Assassin's Trophy BG
Instant
Destroy target permanent an opponent controls. Its controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle their library.
Abrupt Decay has been on a bit of a downswing lately, but this seems to have potential in that same slot of flexible removal for BUG and/or Oath decks. Losing uncounterable hurts, but the additional ability to hit any permanent might make up for that.
Just beat me to posting this. Abrupt Decay 5-8 that can all hit JTMS, Tezz, Oath Monsters, Teferi, Karn, Chandra, Vengevine, Shallow One, and Uncle Istvan?!?!?! Sign me up please and ty. May derpstep become weaker every day. Too had Dr. shaman is banned for the Legacy players.
Also just noticed, but in a deck using no basics, this an instant Sinkhole at the very worst.
Don't forget this is target permanent so you can also hit lands!
I guess I don't know enough about the current state of BUG, but does this being able to handle costs greater than 3 suddenly strengthen that deck at all? Losing uncounterable feels like you'd at least be gaining card advantage if they decide to FoW, so it might not be Such a harsh drawback? Picking off a Jace at the expense of letting them field Island seems like it could be (too?) fair (for Vintage?).
Not having played enough with Abrupt Decay I'm not sure about the moments where normally the Uncounterable totally saves your bacon? Seems a nice way to punish greedy 1 workshop keeps without having to lead with Wasteland? Etc?
One of the key roles Abrupt Decay plays in Oath is to steal games from control players who are turtling behind a Grafdigger's Cage or Containment Priest, and who assume that their grip full of counterspells will save them. Losing uncounterability is thus a significant price to pay against the control matchup.
What you gain is the ability to kill Big Jace and other problematic planeswalkers. Vengevine and Hollow One are not as exciting as targets since Oath has a naturally strong matchup against aggro strategies (including Dredge and Survival) and existing tools for dealing with both creatures (e.g. Abrade).
I'm not convinced the tradeoff is worth it in Oath specifically, but certainly this is a powerful enough effect to be playable, in the abstract, in Vintage.
@evouga said in [GOR] Assassin's Trophy:
One of the key roles Abrupt Decay plays in Oath is to steal games from control players who are turtling behind a Grafdigger's Cage or Containment Priest, and who assume that their grip full of counterspells will save them. Losing uncounterability is thus a significant price to pay against the control matchup.
What you gain is the ability to kill Big Jace and other problematic planeswalkers. Vengevine and Hollow One are not as exciting as targets since Oath has a naturally strong matchup against aggro strategies (including Dredge and Survival) and existing tools for dealing with both creatures (e.g. Abrade).
I'm not convinced the tradeoff is worth it in Oath specifically, but certainly this is a powerful enough effect to be playable, in the abstract, in Vintage.
Being able to hit mishra's workshop or Bazaar of bagdhad is pretty strong.
Instant speed 2 mana vindicate certainly has a place in Vintage (even with its fairly minor drawback). How big of one is the question.
I wouldn't compare it to abrupt decay. Decay is played primarily for its uncounterability. Not as a universal answer because it isn't one. This card is.
Regarding the drawback, here's the basic counts from the top 10 Vintage decks, as reported by MTG Goldfish:
Ravager Shops: 0 basics
Paradoxical Storm: 1 Island
Jeskai Mentor: 1 Island
Dredge: 0 basics
Inferno Oath: 1 Island
Survival: 1 Forest
Czech Pile: 0 basics
Grixis Delver: 2 Island
Grixis Landstill: 1 Island
DPS: 1 Swamp
Yea I do not think the drawback is actually the drawback to this card. I am inclined to believe that you would never run this mainboard like you would some number of decays, since the number of additional targets this provides is in my eyes fairly marginal. Many of the targets of value that Abrupt can't hit this still may not be able to deal with.
Oath creatures generally get value once they hit the table, and if oath is still around you are potentially still on the losing end of the trade. Blightsteel is unaffected, as are any big hexproof guys, Sphinx of the steel wind, that archon who can name instants.
