One of the things that red and black share is
big damaging X-spells. Here's one of two
offerings of that category from Dissension. This
card obviously has a couple of problems. First
of all is the high mana cost for a truly strong
finisher. Second is the life cost. If you're
behind on life, this card is not terribly
useful. However, that doesn't mean all is lost.
Bond of Agony was designed to take advantage of
the aggressive tendencies of the Rakdos. The
assumption is that you will be able to put
enough pressure on your opponent in the opening
turns that by the time they stabilize (if they
do) you'll be able to take them out with a hit
from this. I've personally used that plan to
great effect in Ravnica block drafting, so it
certainly can be done. This card is most
effective when used against an opponent who has
no ability to counter it or to burn you in
response. Generally this means against Green or
White. As they are the most defensive colors,
this really comes to shine. Definitely consider
boarding this into your deck in those
situations. I wouldn't maindeck it unless I was
fairly certain that it would come into play,
though.
Honestly, Black shouldn’t have to pay this much
to make players lose life. I would expect a
color so adept at forcing life loss wouldn’t
need to pay X and X life to make other players
lose X life. But on the other hand, it does hit
ALL other players, making this a real solid card
in multiplayer games or in Two-Headed Giant
formats. Of course, you need to be ahead on life
to use it effectively, and even then you can
only force as much life loss as you have mana. I
don’t see this replacing Consume Spirit anytime
soon, but at least it might see some effective
Limited play
Constructed- 2
Casual- 3.5
Limited- 3
DQ
Bond of Agony - Monday
I'm not sure what to think of this card. If
you were playing a Black/white deck with the
focus on heavy lifegain, this could be very
interesting. But also, a super aggressive
black weenie deck might be able to use this
to get 3-6 points of finishing damage in. I
wouldn't expect to see a lot of these on the
tournament scene any time soon, but it's a
neat card nonetheless.
Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 2
Limited: 1.5
Christine
Gerhardt
Bond of Agony
It's an "If I have more life than you, I win"
card. Get your opponent low enough, and Bond can
finish them off, barring them having a trick. If
they counter it, that can get nasty...you lose
life, and they don't. Kind of scary.
