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As expected, the DCI announced today that MTG: Skullclamp will be banned in Standard and Block from 20th June...
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/announce/dci20040601a

[Aaron Forsythe's article] on what went wrong. (BTW, Alex, when I said there was nothing exciting in the 5D precons, I had totally overlooked the single Skullclamp in the cog deck).

... I'm not comprehending it.  Surely, at it's worst it's an artifact with the effect: "1, sacc a critter: As a sorcery draw two cards"  - Is that really so bad, considering some of the other huge card drawing things there are?  I mean - it's cheap, but not terribly so surely?  Does the broknness lie in the sacrifice being an effect rather than a cost?  --Vitenka
(PeterTaylor) The brokenness lies in the fact that almost every single deck finishing in the top 8 in any tournament has four copies. (Now off to read the article and hope it doesn't contradict me).
Fair enough - it's not "Breaks the game bigods" broken, it's "Boring and everyone uses it" broken.  I think it's a core problem with workaday artifacts, actually.  There's just no reason for a deck not to use them - when at least splashing colours has a noticeable cost.  --Vitenka
No, it's more than that. (Otherwise a case could be made to ban Swamps and Islands... and most of the current block is artifacts, often ones that could fit into almost any deck. That in itself isn't  not a problem.) Skullclamp is a horrendously powerful card. I like the way it lets you do something about those late-game MTG: Llanowar Elves draws, but it's just unfair when your opponent is drawing five cards a turn on the basis of one artifact. It's almost no effort to arrange your deck so that you can do degenerate things with Skullclamp. Card advantage wins games, and Wizards dislike the situations where who wins a game comes down to who draws their Broken Card X first. --AlexChurchill
Well yeah - it's good, but so're a huge number of artifacts (especially right now)  And since it's sorcery, you only get one use before it dies to an instant (otherwise, yes, the one mana activation cost would be sick)  Then again, I've not seen it truly in action yet, only in a game where someone else was drawing three cards a turn to artifacts anyway and was whomping the skulls owner with big fliers.  --Vitenka
(PeterTaylor) If I'm holding a MTG: Shatter when you play it, you don't get any uses before it dies, because I respond to you activating the ability. But a card which forces everyone to run 8 artifact removal cards is somewhat distorting the format.
In a format that makes artifact-only decks viable?  C'mon, that's like moaning about needing to run creature removal when beasts were big.  --Vitenka

You can stick it on an MTG: Arcbound Worker for a counter and 2 cards. It's more broken when you stick it on a large critter, which nets you two cards when your opponent removes it (and uses a removal spell of his/hers). Aggro decks shouldn't have better card drawing than control decks, but MTG: Skullclamp does just that... --qqzm

The problem with Vitenka's objection is that those other huge card drawing things are mostly more than two years old, and so playable in Extended tournaments but not "Standard" (which is only cards from the past two years). Those card-drawing spells that are in Standard are one or more of one-off, highly colour-specific, or rather expensive. (MTG: Decree of Pain springs to mind...) MTG: Skullclamp is none of these, and thus became rather ubiquitous in tournament decks. --AlexChurchill
PeterTaylor objects that MTG: Well of Lost Dreams in none of the above. It's just that life gain is rarely a competitive strategy.
Actually, I'm comparing current (scourge, fifth dawn) against years and years and years ago.  Which may not be useful, but is my perspective.  --Vitenka (So very very strange to see the return of artifacts only decks.)


Hmm, none of those MTG: links are working... -- Senji
It's not just me not having EvilScript, then?  Because Ive yet to see a single MTG: link work.  --Vitenka
Yeah, sorry. Mtgnews haven't updated their list to include the last set, Darksteel. MTG: Island or MTG: Mindslaver should work, because they're earlier sets, but MTG: links to Darksteel cards don't work. All the non-working cards may be looked up [here]. --AlexChurchill
Works a little too well - Island links to every card whose name contains the word 'island'.  I guess it's good for the strangely named cards that are likely to actually get linked to though.  --Vitenka


See [here] for a long discussion of MTG: Skullclamp on the MTGO boards.
And [Kai's article here] (Premium members only) for the first of many articles by pros calling for its banning.

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