Swords to Plowshares is better than this card in early games, but Path to Exile is better than Swords in late games, in my opinion. It's not a big deal to get your opponent to 24 life in early games, and the extra land doesnt really matter much when your oppenent already has like 10 out. Playing this too early might help your opponent to ramp more expensive spells a turn earlier, and playing swords too late in the game might give your opponent to last another, fatal turn. I gave 4.5 to both.
Posted By:
Carnophage_4ever
(10/28/2010 5:33:43 PM)
Printing anything that you can compare reasonably with Swords to Plowshares is a mistake, as there's no longer any point in playing 6+ cost creatures, without some wacky ways to dodge a removal. While you could argue that people shouldn't play with those creatures in the first place, but I believe it's a mistake when you own a card as awesome as Akroma and you never want to play her, knowing fully that she isn't even getting the first 6 damage in. Super-efficient removal lay extreme emphasis on keywords like Shroud, while making any other keyword and the p/t stats largely irrevelent on a huge creature. Erasing the meaningfulness of so many parameters that make different cards unique -- just about as dumb as Umezawa's Jitte making exactly what creatures you play largely unimportant.
I wish they had learned better when they stopped printing Swords in 5th edition.
Posted By:
Gabriel422
(11/25/2010 1:32:02 AM)
White keeps getting these 1 casting cost spot removals that have no targeting restrictions and often times do worse then "destroy" (exile/bottom of library).
Meanwhile black has what? Doomblade is the best? 2 casting cost, non-black targeting, and destroy?
I don't understand the color wheel anymore.
5/5 for power... but seriously, they shouldn't make these.
Posted By:
Mudbutt_on
(8/6/2010 3:52:55 PM)
I agree that white is about removal through exile and that this card is extremely flavourful. That being said, this card is far, far too powerful. If there was a restriction that only your opponents could mana ramp, that would be fine - but as it stands, this card is very unfun to play against.
The Swords to Plowshares argument is a red herring; that card was quite ridiculous. And if you haven't noticed, Alpha had a lot of balance issues (like any game system). That's like saying blue should get a near functional reprint of Ancestral Recall: some cards deserve to die and be improved upon to make the game not so tedious.
Posted By:
HolyCause
(4/29/2011 12:07:26 PM)
@blurrymadness: I love this card and Swords to Plowshares, but saying that a color did something since Alpha is not the best argument, given how the colors had vague shapes back then but aren't completely the same as now. Blue being able to blow up stuff just because it was Red for instance? That's definitely out of color for what we'd consider now.
Like I said, I love this card. White should have good removal. Black should have the best, then White. Red will have the weakest removal because it's damaged-based, but Red should also be given the most cards that can be aimed at the player as well, which gives it its own versatility.
I agree with Gabriel422 about cheap removal discouraging powerful, high costed creatures (and I love Akroma, so I'd like to play her), but they're also needed to keep the game in check in terms of creature power level. Creatures are more powerful now than they used to be, and I don't know how much we should be avoiding powerful removal just let creatures roa... (see all)
Posted By:
sarroth
(6/12/2011 1:33:27 PM)
I don't know why everyone keeps bringing up the strength disparity between black removal and white removal. White has been a very strong removal color since the very beginning (Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, Balance) and has had a lot of noncreature removal as well (Armageddon, Disenchant). Granted, much of its strongest removal were the board-clearing kind, but the precedent is there.
That said, Path to Exile is too powerful, it puts nearly everything else to shame with its effect vs cost ratio, and can be used for mana acceleration in a pinch. This should probably have been a sorcery.
Posted By:
Atali
(9/4/2010 2:30:10 PM)
Aww another overpowering removal for WHITE! =(((
Posted By:
BlackKWYte
(5/16/2011 5:15:59 PM)
swords to plowshares reprint, except granting the opponent an extra land instead of life.
so good. this is a no brainer. i'd trade his biggest baddest creatures for lands in a split second.
Posted By:
phantom.lance
(7/11/2010 12:53:18 AM)
Why are there so many nubz in here? White had Swords to Plowshares in *alpha*. Claiming white doesn't do removal is ignorance of the game as a whole IMO. They do TONS of mass removal, and have plenty of destruction/exile action.
Just look up Exile Target Creature in white and you'll find several variants on these forms of cards. Just because you disagree and feel that white doesn't/shouldn't do it doesn't mean it doesn't do it. Unmake, Exile, Path to Exile, Reciprocate, Devouring Light, Excise...
Further, white has target sacrifices and similar as well.
5/5, stop whining.
Posted By:
blurrymadness
(12/15/2010 5:20:52 PM)
You can also use it on one of your own creatures at the end of your opponent's turn for an early mana ramp in a pinch -especially if that same creature is about to be killed by burn ;)
Posted By:
Stray_Dog
(7/25/2010 9:56:54 AM)