Scatter to the Winds (poll)

BigMao

This was brought up before in an earlier thread. I don't have this card, but it seems too expensive to use in any deck. The casting cost of 15 is higher than most cards, so casting this to drain the opponent's mana is a usually a net loss. Given that this is a rare card, it may be deserving of a buff seeing that rares are so hard to get.

Although no other card has this exact effect - Clash of Wills has a countdown, and Bone to Ash / Dispel are restricted to creatures and spells respectively - these other cards are all much more affordable. So what do you all think?

Plastic

The cost should be 7 with awaken 8 or something (side note: please make an awaken toggle for all cards). Another poorly costed card that makes getting rares/mythics unrewarding. Things like this push me away from trying to get new cards and rely only on free rewards.

ShawnP1

Way too expensive that's ridiculous 27 just to awaken it heck no

majincob

This card seems like it could be good in certain situations, does anyone know if it autocasts or if it has a confirmation box? Specifically it might be good in a Kiora deck where you are already making island elementals and have access to good ramp or ways to cheat in spells like Goggles or Bring to Light. I will probably try it. Like I said before when awaken was first announced, all awaken spells need to have a confirmation box before casting. I frequently have no opportunity to switch off an awaken spell before casting due to other cards like Day's Undoing, Talent of the Telepath, Goggles, etc. Any direct card interaction such as a toggle to eliminate wasted mana would have the same problem of no access.

I agree the initial cost of the spell should be less. If we consider another rare awaken card Ruinous Path we notice that the initial cost is less than half for a similar effect. The kill spell permanently gets rid of a creature of your choice. The counterspell temporarily delays casting of an unknown spell. It's debatable which effect is better, but they are at least comparable.

Looking at Dispel and Bone to Ash which are common and uncommon respectively, it appears that this effect is baseline 6 cost with type restrictions. The dev's have also said that they will push costs on Rares to be more agressive than commons and uncommons, which in this case does feel like the opposite.

A note on type restrictions on "counterspells", this may seem like a downside, but it is really better because unlike in paper magic you have no selection over which spells to "counter" as you cannot see cards in your opponents hand, if you really only need to keep the opponent from playing creatures Bone to Ash is better than Dispel and visa versa.

"Counterspells" in this game behave very differently than in paper magic. One is the selection problem I mentioned before. Second is the fact that it does not remove the spell from the players hand, this generates a tempo advantage if the cost of the counterspell is less than the cost of the spell drained. Third is that you don't have to "leave mana up" to cast the spell, instead you spend the mana upfront then can can sit on it until you see an expensive spell get mostly full of mana, which is another tricky proposition due to cascades and you don't know what the spell is.

The takeaway is that counterspells in this game are good only as tempo, like creature bounce, if your mana investment is less than the cost of the mana you drain or there is a significant additional upside.

EDHdad

If you're spending 15 mana to drain your opponent's first card, you're not denying them resources. They're denying you resources.

I'd love to see counterspells work the way Gideon's Reproach works - create a temporary support gem with a very large butt which will counter the next card being cast and then destroy itself.

In paper Magic, Scatter to the Winds costs 3 mana for a hard counterspell, or you can cast it for 6 and awaken 3. In Puzzle Quest, I'd consider playing it if it created a temporary support gem for, say, 6-8 mana, and could Awaken for a reasonable additional cost (maybe 2 additional mana per 1 additional power).

BigMao

I'd actually like to see counterspells work the way they did in old Magic. That is to say, when any card is cast by the opponent from their hand, we have a choice whether or not to cast the first counterspell from our hand. I wonder if that is possible?

madwren

EDHdad wrote:

If you're spending 15 mana to drain your opponent's first card, you're not denying them resources. They're denying you resources.

I'd love to see counterspells work the way Gideon's Reproach works - create a temporary support gem with a very large butt which will counter the next card being cast and then destroy itself.

This, this, a thousand times this.

theBeard

Glad to see this cards finally being discussed, even if it's a month and a half later!

majincob

BigMao wrote:

I'd actually like to see counterspells work the way they did in old Magic. That is to say, when any card is cast by the opponent from their hand, we have a choice whether or not to cast the first counterspell from our hand. I wonder if that is possible?

This would be my preferred choice, but I'm assuming the devs don't want to interrupt the AI turn as there are no other options you can make during the opponents turn.