[C14] - Containment Priest

[MaximumCDawg]

What happens if you blink it?

Nothing... I think.  When it actually tries enters the battlefield, its effect is not there yet.  I believe this is like a scenario when a Graffdigger's Cage enters at the same time as a creature from the yard; the Cage is not there when the cards actually try to enter, so the replacement effect or prohibition is not there yet.  It's not like cards that trigger off something entering.  These cards modify how things enter (or whether they can) and so only work if they're there before the card tries to enter.

This is actually a very salient point, because it means you cannot drop a Priest off a Show and Tell to do anything.  She has to flash out in response to resolve before Emrakul arrives.

[Meddling Mike]

Interesting card. It's also the right creature type for Cavern of Souls.

Just off the top of my head:
Tinker for creature
Oath of Druids
Show and Tell for Creature
Goblin Welder for Creature
Ichorid
Narcomoeba
Bloodghast
Dread Return
Fatestitcher
Kuldotha Forgemaster

I think if you're running a deck with Grafdigger's Cage that would appreciate a 2/2 body this should slot in nicely in the main deck. Those decks certainly exist and this card should see play in them.

[fsecco]

Oath will have to start playing Spell Snare hehe

[evouga]

I think it's also useful to consider the things that she does not do, relative to Cage: namely, hose Yawgmoth's Will and Snapcaster Mage.

So there are two types of decks that should be very interested in this new Priest: decks which are naturally strong against Will (Hatebears, the mythical white Stax deck) and decks that want a strong sideboard card against Oath, Dredge, and Show and Tell without hosing their own Will or Snapcasters (UW control).

[boggyb]

Would you play this in your sideboard over Yixlid Jailer? Jailer's better than this against Dredge, of course, but I wonder if the broader power this card possesses would bump it out.

Like, a sideboard starting
4x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Containment Priest

Would that effectively handle both Oath and Dredge? Or not quite?

Is Jailer really that much better, if at all? Sure, it stops dredging as a while and disables things like Bridges and Cabal Therapy, but at the same time it dies to Dark Blast which Dredge can play without much consequence.

They get Therapy and Bridge tokens (which they can trigger off Evoke creatures, note). They can recycle Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp. It's a lot like having just another Cage out, actually, except it's slightly worse and harder to kill.

Basically, I've lost to Dredge with an unanswered Cage on board before, but never to an unanswered Jailer. Cagebreaker Dredge was developed specifically to play around Cage's effects.

[ben_berry]

Transmute Artifact, though it's rarely used for creatures.

[JarofFortune]

I doubt it will totally crush but add yet another thoughtless roadblock. My biggest issue is less the impact hate bears have, since historically they haven't done too much to stop certain strategies, rather that WotC continues to think this is a good way to approach problems. Regardless of what this card actually does I really wish the powers that be would understand that attempting to fix "problems" through direct printings does nothing but stifle diversity.

All we need is Null Rod on legs and pretty much the totality of all hateful effects will have been printed on bears.

So they can finally stop printing this stream of cardboard filth? I'd welcome that.

Couldn't disagree more.  This ability is one of the most unique ones printed in this set so far.  It will see competitive play as a control card, and casual play as a combo card.

Oh it will see play, I'm not denying that. I just don't like the persistent printing of hatebears.

[evouga]

I doubt it will totally crush but add yet another thoughtless roadblock. My biggest issue is less the impact hate bears have, since historically they haven't done too much to stop certain strategies, rather that WotC continues to think this is a good way to approach problems. Regardless of what this card actually does I really wish the powers that be would understand that attempting to fix "problems" through direct printings does nothing but stifle diversity.

All we need is Null Rod on legs and pretty much the totality of all hateful effects will have been printed on bears.

So they can finally stop printing this stream of cardboard filth? I'd welcome that.

Couldn't disagree more.  This ability is one of the most unique ones printed in this set so far.  It will see competitive play as a control card, and casual play as a combo card.

Oh it will see play, I'm not denying that. I just don't like the persistent printing of hatebears.

I agree to the extent that printing efficient creatures with "Players can't do [format-defining broken thing]" is the laziest form of Eternal card design.

[TheWhiteDragon]

This also stops ANY reanimation strategy (Narcet is popular now) and also WGD combo and any unearth effect.

[JPettie]

This card is awesome and I need a bunch of them.

