Shadows Over Innistrad (MTG) - First Impressions of Sorin, Grim Nemesis

by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully Staff

Sorin, Grim Nemesis is a 6-mana planeswalker. Usually, that’s not a good thing when it comes to seeing play in Standard. But as Elspeth, Sun’s Champion taught us all, as long as he or she is powerful enough, 6 mana doesn’t stop you from casting a good planeswalker. The abilities of this Sorin are definitely good enough. First of all, he starts with 6 loyalty, which even at 6 mana, is a lot. His +1 is excellent: draws you a card and then hits each opponent for an amount of life equal to that card’s converted mana cost. Draw Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, deal 10. Ow. For the card advantage alone, he’s worth playing. His -X is also very good. Not only does he let you deal damage to creatures or planeswalkers, he also gains you X life at the same time. These two abilities alone make him playable in control decks. I’m already sold.

His ultimate is hilarious. For -9 loyalty, you get a number of 1/1 black Vampire Knight tokens with lifelink equal to the highest life total among players. I can’t say this will be good in every game. But if you ever needed a finisher, this can definitely be one. And if for some reason that many tokens doesn’t win you the game, you can gain a lot of life.

The general consensus is that this is going to be a casual hit and a Commander all-star. That opinion seems well-founded. In Commander, he’ll be making plenty of tokens with that ultimate. Nevermind that his +1 hits all opponents, and Commander plays plenty of cards with high mana costs. You’d be silly not to play this if he’s in your colors. In casual play, he can be a big finisher and Vampire decks are super popular. So yeah, he’s going to be worth something no matter what.

But it remains to be seen if Standard can support another 6-mana planeswalker. The big draw of Elspeth Sun’s Champion is that she could make 3 tokens at will and her emblem was bonkers. Sorin, Grim Nemesis is powerful, as long as the deck is there to support him. Whatever the case, this is an awesome planeswalker.

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