Disdainful Stroke

Instant

Counter target spell with converted mana cost 4 or greater.

Discussion (47)

K1ngMars on Help optimizing my Wilhelt Precon

1 month ago

I would definitely suggest you to include the recently printed Poppet Factory, as it allows Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver to generate a zombie every time you sacrifice a zombie, due to the fact that the Decayed ability gets overwritten. Besides, Gravecrawler too allows for infinite loops with Phyrexian Altar and a permanent dealing damage triggered by creature deaths, like Bastion of Remembrance.

To support the combo route, which could definitely help in keeping up your game, I would also suggest to add some tutors, to help you smooth out your hand and always find the right cards at the right time. Such cards could range from Lim-Dul's Vault to Scheming Symmetry or Demonic Tutor, mainly depending on your budget. Remember, tutors don't necessarily need to be 60 bucks to be good. They are always good.

Apart from that though, another proactive way to stop you opponents into their tracks is to simply use counterspells. Dimir offers some of the best control magic available, amongst which I'll recall: Counterspell, Countersquall, Arcane Denial, Wash Away, Disdainful Stroke... The choices are endless and should be suited to what are the main threats you wish to answer in your playgroup. Overall, 5 counterspells should be enough to step up your game a bit in terms of interaction, without making your deck a control-focused spellslinger deck.

As a last note, I'll link you the deck of one of my friends, which I've helped with in upgrading. It's a comboless Wilhelt with quite a strong presnece in games, hopefully it may be of some inspiration to you.

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Undead Unleashed | Upgrade Precon copy

Commander / EDH emanem98

SCORE: 2 | 1 COMMENT | 60 VIEWS

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wallisface on Help with my landfall deck

1 month ago

eldraziboss9142 While Counterspell can help your crabs stay alive a little, Disdainful Stroke won’t do much at all except maybe catch-out the occasional Solitude/Fury… all other removal in modern costs around 1-2 mana, and in general Disdainful Stroke feels like a sideboard card at-best.

Your big threats, as I see them, are:

• Jund, Control, DeathsShadow: they have enough removal to get around your Counterspell, and because you have no plan-B, will be able to comfortably end your plans

• Burn, HammerTime, Mill, etc: will all be faster than you, and present faster clocks while also being able to disrupt what you’re doing.

• Dredge, Crabvine, LivingEnd, Reanimator: will all be super-stoked that you’re giving them what they want.

• Endurance basically ends your gameplan immediately, as the reset of their deck likely puts you too far behind.

• Leyline of Sanctity makes life very awkward, as it turns off half your crabs.

• Supreme Verdict gets around your counter magic, and leaves you dead in the water.

^ a lot of this can be addressed by having a solid plan-B wincon, as well as finding ways to have your deck win faster. Including a sideboard will help with most the individual cards I mentioned.

eldraziboss9142 on Help with my landfall deck

1 month ago

also i have the Counterspell and Disdainful Stroke copies for the removal defense

Tzefick on Vanish into the Void

3 months ago

As for the card itself: Obviously granting counter spells to all colors is in itself a dangerous thing to do but this one is also made cheaper by the size of the spell it wants to counter. Normally counter spells are made to be a likely tempo win, being cheaper to counter most smaller things or like Mana Leak it can deal with small stuff early in the game but the longer the game drags out, the more likely your opponent can naturally pay the cost to not have their spell countered - but it is still a mana tempo win, although marginal.

This follows a completely different logic, almost the complete opposite. The larger a spell, the less you have to pay to counter it. This is going to be a salt meter adding card where people who wants to play big spells gets shafted really really hard and it's possible for any color to include this colorless counter spell. Meanwhile those who plays small spells are safe from getting countered because the cost is astronomical to counter a MV 1-3 card.

Additionally the way you have attempted to balance this card is exclusively through mana cost - and I know that's been the go-to in the past. Something that especially for Commander is less a problem for certain colors due to mana ramp, and/or mana doubling, meaning the drawback hits differently between the colors.

If we should see another colorless counter spell (not colorless as in Warping Wail) I think it should be a lot more similar to Mana Leak than Disdainful Stroke in concept and perhaps the drawback should be more thoughtfully designed.

With that being said I hope we wont get flexible colorless counter spells. I do hope more colors gets to interact with the stack in the future to increase overall interaction instead of mostly hoarding that segment of the game for blue's counter spells. We've seen a few attempts in white recently, so we're starting on that journey but also only starting (although please WotC don't make more catch alls like Teferi's Protection - that card does a little too much).

plakjekaas on Vanish into the Void

3 months ago

EleshNornsFs that is usually the case if you are tutoring a card, or finding it in a graveyard, or casting it for free.

A Spellseeker may find a Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip because in your library, for the mana value of the card, is considered 0.

However, when you pay 8 mana to càst the Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip, when it is on the stack, its converted mana cost is 8 and it can be hit with a Disdainful Stroke.

It's the difference between the converted mana cost of a card (in your hand, graveyard, library, in play), and the converted mana cost of a spell (on the stack) and they're only different for X spells. You can use Disdainful Stroke on a Walking Ballista being cast for =4, but when it has resolved, the mana cost of the permanent is , and anywhere but on the stack, is considered 0 to determine mana value. That is why it will die to Fatal Push without even activating Revolt.

Ghool on Prismatic Superfriends

5 months ago

Counterspell instead of Disdainful Stroke. Same mana cost, effective against all spells.

Rhadamanthus on Chalice of the void vs …

5 months ago

The rules define mana value (previously called Converted Mana Cost) as: "The total amount of mana in a mana cost, regardless of color". Mana cost is defined as: "A characteristic, and part of a card. A card's mana cost is indicated by the mana symbols printed in its upper right corner". Paying an alternative cost such as Dash or Overload doesn't change the printed mana cost. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer 's printed mana cost is , so it will always have a mana value of 1.

The calculation takes into account the chosen value of any X in the mana cost. This is why Disdainful Stroke can counter Repeal with X=3.

DrWaffles on Chalice of the void vs …

5 months ago

But then how a Disdainful Stroke counters a Repeal with x=3?