M11 Card - Ivory Mask Leyline (free ivory mask)

[Wagner]

I like this for Dredge, but I'm not sure about other decks.  Parfait sounds cool though.  But tutoring up a Chain of Vapor (or whatever) isn't really that big of an issue.  It's not as if it Oath or Storm has never had to do something like that before. The inability to cast it in most decks seems problematic (though if you are Parfait, then it's a non-issue).  Plus, it's pretty much only relevant on the draw since if you're on the play you could just cast a hate card or leave mana open for one. 

But I suppose if you are cramped for space and need an Oath + Storm hate card, it's better than True Believer if you can't cast  .  It also interferes with Dredge (shuts out Therapy).

For me though, I would only run it in a super-hate deck though (or Dredge). 

The problem is, you can tutor for Chain of Vapor but what if Iona is on blue, or what if Terastodon just destroyed all your land?

If the Oath player has already Oathed, I don't think stopping a Chain of Vapor on your Leyline should be in your priorities.

[TopSecret]

This thing stops a bunch of random stuff that crops up, hits Tendrils, Belcher, Oath, and stops Therapies from Dredge and Duress effects.
This card seems utterly ridiculous in sideboards, and in some metagames, maybe even maindeck.

Drop this against Tendrils combo that plays Duress, and they can't even Duress out your counters to protect their Chain of Vapor.
If you're playing Stax against Oath, then the Oath player can't Oath OR Hurkyl's Recall you.
Besides shutting off win conditions or defined strategies, this card has the potential to arbitrarily be a serious beating, like sometimes your opponent could have mana, Gifts, and Duress in hand and suddenly they just lose without getting the chance to counter anything!

This thing is off the chain! I mean,
DAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUMM MMMMMM

[Worldslayer]

Decent sideboard card for all the already listed reasons. Insane in a vacuum. However, in many of the prime examples (i.e. Oath, Tezz [Duress effects, etc...]) the affected decks have already steadily been moving towards some number of MD Nature's Claims (Oath for the mirror, UBg Tezz for MUD/Workshop matchup, some mirror relevance, and Oath). Leyline seems more likely to bolster this trend than be the Vintage monster everyone wants it to be. TPS is probably scared the most given that splashing a third color weakens its resistance to Wastelands, but they tend to MD some number of Truth/Chain of Vapor anyway.

Shops, which seems to be the archetype everyone wants to put this in, already has a much better answer to Hurkyll's Recall than this in the form of Chalice, which is far easier to cast and better in multiples. It's invulnerability to counter spells is fine, assuming you actually start with it (adding variance to an otherwise stable list, I would think, as well as colored mana weakening and slowing your manabase unless you're 5c or similar), I'm just not sure its Pros outweigh the modifications necessary to support it.

In general, I'm disinclined to believe that it does its job of hating the opponents interactive cards much better than countermeasures already being considered - especially as the blue decks in the field (i.e. almost all of this card's intended targets in vintage) move more and more towards Nature's Claim. Playable, but not particularly revolutionary.

[nineisnoone]

I don't understand the example you just made.  So I'm playing Leyline and I'm Oath and I have Oathed (or Show and Telled in) Iona naming blue or Terrastadon and destroyed all their lands and so now they can't cast chain of vapor to get rid of my Leyline?

Decent sideboard card for all the already listed reasons. Insane in a vacuum. However, in many of the prime examples (i.e. Oath, Tezz [Duress effects, etc...]) the affected decks have already steadily been moving towards some number of MD Nature's Claims (Oath for the mirror, UBg Tezz for MUD/Workshop matchup, some mirror relevance, and Oath). Leyline seems more likely to bolster this trend than be the Vintage monster everyone wants it to be. TPS is probably scared the most given that splashing a third color weakens its resistance to Wastelands, but they tend to MD some number of Truth/Chain of Vapor anyway.

Shops, which seems to be the archetype everyone wants to put this in, already has a much better answer to Hurkyll's Recall than this in the form of Chalice, which is far easier to cast and better in multiples. It's invulnerability to counter spells is fine, assuming you actually start with it (adding variance to an otherwise stable list, I would think, as well as colored mana weakening and slowing your manabase unless you're 5c or similar), I'm just not sure its Pros outweigh the modifications necessary to support it.

