The wording is a direct result of False Cure/Beacon of Immortality decks.
Wizards at the time didn't want to make that type of combo work as it wasn't "fun".
Now we get that type of kill from a pair of 5 drop enchantments or a 5 drop enchantment and a 3 drop creature with a 3 mana activation.
It's not that Grove isn't an ability the key word here is 'controller'. The person in control of the ability has to be the one gaining the life for Rain of Gore to have an effect.
So Congregate is a card costing 3W that says 'Target player gains 2 life for each creature on the battlefield. If I play Congregate targeting myself while Rain of Gore is on the battlefield I will lose 2 life for each creature on the battlefield as I am the 'controller' of the spell (I played it). However, if I targeted the Congregate at my opponent they would simply gain 2 life for each creature on the battlefield. Rain of Gore's effect doesn't apply as my opponent isn't the 'controller' of the effect.
Basically, Rain of Gore only has an effect when your opponent gains life from their own cards. So if they play a Kitchen Finks they will lose two life. If they have a Soul Warden out they will lose 1 life every time a creature comes into play (the ability isn't optional and they control it). Rain of Gore doesn't apply to situations where you cause your opponent to gain life, such as Grove of the Burnwillows or Congregate (it was hard to think of many obvious examples that allow you to make your opponent gain life).
I assume it would work on the other hand with a card like Alms Beast as this gives your opponent's creatures lifelink. As they control their creatures, your opponent would lose life in this situation (at least I believe so).
It does not work. Just to be clear in case you missed it: The Rain of Gore trigger only happens if your opponent control's the life gain source. So since you control Grove, your opponent will still gain the life.
How it doesn't rob you of your Elvish/Dwarven/whatever other nature, though? :)
(Not to mention, they filed under "zombie" pretty much every non-ghostly undead but vampires. And the mummy is very much still the pharaoh, while the lich is the mad wizard/scientist who made himself immortal.)
Would be cool, but MTGO doesn't give me any information about this. If some clan-lead would suggest a description of his clan I would add it to a table. This could be something like "Maltese clan playing mostly Prismatic Pauper" or "Costa Rican elite players". That might help players to find an appropriate clan.
For some clans I have an idea who the players are, and what the clan is about, but I don't think it is my business to tell the world, clan MTGOSuperheroes has pro players X, Y, and Z. If they want to share that information, great, if they don't their privacy should be respected.
I don't think that interaction works sadly. Rain of Gore only applies where a spell or ability causes its 'controller' to gain life. In the case of Grove of the Burnwillows, the controller of the ability is you and the person gaining life is your opponent so I don't think Rain of Gore applies to that situation.
I'd also think that it would be helpful to separate clans by their primary format, which would make it easier for new players to find clans that share their format interests. This would also remove the inherent bias in packs won by limited clans vs constructed clans (limited-focused clans would obv. have more packs won b/c there are waaaaay more limited events available to them).
I have absolutely no idea how this would be accomplished though--but a "Top 5 Standard Clans" or "Top 5 Modern Clans" ranking would be kind of cool.
Yeah, you can put a bunch of little 2 card combos in there. Include Bloodchief Ascension with Mindcrank, and include Sanguine Bond to go with Exquisite Blood. But then it sort of becomes a combo deck. You could lose the token elements entirely and build up to one of those combos. Add more tutors and more creature destruction. That's a slightly different deck though.
This. Tibalt really shines when your object is to randomly discard lots of cards. I realize that people don't often find value in that but he has been a great asset in several burning vengeance decks as well as a couple of other similar decks.
Honestly I thought Cotton was soft (pardon the pun) on Teferi's Imp. I mean of all the lousy imps out there this one really takes the cake. And that isn't even getting into the looting aspect. Phasing sucks as he said but also overcosted 1/1s that don't do very much good and potentially do harm suck even more.
I am no capitalist trust me. :) I am merely giving you the common reasons why people value some cards over others. SHOULD does not often figure accurately into human behavior. We SHOULD eat our veggies, walk lots, or get other meaningful exercise, love our neighbors, avoid cheating, lying, etc. Rarely do we do all of these things. And honestly, who are we to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't do? Society does that enough already that we don't need to make it our personal hobby. :)
As for cards losing their value over time that works for you not against you. You want cards to be more affordable and as you say the majority (I am sure 98% is too high but the figure is high) lose value which means the prices drop accordingly (both buy and sell).
Unfortunately that wouldn't drop the prices of the packs so buying packs for drafting OOP sets that don't have some availability issues keeping their good cards high, is often a loss. And while players may get into playing older set drafts for the fun of it they won't like having to pay face value for packs and getting extremely poor EV in return, regardless of the potential fun of winning with older cards.
