[SCD] Ray of Revelation

[GGoober]

We all know that this card has been used sparingly in Legacy, namely in Dredge sideboards and Lands.dec at one point to answer Blood Moon with a combination of Riftstone Portal.

I'm raising this card for discussion because I feel that in the present age of Legacy, Counterbalance decks are no longer the overplayed decks of the format, and with the creeping rise of Survival decks, having a card that has the potential to drop 2 Survivals, or Humility/Moat against the control player seems like a decent choice.

Note that Ray of Revelation only works on Enchantments, but at this moment, enchantments are a much bigger problem than artifacts (Stax/Stompy) aren't too popular currently.

My personal reasons to run Ray in today's meta:
- two uses in 1 card, highly effective and a turn faster against Survival
- Against non Countertop players, you have 2 uses to try to answer Humility/Moat. Grip is better, but Ray has the advantage of baiting counters in hand.
- Against Countertop, I would go and actually argue that Grip may no longer be the best choice currently. Recall in the early days of Countertop, decks with Countertop packed about 14-16 2cmc spells and very little 3cmc spells. The meta has shifted and most 2cmc v 3cmc breakdowns are in the range 10-12 v.s. 4-7 respectively. A good Countertop player can usually play around a Grip most of the times. Granted that Ray is still inferior against Countertop, it is not as bad as it was.

On a more specific note, I'm running in my wishboard: 1 Grip, 1 Ray of Revelation in my UWg Landstill-ish build with 2 Cunning Wish. I feel that the 1 Grip would be a solid wish target against anything that I want to try to answer without failure, but the Ray would be good against bulk of the scenarios, being 1 mana cheaper, and having the potential to be used again.

[Mana Drain]

If you're running Ray of Revelation, that means you're running GW, which means you have access to Pridemage AND Grip. So really, compared to the aforementioned, when would Ray realistically be superior to either?

- Ray is more effective than either of the two mentioned cards against Survival, but why not play something less narrow like Pithing Needle? It answers ALL Survivals for 1. Plus it answers a million other relevant things in the format that Ray is blank against.
- What deck still runs a 4 mana white enchantment that doesn't win you the game? More importantly, is this deck played by more than 5 people? And if I'm trying to kill said enchantment, I don't want my hate spell to "bait counters". I want it to DESTROY THE ENCHANTMENT.
- Grip is still, and more than likely always be the best 1 card answer to Counterbalance. CB decks still run 4 Counterbalance, 4 Goofy, 3-4 Daze and depending on flavor, X Qasali Pridemage, X Fire/Ice, X Predict, etc. Ray just doesn't do the trick quite like Grip.

There just aren't very many enchantments running around to the point I'd run Ray over anything else. There's Survival, CB, Sylvan Library, and that's about it for relevancy.
Ray is a niche card at best, and that's in a Dredge board. And it's been that way ever since it rotated out of standard. Not hitting artifacts, which are far more prevalent, just kills the card. Maybe by the end of Scars block the metagame will be filled with Enchantress, Quin, and other enchantment-based decks so that playing a card as narrow as Ray could indeed become the correct choice. Until then, people will stick with Pridemage and Grip, because destroying a Jitte is just that much more important.

[bowvamp]

Mana Drain. Umm, did you read what he had to say. It went something like this: CB Top isn't the main threat right now. Therefore, KGrip is no longer "the best" enchantment removal out there. Both of the solutions that you propposed total to 3 mana to kill a single enchantment, whereas even casting RoR from one's hand costs only two.
I believe that Moat Staxx, Moat Landstill, and Quinn all run a four mana white enchantment which doesn't win them the game. Let's see you name a four mana white enchantment that does ;P

But in the colors that RoR is available in, I generally find these to be the best anti-enchantment hate cards (in order of effectiveness):
1) KGrip
2) Serenity
3) Nature's Claim
4) Reverent Silence

I really don't see a place for this card in today's meta. If you don't run artifacts/enchantments, it's completely outclassed by Serenity. Otherwise, it's completely outclassed by Nature's Claim. And if you just want to hate on enchantments and you don't run any, Reverent Silence sez hello.

