Ice Vapor, Shadow of Anguish
 Civilization: Darkness
 Race: Ghost
 Cost: 5
 Power: 1000
 Effect:
 -Whenever your opponent casts a spell, he chooses and discards a card from his hand., then chooses a card in his mana zone and puts it into his graveyard.
 Flavor: It's the flavor of the month!!!
 
 Effect: This effect is actually so cool that it warrants me to put it first in the review, so lets kick things off. To put it simple, your opponent cast a spell, he loses a card and he loses mana (An aspect mainly held only to Fire.) So this means that your opponent will want to destroy this card by any means necessary, but he'll hesitate to do it with a spell. Terror Pit, Holy Awe, everything will cause your opponent to lose, 2 to 1.
 
 Thus, unless your opponent wants to lose mana and hand advantage, he can only kill this spell via cards that attack untapped creatures. Which basically makes this card a lot like Petrooba in that it's better off left untapped.
 
 Race: Ghost are most arguably Darkness's most popular race, sporting 15 creatures counting this one. While this one isn't really the best creature to use as evo bait, it's effect is what makes it worthwhile.
 
 Cost: Too much for evolution, and too much for power. Enough for it's effect.
 
 Power: 1000 power is terrible for the mana cost, but this card is better off not attacking anyway. 1000 power is actually better because it temps your opponent into using a Fire kill spell.
 
 Constructed: 5/5 I love it.
 Limited: 4/5 Still good.
 Art: 3/5 Meh
 

Ice Vapor, Shadow of Anguish

Type: Creature

Civilization: Darkness

Race: Ghost

Mana Cost: Five (5)

Rules Text:

• Whenever your opponent casts a spell, he chooses and discards a card from his hand, then chooses a card in his mana zone and puts it into his graveyard.

Flavor Text:

"I'm having a bad day. Before Trox stuffed me into a microwave this afternoon, I used to be a Snow Faerie."

Power: 1000

Rarity: Rare

Set: Fatal Brood of Infinite Ruin

Power/Cost: Ice Vapor definitely won’t be earning any brownie points in this category. For the five mana investment you receive a meager 1k creature in return. This looks really bad at first glance, but at least he’s another creature on the board to attack with. I’ll take the low cost to power ratio any day as long as the effect is good enough to make up for it. Many other creatures such as Corile, Meteosaur, and Gigaclaws have already won playing time despite having similarly weak attributes. So while 5:1 doesn’t look pretty on paper, let’s consider the other abilities too.

Civilization/Race: Darkness is widely known for its destructive characteristics. The majority of hand discard, creature kill, and other control cards come from the Black civilization. Ice Vapor fits in perfectly, indirectly helping you by hindering the opponent like cards such as Locomotiver, Cranium Clamp, and Terror Pit. He also comes from a relatively strong race: the Ghosts. There are fourteen others in addition to Ice Vapor, and they have two decent evolution cards. Nothing bad to report here.

Effects: His awesome ability is what really makes Ice Vapor stand out. So long as he stays on the field, your opponent will have to lose a card from their hand and mana pool to cast any spell. Obviously you’ll want to keep Ice Vapor on the field for a while to reap the maximum benefits, but even if he meets a quick kill spell you still gain the advantage. There are some pretty nasty combinations out there, including Ice Vapor + Mist Rias or Mongrel Man and 2x Ice Vapor (assuming the effects stack). Just watch out for a certain evil Cyber Lord as this guy doesn’t have a CIP (come into play) ability.

Limited: 2/5

Stay away from Ice Vapor in draft if at all possible. There are fewer spells in this format, so you’re likely paying for an overpriced weenie attacker. Way overpriced.

Constructed: 4/5

Ice Vapor is a card that I like a lot. He has some tough competition being a five mana Darkness card, and the weak power certainly won’t help, but his effect looks pretty darn good. Use 2-3 copies in aggro/control type decks like RUB in support of the normal evil stuff like Corile, Searing Wave, Cranium Clamp, etc.

Signing off for a while,

Steven Cantrell

Team Galactic Quest

Smcman7@aol.com