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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
Daily Since November 2001!

Cerebral Eruption
Image from Wizards.com

Cerebral Eruption
Scars of Mirrodin

Reviewed December 13, 2010

Constructed: 2.40
Casual: 3.25
Limited: 3.13
Multiplayer: 2.90

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all of our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Cerebral Eruption

A very tricky card to use properly. Its mana cost is fitting considering that it's basically a one-sided boardsweep when it works. But how to make it work? You'd need to be able to look the top of opponents' libraries, or put a nonland card there yourself-- effects usually relegated to blue and white.The good news is that Cerebral Eruption has a built-in "failsafe" that puts it back into your hand if it reveals a land. But that won't stop it from failing if your opponent flips up a Memnite or an Everflowing Chalice... or if your opponents' creatures all have 3 toughness and you flip a two-drop. Especially if your opponent is playing a creature-light control deck where all there is for you to kill are Angels and Sphinxes while you could easily flip a Negate or whatnot. The damage this does to an opponent's life total is a nice consolation prize in that case, but the possibility of failure is still pretty high.

Constructed- 2
Casual- 2.5
Limited- 3
Multiplayer- 2.25


David Fanany

Player since 1995

Cerebral Eruption

A lot of people are going to review Scars of Mirrodin, and tell you how Cerebral Eruption isn't as good as what it does as other cards are. They're going to argue that you can keep casting it until your opponent has a creature, but there are better things to do with your time. I'm not going to tell you anything like that. I'm going to point out that Emrakul is showing up in all manner of decks these days, and her converted mana cost is fifteen. It's fun to say "fifteen," especially if that sentence also includes "everything."
 
Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 2/5
Multiplayer: 3/5


Paul

Welcome back readers today's card of the day is Cerebral Eruption an interesting Johnny card from Scars of Mirrodin. In standard this is an expensive spell for decks utilizing red, true that Earthquake and Volcanic Fallout rotated but I dont think this card is strong enough to warrant deck space. This card relies to much on your opponent and luck two things that dont mix well together. Although even revealing something as low as a converted mana cost of two makes it an expensive pyroclasm variant. In extended and eternal I don't think this card will even be considered, it relies too much on opponents and luck unless you know whats on top of an opponents deck but its not worth building around. In casual and multiplayer this card could be good with Lash Out and other clash cards allowing you in some instances to know if your opponent has that Eldrazi on top of his or her library. In limited its pseudo removal so it warrants consideration, wiping out all of your opponents mana myr can be a common occurrence. Overall an interesting card that overall is not worth the deck space unless you dedicate a deck to taking advantage of it.
 
Constructed: 2.0
Casual: 3.0
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer :3.0

Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Cerebral Eruption which is a four mana red spell that can potentially deal a great deal of damage to your opponent and their creatures, but may deal none if the top card is a Memnite.  If used with the in color Goblin Guide you may know what the opponent has for better timing, but in a Red/White deck the option for a card like Excommunicate becomes available.  In either case the random nature of the effect suits Red nicely, but makes it a little risky for competitive formats.  The lower the mana curve your opponent has the less likely this card is to do much and if they have few creatures in play it may not even measure up to the mana cost.
 
For Limited the mana curve is generally higher and this card is likely to deal more damage on any given casting which makes it a bit better overall.  As one of the few possible ways of clearing the opponent's board this is worth drafting first in Booster even if it doesn't always work.  In Sealed this can be played in most Red builds if the deck has roughly half or more Red mana sources.  While not always the most powerful card it can be fun and can definitely win games.
 
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 3.5


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