Opinions please: How good is Fork?

[grey area]

Long time lurker, first time new thread poster.

Since most of my competitive experience is in FNM type 2 and prereleases I have a lot more questions than answers. I recently read an article on Star City about restricted/banned cards in type 1 and it made me curious what popular opinion is on Fork. Here's the quote:

Quote Fork. Getting instants and sorceries at two-for-one sale just leads to way too many ugly situations. Consider how many cards on this list can be Forked: Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, FoF, Berserk, and Stroke of Genius just to name a few. One Fork per deck is plenty. - from
"Why ARE These Cards Banned In Type One, Anyway?"
by Ken Bergenham, Jul 03, 2002

Personally, I really like Fork because I think it's one of the few red cards that is both good and gives the opponent something to think about. But when I looked at the list of banned/restricted cards in the article Fork didn't seem nearly as broken as a lot of other cards on the list. I would think that the double-red casting cost would mean that if Fork were used on any of the cards in the above quote (other than maybe Berserk) it would be used when the opponent cast the spell, not as a combo with it. This doesn't seem overly broken to me. After all, if you were to Fork your own Stroke (don't go there) it would take 8 mana before the Fork would be better than just putting the mana into the Stroke. It seems to me like Misdirection is more powerful than Fork when the opponent is the one casting the broken spell and Misdirection isn't restricted.

So here's my question: How broken is Fork? Good card broken, insanely broken? If it were unrestricted would it radically change the environment?

[Grollub]

Hmm. I like Fork and don't think it would hurt if it got unrestricted. It will boost sligh, Forking a Fire Blast or Price of Progress is quite deadly.

Fork, it's a good card, but I don't think broken to restrictness.

[Legend]

To answer your first question, Fork is an outstanding card and it should be used in any Sligh deck or any other deck with a HEAVY commitment to red . To answer your second question, yes unrestricted Fork would change the Type I environment because it would make Sligh even better from its current position as an excellent archetype.

[Bastian]

Legend: I presume that you're talking mostly from personal experience vs Dave Kaplan.

Well, I don't know about fork, it seemed kind of junky to me... but...

...recently I've been testing black vise in an old white weenie deck, and the card's so extremely good, that getting it out turn 1 determined the outcome of games. It had the power to give a 180º turn to the game!

If fork is capable of doing so, then I say that it deserves to be tested as well....

[Legend]

Bastian


Correct, I am talking mostly from experience against Dave Kaplan, who I have faced five times in sanctioned play at Neutral Ground. Interesting that you bring up Black Vise, because it was Dave who decided to use Fork in his Sligh deck, which up until that point I had not seen used very often, and then he decided to use Black Vise, which, like Fork, I had not seen very often. But both Fork and Black Vise are excellent cards, and even as restricted cards both are quite effective.

[brianb]

fork got about 50 times less cool when you couldn't fork buyback anymore.  My favorite fork play ever was my opponent end of turn capsizing a mountain and in response capsizing 2 islands (and fizzling the original capsize).

[Dave Kaplan]

Fork is one of my favorite cards. The odds of it not being used since it has nothing to target and rendering sligh slower are so much less than it's potential, I mean let's think about the best cards in T1, and what percentage of them are instants/sorceries coming from keeper? My case in point.

[jpmeyer]

I love Fork in Sligh, not only for the ability to cheaply deal damage, but because it won't be played around due to its restricted status.  Granted you won't draw it that much because it is restricted, but it can often heavily swing a game.

My favorite Fork ever was against Matt D. (first time he ever dropped a match to Sligh according to him IIRC.)  He had dropped Abyss and stopped my creatures and tried to put me away with Will.  I responded to the Ancestral that he played out of the graveyard with Fork and burned him out with the cards I drew (I think Bolt, Incinerate, Fireblast) with his Ancestral still on the stack.  From that day forward he makes sure that the first card that he returns when he Wills is Zorb.  

[Bastian]

So fork (and vise) are very good, even though restricted! They can be game winners!! I think the main problem behind each is that we don't ever get them when we wanted them to, but if we did, it would most surely turn the match in our favor

[Matt The Great]

Well, yeah. Unrestricting Vise would drop a very heavy weight on aggro decks' side of the Balanced Metagame.

[grey area]

But would an unrestricted Fork unbalance the metagame? Would it be an automatic 4 of in sligh? It seems like you wouldn't want to draw 3 of them right away. I guess I wanted to know if people thought sligh would dominate if it got three more Forks. What would it replace?

In Dave Kaplans sligh I there are 12 creatures main deck, 22 mana sources including the 5 strip/wastes, and 26 "burn" spells including 4 scrolls, 4 POPs, and 3 fireblast. If 3 Forks were added and 1 each of those last three spells were subtracted would it be a dominant deck? Would those be the three you would take out?

I know the question is moot, but I guess I think that Fork is a quality spell that shouldn't be restricted. Or maybe I'm just biased because I just ordered one online.

[MarkPharaoh]

I don't know what to think.  In many ways, Fork is amazing, but in other's, I really don't like it.  In my area, the only time it's used is to Fork your FB or your oppenents.  I sometimes having a problem with it when I have it in my hand and something not playable at the moment like a Fireblast with Cursed Scroll in play with only 3 land.  Maybe it's my bad luck, but thats happened to me more then once in my games playing Sligh and running four is iffy for that reason.

[dandan]

Maybe I'll add Fork back into my Sligh. It left so long ago because it always seemed to be the last card I had in my hand (although I'll admit that when cast it was usually gamewinning).

BTW It was me that suggested the Vise to Dave Kaplan. I amke so many daft suggestions I want a lttle limelight when I actually make a good one. (the term 'monkeys and typewriters' comes to mind)

[Mindstab_Thrull]

So, the question is: How good is Fork? I remember my friend Alexander (he LOVES his T1 B/R LD deck!) and his brother Isaac working on a deck. They built a deck that had cards like Timetwister, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and a host of other things that were Forkable. So the question came up: To add Fork, or not to add Fork? They both decided to try it: "But there's everything in this deck you could ever WANT to Fork!" They tried it, and you know what? They found adding Fork to that deck was a waste. So, the short answer is, if the deck can make good use of it, go for it; if not, forget it. Try it out, and if it's not useful, don't be afraid to drop it.

[suicide_slushy]

i run a fork in my sligh, and im not completely sure if i'd run more if it was unrestricted.  As far as black vise you bet your ass i'd have 4, and so would every other non black aggro deck

[Freddie]

I like fork as wel, it is truely annoying when your opponent counters your drain, with a fork, or forks your timewalk, ect.

My favorite fork play was at a mox tourney, I was wittnes to a Mono Blue deck (not as good as Legend blue, but still good) play first drop a land> go, his opponet dropped a mountain, and a ruby> go, @ eot the mono blue player cast ancestral, and the red player tryed to fork a copy of the ancestral to himself, and it got misdirected.

SO the mono blue player drew 6 count them SIX cards, off the 2 ancestrals... the game did not go well for the red player.

-Freddie