"Players can't gain life" hoses black harder
than it does white, since black has as much life
gain as white and black's life gain cards tend
to be stronger. Then again, when you cast this,
Douse in Gloom still deals 2 damage, while
Whitesun's Passage is just straight-up
countered. Then again, the "damage can't be
prevented" line hoses white, and pretty much
nobody else. Not that damage prevention even
sees a lot of play in the first place.
If Skullcrack hit creatures as well as players,
or even hit just creatures, then I'd be
demanding every red deck play a full four of it.
Maybe it's better, then, that it only hits
players, because then we won't be seeing it all
over the place for the next two years. I
suspect, in fact, that we'll see very little of
it. Outside of an Izzet spell-themed deck, it's
little more than a sideboard card against life
gain combos.
Where were cards like this when I was playing
games in Coldsnap Standard at FNM, and people
were running around gaining 18 life on their
second turn with Martyr of Sands? No problem
deck of that magnitude and orientation has come
out of recent sets, but this is still a nice
card to have around. Anybody who tries to use
cards like Thragtusk and Centaur Healer,
especially in combination with flickering
effects, is going to have to be aware of it.
This is also one of a very few cards with a
similar effect in the Modern card pool, and its
surprise effect makes it an interesting
complement and/or alternative to Stigma Lasher.
(Just when I made a "blink Loxodon Hierarch lots
of times" deck for Filth Casserole.)
Today's card of the day is Skullcrack which is
a two mana Red instant that deals three damage
to target player and prevents life gain or
damage prevention that turn. This is an
excellent sidedeck card for mono-Red against
decks that have enough life gain to be difficult
to overcome, but not being able to target
creatures keeps this from being efficient for
the maindeck.
In Limited this works particularly well against
Orzhov and is decent enough to play in any Red
deck in Sealed as a little extra burn. It
isn't a first or second pick in Booster, but
should be picked up when in color over
inefficient creatures as mostly guaranteed
damage.
