[Type 4] Most degenerated cards

[Farandar]

Hi there

I've seen that some you crazy guys are playing Dark depths in their stack, which somehow amazed me : an incounterable, indestructible 20/20 is quite huge.
But I do play Progenitus, whichi is quite as powerful (can be countered, but not blocked).

Do you have VERY powerful cards such as these that are juste below the red line of ban ?

For me, these ones are a step too far into "unfairy land" :
Illuminatus Djinn
Legacy weapon
Consumptive goo
Treasure trove
Walking archive (but I know some of you do play it)
Whispers of the muse
Blast from the past

Le me know of awfully powerful cards you might think of AND play, just to know how far from real ugliness my stack is

[Darklich528]

Out of those, I play Dark Depths, Progenitus, Legacy Weapon and Whispers of the Muse. I try to avoid cards that can kill in one hit or otherwise go infinite all by themselves. So Hellkite Overlord, Consumptive Goo, Akroma Angel of Fury, X spells that target players, Walking Archive, Treasure Trove, Djinn Illuminatus, Mirror Sheen, Door to Nothingness, Mischievous Quanar and others are all out. (Some I could probably safely put in but don't for consistency's sake)

Yes, I realize all of the above cards are easily dealt with, but I don't like the idea of "Get rid of this or lose instantly" or "counter this or lose". It's nearly the same concept as the higher level "Save or die" spells in D&D, which I didn't like as well.

What cards you play also directly relates to the power level of your stack. If you're light on Wrath effects and/or Counterspells, Progenitus might be a bad idea for you, so it's really a judgment call. It also matters a lot what house rules you roll with. My suggestion would be to put the card in our stack, test it out and see how it plays, see how often it kills players and gauge other player's reactions to it. If it's killing too often, maybe you're too light on the appropriate removal. If nobody is having fun with the card, I would probably remove it as well. The whole point is to have fun.

[Public Service]

I play Legacy Weapon and Progentius and I think they're both fine.

Djinn illuminatus I had in there for a while until it actually resolved .. then my playgroup made me take it out
Dark Depths was in for a decent period and then got removed. It was slightly too good, though I can see it coming back. The main reason I like it is because I have it in foil together with the foil Marit Lage token .
Whispers and BFTP were staples in my stack for a long time, but I went through the stack one evening and took out all the "annoying" or "time consuming" cards. Those two went, as did things that take time searching the library like SotF and gifts ungiven. I think powerwise they're both OK, but they are too unfun for our stack.
Never played with treasure trove, consumptive goo or walking archive.

I used to play flash of insight until one person realised that you can stack your whole deck after you tutor. 3 minutes of deck stacking later, I decided to take it out.

I don't play with firebreathers but I had a few effects that bordered on firebreathing like Corus of the Conclave. I have taken them out now.

[jro]

I've always played Mischievous Quanar and Uyo, Silent Prophet with "Use this ability only once per turn" errata.  I'd probably play Djinn Illuminatus the same way.  I have no qualms playing deck stacking cards like Flash of Insight or Aladdin's Lamp.  If people take too long with them, you yell at them.  I do play Anthroplasm, but no other unlimited pump effects.  Except Flowstone Overseer, but he has a built-in limitation.  I generally find that it's those kinds of cards that are the most fun in Type 4.  Another example: I don't play Whispers of the Muse, but I do play Aerial Caravan and Phyrexian Portal.  If someone wants to go "all-in" on finding that one card that will win them the game, I think it's okay to let that happen.

[Anusien]

I've seen Quanar with the "Use this once per spell" errata.  Mirror Sheen and Uyo (assuming you don't have to pick up lands) and Illuminaturs would probably be fine the same way.

[VikingMetal4L]

I mostly agree with Darklich.  A lot of the cards which go infinite by themselves, while possibly not even as good as some other type 4 staples, seem to run against the "point" of the format.  That said, what you think is appropriate for Type 4 is a matter of opinion.  For instance I've always run a single firebreather just for S's and G's--first it was the lowly Pyric Salamander who always seemed to go 15th pick in drafts, but recently I upgraded to Shivan Dragon and haven't had any problems.  Treasure Trove, Flash of Insight, and company I would not run, first because they're much more powerful than a silly infinity/5 creature, and second because they take freaking forever to use optimally, and I'd rather not rely on "yelling" as the only safeguard against slow play.  (Also, note that Aladdin's Lamp actually does not let you stack your deck--it's just a downgraded Planar Portal--anyway, I run both.)  I've always been loath to errata cards, so no Quanar etc. for me.

Legacy Weapon and Whispers of the Muse I think are completely fair, and I don't really know why they're on the original list.  I was skeptical about Dark Depths at first, but indestructibility is not all that meaningful in a world full of Repeals and Unmakes (and Vanish Into Memory!).  Yeah it sucks when Dark Depths catches you with your pants down, but it doesn't happen all that often, and it's pretty awesome when it happens to someone else.  Obviously I think it's reasonable to be concerned about going overboard on cards that can kill as quickly as Memnarch and Glarecaster (both way scarier than Dark Depths), but I like to run a few to keep control players on their toes.  Pyromancy is another scary one, and I probably wouldn't run it but for split second answers.  The very costly random discard helps keeps it in check, so that it's a deterrent more than a weapon in the early and mid game.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir has been something of a problem, but he adds enough to gameplay that I wouldn't take him out.  It's interesting to see who will run him out against four opponents for a chance at a quick victory--the political dynamics of the table shift instantly.  More often than not, I find it's better to wait a little while, unless you have Myojin of Night's Reach + Memnarch in hand, or something similarly stupid.  Some players resent the completely non-interactive Aeon Chronicler, so I'm not sure about his future, but he's far too slow to have any potential for *real* abuse.

