Unmoored Ego
Economics forum
Posted on Oct. 16, 2018, 7:24 a.m. by HashMasta
so this card in GRN called Unmoored Ego seemed to really strike out to me. I was just wondering if you guys would think that this will have a sense in modern play and could spike in price.
Considering that for only 3 mana, this card can single handedly shut down a lot of decks.
Some examples being death's shadow (if its a fully reliant deck), tron decks, certain affinity decks, and possibly some cards that are the game enders in control. For example, how is a blue white control deck supposed to win if you get rid of all their creatures?
The only downside is that it makes your opponent draw most of the time 4 cards if they have a full playset. however, it means that none of those cards you chose will be drawn so could it really be that big of a problem? Granted this card can be stone cold useless against midrange decks that have variety of ways to win like jund, humans, abzan, etc.
I could be very well wrong with this assumption but I think that it could possibly find its way into a grixis control deck or dimir control deck to thin out the competition and could get a couple dollars worth of profit. What do you guys think? Boom or Bust
They only draw a card for each card that was exiled from their hand, so it's not as bad as you think. They wouldn't draw anything if the playset was all in the deck.
October 16, 2018 8:04 a.m.
It's 3 mana, guaranteed card-disadvantage and there are actually very few decks in the format that are completely reliant on a single card to win. I really just don't see how it can compete with Surgical Extraction as the go-to combo-breaker card. It guess it might find a couple of slots in some sideboards but I seriously doubt it's going to be significant enough to gain any value.
October 16, 2018 8:15 a.m.
Neither affinity, nor death's shadow, nor tron (to an extent), nor game-enders in control are single cards that can be taken care of with a single casting of Unmoored Ego. The only possible situation is against tron:
You are on the play turn 3 versus their turn 2. They have not played the third tron land, you exile all copies of it. However:
- they draw replacement cards
- you are down a card without impacting the board
- you probably mulliganned aggresively to get here and do not have much to follow up
- tron is perfectly fine to play without tron, just casting the big things once it gets enough mana.
If you want to hose those decks in your UB decks, dampening sphere works perfectly fine.
October 16, 2018 8:55 a.m.
pizzagod13 says... #7
I mean it seems fine if your opponent can only win with a single specific card. There are plenty of decks in modern like that Ad Nauseam which only runs 2(?) cards that win at one copy each.
However, it is awful in anything else. Surgical Extraction at least does something in other match ups. Also there are other lesser known options that do the same thing like Sadistic Sacrament.
October 16, 2018 12:05 p.m.
pizzagod13 says... #8
Whoops, just realized it only targets a single card. So Ad Nauseam is a bad example of an effective use of the card.
Sadistic Sacrament would actually work well in this case.
Also sorry about double post just wanted to clarify my error.
October 16, 2018 12:09 p.m.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't there a benefit to seeing what your opponent is playing? You do get to search their entire library. Also, you can target land so in anything multi-color you could put them at a disadvantage when trying to draw into mana. Not to mention those highlighting the card draw replacement as a negative, are either missing or overlooking that it only happens if cards are exiled from your opponent's hand. If you exile from the library or graveyard they get nothing for it.
My thoughts are you'll see this card sideboarded into decks as an answer to problems once a player has seen the deck one time. Would play very well into a mill deck in my opinion
October 17, 2018 8:45 a.m.
dang sims i didnt even notice about the hand and card draw. good catch
October 17, 2018 9:57 a.m. Edited.
FSims81, regardless of how many cards you remove from the hand, they draw replacements, meaning Unmoored Ego is always -1 card advantage - you have spent a card in hand, while the opponent's number of cards in hand does not.
Compare to Surgical Extraction, where if you exile 2 from the hand, you are at +1 card advantage - you spent a card to remove two from their hand.
Unmoored Ego's only advantage is being able to target land cards, compared to other options. The only deck where this is relevant is tron, and only if you are on the play turn 3 before they assemble tron. This is such a corner case that it is not really relevant.
Thus, there are really no situations where Ego is better than existing alternatives.
October 17, 2018 10:17 a.m.
Boza While the -1 card advantage is accurate, it is not true about the card replacement. If I remove 0 cards from their hand they draw no cards which means sure I spent a card, but they have lost up to 4 from their deck. I still like the card in a mill deck
As for Surgical Extraction sure it may be cheaper to cast, and doesn't replace cards removed from the hand, but it does potentially cost you life and is limited to what your opponent has in their graveyard. Ego does not share that limitation. If you know what your opponent is playing you can target it on turn 3. The same can not be said of Extraction
October 17, 2018 10:43 a.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #13
Boza actually Surgical Extraction can target lands too, just not basics.
FSims81 a potential T1 play is far stronger than a potential T3 play. Especially when T1 is often the only "safe/free" turn against any deck running blue. Furthermore being able to pay life instead of mana is a clear advantage not a disadvantage
October 17, 2018 10:56 a.m.
FSims81, so spending a card and 3 mana to not impact the board and remove cards from a deck is a good thing? Glimpse the Unthinkable gives you 2.5 times more cards removed from a deck, for just 2 mana. Mill decks care about the quantity of cards removed, not the quality.
That much is true about Extraction, but how about Memoricide or Slaughter Games, which cost 1 more than Ego, but exile with no downside or even with upside.
Unmoored Ego is the same as Lost Legacy, except you can name lands and artifacts. How impactful was LL in modern in the year since it existed? Ego will have the exact same impact - there are few if any decks that rely on specific artifacts or lands (Tron, KCI and that is it).
October 17, 2018 11:01 a.m.
Boza Glimpse the Unthinkable mills plenty of cards for a cheaper price yes, but they are sitting in the graveyard only and there are plenty of potential ways to bring those cards back or play them from the yard. Ego at the very least exiles its targets. Memoricide or Slaughter Games both cost more and both have restrictions on what you can target so both would be weaker cards to me than Ego. We don't have to agree on the card's effectiveness. I just think it might have a little more use than people are expecting.
APPLE01DOJ I can't think of a single scenario where Surgical Extraction would be a T1 play, but I am open to explanation on how that would work
October 17, 2018 12:53 p.m.
That definitely works.
I would not want to start the game off down 4 life though
October 17, 2018 1:19 p.m.
I think people are over looking the fact it can hit basics. Run this in a deck with blood moon seems fun
October 17, 2018 1:48 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #19
I'm from the era of Fetch > Shock > Thoughtseize, followed by a turn 2 Dark Confidant. Life is a commodity not a strategy.
October 17, 2018 1:48 p.m.
@FSims81 - Most decks that would run that, wouldn't care about the life loss
@Shadow63 - Remember however it can only hit 4 basics. Most decks running less than 4 basics are multicolored in which case they'd have the other basics still.
October 17, 2018 1:51 p.m.
Unmoored Ego is probably at the highest it'll ever be atm, even if it becomes a staple in some modern decks people are cracking so many packs of GRN for fetch lands the price of nearly every other card in the set will slowly dip down, even trophy will likely become a $10 card before next year. In fact nearly any of the $10+ cards you're not using for events you might want to trade away for cards you want to use now, and then pick them up later. Really the only safe bet to buy into in the long run is Chromatic Lantern.
Though once Unmoored Ego goes below a dollar pick up 20 or 30 of them as a small gamble, hell it might be fun to do for several of the cards.
Vixxxx says... #2
I don't believe in it, 3 mana is slow for modern, but there is indeed few decks it does work against very well.
October 16, 2018 7:36 a.m.