by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 03, 2009

Assassins and other cards in magic the gathering which are able to kill creatures are very powerful. The reason for this is clear but worth exploring. There are two basic jobs any creature has. The first is to do damage to the opponent. This is the primary reason that you play creatures and what you hope they will be doing, but the second is to deal with other creatures and while this may not be the primary goal if it is done well it makes the primary goal much easier. Creatures that can kill others directly do the second part of this so much better than any other that they hardly have to do the first. The other major reason they are important is because a card that allows you to kill a creature directly makes it less necessary for you to have cards in your deck that do only that. This lets you play a higher percentage of creatures and helps win creature battles.

Hunter of Eyeblights is an uncommon elf assassin from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs two black and three colorless and and is a 3/3 creature. It's come into play effect reads "When Hunter of Eyeblights enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you don't control." This seems like a real problem until you read the second part of hunter Of Eyeblights.

This second ability costs one black, two colorless and tapping the hunter. It reads "Destroy target creature with a counter on it." This is why the first ability is useful as it allows you to guarantee that Hunter of eyeblights will have at least one target.

There is a small problem with this though. Since hunter of Eyeblights has summoning sickness when it comes into play you will be unable to simply kill that creature immediately. This means that, since your opponent knows you are going to kill it anyway that he will almost certainly attack with the creature you put the counter on. This may not be a major point but if you're low on health it can force you to trade with a creature that would otherwise simply have died.

Beyond that though this is a very useful card as there are far more creatures than ever which use counters and many of them are quite powerful, and these need not be +1/+1 counters. Any type of counter will work so let the hunt begin.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.