Booster drafting with some fairly decent players
last night, this was a card that went ignored by
the blue players, but I couldn’t imagine why.
The two blue players that passed the card each
said they took something better and that they
considered Body Double to be to situational.
Upon further thought, I would have to agree with
them. Body Double is essentially Clone for a
card in a graveyard. However, true to the basic
topsy-turvy theme of Planar Chaos, Body Double
is REALLY more like Dread Return from Time
Spiral. Body Double does offer some advantages
over other reanimation technology. For one
thing, you can bounce Body Double back to your
hand with a spell or bounce effect and replay
Body Double to select a better target later in
the game.
Certainly a very useful card for limited play,
if not a first pick bomb. In the constructed
realm, Body Double can give mono blue or
blue/black decks more ways to bring back a huge
creature from the graveyard. Reanimation decks
have some good options in Standard constructed
these days. Now that I think about it, Clone
might have been a little overrated…
This just gave reanimator a shake-up. Instead of
Zombifying that guy, Body Double it, and then
Zombify! Actually, this is much better than
Zombify, since it can copy your opponent's dead
creatures as well, and it leaves the card in the
graveyard for you to resurrect so you cna have
two. In multiplayer, this will end games. And
possibly friendships.
It might
seem like a Clone, but it's also a Zombify. It's
got something Zombify doesn't have, though - it
can't be used in multiples on the same creature.
That's an important distinction. Blue's always
had a decent amount of self-discard from
filtering effects. Now it's just a matter of
finding something to reanimate.
I know it can copy Phage. I know there are some
ways to put great creatures into graveyards. I
still don't think I'll play this. It's not bad
in group (as indicated in its preview debut)
where a Wrath of God will load the graveyards
with juicy creatures to choose from. But in a
duel of any sort you would have to build your
deck around this to make it good. And I'd rather
just reanimate most of the creatures (except
Phage) than have a copy of them. It's okay in
limited, where it can be a second copy of
whatever your best bomb was or, if you have
managed to deal with your opponent's bomb, it
can duplicate that.
Constructed - 2
Casual - 3+
Limited - 4-
Aethereal
Body Double
Clone with a twist. This has a potential
advantage over Clone in that it copies something
in the graveyard, and not in play. If you're
looking to copy their fattie, you'll have to get
it in the graveyard first somehow, which can
make this a little unreliable. Also, it costs 5.
If this cost 4 I'd be more interested in it, but
Clone doesn't see play, so why should this?
In casual, use it against opposing fatties.
In limited, I'd play it if I got it and had blue
as a main color, but I wouldn't pick it high. It
gets points simply because it's a creature.
