This card is without a doubt amazing. Anyone who says any different is dead wrong. First people are complaining about the drawback. Complain all you want, but in the last 5 years name one counterspell that got printed BELOW the curve, that didn't have a drawback? I'm waiting...
Since at least Zendikar when Magic releases a new set they do two things.
The first is they print a slightly better cancel. Why? I don't know tbh cancel has to be one of the most useless pieces of paper ever printed because it never sees standard play. WOTC prints it in every Magic201X set and then they print a slightly better version that might see play.
Examples:
The second thing they do is print a counterspell that is actually below the curve, but costs you something in return or causes you to jump through hoops to activate it. This is all because they are trying to find ways to print counterspells that aren't completely broken.
Examples:
So without a doubt Swan Song will see play. Probably in a variety of multiple formats. Why? This spell pierces, spell pierce. It counters counters. it counters gods, enchantments, burn, combat tricks, or whatever else. The only thing it doesn't counter is creatures. And that makes it good enough to see play. It might see play just as a spell pierce.
----
In response to your standard mentions. It seems obvious (to me at least) that this was printed as a god hoser for standard. I don't see many people countering a thoughtseize with this. You still lose a card, (And a relevant late game counter at that) And instead of them losing two life they gain a 2/2 flyer to bash you in the face with. Maybe if we had a 2 mana Aether Adept to follow this card up with.
I think black has plenty of creatures to take advantage of whip. Thrill-Kill Assassin, Lifebane Zombie, Xanthrid Necromancer (who leaves you with a body when he dies at end of turn) Desecration Demon, The new Doomed Hero but not sure how I feel about him yet. Lifelink is huge, and it combos with the god to let you draw more cards, As well as with read the bones and underworld connection. Run 2-3 corrupt, gain a bunch of life, and lategame draw cards off the top and basically burn your opponents down.
One thing, Nightviel spectre might be integral. It adds 3! to your devotion count on its lonesome, Making gray merchant and Erebos that much better.
And I'm also not sold on gray merchant yet. The devotion mechanic is just very disruptable. Swamps are forever. Mana symbols on creatures are, alas, not.
I still think you need more creatures of your running dark prophecy. Id recommend at this point curing cauldron and Newt entirely and run the new whip. Of course whip and prophecy are both pushing you towards more creatures
idk about all that. I think focusing on devotion so much isn't really relevant. The most you will need devotion for is erebos. I don't think Gray Merchant is that good, especially compared to corrupt (I'd rather take the ability to kill a creature over leaving a 2/4 body that will do nothing when archangels fly over it's head etc.) Sanguine bond, Dark Prophecy, Trading post and bubbling cauldron are all really iffy cards to put in a deck. Plus if you are running multiples especially with everything else, it won't leave room for the playable cards.
4 underworld connections
4 Dark Prophecy
4 Sanguine Bond
4 Gray Merchant
4 Trading Post
4 Bubbling Cauldrons
That is 24 cards. Even if they were ALL 2 ofs thats still 12 cards. 24 lands +12 leaves you at 36 with 24 spots open.
Now your talking about Thoughtseize, Read the bones, and Erebos, Plus Prophetic Prism and maybe Angelic accord. You haven't put any removal or creatures in and your already pushing a 50 card deck. Not saying it couldn't work, but this seems like a big pile so far. I'd like to see you throw up a decklist. Another thing is read the bones, are you really going to run that with underworld connections and dark prophecy? and dark prophecy relies on a heavy creature base so...
Personally Im looking forward to 1- and 2- drops.
BB creature that is good on offense and defense is what can push Erebos and black in general.
And there is only 1 1-drop to stop aggro - janky Festering Newt. But if Erebos' weapon can get value out of him sacrificing him, it might even works
thrill kill Assassin is the only playable 2 drop creature from what I've seen.
And as much as i like the new murder I'm really excited about the Gorgon. A black board wipe is what I've Been waiting for and with Crypt gheist and Lilliana it isn't unplayable. Plus there are worse things than being left with a 7/9 death touch. In fact it reminds Me of martial anthem.
I felti had enough creatures. And for Red instant and Sorceries I had lightning talons and lava Axe. I like your idea of playing her as a removal target and probably would have done so ifi thought about it
I would agree with you but maybe you just Had to see the Draft play out. I cut off black hard and got rewarded for it. There was almost no removal. Also in regards to the lack of evasion, it's true but I found myself controlling the tempo of most games. I would force trades and found that with good equips and enchantments near anything Is a threat. So idk I'd say that the best cards were lifebane zombie and fireshrieker. Accorders shield was very good as well.
