necropotence
General forum
Posted on June 10, 2015, 7 a.m. by LordAshaman
Everyone keeps raving about Necropotence but I never understood why it is good.You lose cards when you discard and you draw at end step if you pay life
Someone please help because I cant figure out what type of deck to put it into.
Grantley91 says... #3
Especially in decks that gain lots of life, paying a little to draw cards is a sacrifice worth making. These types of decks don't bother using graveyard retrieval so it doesn't matter that their discards get exiled.
June 10, 2015 7:48 a.m. Edited.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #4
You draw a TON. Think of a couple Bobs on the field with close to no downside.
June 10, 2015 8:40 a.m.
branston567 says... #5
the combo was turn 1 Dark Ritual, Necropotence then end of opponents turn draw X-1 cards where X is your life total, then storm off with Tendrils of Agony
June 10, 2015 8:43 a.m.
Programmer_112 says... #6
@branston567: Not necessarily. That was A deck, but not necessarily THE deck for Necropotence. Way back when, there was a mono-black deck with Necropotence, Hymn to Tourach, Dark Ritual, and other good black stuff that absolutely dominated Standard
June 10, 2015 8:53 a.m.
Magic is, above all, a game about resource management. A card that lets you freely exchange between two types is often good. Necropotence is godlike because having cards in your hand is just about the greatest thing ever. The Yawgmoth's Bargain ability is incredibly sweet. One life per card makes it so you can either use the remaining cards in your deck to mitigate life loss or outright win you the game. Necropotence is also fantastic in formats where you have bolstered life totals. There's a reason Tiny Leaders bans it.
June 10, 2015 9:02 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #8
I absolutely love the amount of advantage that Necropotence gives.
I had an odd thing happen in commander with necro one time though and this feels like an appropriate forum for the story.
Had out Future Sight and Necropotence and tons of mana. Necro allowed me to exile cards off the top of my library until I saw what I needed with Future Sight and then just cast it off the top for the win.
June 10, 2015 9:15 a.m. Edited.
Necropotence let's you draw as many cards as you want - find the combo you need, cast it and win for absolutely no mana investment - just life. It's the engine that drives degenerate play.
June 10, 2015 9:48 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #11
Again and again, Necropotence is good because you get to draw as many cards as you want every turn. The life you spend doing it doesn't matter because you're going to win the game long before you hit 0.
June 10, 2015 10 a.m.
SimicPower says... #12
No one is really responding to the reasoning the OP asked. The reason the discard isn't that important is that you get to choose what you discard. If you draw 10 cards, you can choose the best 7. You can also cast instants before you have to discard them. I actually have seen people misplay Necropotence and not discard though. Necropotence is also nice for searching out a combo piece. It doesn't matter if you have to discard a bunch of other cards so you can get that one that makes you win the game.
June 10, 2015 12:08 p.m.
SimicPower - no that's not it. For a large majority of decks the discard isnt important because, as I said, necropotence allows you to win in a sinlge turn.
Like your reason holds for some decks, but for the majority of combo decks you never get to discard your hand because you win before you have to.
June 10, 2015 12:14 p.m.
SimicPower says... #14
I don't play Legacy or Vintage, so I guess I am not the most knowledgeable about the subject. What instant speed combos does black have? Tendrils of Agony is a sorcery.
June 10, 2015 12:30 p.m.
because you get the cards in the end step. Though I believe there was some way around that. I have best knowledge of EDH where you can just go off at instant speed.
June 10, 2015 12:41 p.m.
Cobthecobbler says... #17
Imagine being able to fill up your hand after a burst of casting cards, for no mana at all. Then imagine being able to fuel combos that much easier because you cycle through way more of your deck than the average player casting one-time draw spells. Now imagine that you're in a game of EDH with 40 life at your disposal and with this on the field, every turn you have a full hand. Gaining life? Cool, that's even more cards.
Paying life as a resource is perfectly okay if you're trying to win, since you need mana for almost everything else, and you no longer have to use mana to draw cards.
Epochalyptik says... #2
Having cards is a great advantage, and it's worth paying life for. Life is just a resource.
June 10, 2015 7:11 a.m.