[Zendikar Card Discussion] Mindbreak Trap

[hitman]

Oath just got stronger.  The reason Oath isn't top tier is because Yawgmoth's Will exists in the format.  With such an efficient answer to Yawgmoth's Will and the storm mechanic, Oath may become a real choice to take to a tournament.

[Stormanimagus]

Oath just got stronger.  The reason Oath isn't top tier is because Yawgmoth's Will exists in the format.  With such an efficient answer to Yawgmoth's Will and the storm mechanic, Oath may become a real choice to take to a tournament.

True, but not BS might be too much of a con to Mindbreak Trap's Pro for Oath. What would be a good iteration of Oath? What creatures might you run in such a list? As I see it there are a couple ways to go:

Hellkites (most common)
Progenitus (not as common, but played)
Platinum Angel (very uncommon, but I think highly underrated)
RandomJanky targets

Edit: Here are my initial musings on an Oath list that might be able to splash on the scene that runs Mindbreak Trap. Enjoy!

Gambit Platinum Oath

Land (17):
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Savannah
1 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (10):
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
5 Moxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod’s Crypt

Artifact Creatures (2):
2 Platinum Angel

Enchantments (6):
4 Oath Of Druids
2 Mystic Remora

Instants (20):
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force Of Will
4 Pact Of Negation
4 Mindbreak Trap
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Darkblast

Sorceries (5):
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Gaea’s Blessing
1 Demonic Tutor

SB
1 Progenitus
4 Oxidize
4 Leyline Of The Void
2 Mystic Remora
1 Chain Of Vapor
4 Duress


As always, I'm open for feedback, but please try to keep it constructive.

-Storm






Here's the thing. Imagine Mindbreak Traps AND Pacts of Negation in the same deck? Platinum Oath might actually be able to make that combo of disruption as a package work. It is one of the few combo decks in Vintage (other than D-Day which is basically dead) that can afford to run 12 disruption without seriously nuking important MD slots. Imagine 4 FoW, 4 Pact, 4 Mindbreak Trap and possibly even some Spell Snares to top it off in Oath? Seems pretty good to me.

-Storm

[voltron00x]

Oath is already a pretty serious deck in the meta, in case no one noticed; its doing reasonably well this summer.  It made T4 at Steel City (James King), then T4 at a 71-person event in Europe (my exact SCG list w/ Time Vault from late June although w/ a new SB - the one James King didn't like  ), then in NY in July it came in 2nd and 3rd in a 31-person event (the NYSE I, one of which was Plats Oath with Pact, the other Oath with Key/Vault), then I made T8 with it last weekend at the NYSE II w/ 39 players (with a list similar to the Steel City one, but w/ less Negates and double Hellkite plus Karrthus w/o Blessing - a blend between King's list and mine).

Just saying.

You should see the new list I brewed up with enemy fetches - yes, they do matter in Oath and make it much easier to add red w/o ruining the manabase.  I think the deck actually gets REALLY competitive later this year.  That's a different topic though.

What I really wanted to point out was that I think there's too much to do about Mindbreak Trap in Vintage.  I would be willing to bet that its effect on the Vintage meta is minimal.  It isn't a bad card by any stretch, and depending on meta shifts and so on it will probably be a strong role-player.  This card wasn't designed for Vintage though, it was designed for Standard, to handle Cascade.  Its a free answer to a Cascade chain, which so many pro players complained about during the Shards block Pro Tour; hopefully its existence will help handle the Cascade mechanic.  My concern there is the fact that its Mythic.  The card hopefully hates out the Cascade decks, but I don't see that happening.  Its more likely that this card becomes a must-have in Standard, which is very bad, since its a Mythic - so people will complain about that endlessly.  It also has potential uses in Extended, if the Standard version of Elf combo ports over, or if Dragonstorm or Swathstorm are playable in the format post-rotation.

Any Eternal applications of this card are probably incidental to the purposes I listed above.  Yes, its very good against Storm, as are Stifle, Trickbind, Arcane Lab, Rule of Law, Ethersworn Canonist, Orim's Chant, and so on.  All of those cards can be dealt with somehow by most modern storm decks, whether we're talking about Duress or Chain of Vapor, and this one is no different.  Running this spell against Yawg Will just seems so narrow to me.  I wouldn't play this in my Misdirection slot in Oath, I don't see any room for it main in Tezz, and I wouldn't play it in non-blue decks like 5C Stax or G/W, although I'm not an expert on either.

I could be totally wrong, I just... don't see it.

By all means, though, I'd invest in some.  Its going to be pretty valuable in Standard for a year.

[Troy_Costisick]

Any Eternal applications of this card are probably incidental to the purposes I listed above.  Yes, its very good against Storm, as are Stifle, Trickbind, Arcane Lab, Rule of Law, Ethersworn Canonist, Orim's Chant, and so on.  All of those cards can be dealt with somehow by most modern storm decks, whether we're talking about Duress or Chain of Vapor, and this one is no different.

Well, yeah, but it's free and it's blue- which sets it apart from all those other cards.  The Mythic Rarity is a potential problem.  We'll see how it goes.

[MirariKnight]

This is getting slightly off topic but Platinum is terrible in Oath. I've tried it with success (2nd at NYSE I) but it was really suboptimal and I sided out Platz/Pact every time.
If you're not going to go with Either Hellkite/Akroma or Sphinx and Progenitus, the best thing Oath got is the new Angel that doesn't let them play spells of a chosen color.
Mindbreak trap does seem to help it out, as do enemy fetches and the angel, so especially given its recent success I can see it being pretty competitive, although no Brainstorm will always be a problem.

[Neonico]

I agree that it has its uses in the control matchups. However running 4 FoW, 4 Drain, 1-2 MisD and this seems like overkill. This is most likely the replacement for MisD in the 9th counter slot.

