What do all these creatures have in common?
Over the next year of Standard, you are going to want to kill them. While we do have some options already, more certainly won’t hurt. The conundrum we’ve faced over the last year is between these two powerful magics:
Both spells are excellent, and both kill almost anything. The important question was what they missed, and that varied depending on the metagame. It was always an interesting puzzle, and for this next year, all you have to ask yourself is if you are willing to pay The Ultimate Price (which is apparently 1B):
This card is pretty simple—it kills things dead. What things exactly is yet to be determined, since clearly, there is a real drawback. Not killing multi-colored creatures is going to be a real cost, especially in the world of PragueRavnica. As we see more and more awesome multi-colored guys, the actual price you pay for this becomes more accurate. Go for the Throat missed a few key players in Standard, and was played often anyway, but there are two main differences here. First, there is no Doom Blade. That’s a big one. If you want a 2-drop removal spell, there isn’t a nearly-identical one to choose from, so that head-to-head is at least solved. Secondly, the number of playable multi-color guys may be different now than artifacts were with Scars around. The robots were a force to contend with, and while I don’t expect gold creature to be weak, you may be able to cover your bases otherwise.
Despite the lack of Doom Blade, there is definitely competition for the removal slots in your deck. Tragic Slip is still around, Abrupt Decay is definitely great, and Murder is available for those with multiple black mana to spare. That being said, a 2-drop that has a pretty high success rate is nothing to sneeze at, and I can’t imagine a world where paying the Ultimate Price isn’t worthy of consideration. I wouldn’t go for the throat and just jam four in every deck, since that’ll be your doom more often than not, but playing one or two can’t be terrorible.
One thing worth noting is what this doesn’t hit: gold creatures (obviously) and artifacts (not so obviously). In fact, when I first read the card, my initial reaction was that it did kill artifacts. That was what led me to describe this as more impactful than Thragtusk or [card bonfire of the damned]Bonfire[/card] (my last two preview cards) in older formats, because I truly believe it would have been. Also, before I get a bunch of comments “correcting” me, this isn’t strictly worse than Go for the Throat, and it can in fact kill artifact creatures. Vault Skirge, your days are numbered. Yours too, Porcelain Legionnaire.
Oh, I’d also advise against passing this one too often in Limited; it isn’t a windmill slam, but it sure isn’t bad.
LSV
