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[FieryBalrog]

Deathrite Shaman is a really sweet card. They're really pushing one drops.

Despite some anti-synergy with KOTR this looks like a cool one drop for Junk/Rock decks, both mana-dork and great utility in one.

[Barook]

4 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 Rest In peace
4 Energy Field
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Brainstorm
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Terminus

4 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island

Something Like that?

Why don't you include Counterbalance? And Wheel of Sun and Moon seems excessive with already 4 RIP and 4 E-Tutor. Why not run a Helm of Obedience as tutor target instead?

[Shawon]

Shrieking Afflication
Enchantment
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, if that player has one or fewer cards in hand, he or she loses 3 life.

Does this obsolete The Rack? Most decks that play The Rack are black anyway, and this enchantment doesn't target unlike Rack, so it avoids protection spells such as Leyline of Sanctity and Runed Halo. It's worse than The Rack is your opponent has two cards, because The Rack deals 1 dmg and Afflication deals 0. But if they have one or zero cards, and Afflication is strictly better than The Rack.

[Mirrislegend]

Snaps was a mistake that Grafdiggers Cage sufficiently covered.

RIP is over the top. It stops all past and future GY use in a game, which no other single GY hate card has ever done.

This is insane. Even the slightest use of the graveyard is now invalidated. Aside from obvious things like Storm and Dredge, look at the victims! Knight of the Reliquary is dead. Tarmogoyf. Nimble Mongoose. Lingering Souls. Grim Lavamancer. Life from the Loam. Pretty much the core of 75+ percent of tier 1 and 1.5 decks. These cards are hurt or hindered by classic GY hate. RIP makes these cards 100% DEAD.

[Koby]

Does this obsolete The Rack? Most decks that play The Rack are black anyway, and this enchantment doesn't target unlike Rack, so it avoids protection spells such as Leyline of Sanctity and Runed Halo. It's worse than The Rack is your opponent has two cards, because The Rack deals 1 dmg and Afflication deals 0. But if they have one or zero cards, and Afflication is strictly better than The Rack.

No it doesn't. It supplements it rather. The Rack is more meaningful for X<3 than this card for X<2. The Rack only targets when it enters play. Note that Affliction would also be shut-off by Runed Halo (damage) exactly the same way The Rack would.

[(nameless one)]

4 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 Rest In peace
4 Energy Field
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Brainstorm
2 Entreat the Angels
2 Terminus

4 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island

Something Like that?

I'd replace Entreat with Helm of Obedience.

[Barook]

Note that Affliction would also be shut-off by Runed Halo (damage) exactly the same way The Rack would.

Except it isn't:

At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, if that player has one or fewer cards in hand, he or she loses 3 life.

[Cire]

Barook & Nameless one...

How about:

3 Helm of Obedience
4 Rest In peace
4 Energy Field
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counter Balance

4 Brainstorm
2 Entreat the Angels

3 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island

[Koby]

Except it isn't:

Interesting. I stand corrected. The big question - who's playing Runed Halo enough for this subtlety to matter?

[Final Fortune]

Rest in Peace isn't that impressive, if you're paying 2 mana for your graveyard hate then you'd better get a huge payoff out of the deal otherwise you're risking being blown out before you can play it or Cabal Therapied etc.

Edit: Helm of Obediance combo would be pretty sweet tho', it's essentially a combo piece that isn't entirely dead without the other half.

That Deathrite Shaman and Blistercoil Weird look really playable to me, I'd like to try Deathrite Shaman as a Noble Hierarch replacement just because it has a built in soft counter vs. Reanimator and Snapcaster Mage. And while obviously it's not going to stop a graveyard based deck in and of itself, every little bit of disruption helps to delay their gameplan and lets you find something more damning against them.

[joven]

Deathrite Shaman seems fantastic. It's a mana elf for B! It's playable mana acceleration for Black! In Legacy where there are many Fetchlands and Wastelands in the graveyards the condition might not be a problem.

[Barook]

Snaps was a mistake that Grafdiggers Cage sufficiently covered.

RIP is over the top. It stops all past and future GY use in a game, which no other single GY hate card has ever done.

This is insane. Even the slightest use of the graveyard is now invalidated. Aside from obvious things like Storm and Dredge, look at the victims! Knight of the Reliquary is dead. Tarmogoyf. Nimble Mongoose. Lingering Souls. Grim Lavamancer. Life from the Loam. Pretty much the core of 75+ percent of tier 1 and 1.5 decks. These cards are hurt or hindered by classic GY hate. RIP makes these cards 100% DEAD.

To be fair - KotR can still fetch Wastes and utility lands and you can still squeeze some tokens out of Lingering Souls.

Rest in Peace isn't that impressive, if you're paying 2 mana for your graveyard hate then you'd better get a huge payoff out of the deal otherwise you're risking being blown out before you can play it or Cabal Therapied etc.

