17 replies to this topic

[Gren]

Card of the Day for Friday, April 13th 2012

Card Name »  Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
Mana Cost » RR

Expansion » Avacyn Reborn

Type » Planeswalker - Tibalt

Card Text » +1 Draw a card, then discard a card at random.

-4 Tibalt, the Fiend-blooded deals damage equal to the number of cards in target player's hand to that player.

-6 Gain control of all creatures until end of turn. Untap them. They gain haste until end of turn.

Rulings »

• None

Legal in »  NYR

Gren's Thoughts » What a perfect card to do on Friday, the 13th. Here's to our first 2 CMC planeswalker, and what a neat little guy he is! Draw effect is decent enough, at a cost of course. That second ability trounces Timiyo's Emblem, as well as other blue cards that lets you draw cards to no end. It also hurts Griselbrand pretty well. Now, on to the Ultimate. So I get all of your creatures? Very nice. Looks like we have an Insurrection for only 2 CMC at our hands. Keeping this planeswalker out with his low loyalty though, that's the problem.

Art » Intersting. Half devil, half human.

Notes » Week 1 Spoilers begins for AVR. This set is going to be creamy.

[Dragonheart91]

I really don't like it. You are playing this guy for his +1 since that's all you get to use for two turns and probably all he will ever use most of the time. Even if you get to the other abilities, they are not very impressive.

If your deck needs a random discard outlet once per turn for RR, then this is the card for you. Otherwise, it seems incredibly marginal. I would have built him like this:

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
RR
Starting Loyalty 1
+1 Discard a card, then draw a card.
0 Deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
-5 Discard your hand. Gain control of all permanents until end of turn. Untap them. They gain haste until end of turn.

[Siyanor]

It's positively horrid and I don't know why anyone would use it. His -4 is the most useful and by the time you can use it, either he's no longer on your board, it's a Lava Spike, or your opponent doesn't care. You'd have to be running a hybrid Sneak Attack-Reanimator deck for him to not be worse than a Gaze of Adamaro.

Edited by Siyanor, 13 April 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Ritokure]

I'm wondering what's up with all the hate. The +1 is good in the right deck, as while there's a small "random" clause there, it's still looting and this card's cost/benefit is at par with Looting creatures. I wonder why the hell people even care for the random part so much - there's something called "brain" that prevents you from ever losing a game-winning combo card. Other than that, you can always just, y'know, cast your best stuff, then dump what's left and draw more. If you don't like the random nature of draw/discard, then you should stop playing Red period. That's not even mentioning GY interactions.
I actually find his -4 his least useful ability, but it's situational, which means that there's a small chance it's going to be awesome.
His Ultimate wins games. It's Insurrection alright, and it's high on my list of favorite Ultis. Unlike other PWs, it's instantaneous advantage for such a low-CMC PW - just perfect.

His biggest problem by far is the total lack of means to protect himself, which I agree combines with that low starting Loyalty to make a very hard to use PW. However, he definitely has potential, and while he's probably not seeing much play on many decks, he's powerful enough to make a difference in those that can use him.



EFF: 7/10
ART: 9/10 (This guy is awesome, but the art could be better)

Edited by Ritokure, 13 April 2012 - 04:06 PM.

[Siyanor]

Random discard is not in any way comparable to regular discard; moreover, you generally don't want to loot AT ALL in red, but rather simply draw. Red needs draw power, not sifting, and especially not bad sifting. Burning Inquiry is only used because it affects opponents too. Shattered Perception is useless (and that's better than random discard), Gamble is pretty much useless, Tibalt is useless.

Edited by Siyanor, 13 April 2012 - 04:21 PM.

[n00bdragon]

Wow, what an awful walker. The +1 is horrible. The ability isn't useless but it's situational. You definitely don't want to start doing that on turn 2 and you might not want to do it every turn. And for what? Shitty sorcery speed Sudden Impact two turns later? The mass Threaten is nice but having to wait four turns for it is harsh enough before you realize that the +1 is situational and can't just be used "this is good, use every turn even if it does nothing it won't hurt you" style like almost every other walker + ability is.

It's so weird. What bizarro world am I in where I agree with Siyanor and no one else?

