Lamer Than it Looks (And That's Saying Something)

Okay, so what do you think of when you think of extraplanar beings dueling in the outermost reaches of the multiverse? A massively busty sorceress standing on top of a teetering precipice wielding a powerful artifact that turns night into day and blood into fire while storms rage in the background and her opponent mounts his army of dinosaurs bristling with laser cannons and nukes and the earth trembles from their combined might? Yeah, that's pretty kickass. But did you think of something else? How about making someone trivially more defensible? Isn't that kickass? Isn't it?

Not pictured: awesome.

I think I just lost my boner.

Seriously, how lame is that? One minute you're summoning the fires of the unstoppable rage of one of the most powerful beings in existence, and the next you're boosting some goblin's defense a tiny bit at the cost of making him ineffectual? I just lost my other boner.

I can think of literally one situation this card is useful for, and it's probably why it was printed. Imagine you're at the New Phyrexia prerelease, and you bust open your packs to find that you have a totally kickass U/G poison deck or something. So you slap that monstrosity together, and realize one thing. Your removal is absolute horseshit.

Not pictured: permanent solutions.

You tear through your stack of cards, frantically looking for something that will extend the clock your opponent will inevitably put on you, and find Defensive Stance. "Well," you rationalize, "It's better than not having anything, I guess." You find your first opponent, shake hands, and two turns in, you realize you're playing a mirror match when he casts his first spell. You draw for your next turn, look at your cards, and grin a wicked grin. "Take that!" you say, as you windmill slam down a piddly little Aura. Your opponent looks confused for a second, and asks to see just what the hell that card even is. His eyes widen as he realizes all his plans of putting you on a 10-turn clock have been foiled! You cackle gleefully and praise yourself for being the BEST TECH DECKBUILDING PRO EVAR as you proceed to play out the rest of the match.

...and that's it. A horribly contrived situation that really only appears in Limited. No one in their right mind is going to play Blighted Agent in any sort of Constructed deck in the current state of things, and you should slap yourself for even considering putting Defensive Stance in your mainboard over an extra Island.

Not pictured: lameness.

So go. Run along into the cruel, cold world of Magic knowing that useless cards are still printed to this very day. Live with the knowledge that every time you open a booster pack, you too could be faced with the challenge of whether to use some of the cards as coasters, or as bookmarks. Imagine the laughter that Wizard's R&D has at your expense.

But most of all, remember that you are not alone.

~spikez 4 life~