Now if there is more than one in play they stack right?
EXAMPLE:
I have 3 sun droplets in play and my opponent Lightning Bolts me.
I take three, each sun droplet gets 3 counters. Then my turn i remove three counters, one from each and gain three life? Then his turn 3 life again. Then my turn three life again?
If thats how it works does anyone else not think this card is amazing. Casually im guessing?
Now if there is more than one in play they stack right?
EXAMPLE:
I have 3 sun droplets in play and my opponent Lightning Bolts me.
I take three, each sun droplet gets 3 counters. Then my turn i remove three counters, one from each and gain three life? Then his turn 3 life again. Then my turn three life again?
If thats how it works does anyone else not think this card is amazing. Casually im guessing?
You just described a scenario where-
1.) You have three of the same card out.
2.) You're playing against burn, one of the only decks that cares if you gain arbitrary amounts of life.
A lot of cards get nuts if you have multiple copies. Amulet of Vigor turns ETB lands like Creeping Tar Pit into potential Dark Rituals, if you have three in play.
If you play multiples of a card, you've dumped half your hand. You aren't really doing much towards winning the game, if your whole hand is life gain.
A normal deck that isn't bolting your face isn't going to mind the fact that you're gaining a lot of life. (Although double or triple sun droplets is frustrating.) As long as your life gain cards don't cause your opponent to lose the game, they aren't anything more than an annoyance.
Think of life gain this way. You have a chocolate cake. You have a six year old. Currently your six year old is twenty yards away from the chocolate cake, and your job is to stop him from eating it.
What security measures can you take? You'd never say, "well, I'll just move the cake thirty yards away. Or sixty yards. Or a hundred." A large enough number might stop the child, but mostly it is just going to delay the inevitable.
What about putting the cake under something heavy? Or behind lock and key? Or telling the child he has to pay for the cake? This is where cards like wall of denial and ghostly prison come into play.
This is a slightly better stall tactic, but... that kid is still getting through.
What about tying the kid up? This is why icy manipulator used to be worth moolah.
What about getting batman to deal with the six year old? This is where high utility cards like Jace, the Mind-Sculptor and Ajani Vengeant shine.
If you really, really want to eliminate the problem forever, the best solution is a proactive one. Eat the cake yourself. Get it taken care of, and then there will be zero risk of the child eating it. This is where sweet cards like lightning bolt and creatures come in handy.
To be fair, everything is relative. And that metaphor stopped making sense. Sun Droplet is a fine card in limited. It's not quite as good as a blocker, because you need to take the damage and then heal... but it is a cheap artifact, which allowed you to get your real game plan (affinity) going faster.
Sun droplet is one of the better nothing-but-lifegain cards ever printed, but... yeah, that's just not saying a whole lot.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
1) yes, they all trigger if you get dealt damage
2) i dont think is amazing when everyone should have a prerelease wurmcoil engine lying around. wurmcoil is pretty good at gaining life. if you have 3 wurmcoils in play, its really good, better than 3 sun droplet
But well, i did play that today. I had three out and was playing against burn. Its pretty amazing becuase after taking a few hits my opponent realized. "wait unless i attack with something thatll win. in a few turns hes gonna gain that back TIMES 3"
also im playing casually, so fun stuff like this happens. lol.
But after taking a hit and in a few turns seeing that hit triple what it did in postive life i thought "wow, that aint bad"
This made me lol...Jace is totally the Batman of Magic...
Anyway, I agree with Promatim, life gain only helps in certain cases and relying on 3 copies of the same card in a 60 card deck to be good is not going to help. Play cards to win, not to just stall death. Life gain is only good if you are doing other things, see Lightning Helix as an example or any lifelink card or something like that as a way to gain life but also gain utility out of your cards.
No one will knock you for being a casual magic player.
But. If you like cats, and lifegain. The best card that does nothing except gain you life is Pulse of the Fields. You should still really only side this in against burn, but man... it's hard to kill someone when they can just be like "EOT, go from 5 to 9. Untap, go to 13." And if they ever hit you again, it had better be with an earthquake, because otherwise you're just going to go back up to 4. The card might as well read "gain four life any turn where you need to."
