When our play group first talked about Char,
Mark Hendrickson told the rest of us, “you know,
this card is really an exact copy of Psionic
Blast, except in red.” We all thought that was a
pretty funny observation. We agreed that Char
made a lot more sense in red than Psionic Blast
ever did in blue.
Today, you can play four of each of these cards
in your Standard constructed deck. Char was an
immediate hit, and virtually every deck playing
red ran four of them. In booster draft, Char was
a highly sought after first pick all year long.
4 damage for 3 mana at instant speed is
absolutely devastating. Forget the 2 damage
you're dealing to yourself-- it'll never matter
except against decks with a ton of life
gain/damage prevention, at which point it's 2R
and 2 life just to call out one of their Mending
Hands, or undo the life they gained off a
Faith's Fetters. In every other situation, this
thing will take out almost any creature, or help
you win a race.
Constructed- 4
Casual- 3.5
Limited- 5
KC MetroGnome
Char
I finally gave in a few months ago and started
playing these in a deck. It really frustrated me
(and still frustrates me) that one of the top
burn cards in the environment is a red Psionic
Blast. Don't get me wrong, Psi Blast is
great...if you're playing blue and don't want to
dip into red for your burn. Red should have
better burn than this. But, right now, it
doesn't have much better than this. So it's a
necessary evil in type 2 right now. I might be
pulling them out of my decks once Incinerate
comes in with 10th.
In casual you can find better. In Limited, any
removal is good, and this one does hit some
things that other removal misses.
Constructed - 3+ (in T2) 1.5 in older
Casual - 1 (please play something else for your
burn)
Limited - 4+
Aethereal
Char
Psionic Blast in the right color. (Oh, wait, now
we have the original, too...) This has been one
of the most important cards from Ravnica and is
a staple 4-of in any aggro burn deck. 4 damage
for 3 mana at instant speed with no drawbacks is
extremely strong. (I know, it slaps you for 2,
but in an aggro deck that is not a drawback.)
The fact that we now have Psionic Blast in
rotation allows for 8 4-damage burn spells at 3
mana. It's possible a U/R Counter-Burn deck
might show up in the near future abusing these.
Right now, however, they are a must-play in
aggro decks.
In casual, if you couldn't get Psionic Blasts
before because of their price, here you go.
In limited, if you are playing red, you play
this. 4 damage can clear away a fat creature, or
force through those last few points of damage.
Constructed - 4
Casual - 4
Limited - 4
Cyrus Huang
Someone decided
for this to be good card week eh? Well let's
keep it rolling:
Constructed: Well during champs it was decided
that aggro completely died and control would be
king. Guess they were wrong as boros deck wins
dominated the top slots and zoo made a strong
showing. Char is one of those key cards that
takes your opponent's life counter to 0 insanely
fast.
A side note on this card, a lot of nubs question
the quality of the card, arguing that 2 shocks
is cheaper and there's no life drawback. However
the reason why this guy is so much better is
because of simple card advantage. At low costs,
why do what you can with two cards with one
card? It saves you a card to do something else
(like cast another burn spell next turn).
However this is flawed in vintage and with
higher costs where card advantage sacrificed for
efficiency is the standard. However this is t2,
no need for that stuff here.
4/5
Limited: Burn is always good, and this is one of
the best. I would not splash it if I had
virtually nothing else in red, but I would in a
heartbeat if I had a couple other splash worthy
red cards.
4/5
