Pointed Discussion

Appetite for Titan Brains!

Pretty good card with lots of utility, and can rid Frites of an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or a titan before it gets discarded. Bonus points for the art.

OM NOM NOM
Protip: look for titans.

Inquisition of Kozilek! Symmetrical design! Except this one doesn't make them discard it.

Compare with Castigate and the in-block Night Terrors.

Gaddock Teeg has an appetite for brain as well...

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict this card becoming a Magic staple.

He looks like the guy from Distress.
That zombie likes his brains with a dash of crazy.

Weird. Early random discard, like hymn to tourach, are about manascrewing an opponent. Discard like duress are about buying time for control decks by getting rid of threats the opponent would play soon and you can't handle.
This card? With it's one mana, you might play it on turn one. But what do you care about cards with cmc4 on turn one? They won't be played anytime soon anyway. Except in a reanimator deck, and then you'd help the opponent by making him discard it.
And later on, you might just play a more powerful discard spell, to make your opponent discard most or all of his hand.

It's not bad, but it seems someone... weird, that a spell you might want to play on turn 1 has as main targets cards that won't be played soon anyway.

Also, I can imagine that quite often this card will find nothing. If on turn one, your opponent has three lands on hand, and four others... Then I can imgine those other four often beeing at three or less casting cost.

In short: I don't think this is as great as people think.

@majinara; read the card again. The card is not discarded. It's exiled.

It's me and you, and you and me SO HAPPY TOGETHER!!! I can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life!

Inquisition of Kozilek to Appetite for Brains

@RJDroid check the two artists; they are one in the same!

Now we know how the guy in Distress got those marks on his head AND why he's insane.

the pic reminds me of that zombie from Tales from the Crypt.

In standard the best scenario is turn one nom nom brains, exile elesh norn. Pretty decent I'd say. Just the fact that it's a 1cmc spell that can exile a specific card makes it good.

No one expects a bigger inquisition of Kozilek!!!
Seriously though, not quite as good, but can also pull scarier things, like Titans, Birthing Pod, and DoJ.

"Target Brains reveals his or her Brains. Brains choose a Brains from Brains with Brains 4 or Brains and Brains that Brains."- How Zombie Boy reads this card

Exactly what my discard deck needed: An reliable way to kill any bomb that I find. And at uncommon! Thanks, Wizards!

As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very pleasurable--until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!!

Now that cards such as Angel of Glory's Rise and Angel of Jubilation are out, black decks are going to need to become a little more creative in preventing the opponent from taking control of the game. That's where cards like this come in. B/U has always been strong, and is a great choice for zombie players.

Imo, B/G is better for zombies, but controlling the game adequately has become more of a necessity then ever thanks to the new hosing cards white decks now possess towards black. I foresee most if not all people playing white or white/red simply because of what Avacyn Restored gave us.

IMO.. This card isn't great. As someone who builds discard decks around cards LIKE this, and pretty good ones I might add, this all but sucks. Flavor wise, obviously it "fits" black and yet still, it's a little over the top as more and more people are getting away from high cmc creatures and smarter players have (realistically) 2 maybe 3 (which, IMO is a stretch) "brains" aka creatures of cmc 4 or greater in their deck. What I REALLY dislike about this, is that 99.9% of the times it will be cast, it will have little to no immediate impact on the game whatsoever. I play the majority of my single card discard turns 1-4.. let's say you play it turn 2 and HAPPEN to hit for a Titan.. Ok, now they've got 4 turns to get it back or draw one of their reserves.. My point/consencis in general is this: Yes, it does a great job getting a game changing card out of your opp's hand and into the graveyard at any turn of the game but this game has evolved into the graveyard being as rewarding if not MORE rewarding of a place to cast cards from anyway and any serious deck is gonna have multiple ways of playing that Titan or Norn or Big Bad Mother Angel from the yard.. So not only can AFB HELP your Opp But now, they might even make that card backfire on you by getting that BEAST into play 2-3 turns earlier!! Casual? MAYBE.. Tournaments? HARDLY. A card? This is definitely NOT.

Unpleasant art.

Edit: @Mike-C, Thats exactly why you don't play this card until the turn before they can cast "Big Nasty X".
As for your comments about the graveyard, please note the word "Exile" on the card. ;-)

Remember, just because a card costs to play doesn't make it a first turn card.
Don't fall into the trap of treating this as a discard spell.
It is closer to preemptive spot removal that works on spells too.

