All this talk about Mental Misstep makes me realize how much better this card is than that. In addition, it hits a surprisingly high number of cards and isn't dead against any deck. I've been playing a friends cube with it and I actually really like it.
It's OK, but I prefer Misstep. It's free, can be run in any deck, and can counter a one-drop before my first turn. I do run a lot of efficient low cost beaters, which you don't seem to rate as highly (remember you called Strangleroot Geist 'really trash' on spoiling) and many of the crucial one drops I need to deal with are creatures. I do like Spell Pierce well enough, but it's not of the same calibre IMO. Also, see my comment in that thread vis-a-vis deck construction. That will have a huge impact on the cards' playability. Also, way to be a douche making both a post and a thread calling out a card I singled out for constructive discussion as 'horrible'. Thanks HG.
Actually both of these cards get better in smaller cubes, I could be tempted to give them both a trial. The early turns are proving crucial for control where they could shine.
It's my cube that HG has been playing it in recently, and while it's only been in for a little while, I've been nothing but happy with it. My control decks have always wanted something else to help get to the late game, and this does a great job of that. Sure, it doesn't answer creatures, but you have so many other cards that only answer creatures (wraths, spot removal), that having one card in your deck that can't answer a creature isn't horrible. Countering the Sword of YourMom and YourDad or Sylvan Library or Bitterblossom or one of any other things you don't have as much spot removal for is often pretty key.
I've also used it in blue mirrors the same way it gets used in legacy, to win counter wars.
I played a monoblack deck against a blue deck the other day, Turn 1 on the play I played land, chrome mox, Hymn to Tourach, and got the Hymn forced. The idea there was that Hymn would clear the way for my turn 2 play. Then she Spell Pierced my Bitterblossom. I never recovered. Relevant early countermagic wins games, and Spell Pierce is relevant early countermagic. I highly recommend playing it.
I play Spell Pierce in my 270 unpowered cube, and it's pretty good even with the card quality available at that small cube count. I think that it rounds out the early countermagic package (Force Spike, Force of Will, and Daze being the others).
in my opinion the powerlevel of Spell Pierce depends on powered/unpowered.
In our 450 powered cube Spell Pierce is a staple. To counter every powered spell on the play is just sooo clutch. In our environment the first two turns are very important and dominated by fast mana. And in a powered cube the most powerfull spells are non-creature.
In a slower unpowered cube you may prefer cards like Force Spike or hard counters. And obviously Spell Pierce looses lots of value in an unpowered aggro centric cube or in a meta which is dominated by random swords XY (which isn't our meta).
Yeah having a tool to counter the broken fast mana spells (the smaller the cube, the higher % of the card pool do they represent) seems pretty huge.
Combine this with the ability to at least be useful mid-game against most decks (maybe not the ideal card, and certainly should be boarded out in some matchups), seems like it's pretty useful.
Without those broken cheap spells/artifacts, loses a lot of its appeal. Not that it would be bad or anything, but a lot of better options.
AFAIK, Kenny Mayer uses it in his 810 card unpowered cube and says it's fantastic at 720 as well (I've been running it based on his recommendation, but since it's a recent addition, I can't really say much about how good it is, but initial impressions have been good and it rarely lays stranded in your hand. It's also really good in more tempo-y blue decks, as cheap countermagic is the bread and butter of that archetype.)
I can see this card being good for much the same reason Duress is good; so many of the spells you really want to stop are non-creatures. I have it on my shortlist of potential includes, but when I wanted an additional counterspell I went with Power Sink because it can counter any spell for as cheap as 1U. I can see coming back to that decision at some point, though.
I'm thinking about adding Spell Pierce during my C15 update. Anybody still playing it? Seems nice with the amount of walkers people tap out to play on turn 4. Also thinking about Negate and was wondering how it stacks up compare to Spell Pierce.
I'm thinking about adding Spell Pierce during my C15 update. Anybody still playing it? Seems nice with the amount of walkers people tap out to play on turn 4. Also thinking about Negate and was wondering how it stacks up compare to Spell Pierce.
