Thoughts on Damping Sphere?
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on May 9, 2018, 5:35 p.m. by SpliceIntoCantrip
What is everyone thoughts on Damping Sphere for sideboard against Tron?
I think it is quite amazing, and am highly considering it. However, the only issue I have with it is the additional cost to playing spells since I play a Control deck, or would that have very little drawback on my part? I'm eager to hear everyone's opinion on this awesome hate piece.
Gidgetimer says... #3
I have been out of modern for a while so I'm not sure how relevant the first ability is; however, for a draw-go or attrition control deck the second ability seems pretty strong. It simply reads "counter target deck" if you get paired against storm and slows down the aggressive decks enough to allow you to stabilize more easily.
May 9, 2018 6:37 p.m.
SpliceIntoCantrip says... #4
The first ability is perfect against Tron decks, which is the worst matchup for my deck, that is mainly what I am concerned with. But Storm is annoying to deal with and so are burn decks. The only issue is my deck specifically starts to abuse Kolaghan's Command and Snapcaster Mage multiple times per turn late game, but since it can destroy an artifact, that shouldn't be too much of a problem if I do some proper timing. Thank you for your input.
May 9, 2018 6:45 p.m.
Don't get me wrong the first ability is absolutely great, but its mainly useful for faster midrange decks, and not that great for "control". Stuff like mardu pyromancer, can wreak absolute havoc (if its not hated out, by something like Chalice of the Void)
the problem stems from the fact, that due to its eggs, tron can more reliably find its land drops, and in many cases when it starts to cast its threats it will outvalue what decks that currently run under the "control" monicker can play.
Stuff like hardcore draw-go esper control has pretty good chance to eat tron alive, but its not a deck that anyone plays these days. (Tron would win the topdeck, war, but the point is that there is no topdeck war if you draw multiple cards each turn - which is why "gideon tribal control" is much weaker to tron)
May 9, 2018 6:47 p.m.
SpliceIntoCantrip says... #6
I do have other ways of dealing with Tron, I just like having as much ways to deal with them as I can. I run Disdainful Stroke and often use Ghost Quarter with Surgical Extraction to get rid of their lands. Luckily, I can put down a Tasigur, the Golden Fang as early as T2. Do you have other suggestions for sideboarding against Tron?
May 9, 2018 6:51 p.m.
Against classic tron Stony Silence is backbreaking, it catches all their eggs (Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere, Relic of Progenitus), so they can't dig for their large threats, or answers for your hate pieces, it disables both Expedition Map & Oblivion Stone.
(And it also hates on lantern, and affinity)
If you play Grixis, then the best bet is probably to go back to the roots, and simply draw more answers than they can match with threats. Which can be done with the 8-command lists.
May 9, 2018 7:08 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #8
Xica: tron isn't playing their karns, wurmcoil engines, or ugins until after they destroy the Damping Sphere. so unless the tron player thinks to put artifact destruction in for game 2, a Damping Sphere pretty much forces the tron player to start scooping up cards.
May 9, 2018 8:29 p.m.
Tron boards in artifact and enchantment remival in almost every matchup.
If you cant pressure tron good anough or disrupt them further its not going to be enough. But thats true for every comon tron hate
May 9, 2018 9:31 p.m.
MegaMetagross
It does, but not on turn 3, instead of turn 6 & 7. What exactly forbids them to just cast those cards off 6 or 7 mountains / wastes?
And yes tron will board in artifact hate, ... if they find it. Thats is likely gonna be a single playset of some random 1 cmc green spell (with ~40% chance of them finding one, if you run 4x sphere, tha means, that this will matter in 20% of early games). If they use Oblivion Stone, to remove Damping Sphere (at 5 lands) they might as well just not use it and cast Wurmcoil Engine naturally from 6 lands on the next turn...
May 10, 2018 6:29 a.m.
Ive found Damping Sphere to be a hindrance in my control deck because I want to drop control pieces on my turn with enough untapped mana sources leftover to respond on their turns.
With the sphere Ive found that I would constantly be one untapped source short of being able to play the permanents I needed and have enough left over for responses. Ive taken it out of my build.
May 10, 2018 10:23 a.m.
Damping Sphere only slows down Tron. It doesnt stop them. If you dont have a way to beat them quickly theyll eventually naturally get up to 6 or 7 mana and win anyway and thats only if youre playing traditional Tron. If youre playing Eldrazi Tron its really only a slight inconvenience
May 10, 2018 3:31 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #13
Xica: what tron decks are you playing against that use wastes? they wouldn't have "6 or 7 mountains/wastes" a good chunk of their lands would likely be the urza lands since that makes up a minimum of half their land base. but you're also assuming the tron player lives to turn 6 or 7, AND has a land drop every single turn. by turn 6 the tron player should be dead since the only thing they can cast is their land tutors.
May 10, 2018 11:11 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #14
zegrim: unless you're playing multiple spells on the opponents turn, the Damping Sphere doesnt hurt you.
May 10, 2018 11:12 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #15
MWorl91: Damping Sphere absolutely stops tron until they destroy it. they wont "eventually naturally" get up to 6 or 7 mana until...turn 6 or 7 obviously. by which point they should be long dead. even if they're somehow still alive, they should be so incredibly far behind that even the big tron-bombs won't matter. what can a turn 7 karn really do when its the first real spell the tron player has played all game, whereas the opponent has spent 6-7 turns building up their field?
May 10, 2018 11:17 p.m.
MegaMetagross
Most, if not all GX tron lists, run 3x Thragtusk + 3x Thought-Knot Seer in their sideboard. So doing "nothing" until 6 mana doesn't describe the situation accurately in many cases.
