DirkGently wrote: ↑4 years ago
The sorcery-speed versions of all of these effects are not comparable in any way, imo. Especially o-ring, o-ring just sucks, no one should be playing that card in 2019 unless they're absolutely balls-to-the-wall on enchantments or something. The other sorcery speed ones are ok but fill different roles, since they can't break combos or retaliate.
I just fundamentally dislike the attitude of "X is terrible and no one should play it" in such an open, sandboxy, and casual format (absolutely nothing personal intended, no one can truly get upset with a Pheldagriff player
). Kind of against the spirit of the whole thing IMHO.
Yes, in a vacuum of course there is a "best" version of any given effect in a color.
Generous Gift and
Disenchant are better than
Oblivion Ring in that vacuum. It's not even close. You could take it further by saying that the "strictly better vacuum" is a bigger deal in more competitive metas where incidental value from synergy matters less and stopping infinite combos / keeping mana curve low matters more.
However, and this has been my entire point, within the context of a living breathing deck in a casual, eternal format, synergy DOES matter. If this was the cEDH forum I wouldn't be arguing this point, but out here where there aren't as many
Force of Wills and
Gaea's Cradles floating about, budgets, card availability, synergy, casual playgroups, and far fewer T3-5 infinite combos are relevant factors. With that in mind, there are plenty of decks where I would prefer
Oblivion Ring,
Cast Out,
Conclave Tribunal and
Prison Realm in my removal suite over
Forsake the Worldly,
Disenchant, or
Generous Gift. On the flip side, in a cycling themed deck you can sign me up for FtW and Cast Out every time.
I feel
standing my ground in a silly internet forum over something that matters as little as this, especially because I assume people think I look something like this while I type:
(I promise I don't!) I just find myself perplexed when it seems like the general approach to the format is becoming more and more that it's "solved" when that's just not the case, especially when you are looking at budget and casual metas.
That's the last I'll chime in about this COTD. Thank you all for the discussion, I love the food for thought!