Pointed Discussion

Such a strange card. Although gaining activated abilities from cards is nothing new for black, being able to exile cards is a rare ability for black to have. And a repeatable ability at that? I'm going to enjoy playing this card.

I wish this were viable in standard right now. It's one of the coolest cards in the new set. If you get to use his ability, the game will probably go swiftly in your favor.

Exile? In black? It's more likely than you think, what with Sever the Bloodline having come out before. The activation cost is pricey, but just think of all the combos!

EDH gold.

Lorendorky, I see enough of "thumbs begging" from Youtube commenters, and you have the nerve to bring it onto this sacred site?

Secretly a blue card. Get a couple Training Grounds in play and this thing machine-guns creatures.

"Reports of your survival will be greatly exaggerated."

I prefer Necrotic Ooze.

But why not run them both in the same deck?

Well, that's one way to deal with Avacyn.

Like this comment if you want more art from Johannes Voss.

Being able to use his ability at any time is nuts. No restrictions on it at all.

Edit: not looking for top comment, rather looking for the artist to get recognized to submit more art. This is his first expansion with art in it.

In a Vampire deck, this is at the least a conveniently tribal-coded Scathe Zombie.
Later in the game this turns into some sort of creature-eating Duplicant who, in regards of activated abilities, does a better job at that than him - and who can also do this more than just once. The +1/+1 counter for each activation is just the icing on the cake. Very nice.

@lorendorky Well then if you want him to be recongized, just praise him normally in your comment.
As Kryptnyt said, nobody likes this "thumb-up-whoring".
You most likely end up with a better rating by just not doing it, at least on this site.

And if you seriously want to support Johannes Voss, you'll have to come up with more than that. Maybe at least start a topic on the official forums and let everybody know your thoughts in a right sub-thread, but please not like this within the comments section of every card with his artwork.

This guy owns in Limited and casual. Not a constructed card, but definitely a blast to play.

Great in limited; although, gaining activated abilities isn't as useful as it seems since most of the other block creatures with activated abilities have a color mana requirement. Still, it won me a few games at the pre-release.

EDIT: @lorendorky. This isn't Johaness Voss' first art for magic. This is just his first expansion where he's done solo work (as far as I know) since he usually works with Jana Schirmer.

This will be crazy in EDH.

y u so expensive?!?!?!?!

Great card really, really great card, but i dont think ill play at limited.

I would love to eat some bombs with this, would be funny as hell

This is what you do with your Blood Artist. You exile your blood artist, and then alternate between exiling creatures for counters/abilities and killing them to activate Blood Artist.

@ LorenDorky....it's not her first expansion...its her first expansion without her partner, Jana Schirmer, but the artist did also work on cards like Angelic Destiny, Sorin's Vengeance and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

And I suddenly thought about Misthollow Griffin...

I saw the cmc to cast and then the ability an nearly had an all out ORGASM! lol.. Then I saw the cost to activate and went about my day with blue balls :( Still, very solid, fair and strong card!

Getting rid of a creature and getting it's ability is great and all, but just getting rid of another pesky creature is nice enough.

Though, imagine this guy trying to "impersonate" some of the Eldrazi.

We need funny fanart people!

@DaniL: Except Blood Artist's ability is triggered, not activated. If we are talking about exiling your own vampires, though, why not try Falkenrath Exterminator? You can exile creatures to make him bigger, and if you're short on mana, you can also use his beefiness to kill something instead.

Oooohhh... nice ulamog. Mind if I take it and make a- VAMPIRE ELDRAZI IMPOSTER!!! YEAAAAAA!!!!!

SOO MUCCH DELICIOUSSS FLAVOR BLAUUGGGH

That ability is so good! No wonder it costs 6. If only this card were constructed playable...

@RAV0004: Because once the Impostor exiles a creature, the Ooze can't use it, They don't have much synergy, unfortunately.

In fact I wonder how they justify the exile on this card. Killing usually doesn't remove you from reality.

