[discussion] so like, is null rod even any good any more?

[jpmeyer]

I'm tempted to just write "Discuss," but for a little bit of background, I've been seeing fewer and fewer Null Rods in top 8's these days, and as a personal anecdote, I didn't even choose to run it in my Survival deck at Waterbury.  Does Null Rod actually serve to stop any non-combo decks, and is it even that good against them?  It's been discovered that cards like Goblin Welder, Tinker, and Smokestack to tend get around Null Rod quite well, and decks running those cards (ie, Workshop decks and Control Slaver) would seem on the surface to be the decks best hosed by Null Rod.

Furthermore, would the hopeful/eventual decline in Null Rods finally allow Skullclamp and/or Ravager Affinity to step up to the plate and assume their rightful places as powerhouses?

[Jacob Orlove]

With control slaver now running many SB copies of Mogg Salvage, using null rod to try and stop them is analogous to trying to stop Tog with Moat. It works fine up until when they actually start to care, then they kill it.

And combo is much more scared of like 3sphere and chalice anyway. Rod is slow and easy to bounce.

[bebe]

Rods just do not do much. I have beaten Fish and WtFr with Rods in them with my Mask deck. Sideboards and main deck alternative wins (Colossus/Tinker) have neutered it. CotV and Trinis are much scarier. Against Welder, I side in Ground Seals which are far more effective against it and a number of other decks. Around here we see CoW and Energy Fluxes utilized as well.

With the expected rise in Oath decks,  Mono Blue and random combo, Rods become even less useful main decked. Thereta is undergoing a fw more subtle shifts and when the new blocks are fully explored I imagine we will see some new tech being introduced. I'm with Jacob here.

[Smmenen]

Null Rod is an EXTREMELY good card.  Every deck plays Moxen, and decks that don't can run Null Rod as part of a number of other cards that can interact to deny your opponent mana.

The only downside is that Null Rod, imo, isn't a card is strong enough by itself.  It would be like if Stax played Trinisphere without other lock cards.

[Jacob Orlove]

The problem is that null rod can't do the mana denial thing against decks that run like 5 basic islands.

[rozetta]

Without the presence of Null Rod, there would be several more (viable) decks in the Vintage metagame along with the possibility of more variation in other, not necessarily artifact based, decks (anyone remember the card Isochron Scepter, for instance?).

Affinity/modular is one obvious choice for the list of newly viable decks, but I also believe there'd be more than just affinity decks utilizing things like Skullclamp (hint: ever tried Skullclamp with cards like Tinder Wall and Xantid Swarm?).

If you think about it, we've just had a block which introduced a shit load of new artifacts, probably 75% of which are useless because of the heavy presence of Null Rod. Those new cards will simply not be explored until the threat of Null Rod has subsided enough.

If we think about Null Rod, it should be in a broader sense. Yes, it's been historically used as a mana-denial tool, but like Jacob mentioned, it's simply not good enough as just that anymore. The fact that it's prevented new archetypes from even surfacing is something that will be noticed when it's been sufficiently "hated out" and makes an insignificant showing in tournaments. I think for that to happen, the next big thing in budget decks needs to come along to move the thousands of fish players on (which might be on the verge of happening due to the current shift in the metagame).

[Vegeta2711]

Null Rod has simply hasn't aged well. There are less gamebreaking artifacts the card actually stops and the mana denial aspect is rather medicore with mana bases tightening up. It'll be very amusing is Skullclamp finally makes it's presence felt if Null Rod decks continue to decrease in number.

[wuaffiliate]

I've also noticed this as of late. It is just another mana denial tool in a deck like fish which has many other elements of denial to back it up now more than ever. Crucible should be an auto inclusion along side Rod, they interact too well together.

[dicemanx]

Sorry, but this thread reads more like a conspiracy to try to lower the number of Rods and make combo and Workshop decks even more potent.

Null Rod is absolutely amazing. Even if it only shuts down one Mox, then it is almost comparable to denying one mana source with a Wasteland/Strip Mine.  Decks like Fish run this card in synergy with plenty of mana denial and disruption spells that take advantage of mana shorting your opponent (like Daze and Hatchlings). It's also no secret anymore that Dragon uses Rods to great effect in conjunction with Chalices and FoWs, while retaining the possibility of comboing off itself, to beat the faster combo decks with alarming regularity. Furthermore, aside from the mana denial, it seems like it's almost incidental that the card can nail so many things like Belcher, Nevinyrral's Disk, Mindslaver, Triskelion, Memory Jar, Powder Keg, Engineered Explosives etc, not to mention the fact that it severely limits the potency of an early-mid game Yawgmoth's Will.

