Splinter Nin
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 9 | 18 COMMENTS | 6070 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS
Rethinking Grab the Reins —May 15, 2015
Removed: Grab the Reins - Back when this deck focused more on stealing and sacrificing threats, I loved Grab the Reins. I read the card as an instant speed Threaten, with a Fling built-in when necessary, but I was wrong. Looking more closely at this card, it doesn't untap the stolen creature, meaning that it won't block for me if there are no untapped creatures on the board, making it situational and expensive to 2-for-1 an opponent. When the combo packages were added to this deck, the mostly incremental damage was no longer a factor, and this card was on the way out
Added: Turn / Burn - Compare Turn / Burn to Grab the Reins and it's functionally much better. Turn can blank a big attacker for less mana than Reins (and all of my creatures can block and kill a 0/1 attacker), a well-timed Turn / Burn can sometimes have a big impact, and by fusing both halves of Turn / Burn, I can achieve the same effect as an entwined Grab the Reins (minus the fling ability) at a reduced cost. Turn/Burn does nearly everything that Grab the Reins does, except for less mana and more flexibility.