Is there a need for a colorless Show-and-Tell hatecard?

[Dice_Box]

I can think of a 'Hatecard' for Show and Tell in every color, including a number of colorless answers.

Cool. Thanks for joining the talk, adding said suggestions to the thread and being a productive member of the site.

[Ingo]

A+B combo decks are the natural evolution of combo though, as power creep hits and hits. How do you expect a deck like storm, which is really all gear and cogs, to keep up with A+B combos under the presence of Thalia, Chalice, Trinisphere, Pillar, Leyline, and the list goes on? All the conventional "combo" hate does is hit storm, and then there is "graveyard" hate to hit GY decks.

Decks that play A, resolve B are the future of Magic, imo. Turbo-Depths and SnT just dodge too much conventional "combo" hate to have it be any other way. Why try to chain 10 spells together and Mind Twist myself when I can just try to resolve 1 spell at 3cc with no draw-backs?

edit: SnT and Tubo Depths break some more rules in that they are 2-card combos, but you only need to resolve 1 spell on the stack to enable them. Dark Depths is a land so dodges countermagic, and with Show and Tell the +B part of the combo always stays in hand. This is a sharp turn from other A+B combos like Splinter Twin, where you need to resolve one, protect it, untap, resolve another piece. And this is, imo, why they are so strong, because the games comes down to resolving some stupic 3cc sorcery or 2cc creature. They are just on another plane of existence.

But in terms of having colorless hate available for Sneakshow and Turbodepths, there’s a big difference between both decks. Turbodepths cannot combo out with Legacy’s most popular permanent on the battlefield, Wasteland, which is usually maindecked by fair decks in four copies. On top of that, Turbodepths is also vulnerable to counterspells, as the deck is clinged together by green landtutors like crop rotation (which is 2for1 when countered), except when Stage and Depths are naturally drawn.

Turbodepths is geared to manage Wasteland with Pithing Needle or tutoring for Ghostquarter, but these are maindeck slots being devoted on beating an otherwise unsurpassable lockpiece (with the Dark Depths sacrifice-trigger on the stack, you can waste in response). Neither Storm, Reanimator or SneakShow have to care about permanent-based hate in game1 to the point of devoting maindeck slots (we did see Storm experimenting with some maindeck decay’s in some decks, pre-topban). That makes Turbodepths a much more balanced combodeck than Sneakshow, although it's also A+B combo.

EDIT: And when thinking of colored answers, Swords to Plowshares ofcourse. Turbodepths can protect itself by Not of This World or Sejiri Steppe (again requiring maindeck space), but both Griselbrand and Emrakul have built-in protection.

[Crimhead]

Is part of SneakShow's T1-strength that Wizards does not print the same amount of dedicated hate, in comparison to other combodecks like Reanimator or Storm?

This isn't a real question. Obviously a combo deck gets worse with the printing of quality, dedicated, hosers. Yes, there is less dedicated hate for "enters play directly from the hand". But this clearly isn't an issue (unless you personally dislike a certain deck).

I see no reason to ask this (clearly rhetorical) question, except as an attempt to stir up (and validate) the S&T hate camp. Seems to have worked.

But in terms of having colorless hate available for Sneakshow and Turbodepths, there’s a big difference between both decks.

I think you are missing their point. They're not trying to compare S&T to Turbo Depths.

What Kanti is saying is that there is too much hate for some combo decks - while you seem take the view that there is not enough for others. I agree with Kanti. I'd sooner bitch about the endless chain of hatebears rather than bemoaning that one modestly successful combo deck faces too few cards which specifically cripple it.

But if you want to vent about a pet-hate deck (like some posters itt), knock yourself out.

Edit - If you are seriously curious about design, the reason we don't have a lot of cards that hose creatures coming in directly from the hand is that it's a relatively obscure interaction that hasn't really ever been a problem.

[Karhumies]

Against Sneak Attack, there is Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker.

