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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Master of Cruelties
Image from Wizards.com

 Master of Cruelties
- Dragon's Maze

Reviewed May 15, 2013

Constructed: 3.33
Casual: 4.17
Limited: 4.17
Multiplayer: 3.90

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

Master of Cruelties

I like this card because it forces your opponent to make a sadistic choice with no good option. Block, and lose the blocker no matter how big, or don't block and get knocked down to 1. The Master will never actually kill the opponent, mind you, it'll just knock them to 1 life and laugh at them. It'll never actually deal combat damage to a player, either, making it a useless target for Cipher. Personally, I think it makes quite a good blocker as well as attacker. It sits there and laughs at any creature who would DARE attack into it. And once it's gotten through unblocked once, its job is done, so why attack again? Especially since the game is already over-- you DID remember to keep a burn spell n hand to finish the opponent off with, right?

Constructed -3.5
Casual- 4
Limited- 4.5
Multiplayer- 4.25 


David Fanany

Player since 1995

Master of Cruelties

In case you weren't aware, this card does indeed beat Turbofog style decks. That's because Fog doesn't actually stop the attack - you still proceed through the parts of the attack step as normal, except that if any creature that would deal damage in the damage part, it deals no damage instead. Turbofog has annoyed so many people so much that I'm going to give this card a high rating for that alone. Competitive decks will probably pick up a more direct style of creature, but this guy is going to get plenty of game time elsewhere. The fact that he works with Goblin Tunneler is gravy (hilarious gravy).

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5

John
Shultis
Phoenix
Gaming

Today's card of the day is Master of Cruelties which is a five mana Black and Red 1/4 with First Strike, Death Touch, can only attack alone, and whenever it attacks a player and isn't blocked it deals no combat damage and sets their life to one. It may not be able to finish a game by itself, but with any direct damage from any source the game can easily be won after the attack. The support needed for this is minimal as Red has no shortage of burning options while Black has many loss of life effects available. Even if it doesn't have an unblockable attack, which can be forced with other cards, the combat effects make it a serious offensive and defensive threat. Overall a deck with this, some burn, and evasion boosts can be very competitive and is quite likely to see competitive play.

In Limited this is a card that can easily win games and is a particular headache for Orzhov and their lifegain mechanics. Not surprisingly for a mythic this is a first pick in Booster and automatic inclusion for a Rakdos build in Sealed. There's no real drawback to a First Strike with Death Touch being available to pressure the opponent and the chance for the almost one hit kill is hard to match.

Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 5.0
Multiplayer: 4.5


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