Skullclamp

[Seeker of Truth]

Playing this in my team sealed today was incredible. It can be really good card advantage, especially when used with the Arcbound creatures (the modular creatures). Our team opened two of them, but we decided to split them up. That was a big mistake because my creatures were very good with that card.

At the very least, it's a colorless reusable Skulltap for 1. With Leonin Shikari I think it's even better as you can put it on any monster that would be about to die anyway and draw two cards upon that monster's death. Affinity will love this card if they run cards like the modular 1 Arcbounds and the Vedalken Engineer, as it allows the affinity player to refill their hand fairly easily, and add some small power to their monsters.

Anyway, I felt that this was a pretty useful card to play. If anyone else has any thoughts about it, I'd like to see some comments.

 

[Mikeymike]

I haven't played it yet, but it seems to be a very powerful drawing engine in so many different deck builds.

It is strong on its own, yet gets even better with creatures that have an effect of some sort when they go to the yard - like the Modular creatures you pointed out, Ruhk Egg, Dross Harvester, Festering Goblin, Goblin Sharpshooter, Wirewood Herald, Skirk Drill Sergeant, and the Onslaught Symbiotes.

Its downright unfair with token creatures as well. And any creature based deck that likes to sack its creatures (like Goblins needed a card-drawing engine).

If this card were rare, it'd be a serious chase-card. Being that it is an uncommon, it will be tested in just about any creature-based build.

Skullclamp is most definitely a very strong card...maybe too strong.

 

[Notepad]

It's a friggen awesome card for weenie decks, especially if you combine it with other death clauses or sacrifices.

 

[Rooser]

Yeah, this is definitely a fun toy for casual.

 

[NorrYtt]

My Team Sealed deck was 4 Veldaken Engineer, 2 Silver Myr, 4 Spire Golem, plus more artifacts and 15 Islands. Skullclamp is every bit as ridiculous as it looks. It lets you play all the crazy 1/1 accelerators you want and rewards you late game by turning them into 3 mana Inspirations. I have 4 but I'll need about 8 more to complete my decks.

It truly draws 1 card too many. Cycling your late game 1/1s would be convienent and would work great turning tokens into cards. Two cards per clamp makes it overpowered.

 

[orgg]

I'd say it's a boon for green, honestly. Drop two of them for late-game card draw, and it's pretty nice, as far as I can figure out.

Reminds me of a blue Visions enchantment... but it doesn't go away. That card was good with stuff like Ball Lightning... unfortunatly, that -1 toughness negates that factor...

Squee wouldn't be too bad with this, or Neither Shadow et alius.

 

[Rooser]

Wow, dems some good idears, orgg.

 

[train]

Why does Blue have to influenece every card in Magic's existence...

"2 little letters... N-O"

 

[NorrYtt]

I thought it was incredibly lame that it took until Scragnoth to hose Blue's countermagic. Then it took more time until Urza's Rage, Kavu Chameleon, and Blurred Mongoose.

Green's regeneration has been hosed on every black removal spell printed. Black discard was hosed with Odyssey Block.

Finally they decided just to nerf counterspells themselves. And Type 2 shall be dominated by W/U Control.

 

[Spiderman]

Is there an objective reason (not personal) why blue countermagic would need to be "nerfed" up until Scragnoth? Did it dominate tournament play, for instance?

 

[train]

Blue did dominate the scene...

and capsize and tradewind rider are some of the worst memories...

 

[Spiderman]

Yeah, but they were also part of Tempest (with Scragnoth). I don't recall blue dominating before Tempest. If anything, there was Black with Necro in '95 and maybe Sligh sometime around then.

 

[train]

okay - pre tempest, here's what dominated...

White Blue control... the teferi's honor guard pahses out while wrath hits the table...
or rainbow efreet ditto...
There was the ever popular serendib that when backed by counter performed a few fly-bys and the game was over...

another friend of Blue was Mishra's factory - mono blue counter, few twigs = win...

stasis - we all know that one...

There was the blue black diabolic vision deck...

another U/W control used Kjeldoran outpost... but mainly counters and wraths...

There was mono-blue counter with the Mahamoti...

Sligh Merfolk - was strong...

there was the illusions of grandeur decks...

The shimmer decks...

the bazaar of wonders, vision charm decks...

And the everlasting counter decks running recalls to get all the counters back was horrible... it's friend was Larry Nevin...

The cad/bloom deck used prosperity or drain life, but mainly ran blue for counter capability...

and that's not including the type 1 perpetual bits that were running rampant...

force of wills are still under-costed... though that won't change it is my opinion... mana drains are insane...(well as insane as magic cards can get...) And Islands - don't get me started there...

For PRE-TEMPEST - that's a lot of Blue running around!...

Post tempest, blue has been horribly strong... tempest's cards didn't hinder the strength of blue - scragnoth made not a dent on the tourney scene for what blue was winning...

