Phyrexian Rager
A 2/2 body that draws you a card and costs you
one life. Necropotence taught us all that one
life point is a worthy price to pay to draw a
card. Three mana for a 2/2 won't give you much
board presence, but the comes-into-play ability
is basically half of a Sign in Blood. So, half
of Sign in Blood's cost subtracted from the
Rager's cost leaves us with a Bear-- a 2/2 for
two mana. Phyrexian Rager is a bear and half of
a Sign in Blood, rolled into one card-- and card
economy is what this card's all about. If you
need to win the endurance match, to run the
opponent out of cards before you do, Phyrexian
Rager is a decent choice.
It makes me happy when I see an old card get a
new version and cool new art, but it's often
tempered by the fact that the type of
constructed play that gets a lot of attention on
the internet may not have space for it.
Phyrexian Rager is very much in that situation
now: the only Standard decks that are inclined
to play cantrip creatures are blue or white, and
so run with Sea Gate Oracle or Squadron Hawk.
There's nothing wrong with the Rager, though,
and plenty right. He offers aggressive decks a
way to see more cards than they ordinarily would
without sacrificing their offensive
capabilities, and he deserves respect.
Welcome back readers where yesterdays card of
the day was an unexciting reprint, today's card
of the is far better. Phyrexian Rager draws you
a card and causes a loss of one point of life.
In standard I don't see this card seeing play
outside of a mono black deck or some aggressive
deck neither of which is prominent in standard.
In extended and eternal it has an even lower
chance of seeing play due to the problem of deck
space and lack of power level. In casual and
multiplayer this card provides card filtering
and a medium body I don't think it can find a
spot in tightly packed casual decks either. In
limited this is a great body with a good come
into play effect and overall a solid creature.
Overall this card is moderately good and has
killer artwork so that counts for a lot.
Today's card of the day is Phyrexian Rager
which is a three mana 2/2 that allows you to
draw a card when it comes into play, but also
costs you one life. The drawback is quite
small for the advantage and getting an
additional card attached to the creature makes
it quite playable.
Expect to see this card in quite a few Black
aggressive builds across the current formats.
For Limited this is an excellent common that
gives a decent creature and card advantage with
a very small penalty. The single Black
mana allows it to be played in multi-color decks
if necessary and it should be used in Sealed
whenever you are running the color. In
Booster this works well enough to be drafted
early, after bombs and removal, but definitely
before random filler creatures of your primary
color.
