Disciple of Deceit

[fsecco]

Hummm, how I love the logic shown in this forum. So quick to dismiss cards with new effects by comparing them to other cards that have completely different effects and applications...

I'm not saying this will change the format. But this and Dakra Mystic are, in the least, worth testing in a few different shells.

[MaximumCDawg]

Don't be paint'n us all with the same brush.  We're not all so glib about dismissing cards.

That said, it's entirely appropriate to ask whether you would want card X or card Y for a certain effect.  Vintage gets the best cards in the game, so it takes a lot to justify running any particular card.  Only testing will tell you for sure, but comparison to already played cards is totally appropriate as we theorycraft.

[wiley]

I see this guy as an ophidian that gets you card quality instead of card advantage.  I compare it to old one eye because it doesn't have evasion like shadowmage and it doesn't do as much resource advantage as cutpurse.

I'd be interested in seeing how well this allows a fish deck to assemble vault key or protection/disruption.  Turning a misstep or top into a thoughtseize during the midgame is actually a relevant, useful ability.

[fsecco]

I see this guy as an ophidian that gets you card quality instead of card advantage.  I compare it to old one eye because it doesn't have evasion like shadowmage and it doesn't do as much resource advantage as cutpurse.

I'd be interested in seeing how well this allows a fish deck to assemble vault key or protection/disruption.  Turning a misstep or top into a thoughtseize during the midgame is actually a relevant, useful ability.

Yeah, they're into ophidians in JOU right? Even made a red one hehe. Now, the reason I like this better than the obsolete Ophidian is that is cost 1 less and that tutoring is way better than drawing random. The problem is that you have to have a card in hand that has the same cost as the one you want AND that's disposable. Since a lot of costs in Vintage overlap (almost eveything is into the 0 to 3 curve) that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'd test this in a lot of decks. Landstill, for example, comes to mind.

[MaximumCDawg]

Is there any line of play that turns Aura of Dominion + Discipline into an instant win for a reasonable mana cost?

[fsecco]

Well, you need UU for Aura, then 2 for 2 activations, then 2 cards with 1 and 2CC each, then 4 mana do play and activate Time Vault and Key.

So, if you do all that in 1 turn, it would be 6UU and 2 cards in hand with the right cost (without counting the UB for Disciple himself).

I don't think he is a "pure combo enabler".

[vaughnbros]

Hummm, how I love the logic shown in this forum. So quick to dismiss cards with new effects by comparing them to other cards that have completely different effects and applications...

Actually this card and lim duls vault are extremely similar.  For both of them you pay UB and get card quality.  The difference is lim duals is an instant that gives me card quality immediately.  This is a creature that might give me card quality 2 full turns after I play it.  

Waiting 2 turns to maybe transmute a nonland card in your hand just isn't good.  There are far better cards that you can play at the mana cost.  I'm not even sure if this is even a game breaker in sealed let alone vintage.

[fsecco]

You forget that this is able to fetch both pieces of a combo (like Vault-Key). Lim-Dul's Vault can't do that (or at least not with some incredible luck). Like I said, I'm not saying it's a hit, but I wouldn't say it's a miss either. Not this early, without testing.

[boggyb]

Indeed it's very similar to LDV in that it's a card disadvantageous tutor: the 1/3 body is worthless and it's very easily answered or bricked in the attack step. Seems win-more, or just outclassed by other options, except in some matchups, where it may be an all-star sideboard option.

[StanleyAugust]

I hope that I'm getting trolled. Surely noone really think that this card is playable, right?

I'm looking forward to some test games online. I can totally envision a game like this:

