"Blood Moon Rising"

"Blood Moon Rising"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

       The Card Blood Moon has been the staple of many red decks. Most of them are Goblin Decks that take advantage of the opponents mountains to enable Mountain walking Goblins to crash through for the win.

     I have had a copy of this 3 mana cost enchantment since the 8th edition and lately I bought a mint condition one for 20 pesos or 50 cents. I figure that it won't be in use as much but now that I think about it the guy who sold me the card severely undervalued it or had a very bad memory from it that he sold it to me that cheaply.

     Blood Moon along with Magus of the Moon( which has the same casting cost) has become relevant again not just because they can make Goblins unblockable in the EDH setting. They can both cripple an opponents mana base.Severely cripple it. Serious EDH players usually run dual or triple colored decks and would have a whole slew of non basic lands so that they could fix their mana. The annoying thing is that all of these become mountains and hence turn out to be colorless mana. Crippling if they need it to cast multi colored spells like Charms and their color specific creatures. Fetch lands are useless  because they won't be able to activate their abilities. 

     It is painful not to be able to use your Cavern of Souls , Boseiju or Hall of the Bandit Lord.Even the much valued Mutavault (which returns in M14) , Blinkmoth Nexus (currently in Modern Masters) and Inkmoth Nexus (still around from Scars of Mirrodin) . Dark Depths becomes just another mountain with no hope of summoning such a wonderful monster. Blood moon nullifies all these strategies.  

     The card is also reprinted in Modern Masters propelling it to almost 10 dollars! 400 pesos in the local scene because it is sure to mess up the serious players mana base the moment it comes into the battlefield. Of course in both modern and EDH there are ways to counter this and the amount of basic lands a player has may be able to counter act it as well. However  with it in play expect it to lock in a lot of non-basic lands to the annoyance of most of your play group mates. Expect a lot of enchantment removal the next time you play.