Pointed Discussion

interesting debate between this and Path to Exile

It is an historical irony, and perhaps a color-pie travesty, that a targeted creature-removal spell could be among White's best cards of all time (and, conversely, that the arguably-best targeted creature-removal spell of all time is not Black). White is not exactly "bad" at removing creatures, it's just that it generally does so only in combat, when the creature is attacking or blocking, or does so without actually targeting anything (e.g. Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Martial Coup). This spell has no built in targeting restrictions, occurs at instant speed, removes the creature from the game (overcoming Regeneration and Indestructible), and, most importantly, costs only 1 White mana. Considering all of the problems it solves and how quickly and easily it solves them, the drawback is negligible (and a mere afterthought considering the weakness of life-gain, in general).

Of course life-gain is a pretty negligible drawback given its sheer power. But flavor is king for this alpha baby, and this is great flavor for white. The meaning carried by the function of Pacifism for instance is nothing compared to this. Also, as much as nostalgia makes me love the "dude in a field" art, this is better by far-- just gorgeous!

Hard to NOT give this 5/5. Although I agree that it's hard to justify not giving {B} something comparable.

Hope thats a girl in the picture, if not he's shooting flying white wads all over the place!

Swords to... Doves?

It's a very powerful, even overpowered card, but it's not quite as dangerous when it's the only card of its type at that power level in a given environment. This was the case in Alpha and to a lesser extent in Ice Age. Like counterspells, cards like this only become really dangerous when you have a dozen of them in a format and they just make a linear deck that says "you can not has creature ever." The loss of popular cards like this and Lightning Bolt is an inevitable consequence of the design philosophy that new sets should have variants of everything and very little real innovation.

Orb of Insight forever

Second-best card in Ice Age, only Necropotence tops it.

Mmmmhh.

Old school love. Glad to see it here tonight. 4.880 right now.

this is good early game, while PTE is good late game... not sure whats better...

best spot removal evah

What do you do if your opponent has a creature giving you grief?

You give 'em the BIRD, that's what!!

swords to doveshares