You are overestimating how often these mid- to late-game triggers come down in accelerated fashion, and underestimating how swingy it can be to stop them without going down a card yourself (which is a relevant point).Originally Posted by Fox
Comparing this card to Vendilion Clique is incorrect. Clique may be a better card, but they don't really do the same thing. For example, Vendilion Clique doesn't do much after they DRS -> Agent -> Visions anyway. The interesting thing about this card is that in the mid-game, you can stop them from pulling ahead with a big play like AV or Terminus, but if you draw this late you just make a 3/1 and go to town.
Unless you are stuck in Time Spiral, no they don't. Leovold cost BUG. The BG cost grants it's Spirit of the Lab effect, and the U gives it it's Kira-like effect. Player's cant draw more than one card per turn is on 1-other card, and a recent one at that, so it has never been a historically white effect.
It's Rare. The set symbol rarity has actually been really hard to read on this set (due to Bolas' horns being so thin), but you can check the letter code on the bottom of the card!
Expensive, yes, but also flexible for its price.
/"...you don't control'"
It has no effect except to draw a card if there's nothing it can legally target.
Like I said in a facebook group. At two mana this would be really really good. At 3 it's unplayable. I'll stick with collective brutality as my flexible black removal/discard spell for now
Expensive, yes, but also flexible for its price.
5 new cards:
Nothing major for Legacy or even Modern, from initial looks at it.
Torment of Hailfire looks fun, and the Torment of Scarabs seems interesting in a pox type deck.
But, both are likely slated for Commander if anything.
Torment of Hailfire is so lovely in EDH. Massive advantage in multiplayer even at relatively small values for x. "nonland" makes all the difference, as this becomes a bonafide wincon too.
"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."
Which is it? You could easily make the case for this card to be mono-white because of Spirit of the Lab and Reparations/Karmic Justice (trigger on target/destroy)
I disagree that these effects have to be in U all the time. Green in particular has messed around in this area quite a bit. Stopping abilities as a permanent (Needle, new probe-needle, Revoker) is a colorless effect.
I do think that one of the reasons they are is specifically so they can have an impact in eternal formats because they are so blue already. In a similar way they have powered up D&T a lot with new hatebears and Recruiter of the Guard (despite the fact that creature tutoring has tilted heavily toward G).
What I am looking for is a reason to do something else besides DRS, Brainstorm, Force, Ponder, 1-mana removal of choice, Underground Sea.
The discussion was:
"Why did wizards make this card unable to target your own abilities?" (For Dreadnought or whatever)
"Because then if you cycled it on an empty stack it would counter itself"
"Well why didn't they just make it a may trigger then"
"Oh"
Edit: Torment of Scarabs seemed like it might be playable in Pox when I first looked at it but it seems like it's just The Rack for 4 mana the more that I think about it.
It does get scary really fast with Curse of Misfortune + the expensive black curse from Amonkhet but that's probably only worth trying in Modern.
Edit again: It seems like a bit of a flavor fail to not have these be named Torment of Scarabs/Scorpions/Locusts but I guess having 3 Monoblack spells with those names would be too hard to differentiate with unique mechanical effects that also make sense flavor-wise? I wouldn't have even considered it if one of them didn't have 'Scarabs' in the name.
Edit again: And then the venom one mentions Scorpions in the flavor text but the 3rd one has nothing to do with locusts????? Somebody get Matt Sperling on the phone
Black is busted in limited 😶
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The Torments are only for the two Black gods + the God Pharaoh, the Locust God isn't black.
Hailfire could see minor play. It's potential for large card advantage and it's also a win con. Casted on an empty v empty board, this reads 9 damage for 5 mana, which is quite substantial. I don't expect it to make a splash, but that's really high damage potential on stalled or accelerated boardstates. I could see running it in the Bloodbraid slot in Jund or some end-game slot in Junk or something. Decks that grind to where each player has basically nothing and need a way to win quick; while this also offers lots of potential CA.
I think issues with Mind-Twist style cards in the past is that they've got potential to be dead, but this plays to the board, the hand, and eventually the life total; and the life-total part is 3-damage for 1 mana. That's really quite efficient. It also doesn't target.
Note: It does seem absolutely busted in multiplayer.
EDIT: LOL, I bet it'd be good in Nic Fit... that's some kinda win con there! haha
Why would you want to play with a punisher card like that instead of something like Banefire if your plan is to generate absurd amounts of mana and cast a big X spell?
A 3x multiplier on your traditional X burn spell for one. A deck like Pox could get caught up with it (9 damage for 3BB, instead of 4 damage for 4R) and threaten a quick finish with Tombstalker, or contribute to wiping out the field.
I don't think it's good enough but still neat.
You are just hating on blue because it's a good color. What do Force, Ponder, and USea have to do with Leovold and the color-pie?
It's the B not letting opponents draw more than one card, as black is the original Chains of Mephistopheles effect. All I said was that the U in Leovold's mana cost is what gives it the weird hexproof that it has. Kira has this effect, there is a new blue Merfolk spoiled that has this effect, Scion of Oona has this effect. It is a blue effect.
Levolold= G 3/3, U ghetto hexproof, B Chains all wrapped up into one card. Not that tough to decipher.
You're sluffing away a 3/1 flash flying creature to Stifle something and replacing it with what is quite likely to be a land (this guy probably isn't being run below 20 lands without DRS). I would really advise staying away from Terminus as a model organism for why Nimble Obstructionist isn't* like Clique as either of these cards in response to miracle trigger has the same outcome in regards to that miracle card not being alt-cast; what's different is that one play gives you a 3/1, the other one gives you a blind draw.
As far as these cards not doing the same thing let's focus exclusively on Clique only targeting self. Nimble cycles itself and potentially Stifles a target, Clique deploys itself to the battlefield at any time (for that same 3 mana) and cycles your worst nonland card. I do think that you have to make that comparison, b/c Clique's trigger isn't part of a cycling ability. Stifling something mid-late game is definitely a thing you can do, but having the 3/1 body that always gets it's value/utility is better in a general sense.
You can deliberately create a deck where Nimble Obstructionist is a better mechanical fit than Clique, but if your deck is playing normal legacy you're going to be concocting magical christmasland scenarios like:
-Opponent who has a Fetch and a DRS goes to eat my Loam
-In response Wasteland your Fetch
-They crack Fetch
-cycle Nimble to Stifle the Fetch and replace draw with dredging Loam...and now this Loam plan has also fed into feeding your delve creature plan
Sticking with the Loam/Nimble Obstructionist example, but in a non-normal legacy deck, it could be combined with cards like Headless Skaab/Stitchwing Skaab. It's not good, but a strategy like this could actively want a slow Stifle effect attached to augmenting both sides of the Loam/Skaab engine.
It's a hard sell though saying Nimble Obstructionist is something people actually want over a 3/1 body or over a value trigger when you get the 3/1 body. Were people really looking for that slow Stifle, shouldn't we have been seeing more Disallow in legacy?
On another topic, Torment of Hailfire seems like a really, really bad remake of Forbidden Ritual
I think in 80% of cases Obstructionist will be a worse Aven Mindcensor. Aven can't hit Wasteland, and isn't *guaranteed*, but it's pretty good, and can potentially "get" your opponent when played early enough
At the end of the day, it suffers from choice card syndrome.
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