If you don't agree that people behave this way I don't know what to tell you. I don't agree with my cat about the smells he likes. :)
Yeah, sorry. I don't really agree. That's the kind of "stock market" thinking I really feel has no place in the game. Cards should be acquired because you like them or because you feel they help you win. I'd venture a guess that 98% of all cards printed lose their value given enough time. Thinking this way, no one would ever buy cards at all since the longitudinal investment hardly ever pays off.
I run a couple Tibalt in a tribal wars Patriarch's Bidding deck (with Devils, obviously), and he's *almost* raw card advantage in something like that. Plus, people respect the threat of the ultimate pretty highly, since it's pretty tough to play around it (at least in tribal wars.) So he tends to draw some fire -- people figure if you are playing him, you must have a good reason, so they go after it. There's a lot of unexplored deck design space for him, and he's been really hated on much more than he deserves. At two mana, he's always at least castable if you find a way to take advantage of his skills.
How dare you rant about Teferi's Imp?! Dont you realise that, over the course of several turns, that 1/1 flyer can loot a couple times?
...Nope, can't do it. Bad card is bad. I suppose if you had some phasing shenanigans you could make it loot more, but unless we get a torpor orb for phase out effects, tough to abuse. Not impossible, I suppose. Combos with Bottled Cloister by making you unable to discard when it phases out.
He wants a deck that cares more about ripping cards out of the deck than keeping them in hand.
Or as a work around you could use Library of Leng (might have that name wrong, bit tired at the moment and not logged on to modo)
to give you control of whether you discard to the graveyard or the top of your deck for better card selection.
He might have a place in legacy or modern dredge type decks at some point.
Or at least he wouldn't look that terrible with a life from the loam engine running next to him.
Tibalt is pretty sweet in commander when you can manipulate his counters, doubling season, proliferate, steal the baord kill you all. But yea pretty weak in anything else.
just finished another 3-1 in a daily, the trackers are the worst cards in the main deck.
Interestingly Rain of Gore stops THAT combo.
The wording is a direct result of False Cure/Beacon of Immortality decks.
Wizards at the time didn't want to make that type of combo work as it wasn't "fun".
Now we get that type of kill from a pair of 5 drop enchantments or a 5 drop enchantment and a 3 drop creature with a 3 mana activation.
I just finished a daily event with this deck, and went 3-1. Hooray!
Ah okay, now I gotcha. Hmm, this is trickier than I thought ^_^
It's not that Grove isn't an ability the key word here is 'controller'. The person in control of the ability has to be the one gaining the life for Rain of Gore to have an effect.
So Congregate is a card costing 3W that says 'Target player gains 2 life for each creature on the battlefield. If I play Congregate targeting myself while Rain of Gore is on the battlefield I will lose 2 life for each creature on the battlefield as I am the 'controller' of the spell (I played it). However, if I targeted the Congregate at my opponent they would simply gain 2 life for each creature on the battlefield. Rain of Gore's effect doesn't apply as my opponent isn't the 'controller' of the effect.
Basically, Rain of Gore only has an effect when your opponent gains life from their own cards. So if they play a Kitchen Finks they will lose two life. If they have a Soul Warden out they will lose 1 life every time a creature comes into play (the ability isn't optional and they control it). Rain of Gore doesn't apply to situations where you cause your opponent to gain life, such as Grove of the Burnwillows or Congregate (it was hard to think of many obvious examples that allow you to make your opponent gain life).
I assume it would work on the other hand with a card like Alms Beast as this gives your opponent's creatures lifelink. As they control their creatures, your opponent would lose life in this situation (at least I believe so).
It does not work. Just to be clear in case you missed it: The Rain of Gore trigger only happens if your opponent control's the life gain source. So since you control Grove, your opponent will still gain the life.
I'm gonna try it out. I always thought Grove's adding R/G to your pool was a mana ability, thus satisfying the condition. Maybe not though eh? :P
Love this deck! Any update, please, Mikey? I assume Guildgates aren't used due to the thinning properties of the fetches.
How it doesn't rob you of your Elvish/Dwarven/whatever other nature, though? :)
(Not to mention, they filed under "zombie" pretty much every non-ghostly undead but vampires. And the mummy is very much still the pharaoh, while the lich is the mad wizard/scientist who made himself immortal.)
Would be cool, but MTGO doesn't give me any information about this. If some clan-lead would suggest a description of his clan I would add it to a table. This could be something like "Maltese clan playing mostly Prismatic Pauper" or "Costa Rican elite players". That might help players to find an appropriate clan.
