Five mana is a lot for a kill spell, when
Searing Spear does the same damage to one
target... for three fewer mana. Is it worth an
extra three mana just to hit a creature AND its
owner? I don't think so. At that much mana, you
can't really leave five lands open just in case,
whereas with Searing Spear, two untapped lands
doesn't necessarily give away that you have a
trick. Straight up direct damage to a player
isn't really worth much unless it's the
finishing blow, and if that's the case, why
bother paying extra to damage a creature too?
The game's over anyway!
When I saw this card, I immediately thought
of Burn the Impure from Mirrodin Besieged; and
not just because they have basically the same
name. This version, of course, is always "on"
and is correspondingly more expensive. You can
play it in your main deck and almost always be
assured of being able to use it (unless you come
up against my Gate-based Filth Casserole deck.
Cue the finger pyramid of evil contemplation).
In a purely technical sense, this is an
efficient card - six damage for five mana - so
it's worth considering. In older formats, you
obviously have much cheaper options, but this
card is still good at what it does.
Today's card of the day is Punish the Enemy
which is a five mana Red instant that deals
three damage to target player and three damage
to target creature. The mana cost is a little
high for the low amount of damage dealt to each
target, even if six total damage is somewhat
efficient at the cost. The lack of flexibility
in both a player and a creature needing to be
damaged impacts timing somewhat, but that
shouldn't impact many games as it is a very
situational drawback.
Overall this costs a little too much mana for
not enough damage to a target creature, which
leaves this unlikely to see any competitive
play.
For Limited the value of burn is dramatically
increased and even mediocre cards can be
impressive and this is not an exception. Five
mana for three damage to a creature is playable
if not impressive and the extra three damage to
an opponent puts this firmly into the category
of maindeck status. With a single symbol in the
cost any deck using Red mana can include this
and it aside from being an automatic inclusion
for Sealed it is a strong early pick in Booster
after a Red-aligned rare.
