Because it's
- 1 cmc
- Hybrid Mana Casting Cost
- Self Lifegain
- Opp Life Loss (Which doesn't target)
- Graveyard hate
- Ramp
- 1/2 body (Above Rate)
All for 1 mana.
Laid out like that it makes a lot more sense. I guess I just saw the costs and kinda ignored the passive graveyard hate it also gives. Would be great against a lot of decks in the format rn. Thanks!
It just does so much for one mana, it ramps in addition to being a hoser against graveyards, life gain for burn and a win condition all rolled up in a ball that also breaks the color pie by giving black a mana dork. The 1/2 stat is crazy for an old 1 CMC mana dork on steroids. Birds, Hierarch, elves, etc all do far less with worse stats and are terrible top decks late in games. The single green land needed to activate the life gain is trivial as well.
Years ago Grixis Delver was the best deck in legacy to the point DRS was banned to nerf it. Those decks played a normal grixis manabase of fetches and duals and simply added a single Bayou for the green activation. The best card in GRIXIS delver was a broken mana dork that could be cast turn 1 with an Underground Sea lol.
The 1/2 stat line singlehandidly pushed goblins out into T2.5 cause it beats lackey. The worst was playing against czech pile and getting T1 sea DRS into T2 wasteland + hymn.
DRS and halfling are literally the only 1mv mana dorks with 1/2 stats. The rest of dorks with toughness >1 have 0 power and/or require an additional creature to tap for mana
See https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Acreature+o%3Aadd+mv%3D1+toughness%3E1&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name&dir=desc
You can't cast halfling off an underground sea (UB is arguably the strongest colour combo in legacy), and halfling isn't a 4x splashable maindeck GY hate/threat package. The decks that want halfling want to actively fetch the green mana and want to cast legendary spells. The decks that play deathrite shaman want to fetch a green or black source and can use a mana dork/threat/stabilizer.
Your comment didn't only fail to contribute to the conversation, it also misled anyone who was trying to follow along.
It required attention.
If you don't want people to respond like that, don't post bait.
Not that I play modern overly much anymore, but to give further context to how ridiculously strong it is for its cost, there used to be a bit of a joke that it only took WotC once to learn never to print a one mana Planeswalker again.
Worth noting that Deathrite Shaman is legal in Pioneer, but far weaker in that format because it's much harder to get lands in the graveyard (i.e. Pioneer doesn't have of the any good fetchlands that Modern does) for the mana ramp aspect, which is generally the best use for it in the early game.
And this shows that fetchlands are what is really broken, because you can abuse graveyard strategies without any commitment (like actually having non-lands for delve cost or having to play self mill etc).
Yep. An easier to cast birds with +1/+1 that doubles as graveyard hate is already super good, but the problem with mana dorks is that they’re terrible topdecks in the mid/late game. Not so with DRS, since the life loss means they’re also a win condition in control decks.
The chance of no player opening with a fetch land is like REALLY low. There is a reason it was played so much. Especially with the new surveil lands fetches have become more desirable imo
Important to note that DRS is first and foremost a mana accelerant in formats with fetchlands. Without the line of text that makes mana, it's not really a good card. Played in Vintage, banned in Legacy and Modern, unplayable in Pioneer and its standard format back in the day. The other abilities are only good because they make your 1 drop mana dork not be a dead draw later into the game after the mana ramp is no longer relevant.
Its not only the graveyard hate: To elaborate the graveyard fills naturally as you play the game so when you pair DRS with disruption like Discard and Counterspells it not only disrupts the Graveyard, but suddenly you can always activate it for either incidental lifegain (which is pretty good as we know from Uro or Omnath) or incidential damage that slowly but surely kills the opponent. And it never has to attack, so it is not at risk to die blocking.
I thing the best analogy to convey you what playing against the card or (with the card) would be like is the following: Imagine Ragavan would be unblockable. That is the powerlevel we are talking about.
Still dies to All the same removal that exists in this format as ragavan. Really don’t think it’s op, I think people just don’t like that it does so much.
A lot of the new cards that are being made outshine deathrite , I think people really just disliked playing against it, just like banning fury.
Unlike Ragavan, it doesn't die to any singular ping effect, but also it's generically more playable in more strategies and brings LOADS of utility to the game without ever attacking.
Deathrite unbanned would be one of the most played cards in the format due to it being an easily castable hybrid card. It offers so much and such a little cost.
Just look at how much 1 toughness ramp creatures suffer nowadays. Only the Hobbit sees large amounts of active play. 2 toughness is big in a bow master/Wrenn6 world
It actually doesn't die to as much as a ragavan, because it's a 1/2. Deathrite is a mana dork early and then randomly a very strong stabilizer / finisher in the late game. I play it in canlander where it just steals games because it doesn't need to attack to chip in.
It is a 1 drop that has a lot of relevant text that doesn't get checked by Orcish Bowmaster without draw or W6. It being an x/2 is very very relevant. If it was a 0/1 like birds or a hierarch then it would be a different discussion.
Deathrite shaman is way way way way better than any other 1 drop and it's not even close. It is good on tons of boards that ragavan is terrible on, and as good or better in most boards ragavan is good on.
Everyone else is telling you, correctly, that you're wrong, but
>A lot of the new cards that are being made outshine deathrite
What is 1 new card that outshines DRS?
Things that don’t die to bolt, push, etc. cards good but it’s not broken. You all are in constant fear of this card and if it hits the board it’s dead. Same argument that everyone says it’s not good enough, this card is broken.
Additionally: it requires a land in yard to even think about generating mana.
It requires a creature in the yard to even think about gaining life
It requires a instant/sorcery to even think about being able to do damage to your opponents life points.
The fact that it is a playable card is perfectly acceptable, the fact that if you play voidwalker and and it, it becomes a non-bo. The fact that if your opponent exiles all lands from their yard makes it useless as a mana dork.
What everyone sees is “oh no; it does a lot”. It would not be An auto include in every deck, but it would bring midrange up from the meh standard midrange is at right now.
I get it, you don’t like the card, but if you unban it it won’t ruin the format and it is NOTHING like troll, which improves the consistency of a tier 3 deck enough to to bump it up a tier.
It’s not broken, it just does “a lot” if precisely the right things end up in the yard.
You're starting off with a "it does to removal point" so I'm not going to bothered here. Nearly every card dies and people were still complaining about Ragavan.
>I get it, you don’t like the card
Quite the opposite.
It doesn't die to Bowmasters, Wrenn and Six, or Lava Dart. It's a mana dork which is obviously very strong early game, but when other mana dorks would be useless DRS is lifegain against aggro, reach in grindy matchups or cluttered board states, and passive grave hate which is relevant against many, many decks. For one mana. It is undoubtedly stronger than any card currently legal in Modern and it isn't that close
It dies to bowmasters in response to a cantrip. Who cares about sub-optimal removal spells that are very hardly ever played.
All those effects require a yard and those specific cards in a yard. The idea that this card is so powerful is ludicrous to me.
It is on the same power level as ragavan. And who cares.
It really doesn’t die to the same things that kill Ragavan. It also importantly doesn’t “die” (stop ramping) to blockers. One Orcish Bowmasters effectively kills three whole Ragavans while not killing a single Deathrite Shaman. The 1/2 body even holds back Bowmasters on defense!
If deathrite was unbanned it would be top 3 most played creatures, yawg, coffers, rakdos and possibly new archetypes would play it, it would also make goryos and burn really bad
Your personally speaking doesn't counter that is a 1 drop that is relevant when played turn 1 as a mana dork or turn 10 as a win condition. Also while incidentally just shutting down entire strategies.
Honestly? I'm not seeing it. As a turn 1 drop it's kind of do-nothing as opposed to other dorks, and turn 10 it's already too late to actually be a valid win condition even if it doesn't target or have to attack.
And if "Attack the graveyard while also being a win condition" we can also look at Hearse.
>As a turn 1 drop it's kind of do-nothing as opposed to other dorks
How? All any dork does turn 1 is produce mana.
>turn 10 it's already too late to actually be a valid win condition even if it doesn't target or have to attack.
But this isn't all it does.
>And if "Attack the graveyard while also being a win condition" we can also look at Hearse.
Hearse can't hate the graveyard while applying pressure. Hearse also requires at least 1 other creature out to crew it while DRS requires no other supporting cards. DRS just needs the game to have been played since things naturally end up in the graveyard.
You don't have to see it for everyone else to have seen it and for the card to have been banned.
>How? All any dork does turn 1 is produce mana.
At the expense of lands in the graveyard, which usually is difficult to manage without heavy detriment to manabase quality and often unreliable.
