That's not entirely true. The second ability helps out Jeskai and prowess quite a bit. You can draw in to more non-creature cards, and ditch the lands/creatures from your hand. It can help to assure that you draw more non-creatures.
I addressed this when I said that the card doesn't help you find additional noncreature spells unless you already have noncreature spells. Maybe giving you more of something you already have doesn't help enable a mechanic. Granted, it can do other things like help you cycle through all of your noncreature spells to find a creature - it certainly helps when you're "noncreature flooded" but it doesn't help when you're the other way around.
I have to say I'm rather disappointed by this card. All of the other ascendency's help to enable their wedge's mechanic in some way, while this one just "gives" its mechanic to all of your creatures.
Playing Temur Ascendency without ferocious creatures in your deck is really lackluster
Playing Mardu Ascendency without a strong desire to attack (a.k.a. trigger raid) is pretty mediocre, and it also gives you extra ways to enable raid
Playing Sultai Ascendency ensures that you always draw and never mill the Delve cards you want while also providing fuel in your graveyard to cast Delve cards
Playing Abzan Ascendency can help to trigger all of your +1/+1 counters-matters subtheme while also working well with the "endure" theme of the wedge.
You can play Jeskai Ascendency with 0 Jeskai/Prowess cards as it just gives all your creatures Prowess. It doesn't even help you find noncreature spells to trigger Prowess unless you already have noncreatures spells to begin with.
I should note I am not saying this card isn't powerful and it will certainly help to enable some form of combos but to me it doesn't accomplish what the Ascendency cycle was supposed to do, which was to help enable the clan's mechanics.
To be effective against Storm, Counterflux requires 4 mana, which could be too slow on the draw or could also prevent you from doing other things. I'm not advocating Trickbind over Counterflux, but rather in addition to, especially in a MU like Storm. Against Twin, it is also a 2 mana response (very important when they can tap your lands), which you can bring in over something clunkier in the matchup (sorcery speed threats for example), in addition to any Spellskites / Counterfluxes / whathaveyou.
Against Pod, Shadow of Doubt hits their lands and Pod/Chord activations (and cantrips, which shouldn't be discounted), which is great at interacting with their combo, but it can't interact with the value-midrange side of their deck. Trickbind trades being able to stop Chord (and cantripping) for being able to interact with the "value" half of their deck - which from my experience, many Pod players focus on in post-board games.
My current configuration looks something like this:
As you can see, I'm not going overboard on Trickbind and I'm not playing it over the very spells you suggested. Instead, it supports those spells, functioning as a flexible, extra copy that can also hit the opponent at a different angle.
What are people's thoughts on trickbind? Not as a maindeck card but as a sideboard card of course.
It serves as an uncounterable answer to a number of common effects:
The Storm trigger - meaning it is a 2 mana answer to quick Empty the Warrens while not being dead against the grapeshot plan (unlike boarding in a sweeper to handle the tokens, for example).
Pod - In addition to countering a Pod activation (the blowout potential here is astounding), it can also hit the Persist trigger in the graveyard, which can stop them from comboing off if they were to go for it.
Twin - It counters both the Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jikki activations and prevents them from occurring for the rest of the turn, meaning you get to untap in order to deal with their Pestermite/Exarch - Bonus points if you can use Ajani to lock down the creature forever.
Affinity - Can disrupt pretty much their entire deck and can prevent a Ravager from doing anything for the turn
The fix is undeniably a good thing - these are the way they were supposed to work in the first place.
Yeah, who needs interactive, multi layered effects in Magic. God forbid someone thinks knowing the stack rules it's too much and switches over to CoD.
When I figured out I can use nightmare creatures with sac outlets, it was like Christmas in June. For me the removal of that kind of mechanic exploration is undeniably a bad thing.
I'm inclined to agree with you. In 99% of cases, Sculler and O.Ring function exactly as a new player envisions when they first read them. But they have some added use by "comboing" with some other element in the game that can lead them to more powerful effects. MaRo recently did an article on Lenticular design and these kinds of cards were great examples of a way to do that.
I pity anyone who tries to build a deck based on some kind of synergy because you'll never be able to assemble it with all these disruption effects in Standard. That being said, I prefer the "small creatures with powerful effects" style of Magic to the "let's all play 4/5s for 2 and 6/6s for 4" style. Making a 1/1 or a 2/1 with some potent effect actually gives me time to draw an answer to it or counteract it in some other way before they are killed, whereas an unanswered 5-6 power creature ends the game very quickly without much time to allow the opponent to handle it.
The problem with counterspells right now is not what they can and cannot hit. Counterspell could be reprinted right now and would not warp the format heavily. Counterspells are good when the Counterspelling player has productive things to do with his or her mana when their opponent does not cast something worth countering. Right now even the control decks operate almost entirely at sorcery speed and so there is not a lot of opportunities for them to hold up counter magic and still progress their boardstate if their opponent just draws a card and passes the turn.
Ultimately, this limits the power a counterspell can have far more than what it can and cannot counter.
This card just screams "BREAK ME!" loudly. He's a 2/2 for 3 by himself, but if you have anything else he can be pretty good. He might be constructed playable if the meta and card support allows it.
No He's not. Read the article. Being both a Creature and an Aura (of which he can never be both at the same time anyways) still only counts once
I believe her current best home will be in a W/u devotion deck.
Skynight, D. Sphere, and Deputy of Acquittals are all reasonable splashes along with her and she combines very well with Heliod for a grindy long game against control decks.
