Pattern Recognition #339 - Choice of Torment

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

19 September 2024

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

And with that, we come back! Last week was my birthday, so I took it (mostly) off. Still played Magic though. No sense in not having fun. Which of course leads us into the other 51 weeks of the year. Today, we will talk a little about the Torments. Now, this is not me misspelling the name of the set, Torment, but rather I am talking about a vertical series of cards from Hour of Devestation that represented various insidious aspects of how Nicol Bolas was going to ruin the plane. Because he's an ass like that.

At Common, we start with Torment of Venom. This MV Instant is extremely effective for Common, and in fact, runs up against the complexity limit for the rarity. First, you place three -1/-1 counters on target creature, and then the controller of that creature chooses to lose three life unless they sacrifice another non-land permanent or discard a card. You cannot sacrifice the same creature that has the counters on it.

This is fairly powerful for Instant speed removal as it not only can take out a creature, but you can also get a second card away from the opponent with the same spell, or they lose two life. Normally, you would need to add to deal damage to player as part of removal, such as with Unlicensed Disintegration, but here, the opponent has the option of losing life to preserve their hand or board state.

Next up at Uncommon, Torment of Scarabs. This Aura is also a Curse, meaning it has great synergies with Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor. But past that, this card forces the afflicted player to make the same choice as the previous card does. It doesn't affect a creature directly, but they have to either lose life, or discard a card or sacrifice a non-land permanent.

This card also has MV , meaning it's a mid-game drop for most decks, and at this point, players should be confident about where they are and what they are doing. They should be able to get replacement things to lose each turn, but as the game goes on, these choices become more and more difficult to make. Or not difficult at all. It's a gamble when you play this card, unlike the previous one which at least you know what you're tagging with those -1/-1 counters, in addition to the other effects.

But lastly, oh lord, lastly...

Torment of Hailfire ends games. You pay , and each opponent loses 3 life or sacs a permanent or loses a card out of hand. For repetitions. This late-game spell is designed to end the game by denying the opponent resources until they can't defend themselves from you, or they are forced to start losing life while trying to save what they have left. And like all X-spells, it's definitely a case of 'Bigger is better'. You want to throw down as much as you can here, and for the record, the largest I ever cast it was for 17 in a Kalain, Reclusive Painter deck, and I blew a lot of Treasures on it, that's for sure!

I won that game.

These Torments all have the same fundamental effect. The affected player loses three life unless they lose a card or a non-land permanent. The scale and any additional caveats are on top of that, but at its core, it's all about making that choice of what to lose.

Giving a player a series of bad choices, where there are no good answers, just less bad ones, is something that Wizards has experimented with before Hour of Devestation, though not often. It was in actually. Or rather, that's where I first saw it with Browbeat from Judgement. Or Book Burning or Breaking Point. A... card where you Choose Your Demise *oversized*.

But this effect, as near as I can tell, started back in Visions, with Forbidden Ritual, a card that let you fire off this effect (save for paying two life rather than three), and never really caught on at all, save for the occasional dip into independent rediscovery of the idea and putting it onto a card or two.

Professor Onyx - who is not Liliana Vess, why are you asking? - is, I think, the most recent card to do this sort of effect properly. Her final ability is basically a Torment of Hailfire where is . And I'm sure at some point, someone will come up with another card that does something similar, or with a slight variation. No, this is not a request to fill the comments section with examples. Just one or two, please.

You see, this sort of card effect has the issue of being what we in the community like to call a "Feel Bad" mechanic. Magic is supposed to be a game where you have fun playing it! Except these cards force you, the opponent of the mean person playing them, to choose what happens to you. You Feel Bad when you're forced to make these sorts of choices again and again and again. There is no fun here to be had here when there are no choices that are good, or at least neutral.

Like Infect!

Fuck Infect.

Anyway, Feel Bad mechanics have a hard time gaining traction. Look at what happened to Fateseal, or rather Spin into Myth and Mesmeric Sliver. Scrying your opponents deck was the source of a lot of bad reactions, so this method of control was dropped like a hot potato. Don't blame them, really. And this sort of Torment, a Punisher, or whatever you call it - even Scryfall's Tagger just lumps them in with other 'bad choices' type cards without context about who is making the choice - fits the bill perfectly!

Which is why Wizards doubled down and made it into a full mechanic!

From Universes Beyond: Doctor Who, I give you, the Villainous Choice!

With a mere dozen cards in the Villains Commander deck, this mechanic turns the head on the idea of forcing a bad choice and proclaiming that you are doing this and owning it like the bad guy you are!

Naturally, it's in Grixis colours. Because they're the bad guys. Each of the three primary Commanders of the deck, Davros, Dalek Creator, Missy, and The Valeyard all interact with the Choice in different manners. The first two provide them under certain conditions while the later repeats the choice (and gives you an additional Vote because otherwise he would be useless outside these cards).

But other than that, it's just flavor because of course the bad guys are going to be mean and miserable and want to win via any means necessary. They're the Villains. By openly associating the choice with such a thing, it became more palatable to the players, rather than coming out of nowhere. You knew it was coming. You expected it, really.

I know we'll see more of these effects in the future, but I am going to limit this prediction to 'Lose life or choose this other problem' type cards. It's too good an effect to ignore entirely, but using it too much slows down the game and creates poor player experience.

Oh, and one last thing before I go. The way the ability is properly worded, it is designed to get around cards like Sigarda, Host of Herons because the primary effect is life loss, and it is your choice to sacrifice a permanent instead. Not your opponents.

A very important distinction, where choice is concerned.

Thank you all for reading! Please leave your comments below, and I look forward to talking with you about my subject matter. Join me next week when I talk about something! What? I don't know yet!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!