Making the argument that Null Rod is not a strong card because it is easily handled by artifact destruction or bounce, or that it is poor on its own is inane. This first sounds like a Counterspell vs Ancestral (or Waste vs 1st turn Workshop-Trini) argument, while the latter is rarely a consideration, because decks packing Rods are typically backed by a hella lot more disruption spells. If you present empirical evidence of how you easily broke out of the Rod lock with your Tendrils or Belcher combo in the last tournament, then congratulations, you probably got lucky. Such evidence doesn't in any way diminish the fact that the Rod is still a powerhouse in top level metas - in fact, it's still puzzling to me why Fish decks don't run all four (they should).

[Shock Wave]

Sorry, but this thread reads more like a conspiracy to try to lower the number of Rods and make combo and Workshop decks even more potent.

Null Rod is absolutely amazing. Even if it only shuts down one Mox, then it is almost comparable to denying one mana source with a Wasteland/Strip Mine.  Decks like Fish run this card in synergy with plenty of mana denial and disruption spells that take advantage of mana shorting your opponent (like Daze and Hatchlings). It's also no secret anymore that Dragon uses Rods to great effect in conjunction with Chalices and FoWs, while retaining the possibility of comboing off itself, to beat the faster combo decks with alarming regularity. Furthermore, aside from the mana denial, it seems like it's almost incidental that the card can nail so many things like Belcher, Nevinyrral's Disk, Mindslaver, Triskelion, Memory Jar, Powder Keg, Engineered Explosives etc, not to mention the fact that it severely limits the potency of an early-mid game Yawgmoth's Will.

Making the argument that Null Rod is not a strong card because it is easily handled by artifact destruction or bounce, or that it is poor on its own is inane. This first sounds like a Counterspell vs Ancestral (or Waste vs 1st turn Workshop-Trini) argument, while the latter is rarely a consideration, because decks packing Rods are typically backed by a hella lot more disruption spells. If you present empirical evidence of how you easily broke out of the Rod lock with your Tendrils or Belcher combo in the last tournament, then congratulations, you probably got lucky. Such evidence doesn't in any way diminish the fact that the Rod is still a powerhouse in top level metas - in fact, it's still puzzling to me why Fish decks don't run all four (they should).

I'd like to echo these thoughts and Steve's. Null Rod is an absolute house. Jacob, I'm really surprised about your post regarding Control Slaver and Mogg Salvage. That argument is, well, absolutely trivial. There is *always* an answer to problems but that does little to rectify the impact of problem cards when you do *not* have an answer.

[LoA]

Every game I've lost to Fish with my Keeper deck, I've lost because of Null Rod (and generally unmorphable Angels).  This isn't to say that's the end-all-be-all of Null Rod analysis, but I think it's still a solid card in the right deck.  As some of the prior posts note, Null Rod can be a huge tempo boost in the right deck.  Null Rod is weaker in decks that can't devote at least some resource to protecting it.  When TPS is ready to go off, it's not a big deal to tutor up a Rebuild vs. a deck like Suicide or Oshawa.  It's a different story vs. Fish since that deck can protect the Null Rod and diminish combo's chances.  What I think most of the bad experiences with Null Rod not doing its job point to is not a drop off in its utility, but rather that non-blue aggro/aggro-control is at the bottom of the barrel right now.

[The Atog Lord]

I fear Null Rod more than any other card in the format.

It shuts down large chunks of many decks' mana bases. It stops activated abilities on artifacts like Mindslaver or Ravager. When combined with other mana denial elements, it can serve to lock a deck out of a game.

I really hope that everyone thinks that Null Rod is bad, because maybe then they'll stop playing them against me. However, Null Rod, in all reality, is still an amazing card.

[jpmeyer]

As Null Rod is good at stopping mana from Moxes and whatnot, the better question than "is Null Rod good at what it does?" is "does that effect even matter?"  In terms of virtual card advantage, even if your single Null Rod is stopping 3 Moxes, if your opponent can cast spells that he wants to cast, Null Rod is really not producing any effect.  Is Null Rod in that sort of stage right now?

