Pointed Discussion

I'm noticing an awful lot of flying for black in GTC. This seems like a solid pick to fill out your curve in limited.

Hmm...this isn't bad actually. Maybe it's better to have this than Syndic of Tithes in an extort deck for the 2cmc slot? I was opting for the latter at first, but then i realised that since your goal is bleeding, better have a weak flying that can potentially damage for 1 every turn rather than a a simple bear.

Strictly more extortionist than Storm Crow.

My Bat tribal deck just another sweet puzzle piece.

Boss limited flier for Orzhov. Or Dimir. Or any deck with black really. It may not be huge, but it's right on curve, maybe even a little above it.

Most extorters flavorfully steal your money; this guy just takes blood.

I agree, @Flyheight, possibly a little better than the curve. Kills 1/1 and still lives. Gives extort, solid utility.

why is this rated lower than kingpin's pet when the pet is more difficult to cast as a multicolor and you're basically paying one white mana for +1 power???

Awesome evasion for Dimir, and i noticed that ciphering on weaker creatures make kill spells a tough decisions for opponents.

It'd be sweet if this guy had lifelink.

Extort matters. Cipher matters. This card works well with both in limited. Shadow Slice anyone?

If anything, it's far better than Bog Imp.

Zubat here is great at whittling them down through both attacking and extortion, and your opponent will rarely leave a flying blocker for him, making him a great carrier for cipher spells, especially if they have to then waste removal on him. (Bonus points if you extort off both the initial cast and the cipher cast)

Damn good in Limited. I ran extortextortextort.dec in a draft with four of these guys and a few Syndic of Tithes and didn't regret it.

I like this card more than I should. It is my favourite card in my new Dimir deck. Sounds crazy but it is what my whole deck is based around. It's a Cipher/Extort Dimir deck. Cipher and Extort work very well togethor and this has evasion and when you can spam casting spells with Cipher and use those free spells to Extort, it gets pretty crazy.

I just got a cheap play set. I'm gonna try it on my multiplayer Necropotence deck.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't have a place among the much more aggressive black two-drops available, but against multiple opponents, I need to think long-term, and the ability to pay {B} for what is essentially 1 life loss to everyone and X card draws to me where X is the number of living opponents could mean winning the game.

My other two options for mono-black with extort are Syndicate Enforcer, which is unusable, and Crypt Ghast, which better but more expensive, so I will only go for the play set if the price is right and the Screecher here does its job as well as I expect him to.

Now if Dragon's Maze would bring out a {B} 1/1 or a {BB} 2/2 with evasion and Extort, it would be more fun for aggro-Necro. :)

Because black needs to one-up Storm Crow...

Am I the only one who noticed this is Extort Crow?

I play four of these, Rakdos Cacklers and Daggerdome Imps in my Rakdos deck.
Cheap fun.

Can someone explain why this is rated a 3, and Storm Crow is 4.2????

This has extort and everything else storm crow has for the same mana..

This card amazing since it's a 1/2 flier for 2 CMC and it has an extort ability. Tithe Drinker is probably the only card I would put above this one in terms of cheap extort on creatures. It will win games in limited, and could be considered the core of a constructed Extort deck.

Nobody notices that its a black Storm Crow with Extort?

@Doragon: everybody wants to one-up poor Storm Crow.

White: Courier Hawk
Blue: Screeching Silcaw
Artifacts: Hovermyr
Black: this.

Hey there Storm Crow, I didn't know that Orzhov hired you.

FUN FACT TIME

Extort is a dual ability that appears equally in both black and white, like first strike is dual colored ability that appears equally in both white and red. (see boros recruit, Tundra Wolves, Striking Sliver) In fact there's no reason at all it should say "pay w/b", since only white and black cards have the cost... It should have just been printed as "pay an extra 1,..." Except for one reason:

Mark Rosewater specifically requested the design team to make Extort have the hybrid w/b cost in it so that extort cards could only be used in white AND black EDH decks, not one or the other.

Or, more accurately, he designed it so that the people in charge of the EDH format would remove the ridiculous (in his mind) rule that hybrid cards can't be played in mono colored EDH decks. In Magic Design, Hybrids are cards that can fit into either of the colors it is (for example, Merfolk of the Depths is a card that could be printed at 4GG OR 4UU, without changing or editing anything besides perhaps it's creature types in any way. Gold Cards on the other hand, are cards that give abilities that exist solely because the card is that color (Skyward Eye Prophets gets vigilance because it's white, card draw because it's blue, and land accel, however bad, because it's green. With any one of those colors lacking, they would not have printed skyward eye the way it was).

It's interesting to note that the people who run Elder Dragon Highlander changed the entire rule on color identity just to spite the entire design philosophy behind hybrid costs, and the whole point of extort, while still allowing this card to be run in mono black EDH decks.

why do people rate this 3.164, and yet it is an extorting storm crow in black. storm crow is currently 4.292. also, WHY IS STORM CROW SO GOOD!?

Strictly less virtuous than Storm Crow. Storm Crow is clearly superior.