[Single Card Discussion] Pact of Negation

[korangar]

This card has appeared in http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mf142.

Pact of Negation

Instant   (Rare)
Pact of Negation is blue.
Counter target spell.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 3{U}{U}. If you don't, you lose the game.

Do you think it will reconvert some decklists (such as Pitch Long) or make inviable achetipes, such as Doomsday, Belcher or the like reapear???

Imagine you're comboing and are going to win right now. This card is a free counter, with no drawback !!!

[Namingway]

True, if your opponent has a counter for your bomb, you can counter it and win on the spot. But what if the opponent has a second counter? Imagine this scenario:
You play a bomb.
They Force of Will/Mana Drain/whatever it.
You cast Pact of Negation on their Force.
They let the Pact resolve, and Force/Mana Drain/whatever the original bomb.
So now your bomb is countered, and you have to pay  at the beginning of your next upkeep, or you lose.

All in all, I think this card is good, but potentially very risky.

[monSt4r]

I would not want to see fast combo with this card...sadly, it will happen...

[lordmayhem]

Fundamentally, it is broken. A 0-costed counterspell is broken. However to say that it has no drawbacks, is folly.

In addition to Namingway's example, we can add:

• Stifle
• Trickbind
• Vialed-in True Believer

Chalice of the Void, is commonly played, and it counters Pact of Negation.
Pact of Negation is not synergistic with Empty the Warrens.

Not saying it won't be played, just stating the facts.

[Malhavoc]

I see this card as terribly sick. EVERY "free" spell has always had something to force you to play it in a deck which already plays that color (force & daze for example), and now you can play 4 Pacts regardless of which colors you play. For other "lesser" pacts the drawback should be enough, but here it's sick, really sick. Many of the cards from FS seem to promote decks like charbelcher and friggorid, "extreme" decks that IMHO (sorry for those who play and design them) make the game almost no fun at all: they usually just win or just roll over to hate, but that was the downside: you either win or lose, mainly due to luck. Cards that can make such decks more resistant and powerful tends to shit the whole metagame in a very awful way.. but that's just my personal taste and opinion of course, and many could disagree.

Yet nobody can disagree that this card is just wrong in so many ways.

[Crankster]

Grimlong with 4 pacts and 4 wraiths will be most fearsome!

[Mana Duane]

I don't think the double counter example is relevant. Pact of Negation will be used in decks that are killing very quickly (turn 1 or 2) so the chance of the opponent having 2 counters is extremely small - either the opponent has 2 active forces or you're on the draw and he gets 2 blue mana first turn AND has Mana Drain AND has an active force. Both of these are very unlikely and to be honest Pact or Negation or not you've almost certainly lost of if you're playing turn 1 combo and your opponent has 2 turn 1 counters.

As well as Belcher, Ichorid and Pitch I want to try it in Meandeck Tendrills.

[Stamford]

Grimlong with 4 pacts and 4 wraiths will be most fearsome!

How would it be? And what cards would you cut?

Are you going to use Pact of Negation when you are trying to resolve Timetwister, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Tinker-Jar, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Bargain?

In the case of the Draw7s, what if you only have BBU or lesser mana floating and your new 7 cards does not give you the win?

The only way Pact of Negation is going to be successfully used is in conjunction to a pending Yawgmoth's Will with significant cards in the Graveyard.

Please explain why you say Grim Long is fearsome with 4 Pact of Negation and 4 Street Wraiths and what cards will you decide to cut from the already tight deck.

Thank You.

[Grand Inquisitor]

what cards will you decide to cut from the already tight deck?

Timetwister, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Tinker-Jar, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Bargain

[Gekoratel]

For Duress Long builds what do people think is the correct number of disruption slots is?  This card is certainly going to find a home in the archetype but you don't want to add so much disruption that it slows down your combo.  Currently I'm thinking about running 4 Duress and 2 Pact in my 2.5 Long build but I'll need to put in some serious testing to see if thats the correct split.  Here's a sample deck list with the Pact.

