Stuffy Doll and Pariah

Gorbadoc · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 56

What happens if I control only one Pariah, and it's on a Stuffy Doll which targets me?

lennin · Guest

y is it stupid

Gorbadoc · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 56

In terms of game balance, it means someone with a Stuffy Doll deck can force the draw with no special additional cards.

In terms of the game making any realistic sense, magical items and enchantments would only be so strong and would eventually wear out.

The combo makes the entire rest of the game's state irrelevant, a power which goes beyond the implied scope of either card. That horde of elves simply doesn't matter because someone did the Magic equivalent of shorting his cell phone battery.

lennin · Guest

y would u make a deck to just draw, the game are u retarded, and y would u play a stuffy doll targeting urself, and they have to draw the combo peices, thats the reason for a loop, theyres random loops, that happen u cant say theyre stupid

Gorbadoc · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 56

I'll make you a deal-- you clean up your spelling and punctuation, and I'll humor your inane questions.

thedarkness · Joined: 13 Jul 2006 Posts: 449

The real question is why you would target yourself with a stuffy doll, instead of your opponent.

In the situation described, you're suggesting the NEED to force a draw in a situation that most decks can't actually win against. Your deck sucks if this is an issue. o.o

SaTiVa · Joined: 09 Jun 2005 Posts: 185

what if it is like the stuffy doll mirror and ur oppo pariah ur stuffy doll or sumtin
lol

Gorbadoc · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 56

Usually when I see a possible loophole that would result in a neat trick that goes beyond the implied scope of the cards involved, more careful examination of the rules shows that no, I was mistaken; WOTC has become diligent over the years in weeding out technicality combos. I figured I probably missed something in this case, so I asked.

To answer these questions/accusations about the sensibility of playing this combo:

There are enough variable effect cards that include the ability to bounce or kill the doll or pariah that, given the existence of Stuffy Doll decks, it's a stretch to say a well balanced deck would be totally impotent against the combo. Darkness is right, though; Doll + Pariah is a powerful combo provided you can keep it alive.

The criteria for forcing the loop are:
It's my turn, my opponent is tapped out, I have the components to finish the loop, and I can't otherwise keep from losing.

The last criterion is satisfied if I can see my opponent has the creatures (or direct damage) to kill me next round, and I know he can eventually get, for example:
Venser, Shaper Savant OR Primal Command OR Nameless Inversion OR anyway, you get the idea; there are plenty of good spells out there that your opponent might have to disrupt the loop as soon as he untaps next turn.

Having the components might be tricky, but there are several plausible ways it can come up. I can play Pariah on my opponent's Stuffy Doll. I can combine a tapping card with Dichotomancy (to mirror my opponent's Doll-Pariah combo). I can be sitting on nine mana, one in the form of a pain land, and have the doll and pariah in hand (again, I won't just target my opponent with the doll, because I know he'll kill or bounce it as soon as he has mana, and then he'll kill me; I HAVE to end the game this turn).

Pulling the right cards isn't a stretch; a doll deck should be making a point of drawing both cards, for instance, be it through tutors, draw effects, or whatever. What you have, then, is a potent combo that can be adapted into an instant-draw mechanism due to a loophole.

Sorry to write such a long post. I thought all this was obvious, but then a couple people decided it would be more productive to call me stupid than to answer my question.

Edit: Shriekmaw can't break the combo.

Mirage · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 72

i think multiple oblivion rings have the same effect.

Avata · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 356

Hardtrack · Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 234

Conkisstador · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 222

any loop that has decisions involved is repeated to an agreed upon amount of iterations. active player shows loop and decideds how many times he would like it executed. nonactive picks a number after which he would like to respond (often, none) and the loop is carried out that many times. then, active player must change decisions to end loop.

3 obliv rings, 3 champions, etc. 3 champions plus a warden can get u 1,000,000,000 life, etc.

pariah + stuffy doll is a combination that is an example of the flavor text of pongify. "[sometimes mistaken spells become new ones]" voodoo is a unlimited power and pariah is a spell you as a wizard would warp the world with if cast while voodoo is involved. is that flavor enough for you or do you prefer the cell phone shorting out story?

pariah + stuffy would be an aggresive combo... with an upside that if you are way down and going to die... you can draw the game.

makes sense to me.

Gorbadoc · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 56

Well, I suppose it is magic. There's still something vaguely dissatisfying about it; so the doll fires a bolt of energy at you, which gets bounced back at the doll, which absorbs the bolt and fires another at you-- if they're so durable that they can keep this up indefinitely, one would think that for all intents and purposes the damage would be trapped bouncing between the two. Are we to assume that Pariah's space-warping redirection effect shreds the playing field when activated so frequently? Or does the doll create some planet-shattering explosion when it absorbs and recreates too much energy? Actually, those do sound satisfying insofar as it's satisfying to suck the life out of the surrounding terrain to power the spells that force sentient creatures to slaughter each other. Which, phrased like that, doesn't sound so pleasant at all. Come to think of it, apart from the fact that it makes for an interesting game, why do opponents in Magic want to kill each other so badly? I'm picturing two ultra-powerful wizards sitting in a bar doing shots of tequila, and one of them grabs the other's change by mistake, and twenty minutes later the scene has been replaced with one wizard, a handful of confused demons, and several square miles of smoking craters. Seriously, if I had that kind of power in real life, after I got tired of using it to pick up chicks, I'd build a lonely fortress on the moon where I'd spend my time trying to figure out a way to prevent other twats from using me as a Planeswalker card, because do you have any idea how obnoxious that would be? There you are, practically a demigod, and some jerk goes and summons you straight off the shitter, and by the time you have your pants up, that jerk's opponent is attacking you with a herd of elephants and all the while the guy who summoned you is screaming at you to find him this that or the other card from his library when all you really want is to kick back with a good lager and someone with whom you can discuss whatever it is that sparks a planeswalker's imagination.

But I digress.

I'm glad to know how the doll-pariah combo leads to a draw, and I personally have shorted enough voltage sources with my body to be glad that's not how the real world works.