This card is in most lists, small and large. It is obvious that this card has a lot of uses, but do players maindeck Pithing Needle, or do they usually board it in after they see what they are playing against? When would you not run this card in your deck? What decks especially want Pithing Needle?
I don't think I have ever left the card in the sideboard. From equipment, to man-lands, to planeswalkers, and beyond this card does it all and is never truly a dead card.
If I draft it, I almost always end up maindecking it. It is a crazy cheap answer to so, so many problems. By the same logic, I tend to maindeck Vindicate and Oblivion Ring, when I draft them.
When I first made my cube this card got a lot of hate from the players since it was viewed only as a sideboard card. We don't run sideboards for time reasons.
I kept it in and has done a lot of work. Only never seen in Aggro decks (phyrexian revoker can be put in those though).
I think the main reason my friends did not like initially is because they were more old school and didn't think about how often planeswalkers are actually seen on the board or equipment. It pretty much always has some kind of target.
When we were new to cubing this card felt rather fringe to us and was often put in the sideboard. But we started to notice that we sided it in all the time. Nowadays it is highly respected card that is almost always main decked.
Every year their are more and more prime targets for this card. The number of planes walkers keeps going up and shutting a walker down for just a single colourless mana is awesome. Finding targets tend to be pretty easy, especially if you play it in black or blue that do not have an easy time dealing with walkers and artifacts. It is also a nice utility card to Tinker away if you have no spare mana rock.
Card has always been relevant, but as more PW get included into cubes, the value of this card will increase. I will main deck it quite often, but in an aggro deck I keep it as a sideboard card. Long story short, great card that used to be more fringe, but nowadays has a rightful place.
I think this card has always been great in cube (Icy Manipulator, Maze of Ith, Treetop Village) but has just gotten better with every set printed. Just the increase in the percentage of planeswalkers alone justifies running it. I also like shutting off the equip ability of Swords of X and Y.
I think this card has always been great in cube (Icy Manipulator, Maze of Ith, Treetop Village) but has just gotten better with every set printed. Just the increase in the percentage of planeswalkers alone justifies running it. I also like shutting off the equip ability of Swords of X and Y.
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Yep, I've taken to maindecking it just about every time, too. However, rant, I think it actually makes Recurring Nightmare gnash its many, many teeth, not cry...
Needle has a target in every deck you face; sounds like an exaggeration, but it's probably true. Also it's awesome in the Tinker deck once your target is gone or has become irrelevent. (Or if you just want a cheap artifact to pitch off.)
I am not sure if this is a high pick, but when I get this in sealed, I always include it in my deck. Surprisingly there is always a target for this, and I always feel good whenever I nullify some efffect that can change the pace of the game.
It nullifies a lot of cards, and in some cases it matters that you nullify even the simplest abilities, like the regeneration ability of that pesky chump blocker, or stop that lethal unearth (works in all zones, remember). A 1-mana destroy target planswealker is also a plus.
If you don't run walkers, do you still feel it's worth including? I can see many many targets (even without walkers), but I'm on the fence about whether it deserves a slot at 410.
We also don't run side boards generally due to time constraints, so I try to really limit those types of narrow cards. But I can certainly see it being useful as a tinker target worst case scenario. I'm conflicted myself.
If you don't run walkers, do you still feel it's worth including? I can see many many targets (even without walkers), but I'm on the fence about whether it deserves a slot at 410.
We also don't run side boards generally due to time constraints, so I try to really limit those types of narrow cards. But I can certainly see it being useful as a tinker target worst case scenario. I'm conflicted myself.
Without seeing your cube list, which sounds very very different to the ones I'm used to, it's hard to say. My gut feeling is that probably it still does without the 'walkers, but I seem to remember you mentioned cutting anything with a perceived 'high impact', so some of the good targets might not be available to it.
In my own cube, I will always maindeck it. It's a cheap O-Ring for certain broken permanents.
Without seeing your cube list, which sounds very very different to the ones I'm used to, it's hard to say. My gut feeling is that probably it still does without the 'walkers, but I seem to remember you mentioned cutting anything with a perceived 'high impact', so some of the good targets might not be available to it.
In my own cube, I will always maindeck it. It's a cheap O-Ring for certain broken permanents.
I keep saying I'm going to update my list on this site. This weekend is the plan. We'll see if I actually do it though.