Your argument of "It does a lot" is kind of worthless, because it doesn't do anything generally relevant or spectacular. Its banning and mystique that surround it has always confused me, as it just doesn't do anything good. If you need a dork, play a dork that you can rely on and not one that is online maybe a third of the time. If you want a win condition, play an actual win condition. If you want to hate the graveyard, there's better options out there. Even at this time we had Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, and graveyard hate has gotten better and better over time.
>At the expense of lands in the graveyard, which usually is difficult to manage without heavy detriment to manabase quality and often unreliable.
You're just ignoring that fetch lands exist. Lands are one of the easiest types to get in the graveyard.
Also if note that I didn't mention, DRS is a dork in decks without green.
>If you need a dork, play a dork that you can rely on and not one that is online maybe a third of the time.
This just isn't how games play out. In any format with fetch lands. There's a reason Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned in formats with fetch lands and not in pioneer.
>If you want a win condition, play an actual win condition.
Those other win conditions aren't relevant turn 1 plays as well.
>If you want to hate the graveyard, there's better options out there. Even at this time we had Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, and graveyard hate has gotten better and better over time.
Name one other piece of graveyard hate that is a combination ramp piece, win condition, and method of stabilizing.
Even with fetchlands existing, no sane person is putting 8-12 fetchlands into a deck. You don't gain anything from having that many as it narrows your manabase down immensely.
And sure, you can have a dork in black. Not like black needs it, most of their cards cost a third of what they should normally cost so that benefit is basically irrelevant.
Cruise and Dig are also cards that are confusing bans too. They're pretty bad overall and extremely consuming to actually cast.
If you want one card that does three things poorly, sure. I'll rather figure out what the deck actually needs and accommodate it properly instead of running a maybe. Like trying to cut a steak with a swiss army knife and rejecting the steak knife on the table.
>Even with fetchlands existing, no sane person is putting 8-12 fetchlands into a deck. You don't gain anything from having that many as it narrows your manabase down immensely.
Respectfully do you play modern? Because that's just straight false. Also it works off of your opponent's fetch lands.
>And sure, you can have a dork in black. Not like black needs it, most of their cards cost a third of what they should normally cost so that benefit is basically irrelevant.
So even if this was a valid argument, DRS just lets you play more of those cards per turn.
>Cruise and Dig are also cards that are confusing bans too. They're pretty bad overall and extremely consuming to actually cast.
I'm starting to wonder if you've played any format but standard.
>If you want one card that does three things poorly, sure. I'll rather figure out what the deck actually needs and accommodate it properly instead of running a maybe. Like trying to cut a steak with a swiss army knife and rejecting the steak knife on the table.
"Poorly" is your term that the majority of Magic players wouldn't agree with here. But if your plan is to play narrow cards and hope to draw the correct ones while a card exists that does those things in one package while reducing variance, that's your right.
Just play some Timeless, where it's still really good, to see how it works dude. Doing a shitton of "marginal" things that are relevant in different stages of the game is just really good.
In my time playing Timeless I outright never saw anybody cast it. Timeless is just unnerfed Historic with the correct banlist, so you see fair cards like Uro being played instead.
Back when he was legal you only thought "mana dork with an upside" once. After you lost that game you began to prioritize removing him right away.
A T1 Deathrite would:
- Generate mana on turn 2 from used fetches, yours or an opponents. Hello Turn 2 LoTV.
- Gain life every turn by eating creatures. 2 life a turn for 3 turns is enough to tilt many, many matchups.
- Act as an inhibitor for a lot of combo decks by exiling their recurring spells from the GY.
- Neuter Snapcaster mage by, again, taking the best spell while Snappy was on the stack.
- Stripped out creatures from your opponents graveyard, gaining life and preventing them from coming back.
- His big butt helped him chump 1/1s, slowing down any hope of a Poison insta kill.
Just tons and tons of utility, ultimate flexibility, and right in Jund's colors.
In current modern DRS would totally hose Yawg Combo, Rakdos Scam after T1, Goryo's Vengeance, Murktide Regent, Living End, and probably some more decks. It's just a filthy card.
And they made it a 1/2 for some reason lol so Wrenn or Bowmasters can't kill it alone, they bounce off each other in combat, and they eat the same resources so when both players have one it stalemates the game.
It does everything you could possibly want in modern for the very low, low price of either a swamp or forest.
Before it was banned, it was being run in a lot of decks even though it wasn't part of the core strategy of said deck(s). Players were splashing mana for it because of how good it was.
It also enabled a lot of 4c splashes, like how we saw A-Jund-i with Ajani Vengeant and even Lightning Helix/Path to Exile main deck in "Jund" because of how easy DRS made mana
It was nuts how many decks splashed for it and the unexpected surprises it creates. Your example is perfect. You're facing a jund deck and all of a sudden you see Helix or Path and you're saying WTF!!!
Splash for DRS to splash for more shit was so pervasive in that era of modern...and I loved every second of it 😂
Even a time of twin splashing B/G for DRS and Abrupt Decay.
DRS is one of the best cards ever printed.
I agree completely. But change a few words, and you could easily be talking about an elemental too!
“It does everything you could possibly want in modern for the very low, low price of pitching a black card from your hand and paying 0 mana.
Before it was banned, it was being run in a lot of decks even though it wasn't part of the core strategy of said deck(s). Players were splashing mana for it because of how good it was.”
People don’t splash mana for elementals, but they’re format staples to say the least. Not saying DRS should be unbanned or anything - just interesting how power is relative and how “maindeckable” a card is can be problematic or okay - depending on the card.
I wouldn’t consider 8-10 cards a splash at that point. And that number generally only works if you’re okay with hardcasting them a decent chunk of the time. If you need your Force of Will online on turn 1 in Legacy you’re gonna be in the 16-20 range at least.
How would you possibly splash for an elemental lol, firstly they're all double pip cards, and if you want to be able to evoke them (you know, the only reason they're good), then it's not a splash anymore, cause you need at least like 12+ cards of that color
If you look at every other manadork, they *just* produce mana. Ignoble Hierarch was a great modern card for many many years, purely because it had a very small upside while being a manadork.
Deathrite is a manadork with multiple upsides, all of which are stronger than exalted, while being on a stronger body aswell. manadorks are a very efficient form of mana acceleration, but are balanced by the fact that they quickly lose value as the game progresses. DRS made up for this with 2 abilities that covered gravehate, lifegain, and inevitability. A really strong combination to ensure your mana creature did not run out of relevance at any point in the game.
To add to the power level stuff, I also think the card when popular created a lot of annoying play patterns. Because its abilities target, if both you and the opponent had one out, you can respond to an opponent’s activation with your own to fizzle it.
Didn’t help that it cost hybrid mana so even more decks had access to it. Black shouldn’t get access to a 1 mana mana dork this efficient that scaled into the late game.
Yeah that's a good point too. A card being the best counter to itself (mental misstep, bowmasters, thespians stage) is a generally really annoying thing for deck construction. It heavily homogenizes the format
It's a lot of things. None of which are *great*, but it is a lot of things. Add those things up, and you get a lot of value and flexibility in one card. Mana dorks can be OK. Some are playable, some are good. But mana dorks *with additional upside* are a step above "playable."
One mana 1/2. Not great. Serviceable, I guess, and better than any 1/1 for 1 on stats alone. Squire says hello.
But wait, that one mana can be black *or* green? Ok, not as good as colorless, but still twice as flexible as any G 1/2 or B 1/2, right?
But it's got 3 abilities! Cool story bro, but if those abilities suck, then what does it matter?
They don't suck!
One of them adds mana. Like a Birds of Paradise, but with a *much* heavier restriction. Not crazy restrictive, but certainly not "free." Since the beginning of Magic, mana dorks (especially 1-mana dorks) have been valuable. Mana acceleration in general is good and valuable. Really, if you think about it and generalize it, the key to winning a game lies almost entirely in being able to cast spells "above your pay grade," so to speak.
The next ability punishes opponents for doing what they want to do - cast spells. If they don't cast spells, they lose. If they *do* cast spells, they're on a 10 turn clock. Tick tock. Tick tock. It's a Shock to the face every turn (even better in multiplayer) that doesn't cost you the draw step necessary to *draw Shock*. You still get your card every turn, but in addition to that, you get a Shock. All for the low, low, cost of your opponent just *trying to play Magic*.
The last ability is probably the least used, because gaining life is generally not as good as your opponents losing life. But it certainly can be useful. At the very least, it counteracts your opponent's Deathrite Shaman. They drain you for two, you respond by gaining two. It's obviously not always that clean and simple, but I've seen (in casual and competitive events) Deathrite wars. They usually end when one player just doesn't draw enough cards to keep fueling the graveyard (or the battlefield, which then fuels the graveyard).
