Pointed Discussion

Wow, um, not much to say. Most cards you want to get rid of aren't going to have a CMC of 3 or less, so unless you're playing against a weanie, its pretty bad.

That's not very exile.

I like it. I agree that the "sacrifice a creature" ability is a little too expensive, but the second ability can be abused with something simple like merfolk looter.

@Kenji18: No, it can't. Merfolk looter doesn't actually increase your hand size, because you have to both draw and discard.

5 mana sorcery and you don't even get to pick which tiny creature you remove? Pass.

Merfolk Looter let's you discard this card, and draw up another one. Your hand size doesn't decrease, and if you have more cards in hand, this card will come back for a another go-around.
Turns your Merfolk Looter into free card draw if you can keep a couple of cards in hand after your enemy has empties theirs.

This thing shouldn't cost (3) more than Smother. Even though this says "sacrifices" (so it can destroy indestructibles), Smother has the "cannot be regenerated" clause.

Perfect in my Glissa, the Traitor EDH, it's just a good repeatable way to have something die when I haven't found Executioner's Capsule yet. Especially since my hand is usually huge due to all the spellbombs and other sac to draw artifacts like Mind Stone.

The mana cost makes me kind of sad, because the effect itself (both the first as well as the second ability) is rather unique and is an interesting, effective and potentially even reusable creature removal.
And the artwork is great, too - i think it'd be one of those cards you'd love just to look at when it's in your hand or the graveyard since you know you'll have fun with it :D

But it won't help you that much anymore by the time you can finally cast it - those players that will have fewer cards in hand (so the recurrence works out) will usually be the agressive ones where you can't afford to wait so long with your spot removal... So yeah, most of the time it'll probably just be just a very expensive alternative to Smother that doesn't have instant speed either.

Then again there might be some place for it in a discard deck that can make sure this card will come back.

If this was an Arcane, it would have been more interesting since you could have spliced other Arcane spells that, at the same time, would have made sure you kept a somewhat reasonable hand size that would have allowed to trigger the second ability. It would also have worked with the entire spiritcraft theme, and even Slumbering Tora.
But it seems Wizards saw some reprint potential back then, so i guess they omitted the subtype to make this card a future candidate for a Core Set (back then when only reprints were allowed there), so this won't work.


"I like it. I agree that the 'sacrifice a creature' ability is a little too expensive, but the second ability can be abused with something simple like merfolk looter."

@Kenji18: The second ability has indeed some potential.
But Squee, Goblin Nabob does a more reliable job in conjunction with Merfolk Looter in particular.
There are some combos where Exile into Darkness might be better because the effect is determined by the CMC of the discarded card. You could use Spellbound Dragon for example.
(For that particular use, you might also want to compare Exile to Darkness to Veilborn Ghoul.)

Caleb Durward made a deck playing this as a 1-of in LEGACY. Even bad cards have their places...

"At the beginning of your upkeep, if you're winning, win some more."