Anatomy of a broken card

I

Istanbul

Guest
Why will Fires be gone? What cards does it lose?

Blastoderm - Turns into Spiritmonger.
Saproling Burst - Okay, that hurts, but I don't think it's a killing blow.

Birds? Stay. Rith? Stays. Fires? Stays.

Frankly, I expect Fires not to die out, but to mutate. I think we'll see Dark Fires emerging to dominate, running Rith and Spiritmonger instead of Saproling Burst and Blastoderm. I suspect it'll squeeze Terminate in there, too. Could even be a bigger problem because...well, let's face it, one of the best ways to kill Blastoderm is to outlive it. Blasty is amazing, but it has 'Born To Die' tattooed on its forehead, in the form of fading.

Spiritmonger doesn't have fading. That alone gives it a *big* advantage.
 
T

Tyriax

Guest
I don't know why people are talking about spiritmonger in fires. Yes, I've seen dark fires, and yes, fires with terminate is a scary thing, but, I forsee people trying to build a solid B/G deck out of it, not a 3 color B/G/R. Three color decks just aren't stable enough. What are you going to do, play with more painlands? Non-basics, as we all know, are not the way to go, at least not as long as dust bowl is still around and black has this nasty little creature called trench wurm. 3 color decks get abused by land destruction. Hell, 2 color decks can be shut down with a decent amount of ld. How do you feel about fires with no red. No fires, no ftk, no shivan wurm. You just have derm and sap burst. And you wanna make it even more vulnerable by diluting the color base of your deck further? No, I don't see dark fires being viable T2. On the other hand, pernicious deed, the keg on steroids, that is nasty. First of all, black has ritual, green has birds, elves, trees, wild growth, fertile ground, harrow, etc. So you can always deed for far more than what you should have on the board by just your mana base. Granted, you'll deed away your own stuff too, but hey, everyone loved disk in a black deck. And if you wait until your opponent drops his hand, you deed, then drop a few fatties of your own, your opponent won't have enough cards to combat it. In fact, I could see a comback of fog. Or at least 4 tangles main deck. Clear the board, drop spiritmonger, watch opponent struggle to recover. Even with monger on the table, you can still deed, you just have to regen it. I would like to see someone put together a B/U/G deck, perhaps running overgrown estates, temporal springs, monger, deed, or jungle basin. A B/U/G control deck. Anyway, no monger in fires, it just simply won't support it
 
D

DÛke

Guest
...come on Istanbul, Saproling Burst absence WILL be a killing blow...why? Because IT IS one of the killing blows in Fires. That's four slots missing out of Fires, that's 4 killing cards...not to mention the beloved Blasto. Suppose that Odyssey doesn't give us anything to continue Fires, what would you replace the incredible Burst with? Right now, I don't see anything living up to the amazing speed and power of Burst.

Spiritmonger MAY find another home in some new archetype or something, but seriously, I don't see it entering the hanky panky that is Fires.

On another note, Blastoderm can't be targeted. Morphling would have been NOTHING if it was targetable all the time. A creature that's hard to target is seriously superior to many others. Yes, the Spiritmonger regenerates, YET...when you have a creature as big as the Monger would you prefer it to regenerate or to be hard to target?

Yes, the Blasto dies after 3 turns...but during those 3 turns, it will take the opponent on a ride on the devil's slide. Although the Monger is hard to chump (unlike Blasto), it's much easier to kill...please don't let the regeneration fool you. Monger is much more vulnerable than it may seem...to me anyway.

And I KNOW this is not an issue AT ALL, but it seems ironic comparing a rare (that's supposed to "broken") with a common. :)
 
L

linsivvi

Guest
excuse me, i would like to say a few words, they are as follows,

Pacifism, Spirit Link, Arrest, Counterspell, FOg bank, Dawnstrider, Cho-Manno rev., and countless others can all handle this thing. So quit complaining!
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
There are counters to ANY card, good or bad. Morphling? Wrath, Mana Short, Inferno, Crater Hellion, etc... Just because a card can be handled doesn't mean it's overpowered. ANY card can be stopped - It's a matter of the difficulty involved. Masticore was recognized as broken when people started playing Splinters instead of Creeping Mold to kill it.
 
