Very situational. But at least it has a low mana cost.
Yozuk
★★★☆☆ (3.6/5.0)(4 votes)
Madness, reanimater, threshold, and other graveyard style decks could all make good use of this.
Shiny_Umbreon
★★☆☆☆ (2.2/5.0)(4 votes)
Awful card. It should have been one-sided or "discards TWO cards".
Smauls
★★★☆☆ (3.2/5.0)(4 votes)
This card isn't bad at all. Build a deck around Chainer, Dementia Master and Avatar of Woe and this card is a MUST. For 2 mana you're either feeding Chainer and speeding up Woe's quick cast ability of causing your opponent(s) to lose 4 life. Black has plenty of other ways to rid the field of creatures so even if they decide to lose 4 life lieu of discarding a creature, they just lost 1/5 of their life for 2 mana.. 4/5 easily.
Cyberium
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(4 votes)
What's up with people these days just wanting power cards? Strongarm Tactics has a lot of combo potentials. As Yozuk mentioned, it fuels your own discard scheme, be it madness, threshold, and reanimation. It also target every player in a multi-player game. Do not dismiss a card's simply because it doesn't have a straightforward application.
The only thing that is "subpar" is people's imagination.
Paolino
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Can make some combos with madness, but however it's too narrow IMHO... Not that great of a card.
skorpionrazor
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
reanimate decks
bantar
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Very good card. The ability still makes them lose 4 if they have no cards in their hand.
Lord_Ascapelion
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
What? No, this card is horrible! It nets you NEGATIVE card advantage, for one thing. You lose two cards (This and the card you discard) and you may not even have a creature to discard. Reanimator has MUCH better choices- Delirium Skeins, Faithless Looting, Wild Mongrel, etc., and those cards are COMMON, unlike this jank rare. The 4 life really won't do much to your opponent when you're playing reanimator- with the best possible creatures to choose from, it won't make that much of a difference overall. This card is junk, pure and simple.
tcollins
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Card advantage is a nice concept but believe it or not, some decks intend to discard cards from their own hand. As others have mentioned this works wonders with the Madness, threshold and reanimator mechanics and can be 4 damage to the face for {1}{B} against a creatureless deck. I would also like to add Unearth to the list of mechanics this card interacts well with.
A perfect example of this working well in a reanimator deck:
Also the discard works well with reanimator decks since an opponent with less cards in hand has less removal.
Earthdawn
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Obstinate Baloth says... whaaaat?
Kryptnyt
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
If what you're trying to do is drop a creature to reanimate it, this is the wrong way because it costs you 2 mana instead of 1. Further, playing this in a burn deck is asinine as well because its so situational. All in all, an underpowered junk rare that I would have been so ***ed to open.
Comments (15)
Seriously, power creeping spoils new players.
A perfect example of this working well in a reanimator deck:
Turn 1: Swamp, Dark Ritual, Strongarm Tactics discarding Akroma, Angel of Wrath use the extra {B} to cast Reanimate. Swing for 6.
Also the discard works well with reanimator decks since an opponent with less cards in hand has less removal.