In general, I'm disinclined to believe that it does its job of hating the opponents interactive cards much better than countermeasures already being considered - especially as the blue decks in the field (i.e. almost all of this card's intended targets in vintage) move more and more towards Nature's Claim. Playable, but not particularly revolutionary.

Agreed.  I think of it this way.  Oath + 4 Leyline or Oath + 4 Claims.  I choose Claim.  The problem as I see it is that it can't maintain parity, meaning that it's only advantage is that it always gets to go first which gives it a very narrow time frame of utility.  

[Razvan]

Unfortunately, the 2 biggest anti-ichorid cards, Jailer and the old Leyline of the Void still work, so I don't know if it's such a great Ichorid weapon. Racing Oath and Storm is never really that big a deal, minus stupidly broken hands anyway.

what are your thoughts on the Flash leyline?

I am not really a big fan of that either. You cannot win before your opponent starts putting down at least some hate (unless you have lotus, breakthrough, bazaar, etc), and there's way too much to take into account that will stop you as well: Ravenous Trap, Force of Will, etc... It does nothing to dodge the hate, all it does is give you a bit of action of dubious quality in response to them using a Tormod's Crypt / Trap / Relic trigger. In fact, I move that it doesn't even do that as they can still crypt you in response of the bloodghasts or narcomoeba triggers.

The only thing the flash leyline allows you to do is go broken off a lotus, with breakthrough. I don't think it's worth it, but there is a ton of possibilities i might be missing. So who knows...

[BruiZar]

I don't understand the example you just made.  So I'm playing Leyline and I'm Oath and I have Oathed (or Show and Telled in) Iona naming blue or Terrastadon and destroyed all their lands and so now they can't cast chain of vapor to get rid of my Leyline?

What I meant was that, if I face oath and I have no Leyline in play, I can Chain of Vapor your Oath to stall a turn. If I keep Chain of Vapor, you will Oath up either Iona naming blue, making me unable to get rid of the Oath of Druids, or Terastodon, sinking all my land so that I can't cast Chain of Vapor anymore. If I had Leyline, Oath wouldn't even trigger in the first place and Iona and Terastodon would not see play (Assuming no Show and Tell).

[TopSecret]

Agreed.  I think of it this way.  Oath + 4 Leyline or Oath + 4 Claims.  I choose Claim.  The problem as I see it is that it can't maintain parity, meaning that it's only advantage is that it always gets to go first which gives it a very narrow time frame of utility.  

What about Oath + 4 Claims + 4 Leylines? Always win the Oath mirror?!

[matt_sperling]

Agreed.  I think of it this way.  Oath + 4 Leyline or Oath + 4 Claims.  I choose Claim.  The problem as I see it is that it can't maintain parity, meaning that it's only advantage is that it always gets to go first which gives it a very narrow time frame of utility.  

What about Oath + 4 Claims + 4 Leylines? Always win the Oath mirror?!

What if they draw more Orchards than you?  Think how bad your deck is there (and elsewhere, like against TPS, which we can assume will be ready for leyline and won't care about nature's claim). 

[BruiZar]

Isn't the defacto sideboard card Show and Tell for the mirror

[Killane]

Agreed.  I think of it this way.  Oath + 4 Leyline or Oath + 4 Claims.  I choose Claim.  The problem as I see it is that it can't maintain parity, meaning that it's only advantage is that it always gets to go first which gives it a very narrow time frame of utility.  

What about Oath + 4 Claims + 4 Leylines? Always win the Oath mirror?!

What if they draw more Orchards than you?  Think how bad your deck is there (and elsewhere, like against TPS, which we can assume will be ready for leyline and won't care about nature's claim). 

While I agree with your ultimate point (4+4 dilluting the rest of the dck too much), I'd like to point out that Leyline shuts down Orchard.

[nineisnoone]

I don't understand the example you just made.  So I'm playing Leyline and I'm Oath and I have Oathed (or Show and Telled in) Iona naming blue or Terrastadon and destroyed all their lands and so now they can't cast chain of vapor to get rid of my Leyline?

What I meant was that, if I face oath and I have no Leyline in play, I can Chain of Vapor your Oath to stall a turn. If I keep Chain of Vapor, you will Oath up either Iona naming blue, making me unable to get rid of the Oath of Druids, or Terastodon, sinking all my land so that I can't cast Chain of Vapor anymore. If I had Leyline, Oath wouldn't even trigger in the first place and Iona and Terastodon would not see play (Assuming no Show and Tell).