Him: I play this scary 1/3 that lets me tutor up anything I want. Do you let it resolve?
Me: Uhm, sure..
Him: Really?
Me: Yeah.
Him: Lol, alright. I move to my end step then. Wait! Do you have a Lightning Bolt or Abrupt Decay in hand?
Me: Uhm, yeah...
Him: Hmm, do you mind not killing my Disciple of Deceit? I really want to test it out, see how it works.
Me: Sure, no problem.
Him: Thanks! I end my turn then.
Me: I play Mystical Tutor.
Him: Ok, no problem.
Me: I get Tinker.
Him: Ok...
Me: In my main phase I cast Tinker for Blightsteel, sacrificing Mox Ruby.
Him: Ok...
Me: Your turn.
Him: Ok, so I attack with my Disciple of Deceit so that I can.. Wait crap, you can just block with Blightsteel then! Hmm, do you mind just not blocking? I really want to test out this creature...
Me: Sure, so I go to 19.
Him: Thanks. Your turn. Wait! Crap! You can just attack with Blightsteel and kill me then.. Hmm, do you mind not attacking? Just give me one turn to test out Disciple of Deceit please.
Me: Sure. I just play a land and it's your turn then.
Him: Ok, so now I untap my creature and that let's me discard a card to tutor up another one. Logically, I want to tutor up something to take care of your Blightsteel. I'm thinking Swords to Plowshares.. Wait! Crap! I don't have a 1 CMC card in hand. Do you mind just pretending that this Force of Will is a 1 CMC card?
Me: Sure, no problem.
Him: Thanks! So I discard this 1 CMC Force of Will and get Swords to Plowshares. I then play this Swords to Plowshares and target your Blightsteel. Do you want to scoop and move to game 2?
Me: I Mental Misstep your Swords to Plowshares.
Him: ")!=#"¤/)"

[MaximumCDawg]

Well, you need UU for Aura, then 2 for 2 activations, then 2 cards with 1 and 2CC each, then 4 mana do play and activate Time Vault and Key.

So, if you do all that in 1 turn, it would be 6UU and 2 cards in hand with the right cost (without counting the UB for Disciple himself).

I don't think he is a "pure combo enabler".

That's one way to do it, but as you put it, it's expensive and way too conditional for a two-card combo.  I was more thinking about ways you could build your deck where you can dig into a win with basically anything.  Like, tutoring for 1cc isn't a bad deal, particularly with split cards.  You can get from any 2cc spell into a Gush pretty easily, for example:

Tap two islands, float mana.
Pay 1, pitch a 2cc spell to get Flesh//Blood or Bound//Determined or
Pay 1, pitch split card to get Gush
Pay alternative casting cost for Gush, return Islands to hand.
Replay an Island, see what else you can do.

I'm wondering whether you can build redundancies with playable cards to make Dominion+Disciple into a win condition from any reasonable starting point.  This probably involves pitching a bunch of cards and ending with a Yawgwill, for example:

Pay 1, pitch a 1cc spell to get Dark Ritual.
Pay 1, pitch Ritual to get Ritual
Pay 1, pitch Ritual to get Dead//Gone.
Pay 1, pitch Dead//Gone to get Yawgmoth's Will

This line of play is admittedly a very expensive way to get Will out there, but it is kind of nice that you can stock your graveyard with mana sources and then get a Will all at the same time.

I'm trying to find a way to use this sort of chain to set up a win from most hands.  

I hope that I'm getting trolled. Surely noone really think that this card is playable, right?

I don't think we know if it's playable or not, but being able to tutor every turn if it gets going is actually a very powerful ability.  It's not a fast early game tactic, by any means, and your example shows why.  But you get into the midgame, it's potentially an amazing way to ensure you always have what you need to lock up the game.  That's why we're noodling over it, I think.

Also, Stanely, if your hypothetical opponent had played Bob instead of Disciple, that example of yours works out almost exactly the same way.  2 casting cost dorks that are not named Thalia or Arbiter are pretty cold to Tinker->Blightsteel.  This is not a unique criticism of this card.

[brianpk80]

On its own, the card is questionable, but between him and the Inspired guy who steals permanents (which I found more useful at first glance), I have to wonder if there's a complex shell to explore that abuses Hidden Strings & Ral Zarek.  I would test a Springleaf Drum as a singleton Trinket target; it may sound "cute" but so did Lightning Greaves until it became apparent that it enables Metalworker to make a Hasted Shroud Blightsteel Colossus out of nowhere.

Tom is right that this set has a lot of powerful cards that the rest of the block was lacking.  It's the first good Standard-legal set they've made since Return to Ravnica.  Dragon's Maze was pretty good for Humans but admittedly bad for everything else besides Zarek and abysmal/overcosted overall. 

