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Magic the Gathering card analysis: Nettlevine Blight

by Elton Gahr

There are only a handful of ways to gain card advantage in magic the gathering. The most obvious are cards that simply saw draw x cards where x is more than one, but because they are obvious people generally already know about them. The second way is to destroy several of your opponents cards with one of your own. These are cards like wrath of god, balance, even creatures like Shriekmaw are best when they can be used to kill one creature while allowing you some other advantage. Nettlevine Blight is a rare aura from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering which can enchant a land or a creature. It costs two black and four colorless mana and it reads "Enchanted permanent has "At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice this permanent and attach Nettlevine Blight to a creature or land you control."" What this means at its most basic is that at the end of every opponent end phase they are going to sacrifice a permanent, and assuming the game goes long enough this will begin to matter, but the truth is that it is unlikely to happen unless you plan it to. The major problem is that it costs six mana. If you were able to use this earlier it could be devastating but even if you are able to put this into play on your sixth turn, it will be the end of their turn before it does anything, and even then it isn't going to have any real effect until the beginning of their next turn. At that point the opponent gets to pick what creature is destroyed next, which means that it is going to be the card in the game that they need the least. Likely a basic land of which they will have several or a small creature that is of no real value. Another problem is that you can't really use this card twice. The reason for this is because if you put it on two creatures the smart opponent will then attach both of them to the same card. Then the next turn when the card is destroyed by the first enchantment the second will go to the graveyard. In the end the problem with this card is that it could not cost much less without being overpowering but at its price it is just too slow. And so if you can cast this early it could be devastating a simple six mana creature would likely be better.