Why Glissa Sunslayer May Be The Best Card In Phyrexia: All Will Be One

Hello everyone!

So we’ve been able to review Lukka, Bound to Ruin, Nahiri, the Unforgiving, Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting, Nissa, Ascended Animist, and Jace, the Perfected Mind as compleated walkers, Kaya, Intangible Slayer, The Eternal Wanderer, and Koth, Fire of Resistance as our heroes, as well as Phyrexian Obliterator , White Sun’s Twilight, Sword of Forge and Frontier, Tyrranax Rex, Capricious Hellraiser, Phyrexian Arena, Solphim, Mayhem Dominus, Phyrexian Vindicator, Cacophony Scamp, and Mindsplice Apparatus, but we have even more sweet cards to preview! So I’m going to come right out and say it, I have no idea why I’ve heard literally zero hype around this card. Maybe it was spoiled with more exciting cards, but I think it’s pretty clearly insane and should be discussed. So today, let’s break down Glissa Sunslayer!

So we have a 1BG 3/3, nice square stats, but then a mountain of text to look through.

Right off the bat, we have First Strike AND Deathtouch on Glissa! There’s a very good reason these two keywords are very rarely combined (two if you count color pie, First Strike is a Tertiary ability in Black, generally just reserved for Knights and absent in Green), it’s completely broken! This is literally unmatched in combat as you would need another First Strike or Double Strike creature to even contest this, and even if you have that, you can guarantee that creature is going to die regardless.

To make this card even better, we have an ability that triggers when you connect with an opponent! If you hit someone, you get draw a card and lose a life, destroy an enchantment, or remove three counters from target permanent. That’s a lot of choices there!

so before I delve too deeply on Glissa, you clearly know I like the card, but how much do I like it?

VERDICT

A lot.

Maybe I’m missing something, but this card seems absolute insane to me, only being outshined by Standard’s other broken three drops in Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Wedding Announcement. Even then, I really don’t think Glissa is that far behind, although admittedly, both line up reasonably well against Glissa as well.

First off, the stat line is obviously nuts. This wins combat, always, no questions asked. Even against the king of combat, Phyrexian Obliterator, this is a decent attacker and blocker into it. Obviously you would lose resources in the process, but if that’s your only option, you could do much worse!

Since this is unbeatable in combat, getting the combat trigger is going to be relatively easy! Since all three abilities are strong, you can near guarantee the opponent will be losing some value no matter how the combat goes, whether from the ability itself or them throwing a creature in front of it to block.

The first triggered ability nets you a card, plain and simple. I like Ophidian as much as the next guy, but this being one of three abilities is just obscenely powerful. Compare this to Florian, Voldaren Scion, a card that was nearly good enough for Standard play. This obviously blows it out of the water.

The second ability is also straight-forward, but could be excellent in the right situation. Being able to destroy an enchantment in a metagame defined by strong enchantments is very powerful, and although said enchantments are good at stopping Glissa from connecting, the threat that it could in conjunction with removal is definitely scary.

Finally, being able to remove three counters off any permanent is a very weird, but very powerful ability. In a set defined by oil counters, Glissa could completely neutralize a card. Indestructible counters from the new Horrors? No thank you. Planeswalkers? Those use counters. In a sense, Glissa reminds me of Questing Beast, but has multiple other abilities as well. Obviously, they’re pretty different cards, but being able to hit the opponent and still “hit” a planeswalker for three is very tempting.

All that said, the only real downsides of Glissa is that removal like Go for the Throat or Lightning Strike can answer it cleanly and that Glissa is two colors. That’s it. Somewhat similarly to Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, if the opponent can’t kill Glissa in a timely manner, you’re going to eventually win the game. I’ll admit that Glissa is probably weaker than the aforementioned examples, but that’s an incredibly high bar to clear and I don’t think it’s by much. I would be shocked if Glissa didn’t propel a GBx deck into minimum Tier 2 or if it single-handedly brings Jund back into the metagame, that’s how strong it is.

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