If you can give this thing trample, you'll have
quite a fearsome beast. Not that is isn't
already a fearsome beast-- it is, after all, the
Soul of Innistrad. A 6/6 with deathtouch that
isn't too expensive to get onto the board and
doesn't require you to sacrifice creatures, pay
life, or drink a chalice of goat's blood is a
solid end game for most black decks, but the
real draw here is the ability. Up to three
creature cards, of your choice, for five mana?
And it's repeatable? There's your card advantage
engine right there. With this in your hand (or
even in your deck) you can afford to be a lot
more cavalier and a lot more aggressive about
trading creatures and fighting through, and then
late game overwhelm them with a supply of
creatures that just can't be exhausted.
M15's Souls are very cool, and they provide both
the appeal of Magic's past settings and the
appeal of flashy creatures. Soul of Innistrad
also happens to tie very well into the essential
characteristic of Innistrad. (For contrast, I
personally would have made Soul of Zendikar have
something to do with lands rather than tokens.
It's still pretty good, but I would have liked
that.) As it happens, that essential
characteristic can also result in significant
card advantage. It's worth remembering that many
black and part-black control and midrange decks
use a lot of creatures compared to others of
similar archetypes: recall Lorwyn's Makeshift
Mannequin decks and the more recent
white-black-red decks based on Boros Reckoner
and the like. While Soul of Innistrad's card
advantage is much slower than a Titan or
whatever the superpowered benchmark for
competitive Magic is, it is also very difficult
to play against for anything that isn't a
superpowered competitive Magic benchmark.
Today's card of the day is Soul of Innistrad
which is a six mana Black
6/6 with Deathtouch and for five mana can return
up to three target creatures from your graveyard
to hand and for five mana can be exiled from the
graveyard for the same effect. This is a
decent top of the mana curve choice for a
mono-Black sacrifice build that is more oriented
towards control than speed. While it
nets card advantage with the choice of creatures
returned there is a notable investment in mana
to play this, or discard it, then use the effect
and finally cast the returned creatures.
Even with the lower speed it is quite playable
in current formats and adds quite a bit of late
game staying power.
In a Limited format this is an excellent reason
to run Black in Sealed or Booster that can
utterly change the game state by refilling your
hand with the creatures lost in earlier turns.
As it is easily managed even if Black is the
secondary color and is also a solid creature in
addition to the effects the value is quite high
in the format.
As with all of the soul cards, Innistrad is a
6/6 for 6. Deathtouch, to me, is the least
desireable of the basic abilities given to the
souls. Deathtouch is more valuable on a little
creature that normally wouldn't kill anything. A
6/6? 90% of the time, it's going to kill
anything it engages in combat with just by
virtue of its 6 power. Occasionally, you'll face
down a beefed up 10/10 monstrosity, or be the
recipient of a Polukranos going monstrous and
you'll be glad of the deathtouch, but most of
the time it won't matter.
The ability to return up to three creature cards
from your graveyard to your hand could be pretty
useful. It's best used in a deck with mostly
small creatures, so you can potentially play all
three of them again the next turn after using
the ability. Used correctly, this could
overwhelm an opponent very quickly. Often,
though, you won't have three creatures you want
to bring back, or you have something other to do
with your 5 mana.
Soul of Innistrad is of course a good creature,
but I don't see him becoming a big player in the
most competitve decks. Casual decks will have a
lot of fun with him because huge creatures are
more common, making his deathtouch more
relevant, and longer games mean more chances to
bring back creatures.
