MaximumC
10-21-2016, 01:10 PM
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=417690&type=card
I was watching Harnessed Lightning become a $2-3 uncommon after the Pro Tour, which made me start to think more deeply about this little burn spell. I came to appreciate a few things about its power that I didn't grasp at first, and I was wondering if people have experimented with it in Legacy at all.
I initially discounted the card because I figured it was only an Incinerate variant. Sure, it could be bigger if you were playing Energy enablers, but very few of them seemed playable on their own, so I moved on. But, on further reflection, this kind of card could be quite flexible and powerful in a deck with lots of card draw / selection / recursion (i.e. Brainstorm, Ponder, Snapcaster Mage).
Here's the critical thing I missed: this is more like Forked Lightning than Incinerate. When you cast this spell, you can burn something for 1, 2, or 3. If you are only killing a Thalia, you only need to burn for 1. The other 2 burn points basically go into a bank. Next time you cast Harnessed Lightning, or recur it, you can now use that banked energy to get a 5-for-2 damage spell. Or bank it further. It can grow as the game grows and potentially be able to nail larger creatures as you go up the curve.
Now, it can't hit players, so it probably can't work as a finisher in, say, Delver. But is being a "scalable" burn spell worth it?
Any thoughts?
I was watching Harnessed Lightning become a $2-3 uncommon after the Pro Tour, which made me start to think more deeply about this little burn spell. I came to appreciate a few things about its power that I didn't grasp at first, and I was wondering if people have experimented with it in Legacy at all.
I initially discounted the card because I figured it was only an Incinerate variant. Sure, it could be bigger if you were playing Energy enablers, but very few of them seemed playable on their own, so I moved on. But, on further reflection, this kind of card could be quite flexible and powerful in a deck with lots of card draw / selection / recursion (i.e. Brainstorm, Ponder, Snapcaster Mage).
Here's the critical thing I missed: this is more like Forked Lightning than Incinerate. When you cast this spell, you can burn something for 1, 2, or 3. If you are only killing a Thalia, you only need to burn for 1. The other 2 burn points basically go into a bank. Next time you cast Harnessed Lightning, or recur it, you can now use that banked energy to get a 5-for-2 damage spell. Or bank it further. It can grow as the game grows and potentially be able to nail larger creatures as you go up the curve.
Now, it can't hit players, so it probably can't work as a finisher in, say, Delver. But is being a "scalable" burn spell worth it?
Any thoughts?