Of all the Ascensions, this one is the easiest
to charge up since it gets counters for
something you'd want to do anyway. That and
Beastmaster Ascension, but that takes seven
counters whereas this one takes three. Once you
have it charged, life will leak out of your
opponent like water from a sponge, as you gain
it just as quickly. All you have to do at that
point to drain your opponent to death is put
cards into their graveyard, either by destroying
their creatures, making them discard cards, or
milling them-- all things black is quite good at
doing! Okay, milling is more blue, but still.
So far, this card has been a little underused
in constructed, but its day may be coming. For
black decks without red, it offers almost the
(un)Holy Grail: every Doom Blade and Duress that
would have been a little underwhelming past the
fourth turn or so turn into direct damage. Try
it with Traumatize!
Today's number nine card on the countdown is
Bloodchief Ascension which
is a Zendikar quest that gains counters whenever
an opponent loses two
or more life.
The actual effect is fairly powerful as each
time a card is put into an
opponent's graveyard they lose two life and you
gain two life. With this
card almost any kind of deck destruction can
lead to a very quick defeat
for your opponent and at a single mana the
threat can be on the board
and dealing damage early in the game.
In Constructed and Casual this can see some
serious play as a new
archetype or simply as an alternate faster win
condition for deck
destruction. Some sort of enchantment removal
may wind up becoming
standard sidedeck material if this takes off.
With Limited the power is drastically reduced,
but still noticeable.
Three turns of two damage each can be a tall
order and fewer cards are
available to take advantage of for a combo.
Generally not a top pick in
Booster unless you plan on drafting Hedron Crabs
and reliable sources
for the two damage. In Sealed it is even more
difficult to assemble a
viable deck, but if Black seems to be a playable
color Ascension only
needs to deal damage once to be more than worth
the mana cost.
In Multiplayer this is a truly impressive card
as it can gain a counter
for every turn during which any opponent lost at
least two life. With
the counters in place the life gain and damage
are an excellent
advantage which leaves opponents little recourse
aside from actually
removing the enchantment itself. This is
lessened somewhat as actual
deck destruction is weaker in the format, so
without the quest the rest
of the deck is underpowered. Even with that
weakness few cards can
dominate the format as efficiently as this and
it is worth playing four
of in an appropriately designed build. (Also,
note that it can only add
one counter each turn even if all opponents
receive two or more damage.)