Soldier of the Pantheon
Precinct Captain
Deputy of Acquitals
Boros Reckoner
Skynight
Heliod
Ephara
This feels like a reasonable starting point to a creature shell and you still have the ability to bring in detention sphere and spear of heliod and brave, etc.
It's worth noting that the black nymph can Bestow on any creature. That means you can pick a creature which has a color your opponent doesn't play, turning intimidate into "can't be blocked"
Also, you can just grant intimidate to an artifact creature and go to town on your opponent. This is why it is more expensive than the flyer
I wonder if the duals will have anything to do with devotion? Maybe they produce colorless mana normally but can produce colored mana if you have a devotion of 1 to either color.
You mean basically Nimbus Maze except instead of enabling the color you don't have it only produces the color you already have? Sounds pretty awkward, not to mention terrible for decks with a low permanent count (i.e. control decks). Oh, and Supreme Verdict can shut off half your lands (rather, make them produce colorless only mana) by blowing out your colors.
Seems needlessly complicated and causes memory issues ( "I could produce green last turn, but now I cant!" )
I addressed this when I said that the card doesn't help you find additional noncreature spells unless you already have noncreature spells. Maybe giving you more of something you already have doesn't help enable a mechanic. Granted, it can do other things like help you cycle through all of your noncreature spells to find a creature - it certainly helps when you're "noncreature flooded" but it doesn't help when you're the other way around.
Playing Temur Ascendency without ferocious creatures in your deck is really lackluster
Playing Mardu Ascendency without a strong desire to attack (a.k.a. trigger raid) is pretty mediocre, and it also gives you extra ways to enable raid
Playing Sultai Ascendency ensures that you always draw and never mill the Delve cards you want while also providing fuel in your graveyard to cast Delve cards
Playing Abzan Ascendency can help to trigger all of your +1/+1 counters-matters subtheme while also working well with the "endure" theme of the wedge.
You can play Jeskai Ascendency with 0 Jeskai/Prowess cards as it just gives all your creatures Prowess. It doesn't even help you find noncreature spells to trigger Prowess unless you already have noncreatures spells to begin with.
I should note I am not saying this card isn't powerful and it will certainly help to enable some form of combos but to me it doesn't accomplish what the Ascendency cycle was supposed to do, which was to help enable the clan's mechanics.
Against Pod, Shadow of Doubt hits their lands and Pod/Chord activations (and cantrips, which shouldn't be discounted), which is great at interacting with their combo, but it can't interact with the value-midrange side of their deck. Trickbind trades being able to stop Chord (and cantripping) for being able to interact with the "value" half of their deck - which from my experience, many Pod players focus on in post-board games.
My current configuration looks something like this:
2 Restoration Angel
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
3 Electrolyze
3 Path to Exile
1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Mana Leak
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
4 Cryptic Command
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Calciform Pools
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Porphyry Nodes
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Counterflux
1 Wear // Tear
1 Batterskull
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Celestial Purge
1 Combust
1 Trickbind
As you can see, I'm not going overboard on Trickbind and I'm not playing it over the very spells you suggested. Instead, it supports those spells, functioning as a flexible, extra copy that can also hit the opponent at a different angle.
It serves as an uncounterable answer to a number of common effects:
The Storm trigger - meaning it is a 2 mana answer to quick Empty the Warrens while not being dead against the grapeshot plan (unlike boarding in a sweeper to handle the tokens, for example).
Pod - In addition to countering a Pod activation (the blowout potential here is astounding), it can also hit the Persist trigger in the graveyard, which can stop them from comboing off if they were to go for it.
Twin - It counters both the Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jikki activations and prevents them from occurring for the rest of the turn, meaning you get to untap in order to deal with their Pestermite/Exarch - Bonus points if you can use Ajani to lock down the creature forever.
Affinity - Can disrupt pretty much their entire deck and can prevent a Ravager from doing anything for the turn
I'm inclined to agree with you. In 99% of cases, Sculler and O.Ring function exactly as a new player envisions when they first read them. But they have some added use by "comboing" with some other element in the game that can lead them to more powerful effects. MaRo recently did an article on Lenticular design and these kinds of cards were great examples of a way to do that.
Ultimately, this limits the power a counterspell can have far more than what it can and cannot counter.
No He's not. Read the article. Being both a Creature and an Aura (of which he can never be both at the same time anyways) still only counts once
Wild Nacatl fits what he said exactly... TBYP
Skynight, D. Sphere, and Deputy of Acquittals are all reasonable splashes along with her and she combines very well with Heliod for a grindy long game against control decks.
Soldier of the Pantheon
Precinct Captain
Deputy of Acquitals
Boros Reckoner
Skynight
Heliod
Ephara
This feels like a reasonable starting point to a creature shell and you still have the ability to bring in detention sphere and spear of heliod and brave, etc.
Also, you can just grant intimidate to an artifact creature and go to town on your opponent. This is why it is more expensive than the flyer
Also 5 pages and no "dies to removal -> terrible" post? What kind of card discussion is this?
You mean basically Nimbus Maze except instead of enabling the color you don't have it only produces the color you already have? Sounds pretty awkward, not to mention terrible for decks with a low permanent count (i.e. control decks). Oh, and Supreme Verdict can shut off half your lands (rather, make them produce colorless only mana) by blowing out your colors.
Seems needlessly complicated and causes memory issues ( "I could produce green last turn, but now I cant!" )