Against shops most targets are affected equally by Decay, with the exception of the land which is often not the right target if they are already ahead, and Lodestone for the decks that still run that. It is substantially worse for hitting a Cotv set to 2.
Against stormy/spell heavy decks they often do have a basic land to fetch, and land would likely be your target in many of those matches.
I will be getting a playset because this will likely be an all star in modern against Tron and other ramp decks, it is thoroughly a card that will maintain its value once settled, but as a basic rare in what will be a very popular set I'm in the wait and see camp.
I just want to run:
4 x Dr. shaman
5 x Strip
4 Sinkhole
4 of this
And go from there.
More on the drawback:
On average based on meta % and draw %'s, even the first one you cast will not have a drawback and the second one you cast will almost never have a drawback.
Again, I don't think the comparison to decay makes a lot of sense. Decay is being played for its uncounterability. There are a substantial number of targets that this hits that Decay doesn't:
Any Lands. Most notably: Basic Lands, Bazaar, Tolarian and Mishra's Factory.
JtMS, Tezzeret, and any other Planeswalker over 3 CMC.
Hollow One, Lodestone Golem, Oath Creatures, non-BSC tinker creatures and any other creature over 3 CMC.
Leyline of the Void. (highly relevant to a Dredge player that wants a truly universal answer).
@vaughnbros said in [GOR] Assassin's Trophy:
Again, I don't think the comparison to decay makes a lot of sense. Decay is being played for its uncounterability. There are a substantial number of targets that this hits that Decay doesn't:
I think it makes a ton of sense--the things you're targetting are going to be the same some medium percentage of the time, and comparing "broadly usable removal for BG" spells seems right.
That said, I think your analysis is broadly correct--you want this card if you intend to target Leyline of the Void (this is the most broad, castable anti-hate card to ever exist), or if it's going to be Sinkhole some reasonable percentage of the time for you (and Sinkhole is an effect you want). Otherwise, Abrupt Decay having the words "Can't be countered" is probably better than the bonus set targets you get.
@vaughnbros said in [GOR] Assassin's Trophy:
non-BSC tinker creatures and any other creature over 3 CMC.
isn't this usually sphinx of the steel wind, which has protection from this spell? or are people playing something else?
@neo_altoid I would add Jace the Mind Sculptor as a huuuuuge target that this hits and decay does not.
you want this card if you intend to target Leyline of the Void/JtMS/any other 4CC+, or if it's going to be Sinkhole some >reasonable percentage of the time for you
My point is that this is a large class of targets that Abrupt Decay has never been usable for giving this card a totally different type of functionality.
As a Dredge player, my removal's first purpose is to remove Leyline since my Force of Wills / Unmasks can't do that. So abrupt decay was not even in the conversation.
As a control player, my removal's first purpose is to remove a game ending threat. So again, Abrupt Decay was not even in the conversation.
I played a few test games yesterday with a somewhat stock Inferno Oath list against BUG Control.
He had 4 Assassin's Trophy and 4 Abrupt Decays in his main deck.
My oath didn't trigger once during the whole evening. I desperately hard-cast my Inferno Titan once, but after one swing it got assassinated. I will definitely need to tweek my deck I think.
Now, my losses may be due to lots of reasons, but so far Assassin's Trophy seems like the real deal.
@claasch said in [GRN] Assassin's Trophy:
My oath didn't trigger once during the whole evening. I desperately hard-cast my Inferno Titan once, but after one swing it got assassinated. I will definitely need to tweek my deck I think.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that you definitely need to tweak your deck after a testing session against one BUG control list, unless your metagame is swamped with BUG players that you expect to immediately go to 4x Decay 4x Trophy.
@revengeanceful Perhaps not:-) However, there are in fact several BUG players in my local play group, and I expects these to main deck assassins trophy.
@claasch Seems reasonable to adjust if that's the case. 
