7:52 your intent is correct (triggered ability caused by when), but you read this as a mix of trigger and replacement effect by adding "instead". So for everyone wondering, if it was a replacement effect, it would say "if" a card would be put into a graveyard, exile it instead. Additionally, it's not when put into a graveyard (from anywhere) but the effect only applies to cards that are discarded.

This is when I started playing.  I thought it sucked too but I was tired of getting beaten by mono blue counterspell decks.  So I decided to try this Necropotence deck I read about in Scryfall magazine 🤣  Yes I finally beat those blue decks.

This is hands down my favorite card in magic. When I first got into magic, it was kitchen table stuff and I just had this mono B pile of jank, against my friends Izzet Jank and Golgari Jank. Being in one color felt like I had nothing unique to do, Golgari could do removal and sacrifice better than me, and Izzet countered everything and drowned everyone in card advantage. I remember just looking through random cards online one day and finding necropotence. I didn't know exactly how good it was, if you're new to the game or to it, it's power isn't immediately apparent.

But playing with it I finally had something I felt like I did, a unique card or strategy that set my pile apart from my friends'. Life as a resource. Turn life into cards and just hurl stuff on the board faster than they could be countered, and also race golgari for value.

The card is admittedly bonkers. It would still be strong for BBBB and nearly as playable. Saying necropotence is my favorite card gets eyerolls from my playgroup now, It's almost  like saying your favorite card is Rhystic Study. They don't know that it came first. It changed the rules of the game, put me on an orthogonal axis to what everyone else was doing and really opened my eyes to what I enjoy in magic.

Anyway, a whole video from my favorite game design content creators on my favorite card? Today is my very lucky day! Thanks for putting this out!

That was my deck, the one with Hymns, Strip Mines, and Specters. I was running 2-3 Drain Lifes in my deck and I did take it to the Chicago tournament but I got knocked out early due to what seemed like everyone having a whole anti-black sideboard (hyperbolic). I had changed it to add red afterwards but never got a chance to go back to regionals with that deck again (I lived pretty far away). To answer your question, yes Necropotence definitely was the problem and Wizards even then didn't ban out cards that were still in print. Also Inquest in particular was not very good as assessing cards and most people thought of Necropotence as another version of the card 'Greed'. The 'fixed' versions of Necropotence (Phyrexian Arena/Necrodominance) were staples for my decks and the newer one see play in Modern and Legacy where Arena is still a staple in Pre-Modern where Necropotence is banned. So even a lesser version of this effect is quite powerful.

As far as EDH is concerned, Sheldon made two fatal mistakes that have kneecapped the format from progressing naturally: doubling life totals and using rule 0 as a way to hand wave off concerns about balance.

I competed during the Black Summer of 1998 when Necro decks reigned supreme.    And I still have my tourney deck from that rotation.  ❤❤

I think there's an interesting game design notion exposed in the comparison of yawgmoth's bargain to necropotence. Some effects don't have an upper limit on how much mana it costs. If it's close enough to synonymous with "play this, win the game," then magic's long history of not paying a card's mana cost removes that tuning knob. A video looking at the game design impacts of cheating mana, and different ways of managing those impacts could be fascinating.

The evolution of Yawgmoth's Bargain and Phyrexian Arena ended up with Griselbrand, which is a super fair and balanced card. Right?

Hymm + Hippie + Dark Ritual = my 10 year old gameplan because that's what I could afford.

This card has such a big impact on TCGs, we're feeling the effects in a completely different TCG. Flesh and Blood creator James White's fav card is necropotence and designed a hero based on it(Chane). That hero is one of the most busted heroes in the game. Thanks Necropotence!

Type 2 mentioned.

Sad to see it gone.

everyone nostalgic for old magic should check out the quickly rising premodern format

7:55 it is not a replacement effect "exile instead", rather there is a trigger that exiles them, if it were a replacement effect the card would never be in the graveyard with an opportunity to reanimate at instant speed.

Great video. But I would definitely say that Channel is the first card that magic players used to treat their life as a resource to win games

Remember that Necropotence was reprinted in 1997 in Fifth Edition. Whether they didn't want to ban it because they knew that was coming and it was too late to change it is not at all clear (design cycles then were shorter but it's not clear how short they were).  There was a quote from someone from R&D which I remember from the time but I've never been able to find it again.  "Necropotence is a fair and balanced card that will be in the base set for a long time."  For whatever reason, WotC viewed Necropotence as a fine card for years after, as they went through the same song and dance of banning around Necro when it came to Trix in the early 2000s.

Good watch, though I'd have liked to see some mention of Brian Davis 2nd place deck from PT Chicago 99, and especially the necro-illusions-donate trix deck.  Those are two of the first necro-based decks that I always think of that truly pushed the limits of the card.

My sweet summer child it was Necro summer.

Loved the discussion about the card and it's history.

I love the look on everyones face when i get this out early with my tiny bones deck 🙃

We had an idea of what card advantage was back then. We talked about TRADES all the time. We actually tried to make cantrips work cause if they did, they were advantage most were just way to weak. We even used cards from fallen empires like conch horn, or Jayemede tome. Discard with Hippies and Hyms, Land destruction, Balance and land tax. Geddon decks. Remember rules were not the same back then as they are now as well.