Ruinous Path - A Battle for Zendikar (MTG) Card Review

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

With Hero’s Downfall rotating out of Standard with Theros Block, Battle for Zendikar offers a replacement, albeit at Sorcery speed, in Ruinous Path. It does still hit either creatures or planeswalkers for 1BB, so it still seems playable, but not being Instant speed definitely hurts its play-ability.

This card has a second half to it, though, which, while interesting, adds quite the additional cost. The new Awaken mechanic seems a bit expensive to me when it comes to risk vs reward. Turning one of your lands into a 0/0 Elemental with 4 +1/+1 counters just seems really gimmicky to me, and at 5BB, I’m not sure I’d be making that sort of investment in Constructed. I like the flavor here, certainly, and getting the card’s effect plus 4 colorless mana for a 4/4 creature certainly is properly costed.

It’s probably true that Hero’s Downfall was perhaps a bit too good in some cases, so perhaps this card is a bit more “fair” while also having some additional flavor added to it in the process. I just don’t feel like Awakening a land is something I’d want to do while playing this card, but that’s my opinion. What do you think of this card?

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