Vintage 101: Ascending the Throne
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https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/vintage-101-ascending-the-throne
I also made a small brain fart in this article, that I didn't realize til now. Brain farts are great.
I realized this morning (with my brain in vacation mode earlier this week when writing the article) that mentioning True-Name Nemesis in the first card is moot because it can't actually be targeted. My brain was focusing on the "damage" portion of it.
Joe Dyer
Vintage 101 -
no, the True-name interaction is relevant. you can cast this on something else after your opponent blocks one of your creatures with TNN and then the TNN takes combat damage as normal.
A grave is the safest place to store ill-gotten treasures.
NYSE 3 winner, vintage champs 2015 top 4, vintage champs mox emerald 2021 top 4.
Unban Shahrazad.
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So we had a Doomsday top 8 and it doesn't even get mentioned??
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Its more of an esper mentor deck that I call doomsday for fun. Doomsday won me one game that was already pretty locked up, I almost had a turn two doomsday against smennen when he mulled to 3 but he hit multiple cabal therapies off some good dredges. It closes out the game fast when you've locked things up with teferi and narset and can be a surprise win game 1 that makes people board weird but it gets sided out in almost every matchup. Mentor is the main win I just really like the card doomsday and played it for fun. That said it makes sideboarding really easy since the doomsday package is usually about how many cards you want to bring in +/- a preordain.
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@aelien my bad.
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@blindtherapy yep, this is a thing that is worth noting.
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@volrathxp I do not think you are seeing the big picture on Deafening Silence. The fact that it costs W and not like 1W is a huge deal. Many of the decks that will want to use this as a speed-bump will be prison-style hatebear lists that seek to lock the opponent out with things like Thalia, Prelate and Ouphe/Force of Vigor. In a deck like that it is actively bad to load up on moxen (and hence we see why Damping Sphere costing 2 colorless was too slow). Damping Sphere could also easily be played around. This card allows only the 1 spell a turn. Period. That is way different. This card is also great in multiples vs. Storm because now that Repeal does next to nothing. Nice 2 mana cantrip. Nice deck. Lol. I think you grossly underestimate this card and I look forward to crushing opponents who think similarly.
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On Deafening Silence:
I haven't had the chance to test it much yet, but while I think that Stormanimagus is right that this card is great for Hatebears style decks, I also think that volrathxp is right that this card isn't format warping, because, let's be real, Hatebears is a fringe archetype.
I'd like to comment on one thing though: the time aspect. I think this is a greatly misunderstood concept when discussing Hatebears and other prison style decks.
The article says that "but that kind of turn does nothing to accelerate your clock in a game and gives your opponent all the time in the world to find an answer". I find that statement wrong. Sure, this card in itself doesn't accelerate your clock, but it doesn't give your opponent "all the time in the world". I think it's a mistake to perceive "time" like this. Hatebears and other prison style decks shouldn't perceive "time" as "turns" but rather as "how many spells can my opponent cast before he's dead?". If your opponent is completely locked out of ever casting another spell this game, it doesn't matter how fast or slow your clock is (think of the good old Stax decks that basically didn't even have a clock).
Yes, your opponent might be playing Repeal and Chain of Vapor but he doesn't have much "time" to find them because he can only play one spell a turn. -
@stormanimagus While I do state that those archetypes are indeed ones that may want this card, I really doubt that it's going to propel those decks high above the rest of the pack. That being said, I welcome that those archetypes have another flexible option.
People are talking like this is going to warp the format entirely and that just isn't true. The comparison to Damping Sphere is one of notoriety in that Damping Sphere was treated pretty much exactly the same way in regards to hype.
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@griselbrother "all the time in the world" refers mainly to the fact that the card is indeed just merely a speed bump. You're right though that it is measured in how fast can I kill my opponent before they find an answer, but of course that means you have to provide a reasonably fast clock that can still beat out the possibility of having that one counterspell or bounce spell for one of your critical turns or the fact that it doesn't prevent your opponent from also casting creatures.
If we're purely talking that this is explicitly for PO matchups, there are a ton of additional ways to hate on this matchup that are hard for PO to deal with like Ouphe in non blue decks and maybe this card is just a nice additional option to shore up that matchup, but that and DPS are about the only places I would see that it would be okay.
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I mostly agree with @volrathxp's take on Deafening Silence. It's a good card but not backbreaking, and I'd actually say it's weaker than Thalia or something like that against storm decks, because it doesn't give you a cumulative effect that protects your disruption pieces. Still worth using but you definitely have to avoid falling into the trap of "oh I'll play this and they're just boned."
Uh wait I mean it's unbeatable and we definitely need Necro unrestricted to combat it.
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Did anyone mention it with Turbo Erayo yet?
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@desolutionist maybe in the thread relating to this specific card and not the thread for an article relating to all of vintage.
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@craw_advantage & @volrathxp I guess I'll just have to prove you wrong with results. What I was trying to say before is that a 1-drop that does this much to slow down the game is exactly what hatebears needed to get to its real threats without losing the game. Threats like Knight of the Reliquary or Thalia or even Prelate vs. like the Xerox matchup. I feel you are also underselling this card in THAT matchup. If you are on the play and drop this turn 1, you just stopped them from getting basically the ONLY turn 1 that kills you: Lotus-Mentor-Cantrip. You also stop them from chaining cantrips at all in the early game. Obviously this card is more effective vs. Storm variants, but I believe that, when coupled with cards like Thalia/Grand Abolisher, Ouphe and Wasteland, this card will synergize quite well with what a hatebear deck is designed to do. You could always say they can just "bounce it" and go off. That is an asinine way to look at it. The point is that you spent 1 mana on turn 1 to play out something that does 2 things:
- They must answer to go off.
- In order to get to their answer they have to play 1 spell a turn which slows down even FINDING the answer.
This card is leagues past Damping Sphere for a couple reasons:
- 1 mana
- Enchantment (can't be hurkyl's-ed)
- They actually can't cast 2 spells a turn whereas with sphere they just pay 1 more mana.
So, anyway, I know I'm not changing any minds with this, but I have a tremendous amount of experience building and piloting hatebears and I think I know "good" when I see it.
-Storm
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@stormanimagus if you know anything about me, it's that I'm happy to be proven wrong by results (and I have been before so nobody is absolutely perfect) so good luck and have fun.
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@stormanimagus I don't think we disagree by that much really. You're talking about this working as one more disruption piece in a full suite of already-good disruption cards, and I agree with that. I'm only saying that it's not a total haymaker that shuts certain decks out all by itself. It's a strong effect, but it needs to be immediately followed by either a massive threat or additional disruption.