Vs burn, it blanks cards. You will get burn and zoo players (good ones) who go, "in response, bolt myself," when you play this card. And you only need one.
I am afraid that it doesn't quite have synergy with Felidar... but neither should three sun droplets, unless your opponent doesn't read cards.
Oh, that's another thing. In the game where your opponent bolted you, he made a play mistake. Bolt basically read "6 life." You should always avoid evaluating cards based on a play mistake.
Sun Droplet is pretty powerful in multiplayer. I've been using it in my Mono-black control deck for quite awhile now. In a 4 player game, it basically means that any damage less than 4 that I take in a cycle of turns is negligible.
As a 2 drop, this can effectively stop anyone from attacking me early game as they know the damage will go to waste. In addition, Sun Droplet kind of "saves" my life. Many times I can deal with the problems through sweepers (or better yet kill a player or two) and the life that I lost slowly creeps back up.
And yeah, as the OP mentioned, Sun Droplet in multiples gets nasty unless your opponent has a severe advantage on you and is killing you quickly.
The card is only possibly good in casual, which, as a whole, is near impossible to evaluate from the outside because we do not know what cardpool is available to your play group or their level of skill.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Odds of pulling a JtMS from a WWK pack: 1:80
Odds of pulling any specific rare in 5th Edition: 1:133
So, on average, 1 JtMS every 2.222 boxes or 1 Bird of Paradise every 3.694 boxes. Yeah, I'll take my odds with Mythics, they are easier to get than old rares.
Want to support a LGS that finally branched into the selling online world? Send me a pm with your email for a $5 off coupon (usable on purchases of $10 or more) for a LGS that just recently got onto TCG player.
"Crovax Connections" does sound like a friendly corner store run by your local Ascendant Lord
I bet we have a case of Jon Finkel sleeping with the girl, then never calling her again and she going bat #%^% crazy and writing this article case closed.
First PTQ top 8 6/13/09(1st) Second PTQ top 8 10/7/09(5th) Second at national Qualifier 5/15/10
Third PTQ top 8 2/12/11 (2nd)
Second at Alberta 2011's
Fourth PTQ top 8 3/17/12(8th)
GP Vancouver 2012 (18th)
The card is only possibly good in casual, which, as a whole, is near impossible to evaluate from the outside because we do not know what cardpool is available to your play group or their level of skill.
All these people saying that it is "good only in casual" are wrong. They just haven't found the right plcae to put it yet.
In many burn EDH decks that use "Ankh" effects it is invaluable.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern (I collect the format):
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron WDeath and Taxes WSoul Sisters RWG Pod Combo URSplinter Twin URStorm RBurn
Its true, like i said very underrated. Its my girlfriends deck, but after a few game and her getting one two, and even three out in a few matchs i realized how intense they were.
I gave the deck a try, and lo and behold they pretty much won me the game, a HUGE help.
Then i started thinking how to make it even better. then i thought a W/B deck with life gain and Sanguine Bond
Imagine, two Sun Droplets out. with sanguine bond. You get hit with 3 damage. your turn. Gain 2, they lose 2. There turn, you gain 2 they lose 2. Your turn again, you gain 2 they lose 2. Its a great way to win is all.
All these people saying that it is "good only in casual" are wrong. They just haven't found the right plcae to put it yet.
In many burn EDH decks that use "Ankh" effects it is invaluable.
How is EDH not casual??? The only sanctioned formats it is currently legal in are Mirrodin block (which no one plays anymore and there are no high-level events with anymore), legacy (where burn is sort of a deck but jitte is usually better against it anyway and no one dedicates sideboard slots to burn because it's, to be frank, a bad deck in most metagames). And no, it does not seem playable in vintage.
I enjoyed all of this but I have a new question. It says if you do remove a counter you gain that much life. Does that have to be during an upkeep alone or can I use a card like thief of blood to remove all the counters and gain all that life at once?
