Alara Reborn – Bituminous Blast

A reaction to Alara Reborn uncommon, Bituminous Blast.

Hey ho friends, frolickers, and followers*!

As you’ve probably noticed both Brian David-Marshall and I have been hammering out one-of card reactions and reviews on some of the gas being leaked on the Alara Reborn Visual Spoiler, Brian on Top8Magic and me here… and on Top8Magic (if you don’t check out both blogs, here is a link to my take on Soulquake).

So this one, like Jund Hackblade earlier in the week, is going to be a double-up.

Brian mentioned in his review of Bituminous Blast that “[i]n Limited it will usually result in a free creature…” but I don’t see that as being necessarily limited to — pardon the French — Limited. I am notoriously not greedy when it comes to two-for-ones (maybe to my detriment… I just like any two-for-one). I don’t see any problem with hammering out a Bituminous Blast and turning over a creature.

For example, mid-combat you might get the holy grail of a full-on three-for-one! He is crashing with two bad guys, one big, one little. You Blast the big one Bituminous-style and flip over a medium-sized monster. I rarely block, but as a fan of two-for-ones, I will gladly take the free card and eat his little with my medium.

Et.

Cetera.

Aesthetics:
One thing I would point out is that they slapped the Cascade keyword onto this card, which implies that there are going to be more Cascade cards like Bituminous Blast (otherwise why not just explain the cool ability on the card sans keyword explanation?).

Why might this matter?

Well Bituminous Blast is probably going to be Constructed quality in the — to borrow an analogy from Brian — vein of a Prophetic Bolt, the possibility of going linear with Cascade cards is really quite amazing! Flip FLIP FLIP!

That is where I want my Blast to take me.

As Brian mentioned Liliana Vess makes for an interesting companion to Bituminous Blast (or any Cascade spell), but per usual I would think twice about playing too many fives.

Where can I see this fitting in?
Two places, and I already touched on both: 1) Any old deck that is willing to invest another two or three mana to get back another two or three mana plus a card in Cascade value; that is, many decks. 2) A Cascade linear deck (imagining of course)… But we’ll have to see about card availability. This will not sheck the foundations of Dominaria as a Tarmogoyf, but it is certaining interesting and should make for some cascades of incremental fun in fun formats.

Stap Judgment Rating: Role Player

LOVE
MIKE

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All Alara Reborn