[Mana Drain]

Mana Drain. Umm, did you read what he had to say. It went something like this: CB Top isn't the main threat right now. Therefore, KGrip is no longer "the best" enchantment removal out there. Both of the solutions that you propposed total to 3 mana to kill a single enchantment, whereas even casting RoR from one's hand costs only two.
I believe that Moat Staxx, Moat Landstill, and Quinn all run a four mana white enchantment which doesn't win them the game. Let's see you name a four mana white enchantment that does ;P

But in the colors that RoR is available in, I generally find these to be the best anti-enchantment hate cards (in order of effectiveness):
1) KGrip


I did read what he said, that's why I posted in the first place. First, only one of my points was directed at CB, and I made counterpoints to all of his original conclusions. Second, I will repeat my second counterpoint:

"- What deck still runs a 4 mana white enchantment that doesn't win you the game? More importantly, is this deck played by more than 5 people? And if I'm trying to kill said enchantment, I don't want my hate spell to "bait counters". I want it to DESTROY THE ENCHANTMENT."

There is no 4 mana white enchantment that wins you the game, and there is no deck that runs 4 mana white enchantments that wins games. White Staxx is a powerful deck, but randomly shits all over itself 1 in 3 games, making it the most inconsistent deck in legacy. Quinn is a control deck with no counters, no expedient win condition (don't try to tell me Elspeth is fast), a terrible draw engine, and doesn't really do anything productive until T3. Moat Landstill is outdated by Ugbx Deedstill and UWr Landstill. Also, every deck that cares about your Moat in play either runs answers maindeck or flyers. None of the three decks you listed have put up any results in any relevant tournament , and all of them roll over to a T1 Aether Vial. If you're worring about any of the three matchups, chances are your metagame is inbred beyond repair, or nobody at your local store has ever heard of the internet.

Seriously, Ray may someday become some badass anti-meta bomb in the future, but for now, stick to Grip. Or Pridemage. Or Disenchant.

[GGoober]

@Mana Drain: Points taken.

Specifically, I'm referring to control creatureless decks running Ray. E.g. Countertop (Goyf or No-Goyf), Landstill, other variants etc, Intuition/Lands. If I were playing with creatures, Pridemage is a no-brainer hands down. That card single-handedly pushed the format from being blue-deck dominant to creature-dominant format.

Trust me, I know the power of Krosan Grip and I don't doubt it, but looking at how the meta is changing, there're little decks that play Chalice/3Sphere and troublesome artifacts. The most troublesome artifacts against control that are being played at the moment might be Crucible, Pithing Needle, EE, but those can be dealt with EE. We are not facing the scary threats of Smokestacks, 3Sphere as we used to. Enchantment has become much more relevant. For a control player, Moat/Humility isn't going to do anything, but things like Choke, Survival, Blood Moon, Back to Basics, perhaps even Bitterblossom, Counterbalance are the ones problematic. Out of all these enchantments, Ray is subpar to Grip against Countertop, but my argument was that Counterbalance has shifted to include much more 3cmc slots due to how many 3cmc spells are being played in the meta now (Show and Tell, Knight of Reliquary, Deeds, etc) that a good counterbalance player won't lose to a grip as easily as you would think.

Now, Ray would be two uses in 1 card, and specifically, it would improve problematic matchups like Enchantress and Survival. Ray is much stronger than Grip against these matchups, and is also highly relevant against Blood Moon since white is fundamentally a more basic color than green in control shells (e.g fetching a basic plains for stp against moon.dec or back to basics.dec). Krosan Grip is extremely weak against Survival. If you're packing enchantment hate against Survival and it's grip, then you probably should not have bothered since they would have dumped all the VV in the yard on turn 3 and set up for a kill late. Ray is a turn faster and ideally "Turn 2 Survival, Ray it before they can grab anything maybe a VV/Goyf if they had a mana bird to start off with"

I'm not saying it's going to be better than Grip, but looking at where the meta is headed right now, I feel it's a decent choice: Not too much artifacts, but a lot of Survival decks. Ray is also better than Grip against Blood Moon/B2B as mentioned earlier (more synergy with basic plains in control deck than green lands). Against Enchantress, I can't even imagine how much stronger Ray is.

I'm currently playing: 1 Grip, 1 Ray in my SB, but I might want to up that to 1 Grip, 2 Rays or just 2 Rays if my meta had no artifact decks.