Sacrifice
How to Brutally Mogg Your Opponent
I'm not sure what about throwing creatures away feels so inherent to Magic. But as a player who despite the name of this blog usually gravitates towards decks on the Jund spectrum, I've always thought it's fun to make a bunch of little guys and throw them at my opponent with a goblin bombardment. And I hope by the end of this post, you feel the same way.
Sacrifice is such a flavorful keyword, too. It invokes the real-life concept, of having a trade off, something lesser for something greater, at least in the moment. And on a mechanical level, it's simple too: send something to the graveyard as a cost for some other kind of effect. In the case of Goblin Bombardment, for the simple effect of a 1 damage ping.
While sacrifice can appear in any color, it’s most closely associated with the Jund spectrum of Black, Red, and Green (usually tied to lands/creatures as is the case with many Green cards). I’ve previously discussed fetch lands in the blog on Search, but sacrifice can provide other value effects like Mind Stone (drawing a card), the Pauper-banned Deadly Dispute (drawing multiple cards and generating mana), Diabolic Intent (searching for any card), or Steve (ramping additional mana). The face card for this post, Goblin Bombardment, turns creatures into direct damage that can be used as removal or burn depending on the circumstance, and Demolition Field belongs to a class of lands with Wasteland and Strip Mine (not pictured here), that deal with problematic lands through self-sacrifice.
Sacrifice effects are also the backbone of an archetype of deck known as Aristocrats (named for cards like Falkenreath Aristocrat & Cartel Aristocrat), which usually involves the sacrificing of creatures for lifegain & damage, card draw, or other forms of value at a density that you can build a strategy just around sacrifice engines. A good intro the history of Aristocrats in competitive standard is here in the intro to this deck tech by SBMTG, but there are lots of good intros to the archetype for either cube or EDH.
I love sacrifice effects. It’s a mechanic that rewards careful consideration of resources, that needs effective reading of the board and tempo, and is best when you can maximize every little bit of every card you play to the board. It’s the kind of mechanic that expects you to go down on one or multiple resources, in order to generate value that more than makes up the difference of the loss.
Next week, we’ll take a looks at making something from nothing, a key combo with Sacrifice effects. See you then.