I like how, unlike most of Black's mandatory
sacrifice triggers, there's no penalty for not
doing so. You have to sacrifice another creature
if you have one, but you can safely play the
Disciple onto an empty board. Then again, doing
so means you paid four mana for a vanilla 2/1,
so maybe there really is a penalty. As for what
to sacrifice, there's an interesting tension
here. You want to sack a creature with high
power, so as to get the most out of the effect,
but whatever you sack is effectively getting
replaced by the 2/1 Wizard, so you're weakening
your board presence if you do. You could also
choose to sack a 1/1, which means you're
actually upgrading your creature into a 2/1, but
paying four mana to draw one card, gain one
life, and give a 1/1 of yours +1 power-- not
exactly an impressive play.
I think the Disciple is really only good in a
deck with a lot of graveyard recursion or morbid
triggers. Ideally you'd want to sack a creature
with at least 3 or 4 power, but that'd sting a
lot less if you had a way to get the heavy
hitter back.
Disciple of Bolas is an interesting card to me.
The possibility of getting to draw lots of cards
for a relatively low cost is interesting, but
it's offset slightly by the loss of whatever
creature you have to sacrifice. You'll probably
be hoping you draw something comparable, and you
won't always be in a position where you can
afford to lose a creature in the process of
searching for an answer or an advancement in
your plan. Your best bet may be to combine
Disciple of Bolas with things that like to die (Gigapede?
Kokusho?), or things that like when other things
die. Nobody ever gets tired of Grave Pact, after
all.
Today's card of the day is Disciple of Bolas
which is a four mana Black
2/1 with a comes into play ability that has you
sacrifice another creature to draw cards and
gain life equal to the sacrifice's power.
This is slightly expensive, but card draw and
life gain attached to a creature with a
reasonable or even expected cost for Black is
worth consideration. In addition to
sacrificing a creature with temporary power
boosts after it attacks the popularity of auras
that prevent attacking makes a creature, likely
a high power one already, a very efficient
choice for an effect like this. Comes into play,
leaves play, or return to play effects are all
options as well and as this is only one Black
mana out of four it doesn't have to be in a
mono-Black deck.
Overall this is a solid and efficient card that
should be right at home in multiple designs
while providing much needed card draw to Black
decks not using Blue.
In Limited the reduction in support effects
available reduces the potential noticeably, but
even sacrificing a creature with two power will
get you two cards, two life, and the 2/1 for
just four mana. The single Black is great for
multicolor decks and this should be an easy
first pick in Booster and used often in Sealed
as even weakened compared to Constructed this is
still a valuable advantage.
Welcome to the Pojo.com card of the day section.
To kick start our week we are looking at
Disciple of Bolas from M13. Disciple of Bolas is
a rare black creature human wizard that costs
three generic and one black mana and is a 2/1.
When Disciple of Bolas enters the battlefield,
sacrifice another creature: You gain X life and
draw X cards, where X is the sacrificed
creatures power.
Really a decent card. Hard to find decent black
cards as of late that allow you to gain life.
The Disciple of Bolas is amazing in that it not
only gains you some life, but some card
advantage as well. Sure, drawing cards and
gaining life is good, but the Disciple can make
it great. The drawback of course is viewed as
the sacrifce a creature ability. But why not
make that your advantage too? Using a red/black
deck, you could easily combo the Disciple of
Bolas with Mark of Mutiny to get even more out
of your opponents creature!
Hard to peg how it will eventually be viewed by
the majority, but an instant favorite of mine.
Love the cost, love the abilities, love the
card.