Personal opinion time I think nightmare Is underrated in bx splashes. If you have a light splash he often comes down a 4/4 for 6. He grows with time and makes Swamp top decks not that bad as he only grows. He is a big removal target though.
Some interesting Draft choices I made... Removal was very very light in these packs. I didn't get much and I didn't see much in packs, or played by others. I passed 2 Chandra's Firebrands, and saw at least 2 celestial flares, but being heavy in black from the beginning didn't want to pick up double white. This might have been a mistake as I realized later white was much more open than I thought. But then again white is the weakest color. Probably the most interesting choice I made was passing a lithargy of blood p3 to get fireshrieker. I had drafted a glut of good creatures by that point, and saw fireshrieker as a good finisher over one piece of removal in 40 cards. This turned out to be the right choice I think, as I ended up beating with fireshrieker in all 3 matches. turns out 8 something lifelink doublestrikers are really good :P. Also Accorders shield was an all star. Very amazing on intimidate creatures, allowing them to swing for free every turn and still keep the board locked down. Very good at turning Festering Newt into a 1/4 blocker, as well as pretty much all the black and red creatures. they have a big defense deficiency to make up for above par attack. Turns Firecat into a 4/4, child of night into a poor mans dawnstrike paladin, And it is great insurance against red burn.
Honestly I've seen the Alms beast debate, but I don't like it. 4 mana 6/6 that doesn't do anything isn't really worth it. Your running bad green at that point
Well I obviously wasn't the first to think of this. This is what I've mocked up so far. Thoughts on it?
Thrill-Kill Assassin - Very memorable of Vampire Nighthawk to me. Deathtouch is good, pseudo-removal spells. Also-Human
Corpse Hauler - Returning creatures to your hand is good, the body makes it playable.
Desecration Demon - Number one beater. t4 Demon, t5 fireshrieker? pretty gg at that point.
Lilianna - Card draw is card draw, and deck thinning is good. between this and Specter you shouldn't run out of mana. Also could add Crypt Gheist. Idk though.
10 Removal. 4 thoughtseize. Corrupt plays alot of roles, has always been a star in monoblack.
Polluted Earth2BB (R)
Enchantment 1: Reveal the top card of your library, if it is a creature card you may cast it as though it had flash.
Creatures cast with ~ enter the battlefield with Deathtouch and Sacrifice this creature at the beginning of the end step. "The earth groans in pain, and the beasts go mad, infecting with a touch and dying soon after."
IIW: Your take on a limited grizzly bear. 2/2's and 2/1's for 2 welcome.
Hmm. I'm just not sure about this card as a whole. Shroud in red is iffy. Takes two turns to get to an opponent then it passes right back to you. So at best you can kill an opponents creature every other turn. I don't see this card ever being a staple. And at best it might get ran sideboard in red decks to help kill off pesky green creatures. 5/10 You know, rethinking it a bit... It might be a better sideboard than I thought. Nice to place early to counter cards such as thrun. Still I don't see this being ran against much else other than green decks.
Lightning Rod3
Artifact Creature - Golem
Defender, Reach
Redirect all spells that target you or a creature you control to ~.
0/7 "It was to be his crowning achievement, safety from all mages that opposed his will. Then he died of old age."
(Reach just represents his height. And it's good to have defenders that can block flying. I figure a figurative lightning rod can't be too short.)
Next: A very flavourful legendary. Make it from the new set.
Azorious Hexmage - Seems too good. See Daring Apprentice, Or Glen Elendra Archmage. Both of them are more expensive, And have an additional cost to cast. Daring apprentice can't be tapped till next turn, and Glen Elendra charges mana to kill herself. Plus the lifegain is just cake on top. You can run this as a 4 of in any blue deck, And the lifegain would just be ridiculous. See Absorb as well. 1 more mana, heals 1 less life and it's an instant. Also note that all 3 cards I named are rares as well, while it seemed you were building something of an uncommon. Way too much power, especially as you can shove these in a mono blue deck. 4/10
Agathon, Breaker of Kings4RRR
Legendary Creature - Human Juggernaut
Haste
When ~ Enter's the field destroy target legendary permanent.
7/7 "By the time he was 7 he was taller than most men. As a man he was monstrous. Once he was touched by the gods..."