It stops Oath, it stops Tinker bots, and hates on Dredge... Also, how exactly does Dredge deal with this since they mostly run Dark Blast to kill all the x/1 hate dudes.

Murderous Cut
Dismember
Firestorm

The issue is now we are fighting on so many different angles that the deck kind of falls victim when you don't find the right answer to the vast amount of unique hate our opponents have access to. Dredge can survive this, but it will need a lot of innovating, which is not something I see Dredge pilots at the moment doing. I've worked on many interesting Dredge lists, and would be happy to share some examples, but when you see my lack of Narcomoeba, you'll probably just laugh and walk away.

[vaughnbros]

What happens if you blink it?

It blinks normally.

[H]

This card is awesome and I need a bunch of them.

It stops Oath, it stops Tinker bots, and hates on Dredge... Also, how exactly does Dredge deal with this since they mostly run Dark Blast to kill all the x/1 hate dudes.

Murderous Cut
Dismember
Firestorm

The issue is now we are fighting on so many different angles that the deck kind of falls victim when you don't find the right answer to the vast amount of unique hate our opponents have access to. Dredge can survive this, but it will need a lot of innovating, which is not something I see Dredge pilots at the moment doing. I've worked on many interesting Dredge lists, and would be happy to share some examples, but when you see my lack of Narcomoeba, you'll probably just laugh and walk away.

Darkblast still kills x/2s, just less efficiently.  Blast in the upkeep, Dredge for draw, Blast again.  Does require two mana though.  Firestorm is probably the best overall though, since it fills two roles.

[vaughnbros]

I doubt it will totally crush but add yet another thoughtless roadblock. My biggest issue is less the impact hate bears have, since historically they haven't done too much to stop certain strategies, rather that WotC continues to think this is a good way to approach problems. Regardless of what this card actually does I really wish the powers that be would understand that attempting to fix "problems" through direct printings does nothing but stifle diversity.

All we need is Null Rod on legs and pretty much the totality of all hateful effects will have been printed on bears.

So they can finally stop printing this stream of cardboard filth? I'd welcome that.

Couldn't disagree more.  This ability is one of the most unique ones printed in this set so far.  It will see competitive play as a control card, and casual play as a combo card.

Oh it will see play, I'm not denying that. I just don't like the persistent printing of hatebears.

I agree to the extent that printing efficient creatures with "Players can't do [format-defining broken thing]" is the laziest form of Eternal card design.

What is not a lazy design then?  There are never any complaints that concentrate with delve is a lazy design or that that combining sphere and juggernaut together is a lazy design or blue recoup with flash is a lazy design.  Only on hatebears is it suddenly lazy.  Point me to an enchantment or artifact with this ability and we can call it lazy.  The game is over 20 years old you are bound to have similar effects.

[boggyb]

This is a lazy design because it pretty narrowly nerfs a prevalent effect without requiring you to critically think about your decisions. The decision is pretty simple: "Do I want to stop this one thing from happening?" If yes, include it, if no, don't. A more sophisticated design would have been to design a card that powers up a known archetype, or inspires a new one, such that the prevalent effect they wanted to nerf would become less powerful and/or not such a clear trump at doing what it does best. Such printings encourage critical thinking and require that deckbuilders make difficult decisions about tradeoffs and opportunity cost in constructing their decks, in making sideboarding decisions, and in playing out their cards.

It's sad, because Commander is specifically the opportunity Wizards has to make clever designs that open up new lines for eternal formats. They've done exactly the opposite, here.

[Hrishi]

More Hatebears

This card makes me sad.

[vaughnbros]

@boggyb.  We will have agree to disagree.  I think an important part of the game is the ability to stop someone and force interaction.  It's what makes Magic the best card game there is.  Most other card games I've played there is little to no interaction and the games get stale quickly, answers are key to this.  

This card specifically is not narrow.  It's hitting pretty much every broken deck in the format.

More Hatebears

This card makes me happy.

Fixed that for you.

[Protoaddict]

Card is strong, maybe we will actually see a white Hate bears deck actually place consistently?

Though the problem with this card is of course while it is strong hate against many decks, its basically wasted space against two of the top tier decks in the format, delver and Shops.

[davidasmatthews]

U/W Delver. Its solves Delver's weakness in Oath very well while sacrificing a little speed. Maybe URW Delver. Is Stps better than Lightning bolt in most meta's?

