During my first stint at MagicTheGathering.com, I had the great fortune of previewing many powerful cards. These include Basking Rootwalla, Ichorid, Living Wish, Fledgling Dragon, and Rotlung Reanimator. Today it is my pleasure to preview a brand-new card from Dissension that is easily more powerful than any of these cards:
Holy crap.
*Changes pants*
Holy crap.
Is Lyzolda, the Blood Witch the Second Coming? The answer is yes.
Let's take another look.
Can I compose myself long enough to write this article? Let me try.
....
Lyzolda commands me to finish this article so she can throw me in the fires.
For those of you who have not been following Dissension at all, Black/Red is the Rakdos guild — a guild built around complete, no-holds-barred aggression. For instance, take Gobhobbler Rats.
Gobhobbler Rats — BR
Creature — Rat. 2/2.
Hellbent — Gobhobbler Rats gets +1/+0 and has “B: Regenerate Gobhobbler Rats” as long as you have no cards in hand.
The Rakdos mechanic revolves around getting down to no cards in hand — a strategy that meshes well with playing on the board, so to speak. Lyzolda, the Blood Witch is the ultimate expression of this theme — an aggressively-costed creature that turns your other creatures into Shock, cards, or both.
It's always difficult to talk about any one given preview card without knowing (or being able to discuss — but in this case it's not knowing) the entire scope of the set. Even without full knowledge of the set, there's at least three cards in Standard that we know of that will make maximum usage of Lyzolda:
Gobhobbler Rats.
The Rakdos Guildmage.
Lyzolda herself.
Lyzolda is a walking two-for-one or three-for-one. If your opponent tries to kill her while you have two mana up, you can shoot one of their creatures (or them) plus draw a card. Lyzolda can trade with a good number of creatures in Standard, all while making you come out ahead a card plus damage.
Basically, would you pay three mana for a reusable card-drawing and Shock effect in an archetype that is built around suiciding your hand and creatures until the opponent is dead? The answer for me is a clear yes. Lyzolda is a rare combination — a card that is so good that you both want to auto-include it in any Black/Red deck you build, but also functions as the flagship card for an entire deck.
I was browsing through the advanced spoiler generator on this site, and found that there were quite a few creatures that work well with Lyzolda. They include (alphabetically):
Dark Confidant: Sacrifice the Confidant to get it off the board, plus draw a card.
Festering Goblin: Give an opposing creature -1/-1, plus draw a card.
Gravedigger: Get back a creature (Lyzolda herself?) then draw a card.
Keening Banshee: Give an opposing creature -2/-2, then draw a card.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: Make copies of things to sacrifice to Lyzolda. Card advantage ensues.
Kokusho, the Evening Star: Drain Life for five, draw a card.
Nekrataal: Kill an opposing creature, then draw a card.
Ravenous Rats: Your opponent discards a card, then you draw a card.
Rukh Egg: Shock your opponent, plus get a 4/4 for your efforts.
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker: Get back lots of 1/1 Red and Black creatures to repeatedly sacrifice to Lyzolda.
Sparkmage Apprentice: Deal three damage to target creature or player.
Thief of Hope: Draw a card, and then get back Plagued Rusalka.
This list of creatures doesn't include the truly sick aggro-plays that will occur with Lyzolda on the board. I expect to see a very fair share of games decided by an attacking Frenzied Goblin taking out two defenders — one through its ability, and one through a sacrifice to Lyzolda.
Blocking or attacking into your creatures becomes a losing proposition for your opponent in general, once you get Lyzolda on the board. Any creature trade will end up either in you drawing a card, or your opponent taking two (or their creature taking two) — or both.
A few fun facts about Lyzolda, courtesy of Mark Rosewater and Wizards of the Coast:
When asked about Lyzolda, Mike Turian said “My Black/Red Future/Future League deck still plays her over Hypnotic Specter.”
When asked about plants in previous sets that would work well with the Rakdos Guild: “The hellbent mechanic rewards you for having an empty hand. Black and Red both have numerous cards from the past that turned cards into some other resource (or in some cases, just make it really easy to get rid of your hand.) Most of these cards get much better in decks that play cards with hellbent. Did we plan this on purpose? Maybe. *Smiley Face*”
On the original design of Lyzolda, the Blood Witch, “The original version of Lyzolda dealt 1 damage regardless of the color of the sacrificed creature. If it was Red, it then dealt an additional damage. We changed it because we wanted the “color matters” legends (each guild has a rare one) to only work with the colors from its own guild. (This is how the Ravnica and Guildpact ones worked.) As this slightly weakened the card it allowed us to price it more aggressively.”
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch. Get used to seeing her here, because you're going to be seeing her across from you pretty often over the next few years.
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