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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com
 

Cleansing Beam
Ravnica


Reviewed October 28, 2005

Constructed:
Casual:
Limited:

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 


Jeff Zandi

5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran

Cleansing Beam

Red kind of gets the shaft in Ravnica, in my opinion. Where is my Shock? My Volcanic Hammer? My red X spell like Fireball or Blaze? There isn't much in Ravnica red to take the place of the red direct damage spells that are normally available. Cleansing Beam is an expensive instant version of Pyroclasm that may or may not allow you to hit all the creatures you want to hit and may or may not hit some or all of your creatures at the same time.
This card is a necessary evil in limited. If Ravnica had a more normal assortment of red direct damage spells, it would be easy to leave Cleansing Beam out. As it is, however, you HAVE to play Cleansing Beam, a card that makes you work a lot harder to get opposing creatures out of the way. In constructed, this card is strictly sideboard, and probably strictly for Ravnica block constructed decks.

CONSTRUCTED: 2.0
CASUAL: 2.5
LIMITED: 3.0
 


DeQuan
Watson

* Game Store Owner

Cleansing Beam

I don't understand this card. I'd much rather have something along the lines of Pyroclasm. That's a much more efficient way to do almost the same thing. Five mana is a lot to pay. And traditionally, five mana is the point where game altering spells begin to get played. This is likely just going to hang out in trade boxes and might get to see play in a few rare situations during block season.

Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 2
Limited: 2
 

Paul Hagan

Cleansing Beam

When I first looked at this card, I thought, "Hey, cool, its almost like a one-sided Pyroclasm. Who doesn't like wiping out their opponent's side of the board?" Yes, I make notes of my thoughts a lot, and yes, they do come in grammatically-correct form. However, I then saw the casting cost and thought, "My goodness, why would Wizards perform such an abomination unto mass removal?"

All kidding aside, this card costs about two or three mana too many. As is, you can find much more effective cards in the five-mana range that will adequately remove your opponent's side of the board of any serious, non-protectionfromred threat.

Constructed Rating: 2.0
Casual Rating: 2.0
Limited Rating: 2.5 (Any removal...)
 


Christine
Gerhardt

Cleansing Beam

Beam isn't bad by concept, but often turns out bad due to the format. RAV/RAV/RAV tends to produce 3 color decks often, and 4 color decks on occasion. This often means that your creatures get caught in the crossfire of Beam. Still, it's a good in a clutch card, and can be very useful against the hordes of tokens that the format can potentially create.

Constructed - 2
Casual - 2.5
Limited - 3.5
 

Phoenix Tamer

Cleansing Beam

I see the effects of Radiance are going to effect the sideboards in the future. It's a good multi-player card, being however expensive mana wise, it's an instant and helps against creature decks greatly. I see this card being used in multi-plyer and creature effected decks, but no reall other use of the effects of Radiance. The effect can also effect your creatures to, did you think about that, this is why i say sideboard only please. I see it pulled but not really kept for main play in tournaments.

Ratings:

Constructed~2.5
Casual~3
Limited~2.3
 
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