(Badly Injured):

 

Based on its actual text, and not flavor, Badly Injured is my favorite

card. Like Stonewall, it allows you to render a character useless

during the search phase, but unlike Stonewall, the effect is much more

potent. Since it actually defeats a character, and usually their

strongest one at that, it enables you to actually cause some more

permanent field damage without attacking.

 

The fact that Badly Injured is an alchemy event additionally helps its

cause. Tim Marcoh, Clever Deserter can pull it with his effect, and

sometimes after all the attacks in the search phase have already been

made, allowing for a surprise kill. Izumi Curtis, PO'ed's Badly

Injureds can't be canceled by the wide array of cards that normally

could (Researcher, Playing the Game, Wild Card, etc.) and neither

Izumi nor Marcoh minds spending the experiance much. Other decks with

strong level 2s (Basque Grand, Envy, Alphonse, etc.) can also make

great use of Badly Injured thanks to its 0 alchemy cost.

 

In both sealed and speed draft, Badly Injured is strong. Often, you

won't even have a level 3, making the experiance spending not a

penalty, and since it's a rare, Badly Injured will be largely

unexpected and can have a huge effect on an important search phase.

 

Ratings:

Constructed: 4.5/5

Sealed: 5/5

Speed Draft: 4/5 (you are more likely to have a level 3 here.)