And to put it bluntly, even a Geist of Saint Traft on turn 3 is not an assured victory, since it can easily face Spatial Contortion cast in response, or it can be easily stonewalled by any creature the deck plays. Moreover, you would need to finish the tron deck before turn 6, which is problematic since, geist deals 6 damage, so if you are not a jeskai list that runs Lightning Bolt you are in trouble.
And we were just discussing on of the most temp-ish control finishers.
Of course there are more than enough aggressive deck that are able to deal with tron, but claiming that running Damping Sphere solves every problematic tron matchup is just delusional.
May 11, 2018 8:20 a.m.
As someone who has played against Tron, boarded in a Damping Sphere after game 1, and played it as early as turn 2 on the play, Im telling you, all it does is slow them down. It is absolutely not an auto win. They won the game without even having to blow it up.
May 11, 2018 10:02 a.m.
MegaMetagross says... #18
Xica you cant Spatial Contortion a Geist of Saint Traft. and why are you assuming Geist of Saint Traft would be the only creature? why are even assuming the non-tron player is playing blue and white?
May 11, 2018 12:53 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #19
MWorl91: you're joking right? you played a turn 2 Damping Sphere on the play and you lost with the Damping Sphere still on the field? were you just drawing and passing turn? were you doing ANYTHING? you'd have to be a really horrible player to lose in that scenario
May 11, 2018 12:54 p.m.
You need to pressure tron to win after you disrupted them if you are not able to do that you will lose.
You dont even know what deck he played. He might had a bad draw, tron might have removed his threats or he might ppay adeck with a throw tbreat density or what ever.
It i credibly rude and silly to assume hes a bad player if you actually dont know anything about him
And eldrazi tron plays wastes. Blood moon makes lands mou taind and shere makes tron lands basically to wastes thats what he meant.
May 11, 2018 3:31 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #22
lukas96: if you can't pressure someone with 6 turns of them doing nothing, you shouldn't be playing competitively. also, i have no idea what you mean by "ppay adeck with a throw tbtreat density". im guessing you meant "play a deck with a low threat density". but heres the thing. any and every deck should have enough threats to win the game, especially if the opponent isn't doing anything. its not rude or silly at all to assume someone is a bad player considering i DO know something about him. i know he let a tron player win while he had Damping Sphere in play. that is way, way, waaaaay more than enough to know to call someone a bad player. there is no card named "shere". and don't give me that crap of "he meant Damping Sphere turns tron lands into wastes" because you know darn well he certainly did not. i have played e-tron many times and they've never used a Wastes. why would they? they already have 12 sources of colorless mana...
May 11, 2018 3:37 p.m.
Path to Exile, Blood Moon, and Ghost Quarter are all reasons to play Wastes. Also the argument is that Blood Moon turns your Tron lands into mountains, making it impossible to cast cards that require Colorless mana. Where as Damping Sphere allows them to still tap for Colorless. Therefore making it less effective at locking a Tron player out than Blood Moon would be.
Also, youre telling me if youre playing Eldrazi Tron and an opponent plays Damping Sphere against you that youll wait until turn 6 to cast cards like Matter Reshaper, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Warping Wail, Dismember, Chalice of the Void etc? You sound like the terrible player.
As I said, it only shuts down fast mana, therefore slowing them down. It doesnt beat them by itself.
May 11, 2018 3:48 p.m.
Wellyou seem to be a pretty rude and offensive person that isnt able to deal woth critique. I havebetter things to do than draling with you so im happy to ignore you from now on
May 11, 2018 3:55 p.m.
MegaMetagross says... #25
MWorl91 im a great player, you're terrible at reading. i never once said or implied that an e-tron player would wait until turn 6 to cast those spells. but they DO have to still wait a bit for a good portion of the cards you mentioned. you do realize not every tron deck is eldrazi right? maybe learn to read before you spout off nonsense and try to put words in peoples mouths that they didn't say? and you do realize i never once disputed the effectiveness of Blood Moon right? in fact i literally never mentioned it at all.
the simple fact of the matter here is that if your local meta has regular attendance of tron players, and you don't at least ATTEMPT to use a Damping Sphere, you should stop playing the game. what are you all even trying to argue against anyway? you readily admit it slows them down, and your ONLY counterpoint to why it might not shut them down completely is "but e-tron!". you're just arguing for the sake of arguing even though you actually know you agree with me the card is good.
and all this doesn't even take into account that the card shuts down a lot of other things as well.
May 11, 2018 4 p.m.
chuapengwei says... #28
Hello it i cash Mizzix's Mastery pay the overload cost,Damping sphere in play,did i need pay mana cost for eash spell?
May 13, 2018 10:20 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #29
Yes, you have to pay cost increases when casting a spell without paying its mana cost as Mizzix's Mastery has you do. Since you are casting each spell you would also count them toward the cost increases for subsequent ones. So if you hadn't cast and spells yet and decided to overload Mizzix's Mastery with 5 eligible cards in you graveyard and you wanted to play all of them you would have to pay an additional 15 mana.
May 13, 2018 10:50 p.m.
What youre saying is just not true. Damping sphere did affect me because it stopped me for being able to play all the permanents I wanted on my turns and still have enough untapped mana sources for responses on my opponents turn; which is why I took it out.
Xica says... #2
Its like a T2 blood moon, for decks that can't normally have t2 blood moon.
However that is far from enough if you want to beat tron. If you can't win if they curve Thragtusk, into Wurmcoil Engine, into Karn Liberated, and can't win before turn 5, then Damping Sphere won't help you that much.
(Its great against storm though, i mean it allows the diversification of hate cards, thus a single Echoing Truth won't be enough)
May 9, 2018 6:36 p.m.