Tax effects and mana ramp effects are both great mechanics so rolling them together who wouldn't like to see that wrapped up in a bundle? Well, to be honest I think that Smothering Tithe is a very over hyped and over represented card that players too often put in more decks than its worth including it in. I figured I wanted to talk about this card a bit more in depth and where it belongs.
Good:
- Fixing - when running very color intensive effects or low to the ground effects its great that you get to use only as much mana as you need with no over expenditure producing all colored mana. Some commanders like say Sisay, Weatherlight Captain need an abundance of colored mana and the fact that Smothering Tithe gives you colored mana to fix and fill with a commander like this can be huge.
- Vs Draw - Obviously if someone is trying to draw a bunch of cards its going to trigger a lot more. The dream would be someone sitting on a bunch of Sphinx's Revelation / Blue Sun's Zenith when you have it in play.
- Resource Disruption - It plays really well into Armageddon / Winter Orb / Tangle Wire kind of tactics. If your plan is to screw with resources its going to be effective in that it makes it hard to pay as well as slowing down the game to get extra value out of what you do have in play.
- Artificer Abuse - When in an artificer based deck you might have things like Krark-Clan Ironworks that can get value beyond from artifacts.
- Annoyance - Asking "did you pay for that" at all times of the game gets old. It slows down games and annoys other players.
- Value is based on opponents - Obviously it will always hit opponents but if opponents aren't playing draw heavy decks its going to get worse. Beyond that there are a lot of things that can put cards into hand that aren't technically drawing like Necropotence, Fact or Fiction, and Dig through Time.
- Similar ramp - When comparing it against Thran Dynamo or Gilded Lotus in a lot of situations they can be similar in outcome. With a lot of decks I have seen Smothering Tithe generate 3-4 mana a turn rotation and while it can make more than that, unless your plan is to save them up for an X mana spell most decks generally will care more about the mana per turn that it makes rather than the stockpile potential. Beyond that though you can use Thran / Gilded the turns they enter for mana where as you have to wait on opponents with smothering.
Overall, I generally don't pay to stop treasure from being created. My mana is generally worth more than depriving a little bit from an opponent. Even when an opponent gets an early smothering tithe online generally speaking I wouldn't usually say its much different than an early solid mana stone. It actually makes them sort of have to play arch enemy because it is annoying everyone but I don't feel like what they get back for doing so is really that amazing. I get that early mana is great and I am not saying that this card is bad by any means but I feel like I have seen a lot of people hail this card as a white staple recently and I couldn't disagree more. If you put Gilded Lotus / Thran Dynamo in all of your decks thats fine, but I think that it should be considered as a very similar card to those and played far more selectively than it currently is. Its nowhere near as good as Rhystic Study if you ask me.
So I guess lets hear from everyone else. I consider myself to be someone who plays a hell of a lot of white magic but I almost never play this card. I guess it could be a meta thing possibly or what colors paired / strategy of the deck. Where do people play this card and what are the usual experience with it?