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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!

Blood Artist
Image from Wizards.com

Blood Artist
Avacyn Restored

Reviewed June 30, 2012

Constructed: 3.50
Casual: 3.87
Limited: 3.67
Multiplayer: 3.93

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

Blood Artist

Having a Blood Artist on the battlefield seems like it might be awesome. Black likes to kill and/or sacrifice creatures, so you should be able to syphon off plenty of life, right? Not exactly. In my experience, anything that triggers that often ends up dead pretty soon, if only because it keeps drawing attention to itself and reminding everybody why it needs to die. It may not be a huge threat, but it's a major annoyance.

That doesn't make it a bad card, mind you. It can sometimes draw an opponent's kill spell away from the creatures you actually want to save. Because it doesn't care who controls the to-be-dead creature, it's good in multiplayer when people start killing each others' creatures. And since it counts itself and others, it'll trigger for every creature in the event of a Day of Judgment. That makes it good as a sort of insurance policy against board wipes... or a perfect lead-in to your own.

Constructed- 3
Casual- 3.5
Limited- 3
Multiplayer- 3.75

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Blood Artist

Of all the attempts over the years at the black "anti-Soul Warden," this is probably my favorite, and not just because of the art: also because of the cost, the relevant tribe, and the way the trigger is actually sort of the mirror opposite of Soul Warden's as opposed to forcing you into complicated flavor gymnastics to try and justify why it also uses "comes into play" when it's supposed to be an evil opposite counterpart. The level of synergy with everything the color black likes to do is simply astounding, and with enough support in your deck, one of these guys can take down an entire EDH melee by himself.

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno Today's card of the day is Blood Artist which is a two mana Black 0/1 vampire that has target opponent lose one life and you gain one life whenever it or another creature dies.  Effects like this are always popular and having both on one affordable creature is a welcome addition to mono-Black sacrifice or vampire themes.  The effect is also not worded as may which is a nice little benefit for those that can forget to activate voluntary triggers.  Overall this is likely to see play in the two drop spot in several builds, particularly those with a sacrifice engine, lots of removal, or the mon-Black and vampire concepts.
 
In Limited this is an excellent long-term advantage that is not likely to draw a removal as a 0/1, though it will also be unlikely to block. 
Even if it does die it still nets a two point swing in life and there is no reason not to run this is in Sealed or draft it fairly early in Booster.  Even one other creature that dies while this is in play makes it a bargain, so every additional one becomes a bonus which can be easily augmented with Undying or similar effects.
 
For Multiplayer the number of players should make this a somewhat bigger threat, though even the weakest of popular mass burn or removal will destroy it.  A theme based around reanimation with this as a keystone can be viable particularly with repeatable recursion and a sacrifice engine.
 
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 4.0

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