Wizard's Lightning prevents this from seeing Constructed, but still a fantastic card. Arena Pauper players will surely love this.
Not at all. What's better than one set of Lightning Bolts? How about two? This will see play alongside it.
Not sure I like this over Lightning Strike. This is a Sorcery so you have to tap on main phase, and you're generally playing dudes pr twirling through your Experimental Frenzy. Strike can just hit them on a tap out or in response to a pump effect or so on. Are we really giving up that reach for a maybe 3 damage for R? I will try 1-2 of them, but not a full set just yet.
Two mana vs one is very meaningful I find in RDW. Unless you're running a bigger version with more lands you'll very often stop at around 2-3 lands early on. As such Strike usually takes a full turn all the way up until you hit 4 mana. On the other hand triggering damage is easy as Firebrand, Pyromancer, and Whirler all ping and the one drops often have haste. Being able to cast multiple spells a turn is quite nice. I can say I usually find myself restrained by mana more often than I do wanting to play around pump (we are normally the aggressor, at least in most games we win) or working around counters (I'd rather they counter my one mana deal 3 to the face over a creature or something more valuable).
People are overhyping this card and in the current standard it's not very good.
Really? In the current standard it's not good? How do you figure that? About the only decks I can think of this isn't good against are mono-one drop white weenie and RDW and even there it's at least passable. I'm honestly very interested to hear why you think this.
Settle requires them to attack, only hits said attackers, and gets stopped by player hexproof which is surprisingly more common than one would think.
Nova has a nice extra mode but 5 mana vs 4 mana is a meaningful difference.
I by no means would say this is an obvious replacement for any of our current board wipes but it does have a nitch all its own.
Yep. The life gain isn't important for most decks that will run this.
Four mana unconditional board wipe. Tough on the mana or not it's nice to have the option in standard.
Very nice for Standard as an answer to a lot of counters, tokens, and aggressive decks in general. Beats up on History and blocks the majority of the current Aggro lineup. I like it at least as a sideboard and is broad enough to be a maindeck if needed.
Honestly I don't think this will see any play. The only reason Ionize sees play is because 1UR is easier to cast in some mana bases than Sinister Sabotage's 1UU. Absorb not only is harder to cast than Sabotage, the extra effect is generally speaking weaker. You're only playing Absorb after you've already put in a full playset of Sabatoges and frankly not even hard core control decks need that many Cancels. Might as well run some cheaper or alternatively useful counters at that point (Disdainful Stroke, Syncopate, Spell Pierce, ect...).
In Standard it is much better than Sinister Sabotage as the life gain on turn 3 will get you to your 4th and 5th turns to sweep the board against any agro deck. Then the Teferi train kicks in and "all aboard".
We also get Hallowed Fountains, making casting this much easier as well. Blue White decks got the card it needed to fend off all the agro and burn that is going on.
Yeah, no. Even in Standard, Sabotage is better. Yes it gains life which can matter (but also can just as easily not matter at all and even then 3 mana counters isn't what you want to be doing vs Aggro) and yes we're getting Hallowed Fountain but that doesn't change the fact that WUU is still a pain. Again, Ionize was run solely because 1UR is easier to cast in some mana bases than 1UU despite having a much worse extra effect. Sabotage is easier to cast than Absorb and has arguably a better extra effect.
Honestly I don't think this will see any play. The only reason Ionize sees play is because 1UR is easier to cast in some mana bases than Sinister Sabotage's 1UU. Absorb not only is harder to cast than Sabotage, the extra effect is generally speaking weaker. You're only playing Absorb after you've already put in a full playset of Sabatoges and frankly not even hard core control decks need that many Cancels. Might as well run some cheaper or alternatively useful counters at that point (Disdainful Stroke, Syncopate, Spell Pierce, ect...).
Nova has a nice extra mode but 5 mana vs 4 mana is a meaningful difference.
I by no means would say this is an obvious replacement for any of our current board wipes but it does have a nitch all its own.
Four mana unconditional board wipe. Tough on the mana or not it's nice to have the option in standard.