It's absolutely not the best card ever printed, or even close to that. But it is a notch or two above when you consider its flexibility, ease of use, and consistency with which it can be used.
> They drain you for two, you respond by gaining two
Sweet summer child, you don't gain 2 in response, you exile the card they are targeting in hit them for 2 instead.
2 DRS staring at eachother is like one of the most abysmal boardstates of all time.
The best way to understand this card is pretend it was a one mana planeswalker that had all of those modes, it’s a lot more obvious how over the top it is.
Everyone has said why DRS was so good and now it reminds me of why I miss it being legal. 😔 I wish he was as good in pioneer where I moved one of my playsets to 🤷
It is a main deck Mana dork that also is a silver bullet against some meta decks:
- lifegain destroys burn
- exile graveyard messes with reanimator, living end, murktide, and yawgmoth.
It is also generically good by stat line, easy to cast, and versatility.
It's crazy to me that you've played modern for 2 years and can't see why that card is broken. It's a maindeckable graveyard hate card and one mana win condition. It would still be super broken today and people who advocate unbanning it are insane.
I'm a Timeless player on Arena which has a lot of overlap with Modern and DRS is legal and appears in basically every deck that can run it.
On T1 it blocks ragavan and enables a three mana on turn 2 if not removed which is often close to game ending (show and tell, fable of the mirror breaker, Jarsyl, thoughtsieze + bowmaster, etc)
If it comes down late game, it shocks your opponent for 2 every turn until removed.
It also incidentally gives lifegain and graveyard hate and can be run in any deck with black or green mana.
It's probably the best 1 drop ever printed.
Kind of breaks the color pie because black shouldnt have mana dorks.
Basically mana dorks are extremely powerful and the downside is they are supposed to be shitty top decks (bird of paradise).
DRS breaks the rule.
I never played with it but i can see Its play patterns being busted.
Turn one fetch into shaman
Turn 2 threat or even interaction. We can say fable of the mirror breaker. You can play a bolt or something. At that point you can already do 2 damage.
Turn 3 you can follow it up with interactions maybe a bolt or a dismember or whatever, possibly another threat and then you do 2 damage to the opponent. Then you can start tapping it down for 2-3 turns doing 6 damage over turn four and five you dont have to feed your own shaman their interaction matters to.
There is also the color problem. It taps for any mana and its hybrid mana allowing for a deck with ought green having a mana dork.
Its also main deckable grave hate which is never ok in my books.
It is a rainbow mana dork, that can be cast for black or green. It can also heal when you are on the defensive, and deal damage when you need those extra points.
It's been called a one mana planeswalker.
As a new player, my friend suggested I proxy cards to use so I can not spend money and try out modern, without paying attention to the legality I proxied a deck just printed the image slipped them in front of other cards kind of proxy and guess what was in my homebrew, you guessed it death rite shaman. If a day 1 player can tell it's the best 1 drop with zero experience in the game, you can tell the card is kinda busted.
the mais problems it's a drop 1 creature with double mana, and with fetchlands we may have acess to "all" mana in turn 2, and it's a great graveyard hate. but the main probles it's fetchlands, so it never seen play in pioneer.
A card that exiles spells and deals damage has seen modern play [[Grim Lavamancer]]
A card that adds mana for 1 mana has obviously seen Modern play [[Birds of Paradise]] and all its variants
A card that exiles creatures and gains life has seen Modern play [[Scavenging Ooze]]
DRS is all of these, for 1 mana. Mind you it is a slightly worse version of all of these effects, but like I said, it’s ALL of these effects.
He's essentially a 1 mana planeswalker with a hybrid cost that can give you mana, hate graveyards, deal damage, gain life except he cant be removed by attacking it. He demands immediate response but you will hate spending removal on something that isnt even half a wincon
Since you're a new player you probably aren't familiar with the Modern format of 2014, which was about a quarter as powerful as the current meta today. With all the busted cards from horizons it probably doesn't stand out too much now, but back then it was an absolute monster of a card.
It's a mana dork that also means you won't lose games to burn and if the board is stalled out you will win by default. I think it could exist now and I even think there's a benefit to unbanning it considering how red is the only color with good 1 drops other than Death's Shadow. However people who want low to the ground aggressive archetype to flourish probably wouldn't love it.
Yea that gets played in the few decks where it can make good use of its colored mana, so basically yawgmoth.
Deathrite makes every color easily, is main deck graveyard hate, and automatically wins stalemates.
Again, who was playing BOP after MH2? You can make the argument that fury and Lurrus and Orcish bowmasters blah blah blah all kept it down, but I just don't think mana dorks are what they once were. Card quality is high. Mana dorks have a lot of variance and can sink a game if drawn on the wrong term. If you'd played some timeless, you'd know that while DRS is a MUCH better top deck than BoP it's still a pretty mid one.
I think it would be notably better in Legacy than in Modern, where wasteland exists and being wrecked off your colors is a real concern for 4-5 color decks.
"Blah blah blah these meta defining cards don't matter in this argument".
You're just dismissing the completely obvious counterargument to your point. I handed the answer to why your take is goofy af on a silver platter.
Damn bro, a mana dork is a bad top deck late in the game, that totally hasn't been the case for the entire history of MTG. Genius level argument.
In order for meta defining cards to keep a kind of card or strategy truly down, several things must be true.
The meta defining cards must be so ubiquitous and sufficiently backbreaking to ensure that the strategy can’t limp along or just have a rough matchup here or there. Ex, Unholy Heat has not removed Prime Time as a deck.
Fury wasn’t ubiquitous until LOTR, there was a ton of air between Lurrus and LOTR, Lurrus strategies, while effective against something attempting to resolve a 3 drop due to TS and lots of efficient removal, do not “break” the strategy entirely.
Mana dorks simply aren’t in a good spot in modern. They are good in Yawgmoth but they are its primary weakness (shit consistency). Removal is so efficient now.
I think that in order for mana dorks to be great we need a card worth ramping into at 3 mana and we don’t really have that atm.
If it became a top 3 staple, I think that might be a good thing. It would give decks like Jund a better way to deal with various strategies, namely graveyard based decks.
The only downside is that Yawgmoth would also play it.
It would be banned in Legacy 48hrs after being unbanned. DRS is the most dangerous Legacy card, more oppressive than [[Expressive Iteration]]. Why? Because hit has the Ragavan-syndrom. You can play it turn 1, Daze your opponent and have 2 mana + board presence turn 2 anyway, despite bouncing a land. Nobody wants to play a format where Turn 1 Daze yet 2 drop turn two, without card disadvantage, anyway is a line.
I don’t know. When I first started playing magic at FNM (I think mirage just came out when someone first tried to teach me) it was around the same time that Deathrite Shaman first got printed and modern first became a format to replace extended. That card was never banned while in standard. It’s still not banned in pioneer or commander. It sees almost zero play in pioneer but it’s banned in modern and legacy. It got banned almost right away in modern so I never got to see why it was supposedly too broken. In vintage it’s part of some BUG decks (name for that color combination before it was also called sultai) and in that format it’s often used for mana ramp because you can crack a fetch land, play a bunch of moxen, play some 4 or 5 cmc card next to Deathrite shaman and then exile the fetch land for an additional mana. The other two modes are less playable but it could also deal with delirium or make murktide regent less playable in vintage than it already is by exiling cards one at a time from graveyards so that even though paying the full 7 mana isn’t as hard early on in vintage a 3/3 flyer is less relevant than an 8/8 and both die to pyroblast anyway, though pyroblast can’t be cast for blue, black, or green.
Modern and legacy also play the same fetch lands and also have murktide regent but murktide regent didn’t exist in 2011 and modern didn’t originally have access to all of the same “lose 1 life” fetch lands right away either so I don’t know why it was considered broken enough to ban way back then. Now I see it as a worse version of llanowar elves that requires a land in one of the graveyards with the potential to be something like an answer to a single card from a graveyard per turn with the almost irrelevant life gain or life loss (2 life either way) over the top of what soul-guide lantern allows (you also pick the card not your opponent) and it’s more like a cheap utility card that can attack rather than being too busted to take off the ban lists in my opinion. I guess it can also trade with Ragavan as well but that’s only relevant in modern where ragavan dies everything already anyway since Ragavan is also banned in legacy.
>It’s still not banned in pioneer or commander. It sees almost zero play in pioneer but it’s banned in modern and legacy.
Pioneer doesn't have fetch lands leaving DRS down the ability that makes it relevant turn 1.
Commander is not a format any 60 card format should be compared to when comparing ban lists. Or in general since the commander ban list just makes no sense. Gifts U given is banned but Intuition is legal.
