In my meta, the words "I will attempt a prophet" are nearly always followed by a cacophony of responses. If the prophet ends up resolving, there is a HUGE target on the head of the caster.
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A mirror, a shield, a promise, a great distance, and a kind word-- five ways to avoid harm.
I have found that it warps the game around it once it is cast. First, everyone looks at each other to see if anyone can counter it. If nobody can, it comes into play and immediately after, everyone looks at each other again to see if anyone can kill it. If nobody can, the game then goes heavily in favor of the prophet player. Also in either of these cases, if the PoK player has a counter spell, then you gotta hope for another person to be able to do something about it. I know at least in the metas I have played in, PoK rarely gets played with nothing at all to protect it.
It's just another permanent that can sometimes win if you don't kill it in a turn or two. There are so many of these. Almost nobody in casual EDH wants to race OR run removal, so it's no surprise that cards like this tend to win.
Seriously, it's a 2/3 for 5 mana. Not that difficult to deal with.
The part I hate isn't that they can protect it, it's that they can cast something like Clone at instant speed to prevent you from actually doing anything about it short of a board wipe.
Quit being a crybaby and kill it. Yes it's strong but it's really no different than Deadeye Navigator, another highly complained about card. Just kill it. If you can't then you need to consider your deckbuilding strategy .
I have several EDH decks. Only a couple (maybe one?) run Prophet. When I play it, I am hoping to use it a couple of times before it eats removal. It ALWAYS eats removal. If I get a couple of uses, I'm happy. But that's why I don't run it just everywhere. It has to fit the theme of the deck.
Whenever I play Prophet, nothing really changes much. Sure, I get extra mana and my stuff untaps, but my opponents are usually more solitaire-like with their decks, so it mostly acts as just "And untap" each turn.
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A giant dork. Who likes to eat with forks. Never used a spork.
Decks: Casual R Burn R
EDH R Godo Voltron R RUG ETB Overload RUG BW Clerics Pain and Drain BW GW Spirits!!! GW RUG Landfall Silliness RUG
It's just another permanent that can sometimes win if you don't kill it in a turn or two. There are so many of these. Almost nobody in casual EDH wants to race OR run removal, so it's no surprise that cards like this tend to win.
Seriously, it's a 2/3 for 5 mana. Not that difficult to deal with.
it becomes a target the minute it hits the field, and it either lets you do a few things earlier than you were going to, or it dies. i've yet to see it break a game without some already game breaking cards ready to hit the field anyway. while i do see it just about every g/u/x deck its definitely been something that gets answered quickly and then forgotten about. the people that complain the loudest about it tend to be the ones who won't run single target removal.
I came in expecting rage. Not quite satisfied yet.... Just kidding.
PoK in EDH reminds me a little of Tarmogoyf in that removal dies to it. It's a card that forces your opponents to react instead of playing pro-actively, which is phenomenal against decks that have low levels of interaction. Also, forcing out removal for a 2/3 is great when you are sitting on a wincon in your hand that you're afraid will get blown up.
I don't think the card is a problem myself... but I made the mistake of building Derevi for my kids, whom I regularly play against, and I can see where some people find it annoying. And it's not even a Bant pillow-fort lockdown, it's an in-your-face ramping aggro that can beat you down from 40 life in 8 turns and still keep most of the board locked down from ETB effects.
Sure you can remove PoK. And they can recur it. You can remove it again, and they recur it again. The same decks that run Prophet also have access to Eternal Witness, Body Double, Evolution Charm, and Clone, to name a few, so it's not so much the card itself as the environment that runs it.
But is it more broken than my own Esper artifacts combo factory? Hell no. Prophet of Kruphix is a strong card, but come on, it's not even in the top 20 for most broken, abusable cards in EDH.
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At this point I have accepted that it rarely survives the turn and is more removal bait than useful card. Having said this the one time it lands and sticks you're on to a winner.
Its very strong but there are more degenerate things to do in the format.
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EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but PoK ain't one...
because i run a full suite of spot removal and play magic both proactively and reactively. I realize that I'm not playing solitaire and need to interact with my opponent's deck.
[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.
If a table cant band together to kill a measley 2/3 with no built in protection, then they were destined to lose anyways. If your deck doesnt have answers to a measley 2/3 with no built in protection, then it was destined to lose anyways. There are MUCH scarier threats that can hit the battlefield than a Prophet of Kruphix. You need to build your decks accordingly or risk being blown out by them.
Prophet is absurdly powerful and needs to answered immediately. I feel like if I have an answer for it, but not an instant speed one and the player to my left plays PoK on their turn, so that my turn is the last one before theres, then unless someone else can do something about it then I may as well just not have the removal, since they'll get 3 untaps from it by then they should have cemented their advantage.
Power level aside, I find the play pattern it creates to be very annoying. You can't just say "I'm done. You're turn." You say that and then you and the players who has the next turn have to look at the player with PoK and be like "Well, Can I go now or do you have stuff?" and this happens at the end of every turn as long as the card is out. It's tedious and annoying on a Chaos Moon level and it's in ever single Simic/x deck, at least nobody plays Chaos Moon.
