Here's a new wrinkle. A single Blightning will
charge this quest up completely, but you still
need to empty your opponent's hand to get it to
do something. And that something is... lose 5
life per upkeep? Your opponent will struggle
hard to keep cards in hand to keep this thing
from going active, but in a way, that's the
charm of it. Even if it never actually makes a
player lose life, it's completely warped the
decisions your opponents have to make, forcing
them to make what would otherwise be poor plays,
and to sit on cards they could otherwise be
casting and beating you with.
The trouble with strategies based around
discard has always been what to do after the
opponent has no cards or only irrelevant cards
left. In recent years, we've seen a steady
number of cards that become active or have a
bonus in that situation. Quest for the Nihil
Stone has one of the best payoffs of those, even
if its requirement is quite strict and quite
specific. But considering that a single
Blightning activates it, and Duress and Hypnotic
Specter are still knocking around, it definitely
has potential. Just watch out for Strahd von
Zarovich.
Magic The Gathering
Card of The Day: Quest for the Nihil Stone
Welcome back
readers today’s card of the day is yet another
from Worldwake, this one a personal favorite of
mine. Discard and black have always gone
together like cookies and milk. The downside to
discard has been it loses its effectiveness as
the game progresses due to the opponent playing
out their hand faster or using up all your
discard cards. Quest for the Nihil Stone helps
circumvent this as it punishes a player for
playing out their hand and allows your discard
cards to fuel a win condition for discard decks.
In standard this card could help form another
archetype in mono black or combining it with red
and cards like Burning Inquiry and Megrim
although the fact the card does nothing by
itself could be a deterrent but decks have been
built around other quest cards so anything is
possible.
In
extended this card could also form an archetype
but the fact that the other quest cards from
Zendikar have not seen much competitive extended
play may be an indication. In casual and
multiplayer this card shines greatly providing
discard decks with a powerful new card to
combine with Megrim and some of the most
powerful discard effects in Magic. Load up on
the Delirium Skins and other mass discard and
have fun. In limited I doubt you could draft
enough discard to make this card worth it and it
has an even lower percentage of activating stay
away unless you want a challenging deck.
Today's preview is Quest for the Nihil Stone a
one mana Rare quest for Black that causes each
opponent to lose five life if they have no cards
in hand at the beginning of their upkeep.
Gaining quest counters for this one is actually
quite easy as it only requires two from an
opponent discarding a card and this can
potentially give hand destruction players the
solid win condition they've been looking for.
For Constructed and Casual I really can see
this getting some testing in hand destruction as
a loss of five life is a heavy price to pay for
having no cards in hand. Generally I find that
maintaining the pressure of hand destruction is
difficult, but decks have been trying to do so
since the early days of Magic without a five
point swing each turn. Keep an eye out for this
card as it may make it all the way to the
tournament scene.
In Limited there generally isn't enough
discard to force the opponent down to no cards
in hand and with this in play they can just keep
a minor card in hand to avoid the payment. Even
if Worldwake adds a decent number of discarding
effects, in most limited formats the some or
most of the packs will still be in Zendikar. It
would take a very skewed Sealed pool to make
this truly playable and can fairly safely be
passed in Booster unless you are Rare drafting.
With Multiplayer this working on any opponent
may seem to turn this card into a bomb, but
trying to keep one player at no cards in hand is
often difficult enough let alone an entire
table. Hand destruction just doesn't work well
in multiplayer and unless there are several all
opponent discard effects in Worldwake this
should probably be kept to the two player
constructed formats. If stuck playing your
discard deck in the format your best strategy is
to focus on a single opponent at a time until
they are knocked out of the game or build up too
many cards in hand.
Constructed: Until Unearth leaves
standard, discard decks are not going to be a
top deck. But this might give a discard deck a
little more power to take someone out.
Casual & Multiplayer:
Works well with the Bloodchief Ascension. No
cards in hand they lose life, Bloodchief gets a
quest counter and stuff happens.
Limited: Is there discard in
Worldwake? Mind Sludge for the win?
