Today's card of the day is Alhammarret, High
Arbiter which is a seven mana Blue 5/5 with
Flying that can prevent your opponents from
playing a single card you name after they reveal
their hands. This is not a very impressive
sphinx when compared to others in Blue that
usually offer more direct card advantage.
The blocking of a single card name is
situational and has little ongoing benefit, so
playing this just doesn't seem worthwhile most
of the time. You do get to see every hand,
but even in Multiplayer at the stage of the game
this enters play that should be fairly reduced
in value. Overall a card that is too slow
for Constructed and has far better competition
for deck space in other formats.
In Limited this is a 5/5 with evasion and can
lock down a card from an opponent, which can
potentially be one of the few or even only cards
they have that can stop a five toughness
creature. An easy first pick in Booster
and barring a noticeably weak Blue pool in
Sealed a card that should make the color a top
choice for at least a third of the deck.
This guy reminds me a lot of Voidstone Gargoyle
from Planar Chaos, albeit more legendary and
from Vryn (which I still feel like I know very
little about, even after looking at all the
Origins cards related to it). I used to use that
card in the sideboards of my part-white FNM
decks, and I tend to think that Alhammarret can
play a similar sort of role. The fact you get to
look at your opponents' hands first is
undoubtedly a strong advantage, but his high
cost compared to older variants like Voidstone
Gargoyle (much less Pithing Needle) means that
it will sometimes be too late. Additionally, the
fact that you can only choose a card an opponent
physically holds means that getting him down too
early runs the risk of them drawing a different,
equally dangerous card later on. In abstract,
the effect is very strong, but it remains to be
seen whether he ends up making a significant
impact in tournament play; I'm sure we'll see
him somewhere, though, as he promises to let
certain decks answer things they can't interact
with any other way.
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