Another question could be if Null Rod is still good enough even if it only stops say, one card (like diceman stated,) would something like say, Tel-Jilad Justice or Meltdown be just as good there?

[TheWhiteDragon]

There is no way that Meltdown or whatnot could be compared to the rod.  Null Rod does shut out certain deck types from ever seeing play.  It also annihalates certain decks like some combos and is a huge thorn in the ass for workshop, even if they can get around it.  It even stifles control if used in the right deck.  Null Rod costs 2 colorless mana...any deck can use and cast it easily.  It stops the effect of so many broken artifacts like jar, memnarch, moxen, clamp, karn, mask, etc.  Granted you can tinker/colossus around it, but that means you are forcing them to take an alternate path of victory.  Any good deck should have more than one way to win the game.  If one route is shut, that significantly reduces the opponent's chance of winning.  Null Rod is one of the only cards that shuts down an entire strategy by itself.  I say this card will never leave the format and if it starts to get less played, watch out.

[Razvan]

Since most decks run fewer than 20 lands, some only 16-17, and combo decks run anywhere from 1-10, the rest is made up of artifact mana. This ranges from the traditional 7 SoLoMox, to up to 12-13 or so, if you include everything that can even remotely be played.

This one card has the potential to utterly shut down half the mana sources of a deck.

Why is the question even posed? And more importantly, why is it posed in a Valley girl kind of tone?

In some matches, Null Rod is fairly useless. I don't agree that even if it only stops one mox, it's worth it... it's a 2cc card that stops a 0cc card... score! But that case, and the fact that it can be side-boarded out, makes it worth including.

I wouldn't say it's the most fearsome card, nor even the most fearsome mana denial card, as that undoubtably goes to Back to Basics... but Fish without Null Rod is DEAD against Workshop. Yes, there's games where Fish will win without Null Rod... they are few, and getting even fewer. I think not only is it good in Fish, it's absolutely necessary for the deck in way too many match-ups. Maybe these are strong words, and very exaggerated, but essentially that's what it comes down to.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'd like to echo these thoughts and Steve's. Null Rod is an absolute house. Jacob, I'm really surprised about your post regarding Control Slaver and Mogg Salvage. That argument is, well, absolutely trivial. There is *always* an answer to problems but that does little to rectify the impact of problem cards when you do *not* have an answer.

The problem is that control slaver sides in stuff like Lava Dart and Old Man of the Sea in addition to Salvage. The game simply stops being about huge activated artifacts. Combined with their card drawing, I've had very, very few post-SB games where null rod actually mattered. Oxidize was actually better a lot of the time, simply because it accomplished the same effect for half the mana.

I'm not saying that Rod is a bad card, just that with fish dominating for so long, there's no place for Rod to shine, because every deck has adjusted for it.

[Windfall]

The Null Rod situation is similar to what was going on in Type 2 and MD5 block before Skullclamp was banned.  In T2 and block, every deck either played Clamp or Damping Matrix for the most part.  The problem was Clamp, and the Matrix was the answer.  Well, Clamp got banned because the answer just wasn't good enough to hate out the problem, and everyone was playing it because it was just that good.

In Vintage, there are the Moxes and other very powerful cards that happen to be artifacts, and then there is Null Rod - the answer card.  I'll say up front that Null Rod is an amazing card.  I will never argue that.  However, I also believe that the decks packing Null Rod (often aggro or budget decks) are not as strong as the decks packing the Moxes and other powerful artifacts.  It's the same as pre-banned Clamp - the Skullclamp decks were just better than the Damping Matrix decks because they got to play with Skullclamp.

This is where I think JP and I agree - we both know that Null Rod is strong, but I'd rather play with the really good cards than a card to hate out the good cards.  I think everyone knows that Slaver can win under a Null Rod.  When I played against Fish at GenCon, I never even needed to cast Salvage because Old Man of the Sea and Tinker were too much for Fish to handle in the first place.  <3 decks that scoop to 2/3 creatures...

     ~Mark B.

[jpmeyer]

In addition to the original "If a hate card can be won through/won around, is there a point in using it?" question, here's another one:

If you are playing a deck which Null Rod would be good against, which would you fear more: the Null Rod or having more powerful spells being gainst you earlier in the game?

