MTG Salvation

True Conviction

Is it worth it?

I often found it to be a dead drop because I'd have more impactful things to do with my 6 mana. I took it out of my Gisela deck because it never did anything.

What do you think?

Quote from Monkey222 »

True Conviction

Is it worth it?

I often found it to be a dead drop because I'd have more impactful things to do with my 6 mana. I took it out of my Gisela deck because it never did anything.

What do you think?

It depends on the deck. I thought it was great in my Naya Enchantress deck and it worked pretty well in my Darien, King of Kjeldor deck (since it was all about dealing myself a bunch of damage). I also ran Academy Rector in both decks to help get to it/cheat it out.

However, I would never put it into my Gisela deck as they deck is trying to be fast enough that a 6 drop enchantment doesn't do enough. Obviously each build is different, but I would agree with cutting it from Gisela.

It can really help close out a game with Daxos. I have a friend who plays very casual decks and concedes on the spot if I'm playing Daxos and drop True Conviction. Definitely depends on the deck.

My whole playgroup recognizes it as a right and proper threat. Several decks including one of mine play it. I mean I can see how one could argue its lack of impact but if you have a board state conviction can end someone immediately.

It depends on the deck. As people have noted, it depends on the board state, etc. but the card itself ranges from "win-more" to "win-right-now." Very rarely is it a dead draw.

I like it in theory. I've never had a deck that I've thought it would fit though. I see it fitting in best in a token deck, maybe Darien or Odric.

Like a lot of cards, it suffers from being 6 mana in a game where you start off with 2-3 in your hand and draw another in one out of three turns. Most all cards cannot afford any conditions in addition to those in order to work. For this one, you need to have quite a few creatures out for it to be worth the mana.

If you do have that, have the mana, and get it to survive a while though, it gives you a good amount of return. It's just rare to see a situation where you are not too far behind to play it, and then you see nothing from the others that the table that needs any responses as it goes around either.

I stopped considering it as an inclusion. If you are playing a creature deck that goes wide, it can be good... but for something like Gisela, I think Silverblade Paladin, Battle Mastery and pretty much any other option is better.

Even in a go-wide deck, I am unlikely to include it. It does nothing, costs a ton of mana. If your opponents are wiping the board against your deck, it is a 6-mana do-nothing.

I feel like if you are going wide something like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte would be better. Mirror Entity too. I just don't picture the deck with a bunch of 1/1 tokens wanting True Conviction.. Maybe a hatebear deck? Monowhite midrange doesn't sound interesting to me, and once you add a second colour I think 6 mana enchantments get cut unless they are vital to the deck.

So... would mono-white hatebears want True Conviction? Maybe?

It's not terrible, but understand that it is rather low-power. I play it in my "everything wants lifelink" Tymna the Weaver/Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper deck and I use it as more of an Overrun effect. That is to say that I save it until I already have a boardstate and drop it when I plan to attack. If it sticks around, that's great, otherwise it's not a big deal.

I use it with my Nahiri, the Lithomancer deck, quite deadly with both go-wide and go-big strategies.

It's great when you curve out 1-5 and put this bad boy to finish the business.

It never worked out for me, personally. Double strike is an effect that goes best tall than wide, so on a card like True Conviction ("Anthem" of sorts in a way), it wants to go both tall and wide. Perhaps the player doesn't, but the card does and when other players do threat assessment on it, that's what they're anticipating (or fearing, but either way the results are the same).

If you do want to go tall and wide than it is no doubt good, but also without a doubt you probably built an intimidating board presence already and at best it's going to be a finisher of sorts (which does render the lifelink part moot for most part, but then again finishers can ignore that).

If you want to go tall only, there are probably cheaper options for both double strike and lifelink. If you care only about lifelink (for the long run), the double strike attracts too much attention. On paper, if you don't mind double strike on a weak wide army it would seem good since it's an "anthem" (and lifelink as a big bonus), but like I said, threat assessment usually doesn't end well on the other side of the table.

Basically, you must be able to utilize the double strike side of the card as much as possible, but that's certainly the side that's going to attract all the attention headed your direction. Although I suppose if you could utilize the lifelink as efficiently (to win the game), it wouldn't matter either, although I would favor more subtle approaches (like Vault of the Archangel if I had the luxury of being WB) a lot more.

Perhaps people have other experiences, but for me it's summed up to "attracts too much attention for something I can't utilize effectively immediately a lot of the time".

It's one of those cards that I always think I'll use, but then it gets cut:

Kemba, Kha Regent I ended up using Raksha Golden Cub instead. +2/+2 > lifelink

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim I use it here. It can actually be a useful as her first activated ability to gain life.

Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer Mostly I don't have room.

Derevi, Master Tactician Okay, I use it here, but be forewarned: It's hard to cast and keep UU open for a counter.

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic Okay, but most of my creatures already have lifelink. The only exceptions are things like Soul's Attendant.

Rith, the Awakener The other deck where I use it. The lifegain isn't much, but it's there.

Uril, the Miststalker It's an enchantment that grants double strike. That's the only reason I considered it.

Ghave, Guru of Spores I tried it in a lot of token decks. It's just not that good when your creatures dying often can be a game-winner.

Narset, Enlightened Master The "logic" here was "I get to draw eight cards each attack step." Then I realized Fireshrieker and Grappling Hook did the same thing without that WWW weight, which ain't cheap in Jeskai (or Mardu, or Esper).

Saskia the Unyielding Never use it in four- or five-color. I always want to make it work. Meh, I might try it in Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa and Silas Renn, Seeker Adept.

When I first built her, I thought she triggered on combat damage, because I couldn't see Wizards making something so monumentally busted as free spells triggered on attack in the modern era.

I run it in a Trostani Selesnya's Voice life gain and it works wonders. When I play it, either I win, a board wipe gets played, or it is destroyed. Besides, it is best used in either tokens or a deck that deals damage to itself.