2.5 Long
Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

Enchantments
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

Instants
2 Pact of Negation
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
3 Grim Tutor
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Lands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Tolarian Academy

Let me know what you guys think.

[Stamford]

what cards will you decide to cut from the already tight deck?

Timetwister, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Tinker-Jar, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Bargain

Do you still call that a Long build?
I would like to imagine how a deck without those cards above deal with a Fish deck with Dark Confidant.
The deck would even be very weak versus Duress.

My point was that Grim Long is unable to fully abuse Pact of Negation. Unless you are going to do some major revamp to make the deck smoother and easier to reach high enough storm count, which would mean changing the manabase and the other spells.

If it was as simply as taking out those bombs, the deck would not be called a Long build anymore and the deck would theorotically suck as its unfocused.
There will also be a lack of bombs or potential threats as Pact has taken up some slots.

[desolutionist]

I've been playing 6 disruption pieces all along; it obviously isn't terribly inconsistent or hindering. 

What is most intriguing is that you never tested Cabal Therapys, or more than 4 disruption pieces, but are now adding two PoN without any evident thought.

[Mana Duane]

There Isn't a lot of synergy between Necro and Pact or often Tinker/Jar and Pack. These are two of the bombs that you want to use your disruption to force though and yet you never want to Pact to protect a Necro and there will be many times when you'd rather wait with the jar than crack it straight away which you can't do with Pact either. My gut feel is that you might just be better of with FoW in those slots. Or maybe cut Necro for something which says "I win now" rather than "I win next turn" - I know there is already some pressure on Necro and If Pact starts showing up in Long lists then it might be that Necro's lack of synergy with Pact is another strike against it. Would be v. interested to know how it tests for you though!

 

[Machinus]

For Duress Long builds what do people think is the correct number of disruption slots is?  This card is certainly going to find a home in the archetype but you don't want to add so much disruption that it slows down your combo.  Currently I'm thinking about running 4 Duress and 2 Pact in my 2.5 Long build but I'll need to put in some serious testing to see if thats the correct split.

I've been looking at 4 Pact 0 Duress, and I think at least against Drains it let's the deck go off more quickly.

[Disburden]

I agree with Machinus here. I actually feel the card becomes pretty close to useless when you choose to run less than four copies in any given combo deck. What are you going to do if you don't see the card during the game, tutor for it? That seems really bad that you want to tutor for this thing if you don't find it. In your testing of this list, thus far, can you honestly say two Pacts is good enough for anything? I actually think this card may have a good chance as a four-of in decks that run pitch counters like Gifts, since you can pitch the early copies to FOW and Misdirection. Later on you out counter and win on your turn. I actually think this card may be good in Gifts over four Mana Drains.

[Gekoratel]

I was just giving a sample list that I was going to be testing so far I have done exactly 0 testing with this card.  Thats why in my post I said "I'm thinking about running 4 Duress and 2 Pact in my 2.5 Long build but I'll need to put in some serious testing"  I wanted to know what people thought the best split is so maybe instead of 4 Duress 2 Pact I'll try either 4 Pact 0 Duress or 4 pack 2 Duress.  The card seems quite strong on paper but testing will need to be done to see if its the real deal.

[Mana Duane]

What are you going to do if you don't see the card during the game, tutor for it? That seems really bad that you want to tutor for this thing if you don't find it. In your testing of this list, thus far, can you honestly say two Pacts is good enough for anything?

I don't agree that you need to play 4 or nothing. There are very few cards that are truly like that, only things like AK. OK if you Pact once in a turn you might as well Pact twice but how often are you going to be able to go off and have 2 Pacts in hand?

What you would do if you were only playing 2 Pacts is use the Duress, Fow, ReB or whatever you are playing instead of the addional two Pacts.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I don't agree that you need to play 4 or nothing

I agree.  For example, misd doesn't effectively stop threats or hate in opposing decks for Pitchlong, with the exception of Ancestral Recall (or if you want to be extreme, something like Recoup).  It's primary use is protecting proactive threats.  Obviously, those threats now have to win you the game, but a quick look at recent combo creations makes this a low bar to pass.