For some clans I have an idea who the players are, and what the clan is about, but I don't think it is my business to tell the world, clan MTGOSuperheroes has pro players X, Y, and Z. If they want to share that information, great, if they don't their privacy should be respected.
"If a spell or ability would cause its controller to gain life, that player loses that much life instead."
Does this clarify it for you?
I don't think that interaction works sadly. Rain of Gore only applies where a spell or ability causes its 'controller' to gain life. In the case of Grove of the Burnwillows, the controller of the ability is you and the person gaining life is your opponent so I don't think Rain of Gore applies to that situation.
I wonder why I haven't seen Rain of Gore paired with Grove of the Burnwillows yet?
I'd also think that it would be helpful to separate clans by their primary format, which would make it easier for new players to find clans that share their format interests. This would also remove the inherent bias in packs won by limited clans vs constructed clans (limited-focused clans would obv. have more packs won b/c there are waaaaay more limited events available to them).
I have absolutely no idea how this would be accomplished though--but a "Top 5 Standard Clans" or "Top 5 Modern Clans" ranking would be kind of cool.
Yeah, you can put a bunch of little 2 card combos in there. Include Bloodchief Ascension with Mindcrank, and include Sanguine Bond to go with Exquisite Blood. But then it sort of becomes a combo deck. You could lose the token elements entirely and build up to one of those combos. Add more tutors and more creature destruction. That's a slightly different deck though.
This. Tibalt really shines when your object is to randomly discard lots of cards. I realize that people don't often find value in that but he has been a great asset in several burning vengeance decks as well as a couple of other similar decks.
Honestly I thought Cotton was soft (pardon the pun) on Teferi's Imp. I mean of all the lousy imps out there this one really takes the cake. And that isn't even getting into the looting aspect. Phasing sucks as he said but also overcosted 1/1s that don't do very much good and potentially do harm suck even more.
I am no capitalist trust me. :) I am merely giving you the common reasons why people value some cards over others. SHOULD does not often figure accurately into human behavior. We SHOULD eat our veggies, walk lots, or get other meaningful exercise, love our neighbors, avoid cheating, lying, etc. Rarely do we do all of these things. And honestly, who are we to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't do? Society does that enough already that we don't need to make it our personal hobby. :)
As for cards losing their value over time that works for you not against you. You want cards to be more affordable and as you say the majority (I am sure 98% is too high but the figure is high) lose value which means the prices drop accordingly (both buy and sell).
Unfortunately that wouldn't drop the prices of the packs so buying packs for drafting OOP sets that don't have some availability issues keeping their good cards high, is often a loss. And while players may get into playing older set drafts for the fun of it they won't like having to pay face value for packs and getting extremely poor EV in return, regardless of the potential fun of winning with older cards.
If you don't agree that people behave this way I don't know what to tell you. I don't agree with my cat about the smells he likes. :)
Yeah, sorry. I don't really agree. That's the kind of "stock market" thinking I really feel has no place in the game. Cards should be acquired because you like them or because you feel they help you win. I'd venture a guess that 98% of all cards printed lose their value given enough time. Thinking this way, no one would ever buy cards at all since the longitudinal investment hardly ever pays off.
I run a couple Tibalt in a tribal wars Patriarch's Bidding deck (with Devils, obviously), and he's *almost* raw card advantage in something like that. Plus, people respect the threat of the ultimate pretty highly, since it's pretty tough to play around it (at least in tribal wars.) So he tends to draw some fire -- people figure if you are playing him, you must have a good reason, so they go after it. There's a lot of unexplored deck design space for him, and he's been really hated on much more than he deserves. At two mana, he's always at least castable if you find a way to take advantage of his skills.
With a deck-stacking effect and an empty hand, you can use him in a manner akin to the Wild Research - Madness decks.
Still not great.
How dare you rant about Teferi's Imp?! Dont you realise that, over the course of several turns, that 1/1 flyer can loot a couple times?
...Nope, can't do it. Bad card is bad. I suppose if you had some phasing shenanigans you could make it loot more, but unless we get a torpor orb for phase out effects, tough to abuse. Not impossible, I suppose. Combos with Bottled Cloister by making you unable to discard when it phases out.
He wants a deck that cares more about ripping cards out of the deck than keeping them in hand.
Or as a work around you could use Library of Leng (might have that name wrong, bit tired at the moment and not logged on to modo)
to give you control of whether you discard to the graveyard or the top of your deck for better card selection.
He might have a place in legacy or modern dredge type decks at some point.
Or at least he wouldn't look that terrible with a life from the loam engine running next to him.
Tibalt is pretty sweet in commander when you can manipulate his counters, doubling season, proliferate, steal the baord kill you all. But yea pretty weak in anything else.