Last Gasp was pretty much the go-to kill spell
for black decks when it was legal. Urge to Feed
isn't quite Last Gasp, since it really wants to
be in a monoblack deck. Specifically a Vampire
deck. But in that deck, it's ferociously better
than Last Gasp, given that you not only get to
deliver that -3/-3 kill command, you get to
distribute some +1/+1 counters onto any untapped
Vampires you control. Sure, you have to tap the
Vampires you want to put counters on, but Urge
to Feed is an instant, so you can just play it
after blockers are declared, or at the end of
your opponent's turn.
We started this week with Searing Blaze, and
we end with sort of the black version of Searing
Blaze, which in Zendikar is, unsurprisingly,
tied to vampires. Now that vampires have come
down from the splashy rare pedestal of older
sets' designs and are acting as black-aligned
planeswalkers' foot soldiers, there are many of
them who will appreciate this kind of meal - the
obvious suspects are the likes of Nighthawk and
Hexmage, but even a humble (unblockable) Guul
Draz Vampire can become a major threat. In the
middle of the combat phase, yet.
Constructed: Just what Vampires need
more tools to kill stuff and kill you. Like they
really need any more help.
Casual & Multiplayer:
Just like constructed, it makes them alot
stronger.
Limited: Even if you do not have
alot of Vampires it can still kill alot of
creatures that are playable. And if you do have
alot of Vampires than this is the iceing on the
cake.
Overall a very good uncommon.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Limited: 4
Later
Miguel
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno
Today's card of the day is Urge to Feed which
is similar in many ways to Nameless Inversion
from Lorwyn. Both are two mana Black
instants that give a negative three to
toughness, but Nameless Inversion increased
power by three, had the Changeling effect,
removed all creature types from the target, and
had only one Black mana symbol in the casting
cost. The boost to power could be used on
your own creatures if they had a toughness of
four or greater, so that is a loss on the
offensive side and the double Black mana cost
makes splashing it far less appealing. The
loss of the Changeling effect isn't a major
impact as few cards directly benefit spells with
a creature type outside of the Lorwyn block.
The loss of removing all creature types is
subtle and may not come up very often, but
against tribal pump decks such as Elves or
Slivers it can be a factor.
On the positive side Urge to Feed has a minus
three to power which can allow better exchanges
when using it to weaken a big creature that is
attacking or blocking. For example an
opponent's 4/4 creature could be killed by your
2/2 with Urge to Feed, but with Nameless
Inversion you would lose your own creature as
well. The second ability on Urge to Feed
allows you to add a +1/+1 counter to each of
your Vampire creatures by tapping them.
This ability can potentially slow down your
offense as you may want to leave your creatures
untapped instead of attacking, but it works best
when played at the end of your opponent's turn
and your creature(s) had summoning sickness or
their larger creature prevented a worthwhile
attack.
For Constructed, Casual, and Multiplayer this is
a card that can easily be played in any Black
deck as the successor to Nameless Inversion, but
excels in Vampire decks for the added effect.
With Limited the double Black mana cost is
problematic as a removal spell and the number of
available Vampires is going to be reduced.
In Sealed mono-color is fairly difficult to
assemble while in Booster the uncommon nature
will keep many Urge to Feeds from being seen.
If playing Black this is a good removal choice
and should be drafted shortly after any bombs,
but lacks the level of potential available to
the other formats.
