This card probably doesn't look too impressive
in hindsight, if you think about how it was
close in time to Vindicate. But white and black
are crazily good at killing things that aren't
creatures, while red sometimes pays for the
ability of its removal to kill players with a
lack of versatility when it comes to permanents.
You're paying so much mana and a sixth of your
starting life total for that versatility; that's
not always quite enough to make a deck, but at
the same time certain decks will be pleased to
have it. Note also that it interacts with Pulse
of the Forge.
Today's card of the day is Aftershock which
is a four mana Red sorcery that destroys target
artifact, creature, or land and deals three
damage to you. This is a very flexible
removal spell and the three life is often better
than letting a major creature or artifact remain
in play.
Red has only a few cards that can destroy a
single target non-artifact creature like this
and for that it has value even though it may not
see much play outside of Commander.
In a Limited format with this the flexibility
allows for threat removal or knocking out an
important mana source in multicolor decks.
A solid second or third pick in Booster after a
Red rare and well worth including whenever using
Red in Sealed.