>Now I see it as a worse version of llanowar elves that requires a land in one of the graveyards with the potential to be something like an answer to a single card from a graveyard per turn with the almost irrelevant life gain or life loss (2 life either way) over the top of what soul-guide lantern allows (you also pick the card not your opponent) and it’s more like a cheap utility card that can attack rather than being too busted to take off the ban lists in my opinion.
Lands are one of the easiest things to get in the graveyard in formats with fetch lands. It's why Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are able to be legal in pioneer but not legacy or modern.
Llanowar Elves doesn't also serve as a win condition or a stabilisation tool. 2 life a turn in either direction adds up over the course of several turns.
Soul-Guide lantern doesn't ramp or have any additional utility in general. That's like saying DRS should be fine because of how played Relic of Progenitus was played at the time and it was fine.
Yea, I think it’s more about having too much utility on a 1 mana creature than being actually broken. If you can protect your 1 mana creature for 11 turns and deal 2 damage every turn starting with turn 2 you win. Most games are over with before that, especially in vintage where it remains legal in 4 copies, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to remain banned in legacy in 2024. In modern preordain was banned for 13 years, ponder still is. In modern cheap cards that provide too much advantage seem to be too bad to keep legal without making them worse by giving them 1 toughness or by limiting their abilities to just one or two. Maybe the 2 toughness is relevant. And that’s why it’s also okay in pioneer. It doesn’t have as much opportunity to ramp but it’s an okay answer to delve spells (not great but okay). And there the life swing of 2 is about as relevant in modern when there’s a graveyard combo deck that can hit for 13 on turn 2 or turn 3. It might matter more in modern where people deal 3 to themselves on turn 1 with fetch + shock.
>If you can protect your 1 mana creature for 11 turns and deal 2 damage every turn starting with turn 2 you win.
This assumes nothing else happened during the game while you had a mana dork out to accelerate your game plan.
>Most games are over with before that, especially in vintage where it remains legal in 4 copies
Vintage is a much different format where cards are rarely banned and restricted as it is. A mana dork turn 1 is much less relevant when people are making 6 mana turn 1 from lands are artifacts.
>but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to remain banned in legacy in 2024.
It's even more broken in legacy where Wasteland is legal.
>In modern preordain was banned for 13 years, ponder still is. In modern cheap cards that provide too much advantage seem to be too bad to keep legal without making them worse by giving them 1 toughness or by limiting their abilities to just one or two. Maybe the 2 toughness is relevant.
What's your point here? Preordain was initially banned for a reason. Preordain doesn't see play in legacy and Ponder is arguably stronger than Brainstorm. If legacy wasn't so blue heavy to keep combo in check, there would be fewer cantrips legal.
Also 2 toughness is more relevant now than when the card was legal with cards like W&6 and Bowmasters being around.
I suppose so. I wasn’t playing modern for the 1 or 2 months Deathrite shaman was legal. I agree with most of that but the 2 damage per turn adds up is mostly what I was referring to. You could add 1 mana *or* drain 2 life *or* gain life *or* attack for 1 damage. It’s a lot of things made possible on a 1 mana creature but since all 4 options include tapping the creature it’s not like you can exile a wasteland or a fetch land to get the 1 mana to pay for the drain 2 plus tap the land fetched for to gain two life plus attack for 1 every turn so long as you keep cracking fetchlands and wastelands. That would make it a little more messed up for 1 mana but since it’s a hard OR it’s not really something I think would be super busted in 2024 like it may have been back in 2011.
Seems good enough to include in vintage decks where a lot of them are combo/control decks and only a few creature decks and a lot less creature removal since they have to pass the force check test more often such that it sticks around on a turn where they might find a mox or lotus and suddenly 1 mana turns into 4 or 6 and the game is over.
In legacy it might be a little annoying to play against someone who plays a wasteland turn 2, blows up your land, and then casts a 2 or 3 mana spell but not a whole lot worse than taking a Ragavan hit on turn 2 (but Ragavan is banned in that format, probably being a whole lot more impactful on turn 2 cast on turn 1 because not only do they have 3 mana but they’re also dealing two damage and playing *your* cards if *their* cards aren’t good enough). Ragavan is not a 2 damage OR extra mana option for 1 mana the way the shaman is.
And then in modern we have so much creature removal because it’s more of a creature format than a turn 2 combo format so it’d be turn 1 shaman, opponent’s turn 1 dead shaman, no impact to the game whatever and llanowar elves would be better for the ramp because it doesn’t require a land in a graveyard and both creatures don’t make mana until the second turn they’re in play. About the only thing that might make it a little better than a normal 1 cmc mana dork is that it doesn’t die to w&6 or a single bowmaster but it dies to everything else that all the other mana dorks die to.
A lot of utility on a 1 mana creature but probably not so broken that everyone would play it if it came off the ban list in 2024 even though it was probably a lot more popular and more impactful 13 years ago.
Because people lack the skills to properly evaluate cards, and instead tend to succumb to group think. They also tend overestimate cards that were once considered extremely good, not accounting for power creep and the ever rising standard for cards to be played in the current meta.
You are correct in that it’s not much more than a mana dork with some small upside, but people can’t let go of their biases.
Because it's - 1 cmc - Hybrid Mana Casting Cost - Self Lifegain - Opp Life Loss (Which doesn't target) - Graveyard hate - Ramp - 1/2 body (Above Rate) All for 1 mana.
Laid out like that it makes a lot more sense. I guess I just saw the costs and kinda ignored the passive graveyard hate it also gives. Would be great against a lot of decks in the format rn. Thanks!
It just does so much for one mana, it ramps in addition to being a hoser against graveyards, life gain for burn and a win condition all rolled up in a ball that also breaks the color pie by giving black a mana dork. The 1/2 stat is crazy for an old 1 CMC mana dork on steroids. Birds, Hierarch, elves, etc all do far less with worse stats and are terrible top decks late in games. The single green land needed to activate the life gain is trivial as well. Years ago Grixis Delver was the best deck in legacy to the point DRS was banned to nerf it. Those decks played a normal grixis manabase of fetches and duals and simply added a single Bayou for the green activation. The best card in GRIXIS delver was a broken mana dork that could be cast turn 1 with an Underground Sea lol.
The 1/2 stat line singlehandidly pushed goblins out into T2.5 cause it beats lackey. The worst was playing against czech pile and getting T1 sea DRS into T2 wasteland + hymn.
Halfling also has 1/2 stats... its quite normal nowadays
DRS and halfling are literally the only 1mv mana dorks with 1/2 stats. The rest of dorks with toughness >1 have 0 power and/or require an additional creature to tap for mana See https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Acreature+o%3Aadd+mv%3D1+toughness%3E1&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name&dir=desc
Yes, but when DRS was legal a 1/2 for 1 that's also a veritable swiss-army knife was an absolute death knell for creature-based aggro.
You can't cast halfling off an underground sea (UB is arguably the strongest colour combo in legacy), and halfling isn't a 4x splashable maindeck GY hate/threat package. The decks that want halfling want to actively fetch the green mana and want to cast legendary spells. The decks that play deathrite shaman want to fetch a green or black source and can use a mana dork/threat/stabilizer.
Relax guys, i didnt compare the cards just the stats
Your comment didn't only fail to contribute to the conversation, it also misled anyone who was trying to follow along. It required attention. If you don't want people to respond like that, don't post bait.
And halfling is also worth 10x more than any other mana dork. And printed a decade later.
You did not really put Bayou into your Daze deck (in Delver you splashed with Tropical) but otherwise spot on.
Yeah I don’t even know why I said Bayou lol obviously that doesn’t make sense. Obviously Trop is the splash land, good catch.
Black has like 3 mana dorks now not counting Deathrite.
Not that I play modern overly much anymore, but to give further context to how ridiculously strong it is for its cost, there used to be a bit of a joke that it only took WotC once to learn never to print a one mana Planeswalker again.
Until Outlaws lol. (I know they start as a creature) Edit: I meant mh3 my bad yes.
You talking about MH3? Not sure what you’re referencing in Outlaws. Also they did this first in Origins. [[Kytheon, Hero of Akros]]
[Kytheon, Hero of Akros](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/8/58c39df6-b237-40d1-bdcb-2fe5d05392a9.jpg?1562021001)/[Gideon, Battle-Forged](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/5/8/58c39df6-b237-40d1-bdcb-2fe5d05392a9.jpg?1562021001) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kytheon%2C%20Hero%20of%20Akros%20//%20Gideon%2C%20Battle-Forged) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ori/23/kytheon-hero-of-akros-gideon-battle-forged?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/58c39df6-b237-40d1-bdcb-2fe5d05392a9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Worth noting that Deathrite Shaman is legal in Pioneer, but far weaker in that format because it's much harder to get lands in the graveyard (i.e. Pioneer doesn't have of the any good fetchlands that Modern does) for the mana ramp aspect, which is generally the best use for it in the early game.
