Global damage/destroy effects have always been
the pride of Red, White, and Black, but each
color always had its own spin on it. With Black,
it's the whole "power at a price" deal. Black's
willing to lose all of its creatures to kill off
all of yours. With White, it's a challenge in
breaking the symmetry. White wipes out creatures
by its own rules, so the trick is to have
creatures that follow the rules. With Red, it's
all about the more damage, the better. If the
board state doesn't look good to a Red mage, he
just blows it all up and starts over.
Whipflare, then feels more like something White
would do than Red. At the same time, it looks
like something Red would very much like to do.
People love running Vulshok Refugee because they
can Pyroclasm with it on the board and then be
the only guy with a creature left. Whipflare
lets you do that with any artifact creature...
or any creature with 3 or more toughness. I
think Whipflare is a great card for all the same
reasons that Pyroclasm is a great card, but
artifact creatures are liable to show up in
anyone's deck. I'd run Whipflare as a sideboard
option, and only bring it in if I hadn't seen
many creatures on the other side of the table
that it couldn't kill.
As you noticed from reading my review of Thraben
Heretic last week (where I thought it could hit
flashback spells!), reading things is important.
Relevance to today: I forgot that Pyroclasm
isn't in Standard and Whipflare is, meaning that
there's a major opportunity for certain cards.
Solemn Simulacrum, Ichorclaw Myr, Phyrexian
Metamorph, and the like are even stronger
than usual when this is the format's "fast and
small" sweeper. Against everything else, though,
this card is literally identical to Pyroclasm.
You guys probably already know how good
Pyroclasm is.
Today's card of the day is Whipflare which is a
two mana Red spell that deals two damage to each
non-artifact creature. This is very
similar to Pyroclasm with the added option to
use in an artifact deck to have a one-sided
effect, though naturally would require
sidedecking it out against an opponent using
primarily artifact creatures. Overall this
is an aggressively priced burn that can be a
valuable addition to Red decks with or without
artifact creatures as a response to swarm themes
or just for early game board clearing.
For Limited this can be a double-edged sword, so
timing is critical to get the most use out of
the likely single copy you might have available.
As a card that can be both risky or even
potentially useless depending on what kinds of
creature you and the opponent control at any
given time it probably doesn't belong in every
deck. Other Red spells make a better case
for being splashed which leaves this for a more
dedicated build with support removal and
artifact creatures. As it stands this can
be picked fairly early in Booster for the
potential it has, though useful against
artifacts or higher direct damage choices take
priority. In Sealed it depends on the luck
of the draw a bit and probably should be
included when playing Red just in case it is
needed, though can be left in the sidedeck
without being a crucial error.
In Multiplayer using four copies of this in a
deck designed to avoid the damage is definitely
viable and such a low cost method of dealing
damage to the entire field is a major asset.
Welcome to
the Pojo.com card of the day. Today we are
taking a look at Whipflare from New Phyrexia.
Whipflare is an uncommon red sorcery that costs
one generic and one red mana. Whipflare deals 2
damage to each non-artifact creature.
Whipflare. The artificer’s Pyroclasm. Ultimately,
that is what it comes down to. If you build an
artifact deck, this is your way of clearing some
space. But, on the flipside, should you get
matched up against an artifact deck, this is
really just dead weight.
Dealing two damage to each non-artifact creature
is not as useless now that people are switching
gears over to Werewolves, Zombies, Spirits, and
Vampires (Oh My!). But it is still very limited
if used against the Scars of Mirrodin blocks.
Whipflare is still a highly played card in
tournaments, and will continue to be so until it
rotates out.
