You'd be amazed how few of the best spells in
Magic are sorceries. "Counter target sorcery
spell" would never be worth playing as its own
card. Destroying creatures is nice, but the
power restriction is a little tight. Still,
it'll be able to kill creatures that serve to
block and do little else, or small utility
creatures like Guildmages... or creatures you've
just hit with a Downsize. The third option is
completely random-- the best it'll do is make
sure that their very next draw is the worst of
their next three, but there's no guarantee that
they'll have a "bad" card in their top three.
And if you end up seeing three of the same card,
or three cards with Scavenge or Flashback, you
may accomplish nothing at all. Only a dedicated
mill or Dream Salvage deck could get any use out
of the third ability.
So, we have a choice between an incredibly
narrow counter, a fairly narrow kill spell, and
a perplexingly useless mill effect.
Dimir Charm is interesting in that it combines
three effects that are well established on older
cards, reminding one of Envelop, Swat, and
various mill cards that were not particularly
memorable outside of dedicated decks. I expect
having them all in one place, on one card, in
these colors, to be nothing short of amazing.
People who aren't playing sorceries probably
still have creatures, and failing that they
always have a library (yeah, okay, unless
they're Dredge).
Today's card of the day is Dimir Charm which
costs one Black and one Blue for one of three
effects. The first effect counters target
sorcery spell which is fair for two mana, but
quite situational and Blue has no shortage of
more flexible countermagic choices. The
second effect destroys target creature with
power two or less which is again fair and again
surpassed by many removal spells in Black for
the same mana cost.
The final option allows you to look at the top
three cards of a player's library and place two
of them in the graveyard, returning the third.
Surprisingly when the other choices are
countering and removal it is the library
manipulation that is probably the strongest as
it can feed graveyard effects and help put a
card to benefit from that into your hand on the
next turn. The three options are nice and
the value of the third may get it into a few
decks, but overall with draw power in Blue to
maintain more powerful cards in hand this charm
is a little too weak for widespread play.
In Limited the lack of other removal options and
higher odds of a sorcery being a trump card
increase the situations where this would be
valuable. The third effect is of minimal
use in the format with fewer graveyard benefits
and the card disadvantage to just select the top
card of your library. Possibly a third or
fourth pick for weaker packs when in color and
should be included for Dimir sealed decks.
Welcome again to
Charm week here at Pojo.com's card of the day
section. Today we are looking at the Dimir Charm
from Gatecrash. Dimir Charm is an uncommon
instant that costs one blue and one black mana.
Dimir Charm has three abilities to choose from
when casting. The abilities are: Counter target
sorcery spell; or Destroy target creature with
power 2 or less; or Look at the top three cards
of target player's library, put one back and the
rest into that player's graveyard.
As with all the Charms, it is so nice to have three
abilities to choose from for just two mana. The
Dimir Charms are nice but in my opinion, in no
means game changers. Sure, countering a sorcery
can be handy, but it would have been nice if
they made it a straight counter target spell.
And while destroying a creature is nice,
Hexproof and indestructibility make this ability
very difficult to take full advantage of.
Perhaps the best ability may in fact be the last
one. Being able to check out the top three of an
opponents deck and alter their draw and perhaps
deny them some useful cards is very useful. And
being able to use it on yourself could also be
very strategic, depending on how your deck is
designed.
Of course the last ability is also great for if you have the
Dimir Guildleader, Lazav out. Then you can send
the worst of the creatures to the graveyard and
have Lazav become that creature.
Not the strongest of the Charms in this set, but as all of
the Charms are, still quite useful.
