Card of the Day Home

Decks to Beat - Tournament Winning Decks!

Card of the Day - A single card reviewed by several members of our crew.  Updated 5 days per week!

Card Price Guide

Featured Writers  
Judge Bill
DeQuan Watson
Ray Powers - Monk's Corner
Jeff Zandi
Jonathan Pechon
Chrstine Gerhardt
Jason Chapman
- on Peasant Magic

Deck Garage
Jason's Deck Garage

MTG Fan Articles
Deck Tips & Strategies
Peasant Magic
Tourney Reports 
Featured Articles  
Single Card Strategy

Magic Quizzes & Polls

Community
Message Board 
Chat
Magic League

Contact Us

Pojo's Book Reviews

Links

 


Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Vex 
 


Reviewed February 25, 2004

Constructed: 2.2
Casual: 1.8
Limited: 2.1

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 


Chris
Gerhardt

* game store owner in CA, ShuffleAndCut.com

Mirrodin blocks offering for countering.  Looking at it overall, it's crap; would you rather pay UU counter target spell, or 2U counter target spell and let your opponent draw a card?  But Counterspell isn't in Mirrodin, and it isn't even in Type 2 anymore. So Blue Mages are forced to play less than optimal counters.  Wizards R&D decided that Blue need to be tamed down (and they were right), and they did an acceptable job of doing so.

In casual, permission isn't a very popular theme, especially with sub-optimal cards such as this when you could delve into some much better counters.  It's boring, too.

In limited, it's decent if you're going blue and need to stop something nasty from your opponent.  Consider playing it if you have an open slot. 

Constructed: 2
Casual: 1
Limited: 3
Current Price: Vex $0.24
 


Judge Bill

*Level 2
MTG Judge

*game store employee

Take Arcane Denial, add one to the mana cost, and take away a card from both players. The net effect of your opponent being up a card is the same, but you don't get a card. This sounds like it is real crap, but remember, it is a hard counter. They can't do anything to prevent their spell from being countered (compared to a card like Override).
 
It also only requires one blue mana. So it is a splashable hard counter.
 
When you look at all the hard counters in type 2 (not dependent on or attached to a creature), you get:
 
Rewind
Discombobulate
Decree of Silence
Assert Authority
 
and now Vex and Last Word. Consider the fact that Vex is the only hard counter at a converted mana cost of 3, and the only one with only one blue mana in its cost, and the drawback seems somewhat reasonable. I still don't like it, but it's reasonable.
 
In casual, there are many better counters that you can use. Plus, who plays counters in casual?
 
In limited, I don't like counterspells. I like action cards, not reaction cards, especially those that require you to have the reaction card at a specfic time (when the bomb spell is cast).
 
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 1.5
Limited: 2.25
 


DeQuan
Watson

* game store owner (The Game Closet - Waco,TX)

* pro tour player

* Scrye writer since 2002

Vex
 
There has been much debate lately on this card.  Everyone keeps looking at ways to squeeze it into control style decks.  I think the real way to use it would be to slide it into a creature based deck and use this as your defense against board sweepers or problem cards.  It has a lot of comparisons to Arcane Denial, which we played with back in the day.  Unfortunately, that was before a lot of us were REALLY any good at Magic.  Times are a bit different and different strategies dominate our game currently, so it's really hard to get a feel for the power level of this card.
 
In limited, you can take it if you want more spell counters, because there are very few of them.  If a casual player just wants to build the ultimate spell counter deck, this will probably find its way in there.  Otherwise, its a week counterspell.
 
Constructed: 2.5
Limited: 2.5
Casual:  2
 


Jeff Zand
i

5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran

Level 2 Judge

Vex

In limited, the jury is definitely still out on this card. Starting at the pre-releases, some believed that Vex was good for sealed deck play since it could counter an extremely important game-changing card of your opponent with minimum liability for you. Any way you look at it, that makes Vex a situational card at best. In draft so far, my friends don’t seem to like it. In constructed, it doesn’t quite seem good enough. Maybe in Mirrodin block constructed. Not too good for the casual player either, except for those with small collections.

CONSTRUCTED: 2.0

CASUAL:            2.5

LIMITED:            3.5

 


Andy
 Van Zandt

Vex
3 mana, and you can't even retain card parity when countering your own
spell.  This is not arcane denial, do not be fooled-  and arcane denial
wasn't that good to start with.  The fact that this is one of the only hard
counters in block may trick some people though.
constructed 2
casual 2.2
limited 2.1
 

Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer
*Game Store Owner (Gamer's Edge)

Vex

 

Sigh. I still miss Counterspell.

 

Casual:             2

Constructed:             1

Limited:             2

 
Jason
Matthews


* Level 1 DCI Judge

*game store employee

* gaming for over 15 years
Vex

There are hard counters and there are soft counters in the game of magic. Mana Leak is an example of a soft counter because it has a condition that you pay three and the spell isn’t countered. Rewind is a hard counter because it just says counter the spell. How important is it to have a hard counter. Is it worth giving your opponent a card. I don’t think so. Vex is nice but one of the advantages of countering a spell is that they lose the card. Vex lets them have another card to make up for the one they just had countered. I thinks its nice that it will counter it but I really hate giving my opponents cards. In limited it can be good and in draft I would pick it up late. In casual play there are better options but it would be worth playing in a fun deck. In contructed like block it will probably see some play.

Constructed- 2.5

Casual 3

Limited 2.75

 

Jonathan
Pechon


2 Grand Prix Top 8's

Multiple Pro Tour appearances

Vex

 

My first look at this card involved the word, “Poop.”  Then I saw this being played in a couple of aggressive decks as a card comparable to Arcane Denial, and it started to look a little better.  While this really isn’t quite the card that Arcane was, sometimes you only need to counter one or two spells to finish a game in your favor, and having this plus Skullclamp available can help you overcome the card disadvantage.

 

In limited, this card wears a tight T-shirt that has “I Stop Bombs” printed across the front of it.  While that doesn’t necessarily make it a really strong card, it’s not completely inconceivable that this card could see some play.

 

You have 84527856428 cards that say, “Counter target spell,” written on them available for casual play; this goes without mentioning the fact that those three words do *not* make for a good group-game mechanic.  In Mental Magic, just stick with Force Void and Complicate if you need to counter stuff; this card has plenty of better stuff to be used as.

 

Constructed:  2.5

Limited:  2.0

Casual:  1.25

 

Jason
Chapman
Vex is awful, really terrible. While there may be multicolor decks that are look for a castable counterspell this just doesn't fit the bill. Not only is it costly but allowing an opponent to draw doesn't fit with any control theme. Very weak except for a narrow list of decks that just splash Blue.

Constructed - Leave it at home if you can, only good against the bombs - 2.15

Limited - Counters are fairly weak and there aren't as many must counter cards - 2.05

PEZ - So many better choices exist in past sets - 1.25

Casual - If you can't find enough real counters - 1.75

Chase Vex

Could be a nice addition into Millstone decks, but those decks haven’t been popping up lately. I haven’t been playing Magic very long, so I don’t know if this would go in anything else though.

In Casual, you either deck your opponent or you don’t. If you deck your opponent, I would play this.

In Limited, I wouldn’t play it as you can’t focus a limited deck around decking an opponent. Unless it has some crazy combo with something, don’t pick it.

Constructed: 2

Casual: 3

Limited: 1.5

 

 

 

 

Pojo.com

Copyright 2001 Pojo.com

   

Magic the Gathering is a Registered Trademark of Wizards of the Coast.
This site is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast and is not an Official Site.