EDIT to respond to Siyanor's ninja post: I agree. Random discard is actually bad for you in most cases. It's only good when your hand is awful and you'd rather trade them for random cards in your deck. When your hand is better than random cards DO NOT USE and a walker with a + ability that you don't use most of the time is a shitty walker.

[Ritokure]

While I'll agree that T2 is a terrible time to be looting, I fail to see at all how draw+discard is generally bad. You draw and get a new card, then get rid of a card. The card you get rid of has equal chances of being either worse or better than the card you drew, or it could be the card you drew. It's luck based and it generates no advantage but digging through your Deck, which is a good thing lately. So, in general, not many upsides but definitely no downsides either (note that I said generally, neither bad nor good luck is the card's fault) but you DO can control your hand to an extension.

I'll admit that right now I'm pretty much just seeing this as an pseudo-Grimoire of the Dead, with a -2 CMC, a secondary effect, a bit more vulnerable and a stapled draw effect to the discard. The second effect is situational and not really that good so shouldn't be considered most of the time. Even then, it's still a huge countdown against any deck that can't spam monsters faster than you do and that will probably trigger on T6, a nice turn to get a win condition, and it generates both pressure and looting in the meanwhile.

Either way, the card's reception is, on average, somewhere between "terrible" and "above average". I think that either way we can all agree this is much better than a "great" to "broken" reception for a Mythic.



EDIT: I'll just add that the change I would definitely want to see on this would be a +1 starting Loyalty, even if they bumped the costs for the other 2. In other words, a +1, -5, -7, starting with 3.

Edited by Ritokure, 13 April 2012 - 04:49 PM.

[kakashipwnzor]

...This card is bad?

We're obviously not looking at the same PW.

First, he's a turn 2 drop. Let me just let that sink in a moment. A PW for 2 mana. That in itself is good, even if you guys think he's terrible. He's an extra 2 health you get basically, on top of a free draw + discard.

The -4 isn't the best, but in a pinch, you could potentially win games with it.

The -6 though. Oh god. I know there are probably several hundred cards that do that, but you've also got to take into consideration you can Proliferate his counters with things like Volt Charge or w/e it's called. I like him, I really do.

[Ritokure]

kakashipwnzor, on 13 April 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

The -6 though. Oh god. I know there are probably several hundred cards that do that, but you've also got to take into consideration you can Proliferate his counters with things like Volt Charge or w/e it's called. I like him, I really do.

There's actually just one, called Insurrection. It costs 5RRR, is a Sorcery and the ultimate Red staple in EDH.

So yeah, triggering that Ulti is a huge deal.

Edited by Ritokure, 13 April 2012 - 05:00 PM.

[n00bdragon]

Oh my god stop calling it looting. Random discard is not looting. Looting is when you draw and then PICK the worst card in your hand and get rid of it. Looting is always good because you gain a card of random usefulness and then discard the card of the least usefulness. Random discard is nearly always bad because unless you have just one card in your hand chances are good that at least one of the cards in your hand is better than the average random draw from your deck, which means you introduce the chance of making your hand worse.

There's a reason Hypnotic Specter is STILL one of the best specters. There's a reason Specter's Wail costs 1B and any number of generic black cards can make an opponent discard a card plus do a cool effect for just B. Random discard is bad, it's worse than drawing a card is good in most situations. Ergo, this guy's +1 is awful and without a way to pump himself and still be at least NOT HARMFUL.

Just being a planeswalker for 2 mana doesn't make him good anymore than "just being an enchantment" is good "or just being an artifact". You have to look at how much good you're going to get out of him.

[Ritokure]

n00bdragon, on 13 April 2012 - 06:03 PM, said:

Random discard is nearly always bad because unless you have just one card in your hand chances are good that at least one of the cards in your hand is better than the average random draw from your deck, which means you introduce the chance of making your hand worse.

You forget to provide examples of why (just like always, by the way) and instead seem to imply that you just know better and that you got your cards from Magical Candy Land. As far as I can tell, what's in your hand came from your deck as well. I'm not even kidding when I say that, even considering that you're a skilled Magic player, this is by far the dumbest thing I've ever read on the MtG forums here.