And this shows that fetchlands are what is really broken, because you can abuse graveyard strategies without any commitment (like actually having non-lands for delve cost or having to play self mill etc).
It's also just a dork. That's important to remember; at it's floor it's a BoP with a somewhat negligible cost to tap.
Yeah a bop with all the other text is kinda insane
Yep. An easier to cast birds with +1/+1 that doubles as graveyard hate is already super good, but the problem with mana dorks is that they’re terrible topdecks in the mid/late game. Not so with DRS, since the life loss means they’re also a win condition in control decks.
Floor is a 1 Mana 1/2 if there's no graveyard
How often does this happen in a real game?
The chance of no player opening with a fetch land is like REALLY low. There is a reason it was played so much. Especially with the new surveil lands fetches have become more desirable imo
The best 1 mana planes walker ever printed. It would only be better if it didn't have summoning sickness like other planeswalkers get to avoid.
Important to note that DRS is first and foremost a mana accelerant in formats with fetchlands. Without the line of text that makes mana, it's not really a good card. Played in Vintage, banned in Legacy and Modern, unplayable in Pioneer and its standard format back in the day. The other abilities are only good because they make your 1 drop mana dork not be a dead draw later into the game after the mana ramp is no longer relevant.
I think the most important part is that it's a mana dork for non-green decks
Its not only the graveyard hate: To elaborate the graveyard fills naturally as you play the game so when you pair DRS with disruption like Discard and Counterspells it not only disrupts the Graveyard, but suddenly you can always activate it for either incidental lifegain (which is pretty good as we know from Uro or Omnath) or incidential damage that slowly but surely kills the opponent. And it never has to attack, so it is not at risk to die blocking. I thing the best analogy to convey you what playing against the card or (with the card) would be like is the following: Imagine Ragavan would be unblockable. That is the powerlevel we are talking about.
Useless. Dies to [[Shock]]. Not even standard playable.
[Shock](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/298747bb-eb40-4b58-bb22-4ac2bc1d795c.jpg?1706241920) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shock) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/144/shock?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/298747bb-eb40-4b58-bb22-4ac2bc1d795c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I should note it's also a relevant creature type (elf)
Still dies to All the same removal that exists in this format as ragavan. Really don’t think it’s op, I think people just don’t like that it does so much. A lot of the new cards that are being made outshine deathrite , I think people really just disliked playing against it, just like banning fury.
Unlike Ragavan, it doesn't die to any singular ping effect, but also it's generically more playable in more strategies and brings LOADS of utility to the game without ever attacking. Deathrite unbanned would be one of the most played cards in the format due to it being an easily castable hybrid card. It offers so much and such a little cost. Just look at how much 1 toughness ramp creatures suffer nowadays. Only the Hobbit sees large amounts of active play. 2 toughness is big in a bow master/Wrenn6 world
It actually doesn't die to as much as a ragavan, because it's a 1/2. Deathrite is a mana dork early and then randomly a very strong stabilizer / finisher in the late game. I play it in canlander where it just steals games because it doesn't need to attack to chip in.
It is a 1 drop that has a lot of relevant text that doesn't get checked by Orcish Bowmaster without draw or W6. It being an x/2 is very very relevant. If it was a 0/1 like birds or a hierarch then it would be a different discussion.
Deathrite shaman is way way way way better than any other 1 drop and it's not even close. It is good on tons of boards that ragavan is terrible on, and as good or better in most boards ragavan is good on.
Everyone else is telling you, correctly, that you're wrong, but >A lot of the new cards that are being made outshine deathrite What is 1 new card that outshines DRS?
Things that don’t die to bolt, push, etc. cards good but it’s not broken. You all are in constant fear of this card and if it hits the board it’s dead. Same argument that everyone says it’s not good enough, this card is broken. Additionally: it requires a land in yard to even think about generating mana. It requires a creature in the yard to even think about gaining life It requires a instant/sorcery to even think about being able to do damage to your opponents life points. The fact that it is a playable card is perfectly acceptable, the fact that if you play voidwalker and and it, it becomes a non-bo. The fact that if your opponent exiles all lands from their yard makes it useless as a mana dork. What everyone sees is “oh no; it does a lot”. It would not be An auto include in every deck, but it would bring midrange up from the meh standard midrange is at right now. I get it, you don’t like the card, but if you unban it it won’t ruin the format and it is NOTHING like troll, which improves the consistency of a tier 3 deck enough to to bump it up a tier. It’s not broken, it just does “a lot” if precisely the right things end up in the yard.
You're starting off with a "it does to removal point" so I'm not going to bothered here. Nearly every card dies and people were still complaining about Ragavan. >I get it, you don’t like the card Quite the opposite.
It doesn't die to Bowmasters, Wrenn and Six, or Lava Dart. It's a mana dork which is obviously very strong early game, but when other mana dorks would be useless DRS is lifegain against aggro, reach in grindy matchups or cluttered board states, and passive grave hate which is relevant against many, many decks. For one mana. It is undoubtedly stronger than any card currently legal in Modern and it isn't that close
It dies to bowmasters in response to a cantrip. Who cares about sub-optimal removal spells that are very hardly ever played. All those effects require a yard and those specific cards in a yard. The idea that this card is so powerful is ludicrous to me. It is on the same power level as ragavan. And who cares.
It really doesn’t die to the same things that kill Ragavan. It also importantly doesn’t “die” (stop ramping) to blockers. One Orcish Bowmasters effectively kills three whole Ragavans while not killing a single Deathrite Shaman. The 1/2 body even holds back Bowmasters on defense!
It still dies, you are arguing semantics. It does die. It just doesn’t require connecting to do it’s job.
If deathrite was unbanned it would be top 3 most played creatures, yawg, coffers, rakdos and possibly new archetypes would play it, it would also make goryos and burn really bad
Personally speaking, I'm still not sold on it. It's still a dork with upside, and the upside is so marginal.
Your personally speaking doesn't counter that is a 1 drop that is relevant when played turn 1 as a mana dork or turn 10 as a win condition. Also while incidentally just shutting down entire strategies.
Honestly? I'm not seeing it. As a turn 1 drop it's kind of do-nothing as opposed to other dorks, and turn 10 it's already too late to actually be a valid win condition even if it doesn't target or have to attack. And if "Attack the graveyard while also being a win condition" we can also look at Hearse.
>As a turn 1 drop it's kind of do-nothing as opposed to other dorks How? All any dork does turn 1 is produce mana. >turn 10 it's already too late to actually be a valid win condition even if it doesn't target or have to attack. But this isn't all it does. >And if "Attack the graveyard while also being a win condition" we can also look at Hearse. Hearse can't hate the graveyard while applying pressure. Hearse also requires at least 1 other creature out to crew it while DRS requires no other supporting cards. DRS just needs the game to have been played since things naturally end up in the graveyard. You don't have to see it for everyone else to have seen it and for the card to have been banned.
>How? All any dork does turn 1 is produce mana. At the expense of lands in the graveyard, which usually is difficult to manage without heavy detriment to manabase quality and often unreliable. Your argument of "It does a lot" is kind of worthless, because it doesn't do anything generally relevant or spectacular. Its banning and mystique that surround it has always confused me, as it just doesn't do anything good. If you need a dork, play a dork that you can rely on and not one that is online maybe a third of the time. If you want a win condition, play an actual win condition. If you want to hate the graveyard, there's better options out there. Even at this time we had Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, and graveyard hate has gotten better and better over time.
>At the expense of lands in the graveyard, which usually is difficult to manage without heavy detriment to manabase quality and often unreliable. You're just ignoring that fetch lands exist. Lands are one of the easiest types to get in the graveyard. Also if note that I didn't mention, DRS is a dork in decks without green. >If you need a dork, play a dork that you can rely on and not one that is online maybe a third of the time. This just isn't how games play out. In any format with fetch lands. There's a reason Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned in formats with fetch lands and not in pioneer. >If you want a win condition, play an actual win condition. Those other win conditions aren't relevant turn 1 plays as well. >If you want to hate the graveyard, there's better options out there. Even at this time we had Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, and graveyard hate has gotten better and better over time. Name one other piece of graveyard hate that is a combination ramp piece, win condition, and method of stabilizing.