[Tristal]

The minute Null Rod starts becoming unpopular, Aggro-Affinity will become a powerhouse in the environment.  It would easily be the best aggro deck in the format, except it gets almost completely shut down by Mr. Null Rod.

[Kowal]

If that was all that was keeping AggroFinity down, wouldn't people be playing it anyway and just banking on not hitting fish?  Not every metagame is heavily polluted with the little bitches, especially right now.

That deck just isn't very good.  It has a mediocre level of power in comparison to every other deck.  With Null Rod losing attention, it just ceases to be as bad.

[Rico Suave]

If you are playing a deck which Null Rod would be good against, which would you fear more: the Null Rod or having more powerful spells being gainst you earlier in the game?

Um, a more powerful spell by definition is one you fear more, no?  Unless your goal as a player is to lose, a more powerful spell is always a bad thing.

I'm sorry, but this question is a "duh" level and it doesn't really prove anything other than there are other cards out there that are better than Null Rod.  So what?  I'd  rather see my opponent play Null Rod than Ancestral Recall, but that doesn't mean Null Rod is bad.

[jpmeyer]

I think we're slightly misunderstanding each other.  I mean this more in the fact that if you're not running Null Rod, you can run a large suite of artifact acceleration, which thus would let you make your mana curve a little higher.  It's like asking if Null Rod's de-powering effect is better than being able to up your deck's power level a bit.  Or if you're more afraid of your opponent casting spells or of you not being able to cast spells.

[JACO]

As Null Rod is good at stopping mana from Moxes and whatnot, the better question than "is Null Rod good at what it does?" is "does that effect even matter?"  In terms of virtual card advantage, even if your single Null Rod is stopping 3 Moxes, if your opponent can cast spells that he wants to cast, Null Rod is really not producing any effect.  Is Null Rod in that sort of stage right now?

Another question could be if Null Rod is still good enough even if it only stops say, one card (like diceman stated,) would something like say, Tel-Jilad Justice or Meltdown be just as good there?

I'd like to echo these thoughts and Steve's. Null Rod is an absolute house. Jacob, I'm really surprised about your post regarding Control Slaver and Mogg Salvage. That argument is, well, absolutely trivial. There is *always* an answer to problems but that does little to rectify the impact of problem cards when you do *not* have an answer.

The problem is that control slaver sides in stuff like Lava Dart and Old Man of the Sea in addition to Salvage. The game simply stops being about huge activated artifacts. Combined with their card drawing, I've had very, very few post-SB games where null rod actually mattered. Oxidize was actually better a lot of the time, simply because it accomplished the same effect for half the mana.

I'm not saying that Rod is a bad card, just that with fish dominating for so long, there's no place for Rod to shine, because every deck has adjusted for it.

I think some of you are looking at Null Rod the wrong way. If you're looking at it to stop a deck or strategy dead in it's tracks, you're barking up the wrong tree.

What makes Null Rod so incredible is its role in tempo-oriented decks. A lot of decks rely heavily on tempo, but things like Fish and Madness rely on this tempo even more. The fact that decks are prepared for it now is irrelevant. Mogg Salvage, Hurkly's Recall, or whatever hate spell they cast isn't going to be immediate in most cases. If you can shut down multiple spells of your opponent with a single one of your own (for mana, a very small investment), even for a few turns, you have helped establish tempo for yourself and your board position. The few turns that you can shut down an opponent's strategy while they search for an answer are what these decks use to establish their advantage, whether it is beating your face in with Mongrels and Wurms, or dropping Curiositied Grim Lavamancers to help control the board even more and gain more card advantage.

[dicemanx]

It's like asking if Null Rod's de-powering effect is better than being able to up your deck's power level a bit.

Well, are you really asking why anyone would play Fish when you could play a stronger more explosive deck?

If so, I don't think that there are many competent Fish players that play the deck by choice. Most people that have access to power/Drains/Workshops/Bazaars etc usually opt to play more broken decks.

If not, then I don't think that you can look at the card outside of the context of the decks that the Rod is found in. It would be foolish to remove Rods from decks like Fish or Oshawa Stompy and instead "up the deck's power level" with anything else.

[MuzzonoAmi]

That deck just isn't very good.  It has a mediocre level of power in comparison to every other deck.  With Null Rod losing attention, it just ceases to be as bad.

