Pointed Discussion

This is not Necropotence. Don't make it sound like it's something useful when it is clearly pointless.

A use for Norin the Wary!

Obviously not something i'm ever going to want to build a deck around in constructed, and i'm on the fence about it's value in Limited. On the one hand, a 3-drop creature might get me to the finish line faster. On the other hand, this card gives every creature you draw Kicker 2R: Deal X damage to target creature or player. and that's the sort of card advantage that wins stalemates. I give it a 2.5.

Combo this with Zektar shrine Expedition, and in a couple turns you could do 7 damage for 3 mana, with more you could repeat this process, so in effect it has the capacity to do massive damage for cheap.

It seems the low score is due to the cost (3) as a sort of kicker. But, used with a goblin deck it would be pretty likely to have 4 or 5 mana, and with low cost of goblins(1 or 2ish), they can come in and ping the opposition out of the way.

or, tack it on to tokens from Rampaging Baloth (free 4/4 for every landfall) , it's a nice cheap 2R for 4 damage...
or angels from Luminarch Ascension...
or Bloodghast...
and so on...

I for one love this card and it has done well in winning me games so far. I run a devour deck so me throwing out a large Thunder-Thrash Elder or another devour card is extremely common, so if I have this out i can do a large sum of damage and even on many occasions simply one shot someone just by summoning a creature

Sigh...great-sounding card, mediocre ability.
This card would still have been far from broken if the "kicker effect" was only.
I'd have considered using it in constructed then, but for i can only hardly imagine an effective use.
Pandemonium will do a better job most of the time.

Slow card is slooow.... I don't see the point of this. Why not just reprint Pandemonium?

this card's not useless! think Rampaging Baloths!

This card is bad. Period. Any decent burn deck would have much better firepower for much less mana. Even in limited I don't see how this is useful, as all it does it sit there for a few turns until you actually have enough mana to use it, and even then it's likely only used for a finisher, and can be replaced by a number of other much better and efficient finishers. The flavor text should've read: Where mana cost and near-uselessness collide.

This card is underrated, it just needs to be used in conjunctoin with the right cards. Don't think Ball Lightning, Think Zektar Shrine Expedition. Hellspark Elemental works very nice to, both the first time around and on unearth, dealing an (optimal) 12 damage in conjuction with this card. Rakka Mar is another honorable mention.

Obviously things like Luminarch Acension and Sigl of the Empty throne work wonderfully as well.

I'm new to magic so I have what might seem like a dumb question about this card. If I use this card and target a player, can that player block the damage done in any way? For example, I brought out a 5/5 creature and target Player A, Player A claims that since it is a creature doing the damage and the card says that that creature does the damage, he can block the damage with anyone of his creatures? Is that true?
Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

Not a great constructed card. It could work in limited, but it's quite expensive - you're going to have to wait a few turns to utilise it (ie. turn 6 without missing land drops would get you 3 damage from a normal 3 CMC creature damage creature).

It would be *much* more playable if it was a higher initial cost and lower 'kicker' cost. 4R for the initial cost and R for the kicker would be great (perhaps a bit unbalanced), and 3R + 1R would be better and probably fairly balanced too.

@ Hewie: No, he cannot block the damage as the creature is not attacking, it is just the source of the damage (for such purposes as if it where to be destroyed before electropotence resolves , though that is going into more advanced stack-related rules)

The thing to remember here is if ur managing to put creatures into play without playing there manacost this card is great to use spare mana on. Secondly things with a high attack power but low toughness im thinking mostly like 7/1 with trample haste that u can get can mean a 7 damage for just 3 mana.

Think second turn Zektar Shrine Expedition third turn this and a land then fourth turn a harrow leaving u with 3 mana to use this on the 7/1 elemental which could lead to 14 damage straight to the face.

People who think this is useless don't know how to use it. Think of it as a Soul's Fire every turn, plus with cards like Zektar Shrine Expedition and Elemental Appeal this thing goes nuts.

