It may make sense to eventually redo this as a poll. But for now, I need research. That means asking all of you. What are the most often error-prone, underestimated, or just plain poorly understood cards in this format? This includes cards you can trick your opponent with. It also includes cards that folks misjudge the purpose for or how to properly use either in their own deck or how their opponents are using it. I will list a few that I am familiar with.
Vendilion Clique: In SCG Orlando 2009 or 2010, my round 5 opponent with RUG saw me cast cards like Jotun Grunt off of basic Plains. This was the early days of D+T. In a tight spot in g2, he condescendingly declared "I will give you every opportunity to lose" and cast Vendilion Clique. I said that it resolved and he paused, looking me in the eye. Having said what he did, I thought he was going for a free look at the one card in my hand. I asked if he was targeting me with the ability and he said "no" before proceeding to cycle the card in his hand. I was lucky to not fall for that. Upon reflection, I realized that he was looking to get me on illegally drawing a card. I underestimated the broken jedi maneuver he was going for. That brings me to...
Flickerwisp: Same game, same Vendilion Clique. It was a slog to get the last few points of damage through for both of us. I had been stuck using Karakas on his Clique to survive. He saw a lot of cards that way. We both had 4 or 5 life or something. I had an active Vial on 3 when he went to hit Karakas with Wasteland on my eot. I vialed in Flickerwisp to save it. No attack from him. I topdecked another Flickerwisp on my turn and waited. He drew, Brainstormed, thought about it for a very long time, grumbled that I might have another wisp, then Wastelanded Karakas (which I allowed), and went to Lightning Bolt my wisp. This was everything he needed. But I vialed in the second wisp to save the first. The first came back eot. When it did I flickered his Clique which stayed exiled on my turn (he called a judge to confirm this); long enough for me to deal 6 ftw. What made that so sweet was the dripping disdain at which he treated me and my random pile of Flickerwisps. (After the match he complained that he wanted to face real decks.)
Gerry Thompson, to his credit, said publicly that he was surprised how dangerous Flickerwisp is after he faced me the next year. He blew two Force of Wills on them in the same game.
Flickerwisp is the card that new D+T players have to simply take the word of experienced players not to cut. They all seem to want to.
Scryb Ranger - Has so much, just so much important text. Players are always turning it to read it. Out of time for now.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Fringe cases that rarely come up (but with no doubt are awesome plays) =|= misunderstood cards
People should play the format enough to understand at least the threats of most common staple decks.
E.g., if you don't understand the rain of shit that might come down upon you when your opponent has a Flickerwisp at instant speed active, you might either cry in a corner or you have to play more Legacy to get a deeper knowledge of the format.
Fine. We can rename the thread. Does it matter?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Are we talking about misunderstood from a rules/functional perspective? If so, some of the usual suspects:
Chains of Mephistopheles
Sylvan Library
Humility
Trinisphere
Anything with banding
Anything with phasing
Also fuck people that try to win by tricking their opponent into a rules violation.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Flickerwisp is a thing of my nightmares. I can't explain how I lost to it, I just do. I've been playing maverick lately and scryb ranger has been very good for me. Mostly for the ability to untap mana dorks and allow me to bounce and replay lands for a ton of mana. But I did get to flash in a scryb to untap a 15/15 KOTR to block a lethal Thought Knot with a Jitte that had 5 counters and crack back ftw. Card is incredibly useful.
Again, I've been playing maverick lately and people seem to have forgotten how good pridemage is. I was able to block a goblin guide and blow pride mage to kill an opposing eidolon to turn the corner and beat burn. It's still a very good card that people somewhat under estimate.
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
The actual Oracle text for Chains is "Call a judge".
I can't tell you how much this summarizes my D&T experiences.
Anyway, some cards:
- Coercive Portal: there's a lot of text and it's only played in 1 Legacy deck.
- Lightning Greaves: my opponents very regularly forget the Shroud piece, and think it's just Haste.
- Solitary Confinement: people seem to forget either Shroud, or the ignoring damage part. Similar to the last 2, it's not widely played.
- Helm of Obedience: for some reason, not that many people seem to know the RIP/Leyline combo. Then again, it is completely unintuitive . . .
My best confinement story. My opponent got Jace up to 13 and I desperation played it to buy a turn. Opponent reads it. Then on his turn takes dice off of Jace. He asks if he can do that. I say you do have a legal target for the ultimate. He ults himself, scoops and we go to game 2.
So much this.
I mean, I get that if you are playing at a higher REL event, say like Day 2 of a Grand Prix, you should understand the rules of the game and also know that you can request a Judge to help clarify an unusual situation and/or provide the Oracle wording of older cards. Players tend to use a lot of short-cuts during games, but if something needs to be clarified, a game should be backed up to the requisite game-state and things need to be sussed out for both player's mutual understanding.
Sometimes it simply comes down to a newer or less-experienced player making a dumb mistake or a critical oversight leading to a misplay that ends up costing them the game -- e.g. a player forgetting to add a counter to their Aether Vial, a player forgetting that a creature has Protection from X, or a player sequencing their triggers in such a way that they get blown out by [thing]. So be it, this is a great learning opportunity for them. Sometimes this sort of thing happens to even "good" and more-experienced players. In these instances, it's not your job to hold your opponent's hand and teach them how to play the game or guide them into making the optimal play.
But I really hate players that use maneuvers like 'mind tricks' or over-the-top rules-lawyering to eke out a win based on a minor technicality or honest misunderstanding.