It's exactly where i think that it shouldn't be used.
In control mirror, control players have really not much to do to adapt the possible inclusion of the card, such as differing the play of key spells before or after moxen.
2 exemple :
2 mana on board 2 moxen + land and a fact or fiction in hand, just don't go mox mox fact, but mox, fact, mox, and okay if he counters your mox,
Or go mox mox go, during your upkeep, fact....

Even with yaugmoth's will, it's not that good, you just have to play yaug as your first or 2nd sepll of the turn (okay, sometimes, it won't be possible, but often it is), and often, you'll have a force of will in your graveyard to counter this thing.

Not to mention all the duress effects.

The only real application i can see is when opponent go Spell spell go, and end of turn, you have a draw sepll to play, he can't force or you can protect it. But this situation  won't happen that often, especially with all the restricted draw spells.

In conclusion, i think that this card would have been really powerfull during Gifts or Gush eras, but not now, or at least, not in control decks.
But it remains really stong in non blue agressive strategy, at least as a sideboard card.

[LSD25]

who would replace arcane labs in their SB with these?

[Troy_Costisick]

who would replace arcane labs in their SB with these?

Decks that can't cast Arcane Lab

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

@storm
I've played off pretty regularly for many years. I've Oathed out a lot of things in my day and one thing i would not advise you to oath out right now is platz. There is just to much rebuild, hurkyl's, R&R, ancient grudge, and krosan grip around. Even with pact of negation, krosan grip and ancient grudge are going to kill you. Right now you might be thinking," but I can blessing my dudes back and oath out more." Not always the case, sometimes you just don't roll over the right stuff, sometimes you draw things you dont want to.

@voltron
was it ever hard to add red in oath? or any color for that matter?

[Stormanimagus]

@storm
I've played off pretty regularly for many years. I've Oathed out a lot of things in my day and one thing i would not advise you to oath out right now is platz. There is just to much rebuild, hurkyl's, R&R, ancient grudge, and krosan grip around. Even with pact of negation, krosan grip and ancient grudge are going to kill you. Right now you might be thinking," but I can blessing my dudes back and oath out more." Not always the case, sometimes you just don't roll over the right stuff, sometimes you draw things you dont want to.

@voltron
was it ever hard to add red in oath? or any color for that matter?

I actually agree. Right now you're right. I simply posted that platz list to show how Trap could be incorporated into Oath. I actually far prefer the idea of Iona + Painter's Servant right now as an Oath combo. Keeping your opponent from casting spells >> keeping yourself from dying >>> speed Oath IMO. Iona could be just what the Doctor ordered for Oath actually.

-Storm

[2nd_lawl]

oops double post.

[2nd_lawl]

 I actually far prefer the idea of Iona + Painter's Servant right now as an Oath combo.

That seems really terrible.  If your gameplan is to oath up Iona + Painters servant, that means that any hand with Iona in it is an auto mulligan(and if you draw it during the game, you have no win condition left besides beating with a 1/3 or getting to 9 mana. You can't play multiple painters servants, because oathing up multiple painters servants is simply giving your opponent free time to find a waste for your orchard, or a way to kill oath, and you cant play multiple Iona's because she is legendary.

if you want to make painters servant + iona work, then You would be much better off using Painters + natural order + Iona + other creatures, instead of trying to shoehorn it into oath.

[voltron00x]

Iona plus Painter's Servant has the potential to be viable, but I don't think its in Vintage, and it definitely isn't in Oath.  I'm still pretty sure that Tidespount Tyrant is the way to go if you want combo Oath.  Why play this combo when Hellkite Oath ususally wins on the 2nd activation anyway? 

Anyway, I'd say something like Tooth & Nail in Extended is a much more likely scenario for this combo to function.  The Natural Order idea is actually interesting, and you could probably make some kind of base-green deck that would house it, but its limited to Vintage and Legacy, and that limiting factor probably means it still isn't good enough.  If you already have Painter out, why not just play Grindstone and activate instead of casting Natural Order?

[policehq]

Natural Order only gets a green creature. You would have to use Pattern of Rebirth/Defense of the Heart/Gamekeeper or some other green "put fatty into play" card.

[2nd_lawl]

Natural Order only gets a green creature. You would have to use Pattern of Rebirth/Defense of the Heart/Gamekeeper or some other green "put fatty into play" card.

painters servant makes everything green.

[Caron]

... this cards looks very useful in many different situations...
... if we will have many zero cost istant traps we will maybe use again cunning wish to instantly get from SB the most usefule trap in every situation.. maybe...

nice job with zendikar anyway (net fetchlands, traps etc.)

CARONDIMONIO

[Killane]

Iona plus Painter's Servant has the potential to be viable, but I don't think its in Vintage, and it definitely isn't in Oath.  I'm still pretty sure that Tidespount Tyrant is the way to go if you want combo Oath.  Why play this combo when Hellkite Oath ususally wins on the 2nd activation anyway?

If you move the Servant to the Side and Living Wish it out, this might work. This discussion is already going in in the Iona thread, where a couple of us are working on what looks like a really interesting new Oath build....

back on Topic I think this is a great counterspell for Vintage. It helps stop broken turn one plays, gives a great maindeck answer to Storm that isn't as conditional as Stifle, and Exiles the issue so you don't have to worry about it again. Is it FoW? no, but it also might encourge folks to think again before trying 1st turn Mox, Mox, Ritual, Ritual, Demonic, Will, Ritual, Ritual, Tutor,Tendrils or 1st turn Lotus, Key, Vault (or the other way around), and also really helps winning early counter-wars (ie the inevitable FoW war over the second previously mentioned play).

[MirariKnight]

I can't wait till I hit someone who goes Turn 1: Land, Mox, Mox, Tinker with this.