Why would you do that?

The example was more for demonstrative purposes, so let's not get into all the details here.  It's about showing when each of the respective cards are strong.  Leylines have stronger windows early, but weaker ones later on.  Whereas traditional answers usually have a more even distribution of utility.  When I said "I choose Claim," I was stating more a player-choice philosophy as opposed to a "correct" answer.  I'm generally very accepting of "oops, I win" scenarios and would rather improve myself over the average than deal with outliers.  Others would rather deal with the outliers, and gamble on the average.

Agreed.  I think of it this way.  Oath + 4 Leyline or Oath + 4 Claims.  I choose Claim.  The problem as I see it is that it can't maintain parity, meaning that it's only advantage is that it always gets to go first which gives it a very narrow time frame of utility. 

What about Oath + 4 Claims + 4 Leylines? Always win the Oath mirror?!

What if they draw more Orchards than you?  Think how bad your deck is there (and elsewhere, like against TPS, which we can assume will be ready for leyline and won't care about nature's claim). 

While I agree with your ultimate point (4+4 dilluting the rest of the dck too much), I'd like to point out that Leyline shuts down Orchard.

Interesting.  Though that point is sort of moot because it also shuts down Oath, and you can still get mana from Orchards so it's not like you want to be giving them free creatures anyways.

[TopSecret]

Agreed.  I think of it this way.  Oath + 4 Leyline or Oath + 4 Claims.  I choose Claim.  The problem as I see it is that it can't maintain parity, meaning that it's only advantage is that it always gets to go first which gives it a very narrow time frame of utility. 

What about Oath + 4 Claims + 4 Leylines? Always win the Oath mirror?!

What if they draw more Orchards than you?  Think how bad your deck is there (and elsewhere, like against TPS, which we can assume will be ready for leyline and won't care about nature's claim). 

While I agree with your ultimate point (4+4 dilluting the rest of the dck too much), I'd like to point out that Leyline shuts down Orchard.

Interesting.  Though that point is sort of moot because it also shuts down Oath, and you can still get mana from Orchards so it's not like you want to be giving them free creatures anyways.

You would want to be giving the opponent free creatures since you could still target them with Oath.

[nineisnoone]

While I agree with your ultimate point (4+4 dilluting the rest of the dck too much), I'd like to point out that Leyline shuts down Orchard.

Interesting.  Though that point is sort of moot because it also shuts down Oath, and you can still get mana from Orchards so it's not like you want to be giving them free creatures anyways.

You would want to be giving the opponent free creatures since you could still target them with Oath.

How could you target them with Oath if they have Leyline of Sanctity out?

Unless you're saying that you eventually want them to have creatures out, then yeah sure.  But there is no point in giving them free creatures through Orchard if Leyline of Sanctity is turning off your Oath trigger.

[Killane]

Moot point since the leyline shuts both down

[Troy_Costisick]

Moot point since the leyline shuts both down

It doesn't shut down Orchard.  Putting the 1/1 token into play is part of the effect, not part of the activation cost.

[BruiZar]

While I agree with your ultimate point (4+4 dilluting the rest of the dck too much), I'd like to point out that Leyline shuts down Orchard.

Interesting.  Though that point is sort of moot because it also shuts down Oath, and you can still get mana from Orchards so it's not like you want to be giving them free creatures anyways.

You would want to be giving the opponent free creatures since you could still target them with Oath.

How could you target them with Oath if they have Leyline of Sanctity out?

Unless you're saying that you eventually want them to have creatures out, then yeah sure.  But there is no point in giving them free creatures through Orchard if Leyline of Sanctity is turning off your Oath trigger.

It is game 2, Player A just won the first match against Player B
Player A plays Oath, sideboards in Leyline of Sanctity
Player B plays Oath, doesn´t sideboard in Leyline of Sanctity

Player A is lucky and starts the game with Leyline of Sanctity in play
Player B plays Forbidden Orchard, Mox Emerald and Oath of Druids. Player A does not get a Spirit token
Player A plays a Forbidden Orchard, he taps it. Player B gets a Spirit Token
Player B does something irrelevant, such as finding 1 Nature's Claim
Player A puts Oath trigger on the stack, targeting Player B

[Wagner]

While I agree with your ultimate point (4+4 dilluting the rest of the dck too much), I'd like to point out that Leyline shuts down Orchard.

