It's a temporary solution, but sometimes in
Magic you just need one turn. It's also an
excellent way to "counter" Auras and any other
spells that may have targeted your target. It
would also be a good countermeasure against an
aggro deck or other deck that relies on tempo--
if you can knock them back a turn, you've slowed
them down long enough to take the lead.
Humorously, it also works well in aggro decks
themselves, to remove a blocker for a turn. It
doesn't really matter that they can recast it
next turn of you're swinging for lethal, now
does it?
Like Llanowar Elves, which we reviewed earlier
this week, Unsummon is a "baseline" card.
Ironically, many such cards are often underused
in high-level constructed play, and Unsummon is
one of those right now. Sure, it does something
helpful for a very good cost, but it's being
passed over because it doesn't do anything else
- and Standard is full of cards which do lots of
things, even when you only cast one. Still, it's
hard to count it out, if only because of the
surprise factor, especially in limited. Note
that it works on Gideon when he uses his
zero-cost ability.
Welcome back readers today another card we
strangely enough have not reviewed Unsommon, a
card that has been around a long while. Unsummon
the ability to simply bounce a creature to it
owners hand is elegant, Unsommon buys the blue
player time, slows down opponents tempo, and can
possibly used to reuse come into play effects
albeit expensively. In standard Unsummon is a
good card just not good enough, in a format full
of heavy hitters it has unfortunately taken a
backseat to cards like Into The Roil to deal
with troublesome permanents all around. Unsummon
could see play against Polymorph decks to remove
a token to fizzle the namesake spell or to
bounce an Eldrazi back to its owners hand where
it may not be played again. In extended and
eternal this card is outnumbered by more
efficient cards that can target more than
creatures. In casual and multiplayer this card
is decent it can keep creatures at bay but I
would go with its seal form Seal of Removal , it
comes down at sorcery speed but can act as a
deterrent later. In limited is pseudo creature
removal as it can set an opponent back and buy
you a turn a nice trick.
Today's card of the day is Unsummon which for a
single mana can temporarily deal with almost any
opposing creature, respond to most removal by
returning the target to hand, or get another use
out of an enters the battlefield ability.
A versatile card that is at home in almost any
Blue deck, but does not gain card advantage as
the benefit is temporary unless the target has
an Aura attached. An attack is prevented
for the turn of the attack and then the
following turn if it is summoned then without
Haste, but the opponent doesn't actually lose a
card while you do. Despite that drawback
cards that stall without removing something from
play are useful by themselves and this has
options even when there is nothing on the
opposing battlefield to bounce. For a
control deck this will generally be used as one
of the few available options against something
that escaped true countermagic and will then be
countered when next played. The best
response against this is for an opponent to have
a second threat available to play on the same
turn, but having enough mana for both is not
always an option.
For Limited this is a great card to stall the
opponent out and remove an attacker or even
better remove a blocker to swing in for a final
strike. Acidic Slime, Augury Owl,
Gravedigger, Hoarding Dragon, Howling Banshee,
Liliana's Specter, Manic Vandal, Obstinate
Baloth, Phylactery Lich, Sylvan Ranger, Tireless
Missionaries, Triskelion, War Priest of Thune,
and the Titan series all have some kind of comes
into play effect that can be used with Unsummon
with varying degrees of benefit depending on the
situation. As the Titans gain their effect
from attacking as well it is rarely useful to
Unsummon them to play them again aside from
situations where attacking is detrimental, but
usually Unsummon on the cause of that would
solve the problem. For Sealed there is
little cause to not include this in a Blue deck
and for Booster this is a good choice to draft
alongside other control and removal options
depending on what choices are available.
