by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 30, 2009

Sometimes you see a magic the gathering card and you wonder how it is possible that that card had not already be printed. Those obvious ideas that had just never been made, and then other times you see a card and you read it then you stop and go back because it is so specific that you are sure there must be some plan for it but you just can't quite figure out what it is.

Scarblade Elite is a card that makes you wonder if there is a plan, or if this is simply a card that was made because it seemed fun. A rare elf assassin from the morningtide expansion set of magic the gathering it is a 2/2 creature for two black mana. This makes for a creature that is playable if not great, which is good because the cards ability is one that is difficult to imagine being used more than once or twice, though in that once or twice it might make the difference in a game.

The ability requires tapping and it reads "Exile an Assassin card from your graveyard: Destroy target creature."

Destroying a creature is always good of course, but this leads to the question that is at the center of this card which is, are you really going to play enough assassins in a deck that you can use this ability regularly? I mean there certainly are good assassins, I have long been the fan of the Royal Assassin able to hold back hoards of creatures simply because they are afraid to become tapped, but how many others are there that would work well enough as a group to truly make them worth playing in a deck.

The major problem is that assassins tend to work alone and having multiples gains you very little advantage. And while this has some synergy with stronghold assassin, that lets you tap it to sacrifice a creature and destroy an opponent's creature the truth is that if you want to kill a creature you are better off with terror or assassinate than this card in most cases.

The same problem for this card comes in to limited. This is a card that would be good if you were able to draft enough assassins to ever use it but the odds are good that you will never have the chance to play this in limited with any assassins, though it would have some luck with changings as well.

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