Hand of Cruelty is likely to be a popular card in constructed. His peer the Samurai of the Pale Curtain made an immediate splash in Extended, with standout players like Jelger Wiergsma, Neil Reeves, and Gabe Walls all attacking with the veiled Fox back at last year’s PT Columbus. Now Hand of Cruelty joins Samurai of the Pale Curtain, breaking that creature’s monopoly as the only 2/2 Bushido creature for two mana. Legendary creatures like Kentaro, the Smiling Cat and Sensei Golden-Tail are fine, but they don’t exactly live through altercations with opposing two-drops, with or without combat abilities themselves.
Hand of Cruelty is essentially Black Knight with the Kamigawa Block flavor. Instead of First Strike, he gets Bushido. Bushido may be a little worse than First Strike when combined with Red removal (many players in ages past, including US National Champion Dennis Bentley coupled Black Knight with Lightning Bolt to take down huge monsters), but the newer ability is often better when going toe-to-toe with creatures without any frills or add-ons. For all its ability, Black Knight could be held off by a Rogue Elephant or even Trained Armodon, but few players will want to trade two cards or their three drops in the early game with a two drop like Hand of Cruelty; look for foolish players to lose 2/4s to Lose Hope in upcoming tournaments.
Because the most recent Black decks in both Standard and Extended have been control decks, it isn’t certain that Hand of Cruelty will be headlining a tier one list immediately. Even with Affinity gone now, Standard gives players a lot of incentives to play either slow Black decks with Death Cloud or beatdown in other colors. However, along with Bob Maher’s new card next fall and key role players like Nezumi Graverobber on the lineup, look for Black’s more aggressive creatures to make a comeback before too long. When the beatdown does return, you can bet that Hand of Cruelty will be one of the vicious threats making that happen.
引用元
REBIRTH OF THE VILLAIN Posted in Feature on May 19, 2005
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/rebirth-villain-2005-05-19
《残虐の手/Hand of Cruelty》のプレビュー記事です。
《白騎士/White Knight》と《黒騎士/Black Knight》を始めとして、白と黒の２マナウィ ニー向けクリーチャーは定番の１つでした。
もっとも、最近ではあまり見られません。
２色だけにこのようなカードを作るよりも、５色のサイクルを作る傾向にあるからです。
また、当時の白ウィニーと黒ウィニーの状況を比較しています。
黒ウィニーは、白よりも パーツが不足気味だったのですが、このような優良クリーチャーが加わったことで復活す るだろうと予想して締めくくっています。
実際、神河ブロック構築において、黒ウィニー が台頭できた一因なので、この予想は当たったと言っていいでしょう。
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