[Discussion] Withered Wretch.. a "new" bomb?

[Duncan]

While I was thinking about a new deck to play, I started thinking about the card Withered Wretch. It is merely played, except in suicide black decks and in my opinion it is a really strong creature. Let's take a look what he can do for you in the different matchups:

- reanimate -> remove their creatures and guarantee your win
- CA -> remove the creatures and the weldable artifacts
- 3cc/4cc -> remove key cards for the yawgmoth's will or prevent a big skeletal scrying
- bird shit -> avoid the opponent getting threshold
- madness -> remove the flashback cards and prevent threshold
- other welder decks -> obvious
- dragon combo -> obvious
- psychatog -> remove AK/ cards for tog

The only matchups where its abilities are not really good are aggro like goblin or WW, some combo decks (you still can disrupt their yawgmoth's will) and it is not super againts oath... against aggro, it is still a 2/2 blocker and against oath you can remove funny cards after they have oathed...

The biggest problem for this card is its BB casting cost, but with some dual lands or aether vial that shouldn't be too difficult.


My main point to discuss is: why isn't withered wretch played very much? and shouldn't we do it more? can we create a deck with this card (sort of UB Control)

[Outlaw]

Check out Kowal's discussion on Ninja Sword, if your going to get a withered wretch out and not die to other decks thats the deck that will do it.  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=22581.0  Also removing Oath's blessing is really a kick between the legs, and the Wretch eats control slavery / ssb alive, we had extensive testing vs. wretch and every game it resolved I lost.

[Duncan]

what deck doe u mean with ssb

[Outlaw]

Shortbus Severence Belcher, the new gifts ungiven control that Ben Kowal, Andy Probasco and myself had worked on.  Ben had taken a lotus from Chicago with it.

[disrupting specter]

I'm highly sceptical. I got a set of wretches when they came out. I also flirted with suicide black and casual black decks for quite some time. If all you needed to do was hate the grave to win, I would have done it a long time ago. This is especially for traditional control. You just turn ancestral recall into a wish target, which gives them 4 ancestrals in the deck, not 2.

[Demonic Attorney]

I'm highly sceptical. I got a set of wretches when they came out. I also flirted with suicide black and casual black decks for quite some time.

What?

If all you needed to do was hate the grave to win, I would have done it a long time ago. This is especially for traditional control.

Oh.

You just turn ancestral recall into a wish target, which gives them 4 ancestrals in the deck, not 2.

Okay.

[Rastadon]

I really don't see how this is any better than Tormod's Crypt. 0cc vs. BB? Creature v. Artifact? Okay, null rod doesn't do it in.

[JamesPr]

Well Withered Wretch does have a little going for it.  First of all it's a tormod's crypt with legs.  Secondly and probably more importantly the tricks with the Wretch and Aether Vial against decks utilizing their graveyards are pretty powerful.  An opponent drops a Mindslaver in the yard with an active Goblin Welder in play, you drop a Withered Wretch off an Aether Vial and remove the Mindslaver from the game in response to your opponent welding it into play. 

[Meddling Mike]

I'm highly sceptical. I got a set of wretches when they came out. I also flirted with suicide black and casual black decks for quite some time.

What?

If all you needed to do was hate the grave to win, I would have done it a long time ago. This is especially for traditional control.

Oh.

You just turn ancestral recall into a wish target, which gives them 4 ancestrals in the deck, not 2.

Okay.

ROFL

But anyways, I'm with outlaw on this one, wretch has found his best home in a deck like ninja sword. The BB casting cost as well as his mana intensive nature really makes him a stretch in just about anything else.

[Morganti]

what about in a u/b control style deck?
with counters and hand disruption, a lot of deck denial, and a tap out (decking) finsh?

with an alternate combo kill using tendrils or somesuch could it fit in that style of deck?
~D~

[Joblin Velder]

what about in a u/b control style deck?
with counters and hand disruption, a lot of deck denial, and a tap out (decking) finsh?

with an alternate combo kill using tendrils or somesuch could it fit in that style of deck?
~D~

I totally built that deck once. Mine had one volcanic island and ran belcher, as well as illusions donate. It had a conversion side into masknought, too. it was a sweet deck, you might say.

All kidding aside, Withered Wretch is just begging for a deck. These days, he's about the best card in suicide black. His casting cost is the only reason he's having a hard time finding a home, I'd say.

[Duncan]

This looks good to me as a start.. what do u think?

4 Aether Vial
1 Sol Ring

4 Standstill
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Duress
4 Meddling Mage
4 Withered Wretch
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Gilded Drake

4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

[warble]

That is a bad start.  The problem with Withered Wretch is that it's a "you can't use your graveyard card"  It's limiting the opposing strategy, not allowing your deck to execute it's strategy.  To respond to why it isn't played,

1) Withered Wretch offers nothing to your deck if resolved.  It's not allowing your deck to win, so in that sense in an intense counter war it is a DEAD card.

2) Withered Wretch costs BB, which is too much to justify it's inclusion in a blue deck.  Why not run an additional tutor or draw instead of Wretch would be the immediate question.  Why do I want a Wretch over another counter or tempo boost?

