Outpost Siege is a Bad Card

Outpost Siege has been seeing heavy play out of red decks to gain card advantage but it is actually worth it?

How many cards does a draw spell need to give at sorcery speed for 4 mana you before it's actually good?

Harmonize is probably the line where it's acceptable; 4 mana sorcery speed should draw 3 cards before it's a consideration.

The standard legal comparison is Treasure Cruise, a card that has proven super busted in older formats, and that matches up fairly similarly to the Harmonize rate where you're happy paying 4 for it and anything under that is just gravy.

Sorcery speed draw 2s cost 3 mana and don't really see much play in main decks at that cost so you're certainly not happy playing a 4 mana draw 2.

If you take this and look at Outpost Siege you find that it takes 4 turns to return 3 cards for your 4 mana investment!

When you further consider that flipping cards to it is not as good as drawing them, since it doesn’t let you hold up removal ect, it will realistically take at least 5 turns to be on par with a sorcery speed draw 3 in terms of raw card numbers, and that's assuming you're not dead and that your opponent can't remove it which in a format full of Sultai Charms, Perilous Vaults, Utter Ends, Ugins and Erases is FAR from a sure thing.

In my experience, if you take a turn off to play Outpost Siege and your opponent kills it at instant speed, you almost always lose the game due to the massive tempo loss.

Yes Outpost Siege draws you cards, yes drawing cards is good but current standard is extremely hostile to doing nothing.

Even against blue black control, a glacial deck which is the reason the red decks need Outpost Siege and where it is the best, I've been in situations where I knew if I played siege I would just give my opponent the breathing room they needed to get to Ugin mana and lock the game up.

I would rather it have been any threat.

I've won more games off Chandra than I can count and it's always upsetting to me to see more and more people cutting my Lady in Red from their deck lists for a stupid 4 mana enchantment that only has 1 of her 3 excellent abilities.

In my experience, Chandra's +1 wins more games than her zero in an aggressive red deck and I'll be sticking by her through thick and thin.

Yes, she dies to Hero's Downfall but she will be avenged with stormy breath if my opponents dare such heresy!

Disclaimer:  Tom takes no responsibility for your deck building choices and cannot be held accountable for any games lost due to not running outpost siege.