We lovingly refer to this guy as "Sylar" from the TV show "Heroes". When he comes out the groans around the table are music to my ears.

The flavour on this card is so utterly fantastic. The fact that the creature is exiled is brilliant - not only is it killed and most likely exsanguinated, but the body is hidden is some deep dark place and never recovered. No funerals, no closure, no grave to visit and pay your respects. They are simply gone forever, and nobody knows where or why. The ambiguity is probably worse than the death.
What's worse, the victim's family likely won't even know that they're missing, since the imposter is still walking around with their identity. You could just imagine that the next move this evil vampire will make is to go and join the family, wreaking psychological havoc on them and perhaps picking them off one by one. There's a horror story there all of its own, and if anyone here is a fan of psychological horror films like The Thing, you'll know just how awesome and scary films are where the monster is wearing your friend's face and you can't even tell the difference. And the utter lack of empathy that displays on the vampire's part is exactly as vampires should be - none of this sparkling in the sunlight crap.
Lastly, this being the last set, we can see the evolution of vampires. Avacyn coming out of the closet might have ended the vampire killings in the street, but now a new battlefront has opened up - the vampires have been driven underground, where nobody can find them, and if anything that makes the remaining vampires even more deadly than before. A chilling thought to end on, making Avacyn's victory seem quite hollow.
Fantastic flavour, fantastic art, fantastic concept, fantastic design. 5/5 for all of these reasons. One of my favourites, even if I'll never play it at standard. There's more to the game than winning tourneys, folks.
Wizards, more cards like this, PLEASE!!

I look forward to pairing this with Gatecrash's Crypt Ghast. Unless they're blown up, that is a very profitable turn 4.

does anyone realize what this card truly does? Exile target creature....means any creature even your opponents creatures and then you get all its abilities...it NEVER states on the card that it has to be one of your creatures all for a mere 6 mana you can destroy your OPPONENTS creatures......that is what makes this card truly RARE....these cards usually state exile a creature you control....this card states exile target creature....think about it...

as its been said before, one of the best ways to rate a creature is by how quickly it gets removed by your opponents. Even if I don' have the mana for its activation cost, no one wants to leave him hanging around and typically he gets murdered before I get a chance to use him. If you're playing casual (and don't have crypt ghast to make it easier) I tend to wait until I can pay the full 9 mana and exile their fatty as I cast him. Great card

i like how the vampire smiles after taking the life of its victim, the flavor suites it very well

Reminds me of the flavour text on the old door to nothingness:
"All memory of your existence will be wiped from reality. You will die, and no one will mourn."
—Memnarch

As for the card, absolutely amazing- I run it in a sedris, the traitor king combo Edh, and I managed to get out the pili-pala grand architect combo. I had this guy sitting in play from before thanks to his low cmc, and as soon as the mana came up I proceeded to exile all my opponent's fields. What's better is when they thought they could stop my mana combo with some stupid spot removal (path to exile), I just used this guy to nom both my creatures. Yup. Activated ability combo. Inside it.

The best feeling for a timmy besides a hellkite overlord with a grafted exoskeleton, is this thing with 8 counters and the ability to make infinite coloured mana on its own and exile anything you want.

Another nice way to get rid of Emrakul.
Have 4 of them and 4 Olivia Voldaren's in my vampire deck.
Whatever my opponent brings out dies due to small health, gets taken control of, or is exiled.
That with 4 bloodline keepers and stromkirk captains gives all of the creatures you gain control of one shot their owner. :D
Had a Dark Imposter with Trample, double stirke, flying, unblockable, various abilities from dealing combat damage to a player, indestructible, lifelink, hexproof (artifact and my own hexproof soulbound creature), protection from red, blue, green, white, black (Akroma's Memorial), and artifacts, Vigilance, Emrakul's abilities (Twice XD) and a few others that I don't remember...I was forced to quit toying with my opponents so they didn't forfeit.