Surgical Extraction – New Phyrexia
Date Reviewed: September 19, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.4
Casual: 3
Limited: 2
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 1.5
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Older cards like Cranial Extraction and Extirpate were already quite good in their day, but it turns out that a lot of effects are much stronger when you don’t have to spend mana on them. Cost reduction effects are notoriously hard to balance – every one that they try seems to result in at least one banned card, no matter what else they do around it. I think Surgical Extraction escaped the fate of Mental Misstep because it’s a tool that fair decks can use to try to level the playing field. Two life is usually a bearable cost, and the only other cost is taking up slots in your deck or sideboard, which again feels reasonable when the alternative is losing the game on the spot. It didn’t always do as much to stop famous graveyard decks as you might guess, but it has kept a lot of combos that were over-reliant on one card from taking up much space in metagames past. I think it’s reasonable to have some cards like that in Magic in general, and I suspect that some people would have liked to have a similar card in some recent Standard formats.
Speaking of which, I think it’s curious that we’ve had two “special” versions of this effect at this cost – Extirpate with split second, and Surgical Extraction with Phyrexian mana – yet no “baseline” version that just does the extraction with no additional gimmicks. I’d suggest it might be something for Foundations, though it’s not clear what role it would play in the current Standard.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 3
Limited: 2
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 1.5
Another exhibit in the “maybe Phrexian mana was a mistake” gallery, Surgical Extraction has a long and colorful history as anti-graveyard hate that can be played in just about any constructed deck, so long as you have the life to spare. Two life to get rid of a potentially key card and gain information about an opponent’s hand and deck is quite an excellent rate of return (and even plays well with targeted discard like Thoughtseize). That being said, Surgical Extraction is the very definition of a sideboard card, as it really only shines if you need to nail a specific card that regularly makes its way to the graveyard. Still, it’s an excellent price for a potentially powerful effect, and there’s a reason it’s been played consistently, even if only in the sideboard, in every format it’s ever been legal in.
Constructed: 4.75 (great sideboard bullet, mediocre mainboard)
Casual: 3
Limited: 2 (unless you get very lucky, this isn’t going to harm most decks)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 1.5 (the main advantage is rendered moot by a black color identity and the singleton rule, and so this really only shines against Rat.dec or its ilk and not very well at that)
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