It's a sweeper that doesn't always sweep, and a
mass life-loss card that doesn't always cause
mass life-loss. Are you still following me?
Good, because the fact is that this card is
actually better than it might sound from that
suggestion of unreliability. It's almost always
certain to do at least one thing that benefits
you, and black's myriad ways to steal life from
the opponents can help you keep your creatures
and/or control what choices are available to
opponents. Don't forget that people have to pay
X life for each creature they want to keep, not
for the total effect - it's easy imagining this
card being potentially lethal surprisingly early
in matches against token decks, or even some
"regular" aggro decks.
Today's card of the day is Killing Wave which
is a Black one mana and X that requires for each
creature a payment of X life or to sacrifice it.
This is a playable mass removal for Black that
isn't ideal for decks running many creatures,
but can be quite solid in single creature
strategies or possibly variants on the
mono-Black sacrifice theme. An opponent
with three creatures can either lose them or
nine life with a payment of just four mana
making this quite efficient if you avoid a major
sacrifice of your own. Overall this will
probably be played more as the current formats
evolve and suits several concepts of Black deck
designs very well.
In Limited this can be a finisher by clearing
the field or forcing an opponent to dip
dangerously low on life. The single Black
mana also allows easy splashing and in many
situations it can be a dominant force no matter
what the opponent chooses. The sacrifices
against your own field is a concern that can be
worked around with the proper math and generally
good timing with this should win the game.
There is little reason not to pick this first in
Booster and it should be included in Sealed
whenever even a splash of Black is reasonable.
This won't make you any friends in Multiplayer,
but it is a viciously effective card when even a
small amount of mana is paid for X.
Building the deck around this effect is viable
and well suited to the format.
Welcome to
another new week of card of the day reviews here
at Pojo.com! Starting this week off we are
looking at Killing Wave from Avacyn Restored.
Killing Wave is a rare black sorcery that costs
X and one black mana. Killing Wave says for each
creature, it’s controller sacrifices it unless
he or she pays X life.
Of all the black spells, Killing Wave is making waves
to become one of my favorites. The reason why is
if your board is empty, there is no draw backs
to sinking enough mana into this thing to bring
the Titanic back to the surface just to sink it
again! And even if you do have creatures, if
your opponents have more, and are not very well
depth in the life total, this could well end the
game. A single creature could be all it takes. I
try and get as much mana into this as possible,
just so that I can gain the most advantage. When
using it with blue, the one creature you elect
to keep can be Artful Dodged right into a game
winner.
For those that love playing old cards, consider running
with Wound Reflection, and enjoy the results. In
that scenario, I highly doubt your opponent will
want to keep many creatures, as they lose twice
as much just to keep them around!
