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The Art of Suffocating: Smother vs. Last GaspBy Stefan Preiml on November 22nd, 2005 · Filed in Extended (Type 1.x) · 7 Comments
I'm a big fan of black removal spells that apply a power and toughness reduction to the targeted creature. My favorite so far was Darksteel’s Echoing Decay, a tricky card that could go from pinpoint removal to an entire Infest in certain situations. As you can imagine, I was quite excited when I first read about Last Gasp that would be printed in Ravnica. Most of the time, such reductions wouldn't go above -2/-2 without a heavy commitment at lower rarities (see Waste Away or Call for Blood for example) and this was quite annoying. Finally there was a workable and useful card that could kill 3 toughness guys using my favorite mechanic. The first thing I noticed when I saw Last Gasp was its similarity to the Onslaught block staple Smother. Both cost   and are extraordinary in killing early creature drops. Both can target black creatures and don't allow regeneration. These cards could lead into quite a debate wich one to use, maybe even concluding that one was strictly better than the other. I want to examine both cards in this article based on the format both are still legal in and is also the most relevant right now: the freshly rotated Extended.Breathe Deep and Die Before we start, we should take a look at the Extended field and all Extended removal spells in Black to see if there aren't cards in there that are strictly better than the two in discussion and so both also really worth running. Extended has a collection of effective smaller creatures and the new rise of Red Deck Wins and Boros Deck Wins lets you know that these small creatures will continue to be popular and continue to require removal. Both cards will have enough targets to be worth it, so lets see if there aren't better cards to run instead. I instantly excluded anything that costs more than three mana, because they really aren't worth it. Left are the following cards: Terminate, Vindicate and Putrefy: That all three of these are strictly better than our two cards in matters of targeting is nothing you need a degree for, but also they cost extra colored mana other than black. If you play that color combination, don't hesitate to include those if you have them, but keep in mind that sometimes you won't have the color you want and maybe you need something else as backup. Rend Flesh: Very nice removal and with the very low Spirit count in the format a target range that comes close to that of Terminate, but as we are searching for a quick and swift removal spell, the three mana cost of Rend Flesh can sometimes be a strong handicap to the card. Ghastly Demise: The odd thing about Ghastly Demise is that it costs one mana but grows stronger and stronger as the game goes on, making it far more effective in the late game than the early game if your deck isn't right about compensating it from the start. We are looking for early game removal, so this one isn't in. Chainer's Edict: Diabolic Edict was a staple in Extended before the Rotation because reanimator in various forms was viable and successful. Chainer's Edict lacks this application at the moment and due to the flood of Weenies at the moment in Extended, targeted removal at Instant speed is probably better, despite the flashback on the Edict. Sickening Shoal: This is a card can easily become a Last Gasp or go above it for the investment of enough mana or a card, both on a certain degree nothing you'd like to have in the early game. Echoing Decay: This was one of my favorite cards from Mirrodin Block, but honestly I'm not thinking this one would be worth it in Extended. Echoing Decay is proof of how much a point of toughness can matter, and Extended is also not as rich on tokens or animated lands that would propel it to the front. Darkblast: Paradox, isn't it? That a card that gives -1/-1 for one mana could be better than a card that gives -2/-2 for two mana, but Darkblast proves just that thanks to its heavy reusability with a drawback mitigated by the rules of constructed Magic itself. Still, this is not really comparable to either Smother or Last Gasp and I would wonder if we should ever see four of these in the same deck. It's certainly a great card that's seeing lots of play in lots of formats, but it doesn't really fill the same niche as Smother or Gasp do. Looks like we got quite a chance with our two removal spells in question, as they only strictly fall behind the three multicolor removal spells, probably even defeating them in terms of early game removal. Yup, these two cards are worth writing an article about. The Psychatog Factor When Smother came out, it had quite a buzz following it since it was capable of eliminating the Odyssey predators Psychatog and Wild Mongrel. Smother didn’t care about power or toughness and didn’t suffer from the drawback of being unable to target Black creatures (since Psychatog was Black and Mongrel could easily become Black.) Smother fulfilled its purpose in the heavily creature-driven Onslaught Block and the Odyssey/Onslaught Standard Format quite well, but was still rather disappointing against larger but aggressively-costed creatures like Ravenous Baloth, or two-toughness creatures with higher mana costs that were played for their abilities (for example Siege-Gang Commander). When Odyssey left Standard and Mirrodin entered, the format got swamped by 2/2s costing 4 mana and similar shenanigans. Smother slowly went out of the picture despite its remaining efficiency against Goblins (and all of the Affinity deck's creatures lacking the keyword). Still it found application in Extended targeting its favorites: Mongrel and Tog. GASP! Last Gasp's inability to handle a Psychatog and the relatively low chance of taking out Wild Mongrel are easy downsides to observe to this spell and will have most players discard this card as an option quite easily. A deeper look shows its main advantage: taking out cards that cost more than three mana with or without a little help. Take Affinity for example. This deck plays Frogmite and Myr Enforcer, both out of range for Smother, but Last Gasp can take out a 'mite without a batting an eyelid and the Enforcer is also no match for it if you control a creature that has a power of 1. Affinity often has a hard time killing creatures anyway so you normally don't have to worry about them removing the blocker. But its also possible for Goblins to bring attention to Last Gasp's main weakness: toughness pumping. Goblin Sledders are up and coming at the moment, but the necessity to sacrifice at least two creatures to make any fellow Goblin gasp-proof is a relatively weak plan as long as you choose the right time to play the Gasp. Toughness pumping, aside from Psychatog, Goblin Sledder, and sometimes a sword, is almost entirely not present in Extended. Sometimes you might run into Gaea's Might but only in very low frequencies. With a little help from my Friends One thing that can also be observed is that there are quite a few possibilities out there at the moment to compensate Last Gasp's weaknesses and mismatches. That is quite contrary to Smother, for its mechanic is pretty narrow and cards that can alter casting costs are non-existent. Best friends for Last Gasp would be anything that keeps the opponent from using the pumping abilities, with Pithing Needle being the most prominent and Damping Matrix probably being the most efficient in this bunch. I'm taking my Last Breath So which one to play? This is really a toss-up. It heavily depends on your style of play and your deck. If you are more heavy on creatures or are playing Pithing Needle or similar cards like in U/B Braids or WUb Solution and need to play early game removal, I'd take Last Gasp over Smother and maybe put the dying dwarf into the sideboard. For decks that are low on creatures, like Mono Black Control and Tog, or if you have a specific problem with self-pumping creatures, don't hesitate to include Smother in your lists. It's really worth it in this format. Looking at the metagame that goes less intuitive, Smother seems to go the longer distance. Its ability to kill Psychatog without any help as well as Wild Mongrel, Terravore, and Arcbound Ravager helps Smother keep the upper hand quite easily. Last Gasp is a very nice card, but the wider and more efficient application of Smother is difficult to ignore. In the end I'd like to say that Last Gasp is something many people should reconsider. I've seen some players who instantly discarded this one telling me that it's not Extended-playable. I on the other think it's quite a nice and solid removal spell, and everyone should consider it when they build their decks in the future. Maybe even just for the market with Smother slowly vanishing from sight becoming less available as the time passes on. Credits: Writing: chaosof99; Banner: iloveatogs; Editing:Binary and Goblinboy By Stefan Preiml on November 22nd, 2005 · Filed in Extended (Type 1.x) · 7 Comments |
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