You're dead on here. The deck is, if nothing else, horribly inconsistent, even relative to [other] Workshop decks, and just plain weak when it tries to be consistent. mrrieff has had alot of success with the deck, but it doesn't resemble the type 2 derivatives that I think you're thinking of to matter in this discussion, and even that deck is weaker than TMS or Stacker in alot of cases.

As for Null Rod, it's still good at stopping Moxen, but I don't see it shutting down any archetypes by its ubiquity the way it did over the summer.

[jpmeyer]

Also, is there any other way of building aggro control other than by building a Fish-style deck?

[Shock Wave]

I'm not saying that Rod is a bad card, just that with fish dominating for so long, there's no place for Rod to shine, because every deck has adjusted for it.

Well, that ultimately has no bearing on whether or not Null Rod is a good card or not. Furthermore, that should never have any bearing on whether to play a certain card or not. Would you stop playing Ancestral if you knew everybody was packing 4 Misdirections? I hope not. I'm not comparing Ancestral to Null Rod, but rather I'm pointing out that decks either have to prepare for ways to deal with Null Rod or simply get totally hosed by it. That should be more than enough incentive to both play it and to hate it (if you're on the opposing side).

You say that there's no place for Rod to shine, but the fact that decks are forced to prepare for it is an immediate indication of its potency.

If this argument is about whether or not Null Rod should be played in decks like Fish or not then that implies that these decks are becoming obsolete. If the metagame game has adjusted so much that Fish can't even run its best disruption card, then clearly it is very passé.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Also, is there any other way of building aggro control other than by building a Fish-style deck?

Well, I still think of anything Dryad-based as aggro-control, but I think you're asking about small-creature decks. I've spent an inordinate amount of time fascinated by R/G and Three Deuce-type decks, and I don't think that they're really strong contenders. No matter how you mix up the colors, you're not playing blue, and therefore you're starting the race in a straightjacket. You can get 2/X for one and 3/3 for two (like Wretched Anurid or Wild Mongrel) but that sucks. There's just no reason for that kind of creature when instead you could play a deck that thinks nothing of second-turn 4/4 or 5/3. If you play blue, you have to make room for all the non-creature spells like FoW that are what made you add blue to begin with... and then you don't have any threats.

Madness and Affinity are two mechanics that are so strong they almost push a weenie aggro-control deck into existence on their Block Constructed foundation. Madness faces the conflict of interest that it wants to run blue, but FoW and Bazaar are Not A Combo (and if you don't have blue, you have the aforementioned straightjacket problem). If you skip Bazaar, you lose the aggressive speed that actually puts pressure on your opponent. For Affinity, the format has a lot of inherent hate, and the generic creature removal is so much better in T1 than T2 that its speed isn't as blinding.

You could potentially call Stacker aggro-control because it mixes lots of lock components with the beaters, and I think that's probably the best aggro-control approach you'll find. It's an archetype that can defend against combo and still put threatening dudes on the table, because it only needs one creature to do as much as two weenies. And because you have fewer creature slots, you can potentially play blue cards!

So in conclusion, creatures are bad. Play blue cards instead.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I actually think that we should be focusing on the older, Broodstar/Enforcer Affinity builds than the Ravager builds. I realize that this is counterintuitive, but it *gasp* doesn't die horribly to Null Rod, and can still put large men on the table while running Blue cards.

But on topic, I think that Null Rod must be played in Fish as well as in most budget decks, but as a general, all purpose hoser/Tempo card ouside of those decks, I think that it doesn't (and won't) work because land destruction/mana denial isn't a viable strategy right now, and that's what it accels at. So to condense this, it doesn't do much other than generate tempo, but if you're playing with teir 1 or 2 decks, then you have no reason to seek to gain tempo by playing Null Rod, if it would generate Tempo for you in the first place.

[Rico Suave]

I think we're slightly misunderstanding each other.  I mean this more in the fact that if you're not running Null Rod, you can run a large suite of artifact acceleration, which thus would let you make your mana curve a little higher.  It's like asking if Null Rod's de-powering effect is better than being able to up your deck's power level a bit.  Or if you're more afraid of your opponent casting spells or of you not being able to cast spells.

Naturally, any deck that uses power will run power over Null Rod if it can.  That doesn't mean Null Rod is bad - it's just not as powerful as a bunch of restricted cards that go into every deck, much like not every card-drawer can compare to Ancestral.  It's still a very potent card.