Embodiment of Agonies – Core Set 2020 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Here’s some design space I wouldn’t have expected to see – well, not outside of Unstable, anyway. He’s probably not the most powerful Tarmogoyf variant, but he’s certainly one of the most interesting. He rewards a large mana curve, a diverse range of threats, and goes well with the usual graveyard-exploiting suspects. This means he also gets hosed by the usual graveyard-hosing suspects, and he’s not quite as fast or as aggressive as some cards of this style, but I think he has a chance to do something in tournaments. Standard in particular could end up in a place where he always comes in huge and very hard to deal with.

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

Now this is different, an interesting bit of design space and a unique card to go with it. Embodiment of Agonies also has a pretty nice set of abilities to go along with it, which means it’s going to be good value as long as you have at least one card in your graveyard: a 1/1 with flying and deathtouch is a good way to dissuade an opponent from attacking, and a bigger body makes this a far bigger threat. The major downside is the need to set up Embodiment of Agonies, since it only checks the graveyard when it comes into play; this makes it slightly less vulnerable to graveyard hate, though at the cost of having a bit fiddlier timing to make work.

I think Embodiment of Agonies is actually pretty good overall; it’s not too hard to get it into play as a good on-curve body, and it’s an evasive attacker that can be hard to block. I don’t know if there’s room for it in the current Standard, given that various red decks tend to do a lot of shenanigans, but any deck that can support it might have use for the cheap Demon.

Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander: 4.25