Against Show and Tell, there is:

Black:
Memoricide, Slaughter Games, spot discard + Surgical extraction

Blue:
Counterspells + Surgical Extraction

Green:
nothing comes immediately to mind

Red:
Red blasts

White:
Containment Priest
Sanctum Prelate
Nevermore
Meddling Mage
Peacekeeper and Oblivion Ring - creatures

Colorless:
Warping Wail - requires colorless mana
Jester's Cap - mana intensive and only 75%
Ensnaring Bridge vs creatures
Thorn of Amethyst vs Wishboard combo

[tescrin]

What Kanti is saying is that there is too much hate for some combo decks - while you seem take the view that there is not enough for others. I agree with Kanti. I'd sooner bitch about the endless chain of hatebears rather than bemoaning that one modestly successful combo deck faces too few cards which specifically cripple it.

While I mostly agree, the hatebears we mostly use are pretty damn old. Thalia from Innistrad 1.0 (6 years ago), Canonist (9+ years ago), Teeg (10 years ago.) Prelate counts but only because she's a variable chalice without the mana problem. Even Meddling Mage has been around since.. well Gold Cards were new :D

Leo sort of counts, but a tri-color sort-of hate guy that hates on *all blue* doesn't really count IMO.

All I'm getting at is that the hate-bear problem is probably mildly exaggerated. Hatebears have been pretty slow going for awhile. There was EotGR but he's not making waves and giving a nearly strictly-worse option to a color that only had a sideboard option seems ok. I wouldn't mind another hatebear in R or Rx. I think there's some design space for GR to not be garbage, and a good GR hatebear could make Jund, Zoo, or something work. *Probably not*, but it could.

[Ingo]

What Kanti is saying is that there is too much hate for some combo decks - while you seem take the view that there is not enough for others. I agree with Kanti. I'd sooner bitch about the endless chain of hatebears rather than bemoaning that one modestly successful combo deck faces too few cards which specifically cripple it.

But if you want to vent about a pet-hate deck (like some posters itt), knock yourself out.

Aren't you overreacting a bit? There are already way more cards against Storm and Reanimator, both in the main (DRS, Thalia, Chalice ...) and side (Leyline, Cage, Extraction, Thorn ...) than there's deckspace to play them. They have also become that efficient that its hard to design them even more efficient! A threshold has been passed making new hate obsolete, at least against Reanimator and Storm.

As a fair deck usually devotes a fix X of its 15 sideslots to combo, right now fair nonblue decks pick their fight within these X cards against Reanimator and Storm, and roll over to Sneakshow because they have no playable options. A good colorlessly usable S&S hatecard wouldn't expand the number of X sidecards against combo, but diversify them, cutting down on Rea/Storm hate, including S&S hate, but remaining within these X sideslots equally vulnerable to combo. Can't see the problem with that.

So look at the bright side. A good S&S hatecard competes for sideslots and make life easier for other combodecks.

[Crimhead]

Aren't you overreacting a bit?

I think you are. There are plenty of cards people play that help against S&T - every deck has a solid option. Sure, there is no single (playable) haymaker hosers every deck can run that completely shut it down. So what? The deck is not OP and the format (though in flux) is incredibly diverse and open.

It's okay to vent. I like to vent about hate-bears on occasion. So no offense is intended. Just be happy.

A good S&S hatecard competes for sideslots and make life easier for other combodecks.

Depends on the card.

A colourless Priest would let folks simultaneously hose Reanimator, Dredge, Elves, Oops, and Sneaky Show - without even significantly slowing down their own clock.

Can't say I'm on board for that myself.

[Crimhead]

All I'm getting at is that the hate-bear problem is probably mildly exaggerated.

It's not really even a problem. Combo still thrives, and I can still play Lands.

I'm not too thrilled with the new trend of (3cc) 3 toughness bears. Leotard punishes you for targeting it, and sometimes needs to be targeted twice. Magus of the Crucible also has 3 toughness, and hoses LD decks.

I'm not really worried, but I wish they'd give it a rest and power-creep the creature hosers for a change. A man can dream!

