Dismember taught us that -5/-5 will pretty much
kill anything of relevance. This card, however,
won't kill anything until it deals damage. Block
it, get blocked by it, let it hit you, or what,
but it has to deal damage. This means you can't
use it to clear away a potential blocker before
you swing, and you can't use it to kill a
creature before it's caused you any problems and
"done its job", but it also means that this can
kill creatures with more than 5 toughness,
because its target will likely have combat
damage on it. It can also kill pingers, and
cards like Guttersnipe that have damaging
abilities.
I'm almost tempted to combo it with Pit Fight to
kill creatures before they get a chance to swing
and increase the potential toughness of
creatures that can be killed. But really that's
a terrible idea, because A) that requires at
least three colors of mana, B) it's two cards
just to kill one creature [three if you lose the
creature that fought with your target] and C)
Ultimate Price exists.
Speaking of other cards that exist, Avenging
Arrow also exists, and it doesn't care about its
target's toughness, or black mana. If you want a
kill spell and you're in Orzhov, you've got LOTS
of better options than this. Unless you're in
Limited, in which case you don't and you need
removal.
This is a rather interesting design for a card
(and unlike Aaron Forsythe, I use "interesting"
as a compliment). While it looks narrow, damage
is what creatures are for by default, and there
are lots of utility creatures that this can take
out even if they don't attack, ranging from
Anathemancer to Vulshok Sorcerer. In general,
though, white and black aren't really lacking
for ways to deal with creatures, and most of
them are even easier to use than this, meaning
that it could be more where you go for extra
copies of the effect, rather than the starting
point.
Today's card of the day is Executioner's Swing
which is a two mana Black and White instant that
gives target creature that dealt damage that
turn
-5/-5 until end of turn. This is a decent
removal option for a Black/White deck, though
the condition is somewhat restrictive by forcing
it to be most often used after combat instead of
the preferred before combat or end of turn it
was played timing. The color combination and
drawback keep this to a fairly narrow role, but
it certainly has value and is likely to see play
in a few decks.
In Limited this is a very powerful removal
option for Orzhov and an automatic inclusion for
that guild in Sealed and as a common can be
available in multiples. In Booster it is a
strong second or third pick after a Black,
White, or Black and White rare and barring other
players first picks in the same guild the
chances of multiple copies going around the
table is relatively high.
