|
|
 |
|
Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day
|
Image from Wizards.com |
|
Dampen
Thought
Champions of Kamigawa
Reviewed December 20, 2004
Constructed: 2.10
Casual: 2.70
Limited: 2.70
Ratings are
based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ...
average.
5 is the highest rating
Click here to see all
our
Card of the Day Reviews
|
|
Judge Bill
*Level 2
MTG Judge
*game store employee
|
Monday - Dampen
Thought
Well, I picked
the cards this week. Shoot me if you think
my picks are bad.
First, we have a
card from a very powerful limited archetype.
Basically, if you open one of these in the
first couple of packs, you start drafting
all of the arcane spells you can, and just
mill your opponent. It can be very
effective, but without at least 2 of these
and some card draw (an Eerie Procession can
replace the second Dampen), you will just
lose.
This card also
shows the great potential of a splice deck
in block. Eventually, by Saviors (the last
set in the block), we should have enough
splice cards to make a splice deck possible.
This will probably be one of the cards that
you will build that deck around (along with
Glacial Ray).
For now, though,
it's just a bit too weak to make the cut.
In casual, I'm
sure you could make a splice deck right now
that would abuse this perfectly, and it will
only get better with time.
Constructed: 2.5
(now), 4.5 (when the full block is out)
Casual: 4
Limited: 4.5
|
|
Jeff Zandi
5
Time Pro Tour
Veteran
|
Dampen Thought
This card is very similar to the uncommon from
Scourge called Brain Freeze.
Inasmuch as neither card would be very
interesting if all you could do was trade a card
from your hand to put three or four cards into
the graveyard from the top of a library, both
cards have the ability to be reusable in one way
or another. Brain Freeze, which only mills three
cards, is more open-ended. Brain Freeze has
Storm, the ability to put copies of Brain Freeze
on the stack based on how many spells have
already been played during the turn. Brain
Freeze has provided an interesting way to run an
opponent out of cards in constructed combo
decks. Dampen Thought, though allowing you to
mill four cards at a time, is much more
difficult to optimize the use of in a
constructed deck. Dampen Thought has an
appealing Splice Onto Arcane cost of 1U, the
same cost as the spell itself. Unfortunately,
you have to fill a deck with Arcane spells in
order to make Dampen Thought a serious weapon
against a sixty card constructed deck.
In limited play,
Dampen Thought is about as interesting as Brain
Freeze was. Playing forty card limited decks, it
might well be possible to play Dampen Thought
several times against an opponent and
realistically get rid of eight, twelve or even
sixteen cards from their library. The real
problem with Dampen Thought in limited, however,
is the pace of Champions of Kamigawa limited
formats.
Champions booster
draft decks are often too fast for Dampen
Thought to have a chance of making any
difference in the game. Moreover, Dampen Thought
has to take the place of either a creature or
creature removal card in blue limited decks that
are already light on removal spells.
CONSTRUCTED: 2.5
CASUAL: 3.5
LIMITED: 2.0 |
Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer |
Dampen Thought
Yeah yeah, we all saw the really cool Dampen
Thought deck during the last big event, and
watched the match coverage as it smashed the
double dragon deck, but is this really a
testimony to the card being good? Its not very
good in constructed at all, and in limited you
need two at the least, and three hopefully to
actually try to build the mill deck, but since
it's uncommon, the odds of two being opened in a
draft are bad enough. The odds of you getting
them both if they do get opened is even worse,
although admittedly not by much. If the format
was much slower it might be useful, but it
general, the format makes this deck nothing more
than a novelty.
Constructed: 1
Casual: 1
Limited: 2 |
|
DeQuan
Watson
* game store owner |
Monday - Dampen
Thought
A few players have played around with this card
in constructed decks. There hasn't been a ton of
success shown though. Most of the good players
know about this card being good in limited play
when drafting cards to work around it. It's
about middle of the line as far as "mill effect"
cards go.
Constructed: 2
Limited: 3.5
Casual: 3 |
Paul
Hagan |
Dampen Thought
--
I'm not terribly impressed with Dampen Thought,
but at the same time, I'm not quite sure what I
should be looking for. I don't usually care for
cards with this type of ability unless they are
extremely effective, and Dampen Thought it
sitting right on the edge of "effective". If you
are wanting to build a Type II deck that mills,
I suppose this card has to be where you start
off, but I wouldn't be happy about it.
For casual play, I don't see Dampen Thought
seeing much play, if only because of the wide
variety of cards available that have similar
abilities that are all around better (see:
Grindstone, Millstone, Brain Freeze, etc.)
In limited, this card doesn't get to hang out in
my deck unless I have a lot of Arcane spells,
and even then, I had better have a lot of good
blue. I like depriving my opponents of
resources, but if it comes at the price of a
slot, I need to make sure that I don't have
anything better.
Constructed Rating: 2.5
Casual Rating: 1.5
Limited Rating: 2.0 |
|
Andy
Van Zandt |
|
|