I'd say that GY nuke + permanent GY hate is definitely a huge payoff. If you run it out of the Sb with E-Tutor, they also can't snag it if you go T1, Tutor, T2, RIP.

[sdematt]

Rest in Peace is fine, but I still don't think it's great. If you're running White and you're not playing Goyf or Knight, then it's a good card, but most people aren't doing this.

For E. tutor based Control, you're most likely running Thopters, so you wouldn't want this card. At all.

-Matt

[lyracian]

Interesting. I stand corrected. The big question - who's playing Runed Halo enough for this subtlety to matter?

It also works against energy field and is harder to destroy than the Rack; No Goblins destroying it or Smash to Smithereens from Burn or melting it down. Even with doing less damage at hand=2 I think it is overall a very small boost for Pox Decks.

Deathrite Shaman seems fantastic. It's a mana elf for B! It's playable mana acceleration for Black! In Legacy where there are many Fetchlands and Wastelands in the graveyards the condition might not be a problem.

It seems a very nice Lavamancer variant. Can generate mana or deal damage (to opponent) or occasionally gain you life. Also that extra point of Toughness is nice to have. Not sure it will make the final cut into a deck but I like the card.

[Arianrhod]

Rest in Peace is fine, but I still don't think it's great. If you're running White and you're not playing Goyf or Knight, then it's a good card, but most people aren't doing this.

For E. tutor based Control, you're most likely running Thopters, so you wouldn't want this card. At all.

-Matt

We'll show Wizards what "gentlemans' agreement" means yet.

In a more serious manner of speaking, Matt (and others before him) are right with this card: it's incredibly dangerous to our current understanding of the fabric of the legacy format itself, but there isn't really a deck that's going to want to play it. Using and abusing the graveyard is too intrinsic to the format -- everyone thought the sky was falling with Cage, too, and see how much of an impact that's had. RIP is certainly powerful, but I feel like it will have much more impact in Vintage than it will in Legacy.

And who knows, it might even get Zur banned in EDH (something something helm combo).

[Vacrix]

Deathrite Shaman seems fantastic. It's a mana elf for B! It's playable mana acceleration for Black! In Legacy where there are many Fetchlands and Wastelands in the graveyards the condition might not be a problem.

I think the conditions are actually really awesome. Against stuff like Mongoose in Thresh they are going to have a hard time getting to 7 cards when you can remove 1 per turn for a relevant effect. That makes a manadork a threat instead of just an accelerant. Same goes for any deck that likes having a Loam in the yard. Snapcaster? Its just a vanilla 2/1 if you remove its targets. Past in Flames? IGG? Reanimator? This guy is a powerful 1 mana weapon against quite a lot in the format. Its no solution but the fact that its a mana dork makes it maindeck material. I really think this could be the new and improved Noble Hierarch. It functions as a manadork early and if it sticks around it hits stuff in the yard or works as Lavamancer-esque reach once its outlived its usefulness as an accelerant. Not to mention it blocks Lackey quite well as a 1/2.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Quick rules question on Rest in Peace: If I have Rest in Peace out, a board full of stuff, and my opponent pops a P. Deed for 2+, is there a way I can order the passage of my board to the yard so that (some of) my stuff isn't exiled?

[Amon Amarth]

I think the infy GY hate cards in ever set is getting kinda old by now. Formats like Legacy and Modern already have a ton of it. We don't need more. The vendetta against decks like Dredge is pretty stupid. I'm more sympathetic to hate cards against decks like Storm but it's only a matter of time before we are over saturated by those too.

[Teknique]

I think the infy GY hate cards in ever set is getting kinda old by now. Formats like Legacy and Modern already have a ton of it. We don't need more. The vendetta against decks like Dredge is pretty stupid. I'm more sympathetic to hate cards against decks like Storm but it's only a matter of time before we are over saturated by those too.

It has nothing to do with a vendetta against legacy gy-based decks. They've rotated back into a gy-centric standard format, so they need to print playable gy hate.

[Vacrix]

I think the infy GY hate cards in ever set is getting kinda old by now. Formats like Legacy and Modern already have a ton of it. We don't need more. The vendetta against decks like Dredge is pretty stupid. I'm more sympathetic to hate cards against decks like Storm but it's only a matter of time before we are over saturated by those too.

They are trying to print cards though that function as hate without being purely sideboard material. Thalia is a great example. This guy is probably the best thing since Thalia if not better.

It shuts down a ridiculous amount of shit and many decks will be forced to remove it to function on their own terms. Otherwise, you can remove Reanimator targets, whatever is most important to remove against Dredge, Loam or specific lands, Snapcaster targets, anti-Surgical tech, IGG/PIF, Eternal Witness target, Punishing Fire, Intuition, anti-threshold/Goyf/KoTR tech... the list is endless and against most decks it has an application of some sort related to its conditions of removing things from the yard.