[AKH] Insult/Injury

Serracollector

I will start by saying I am only interested in the first half of this card, Insult. For those unfamiliar with the card:

2R
Sorcery
Damage cant be prevented. Double all damage this turn.

This is a 3 mana Temure Battlerage for all your creatures AND spells. I found out about its power playing a UR standard list using Egnima Drake and Fling (cheesy but fun). Insult + Fling literally won me every game.

Now obv standard is not Vintage, but does this card have a place? A very good place for it might be in jeskai mentor with bolts. 1 Mentor 1 Token 1 Insult 1 Bolt is lethal damage. Another option is obv burn or Xmas Beats (both not so hot atm). Or maybe there is some combo I have not seen or thought of that yoy guys could have?

Anyways I think the card has amazing potential somewhere. Your thoughts?

Do you have a decklist designed with proof of concept, @Serracollector?

Serracollector

Other than my standard list no. I will whip something up on cockatrice later and give it a spin.

MaximumCDawg

Hm.

This card is a three mana Timur Battlerage. Or, perhaps better put, a better Rush of Blood? Either way, it seems like it is the Best in Class for 3 mana Berserk effects. It's also a (usually) better Pyromancer's Swath. You know, overall, I think this is worth knowing because cards that are the best at what they do tend to find a home somewhere.

That said, it's not clear me where that home is. If you play this while you have a few Monk tokens, sure, that's brutal as hell. (Monk + 2 tokens + this spell = 12 damage) Flashing it back is game. (Monk + 2 tokens + this spell + flash it back = 22). However... it's not like those decks are hurting for ways to close the game once they reach a few tokens in play. That's already pretty much game, and it doesn't require you to play a card that just takes up space until you deploy it.

Honestly, if the abilities were flip-flopped, I'd say this is even playable in Vintage. If you could burn a dude in the early game and then have a Furnace of Rath on tap for late game, that'd be better.

(EDIT: Did my math wrong. Flashing it back pumps the tokens again so that's another 6 dmg)

Serracollector

Remember both gearhulk and snappy allow those things to happen. I love it for the fact that it also doubles any burn, thus making bolts and even pyroclasm possible game enders.

tsoatt

@Serracollector This is a sorcery, it doesn't work with gearhulk.

Serracollector

Sorry, I thought Injury was an instant, my mistake. None the less, a very powerful effect for only 3 mana. I been testing it in a list with 4 Mentor, and 2 Seeker of the Way, and 1 Snapcaster. Gaining double life off Seeker has been really clutch in games, and I dont know the exact math, but Im pretty sure Insult has won me games up to 2 turns earlier than I would have barring the singleton Gush/Git probe.

Also, relevant, but this card stacks. 2 is 4x, 3 is 8x and if you cast 4 in one turn (cuz why not right?) it is 16x damage. Xmas Magic land, Snap it back and get 32x! I Gutshot you for 32 damage........

Any luck with that proof of concept, @Serracollector? Theorycrafting doesn't really go far with new cards that haven't made a splash.

Griselbrother

@Serracollector said in [AKH] Insult/Injury:

Sorry, I thought Injury was an instant, my mistake. None the less, a very powerful effect for only 3 mana. I been testing it in a list with 4 Mentor, and 2 Seeker of the Way, and 1 Snapcaster. Gaining double life off Seeker has been really clutch in games, and I dont know the exact math, but Im pretty sure Insult has won me games up to 2 turns earlier than I would have barring the singleton Gush/Git probe.

Also, relevant, but this card stacks. 2 is 4x, 3 is 8x and if you cast 4 in one turn (cuz why not right?) it is 16x damage. Xmas Magic land, Snap it back and get 32x! I Gutshot you for 32 damage........

Actually that would be 224 damage if my math isn't off. I would probably try to Regrowth it before flashing it back to make sure I deal enough damage.

Islandswamp

@The-Gremlin-Lord said in [AKH] Insult/Injury:

Any luck with that proof of concept, @Serracollector? Theorycrafting doesn't really go far with new cards that haven't made a splash.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and just state for the record that I am 100% confident that this card is utterly worthless in the Vintage metagame.

