Pointed Discussion

Better than he seems...

Worship The Thrull Lord

Cheap and flexiable. Good in a white/black deck, also great to get rid of tokens.

I like to keep one or two of these guy's in my Side Deck. Never know when you'll be seeing a field of 1/1 weenie's.

and then Zealous Persecution made this obsolete

A bit costly, but allows for combos. I think I want this card.

A pity, I think he would be better if they dropped the +1/+1 part and decreased his cost.
Hmmm... combine this with a sacrifice deck. (Play him, fuel a sacrifice with him, sacrifice his haunted creature)

So base rating: ***

high cost: -**
Combo potential: +*
Comes into play: +*
Haunt trick: +*
Final: ****

Can be Chord of Calling'd into play in an elf deck for some mirror match hate.

@Gezus82: Not really
With Zealous Persecution, you get the abllity once for 2 mana. With Orzhov Pontiff, you get the same ability for 3 mana.

VEGEEEETA.

The main reason this would be better than Zealous Persecution is probably the fact that it's a creature. You can't Chord of Calling for Zealous Persecution like you can with this.

Pontiff has haunt and being a creature in a black/white deck you got more ways to reuse Pontiff than Zealous Persecution.

Fun times with Graven Dominator.

Him and Graven Dominator are best buds.

If you have this guy and Graven Dominator haunting the same creature, then destroy that creature (or sacrifice it). You destroy each creature your opponents control for cheap-ish. Seems powerful.

A wel-designed card. Either buff your side or weaken your opponent's. Twice.
If you manage to haunt a creature that has just 1 toughness (left), it can become a one-sided Infest.

Just not that advisable in multiplayer...unless you want to troll your teammate.

Don't really like this guy's function all that much, but I really like the art.

He no doubt would work wonders with Graven Dominator and Godhead of Awe, but a situational mechanic like Haunt makes a combo like that harder to pull off than with an instant-speed card like Zealous Persecution. And while you can get his effect twice (in the same turn if you're cleaver), it's an either/or effect. Finally, while haunt is a good mechanic for getting good effects twice, it's actually quite detrimental to another powerful mechanic easily performable by ; recursion, notably if you have a 'I-hope-you-(my opponent)-have-a-Naturalize/Disenchant-to-deal-with-this' Debtor's Knell, as Haunt will exile the creature, making it nigh impossible to get back. At least with cards like Zealous Persecution, there's a chance you'll be able to see them again after cracking open an ice-cold Elixir of Immortality. You could run this guy in a Haunt deck that also runs Mirror of Fate, but it's possible to get a lot more out of that lets you recycle everything instead of recycling specific cards.

On the bright side, I'm really diggin' this guys' artwork. Artistically, it goes out of its way to encompass at least in part every aspect of the guild; life, wealth, and power, but only for its elite and eternal life only for, ironically enough, the guild's dead. I always imagined the Orzhov Syndicate as a ghostly mafia hiding behind the guise of religion or if the Catholic Church was corrupt (or basically just the Catholicism in general) and commandeered by greedy geists.

3.5 out of 5 for limited function but fantastic flavor.

Should work with Ghostway.

He's not bad, but he just doesn't feel like a rare to me.

I'm the pope! Boo!

Cast it, sacrifice it in response to its trigger (Cartel Aristocrat is a good pick for this), haunt a 1-toughness creature, kill everything they control with up to 2 toughness.