I think it's hilarious; a solid way for a black-based control deck to put a player out of the game towards the end.
The thing you have to keep in mind is that it's not going to get cast early on, when a player can necessarily afford to pay life equal to the number of permanents they control. What about later in the game, when players have ~15 permanents and ~20 life remaining. What do you pick there? You either choose a low number and get your board obliterated, or you choose a high number and get killed by the next player.
It's something that's definitely no good in constructed, but it's good for shutting down a player that's pulling ahead in multiplayer. You either put them in kill range or destroy their board. Either option seems pretty good. You just need to hold the card until either option is bad for the opponent.
RE: the comparison to browbeat:
I think browbeat is fine in multiplayer. You could probably politic your way into getting someone to let you draw three, or you could just point it at the player with the lowest life total, who may have to think about whether or not they want to lose 5 life. I've also cubed with browbeat before, and it's been pretty stellar. To be fair, I drafted a control deck whose win condition was browbeating the opponent repeatedly.
The trick with both of them is that you can't just throw them out there when there's an obvious choice that's better for the opponent. Obviously, when you browbeat/choice someone at a high life total, they'll just eat the damage. At extremely low life totals, they'll let you have cards/eat their boards. What about the middle ground?
If your opponent is at 7 and you browbeat them, what do they do? 2 is a pretty low number, and is well within lightning bolt range. Do you have a burn spell? Will you draw 7 points of burn in the next 3 cards? Can they stabilize next turn in spite of you drawing 3? Most people are prepared to say that they'd be willing to pay somewhere between 1 and 4 life for each card that THEY would like to draw. It's a little harder to evaluate how much life your opponent's cards are worth.
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The thing you have to keep in mind is that it's not going to get cast early on, when a player can necessarily afford to pay life equal to the number of permanents they control. What about later in the game, when players have ~15 permanents and ~20 life remaining. What do you pick there? You either choose a low number and get your board obliterated, or you choose a high number and get killed by the next player.
It's something that's definitely no good in constructed, but it's good for shutting down a player that's pulling ahead in multiplayer. You either put them in kill range or destroy their board. Either option seems pretty good. You just need to hold the card until either option is bad for the opponent.
RE: the comparison to browbeat:
I think browbeat is fine in multiplayer. You could probably politic your way into getting someone to let you draw three, or you could just point it at the player with the lowest life total, who may have to think about whether or not they want to lose 5 life. I've also cubed with browbeat before, and it's been pretty stellar. To be fair, I drafted a control deck whose win condition was browbeating the opponent repeatedly.
The trick with both of them is that you can't just throw them out there when there's an obvious choice that's better for the opponent. Obviously, when you browbeat/choice someone at a high life total, they'll just eat the damage. At extremely low life totals, they'll let you have cards/eat their boards. What about the middle ground?
If your opponent is at 7 and you browbeat them, what do they do? 2 is a pretty low number, and is well within lightning bolt range. Do you have a burn spell? Will you draw 7 points of burn in the next 3 cards? Can they stabilize next turn in spite of you drawing 3? Most people are prepared to say that they'd be willing to pay somewhere between 1 and 4 life for each card that THEY would like to draw. It's a little harder to evaluate how much life your opponent's cards are worth.