The only thing I can think of here is how, with
this and Sanguine Bond in play together, you win
as soon as anybody loses life, for any reason,
or you gain life. But let's assume you don't
have Sanguine Bond. In that case, well, I'd say
this is actually better than the Bond. Sanguine
Bond required you to fill your deck with life
gain cards, which are suboptimal without the
Bond out. Exquisite Blood wants you to hit your
opponent as hard as you can, which you should be
aiming to do anyway, and rewards you for doing
so by gaining you life, which will soften the
blow of your opponent's return strike. In
multiplayer it only gets better, as your
opponents attack each other. Just take notice if
an opponent seems not to mind you gaining life
from his attacks on other players. It probably
means he has a way to take you out despite your
life gain... Or thinks he does.
So what happens if you combine this card with
Sanguine Bond, from M10? I think it makes an
infinite loop, but don't put them both in your
deck until you ask somebody who knows for sure.
Other than that, this is actually a pretty solid
card, especially for slower decks and settings.
I really wish other cards were templated more
consistently, because then it'd be clearer that
this card triggers from a lot more things than
it looks at first, including but not limited to
Sorin Markov's -3 ability, someone putting a
Ravnica dual land into play untapped, and
Channel. (Take that, Alpha Combo Guy!) Even if
you just use it to effectively give lots of
little creatures lifelink, that can make the
difference between surviving and not in a
Planechase melee.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
Exquisite Blood an interesting black enchantment
which unfortunately has no constructed
applications. In standard the aggressive nature
of decks means even getting to five mana and
having an enchantment with no immediate impact a
risky proposition. In extended, legacy and
vintage the same concept holds true this is
expensive relatively speaking compared to things
in the format you could be spending your time
and mana on and is just not worth it. In casual
and multiplayer it combines with Sanguine Blood
for a nice archetype and combination other than
that it has some political implications if you
can prevent players from attacking you or
convince them to go elsewhere, you can gain a
significant amount of life. In limited its
nothing special but could see a small amount of
play as it practically gives your creatures a
bad form of lifelink but its still workable.
Overall a powerful casual and multiplayer card
with little to no tournament applications.
Today's card of the day is Exquisite Blood
which is a five mana Black enchantment that has
you gain life whenever an opponent loses life.
By itself this is not a playable card, much like
White and Green's life gain effects, but unlike
them this can be a part of a two card game
winning combo. In a deck made to take
advantage of this, possibly with acceleration to
work around the five mana drawback, this can be
an effective if easily disrupted surprise in a
local metagame.
For Limited this isn't really effective as it at
best stalls by increasing your life total in a
somewhat unreliable manner. The single
Black allows it to be played easily enough, but
there is no pressing reason to do so as life
gain doesn't win games. A pass in Booster
and sidedeck in Sealed as just about any
creature or board altering effect surpasses this
in value.
In Multiplayer this is a card that can really
annoy your opponents and make a stall design
survive for a long time with no direct
maintenance.
If the user isn't targeted directly to prevent
the life gain it can be very difficult to work
through a few dozen extra life points as the
game carries on. Not exactly a winning
strategy, but something that can be used
effectively in several designs.
Welcome
back to the Pojo.com card of the day section. We
are looking today at the Exquisite Blood from
Avacyn Restored. Exquisite Blood is a rare black
enchantment that costs four generic and one
black mana. Exquisite Blood says that whenever
an opponent loses life, you gain that much life.
Exquisite Blood is simply exquisite. The
ability to gain life any time you land some form
of damage is just amazing. And what makes it
better is the fact that it combos with another
card for a game ending effect. The other card of
course being Sanguine Bond. Sanguine Bond says
that whenever you gain life, an opponent loses
that much life. This of course starts a chain
that can continue until however many opponents
you are facing are dead.
Even without such a combo active, the gaining
life for damage can be a game changer in itself.
Any damage against your opponent results in you
gaining that much. Again for multiplayer, that
means that you don’t even have to be the one
doing the damage for you to benefit from it.