Is anyone playing any of the red anti-damage-prevention cards like Skullcrack? Nope. They're not because nobody is playing Circle of Protections, Zuran Orbs, or whatever. The only life people are going to be gaining is probably coming from Griselbrand, Sphincter of the Steel Wind, Swords to Plowshares, etc. The "damage prevention" effects are even less popular than lifelink in this format!

I was away from Magic for a long time between Mercadian Masques and Theros (with some intermittent dabbling) so if someone has knowledge about an era where COP Red was a viable strategy please elaborate.

I suppose you could use that card to try and trigger an instant win with the damage doubling effect. I don't remember EVER seeing a non casual deck running Furnace of Wrath though. Sure, this card is one mana less (and two less red mana), but does that make it that much better? Furnace is an enchantment so it's harder to deal with, and it can stick around if you need an extra turn...

Even so, what are we using this card for? Are we trying to make Blightsteel Colossus a one turn killing machine? Are we making Emrakul deadlier? With Griselbrand this is almost as good as a Time Walk or Dragon Breath, except it's actually a lot worse.

I suppose you could use it in a Mentor turn to try to really hammer someone with your monk tokens. I really feel like his is the ultimate definition of win-more though. If you've resolved Mentor and you're attacking with a monk army you're already in good shape. You need cards that can help you when your behind as well.

I applaud you for trying new things Just like @The-Gremlin-Lord has been hinting at, if you had tried to make a deck and tested it prior to making this post I sincerely believe that you wouldn't have even suggested that this card could be good.

There's a Vintage Facebook group that a lot of people from here are in. I have posted brain fart decks in there that were untested and probably bad before, but I did put at least a little bit of thought into them. Even then I had a bit of a reservation about it because I knew that my idea might annoy people as a waste of time. These days I try to keep my posts more productive if possible.

MaximumCDawg

@Islandswamp

I'm gonna go out on a limb and just state for the record that I am 100% confident that this card is utterly worthless in the Vintage metagame.

I feel like a more measured approach is better. I agree that this card is not Vintage playable. However, it's not "utterly worthless." I think it falls into a category of cards that are actually quite powerful for what they do, but you just can't justify running them over something else. Like I said earlier, this card is 22 damage if you cast it and flash it back with just two Monk tokens in play. That's a powerful effect. If you really wanted to, you could stick it into your Vintage deck. You might even win sometimes with it.

But, in the circumstances where the Insults wins you the game for 6 mana, many other cards do as well. Basically any blue draw spells probably get the job done once you've stuck a few monks, and they don't suck before you go off.

So it's not a matter of being "utterly worthless," its a matter of just not being a wise choice for what it does compared to other cards.

There's a Vintage Facebook group that a lot of people from here are in. I have posted brain fart decks in there that were untested and probably bad before, but I did put at least a little bit of thought into them. Even then I had a bit of a reservation about it because I knew that my idea might annoy people as a waste of time. These days I try to keep my posts more productive if possible.

I mean, it's good not to make useless posts, but it's also good to think about new cards in a rational way. The quality of the analysis (or play test data, even better!) can make up for a bad card suggestion, I think.

We shouldn't worry about asking stupid questions. We should only worry about giving stupid answers.

Thank you for the support, @Islandswamp. I don't have Andy's clout (hell, I'm a damn parody account) to push low pedigree posters to publish higher pedigree content. @Serracollector has never seemed the type that actually plays Vintage, so their idea of playability may be skewed. Perhaps even attempting to post a 60 or 75 may get them to scratch their head about what a playable deck actually looks like and how these dream scenarios never come to be. I can craft a similar list of reasons about how strong of a card Binding Mummy is for a format that relies on artifacts for mana and how it can tap down Griselbrand. However, I won't, because Cavern Zombies doesn't (and shouldn't) exist and Dredge has better things to do with its Zombies. I look forward to when Andy can figure out how to make user blocking work again, because this thread has at least two targets.

Serracollector

Wow. Only been playn Vintage since 1994. I use cockatrice and the occassional proxy Vintage in Ohio, it is true I do not play nearly as much as I would like. I sold my collection in 03. My bad for seeing a card that won games muliple turns earlier than it should have, and thinkn it could have that impact in a Vintage deck. I like doing fun things to win games, and coming outta nowhere off this and a bolt seemed pretty damn fun and game winning.