Biomechanics - I'll rate this card, but the challenge was to design a hybrid card, like this: :symgu::symgu: So, some points off just for not reading the challenge carefully enough. Now, in regards to the three abilities on this charm: +5/+4 is a bit much, returning creatures to hand feels off, and the last ability is mechanically clunky since instants/sorceries don't generally give permanent effects, for good reason - it's hard to keep track of them as the game progresses. Especially since in a blue/green deck there's probably lots of different counters floating around on your creatures, trying to remember which counters are +1/+1 and which gave flying and trample is a pain. The overall flavor of the card (multiple ways to enhance/alter creatures) is neat, but between the actual mechanics and the misread challenge, this gets a 4/10.
Yea I was basing the P/T off of giant growth. a 1 mana instant gives +3/+3 how do I make a 3 mana instant that doesn't feel worse you know? +2/+1 for 2 more mana seemed... alright. Not the best but ok. Returning creatures to hand felt off though? I don't really understand that, both green and blue get alot of graveyard play. And the third one, yea I get your point. I just wanted something interesting and flavorful that would be fun with the card.
Since at least Zendikar when Magic releases a new set they do two things.
The first is they print a slightly better cancel. Why? I don't know tbh cancel has to be one of the most useless pieces of paper ever printed because it never sees standard play. WOTC prints it in every Magic201X set and then they print a slightly better version that might see play.
Examples:
The second thing they do is print a counterspell that is actually below the curve, but costs you something in return or causes you to jump through hoops to activate it. This is all because they are trying to find ways to print counterspells that aren't completely broken.
Examples:
So without a doubt Swan Song will see play. Probably in a variety of multiple formats. Why? This spell pierces, spell pierce. It counters counters. it counters gods, enchantments, burn, combat tricks, or whatever else. The only thing it doesn't counter is creatures. And that makes it good enough to see play. It might see play just as a spell pierce.
----
In response to your standard mentions. It seems obvious (to me at least) that this was printed as a god hoser for standard. I don't see many people countering a thoughtseize with this. You still lose a card, (And a relevant late game counter at that) And instead of them losing two life they gain a 2/2 flyer to bash you in the face with. Maybe if we had a 2 mana Aether Adept to follow this card up with.
The updated Decklist I'm thinking about
4 Thrill-Kill Assassin
2 Corpse Hauler
3 Desecration Demon
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
4 Nightveil Specter
1 Hythonia, The cruel
3 Liliana
Sorceries
2 Corrupt
Artifact
2 Fireshrieker
2 Whip of Erebos
Instants
4 Thoughtseize
3 Hero’s Downfall
3 Doomblade
1 Devour Flesh
2 Underworld Connections
22 Swamp
One thing, Nightviel spectre might be integral. It adds 3! to your devotion count on its lonesome, Making gray merchant and Erebos that much better.
And I'm also not sold on gray merchant yet. The devotion mechanic is just very disruptable. Swamps are forever. Mana symbols on creatures are, alas, not.
4 underworld connections
4 Dark Prophecy
4 Sanguine Bond
4 Gray Merchant
4 Trading Post
4 Bubbling Cauldrons
That is 24 cards. Even if they were ALL 2 ofs thats still 12 cards. 24 lands +12 leaves you at 36 with 24 spots open.
Now your talking about Thoughtseize, Read the bones, and Erebos, Plus Prophetic Prism and maybe Angelic accord. You haven't put any removal or creatures in and your already pushing a 50 card deck. Not saying it couldn't work, but this seems like a big pile so far. I'd like to see you throw up a decklist. Another thing is read the bones, are you really going to run that with underworld connections and dark prophecy? and dark prophecy relies on a heavy creature base so...
thrill kill Assassin is the only playable 2 drop creature from what I've seen.
And as much as i like the new murder I'm really excited about the Gorgon. A black board wipe is what I've Been waiting for and with Crypt gheist and Lilliana it isn't unplayable. Plus there are worse things than being left with a 7/9 death touch. In fact it reminds Me of martial anthem.
Personal opinion time I think nightmare Is underrated in bx splashes. If you have a light splash he often comes down a 4/4 for 6. He grows with time and makes Swamp top decks not that bad as he only grows. He is a big removal target though.
