Blightning

I think that Blightning is very awesome right now! With no good cheap utility counterspell, like Broken Ambitions, or with no early way to protect yourself, like how you used to do with Runed Halo. It’s super devastating to get hit by one of these. I believe getting hit by two of these and not finding a way to recoup those 4 cards will eventually lead to your doom, that it’s the equivalent of getting hit by a Cruel Ultimatum.

Right now, it seems like the Meta is very agro, which means by turn 4 or 5, your opponent should be down to 3 or 4 cards. This makes Blightning a very good card against agro decks because chances are they’re holding their recursion/card advantage spells in their hand like their Maelstrom Pulse, Jund Charm, Day of Judgement, Sign in Blood, Ranger of Eos, etc.

Against control decks, you have to watch out for their cantrip cards like Esper Charm, Jace Beleren, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, or Sphinx of Lost Truths. You can’t let them draw cards or else your Blightnings will become useless. What’s the point in throwing a Blightning at them when they just drew 2 cards from Esper Charm and now have a full grip of 7 cards in their hand?

You have to play the game right and time your Blightnings well. I sometime try to hold out till they’re down to 2 or 3 cards left, then I’ll hit them with Blightning. Or I’ll try to make them tap out and then I’ll hit them with 2 or more Blightnings. When playing against control decks, don’t worry about their Days of Judgement cards or their Broodmate Dragons, yes, those are viable threats, but the cards that you need to worry about are Jace Beleren & Esper Charm. A good control player knows that if they want to win, THEY NEED CARD DRAW, not counter spells, not mass removal, not big creatures, but card draw! A control deck that is able to draw cards will usually win! When playing Blightning against control decks remember to use them wisely.

I played a Cascade Control deck at the SCG $5K, which I audibled to the night before with no playtesting experience, and was able to earn a respectable 4-2-1 standing. Why was I able to win 4 ½ times? Because Cascading into a Blightning or Esper Charm is totally unfair!

I played a Jund Agro deck, based on what Conley Woods & Brad Nelson played at Nationals, at a box tournament and made it into the top 8 with a 3-0-1 record. Why was I able to make it into the top 8? Because Cascading into a Blightning is totally unfair!

I’ve Cascaded into a lot of good cards, for example:

Enlisted Wurm into Baneslayer Angel
Bituminous Blast into Wrath of God/Day of Judgement
Bituminous Blast into Ajani Vengeant
Bloodbraid Elf into Kitchen Finks

I’ve even gone from Enlisted Wurm into Bituminous Blast into Bloodbraid Elf into Kitchen Finks.


But by far my favorite is anything into Blightning.