Actually I can imagine several uses for this card, the first one is if you put anything into play with death touch, or a on damage ability like lightning reaver or lifelink. A nice combo might be play this card early on, later play where ancients tread, and have some vengeful rebirth in your deck, thereby making everything you play have burn damage on the side. Have low cost creatures like thoctars (or in worldwake maybe leatherback baloth). Play a thoctar, add 3 mana to do 5, and then another 5 for where ancients tread, and then attack for 5 next turn, and if it dies and you use vengeful rebirth on it.. same thing, it comes back into play and vengeful rebirth does at least the converted mana cost, and electropotence does another five. That is strictly a pretty great combo as far as burn is concerned. It also doesn't have to die it simply has to "leave play," so you could use things like spitebellows and reveillark to either do 6 to two creatures/players or bring back 2 creatures when reveillark dies and add 6 mana to have them both ping something. Also, I'm assuming a lot of people haven't thought about what happens if the creature your "kicking" is huge.. like play lord of extinction and kick it for 3, do some insane damage.. or primal crux. Deep-slumber titan is also a 4 mana 7/7, and you could even use the potence to ping it back awake when necessary. Just keep in mind you would need some good mana accel to pay that kicker cost (probably splash green for it).

More than likely the idea is you want cost effective creatures, aka 1-3 mana for something with high attack power, then kick it for total 5-6 mana to basically get a lightning bolt per turn. This works especially well with token creation, like rakka mar (3/1 token and 3 damage from electropotence) wren's run packmaster (2 damage with death touch from wolves), or anything with wither/lifegain, such as vampire nighthawk played in a red black deck alongside bloodghast that you could return from graveyard once a turn to do 2. The idea behind electropotence is in essence for a fast red deck, where everything you play is 1-2 mana. Especially considering some of the top red deck creatures fit perfectly with electropotence i.e. spark elemental, hellspark elemental, ball lightning, hell's thunder, are all creatures with high attack power, low cost, and some have unearth. Its one of those cards that will save you when your initial 1-5 turn aggro fails and your left holding hellspark elementals against something big and no way to get rid of it, you can do damage directly to opponent when your creatures hit play, then just block with them until you can ping your opponent to 0.

Use Elvish Piper or Master Transmuter to drop a Darksteel Colossus onto the field. 11 damage for 3 mana? YES PLEASE.

My question is: Is this considered as combat damage? I'm pretty sure its not, because it would have been waaaay too good (and funny lol). Phage the Untouchable anyone? Or Ebonblade Reaper, Living Hive, Blinding Angel etc etc...

Now if only we had blue, white, and green Potences...

Imaginary pet shambling remains
Ooze garden

electropotence on turn 3
death's shadow on turn 4
disentomb + death's shadow on turn 5

need the right hands and lands, but with 4 of each (including R/B lands), your odds are pretty good.

@ Uhhsam:

Death's Shadow's power is already modified when it enters the battlefield, so it wouldn't work.

Come on people, this one rocks! You summon something with a lot of power and spend 3 extra mana to get an instant burn, possibly with huge damage.
This is what pandemonium should have been like, as pandemonium also gives the opponent the ability, whereas with electro, you pay 3 mana but you're the only one able to do it.

Haven't been able to make use of it in my deck yet much to my disappointment.

This card is not bad. Use it with cards like Zektar Shrine Expedition and Ball Lightning with some ramp like Harrow and Borderland Ranger.

Also, Garruk Wildspeaker works good with this because you can untap your lands for extra mana when you need it, or you can produce free 3/3 tokens that will do 3 damage everytime you spawn one and you only need 3 mana to do it.

Not bad in my eyes, maybe not the best deck in standard but it can be fun.

as the illustration demonstrates, mold shambler is the best use for electropotence.

...because you can use them to destroy each other.

In the current standard, it looks like the closest thing to a 2-card combo is Rakka Mar - If it sticks that's 3 to the dome and 3 from the elemental token, every turn.

