Not So Bad: Traitor's Clutch

Today during a random card excavation I came accross the much-maligned Traitor's Clutch…an overcosted, measly common from Time Spiral.

OR IS IT?

Well, it is a common, I'll give you that. There are 3 important aspects to consider for this card:
1. It is an instant
2. It gives a creature shadow
3. It has flashback

The other portions of the ability are fairly pointless…few if any games I have ever wished my creatures to be black, especially when they are probably already black, since I'm playing black.

1. It is an instant. This puppy has combat trick written all over it. Cast it before the "declare blockers" phase, and you can get just about any creature over the fence. What kinds of creatures? Perhaps a 10/10 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade or a 21/21 Kresh the Bloodbraided. Token swarms are useless!

2. Why does your creature get to walk right through your opponent's defenses? Shadow, my dear Watson. A relic from the age of Tempest, "shadow" creatures can't be blocked by non-shadow creatures.
And vice-versa…so if your opponent has 1 problem creature, giving him shadow means your entire non-shadow army can get right through.

Will your opponent have defenses to guard against shadow? Probably not, since Shadow is a form of evasion only slightly more common that Horsemanship. And Horsemanship might as well say "CARDNAME can't be blocked".

3. Traitor's Clutch has flashback. Here's a scenario: cast Traitor's Clutch to do lethal damage to your opponent. He sends out a counterspell. You cast it AGAIN, for 2 measly mana, right out of your graveyard. Game. Set. Match. A pretty good feeling.

At one point, I argued that Looter il-Kor was the Greatest Looter of All Time, much for the same reasons I now find myself considering Traitor's Clutch.

The bad: 5 mana is really a boat-load of mana to consider for the results. Too slow for constructed, I look forward to heavily testing this gem in EDH. Especially in a deck leaning heavily on the side of discard, since accidentally tossing this beauty in the grumper suddenly makes it CHEAPER and BETTER.

The name Traitor's Clutch is derived from the il-vec, vile collaborators to the brutal Rathi Evincar. They live in a place called the City of Traitors.

Anyway, thanks everyone for watching my humiliation in the previous post. That I could share it with you recouped some of my precious ego to the point I could continue my card-collecting pursuits without risk of water damage. From the tears.