This card was recently in the Random Card of the Day thread but I thought I would post this here. Many of the posters said they rarely maindeck this card. Maybe I am doing it wrong but this card always makes my maindeck and I draft it highly. I don't think I have ever not had a target for it. Between planeswalkers, equipment, bomb creatures/lands with activation costs, etc. For one colorless.
I know this is cube dependent and maybe somewhat deck dependent (like maybe not in aggro deck) but I think with most powered cubes it is easily pick 3-6 and an easy maindeck. Thoughts?
My big issue is that I've had a number of games where you're on the play or draw and it's in your opener hand and either you don't have a suitable target at first and then they get the value they want out of the card you'd want to target. Like, if it's my 23rd because my draft went poorly or I'm required to use all my picks for my deck (3+ colors, for example) then sure any port in a storm, but most cube decks would rather play their own game with that 23rd card vs have an answer that will be a turn too late in 99% of cube games when it's game 1 since you don't know what to name outside of what may have been revealed.
In these scenarios, pithing needle is often a dead card and you have to start playing the What-If game. What if Pithing Needle was any of the cards that could play into the synergy of my deck? What if I'm just playing a green creature? Or another piece of lesser removal that answers more but doesn't shut down one card like needle does? And more often than not, it feels really bad to have needle G1 vs other cards. And you can't just wait forever with that needle, but it's not like every cube deck will open with a variety of plays that can be answered by needle. You've pretty much just mulligained there, that sucks.
I'm not going to say that it always misses game 1, but Pithing Needle's main strength IMO is shutting down the cards that completely **** you before they start completely ******* you, and unless something very specific occurs it's really tough to figure out just what that card is in the first 1-4 turns of a game of magic. Like, it's so much more powerful to beat the Recurring Nightmare deck by naming Nightmare T1 and then figuring out the rest than it is to name Recurring Nightmare a turn or two too late or to name something else and then watch the actual problem take over. If I name it the turn after it starts going off, then I haven't really answered Recurring Nightmare because it already went off. Same with like planeswalkers, equipments (ESPECIALLY swords, BOY does it feel bad to want to name a sword and watch them equip + swing when they're at 5 mana), really it's the same reason why you rarely see it in constructed MDs, you just don't know what your opponent is typically doing and it's dangerous to give yourself virtual mulligains due to lack of information vs playing the more proactive way of playing towards synergy.
I rarely if ever play needle before the target is down. Sure, they can get some value out of the card before you needle it. But you often prevent tons of value to come. I think you are under-rating this part. Just because they got an activation (or a couple) already doesn't mean it is bad.
Same with Recurring Nightmare. If they animated a big fatty maybe it is too late. But if they are looping value creatures like Simulacrum and Nekrataal then Needle shutting that down late is still good.
I agree it might not be good against equipment if it is already equipped to a creature. But even then, if you can remove or otherwise handle that one creature it can still do the job.
With any removal your opponent often gets some value out of their card but you would still play the removal. Needle is basically super cheap, colorless removal for anything where the main problem requires an activation. It is fragile since it is 'removable removal' and can't answer all problems but I think the pros outweigh this.
I agree it would suck if the needle didn't line up with your opponent's threats. I don't think I have experienced that; but I know some aggro decks have hands that will kill you on turn 4 with no targets for needle. But seems like most midrange and control decks have targets.
Yeah, I mean, when it's good it's really great, but the risk for it ending up as a dead card or not knowing what the bigger threat may be are too high. Even in the scenarios where you say it's still good or that you can potentially handle that creature, that's still kind of a risk for running a card which at its floor is a dead card with literal no targets vs something that will at least be consistently proactive for what you're deck is trying to do. As much as it's great when you can deal with that creature or you can recover from the insane value Nightmare presents or etc., the times when you can't and Needle is a virtual what-if version of another card feel really awful and that's an amount of variance that I don't want to put on my deck for g1 if I can otherwise choose to increase it in other ways.
I don't think it's the worst by any means but it's rare that I'm just barely getting to 23/24 cards in a draft and I think a deck is overall better served with something that tries to do what the deck wants to do vs something that may have a good target in a window where Needle's application will feel great.
This card is in most lists, small and large. It is obvious that this card has a lot of uses, but do players maindeck Pithing Needle, or do they usually board it in after they see what they are playing against? When would you not run this card in your deck? What decks especially want Pithing Needle?
