Tragic Slip

[Worldslayer]

While the flashier cards like Grafdigger's Cage are getting most of the attention, and other playables (one sided Windfall?!) will most likely garner the rest, paging through the spoiler again called my attention to the following:

Tragic Slip     B
Instant

Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
Morbid: That creature gets -13/-13 until end of turn instead.


Not a bomb or flagship card, but reminded me of black swords to plowshares more than anything else. I know that term gets thrown around pretty loosely (any of the channelfireball INN drafts being the biggest offender. Sensory Deprivation? Really?) And obviously sword takes top slot in terms of "unconditional 1cc creature removal", but this card strikes me as pretty close in Vintage - primarily against the base blue decks. Usually the base blues rely on a suite of small engine creatures in the early game, the top offenders being the following:

1) Dark Confidant
2) Goblin Welder
3) Delver of Secrets
4) Noble Hierarch

And, if the TO report from New York is correct, at least recently there appears to be

5) Hermit Druid


These all are the "one drop" (or at least, turn 1 with a mox) creatures that start a base blue decks game plan until their late game comes online. The late game, outside of VaultKey, seems divided into three primary camps:

1) Tarmogoyf (the tempo decks and midrange blue decks)
2) Blightsteel Colossus (Big Blue)
3) Storm Cards

Of these three, Tarmogoyf and Blightsteel are nearly suffocating in their amounts of play, while the Storm option typically (currently) ranks a distant third.

Tragic Slip, while not always "on" like StP, has no drawback otherwise. While sometimes insignifcant, a tempo deck doesn't always want to have to plow through another huge chunk of life after StoPing aa BSC or huge enemy goyf. Most of us would also rather not be playing the color of Stoneforge Mystic over that of Demonic Tutor, either. It strikes me as unusual that I've heard next to nothing about a card that in the early game can handle the first list of creatures, while retaining potency against the second list, all the while being in one of Vintage's "best" colors. The morbid trigger at first seems terrible and next to impossible in Vintage, until you realize that

1) Vintage actually has a bunch of dudes running around at the moment. WotC has made a huge push that we're all aware of to make creatures better, and it's really starting to show. Combat is more than just a formality for a Tinker target killing you these days, and creatures actually fighting creatures happens often enough to be noticeable.

2) Cabal Therapy and Skullclamp are both cards. I'm sure there's plenty more ways to easily trigger morbid for value.

Consider the disruptive core of the recent "suicide" tendrils lists, amalgamated into the following:

Gitaxian Probe
Duress/Thoughtseize
Cabal Therapy
Snapcaster Mage

This core is actually (from personal experience, anyhow) the primary reason for Suicide Tendrils even being a player - it's not as fast as several other options, but can simply render most opponents' hands nonfunctional within a relatively short period of time. While I'm not advocating the play of Tragic Slip IN suicide tendrils, this core fits just as easily into any base UB disruptive strategy: UG, BUG, or UBW tempo as much as Suicide. Cabal Therapy (and SFM-> Skull Clamp in the esper versions) can easily trigger morbid for value, allowing you to use early copies of Slips against their tiny engines, while flashing back cabal therapy or clamping a guy or even just trading in combat (whether offensively or defensively) to rid yourself of whatever deseperation haymaker they implement with the hand that remains.

If a single card can handle Confidant, Welder, Hierarch, Jeff Goldblum, Hermit Druid (and more, I'm sure), while remaining an active out against nonEmrakul, nonDemon Oath targets, shop creatures, Tarmogoyfs, Trygons, any Tinker target that isn't Inkwell Leviathan, etc.. etc.., with a minimal amount of hoop jumping, for the cost of one mana -

Is it playable in Vintage?  


I believe so, insofar as Vintage is developing more and more into a format where new, different creatures matter.  If the creatures matter more, I believe the removal must also. While this won't answer an Oath, or a Time Vault, those aren't the only questions in the format anymore. The restriction of "just" being creature removal is a big narrow, but does the ability to remove nearly any creature you'll see in a Vintage game make up for it?

Thoughts? Comments? Have YOU considered playing it, or its playability? If not, why not?

Thanks,
-WS

[MaximumCDawg]

The mods moved the prior thread on this card to the "Creative" forum for some reason, but it still exists:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=43835.0

I agree with your observations, but you're missing the biggest thing about Vintage cards: what OTHER OPTIONS exist to do the same thing? 

Comparing it to other similar one-drops: I think this card compares slightly unfavorably to Curfew, which is a card I think is criminally underplayed for how good it is.  Its also slightly less good than Darkblast at dealing with x/1s, but if you're already running Snapcaster anyway to flash it back... I dunno.  And, of course, it's hella worse than Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile.  And, if you're dealing with BSC, killing it shuffles it so it's ready to be tinkered up again off a Snapcaster, so there is that.

In other words, this card is fine and all for what it is, but it would have to be an incredibly narrow type of deck that wants to use it over other, better ways of doing the same thing. The only such deck I can think of is some kind of suiblack or Dark Times list.

[Worldslayer]

Curfew only compares favorably against tragic slip under (fairly) narrow circumstances:

1) you don't also control a creature who's continued existence in play is beneficial to you
2) the creature doesn't actually need to be permanently removed, or otherwise IS permanently removed by bouncing (I'm looking at you, Tinkerbots).