Interesting.  Though that point is sort of moot because it also shuts down Oath, and you can still get mana from Orchards so it's not like you want to be giving them free creatures anyways.

You would want to be giving the opponent free creatures since you could still target them with Oath.

How could you target them with Oath if they have Leyline of Sanctity out?

Unless you're saying that you eventually want them to have creatures out, then yeah sure.  But there is no point in giving them free creatures through Orchard if Leyline of Sanctity is turning off your Oath trigger.

It is game 2, Player A just won the first match against Player B
Player A plays Oath, sideboards in Leyline of Sanctity
Player B plays Oath, doesn´t sideboard in Leyline of Sanctity

Player A is lucky and starts the game with Leyline of Sanctity in play
Player B plays Forbidden Orchard, Mox Emerald and Oath of Druids. Player A does not get a Spirit token
Player A plays a Forbidden Orchard, he taps it. Player B gets a Spirit Token
Player B does something irrelevant, such as finding 1 Nature's Claim
Player A puts Oath trigger on the stack, targeting Player B

Why would player B ever cast Oath in the mirror when the opponent has a Leyline in play?

[nineisnoone]

Moot point since the leyline shuts both down

It doesn't shut down Orchard.  Putting the 1/1 token into play is part of the effect, not part of the activation cost.

Yes.  That's what I've been trying to say.

:Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

Whenever you tap Forbidden Orchard for mana, put a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token onto the battlefield under target opponent's control.

[Killane]

Moot point since the leyline shuts both down

It doesn't shut down Orchard.  Putting the 1/1 token into play is part of the effect, not part of the activation cost.

Yes.  That's what I've been trying to say.

:Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

Whenever you tap Forbidden Orchard for mana, put a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token onto the battlefield under target opponent's control.

Leyline shuts it down. There is actually a ruling in the rules forum on this recently : http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40768.0

[nineisnoone]

Moot point since the leyline shuts both down

It doesn't shut down Orchard.  Putting the 1/1 token into play is part of the effect, not part of the activation cost.

Yes.  That's what I've been trying to say.

:Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

Whenever you tap Forbidden Orchard for mana, put a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token onto the battlefield under target opponent's control.

Leyline shuts it down. There is actually a ruling in the rules forum on this recently : http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40768.0

I guess I was misinterpreting what Troy was saying (or perhaps you were).  I wasn't saying that you still get spirit token triggers.  I was saying that you still get mana. So my point still stands.

Actually, the ability won't even go on the stack. The game will see that your opponent has shroud and the triggered ability will just not be put on the stack and that's it. So, the person tapping Forbidden Orchard gets the mana, but his opponent won't get the spirit token.

Interesting.  Though that point is sort of moot because it also shuts down Oath, and you can still get mana from Orchards so it's not like you want to be giving them free creatures anyways.

If Oath can't trigger, there is no need for Orchard to give the opponent creatures, so losing that ability is irrelevant.  You could say that it "shuts it down" as a combo piece, but once it is shut down it's just a City of Brass with no drawback which isn't really being shut down since you need mana anyways. 

[Troy_Costisick]

Yeah, I was saying you could still use it for mana.

[TopSecret]

Apparently everyone was talking about different things. lol

I was assuming that you are playing the Oath mirror, you have a Leyline of Sanctity, and you plan to play an Oath off an Orchard on your first or second turn. Even if the opponent goes first and has two or three Orchards in hand, you still get more tokens since their Orchards can't target you. This is makes the opponent's Orchard not giving you tokens relevant some of the time, because otherwise they could give you more creatures than you give them when they draw more Orchards than you. But with the Leyline, you can always give them more creatures than they can give you unless they remove the Leyline. All of these qualities about the Leyline allow you to aggressively cast an early Oath to your advantage in the Oath mirror when you open with Leyline. Is that nuts or what?

The other neat thing is that if you get the Leyline into play with an Orchard, aggressively casting Oath will still be the best play most of the time even if the opponent has Nature's Claim, since you can start giving them tokens immediately with your Orchard, so you will probably get to activate the Oath first if they kill the Leyline, and if they kill the Oath, then you still have Leyline to neutralize their Oaths. So insane.

