I think This guy is pretty good. it seems to nicely fit the curve in a Hellbent/Madness RB deck and is a scathe Zombies with a decent to good ability. Nice card.
I've bought 2 boxes of shards,and still haven't gotten this card,I just want it to give it a play test for fun. It looks to have a lot of room to build around,especially with 2010 on the way. I think it will have a small impact in standard and extended if madness is in 2010 at all. May have an interesting future,we'll see.
Build a deck with this guy and a Bloodcheif Ascension. Get ready for the fun!
doitpow
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Solid in any madness/dredge deck.
WotC_ErikL
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(9 votes)
Erik's Random card 7/7/2011 When Shards of Alara entered development, the Shards and their mechanics were not fleshed out.
Devin Low led the Grixis shard, with Brian Tinsman and me. We each made some mechanics, and some decks. Brian had a fun mechanic, but it did not feel blue at all to me; essentially it was the "bloodied" mechanic used for Vampires the following year in Zendikar.
Brian then suggested the mechanic that became unearth. That was the clear winner. Devin asked for some designs of cards that didn't have unearth, but would be useful with unearth.
One of my cards was
BR At the beginning of each upkeep, the active player discards a card. 2/1
The development team decided that this was not very fun, so it became 3 mana; it also didn't make your opponent your ddiscard until your next turn. They were right; this card wasn't very fun. I wasn't very experienced, and was only thinking of the person using this card. Your opponent discards and you discard, but yours has unearth. However all those discards are just too much.
This version is not strong enough for cutthroat play, but it is quite playable in a casual game. If it had been 2 mana, it would have been really good, but more in the Jund deck of the day. A creature that makes your opponent discard every turn, followed by a Blightning, would have been pretty savage.
Cuervo_
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Idk if anyone has pointed this out yet, but the artist's last name is bonner...
This card looks interesting for multiplayer- has anyone tried it out in Commander? Obviously it would be easy to build part of a deck around, but I was thinking more of just adding it in as a kind of inverse Howling Mine or a 'black Divination'. A card like this can let a deck get way out of hand if you try to cutthroat it (Madness, Flashback, and Unearth off the top of my head without even thinking too hard)
So- as just a throw-away source of some card advantage, is it worth it or should I use Syphon Mind instead?
Kelptic183
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I like it. I'll run it in my Wizard Tribal EDH deck with Damia, Sage of Stone as the general. He'll help get lands out of my hand to draw more with Damia, he's a Wizard that I can tap with Azami, Lady of Scrolls, and he's not totally squishy.
DeaTh-ShiNoBi
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This card is useful for a deck that makes heavy use of your graveyard to summon creatures (i.e. Entomb + Reanimate or Animate Dead) because drawing those cards that you ideally want to Entomb makes them invalid targets for Entomb.
Justice1337
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@WotC_ErikL:
The real tragedy in design here is that this card is almost strictly inferior to a seldom played, underpowered uncommon from an underpowered set - Stronghold Rats. At least with Stronghold Rats, you get an actual body that can attack, and you get an extra draw step and main phase before you have to decide what to discard. With this one, you allow your opponent to be the last one with a main phase before he discards, and the body just sort of sits there like a sign from devs that reads "We were afraid that this card would be overpowered or unfun, so here it is as a creature so you can kill it." He borrowed the sign from Hokori, Dust Drinker, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and a bunch of other cards people seldom attack with.
All because devs thought that discard - a mechanic that hasn't been the main thrust of a tournament worthy deck in 12 years - was too powerful. Reverse power-creep FTL.
Comments (13)
When Shards of Alara entered development, the Shards and their mechanics were not fleshed out.
Devin Low led the Grixis shard, with Brian Tinsman and me.
We each made some mechanics, and some decks. Brian had a fun mechanic, but it did not feel blue at all to me; essentially it was the "bloodied" mechanic used for Vampires the following year in Zendikar.
Brian then suggested the mechanic that became unearth. That was the clear winner.
Devin asked for some designs of cards that didn't have unearth, but would be useful with unearth.
One of my cards was
BR
At the beginning of each upkeep, the active player discards a card.
2/1
The development team decided that this was not very fun, so it became 3 mana; it also didn't make your opponent your ddiscard until your next turn. They were right; this card wasn't very fun. I wasn't very experienced, and was only thinking of the person using this card. Your opponent discards and you discard, but yours has unearth. However all those discards are just too much.
This version is not strong enough for cutthroat play, but it is quite playable in a casual game. If it had been 2 mana, it would have been really good, but more in the Jund deck of the day. A creature that makes your opponent discard every turn, followed by a Blightning, would have been pretty savage.
Obviously it would be easy to build part of a deck around, but I was thinking more of just adding it in as a kind of inverse Howling Mine or a 'black Divination'. A card like this can let a deck get way out of hand if you try to cutthroat it (Madness, Flashback, and Unearth off the top of my head without even thinking too hard)
So- as just a throw-away source of some card advantage, is it worth it or should I use Syphon Mind instead?
The real tragedy in design here is that this card is almost strictly inferior to a seldom played, underpowered uncommon from an underpowered set - Stronghold Rats. At least with Stronghold Rats, you get an actual body that can attack, and you get an extra draw step and main phase before you have to decide what to discard. With this one, you allow your opponent to be the last one with a main phase before he discards, and the body just sort of sits there like a sign from devs that reads "We were afraid that this card would be overpowered or unfun, so here it is as a creature so you can kill it." He borrowed the sign from Hokori, Dust Drinker, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and a bunch of other cards people seldom attack with.
All because devs thought that discard - a mechanic that hasn't been the main thrust of a tournament worthy deck in 12 years - was too powerful. Reverse power-creep FTL.