@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:

1. They must answer to go off.
2. 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. 1 mana
2. Enchantment (can't be hurkyl's-ed)
3. 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

@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.

@full-rod said in [ELD] Deafening Silence:

Tinker blightsteel is an option for DPS. A hatebear deck that runs multiples of this card would tend to be less threatening than the usual hatebear decks.

Well I find that laughable. A hatebear deck running multiples of this card is going to be busted. And blightsteel? Elvish Reclaimer into Maze on their endstep finds that laughable too. As does Knight of the Reliquary. Is turn 1 Blightsteel still an issue? Sure. It is for any deck though. I also run 4 maindeck Containment Priest as a pre-emptive measure to blightsteel.

@vaughnbros you're forgetting 3-4 Deafening Silence. That's another new 1-drop I run.

@vaughnbros Storm is going to be a UBGW deck now to accommodate Ray of Revelation? News to me. Also, Decay is the same single spot removal that Chain is. I think this card will be extremely difficult for Storm to weather because in most decks running it (at least the ones that I'd build) they'd run a lot of other lock pieces (Thalia, Collector Oupe, Sanctum Prelate, Wastelands etc.) in addition to the Silences. I think there may bw more dark days for Storm on the horizon. That's my weather forecast.

-Storm

Fair, but I think this is more of a game changer for a deck like hatebears/GW Humans because it gives a deck that previously had no early game fixing access to it. Dredge isn't struggling for a draw engine the way dudesmatter.dec is.

I like this card more in a redundant creature/hatebear deck with elvish reclaimer because you could find lock pieces or something like cavern on turn 1 for free. That seems huge in a deck like that at fixing the first couple turns while not being dead as a top deck on turn 7. Basically you get to have 7 cards out of the top 12 instead of the normal 7 out of 7. Seems great to me.

-Storm

@aelien Or you could have your chain of vapor not matter because I run 4 of these in my deck (I'm a crazy person) and have 2 in play.

-Storm

@ChubbyRain I agree wholeheartedly with Stephen's point about this being a different animal than Damping Sphere and I actually think the correct number of this card to run maindeck will end up being 4. I don't think many decks will do this, but I do think the RIGHT one will. This card is fundamentally different than other cards we've seen printed over the last couple years precisely because it costs 1 mana. This allows decks that actively do NOT want to run moxen (i.e some sort of Ouphe Prison list) to have relevant turn 1 plays. When it comes down to it, Vintage is a format of making relevant turn 1 plays that curve out into a relevant turn 2, turn 3 and then hopefully the establishing of some sort of dominance that cannot be overcome. "Fair" hatebear decks have teetered on the edge of playability for a long time and a card like this is just another potential brick in the foundation of a monster. I certainly am trying to brew one as we speak.

-Storm

I have a question for folks. Do people think this card could be sufficient as a pseudo Serum Powder effect for creature/hatebear decks such that those deck would no longer need/want a dedicated draw engine like bob? What I mean to say is, could a GW deck be possible that went "all in" on prison and just ran this card as an early game free "fixer" for finding that 1 extra lock piece? My theory is that the answer is yes but I wanted to get thoughts from the community.

-Storm