Card Spotlight: Stab Wound

If there’s one card I was glad to see return in M15, as well as something I believe was underplayed in Standard, it’s Stab Wound.

I remember Stab Wound as an absolute mini-bomb in Return To Ravnica block limited, if you knew how to play it right. So why do I still like it now?

Ah, The Options…

The best and most obvious aspect of Stab Wound is that you can use it in one of three ways. First of all, you can use it as removal on something with 2 toughness or less. As long as you can target it, this will get rid of something. It’s not perfect, but removal is removal and Black decks like to kill things.

Secondly, you can simply weaken something. Want to trade your 2/2 for a 4/4? Stick Stab Wound on a big guy and it can’t block as profitably as it would have liked. This approach forces opponents to trade downward – something I loved in Return to Ravnica – and means you’re little guys make a bigger impact in the late game. Case in point: Put Stab Wound on a Ghor-Clan Rampager and you can trade with an unleashed Rakdos Cackler – that’s a one-drop matching a 4-drop in base stats.

Finally, you can simply use it to keep your opponents life total down. If they have something big enough, you can ensure the creature lives while the enchantment drains their life total. Of course, this also means your opponent will want to get rid of their own creature, so it helps to try and put this on things that can’t block. I know it’s a long shot, but this fact alone makes me want to try and make this card work with Gnarled Scarhide, which brings me to my next point because…

…It’s An Enchantment.

In the current Standard, it’s safe to say enchantment’s matter. Constellation is a thing and it works well with cheap enchantments.

Black doesn’t have the most Constellation effects, but it has two I like. Doomwake Giant is good at making the opponents side smaller. It’s highly effective against wide decks but it still makes its impact felt in all match-ups regardless.

Secondly, if you feel like going Black-White, you could play these cards with Underworld Coinsmith. The Coinsmith let’s you nip at the opponents life with your own. Yet the Coinsmith will let you gain a bit back thanks to Constellation, while Stab Wound helps drain even more. Is it strong enough to work in Standard? Probably not, but I like it all the same and it’s a deck I’m toying with in my mind at the moment. Let’s not forget Atheros is a powerful card – and an indesctructible enchantment – in his/her/it’s own right.

That said, Green has some very easy ways to remove all enchantments and this could give Black a major drawback in these match-ups. If you’re going the Underworld Coinsmith route, you have the likes of God’s Willing to save key pieces, but it probably won’t be enough to work.

Poor Removal

However, although I’ve said you can use Stab Wound as removal, it’s no doom blade. While M15 limited is sparce of decent black kill spells, the Standard metagame at the moment is not. Heck, there is no way this card can compare to Hero’s Downfall but – in the right decklist – why not run both?

All I’m saying is being able to kill something with Stab Wound is nice but it is not the main purpose of the card – but who is going to complain with that alternative upside?