Can't really see it happening though, there's just too much removal out there :(

Death's Shadow anyone?

Argent Sphinx, Zektar Shrine, Quest for the Gravelord, Tuktuk the Explorer, Garruk, Rampaging Baloth, Venser style blinks... There are many ways to use this just in standard!

Seems decently useful, but nice.

Nice synergy with infect creatures, seeing as they are the source of the damage..c

This, with Sun Titan and Ball Lightning. You basically get to cast 2 Lightning Bolts per turn, for 3 mana. Not a bad deal.

Notice the damage is done from the creature. Really cool with Vampire Nighthawk for instant kill and lifelink

does Marit Lage from Dark Depths count for this?

This is like a slightly more versatile Where Ancients Tread, but more mana intensive. In most cases, you can just play a cheapo power 5 creature with Where Ancients Tread and let that do the talking.

If the casting and activation cost were lower this would be an amazing card. As is, it still seems playable but has never made it into top-tier decks, even as a sideboard.

With 6 mana available, an attacking Hero of Bladehold could also dish out 2 shocks each turn...problem is the 6 mana.

Phyrexian Dreadnought

Funny thing about this card is, is that's it's name, flavor tekst and effect don't make sense combined if you know your cards. For starters, it sounds like a red-ish necropotence when simply hearing the name. The effect is a very disappointing pandemonium effect that, although only you can use it, costs just a bit to much to have any effect. Then let me just have another three-drop, thank you. But what I found most remarkably, actually, was the fact that the flavor tekst strongly reminds me of the original leylines' flavor tekst: "Where treachery and oblivion converge" (Leyline of the Void) vs. "Where life and force collide". Maybe it's just me, but that's almost too much alike to be coincidence.

Infect

Warstorm Surge has all the upside without any of the downside.

Ugh I always seem to pull this out of Zendikar Boosters.

Interesting, but probably too expensive per activation.

Good in commander though.

It might not be useless but I'm willing to bet that in development it was a lot better before they realized it would be i followed by a set with Magic's biggest creature ever and then a set with infect creatures. Kind of wish they just kept this design on the shelf for a couple years when they felt like they could put it into a set without nerfing it.

Works well with Stigma Lasher, Heartlash Cinder and Nova Chaser.

3.5???? This is the most useless card ive seen. 3 extra mana is way tooooooooooo much. Imagine if raging goblin costed 2RR but had ETB deals 1 dmg to target creature or player. Horrible horrible horrible.

I admit this card may have its uses, but it seems just too costly to pay 3 mana to activate this. Plus whatever manacost the creature requires. But I'd like to be surprised by good, repeatable use of a card like this, though. Maybe something for a red-green deck with lots of mana? And then with some big creatures to really get a bang for your buck.

At three mana, you can drop this a lot sooner than Warstorm Surge.

At three mana per activation, you'll never use it.

Just use pandemonium instead. The downside is negligible since your deck will be built around it, your opponents won't.

Gonna put this in my Shimatsu EDH deck - 7 mana and sac all my permanents to do that much damage to someone. So good!

Should have been a red throwback to Necropotence! "Whenever a sorcery or instant you control deals damage, discard your hand, then draw that many cards"? That could have been cool.

@TheWrathofShane
Image if you weren't using a deliberately crap example.
The thing with this card is that while it's not amazing it is better with larger/more efficient creatures. Using it in a deck which would run Raging Goblin is a bad idea. Using it in RG fatties alongside say a Thragtusk is quite nice, 5/3 with 5 damage for 6GR is quite nice, especially when it leaves something behind and gains you 5 life :P

I use this in a R/G deathtouch/infect deck. It works nicely as most creatures are < 3 CC.

Hmmm. It looks better than it is. Maybe with a couple low-cost, high power infect creatures such as Phyrexian Vatmother or, hell, Priest of Urabrask for pretty much free damage. Phyrexian Dreadnought becomes a sorcery {R}{3} deal 12 damage to target creature or player. Not great but has some uses.