Pointed Discussion

Socrates didn't shut up, anyway.

Wow this is bad. There's so much more to do in black with six mana than destroy a creature.

Another flavor win, but reaaallly, it could have been ok at - or at least be an instant!

Aw man, I already accepted that my limited kill spells were gonna be overcosted, don't make them sorcery speed too!

i am surprised it did not cost 10.

How about Hex? Same mana cost even...

My grandma often talked about sipping hemlock when her joints were bad. This card is pretty depressing.

Should have had more of an execution flavour, because we all know which story this card was inspired by...

Hey Hideous End, do you wanna target black creatures? It's just an extra and sorcery speed!

Because, you know, Assassin's Strike was too broken.

Bad removal is bad.

Sorcery speed for 6? Should cost 5 and be instant and still could be fair.

Why should black be good at disposing of creatures, anyway? R&D said playtesters didn't like it when their creatures died.

This will work fine in limited.
The end.

Is this way overcosted? Yes. Is it worth playing in draft? Also yes. These were getting passed around late in the Theros pre-release draft I did on MTGO. I picked up two, as well as a Lash of the Whip. I won the draft. This card worked well for me.

Moral of the story: While the common removal in this set is overcosted, that doesn't mean you can get away without running removal in limited. Suck it up, and take what removal you can get.

Nice art, though.

I think R&D is trying to find out how bad they can make removal before people stop playing it in limited. They still haven't reached it yet, but they sure are plumbing the depths.

"Betcha didn't see THAT coming, did'cha? Ha!"

- Assassin shortly before dripping on a loose stone and impaling himself on his knife.

for extra flavor points, use this on an omenspeaker.

Remember, this is the Voltron block. Your opponent probably has about 8 mana, 3 cards and even worse, 3 turns sitting across from you in one body, waiting for an opening. For 6 mana and one turn, you wipe out all that energy, and at worst, end up with 2 much smaller creatures that stopped being relevant several turns ago. Plus your opponent moves closer to his inevitable demise.

You hear a whole bunch of people complaining about "I can't get past the Voltron, slow format", when they passed 2 of these in the draft and ended up running a Sick Horse. This is not bad in context. Admittedly, the context is weak removal, but still.

At 4 mana, this would completely hose Bestow and Heroic, except for the high power rares (i.e. about 2 of your 40 cards). At 5, it'd be on the fence. But if you're passing this in draft because "It's bad removal", you're not focused on the threat you'll actually be facing in this block, which is "Pants on Pants".

And to think, Doom Blade used to be a common.

Was running Black/Green at the pre-release; this and Dark Betrayal were the only two removal spells I got. Now granted Betrayal's a good card, but only against black decks, which was 1/4 I was up against. At instant-speed this thing would've been somewhat, sort of decent, but as-is it's bad. I realize now that Green, White, and Blue got a lot of love the past few releases, while (to some extent) Red and Black especially are rather held back.

1.5/5, with the .5 going towards the 2 life bonus.

Sad truth: There is no nonrare/nonmythic I would pick over this as a first pick.