Different cards: Lion Eye Diamond and Browbeat

[0rion79]

I have 2 questions about those cards, which are unrelated but I can't figure out how to use both of them.

Lion's Eye Diamond: I can't find any application for that card except to use its mana for permanent or inflatable creatures. I've red somewhere that it is used to activeate Wheel of Fortune or Timetwister, since you could declare the card and use the Diamond to play it and THEN discard the whole hand, but it doesn't work here. Also, of course, it could be good for those decks that play cards directly from graveyard, but then I can't figure out how to build a decent deck around that.

About Browbeat, I just don't understand the text. Would anybody of you be so kind to explain me how it is supposed to work? It resamble me the psychological game of the prisoner, where 2 persons are in different rooms and they are asked to spoil informations. If noone does, there is the highest benefit, but what if one speak and the other doesn't?

[Marek14]

I have 2 questions about those cards, which are unrelated but I can't figure out how to use both of them.

Lion's Eye Diamond: I can't find any application for that card except to use its mana for permanent or inflatable creatures. I've red somewhere that it is used to activeate Wheel of Fortune or Timetwister, since you could declare the card and use the Diamond to play it and THEN discard the whole hand, but it doesn't work here. Also, of course, it could be good for those decks that play cards directly from graveyard, but then I can't figure out how to build a decent deck around that.

Well, Lion's Eye Diamond specifically says that its ability can be only activated as an instant, meaning you can't use it in the middle of casting spell/activating ability/resolving something. So it can't be used for Wheel of Fortune. But you can, for example, cast Ancestral Recall as your last card, then sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond in response to get mana you can use to play the cards you will draw.

About Browbeat, I just don't understand the text. Would anybody of you be so kind to explain me how it is supposed to work? It resamble me the psychological game of the prisoner, where 2 persons are in different rooms and they are asked to spoil informations. If noone does, there is the highest benefit, but what if one speak and the other doesn't?

When Browbeat resolves, every player in turn, starting with the active player, has an option to take 5 damage. (Since it's a sorcery, the controller will typically choose first - and refuse.) Once any player takes the damage, the resolution ends. If all players are asked, and all refuse, the target draws three cards.

[aww1979]

Browbeat: Simplified, it says:
Do you want to do 5 damage to yourself? Yes or No
-If yes, you take 5 damage, and the spell is done. (You probably won't choose this!)
-If no, then the opponent makes a decision between:
1) Browbeat doing 5 damage to him/her
2) Letting you choose a player (likely yourself) to draw 3 cards.

Worded another way, and assuming you aren't going to do 5 damage to yourself, it is basically a 2R-cost Ancestral Recall that the opponent can prevent by taking 5 damage if they want.

The manalink interface for this card is rather confusing, unfortunately, to accomodate the remote possibility you might want to hurt yourself with Browbeat or give your opponent 3 cards if they didn't take the 5 damage themselves. The first time I cast this card in manalink, I ended up doing 5 damage to myself because I misunderstood the interface.



LED: This one is easy to understand, but tricky to use in a deck, and in 99% of decks is useless, but in that 1% it is very useful. The trick is to do something like this:

1. Cast Wheel of Fortune, or Timetwister (like you are thinking) but do it with OTHER mana than the LED, i.e. from your lands or whatever.
2. In RESPONSE to casting Timetwister, sacrifice the LED. Your hand is discarded and 3 mana is put into your pool.
Result: Your hand is discarded. You get 3 mana. Timetwister resolves, and you keep the 7 cards, since LED resolved already.

I do that quite a bit with tendrils decks, and that sort of thing. You can even do something like this:
1) Cast Demonic Tutor
2) Activate LED in response
Result: Hand discarded. 3 mana added to pool. Tutor resolves, puts a card in your hand, which you keep, since LED already resolved. My favourite in the tendrils deck was to do this, tutoring for Yawgmoth's Will :p

And yes, you can use it to pay for activating things like Frozen Shade, Pestilence, Sneak Attack, Circle of Protection: Blue, Treetop Village, etc, but it's mostly used for the sorts of tricks I mentioned above.