Please don't necro years oöd threads. Also, we have a dedicated rules forum for questions likle yours.
Anyway. Sun Droplet allows you the removal of one counter during your upkeep when its trigger resolves to gain 1 life. That is also the only way to gain the life from the artifact. Removing the counters in any other qway will not gain you the life, at least not through the Droplet's ability. And since it is a triggered ability, that triggers only once per beginning of an upkeep, you can at most gain 1 life per turn from it. Unless a player gets more upkeeps (Paradox Haze) or you copy the trigger while its on the stack.
Now if there is more than one in play they stack right?
EXAMPLE:
I have 3 sun droplets in play and my opponent Lightning Bolts me.
I take three, each sun droplet gets 3 counters. Then my turn i remove three counters, one from each and gain three life? Then his turn 3 life again. Then my turn three life again?
If thats how it works does anyone else not think this card is amazing. Casually im guessing?
You just described a scenario where-
1.) You have three of the same card out.
2.) You're playing against burn, one of the only decks that cares if you gain arbitrary amounts of life.
A lot of cards get nuts if you have multiple copies. Amulet of Vigor turns ETB lands like Creeping Tar Pit into potential Dark Rituals, if you have three in play.
If you play multiples of a card, you've dumped half your hand. You aren't really doing much towards winning the game, if your whole hand is life gain.
A normal deck that isn't bolting your face isn't going to mind the fact that you're gaining a lot of life. (Although double or triple sun droplets is frustrating.) As long as your life gain cards don't cause your opponent to lose the game, they aren't anything more than an annoyance.
Think of life gain this way. You have a chocolate cake. You have a six year old. Currently your six year old is twenty yards away from the chocolate cake, and your job is to stop him from eating it.
What security measures can you take? You'd never say, "well, I'll just move the cake thirty yards away. Or sixty yards. Or a hundred." A large enough number might stop the child, but mostly it is just going to delay the inevitable.
What about putting the cake under something heavy? Or behind lock and key? Or telling the child he has to pay for the cake? This is where cards like wall of denial and ghostly prison come into play.
This is a slightly better stall tactic, but... that kid is still getting through.
What about tying the kid up? This is why icy manipulator used to be worth moolah.
What about getting batman to deal with the six year old? This is where high utility cards like Jace, the Mind-Sculptor and Ajani Vengeant shine.
If you really, really want to eliminate the problem forever, the best solution is a proactive one. Eat the cake yourself. Get it taken care of, and then there will be zero risk of the child eating it. This is where sweet cards like lightning bolt and creatures come in handy.
To be fair, everything is relative. And that metaphor stopped making sense. Sun Droplet is a fine card in limited. It's not quite as good as a blocker, because you need to take the damage and then heal... but it is a cheap artifact, which allowed you to get your real game plan (affinity) going faster.
Sun droplet is one of the better nothing-but-lifegain cards ever printed, but... yeah, that's just not saying a whole lot.
1) yes, they all trigger if you get dealt damage
2) i dont think is amazing when everyone should have a prerelease wurmcoil engine lying around. wurmcoil is pretty good at gaining life. if you have 3 wurmcoils in play, its really good, better than 3 sun droplet
But well, i did play that today. I had three out and was playing against burn. Its pretty amazing becuase after taking a few hits my opponent realized. "wait unless i attack with something thatll win. in a few turns hes gonna gain that back TIMES 3"
also im playing casually, so fun stuff like this happens. lol.
But after taking a hit and in a few turns seeing that hit triple what it did in postive life i thought "wow, that aint bad"
This made me lol...Jace is totally the Batman of Magic...
Anyway, I agree with Promatim, life gain only helps in certain cases and relying on 3 copies of the same card in a 60 card deck to be good is not going to help. Play cards to win, not to just stall death. Life gain is only good if you are doing other things, see Lightning Helix as an example or any lifelink card or something like that as a way to gain life but also gain utility out of your cards.
anyways lifegain isint to stall death either. I have a monowhite life gain deck where Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance reign supreme.
