The Abyss eats midrange decks so there will always be a chance it will get more powerful. Sure it loses to Natural Order or man lands, but it can also be back breaking against decks like Stoneforge, Team America, or Bant without N/O which last time I checked were still a sizable parts of the meta.Originally Posted by ivanpei
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
Bant runs GSZ and Qasali Pridemage. Seems kind of bad there. Against blue decks you have to resolve it.
I think The Abyss is just kind of a neat card that probably only really good when you're already in a winning position.
In order for that to even be an issue, you would require three mana to Zenith for two, and then you would subsequently require one more to activate it. Assuming your opponent untaps and with the trigger hits The Abyss, you've gained a potential three-for-one on card advantage:
1. The Pridemage.
2. The forced utility of Zenith.
3. Any other creature on your opponent's side of the table.
It's not that bad of a trade. Besides, Pridemage in general is bad for any deck running a heavy artifact base, so I'm not sure what the point is.
You can't double count the Pridemage and the Zenith for assessing card advantage, and you only get a two-for-one if your opponent has another creature and taps out without being able to activate Pridemage.
The Abyss can situationally be useful, but to maximize its ability, you really have to use something of a Stax shell, and those decks are simply poor because of all the deckbuilding restraints involved.
You absolutely can double-count those cards' forced use as an alternative means of advantage. You're inherently forcing your opponent to use offensive resources as defensive ones, and that makes a huge difference off the tail-end of one card you're playing. Even so, any deck running The Abyss should have no trouble disrupting early mana resources to force a Pridemage into being relatively obscure in the overall scheme of things. It gets a one-time use, and in the right deck, that shouldn't even matter.
In order to truly maximize The Abyss, you should run it with a compliment of sorted removal but a large source of offensive threats to offset the attention being diverted to it. This forces your opponent to react quickly and proactively. There are plenty of four-drops in the format that are powerful when they hit the table; The Abyss is no different in the right deck.
What exactly is this "right deck" you keep referring to? It seems like it does everything already, so why does it need The Abyss?
I'm not saying my build is the right deck; I think you're taking what I'm saying out of context. I'm simply stating that there have been a multitude of people in this threat purporting that would-be testers have already tried the card out in various shells to no avail. Who's to say their testing was thorough, let alone, with a strong enough shell to support it?
I've seen no evidence from anyone here to prove to me (or anyone else, for that matter) that The Abyss is not good enough to be supported in, well, anything. All I've read is a small fraction of posters trying to sell a point that the card is overrated and only good in a small portion of Legacy decks currently in existence. The fact remains these people haven't done any or limited testing - with suboptimal builds - which is why they are coming to these empty conclusions based solely on a preexisting opinion generalized by the fact the card hasn't seen play in a very long time.
I've been testing several decks regularly with it and having experience playing with the card in the past I can assure you the card is very powerful when it hits the table - which is in most instances. The trick is not "stuffing it" into a strong brew, but meshing properly into a strong brew.
I'm not saying my build is the right deck; I think you're taking what I'm saying out of context. I'm simply stating that there have been a multitude of people in this thread purporting that would-be testers have already tried the card out in various shells to no avail. Who's to say their testing was thorough, let alone, with a strong enough shell to support it?
I've seen no evidence from anyone here to prove to me (or anyone else, for that matter) that The Abyss is not good enough to be supported in, well, anything. All I've read is a small fraction of posters trying to sell a point that the card is overrated and only good in a small portion of Legacy decks currently in existence. The fact remains these people haven't done any or limited testing - with suboptimal builds - which is why they are coming to these empty conclusions based solely on a preexisting opinion generalized by the fact the card hasn't seen play in a very long time.
I've been testing several decks regularly with it and having experience playing with the card in the past I can assure you the card is very powerful when it hits the table - which is in most instances. The trick is not "stuffing it" into a strong brew, but meshing it properly into a strong brew.
You've got your logic all backwards. You're making a claim, which is that The Abyss is an amazing card in the current metagame. The onus is on you to provide empirical evidence to support that claim, NOT for the naysayers to provide evidence that it isn't, because you will continue to wave away their testing as "invalid" for whatever reason. The claim becomes unfalsifiable at such a level of discourse, because the objective testers get their results pooh-poohed, and you are effectively blinded by confirmation bias, so neither side will ever reach an agreement.