E

Ertai

Guest
I'm curious about something. Somebody tell us all/most of the popular type 2 decks out there. I am curious as to which ones can deal with spiritmonger(or a sample deck including spiritmonger, I'm sure there's already one somewhere), which ones can't. Maybe also include popular possibilities after apocolypse.

My mental list includes:

Fires
U/W control
Some sort of ensnaring bridge deck
Some sort of opposition static orb deck(I hate that one, mostly because I didn't think of it first)


Somebody tell us the rest.
 
A

Apollo

Guest
I just have a few comments:

--It won't go into Fires, dark, light, plaid, whatever. It just doesn't create a good color scheme, and so far nothing will replace Burst to make it good after Odyssey.

--Linsivvi: there are solutions to every card. But when people are playing absolutely horrible cards just because they're an answer, that's a bad sign.

--"Take the opponent on a ride on the devil's slide" is a really good line.
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
U/W Control is often consider the "best" Type 2 deck out there. There are also:

Rebel Bears (Has Wave, if that counts as anti-Monger)
CounterRebel (Wrath, sometimes Rout. But hates to do either if they have a bunch of rebels already. Counters too.)
U/G Opposition (Easy to stop.)
Mono-U Opposition (Ditto.)
Burning Bridge (Cinch.)
Fires (Dies when Monger hits the table almost completely.)
Ponza (Can't stop Monger.)
U/W Beatdown, aka The Solution (Sometimes Wrath, some counters, Meddling Mage)
The Red Zone (Can't stop Monger)
Nether-Go (Nether Spirit)
Nether U/W Control (Nether Spirit, Wrath)
Probe-Go (Nether Spirit)
Machine Head (Terminate)

Some of those are VERY minor, though. So, while most decks do have ways to deal with him (Opposition, Wrath, and Spirit are the most common and probably best ways to stop him), he just runs over some decks completely.
 
E

EricBess

Guest
Everyone seems to be forgetting that a deck playing Spirit Monger will also be playing Pernicious Deed.

Opposition: Dies to Deed
Bridge: Ditto
Various Nether Spirit - Pop the deed when the Monger is 20/20 and that doesn't matter much.

I'm being a bit simplistic here as each of these decks probably has other answers ("Counterspell beats Spirit Monger, right", asked the naive man). Time will tell, but I'm suspecting that there will be enough supporting cast to make the new B/G a force to be reckoned with.

As far as replacing Blastoderm, Blasty won't go away yet, but the Monger eats him for lunch. Not to mention: Throw 3 chump blockers in front of Blasty and he's dealt with at the cost of card advantage. Try that with Spiritmonger.

Realistically, though, we are comparing apples to oranges. They are different cards with different ways to make them hard to deal with. Just like Masticore that had a drawback. BTW, Morphling may be harder to kill than Spiritmonger, but Masticore was significantly easier to kill than Spiritmonger. Granted, it had a more deadly short-term ability.
 
E

Ertai

Guest
Ok, thanks Zadok. That illustrates very well the point I thought I might make.

It looks to me like every single control deck out there can deal with spiritmonger already, with no changes necessary.

Ponza and The Red Zone both sound monored. They could easily splash black for terminate or die out all together. I don't see them being very powerful. Rebel Bears also sounds weak enough to go away, even though it has a solution.

I suspect that fires can race with a spiritmonger deck and win a good portion of the time. I'm not sure about that, though. Just a guess.

I'll also add skies to the list, and say that it has counters to deal with spiritmonger.

So... Would it be bad if a B/G spiritmonger deck replaced rebel bears or some monored deck?
 
E

Ertai

Guest
If your opponent is in an opposition lock, they have trouble casting just about anything... All the decks with nether spirit also play wrath, you're not suggesting that nether spirit player neglects to draw a wrath while spiritmonger player neglects to draw any more threats long enough to make spiritmonger a 20/20, are you? And then the deed is going to resolve? I find that very hard to believe.

I suppose an early deed would be hard to deal with later, but that's what disenchant is for. I think opposition would reguard deed as enough of a threat to use a free counterspell.

I will admit that the bridge deck I'm working on does have problems against the deeds in duel's spiritmonger deck on apprentice... I figure daring apprentice should work fine, as long as your opponent isn't playing too much removal.
 
