A good way to slightly winnow everybody's
resources, and also get everybody ticked at you.
I don't recommend it in multiplayer, unless
nobody at your table makes tokens or you've got
Propaganda and Hissing Miasma to hide behind.
Smallpox's symmetry is easy enough to break--
control a Grave Pact or a Megrim, sacrifice a
Blistergrub or a Solemn Simulacrum, rely on
noncreature artifacts and enchantments, that
sort of thing. If you've got some mana rocks, or
a few enchantments, or even some Zombify
effects, you may want this as a widespread Edict
effect that hits everyone else harder than you.
There's a piece of Magic flavor text I've always
liked which says "A single germ can kill more
soldiers than ten thousand blades." If you study
history you'll find that this is literally true,
and if you study the history of Magic, you'll
probably find that it's true too. If you ever
played with the original version of Smallpox
(the one illustrated by Janine Johnston) or its
predecessor Pox from Ice Age, you probably don't
need proof. If you haven't, I'd definitely give
it a try: remember that every single
"symmetrical" effect can easily be made
asymmetrical. Maybe your spells are all cheap,
and probably not all your opponents are going to
have the cards that can survive this or return
from the graveyard. On top of that, Innistrad
may end up having some sort of graveyard
interaction - it seems even more likely now that
Ghosts and Zombies have both been confirmed as
tribes - so there may be even worse things than
being left with no permanents in play on your
second turn just around the corner. Yeah, I
really think this card is that amazing.
Welcome back readers today’s card of the day is
Smallpox an interesting and powerful card that
finds itself reprinted in the latest core set.
Effects that hurt each player equally are made
to be broken and combining this card with
Bloodghast or similar cards. In standard some
black decks will find room for it, it punishes
players who tap out for one big finisher such as
a Titan and can stunt mana development
early. In standard and extended it can find a
home in rock style decks. Decks can combine this
with enough disruption and powerful beaters to
make it a powerful card choice, while I am
unsure of the exact context of the decks this
will see a fair amount of play in standard and
extended. In legacy this card see’s a good
amount of play in Pox style decks and as well as
white/ black style disruption decks. In
casual and multiplayer it can hurt everyone
which is good but it hurts everyone making
everyone possibly target you, it is in the same
vein as Innocent Blood which is a
fantastic card so it will see a fair
amount of play. In limited I don’t know
how you can properly build around it? Draft lots
of Reassembling Skeleton’s I suppose it’s an all
right solid card but not as great as traditional
removal such as Doom Blade. Overall a powerful
and somewhat skill intensive card that has its
triumphant comeback.
Today's card of the day is Smallpox which is a
two mana Black spell that has each player lose
one life, discard a card, sacrifice a creature,
and a land. This is a solid card for
mono-Black for use in slowing down an opponent's
speed and reducing options that is easily
supported by removal and creatures returned from
the Graveyard. By targeting a creature you
can destroy with removal Smallpox may force an
opponent to sacrifice something you would
otherwise be unable to remove at that time.
The overall use of this and fairly small
penalties to a low casting cost Black deck make
it something that is likely to be played in
several formats particularly in Multiplayer.
In Limited this works in a similar manner with
the differences being a reduced chance of the
Smallpox player having expendable creatures to
combo with it and the opponent being in a
similar position of potentially not controlling
throwaway creatures to sacrifice. The
double Black makes this a bit more difficult to
play early on which can free it up to work
against a field with larger creatures later in
the game if needed. It is possible an
opponent may be forced to sacrifice the only
source of a mana color they need, though they
can choose whatever seems least damaging at the
time. In Sealed Smallpox should be
included whenever a deck is running enough Black
mana to reliably cast it as it can make a big
impact and almost all removal is valuable.
In Booster this can be drafted early for the
same reasons and the deck can be build as
mono-Black to make using it easier as well.
