Soul's Fire

Instant

Target creature you control in play deals damage equal to its power to target creature, player or planeswalker.

Discussion (51)

ChibiNature on The Pie Raker's Army

3 weeks ago

TwinStags

Don't think I would ever run that in my life xD. It's at sorcery speed, so can only be cast on your turn. Is effectively a 7 mana deal 6, since 1 damage HAS to go at your team and you will very very rarely have 7 red mana exclusively. Doesn't draw you a card. And it cannot even compare to the damage output of cards like Chandra's Ignition when you consider the number of targets it hits for 2 less mana. Cards like that and Aurelia's Fury , Soul's Fire , and Impact Resonance will outclass it at every turn.

Nice art tho

UndeadObserver on Thromok Thud Deck

1 month ago

honestly i add a few more instant speed flings like Soul's Fire and Grab the Reins and also Chord of Calling might be a good idea because you are running Heart-Piercer Manticore as that is another way to instant speed kill someone. doing things a instant speed just gives people why less time to react.

Thanat0s141 on Hungry Hungry Hellion

1 month ago

llutul Nope, commander damage is only from combat damage, cards like Soul's Fire and Gravitic Punch don't count as commander damage.

llutul on Hungry Hungry Hellion

1 month ago

sorry for the noob question but, Soul's Fire plus Thromok the Insatiable Counts as commander damage ?

I mean you can kill someone with only 20 damage ? Great Deck BTW

TheRedGoat on It's Tough to be Xenagod

2 months ago

So what is your experience with Bloodshot Cyclops , or Soul's Fire , or Thud and effects like that?

Additionally, have you considered utility creatures that are incidentally larger than their cost? Wayward Swordtooth is the only example that comes to mind, but you get the idea.

MrXilas on Greven, Hateful Captain

2 months ago

This deck would love Soul's Fire . Great removal once Greven hits his critical mass and you can pair it off with Tainted Strike to knock two opponent's out at once!

VaalVanir on The Pie Raker's Army

3 months ago

ChibiNature Think we can go hard on Soul's Fire ? Just need to hit Fists of Flame and Zada, and Soul's Fire ... nevermind it'll never work.

Tzefick on Ajani, Soulforger

4 months ago

EDIT: Revised versions appear below after the initial iteration.

'

This idea bases around Ajani during the Shards of Alara story but not his rage mindset from Ajani Vengeant and instead focuses on his abilities to bring out aspects or avatars of the strengths of his allies.

Ajani has always kinda had this sort of behavior as we see in his planeswalker forms like;

Ajani Goldmane

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Ajani Steadfast

These sort of abilities have primarily manifested themselves in +1/+1 counters and often as a board wide buff or targeting multiple creatures. It works relatively well with White Wheenie strategies of many low cost efficient creatures.

However Ajani have also been shown to have abilities that are more focused. I'm thinking in the lines of Soul's Grace , Soul's Fire , Soul's Majesty , and Soul's Might - all of which are cards from Shards of Alara. To some extend it is also shown in Titanic Ultimatum . These abilities are more aligned with Naya's design of big fat creatures. I have always been disappointed that Ajani have never again shown any such ability in his future planeswalker designs and felt wanting a version that reflected these abilities.

So here goes an attempt at creating a Naya related version of Ajani Goldmane.

Ajani, Soulforger Show

Ajani, Soulforger

Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani

+2 Create a 0/1 white Avatar creature token with Soulbond and "As long as this creature is paired with a creature, it is a non-legendary copy of that creature with Soulbond and creatures paired with this creature cannot attack or block."

-1 Choose a creature you control. Create a red Aura enchantment token named Avatar of Flame attached to the chosen creature. The token has enchant creature and "Sacrifice Avatar of Flame: Avatar of Flame deals damage equal to enchanted creature's power to any target."

-3 Choose a permanent you control. Look at the top x cards of your library, where x is equal to the total power of creatures you control plus 3. You may exile a card from among them face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. When the chosen permanent leaves the battlefield, if the exiled card is a permanent you may put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise put it into your hand.

4

Sadly I couldn't get the Custom Card function to properly work.

,

Some issues I acknowledge right of the bat:

The abilities are rather lengthy and could be cut down to be less complicated at the expense of being less dynamic. For instance the +2 could be a static token that just copies the P/T at the time of creation. It's a lot less flavorful. So instead of manifesting a creature's soul and let that do the fighting and safeguard the actual creature, it would be more generic token creation, also with less limits. In the current wording you can in principle only have one avatar per creature but if the original creature gets removed, the magic of the avatar remains and can take on a new form whenever you have another creature enter the battlefield - which is something I like as an interaction.

