[WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils
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@dr-j she is also very good vs bazaar decks in the first ability, as well as in conjunction with dack
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@chubbyrain I think it's easy to miss how good a draw engine she is because the Leovold ability is such an attention-grabber. But once you posted the Dig comparison here it clicked for me. It's a little less good than that and has a different play pattern obviously, but Impulse with rebound is really strong at 1UU.
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Open up the format? The only deck really well positioned in a Narset heavy Blue format is Shops and it was well rewarded in the last Challenge with a pretty dominant performance (won the event, 3 out of top 4). Eldrazi suffers in a Shops metagame and more rogue decks actually don't have the speed and disruption to exploit Narset blue decks well. She's still really good, even if all she's doing is functioning as a Dig through Time, so you basically have to force Blue into a losing position immediately and Eldrazi/Shops are good at doing that.
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@blindtherapy I respectfully disagree that she's good against Bazaar decks, if you mean dredge. She doesn't come out very quickly, and I believe you can still replace draws with dredges and be unaffected by Narset's static ability.
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@chubbyrain She's not so good if she's functioning as a sorcery-speed impulse for UU1. Any deck that can swing with a 2+ power creature can convert her into this suboptimal role, so maybe we'll see a rise in creature-based strategies. Maybe something like Legacy Death & Taxes metagamed to have game against Shops as well.
It's conceivable this would have the speed & disruption necessary. -
@dr-j Only if you replace all the draws with dredges. If at any point in the turn you draw actually a card, Narset prevents subsequent draw events from happening, so you can’t replace those with dredges anymore.
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@dr-j She's very good against Dredge in post-board games as a way to shut down Bazaar of Baghdad after you've stopped their main dredge plan. Like Leovold, she was never a part of the "Dredge Hate", but once you Crypt their yard or land a Cage or Yixlid Jailer (or Leyline) and the Dredge player has to dig for answers, Narset shuts the door on their best means of doing so. The fact that Narset digs for additional hate or protection makes her even better than Leovold.
@Dr-J She's still good as a sorcery speed impulse for 1UU, gain 2+life and maybe stay on the table to combo with dack or a draw 7. Just not insane. But I mean, this is literally like arguing with myself from before the set was released and I played with/against the card and tried the countermeasures your recommended. The problem is that the scenario of landing a 2/1 doesn't make Narset that bad and a lot of the time they can answer your creature. Because they are Blue and run Force of Will or Swords/Bolt/whatever or won the die roll and this format has Moxen and Narset costs 3 for some reason so it can come down on turn 1/2 pretty frequently.
I also feel obligated to point out that all of these decks that you are likely to describe cannot be metagamed to have game against Shops. Like Eldrazi metagamed to have game against Shops, it just doesn't exist within the constraints of the format. Like a twitter poster literally said "I was running 12 SB cards against Shops and the matchup was still heavily unfavored"
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I think its too early to talk about restriction, but this card is format warpingly good. You certainly need a gameplan to beat it if you are a blue deck.
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If you use her once shes in bolt range, and bolt is the answer for just an awful lot right now. I also think she has something of her own restriction as is it, being a legendary in a very crowded slot. All things equal I would much rather have my first Ashiok or 3 mana Teferi than a second Narset sitting in hand.
I guess my question is if you never use her -2 to draw a card, how good in an enchantment that can be attacked by creatures or with incremental damage that prevents draws? Shops is well positioned against her obviously, but I have to believe most creature decks like humans/hatebears are as well, and the only reason those decks are not a larger part of the meta is the prominence of shops, which gets us back into the whole argument of why would you restrict this card when the card that is preventing format diversity as well as preventing answers to this one is shops itself?
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@protoaddict I'm not sure how much being legendary matters. minus her, next turn minus her and play the second. you don't lose anything really
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@chubbyrain I think she further cements the blue/brown dichotomy within vintage in the business as usual post London mulligan meta. Blue cannibalises blue whilst brown (with Karn) cannibalises brown. Of course the secondary effects have impact yet Karn requires a sideboard strategy above the norm.
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Bolt (and any other card that deals with Narset once it hits play on a 1 for 1 basis) is a really bad answer as your opponent has already fired off an Impulse. It's basic card advantage - you are down a card and your opponent is even with likely a restricted card replacing Narset.
Also, really? You just use the second impulse on the first Narset and then cast the second Narset and Impulse again. If you have a third, you can do it next turn. I've started building decks with four copies. Without a plus ability, there's very little diminishing returns in running multiple copies. It's not like you would be able to just use the first copy indefinitely, like Jace, Dack, or Teferi. Narset isn't a traditional planeswalker. It's a draw spell over two turns.
Yes, Shops is an issue to format diversity but that is outside the scope of this thread IMO. In Narset though, I see a lot of similarities to both Dig though Time and Mentor. I was also somewhat flabbergasted that my experiences were different than others and mentioning restriction in any capacity is certainly going to get people to comment.
