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Pojo's Duel Masters Card of the Day
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Image from
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Darkpact
DM04
Card 28
Date Reviewed: 12.29.04
Constructed Average Rating: 1.6
Limited Average Rating: 1.5
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating. |
cecillbill
(Top 4 at
2004 GenCon - Indy
Championship) |
Darkpact
For quite some time Darkness players had it rough
when it came to hand management. The oft-employed
solution was to splash Brain Serums (once
mono-Darkness became truly playable) or further
"water-down" the deck to go the D/W control route.
Strickly speaking of mono-Darkness there wasn't
anything noteworthy going for replenishing the hand
outside of recursion (because Baraga and Ghastly
Drain bite). Then along came Mongrel Man and
Marinomancer, two great draw creatures. But, they
aren't the only draw options available for Darkness
in Shadowclash. Enter Darkpact...
[Goal]
Hand Replenishment. If you're willing to lose some
mana, then you can thin
your deck to reach key cards. In terms of Darkness'
other hand advantage
spells losing mana is better than losing shields
(Ghastly Drain). Even so,
Darkpact is an ackward piece of draw that I believe
is aimed at
Darkness/Nature decks. But, don't be fooled by
Darkpact's low mana cost or
the fact that mana gain can offset its effect. It's
a late game source of
draw power that doesn't let you reap nearly enough
advantages because of the
loss in mana. If you're wanting to net a fair amount
of cards in hand,
Darkpact might not leave you with enough mana to
cast much of anything save
cheap blockers, underpowered hitters, or limited
kill the turn you play it
or shortly thereafter if it's not very late game and
you have mana gain.
[Effectiveness]
At 2 mana it's "base cost" won't require a chunck of
your savings. But, its
base cost isn't the important consideration. Using
Darkpact becomes a matter
of when it's best to cast it because you have to
factor in how much mana you
can safely afford to lose to net cards. Not only
should you have enough mana
to actually gain some advantage by using the spell,
but you need to ensure
there is enough mana left to cast cards in a
resonable time-frame. If your
deck has a bunch of Demon Commands and you're trying
to get Ballom out, then
losing mana to this card--especially a chunck of
mana more than once--isn't
sound resource managament.
Let's look at using Darkpact in the early game. If
you cast Darkpact at 2
mana and decide (for whatever reason) to toast 2
mana to draw two cards,
then you've put yourself in a bind. You've lost 2
mana and one card in hand
to replace 1 card in your hand and gain 1 card.
You've gained a card but
have lost the potential to cast anything costing
more than 1 mana on your
next turn (lost tempo). Essentially, you'll be
making early game plays well
into your 5th turn if you don't have any mana gain.
You'll have 1 mana on
your 3rd turn, 2 mana on your 4th turn, and 3 mana
on your 5th turn. If you
wait until you have a comfortable amount of mana in
the late game, then you
won't be shortchanging your casting potential as
much and could stand to
gain more than just 1 card over Darkpact's
replacement.
[Where To Deck]
Although Darkpact is a Darkness spell, it's not
tuned for a mono-Darkness
deck. Darkness needs all the mana it can get. Even
if you're playing a
relatively low curve Darkness deck, you're better
off going the recursion
route. If you consider Darkpact for mono-Darkness
then don't max this card
out. I can't see myself even maxing this card out in
Nature/Darkness--which
is where I see this card being better placed.
Actually, I can't see myself
playing this card period. But, that's me.
[Format Ratingsl]
Constructed: 1.5/5. In terms of it's goal of
replenishing the hand, it comes
at a considerable cost and often you won't do enough
drawing with it to
justify not having used other forms of draw.
Darkpact is really a late game
source of draw, and to me it's for mana-happy decks.
Just imagine decking
this spell at a tourney where someone's running mana
destruction. Waste of
space.
Limited: 1/5. Having draw in Limited is really nice,
but it's important for
that source of draw not to have a nasty side effect
because your deck is
already serverly limited in the scope of resources
it can churn out and
sustain. You really need your mana here. Another
important consideration is
that you're often playing with a skittles (3-5 civs)
deck in Limited. You
may not get out multiple mana of a certain
civlization and end up burning
yourself by chucking a certain civ to draw a card
with Darkpact.
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Knives101 |
Darkpact
This card was made for Darkness/Nature. In order to
use this card you have to get extra mana. The best
way to get extra mana is to play mana from the top
of your deck. Fighter Dual Fang, and Bronze Arm
Tribe do this well. So in order to draw just two
cards from Darkpact you have to take two cards from
the top of your deck and put them into the mana
zone. Then you have to cast Darkpact. So you thin
your deck by four cards, to draw two cards. In my
opinion that is a bad trade off. Thinning your deck
by so much can make you deckout easily. If you want
to sacrafice your mana to get a hand then I suggest
finding some earthstomps. Darkness/Nature isn't
exactly a tier one decktype right now, so Darkpact
gets a two from me.
Rating: 2
|
The Antman |
Darkpact-
Common-#28(DM-04)
Well people's today we have one of blacks very few
draw cards, Darkpact
I choose this card for today because 1. its a draw
card for black 2. cuz I like the flavor text: "Why
don't mortals embrace despair? All my ghoul friends
really seem to enjoy it." -Ballom, Master of Death
funny huh?
Anyways Darkpact isnt the best card in the world
sadly =/ The cost to draw is just too steep for a
dark card since darkness usualy needs all the mana
it can get since it doesnt have cheep cards like red
and light and it doesn't have mana acceleration like
green. But the one place darkpact can exist in is a
Nature/Darkness deck. yes my loyal fans have all
your tribes drop your mana, play a few Essence Elfs
& a few Elf-X then play darkpact and your good to
go.
Ratings:
Constructed- 3/5 This card can realy be good if you
make a deck around it's drawing power
Limited- 1/5 draw is nice in limited but not at this
cosst
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Parshathrules
8391 |
Darkpact
This thing is pretty…useless… a cost of two makes it
fast, but instead of using this, you might as well
just not play mana.
Once you’ve drawn what you discarded, you’re stuck
with a minor setback: You can’t play the cards.
Destroying your own mana gives your opponent a huge
advantage: You can’t afford to stop them. You’ll be
trying to build your forces back up while your
opponent is pummeling you. They won’t mind pecking
at your shields knowing that you won’t be able to
play them for turns!
The time I can see this helping is the last turn you
expect to live, when you’re out of options and you
have tapped mana. You cast two for this, destroy
what you tapped, and hope for a great draw.
1.5/5
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