"Cabal Therapist: Hurting your mind"

"Cabal Therapist: Hurting your mind"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

"Doc may kilala ka bang Therapist?"

"Meron kaso you won't like him."

"Why?"

"He is kinda Creepy. Good for your back. Not so much for your mind."

And so I imagine my patients asking me for this guy. I don't have his card so I probably won't refer to him anyway.

Of course it is a different matter in magic. I do see the Cabal Therapist on my side of the board literally causing headaches for my opponents.And them discarding cards in the process. Bwahahaaha

I recently made a Shadowborne Apostle deck and with all the degenerate things that it can already do I see the Cabal Therapist coming in and making things a lot more difficult on my opponents.

So every upkeep the Cabal Therapist demands a creature sacrifice. A small price to pay and there is always a willing Apostle for the task. It is a small price especially when Shirei , Shizo's care taker would just return the said Apostle back into the battlefield to do some more Demon Summonings at the end of an opponents Turn.

But on to the Cabal Therapist. Well he works really good by allowing you to name an nonland card and an opponent discards all cards with that name. Even in the EDH setting where you think this is ineffective(unless an opponent is running Relentless Rats or Persistent Petitioners) you still have the advantage of seeing a target opponents hand and deciding what to do in your future actions. 

See a board wipe? You might want to hold off on the creatures going down. See a Land D? Hold on to your lands. See a counter? Time to bait it. Or wait for your next upkeep and name that card you just saw to make them discard it.

Psychologically a players would want to play this big effect card otherwise Cabal Therapist would simply Therapy it out of his hand. This creates a little more pressure and where an advantage does not really translate into one.