Salvagers/Trinket Mage would be an important part of a deck trying to abuse this guy, since he can transmute the Trinkets into the win and the Salvager turns the pure quality value into quantity card advantage and mitigates the issue of not having anything in hand to transmute.  I do think it's rather... inspired that he can transmute Force of Will into Tezzeret the Seeker. 

Voltaic Key, Ral, Hidden Strings = potential for some absurd Birthing Pod chains so I'd want to test one in the 4CC slot, especially since all of the tutoring is so at home with a toolbox approach.  Ideally, the deck be the type that looks like a "pile" of singletons on its face but becomes very powerful in the hands of a pilot who knows it intimately. 

[brianpk80]

Just to map it out, let's see.

0:
Lotus
Mana Crypt
Mox x5
Explosives
*Mox Opal
*Pact of Negation
*Lion's Eye Diamond

1:
Goblin Welder
Noble Hierarch/Deathrite
Sensei Top
AEther Bomb/Nihil Bomb
Voltaic Key
Mental Misstep
Repeal
Ancestral
Sol Ring
*Springleaf Drum
*Thoughtseize
*Mystical/Vamp
*Plowshares
*Needle
*Gorilla Shaman

2:
Time Vault
Disciple of Deceit
Snapcaster
Demonic
Time Walk
Hidden Strings
Abolisher
Hurkyl
*Transmute Artifact
*Bob
*Qasali
*Stoneforge
*Merchant
*Mana Drain
*War Priest/New True Believer
*Abrupt Decay
*Balance
*Burning/Living Wish
*Magus of the Unseen

3:
Trinket Mage
Tinker
Daring Thief
Yawg
*Skill Borrower
*Eternal Witness
*Deceiver Exarch

4:
Jace
Ral Zarek
Auriok
Birthing Pod
Gifts
*Tezzeret AoB
*Restoration Angel
*Notion Thief

5:
Force of Will
Ingot Chewer
Tezzeret the Seeker
*Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker
*Magus of the Future

It seems clear someone can devise a shell with a lot of fast paths to Vault/Auriok combo that also contains means to protect it and remove nuisances like Null Rod.  

[MaximumCDawg]

Hidden Strings gives you two triggers of this gal, right?

Swing with her, either cast or Cipher hidden strings targeting her with an Untap and a Tap effect.  The first untap will put a trigger on the stack after Strings is done resolving, and then she'll be tapped again to trigger during your untap step.

Is that right?

[Chubby Rain]

Hidden Strings gives you two triggers of this gal, right?

Swing with her, either cast or Cipher hidden strings targeting her with an Untap and a Tap effect.  The first untap will put a trigger on the stack after Strings is done resolving, and then she'll be tapped again to trigger during your untap step.

Is that right?

No, that's not how Hidden Strings work. You have to choose targets when you cast a spell, so when you cast Hidden Strings you declare up to two targets (Hidden Strings explicitly says "another target") and then when the spell resolves, chose whether to tap or untap both of the targets. You would then Cipher onto a creature. Likely best use is using Hidden Strings to tap down two blockers, cipher onto Disciple of Deceit, attack and untap Disciple and a land/creature/Time Vault. But I do not think you can get multiple triggers out of Hidden Strings barring some convoluted corner case (Edit: in before some says "Double Strike").

Regarding Disciple, I really like the design on the card but feel he is too slow and situational for vintage play. I might try to abuse him with madness (discard Basking Rootwalla, get Ancestral; discard Arrogant Wurm, grab Force of Will) but it's not likely to be even remotely competitive.

[JarofFortune]

I think many people here overestimate the average speed of a Tinker-Vault Combo-Control deck. This card has too powerful of an effect not to see play alongside Bob in a Vault Key deck, maybe a human variant of Vault, maybe a drain variant. I like having trinket mages in such a deck (encouraging a Cavern variant) because they pitch to find tinker in addition to their normal versatility. The getting blanked in combat disadvantage is not nearly as common as people might think. Decks with creatures of power 3 or greater typically want to attack with those creatures, not block a 1/3. Additionally, it can attack into 2/2's and still get the trigger, it just won't damage the opponent. Yeah, it's a tad slow, but after testing it in a Vault deck I've concluded that it is far better than crap like Snapcaster (Which, incidentally, is also rather slow).

