Sphinx's Decree Shouldn't Exist

babar3355

Kinesia said:

Am I allowed to say "Just don't play _just_ spells"?

Who are you running this 10 spell deck with anyway?  (Amused smile)

Well, my ID deck has 8 spells... guess I could beat them down with Bolas and Startled Awake.  

But even though people have been scoffing at my inability to use HUF/ID decks and pretending that is why I think SD is a problem, that is simply false.  I have actually never run into SD with either of these decks.

Ironically, the time SD demolished me was in the last HoD, in the colorless node where I COULDN'T cast but 3 spells.  I was running a T2 Ascend oriented deck with Storm the Vault and TSN. I splashed River's Rebuke (of course) and Vona's Hunger.  The DB I was facing got a really quick start and right as I was stabilizing with storm and RR, he drops the perfect Sphinx's decree and finishes me off 3 turns later. (I was helpless)

Honestly, it's just one of those things. He had a really well placed "paper" on my "rock".  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my only REAL option to ensure this didn't happen, was to NOT run T2 at all.  Maybe it isn't meta warping... but it at least creates a small meta shift.  I am glad to see that some people are at least recognizing the way it makes us approach the game in a slightly different manner, even if they think it is a neutral or even positive thing.  Pretending it was irrelevant is just not true.

Mburn7

babar3355 said:

Kinesia said:

Am I allowed to say "Just don't play _just_ spells"?

Who are you running this 10 spell deck with anyway?  (Amused smile)

Honestly, it's just one of those things. He had a really well placed "paper" on my "rock".  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my only REAL option to ensure this didn't happen, was to NOT run T2 at all.  

Personally, I always run Blightcaster with T2.  It makes nice removal without relying on much else.  That may have helped your problem, and its a solution without having to change your entire strategy

ZW2007-

Mburn7 said:

ZW2007- said:

Mburn7 said:

I agree that the card is powerful, and probably should be a rare, but lets not get crazy.  It has 1 shield, after all, so barring incredibly bad luck you should be ok with some gem converters (which most decks run anyway)

Would just like to point out the irony in this statement. You can't really pop it with the most common form of gem converters: green spells. I am aware that there are supports that convert and some creatures but let's be real, the vast majority are spells (or a cycled quasi-dino).

I still disagree with the comparison to Hixus or Cast Out shutting down creature decks. Yes, those shut down decks piloted by Greg because he doesn't replace his creatures but humans can. Same with the support removal spells/Vraska argument. Yes, those destroy your supports. They also don't target specific supports (Vraska kind of sorta does but you can use this to your advantage by making less valuable supports have larger stacks.) Playing against Vraska or a deck with lots of support destruction? Hold a bunch of different supports in hand and try to flood the board all at once instead of casting one per turn and getting it nuked once per turn.

Point is, I don't have to destroy Hixus or Cast Out to still win with creatures. I don't have to prevent support destruction from happening to win with a support only deck (of which very few possible decks even exist: Ob,  Angrath, and T2 ults mainly). I do have to deal with Sphinx's Decree to win with a spell deck. It is literally impossible to win with a spell deck against Sphinx's Decree without first destroying Sphinx's Decree.

That said, I'm not opposed to its existence. It's one of my favorite cards in the set. I look forward to finding new ways to continually abuse it. Babar isn't wrong about its power though. I think some are either being overprotective of it or willfully ignorant of its power just for the sake of argument.

Do you run more than 3 creatures in a deck?  I almost never do, and am thus usually unable to replace creatures.  I just kill them if I can and move on (a move the AI does quite well), or ignore mana gains and just try to set up matches to pop the supports.

And I was referring to supports that convert gems, since almost every deck has at least 1 or 2 of them in anyway.  Even if they aren't converting to white, you can try to match other gems to set up a pop. Its slow, but usually works

I rarely run more than 3 creatures in a deck either but those decks will never fall prey to a Hixus/Cast Out lock. I don't consider those creature oriented decks even though they rely completely on creatures to win.

And I knew you meant the support gem converters, there's just not a ton of options with those and it takes a lot of luck. The absolute worst is when you finally get the stars aligned where you can pop that Hixus or Decree on your next turn and idiot Greg leaves it there for you...and then after his bad swap he drops another copy reinforcing that devil support.

[Deleted User]

So I havent played with it. Honestly, I havent run into it yet, or if I did, it was insignificant at the time. However, I feel its a strong card. The reason is because most people will run support destruction in the form of a spell and probably just one - this is speculation. Nobody wants to spend too many deck card slots on cards that can be dead in hand. Though I guess some people may sideboard depending on their opponent matchup which is hit or miss and extra work but anyway. So among your 10 cards, you have ONE card that may destroy it, assuming there arent other supports on the board (and assuming a cycling engine isnt involved). This is the aspect that makes it strong. And unless it is broken, this card has single handed made "x" cards in your deck... i addition to your ONE answer pure dead weights. So imagine playing a game and you draw 3 spells (now that card draw RNG is super weird and you draw 4 copies of 1 card but never 1 copy of 50% of cards in your 10 card deck) in a row of which are completely useless and effectively costs you the game. Of course now, there are more options to destroy supports now, i.e. the creatures listed previously, Etc, etc. Manglehorn I can justify running - he's  good, but not everyone is going to be like "oh yay! Thrashing brontodon! Lets get it on!" Let me add reclaim... oh wait cant cast it cause of SD - dead weight.. better start praying my opponent feels like targetting my creature to destroy instead of his own.. but these are going to be relatively rare situations where SD is in an unbreakable spot or maybe the game has progressed far enough that the nyx combo has started. It couod happen and is pretty high impact. Lets see a deck with 3-4 creatures, then 3-4 supports, 3-4 spells... yes, i am aware objectives may cause you to have a more support heavy deck or maybe you decided to use cycling utility spells to get more value. Whatever the case, thats like 30% (+/- whatever the actual figure may be for you) of deck becoming useless - its a strong card.

For its ability maybe should have been a self destructing support with 4-ish shields. Turning off spells for 4-ish turns is pretty annoying and strong but there is an end such that your only answers dont become completely irrelevant for who knows how long... 

On a different note, I also felt immortal sun needed a countdown too. While cards like that deeproot waters support? What it loses a shield? Really why? Or atleast have it start with like 10 shields then.. sigh. Atleast more than 6 perhaps.