[CNS] Coercive Portal

[bactgudz]

Coercive portal    4
Artifact
Will of the council - At the beginning of your upkeep, starting with you, each player votes for carnage or homage.  If carnage gets the more votes, sacrifice ~ and destroy all non-land permanents.  If homage gets more votes or the vote is tied, draw a card.

A much better rate than staff of nin for shops card draw

[Saya]

Bottled Cloister

[gkraigher]

The card will never be a board sweep, so it's worthless.  It is just a howling mine for you at 4 mana.

Bottled Cloister is complete garbage because your opponent could destroy the card during his/her turn and you lose your hand.  

[fsecco]

The fact that it doesn't board sweep is awesome, actually, since in MUD you probably don't want that. 4 mana is great for the extra draw. But I think I still prefer Staff, since it kills Dark Confidant, Pyromancer, etc, and opponents a few times.

[gkraigher]

I'd certainly like the ability to board sweep in mud, if the card also allowed me to draw cards when i didn't want to boardsweep.

It would have been awesome against decks like Merfolk and RUG delver, as well as solid in matchups like Oath and Blue control.  But since you don't get the choice, the card is bad.  Unfortunate.  We really could have had a gem here.

[Commandant]

Staff kills X/1's and works well in mirror combat. I don't see how this is even close to the utility of Nin.

[xouman]

Of course staff is better, but this costs  less mana, and thats pretty relevant. You wouldn't always have  to pay for staff. And of course, lots of people could argue that paying 6, you would play hellkite or wurmcoil (and same can be said with Portal and Golem). This is interesting, but it takes 1 turn to replace itself and 2 turns to show some advantage, and that's not what mud wants...

[boggyb]

Err, why is it bad because it doesn't let you board sweep? You will rarely want to do that, and can always draw a card if you want. Seems that if Staff is fringe playable, this should be more than fringe playable since it's much more castable and achieves nearly the same benefit: the one- or two-card advantage the Staff gets you via its ping ability seems more than offset by the ease of casting this.

[gkraigher]

these are all moot points but you would want the sweep effect if:

1) you were on the draw against mud in a mirror match
2) your opponent is playing oath of druids and a creature other than griselbrand comes into play, and probably even if griselbrand was flipped
3) it turns into a must deal with card if your opponent plays blightsteel colossus and doesn't have a time walk
4) against creature based decks--especially on the draw, but if you ever lost control of the board.  
5) against a dredge deck that doesn't run flame kin zealot

So yeah, if you had the choice between drawing cards or board sweeping, the card would be pretty solid.  But as it is, it is weak.  

I mean, think about how good this card would be if you go turn 1 tangle wire, turn 2 coercive portal.  Then you get to sit back and gain card advantage and tempo advantage.  If your opponent over extended, you would blow it up and if they don't over extend you draw cards.  It would have been GREAT!

[nedleeds]

Staff kills X/1's and works well in mirror combat. I don't see how this is even close to the utility of Nin.

I don't understand why we need to state the obvious that something that costs 6 is distinctly better than something that costs 4.

The card is more comparable to Bottled Cloister, also a Shop/Mox play. But without the obvious huge risk of getting yourself Mind Twisted. If you are playing 3-4 Null Rods in your shop build I think the upside of staffs ping is not likely either so those builds might play this thing.

The super-disk portion of it is a bit of a hedge, if you are the portal owner and draw it at a point in the game when you are way behind in board presence it's a personal howling mine because your opponent is unlikely to vote Carnage. If your opponent has a very small edge (a Delver or 2/x or something), you may vote Carnage ... at which point your opponent needs to call or fold and let his delver and the howling mine be destroyed or try to ride the delver/threat despite you having a personal howling mine.

I think it's a sweet card.

[Commandant]

Staff kills X/1's and works well in mirror combat. I don't see how this is even close to the utility of Nin.

I don't understand why we need to state the obvious that something that costs 6 is distinctly better than something that costs 4.

The card is more comparable to Bottled Cloister, also a Shop/Mox play. But without the obvious huge risk of getting yourself Mind Twisted. If you are playing 3-4 Null Rods in your shop build I think the upside of staffs ping is not likely either so those builds might play this thing.

The super-disk portion of it is a bit of a hedge, if you are the portal owner and draw it at a point in the game when you are way behind in board presence it's a personal howling mine because your opponent is unlikely to vote Carnage. If your opponent has a very small edge (a Delver or 2/x or something), you may vote Carnage ... at which point your opponent needs to call or fold and let his delver and the howling mine be destroyed or try to ride the delver/threat despite you having a personal howling mine.

I think it's a sweet card.

Read the OP. Also, this card is garbage.