What I Learned About This Card
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on March 19, 2022, 6:47 a.m. by Guerric
I thought a helpful discussion to have would be about cards we've all tried out and found worked differently that we had thought. Whenever a new set is spoiled there are always cards that players think will work really well, but sometimes either don't perform or are good in different situations than we think. I thought that discussing these might be a helpful experience for us all.
The card I'm going to pick as an example and to kick things off is Winds of Abandon. When this card was first spoiled, reactions were mixed. Some felt that it would be white Cyclonic Rift, albeit at sorcery speed. Others thought that the fact it compensates with lands would over-ramp opponents and make the overload mode simply bad.
While I knew it was no Cyclonic Rift, as someone who loves playing white I was bullish about the card, and tried it out in all sorts of decks. Naturally, I tried it first in some of my more controlling decks, simply because I have more slots for removal and interaction with those strategies. In these decks I found the card to be pretty bad. Most of the people in my playgroup that play aggressive decks are good with their card draw, and giving them more mana to rebuild with didn't slow things down too much.
Where I've found this card to be good is in aggro decks. To begin with, just being a modal card is a great asset for aggro decks on its own. When you have fewer spots for removal and interaction having one that doubles as both on its own is good, and this card fits into more decks than Damn. Secondly, aggro decks ideally want to clear blockers while leaving your own board intact, and there are limited cards in magic that do this, and no other ones in white. A lot of times I can win if I can just get rid of my opponents' blockers, and the overload mode is a great finisher in many circumstances. It doesn't matter if I ramp them if they are dead!
What about all of you? What cards have you found worked differently than you thought, and what can we learn about them if we play them?
jamochawoke says... #3
Settle the Wreckage is a similar card that I've found is extremely valuable in ramping yourself in mono-white token generator decks.
So you either use it to respond to a wide swing (this rarely happens to me, but it's nice to have for that) where you win the next turn or you use it to respond to your own swing with a bunch of weenies and ramp yourself 4-6 lands letting you get out an even bigger wincon.
Mono-white decks either usually run weenies with anthem effects or they run control/wipes with big beaters (usually angels) after as their main wincons. This lets you have a hybrid of both decks where you just run the token generators, no anthems, and still be able to run field wipes and beaters (or perhaps a combo shenanigan that needs more mana).
March 19, 2022 12:29 p.m.
jamochawoke That's very true! Those who don't play a lot of white sometimes forget that Path to Exile can be a situational ramp card in white strategies as well (perhaps most famously in Feather, the Redeemed where it is repeatable ramp). I actually did use Settle the Wreckage that way on a couple of occasions back when I used to play mono-white tokens.
March 19, 2022 12:32 p.m.
Something I learned that was really cool is how great Narset's Reversal is in a counterspell war. It can easily 2-for-1. If there’s a lot of counterspells a on the stack, you can bounce your own counterspell and retarget something else, effectively saving your own card and making the other players counter pointless because the spell got bounced. On the other hand, Pact of Negation can suck in counterspell wars because people will try to allow it to resolve if possible and work around it. The first time I used Veil of Summer against it was quite memorable.
March 19, 2022 1:02 p.m.
Lanzo493 Narset's Reversal is also just a powerhouse recursion card in spell copy strategies like Kalamax, the Stormsire and Veyran, Voice of Duality. It's also good with Reiterate combos like the one I run in my Mizzix of the Izmagnus deck.
Pact of Negation can also be brutally misdirected with Sudden Substitution to take a player out. It's a bit niche, but against someone who plays the card a lot I'd try it out.
March 19, 2022 4:41 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #7
I originally put Share the Spoils in my group hug deck, but it has quickly become the best card in that deck. I wouldn't recommend it in combo, but especially if you've got a niche theme deck where your cards aren't particularly attractive for other players to take, the ability to play lands and the one per turn restriction can smooth out draws a bit and can often have powerful political implications.
March 20, 2022 3:10 a.m.
SteelSentry Nice! That makes sense how that would be especially good if you don't have cards they want.
March 20, 2022 8:52 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #9
I don’t remember seeing that card, but what jumps out at me is the value it would provide in a mill deck that utilized the Mind Grind mechanic; the fewer the lands in their library the more effective it is. This has made me sort of interested in making a WUB mill deck with this focus, though it probably doesn’t have as much theme in it as I would normally prefer. Could be neat, though. I think there’s a fair amount of white cards that compensate for their benefit by letting their target tutor a land... is there a techno music fan who wants to make a WUB-WUB-WUB deck that I can live vicariously through? ;p
Niko9 says... #2
Ha, happens to everyone from time to time, I'm sure : ) A while back I had started making a deck with the original Kami samurais and infinite block cards like Blaze of Glory and Valor Made Real because I thought that bushido gave your creature a bonus for each creature it blocked. The idea was that Sensei Golden-Tail or Araba Mothrider would get +1 for each block and could wall decks going wide. Heh, I play against decks going wide a lot : ) But, sadly, it doesn't work that way, and my dream of actually using bushido effectively was squashed, wholly : )
March 19, 2022 7:33 a.m.