2 Anarch Cards

Jerkface wrote:

Life in the City sets a precedent for what a trifle is worth. It's worth one free blood.

Precedents can be overturned, if they prove to be wrong.

Life in the City (and, by the same token, Ascendance) set a good baseline. If this master card is less useful to me than LitC and/or Ascendance, why not play them instead?

Certainly, there are numerous that are better than Ascendance.

Jerkface wrote:

Go anarch, sets the precedent of what the Anarch sect is worth. One stealth and an untap for a card, or 2 blood and a stealth for no card.

A good example of where precedent is a bit flawed. Anarch Convert has often been significantly more popular than either option since it was available - depending on how you choose to use it, it basically costs a pool OR a crypt card slot in your uncontrolled region. It's unblockable, uncounterable, and can mean you have an Anarch in play as soon as they're influenced out (assuming you co-ordinate transfers sensibly).

It's also worth noting that Go Anarch (and Galaric's Legacy) can give you a free untap under Powerbase: LA. That was presumably intended to counter the fact that a pre-requisite action/master like those is useful in the early game (so you have to stack a few) but useless in the late game (so the stacked copies clog your hand a little).


But overall, if a card is bad, it doesn't matter that it's "precedent" or not. Rampantly overpowered cards are banned, but they were precedent. Underpowered cards are just ignored, and sometimes better alternatives are printed.