So while I feel that it's much too early to take policy action, especially with the potential for London on the horizon, meh, I used the r-word.
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@protoaddict said in [WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils:
If you use her once shes in bolt range, and bolt is the answer for just an awful lot right now.
(...) I guess my question is if you never use her -2 to draw a card, how good in an enchantment that can be attacked by creatures or with incremental damage that prevents draws?This kind of thinking is just wrong imo. Even if your opponent is playing Bolt, you (almost) always -2 Narset immediately. If he bolts her, it's still a 2-for-1 and you got on the better side of it. If he untaps and finds REB or creature + walk or whatever, you'll regret not -2ing.
It's just like Jace TMS. Except for corner cases, how often do you think +2ing Jace to protect him from Bolt is optimal? I'll tell you not that much. In a topdeck war? Sure. Is he your only threat and you kinda need him to stay? Sure. In any other situation? Just Brainstorm and you'll be happier and ahead in the game even if he gets Bolted.
Remember, friends: spot removal is bad against PWs exactly because you can only do it after they already gained advantage. That's why CA generating PWs are always the best, and why REB/Pyro will be much more prominent than Bolt in the following meta.EDIT:
@chubbyrain said in [WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils:Bolt (and any other card that deals with Narset once it hits play on a 1 for 1 basis) is a really bad answer as your opponent has already fired off an Impulse. It's basic card advantage - you are down a card and your opponent is even with likely a restricted card replacing Narset.
Posted without seeing your answer! That's pretty much it
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@fsecco said in [WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils:
Remember, friends: spot removal is bad against PWs exactly because you can only do it after they already gained advantage. That's why CA generating PWs are always the best, and why REB/Pyro will be much more prominent than Bolt in the following meta.
OMG, I so hope this is true. My decks will be so happy if bolt is less used and REBS ramp up.
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@chubbyrain I was very high on this card and the So Many Insane Plays guys were as well. I think the blue shell is going to evolve. She really challenges the blue stew that we have become accustomed to and I’m very happy about this. I see some very interesting deck builds coming from this card.
Dealing with Shops and Eldrazi is going pose an intriguing challenge. I am looking into mill strategies. I think she is so one sided that a painter style combo could do well or Helm and Rest In Peace.
She may even bring back the old Tezzeret, the Seeker decks.
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@chubbyrain said in [WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils:
Bolt (and any other card that deals with Narset once it hits play on a 1 for 1 basis) is a really bad answer as your opponent has already fired off an Impulse. It's basic card advantage - you are down a card and your opponent is even with likely a restricted card replacing Narset.
Sometimes you just have to deal with a board state though which means a bad answer is better than no answer. Since there is truly no answer to narset that is not card disadvantage, you might as well use the most efficient answer you have available. Assuming narset resolves and your opponent immediately -2 her, would you rather spend a card to stop another -2 next turn or let him gain even more card advantage from it?
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That’s what makes her broken. Her worst case is an impulse that gains 3+ life, her medium case is a 2 or 3 for one, and her best case is a blowout win.
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@khahan What @vaughnbros said.
That was a key issue with Mentor in that even if you dealt with the card, you still ended up behind most of the time. Or you warped your deck and played Sudden Shock, Illness in the Ranks, and Sulfur Elemental to compensate. And that eventually stopped happening as people just started playing more Mentors. In the meantime, Shops was consistently at a 60% match win rate.
In all cases, you end up with a format warping card.
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@khahan The point is that yes, you'll want to Bolt her, but that doesn't mean it makes the player with Narset consider not -2ing her because of that. It's still a bad trade for you, just not an awful trade. So the point is that if you think you'll play 3-4 Bolts and have good matches against Narset, you're wrong.
@thewhitedragon69 said in [WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils:
@fsecco said in [WAR] Narset, Parter of Veils:
Remember, friends: spot removal is bad against PWs exactly because you can only do it after they already gained advantage. That's why CA generating PWs are always the best, and why REB/Pyro will be much more prominent than Bolt in the following meta.
OMG, I so hope this is true. My decks will be so happy if bolt is less used and REBS ramp up.
This is already happening in Legacy. Miracles turned back to UWr because playing 3-4 REB/Pyro is the only way you're not blown out by Narset/Teferi. Of course Bolt will be present too, but not it makes much more sense to pack REB/Pyro. They were already good in the format, now I feel they'll become ubiquitous.
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Just pointing one thing: Narset interaction with "draw 7" spells is crazy. Even pairing her with Dack can disrupt your opponent's hand.
I was about to invest some money in Mox Opal to build a PO deck, but seeing how the format is becoming a Narset x Karn war, I don´t think PO will stand a chance. A crazy mind should put both in the same list and break everything
