Remember that cycle of Lorwyn cards that did
something extra if you controlled the right type
of creature? Peppersmoke, Giant's Ire,
Rootgrapple, and so on? Those were great and
this is terrible. Why? Those were still useful
cards even if you didn't have the right creature
type. People still run Rootgrapple in casual
decks with nary a Treefolk in sight, but you
can't even cast Feast of Blood without a pair of
Vampires. What do you do if your opponent keeps
killing your Vampires? You stare at this card in
your hand and feel bad, that's what. And it's
not even an instant, so you can't respond to the
second Vampire dying with it. And what's your
payoff? The ability to target black creatures,
and gaining 4 life. Life gain is not a goal, and
it's not a good reason to run cards you might
not be able to cast. You'd be better off with
Doom Blade, or even Bone Splinters if you're all
that worried about killing creatures regardless
of color.
The trouble with a lot of tribal cards is their
binary nature: with others of their tribe, they
do something, and without, they don't. Feast of
Blood spells this out quite literally in its
rules text, but the effect makes it very
tempting to go vampiric - Terminate raised
eyebrows when its reprinting was announced in
Alara Reborn for its universality, so what
reaction should we expect for Terminate with a
bonus?
Welcome back readers continuing our feast
themed week have a Feast of Blood a powerful
card if the right conditions are met,
controlling two or more vampires is not the
hardest trigger to meet as vampires have a ton
of low casting cost creatures to abuse and the
fact this is a removal spell that can hit
anything is great and the life gain is gravy. In
all constructed formats this card requires to
much of a setup to make the payoff worth it
competitively. In casual and multiplayer games
can drag on and accumulating a couple vampires
is not unreasonable by any means and having a
catch all removal spell that provides a life
buffer for multiplayer games is a good incentive
to jam this into decks sporting a lot of
vampires. In limited its removal making it
fantastic but requires commitment to a theme to
work efficiently. Overall a powerful card for
vampire tribal decks, Happy Feasting!
Today's card of the day is Feast of Blood which
is a two mana Black sorcery that can only be
cast if you control two vampires. It
destroys a target creature and gives you four
life which is nice for the cost, though the
sorcery speed and requirement of two specific
creatures in play makes this a bit restrictive
to both the type of deck and the situations
where it can be used. As it is only on
your turn and only when two vampires are
available there are many other removal options
that can be more flexible, though no restriction
on the target and the four life are noteworthy.
Overall the penalties weigh down the advantages
and even in a vampire tribal deck there are
better choices as Black has no shortage of
quality two mana removal cards.
In Limited the two vampire condition is a
crippling flaw as only twenty-four vampires
exist in the entire block with nine of those
rare or mythical. The chances of having
two in play at the same time is too low to allow
Feast of Blood to work most of the time which
will leave it as a dead card in hand quite
often. Like almost any removal it can
still be playable of course, if your pool in
Sealed features multiple vampires, though
drafting this early in Booster is a gamble
unless you feel confident in drawing a tribal
deck.
Welcome back to the Card of the Day section here at
Pojo.com! We are closing out a short
Thanksgiving themed week today by looking at
Feast of Blood from Zendikar. Feast of Blood is
an uncommon black sorcery that costs one generic
and one black mana. Feast of Blood cannot be
cast unless you control two or more vampires.
Feast of Blood destroys target creature. You
gain four life.
Wow, as if vampire decks needed more power when this block
launched, Wizards gives them a massive kill
spell. Any creature, plus four life. Now I don't
think that's fair. Dragons don't have a card
that says play only if you control a dragon,
gain life equal to its toughness card, do they?
And if anything "feasts" it would be a dragon.
Anyways, I differ. If you are like so many players, you
either appreciate the overpoweredness of modern
vampires, or have a vampire deck. In either
case, you will enjoy the Feast of Blood, and all
that it offers. Luckily, or unfortunately,
depending on you stance towards vampires, Feast
of Blood is a sorcery, which makes it slow. This
means hasty attackers still surge through.
Other than speed being a factor, this spell is severely
limited by the casting clause. Should you not
have two vampires out, you cannot cast Feast of
Blood. So all an opponent has to really do to
not let you have a feast, is keep your board
cleared. Easier said than done.
