Target opponent discards two cards at random, then draws a card.
This is a modal twist on Thrill of Possibility and Hymn to Tourach. Worse than either individually, but the choice makes for an interesting uncommon design I think.
Beyond standard this looks fine. I don't know if it's actually good enough to see play. As for standard, bad hymn is still way too good. Though if it dropped the random it might be possible. Random cheap discard is just too potentially powerful.
I don't play standard, but I'm still not sure I agree. Even with the instant speed upgrade of this over Hymn to Tourach - this design allows the opponent to draw a card afterwards when the "Hymn" mode is chosen which makes this significantly less powerful then Hymn.
I don't play standard, but I'm still not sure I agree. Even with the instant speed upgrade of this over Hymn to Tourach - this design allows the opponent to draw a card afterwards when the "Hymn" mode is chosen which makes this significantly less powerful then Hymn.
The problem is the random aspect of the discard and draw. In a non zero number of game the effect will be "target opponent discards all of their lands and doesn't draw any for one or more turns" which is essentially they lose the game if done on turn two.
This is the flaw with random discard and why it isn't done on cheap accessible effects.
I don't play standard, but I'm still not sure I agree. Even with the instant speed upgrade of this over Hymn to Tourach - this design allows the opponent to draw a card afterwards when the "Hymn" mode is chosen which makes this significantly less powerful then Hymn.
I completely missed that it’s an instant. Yeah, that’s super too powerful.
Like user said, the problem with it is the small but significant percentage of games where you hit on turn 2 the lands your opponent needed to play on their turn 2 and 3 to be able to play out their hand, effectively timewalking them for multiple turns. The added draw reduces that slightly, but a random chance to make your opp not play magic is just unfun.
Suspect there's an amount of math I am disinclined to do needed to determine whether or not this card would be standard printable. Assuming a 5 card hand where 2 are lands - there's a 40% chance of hitting one of those lands and then only a 25% chance of hitting the 2nd land. A probability calculator tells me that this results in an overall 10% probability of an opponent losing both of their lands. Then they have a 40-45% chance of drawing a land back. So very small percentage of games, but not zero, where this would temporarily land-screw an opponent.
I'm curious as to how instant speed causes this effect to be a problem whereas it seems you think this effect would be okay as a sorcery? I thought the speed of the spell was more significant with regards to the first mode since Thrill of Possibility is much better than Tormenting Voice.
Edit: What if the second ability read and then draws a card for each land card discarded this way? Doesn't completely eliminate the issue, but in the event of randomly hitting two lands, they are drawing two cards (one of which is likely a land). Also occasionally makes this card into a more powerful Hymn which is kind of spicy.
Assume your opponent kept a 3 land hand with multiple 3-4 drops. You randomly make them discard even one of those lands and you might have completely stopped them from playing magic. That’s why Hymn is banned in pauper, because it’s ability to randomly hose someone out of multiple turns of play. The redraw does a little mitigation, but the random discard is extra rough if they hand to mulligan to 6 or 5 to barely have something playable.
Instant speed targeted discard is generally avoided because it can be cast after an opponent has drawn for the turn but before their main phase to remove whatever they drew. Less an issue here again due to the redraw, but still something to be careful of.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Instant (U)
Choose one --
This is a modal twist on Thrill of Possibility and Hymn to Tourach. Worse than either individually, but the choice makes for an interesting uncommon design I think.
This is the flaw with random discard and why it isn't done on cheap accessible effects.
I completely missed that it’s an instant. Yeah, that’s super too powerful.
Like user said, the problem with it is the small but significant percentage of games where you hit on turn 2 the lands your opponent needed to play on their turn 2 and 3 to be able to play out their hand, effectively timewalking them for multiple turns. The added draw reduces that slightly, but a random chance to make your opp not play magic is just unfun.
I'm curious as to how instant speed causes this effect to be a problem whereas it seems you think this effect would be okay as a sorcery? I thought the speed of the spell was more significant with regards to the first mode since Thrill of Possibility is much better than Tormenting Voice.
Edit: What if the second ability read and then draws a card for each land card discarded this way? Doesn't completely eliminate the issue, but in the event of randomly hitting two lands, they are drawing two cards (one of which is likely a land). Also occasionally makes this card into a more powerful Hymn which is kind of spicy.
Instant speed targeted discard is generally avoided because it can be cast after an opponent has drawn for the turn but before their main phase to remove whatever they drew. Less an issue here again due to the redraw, but still something to be careful of.