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Meet Radiant Purge from Dragons of Tarkir!

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Gathering Magic is proud to share our exclusive Dragons of Tarkir preview, Radiant Purge:

Here's what some of us on staff thought about it.


Carlos Gutierrez is an Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, an engineer-in-training, and a Commander and Pauper enthusiast. By day, he works as a STEM educator, but he spends his weekends hitting all his land drops and trying new board games, puzzles, and video games.

You can find all of him sharing Commander craziness, baked goods on Twitter, and complaints about graduate school at @cag5383.

Radiant Purge reminds me of another card that was a sweet roleplayer in the previous Standard format: Renounce the Guilds. In Innistrad-Return to Ravnica Standard, Renounce the Guilds saw play out of U/W/x Restoration Angel decks and various Sphinx's Revelation control decks as a way to kill Boros Reckoner and Detention Sphere.

Renounce the Guilds

So what’s the difference between Renounce the Guilds and Radiant Purge? First, Radiant Purge allows you to play multicolored cards of your own, which is a big deal. Second, Radiant Purge exiles, which matters a lot in both Commander and any Standard format with delve. Last, you get to choose a target in the cases where your opponent has multiple gold cards in play.

Sure, sometimes Renounce the Guilds might hit a Geist of Saint Traft or get multiple permanents in a game of Commander. Personally? I’d rather be absolutely certain that I hit Siege Rhino and Jeskai Ascendancy in Standard or Mirari's Wake in Commander. I’m not sure that Radiant Purge has a ton to offer in Modern or Legacy. Sure, you can snipe a Celestial Colonnade or Pernicious Deed, but those are formats that tend to revolve around efficient spells and mono-colored permanents.

I’m most excited about this card in Commander. This is a super efficient answer that compares favorably to Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile against a lot of Commanders, particularly the Legendary Enchantment Creatures from Theros block. I know it’s certainly flexible enough to slot into my Draw-Go Ephara deck as a way to permanently deal with all manner of problematic permanents.

Watch out Adam. Now I’ve got a one-size-fits-all answer to the Mogis, God of Slaughter plus Anathemancer tag team that’s been keeping me down.


Alex Ullman is Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, a renowned Pauper (cube and Constructed) player, and member of the victorious 2009 Magic Online Community Cup team.

You can find him on Twitter as @nerdtothecore.

So, Radiant Purge, eh? In Commander, a format that can feature quite a bit of multicolor goodness, this nice catch all can do some heavy lifting. Similar to Renounce the Guilds but with a more point and click nature, Radiant Purge makes dealing with players like me far easier.

Let’s ignore exiling a Commander, since that play is not really, well, good. Instead let us look at players like me who make their living on the back of exploiting the journey to the graveyard. Radiant Purge manages to take out all sorts of graveyard centric cards like Deadbridge Chant/card] or [card]Debtors' Knell, and these are cards that players (like me) base entire strategies around. Suddenly all the Pharika's Menders in the world won’t do me any good. If I spend all this time flipping cards into my yard to get back, I’ll be a sad panda when you take away my engine and put it in permanent time out.

And that says nothing about the creatures themselves. Gold creatures are everywhere at multiplayer tables and the ability to point and click them away until the next game is not to be underestimated. It does a great job of handling non-Commander Gods as well.

As for Standard and Modern, this might as well read "Exile target Siege Rhino." It feels like a development card that was put into the file because Siege Rhino and Whip of Erebos may have been a bit too good and because people were skittish around the Gods from Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx.

Radiant Purge: Is this " href="/p/Magic+The+Gathering/Debtors' Knell" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Deadbridge+Chant%2Fcard%5D+or+%5Bcard%5DDebtors%27+Knell">Deadbridge Chant/card] or [card]Debtors' Knell, and these are cards that players (like me) base entire strategies around. Suddenly all the Pharika's Menders in the world won’t do me any good. If I spend all this time flipping cards into my yard to get back, I’ll be a sad panda when you take away my engine and put it in permanent time out.