Completely out to left field, doesn't this seem like exactly the type of card R&D would design if it wanted to see if T1 could destroy iteslf through uninteractivity?

[Shock Wave]

Completely out to left field, doesn't this seem like exactly the type of card R&D would design if it wanted to see if T1 could destroy iteslf through uninteractivity?

*follows you into left field*. Since when has Wizards taken Vintage into consideration when designing cards?  . It seems as though Wizards prints cards with the mindset that they'll make changes once a new card destroys the format, but they hardly ever preemptively restrict cards.

[Zherbus]

Didn't MaRo say he thought of Vintage when he made Chalice of the Void?

[ReAnimator]

Didn't MaRo say he thought of Vintage when he made Chalice of the Void?

Chalice of the void was acctually Gary Wise's invitational card one year, except he submitted it with a CC of 2 instead of XX and you just chose a number (!).

I think Maro said that he was thinking about T1 when they decided to acctually make the card for real.


/has four chalices signed by Gary

[forests failed you]

I would like to point out that Pact is very, very, narrow; even in a quick combo deck.  It is true that you can protect a game winning bomb (Yawgmoth's Will, Yawgmoth's Bargain) on the turn you are going to win.  And, in this situation Pact is extremely powerful.  However, what you sacrifice is flexibility.  Pact does not allow you a tool to interact with other decks in the way that Duress or FOW do.  You cannot use it to take away a Trinisphere, or counter a Meddling Mage the way that Duress or FOW allow you to in problematic match ups.  That being said:  Pact is still awesome, and an absolute house against Drain decks.  The problem is:  Who plays Drain decks anymore?

[Whatever Works]

I agree with ffy on this 1. It will see play in combo, but only combo deck I can see it bringing to a higher tear is Storm10 or SX, and that deck hasnt been played forever b/c it is fairly fragile.

[monSt4r]

I would like to point out that Pact is very, very, narrow; even in a quick combo deck.  It is true that you can protect a game winning bomb (Yawgmoth's Will, Yawgmoth's Bargain) on the turn you are going to win.  And, in this situation Pact is extremely powerful.  However, what you sacrifice is flexibility.  Pact does not allow you a tool to interact with other decks in the way that Duress or FOW do.  You cannot use it to take away a Trinisphere, or counter a Meddling Mage the way that Duress or FOW allow you to in problematic match ups.  That being said:  Pact is still awesome, and an absolute house against Drain decks.  The problem is:  Who plays Drain decks anymore?

But pact in its narrowness can be compared with misdirection...misdirection is here only to protect your bombs and steal random ancestral...and pact > misd -.-
Pact will be played, and combo will make up some troubles in metagame...

And why would u counter with force(& blue card) some meddling mage when u can pact with that blue bounce in your hand and win...

[Stamford]

I would like to point out that Pact is very, very, narrow; even in a quick combo deck.  It is true that you can protect a game winning bomb (Yawgmoth's Will, Yawgmoth's Bargain) on the turn you are going to win.  And, in this situation Pact is extremely powerful.  However, what you sacrifice is flexibility.  Pact does not allow you a tool to interact with other decks in the way that Duress or FOW do.  You cannot use it to take away a Trinisphere, or counter a Meddling Mage the way that Duress or FOW allow you to in problematic match ups.  That being said:  Pact is still awesome, and an absolute house against Drain decks.  The problem is:  Who plays Drain decks anymore?

But pact in its narrowness can be compared with misdirection...misdirection is here only to protect your bombs and steal random ancestral...and pact > misd -.-
Pact will be played, and combo will make up some troubles in metagame...

And why would u counter with force(& blue card) some meddling mage when u can pact with that blue bounce in your hand and win...

the situations you gave was very narrow.

