Pointed Discussion

This is perfectly tuned to the current meta what with all the Titans, and Eldrazi running around.

Bonus points if played with Teferi's Veil. You'll get that creature under your control, and when you finish your attack with it, it'll phase out, which does not trigger the "leave the battlefield" trigger. Additionally, the "at the beginning of the next end step" trigger won't see your creature. When your next turn starts you'll get that creature back, only permanently this time!

In most cases just a bad (yet black) Act of Treason.

To have any use for Gruesome Encore you allready must have killed a threat. If you have a bad board position and no removal at hand Gruesome Encore is a dead card while Act of Treason could mean your win.

Furthermore: Act of Treason can even be used as preudo removal with sacrifice effects or if they need to kill their own creature to not die.

At least mediocre vs. Graveyard recursion.

Hm, average. Maybe in some standard-multiplayer decks. In other formats, you'd rather use beacon of unrest or whatever, and in 1vs1 games this card will be pretty useless quite often.

If you're using it right, it should be better than Act of Treason. Treason lets you smack your opponent with their own beastie, and at best, you get that creature into their graveyard. The pros are that you're taking one of their potential blockers away, and that you probably have better creatures to choose from.
Consider this, though: Go For the Throat in the same set greatly increases your removal options, plus black's penchant for discard, and blue / black mill decks.Make it easy to get creatures your opponent can't even cast yet into their graveyard for you to use and then EXILE. Better removal that putting into graveyard.

Run with the new Decimator Web and Shriekhorn to take your opponents' bombs and beat face in limited.

"What's that? You're discarding Vengevine so you can cheat it onto the battlefield next turn? How about I just take it from you, use it against you and then exile it so that won't happen? Sounds good to me!"

@ Shiizu Good idea, but leaving play, which phasing doesn't trigger, and leaving the battlefield, which phasing does trigger, are two different things. I used to have a Teferi's Veil/Unearth deck, until somebody pointed out that it didn't work. Phasing got nerfed hard since Urza's block, supposedly because it was too confusing, but I suspect that Wizards didn't realize how abusable it is.

Don't forget how awesome it feels to snag a Putrefax in an infect mirror match.

BELLISSIMO!!!

(*roaring applause*)

Slave of Bolas their Bane Slayer Angel. Then Gruesome Encore it.

Creature corruption always seemed more of a fit for black then red. Hopefully this is like Prodigal Pyromancer, the start of a trend.

There are plenty of meta that this is very useful in. Could be quite fun in a deck already built for Bonehoard or Mortivore going nuts.

You don't kill the creature, you selectively discard or bait problem cards from their hand (e.g. countermagic) and as soon as you have the mana you play Mind Sludge; in casual you can just sling around Hymn to Tourachs or play Ostracize or whatever. The big difference is that if you are looking to destroy something then you have to wait for it to be played... even though your card is ~2 mana it is coming down later than Sludge (titans), 2ndly it cares about the creatures attributes while Sludge does not, thirdly Sludge wipes out their hand in the process where your Doom Blade or whatever only wishes it were that powerful, and fourth is that spot removal in heavy black right now (T2) is not that important and Sludge is value unto itself. Which builds are best for cards like this and how to play them best is a bit more nuanced thing than people tend to understand.

This card is made for blue/black mill decks as an alternate win condition and in that regard i cant imagine a much better card, especially for the time being while zendikar and ww have yet to rotate out. an early archive trap in to this card on one of their bigger threats is a game-changer. Also i always liked Telemin Performance

I don't know man, the thought of using Memoricide or better yet Despise then for snagging a useful creature ... like say, Grave Titan, then using it against them sounds like a decent mana investment.

Play this with Sundial of the Infinite to keep your stolen fatties.

This card is awesome in my Mimeoplasm commander I use with Bring About the Undead Apocalypse schemes.

This is a great card! And it was printed with some great cards to go along with it too. You have quite a few good milling cards in this set as well as early discarding effects. Use with Despise and now you never have to kill the bugger. I Have a feeling we will be seeing more of this card in the future. Especially with Innistrad.

I've been boarding this in against reanimator decks in standard, and it just wrecks 'em.

Play this following Despise

This was great when it was in the mix with Life's Finale. Bonus points if they had a titan in their library.