You might think it's pretty cool to have a card
that can kill Gods. I'd just like to point out
what happens when the target enchantment is NOT
a God. Nothing. We reviewed two other cards last
week, one in white and one in green, that also
get enchantments off the table and will work
even if they're indestructible. This is cool if
you know your opponent is playing God cards, but
honestly I'd rather have the ones that can also
target artifacts.
If somehow you still didn't have enough measures
to use against the gods of Theros as of
yesterday, you can put some copies of Deicide in
your deck. While some of said gods can still
give their controller value if you aim a Deicide
at them at instant speed, their generally high
power level means that the opponent's game plan
will still be disrupted, and for literally half
to a third of the cost you would have spent
generating this effect with pre-Journey into Nyx
cards.
Spare a thought for the gods. Is anybody ever
going to play with them again after this set
comes out?
Today's card of the day is Deicide which is a
two mana White instant that exiles target
enchantment and if it is a God card it also
exiles any copies in the controller's hand,
library, and graveyard. This is a sidedeck card
that works well enough against enchantment
threats like Oblivion Ring or similar options
and many cards in the Theros block. It is
very unlikely to see main deck play unless the
local metagame features gods in high numbers as
Revoke Existence and Sundering Growth fulfill
the role with more flexibility, even though one
is a sorcery and the other has more specific
mana requirements.
In Limited this will almost always have a target
thanks to the number of enchantments in the
format and is an easy first pick in Booster as
low cost removal. The search the deck effect
will likely never remove anything else, but does
give a chance to see the opponent's hand and
library which is a nice bonus. In Sealed
this can be easily splashed for and should never
be sidedecked when playing White as even if it
doesn't see a target in the first game it is
likely to be beneficial in later games.
Am I the only one that read this card
"Decide" the first time they saw it? Decide is a
strange name for a card, I thought. "Deicide" is
a much better name.
In some cases, most specifically when your
opponent is playing a God card, this has the
potential to devastate an opponent. Not only do
you get rid of an indestructible God, you
prevent them from ever playing a copy of that
card again. That's some power.
However, what if your opponent is not playing
Gods? This is a 2-mana enchantment exiler. In
the current Standard format, this is decent with
all the enchantments floating around, but it is
nowhere near as potent, and there are other,
more flexible options you could use (see last
week's reviews).
But what if your opponent isn't playing any
vaulable enchantments at all? This is a
completely dead card.
Because of the limitations on it, I believe
Deicide will most likely be a sideboard card - a
strong one, but a sideboard card nonetheless.
Rating it, then, becomes challenging. Do we rate
it for its potential, or for its overall value?
In the right circumstances, this could be a 5.
But, since so many times it will be a dead card,
I cannot rate this as high.
In limited, you are very unlikely to face
many Gods (and almost never going to face two of
the same!), so think of this as regular
enchantment removal. Multiplayer games give you
more potential targets, so it's a little better
there.
Hmm. What's that? No no, don't worry about it
Journey into Nyx. You're right, we definitely
didn't have enough enchantment removal already.
You might think it'd make sense to compare
this card to Revoke Existence, which is another
white enchantment removal card that costs 2
mana. Or perhaps even Unravel the Ęther, which
like this does it at instant speed. But you know
what? No. I'm actually going to compare this to
yesterday's card, Banishing Light.
Oblivion Ri-, I mean, Banishing Light, costs
1 more mana than Deicide, can only be played on
your turn, and has that thing where it stays on
the field and is vulnerable to enchantment
removal itself, ironically something like
Deicide. So which one would you pick if say you
were drafting and had to choose between one of
these two options?
You'd want to pick Banishing Light, 100% of
the time.
Surprised? But Deicide looks so good on
paper, you might say. 2 mana, instant, exiles,
and even has a neat extra anti-God card mechanic
where once one is gone, it's GONE. But at what
cost, is the important question. The cost is
losing half of the card's versatility. Deicide
is the best there is at what it does, but what
it does is only get rid of enchantments. As
opposed to being versatile, it is instead
incredibly limited in focus. And versatility
wins games. Even in a block with tons of
enchantments, not ALL of them are enchantments.
And it's not like Deicide will never kill
anything, that's not the point I'm trying to
make. It's that Banishing Light, and the cards
from last week, can kill more things. Especially
Banishing Light. There will be a time when
you're facing down a powerful hydra or some
artifact creature deck, and if all that the one
last card you have in your hand can do is get
rid of enchantments, well you're fresh out of
luck.
Even in limited, it can certainly be good but
I wouldn't say it's great. It will have its
uses, but you probably won't have 4 of these and
your opponent probably won't have 4 of all the
enchantments and enchantment creatures he's
running. So you have to rely not only on drawing
this card but also on your opponent drawing and
playing his shiny enchantment threats, otherwise
it'll just sit in your hand. Can it happen?
Sure, and the odds go up the longer the game
goes. But if he plays something else dangerous
instead, Banishing Light would STILL be the
answer you're looking for when Deicide isn't.
Overall a good card for a sideboard, but I don't
think it's main deck worthy for most formats.
I will say one thing though: So that's how
you kill a God.