Although Misdirection costs you a blue card too, the amount of options it opens up are far more than that of Pact of Negation.
Aside from winning a counterwar
Misdirection has
a) Misdirecting Ancestral Recall.
b) Letting you gain enormous card advantage
(E.g. Opponent casts a Gifts Ungiven, you Ancestral Recall/(Insert Instant here) in response, Opponent FoWs, You MisD it to counter the Gifts Ungiven.)
This situation has happened to me many times in a control matchup and it shows the flexibility of MisD.
c) You have a DSC in play, Opponent tutors for a Bounce spell and casts, you MisD it to bounce another artifact.

Besides, if a match lasts beyond the 3rd to 4th turn, you can get the chance to hardcast MisD.

For the second case, if you are running FoW, you most likely have 14 or more blue spells in your deck. You can always pitch some other blue card instead of the bounce. Besides, i seldom see people pitch Bounce spells unless they have more than that lone bounce spell or they are sure of winning the next turn.

[monSt4r]

You can "hardcast" this too...we are not talking about control matchups...we are talking about pitchlong like decks...turn 1-3 kills with pact in backup, i think that beats misdirection...

[Stamford]

You can "hardcast" this too...we are not talking about control matchups...we are talking about pitchlong like decks...turn 1-3 kills with pact in backup, i think that beats misdirection...

Sure you can hardcast this, provided you want to get Time Walked the next turn.
If it was worded such that you can choose to pay 3UU instead of 0 when casting it, then i would think about it.

In pitchlong-like decks, the only way you are winning by Tendrils of Agony is
You resolve Will
You resolve a Draw7, which hopefully leads to a decent hand that allows you to get to Tendrils of Agony.
You resolve Ancestral Recall/Draw spells and plays rituals and the like without casting any "bombs" to get to ToA.
You resolve a Yawg Bargain and hopefully get to ToA with enough mana, which happens 90% of the time if you have 18 life and this ratio goes down depending on your life total when you resolve Bargain and the amount of mana you have floating.
You resolve Necro and sets up for next turn.
You shortfuse ToA and continues the rest the next turn via another bomb due to lack of mana reasons.

Considering that Pact does not help you in Necro, Draw7 (unless you are lucky), Bargain (again depends) and shortfuse ways, i dont really think you are going to abuse Pact fully unless you are really sure that you will win the turn you play it.

[MaxxMatt]

I see it a good replacement for other protections in Extended where Mind's Desire can go undisturbed winning in a single turn.
Here, in Vintage, Stifles and Trickbinds can save us to from dying, even if the goal of a deck loaded with Pacts will be to win DURING the turn when it is cast, as lone protection or at maximum, coupled with FoW.

Any deck with Rituals, quick mana, Black Tutors and Mind's Desire will be PROUD to play it aside with FoWs, maybe replacing duresses, if needed.
it can be tutored and used for free when you are going to win backuped with a free protections but with a finished number of cards in ahnd or mana in pool.
It can be tricky and it is as much solid as FoWs, anaysing it from the perspective of a ONE-Turn-Kill deck.

Anyway, it is risky.

Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Imperial Seal
3x Grim Tutor
3x Merchant Scroll

can be the *structure* of a deck able to combo Desire/Y.Will with free protections as FoW/Pacts.
Brainstorm, all normally used Restricted cards and Repeals as fixers of disadvantage tutors can be considered as *skeleton* for this kind of deck.
 

[Stamford]

Actually, come to think of it. A deck with tutors, could use the help of 1-2 Pact of Negation maindeck so as to search for it using a Grim Tutor or something and use it to protect the lethal bomb like Yawgmoth's Will or Bargain. However, this might not work well in the case of Draw7s or Mind's Desire, unless its for 6 spells and above.

[simo66]

       Unfortunately, I don't see pact of negation being widely adopted. It's only usefull against one type of disruption, counterspells on the turn you go off, which means that it will generally sit in your hand as your opponent duresses, null rods, and generally disrupts you out of contention.

      And for everytime you have 5 mana available at the beginning of your next upkeep, you will watch helplessly as your opponent resolves a spell you absolutely had to counter.