Pattern Recognition #151 - Discard

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

7 May 2020

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition! This is TappedOut.net's longest running article series. In it, I aim to bring to you each week a new article about some piece of Magic, be it a card, a mechanic, a deck, or something more fundamental or abstract. I am something of an Old Fogey and part-time Smart Ass, so I sometimes talk out my ass. Feel free to dissent or just plain old correct me! I also have a Patreon if you feel like helping out.

Now, when I talked about way back when and how it works, I mentioned in passing that is really the only colour that embraces the notion of forcing discards on people. And while some people had other things to talk about that, it was something that was just another quiet point that got dropped for more obvious things.

Well, on another board I frequent, we were commenting about what we were getting out of Ikoria, and I said that my mono- control deck wasn't really getting much, and one comment led to another and when I said that I was still getting a lot of use out of Covetous Urge, and expected to do so for a while yet. One other person commented about how they hated losing cards in hand to . Then a third person made a response that stuck with me:

Hand Destruction is a counter to Combo decks

Alright, so before I get to looking at that point, let me start with going over the general history of this not-a-mechanic. We start with Limited Edition Alpha, with... huh, I could have sworn it was Mind Rot, but it appears as though that card was first in Portal, then reached Standard with 7th Edition. No, let's see.... Ah! Here we go!

Mind Twist and Hypnotic Specter.

Huh. I was expecting more. I mean, yes, there was also Wheel of Fortune, Disrupting Scepter and Balance, but this was a mechanic, through and through, especially as time went on.

You see, there was a constant theme of discarding running throughout Magic's history. For the most part, it was just a card here or there, a way to keep the option available for without ever being overwhelming.

Now, there are three proper types of discard. And I don't mean how it works, rather... OK, let me explain. First, you can cause a person to discard a card at random. This is just what is says, and as a result, there is an element of chance in what you get or not, but in doing so you avoid many of the restrictions that come with targeted discarding.

My personal favorite is Hymn to Tourach printed in Fallen Empires and is something that is very very powerful. Enough so that it's banned in Pauper for being able to force a discard of two cards for .

Compare that to the second type - Forcing a player to discard cards of their choice. Such as Mind Rot, a much more palpable replacement for the glorious Hymn. By making an opponent choose what chards they discard, you actually gain more that just knowledge about what they had in their hand. By forcing them to choose in this manner, you also learn about what they feel they can lose in the here and now and make your plans around that. After all, if they tossed away expensive cards, that probably means that they have other, better things to do with their mana and they can't afford to wait around for more mana drops.

But yes, when you play around discarding effects that allow your opponent to choose, watch carefully. That's vital information you're getting there.

But you know what gives you even more information? Actually looking at your opponent's hand and choosing what to discard.

This is the most powerful version of discarding, make no mistake. And as such, it often comes with the most restrictions. take a look at Duress, a commonly printed card, having received 10 Standard legal printings.

Duress is a card that on the first turn, allows you to Peek at an opponent's hand and get rid of a non-Land, non-Creature from it. This is a powerful effect as many combo pieces are still on non-creature cards, and control decks usually don't have an answer on the first turn to a card that makes them lose their Counterspell that they were saving for their second turn.

Or you can do what I do on Arena some days, and when I go first, Turn 1 Duress - and see a Boros Creature Deck, that only has Lands and Creatures in it. Then I know I'm in for a tough fight.

But my mono- deck has more tricks up its sleeve than simple discard, that's for sure.

So, at it's most basic, forced discarding is a two-fold advantage for the player. No matter what goes into the graveyard, it gives that player knowledge about what the opponent doesn't' value and it also reduces the opponent's hand size in the process, limiting their further options and putting a tighter string on their endurance before they start topdecking.

Of course, there is a lot more to this aspect to than even that small advantage. Over the course of Magic's history, there have been a multitude of cards that synergize well with discarding, and decks that incorporate those benefits can have an active while at the same time passive way to deal with the opponent.

Let's start with my favourite from ages long past. Megrim and its cheaper reprint, Liliana's Caress. These cards add a paltry two points of damage whenever an opponent discards a card, and unless you're playing Commander or Brawl, these cards can easily stack. A constant drain on ones life in addition to losing a card or two at a time from ones hand can lead to a sense of Oppression!