And even that, while the chances of discarding a Land are slightly slimmer than the ones of drawing it (since lands don't stay in your hand too long) and which is the only negative variant on random discard, you have to remember that he only costs 2 and you should have still some lands by then. Other than that, he's pure luck and never, as I said before, harmful by default.


And, just in case, the difference is that these effects apply to your opponent, and are not repeatable. It's like the difference of having a card that says "0: Lose 1 life" and "0: Target opponent loses 1 life". Because the first one is clever, requires a proper deck to work nicely but still can do some pretty interesting stuff. If the first one came stapled with a decent creature, it would be playable. And of course, and this is the biggest difference, is that you know better than your opponent. You're not dropping your Life to 1 when you have nothing to do with it, just like you won't trigger a random discard when you have something that you know you can't lose.
Meanwhile, the second one is just broken, period.

Edited by Ritokure, 13 April 2012 - 08:58 PM.

[Siyanor]

kakashipwnzor, on 13 April 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

A PW for 2 mana. That in itself is good

Huh?

Quote

He's an extra 2 health you get basically

What?

Quote

The -4 isn't the best, but in a pinch, you could potentially win games with it.

Yes, but you could also use Gaze of Adamaro, which does the same thing at instant speed and takes just as many turns.

Quote

The -6 though. Oh god. I know there are probably several hundred cards that do that, but you've also got to take into consideration you can Proliferate his counters with things like Volt Charge or w/e it's called. I like him, I really do.

Mana ramping for actually casting Insurrection is easier to do than proliferating from 2 to 6. If you're going to proliferate for a PW win con, use something that actually wins, like Tamiyo. Same number of counters.

[Dragonheart91]

Some of the people in the thread are far underestimating the devastating disruption potential of random discard. In a game of MTG, I carefully sculpt my hand and chose which cards to play and which cards to save. Over the course of a game I create an ever-evolving plan for how to kill my opponent and deal with his threats. Tibalt destroys that plan. He can and will completely disrupt what your options are and force you to play in a sub-optimal manner in order to try and not have his ability make you lose. If I could lose any card at any time, then there is no reason to hold back better/more versatile cards for later in the game. I may as well play the best stuff right away since I'm likely to lose it anyway. That leads to bad play and blow-outs.

Even in Magic Christmas Land where Tibalt never disrupts your plans, you are still wasting a card and your turn 2 (normally tempo advancing) play for basically nothing. It will be very rare for his ultimate to go off and the rest of the time he is a net negative in almost every situation.


I repeat, the ONLY time this planeswalker is good is in a deck where his +1 ability is beneficial to the deck. (E.G. Due to an extremely high percentage of the deck having flashback and the deck not minding an RR cost on turn 2.) I don't think a deck exists for him at this time, and barring something helping that in AVR, I imagine he will be the first bargain bin planeswalker.

[The Angel Of Elysium]

I was going to bring up how much burning vengeance and frites loves this guy, but that would mean getting tangled up in your arguments. So fuck that.

What I really came here to say was: "Turn thee, Benvolio, and look upon thy death..."

[Siyanor]

I've only seen one variant of Magical Christmas Land, but it was actually disrupted quite a bit by random discard, since it didn't run many 4-ofs. You don't want to be discarding the wrong thing, ever.

Also, you can't always decide "I want to keep this, so I'll play it" when you may be drawing the card you want to keep off of his +1.

[n00bdragon]

Quote

You're not dropping your Life to 1 when you have nothing to do with it, just like you won't trigger a random discard when you have something that you know you can't lose.

This is exactly my point. Tibalt is a card that you don't want to use the +1 ability of all the time, or even most of the time, and being that a planeswalker who isn't using his abilities every single turn is being a waste of precious cards AND mana that qualifies him for shit-tier.

[Harpuia]

I'm sorry, not a fan of this card.

Here's basically a free 1-time blocker for 2 with a few abilities that you can find on stronger cards that are only good for one-shots.

+1 for example, enough has been said.  I hate discarding at random.

The -4 is only good if you can pull it off before your opponent runs out of cards to play.  I'd say on average, I see it being no better used than a Lava Axe.

And the -6 is just an Insurrection.

So yeah, for RR it might seem ok, but you'll likely use it for little more than a one-shot blocker and a couple bits of card draw.

[Siyanor]

He can't block, Harp. He's a Planeswalker.