Commander Card Analysis: Eater of Hope
Today I’m taking a look at a rare Black creature from Born of the Gods that offers a few options for sacrifice engine builds. Recently I had a bit of a discussion online about the viability and play value of this card and whether it’s worth including in a deck. I thought it might be interesting to go over the card in a bit more detail and really see what kind of potential there is here.
Eater of Hope offers two distinct activated abilities that require sacrificing other creatures to use. At seven mana to cast and with only four toughness, it might seem like it’s a little lean in the stats department for its casting cost, but the first ability helps to alleviate that a bit by turning disposable goons into a regeneration shield to keep it alive. The second ability is more cost intensive, requiring three mana and two creatures, but a repeatable creature kill at instant speed is certainly nothing to sneer at. The biggest overall drawback with a card like this is the amount of fuel it takes to keep it functioning, and in the Eater’s case that fuel is mainly a stream of disposable creatures that the player is okay with throwing away to get value out of.
What it comes down to, then, is the type of deck that can get the most use from this sort of thing. A token-based strategy is the obvious play and possibly the most straightforward. Orzhov Tokens definitely has the high body count needed to keep this demon well fed, and dipping into the Aristocrats deck style for more sac outlets as well as cards that trigger on creature deaths makes this enticing. Commander options like Athreos, Elenda or Teysa Karlov might find this type of creature interesting.
With its seven-mana price tag, though, an easier option might be to head into Golgari territory to make use of the mana acceleration in Green. Golgari has its fair share of Commanders that like it when things hit the graveyard, not the least of which include Meren, Savra and Mazirek. These sorts of Commanders can get a lot of value out of a card like this and aren’t really bothered by the higher initial investment of mana.
Overall I think this card has a fair amount of potential. As with so many other cards in the format, its usefulness is peppered by the types of cards it finds itself surrounded by, but in a list that can give it the proper amount of fuel for its abilities, Eater of Hope can stand as a constant gatekeeper for creature plays that your opponents will have to throw multiple effects at to successfully answer.
