I love that this takes out tokens and the night side of Innistrad/Dark Ascension transform cards without any charge counters on it. I was playing a deck I built around Shrine of Burning Rage, and this is in my sideboard against a DKA token deck. after I got them down to 4 life I ran out of steam, they had played two Gather the Townsfolk and three Intangible Virtue.
Needless to say, I topdecked my Ratchet Bomb and destroyed all ten 4/4 tokens to swing for the win with just 2 life left...
Posted By:
MrFluffyThing
(2/20/2012 5:23:32 AM)
Even without the first ability, it says "2: Destroy all tokens, flipped over cards, and zero cost artifacts" which is pretty awesome in and of itself.
Great card. 4.5/5
Posted By:
GlassJoetheChamp
(7/10/2012 10:16:28 PM)
Well, here's the way it works in Legacy, anyway:
If your deck can access 
, you run Pernicious Deed.
If your deck can't, you run Ratchet Bomb.
For the most part Powder Keg in legacy has been made obsolete by this card. The fact that you can choose to put a counter on it whenever it's untapped (instead of only at the beginning of your upkeep) is an important choice to have. Yes, Powder Keg hits manlands, but those don't see nearly as much play in Legacy as planeswalkers like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which only Ratchet Bomb can touch.
Posted By:
Werewolf-
(10/12/2012 8:28:24 AM)
Awesome card against token players, or to destroy rather low-costed artifacts and enchantments. Great to destroy creatures too of course, but it´s pretty rare that I ever put more than 3 counters on it, before I blow it up. The more counters you have on it, the more permanents you´ll probably also have on the field, where the one or other perhaps will get destroyed too.
However, til now, I actually always managed it quite well to not destroy my own stuff with this, and sometimes, the bomb really can become a mass removal board wipe. I use this in an U/B deck, and it´s an awesome alternative to get rid of artifacts and enchantments, for me. U/B is usually pretty weak at getting rid of them, and I think, perhaps even every U/B player should put this in his deck... at least if it´s an edh deck.
Posted By:
Sootoo
(9/12/2012 1:22:37 PM)
Getting a Magic 2014 reprint. Tokens beware!
Posted By:
Continue
(5/20/2013 12:49:08 PM)
Aaron’s Random Card Comment of the Day #71, 4/4/11
A very recent card, and a very good one at that. One thing it is not, however, is particularly original, although this new version of Powder Keg fits into its set much better than the original did.
With proliferate in the set, Mark Rosewater and his Scars of Mirrodin design team combed through old artifacts looking for cards with charge counters that they could update and Powder Keg was a perfect choice. It was a powerful card in its day with good gameplay--the fact that it only destroyed things with CMC equal to its counters made it a much more surgical tool than, say, the catch-all Nevinyrral's Disk or the X-or-less sledgehammer Pernicious Deed--but it had functionality that needed updating (it couldn’t hit planeswalkers), oddly-named counters that needed synched up with modern artifacts (“fuse counters”), and on top of all that, i... (see all)
Posted By:
Aaron_Forsythe
(4/4/2011 10:36:01 PM)
Mr. Forsythe said, "Ratchet Bomb... gains the ability to destroy enchantments (something we should let artifacts do more often in my opinion)..."
Hopefully only in the context of the global reset button.
We don't want to give black access to targeted enchantment destruction without splashing white or green, right?
Posted By:
WizardsFamiliar
(4/5/2011 8:02:27 AM)
this card alone saved me twice at the pre-release and got me to top 4 with the help of infect, proliferate, and Carnifex Demon (blight mambo is a beast in sealed)
Posted By:
BioPrince
(9/28/2010 3:18:47 PM)
Why am I so tempted to stick this on a Prototype Portal? Because I am a bad person?
Posted By:
MrBarrelRoll
(9/23/2010 5:35:51 PM)
"... your opponent’s proliferate can add an unwanted counter to your Bomb, giving it too many to destroy anything useful."
I've done this several times. My opponent has a Ratchet Bomb, and I have a whole lot of (say) 2-cost permanents, one of which is a Contagion Clasp. He has 1 charge counter on the Bomb, and on my end step, taps the Bomb to put a second counter on it. In response, I tap the Clasp and put another counter on it. By the time he untaps and gets to use it (this is assuming he doesn't have a Voltaic Key to untap it with), it's up to 3 counters, and I'm safe.
Remind me again how it is that making a bomb bigger makes you safe? I think Mythbusters need to explore this. "Okay, we detonated 3 CMCs of C-4 and Buster died. Let's try 4 CMCs and see if he survives!" Which raises the related question: How much C-4 is there in one CMC's worth of ratchet bomb?
Am I overthinking this?
Posted By:
Rosuav
(6/5/2011 4:19:10 PM)