I love spell pierce. People sometimes have time to play around Force Spike or Daze, but who can always hold up 2 mana when you have U up? And I think Spell Pierce is better than Negate, as its sooooo much easier to hold a single blue up. I could see not running it, but I have been a fan of it for a while now.
steve-man, I'm glad you necro'd this thread. This card completely slipped my radar and I haven't even thought about it for cube. Definitely going to test it out.
I'm thinking about adding Spell Pierce during my C15 update. Anybody still playing it? Seems nice with the amount of walkers people tap out to play on turn 4. Also thinking about Negate and was wondering how it stacks up compare to Spell Pierce.
I love spell pierce. People sometimes have time to play around Force Spike or Daze, but who can always hold up 2 mana when you have U up? And I think Spell Pierce is better than Negate, as its sooooo much easier to hold a single blue up. I could see not running it, but I have been a fan of it for a while now.
This sums up my experience with the card aswell. It's a fine card in your average control deck and I'm not looking to cut it in the near future.
I'm not currently running it but it's a pretty strong inclusion. Cheap countermagic is great in general in this format so I wouldn't rule out bringing it back.
i'm surprised so many people cut spell pierce... i've run it in my 380 cube since day one, and it arguably plays a stronger role with each release. with the powershift over to planeswalkers, having a 1 mana answer to a ton of stuff (planeswalkers, equipment, big sorceries, etc.) is extremely handy. I view spell pierce as a pithing needle - it's never, ever going to be a dead card. since my cube went to powered, it's been that much more useful on the T1 plays (and with the added emphasis on artifacts). definitely run it!
I mean, Spell Pierce can definitely be a dead card. If they can pay the two, then you have a card that essentially does nothing, and there are times they can pay like there are times they can pay for mana leak/force spike/etc. Is it harder to be dead? Yes, but never ever? No way.
It was a fine card when I played it, but it was a pretty easy cut. It was relatively narrow for a reactive spell, and there were a lot of times it just didn't find good targets in the right window. The big difference between a card like this and Needle is that I can drop Needle whenever I want, and it also functions if I draw it after the threat is down. A later game Pierce is a pretty bad draw, but a later game Needle is still quite good.
When I was playing around with giving blue heavy counter magic support, I added dissolve, negate and remove soul for about 10 cubes. I got the idea of negate/remove soul from the MODO legacy cube, drafted a RU control deck and was surprised at their performance.
After the test period, negate dramatically overperformed my expectation, remove soul underperformed and dissolve slightly over-performed. The key was how much more powerful the non-creature spells were on average, and the less number of answers I had for them. I also realized, in my powered cube, I have MORE non-creature spells than creature spells. Which is not common in the bigger-unpowered lists.
It's been in and out of my cube, but I have never ever seen it underperform. It's probably going to stay for good now.
Spell pierce vs Negate is an interesting debate,
I find mana effeciency in a high-powered cube is still quite a bit less important than it is in modern or legacy, maybe a bit more important than standard. Spell pierce becomes better the more mana effiecient the format and the shorter games are. In standard at the moment I would play negate over spell pierece fwiw, but legacy, it's not even close.
I also find many decks can produce large amounts of mana in powered cube, making it more likely that spell pierce becomes dead.
Also, there's many "Pay X or counter spell" thats cubable, but very few hard counters. Having a balance of these is important.
However, spell-piercing power in the early game is so devastating, that there's a flip side argument.
I'm going to be testing spell pierce out soon, along side negate to get a better sense.
Counterspells that don't hit everything dont seem to have a place in cube.
That's a very blanket statement. Force Spike and Mana Leak don't hit everything either as their value diminishes over a game's lifespan, but they hit enough things in the early to mid-game to still be relevant. With the mana curve mattering more and more, being able to counter that planeswalker or wrath or even removal spell aimed at your critical critter is a huge play.
Counterspells that don't hit everything dont seem to have a place in cube.
That's a very blanket statement. Force Spike and Mana Leak don't hit everything either as their value diminishes over a game's lifespan, but they hit enough things in the early to mid-game to still be relevant. With the mana curve mattering more and more, being able to counter that planeswalker or wrath or even removal spell aimed at your critical critter is a huge play.