D

DÛke

Guest
...what some mentioned. Yes, EVERY single card out there has a solution...and yes, I agree that one of the factors of what makes a card powerful in a certain environment is how many "normal" solutions can deal with that card.

Spiritmonger appears to be one of the nice cards that can be handled by normal, commonly used solutions. There weren't many commonly used solutions for Blastoderm or Morphling...that's what made them standout. They happen to share the quality of un-target-ability.
 
E

EricBess

Guest
Don't misinterpret what I was trying to say. I've never said that Spiritmonger was an unstoppable force. I just think that you cannot look at one or two cards from each deck and say "this deck will win". The earlier point was that the decks had answers to Spiritmonger. My only suggestion was that the Spiritmonger deck would have responses that were not being taking into consideration.

This deck WILL be built and it will be strong. I never said that it would be unstoppable. As far as cards that can deal with it being used commonly, I'm not sure I agree with that so much. Take Wrath for example. If you have 5 creatures in play and your play and your opponent has 2, but his are defensive enough, you are not going to play Wrath. Instead, you get a bit of damage through here and there while you have the upper hand.

On the other hand, if one of those creatures is Spiritmonger, you may have to play Wrath, giving your opponent serious card advantage (6 to 2).

And then your opponent plays a Phyrexian Delver (or even better Life/Death - there's that B/G again)...

The answer? Start playing Topple in the maindeck and/or sideboard. See, easy to deal with, right? Well, it's a solution anyway, and it's better than Terminate against the Monger.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that the environment is about to change and you need to be ready for it. As was already pointed out, a lot of these decks are already too weak to continue. And let's not forget that in it's present for, a single Flagbearer wreaks havoc with an Opposition deck. No, I'm not suggesting that Spiritmonger decks will play Flagbearers, just that Opposition deck players will need to take that into consideration when deciding to play Opposition. Many will decide to play a Spiritmonger deck instead ;)
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
Unfortunately, that's exactly the point at which I consider Spirit Monger too good - When people have a card being played in place of better cards SOLELY to stop the overpowered card. If Topple is played maindeck, Spiritmonger is too good.
 
D

Duel

Guest
Actually, if your opponent plays inferior cards because they're better against one card, that's called "Metagame"
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
But what Zadok means is that the one card is potentionally "environment-changing" and usually a candidate for the watch list.

One inferior card may be okay, but if most decks need to deal in some way with that card, it usually watched.

But as some people pointed out, it's G/B, not colorless so that may restrict the number of decks it could go in. So then it's just a couple of decks rather than most that might pack it.
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
I thought that maybe the low casting cost of the monger was due to pernicious deed.

if the cc of the monger was 6 or 7, you could deed for 5 or 6 wiping out certainly the whole board BUT for the monger.

with the monger in play, deed is limited to cc of 4, giving a cnahce to the opp. to keep som 5cc goodies (also there arent that many out there).

On another note, would the monger have been reasonably costed at 1BBGG ?
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
ok you're right.

I feel so dumb, but its not the first time and am afraid it wont be the last.

Mungungu hits himself yelling BAD BOY BAD BOY.
 
G

Gizmo

Guest
Yes it does regenerate.

The simple fact is that a large majority of the playable T2 decks have cards that are an answer for a Spiritmonger. Countermagic (there is an awful lot of that about), Nether Spirits, Wrath Of God, Obliterate, Ensnaring Bridge, Temporal Adept, Terminate, Kor Haven, Lin Sivvi...
In terms of T2 tournaments the Spiritmonger is not really going to make very much impact in the top levels of play, simply because all he is is an Ancient Silverback with some fairly unimpressive effects added.

Spiritmonger is very dangerous card against non-tournamnet decks, possibly entirely unfair in non-tournament matches, but in tournaments he`s not even close.

As for the casting cost argument (I love these, by the way, didn`t morphling come out at UUUUU5 or something? Totally nonsensical way of rating cards):
Okay. We start with a 6/6. Green gets a 6/6 for 6. Why not? It gets a 2/2 for 2 (Grizzly Bears), it gets a 3/3 for 3 (Trained Armodon), let's give it a 6/6 for 6.