I'm obviously not talking about stuff like bluffing the contents of your hand, or doing something completely legal to misdirect an opponent's attention or push their line of play in a particular direction, etc. -- this sort of stuff is part of playing Legacy at a higher level that goes beyond the basic optimal-sequencing aspect of tight play.
But the aforementioned example of having Vendilion Clique ETB with the intention of having an opponent reveal their hand prior to declaring the targeted player is of something that I don't think belongs in competitive MtG. It's just scummy. I think it's actually the duty of a player to *not* let that happen if a newer player mistakenly starts to reveal their hand prior to the declared target. Glancing quickly can't be helped, but methodically noting the contents of their hand (or even writing them down) goes beyond what I think is acceptable, and (imho) enters the realm of "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" or whatever the DCI judge warning term would be.
So yeah, this is a good topic. Given that Legacy has a massive card pool (and in some ways, an arguably bigger 'actual' card pool than even Vintage given that there are a greater number of competitive/viable strategies), I think it's great to bring attention to some of the cards and scenarios that often get misunderstood.
And but so:
I'm sure it's been mentioned already, but I'd suggest that Stifle deserves attention, especially to newer players who don't have a perfect understanding of what does and doesn't constitute an activated or triggered ability. It's made even murkier by the fact that some cards have multiple printings that might seem to be Stifle-able, e.g. Sylvan Library's 5th edition printing.
Speaking of which, Sylvan Library seems to get misplayed a lot. I myself have made some mistakes with the card years ago. I think it'd be worthwhile for someone to break it down. I had an extended argument about how this card works in relation to a Flashed-in-on-my-draw-step Notion Thief with another player who was "certain that I was forced to follow through with SL's trigger (actually, no per a Judge's rules clarification). There are plenty of other scenarios created with Sylvan Library which lead to some confusion and game-state problems.
I agree completely. Flickerwisp is forged of pure hell.
Doomsday, Brainstorm are commonly talked about as misunderstood/ skill-intensive/ hard-to-play.
Then there are a ton of good cards without homes that I don't think apply to this question; good could Trygon Predator be? But it's not misunderstood I'd say.
What about Stifle? So many tricks for one blue mana. Definitely on the list of "funnest cards to play in Legacy".
Ad Nauseum is largely "misunderstood", not as important as it once was.
To make your point even better, you actually can Stifle Sylvan Library, but it's not an activated ability like the 5th Edition templating implies, and thus you can't Pithing Needle it, which someone actually tried to do against me when the 5th Edition printing was the one you saw the most.
Other notable cards for causing confusion tend to have similar text to Clique that requires targets to be chosen or decisions to be made on resolution rather than as part of casting the spell: Misdirection, Divert and Cabal Therapy are the ones I typically think of.
This exact printing of this card should be banned:
I once played against a guy who intentionally play that arbor with the below land, in foil and would just pile them all together intentionally.
For a commonly played/complained about card, a lot of people do not understand the miracles or top well. Specifically that they can use decay/disenchant effects to destroy top in response to a fetch. And that you have to first let the miracle trigger resolve before the card actually gets cast. I have had elves players activate their symbiote/ranger, D&T players use karakas/wisp to save important things, or people flash me their FoW+blue card, the instant they see terminus. And then I can opt not to cast it and brainstorm it back on top instead.
I second the clique misunderstanding, especially when playing miracles, half the time I am targeting my self to get rid of terminus or extra CB/Top, but people just plop down their hand. If it is competitive REL and my opponent is not a dick; I'll look away as quickly as possible. Writing down the contents of their hand and then asking if the clique resolves would count as being a dick.
A few links to external articles that may be useful and are relevant to this topic:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...ew-Jersey.html
http://www.azmagicplayers.com/articl...-interactions/
http://www.azmagicplayers.com/articl...-interactions/
http://www.azmagicplayers.com/articl...ctions-part-3/
I'm still unsure what the fuck that card is about. I'm glad it's not a common choice.
So much yes. I've been on the receiving end of this dick behaviour too many times.
Cabal Therapy is another one a lot of people seem to misunderstand. IME many don't know you name the card after the opponent has chosen to respond. So many judge calls after they've accused me of cheating.
Pretty much all of Dragon Stompy is confusing...
Blood Moon
- Your Dryad Arbor is a 1/1 green Mountain druid
- CitP tapped lands still enter tapped
- Legendary lands are still legendary and one dies if another enters
- You still name a creature type with Cavern of Souls
Chalice of the Void
- Chalice only cares about the cost printed in the upper corner, the flashback cost beingmore or 'sacrifice a creature' doesn't matter, the CMC is still 1
Trinisphere
- This card is picked up and read far more often than I'd expect...
- With Chalice out, your 1 man's spells cost 3 before they get countered
Prophetic Flamespeaker
- For some reason people skip the 'Doublestrike, Trample' line
People seem to not understand that land will keep it's supertype under a blood moon. As a painter player I have had many judge calls because people didn't understand how I could weld my great furnace under a moon.
Glacial Chasm
Crop Rotation into it. Announce the trigger. My burn opponent Price of Progress. It resolves and didn't do anything. My opponent was surprised, somehow, because my trigger hadn't resolved yet! Then I told him to read the card more closely.
♀
That reminds me of all the times I've had to explain how Dark Depths works to people, and how ineffective it's been to say "it's analogous to Standstill".
LOL. In the SCG Worcester Finals coverage, the announcers didn't know that you can't Stifle the Dark Depths ability. He was wondering why Ed Stifled the Stage copy ability instead.
Tabernacle gives the opponents creatures the trigger. The amount of people that have got pissed at me for "Missing my trigger" and calling a judge...
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
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