@MaximumCDawg said in [AKH] Insult/Injury:

I feel like a more measured approach is better. I agree that this card is not Vintage playable. However, it's not "utterly worthless." I think it falls into a category of cards that are actually quite powerful for what they do, but you just can't justify running them over something else. Like I said earlier, this card is 22 damage if you cast it and flash it back with just two Monk tokens in play. That's a powerful effect. If you really wanted to, you could stick it into your Vintage deck. You might even win sometimes with it.

No it's not powerful. You're using multiple cards (this and a Snapcaster) and 6+ mana for a win more. Even that new red Regrowth is way better than this. The only way this is remotely good is if you find a combo between this and a 10 damage spell, but I highly doubt it... =/
The only time I could see this card working was when the format was split between Pyromancer and Griselbrand decks so you could side this in to try and punch through a Griselbrand for the win. Even then, talk about narrow use.

BazaarOfBaghdad

If you have multiple damage sources in play...
If they can all connect this turn...
If you have damage on the stack that is > than 1/2 of their life total, but less than their life total...
If you have situations where Lightning Bolt or Berserk or Flame Rift wouldn't be straight better...
If you wouldn't have won the next turn anyways with those same damage sources...
If you can afford the mana to cast this (with prior spell-based damage, vs. Wasteland, vs. Shops, etc.)...
If this doesn't get countered for value....
If your opponent can't remove your damage sources in response...
If your opponent doesn't already have relevant lifegain...
If you don't draw this at inopportune times when any of the above are false statements...
If you haven't already lost to your opponent's strategy....
Then this card could be good.

Vintage cards are rarely good with 3+ such if statements....I've lost track of the number of conditions that would have to work for this card to be even the tiniest bit good.

MaximumCDawg

@fsecco Right, which is what I said in the rest of the post you quoted: just because you can find a powerful use doesn't mean it's playable. We have far better uses for that slot.

@Serracollector Don't take it too personally. We all know there is a group of folks on this website who get hostile about the concept of talking about cards that end up not being playable. Not everyone is gonna get snippy with you just because we don't see every neat card as playable.

Brass Man

I'm not a huge fan of this card, but I do think people are being over critical. A lot of the analysis in this thread hinges on the card dealing twenty damage, but most cards don't do that.

If this card consistently dealt 7 damage for 3 mana and a card, that feels vintage quality to me. 5 damage, and I'm not sure.

I cut my teeth in vintage on the Psychatog control deck, which often ran the card Berserk. Now Berserk has a lot of things going for it that this card doesn't, but it filled essentially the same role as a direct damage spell.

When I look at cards that are interesting, but not obviously good, I like to ask a few questions:

What does this card do in an average game, and what sort of deck would be improved if that happened more often?
In what game state would this card be better than any other option, and what sort of other cards can increase the chances of that game state happening.
In which game states is this card dead, and what cards/strategies decrease the chance of that ever happening.
are there any existing strategies that have a weakness that this card shores up? E. G. "I lose games when X happens, but I would win if I had this card"

Islandswamp

@Serracollector I sincerely didn't mean to offend you, so I'm sorry if my post came off as rude. I've played Dragon Breath in my Oath decks within the past six months and I KNOW at least some people think that card is a joke. However, I did test the card before revealing that I was running it, so I had some anecdotal evidence of its efficacy.

The card you mentioned COULD be as broken as Time Walk in a Mentor deck, and probably more so in the right situation. The thing is that Time Walk is good in many, many more situations. Time Walk on turn one off a mox buys you another land drop against Workshops which is incredibly beneficial. Time Walk sometimes just cycles for a card, or it acts as bait for terrible players to counter at times where it's basically just a cantrip.

Insult/Injury is going to be a very bad top deck unless you've established a board position that is already immensely favorable to you. This makes it the definition of "Win More" in my opinion.

Since you're on cockatrice you should take a Mentor list, find some flex slots, and jam some games trying random stuff like that. Eventually you might prove everyone in the thread wrong. OR you might try some other idea, do something amazing, then you can screen shot it for us and make a post. That second type of post is something we'd all like to see.