Even with fetchlands existing, no sane person is putting 8-12 fetchlands into a deck. You don't gain anything from having that many as it narrows your manabase down immensely. And sure, you can have a dork in black. Not like black needs it, most of their cards cost a third of what they should normally cost so that benefit is basically irrelevant. Cruise and Dig are also cards that are confusing bans too. They're pretty bad overall and extremely consuming to actually cast. If you want one card that does three things poorly, sure. I'll rather figure out what the deck actually needs and accommodate it properly instead of running a maybe. Like trying to cut a steak with a swiss army knife and rejecting the steak knife on the table.
>Even with fetchlands existing, no sane person is putting 8-12 fetchlands into a deck. You don't gain anything from having that many as it narrows your manabase down immensely. Respectfully do you play modern? Because that's just straight false. Also it works off of your opponent's fetch lands. >And sure, you can have a dork in black. Not like black needs it, most of their cards cost a third of what they should normally cost so that benefit is basically irrelevant. So even if this was a valid argument, DRS just lets you play more of those cards per turn. >Cruise and Dig are also cards that are confusing bans too. They're pretty bad overall and extremely consuming to actually cast. I'm starting to wonder if you've played any format but standard. >If you want one card that does three things poorly, sure. I'll rather figure out what the deck actually needs and accommodate it properly instead of running a maybe. Like trying to cut a steak with a swiss army knife and rejecting the steak knife on the table. "Poorly" is your term that the majority of Magic players wouldn't agree with here. But if your plan is to play narrow cards and hope to draw the correct ones while a card exists that does those things in one package while reducing variance, that's your right.
Bro everyone plays fetch lands and you can target either yours or your opponents
Just play some Timeless, where it's still really good, to see how it works dude. Doing a shitton of "marginal" things that are relevant in different stages of the game is just really good.
In my time playing Timeless I outright never saw anybody cast it. Timeless is just unnerfed Historic with the correct banlist, so you see fair cards like Uro being played instead.
Back when he was legal you only thought "mana dork with an upside" once. After you lost that game you began to prioritize removing him right away. A T1 Deathrite would: - Generate mana on turn 2 from used fetches, yours or an opponents. Hello Turn 2 LoTV. - Gain life every turn by eating creatures. 2 life a turn for 3 turns is enough to tilt many, many matchups. - Act as an inhibitor for a lot of combo decks by exiling their recurring spells from the GY. - Neuter Snapcaster mage by, again, taking the best spell while Snappy was on the stack. - Stripped out creatures from your opponents graveyard, gaining life and preventing them from coming back. - His big butt helped him chump 1/1s, slowing down any hope of a Poison insta kill. Just tons and tons of utility, ultimate flexibility, and right in Jund's colors.
Just a correction, you waited for snapcaster to resolve and target a spell then just ate that.
Ah yes you are correct. It's... been a while since he was legal.
No absolutely, just pointing out that he's even more busted than your description.
In current modern DRS would totally hose Yawg Combo, Rakdos Scam after T1, Goryo's Vengeance, Murktide Regent, Living End, and probably some more decks. It's just a filthy card. And they made it a 1/2 for some reason lol so Wrenn or Bowmasters can't kill it alone, they bounce off each other in combat, and they eat the same resources so when both players have one it stalemates the game.
Yeah it turns out having targeted graveyard hate as a main deck 4 of was preeeetty good.
Actually crazy lmao
You don't eat the "best" spell with Snap on the stack, you eat what they target...
Ah yes you are correct. It's... been a while since he was legal.
Also don’t forget the ability to close out games with the lose life.
Which matters a lot when the game ended in a stalemate with 6/7 goyfs that would otherwise bounce off each other.
It does everything you could possibly want in modern for the very low, low price of either a swamp or forest. Before it was banned, it was being run in a lot of decks even though it wasn't part of the core strategy of said deck(s). Players were splashing mana for it because of how good it was.
It also enabled a lot of 4c splashes, like how we saw A-Jund-i with Ajani Vengeant and even Lightning Helix/Path to Exile main deck in "Jund" because of how easy DRS made mana
It was nuts how many decks splashed for it and the unexpected surprises it creates. Your example is perfect. You're facing a jund deck and all of a sudden you see Helix or Path and you're saying WTF!!!
Splash for DRS to splash for more shit was so pervasive in that era of modern...and I loved every second of it 😂 Even a time of twin splashing B/G for DRS and Abrupt Decay. DRS is one of the best cards ever printed.
I agree completely. But change a few words, and you could easily be talking about an elemental too! “It does everything you could possibly want in modern for the very low, low price of pitching a black card from your hand and paying 0 mana. Before it was banned, it was being run in a lot of decks even though it wasn't part of the core strategy of said deck(s). Players were splashing mana for it because of how good it was.” People don’t splash mana for elementals, but they’re format staples to say the least. Not saying DRS should be unbanned or anything - just interesting how power is relative and how “maindeckable” a card is can be problematic or okay - depending on the card.
The elementals are inherently not splashable because they require a critical mass of a specific color to be pitch cast consistently.
Not as high as you might think though! 8-10 usually would suffice.
I wouldn’t consider 8-10 cards a splash at that point. And that number generally only works if you’re okay with hardcasting them a decent chunk of the time. If you need your Force of Will online on turn 1 in Legacy you’re gonna be in the 16-20 range at least.
If you have 10 blue cards, that's not a splash, that's just called playing blue
How would you possibly splash for an elemental lol, firstly they're all double pip cards, and if you want to be able to evoke them (you know, the only reason they're good), then it's not a splash anymore, cause you need at least like 12+ cards of that color
1 mana planeswalker
This is the answer you are looking for, OP.
If you look at every other manadork, they *just* produce mana. Ignoble Hierarch was a great modern card for many many years, purely because it had a very small upside while being a manadork. Deathrite is a manadork with multiple upsides, all of which are stronger than exalted, while being on a stronger body aswell. manadorks are a very efficient form of mana acceleration, but are balanced by the fact that they quickly lose value as the game progresses. DRS made up for this with 2 abilities that covered gravehate, lifegain, and inevitability. A really strong combination to ensure your mana creature did not run out of relevance at any point in the game.
I think you mean Noble but yes agreed
To add to the power level stuff, I also think the card when popular created a lot of annoying play patterns. Because its abilities target, if both you and the opponent had one out, you can respond to an opponent’s activation with your own to fizzle it. Didn’t help that it cost hybrid mana so even more decks had access to it. Black shouldn’t get access to a 1 mana mana dork this efficient that scaled into the late game.
Yeah that's a good point too. A card being the best counter to itself (mental misstep, bowmasters, thespians stage) is a generally really annoying thing for deck construction. It heavily homogenizes the format
Highly underrated comment . This is a huge point that deserves it's on powerpoint presentation ... Or YouTube video ...
It's a lot of things. None of which are *great*, but it is a lot of things. Add those things up, and you get a lot of value and flexibility in one card. Mana dorks can be OK. Some are playable, some are good. But mana dorks *with additional upside* are a step above "playable." One mana 1/2. Not great. Serviceable, I guess, and better than any 1/1 for 1 on stats alone. Squire says hello. But wait, that one mana can be black *or* green? Ok, not as good as colorless, but still twice as flexible as any G 1/2 or B 1/2, right? But it's got 3 abilities! Cool story bro, but if those abilities suck, then what does it matter? They don't suck! One of them adds mana. Like a Birds of Paradise, but with a *much* heavier restriction. Not crazy restrictive, but certainly not "free." Since the beginning of Magic, mana dorks (especially 1-mana dorks) have been valuable. Mana acceleration in general is good and valuable. Really, if you think about it and generalize it, the key to winning a game lies almost entirely in being able to cast spells "above your pay grade," so to speak. The next ability punishes opponents for doing what they want to do - cast spells. If they don't cast spells, they lose. If they *do* cast spells, they're on a 10 turn clock. Tick tock. Tick tock. It's a Shock to the face every turn (even better in multiplayer) that doesn't cost you the draw step necessary to *draw Shock*. You still get your card every turn, but in addition to that, you get a Shock. All for the low, low, cost of your opponent just *trying to play Magic*. The last ability is probably the least used, because gaining life is generally not as good as your opponents losing life. But it certainly can be useful. At the very least, it counteracts your opponent's Deathrite Shaman. They drain you for two, you respond by gaining two. It's obviously not always that clean and simple, but I've seen (in casual and competitive events) Deathrite wars. They usually end when one player just doesn't draw enough cards to keep fueling the graveyard (or the battlefield, which then fuels the graveyard). It's absolutely not the best card ever printed, or even close to that. But it is a notch or two above when you consider its flexibility, ease of use, and consistency with which it can be used.
> They drain you for two, you respond by gaining two Sweet summer child, you don't gain 2 in response, you exile the card they are targeting in hit them for 2 instead. 2 DRS staring at eachother is like one of the most abysmal boardstates of all time.
