"Why on earth is this a rare? I can think of an easy way to get nine damage for three mana. It's called lightning bolt."
That's three seperate cards -- not really the same thing at all. Dealing nine damage with bolts drains you off over half your hand, so while they're efficient, they're costly in regards to another resource.
Cards that can deal large amounts of damage to an opponent tend to lose efficiency, as they have more potential to end games out of the blue. If you want four damage for less mana, you could also try Flame Rift, but it can't ever hit creatures and deals you twice the damage. Flames of the Bloodhand will save you the damage, but you're still going to suffer the targeting restriction. You could also try Galvanic Blast, but that's going to require artifacts that impose deck-building restrictions. Fireblast is better than Char in a dedicated burn deck, but it has it's own ... (see all)
Posted By:
scumbling1
(5/27/2011 6:29:27 AM)
Let me post the flavor text from the DCI reprint, "If you've never choked on the embers of your own spell, you're not casting it hard enough."
Inexperienced players too highly value their life total. Splashable, Instant speed 4 damage for 3 mana is efficient, and the drawback only matters if you're at 2 life.
Posted By:
Nagoragama
(6/18/2011 7:09:28 PM)
Psionic Blast was rated higher because blue, by tradition, has almost no direct damage spell, and Psionic Blast fills that gap at minimal cost. Char is a good burn spell, 4 damage at instant speed, but red has a lot of burn spells already so even with this card the gain is not as much as Psionic Blast would for blue.
With that said, Char is a great burn spell.
Posted By:
Cyberium
(5/16/2010 1:13:50 PM)
Char is very good, but 3 months ago I would have called it not rare-worthy. I honestly don't think burn spells should even be rare, but I digress. This could have seen a lot of play in Zendikar as an uncommon. Now? It's probably rare again, because of the slight power drop. I hope to see it again sometime. But not Psionic Blast. When a burn spell is already good in RED...
Posted By:
Shadoflaam
(10/25/2011 6:19:53 PM)
Personally, I would rather go with Flame Javelin or Flames of the Blood Hand because of how many burn and RDW decks there are where I live. I will admit, 3 cmc for 4 damage to anything is very nice, I'm just exceedingly greedy with my life points. However, with that infect, maybe self damaging spells aren't such a bad idea.
Posted By:
Bazzoka
(2/2/2011 10:10:23 PM)
Overrated? Hell no. This card does its job well. Staggershock is a great card even with Lightning Bolt around. And Staggershock can never kill a Meloku so your Kird Apes and Scab-Clan Maulers can run through.
Though I'm as bothered as all of you with the fact that it was a rare. Nowadays it would probably be mitigated a bit since the introduction of mythic rares drove rare prices down.
@scumbling1: I agree with everything you say, except for the comparison with Fireblast. Nothing, nothing ever compares with Fireblast. It's four damage for zero mana. The damage / cost ratio analysis was spot on, though.
Posted By:
Gabriel422
(6/8/2011 10:18:59 PM)
Char's utility depends on the metagame it lies in. If the greatest and most common threats have four toughness, char is in luck! Black creatures with four toughness, such as Moroii or Sengir Vampire? Even better! If the main threats have 1, 2, or 3, or 5+, you turn to Lighting Bolt or to "destroy" effects.
In current Standard Format, Char would be passable to target Exarch in Splinter Twin decks, which lightning bolt is useless against. Other than that though, anything 5 toughness and under will go down to a Dismember (another card with backlash, strangely enough) which can be (and is) played in a lot of decks.
Can't Dismember to the face, though.
Posted By:
Kryptnyt
(9/14/2011 7:52:11 PM)
Timeshifted Psionic Blast, even though the rulings don't menion it. :-)
Posted By:
DrJack
(8/20/2012 7:37:15 PM)
This is a Timeshifted version of Psionic Blast...except it isn't. Weird!
Posted By:
RunedServitor
(10/27/2012 1:39:42 PM)
Regardless of whether this is a rare or not (which shouldn't affect the player rating, IMO) this is a highly underrated card.
Remember, the only life point that matters, is your last.
Posted By:
pedrodyl
(1/12/2012 10:47:52 PM)