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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day
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Beacon of Immortality -
{5}{W}
Instant
Double target player's life total. Shuffle Beacon
of Immortality into its owner's library.
6/165
Rare
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Beacon
of Immortality
Fifth Dawn Rare
Reviewed May 3, 2004
Constructed: 2.4
Casual: 3.6
Limited: 2.2
Ratings are
based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ...
average.
5 is the highest rating
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our
Card of the Day Reviews
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Chris
Gerhardt
*
game store owner in CA,
ShuffleAndCut |
Life gain has never
found a niche in competitive constructed play.
While life gain is a nice idea, it's not truly a
win condition. You can be at 1,000 life, but if
you can't get your opponent to zero, it's all for
nothing. Sure, your opponent might not be
able to get you to zero either, but all you've
done is ended your game in a draw. Stacking
your deck for life gain steals slots in your deck
that would be used for beating down your opponent.
Casual, of course, is
a different matter. Casual players love life
gain, and a casual play setting can support it
much more easily. Gaining massive amounts of
life is actually quite fun and very impressive in
this format (and also more easily done).
Taking that into consideration, Beacon of
Immortality should have no problem going off turn
6, and could be pretty insane later in the game.
Just be sure you have a kill mechanism in your
deck. ;) In
limited, this should be dead wood by the time you
get to turn 6. By that point, doubling up
your life would most likely be insignificant.
That would make this card a bad add to your deck.
Constructed:
2
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 1.5
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Judge
Bill
*Level 2
MTG Judge
*game store employee
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Beacon of
Immortality
Welcome to our Fifth
Dawn reviews. Today, we start with the casual
player's favorite type of card, life gain.
For the low price of
6 mana, you can double your life total. As an
added bonus, this then gets shuffled back into
your library (like all of the Beacon cards).
Not so good if you
are at 5 or less life, I must say. However, this
can play interesting tricks with the white Pulse
also. And if you are at 10+ life, the benefit
this card provides practically pays for itself.
Not to mention you
can win the game for just two black mana more
(False Cure), as this is target player, not you.
In limited, like all the Beacons, this can
provide a means for you to not be decked.
However, this beacon just isn't strong enough in
my opinion.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 2.5
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Jason
Matthews
* Level 1 DCI
Judge
*game store employee
* gaming for over 15 years |
Beacon of Immortality
Well let me start of by saying that I am not the
biggest fan of life gain cards. I do however know
that sometimes when they are correctly priced and
effective they can be useful. This card however is
quite expensive for an intangible result. Six mana
for an unknown amount of life is a bad thing,
especially when the games are so fast right now in
constructed. The best thing about this card other
than its an instant is that you finally have a
card you can use with Leveler. This card is not
terrible by any stretch of the imagination its
just not my cup of tea.
Constructed 2
Casual 2.5
Limited 2.5
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Jeff Zandi
5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran
Level 2 Judge |
Beacon of Immortality
A card that doubles your life points could be very
useful. In general,
however, you would generally prefer a life gain
card (in the RARE times that
you want to play a life gain card in the first
place) that gives you an
explicit amount of life. In other words, the
problem with this card is that
it gives you A LOT of life when you need it the
least and gives you VERY
LITTLE life when you need it the most. Finally,
the price of this card
really makes it unattractive. Since it is an
instant, it could be useful as
a trick. I'll go ahead and get off the fence. I
DON'T LIKE THIS CARD. This
card is probably no better than Fog while costing
SIX mana. For constructed,
this card falls directly into the category that
I'm really growing to
dislike: "could be a good card in a combo deck".
This is usually what you
say about a lot of narrowly focused cards with an
interesting ability, like
this card. The fact that the card goes right back
into your deck AND gives
you a free shuffle is certainly interesting. I
doubt, however, that combo
decks that could use this card would be interested
in paying six mana for
it.
CONSTRUCTED: 2.5
CASUAL: 3.0
LIMITED: 2.5
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Andy
Van Zandt |
Beacon of Immortality
Well, to start with, it is instant, so it can be
at least a fog in a lot of
situations. In many other situations, it can own
a game for you. And
then, sometimes, you can draw it when you're at 5
life or less and it won't
be worth much at all. But it also prevents you
from decking, since it
shuffles back in. A very interesting card-
probably better in limited
overall, but may see some constructed play...
and will probably see a lot
of casual play. I'd play it in group games,
myself.
constructed 2.5
casual 3.5
limited 3.5 |
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Chase
Secret Squirrel
on the
Pojo.com
Message
Boards |
Beacon of
Immortality
Wow, it seems like yesterday that we were
reviewing Darksteel cards…now we get to look at
some Fifth Dawn cards! Today’s card is fairly
mediocre. 6 mana doubles your life. With of
course the factor that by the time you can cast
this you’ll barely gain any life anyway. Good
effect, but not worth the cost.
In draft, it still costs too much, for an
undesired effect. Stalling is good if you have
something to stall for. 6 mana small stall isn’t
what I want to draft.
Constructed: 2
Casual: 2.5
Limited: 1.5
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Jason
Chapman |
With a few notable I
tend to rate life gain fairly low. Likewise, cards
over 5 mana have to be pretty amazing. Beacon of
Immortality shouldn't even get a second look from
me given its cost and the fact that it gains life.
Really an ability that doubles your life is hard
to judge. By the time you can cast it your life
may be pretty low or maybe it will have a major
impact. This card has interesting possibilities in
control and mill style decks but I think that is
the limit of its utility.
Constructed - Some
decks can take advantage but I still wouldn't rely
on it - 2.5
Casual - An
amazing, almost must have for Casual, great in
long group games - 4.5
Limited - I want a
threat or an answer that I can depend on - 2.0
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