Red kind of gets the shaft in Ravnica, in my
opinion. Where is my Shock? My Volcanic Hammer?
My red X spell like Fireball or Blaze? There
isn't much in Ravnica red to take the place of
the red direct damage spells that are normally
available. Cleansing Beam is an expensive
instant version of Pyroclasm that may or may not
allow you to hit all the creatures you want to
hit and may or may not hit some or all of your
creatures at the same time.
This card is a necessary evil in limited. If
Ravnica had a more normal assortment of red
direct damage spells, it would be easy to leave
Cleansing Beam out. As it is, however, you HAVE
to play Cleansing Beam, a card that makes you
work a lot harder to get opposing creatures out
of the way. In constructed, this card is
strictly sideboard, and probably strictly for
Ravnica block constructed decks.
I don't understand this card. I'd much rather
have something along the lines of Pyroclasm.
That's a much more efficient way to do almost
the same thing. Five mana is a lot to pay. And
traditionally, five mana is the point where game
altering spells begin to get played. This is
likely just going to hang out in trade boxes and
might get to see play in a few rare situations
during block season.
When I first looked at this card, I thought,
"Hey, cool, its almost like a one-sided
Pyroclasm. Who doesn't like wiping out their
opponent's side of the board?" Yes, I make notes
of my thoughts a lot, and yes, they do come in
grammatically-correct form. However, I then saw
the casting cost and thought, "My goodness, why
would Wizards perform such an abomination unto
mass removal?"
All kidding aside, this card costs about two or
three mana too many. As is, you can find much
more effective cards in the five-mana range that
will adequately remove your opponent's side of
the board of any serious, non-protectionfromred
threat.
Beam isn't bad by concept, but often turns out
bad due to the format. RAV/RAV/RAV tends to
produce 3 color decks often, and 4 color decks
on occasion. This often means that your
creatures get caught in the crossfire of Beam.
Still, it's a good in a clutch card, and can be
very useful against the hordes of tokens that
the format can potentially create.
Constructed - 2
Casual - 2.5
Limited - 3.5
Phoenix Tamer
Cleansing Beam
I see the effects of Radiance are going to
effect the sideboards in the future. It's a good
multi-player card, being however expensive mana
wise, it's an instant and helps against creature
decks greatly. I see this card being used in
multi-plyer and creature effected decks, but no
reall other use of the effects of Radiance. The
effect can also effect your creatures to, did
you think about that, this is why i say
sideboard only please. I see it pulled but not
really kept for main play in tournaments.
