This card has two uses. One, to come down in the
middle of combat to turn a chump block into a
trade or a suicidal swing into a kill. The
second use is to come down before combat and
say, "Block and you lose your creature; don't
block and you take an extra two." And with
rebound, each copy of Virulent Swipe you draw
can do both uses. Every rebounded use will
likely be the second use, so you may as well get
the first use out of it the first time.
Ever killed an Eldrazi with one mana? Well,
technically you probably have, but that was with
Path to Exile or Condemn or some crazy white
spell. Ever killed an Eldrazi with one black
mana and a Birds of Paradise? Soon you probably
will have. Soon, in fact, you probably will have
killed two in one game. Standard players may
like Vendetta for the consistency, but I like
Virulent Swipe for the surprise factor.
Magic The Gathering Card of The Day: Virulent
Swipe
Welcome back readers today's card of the day is
Virulent Swipe an interesting rebound card for a
cheap price. For one mana you get a nifty combat
trick and the ability to act as removal put this
one mana instant over the top. In standard this
card may see play if mono black aggro decks
makes a comeback, vampires could possibly make
use of this card. I don't know if it will see
play over removal cards in standard as for this
to be effective removal it requires a creature,
not always a given. The fact it can push through
for extra damage or force opponents into
uncomfortable situations. In extended and
eternal I don't think this card has what it
takes its solid but not good enough. In casual
and multiplayer this card can be used to trade
opponents creatures for each other or as a
tricky and effective reactionary card. In
limited its creature boosting, its cheap and
effective and pseudo removal I would pick it
highly.
Today's card of the day is Virulent Swipe which
for one mana gives +2/+0 and Deathtouch to a
creature at Instant speed plus has Rebound.
This is removal on the defensive side as long as
the creature can be blocked and pump for the
following turn's offense and will destroy
anything that blocks it. Black
hasn't had many pump spells without a negative
to toughness in recent years or methods of
dealing with Shroud beyond mass removal.
This will see play in many Black decks for quite
some time to come.
For Limited this is the kind of card you might
draft before a bad rare and is worth picking up
as early and often as possible. The format
is filled with large creatures that otherwise
can be very difficult to stop, but with Virulent
Swipe even an Eldrazi Spawn can trade with a
full Eldrazi. There is no reason to not
run this in Sealed when using Black.