1 Soulmender
1 Capashen Knight
1 Divine Favor
1 Sentinel Sliver
1 HIve Stirrings
2 Dawnstrike Paladin
1 Serra Angel
1 Planar Cleansing
Blue
1 Glimpse the Future
1 Archaeomancer
Black
1 Artificer's Hex
1 Duress
2 Festering Newt
1 Child of Night
1 Dark Favor
1 Doom Blade
1 Blood Bairn
1 Syphon Sliver
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Accursed Spirit
1 Mark of the Vampire
1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
1 Liliana's Reaver
1 Nightmare
1 Striking Sliver
2 Dragon Hatchling
1 Thunder Strike
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Lightning Talons
1 Regathan Firecat
1 Chandra's Phoenix
1 Battle Sliver
1 Lava Axe
1 Pitchburn Devils
1 Cyclops Tyrant
Green
1 Lay of the Land
1 Deadly Recluse
1 Accorder's Sheild
1 Fireshrieker
Some interesting Draft choices I made... Removal was very very light in these packs. I didn't get much and I didn't see much in packs, or played by others. I passed 2 Chandra's Firebrands, and saw at least 2 celestial flares, but being heavy in black from the beginning didn't want to pick up double white. This might have been a mistake as I realized later white was much more open than I thought. But then again white is the weakest color. Probably the most interesting choice I made was passing a lithargy of blood p3 to get fireshrieker. I had drafted a glut of good creatures by that point, and saw fireshrieker as a good finisher over one piece of removal in 40 cards. This turned out to be the right choice I think, as I ended up beating with fireshrieker in all 3 matches. turns out 8 something lifelink doublestrikers are really good :P. Also Accorders shield was an all star. Very amazing on intimidate creatures, allowing them to swing for free every turn and still keep the board locked down. Very good at turning Festering Newt into a 1/4 blocker, as well as pretty much all the black and red creatures. they have a big defense deficiency to make up for above par attack. Turns Firecat into a 4/4, child of night into a poor mans dawnstrike paladin, And it is great insurance against red burn.
So here is what I played, any comments?
2 Festering Newt
1 Child of Night
1 Dark Favor
1 Doom Blade
1 Blood Bairn
1 Syphon Sliver
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Accursed Spirit
1 Mark of the Vampire
1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
1 Liliana's Reaver
1 Nightmare
1 Striking Sliver
1 Thunder Strike
1 Lightning Talons
1 Regathan Firecat
1 Chandra's phoenix
1 Battlesliver
1 Pitchburn Devil's
1 Accorder's Shield
1 Fireshrieker
Lands 18
11 Swamp
7 Mountain
Thrill-Kill Assassin - Very memorable of Vampire Nighthawk to me. Deathtouch is good, pseudo-removal spells. Also-Human
Corpse Hauler - Returning creatures to your hand is good, the body makes it playable.
Desecration Demon - Number one beater. t4 Demon, t5 fireshrieker? pretty gg at that point.
Lilianna - Card draw is card draw, and deck thinning is good. between this and Specter you shouldn't run out of mana. Also could add Crypt Gheist. Idk though.
10 Removal. 4 thoughtseize. Corrupt plays alot of roles, has always been a star in monoblack.
4 Thrill-Kill Assassin
3 Corpse Hauler
4 Desecration Demon
3 Xanthrid Necromancer
3 Nightveil Specter
2 Sepulchral Primordial
3 Liliana
Sorceries
2 Corrupt
Artifact
2 Fireshrieker
Instants
4 Thoughtseize
2 Ultimate Price
3 Doomblade
3 Devour Flesh
2 Underworld Connections
22 Swamps
Enchantment
1: Reveal the top card of your library, if it is a creature card you may cast it as though it had flash.
Creatures cast with ~ enter the battlefield with Deathtouch and Sacrifice this creature at the beginning of the end step.
"The earth groans in pain, and the beasts go mad, infecting with a touch and dying soon after."
IIW: Your take on a limited grizzly bear. 2/2's and 2/1's for 2 welcome.
Lightning Rod 3
Artifact Creature - Golem
Defender, Reach
Redirect all spells that target you or a creature you control to ~.
0/7
"It was to be his crowning achievement, safety from all mages that opposed his will. Then he died of old age."
(Reach just represents his height. And it's good to have defenders that can block flying. I figure a figurative lightning rod can't be too short.)
Next: A very flavourful legendary. Make it from the new set.
Agathon, Breaker of Kings 4RRR
Legendary Creature - Human Juggernaut
Haste
When ~ Enter's the field destroy target legendary permanent.
7/7
"By the time he was 7 he was taller than most men. As a man he was monstrous. Once he was touched by the gods..."
Yea I was basing the P/T off of giant growth. a 1 mana instant gives +3/+3 how do I make a 3 mana instant that doesn't feel worse you know? +2/+1 for 2 more mana seemed... alright. Not the best but ok. Returning creatures to hand felt off though? I don't really understand that, both green and blue get alot of graveyard play. And the third one, yea I get your point. I just wanted something interesting and flavorful that would be fun with the card.