Today's card of the day is Gruesome Encore
which is a three mana Black sorcery that will
give you a creature from an opponent's graveyard
with until the end of the turn, give it Haste,
then Exile it at the end of the turn or if it
would leave play. This is an interesting
support card for Black that can work well with a
Sacrifice theme, but as it depends on the
opponent having something useful that can be
sent to the graveyard it may work better in
small numbers or kept to the sidedeck.
The more readily you can remove big threats like
Titans and the more common they are in decks you
are facing the better this card becomes.
In addition it can be used to prevent an
opponent from returning their own creature to
play if necessary which adds some utility.
In Limited any opponent should have at least
some creatures worth using this on, but you also
need cards to send them to the graveyard first.
If your pool has this and no removal it can be a
bit of a weak draw, but should at worst get a
creature into play for a turn. When
playing Black it should always be included in
your Sealed pool and drafted in Booster after
removal, but fairly early on as the Haste alone
makes for a solid advantage in this format.
For Multiplayer it is common to see very large
and dangerous creatures across the table and
even more common to have them destroyed by a
third party. A card like this works quite
well to shake up the table and use one player's
advantage against an unsuspecting enemy or soon
to be former ally.
This reminds me a bit of Act of Treason, except
for creatures in the graveyard. It's the same
basic end result-- three mana for them to take a
hit from on of their own, but there's definitely
more difference than color. For one, Act of
Treason can deny them the use of a creature
they'd left up to block, and it can kill up to
two creatures at once if your opponent blocks in
such a way as to trade... for some reason.
Gruesome Encore does nothing to what your
opponent has in play unless they block, but that
can be useful since your opponent is less likely
to expect to take a hit from the creature you
Doom Bladed three turns ago, or the creature you
made him discard with Psychic Miasma. It also
serves as a great answer to things like
Phoenixes, or any creature that continues to be
of use from the graveyard. Your opponent also
can't use bounce spells to return his reanimated
creature back to his own hand, because of the
final exile clause.
Gruesome Encore reminds me a lot of Treacherous
Urge from Planar Chaos, a card I've always been
a fan of but that's a little hard to get maximum
value out of, as it depends on your opponent
both playing something scary in their deck and
having it in hand when you need them to.
Gruesome Encore also has potential, considering
you have a small degree of control over what's
in their graveyard (ie. if you killed it
yourself). Considering how many Standard decks
are playing Titans and the like right now, this
could be a good way to turn their card quality
against them - that's always fun. For you, at
least.
