It's almost Valentine's day, so we're doing
something special for those cynical romantics of
you out there. Follow the cards and you get a
bit of a story.
Anyway, it's a goofy little wincon, combos with
doubling season just for some quick nonsense if
you're lucky. Casual fun deck fodder if you're
feeling mean.
It's Bad Romance Week here on Card of the Day,
and I arguably had a bad romance of sorts with
this card. It really caught my eye when the
Odyssey block was new, but I never actually made
a deck to take advantage of it until later, when
Darksteel's Wirefly Hive and Guildpact's Stitch
in Time entered the scene. There seemed to be
something approaching a critical mass of cards,
and Ravnica was a good era for combo players,
with tutors and defensive cards like Telling
Time, Muddle the Mixture, and Drift of
Phantasms. Unfortunately, most of the decks I
had around for playtesting involved things like
Castigate and Hypnotic Specter, or else Kird Ape
into Scab-Clan Mauler into Burning-Tree Shaman.
I never seriously revisited the concept after
that, although now as I tell this story, I'm no
longer certain whether the problem was really
with the deck or with myself. There's an obvious
lesson about romance in that last sentence, but
the difference is that with a Magic card,
especially a Johnny card like this one, you can
always try again any time you want. I might do
so, actually . . .
When this card was first released, it was
basically garbage because it required you to
fill your deck with cards that involve coin
flips, nearly all of which were also garbage.
Today, coin flips have never truly been phased
out of the game-- there's only been about one a
year, but the most recent one is M15's Goblin
Kaboomist, so they're still a part of the game,
if a minor one. More importantly, proliferate
now exists, so as long as you can win ONE flip,
you can get there. Personally, I think you'd
have an easier time pulling this stunt with
Darksteel Reactor-- at least the first counter
is a lot easier to get, and the reactor is
indestructible. A last-minute Disenchant is
going to WRECK this card, and they'll have
plenty of time to see it coming.
