It's easy to look at this and cringe as you
imagine whiffing on the discard ability. Your
opponent has to be playing green or white, and
you have to catch them with a creature in hand.
But the truth is, even if you do whiff, it's a
solid three-power creature for three with
evasion-- hardly a bad play at all. And if you
DON'T whiff, you just cherry-picked their best
creature out of their hand, AND got a solid
creature of your own, AND you're in black so
maybe you can even steal that creature out of
their graveyard and use it against them. Some
may look at this and see a sideboard hoser, but
I see a card that's good enough to maindeck.
Even when it's the wrong matchup, it's still a
good play.
In years to come, people are going to look at a
lot of cards from this era and ask "Why didn't
they just ban Thragtusk if everyone hated it so
much, apparently even in R&D?" And I have no
idea what I will ask when they do so.
Fortunately, Lifebane Zombie has applications
well beyond the obvious - black decks in older
formats have a new tool to use against creatures
like Genesis and Eternal Dragon, and if all else
fails, you have a 3/1 creature with intimidate
which many decks will struggle to deal with and
which will make a lot of people feel better
about putting a "sideboard card" in their deck.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
a powerful zombie that hates on green and white
creatures. In standard a 3/1 intimidate body is
perfect for aggressive zombie decks and being
able to hate on powerful cards such as Thragtusk
and Restoration Angel among other popularly
played creatures is quite the powerful ability
to make sure larger more imposing creatures
don’t slow down your assault. In zombie decks
this card is debatable between maindeck and
sideboard as a changing metagame may change its
value during certain match ups. In modern this
card also is quite powerful nailing lots of
utility creatures as well along with the solid
body. In eternal formats zombies don’t shine as
much but this card has an interesting and
sometimes relevant ability making it a solid
choice depending on your commitment to zombies
or color hate needed for opposing decks. In
casual and multiplayer this card has a low
toughness but decent evasion and can hate on a
single player if they are playing these colors,
unless you know for sure your local players have
tons of white and green decks this is a card to
shy away from. In limited a solid evasive body
with the chance to do some work if you go
against decks utilizing powerful white and green
creatures. Overall a decent card with
constructed applications.
Today's card of the day is Lifebane Zombie
which is a three mana Black
3/1 with Intimidate and when it enters the
battlefield you look at a target opponent's hand
and exile a Green or White creature card from
it. This is a fairly strong evasive option
for Black, particularly against Green and White
users where it will usually add card advantage,
that suffers a bit from the double Black mana
cost and low toughness.
It excels in the sidedeck or certain zombie
builds as a three power creature with evasion is
a notable threat. Overall the drawbacks will
keep it from being a staple, but it should be
popular and a frequent sight in competitive play
coming in from the sideboard at the very least.
For Limited the double Black is the main issue
as the one toughness is less likely to face
removal and blocking will only occur against a
few decks. At worst it can trade
defensively and it is worth playing in the
maindeck for any sufficiently Black mana
oriented build in Sealed. For Booster this
is a difficult first pick with the low toughness
and color dedication, though it is solid enough
to justify the choice and is one of the better
targets for the common in-color auras Dark Favor
or Mark of the Vampire.
If you're not playing against green or white
then Lifebane Zombie's hand targeting ability is
useless, although you still do get to see target
opponents hand.
If you're playing against black or your opponent
has any artifact creatures, then Lifebane Zombie
is just a 3/1.
Unlike Tuesday's card, LZ is pretty situational,
however in the right situation it removes a big
green beat stick or protected whit knight from
your opponents hand before it ever becomes a
problem while also letting you swing for 3 every
turn.
