cane thoughts

What do you guys think?

>D target creature takes 35 damage, player draws a card

I like this card, but I feel it is a little too strong a card in general. It allows easy decking, and it can do 70 damage to a single card before the card can even be used. At least with swimsuit, it doesn't kill the card.

I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth either, I'm think it's really cool we all got a holiday present, I'm just saying that the card is kinda sick.

I have a few ideas for balance, but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks first.

The deck I currently enjoy playing most is a 45 card deck. I love it when people whip out that Cane to help me draw more. My golems can take the damage, and I don't think paying 5 or 6 repeatedly for 2 cards is such a bad deal if this causes the opponent to lose 4/4/4 mana and a card.

I got decked by the Cane once with a 30 card deck, which makes sense. I don't think the cane is too strong or anything. It's a bit of an encouragement to use even bigger decks again. Oh, and for using more effect destruction, that seems to be slipping a bit with some of the pure beatdown players, because 'the cards slow them down too much'.

I'll second MooNFisH on this one. It's almost as expensive as K-Sword (after multicolor considerations) and doesn't sac for anything, and making your opponent draw a card isn't really a good thing in most circumstances. I know I'm a little reluctant to use the Cane before I get a nice solid stall in place.

I think the cane is fine, 4 of each, no sac, E speed, make your opponant draw a card, it easily balances it off

Updates: After a couple thousand games of it. I\'d like to hear a 2nd round of thoughts on this.

I\'ve tried it in regular play, and I think it\'s rubbish. High cost with no return from sac\'ing. Can help your opponent aswell as hinder them. And even if you play it early, it\'s still going to be around the time they have the mana for any effect destruction card.
I\'ve not tried it in decking decks, but thats about the only place I can see it being worthwhile. And seeing a few more decking decks around wouldn\'t bother me terribly.

~> Leander.

The cane is not the harbringer of doom I once thought of it as, but I\'m still not a big fan of it. Granted, it does bring destruction on itself by helping the opponant draw into their effect D, but it is still a mojor force to be reconed with, and is simply a very powerful card in most situations. Like other powerful cards like Swimsuit! or Mystic Bird, it will tend to improve virtually any deck that it is put in. Furthermore, if you take a long time to draw into your effect D, the cane can be a game ender. Also, the cane can and does often hit play turn 4 - it\'s speed is enhanced by being a multi-color card. On turn 4, most creatures you are likely to have out will not survive the cane, which allows the caner to get a early advantage. Also, ironically, being a voucher, which normally somewhat limits the number of copies most people will have (felt most when KRYLGRD and the cake came out) has actually caused the Cane to have enormous circulation, much more so than the comparable Swimsuit!, because anyone can easily get two. (Most players have one or no Swimsuit!. Most players have two canes.)

I\'d have to side with the people that think it\'s overpowered.

Cane can be used with valley or NPC to help you draw, and can be used to kill oponent creatures as well. Unless the oponent happens to have a deck that can play two cards a turn, and can still be competitive even if one of those is killed every turn, the cane will be a win for you.

I mean, it\'s not like the cane has an activation cost or even a maintenance cost. Sure, the oponent draws an extra card, but his creatures are taking 35 damage a turn. Unless you can play a monk or golem EVERY turn, your creatures are going to die, while your caning oponent can keep building his forces with impunity, with the only cost being a single effect slot.

Let\'s see, cane, by itself, can screw manaless rush (not enough mana to play 2 cards a turn), dark beatdown (less than 35 life each) and small decks (decking). And to everything else, the 1 card tradeoff is only good if you have too much mana in your deck. That is, the card can screw those deck types with no additional cost to you, while you can keep building your forces as usual. At the very least it should have an activation cost.

And finally, unlike effects like diplomacy and miasma, destroying it doesn\'t buy the oponent much. When a diplo goes down, you get a large attack right away. When you take a cane down, well, you can *start* building up your forces. And diplo has a maintenance cost.

Finally, I take issue with the statement that can costs as much as a sword. It does only if you\'re playing a tricolor deck. On a light deck, it costs 4 main mana to play cane, plus some splash (no big deal), while it takes 9 mana to play the light sword. Cane is very expensive on a manaless deck though.

Sure, it\'s not an \"I win\" card, but it\'s close to it against many decks.

Cane is and always will be a specialist card and that is the thing I like most about it. Put it into a decking deck and it competes with swimsuit for best use of splash, put it into a sniper deck and you have that emergancy damage you may need. Put it into a healing deck and you essentailly have an splash version of ivory library.

The arguement that you cant play 2 cards a turn is silly, you will always be able to play at least two cards a turn if your deck has: ~1/3 mana, some splash and a good cost range of monsters.

Cane is awesome in the types of decks that dont see much play and that makes me love it. It is essentailly useless in tricolour decks, is too slow for rush decks and gives too much card advantage in pretty much any deck I can think of.

I hate facing cane with a <31 card deck... Especially if it\'s not too packed with effect destruction. I have no problems at all in facing it with a larger deck. Usually doesn\'t hinder large beatdown decks at all.

I think it\'s only effective in a good stall, where swimsuit would obviously be better. So it\'s a so-so card, only good in the right situation.

