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Yet Another Nightmare

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Faceless ButcherEnlarge

Faceless Butcher

{2}{B}{B}

Creature — Nightmare Horror

Time Spiral Timeshifted

Read rules for Faceless Butcher
When this creature enters, exile another target creature. When this creature leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owner's control.

2/3

Full card details & printings ›

Minion ReflectorEnlarge

Minion Reflector

{5}

Artifact

Shards of Alara

Read rules for Minion Reflector
Whenever a nontoken creature you control enters, you may pay {2}. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that creature, except it has haste and "At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice this permanent."

Full card details & printings ›

Date Posted: Wed Aug/31/11 at 5:27 pm

TheCaptain
Posts: 909
Joined: 13-Apr-11

Stack manipulation really is the best.

With Reflector and Altar out, play Butcher. Stack Butcher's "when this creature enters play..." onto the stack first, and put Reflector's ability on top of it. Pay 2 for Reflectors ability when it resolves, which puts another Butcher into play, and places the tokens "come into play" ability on the stack. Exile the nontoken Butcher using the token Butchers ability, which triggers the nontoken Butcher's second ability, which is to "return the exiled creature to play". Since you have not resolved the nontoken Butcher's first ability yet, there is no exiled creature to return to play. Finally, all that's left on the stack is the nontoken Butcher's first ability, letting you exile a creature your opponent controls permanently.

Let's repeat this now. Sac the token Butcher to the Altar for 2 colorless. This returns the nontoken Butcher into play, which (like when you cast it) triggers its come into play ability along with the Reflector's ability. Stack them accordingly, and you happen to already have 2 mana floating to pay for the Reflector's ability. So in the end what do you have?

4BB: Exile all of your opponents' creatures. You may reuse this on later turns for no cost.
Date Posted: Wed Aug/31/11 at 7:46pm

LightningBolt
Posts: 45
Joined: 01-Mar-11

At tiny bit on the complicated side, but very clever.
Date Posted: Wed Aug/31/11 at 9:07pm

Turbine
Posts: 10194
Joined: 26-Oct-09

Is there something wrong with it being complicated? Stack manipulation is awesome.
Date Posted: Thu Sep/01/11 at 7:38am

lin sivvi
Posts: 1608
Joined: 14-Jan-10

also a tidbit unfair to the newer players
Date Posted: Thu Sep/01/11 at 2:29pm

Turbine
Posts: 10194
Joined: 26-Oct-09

In the same way that mana burn was. However, if they take out the stack, I think I'll have to quit Magic.
Date Posted: Thu Sep/01/11 at 3:42pm

lin sivvi
Posts: 1608
Joined: 14-Jan-10

Well, manaburn wasn't really unfair, as it came up in so very few places.
Date Posted: Thu Sep/01/11 at 4:30pm

darthnefas
Posts: 1081
Joined: 04-Apr-11

I understand stack manipulation, etc., but in reality it's just finding another way around the rules. 

You can usually tell when the spirit of a card has been broken by using rules manipulation.

Even if you change a rule there are some cards that are just destined to be abused (like that card that ends your turn). 

The problem is that even with errata, once a card is printed, it's printed and people will just read the card instead of researching it and who can blame them.  They'll see something that no one else sees and sometimes that doesn't always work. 

I don't try to manipulate the rules and I've done it.  Read a card and say, "this works like this" and then you're in the middle of a tournament and suddenly someone says, "that doesn't work like that" and I've been getting away with it for 4 rounds!
Date Posted: Thu Sep/01/11 at 4:38pm

TheCaptain
Posts: 909
Joined: 13-Apr-11

This isn't really a manipulation of the rules, this is just using the rules to your benefit. We're not twisting the words, its placing things on the stack in a beneficial order, which is partially the reason that the stack exists. Same thing goes with Sundial of the Infinite, it's just using the tools that Wizards provided. I'm sure that they're aware of interactions like this, and if it really was breaking the spirit of the law, I'm sure they'd change to rules to stop it.
Date Posted: Fri Sep/02/11 at 2:38pm

Turbine
Posts: 10194
Joined: 26-Oct-09

Most of the fun in Magic is the interactions between cards and the using of rules to your advantage. That's the spirit of the Blue mage!
Date Posted: Fri Sep/02/11 at 8:14pm

lin sivvi
Posts: 1608
Joined: 14-Jan-10

hey, how can you use this in later turns?
Date Posted: Sat Sep/03/11 at 9:45pm

TheCaptain
Posts: 909
Joined: 13-Apr-11

The combo has to end each turn obviously, you don't want to end up exiling your own creatures. So the combo "ends" with you have exiled your opponents creatures, and you have the token Butcher in play (having exiled the nontoken Butcher), with the altar and reflector still out as well. Whenever you need to exile another creature, you can restart the combo by saccing the token for 2, bringing in the nontoken which starts the combo at the beginning as well as providing you with the mana you need for reflectors cost. All done at instant speed too I believe. If I've gotten something horrible wrong, correct me, but I believe this is repeatable, free, and instant speed once brought out. And besides, if you've exiled your opponents creatures once, you should have the upper hand to win from there.
Date Posted: Sun Sep/04/11 at 2:18am

Draco_lich
Posts: 1073
Joined: 07-May-10

faceless butcher only ever takes one at a time... and if you sacrifice the token copy generated by minion reflector, then the creature it took out will return under its owners control immediately

in short, the combo is a great idea, but doesnt work as intended
Date Posted: Sun Sep/04/11 at 8:13am

gericault5
Posts: 2788
Joined: 13-Oct-09

Draco
This combo works exactly as intended. Since the creature exiled by the token was the orignal butcher you want it to come back right away to start the cycle over again. And yes the butcher only takes one but its a new one each time it comes back

[Edited by gericault5 on 4/Sep/11 at 8:15AM]
Date Posted: Sun Sep/04/11 at 11:25pm

lin sivvi
Posts: 1608
Joined: 14-Jan-10

but at the end of turn you have to sacrifice the token.  Because that's what the minion reflector does.




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