Shadow of Mortality (Foil) (SNC)

Shadow of Mortality
Casting Cost: {13}{B}{B}
Card Type: Creature - Avatar
Power/Toughness: 7/7
Card Text:
If your life total is less than your starting life total, this spell costs {X} less to cast, where X is the difference.
Flavour Text:
"Build your towers as tall as you want. The shadow always reaches higher."
-Message scrawled on an alley wall
Artist: Robin Olausson

Strengths and Weaknesses:

• Strengths:
  • Potentially very low casting cost if your life total is sufficiently reduced.
  • Strong 7/7 body.
• Weaknesses:
  • Extremely high initial casting cost.
  • Lacks any additional abilities like trample, flying, or hexproof to make it more impactful.

Deck Utility:

• Life Manipulation Decks: Fits well in decks that deliberately manipulate life totals.

• Reanimator Strategies: A good target for reanimation spells to circumvent the high casting cost.

• Ramp: In a deck that can produce a lot of mana, it could be hard-cast.

Interactions and Combos:

• Life-Loss Cards: Cards that enable you to pay life as a cost could make this card easier to cast.

• Reanimation Spells: Bring this creature back from the graveyard without paying its mana cost.

• Cost Reduction: Other spells or abilities that reduce casting costs could make this creature even easier to cast.

Flavor and Lore:

• The card's flavor text suggests an inevitability to mortality, a shadow that looms larger the higher one aims to build.

Overall Impression:

Shadow of Mortality is a card with a unique cost-reduction mechanism tied to your life total. While its initial casting cost is prohibitively high, the spell becomes increasingly affordable as you lose life, making it a potentially game-changing play in the right circumstances. However, it lacks additional keywords or abilities that would make it truly formidable on the battlefield. It would best fit in decks that can either reduce its casting cost or cheat it into play.