Eternal Europe: Deconstructing Hive Mind

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

My latest article is out. This time I thought instead of talking about something I built myself, I'd rather talk about one of the growing forces in the metagame - Hive Mind.


http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...Hive_Mind.html

Any mistakes? What was helpful, what too easy? Let me know what you think!

[menace13]

I think it is one of the best decks in the format as of now. Also Progenitus might be better than Emrakul in that Jace and GSZ->KotR->Karakas are all over the place.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Excellent article, as always. The "hold priority, than play Pact of Negation" trick is something I wasn't aware of how to do.

[Nessaja]

The right way: “Pact of the Titan, hold priority, then in response to the Hive Mind trigger, play Pact of Negation on my Pact.”

Something irks me about this. But I actually am not entirely sure why I get that feeling.

So what you are essentially doing is making the stack like this

Copy of PoN
PoN targetting PoT
Trigger that creates copy of PoT
PoT

In essence I agree with what you're doing. I'm just not seeing why you are holding priority after casting the PoT, it seems as if you should be holding priority after the trigger.

[RainbowPenguin]

@ Nessaja: The point is that the opponent cannot target his own copy of PoT, since the trigger that would create it has not resolved yet. That means that the opponent must pay for both pacts. If you let the trigger resolve before you cast PoN, your opponent could target his/her own copy of PoT with his/her copy of PoN, and would then only have to pay for the copy of PoN.

[Koby]

Something irks me about this. But I actually am not entirely sure why I get that feeling.

So what you are essentially doing is making the stack like this

Copy of PoN
PoN targetting PoT
Trigger that creates copy of PoT
PoT

In essence I agree with what you're doing. I'm just not seeing why you are holding priority after casting the PoT, it seems as if you should be holding priority after the trigger.

The Hivemind trigger will indeed go on the stack prior to being able to cast Pact of Negation. The trigger occurs after a spell is cast, put onto the stack, then priority is returned to the active player.