"Death by Exsanguinate"

"Death by Exsanguinate"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

The card Exsanguinate was made to end lives. Specifically to end the lives of all your opponents when playing Commander. Sucking the life out of all your opponents simultaneously and adding all of that life loss to your own is way better than just using one Consuming Spirit or Drain life on a single target. Talk about a massive swing in your favor right? When this card first came out in Mirrodin Besieged it had multiplayer written all over it. It was the only place where it was maximized and it was seen in bargain binders the world over.When EDH came to the forefront in the list of Magic players this one particular card stood among those cards that had the Multiplayer seal stamped on them. 

In our current EDH league I was able to watch Karl finish off Garry and Cryst by having one uncountered Exsanguinate resolve and do all the dirty work. Garry who was running an Azorius Blue/ White Deck and Cryst who was running an Izzet Blue / Red deck was not able to react to the this blackspell that consumed them to Oblivion.

The X on this particular cards might be considered a draw back but please keep in mind that EDH is a long drawn out game where people can amass vast amounts of mana in no time at all because of Rocks, Talismans or Runes. Not to mention the mana ramp that is available to any green mage.A simple Vorinclex in play instantly doubles all of your mana while crippling your opponents on the succeeding turns. Indeed in EDH there are so many ways to die.Death by Exsanguinate though is a higher way of dying because unlike creature damage it is much harder to pull off. 

So the next time you see a player with Black Mana and an abundance of mana ramp ,keep that counter handy. An Exsanguinate just might be a turn away.