Soulcoil Viper (LCI)

Soulcoil Viper
Casting Cost: {2}{B}
Card Type: Creature - Snake
Power/Toughness: 2/3
Card Text:
{B}, T, Sacrifice Soulcoil Viper: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. Activate only as a sorcery. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.)
Flavour Text:
"As the snake sheds its skin to be born anew, we cast off death to rise as servants of Aclazotz."
Artist: Allen Douglas

Card Strengths and Weaknesses:

• Strengths:

  • Graveyard Recursion: Soulcoil Viper has the ability to bring a creature card from your graveyard back to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. This can be a powerful way to recover important creatures.
  • Exile Prevention: The finality counter it adds to the returned creature prevents it from being sent to the graveyard if it would die, instead exiling it. This can protect your reanimated creature from various removal effects.

• Weaknesses:

  • Sorcery Speed: The ability to sacrifice Soulcoil Viper and return a creature from the graveyard can only be activated as a sorcery. This means you can't do it at instant speed, limiting its flexibility.
  • Vulnerable to Removal: Like many creatures, Soulcoil Viper can be targeted and removed by your opponent's spells or abilities, potentially preventing you from using its ability.

Overall Impression:
Soulcoil Viper is a creature with a unique ability to reanimate creatures from your graveyard with a finality counter, providing them with a form of protection from death. This can be a valuable tool for decks that rely on creatures with powerful enter-the-battlefield effects or want to revive key creatures that have been sent to the graveyard. However, its sorcery-speed activation and vulnerability to removal mean it must be carefully timed and protected to maximize its effectiveness.