Pointed Discussion

Instant lava axe or some weird utility seems good to me :D

great in mono red burn. nothing worse than triggering your quest for pure flame, attacking with your 7/1 from zektar shrine, and casting a lightning bolt, only to have them use safe passage =/. now for 1 mana you can make sure your damage gets through, or 5 for instant speed non-preventable lava axe on its own.

unpreventable lava axe, alright, sign me up

@Grimn777: for 6 mana, you can pop your quest, deal 5, make all damage unpreventable and lightning bolt their defender, course, that is only 15 dmg ^_^

i got to say i like this more then lava axe but im going to miss saying catch to my oppent as i kill them lol always fun to see there mouth drop when u just say catch

This card can kill Progenitus if its controller uses it to block a creature with 10 power!

Note: Damage is prevented when you have protection from something and that something deals damage to you (rule 702.14e).

Good to know that if Safe Passage and Angelsong see more play, red will have an answer. Too bad it can't target creatures or it would have made it into maindeck in aggro decks having problem with baneslayer.

This card has massive potential on so many fronts. As a 1CC instant, its main ability far outweighs the kicker damage. All the damage cancelling effects in the game just went *poof*.

4.5/5

@nammertime: Progenitus cannot be blocked. Unstable Footing only turns off the damage prevention portion of protection abilities, not all abilities.

Important note:

Will NOT counter/negate damage replacement effects, like Phytohydra or Pariah.

Replacement effects and prevent effects are seperate.

A good card, not quite properly balanced for kicker, but very very good. According to the old kicker standard (ie, get a slightly worse version of one spell unkicked, and a slightly worse version of a better spell kicked), the kicked price should be along the lines of (4). But it's still fairly balanced.

and @esperlord, creatures with protection can't be blocked, but they can block other creatures, its just that those creatures have their combat damage negated. so if Progentius blocks a toughness 10 creature, and the damage is made unblockable, it SHOULD deal lethal damage.

@nammertime, Protection also means that it can't be TARGETED by any spells it has protection from, so unless u somehow manage to play 4 pyroclasms on one turn, you can forget about killing anything big...

@nammertime cept it can't kill progenitus b/c he has protection from everything, which means he can't be targeted, so unless you have a damage spell that does 10+ dmg to all creatures, he's still invincible. also this targets players specifically so even if you could bypass his protection, you'd still have to use it on his controller not him.

Best tool for RDW against that pesky Kor Firewalker.

Allright, I've got a question, when you kick this with your Djinn Illuminatus out, is the mana cost R or RR3 ?
I think it's R, which makes some crazy combo (although it takes some time to get Djinn in play...).

@skew: Good find. I think you're right:

"Kicker costs don't change a spell's mana cost or converted mana cost."
"If a kicked spell is copied, the copy is also kicked."

There you go. I was going to say that Beacon of Destruction was generally better since it can kill creatures, but this has more utility and combo potential, and works better with graveyard effects.

Take that, Firewalker!

I need this card for my Uril the Miststalker deck. Nothing quite as annoying as getting beat by Fog...

You have no reason to run Lava Axe over this.

Is everyone who responds to nammertime completely batsh-it retarded? Seems as though I'll have to respond to the wave of illiterate:

@esperlord: He specifically said IF PROGENITUS BLOCKS a power 10+ creature and you play this, it will die; which is 100% correct.

This doesn't target anyone without it's kicker, and it doesn't target any creatures EVER.

@KrisKross: Why would it take pyroclasms? If Progenitus Blocks, say my 7 power power kiln fiend (a reasonable choice) then I play this, kiln fiend will become power 10 and his damage will be unpreventable (like all damage dealt for the rest of the turn.) Progenitus will then die.

@Champion squee: three people managed to misread his post or blatently quote irrelevant rules. I'm glad you managed to make it into this category. Again, Progenitus need not be targeted NOR does it require spells to (directly) kill him. See my above example.

Keep in mind too that things like kiln fiend, with a mere 2 card combo can becomes OUTRAGEOUSLY powerful tramplers. I use this to force blocking when I'm using Leyline of Punishment and my elemental decks. A simple assault strobe or double cleave followed by a fatal frenzy yields a 14/2 Double Strike Trample for 4-5 mana, and most of that is at instant speed, so don't tell me my red creatures (typically the highest power/toughness ratio in the game) can't deal a mere 10 damage when for a total of 7 mana I'm touting instant speed 28 damage. Gets even more absurd if you can fit another buff in (though that buff is always pointless if you're running leyline of punishment anyway)

Unstable Footing is strictly worse than Lava Axe. Lava Axe has the super secret HiddenOracle text- 'when you cast this spell, throw something at your opponent and say 'catch'. If they spend their priority catching what you threw at them, they cannot respond to Lava Axe. If they do not respond to the thrown object, then it will hit them in the face, interrupting their attempt to counter Lava Axe.'

I want more of this. Spire Barrage is unreliable and just chills out in my hand most of the time. And this is either "Counter all Fog for the rest of the turn" or "Insta-Lava Axe and counter all Fog for the rest of the turn", and that is plain utility.

lava axe still has its strengths, not costing extra mana from chandra ablaze's ultimate for one.

turn 1 - mountain
turn 2 - mountain Kiln Fiend
turn 3 - mountain Lighting Bolt a creature if they have one out, Assault Strobe, Unstable footing unkicked.

swing for 20 damage total, even if they played fog it wouldn't matter because of Unstable footing

What was that Progenitus? Protection from everything? Not any more!

@HairlessThoctar

There is actually one thing I can think of offhand: If you're running Purity in some weird Boros-esque deck, and you desperately need to gain five life, you won't be able to. But who cares about that?

I can tell I'm going to love this card. I don't actually have any copies of it but I plan to soon. It makes Rakdos the Defiler much more playable IMO

Actually blurrymadness, Progenitus can't ever "die" because it has that replacement effect that shuffles it back into the library instead of the graveyard. So it's more like.. 99% correct.

I feel like a troll.

A Lava Axe at instant speed for , and the option to play a lesser effect for in a pinch? Solid.

@DarthParallax: I feel it necessary to point out that even if that were true Lava Axe still wouldn't be strictly better. What you're describing is essentially split second (with some unnecessary violence added on). Which is a completely different effect from damage can't be prevented. Not to mention the option of not paying the kicker on this.

A great answer to Fog-like fans, when you want to be sure that it will be the final turn.

My green deck splash red only for this card and for Kessig Wolf Run. :D

@NoobOfLore: Well, you can't, for instance, search for this card with Burning Wish.

Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs - Warning to those who scale the cliffs without paying tribute: It's a long way down.
Unstable Footing - A long way down is shorter than you think.

Funny how that seems like a follow up. Funnier still that Kazuul was printed after Footing.