I have nothing against the Return to Ravnica
version of this card, but I would have to say I
prefer this version's art. I've always liked
Magic art that was slightly less literal, and
though the style of this piece is different from
a lot of past abstract pieces, there's something
oddly chilling about its composition. In
gameplay, it's pretty straightforward and pretty
powerful, but it's much easier to play around
than something like Doom Blade, especially now
that almost every block has multicolored cards.
It'll still remove just about anything you need,
but it requires a little more thought and a
little more diversity in which removal spells
you play alongside it.
Today's card of the day is Ultimate Price which
is a two mana Black
instant that destroys target mono-colored
creature. This will be the
new Terror, Doom Blade, or Go For the Throat in
the Standard setting and
will be useful against most opponents.
In Limited this is a potential first pick in
Booster when there is a
weak rare as it is low cost and very effective
source of removal that
can be splashed. In Sealed this is an
automatic inclusion if using
Black and a compelling reason to use the color.
There are a decent
number of creatures this can't destroy in the
block, but a target should
be available most of the time.
Most of the time, this is better than Doom
Blade. Sure, there are a lot of multi-colored
creatures out there, but two mana to outright
kill a creature is pretty good, and is going to
have a small window where it doesn’t work. If
you run this, it’s a good option to put
something else that can kill multicolored
creatures in your sideboard so you can switch it
out if you find yourself against someone using a
lot of gold cards.
In draft, cards like this are 1st or 2nd picks.
Unless you have a real bomb creature in your
pack, you shouldn’t think twice about taking
this if your deck is going to have any black in
it at all. In sealed, it’s a good reason in and
of itself to at least splash black.