I despise this card. Sometimes it will be answered immediately - but when its not, it capitalizes the majority of the time available for everyone in the game.
Any card can be dealt with - and evaluating this card by determining that it can easily be dealt with seems like an empty evaluation. I evaluate a card not when it shows up only to get countered - but based on when it has an actual impact on the game.
That said, every time I've seen prophet show up & stick around, it's been miserable.
Sure, it's a very good card, but I don't think it's problematic. Like Consecrated Sphinx - it'll definitely take the game over if unanswered for several turns, but if that happens it's usually the groups fault for not having the appropriate removal...especially since any color can remove it.
Side note: I LOVE targeting U/G/X players with Bribery, because I know she'll always be there, and Dralnu, Lich Lord sure works well with her around.
I have never really understood how people can compare DEN a CSphinx to POK. DEN and CSphinx are big derpy spells that eat your mana. PoK basically Palinchrons since your mana is only spent until the next guy's untap phase. DEN is an 8 mana investment for your first blink and CSphinx is Recurring Insight on a body unless it survives for multiple turn cycles (or some moron Brainstorms into it). PoK is a card that completely centralizes the game because it is either "steal/clone it" or "kill it before I get buried in advantage" for every player.
It's certainly has enough green in its casting cost to warrant further scrutiny from the rules committee, but hopefully that blue saves it from the fate of its titan and primordial cousins.
Maybe the solution is to unban other tempting Bribery targets? The recurring theme of Commander seems to be that green gets a card that all the blue players want to steal, and the green card gets banned so they can't. Ban bribery so that once PoK is banned, we don't have threads on how all the metas have warped into three blue players racing to bribery the green player's Courser of Kruphix or something.
It is one of the strongest cards in the format, but I don't think its power level compares to things like Primeval Titan. Prime Time altered the way people built decks, Prophet doesn't have that kind of centralizing effect. It can take over games, but so can Consecrated Sphinx, Time Warp, Avenger of Zendikar, and a whole host of other things.
That said, if it ever gets banned I won't be complaining.
Seriously, it's a 2/3 for 5 mana. Not that difficult to deal with.
Also: Prophet of Kruphix
Mono Red's Strengths and Mono White's Strengths
Decks:
Casual
R Burn R
EDH
R Godo Voltron R
RUG ETB Overload RUG
BW Clerics Pain and Drain BW
GW Spirits!!! GW
RUG Landfall Silliness RUG
this. absolutely this.
it becomes a target the minute it hits the field, and it either lets you do a few things earlier than you were going to, or it dies. i've yet to see it break a game without some already game breaking cards ready to hit the field anyway. while i do see it just about every g/u/x deck its definitely been something that gets answered quickly and then forgotten about. the people that complain the loudest about it tend to be the ones who won't run single target removal.
PoK in EDH reminds me a little of Tarmogoyf in that removal dies to it. It's a card that forces your opponents to react instead of playing pro-actively, which is phenomenal against decks that have low levels of interaction. Also, forcing out removal for a 2/3 is great when you are sitting on a wincon in your hand that you're afraid will get blown up.
Sure you can remove PoK. And they can recur it. You can remove it again, and they recur it again. The same decks that run Prophet also have access to Eternal Witness, Body Double, Evolution Charm, and Clone, to name a few, so it's not so much the card itself as the environment that runs it.
But is it more broken than my own Esper artifacts combo factory? Hell no. Prophet of Kruphix is a strong card, but come on, it's not even in the top 20 for most broken, abusable cards in EDH.
Its very strong but there are more degenerate things to do in the format.
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
because i run a full suite of spot removal and play magic both proactively and reactively. I realize that I'm not playing solitaire and need to interact with my opponent's deck.
The Mimeoplasm || Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher || Vial Smasher/Tymna Group Slug
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief || Talrand, Sky Summoner
Yidris - Unblockable Saboteurs || Kiki-Jiki, ETB breaker
Kess, Dissident Mage
Power level aside, I find the play pattern it creates to be very annoying. You can't just say "I'm done. You're turn." You say that and then you and the players who has the next turn have to look at the player with PoK and be like "Well, Can I go now or do you have stuff?" and this happens at the end of every turn as long as the card is out. It's tedious and annoying on a Chaos Moon level and it's in ever single Simic/x deck, at least nobody plays Chaos Moon.
Any card can be dealt with - and evaluating this card by determining that it can easily be dealt with seems like an empty evaluation. I evaluate a card not when it shows up only to get countered - but based on when it has an actual impact on the game.
That said, every time I've seen prophet show up & stick around, it's been miserable.
Side note: I LOVE targeting U/G/X players with Bribery, because I know she'll always be there, and Dralnu, Lich Lord sure works well with her around.
There is a million infinite combos someone can be doing with similar amounts of mana.
The biggest thing it has going for it is that its super cheap $$ wise so everyone has one or more.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
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My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
That said, if it ever gets banned I won't be complaining.
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