Pointed Discussion

5/5 just for the art. Although I'm not sure I know what's happening, it sure is more interesting than Ajani's dissolving pal.

Great art!

Beautiful art. Maybe the price will go down after this reprint? Hah. Who am I kidding?

@Ferlord: Looks like Venser's banishing a Plated Geopede.

I think the price will remain stable, since its one of only a few worthwhile cards in these duel decks.

I need 4 of these....

This art is lame. Got to watch out for those crazy hard to deal with Geopedes! Now the Rebecca Guay foil version, now that's good art!

Looks more like Lightning Bolt hit an original art Plated Geopede. Good for the duel decks, that may just happen, minus the lightning.

In one of my worst hands, I was surviving with 4 lands for some time. Unfortunately, Venser's deck has too many 5 mana cards and no mana acceleration. Sensing a loss coming, I sacrificed a Scroll Thief and turned him into a Venser. Not one of the hoped for uses of this card, but that flexibility makes it even better.

The way I see it, Swords to Plowshares is much better for early game, because the creatures your removing are often small by that point, and score your opponent minimal life. However, later in the game, your often removing bigger creatures, which means you can easily give your opponent 10+ life. A bit more than you want to.

With Path To Exile, which in my opinion is much better in the late game, your giving your opponent a land. Early in the game, that extra land could very well be your demise, due to the extra mana and deck thinning factor. While later in the game, that extra land is pretty unlikely to make a significant impact.

That being said, if you have the room, you should just run both.

It pains me that this is the default art that Gatherer directs me toward. The original looks far superior.

I honestly don't think this is any better or worse than Swords to Plowshares.

The main argument is that the land will "hurt worse" than the life that they gain. My point is; that depending on your win condition of your deck is what you should be using.

My white deck kills you with damage. Meaning, putting you farther away from the goal of -zero- life is harder with swords to plowshares, than it is with this.

Granted, the StP argument is generally more convincing, as the extra land you give them basically speeds them up a turn.

I'd say this is better than StP because in casual games it's usually the later game where you need to pack lots of removal. StP will make it harder to kill your opponent whereas when your opponent already has a decent amount of land, this won't help much. I'd pack both though.

Here's my take on Swords vs. Path:
Even though pathing someone's creature gives them a land (and thus some tempo), you also gain some tempo, as long as the creature you took out costed more than one mana. You also thin their deck a land, and give them slightly better draw chances as the game goes on, so that gives them card quality advantage in a sense.
With Swords, you give them a swing in life advantage. And while some players think that life doesn't matter entirely, that is simply not the case. Life points can mean an extra draw when your opponents can't quite finish the job; essentially a free fog effect. In this sense, while cards are sometimes worth paying life for, other times life is worth a card. So sometimes playing Swords gives your opponent a card.

If I were playing legacy, a format where all the decks either combo or curve out perfectly with perfect tempo, and I had to decide between one of these two, I would probably choose Swords because it doesn't give your opponent any tempo at all, and any deck that would play either of these is probably tempo-based itself.

The best use ive seen is when my opponent had an Emeria Angel. He would block with his bird token and use path on it, turning it into a land and netting another bird.

Honestly, if you're playing a format where you can run both this and StP, do a 3 to 1 split favoring Swords. You'll never be unhappy to see Path, and it is sometimes the better play. One-ofs, especially in splits are game changers.

Or you could run four of each and throw in four Oblivion Ring, four Journey to Nowhere, and four Unmake and really hope your opponent doesn't play Misthollow Griffin.

Nice art, but I think the original captures the flavor of the card more.
Obviously a stupidly good card, do I even need to say that?

Why did I finally buy this?
Leonin Arbiter puts it over the top against Fetches