Likewise the -1 could literally just be a Soul's Fire but it removes the ability to delay the damage to instant speed and the possibly to make the creature larger before blowing something up. It does however open the ability up to fizzling by removing the creature before the aura token is created.

The "ultimate" could be a fixed number of cards to look at. I was swaying a bit between a singular and a board wide application with more of an "ultimate feel" to it (obviously at a higher loyalty cost). However I figured this had a better application across formats and wouldn't be the typical EDH battle cruiser ability. It does however provide with some technical card advantage and can cheat out some powerful stuff, making it a risk removing permanents "enhanced" with a replacement. You are able to trigger it yourself but Ajani is also in colors that typically don't sacrifice their own permanents nor bounce them back to their hand. Well... green does have a slew of creatures that sacrifice themselves for lands or removal abilities, but in general these colors don't sacrifice their own. You can obviously utilize board wipes to facilitate their demise and secure you come out on top. It could be considered to change it so that you have to choose a non-artifact permanent, as many artifacts do sacrifice themselves.

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Reflection:

I found it a bit more difficult than I imagined to create abilities that worked off of the Soul's X template that wouldn't just be incredibly powerful or incredibly bad, depending on cost and application. The concept is also heavily reliant on having creatures to be truly beneficial but I also think the abilities are strong enough to offset that drawback. The idea was to get away from the generic +1/+1 counters that in some terms signifies bringing out the power of the individual but is just so generic, boring, and done to death, and in that regard I consider this version successful.

The wording may need a helping hand, especially the +2 ability. In general tokens don't have abilities that grant them further abilities.

The flavor texts of all the Soul's X cards notes that Ajani sculpts these avatars (e.g. Soul's Majesty ) but it felt weird calling him Ajani, Soulsculptor... kinda running a bit too close to a certain other person of the Lorwyn-5.

Any feedback and suggestions are welcome.

'

Edit: I forgot to mention this before, but I figure this Ajani callback is destined for a supplemental product that doesn't go into Standard. First of all because he is quite powerful for typical Standard and more complex with ability keywords that is not explained directly on the card.

Ajani, Soulforger v2 Show

Ajani, Soulforger

Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani

+2 Create a 0/1 white Avatar creature token with Soulbond and "As long as this creature is paired with a creature, it has power and toughness equal to that creature's power and toughness. It has Soulbond and "Creatures paired with this creature can't attack or block."

-1 Target creature you control deal damage equal to its power to any target.

-3 Look at the top 5 cards of your library, you may reveal a Creature, Enchantment, or Equipment from among them. If that card's converted mana cost is less than the greatest power among creatures you control, you may put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

4

'

So, a revised version. I kept the +2 relatively intact for a couple reasons.

First to defend Ajani, the token is 0/1 by itself but is fully capable of chump-blocking.

Second the idea of making avatars out of your creatures to engage in combat is pseudo card-advantage although missing out on that creature's abilities (in the revised version). It also has the added benefit that if you attack with the Avatar and the Avatar dies, the original creature can block, effectively giving it Vigilance. However if the attacking creature is too big to die or gets through, the original creature cannot engage in combat - effectively making it "worse" on larger creatures. I find Vigilance on large creatures to be oppressive in terms of combat, more so than many other keywords.

Another benefit that befits red is that if the Avatar lingers unpaired, it can effectively grant Haste to new creatures.

Lastly I heavily want to avoid the "traditional Ajani pump", as that design is lazy and has been done to death.

-1 changed to straight Soul's Fire . It was the least original idea and was generally just there for a good ability that had a fair requirement.

-3 changed to a more static ability that provides some card advantage that Ajani has been known to be able to do previously; Ajani, Mentor of Heroes , Ajani Unyielding , and Ajani, Valiant Protector .

I traded Mentor of Heroes's ability to grab Planeswalkers for Equipment. Mostly because Equipment in general doesn't get much love, like Auras, but also because Ajani seems to have slumped down into a Superfriends booster segment, which I get with where his story goes after Shards of Alara but as this is set during Shards, I think it makes more sense that he favors Equipment. After all he used his dead brother's axe to make his iconic Twin Axe to seek revenge for his brother's murder.

As for the ability to cheat them onto the battlefield, remember that Ajani is 3 colors (the 3rd of that kind if we exclude the Commander planeswalkers), and it requires a creature with high power to gain a large swing from it. Ajani is also in colors that don't manipulate the top of their library... much... - looking at you Sylvan Library , Mirri's Guile , and Sensei's Divining Top .

Post scriptum; I just now noticed that all iterations of Ajani has something to do with life. Either straight life gain, lifelink or life total... Kinda breaking that format with this version.

Although I think life gain in general is a weak ability without the capabilities to utilize it as a benefactor, so in interest of keeping a 3-color Ajani relatively powerful, I'll break that trend.