Pointed Discussion

This seems quite cool in my mind, even though your opponent gets to choose

Then again, their choices are to either make you stronger or themselves weaker.

Hah, hilarious artwork...good card.

Starting from the left center and working to the top-right corner, you can see the name "DALE" cleverly hidden in the art (The whip forms the 'D', the figure's legs, along with other objects, make the 'A' and 'L'; and the electricity makes the 'E'.)

Oh yeah, and the card kinda sucks because your opponent gets to choose.

MF!

Ms. 4chan

I'm guessing this doesn't target the opponent because you choose spells' modes before targets. I wonder if this would have been better worded with "Target opponent may..."
Also applies to Fatal Lore and Library of Lat-Nam.

I like the idea, but the execution is a little under par. At this power level, there's nothing wrong with YOU choosing, heck, you could probably have both of the effects stapled together and not have it be too good! (At a slightly higher mana cost.) If you're gonna stay with having your opponent choose, you're gonna have to make the affect stronger.

The fact that your opponent gets to choose demotes this card at least by 2 stars.

Questions:

1. What, if anything, does "DALE" mean?
2. Why do you think an opponent choosing automatically makes it bad? Painful Quandary is good.
3. It can be a one-sided Wrath of God...well, almost none of the time.
4. How many cards in Green-Black that use the word 'whenever' are good with this card's life-changing effects?

BUT if you play into what the card wants you to do, you can build a tokens army. Your opponent definitely won't enjoy you getting a Glorious Anthem (theoretically the second-worst of the 4 abilities) if you use liberal amounts of Trample, Deathtouch, First strike, and Double Strike (the main combat abilities of these colors. Skip Flying, Lifelink and Vigilance as it would overextend the deck too much unless you try to twist it around Dragons, in which case mana becomes an issue).

The gain 4 life is the worst clause, but in my questions I note that it's probably comboable. True, it would an excercise in practicing your Johnny Thinking, but this card has got to be at least 3 stars in 'any old Jund creatures deck', but it could be built around to be a blowout 4.32 stars card if you try very hard. :)

It's absolutely paramount to play creatures with good keywords with this card. Vampire Nighthawk gets you flying and lifelink, so you could maybe find an odd Red Knight with Vigilance?

If you build around it (presumably lots of small/medium creatures), you still have to face at least one opponent who dreads the downside enough to pick it your way. the 4 life isn't the deciding factor in most games I've played with it.
I vote to just put in Maelstrom Pulse and leave this out.

Using this card in a tri-color land destruction deck. Going to be going through Alara cards to flesh it out a little better. But three of these make for a nice way of forcing your opponent choose what to do while you're killing their mana. Pooling Venom, Mwonvuli Acid Moss, Seismic Spike and the Time Spiral card with suspend to keep killing land cheap. Lightning Bolts for some cheap damage. Now to lower the amount of spells from 24 to 20 and add some creatures lol. It will be epic. Because all we didn't work too well.

What a miracle! This card is a triumph of the color pie in a time before WotC knew what they were doing in that regard.

If your opponent chooses to benefit you: green (life gain and +1+1 counters)
If your opponent chooses the pain: red and black (direct damage and -1-1 counters)

Love the effect. Love the art, I think weed strangle's artist did too.