And that says nothing about the creatures themselves. Gold creatures are everywhere at multiplayer tables and the ability to point and click them away until the next game is not to be underestimated. It does a great job of handling non-Commander Gods as well.

As for Standard and Modern, this might as well read "Exile target Siege Rhino." It feels like a development card that was put into the file because Siege Rhino and Whip of Erebos may have been a bit too good and because people were skittish around the Gods from Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx.

Radiant Purge: Is this ">Debtors' Knell" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Deadbridge+Chant%2Fcard%5D+or+%5Bcard%5DDebtors%27+Knell">Deadbridge Chant/card] or [card]Debtors' Knell, and these are cards that players (like me) base entire strategies around. Suddenly all the Pharika's Menders in the world won’t do me any good. If I spend all this time flipping cards into my yard to get back, I’ll be a sad panda when you take away my engine and put it in permanent time out.

And that says nothing about the creatures themselves. Gold creatures are everywhere at multiplayer tables and the ability to point and click them away until the next game is not to be underestimated. It does a great job of handling non-Commander Gods as well.

As for Standard and Modern, this might as well read "Exile target Siege Rhino." It feels like a development card that was put into the file because Siege Rhino and Whip of Erebos may have been a bit too good and because people were skittish around the Gods from Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx.

Radiant Purge: Is this Dromoka, the Eternal[/card]'s lightning vomit? Because I’m gonna feel sick every time I see this cast against me.


Andrew Wilson is Copy Editor and combo columnist for Gathering Magic, graphic designer for CoolStuffInc.com, and self-publishing game designer at Silent7Seven Games.

Follow him on Twitter as @Silent7Seven to see his feed, which primarily consists of photos of in-progress board games.

The more restrictive a card’s applications are, the less it can cost. Radiant Purge is like a roller coaster of versatility and restriction. It can hit a creature or an enchantment, meaning it’s like a white Doom Blade and a Disenchant in one. We should have to pay for that versatility. But since its cost is only 2 mana, the same as either of those spells, the cost comes in the restriction of only being able to target multicolored permanents. Even in a block with some multicolored themes like Khans of Tarkir, multicolored cards are a relative rarity, primarily showing up at uncommon and rare—and even those rarities are primarily populated by single-color cards.

That means I don’t expect this to be a super-solid choice for Limited play—unless the rest of Dragons of Tarkir previews really surprise me. However, I can see this being relevant in Constructed play, wherein players know what they expect to be exiling before they even show up to the tournament. As for me, I’m more of the player who jams his deck full of weird combo pieces and threats and much less the one who runs a bunch of answers. Even in Commander games, I don’t want to be caught with Radiant Purge against a mono-colored deck.

If we assume from the flavor text and artwork that Dromoka’s breath is the pictured Purge, it seems quite odd that she, a G/W permanent, could end up exiling herself—maybe that’s just the impartiality of white. Rules are rules.


If you liked Glare of Heresy you're going to enjoy Radiant Purge. With the texture of Constructed shifting, mostly in Standard where powerful manabases and multicolor cards from Khans of Tarkir will still be at play, it may take some time for this card to creep up on players.

Where I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing this show up most is in Commander. While it requires white, like Dust to Dust and other exile target things cards, the fact it's another answer to Gods and annoying things like Privileged Position should help things out. Cards like these are often both underrated and underrepresented in Commander. It's tempting to want each and every card to progress your plan and have obvious utility in any situation, but as a consequence so many players are left unable to defend themselves when everything goes to hell.

Seriously: Cards like Radiant Purge "may be dead" against some decks, but it's you that will be dead against the rest. Always use protections when playing.


If you liked this rundown of ideas and want to see even more from board games, pop culture, news, and more then check out our Sunday Picks of the Week feature!

What did you think of Radiant Purge? Sound off in the comments and share your thoughts on the latest from Dragons of Tarkir,


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