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I kept it in and has done a lot of work. Only never seen in Aggro decks (phyrexian revoker can be put in those though).
It's best when it can be tutored by something like trinket mage, Tezzeret the seeker, or even enlightened tutor.
I think the main reason my friends did not like initially is because they were more old school and didn't think about how often planeswalkers are actually seen on the board or equipment. It pretty much always has some kind of target.
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Every year their are more and more prime targets for this card. The number of planes walkers keeps going up and shutting a walker down for just a single colourless mana is awesome. Finding targets tend to be pretty easy, especially if you play it in black or blue that do not have an easy time dealing with walkers and artifacts. It is also a nice utility card to Tinker away if you have no spare mana rock.
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Yep, I've taken to maindecking it just about every time, too. However, rant, I think it actually makes Recurring Nightmare gnash its many, many teeth, not cry...
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It nullifies a lot of cards, and in some cases it matters that you nullify even the simplest abilities, like the regeneration ability of that pesky chump blocker, or stop that lethal unearth (works in all zones, remember). A 1-mana destroy target planswealker is also a plus.
We also don't run side boards generally due to time constraints, so I try to really limit those types of narrow cards. But I can certainly see it being useful as a tinker target worst case scenario. I'm conflicted myself.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Without seeing your cube list, which sounds very very different to the ones I'm used to, it's hard to say. My gut feeling is that probably it still does without the 'walkers, but I seem to remember you mentioned cutting anything with a perceived 'high impact', so some of the good targets might not be available to it.
In my own cube, I will always maindeck it. It's a cheap O-Ring for certain broken permanents.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I keep saying I'm going to update my list on this site. This weekend is the plan. We'll see if I actually do it though.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I know this is cube dependent and maybe somewhat deck dependent (like maybe not in aggro deck) but I think with most powered cubes it is easily pick 3-6 and an easy maindeck. Thoughts?
In these scenarios, pithing needle is often a dead card and you have to start playing the What-If game. What if Pithing Needle was any of the cards that could play into the synergy of my deck? What if I'm just playing a green creature? Or another piece of lesser removal that answers more but doesn't shut down one card like needle does? And more often than not, it feels really bad to have needle G1 vs other cards. And you can't just wait forever with that needle, but it's not like every cube deck will open with a variety of plays that can be answered by needle. You've pretty much just mulligained there, that sucks.
I'm not going to say that it always misses game 1, but Pithing Needle's main strength IMO is shutting down the cards that completely **** you before they start completely ******* you, and unless something very specific occurs it's really tough to figure out just what that card is in the first 1-4 turns of a game of magic. Like, it's so much more powerful to beat the Recurring Nightmare deck by naming Nightmare T1 and then figuring out the rest than it is to name Recurring Nightmare a turn or two too late or to name something else and then watch the actual problem take over. If I name it the turn after it starts going off, then I haven't really answered Recurring Nightmare because it already went off. Same with like planeswalkers, equipments (ESPECIALLY swords, BOY does it feel bad to want to name a sword and watch them equip + swing when they're at 5 mana), really it's the same reason why you rarely see it in constructed MDs, you just don't know what your opponent is typically doing and it's dangerous to give yourself virtual mulligains due to lack of information vs playing the more proactive way of playing towards synergy.
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Same with Recurring Nightmare. If they animated a big fatty maybe it is too late. But if they are looping value creatures like Simulacrum and Nekrataal then Needle shutting that down late is still good.
I agree it might not be good against equipment if it is already equipped to a creature. But even then, if you can remove or otherwise handle that one creature it can still do the job.
With any removal your opponent often gets some value out of their card but you would still play the removal. Needle is basically super cheap, colorless removal for anything where the main problem requires an activation. It is fragile since it is 'removable removal' and can't answer all problems but I think the pros outweigh this.
I agree it would suck if the needle didn't line up with your opponent's threats. I don't think I have experienced that; but I know some aggro decks have hands that will kill you on turn 4 with no targets for needle. But seems like most midrange and control decks have targets.
I don't think it's the worst by any means but it's rare that I'm just barely getting to 23/24 cards in a draft and I think a deck is overall better served with something that tries to do what the deck wants to do vs something that may have a good target in a window where Needle's application will feel great.
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