Attn ALL M:tG Players, Starting June 20, 2004...

[Kenny_C.002]

The DCI has decided taht June 20, 2004 will be the time when the type 2 and block constructed environement lose a card from their cardpool.

SKULLCLAMP IS BANNED

So all type 2 and block constrcuted formats will have skullclamp banned from all tourney play. Crap, that means I won't be getting anymore clamps from them cheap world champ decks. At least the pricing of this guy will plummet to nothing. :P

[digi-kun]

NOOOO!!! skullclamp banned! my deck is ruined! jk i play non tourney :P

[kirby00]

wut does it do... plus if a card was that good, you could have predicted... i wish my memory jars werent banned...

[KLS]

i knew this
and i hate to see skullclamp being gone
imo it was just to good

[digi-kun]

Skullclamp 1
Equiped creature gets +1/-1
When Equiped creature is sent to the graveyard, draw 2 cards
Equip 1

[Kenny_C.002]

It's as fast as a memory jar, as essentially skullclamp says:
Kill your own creature, draw 2 cards.

So with 1 toughness creatures (costing 1), you are essentially playing a sorcery form of inspiration for 2.

With 2 toughness guys (costing 2), you are getting concentrate + a whispers of the muse for 4 (2 clamps). With affinity, this cost is dropped to 2 with ornithopters and frogmites.

pay 4 on them enforcers and you've got yourself 8 cards.

It's the fact that if you DO NOT have the right amount of skullclamps, you can still sac them (ie to the Ravager) so you can draw...

It's just too broken and fast for this right now.

[KLS]

still...
some decks have solely relyed on skullclamp but now..........
this sucks

[Kenny_C.002]

Exactly. 90% of the decks run 4 copies of skullclamp. The rest run 4 echoing ruin, 4 shatter/naturalize/oxidize.

Tooth and Nail was cool w/o clamp, right?
Elf and Nail runs clamp and kills T&N.

Cemetery Cloud runs 4 clamps.
All rogue decks run 4 clamps.
Ravager runs 4 clamps.
Goblins run 4 clamps.

U/W control is the only archetype that doesn't run clamps and dont' have the major solutions above.

So yeah, after the banning, we'll see a massive change in the environment, likely it'll be U/W versus goblin versus Ravager with random T&N decks thrown in there for good measure. It's rock-paper-sissors all over again...

[KLS]

i ran a ravager meself back in the days (or several weeks ago,lol)
yeah when the news struck me i dismantled my arcbound/affinity immediately

[Kenny_C.002]

it's not as dramatic. Most ravager players switch to playing with ironworks and fireball (over clamps and sharpenel blasts), and it seems alright.

[KLS]

yeah...
iguess this is the downfall of the legendary ravager/affinity

[Kenny_C.002]

not really. affinity will still be around...just not with ravanger..playing the huge role.

[KLS]

my friend tried making his whole deck affinity and it sort of worked i guess...

[Kenny_C.002]

ic. There aren't really that many affinity cards anyway, so i'm doubting affinity will take off like crazy...again.

[KLS]

yeah
how come they make all the affinity cards crap
-__-

[Kenny_C.002]

It's cuz the old affinity stuff were too good. So now they need the crap affinity cards to balance things out.

[KLS]

lol
have you seen the new affinity rares like 15 mana affinity for artifacts untap all artifacts
it's freakin 15 MAN!

[Kenny_C.002]

It costs 12UU...third highest cost in magic history (winner is Draco at 16, next is BFM at 15). Why did I even bother opening the pack with that in it?

I kinda liked the 11-costing golem tho. It's actually not ridiculous to play him...just that it's turn 4 or 5 when you play him and by that time you are swining your opponent for 18 with an ornithopter (that was turn 4 too...).

[KLS]

15 or 14 same thing
yeah i played so many cards out in like trun 2
my best record was playing him on turn 4

[Kenny_C.002]

Turn 4? We need to push him directly to turn 3 in order to break him, tho. But how?

[KLS]

you already wrote a combo for it but i can't have exactly the same cards

[Kenny_C.002]

oic. I don't remember writing the combo for it (10 cards to mycosynth golem?)

Hold on. If you dump everything by turn 2, then turn 3 the golem costs 2. It might work still...but it's REALLY pushing things.

[KLS]

yeah but i really prefer playing mycosynth without ANY mana
it's not that hard because by turn 2 have out like 7 or 8 artifacts

[Kenny_C.002]

wow. 11 artifacts is REALLY difficult to get out. Either way, once you drop the guy, everything you have is basically free. :P

[KLS]

yeah like your whole deck is free
this would've been REALLY abusive with skullclamp

[Kenny_C.002]

Yeah. Too bad it's now banned and nobody would be using it. lol

[KLS]

i guess we were'nt ready for skullclamp
maybe in a few years they'll reinstate the ban

[Kenny_C.002]

lol

MAybe they will reinstate the ban in a few years, or soemthing else will happen (next skullclamp, anyone? lol)