Faceless Butcher/Mesmeric Fiend

[Dune Echo]

If you play Faceless Butcher/Mesmeric Fiend and then put it's CIP ability on the stack, then put an ability that would trigger the leaves play ability on the stack, the CIP ability will trigger after the leaves play ability, thus removing a creature/card in hand from the game entirely. Good effects for this are Capsize, Claws of Gix (with recursion), Parallax Wave (Skull of Orm?), and Tradewind Rider, to name a few. You can even tap the Faceless Butcher as part of the Tradewind Rider's activation cost.

If you play Recurring Nightmare, you can sacrifice a creature in play (Squee perhaps, so you don't lose card advantage), put Faceless Butcher/Mesmeric Fiend into play, sacrifice it with Claws of Gix as a fast effect and you remove one of your opponent's creatures from the game. Next upkeep, you get Squee back and can start the process all over again. It only costs 3R per turn this way to remove one of your opponent's creatures/cards in hand from the game.

 

[Thallid Ice Cream Man]

Interesting that you should mention Parallax Wave...

If you have Opalescence and Parallax Wave out, you can remove four creatures from the game, then in response remove Parallax Wave from the game, so the creatures get removed permanently.




Why is this significant?





Because Parallax Wave got errata for it. It now reads "Remove a fade counter from Parallax Wave: Remove target creature from the game if Parallax Wave is in play."

I suspect Faceless Butcher/Mesmeric Fiend will get the same treatment - unless you close this thread now so no one learns about it.

 

[Spiderman]

Actually, if Parallax Wave is not in play when it's ability(ies) resolve, nothing happens.

If this card is not in play on resolution of its ability, the effect does nothing. [Nemesis FAQ 2000/02/07]

So the creatures stay put. Don't know if it's the same for Faceless Butcher/Mesmeric Fiend though.

 

[Lotus Mox]

Spidey, I think the Nemesis FAQ was talking about Parallax Wave after its errata.

TICM, no they won't get an errata, because removing 1 creature (or card in hand) from the game using 2 cards is not as abusive as removing 5 lands or 5 creatures from the game.
They even explained this little trick in the Torment FAQ, so they are aware of this interaction .

 

[Spiderman]

I don't get it. If it's talking about it after its errata, isn't that what we want?

 

[Lotus Mox]

My point was that Parallax Wave was errataed to prevent removal of creatures if it isn't in play (like TICM pointed out), therefore it doesn't apply to Mesmeric Fiend/Faceless Butcher unless they also get errataed.

Sorry if I was a bit unclear

 

[Spiderman]

I gotcha now... sorry if I was repeating what was said, then. I thought TICM was saying the opposite...

 

[Shabbaman]

How cool is this, I was looking for some information on the interaction between Recurring nightmare and Mesmeric fiend, and this thread was the first hit. That merits some epic thread necro Unfortunately I still have the idea that Recurring nightmare and Mesmeric fiend isn't really a combo, but Mesmeric Fiend with a sacrifice outlet that you can use as an instant is.

 

[Spiderman]

Well, the rules obviously changed a little/lot in 8 years, so the interaction may not apply now...

 

[Oversoul]

Unfortunately I still have the idea that Recurring nightmare and Mesmeric fiend isn't really a combo, but Mesmeric Fiend with a sacrifice outlet that you can use as an instant is.

I haven't been keeping up with rules changes really, but I'm pretty sure you're right.

 

[Dune Echo]

How cool is this, I was looking for some information on the interaction between Recurring nightmare and Mesmeric fiend, and this thread was the first hit. That merits some epic thread necro Unfortunately I still have the idea that Recurring nightmare and Mesmeric fiend isn't really a combo, but Mesmeric Fiend with a sacrifice outlet that you can use as an instant is.

If you're looking at the Legacy format, there's a casual deck that someone has been trying to break for a while now:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=231984

 

[Shabbaman]

Actually, I was trying Mesmeric Fiend in my Survival deck at the time, but that's pretty much obsolete nowadays.