Red has long had abilities like this, but
they've looked exactly like this. Usually red
has to either discard first, or discard at
random, to reflect red's traditional lack of
foresight. This is the first straight "draw and
discard" red spell I've seen. Sans flashback, it
could be a colorshifted Careful Study. I like
this, and it's not just because I have fond
memories of Careful Study. Red has long
struggled with its shallow slice of the color
pie. It's good at dealing damage, and not much
else. It's always refreshing to see a red
instant or sorcery that does something else, and
I kind of hope that red will continue to get
spells like this in the future. Somehow I
suspect red only got this because Innistrad is
the graveyard block, and this is a tool to help
them dump flashback spells into the graveyard so
people can build Flashback.dec. I hope I'm
wrong, though. Red could really use a staple
like this.
I am so very excited to be reviewing this
card today. It's not too often I get to review
the first member of a new exploration of the
color pie for a color. This particular one feels
good, looks good, and, as far as I can tell,
plays pretty darn good too. When burn decks get
to dig deeper for spells and ditch things they
don't need any more, that's good (and just one
more reason why that deck type should be taken
seriously, if you were thinking of not doing
so). When Burning Vengeance decks get to look
for their combo and set up their late game at
the same time, that's good. When your casual
reanimator deck gets to live the dream of
discarding Anger and Bogardan Hellkite - the
combo that got the former axed from Time Spiral
during development - and smashing for ten on
turn three, and set the whole thing up without
even needing to add blue, that's good. When red
gets a whole new dimension to its gameplay and a
rainbow of decks that couldn't exist before
suddenly can, that's amazing.
Today's card of the day is Faithless Looting
which is a one mana Red sorcery that has you
draw two cards then discard two cards and can
also be played with Flashback for three mana.
This can help a variety of themes across formats
and is particularly noteworthy as being a Red
draw and discard option that isn't random.
The low cost and potential of discarding other
cards with Flashback make this a solid addition
to Red's toolbox.
In Limited the odds of drawing too many land or
unplayable cards is fairly high, so a one mana
filter with no real drawback is an excellent
addition to help stabilize a deck. Adding
Flashback just makes it an automatic inclusion
for any Sealed build using Red mana. After
a first pick Red or even Black in Booster a few
copies of this and cards that benefit from being
in the graveyard make for a viable basis to a
deck.
Welcome to
the card of the day section here at Pojo.com.
Today we take a look at Faithless Looting from
Dark Ascension. Faithless Looting is a red
common sorcery that costs one red mana.
Faithless Looting says draw two cards, and then
discard to cards. Faithless Looting ahs a
flashback cost of two generic and one red mana.
People are all abuzz about Faithless Looting, and
to some degree, it is easy to see why. In larger
formats, it opens doors for red to use
reanimation or Madness abilities much easier.
But in a limited format, it is just a fishing
card. That is ultimately what Faithless Looting
is, a fishing pole hoping to pull something
better than what you have. Faithless Looting is
your only hope at pulling a kill spell when you
have two land in your hand. That is what it
boils down to. Now I am not saying it is a bad
thing, just not the greatest common in Dark
Ascension, however, it is not the worst either.
The quite significant drawback of equal exchange
is what really costs this card. But if there
were no drawback for the draw, we would see this
card in blue, wouldn’t we? I think at some
point, Wizards should allow a decent card draw
effect in red, but for now, this is what we have
for red in Standard.
