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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!


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Crackling Doom
- Khans of Tarkir

Reviewed Sep. 26, 2014

Constructed: 3.25
Casual: 3.75
Limited: 3.50
Multiplayer: 4.50

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale:
1 - Horrible  3 - Average.  5 - Awesome

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Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Deck Garage

Crackling Doom

A fairly cheap way to unilaterally get everybody to hate you and take out all their best creatures. I find it interesting that the creature with the highest power a player controls may not in fact be their most important one. I also would find it very entertaining if somebody responded to this by pumping the power of a creature they didn't care about (or reducing the power of the one they wanted to keep), which would let them keep the creature they need to keep, but would cost them a combat trick. The fact that this card is three colors doesn't matter as much as you might think, since it's clearly a late-game play. It's also clearly a multiplayer bomb, and multiplayer games tend to be slower and more tolerant of multicolor mana bases.

Constructed- 2
Casual- 4
Limited- 3
Multiplayer- 4.9

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Crackling Doom

Crackling Doom is a good example of the most standard school of multicolor design: effects from each color involved in sequence, add mana cost, bake at 150 degrees for 30 minutes. It's not always the most interesting, considering how much it informed the popular Invasion and Ravnica blocks, but it does usually make for fairly strong cards. This one, for example, avoids the traditional weakness of Diabolic Edict effects by always killing the strongest creature among a throng, and is also good at ambushing creature-light decks when they think they're about to start closing a game out. As those two scenarios are very common, I expect Crackling Doom to be adopted by decks of its colors in Standard at the very least, and possibly points beyond.

Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 4/5

Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Crackling Doom which is a three mana White, Red, and Black instant that deals two damage to each opponent and each opponent sacrifices their creature with the highest power. One on one doing three mana for two damage isn't great, though adding in the forced sacrifice puts this on a level similar to many Black removal spells.  It is in Multiplayer or Commander that this will be a real powerhouse and it will be a staple of decks using the three colors.
 
In Limited this is difficult to use reliably early, but later on it is an excellent middle to late game play that will almost always be a serious game changer.  As removal and a rare it is worth a first pick in Booster, though locking in three colors is a notable drawback.  In Sealed having two of the colors as part of the deck with third splashed is worth it just to force in the removal, though it of course depends on the strength of the pool the options are usually fairly aggressive for Red, Black, and White.
 
 
Constructed: 4.0
Casual: 4.0
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 4.5

Mattedesa

Deck Garage
Crackling Doom
 
Getting rid of hexproof creatures, indestructible creatures or creatures with protection from your colors has always been a challenge. There have been a number of effects over the years that cause an opponent to sacrifice a creature to get around those obstacles. The problem is usually that they get to choose which creature to sacrifice, and if they have a token or a mana dork, they are usually more than happy to sacrifice it and leave the one you really want to get rid of. 
 
Crackling Doom takes a big step in fixing that shortcoming as it decides for the opponent which creature they must get rid of. More often than not, the biggest creature is the one you want eliminated, so this does the job. Notice, for multiplayer, that it's ALL opponents. Sweet.
 
2 damage to each opponent isn't usually a big deal, but every little bit adds up. It's really a free bonus after this card's main effect. 
 
Constructed: 4.0
Casual: 4.0
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 4.5

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