Does anybody play the 2/2 for 2? No. Does anybody play the 3/3 for 3? No. Why? Because a vanilla monster with cc=p/t sucks.
Would anybody play a 6/6 Vanilla monster for G5? No. Would anybody play a 6/6 Vanilla monster for GB3? No.
I think if you are talking in terms of effective costing (we are trying to model a good card here, after all) then a 6/6 Vanilla would come out at about GB2 I think. For GB2 I`d consider playing the 6/6 Vanilla guy if I didn`t have Blastoderms available.


First, let's give it the ability to change color. That should increase its casting cost by 1, in an environment like this (so dependent on color).

'So dependent on color'. Ok.......... Name one. Name a card. Go on. Name a good tournament card that is 'dependent on color'. Can you? No. Story Circle maybe, but it`s not often played. Wash Out I guess, but then the Spiritmonger`s ability won`t stop them bouncing it with Wash Out if they really want to as they choose the color for Wash on resolution.
The change color effect is not particularly useful in competitive play, it sidesteps the 1 Protection creature that ever gets played (a Glider) and it sidesteps the Story Circles. Otherwise the color change is almost useless as the Monger is already black.


Now, let's give it the ability to regenerate. On a big fatty, especially in this environment, that can be severely difficult to deal with. (Wrath, and...um...oh.) Add B to the casting cost.

Regeneration is a very strong ability, especially on a larger creature where you won`t be required to use it very often as it produces a drain on the resources. What Regeneration effectively means to a 6/6 creature is that it cant be killed by burn spells (except Scorching Lava - if somebody Rhystic+Lavas the Monger it`s going to die), and more importantly it isn`t scared of combat and being gang blocked. I like Regeneration a lot on the Spiritmonger, it`s very powerful indeed. I`d agree it adds a casting cost to the card, not sure if making it a colored casting cost is necessary however.

Now, let's have it grow every time it hits a creature. Combined with regeneration, that can make it *very* strong; let's add 1 to the casting cost.

I don`t see this as being very important. Size of the creature is really only very relavent in terms of how big the other creatures on the board are, as if it`s serving into the player other factors are more important (like evasion, protection). At 6/6, esp with Regen, the Spiritmonger is already equipped to deal with almost any other creature that is going to come into play so long as it doesn`t fly.
Getting bigger is not particularly important and I had ignored this ability in terms of rating the card until I saw how popular Glacier Wall had become in the blue decks. This effect essentially means 'and only gets blocked once by Glacier Wall'. Wow.
What the Monger`s ability does otherwise is reduce the value of chumpblocking him to save time - if you chump him once he`ll still deal just as much damage over two turns as he would have done without you blocking, and more over three turns. If you are going to chump every turn until the game ends, then the ability is less important than, say, any other ability you could have given him.


So what we now have is our 6/6 beast for 5GBB. That's eight mana, kids, and two of it is black.

I`d make it GB4. Maybe GBB3, but who`s gonna quibble about that, especially in set encouraging 5color decks?

But instead, what do we get? All this for 3GB! That means that Spiritmonger is essentially *half* the cost it should be.

Not going to get into the maths of 5 being half of 8. :p

A 6/6 that can survive most any combat, push through any COPs or T.Moats, and keep swinging turn after turn.

And is that good? It sounds pretty average to me. Ancient Silverback did all that, except avoid the Circles and Moats.

I recall a kid I used to play Magic with coming into the store where I now work. I described it to him, and he said, 'It's gonna replace Blastoderm!' I replied, 'Replace? Blastoderm *wishes* it was this good.'

In terms of a straight fight - which is the better creature - Spiritmonger beats Blastoderm quite easily. But it`s not that simple. For one, Spiritmonger costs more to cast, which is relevant especially against countermagic. For two, Spiritmonger places a stricter mana burden on the deck it goes into. BG decks aren`t very good, never have been, I don`t expect they ever will be (first person to say Rec/Sur gets a slap for being a smartass :)).
Snuff O Derm is NOT a T2 concept. Trust me on this. Snuff O Derm was a deck from an expansion that had NO playable contermagic, and was played in possibylt he most turgid and uninspired block constructed format ever.
Spiritmonger *Tournament* Report Card: B-, not bad
 
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