Pointed Discussion

Its a good defense against creature decks but other than that not much else.

Against Token Decks and/or Weenie decks, this is just plain hilarious.

Combine it with Sanguine Bond for an especially unpleasant surprise.

Cool artwork!

Not bad against swarm decks, but useless elsewhere...

Very hit or miss but when this goes well you can neutralize an attack and gain 5-10 life at the same time.

Just started playing magic a few weeks ago. I first bought a Fiery Dawns starter pack, and bought a few cards (including this one) online. Then I battled someone for the first time, my friend with lots of powerful decks. After battling for a while, my friend decided to attack me with several different creatures. I played this and it saved me. If I didn't have this card, I would have lost then.

I ended up losing anyway, but I think this card has potential. It's super cheap to buy, and mana cost is pretty low too. If you are attacked by multiple creatures, this can be pretty useful. This is especially effective when your opponent has made lots of token creatures.

Why is this even a rare? It's practically a Holy Day variant, for Iona's sake.

This card is not befitting of a rare. It's a bad card. This card will not always be useful. When it is, it may very well just act as a fog, in which case, other fog type effects in later sets are better. When it is good and you actually gain life when the attack is over, it still doesn't help you answer the problem you've got - creatures are still attacking you. Card is just bad.

Your deck should not be designed to require this card to not die. If you rely on a card like this, you're deck is designed wrong.

It's funny against an infinite token deck that doesn't run mass pump and just relies on hitting you with an infinite army of 1/1s. Other than that, it's pretty mediocre, but it's cheap enough that it's alright.