This is my favorite card of all time. Just watch the semifinal match between Antoine Ruel and Kenji Tsumura at PT LA 2005 to see magic at its best.
GoblinNaysayer93
★★★☆☆ (3.3/5.0)(8 votes)
What's that? You want to play your 8/8 with trample by spending all of your mana? Well then, Force Spike.
Kirbster
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(6 votes)
It's designed for the early game, but it's also perfect against X-spells or in a prison deck.
"That's great... and for just 1 mana more, you can keep it."
RampMage
★★★★☆ (4.4/5.0)(8 votes)
This won me a tourney, with a Chronatog/Stasis deck...final match he had one mountain untapped, said "I sideboarded a REB against you." I said, "fine, I'll skip my turns until you draw it." He drew to his second last card in library, cast it on my stasis - then I tapped my island and cast force spike. He was ***ed I didn't just show it to him. "It's the finals, need some drama." HA!
Pontiac
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Fun in the opening hand, semi useful later depending on what's going on, good Force of Will and Foil food.
land_comment
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(6 votes)
Considering that many players like to play all their spells as quickly as possible, this is often a {U} counter. Now that's awesome.
BlackAlbino
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
How is this rated higher than mana tithe when blue has spell pierce?
SniperJolly
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Pour all your love into protean hydra...
Force spike, Hurrrrr.
Tjokkie
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Nice balloon-thingie
MithosFall
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Would you say that this is better than Mental Misstep?
Sharu
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(3 votes)
Nothing feels quite as good as seeing the look on your opponents face when they go to blow your head clean off with a giant comet storm or the like and you play the hilarious force spike.
Priceless.
When your opponent isn't following curve or X-ing out, it's less useful, but dropping four in a row on one spell gives a wonderous feel of achievment, card advantage be damned.
Most decks only run one-drops for aggro and curve considerations. Force Spike either forces your opponent to leave one extra mana open or get hard-countered, which means their tempo and curve is basically one whole land-drop behind. Mental Misstep might hard counter the first 1-mana drop, but after saving you that 2 or 3 extra damage, you'll still have to face down this 2,3, and 4 drop. Mid-game when is when mana becomes tight for stompy aggro decks, and Force Spike pretty much acts as a hard counter if your opponents ramp is fine-tuned to be as efficient as possible. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Force Spike still has a bit of value later in the game because it makes your opponent play with one-mana open and keeps them from tapping out for their finishers. And all of this is assuming your opponent knows you have a force spike in hand. If they don't and try to tap out, well then you just gained CA by hard countering for one blue mana.
Mental Misstep is a freebie cast if you don't go first and only hard-counters a 1 CMC card. Which means if you are going first or if they don't open with 1-drops or if you don't have Mental Misstep in your opening hand, Mental Misstep loses a lot of its power and takes up a card space of another more useful counter. Now when you are drifting into turns 3,4, and 5 where mana is still tight for the big stompies, all the stuff you could counter with Mental Misstep wouldn't be worth countering anyways. (I mean, at best you would be looking at countering a lightning bolt but you would usually pay 2 life for Misstep anyways, so whats the point?)
However, Mental Misstep essentially costs 0 mana, which makes it a bane to all combo decks. But if you are playing in a competitive environment where everyone is running crazy combo-decks in the meta-game, you would be much better off with Force of Will anyways.
Comments (13)
"That's great... and for just 1 mana more, you can keep it."
Force spike, Hurrrrr.
Priceless.
When your opponent isn't following curve or X-ing out, it's less useful, but dropping four in a row on one spell gives a wonderous feel of achievment, card advantage be damned.
4/5
Most decks only run one-drops for aggro and curve considerations. Force Spike either forces your opponent to leave one extra mana open or get hard-countered, which means their tempo and curve is basically one whole land-drop behind. Mental Misstep might hard counter the first 1-mana drop, but after saving you that 2 or 3 extra damage, you'll still have to face down this 2,3, and 4 drop. Mid-game when is when mana becomes tight for stompy aggro decks, and Force Spike pretty much acts as a hard counter if your opponents ramp is fine-tuned to be as efficient as possible. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Force Spike still has a bit of value later in the game because it makes your opponent play with one-mana open and keeps them from tapping out for their finishers. And all of this is assuming your opponent knows you have a force spike in hand. If they don't and try to tap out, well then you just gained CA by hard countering for one blue mana.
Mental Misstep is a freebie cast if you don't go first and only hard-counters a 1 CMC card. Which means if you are going first or if they don't open with 1-drops or if you don't have Mental Misstep in your opening hand, Mental Misstep loses a lot of its power and takes up a card space of another more useful counter. Now when you are drifting into turns 3,4, and 5 where mana is still tight for the big stompies, all the stuff you could counter with Mental Misstep wouldn't be worth countering anyways. (I mean, at best you would be looking at countering a lightning bolt but you would usually pay 2 life for Misstep anyways, so whats the point?)
However, Mental Misstep essentially costs 0 mana, which makes it a bane to all combo decks. But if you are playing in a competitive environment where everyone is running crazy combo-decks in the meta-game, you would be much better off with Force of Will anyways.