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Editor: Yaro Starak. Monday 13 May 2002.
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 Card Review: Dawn of the Dead
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life.
Expansion: Torment
As soon as I saw this rather large enchantment I
thought, "Wow, this can be abused for sure". After
much fiddling around with, it just didn't quite come
together. In Type II it was too slow to be of any use
and it cost too much, and there weren't enough
creatures for it be of effect in limited. The only
thing it has going for it is it's named after a
classic horror flick (or if you count Dawn of the Dead
III then it's named after a classic comedy).
Limited: It's not bad because the cost is 2BBB, and
it's not bad because you have to remove the creature
at the end of turn, and it's not even bad because you
lose one life at the beginning of upkeep. It's bad
because there just aren't enough creatures in limited
for it to be of use. (That and the other 3 reasons
means this card is crap). Let's think how this card
could be modified for it to be playable... Less B in
the casting cost??, how about the creature is put back
in your graveyard??, perhaps if it could just sit
there without losing any life it would be
playable... I think for this card to be playable we
would have to change all of the above. Too slow, too
expensive, and it doesn't pack enough punch. Don't
bother drafting it... in fact I tend to see these
unplayable rares as less than useless because your
responsible for the rare when you go to draft them =(
Pass...15th pick (get the hint I don't like this card.)
Type II: Possibly with cards like Bloodfire Collossus
(reanimate, attack, sac and do 6 damage to
everything.. rinse and repeat a couple of times), or
cards with good come into play abilitys like Angel of
Mercy (egh another 5 mana costing creature outside the
colours) or Flametongue Kavu. The BBB makes it so this
deck should only be relegated to a two colour variety
and nothing more. But if I'm going to pay BBB for a
card it had better begin with 'S-' and end with
'-hambling Swarm'. And if I want to lose one life at
the begginging of turn I'd better be drawing an extra
card from a certain 'Arena'....if you were going to
build a deck around this enchantment, and believe me
if your going to use this card, the deck has to built
solely around it, then spells like entomb, buried
alive, and maybe zombie infestation are needed as well
as creatures like the Bloodfire Collossus, Devouring
Strossus, and other creatures that can sac themselves
to you can keep bringing them back, are a must.
Forget about cards that give you life (angel of mercy,
life burst, if you have this enchantment out, and the
creatures in your graveyard aren't going to win you
the game then you shouldn't have used this card in the
first place =)~
Price: $2... Its a rare, and Torment is the latest
set... wait a few months then it'll be $1. (I bought
one for $5 when it first was released... it's still in
my $2 box).
As you can see... I'm not a fan.
Until Next time, I'll see you next time
Limited: Bleh, if this is card number 23 I pity you.
Constructed: It must be hard for Wizards to make socially fun cards whilst
not making them prohibitive even in social games. I mean shucks, BBB2,
thats some bad. If anyone goes good in a real tournament with this card
being the mainstay of the deck (and can prove it, meaning it had better be
a tournament I'm at...) then I'll give them an, erm, DCI Dissipate. I think
it's bad against control because they'll probably have the counter for it
and it's bad against beatdown because the guys can't block. If it read
something like "0, lose 1 life: Put target creature card from your
graveyard into play. Gets haste. Remove at end of any turn. Use only
once/turn" then at least it would have been okay (I use the term loosely)
against beatdown. The only deck I can see it at all useful against as it is
is the mono black control, which generally has trouble with Haste guys.
Value: Strictly less than $3
dj
Jason Street
Wizards occaionally put out a card which has a pun name, or in some cases
the just slap a movie title on a card - check out some of the Enchant World
cards in Legends if you don't beleive me, there's one very popular card and
one crappy one (much like their respective movies), and there are some more
around. Dawn of the Dead is the title of George Romero's sequel to Night of
the Living Dead ( http://us.imdb.com/Title?0077402 ).
Okay, enough movie
history, how horrifying is the card?
Extended is probably the first place to look at - with a wealth of
multicolour lands available you can run the heavy black needed and splash
some other colours. A possibility is a green/black deck, since you can have
Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Dead. You will want to splash some other
colours, since you need other cards to make it work....
First off, you have to neutralize the upkeep drawback. My first idea is
Radiant's Dragoons, since they give you life. Another option is Worthy
Cause, which gets you life and also deals with the problem of removing the
resurrected creature from the game at the end of your turn. If you take the
green/black option Spike Feeder is good too - it can sacrifice itself.
Okay, life total taken care of, now what? Well, the whole point of this card
is to use it every turn. With an upkeep of life you need to read "You may"
as "You damn well better" otherwise why bother using it? You need to fill up
your graveyard: Insidious Dreams gets rid of cards in your hand, Buried
Alive crams creatures into the grave early nicely too, but another option I
favour is Intuition - since you can remove a variety of cards from your
library it's never too bad and also fetches you the Dawn of the Dead if you
need it.
As for stopping the creatures getting removed, I already mentioned Worthy
Cause, and there are other options. Altar of Dementia is nasty - especially
since you will be cramming in some bigger creatures too (Crater Hellion
springs to mind). If you want to just hurt your opponent some more there is
Goblin Bombardment, if you want to steal your opponent's toys you can use
Helm of Possession. Mind Slash for discard, Shivan Harvest for land,
Phyrexian Broodlings for fun, and I'm not sure about this one, but I think
Devouring Strossus could be sacrificed to itself....
Creatures with comes-into-play abilities are the cards of choice though,
because the real meat of the deck will be removing your opponents cards over
time. Bone Shredders, Avalanche Riders, Keldon Vandals or Uktabi Orangutans
are all good, and since the creature will have haste you can use anything
that involves tapping and sacrificing the creature - Ghitu Fire-Eater is
actually more useful than his Slinger counterpart here. Last but not least,
Ball Lightning will let you play Clever Stack Tricks and lay the smack down
every turn - something we've always wanted to do.
I'm sure everyone can figure out the fun applications of the card. For
casual play you get a few more options, since even a Fountain of Youth is
enough to keep the upkeep going. Personally I think if you manage to seize
control of the game to the point where you have all the life you need and
your opponent has nothing to stop you with Minion of the Wastes should be
used - he's big, he tramples, he has a knife, and he doesn't get out much.
This is certainly a card I wish I had, along with enough toys to play with.
Value? Probably about $5, it's very powerful, but you need to work at it to
get some real power going.
Jason
More zombies in the form of Dawn of the Dead but this
time around the card ain't too scary.
Limited - This is very situational in limited and I
don't think I would play this as the loss of life is
too costly. The only creatures worth reanimating would
be stuff like Zombie Assassin, Painbringer, Kamahl,
Cabal Patriarch - basically anything that has a
special ability. As you can see you would probably
want another card over this anyway.
Constructed - The only format I think this may even be
considered is OBC - but even then it is still a long
shot. As Danesh says this card is not too good against
control and I wouldn't like my chances with this
against beatdown either.
Dawn of the Dead won't fetch more than $3 and expect
it to be clogging up trade folders all over the
country.
Dan
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Dawn of the Dead (Rare)
Scott Smith
Danesh Jogia
Dan Turner