Hello everybody and welcome back! For those that are new, the goal of my series is to find an underrepresented card and discuss where it should be played. This time we are taking a look at [[Bitter Ordeal]], one of the most unique sorceries in magic and the only card with Gravestorm. Do you think I'm overrating this card? Or do you think it's great and heavily underplayed? Let's discuss in the comments below!
As always, I want to hear what you all have to say so please get a discussion started! What are your favorite underplayed cards? Where would you want to play Bitter Ordeal? Anything you want to share related to this really. Thank you all once again and have a great rest of your day!
https://articles.edhrec.com/the-toolbox-a-bitter-ordeal-for-your-opponents/
I'm using the translation of the Code found on Wikipedia:
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Law #13: If a man is accused of [Translation of word disputed. some interpret as Sorcery...], he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels
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Law #14: If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver
Hello, I'm in the process of building a new deck and before I commit a slot to [[Bitter Ordeal]], I wanted to make sure that I understand it completely.
So just in case the MTG Card Fetcher bot doesn't pick up Bitter Ordeal, it's a sorcery that costs 2B and reads, "Search target player's library for a card and remove that card from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library." It also has Gravestorm whose reminder text states, "When you play this spell, copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies."
Let's say that my current board state consists of a zombie creature, three untapped swamps, a [[Gravecrawler]], and a [[Phyrexian Altar]]. I use the Phyrexian Altar which reads, "Sacrifice a creature: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool." I sacrifice my Gravecrawler in this situation and choose to add a black mana to my mana pool. Then, while Gravecrawler is in my graveyard, I use the black mana I received from the altar to cast Gravecrawler from my graveyard since I control a zombie as Gravecrawler reads, "Gravecrawler can't block. You may cast Gravecrawler from your graveyard as long as you control a Zombie" and because he only costs B to cast.
I can continue sacrificing my Gravecrawler with Phyrexian Altar and recasting it with the mana gained through the sacrifice any number of times. Let's say I do this 20 times. When I cast Bitter Ordeal, will I only get 2 instances of the spell (one for the initial cast and once for Gravecrawler going to the graveyard from the battlefield) or will I get 21 instances of the spell (one for the initial cast and 20 copies for sacrificing my Gravecrawler 20 times)? If the former is true, does the Gravecrawler have to be in my graveyard as I cast Bitter Ordeal to get the two instances, or can it be on the battlefield after being sacrificed?
Hopefully my question makes sense, but if there are any questions or ambiguity I will reply to any comments as I am genuinely interested in finding the answer to this. Thanks to all who reply in advance!
I read Bitter Ordeal for the first time in my life today while randomly looking at cards with the unique Future Sight card frame (i love that frame) and I'm interested in trying to build around it but I'm looking for alot of help.
I've come to the very obvious conclusion that the best way to get an arbitrarily large number of permanents to go to the graveyard in the same turn is by using Heartless Summoning and multiple copies of Myr Retriever, but that is honestly all I have come up with. I'm looking for ideas on how to make a deck that kills with Bitter Ordeal as consistent as possible (I definitely understand that this won't be a top tier tournament winning strategy).
Thank you in advance for any advice and I apologize if the formatting on this post is bad; I am on mobile.
The beverage Moxie, originally patented as medicine, is still sold today by the Moxie Beverage Company in Bedford, NH. It was one of the first mass-produced soft drinks in the US, arising during a boom in soda brands that included Dr. Pepper (which was notably served at the 1885 Louisiana Purchase Exposition), as well as other now-defunct ginger ale and root beer brands.
Moxie's creator, Dr. Augustin Thompson, sought to create a medicine that did not contain then-common but potentially harmful drug ingredients such as cocaine and alcohol. Moxie was sold as the "nerve food" syrup first, marketed as a remedy for "paralysis, softening of the brain, nervousness, and insomnia," and later the syrup would be sold for use in soda fountains.
At the time he developed Moxie, Thompson claimed that the bitter extract used to make the syrup was from a rare and unnamed South American plant, but it was later determined to be gentian root extract, a fairly common substance that has been used in tonics since at least 170 BC during the reign of Gentius, namesake of the plant's genus gentiana and the last king of the powerful Ardiaei tribe in Illyria.
Thompson also claimed that he named Moxie after his friend Lieutenant Moxie, who discovered the plant and its extract, but it's likely that no such person existed and that he drew the name from a few rivers and lakes in Maine, where Thompson was born. These bodies of water included variations of the word "moxie," an approximation of a word meaning "dark water" in Eastern Abenaki languages, which was and is spoken by the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot people of coastal Maine.
The current, most common usage of the word, referring to bold determination and spunk, comes from the gist of the marketing for the medicine (and then beverage), which said that it would "build up your nerve."
Since this week's nightfall ordeal (inverted spire) is relatively easy and perfect for farming I figured I would try to complete 100 runs and keep track of the loot acquired along the way. The main reason I grinded the nightfall ordeal was actually to get a good pair of lunafaction boots for PvE with void affinity and a high total stat value, preferably with a lot of intellect and recovery. After 33 runs I luckily managed to get a good rolled pair of lunafaction boots. From the remaining 57 runs I did not get any lunafaction boots to drop. In total I got 41 exotics to drop, 40 ascendant shards and 267 enhancement prisms. The fastest run took just above 8 minutes at 8m20s.
I also recorded the total stat values of the exotics that dropped. What's interesting is that they seem to follow a normal distribution centered around 60. The highest total stat on any exotic for me was 64, although I think rolls higher than this are possible. A fireteam member allegedly got a roll of 67 during one of the runs. The most common affinity on the exotics was void (18 times), compared to 15 for arc and only 8 for solar.
I feel like it's fair to say that the triple rng involved in trying to get the perfect exotic armor piece is too much. Only 20% of my exotic drops had a high total stat roll (>60). Add to that the affinity RNG and you can understand how gruesome it is grind the perfect exotic armor piece that you're craving.
In case you're interested and would like to take a look at the full spreadsheet I saved a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qn9CGbPDCsSIKnp0tuSZEz2doJBa_J4Z8v9y-twR7gY/edit#gid=0
TLDR: 100 nightfall ordeal completions (980) on a warlock resulted in 41 exotic drops, 40 ascendant shard and 267 enhancement prisms.
Basically title, I've fitted a pid but no idea if the offset is set correctly
My generic frame bag doesn’t fit great. Doesn’t take the whole triangle, but doesn’t allow for both water bottle cages. I was thinking of cutting it up and resewing it into a half frame bag.
But looking at pictures of half frame bags, it doesn’t look like you would actually be able to pull your bottles up and out.
Am I misguided or do folks simply use them to keep their water cache in the centre of the frame for weight efficiency?