The Brilliance of this is that you can wait a few turns to cast it and not give up too much in tempo.
If you hit your land drops you can cast this turn 4 and still put down a reasonable 3 drop.

Waiting those few turns will nearly always be the wise thing to do since it allows your opponent 3 or 4 turns to draw into a legal target, maximizing your potential to grab something worthwhile.
Playing this too early also gives your opponent plenty of time to play around it, minimizing its effect on the game.

@Mike-C
It exiles the card, which makes it very good against reanimator strategies and some Dredge cards.
As for standard, you can't deal with a titan if they have a Cavern of Souls out until its earned them game winning value. That makes this card potentially playable.

I wouldn't knock this in booster draft, not a first pick, but, for 1 mana pretty good & nice flavor.

4/5

Do they play this card while smoking bath salts in Miami?


Anyway, the reverse CMC would be a much better card. In limited, it's not great - I'd usually rather have an additional creature. In constructed, it's sideboard against animator at best...

2.5/5 generously...

This card is easily on par with Inquisition of Kozilek.

Sure, it doesn't disrupt their first few turns... that is, unless they're playing Show and Tell and you want to exile Emrakul, Progenitus, or Griselbrand. Or unless you exile a Force of Will. Or unless you exile Golgari Grave Troll. Or unless you exile Karn or Wurmcoil vs Modern Tron. Or unless you exile Unburial Rites (which is basically a 2-for-1). Or unless you exile the Batterskull they just fetched with Stoneforge Mystic. Or unless you exile a Goblin Charbelcher.

And it's not like hitting a Jace, Day of Judgment, Time Spiral, Tendrils, Titans, Elesh Norn, Birthing Pod, Huntmaster, Gideon, Past in Flames, or the like is bad either...

@ Mike-C: You are completely missing the purpose of this card. Firstly, it gets exiled, not discarded. In a heavy control deck with any graveyard returns at all, say, getting rid of a Havengul Lich, it can win the game for you. Secondly, it doesn't just target creatures. I have 4 of these in my sideboard solely to get rid of Tamiyo, The Moon Sage

What to do when you're in a magic card: Do not shave your head.

This is definitely comparable to Inquisition of Kozilek, but an honest comparison yields but a single reasonable conclusion: it's not as good. The guy who talks about folly of casting it too early, like the low mana cost would make seem natural, is definitely right and I think he's offered pretty legitimate argument in support of this card. But Inquisition will always be superior in my mind because it deals with threats that are otherwise harder to react to and/or are simply more imminent.

What if they made Inquisition 3 or lower and this guy 3 or higher (with the exile rather than graveyard still)? Then, then you'd have a real discussion. Deece card, but I won't be rotating out my Inquisitions, which overtook Duress as my fave 1-drop discard spell back in Rise of Eldrazi and has yet to be de-throned, most notably because it serves a different purpose and less notably because it's not quite as peachy.

3.5/5 it may seem generous, but the design is nice.

An interesting variation on the traditional Black discard sorcery; compare with Duress, or Despise. Definitely worth considering. It might not be such a bad idea throwing one or two of these into your Black control deck in Standard.

-obligatory "om nom nom" comment goes here-

Eh, Inquisition of Kozilek is a lot more effective most of the time. Getting rid of your opponents crucial early game often can cripple their strategy much more than this. And even if you do kill their fatty/wincon before they play it, they'll have plenty of time to draw a new one for a backup plan. The cards you can hit with this aren't going to be relevant until later in the game. So for now, I'd say it suffers from the same syndrome that afflicts Scute Mob, Songs of the Damned, High Tide, Dragonmaster Outcast and Death's Shadow. They're all great 1 drops, just not usually for turn 1.

That being said, this is probably a godsend for black EDH players everywhere.

Yet another weak comment from majinara. I swear, for every card you make some good points about, there seem to be another three or four cards with comments like this. Not all discard spells serve the same purpose, and not all low-cmc spells are necessarily supposed to be cast in the early game (Mire's Toll is another one mana discard spell that should be saved for the mid- or late game). And it's strange that you did so many "Commander reviews" for cards that quite frankly weren't designed for that format, and yet when a card like this comes along that clearly can be used to nice effect in EDH, you don't mention it.