Top 8 an event with The Abyss (and actually have it be important to your gameplan, ie not just a lone copy in your sideboard), and then come back and try to tell us that it's great. Or at least pony up a decklist. A lot of people have been trying to make it work, and the general consensus seems to be that it's cute, but not good enough. Otherwise, your anecdotes are just noise.
This is fair.
/derail
I feel as though portal cards can be hit or miss. Some portal cards are reprinted under new names which makes it difficult when trying to discover gems within these sets.
To make it worse, I feel as though the color pie is a loose suggestion at this point. I only feel they wouldn't reprint Imperial Recruiter because of the high secondary market cost (which is complete opposition to the reprint policy statement that they consider Magic a game first and foremost).
Would a card like Loyal Retainers ever be reprinted with either the same or a new name? They feel less likely to print functionally identical cards from portal sets in recent years (whether P3K, P1/P2, or Starter) it seems but it's possible that I have missed some.
I feel that these sets are interesting because of some unique cards like Goblin Settler or Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed (among many others).
They brought back poison so maybe there's hope for horsemanship. Is there any chance that there are still some gems in the portal sets that haven't risen insanely yet? If so, what do you think is the likelihood that they'll reprint or print functionally identical cards to these unique to portal cards?
Should someone feel confident they wouldn't reprint Imperial Recruiter, Ravages of War (with this name), Rolling Earthquake, Imperial Seal, etc?
What effects are we seeing on portal cards costs post launch of Commander?
The only deck in which The Abyss could see play (could see play now. I'm not speaking of fantastic future tiers in which The Abyss is a house, I'm speaking of nowadays decks) is UWx Landstill. While not exceptional, it can be played as the third mass ''removal'' beyond 1-2 Wrath and 0-1 Humility. The only thing that made me dismiss it is the ''destroy target nonartifact creature that player controls of his or her choice'' part instead of ''that player sacrifice a non artifact creature he or she controls''. That's the main problem why The Abyss is sub par nowadays to, for ex: Deed or Wrath, or Damnation.
Are you into Jazz? Have a look at the Lp's I have for sale on Discogs!
I do have a decklist which I have tested for about 5 months. It uses 2 copies of The Abyss and it works really well so I can atttest to the powerlevel of The Abyss. That said, the deck I designed is a corner-case. It's a non-stax creatureless artifact deck that doesn't use Tezzeret nor Jace. Even IF that list would perform well, it would still be as narrow as Metalworker in MUD.
Less arguing about how good cards are, more whinging about how cards are overpriced.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Abyss is shitty, overcosted and just bad. Its expensive because its scarce and some fellows decided to boast about its usage. which is limited to non-existing.
Abyss is no Moat or will ever be like one.
I'd rather get 4 imperial recruiters for a reasonable price.
PTT (Formerly of MTT) - We make Champion
IR reasonable?
FYI, The Abyss = $80
About less than a year ago, I bought 2 Recruiters for $90 each. Now they are at $200, each!
So have you guys did what I talked about and started cashing in on foil EDH generals? Foil Rhystic study and Mind's Eye are turning out exactly as expected. I admit I did forget about Reliquary tower though. Least I bought a set for myself. The invasion generals are just about to the point where it's time to flood the market again and drop them. You only have until Sept or so to make sure you get full value.
I don't think he means that the current price is reasonable, but he means that he rather got them if he found them for a reasonable price ( if 200 is the price, 125 would be very reasonable ) ..
Props to you! Why Sept though, is it the time you are making the move?
/Ignorance. Way to go on comparing two functionally different cards.
@majikal: Challenge accepted.
Last edited by Michael Keller; 07-03-2011 at 08:14 PM.
tl;dr of evolution of thread for those who don't want to read over 100 pages.
Rant about price increases in Legacy staples -> rage directed at Star City Games and reserved list -> weeping and gnashing of teeth upon reserved list revision (climax) -> hijacked into speculation on which cards to "invest in" -> more rage at SCG for increasing their buylist prices -> hijacked once again into a mechanism for manipulating prices by proclaiming "buy on this card that I just bought 70 copies of"
You're welcome.
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