The best example of this is Dredge hard-casting Prized Amalgams and Bloodghasts when the opponent is too mana constrained to respond. This isn't strictly true: it is possible for targeted decks to win through the hate. Silver bullets are often said to be kill cards, as in they actually end the game against the right deck. In other words, they're the ultimate sideboard cards. They also require less-common answers to be sideboarded in against them. The best hosers are effective against a wide variety of decks, but against some decks, they just win the game. Think Rest in Peace against Dredge (and arguably Storm), Shatterstorm against Affinity, Blood Moon against Amulet Titan, or Leyline of Sanctity against 8-Rack. These cards, also known as silver bullets, do something that defeats a deck on its own unless answered. Therefore, to the extent it is possible, I prefer cards that must be answered or my opponent's deck fails. We only have fifteen sideboard slots, I want them to be as impactful as possible while general answer cards like Negate or Dispel are often good, they're not good enough to beat streamlined decks finely-tuned to do their thing. Silver BulletsĪ rule I have about sideboard construction is to play as many "I Win" cards as possible. Thus, in Modern, hate is critical for fair decks to survive. It is very hard to effectively hate out Jund Dredge, not so much. With hosers in the picture, these decks have many advantages over the slower fair strategies, but at the cost of being more vulnerable. This is not inherently a bad thing, but too much "busted" drives players away. That's especially so in older formats, where a larger card pool allows for very fast and powerful unfair decks to exist. Hosers and hate cards serve as safety valves on formats, preventing the narrow set of decks they target from growing too powerful. There have been a number of problems in Standard and Modern that could have been avoided with playable answers. Defending Hateįirst of all, I am grateful that Wizards has finally starting printing effective hate cards again. It is also worth noting that Sphere is symmetrical, preventing targeted decks like Tron from employing it themselves. It does affect swarm decks like Goblins and Affinity, but might resolve too late against those. Perhaps they were thinking about Legacy Elves? Modern creature-combo decks often rely on Collected Company and Chord of Calling rather than burn through creatures, and Sphere isn't so effective there. Generally, Wizards only taxes non-creature decks. It is worth noting that Sphere counts every spell that's cast, and not just non-creatures. Snapcaster Mage can be very awkward against Sphere. This ability also targets combo decks that play a critical mass of spells to win, and boasts subtle anti-control applications-m any reactive decks like Grixis and Jeskai chain multiple spells a turn to stabilize against agro, and Sphere limits their ability to do so. Sphere's second ability hoses Storm, counting all the spells that a player has played in a turn and taxing them accordingly. In other words, the card keeps Tron from casting seven-mana bombs on turn three. Instead of accelerating one's mana, under Sphere, those lands become Wastes. Its first ability explicitly hoses the Tron lands, and also the Karoo lands in Amulet Titan. Damping Sphere was clearly designed to attack those two decks. The hype was understandable, given the strong opinions internet commentators have about Tron and Storm. I'll explain why Sphere isn't the universal answer that it has been touted as by detailing where Sphere fits in among hate cards and how it differs from other hate. There are a number of problems with Sphere that will limit its utility, but there are also opportunities to consider.ĭamping Sphere isn't bad at being a hate card so much as it's not as powerful as it appears. Given the context of the card, this is hardly surprising. The hysteria may have died down, but many players are still high on the card. Dominaria has many solid Modern candidates (and some questionable ones) but none have generated quite as much buzz as Damping Sphere.
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