I agree curfew is an excellent anti Tinker strategy for a nonConfidant or proSnapcaster base blue deck, but I wasn't viewing Slip as specifically an antiTinker strategy. If a Goyf resolved the first time against you, chances are probably in favor of it resolving again (or expending a ton of resources to make sure it doesn't. Curfew + Freshly drawn force puts you on the losing end of a 3-1 to stop a goyf if and only if they have no other dudes in play).

Swords is obviously the premier removal for dudes at 1cc, but I qualified above and you in your thread the reasons why a black "swords to plowshares" would be preferable to the original - namely decks that have access to black but not white. In Vintage, that's a healthy amount of available decks.

Outside of Swords, this is probably the next best generic removal, and in a far more "vintage playable" color. It's most natural home is shoring up one of the weaknesses they kept a BUG tempo deck from rivaling it's Noble counterparts - the lack of a card that can answer tinker as well as opposing small creatures. There are better ways to answering Dark Confidant, and better ways of answering Goyf, and better ways of answering BSC, but not all on one card that costs 1cc and is asymmetrical.

[Jo84]

Did you forget about Darkblast?

Darkblast does the same but has Dredge, so I think Darkblast is much better, as I imagine it to be pretty hard to make use of Morbid key word in Vintage.

[MaximumCDawg]

He did, but Darkblast doesn't deal with Blightsteel, so...

 I also forgot Innocent Blood.  

Outside of Swords, this is probably the next best generic removal, and in a far more "vintage playable" color. It's most natural home is shoring up one of the weaknesses they kept a BUG tempo deck from rivaling it's Noble counterparts - the lack of a card that can answer tinker as well as opposing small creatures. There are better ways to answering Dark Confidant, and better ways of answering Goyf, and better ways of answering BSC, but not all on one card that costs 1cc and is asymmetrical.

That's all true, and like I said, there are very narrow decks where this might be worthwhile.  Namely, a deck that desperately wants an answer to creatures up to and including Blightsteel, that simply cannot splash White, cannot run 2cc answers like Diabolic Edict / Geth's Verdict / etc,  has access to a reliable sac outlet, and does not want to run Innocent Blood (possibly because it worries that the enemy will have multiple creatures).  That's all pretty darn narrow.  By the way, I doubt a BUG fish list is going to run this since it doesn't have a natural sac outlet.  You could use the ol' Bloodghast/Clamp engine, but that's an awful lot of pieces that have to be arranged just right in order to make your removal active.  Dark Times, by example, already has the pieces to make this work.

I suspect that if having a 1cc answer like Trip was really that important, people would just splash white for Swords / Path.

[Nefarias]

As an aside:

and other playables (one sided Windfall?!)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=5834

And the not one-sided version:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1598

Windfall was good because you could empty your hand while your opponent still had 5-7 cards, and then get a bunch of +CA while he stays even.

As for this card, I think the only decks that could even consider it would be typical "Fish" style decks, and it would probably involve running a creature into the giant to trigger morbid, at which point your opponent is 2-for-1ing you. Decks that fit this criteria would probably rather run something like Diabolic Edict. It doesn't always get rid of the threat, but it will usually handle the Tinkerbot or Oath monster (and it can take out Inky and Emrakul unlike this). Or if you're more worried about mirror-matchs, I'd rather have Doom Blade or Dismember (though Edict is still fine there). It's cute that this can do either some of the time, but I don't think it's reliable enough.

Then again I don't play these kinds of deck often so I could be way off. If it were me, I'd probably be playing white in any creature based deck nowadays anyway.

[boggyb]

You can sacrifice a Vampire Hexmage whenever you want to turn this card online. Not sure how well that'll work, but I'll for sure be testing it out in Dark Times. Competes with Darkblast and Lose Hope, for sure.

[Worldslayer]

I didn't forget about, at minimum:

1) darkblast
2) innocent blood
3) curfew
4) dismember
5) edicts
6) go for the throat/doom blade
7) unsummon effects
8) lava dart
9) swords to plowshares/path to exile
10) jace
11) deglamer
12) crippling fatigue
13) deathmark

I mean, really I could make a list a mile long. No, I didn't "forget

• was a card". I even admitted that at killing any one specific creature there is usually a better man for the job: but for all of THEIR jobs, this single card does a reasonable impersonation (the only one it can't do is the job of edict vs. Hexproof, really). It's like the swiss army knife of black removal in Vintage, capable of dealing with pretty much any creature you're liable to see. Morbid in most decks who care about removing creatures isn't THAT hard to achieve. The decks that want and can abuse this effect are narrower in scope than the card itself, but even "chumpblock, Tragic Slip" is a reasonable trigger. Cabal Therapy, vampire hexmage, skullclamp are all value triggers that have utility in a host of decks and matchups (though Therapy is probably the most realistic, playable On button available to it).

BUG tempo, esper/bug midrange (if the lifegain from swords bothers you in esper, anyway), Hornung's snapcaster clamp control (or any deck running snapcaster, really. It isn't THAT hard to kill an x/1). Multiples even turn each other "on" in the tempo matches. "Kill your nonbug delver/hierarch/confidant/snapcaster, snapcaster flashing it back/second slip kill your goyf/trygon/w/e".

All in all it's a card only for decks that care about creatures, and probably run creatures of their own, but that's actually a fair chunk of vintage right now between christmas beatings/gw/rg, midrange blue, fish, dark confidant/snapcaster big blue, dark times, etc...



Aside on "one-sided windfall": you're correct. In the excitement of seeing cards that actually see cards instead of permanents, I forgot windfall's exact effect and thought each player ditched and drew the cards they had. My bad.