[MaximumCDawg]

This is a lazy design because it pretty narrowly nerfs a prevalent effect without requiring you to critically think about your decisions. The decision is pretty simple: "Do I want to stop this one thing from happening?" If yes, include it, if no, don't. A more sophisticated design would have been to design a card that powers up a known archetype, or inspires a new one, such that the prevalent effect they wanted to nerf would become less powerful and/or not such a clear trump at doing what it does best. Such printings encourage critical thinking and require that deckbuilders make difficult decisions about tradeoffs and opportunity cost in constructing their decks, in making sideboarding decisions, and in playing out their cards.

It's sad, because Commander is specifically the opportunity Wizards has to make clever designs that open up new lines for eternal formats. They've done exactly the opposite, here.

Oh my ears and whiskers.  This is so wrong.

There is nothing "lazy" about this.  It is another example of growing Vintage by printing cards that interact meaningfully with the format and give deck builders many tools to choose from when deciding what kind of answer suite they want to run.

Now, if you want to have an answer for Tinker, you can choose from the following:

Steel Sabotage? "I need to hate shops more too, and I expect no Inkwell Leviathans."
Hyrkull's? "I need to hate shops more, and I expect some Inkwells. Also I fear Missteps, probably because I am not running my own."
Cage? "I need to hit Dredge and Oath, too, and I cannot reliably generate 1W on turn 1."
Priest? "I need to hit Dredge and Oath, too, and I can reliably get 1W up on turn 1 to do so."

If you want to stop Dredge, you can choose:

Leyline of the Void? "I need my mana for other things and I must stop Dredge immediately."
Cage? "I want splash hate on tinker and oath and I need my answer immediately and I cant always get 1W right away."
Spellbomb:
Priest? "I want splash hate on tinker and oath and I can get 1W on turn 1 reliably and I want my hate to only really lose to Contagion."
Jailer? "I am not running white mana or I have not heard of Priest, who is just better."

And so on.  This card adds to a list of options that let you tailor your deck to a particular configuration in the same way that countermagic now lets you tailor your deck.

[serracollector]

As stated it also stop green suns zenith and genesis wave and polymorph and its plethora of effects. Also stops Sun Titan from returning guys. Stops Restoration Angel. Stops Eureka and Natural Selection. Not sure but I believe it also stops Illusionary Mask and wont even let you play Arbor Dryad. Dryad is a creature that is not being cast right? This card is pretty damn good in my opinion. Between Thalia Spirit Aven Mindcensor Aegis of the Gods Stony Silence and this white could become quite formidable.

[JPettie]

This card is awesome and I need a bunch of them.

It stops Oath, it stops Tinker bots, and hates on Dredge... Also, how exactly does Dredge deal with this since they mostly run Dark Blast to kill all the x/1 hate dudes.

Murderous Cut
Dismember
Firestorm

The issue is now we are fighting on so many different angles that the deck kind of falls victim when you don't find the right answer to the vast amount of unique hate our opponents have access to. Dredge can survive this, but it will need a lot of innovating, which is not something I see Dredge pilots at the moment doing. I've worked on many interesting Dredge lists, and would be happy to share some examples, but when you see my lack of Narcomoeba, you'll probably just laugh and walk away.

Darkblast still kills x/2s, just less efficiently.  Blast in the upkeep, Dredge for draw, Blast again.  Does require two mana though.  Firestorm is probably the best overall though, since it fills two roles.

Oh I am very familiar with Darkblast.
Although I have been very pleased with Murderous Cut at the moment. Depends of course on the hate your opponents have access to, which makes it a bit narrower than Firestorm. It does a hell of a job of killing big bad demons though.

[boggyb]

Oh my ears and whiskers.  This is so wrong.

There is nothing "lazy" about this.  It is another example of growing Vintage by printing cards that interact meaningfully with the format and give deck builders many tools to choose from when deciding what kind of answer suite they want to run.

Now, if you want to have an answer for Tinker, you can choose from the following:

Steel Sabotage? "I need to hate shops more too, and I expect no Inkwell Leviathans."
Hyrkull's? "I need to hate shops more, and I expect some Inkwells. Also I fear Missteps, probably because I am not running my own."
Cage? "I need to hit Dredge and Oath, too, and I cannot reliably generate 1W on turn 1."
Priest? "I need to hit Dredge and Oath, too, and I can reliably get 1W up on turn 1 to do so."

