Subject: Chains of Wasting by
Matthew Kitchen
In the recent Pojo Card of the Day column a card
has been reviewed called the Chains of Mephistopheles. Here is the current
Oracle ruling.
Chains of Mephistopheles
Legends
1B
Enchantment
If a player would draw a card except the first one
he or she draws in a draw step, that player discards a card from his or her hand
instead. If the player discards a card, he or she draws a card. If the player
doesn't discard a card, he or she puts the top card of his or her library into
his or her graveyard.
Now the combo with Howling Mine has been mentioned
to force your opponent to draw lots and lots cards and therefore making them
discard more cards, but one combo hasn't been mentioned yet:
Words of Waste
2B
Enchantment
1: The next time you would
draw a card this turn, each opponent discards a card from his or her hand
instead.
Hmmmm......let's see now. I
have 4 Howling Mines out, Chains, and Words of Waste.
My Draw Step: I pay 4
(1 between each draw apart from the first) to activate Words and cause my
opponent to discard 4 cards from his hand.
My Opponents Draw Step: He
draws 1 card, discards 4 from his hand, and he draws 4 unless he couldn't
discard, in which case they get milled from his deck.
End Result: My opponent
gets milled to death.
Now people may be thinking,
what happens if he kills me before I mill his library to bits? Two cards help
here:
Megrim (Enchantment 2B)
allows me to punish my opponent by dealing him 1 damage every time he discards a
card (which is going to be very, very often).
Words of War (Enchantment
2R) gives me a theoretical 10 points of damage to swing around every turn,
whether to take out some annoying creatures (damn Wellwisher) or to just lob it
at my enemies dome, killing them in a couple of turns.
This plus some random burn and hand destruction
(Shock, Corrupt, Book Burning, Mind Sludge) you have a fairly dead opponent.
Have fun!
Matthew
Kitchen