Faithless Looting – Dark Ascension
Date Reviewed: January 16, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Like Splinter Twin last week, Faithless Looting was banned from Modern before earning a reprieve, though it’s a card that’s a bit more subtle and more generalized. Faithless Looting’s ban came back in 2019 as a result of trying to rein in the menace that was Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, though that clearly failed…but, even before that, Faithless Looting was a very prominent part of the format. Looting has a lot of power in being able to power through your deck, flashback means there’s oft a way to dig out more toys and threats if you just need to find them in a late game, and it even does something red rarely does in drawing the cards before discarding. Faithless Looting is rarely a flashy card, but it’s an excellent piece in terms of keeping the engines greased up, and it’s nice to see it back as a way to enable a bit more consistency in the Modern format.
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
If this card reads a little odd now, it’s just a function of time: Faithless Looting comes from before they decided that red’s effects of this type would discard first and then draw, the opposite of blue’s. Either way, it turned out that a red variant of Careful Study was just as powerful as the original – not to mention that it fits in decks that already want to play red instead of blue for whatever reason. Careful Study also wasn’t legal in Modern for that format’s dredge decks to exploit, and the synergy was enough for Faithless Looting to be banned for a long time. It’s often more the kind of card that wins without the opponent quite realizing which card won, but it still counts; and there are few cards in Modern that can match its sheer efficiency at what it does.
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Magic the Gathering Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉
Click here to read over 5,000 more MTG Card of the Day Reviews!
Daily Since 2001.