Szadek Lord of secrets - how does he work?

In paper magic terms yes! The then is bound to the trigger. If the triggered ability never resolves, neither does the then clause.

But with MTGPQ I suppose you never know. 

But is there a card/effect to prohibit ±1\±1?
In worst case, no part resolves when there are no cards in opponents hand. 

I skip this card until craftable. It was only effects first card. +1 is not only a small, small bonus these times and as major flaw: I miss some other trigger, that can be hit more than one or two times per round (doublestrike). 

Yes he can be a little bit annoying, but not like prism array was or hixus can be sometimes. 

Anyone game to buy him and find out? lol

Kinda tempted to anyway, because it looks kinda fun and I really want the other two cards he comes with...

Tilwin90 said:

No what we are wondering is whether the drain effect occurs even if szadek does not deal damage to the planeswalker. But that doesn't make sense since it would mean the effect is bound to another trigger. The ability can't just happen out of nowhere, it needs a source trigger.

So I guess the question is if the trigger for the drain effect is also damage to opposing walker or something else... 

First you have to deal damage with this creature. Only build in trigger: battle damage. If thos happen: he get a boost and opponent first card is drained. So much for wording. But we are in mtgpq.... Everything can be happen. 

I wouldn't be shocked of he didn't get a boost if opponent has no hand to drain (dreamstalker bug)... all, or no bonus. 

If there would be enough cards like '... your (first) creature deal xx dam. To pw' multiple times prevered, then it would be an option. 

But for now gravy abuse, angle or even sproling beat such longterm cards into dust.

More depala than emrakul. 

Btw. None exclusive of ravnica see a lot of playtime yet. No one is a center card of a 'winning deck' yet. 
Other cards set see way more matches. And I think not only necaus of rarity. 

IM_CARLOS said:

Btw. None exclusive of ravnica see a lot of playtime yet. No one is a center card of a 'winning deck' yet. 
Other cards set see way more matches. And I think not only necaus of rarity. 

That's because ravnica exclusives are not combo pieces.

However, I just faced a Razia/Lyra deck and I have to say I feel lucky to have played teferi and get to trigger his ultimate or else I would have been toast. I stand corrected that sisters are a great card but my original statement about Razia remains: it's powerful. Not a true combo card on its own, but still very potent in combination with lyra.


As for the triggers in paper magic there is also the distinction between damaging creatures and damaging players, between combat and non combat damage. And all these make sense in MTGPQ too. Wording is just as verbous too every now and then when dealing with complex cards 

Now regarding szadek, the then here is important to emphasise that the second effect occurs only AFTER he gets pumped and not at the same time. This is again relevant in paper magic, if say the drain were replaced with mill. First you put a +1/+1 counter on the creature THEN the opponent Mills X, where X is the creature's power (or toughness, or power plus toughness)

How can szadek be triggered to deal non combat damage? Use rabid bite and other fight cards or gravitic punch. Unless these cards are bugged and don't actually cause the creature to deal the damage but the spells themselves do, it should work! 

Tilwin90 said:

IM_CARLOS said:

Btw. None exclusive of ravnica see a lot of playtime yet. No one is a center card of a 'winning deck' yet. 
Other cards set see way more matches. And I think not only necaus of rarity. 

That's because ravnica exclusives are not combo pieces.

However, I just faced a Razia/Lyra deck and I have to say I feel lucky to have played teferi and get to trigger his ultimate or else I would have been toast. I stand corrected that sisters are a great card but my original statement about Razia remains: it's powerful. Not a true combo card on its own, but still very potent in combination with lyra.


As for the triggers in paper magic there is also the distinction between damaging creatures and damaging players, between combat and non combat damage. And all these make sense in MTGPQ too. Wording is just as verbous too every now and then when dealing with complex cards 

Now regarding szadek, the then here is important to emphasise that the second effect occurs only AFTER he gets pumped and not at the same time. This is again relevant in paper magic, if say the drain were replaced with mill. First you put a +1/+1 counter on the creature THEN the opponent Mills X, where X is the creature's power (or toughness, or power plus toughness)

How can szadek be triggered to deal non combat damage? Use rabid bite and other fight cards or gravitic punch. Unless these cards are bugged and don't actually cause the creature to deal the damage but the spells themselves do, it should work! 

Mmh there is not only combo in this game. Cards like Etali and Darigaaz are not really combo but see a lot of Play and would have been very good exclusives, in line of Olivia or emrakul. 
Underlich would have skyrocket sales. 

Tilwin90 said:

Tourmaline said:

I see a comment above about this card being craftable eventually. I was under the impression that exclusives are not craftable. 

All exclusives are eventually craft able. The most recent example are the four M19 dragons (vaevictis, arcades, chromium and palladia) that were exclusives until ravnica got released or became craft able (I don't remember 100%)

The reason people might buy the exclusives anyway is first to get access to them earlier and secondly to avoid having to dig for them (sometimes crafting gets expensive when you want to get a very specific mythic and don't care about the other remaining ones)

But the moments they are no longer exclusives you can craft them or loot them in regular packs. 

You cant craft any of the holiday exclusives for instance last i knew which is what made me ask

I can't quite answer your questions based on fact but my assumption is that if you don't deal damage to the opponent's PW because the damage was prevented (Lich's Mastery or a few other effects) then you won't trigger the mana drain. This is assuming that the "then" is also tied to the damage being dealt, which it should be. Lifelink also does nothing when your creature attacks an opponent with prevent damage.

I can say that the card is a lot stronger than I initially anticipated. I just ran into one in TotP and he almost single-handedly beat me. AI Dovin dropped it on turn 2 and I couldn't get anything into play. If you are running a deck with a lot of expensive cards and/or not a lot of cheap removal, he will be problematic to encounter.

I’ve been following this post and couldn’t take it any longer.

And so I tested it.

His effects do not trigger at all if you don’t deal damage to the PW. Not the +1/+1 and not the mana drain.

There! Settled!