But it does 35 damage a pop! Could do 70, if you leave it undizzed to your opp\'s turn. If my field is empty, and I want to put something down, I\'m dead because of that 70 damage. The two cards won\'t help me out in terms of the effectively wasted mana I\'ve spent on the creature that gets shot for 70 and killed...

Cane is not a specialist card at all. It is the exact opposite - a card that willl tend to imporove virtually any deck that it\'s put in.

bane2571 Wrote:The arguement that you cant play 2 cards a turn is silly, you will always be able to play at least two cards a turn if your deck has: ~1/3 mana, some splash and a good cost range of monsters.

I don\'t agree. If your deck can play 2 cards a turn then you have too much mana. That is unless your deck is designed with heavy card draw in mind. Why would you keep 1/3rd mana if your deck can do as well with 1/6th, and then you can play a creature 5 out of every 6 turns rather than 2 out of 3.

Besides, what about normal beatdown decks with 6-cost creatures. If you\'re using all effect slots you get 6 mana a turn at most. How are you going to play 2 cards every turn?

that is true, my point was mainly that there should simply ALWAYS be superflous (sp?) cards in a deck, most of the time they are splash or effect D, but generally speaking I doubt that it would be too hard to play the second card you draw either because you couldnt play the first or because you could play both. Why would you have 1/3 mana instead of 1/6? that is blindingly obvious: so you draw at least 1, hopefully 2 in your first hand. As far as I know, normal 6 mana beatdown decks tend to rely more on sacrificng both monsters and mana rather then generators so I\'d say extra card draw would be awesome in that case.

\'joyd, I disagree, cane will only improve decks that can afford the mana (IE, monocolour as splash and stall) and can afford for the opponent to draw that extra card when you use it.

Bane257, On most of my decks I se up most of the cards fairly quickly. Even with 1/3rd mana you won\'t have any superflows mana cards until card 15, on average. Even then you will only throw out 1 out of every 3 cards.

Besides, I pointed out 2 deck types that just can\'t. Manaless rush and black beatdown. They can\'t afford to play two cards, and each caning destroys one card you do play.

And besides, 35 damage is just way too much. Even shadehawk does what? 30?

...I\'m going to have to agree with bane here, purely basing myself on the deck I\'ve played against canes with. I have lots of drawing cards in there, and just don\'t use them when playing vs cane. The deck gets its strength from playing at least two cards per turn, that\'s why it\'s so big. The thing is though, that not all these cards are creatures. There\'s very few creatures in my deck and I need to draw a lot so that I can cycle through whatever other cards I have.

But the deck would be damn horrible with a cane. Cane soaks up your splash mana like a sponge, and I think card drawers and effect destruction are far better as splash.

Try playing against canes with a more creature-based deck. My point is that cane can seriously harm a large number of decks out there, at bascially no cost once it\'s out. I wouldn\'t mind so much if it was 15 or 20 damage, or if the ability was \">D target creature takes 35 damage, player takes a card at random from your hand\" which matches up better with the concept. But as it is, it\'s a 35 damage sniper that can only be countered with an effect D, which takes me 10 or 15 turns on average to draw.

I don\'t usually play the cane myself, except on my deck of cards I hate, which I don\'t often play. The only time it backfired was when I played both cane and magic woods against a manaless rush. Magic woods gave him enough mana to play 2 creatures a turn, effectively countering the cane\'s ability. Otherwise, the cane never seems to hurt.

So its good against some deck types but not against others? Seems fine to me then.

So, let me summarize everyone\'s points and see if I get the general impressions?

Pro Arguments

Leander: Having it in regular play bears no advantages. Playing it only costs you mana that you cannot recoup. (What is regular play?)

Bane: A cane is a flexible card that works well in Decking Decks, Healing Decks, or generally White Delay lock. It does not work well with Tri Color Rush and... gives too much card advantage to the other player in regular decks. (What is a regular deck?)

Addendum: The Cane will be bad against decks that are 1/3rd mana and support a good range of creatures.

Question: 2 cards a turn equals 10 mana a turn roughly for most decks. Do you play Dual Color often then, Bane?

MooNFisH: Swimsuit is better for most regular uses unless one delays. Purely basing it on the decks that I play personally.

Gospel: Good against some decks.. bad against others. Seems plausible.

Con Arguments

UberJason: I can\'t play any cards until I can get past a 70 damage lock. If I play cards, I get locked out.

Zaen: I can\'t play 2 cards a turn. If I don\'t play 2 cards a turn. Cane stops my deck.

Other arguments that haven\'t been considered.

Attrition.
Mana Cost compared to other similarly powered effects.
\"Negative\" Effect of Cane isn\'t always negative.

Obviously the cane is stupid good in a decking deck. It\'s generally easier to get out than Ivory library, and as long as your opponant has a creature it works just as well. And if your opponant doesn\'t have a creature, you\'re probably not in any immediate danger anyway. I still think the cane is a very strong card in most non-decking decks. Maybe not in mana-light tricolor, but in your typical scaling creatures deck (What I would call a \'normal\' deck) it\'s almost always a good inclusion.