Skyshroud Elf aka Skyshroud Money Launderer has been pretty broken under the rule that "not using your Type 4 mana doesn't count as your spell for the turn."  Maybe what I should really do is post my stack in the stickied thread?

Quinn

[Nefarias]

My group hasn't played in pretty much forever (probably once in the past 2+ years). So the deck is outdated, and I'm not even really sure what's in there atm,  but we have at one time run each of the following:

Mischievous Quanar (no errata)
Staff of Domination
Greater Morphling
W/W/W/W/W (no errata)
Whispers of the Muse
Blast from the Past
Legacy Weapon
Consumptive Goo
Oath of Lim-Dul
Goblin Taskmaster
Avarax
Death Wish (write down the card you're getting. Can be any MtG card ever)

Of those, I think they should all be in there with the exception of Staff and possibly Morphling. And Goblin Taskmaster, but he was upgraded to Avarax. But our stack was, by and large, more "broken" than most prefer, I'd imagine.

[Farandar]

Skyshroud Elf aka Skyshroud Money Launderer has been pretty broken under the rule that "not using your Type 4 mana doesn't count as your spell for the turn."  Maybe what I should really do is post my stack in the stickied thread?

I don't understand the loophole down here ?

[psly4mne]

Skyshroud Elf aka Skyshroud Money Launderer has been pretty broken under the rule that "not using your Type 4 mana doesn't count as your spell for the turn."  Maybe what I should really do is post my stack in the stickied thread?

I don't understand the loophole down here ?

You can only spend your Type 4 mana to play one spell each turn, but you can spend your Type 4 mana on Skyshroud's second ability, allowing you to play any number of red/white/artifact spells for "free". Doubling Cube falls under the same rule, except that it only gives you infinite mana for one phase per round.

[Harlequin]

I don't think we have any cards that can 1-shot someone from full life. 

We do run a few weaker infinite kill cards like:
Wicked Akuba
Balduvian Hydra

[Farandar]

We played a game this sunday afternoon. And Eye of the Storm hit the board. And we played :
Read the runes (it ended up for nothing once removed by the Eye)
Faery trickery
Living end
Wrap world !!!
just before Wrap world resolved, someone played Reverse damage

We ended up with a stack with Living end, Wrap world, Living end. Oh my. We had a headache resolving the whole thing, but it was a LOT FUN !!!

Best multiplayer format ever ! Thanks Mastriano and Semmen !!!

[spcleddy]

@Darklich: I do two things to save time. First, I never draft Type 4 anymore, just pick up and play from community stack(s) and mutual graveyard. Second, we have a Ten Second Rule for any searching. Keeps the game going and gets people to play different cards instead of just the most broken ones that take too long to find.

[Farandar]

Last game we did, I found myself puzzled with an infinite combo I haven't seen before.
One player managed to get Dovescape on his side. Nobody had netheir counter nor built-in creature removal.

Just before its next turn, he played the well named Flash of insight for one or two Zillion manas : Dovescape triggered, and he got his zillion birds. But he decided to let us all a chance : happily someone got Smokespew invoker, and we survived.

The bad thing is : he could have killed us all. Worst of all, he also had in hand, by some strange effect of pure luck, another one zillionable instant : Dwarven catapult. He needed a target, right, but guys !

I kicked out in pure horror the card, a bit sad to let it away...

I decided to make a Chaos deck with the most degenerate enchantement and artifact you can find. Some of this Chaos cards are also sorcery, which are indeed powerful but too slow for a t4 stack.

Here is a link to the list for those interested (you can toggle the cards in english

[TheShop]

The most busted in my stack are:

Quanar @ once per spell
Johnny, Combo Player
Tainted Aether
Biorhythm
Gleemax
Nezumi flipping reanimator guy-no errata.

notes- Quanar dies too fast to be really scary because it puts a massive target on itself, it also makes all morph guys a must counter
Johnny is the most busted thing ever- but rarely resolves and then dies even more quickly.
Tainted aether is honestly not very fun early, I have seen several games where this destroyed all early play-it was a turn 1 nullstone gargoyle, turn 2 aether)
Biorythm should be self explanatory
Gleemax-  this thing has never hit play in 10 games(cast in each one).  The tally now is countered 6 times and parallecric feedback 4.
I like the way my T4 stack plays out. Busted things happen, but nearly all removal owns the whole board anyway.  Smart drafting avoids some of these power issues.

[Yugi_Moto03]

My stack's pretty degenerate, and it's not even in its ideal form. Gleemax, Blast From the Past, Whispers of the Muse, Legacy Weapon, Johnny Combo Player... It even has several creatures that can kill in one hit if the table lets it survive to attack (ex. Greater Morphling, Windreaver, Flameblast Dragon...). I just make sure there are enough counterspells and direct counters to using these cards (ex. Sudden Death for Mistmeadow Witch). Also, there are one or two house rules keeping things like Johnny Combo Player and Mischievous Quanar in check.