Dire Fleet Ravager – Magic: The Gathering Card of the Day

This guy more than lives up to the ominous tone of his name. There are few Ixalan creatures more dangerous in a one-on-one basis – how many black creatures can stand up to a Carnage Tyrant, or coast their way past a school of Merfolk? That large-scale life-loss ability is also very, very tempting, although his cost makes it a little awkward in a burn deck – it’d be better if he could be the first spell in a burn deck rather than close to the last, but there’s not really a way to make that happen that’s both good and consistent. It’s very tempting in multiplayer settings, though, where I want to see what happens when you pair it with Exquisite Blood.

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 5/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
EDH/Commander: 4/5

Dire Fleet Ravager

Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 4
Commander (EDH): 5

Aaarrrr you ready kids? A 4/4 with menace and deathtouch is pretty scary. Your opponent is going to have to decide if they would rather lose a chunk of life or two of their creatures. This guy’s ETB is where he really shines though. I like how if you were to remove the card’s art and name, you would still know this was pirate card by ability alone. This guy can hit Vampire decks and even some Dinosaur decks pretty hard. Dire Fleet Ravager is  instantly memorable because players aren’t used to dealing with “thirds.” It should be noted that the damage rounds up, so if your opponent has 1 life and you have 5 mana, you can probably kill him in a lot of ways, but you can kill him with Dire Fleet Ravager. The ability gets exponentially better in multiplayer, especially in Commander. There’s a lot of cards this card combos with but one of my favorites is Neheb, the Eternal. If you really want to be rude you can sink all the mana generated by Neheb into a burn spell with X in its cost. When you combine all these elements, you get a powerful double-edged sword in a nice package.