Flesh & Blood

It's time to do the Fusion Dance, apparently, because this week we're looking at the new Fuse split cards from Dragon's Maze. Each one acts just like a normal split card, with Fuse allowing you to cast both halves at once. And each Fuse card is built so that the two halves play off each other, giving you something more powerful if you can hold off until you can afford them both. This presents a unique puzzle not just in playing it, but in deckbuilding. Can you run a Fuse card in a deck that can only cast one half? If you can cast both halves, is it always the right play to hold onto it until you have the mana to Fuse them? To find out, each Fuse review is going to have to be three reviews in one-- one for Flesh, one for Blood, and one for Flesh & Blood.

Flesh is basically the Scavenge mechanic for any creature card in your graveyard. Scavenge, to be honest, has been a bit of a disappointing mechanic for the Golgari, even when we don't consider how it compares to Dredge. It's not bad, exactly, since you can get some extra use out of your creatures that have died, and can even scavenge your oppoents' creatures, which makes it good against an opposing Rot Farm Skeleton or the like. I'd rather have Incremental Growth for about the same mana, but if you've only got one creature and there's something decently big that's dead, it could be okay. You really need a small evasive creature to make it work though, and it'd work a lot better if Dragon's Maze had also given us a high-power, low-toughness creature like Deadly Insect or Giant Solifuge.

Blood is a decent kill spell for Gruul, especially since they already have a cheap efficient deathtouch creature in Wasteland Viper. I'd much rather play Blood than Pit Fight because even at sorcery speed, Blood isn't a "fight" mechanic and so the creature you're trying to kill doesn't get to deal damage back. Using Pit Fight with the Viper will kill just about anything, but cost you your Viper. Blood also has the advantage of being ale to hit players, so if you have a creature like Ohran Viper with a good triggers-on-damage ability, you can combo it with Blood nicely. A straight burn spell like Searing Spear would probably be more reliable, but Blood has a higher potential damage output.

Flesh & Blood costs seven mana and requires a moderately-sized dead creature. At that mana, it's time to just win the game outright. Flesh & Blood powers up one of your creatures and most likely kills an opposing creature, making it a strong board-state swing, but for its cost I just don't see it. Especially since, if you're in black, red, and green, there's better kill spells and better pump spells you could be using.

Ratings: Flesh, Blood, Flesh & Blood
Constructed- 1.5, 3.5, 2
Casual- 2, 3.5, 3.5
Limited- 2, 4, 3.5
Multiplayer- 3, 3, 3.5

Today's card of the day is Flesh and Blood which is either a five mana Black and Green or two mana Red and Green with the option of Fuse.

Flesh works well with discarded or sacrificed creature cards with drawbacks to balance out a high power and some sort of evasive threat.

The combo requires a fairly dedicated deck design, but can be very effective in ending the game. Blood can work with Flesh or similar creatures to end the game by itself or after an attack and can be very efficient for the mana cost, with or without Flesh involved. Overall Blood is excellent and will likely see quite a bit of play with or without the Black mana to use Flesh, while Flesh may get a home in a specialized deck the combo is fairly mana intensive and kept to Jund builds.

In Limited Flesh is at worst going to be a small permanent power up for one of your creatures, which is playable in the format and only a dead draw with an empty battlefield or graveyard. Blood is a serious threat and game changer that should be a first pick in Booster and automatic inclusion for Gruul in Sealed. Running both is possible with a splash of the third color, and seven mana for both is certainly manageable, but is more worth it to add Blood than to add Flesh.

Constructed: 4.0
Casual: 4.0
Limited: 4.5
Multiplayer: 4.0

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Flesh and Blood

Using the fuse mechanic gets really expensive. I suppose that makes sense - you're getting two spells in one card, so you should probably have to pay for two spells. The question then becomes whether you can make use of each half on its own, and whether the combined effect is worth all that mana. In the case of Flesh and Blood, I think the answer to the second question is yes. It's worth noting that you do the effects in the order you read them if you turn the card sideways so the text is right-side-up, so you can scavenge a huge creature and then kill something with your creature's newly enhanced power. Each side by itself is also very useful - Flesh hurts reanimator decks and speeds up your clock, or just gives you another use out of something that's already died in combat; while Blood is Pit Fight without the risk of losing your own creature (also known as "the part that they'd probably feel is the balancing aspect of the fight mechanic") and the ability to hit players. In other words, crazy.

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5