[Ingo]

I think you are. There are plenty of cards people play that help against S&T - every deck has a solid option. Sure, there is no single (playable) haymaker hosers every deck can run that completely shut it down. So what? The deck is not OP and the format (though in flux) is incredibly diverse and open.

It's okay to vent. I like to vent about hate-bears on occasion. So no offense is intended. Just be happy.


Depends on the card.

A colourless Priest would let folks simultaneously hose Reanimator, Dredge, Elves, Oops, and Sneaky Show - without even significantly slowing down their own clock.

Can't say I'm on board for that myself.

None taken, as long as we don’t start flaming each other

I don’t think a deck should be OP before a card can be suggested affecting said deck. Cards get printed all the time, and they always affect decks. For Lands, Sanctum Prelate or Invasive Surgery are sort of hosers, they weren’t ‘necessary’ for the health of the format.

I think that a variation of the cardpool, also in the hoser-section, is a good argument on its own. As I said before, a deck only has X spots to devote to combo, it’s good in my opinion that a player can finetune these X cards against whatever combomatchups he’d like. So I’m not for a universal combohoser, but for an S&S-specific hoser that comes at the cost of taking some Storm or Reanimator slots.

Take Lands for example, and an anti-comboplan of 7 cards in 4 sphere, 2 Thorn, 1 chalice (just an example). Let’s say the perfect S&S-card exists, what would you cut? Every cut you make will make the Storm-matchup severely worse, and where the tax-rocks have some overall use against most combodecks, this S&S-hoser does not. I think a quality of cardvariation - enabling to finetune which matchups are better while making others at the same time worse - is a good thing, and that there's an opportunity in the S&S department.

[Crimhead]

I'm not opposed to a S&T hoser - I'm just "meh" on the subject.

What Legacy really needs is better fair-deck hosers. Abyss, Moat, Humility, etc could use upgrades to bring those strategems into the 21st century. WotC shits on combo enough for my liking already.

[owerbart]

I'm not saying Sneakshow is overly dominant in the meta, but rather that Wizards has printed many colorless options to battle specific combo-matchups, while staying soft on cheat-fattie-from-hand-archetypes. For example, Grafdiggers Cage is an absurdly effective hatecard against Reanimator, just like Leyline of the Void. I do have the impression Wizards favors SneakShow over Storm or Reanimator in this way.

I think Containment Priest could easily have been a colorless artifact instead of a white creature, while Grafdigger's Cage could have applied to cheat-creatures-from-hand as well.

This thread doesn't make a lot of sense.
Sneak and show is vulnerable to discard, needles, bridge, putting hosers in response to the sneak, karakas, revoker, counter magic and more. You also have warping wail if you really want a colorless answer.

Also as a Reanimator player, grafdigger's cage post sideboard is one of the easiest hate pieces to play against.

[JackaBo]

I'm not opposed to a S&T hoser - I'm just "meh" on the subject.

What Legacy really needs is better fair-deck hosers. Abyss, Moat, Humility, etc could use upgrades to bring those strategems into the 21st century. WotC shits on combo enough for my liking already.

This is so true. Although in my nostalgic mind, it's nice that these archaic cards still going strong when you want to hate on fair.

[ScatmanX]

Monkey Cage?

[Therealmslayer]

You got what you wanted now, that Sorcerous Spyglass does around 75% of what you want it to do.

[TokenMaster]

The issue with the hypothesis here is that colorless cards don't necessarily mean any deck can run them or even that they're generic; lots of the "backbreaking" cards OP mentioned are limited to a small handful of decks, in some cases even to merely 2-3 viable decks. Other than graveyard hate because of how plentiful it is, most decks for the most part find their own ways to deal with fast combo and if that wasn't the case, tax artifacts would be in every sideboard.

[16km]

Mirage Mirror looks like it could be okayish?

2: Mirage Mirror becomes a copy of target artifact, creature, enchantment, or land until end of turn.

Could also be used against lands.