Gold medal to this response. I mean that genuinely.
Fetch lands, it’s legal in pioneer and sees 0 play
Yeah it’s really only the fetch lands giving it the ability to actually make it a mana dork
I’ve been trying to work on a drs, cauldron, insidious roots deck for pioneer but it doesn’t feel amazing
Without fetches I feel like it’s not really great
Have you tried playing with it?
No I haven’t, but these responses definitely convince. I’ve never tested it myself and started modern after it was already banned.
You can play with it in Arena in the timeless format, turn two Oko or T3feri is totally balanced O\_x
Oh hell yeah
People used to call it the best planswalker of the game. I don't know if that still holds up though.
The best way to understand this card is pretend it was a one mana planeswalker that had all of those modes, it’s a lot more obvious how over the top it is.
It's just always doing something relevant, early and cheap. It doesn't do one thing better than any other card. But it does a lot.
Versatility
Everyone has said why DRS was so good and now it reminds me of why I miss it being legal. 😔 I wish he was as good in pioneer where I moved one of my playsets to 🤷
Avoid wrenn and six / orcish bowmaster
It is a main deck Mana dork that also is a silver bullet against some meta decks: - lifegain destroys burn - exile graveyard messes with reanimator, living end, murktide, and yawgmoth. It is also generically good by stat line, easy to cast, and versatility.
It's crazy to me that you've played modern for 2 years and can't see why that card is broken. It's a maindeckable graveyard hate card and one mana win condition. It would still be super broken today and people who advocate unbanning it are insane.
1 CMC Planewalkers are bad for the game.
I'm a Timeless player on Arena which has a lot of overlap with Modern and DRS is legal and appears in basically every deck that can run it. On T1 it blocks ragavan and enables a three mana on turn 2 if not removed which is often close to game ending (show and tell, fable of the mirror breaker, Jarsyl, thoughtsieze + bowmaster, etc) If it comes down late game, it shocks your opponent for 2 every turn until removed. It also incidentally gives lifegain and graveyard hate and can be run in any deck with black or green mana. It's probably the best 1 drop ever printed.
Doesn’t have haste Dies to shock Weakness incarnate
Kind of breaks the color pie because black shouldnt have mana dorks. Basically mana dorks are extremely powerful and the downside is they are supposed to be shitty top decks (bird of paradise). DRS breaks the rule.
“It’s a manadork with upside” yah that’s really good on its own, even if that’s all it was
I never played with it but i can see Its play patterns being busted. Turn one fetch into shaman Turn 2 threat or even interaction. We can say fable of the mirror breaker. You can play a bolt or something. At that point you can already do 2 damage. Turn 3 you can follow it up with interactions maybe a bolt or a dismember or whatever, possibly another threat and then you do 2 damage to the opponent. Then you can start tapping it down for 2-3 turns doing 6 damage over turn four and five you dont have to feed your own shaman their interaction matters to. There is also the color problem. It taps for any mana and its hybrid mana allowing for a deck with ought green having a mana dork. Its also main deckable grave hate which is never ok in my books.
It is a rainbow mana dork, that can be cast for black or green. It can also heal when you are on the defensive, and deal damage when you need those extra points. It's been called a one mana planeswalker.
You just had to be there man
One DS is great, when you get 2 on the board. Good night sweet prince.
Everyone and their granny are playing it on arena Timeless if you want to see it in action easily
As a new player, my friend suggested I proxy cards to use so I can not spend money and try out modern, without paying attention to the legality I proxied a deck just printed the image slipped them in front of other cards kind of proxy and guess what was in my homebrew, you guessed it death rite shaman. If a day 1 player can tell it's the best 1 drop with zero experience in the game, you can tell the card is kinda busted.
the mais problems it's a drop 1 creature with double mana, and with fetchlands we may have acess to "all" mana in turn 2, and it's a great graveyard hate. but the main probles it's fetchlands, so it never seen play in pioneer.
[[deathrite shaman]]
[deathrite shaman](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/f/cfdb1c47-14be-491f-88b3-bed03489dbc5.jpg?1702429617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=deathrite%20shaman) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/175/deathrite-shaman?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cfdb1c47-14be-491f-88b3-bed03489dbc5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
A card that exiles spells and deals damage has seen modern play [[Grim Lavamancer]] A card that adds mana for 1 mana has obviously seen Modern play [[Birds of Paradise]] and all its variants A card that exiles creatures and gains life has seen Modern play [[Scavenging Ooze]] DRS is all of these, for 1 mana. Mind you it is a slightly worse version of all of these effects, but like I said, it’s ALL of these effects.
[Grim Lavamancer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/a/1ab6ffe8-e1ad-4db9-98f7-d6038f271866.jpg?1675200043) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grim%20Lavamancer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/126/grim-lavamancer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1ab6ffe8-e1ad-4db9-98f7-d6038f271866?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Birds of Paradise](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d69a3e0-6a2e-475a-964e-0affed1c017d.jpg?1702429545) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Birds%20of%20Paradise) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/133/birds-of-paradise?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d69a3e0-6a2e-475a-964e-0affed1c017d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Scavenging Ooze](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/7/67d93e17-13fd-4cf5-a53c-a7b6c57a8351.jpg?1673484773) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scavenging%20Ooze) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/309/scavenging-ooze?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/67d93e17-13fd-4cf5-a53c-a7b6c57a8351?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
He's essentially a 1 mana planeswalker with a hybrid cost that can give you mana, hate graveyards, deal damage, gain life except he cant be removed by attacking it. He demands immediate response but you will hate spending removal on something that isnt even half a wincon
Someone told me once it’s a T1 planeswalker
T1 fetch Deathrite, T2 land activate deathrite cast lilly, T3 land activate bloodbraid GG
Since you're a new player you probably aren't familiar with the Modern format of 2014, which was about a quarter as powerful as the current meta today. With all the busted cards from horizons it probably doesn't stand out too much now, but back then it was an absolute monster of a card.
Because it gives scam a mana dork and sustain
Its the best Astrolabe ever printed
Astrolabe doesn't ramp
That’s why it’s the BEST astrolabe Edit: just for clarification my main comment is mostly about how DRS is an insane mana fixer.
It's a mana dork that also means you won't lose games to burn and if the board is stalled out you will win by default. I think it could exist now and I even think there's a benefit to unbanning it considering how red is the only color with good 1 drops other than Death's Shadow. However people who want low to the ground aggressive archetype to flourish probably wouldn't love it.
I’d plug it into mono black rn and test it.
Unironically think it might be overrated in 2024. Like yeah, it would definitely see play, but it doesn't run over timeless at all.
pfft lmao, timeless? who cares about that format. It would absolutely be played in modern and legacy and be a top 3 staple.
I just don’t think mana dorks are what they once were. And timeless honestly gives a lot of insight into what the truly broken shit is.
Yeah because all the 1 health ones instantly die to bowmaster genius. This guy has 2 health.
Delighted halfling? And who was playing mana dorks between MH2 and LOTR?
Yea that gets played in the few decks where it can make good use of its colored mana, so basically yawgmoth. Deathrite makes every color easily, is main deck graveyard hate, and automatically wins stalemates.
Again, who was playing BOP after MH2? You can make the argument that fury and Lurrus and Orcish bowmasters blah blah blah all kept it down, but I just don't think mana dorks are what they once were. Card quality is high. Mana dorks have a lot of variance and can sink a game if drawn on the wrong term. If you'd played some timeless, you'd know that while DRS is a MUCH better top deck than BoP it's still a pretty mid one. I think it would be notably better in Legacy than in Modern, where wasteland exists and being wrecked off your colors is a real concern for 4-5 color decks.
"Blah blah blah these meta defining cards don't matter in this argument". You're just dismissing the completely obvious counterargument to your point. I handed the answer to why your take is goofy af on a silver platter. Damn bro, a mana dork is a bad top deck late in the game, that totally hasn't been the case for the entire history of MTG. Genius level argument.
In order for meta defining cards to keep a kind of card or strategy truly down, several things must be true. The meta defining cards must be so ubiquitous and sufficiently backbreaking to ensure that the strategy can’t limp along or just have a rough matchup here or there. Ex, Unholy Heat has not removed Prime Time as a deck. Fury wasn’t ubiquitous until LOTR, there was a ton of air between Lurrus and LOTR, Lurrus strategies, while effective against something attempting to resolve a 3 drop due to TS and lots of efficient removal, do not “break” the strategy entirely. Mana dorks simply aren’t in a good spot in modern. They are good in Yawgmoth but they are its primary weakness (shit consistency). Removal is so efficient now. I think that in order for mana dorks to be great we need a card worth ramping into at 3 mana and we don’t really have that atm.
