"Ashiok, Nightmare Muse: Inspiring Terror."

"Ashiok, Nightmare Muse: Inspiring Terror."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

So what exactly does a Nightmare Muse inspire? I can tell you want thing it doesn't , they don't give you dreams about cooing babies and cute puppies. Check out the Theros trailer for more Ghoulish children action where Ashiok shows Elspeth a truly terrifying thing.

At 5 mana , 3 colorless and Dimir colors Ashiok, Nightmare Muse enters the battlefield with 5 loyalty counters. And I do feel that this planeswalker is really on the sadistic side.

Check out Ashiok, Nightmare Muse's first ability that creates a 2/3 blue and black Nightmare creature token with "Whenever this creature attacks or blocks, each opponent exiles the top two cards of their library."...Ashiok makes mini Nemesis of Reason's!!! All it needs is to step forward and an opponent is "Inspired" to madness by losing 2 cards from their library! This is actually worse than the Nemesis of Reason as the card is exiled, unlike the Milling where an opponent can still use cards from their graveyard for Delve and reanimation. 

And want to see another cruel thing?Ashiok, Nightmare Muse's 2nd ability. -3: Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand, then that player exiles a card from their hand.

That's just returning a permanent to their hand how cruel is that? The bounce helps you of course but some players prefer to be able to recast their own permanents for their ETB effects. And this is where the potential danger of this ability comes in. If they only have a 2 or 3 cards in hand , they will be forced to exile something that they were holding on to for future plans like a combo piece , mass removal or counter. If they only have no hand and non-land gets bounced by this ability of Ashiok when it might as well read as "Exile target non-land permanent."

And believe me there are already plenty of existing Milling/Discarding/Exiling decks with Ashiok as the main star. What is one more version to add in this mix right?

And in the long run this ultimate ability will be the end of an opponent.-7: You may cast up to three face-up cards your opponents own from exile without paying their mana costs.

Ashiok, Nightmare Muse merely needs to survive 3 turns for this ability to be activated and assuming that there are very good permanents or spells in that Exile zone. Like a Blightsteel Colossus ,  Omniscience and Rivers of Tears for example.While EDH opponents are forced to reestablish their boards you can take your time and pick them off one by one. Well you do get the idea. Ashiok truly inspires one's nightmares.