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Thread: [SCD] Pain Seer.

  1. #1
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    [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Greetings all,

    with the coming of the new set Born of the Gods, one of the cards that drew my eye was Pain Seer.

    For purpose of completeness;

    Pain Seer - 1B
    Creature - Human Wizard
    Inspired — Whenever Pain Seer becomes untapped, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to that card's converted mana cost.
    2/2

    So, It's basically a bob ( dark confidant) that has to untap.This has both advantages as disadvantages.

    As I see it, the advantages are that you can actually use this as a bob on command.Using cards like Cerulean Wisps ( U - Target creature becomes blue until end of turn. Untap that creature.Draw a card. ) you can activate it on command + draw a card ahead of the pain seer trigger, and using cards like apathy & Immobilizing Ink you can go further and activate it while filling up the graveyard.There are otherways as well ( coral trickster,Crypsis, etc ).Cards like Pemmin's Aura are of course toolkits for Pain Seer.

    Keep in mind that it has a fatter body ( 2 versus bob's 1 ) so, it can 1/x's beter than bob.

    Disadvantage for all this, is that with no tap-effect, you'll be relying on attacking to get the ability going, wich can be deadly if you face anything 2/x.

    I'm no cardwiz ( by far, I'm actually jumping back in the game after 5-6 years of inactivity ), but this really caught my attention and screamed in my face for a use.I'm seeying a vague BU deck, using Pain Seer, Apathy-like spells and maybe even a dash of W for some lifegain to counteract the lifeloss from Pain Seer.

    So, what do people expect of this card?
    Will it be a replacement for bob?
    Have any decks already brewing that use Pain Seer?

    Discuss! :)
    Starting: Goblins

  2. #2
    The green Ancestral
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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Welcome. Unfortunately, Apathy and Immobilizing Ink are not generally considered playable in this format. I'm also not seeing how these cards would beneficially combine with Pain Seer. Ultimately, if you're playing a deck with Apathy, Immobilizing Ink, Gigadrowse, and Pain Seer, you're going to have plenty of games where you don't draw Pain Seer. So you're trying to put together an A+B combo that doesn't win the game in a format where a lot of those combos do win the game (Painter's Servant + Grindstone, Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace, True-Name Nemesis + equipment, Show and Tell + Emrakul, just to name a few).

    Pain Seer won't replace Dark Confidant because Dark Confidant doesn't require other cards in order to benefit you; he simply draws you cards. Pain Seer, on the other hand, triggers upon untapping, which typically means you have to wait an additional turn before you benefit from him.

    I invite you to explore your ideas further in New and Development Decks section.

  3. #3
    The crazy nastyass honey badger

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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Perhaps combine it with Springleaf Drum/Paradise Mantle and indeed Pemmin's Aura..?

    Getting the Paradise Mantle/Pemmin's Aura engine going would be fun. And then add SDT to filter the top of your library?

    On the other hand, this engine'll take up a lot of slots and would still be rather slow and vulnerable. I don't think it'll be good/fast enough for Legacy, to be honest.

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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    You got points there, too much cards just to get it going.

    Maybe develop a deck that revolves around letting the opponent cast his creatures, but not letting him attack / untap them?

    Cards like propaganda come to mind.
    Starting: Goblins

  5. #5
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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    ESG brings up a very good point. In Legacy you need combos to be very powerful (Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, Show and Tell + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, etc.) to be worth running. You can try and build around other types of combos, but you really have to make sure they're impacting the game a lot. Otherwise if you try to do things less powerful, you're almost certainly better off just using one of those other combos, since you probably can't compete with decks otherwise! So, when we look at Pain Seer, if we want to maximize it's power we'd have to play several untap effects. That said, there's not really any worthwhile untap effects for legacy right now (and they'll be particularly bad if you don't get your pain seer!). So, we don't really want to dilute our deck with untap effects...So how can it draw us cards, well Pain Seer is only going to get us cards two (!) turns after you've played it, and that's assuming they didn't have a creature to block it or remove it. For Legacy, this is simply too slow; at that point you might as well suspend an Ancestral Vision.