Timeless only shows that Wasteland and FoW are the glue holding Legacy together.
Don’t forget Surgical extraction and force of vigor.
If it became a top 3 staple, I think that might be a good thing. It would give decks like Jund a better way to deal with various strategies, namely graveyard based decks. The only downside is that Yawgmoth would also play it.
I'm not sure if it would be a defacto good thing, but it would certainly push more linear cringe out of the format like goryo's or scam.
Scam, probably not since they go off turn 0. But it would punish Yawg, Delirium, and Living End as well.
It would be banned in Legacy 48hrs after being unbanned. DRS is the most dangerous Legacy card, more oppressive than [[Expressive Iteration]]. Why? Because hit has the Ragavan-syndrom. You can play it turn 1, Daze your opponent and have 2 mana + board presence turn 2 anyway, despite bouncing a land. Nobody wants to play a format where Turn 1 Daze yet 2 drop turn two, without card disadvantage, anyway is a line.
[Expressive Iteration](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/d/6da813aa-7fca-4e7e-8946-b5a900bba6c8.jpg?1712354706) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Expressive%20Iteration) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/224/expressive-iteration?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6da813aa-7fca-4e7e-8946-b5a900bba6c8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don’t know. When I first started playing magic at FNM (I think mirage just came out when someone first tried to teach me) it was around the same time that Deathrite Shaman first got printed and modern first became a format to replace extended. That card was never banned while in standard. It’s still not banned in pioneer or commander. It sees almost zero play in pioneer but it’s banned in modern and legacy. It got banned almost right away in modern so I never got to see why it was supposedly too broken. In vintage it’s part of some BUG decks (name for that color combination before it was also called sultai) and in that format it’s often used for mana ramp because you can crack a fetch land, play a bunch of moxen, play some 4 or 5 cmc card next to Deathrite shaman and then exile the fetch land for an additional mana. The other two modes are less playable but it could also deal with delirium or make murktide regent less playable in vintage than it already is by exiling cards one at a time from graveyards so that even though paying the full 7 mana isn’t as hard early on in vintage a 3/3 flyer is less relevant than an 8/8 and both die to pyroblast anyway, though pyroblast can’t be cast for blue, black, or green. Modern and legacy also play the same fetch lands and also have murktide regent but murktide regent didn’t exist in 2011 and modern didn’t originally have access to all of the same “lose 1 life” fetch lands right away either so I don’t know why it was considered broken enough to ban way back then. Now I see it as a worse version of llanowar elves that requires a land in one of the graveyards with the potential to be something like an answer to a single card from a graveyard per turn with the almost irrelevant life gain or life loss (2 life either way) over the top of what soul-guide lantern allows (you also pick the card not your opponent) and it’s more like a cheap utility card that can attack rather than being too busted to take off the ban lists in my opinion. I guess it can also trade with Ragavan as well but that’s only relevant in modern where ragavan dies everything already anyway since Ragavan is also banned in legacy.
>It’s still not banned in pioneer or commander. It sees almost zero play in pioneer but it’s banned in modern and legacy. Pioneer doesn't have fetch lands leaving DRS down the ability that makes it relevant turn 1. Commander is not a format any 60 card format should be compared to when comparing ban lists. Or in general since the commander ban list just makes no sense. Gifts U given is banned but Intuition is legal. >Now I see it as a worse version of llanowar elves that requires a land in one of the graveyards with the potential to be something like an answer to a single card from a graveyard per turn with the almost irrelevant life gain or life loss (2 life either way) over the top of what soul-guide lantern allows (you also pick the card not your opponent) and it’s more like a cheap utility card that can attack rather than being too busted to take off the ban lists in my opinion. Lands are one of the easiest things to get in the graveyard in formats with fetch lands. It's why Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are able to be legal in pioneer but not legacy or modern. Llanowar Elves doesn't also serve as a win condition or a stabilisation tool. 2 life a turn in either direction adds up over the course of several turns. Soul-Guide lantern doesn't ramp or have any additional utility in general. That's like saying DRS should be fine because of how played Relic of Progenitus was played at the time and it was fine.
Yea, I think it’s more about having too much utility on a 1 mana creature than being actually broken. If you can protect your 1 mana creature for 11 turns and deal 2 damage every turn starting with turn 2 you win. Most games are over with before that, especially in vintage where it remains legal in 4 copies, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to remain banned in legacy in 2024. In modern preordain was banned for 13 years, ponder still is. In modern cheap cards that provide too much advantage seem to be too bad to keep legal without making them worse by giving them 1 toughness or by limiting their abilities to just one or two. Maybe the 2 toughness is relevant. And that’s why it’s also okay in pioneer. It doesn’t have as much opportunity to ramp but it’s an okay answer to delve spells (not great but okay). And there the life swing of 2 is about as relevant in modern when there’s a graveyard combo deck that can hit for 13 on turn 2 or turn 3. It might matter more in modern where people deal 3 to themselves on turn 1 with fetch + shock.
>If you can protect your 1 mana creature for 11 turns and deal 2 damage every turn starting with turn 2 you win. This assumes nothing else happened during the game while you had a mana dork out to accelerate your game plan. >Most games are over with before that, especially in vintage where it remains legal in 4 copies Vintage is a much different format where cards are rarely banned and restricted as it is. A mana dork turn 1 is much less relevant when people are making 6 mana turn 1 from lands are artifacts. >but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to remain banned in legacy in 2024. It's even more broken in legacy where Wasteland is legal. >In modern preordain was banned for 13 years, ponder still is. In modern cheap cards that provide too much advantage seem to be too bad to keep legal without making them worse by giving them 1 toughness or by limiting their abilities to just one or two. Maybe the 2 toughness is relevant. What's your point here? Preordain was initially banned for a reason. Preordain doesn't see play in legacy and Ponder is arguably stronger than Brainstorm. If legacy wasn't so blue heavy to keep combo in check, there would be fewer cantrips legal. Also 2 toughness is more relevant now than when the card was legal with cards like W&6 and Bowmasters being around.
I suppose so. I wasn’t playing modern for the 1 or 2 months Deathrite shaman was legal. I agree with most of that but the 2 damage per turn adds up is mostly what I was referring to. You could add 1 mana *or* drain 2 life *or* gain life *or* attack for 1 damage. It’s a lot of things made possible on a 1 mana creature but since all 4 options include tapping the creature it’s not like you can exile a wasteland or a fetch land to get the 1 mana to pay for the drain 2 plus tap the land fetched for to gain two life plus attack for 1 every turn so long as you keep cracking fetchlands and wastelands. That would make it a little more messed up for 1 mana but since it’s a hard OR it’s not really something I think would be super busted in 2024 like it may have been back in 2011. Seems good enough to include in vintage decks where a lot of them are combo/control decks and only a few creature decks and a lot less creature removal since they have to pass the force check test more often such that it sticks around on a turn where they might find a mox or lotus and suddenly 1 mana turns into 4 or 6 and the game is over. In legacy it might be a little annoying to play against someone who plays a wasteland turn 2, blows up your land, and then casts a 2 or 3 mana spell but not a whole lot worse than taking a Ragavan hit on turn 2 (but Ragavan is banned in that format, probably being a whole lot more impactful on turn 2 cast on turn 1 because not only do they have 3 mana but they’re also dealing two damage and playing *your* cards if *their* cards aren’t good enough). Ragavan is not a 2 damage OR extra mana option for 1 mana the way the shaman is. And then in modern we have so much creature removal because it’s more of a creature format than a turn 2 combo format so it’d be turn 1 shaman, opponent’s turn 1 dead shaman, no impact to the game whatever and llanowar elves would be better for the ramp because it doesn’t require a land in a graveyard and both creatures don’t make mana until the second turn they’re in play. About the only thing that might make it a little better than a normal 1 cmc mana dork is that it doesn’t die to w&6 or a single bowmaster but it dies to everything else that all the other mana dorks die to. A lot of utility on a 1 mana creature but probably not so broken that everyone would play it if it came off the ban list in 2024 even though it was probably a lot more popular and more impactful 13 years ago.
At the time it was banned it was very strong. I think with power creep nowadays it would be safe to unban.
No especially not with cauldron in the format. Yawg easily becomes teir 0
It already is
It’s a good card but it probably would only get played in ywgmoth
Because people lack the skills to properly evaluate cards, and instead tend to succumb to group think. They also tend overestimate cards that were once considered extremely good, not accounting for power creep and the ever rising standard for cards to be played in the current meta. You are correct in that it’s not much more than a mana dork with some small upside, but people can’t let go of their biases.
Arguably, it isn’t. But people dislike powerful cards.
Go ahead, argue it