This belongs in every scheme deck anybody ever plays.
SereneChaos
★★★★☆ (4.4/5.0)(7 votes)
"Hey guys, how can we make the second most broken card in Magic history even worse?" "Um....make it cost 1u less?" "Great! Let's go get pizza."
mutantman
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(20 votes)
Set a scheme in motion during the extra turn? Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd reveal my crushing masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting the outcome? I set my scheme into motion thirty-five minutes ago.
Baconradar
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(4 votes)
This can be absolutely devastating, but it can also be pretty much the last thing you'd want to flip over from your scheme deck. If you're in a situation where you still have basically all your enemies alive and in a strong position, this is considerably less useful than a whole load of the 'scaling' schemes
Kryptnyt
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@baconradar; Thats where your deck comes in. Schemes are nice, but a true archenemy has a deck full of flavor, powerful cards, and devastating setbacks for the opponents.
Bazooka99
★★☆☆☆ (2.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I think people overrate this card somewhat. In a typical Archenemy game of 1 vs. 3, the one player gets 1 bonus card draw and 20 extra life at the start of the game (obviously). Aside from those two advantages, the Scheme deck is supposed to make up for the disadvantage of having 2 additional players against you. Simply taking an extra turn only does you so much good when your opponents have 3 turns or more.
It looks like someone left an open italics bracket.
Wizard-of-the-Toast
★★★☆☆ (3.9/5.0)(4 votes)
Very strong 5/5. For flavour I prefer the promo card Plots that span centuries which at the time of writing seems strangely missing from the Gatherer data base. For those of you not familiar it lets you reveal 3 schemes next turn instead of one, leading to a very powerful turn especially if you flip certain combos or 3 ongoing schemes.
OmegaSerris
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@Lyoncet I think they fixed it, or at least prevent new ones from causing the issue, because I can't seem to get it to work. :-(
Lyoncet
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
HA! Tooling with my old comment on this card, I finally figured out why some comments italicize/bold/underline the rest of the page! It's if you autocard within the text modification. (If you leave the italics/bold/underline bracket open, it doesn't let you post.) Ahem. Anyways...
(And now it's back to being all italicized. Just can't catch a break it seems. /sigh)
I would just like to point out that I'm pretty sure this card is currently the highest rated card on Gatherer. Badlands comes up first if you search non-special cards by descending community rating, and it's currently rated at 4.980. This is currently 4.983 (edit: now 4.986). So yeah, that's pretty good.
@Bazooka99 "I think people overrate this card somewhat. In a typical Archenemy game of 1 vs. 3, the one player gets 1 bonus card draw and 20 extra life at the start of the game (obviously). Aside from those two advantages, the Scheme deck is supposed to make up for the disadvantage of having 2 additional players against you. Simply taking an extra turn only does you so much good when your opponents have 3 turns or more.
"Certainly a good card, but far from overpowered. A free Time Warp is not nearly as good as the free Insurrection provided by My Crushing Masterstroke, or the free Violent Ultimatum provided by Tooth, Claw, and Nail."
I disagree. Yeah, there are times when one of those cards will help you more than this would help you. But while both of those effects may (and that's a big "may") help you more in the right scenario, this one has the biggest advantage any scheme card can dream for: it's as good on turn 1 as on turn 10, and just as good no matter what the board looks like. If you get My Crushing Masterstroke when the Heroes all have 2+ creatures down, it's likely better. But if 1) one (or more) of your opponents is playing a creature-light deck (very likely since control seems to be great against Archenemies) or 2) it's still early in the game and your opponents all have one 1/2 creature out, it may as well be A Display of my Dark Power. And if you have a strong enough board position - again, very likely in Archenemy - two attacks with all of your creatures against a (possibly tapped out) opponent could be much more powerful than one attack against each opponent with their own creatures plus one attack with all of yours.
Since you have no control over when you play them, the most important thing in a Scheme card is flexibility. Many schemes with great effects can end up being completely useless if you draw them at the wrong time. So while yeah, at turn 8 against a bunch of creature-heavy decks I'd rather draw My Crushing Masterstroke, the fact that at best it will give me a slight advantage over All in Good Time and at worst will do literally nothing tips my favor towards this one.
That's not to say that Tooth, Claw, and Tail or My Crushing Masterstroke are poor Schemes. But as it seems like you're ignoring the single most important trait a Scheme can have in your analysis, so I find it very lacking.
DarthParallax
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
It could be worse you know. They could have made a planeswalker specifically with Archenemy in mind, and given it:
-8: Exile (Cardname), then take two extra turns after this one. Return (Cardname) to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the end step of the second extra turn.
Hunter06
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The strongest scheme in the game, as everyone said 'a two mana extra turn was stupid, so here, have a free one' Not much more can be said about this though
Comments (13)
Certainly a good card, but far from overpowered. A free Time Warp is not nearly as good as the free Insurrection provided by My Crushing Masterstroke, or the free Violent Ultimatum provided by Tooth, Claw, and Nail.
I think they fixed it, or at least prevent new ones from causing the issue, because I can't seem to get it to work. :-(
(And now it's back to being all italicized. Just can't catch a break it seems. /sigh)
I would just like to point out that I'm pretty sure this card is currently the highest rated card on Gatherer. Badlands comes up first if you search non-special cards by descending community rating, and it's currently rated at 4.980. This is currently 4.983 (edit: now 4.986). So yeah, that's pretty good.
@Bazooka99
"I think people overrate this card somewhat. In a typical Archenemy game of 1 vs. 3, the one player gets 1 bonus card draw and 20 extra life at the start of the game (obviously). Aside from those two advantages, the Scheme deck is supposed to make up for the disadvantage of having 2 additional players against you. Simply taking an extra turn only does you so much good when your opponents have 3 turns or more.
"Certainly a good card, but far from overpowered. A free Time Warp is not nearly as good as the free Insurrection provided by My Crushing Masterstroke, or the free Violent Ultimatum provided by Tooth, Claw, and Nail."
I disagree. Yeah, there are times when one of those cards will help you more than this would help you. But while both of those effects may (and that's a big "may") help you more in the right scenario, this one has the biggest advantage any scheme card can dream for: it's as good on turn 1 as on turn 10, and just as good no matter what the board looks like. If you get My Crushing Masterstroke when the Heroes all have 2+ creatures down, it's likely better. But if 1) one (or more) of your opponents is playing a creature-light deck (very likely since control seems to be great against Archenemies) or 2) it's still early in the game and your opponents all have one 1/2 creature out, it may as well be A Display of my Dark Power. And if you have a strong enough board position - again, very likely in Archenemy - two attacks with all of your creatures against a (possibly tapped out) opponent could be much more powerful than one attack against each opponent with their own creatures plus one attack with all of yours.
Since you have no control over when you play them, the most important thing in a Scheme card is flexibility. Many schemes with great effects can end up being completely useless if you draw them at the wrong time. So while yeah, at turn 8 against a bunch of creature-heavy decks I'd rather draw My Crushing Masterstroke, the fact that at best it will give me a slight advantage over All in Good Time and at worst will do literally nothing tips my favor towards this one.
That's not to say that Tooth, Claw, and Tail or My Crushing Masterstroke are poor Schemes. But as it seems like you're ignoring the single most important trait a Scheme can have in your analysis, so I find it very lacking.
-8: Exile (Cardname), then take two extra turns after this one. Return (Cardname) to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the end step of the second extra turn.
5/5 Stars