seismic shudder

[ross miles]

is this card only for the sideboard? seems to go round very late and can be a game winner. what do people think? i had a rediculous play where i killed three one toughness creatures (one of my own) in response to an attack - this activiated my quest for the gaylord which blocked the red 3/3 haste ally guy who had just been played - this won't happen very often but it seems very good against some of the most agro cards - geopoeeeede, stepp linx.

[Charlie Grover]

its fine, but a sb card for sure. Some games it will own up though..

[Ben Titmarsh]

Yeah I think it's fine in the sideboard. There are too many time when it won't be relevant enough to run it maindeck. A quick search on magiccards.info came up with 30 1 toughness creatures in ZEN and 81 with greater than 1. This obviously doesn't take into account playability or other factors like combat damage, but roughly 30% of the field says it deserves to be higher than 12th pick!

[Kieran Symington]

The problem with this is that most of those 1-toughness creatures are in Red to start with. This means that Seismic Shudder is kind of a nombo with the rest of its colour. Therefore, its best deck is one that doesn't play much Red - but Red is so deep that if you're playing it you will probably be playing quite a bit of it. Hence the card routinely comes around near the end of the packs.

Ben Titmarsh said:

Yeah I think it's fine in the sideboard. There are too many time when it won't be relevant enough to run it maindeck. A quick search on magiccards.info came up with 30 1 toughness creatures in ZEN and 81 with greater than 1. This obviously doesn't take into account playability or other factors like combat damage, but roughly 30% of the field says it deserves to be higher than 12th pick!

[Ben Titmarsh]

There are 5-7 1 toughness creatures in each colour, red having 6. Looking at the list again there are only 2-3 creatures that won't really see limited play so I'd say red is about as likely to hit its own guys as any other colour.

Kieran Symington said:

The problem with this is that most of those 1-toughness creatures are in Red to start with. This means that Seismic Shudder is kind of a nombo with the rest of its colour. Therefore, its best deck is one that doesn't play much Red - but Red is so deep that if you're playing it you will probably be playing quite a bit of it. Hence the card routinely comes around near the end of the packs.
Ben Titmarsh said:

Yeah I think it's fine in the sideboard. There are too many time when it won't be relevant enough to run it maindeck. A quick search on magiccards.info came up with 30 1 toughness creatures in ZEN and 81 with greater than 1. This obviously doesn't take into account playability or other factors like combat damage, but roughly 30% of the field says it deserves to be higher than 12th pick!

[Kieran Symington]

If you only include common or uncommon creatures (rares don't show up frequently enough to make them a reason to play this) and only creatures that don't fly the list of things it deals with looks like this (the bracketed creatures are ones that it can kill only if the timing is right):

Black
Blood Seeker
Guul Draz Vampire
Hagra Crocodile
Surrakar Marauder
Vampire Hexmage

Blue
(Aether Figment)
(Caller of Gales)
Reckless Scholar

White
Cliff Threader
(Kazandu Blademaster)
Kor Duelist
Ondu Cleric
Steppe Lynx

Green
Frontier Guide
Greenweaver Druid
(Oran Rief Survivalist)
(River Boa)
Turntimber Basilisk

Red
Goblin Bushwhacker
Goblin Ruinblaster
Goblin Shortcutter
Highland Berserker
Plated Geopede

Artifact
Hedron Scrabbler

So it's obviously at its best against aggro decks (Red, Black and extreme White decks) but near useless against Green or Blue (most of the Green 1-toughness things are rare and most Blue ones fly). I guess that proves the theory it's a sideboard card, then.

Ben Titmarsh said:

There are 5-7 1 toughness creatures in each colour, red having 6. So the actual count is fairly even, all the red ones are playable however!

[Tom Reeve]

I think in a more controlling deck it's a reasonable maindeck card, simply because it gives you a cheap, reliable answer to Lynx, Geopede et al.