Yeah, and Spell Pierce does bring both problems. Its power diminishes in the course of the game while it also have an important restriction to what type of card it can counter. Sometimes you're going to face a opponent with open mana and sometimes you're going to face a opponent who's casting a creature. I think probability of facing one or the other of these occurences are really important at evaluating the card correctly and in fact, I think chances are pretty high. So maybe that's why some people don't see Spell Pierce as a solid cube staple.
The combination of being unreliable in the lategame and not being able to counter the most common card type had me shy away from including this in my cube. I definitely prefer counters like Mana Leak, Miscalculation and Arcane Denial to this. Those cost 1 more and have drawbacks, too, but at least they can counter all card types.
Counterspells that don't hit everything dont seem to have a place in cube.
That's a very blanket statement. Force Spike and Mana Leak don't hit everything either as their value diminishes over a game's lifespan, but they hit enough things in the early to mid-game to still be relevant. With the mana curve mattering more and more, being able to counter that planeswalker or wrath or even removal spell aimed at your critical critter is a huge play.
Mana Leak and Force Spike do hit all their targets...
All this talk about Mental Misstep makes me realize how much better this card is than that. In addition, it hits a surprisingly high number of cards and isn't dead against any deck. I've been playing a friends cube with it and I actually really like it.
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Actually both of these cards get better in smaller cubes, I could be tempted to give them both a trial. The early turns are proving crucial for control where they could shine.
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I've also used it in blue mirrors the same way it gets used in legacy, to win counter wars.
I played a monoblack deck against a blue deck the other day, Turn 1 on the play I played land, chrome mox, Hymn to Tourach, and got the Hymn forced. The idea there was that Hymn would clear the way for my turn 2 play. Then she Spell Pierced my Bitterblossom. I never recovered. Relevant early countermagic wins games, and Spell Pierce is relevant early countermagic. I highly recommend playing it.
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Yeah having a tool to counter the broken fast mana spells (the smaller the cube, the higher % of the card pool do they represent) seems pretty huge.
Combine this with the ability to at least be useful mid-game against most decks (maybe not the ideal card, and certainly should be boarded out in some matchups), seems like it's pretty useful.
Without those broken cheap spells/artifacts, loses a lot of its appeal. Not that it would be bad or anything, but a lot of better options.
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I love spell pierce. People sometimes have time to play around Force Spike or Daze, but who can always hold up 2 mana when you have U up? And I think Spell Pierce is better than Negate, as its sooooo much easier to hold a single blue up. I could see not running it, but I have been a fan of it for a while now.
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After the test period, negate dramatically overperformed my expectation, remove soul underperformed and dissolve slightly over-performed. The key was how much more powerful the non-creature spells were on average, and the less number of answers I had for them. I also realized, in my powered cube, I have MORE non-creature spells than creature spells. Which is not common in the bigger-unpowered lists.
It's been in and out of my cube, but I have never ever seen it underperform. It's probably going to stay for good now.
Spell pierce vs Negate is an interesting debate,
I find mana effeciency in a high-powered cube is still quite a bit less important than it is in modern or legacy, maybe a bit more important than standard. Spell pierce becomes better the more mana effiecient the format and the shorter games are. In standard at the moment I would play negate over spell pierece fwiw, but legacy, it's not even close.
I also find many decks can produce large amounts of mana in powered cube, making it more likely that spell pierce becomes dead.
Also, there's many "Pay X or counter spell" thats cubable, but very few hard counters. Having a balance of these is important.
However, spell-piercing power in the early game is so devastating, that there's a flip side argument.
I'm going to be testing spell pierce out soon, along side negate to get a better sense.
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That's a very blanket statement. Force Spike and Mana Leak don't hit everything either as their value diminishes over a game's lifespan, but they hit enough things in the early to mid-game to still be relevant. With the mana curve mattering more and more, being able to counter that planeswalker or wrath or even removal spell aimed at your critical critter is a huge play.
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Yeah, and Spell Pierce does bring both problems. Its power diminishes in the course of the game while it also have an important restriction to what type of card it can counter. Sometimes you're going to face a opponent with open mana and sometimes you're going to face a opponent who's casting a creature. I think probability of facing one or the other of these occurences are really important at evaluating the card correctly and in fact, I think chances are pretty high. So maybe that's why some people don't see Spell Pierce as a solid cube staple.
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