If you want to stop Dredge, you can choose:

Leyline of the Void? "I need my mana for other things and I must stop Dredge immediately."
Cage? "I want splash hate on tinker and oath and I need my answer immediately and I cant always get 1W right away."
Spellbomb:
Priest? "I want splash hate on tinker and oath and I can get 1W on turn 1 reliably and I want my hate to only really lose to Contagion."
Jailer? "I am not running white mana or I have not heard of Priest, who is just better."

And so on.  This card adds to a list of options that let you tailor your deck to a particular configuration in the same way that countermagic now lets you tailor your deck.

Right -- I mean you're proving my point. Whether or not you think it's a problem is another thing, but we're saying the same thing. Those scenarios you laid out are as simple as can be, in Magic. "Do I want to stop these one or two things or not?" is about as simple as it gets. It just boils down to, "Do I expect this or that deck to be in the room or not?"

An example of a decent design is a card like Abrupt Decay. It narrowly answers Oath and Vault (and Counterbalance), earns maindeck consideration for its power against tempo decks, and asks difficult tradeoff questions about your mana base. Once a card starts pushing and pulling in two or three dimensions, decisions become difficult and players are rewarded for expressing their skill in choosing correctly.

For the record, I don't care too much about this specific card one way or the other. I am a hater of Dredge, like many.

[enderfall]

U/W Delver. Its solves Delver's weakness in Oath very well while sacrificing a little speed. Maybe URW Delver. Is Stps better than Lightning bolt in most meta's?

Yup, and Cavern of Souls to make all of their creatures uncounterable! cavern doesn;t even really hurt their game plan either. They can pretty much cast every spell in their deck with 1 land since half of the deck is full of free spells.

[JarofFortune]

U/W Delver. Its solves Delver's weakness in Oath very well while sacrificing a little speed. Maybe URW Delver. Is Stps better than Lightning bolt in most meta's?

Rug Delver can already beat Oath consistently with enough hate, contrary to popular belief. It also has a slightly better shop matchup than UWR colors.

[Commandant]

Couldn't disagree more.

It is beyond me how you would believe this card somehow contributes to a diverse format.

[H]

Oh I am very familiar with Darkblast.

I don't doubt you are, I was refuting the other post.  Your's just got caught up in there to address my other point.

[Stormanimagus]

I get so frustrated when players don't bemoan the linearity of cards like Treasure Cruise but whine about a card like this. Vintage is full of broken plays so it stands to reason that the only way to make playable decks outside of the 6K price highlander variety you need to print something that really hits them hard. It would be nice to see more unpowered decks actually do well at events to grow the format and cheap answers to cards like Tinker and Oath are ways to do that (side note: note that this card can be cast with oath on the stack as a way to make them mill themselves). It's pretty amazing that Vintage players get up in arms about this guy and NOT about Lodestone Golem. Golem is definitely lazy design if we are going by the previous poster's definition. It is a juggernaut that R & D decided to give a direct upgrade to. How is that anything but juicing up the power of an archetype to try and rebalance the format. I, for one, look forward to smashing some Oath, Dredge, and Tinkers with this guy in my GWB Knight of the Reliquary list. Thanks R & D!

-Storm

As a follow up to the people that think a card like this reduces diversity I would say that this is patently wrong. If you make a larger variety of decks viable you also open up the flood gates for unrestrictions (yes, I'm looking at you demonic consultation). Why, do you ask? Well, when a bears deck can more efficiently use it's 75 cards it becomes easier to keep more of the format in check. When the format is very balanced and in check unrestrictions are more likely to happen. Heck, I could see Yawgmoth's Bargain coming off the list soon.

[vaughnbros]

Couldn't disagree more.

It is beyond me how you would believe this card somehow contributes to a diverse format.

It is beyond me how you can only view things from one viewpoint.  This card doesn't go directly into a single tier 1 deck, so its automatically going to create additional diversity.

[MaximumCDawg]

Not only that, but "I Play All the Restricted Cards" decks have shown they are more than capable of adapting to whatever kind of fair hate gets run against them. 

[Commandant]

Couldn't disagree more.

It is beyond me how you would believe this card somehow contributes to a diverse format.

It is beyond me how you can only view things from one viewpoint.  This card doesn't go directly into a single tier 1 deck, so its automatically going to create additional diversity.

Are you familiar with UW Flash, Blue Angels, Bomberman?