Dies to Removal

So there are a great many decks that win off of ping damage, be they anything in a nekusar deck, to a wide variety of combos, to many token based decks. [card]Urza's Armor[/card] seems a touch expensive at 6, but it holds a lot of shenanigans at bay. Saprolings bounce right off, even if they number in the billions, nekusar is just a 2/4 howling mine, grapeshot merely tickles, and thopter foundry just spits out toothless chumps. Even if it deals more than 1 damage, it takes a little edge off of it. Bolts become shocks, shocks become pings. Is it possible that this might just be worth a deck slot? Has anyone tried it? I was digging through my rare bin and realized that this stops my entire deck, and puts a big damper on several other types of decks. Curious what everyone else thinks.

I own one, and it's made the initial cut to 200 a couple of times, but has so far never made it into a deck. 6 is just too much. You're right that it shuts down a small percentage of decks, so it might be worth trying in the right meta, but those same decks are going to have removal for it too. A card that does very little to advance your own game plan shouldn't lose you that much tempo when it gets removed.

I'd think it's a total meta-call. In my meta, that would be a useless card since most people aren't pinging anyone, but if your meta is filled with pingers, then it is probably worth a test.