It's a Drain Life variant, limiting the mana type spent to cast it. Fireball and its descendants are traditionally very strong in limited, but I wonder if this would ever be a P1P1.
Given how limiting this is in constructed decks, I wonder how much more I could push it. X to any two targets? Instant speed? There are more knobs available than first appear,
If I were running 4 mountains in my deck, I'd play this.
ReplyDeleteYep, seems quite strong as-is. Two targets would be pretty busted, and I don't think instant-speed is very necessary either. This card is already quite flexible and is a serious, serious threat in a mono-red deck.
DeleteIn Limited I wouldn't play this unless I had 6+ mountains I think. Really want to be able to consistently generate at the very least 2 red mana for this to be worth playing.
DeleteI think that just makes this card more interesting though. I don't think this is p1p1 at all, and will require more strategic drafting to maximize its potential.
I P1P1 this and try to make red my main color, but even if it's not, 7 lands is pretty typical for an off color. Sorcery speed 3 damage to a thing on turn 6ish (assuming you draw a 50/50 land split) is not great, but still playable. Any way you have to increase access to mountains makes it better.
DeleteWould you P1P1 Jaws of Stone?
I love how the metagame changes the power level of this card so dramatically. On Alara, this card is a bad card. On Shadowmoor, this can define the format.
DeleteCrater's Claws Suggests that this is fine. Even just a fireball that does X plus 1 is probably fine.
ReplyDeleteCrater's Claws
DeleteYou can spend any colour of mana on Crater's Claws though, and only red on this. That's a significant restriction: devotion to red is necessary, and the spell is FAR less splashable.
DeleteCrater's Claws is a better fireball, but this is just so flexible in a mono-red deck. XR Fireball cards are just so terrible at keeping up with the curve, but this can trade evenly on mana at basically any point on the curve, and happens to have the same face-bashing qualities a normal Fireball.
DeleteEven if a deck wants a Fireball effect, I don't think you can really afford to run more than a couple of the traditional Fireball-esque cards. With as efficient as this is, I think you can comfortable run 4 (which is scary).
A 0 mana spell that also kills creatures if you spend a bit of mana? ...why am I thinking about Storm applications?
ReplyDelete