EDIT: Also the droplets arent relied on, just stall to get Kemba, Kha Regent to get lots of tokens out, then finish with Raksha, Golden Cub FTW
But. If you like cats, and lifegain. The best card that does nothing except gain you life is Pulse of the Fields. You should still really only side this in against burn, but man... it's hard to kill someone when they can just be like "EOT, go from 5 to 9. Untap, go to 13." And if they ever hit you again, it had better be with an earthquake, because otherwise you're just going to go back up to 4. The card might as well read "gain four life any turn where you need to."
Vs burn, it blanks cards. You will get burn and zoo players (good ones) who go, "in response, bolt myself," when you play this card. And you only need one.
I am afraid that it doesn't quite have synergy with Felidar... but neither should three sun droplets, unless your opponent doesn't read cards.
Oh, that's another thing. In the game where your opponent bolted you, he made a play mistake. Bolt basically read "6 life." You should always avoid evaluating cards based on a play mistake.
As a 2 drop, this can effectively stop anyone from attacking me early game as they know the damage will go to waste. In addition, Sun Droplet kind of "saves" my life. Many times I can deal with the problems through sweepers (or better yet kill a player or two) and the life that I lost slowly creeps back up.
And yeah, as the OP mentioned, Sun Droplet in multiples gets nasty unless your opponent has a severe advantage on you and is killing you quickly.
Certified Rules Advisor
Odds of pulling any specific rare in 5th Edition: 1:133
So, on average, 1 JtMS every 2.222 boxes or 1 Bird of Paradise every 3.694 boxes. Yeah, I'll take my odds with Mythics, they are easier to get than old rares.
Want to support a LGS that finally branched into the selling online world? Send me a pm with your email for a $5 off coupon (usable on purchases of $10 or more) for a LGS that just recently got onto TCG player.
First PTQ top 8 6/13/09(1st)
Second PTQ top 8 10/7/09(5th)
Second at national Qualifier 5/15/10
Third PTQ top 8 2/12/11 (2nd)
Second at Alberta 2011's
Fourth PTQ top 8 3/17/12(8th)
GP Vancouver 2012 (18th)
All these people saying that it is "good only in casual" are wrong. They just haven't found the right plcae to put it yet.
In many burn EDH decks that use "Ankh" effects it is invaluable.
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron
WDeath and Taxes
WSoul Sisters
RWG Pod Combo
URSplinter Twin
URStorm
RBurn
I gave the deck a try, and lo and behold they pretty much won me the game, a HUGE help.
Then i started thinking how to make it even better. then i thought a W/B deck with life gain and Sanguine Bond
Imagine, two Sun Droplets out. with sanguine bond. You get hit with 3 damage. your turn. Gain 2, they lose 2. There turn, you gain 2 they lose 2. Your turn again, you gain 2 they lose 2. Its a great way to win is all.
How is EDH not casual??? The only sanctioned formats it is currently legal in are Mirrodin block (which no one plays anymore and there are no high-level events with anymore), legacy (where burn is sort of a deck but jitte is usually better against it anyway and no one dedicates sideboard slots to burn because it's, to be frank, a bad deck in most metagames). And no, it does not seem playable in vintage.
Pain Lands are very good with it.
Fully-powered 600-Card "Dream Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/dreamcube
450-Card "Artificer's Cube" https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/artificer
Cubing in Indianapolis...send me a PM!!
QFT^n
One of the best things I've read on forum in a long while. Thank you :]
Also, quite lolsy analogy before that.
Anyway. Sun Droplet allows you the removal of one counter during your upkeep when its trigger resolves to gain 1 life. That is also the only way to gain the life from the artifact. Removing the counters in any other qway will not gain you the life, at least not through the Droplet's ability. And since it is a triggered ability, that triggers only once per beginning of an upkeep, you can at most gain 1 life per turn from it. Unless a player gets more upkeeps (Paradox Haze) or you copy the trigger while its on the stack.
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)