Pointed Discussion

One of the best white creature removal spells there is.
It kills indestructible guys, regenerators, with shroud, protection from white, just everything. And most of the time several ones at once. Since it got storm, it is also very difficult to counter, since you'd need one counterspell for each storm copy.

Run with Swords to Plowshares.

Saved my ass against an exalted deck

Quite a nice way for dealing with Progen.

I love this card. as redhatter mentioned, combine it with an instant of your own first to force the sac'ing of a minimum of 2 attacking creatures. bonus if the opponent played a spell before attacking.

The best thing about this card (or worst thing, if you're a terrible person) is that it teaches people to play better.
Get hit with this once or twice, and you'll learn to play your spells on your second main phase like you should.

Was good up until Annihilator triggers.
Still kills the creatures, but at the cost of lands...

@Cyberium:

Three actually.

PEW PEW PEW owl squad go!

How exactly does this work against exalted decks?

So glad I opened this in my first Scourge pack. Was a world of fun :D

I love target-less non-destructive removal.
It virtually guarantees that things get dead.

I am very picky, and I have low regard for most of the cards in existence. However, there are a few cards that rise head and shoulders above the rest for cards that I loathe. All of the "target player sacrifices an attacking creature" cards are on that list.
These aren't answer cards, these aren't strategic cards. They are crazy lame cards that make you second guess attacking with only your best creature EVERY attack of EVERY game. They don't have much power, really, as far as removal goes, but occasionally they gank the attacking player in spectacular fashion.
I am not disappointed by counterspells, direct removal, or having my combos spoiled, but this mechanic irks me. They reprint it just often enough that I can't forget it, but you can't play intelligently around this card. Does a good player see three untapped plains and think "I'm going to attack with my dragon, and throw my goblins in as well even though most won't survive just to protect my dragon"? No, because if they did that for every attack of every game they would lose more games than assuming your opponent doesn't have it would.
This card adds luck to the game at the expense of skill.

Unfortunately, players typically don't play spells until their 2nd main phase.

This is directed towards Mr.kiseki;

When was Magic ever a strategy game? You start the game off by randomly pulling seven cards from your deck and decide whether or not to roll with it. The rest of the game is decided upon single random draws. You must be playing an entirely different sort of Magic if you think you're applying strategy. I guess you hate Fog and Holy Day as well, and yet I get the feeling you're contradicting yourself when you say you're okay with counterspells. How do you beat a counter deck? You keep playing spells. How do you get around this? Attack.

" Does a good player see three untapped islands and think 'I'm going to play some goblins, and throw my dragon in as well even though the dragon will most likely get countered?'"

People must've learned not to play precombat spells really fast when this was in standard.

This saw a lot of tournament play, mostly because it is so good against Goblin Warchief (or anything with haste).

@Drewsel
Big money is in magic, why aren't you winning some?

"Oh, you're attacking me with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn? I'm so sorry..."
Too bad it'll trigger Annihilator anyway, but the non-targeting is a sweet deal.

Directed toward Drewsel,

Strategy is all over the place in Magic, like playing your spells in your second main phase rather than your first so as to not feed your opponent's Wing Shards spells or other spells with Storm. Simple strategy perhaps, but strategy none-the-less. Not wasting an Echoing Truth on a small nibbler and using it on a larger, costlier creature later is a better strategy than wasting it early on. Using a trickery charm to see the one card an opponent has in hand before making them discard a card that just might be better in their graveyard than in their hand is definitely a fine strategy.

Point is, there is much random luck in the game, but there is good thinking, and bad thinking, in the play of the game. Good strategy, or bad strategy. Knowing when to play a spell and when to not play it is definitely strategy. I've used Magic to teach my students strategy for years now. In multiplayer games, this is much more necessary, as there is a lot of psychology involved in bluffing, making alliances, keeping your options open, etc. I mostly play multiplayer games, so I guess I see more of the strategies involved in playing Magic than strict duelers might.

@Trygon_Predator: Not if you have a Stifle it won't ;D

This card works surprisingly well. I've had it for ages, and I really must say it works really well with other kinds of instant-speed removal. Alternatively, you could also use it with Cloudshift to untap one of your tapped creatures and maybe even trigger an ETB ability in the process.

Directed at Myrrden, Drewsel, and kiseki:

TL;DR

Next time your opponent plays cascade, you can kill two of his attackers :)

EDIT: @Guest513736147 Thx for correction.

5/5 for machinegun-winged owl.

Excellent counter to haste. Your opponent plays hasty creatures, they get to sacrifice an extra for each one.

Besides that, it's nice if you expect a combat trick (opponent casts it, you cast this) or if you have other combat relevant spells (particularly a flash blocker, dropping this and Plumeveil can really screw combat up)