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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Exquisite Blood
Image from Wizards.com

Exquisite Blood
Avacyn Restored

Reviewed July 5, 2012

Constructed: 3.00
Casual: 4.00
Limited: 3.20
Multiplayer: 4.00

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all of our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Exquisite Blood

The only thing I can think of here is how, with this and Sanguine Bond in play together, you win as soon as anybody loses life, for any reason, or you gain life. But let's assume you don't have Sanguine Bond. In that case, well, I'd say this is actually better than the Bond. Sanguine Bond required you to fill your deck with life gain cards, which are suboptimal without the Bond out. Exquisite Blood wants you to hit your opponent as hard as you can, which you should be aiming to do anyway, and rewards you for doing so by gaining you life, which will soften the blow of your opponent's return strike. In multiplayer it only gets better, as your opponents attack each other. Just take notice if an opponent seems not to mind you gaining life from his attacks on other players. It probably means he has a way to take you out despite your life gain... Or thinks he does.

Constructed- 4
Limited- 4.25
Casual- 4.5
Multiplayer- 4.75

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Exquisite Blood
 
So what happens if you combine this card with Sanguine Bond, from M10? I think it makes an infinite loop, but don't put them both in your deck until you ask somebody who knows for sure. Other than that, this is actually a pretty solid card, especially for slower decks and settings. I really wish other cards were templated more consistently, because then it'd be clearer that this card triggers from a lot more things than it looks at first, including but not limited to Sorin Markov's -3 ability, someone putting a Ravnica dual land into play untapped, and Channel. (Take that, Alpha Combo Guy!) Even if you just use it to effectively give lots of little creatures lifelink, that can make the difference between surviving and not in a Planechase melee.
 
Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5

Paul

Welcome back readers todays card of the day is Exquisite Blood an interesting black enchantment which unfortunately has no constructed applications. In standard the aggressive nature of decks means even getting to five mana and having an enchantment with no immediate impact a risky proposition. In extended, legacy and vintage the same concept holds true this is expensive relatively speaking compared to things in the format you could be spending your time and mana on and is just not worth it. In casual and multiplayer it combines with Sanguine Blood for a nice archetype and combination other than that it has some political implications if you can prevent players from attacking you or convince them to go elsewhere, you can gain a significant amount of life. In limited its nothing special but could see a small amount of play as it practically gives your creatures a bad form of lifelink but its still workable. Overall a powerful casual and multiplayer card with little to no tournament applications.
 
Constructed: 1.0
Casual: 3.0
Limited: 2.0
Multiplayer: 3.0

Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Exquisite Blood which is a five mana Black enchantment that has you gain life whenever an opponent loses life.  By itself this is not a playable card, much like White and Green's life gain effects, but unlike them this can be a part of a two card game winning combo.  In a deck made to take advantage of this, possibly with acceleration to work around the five mana drawback, this can be an effective if easily disrupted surprise in a local metagame.
 
For Limited this isn't really effective as it at best stalls by increasing your life total in a somewhat unreliable manner.  The single Black allows it to be played easily enough, but there is no pressing reason to do so as life gain doesn't win games.  A pass in Booster and sidedeck in Sealed as just about any creature or board altering effect surpasses this in value.
 
In Multiplayer this is a card that can really annoy your opponents and make a stall design survive for a long time with no direct maintenance. 
If the user isn't targeted directly to prevent the life gain it can be very difficult to work through a few dozen extra life points as the game carries on.  Not exactly a winning strategy, but something that can be used effectively in several designs.
 
Constructed: 3.0
Casual: 3.0
Limited: 1.5
Multiplayer: 3.5

John
Shultis
Phoenix
Gaming

       Welcome back to the Pojo.com card of the day section. We are looking today at the Exquisite Blood from Avacyn Restored. Exquisite Blood is a rare black enchantment that costs four generic and one black mana. Exquisite Blood says that whenever an opponent loses life, you gain that much life.

       Exquisite Blood is simply exquisite. The ability to gain life any time you land some form of damage is just amazing. And what makes it better is the fact that it combos with another card for a game ending effect. The other card of course being Sanguine Bond. Sanguine Bond says that whenever you gain life, an opponent loses that much life. This of course starts a chain that can continue until however many opponents you are facing are dead.

      Even without such a combo active, the gaining life for damage can be a game changer in itself. Any damage against your opponent results in you gaining that much. Again for multiplayer, that means that you don’t even have to be the one doing the damage for you to benefit from it.
 
Limited: 5/5
Constructed: 5/5
Casual: 5/5
Multiplayer: 5/5


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