M
Mr_Pestilence
Guest
When the Apoc spoiler came out, I glanced briefly at this card, deemed it unplayeable, and moved on to the other "can't miss" cards, like Spirit Monger, Pernicious Deed, Vindicate, etc.
Time passed. I began to acculmulate these "useless" cards through trading and having them passed to me in drafts, often several cards into the pack. One day, I had 4 of these things, so I tried putting them in an B/W experimental deck, but they just seemed to pile up in my hand, because I needed the land to cast mana-hungry spells like Death Grasp. I took them out.
Then came IBC. Looking at the number and quality of counterspells available, my first attempt at a serious IBC deck was Go-Mar. In case I didn't draw Dromar, I put in a couple of Angels for random fat. A curious thing happened. instead of playing Dromar, and seeing it bounced or terminated, I would often wait until I could cast the Angel with kicker, along with counterspell backup (sure, this is 10 mana, but in an environment as slow as IBC, this is viable). I won 100% of the games where I could pull this off.
Eventually the Dromars came out, and the Angels went up to 4, along with lots of countspells and Routs that would hold off my opponent long enough to get my combo together. This deck is just brutal, and I still have yet to lose after kicking an Angel onto an empty table. Which leads me to my original question - is Desolation Angel broken enough to justify banning (at least in IBC) or watching?
This may seem like a ridiculous question, but consider:
In it's prime, Ernham/Geddon decks were very good - drop a fatty, blow away the land, win the game, 1-2-3. This required 8 mana, 2 cards, and generally 2 turns to setup. The D Angel is essentially 2 cards in one - a huge flying fatty and Armageddon. Yes, it costs 7 mana, but Standard provides "sac" lands and Dark Rituals, while IBC is slow enough to allow 7 mana spells to be played routinely. In the IBC environment, it takes 2-3 lands to be able to deal with the Angel. In the meantime, you'll probably get smacked a couple of times. Combine this with getting a couple of spells Undermined, damage from pain lands, and maybe a hit from a Death Grasp, and that's game!
So what do you think?
Time passed. I began to acculmulate these "useless" cards through trading and having them passed to me in drafts, often several cards into the pack. One day, I had 4 of these things, so I tried putting them in an B/W experimental deck, but they just seemed to pile up in my hand, because I needed the land to cast mana-hungry spells like Death Grasp. I took them out.
Then came IBC. Looking at the number and quality of counterspells available, my first attempt at a serious IBC deck was Go-Mar. In case I didn't draw Dromar, I put in a couple of Angels for random fat. A curious thing happened. instead of playing Dromar, and seeing it bounced or terminated, I would often wait until I could cast the Angel with kicker, along with counterspell backup (sure, this is 10 mana, but in an environment as slow as IBC, this is viable). I won 100% of the games where I could pull this off.
Eventually the Dromars came out, and the Angels went up to 4, along with lots of countspells and Routs that would hold off my opponent long enough to get my combo together. This deck is just brutal, and I still have yet to lose after kicking an Angel onto an empty table. Which leads me to my original question - is Desolation Angel broken enough to justify banning (at least in IBC) or watching?
This may seem like a ridiculous question, but consider:
In it's prime, Ernham/Geddon decks were very good - drop a fatty, blow away the land, win the game, 1-2-3. This required 8 mana, 2 cards, and generally 2 turns to setup. The D Angel is essentially 2 cards in one - a huge flying fatty and Armageddon. Yes, it costs 7 mana, but Standard provides "sac" lands and Dark Rituals, while IBC is slow enough to allow 7 mana spells to be played routinely. In the IBC environment, it takes 2-3 lands to be able to deal with the Angel. In the meantime, you'll probably get smacked a couple of times. Combine this with getting a couple of spells Undermined, damage from pain lands, and maybe a hit from a Death Grasp, and that's game!
So what do you think?