[BruiZar]

Apparently everyone was talking about different things. lol

I was assuming that you are playing the Oath mirror, you have a Leyline of Sanctity, and you plan to play an Oath off an Orchard on your first or second turn. Even if the opponent goes first and has two or three Orchards in hand, you still get more tokens since their Orchards can't target you. This is makes the opponent's Orchard not giving you tokens relevant some of the time, because otherwise they could give you more creatures than you give them when they draw more Orchards than you. But with the Leyline, you can always give them more creatures than they can give you unless they remove the Leyline. All of these qualities about the Leyline allow you to aggressively cast an early Oath to your advantage in the Oath mirror when you open with Leyline. Is that nuts or what?

The other neat thing is that if you get the Leyline into play with an Orchard, aggressively casting Oath will still be the best play most of the time even if the opponent has Nature's Claim, since you can start giving them tokens immediately with your Orchard, so you will probably get to activate the Oath first if they kill the Leyline, and if they kill the Oath, then you still have Leyline to neutralize their Oaths. So insane.

This was exactly what I was trying to point out with my example. That's why I stated that your opponent drawing into 1 Nature's Claim doesn't impact you enough.

[nineisnoone]

Apparently everyone was talking about different things. lol

I was assuming that you are playing the Oath mirror, you have a Leyline of Sanctity, and you plan to play an Oath off an Orchard on your first or second turn. Even if the opponent goes first and has two or three Orchards in hand, you still get more tokens since their Orchards can't target you. This is makes the opponent's Orchard not giving you tokens relevant some of the time, because otherwise they could give you more creatures than you give them when they draw more Orchards than you. But with the Leyline, you can always give them more creatures than they can give you unless they remove the Leyline. All of these qualities about the Leyline allow you to aggressively cast an early Oath to your advantage in the Oath mirror when you open with Leyline. Is that nuts or what?

The other neat thing is that if you get the Leyline into play with an Orchard, aggressively casting Oath will still be the best play most of the time even if the opponent has Nature's Claim, since you can start giving them tokens immediately with your Orchard, so you will probably get to activate the Oath first if they kill the Leyline, and if they kill the Oath, then you still have Leyline to neutralize their Oaths. So insane.

You're missing the point that you negate my need to combo off, because you've given me a bunch of creatures to attack with.  Attacking still works.  If we went 1 for 1 Claims to Oaths, then all things equal I can still answer every Oath with a Claim, and we can say that your 4 Leylines are going 1 to 1 with my 4 Oaths.  Parity right? But...

In the meantime you are down 1 land (or else I keep getting another creature every turn) and I am up some creatures.  In a match-up against 2 Oathless decks, the deck running Forbidden Orchard has the disadvantage.  Also if I run Echoing Truth (which would be the right call for the mirror), those Oath's aren't dead at all.  Let's not forget that the other Orchards are similarly bad cards now, because it only compounds the problem so.  So that's 3 more lands that are fairly unplayable now.

[TheWhiteDragon]

This card does give a certain edge in the oath mirror.  Yes, if you have a claim for every oath, and they have a leyline for all of your oaths, that would be somewhat parity...but, if you are oath playing against oath, are you really hoping for claims to kill their oaths?  If that's the case, you wouldn't want to cast your own oaths as it is a mirror effect.  Actually, a game 2 hand with a few good cards, maybe an oath of its own, and 2+ orchards would be ideal.  In the mirror, you don't want to kill oaths, you want to jack control of it by out tokening the other guy.  I actually often boarded out two oaths in the oath mirror in favor of cards that would stop their creatures or get me control of tokens (spawning pit or something) while gaining token control.
That said, you are less likely to be looking for a hand that can kill an oath rather than overload them with tokens.  If you have a double orchard hand with a nice 5 cards, you are likely to keep.  When they drop leyline and then take their time setting up oath/orchard, you have to sculpt a hand to combat that.  They on the other hand have 6 cards to use and don't have to worry about your oaths OR you jacking their oath by out tokening them.

[Tha Gunslinga]

This card is trash in the Oath mirror.  Have fun clogging up your deck with useless crap.  Postboard in the mirror I don't even try to activate Oath; it's all about Key/Vault, Tezzeret, hardcasting Terastodon, Tinker, or Jace.  I can't believe this is seriously a discussion.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Isn't the defacto sideboard card Show and Tell for the mirror

No, definitely not.