Sarkhan, Fireblood Spits Flame!
Sarkhan, Fireblood
Sarkhan, Fireblood
- Effect of card: +1: You may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
+1: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon spells.
-7: Create four 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying. - Converted mana cost: 3
- Type: Legendary Planeswalker – Sarkhan
- Sets: M19
- Game: Magic: The Gathering
- Colors: Red mana
- Illustrators: Grzegorz Rutkowski
+1: You may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
Sarkhan’s first ability is kind of like a Tormenting Voice you can play each turn. This is a pretty powerful “plus” ability to tack onto a three casting cost Planeswalker.
It’s totally up to you if you want to actually discard the card; but looting to fix your hand with no associated mana cost is generally pretty attractive.
You can get an extra boost — a “personal Howling Mine” even — if you combine Sarkhan with the right cards. A great example might be new Instant Spit Flame:
Spit Flame
In a deck with a decent number of Dragons, Spit Flame let you essentially draw a card for R. But not just any card… a solid removal spell with obvious re-buy implications!
The “Dragons” bit is a decent sized clause though. Which brings us to…
+1: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon spells.
Sarkhan is at his best in a deck with a decent number of Dragons. His second “plus” ability is quite the rule-breaker… While building loyalty!
In case you missed how powerful this ability is at first glance, Sarkhan can jump you from three mana to six in a single turn.
The implication is that you have three mana, because that’s what this card costs. Ditto on red.
If you make your next land drop, you’ve got four; add two mana from the second +1 and you’ve got Palladia-Mors mana!
Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner
Sarkhan is going to do best with some kind of red Dragons; but his second +1 can take care of up to two incremental colors.
Palladia-Mors is a good example as he illustrates the jump from three to six in a single day; and with conditional hexproof, makes for a good guardian for Sarkhan to hide behind.
-7: Create four 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying.
This card’s third ability is great, and a decent part of what makes it work.
Not for nothing, but four 5/5 Dragons make 20 power
an plausibly “loot” with the [+1] a few times, just to get to the Ultimate limit break here. Four 5/5 Dragons make for 20 power, remember. So this is not just a potentially card advantageous Ultimate, but a straight up kill on the battlefield.
Check out our take on Sarkhan, Fireblood in this week’s podcast!
… And when you’re done, we’d love it if you gave Mike’s new [Muggle] podcast a try. It’s called “Such a Crock” and co-stars his better half. The first episode is about Forbidden Sex (so Mike is making it easy for you to click).
