I'm going to discuss of 3 very important darkness cards here.
First : Devourer, why is it so good? Why does it draw bans?
Second : Drain life, why is it so good? Why does it see a surge in popularity?
Third : Steal, why is it so good? Why do i always seem to lose darkness trials to this card?
First of all, proof it draws bans :
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/trial-of-darkness/5th-trials-registration-36158/msg457159/#msg457159 ,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RyjS-VrlxhNr5j1txL80RDloZto6g56E4u7-_kjZvMQ/edit#gid=14 ,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_nu5wOfiVyYv-aX6O7ox55iP3BtbZsVNlJLriMO6db4/pub?output=html# I could add a lot more, but I think you get the point.
Devourers are often seen as a one trick pony in pestal, but nothing could be more wrong. Devourer is a complete monster, because it destroys all splashes. If you don't know how devourer works, it has the same chances to steal quanta from any of your pools, regardless of how many quanta you have in it. So 1 devourer has just as much chances to remove your 75th darkness quanta than it does to remove the 1 aether quanta you wish to keep to cast a lightning. Therefore, if you cannot splash cards, like what I call instant CC*, it forces you to either bring a mono deck, or put more quanta/cards in your second element. Devourer heavily scratches a lot of deck ideas, and that'S without counting the decks it is very strong it, like pestal. Devourer not only works great with fractal, but also with cards which use the fact your enemy has less quanta, like reverse time, or a ghost of the past (if your enemy can't play cards, he has to discard, and well if he discards a ghost...)
The cards I call instant CC are the cards that can kill or effectively remove from the game the turn it is played, no matter what quanta you have. I do not qualify drain life in this.
Which leads me to talk about this very card, drain life. This paragraph is going to be extremely subjective. I personally tought drain life was a very bad card as it was very outshadowed by fire bolt, up until I saw one deck. The one deck that changed my view about darkness entirely. This deck would be Siphonary, made, as far as i know, by one of darkness former masters,
theonlyrealbeef. Darkness having an effective stall? Yes please. Because, when you look at it, darkness has everything to stall, vampire dagger is the best card in the game in my opinion and I have never hidden that fact. Dusk mantle while being based on luck blocks a lot of damage. Alongside with other stall cards , in siphonary those cards being sanctuary and miracle, it makes drain life shine. While drain life cannot deal 100 damage, the damage done by your vampire dagger is more than enough to claim a win. Now, I have overused siphonary, and lots of variants, but from it came variants that are now different enough to be considered their own decks, like drainbolt. As I said earlier, this paragraph is very subjective.
Steal. Considered by many but myself to be darkness's best card. Steal is a card that takes away a permanent from your opponent, and replaces yours if it is a weapon or shield, and this is what makes me dislike the card.Yes, dislike, I do not like every single darkness card, unlike I like to pretend it. Darkness already has the best weapon and one of the best shields, why would I want to replace them? But in a darkness versus darkness situation, it makes for a whole different system. While you can acquire the best cards in the game, you can also kill strategies, like by stealing dimensional shields, catapults, etc. It is a card I have always made the mistake to underestimate and underuse. A card that has been my demise. A card that almost all alone nearly made me ragequit this community. Steal is strong. Very Strong. Steal works well with cards that ensures your opponent cannot play another of the permanent you stole, whether it be quanta denial ( devourer, black hole, earthquake, discord ...) or another way.
