Feast of Flesh MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	1
Rarity	Common
Type	Sorcery
Released	2006-07-21
Set symbol
Set name	Coldsnap
Set code	CSP
Number	56
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Volkan Baǵa

Key Takeaways

Feast of Flesh combines creature removal with life gain, tipping the scales in your favor.
Instant speed allows Feast of Flesh to surprise opponents and disrupt their strategy.
Its scaling effect grows stronger with more copies in graveyards, enhancing its potential.

Text of card

Feast of Flesh deals X damage to target creature and you gain X life, where X is 1 plus the number of cards named Feast of Flesh in all graveyards.

"Starving an army that feeds on its enemies is a sound strategy." —Garza Zol, plague queen

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Feast of Flesh provides a multifaceted approach to gaining card superiority. By dealing damage to creatures and providing life gain, it effectively removes opposing threats while bolstering your own survival. This dual benefit can shift the game’s momentum in your favor, maintaining or escalating your position on the board.

Resource Acceleration: While Feast of Flesh itself doesn’t directly offer traditional mana acceleration, the life it provides can be a crucial resource. In decks that convert life gain into other advantages—such as those featuring cards that trigger off life gain moments—this card can essentially speed up your game plan by enabling those synergies sooner.

Instant Speed: Feast of Flesh operates at instant speed, granting you the flexibility to respond to your opponent’s moves during their turn. This versatility allows you to navigate through tricky situations, carefully choose your moments to interact, and maximize the efficiency of your plays without having to commit resources during your own turn.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Playing Feast of Flesh necessitates discarding a card from your hand. This can often be a significant drawback, especially if you’re already at a card disadvantage or if the game has progressed to a point where every card in hand is vital for your strategy.

Specific Mana Cost: Feast of Flesh requires both black mana and generic mana to cast. This can sometimes pose a challenge in multicolored decks that may struggle to consistently generate the necessary black mana, potentially restricting the card’s inclusion only to mono-black or heavily black-focused decks.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: At three mana, including two black, for a single-target removal effect, the card may seem costly, particularly when you compare it to other removal spells in the same mana range that don’t require discarding a card as a cost or that can offer additional flexibility or secondary benefits.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Feast of Flesh can adapt to various strategies which crucially revolve around life gain and damage dealing. Given that it counts all Feast of Flesh cards in all graveyards, it becomes stronger over time in a multiplayer setting or in decks designed to recycle their own spells.

Combo Potential: This card scales in potency with the number of similar spells you or your opponents have played, making it a synergistic piece in any strategy that seeks to cycle through the deck quickly or manipulates graveyards to increase its impact.

Meta-Relevance: In a game where creature-based strategies are prevalent, Feast of Flesh stands out by offering incremental life swings that can turn the tide against aggressive decks, while steadily strengthening your position in longer, more drawn-out games.

How to beat

Feast of Flesh is an intriguing card in the vast universe of Magic: The Gathering, operating within black mana’s typical theme of siphoning life from creatures. Its strength lies in its ability to potentially grow more potent with every additional copy in your graveyard. Yet this is exactly where strategic counters come into play. The key to overcoming Feast of Flesh is disruption and grave management. Utilizing cards that exile cards from graveyards or shuffle them back into libraries can severely weaken its impact.

Consider cards like Tormod’s Crypt for an immediate graveyard sweep, ensuring Feast of Flesh stays underpowered. Alternatively, proactive plays with spells such as Leyline of the Void keep your opponent’s graveyard empty, rendering their Feasts of Flesh consistently lackluster. Control strategies favor counterspells, preventing Feast of Flesh from even hitting the table, while card filtering and search spells help you access these counters when you need them most.

Ultimately, countering Feast of Flesh revolves around staying one step ahead—limit its resources, disrupt its game plan, and maintain pressure. With an arsenal of such tactics at your fingertips, you’ll be well-prepared to dismantle any strategy relying too heavily on this particular card.

Cards like Feast of Flesh

Feast of Flesh enters the realm of life-draining spells in Magic: The Gathering with an intriguing twist on the formula. It finds its kinfolk in cards like Exsanguinate, which also serves to siphon life from opponents. Though Exsanguinate requires more investment with a variable mana cost, it affects all of your opponents and scales in power, something Feast of Flesh does at a more subtle pace but with the potential for high returns.

Likewise, cards such as Consume Spirit draw comparison through their mana-flexible nature, providing direct damage and life gain according to the mana you pump into them. Feast of Flesh, however, distinguishes itself with the unique aspect of its power scaling with the number of copies in a graveyard, requiring a different strategy. Then we have Drain Life, which could seem like a simpler parallel given its direct damage and life gain, but lacking the snowballing potential that Feast of Flesh can accumulate over the course of a game.

Ultimately, Feast of Flesh stands out in the collective of black mana spells that trade life points between players. Its efficiency and potential for massive life shifts make it a cunning addition for MTG aficionados seeking an edge through graveyard mechanics and scalability.

Cards similar to Feast of Flesh by color, type and mana cost

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Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Feast of Flesh MTG card by a specific set like Coldsnap, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Feast of Flesh and other MTG cards: