New Phyrexia really played around with the color
pie, but this is actually one of the milder
examples of it in my opinion. All five colors
get creatures that can attack, and blue gets the
lion's share of small but hard to block ones.
Meaning that it is "in pie" for blue to get ways
to make opponents lose small amounts of life
without offering them the option of blocking.
That said, I don't see this getting a core set
reprint.
Vapor Snag is an excellent support card for a
control deck. It slows down the opponent's
creature base while also digging them for one.
Control decks have always been about slowly
eroding away your opponent's tempo and
resources, and this does all of that very
subtly. It can also be sued to save your own
creature, if you're willing to pay the one life.
Not a flashy card, but a distinct upgrade from
Unsummon and a welcome cog in any blue machine.
I used to have a deck that used Spectral
Searchlight as an alternate win condition, back
when the official rules still had mana burn. Now
that they don't, I've actually been looking at
New Phyrexia's "Do X, they lose 1 life" cards as
a possible replacement. Sure, it looks a little
weird from a color pie sense, and you're not
going to have fun with it if you don't like
Raymond Swanland's art, but there's no denying
that it's good at what it does. Unsummon is
usually not considered for competitive play, but
this card has put that effect back on the map -
and all with one extra sentence.
Today's card of the day is Vapor Snag which is
a one mana Blue that deals one damage to target
creature's controller and returns it to the
owner's hand. When used on any opponent's
creature this is quite efficient as a stall or
prior to a counterspell and the point of damage
is a nice bonus compared to the alternative
methods of bounce.
Obviously it isn't as desirable for bouncing
your own creatures, so decks based around that
mechanic are a bit less likely to include this
and responses to removal require a little more
consideration. Overall this is a strong
addition to control or stall builds and is worth
playing far more often than not.
For Limited this isn't true removal and mana is
often readily available to both replay the
creature and a newly drawn card, but stalling a
threat for one turn is worth it and the extra
damage is icing on the cake. All Blue
builds in Sealed should run this as either stall
or to clear a path for an attack while in
Booster this can be chosen as removal and
multiple copies are beneficial.
Welcome to
Pojo.com’s card of the day section. Today we are
taking a look at Vapor Snag from New Phyrexia.
Vapor Snag is a common blue instant that costs
one blue mana. Vapor Snag returns target
creature to it’s owner’s hand, then that
creature’s controller loses one life.
I loved Vapor Snag. Such a great common. Where once
Unsummon used to reside, quickly they were
replaced by the Vapor Snags. The same mana cost
to do the same thing, only with the added bonus
of the targeted creatures controller losing
life. Of course the only drawback is that
occasionally it is in your best interest to use
it to save a good creature of yours from an
untimely demise, but still, I’d trade off the
one life to save it. After all, isn’t that what
Phyrexia does anyways?