I'll put it this way - Tempest, with Choke, and Boil - was my best friend for life... Though Urza's was the best block ever...

The Blue tourney scene was so strong, it took speed kills like Sneak Attack for me to win tourneys...

Of course - If I wanted to win I could've just played Blue!...

 

[Spiderman]

Never heard of most of those winning tournaments, except Cad-Bloom.

Is there a place that holds the winning decks from past tournaments (Pro-Tour, States, Worlds)?

 

[train]

If there is I'll find it!...

 

[NorrYtt]

It's not that blue was winning all the tournaments, it's just that blue was, has been, and always will be the best color in Magic.

I remember games of Ophidian, go where your deck had to fight through Mana Leak, Counterspell, Forbid, Dissipate, and Dismiss. Disk played cleanup while Capsize and Whispers of the Muse locked the endgame. What's amazing is these decks had game against Sligh, the deck that would completely hose it in modern Type II. My Sligh friend feared blue the most and would pray for turn 1 Cursed Scroll.

Then Urza Block broke out, delivering wanton brokeness in Stroke of Genius, Time Spiral, and Tolarian Academy to fuel combo. The 6th Edition rules changes just prior to Urza's Legacy enabled Morphling to dominate the red zone and become Magic's most powerful creature.

R&D has discovered why blue is the best: it's mechanics are the best. Card drawing and counterspells are in the top 3, beaten only by fast mana. They have sought to tone this down after printing Fact or Fiction and the crazy good counters of Invasion block.

Mass instant speed card drawing (Stroke) has been replaced with mass sorcery speed card drawing (Rush of Knowledge) and small instant speed card drawing (Thirst for Knowledge). Permanent-based card drawing has been improved (Future Sight, Mind's Eye) to encourage player interaction (removal). Hard counters have been nerfed (Rewind) though conditional counters remain suprisingly good (Mana Leak).

My hypothesis that blue was nerfed into oblivion after Invasion just so R&D could say that blue was bad for once. Never again shall it get that bad. Even so, blue made up half the cards in dominating decks U/G Madness (OdBC) and W/U Control (OnBC).

Now I see the reason. Blue was nerfed because of the blue-centered-and-powering-up Mirrodin Block, which launched a competitive Tier 1 Affinity deck that can compete using mostly Mirrodin cards.

They do this all the time. R&D describes it as a pendulum. Green was terrible for a long, long time until Visions pushed River Boa, Creeping Mold, and Sex Monkey among others. Green climaxed at Odyssey with Wild Mongrel, Roar of the Wurm, Call of the Herd, and others that proved their constructed worthiness. They were just trying to make green good to see if it could be done, which unfortunately outclassed White's Weenies in every way. Now R&D is pushing White, especially White Weenie.

 

[Spiderman]

I agree with your analysis, especially

R&D has discovered why blue is the best: it's mechanics are the best. Card drawing and counterspells are in the top 3

However, "best" is subjective (as it appears from our discussion). To me, if it's "best", it would be winning consistently everywhere. Since it's not, it gets downgraded to "strong". It's certainly has never been at the bottom of the five colors, that's for sure, but I don't think it's always been number 1, at least to what I view a number one color should be (again, winning all the time).

 

[NorrYtt]

Blue is, has been, and always will be the best color in Magic for Type 1. (Which kinda is Magic anyway).

Mechanics rank something like:

1. Fast mana
2. Card drawing
3. Counterspells
4. Discard
5. Burn
12. Creatures
18. Life Gain

Of course, it's all subjective. What only matters is cards like Black Lotus, Yawgmoth's Will, and Ancestral Recall exist. It's just that for 10 years R&D has overpowered these top mechanics and they happen to belong to blue or artifacts.

Creatures have gotten way better; simply compare the "great" staple creatures of old - Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, Ernham Djinn - to their unplayability when reprinted today.

R&D could simply overpower life gain to something like

Angel's Kiss W
Instant
You gain 20 life.

but instead they've underpowered life gain until recently. Life gain does bad things for the game - it prolongs and promotes stalemates. Zuran Orb was banned (or restricted?) because it simply made tournaments last too long (through efficient life gain).

It would really really lame playing StarCraft or WarCraft III if armies would clash and fight for hours because Medics and Priests could heal ad nauseum. Healing should be good, but at the same time it can destroy the fun.

 

[Spiderman]

Blue is, has been, and always will be the best color in Magic for Type 1.

Sure, I'll go with that. It's because Garfield and co. didn't realize the power of drawing cards or the fast popularity of Magic would cause people to collect tons of cards, thus making fast mana "over balancing", but the fact remains, it's there and blue got the early lion's share of it.

 

[train]

WoTC better hope I don't get my hands on designing sets...

"Of course - they'd probably never hire me to start with..."