by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 30, 2009

One of the things that is easy to overlook in magic the gathering is the considerable amount of humor that can be found in the flavor text, the art and even the mechanics of many cards. This is lost in large part because in the intent to find the best cards we sometimes don't really look at them at all.

Brion Stoutarm is a rare legendary giant warrior from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs one white, one red and two colorless to put into play and is a 4/4 creature with lifelink. This alone would make it an excellent addition to most red and white decks since the cost of a 4/4 creature in either one of these colors are typically more than four mana, and life link makes it less expensive but it has another ability on top of that.

This ability costs one red and tapping the creature and reads "Sacrifice a creature other than Brion Stoutarm: Brion Stoutarm deals damage equal to the sacrificed creature's power to target player. "

This along with the picture the flavor of this card is clear. Brion Stoutarm picks up the creature and throws it at the opponent. This is entertaining but it is also a useful ability, especially when connected with life link, because not only can use it to get through with damage but because you can gain value out of any creature that is going to die.

One of the best ways to use this is to block a large creature with a smaller one and then after the creature has been declared a blocker you pay one and sacrifice this to not only do some extra damage to your opponent but to gain life as well, and the same can be done after attacking. If you attack with more creatures than your opponent has and then after he has declared blockers you sacrifice one of them to do damage and gain some life making it far easier to win a damage race.

In fact one of the only major weaknesses of this card is that as a 4/4 it is often going to be more valuable to attack with it in the short term, and you must decide if you would rather do extra damage or gain the advantage from using this to keep from the full loss of battles and creature removal.

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