It isn't applicable to manalink (yet...) but Lion's Eye Diamond also combos fairly well with madness cards, and if memory serves, type II decks at one point did this. Must've been awhile ago, since I think LED was in Mirage.

The sorts of decks I will put Lion's Eye Diamond in are ones with a lot of spells that draw many cards, like Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, and so on, so that when I cast one of those, I respond with the LED activation, and then I will have 3 mana that I can use on any of the cards I draw. It also works reasonably well with things like Meditate or tutors, but the three cards above are ones that you are going to lose your hand anyway, so it combos better with them.

There are a few other silly things you can use LED for, like comboing with Ensnaring Bridge, Lord of Extinction, Scalding Tongs, but, generally speaking, it is used in response to big draw spells, or with lots of madness cards in hand.

[0rion79]

Thank you.

Well, for the Lion's ecc. it is fine, but I still don't understand the sequence of use of Browbeat.

Let's try in this way:

I play the spell, then...

1) I have to chose if (A) to deal 5 damage to opponent or (B) to do nothing, and maybe draw 3 cards. In any case I have to target opponent, not myself, in order to play cards, right?

2) The opponent plays his choice so...
A + A: both deal 5 damage to their relative opponent
A + B: player deals 5 damage to AI and AI does nothing
B + A: player does nothing and AI deals 5 damage to the player
B + B: both player and AI draw 3 cards.
Usually, the outcome is A+A or B+A, since the AI always choses to deal 5 damages to opponent.

[aww1979]

When you cast browbeat the dialogue box says:
-Take 5 (this will deal 5 damage to *you* if you pick it)
-No Thanks (the AI will get the choice if you pick this)

I have autotarget on, and it always chooses yourself to draw 3 cards, if the AI doesn't take the 5 damage. I think a second dialogue box comes up after that one asking who should draw 3 cards if autotarget is off. You will likely want to target yourself with the 3 card draw in that dialogue box.

[0rion79]

Ah, I think that I got it then. So the card may be read like this: AI chooses if to suffer 5 damage or if the player draws 3 cards. Probably in the early stages of the game it deals damage, then if the AI can't afford the life loss anymore, it becomes a slighty more expensive ancestral recall, right?

[Marek14]

When you cast browbeat the dialogue box says:
-Take 5 (this will deal 5 damage to *you* if you pick it)
-No Thanks (the AI will get the choice if you pick this)

I have autotarget on, and it always chooses yourself to draw 3 cards, if the AI doesn't take the 5 damage. I think a second dialogue box comes up after that one asking who should draw 3 cards if autotarget is off. You will likely want to target yourself with the 3 card draw in that dialogue box.

If autotarget is off, you should FIRST target a player, and then it should ask about damage. Targeting is done on announcement, and selection is on resolution.

[Systral]

LED got restricted in vintage at the same time as Burning Wish because of their interaction in a very fast Tendrils Of Agony deck known as Long.dec. The deck was basically all fast mana, cheap draw and tutors and would normally dump it's hand on turn 1-2, play Burning Wish for Yawgmoth's Will (which was in the sideboard) and respond to the wish with sacrificing Lion's Eye Diamond, and then replaying it when will resolved. This effectively made it Black Lotus 2-5 in the deck. After the restrictions (combined with others like the one of Brainstorm) storm decks in modern vintage have slowed down a bit and focus more on protecting bombs than speed, and LED is pretty much only seen in some dredge and affinity versions.

Browbeat on the other hand has always been junk since it will never do what benefits you the most, a combo/control deck doesn't mind taking 5 since it will win once it combos out/establishes control anyway and a fast aggro deck doesn't mind if you waste tempo on drawing cards instead of interfering with their creature rush.