MTG Salvation

Here we go, the closest thing we have to 2CMC murder!

How do you guys rank the 1B kill spell variants?

FInally we get the Thoughtseize of spot removal. Yeah I think this tops the list.

Works well after a turn 1 fetch-shock-thoughtseize.

It's good - but I think it's not a card to get really excited about.

I might still actually prefer Heartless Act over this, but I'm glad they printed it!

I think this replaces go for the throat for me. The others can hit planeswalkers.

I don't understand how paying 2 life is worse than letting the opponent draw a card.

For me this is a definitive include. I prefer unconditional removal, especially when the conditional removal relies on haphazard things like creature type.

Imo above Power Word Kill and Go for the Throat.

If you like Terror variants, this is one of the best ones. I don't, so I won't be playing this, but it's one of the better cards of its kind.

Quote from Niphred »

I don't understand how paying 2 life is worse than letting the opponent draw a card.

For me this is a definitive include. I prefer unconditional removal, especially when the conditional removal relies on haphazard things like creature type.

Imo above Power Work Kill and Go for the Throat.

Hitting planeswalkers is really nice. I agree this is better than power word kill, and go for the throat.

Cool that they’ve pushed Terror variants to this point, but I don’t think we need any of them in our Cube. I’d have to think hard about a zero downside Terror if they ever printed it because it would be great against mono red where those cards provide great utility. As is I do think 2 life is still a relevant enough downside to not get it in, even if it’s the best one.

It's wild how much they keep pushing Terrors. I'll be replacing Heartless Act for this.

I'm of the belief that the two life is a bigger cost than most of the target restrictions of the other 37 doom blade variants out there.
Black has so much other good cards that lose life and creature based matchups are where doom blade effects tend to shine... (where life total matters the most)

Not interested

Yeah, I had to sit on this through the day and my final conclusion is that the matches where I want that early removal, the 2 life is kind of a big deal considering that most the other options like this hit those aggressive cards at a pretty impressive rate. I think this is a pretty easy pass for me, considering.

I think the card is solid for what it does ... but I don't run Heartless Act, or Go for the Throat, or any Doom Blade variant other than Shriekmaw. We have a nice variety of black removal spells nowadays that this style of card just doesn't seem super important to me; a few years ago, that might have been a different story. But now, I feel like my removal suite is best defined by the versatile Hero's Downfall variants and the mana-efficient answers like Dismember and Bloodchief's Thirst. I feel like existing removal covers enough scenarios that this card just isn't important at 540. Would consider for very large cubes.

Whelp, guess I'm glad I never bothered to grab a power word kill lol. This is obviously better. I still like having a couple terror variants so think I'll keep this and heartless act.