As for this card, it's not great but it's probably slightly above average. No, it's not as good as Inquisition of Kozilek, but Inquisition is probably the second- or third-best card of this type ever printed. Appetite might be serviceable in Standard if the metagame goes a certain direction; and it's definitely a solid option in Commander, where the mana curve is much higher (hand disruption to prevent ETB effects, and exiles the card thus preventing graveyard recursion/reanimation).

Pulled a Progenitus with this once. That was a good day.

Much better in standard than people think it is.

Sure it doesn't hit the early threats but it crushes the powerful finishers we have in standard right now.

One mana to stop a Thragtusk, Thundermaw Hellkite, Obzedat, Ghost Council, Sigarda, Host of Herons Restoration Angel most standard playable planeswalkers, and Hellrider before they hit the field and with absolutely no way of coming back.

And that's just the threats, you can take out a supreme verdict and make sure their hand is clear of other sweepers or get rid of an unburial rites without the possibility of flashback.


In standard at least, it's wonderful. Great tool for MBC, 4/5.

If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em

This is the card I run in my sideboard almost specifically for one threat. How do you stop Thragtusk? Remove it from the equation.

EDIT

This is the card I run four copies of in my sideboard and pull out everytime I see Jund Midrange, Naya Midrange, and Esper Control. Hits most Planeswalkers, Huntmaster of the Fells, Olivia Voldaren, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Restoration Angel, and so on and so forth. Plus, just knowing what cards are in your opponents hand is about the most useful thing for a control deck. This card is very underrated.

@benevolinsolence,
Everything you said is spot on, except for one thing: it's a great tool for ANY control deck in Standard that runs black - in the sideboard (in the off chance they really have nothing good at 4-cmc or more; in that case it's likely another control deck, and Duress will probably be a better friend).

Guys, you're missing the point here

It's called APPETITE FOR BRAINS

Not bad at all for Edh discard decks... Just think of how much out there in the world of Edh is over 4 cmc that you don't want to see hit the board. Another plus for this card is that it doesn't cause your opponent to discard it exiles it instead. Since it exiles you don't have to worry about recursion.

One part of this that a lot of people are missing is that although it may not be bells and whistles game changing turn one awesomeness... You get to see everything in their hand which is just as valuable in a lot of games.

Remember, it EXILES the card, making it very nice against decks packing any sort of recursion

Almost everyone rating this card seems to have failed to understand the power of it. While it is true that Inquisition of Kozilek is the better discard, they are very close overall and in some specific cases Appetite is even better. Mostly the two cards are just different in a lot of ways, and while Inquisition is close to the rating it deserves this card is obviously way underrated.

Something that nobody seems to have mentioned so far is that Appetite can't be Redirected or Swerved back at you, which can be extremely significant in EDH, and is still relevant in certain other formats as well. Sure this isn't the biggest deal really overall, but it is a slight edge that the card has over Inquisition in the end.

The fact that it exiles seems to be undervalued as well. Just think of how powerful cards like Reanimate and Yawgmoth's will are and you can start to see the extreme power of exile versus discard. It was already mentioned here that Emrakul, the Aeons Torn will not return to the opponent's library after being chosen with this card, and that is a very relevant example of the importance of exile. Don't think Emrakul is that good in high level play? Chris Bergeson who won Legacy Champs 2012 with 4x of the flying spaghetti monster maindeck would disagree with you.

This card is really more of a sideboard card in all honesty, but so what after all. Some cards are more tailored to specific needs than others and this one just happens to fall into that category. For a 1cc discard this is close to as good as it gets currently, and for it to be rated at 3.25 just shows that the majority of the community doesn't understand its power.

Here is a fairly short and far from all inclusive list of some serious threats that this card will totally remove from the game, take a look at it and ponder if you still think it isn't that good.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Griselbrand
Blightsteel Colossus
Progenitus
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mind's Desire
Tendrils of Agony
Dragonstorm
Sneak Attack
Force of Will
Cryptic Command
Supreme Verdict
Wrath of God
Lodestone Golem

Clearly where this card is currently the most lacking is in top level Vintage play where you see a lot of 0-3cc, but how many people even play in those tournaments anyways? This card is obviously good in Legacy and certain Modern matchups, and at the bare minimum it can do things like cause your opponent to lose their Force of WIll in Legacy or a board wipe in Modern. Remember they lose it for good, no Snapcaster Mage or Eternal Witness, etc. to get it back.

4.5/5 for this because it obviously rocks.
4.7/5 for Inquisition (if I could).