3) When your deck runs a sufficient number of broken cards, it becomes necessary to only supplement with draw/tutor, sufficient mana, and counters/disruption to force through the broken play.  This means Withered Wretch is only playable in extreme aggro, and even aggro/control finds it hard to justify playing this card over, say, Meddling Mage/equivalent 1-drops like Grim Lavamancer/Gorilla Shaman.

4) Any deck that can efficiently use Withered Wretch must also protect against bounce, board control, and creature control.  The fact that Wretch is relegated to extreme aggro means that not only is it assured that the deck playing Wretch will NOT have this control, but this means even multiple resolved Wretch will suffer the same downfall as a single, making it infinitely worse then meddling mage.

As a result, only a fish-like tempo-based aggro deck with a large portion of the deck allocated to disruption can play the Wretch.  In these circumstances, the amount of control sought is so similar to the control brought in by TPS and CS that it would be folly to play the same control needed to back a bomb (game-winning play) in a deck packing Withered Wretch.  The solution of limiting the mana curve suffers from the late-game weakness that's strength Withered Wretch will bolster, but definitely not win for you.

Of course, if you knew that every opponent would play either Control Slaver with minimal board control, Assassin, or Dragon the penalty for playing Wretch is reduced significantly.  Still, would you rather have a resolved Withered Wretch on the board beating for 2 while eating the graveyard, or have a welder doing mana trix and other nonsense while waiting for your broken play to occur?  If you wanted graveyard hate in slaver, assassin, sensei or dragon you could play the 1-cost artifact that eats the graveyard slowly, but cantrips to draw a card.  There are even two of these, so you have a total of 8 1-cost artifacts that can cantrip away for free, are almost as effective as wretch at eating graveyards, and are completely colorless.

I believe the summarization is that a 1-cost cantrip artifact is always more playable then a BB costing 2/2 that can't cantrip.  In extreme aggro decks, seeking to control the graveyard is usually a lost cause and even if it isn't, because you are merely controlling the game and not winning it, the entirety of the deck must be structured around your creatures.  The playability of aggro in vintage is already so limited (to FCG, Sligh, and Workshop) by both the power of creatures that can be played on a given turn and the choice of colors for an appropriate sideboard that it would be indeed folly to look to black as a proper resource for aggro.  Black already has a number of broken mana sources, card control, tutors, I don't have to go on we all know if black just had some legitimate sideboard and counterspells it would be playable in this instance.

Only some super-tech for black that has remained hidden from all the sui black players and psychatog players of the world will allow withered wretch to be playable.  It's just not broken and because it's not splashable just does NOT deserve it's own deck.

[Ufactor]

I'm highly sceptical. I got a set of wretches when they came out. I also flirted with suicide black and casual black decks for quite some time.

What?

If all you needed to do was hate the grave to win, I would have done it a long time ago. This is especially for traditional control.

Oh.

You just turn ancestral recall into a wish target, which gives them 4 ancestrals in the deck, not 2.

Okay.

post something useful...or not at all.  It takes alot more thought to explain to someone why their thinking is flawed instead of snapping like a WWE fan (intellectual sophisticates that they are).

[Mastaq]

I'm highly sceptical. I got a set of wretches when they came out. I also flirted with suicide black and casual black decks for quite some time.

What?

If all you needed to do was hate the grave to win, I would have done it a long time ago. This is especially for traditional control.

Oh.

You just turn ancestral recall into a wish target, which gives them 4 ancestrals in the deck, not 2.

Okay.

post something useful...or not at all.  It takes alot more thought to explain to someone why their thinking is flawed instead of snapping like a WWE fan (intellectual sophisticates that they are).

In all fairness your post did no better of a job. I love it when people try to up their post counts. On another note.. Could the Wretch find a home in fish if they used Vials?

[Joblin Velder]

That gets us back to the ninja sword arguement.

Fish is a very mana intensive deck. Leaving mana open for a wretch could be tough. Also, aside from that, black doesnt bring much else to the table.

[Hi-Val]

I'm highly sceptical. I got a set of wretches when they came out. I also flirted with suicide black and casual black decks for quite some time.

What?

If all you needed to do was hate the grave to win, I would have done it a long time ago. This is especially for traditional control.

Oh.

You just turn ancestral recall into a wish target, which gives them 4 ancestrals in the deck, not 2.

Okay.

WHAAAT? OKAY!

Wretch costs BB1 before he starts nailing cards. Against slower decks, I could definitely see it wreck house. Control Slaver has a problem with it, for example. Against faster combo like Deathlong or Dragon or even something like CA, I think you might have a harder time getting wretch online fast enough to make it count.

[Morganti]

thinking again on the whole u/b control thing

do cards like planar void, hurt the wretch's chances of becoming the next big thing?
the furnace and the crypt are all beastly beastly pieces of cardboard...but is it there cost/effiencey ratio that makes them such bombs and gives them there sideboard slots?

could a hate.dec do wicked things if built to ream the meta game at a big event? or is h8.dec a dream of the insane or the legacy?

~D~