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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Swelter
Judgment - 

Pojo's Average Rating -
Constructed: 2.27 (6 Reviews)
Limited: 3.77 (7 Reviews)
Reviewed June 25, 2002

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

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Card of the Day Reviews 


Fletcher
Peatross

Jagged Lightning's little brother, doing 1 less damage to each creature for one less R in the casting cost. I'd much rather have Jagged Lightning honestly. This is a first pick if you're playing red though. Its worthless in constructed. 3.5 in Limited, 1 in Constructed.


Judge Bill

Let's see ... if it took two cards, each to deal 2 damage to a creature, it would probably cost about 1.5 mana total. (Shock does 2, but lets you hit players as well, so you have to take off a little for the fact you can only target creatures.) So you're paying 2-3 mana to save one card.
 
In constructed, 4 mana should let you take control. This does not let you do that. Therefore, at best, this would be a sideboard card. And not a very good one at that, IMO.
 
In limited, however, this typically will let you take out 2 creatures for only one card. I'd play this if I got it most any time, but just seeing this card wouldn't make me want to play red in particular.
 
Constructed: 1.7
Limited: 3.6


DeQuan
Watson

I'm not sure if this has any potential or not for constructed.  I am truly clueless I personally think I wouldn't play it.  There are too many other good burn spells. 

In limited, I have played it every time that I have had it and played red.

Constructed: 1.9
Limited: 4.0


Mason
Peatross

Swelter. Playable. Not game breaking. Not constructed worthy. Nice card advantage, and a horrible picture to boot! I had one in my sealed deck the other day. Never drew it.

Limited 3
Constructed 1


Aaron
Teare

limited ****

constructed **

Swelter can't deal damage to the opponent... most red removal that falls into this category never sees constructed play as it will be useless in many cases. There's plenty of other burn in the constructed pool that deals damage to either creatures or players making Swelter a poor choice.

In limited where removal is scarce, Swelter is simply a must play. While I don't see why it isn't an instant, you still gotta play any removal you get, especially removal that generates card advantage by dealing with multiple threats.


Rob
Lawing

In evaluating Swelter one has to take into account that WOTC has taken away the majority of the red mage's advantage of being able to play burn cards as instants. There is a bit of instant burn left but the vast majority are now sorceries. This has made me stop evaluating a lot of red cards via a comparison to spells like incinerate, shock (still available at least for now in 7th), and good old lightning bolt. Under the new frame of reference I believe that Swelter is an excellent card which not only removes many smaller threats and mana accelerators but also gets you 2 cards for one. A red spell that gets 2 for 1 is always welcome and because of this you gain not only some card advantage but you also can reset the game tempo in your favor. I still wish this was an instant but since it is likely that those halcyon days are behind us now I believe this card will see significant play in not only straight red decks but also in decks where red is a supplementary or splash color.
 
Ratings
Constructed-3.5 (4 in OBC)
Limited 4.5
 

 

 

 

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