Drain Life superseded by Consume Spirit?

[Rick Kunkel]

Am I misreading this, or is Consume Spirit simply BETTER than Drain
Life?

Consume Spirit
{X}{1}{B}
Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X.
Consume Spirit deals X damage to target creature or player. You gain X
life.

Drain Life
{X}{1}{B}
Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X.
Drain Life deals X damage to target creature or player. You gain life
equal to the damage dealt, but not more life than the player's life
total before Drain Life dealt damage or the creature's toughness.

I kinda hate it when they do this. Often they come really close, but
you can think of little ways or specific times where the older version
might have an advantage or something like that. But I'm hard pressed
to think of one here, unless your in a rare situation where gaining
life is bad. Comments?

Thanks,

Rick Kunkel

[David DeLaney]

Am I misreading this, or is Consume Spirit simply BETTER than Drain Life?

It is strictly superior, yes. It doesn't care if the damage is prevented or
not.

Consume Spirit X1B Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X. / ~ deals X damage to target creature or player.
You gain X life.
Drain Life X1B Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X. / ~ deals X damage to target creature or player.
You gain life equal to the damage dealt, but not more life than the player's
life total before ~ dealt damage or the creature's toughness.

The thing here is that Drain Life is from Alpha, and they've tried to preserve
how it worked in the wording, giving it tweaks to deal with a problem or two
that turned up along the way. Consume Spirit is certainly simpler... and they
haven't done much in many years with "gain life equal to the damage dealt
except not more than life total or toughness"; Drain Life and El-Hajjaj were
about it. [This caused _much_ confusion when Spirit Link first came out,
since it was not so limited, and players back then had that behavior as a
mental default... It does not these days because only old-timers have even
HEARD of Drain Life or El-Hajjaj.]

I kinda hate it when they do this. Often they come really close, but
you can think of little ways or specific times where the older version
might have an advantage or something like that. But I'm hard pressed
to think of one here, unless your in a rare situation where gaining
life is bad. Comments?

It's definitely -simpler-. And matches recent behavior. It's also simpler
than just plain "gain life equal to the damage dealt", which was the
in-between behavior for several cards, including Spirit Link...

Dave

[Rick Kunkel]

Post by David DeLaney

Am I misreading this, or is Consume Spirit simply BETTER than Drain Life?

It is strictly superior, yes. It doesn't care if the damage is prevented or
not.

Consume Spirit X1B Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X. / ~ deals X damage to target creature or player.
You gain X life.
Drain Life X1B Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X. / ~ deals X damage to target creature or player.
You gain life equal to the damage dealt, but not more life than the player's
life total before ~ dealt damage or the creature's toughness.

The thing here is that Drain Life is from Alpha, and they've tried to preserve
how it worked in the wording, giving it tweaks to deal with a problem or two
that turned up along the way. Consume Spirit is certainly simpler... and they
haven't done much in many years with "gain life equal to the damage dealt
except not more than life total or toughness"; Drain Life and El-Hajjaj were
about it. [This caused _much_ confusion when Spirit Link first came out,
since it was not so limited, and players back then had that behavior as a
mental default... It does not these days because only old-timers have even
HEARD of Drain Life or El-Hajjaj.]

Drain Life was printed in 5th? Does playing during 5th make one an
old-timer? ;)

Post by David DeLaney

I kinda hate it when they do this. Often they come really close, but
you can think of little ways or specific times where the older version
might have an advantage or something like that. But I'm hard pressed
to think of one here, unless your in a rare situation where gaining
life is bad. Comments?

It's definitely -simpler-. And matches recent behavior. It's also simpler
than just plain "gain life equal to the damage dealt", which was the
in-between behavior for several cards, including Spirit Link...

No argument about the simpler. And much more consistent, as you point
out. I just hate it when they make, as you say, "strictly superior"
cards. Functionally equivalent? I'm OK with that. I just wish this
would have cost 1 generic more and been a cantrip or something. Yeah!
That'd be cool...

Post by David DeLaney
Dave

Thanks,

Rick

[David DeLaney]

Post by Rick Kunkel

Post by David DeLaney
It does not these days because only old-timers have even
HEARD of Drain Life or El-Hajjaj.]

Drain Life was printed in 5th? Does playing during 5th make one an
old-timer? ;)

Now? Yes - that was 1997-1999, after all.

Dave "Mirage block? That was _way_ before my time, d00d..." "<groan>" DeLaney

[Chris Wiegert]

Post by Rick Kunkel
No argument about the simpler. And much more consistent, as you point
out. I just hate it when they make, as you say, "strictly superior"
cards. Functionally equivalent? I'm OK with that. I just wish this
would have cost 1 generic more and been a cantrip or something. Yeah!
That'd be cool...

You should see my "museum". Whenever I find a card that's strictly
superior to another (barring unusual circumstances of course... Gray Ogre is
better than Goblin Spelunkers if your opponent uses Bribery to fish it out,
but that's a sufficiently obscure case to ignore it), I throw out all my
copies of the inferior card except one, which I keep for my museum. There's
about 200 cards in my museum now. Some are Portal cards, many are cards that
were printed in several different editions or with different artworks and I
keep one of each, but there's still close to a hundred now-obsolete cards in
there. I admit I didn't expect to ever be putting Drain Life in my museum,
but there it is, between Cyclopean Mummy and, um, Frozen Shade if I recall
correctly.