I will let people quote me on this, and if it hasn't happened in 6 months, everyone can ridicule me for thinking such a crappy card would be playable: This card will see play and will be included in at least 10 decks that make top 8's.

[diopter]

I think many people here overestimate the average speed of a Tinker-Vault Combo-Control deck. This card has too powerful of an effect not to see play alongside Bob in a Vault Key deck, maybe a human variant of Vault, maybe a drain variant. I like having trinket mages in such a deck (encouraging a Cavern variant) because they pitch to find tinker in addition to their normal versatility. The getting blanked in combat disadvantage is not nearly as common as people might think. Decks with creatures of power 3 or greater typically want to attack with those creatures, not block a 1/3. Additionally, it can attack into 2/2's and still get the trigger, it just won't damage the opponent. Yeah, it's a tad slow, but after testing it in a Vault deck I've concluded that it is far better than crap like Snapcaster (Which, incidentally, is also rather slow).

I will let people quote me on this, and if it hasn't happened in 6 months, everyone can ridicule me for thinking such a crappy card would be playable: This card will see play and will be included in at least 10 decks that make top 8's.

Excellent, some balls.

I'm going with 4 top 8's in the next quarter and 8 total copies.

[MaximumCDawg]

Count me in for six appearances.

Are Kevin and Steve going to tally us when they discuss how right they are in the podcast after this set comes out?

[serracollector]

i just love the fact that you can discard your mox or lotus or diamond to this to get your cavern of souls to cast you salvagers to go off. In conjunction with dakra mystic trinket mage salvagers  meddling mage and broken stuff this guy could be very very useful.

[Demagoguery]

It's a cute card, but I really don't think it's that good, just because of how slow it is, and the fact that it does have a very real down side in cost restriction. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there will be at most 1-2 top 8s, most likely in events with less than 30 people, simply because a lot of people will try to make this girl work. As for events with more than 30 people, I'd guess at most 1 top 8, but probably 0.

Additionally, that being said, as to Lim-dul's Vault, I don't think people are giving it enough credit when they say it can't tutor up both pieces of a combo. Assuming you're playing either Vault or this girl as a four copy spell, it means that you'd need any of the following two cards in a group of 5 to have Vault fetch up all the combo pieces at the same rate or faster than this girl:

3x Lim-Dul's Vault
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Tinker
Key
Time Vault

That's eight out of 53 cards, assuming you did this on turn one, the probability of getting two together increases each turn afterwards. However, you probably never want two copies of Lim-Dul's Vault in a cluster of five, but you'll probably have other cards such as Tezz or whatever to increase the number of possible hits. The life loss is not irrelevant though.

[nedleeds]

Maybe if it was unblockable. I think I'd rather play Shadowmage Infiltrator and that's saying something. I'd also rather play Nightveil Specter.

Hey you could always build a Vintage deck around this fine knight

[StanleyAugust]

Are you guys seriously suggesting that a 2cc sorcery speed dude that dies to Bolt, Decay and any other kind of removal, has suspend 2 - well 2 is only if your opponent doesn't have a bigger creature - and only allows you to tutor for a card with the same converted casting cost as another card in your hand - oh, and then you have to discard that card as well - will see play? What's next, you're gonna suggest comboing this with Tangle Wire?

[MaximumCDawg]

Are you guys seriously suggesting that a 2cc sorcery speed dude that dies to Bolt, Decay and any other kind of removal

This is also true of every other creature that gets played fairly in Vintage at 2cc.  

has suspend 2

This is the bad part of this card and why we're not all calling it the Second Coming of Bob or anything.  It is very slow.  But once it gets going, you have an amazing control over the cards you draw.  Seriously, this is Jace:TMS style inevitability.  Every card you draw that is not a land is now every other card in your deck with the same CC.  The ability is very, very strong, so it remains to be seen if it's worth dealing with the "suspend" issue to get there.

By the way, if you call it "suspend," you should also at least credit the card with saving you the 2 damage or whatever that random 2/x dorks would do to you otherwise.  This can at least block the turn it is down.  Is that relevant?  A tiny little bit, sure.