No, I didn't link that card for giggles, it's another relevant card. This card punishes reactive casters, those who hold cards in their hand to try and use later by forcing them to bulk up their hand to keep effectively half of their cards out of the game by making them discard as they cast.

Sure, it's not a win condition, but it's part of the general toolchest that gets in terms of its control.

But there is more that that, I assure you. Not only does actively punish players for discarding, they also benefit from it too! The Haunt of Hightower is currently on my short-list of Commanders that I want to build simply so I can see how it would work. There are cards like this that gain when someone else loses and they can be built into something more than the sum of its parts for it.

Yet I've been dancing around one of 's more hidden Iconic Creatures, despite going out of my way to point it out much earlier. I'm talking about the Spectres. From Hypnotic Specter to Blazing Specter and beyond, these creatures have the common evasion ability of Flying and when they deal damage to an opponent, they force a discard of some stripe. Alas, creatures with this ability have fallen out of style, with only Fell Specter coming out in the past few years.

I'm sad. Also, due to my Canadian-ess, I keep trying to spell Specter as Spectre. And it keeps tripping me up when I go back to check things out with the spell-check. So if you see a mistake, sorry!

Yet, why does get this more than anyone else? I mean, yeah, sure, and touch on it, but usually as some form of side effect, or even as a cost for card draw. Well, part of it comes from the Vorthos of . What and share is the notion of the Mind, and the game represents that by the Hand in many cases. But whereas likes to build up the mind, drawing more card until their cup overflows, likes to tear it down, resulting in the ability to force discards.

It is in the madness flavor of the colour, and one that is sure to keep coming back with one or two cards in every set.

But speaking of Madness, there is a hidden advantage to all of this. You may have noticed that a lot of these cards that cause discarding don't actually specify an opponent. You can quite legally and justifiably target yourself with these spells. Not only can this be used to allow you to cast cards using their Madness costs for all the advantages that gives, but also you're in a position to put cards you want into your graveyard.

In .

The colour that, more than any other colour, wants cards in their graveyard where they can be of better or more use than they would be in your hand. Like the lethal-combo enabler of Necrotic Ooze. Discarding cards from your own hand to fuel other cards is just part and parcel of 's philosophy. There is no sacrifice too great for victory.

Yet, for all this, forcing discarding does have a few drawbacks. First is that with only a few exceptions, like Piracy Charm... sorry Funeral Charm, discard cards like this can only happen at Sorcery Speed. Even Planeswalkers like Liliana Vess operate at that speed.

Because forcing discards at instant speed is bad. Untap, Upkeep, DRAW, then be forced to discard the card you just drew? When you're already stuck in topdeck mode? That's not fun. Not fun at all. Which is why my friendly local Spike is trying to build a deck that can do that in Commander. I threatened to break out my Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun deck that doesn't care about cards in the graveyard, I'll just Embalm or Eternalize or Flashback or Aftermath them anyways.

Hey, colours other than can get into game of liking cards in the graveyard too, you know!

But this all leads back to the instigating comment.

You see, has about 1001 ways to kill a creature on the board, but suffers from a serious inability to reliably take out Artifacts or Enchantments. The only reliable way for to take them out is to do so before they hit the table. When they're still in the hand. Forced discarding is 's out-of-the-box, yet in-the-box solution to cards they can't otherwise touch.

And this is where 's Control aspect becomes anti-combo. Without the means to reliably interact with cards on the stack, or non creature/Planeswalker permanents, the only way for a deck to stave off a Combo win is to be proactive and take out the cards before they become a threat. Duress is a powerhouse in this regard because it lets you remove a vital combo piece, and at a simple cost of , leaving your mana open for other uses.

In the meta-game of Combo vs Control Vs Aggro, has reliable options in all of them, like all other colours. But it is forced discarding that is their pinnacle Control option. Because it's hard to win the game when you don't have cards in hand.

Thanks for listening to me! Join me next week when I talk about something, I'm not sure what yet.

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