    The last point that I'd like to bring up is that strict card advantage is actually not a big deal in Legacy right now, when you consider most cards being played. Why is that? Well, we have such efficient cards that often it's better to just be playing very efficient and powerful individual cards to gain advantage over your opponent, as opposed to trying to overwhelm your opponent with strict card advantage. There's some exceptions to this rule, of course, but by and large people are more concerned with card quality over card quantity.
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  6. #6
    The crazy nastyass honey badger

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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anvil View Post
    Cards like propaganda come to mind.
    Mono U Taxes! Taxes with 8-12 counters, Brainstorms and Ponders. I'm intrigued. I say go for it!

    Make a build and post it in the new decks-section (I honestly mean this). I'm curious as to what'll be your win-con.

  7. #7

    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    we're talking about a /2 creature no shroud/hexproof :| you can't build a deck on that kind of card advantage.

    Brainstorm + Ponder provides a better CA engine already

  8. #8
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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Quote Originally Posted by Poron View Post
    we're talking about a /2 creature no shroud/hexproof :| you can't build a deck on that kind of card advantage.

    Brainstorm + Ponder provides a better CA engine already
    While I agree that the Seer is not Legacy material, I believe that you are a bit off in putting BS and Ponder into the CA bracket: they are card quality engines, not advantage.

  9. #9

    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Pain Seer will not replace Dark Confidant in any deck that wants it, ever. It can, however, hypothetically act as Dark Confidants 5-8 in a deck that wants a critical mass of Bob effects. Pain Seer is markedly worse than Dark Confidant, but your opponent still has to trade/deal with or else you'll get card advantage. I think it's a waste to try to use other cards/untapping mechanisms to make it work. Just attack normally and some percentage of the time you'll get the card draw.

    Having said that, I have no idea what type of deck would want it. Maybe a B/W two-drops galore deck?

  10. #10
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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    You only draw cards when you actually untap it, or am I mistaken?

    Otherwise, it would make a cool combo with Kobold creature stuff and Intruder Alarm.

  11. #11
    Rob Rogers
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    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Yes, it's only when you actually untap it sadly.

    He could be good if you could consistently keep your opponent's board clean, or give him evasion of some sort.

    Or magical christmas land, turn 1 Aether Vial, turn 2 Standstill, turn 3 Vial in your Pain Seer.
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  12. #12

    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    As mentioned above, his worst quality is the fact that he has summoning sickness. If at least he had haste he could almost be poor man's bob in some matchups (and if both parts of 2-piece combo are decent on their own the actual combo does not need to be instant-kill). But the fact that he needs to survive two turns to even replace himself does make him quite bad on his own.

    Having said that he does seem breakable and perhaps it is worth getting a playset for the future. He has relevant creature types and at least does something when he is alone (unlike Emrakul or Helm). Maybe one day we will get some crazy Wizards deck, with something like Azami, Lady of Scrolls or equivalent of Heritage Druid...

  13. #13

    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Aura of Dominon is cute with nu-Bob, but Braingeyser or Ad Nauseam just make more sense.

    I suppose there's some synergy with Maze of Ith which is sort of decent on its own.

    Maybe there's some kind of 12-bob deck running Blood Scrivener,Dark Confidant and Pain Seer, combined with symmetric effects like Smallpox and Mind Swords.

  14. #14

    Re: [SCD] Pain Seer.

    Quote Originally Posted by HammafistRoob View Post
    Yes, it's only when you actually untap it sadly.

    He could be good if you could consistently keep your opponent's board clean, or give him evasion of some sort.

    Or magical christmas land, turn 1 Aether Vial, turn 2 Standstill, turn 3 Vial in your Pain Seer.
    can't you just Vial in Dark Confidant to make your life simpler?

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