.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
Light of Day is also a lame card that never should've been printed and there will almost certainly never be a similar card printed again. (although to answer the question, targeted discard, siding in artifact creatures or burn).
Pointing out a bad card doesn't justify another one, nor do I think Light and Day and Grafdigger's Cage are really different on hosing level.
I'll have to agree with you there. This card was a lazy print and just covers their butts JUST IN CASE they missed something. They want to pump out the sets and making designs like this helps them do that. It'd be nice if they would give combo a little wiggle room, but I get where you're coming from.
From a hosing perspective, I'm surprised this was just a one costing artifact and had no color to it like white or black that care about taking things out of graveyards.
JAMMIT DIM! I'm a DOCTOR not a DECKBUILDER!
She was useless because even if Infect was a good deck, it would play around her without having to sideboard in a single card. She dies to doom blade, and even when she's on the table they can still swing away and deal normal damage- shes just like an undercosted lifegain, not turning off their mechanics and ability to cast spells. She was only available to a single color and none of the rest. Even without dismember, she would never have been useful as a hoser.
Now this card, in comparison, is not easy to remove for the decks that will face it. They will not be able to kill it in mainboard- they'll have to side in answers specifically for it, already putting them at a huge disadvantage- reactionary to reactionary, running even more narrow hosers to counter their wide-open hoser. Then they'll find it much harder to remove because while on the table, their deck cannot operate- you can't use dig spells like faithless looting and forbidden alchemy's flashback, you can't use pod's toolbox to search for an answer, you can't flashback a grudge- this 1 artifact protects itself. And while its on the table, it completely shuts down those strategies- they really can't win anymore than an aggro deck could get past a moat with a singleton inkmoth nexus. And this card is available to all colors, not just green, and doesn't give you the option to play around it.
Horrible, no one would play with that janky ass card.
And if you're playing against dredge, by the time you have 4 mana you're already dead.
FAIL
There is better GY hate out there than this, so from a GY perspective, this is inferior.
Um, no, because this is significantly weaker than that. You can't Ancient Grudge a Creeping Corrosion.
It's the least they can do at this point...
No it isn't. The card sees substantial play in Vintage.
its called sweepers and Ratchet Bomb
The other thing is, no matter how much they try to test beforehand, we're going to have millions of people tinkering with it for 2 years. They could put their best people on it for years and still not find everything that we could. This makes it certain that we don't have another combo winter. You can call it laziness if you like, I think they'd call it good business sense.
All that said:
#1. People should have seen this coming. Graveyard mechanics always need a solid check or they get out of hand. There's just no way around it.
#2. People should have seen this coming. Graveyard hate fits the theme just as much as graveyard manipulation. There's a reason black traditionally specializes in both.
#3. Would you have rather they kept Leyline of the Void around?
#4. Graveyard mechanics still get to work, sideboard 4-of hate is still just 4 cards in 60 and you have the tools to get rid of it.
#5. This isn't going to do much to decks that use the grave as a subtheme, it just keeps things from getting out of hand, so who cares.
#6. People are really blowing this out of perportion.
#7. This also has a lot of other implications... dude put together a pretty good list.
If you hate the deck, I'm probably playing it!
To be honest, red is in quite a need for a good sweeper this block that doesn't destroy its strategy.
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I really don't see why people consider combo to cover both unusual, synergistic decks focused around certain mechanics/cards, like vengeance, and 2-card instant-wins like exarch. Losing to exarch on turn 4 every game because a good hoser hasn't been printed would be very annoying for someone looking to have fun at an FNM. But losing on turn 15 after a tense back and forth with BV seems completely fair.
What, because there was an annoying deck 6 months ago that had a strategy that, though very dissimilar, shares an over-generalized archetype title with a deck that exists today, that deck can't be a viable tourney deck?
I've never seen wizards try to make aggro decks unplayable because they were the best in the last season. And exarch wasn't even really the best.
I call it like I see it. If wizards can keep the game balanced for limited, a much harder challenge that standard imo, since you can't disregard 70% of the cards, then I think they can run a few playtests with some well-made combo decks and see if it stacks up. If they were worried about combo, then they shouldn't have printed combo-enabling cards.
1 - except that there IS no tier-1 deck that abuses the grave yet. and now they can't even be tier 2.
2 - yet this thing is colorless, not black. Making this cost 2-3 would have made it an acceptable hoser without making it nearly unanswerable for some decks.
3 - yes, much preferrable. It's expensive after the first turn, harder to tutor, and doesn't block what's already in the grave.
4 - and if you don't, you lose. and those anti-hate cards are otherwise wasted. And the decks, as mentioned, were never top-tier to begin with. If combo got to tier 1 and they printed this next set, fair enough. they killed it before it ever got a chance to fly.
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
Sorry I misspoke. I know nothing about Vintage. I was speaking strictly about Legacy, Modern and Standard because those are the formats in the "lime light".
JAMMIT DIM! I'm a DOCTOR not a DECKBUILDER!
I saw dredge decks. They don't kill on the forth turn. Explain, please, how an average dredge deck can kill before one can get 4 mana, specially in legacy.
Blue has answers, green has answers, red has answers, white has answers; it's not possible for that statement to be true. There is Ratchet Bomb as a possible answer too, when it wouldn't be if it cost 3. Not that Mono Black graveyard shenanigans was looking to be a viable deck anyways.
having their abilities stopped and not being able to search for the creature at all are pretty different. this card stops alot of things.
dredge, reanimator, maverick, NO-anything, pod, and really any deck that trys to cheat things into play beyond the norm get hurt by this card.
will it see play? in older formats it will, if snapcaster or pod become a huge problem it may see play in standard.
any decent hand should get you a kill by 3 if un interrupted, on a good hand by 1-2. guess it just depends if you are running LED's or not
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DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
ok if you mean red as in RDW, you're winning with Shrine of Easy Button, not your dudes, so if you have to sideboard the Slagstorms for one match then boo-hoo.
if you're talking about RG or RU you can race with ramp and titans or just burn/counter their best stuff?
i didnt think red had problems dealing with small dudes in standard currently
Every color has a way to deal with this card in Standard, and legacy dredge is better off being hosed by Leyline of the Void.
Standard
WUW/U HumansUW
Modern
WBW/B TokensBW
Itl stop gy decks for a bit, then people will stop playing them and play this less, then gy decks come back, the circle of playability
I think he's talking about block constructed, where Blasphemous Act is the red sweeper. Red has sweepers in standard.