Evolution Not Complete

Isn't it funny how the most useless cards are in certain colors? Even just looking back on the archives for this blog, you can see that most of them are artifacts, blue, or red. That's not to say that other colors don't have bad cards. Quite the contrary. However, the highest concentration of them is in red and blue mostly because, when we get to the lower end of things, spells tend to be worse than creatures and those are the "spell colors." I mean, Wood Elemental is pretty God-awful and I wouldn't recommend anyone actually played it, but it still bashes for like 2 damage, which is more than some previously reviewed cards can say.

What does this have to do with today's card, you ask? Well, it's because it's a red one. Go figure.

Yeesh, that's pretty bad. An instant for 1R that read "Draw a card" would be better, since it doesn't have to rely on targeting something that's in combat. And the bonus this provides to that target is both random and marginal, two things which are awful to have printed on a combat trick. So why would you ever want to play this card? You have much better options if you're really pressed for card draw on your red instants. Those two don't even need targets! Fancy that. And they both have a relevant second ability (Granted, Starstorm is much more relevant most of the time, but they're still both better than today's card).

Oh, wait. What's that? This card could be worse? I guess you're right. How could we make it worse? Maybe... making it slowtrip instead of cantrip? Yeah, that would work. Wait, what? They already did that? You've gotta be shitting me. There's no way they could have a (basically) strictly-worse version of this ca--

Oh sweet Jesus, you're kidding me. This one's even before modern design philosophy dictated that Spells Should Be Worse! I really can't believe this, so I'll say it in a different way to keep my mind from boggling more.

One of the worst cards in Invasion is a strictly-better functional reprint.

How ridiculous is that?


On another note, it's been brought to my attention that I should host a deckbuilding contest involving cards featured on this blog. Well, I think that's a spectacular idea. I'll get to work writing up some rules, guidelines, and maybe even a prize structure! That's right, play with terrible cards and you could--sort of--win big (maybe)! Keep your eyes peeled to future posts for more details!