Let's talk about Wring Flesh

I love this card. There I said it. Do I think it's the best spell in black, absolutely not. Let's not get carried away. But it is a card I really like. When I drafted my monoblack deck I wound up with two in my pool. Not from picking them highly, mind you. They were coming around late (especially since I was the only heavy black player at the table).

A word from the pros

Before I begin let's see what the pros have to say about this guy:

Limited: 3.0 This card makes me want to play this color. (Given that I’m playing that color, I will play this card 100% of the time.))

I’m a pretty big fan of this card. It seems pretty easy to wring a card’s worth of value out of it, and at only one mana it is usually a good deal. Sometimes you do have to set yourself up to get 2-for-1′d, but much of the time you don’t, and did I mention it only costs 1? I love cheap spells, since they let me get back the time I wasted casting a bunch of Divinations…

That was from LSV [1]. He's pretty emphatically pro Wring Flesh. The highlight of the comment is easily "easy to wring a card’s worth of value out of it". Total genius. Onto our next pro, Owen Turtenwald from his article on combat tricks in M14 limited [2]: 

Wring Flesh is a decent card that I usually maindeck because it works well with Child of Nightand acts as a cheap play to protect from losing quick games to Manaweft Sliver, Elvish Mystic,Academy Raider, or Regathan Firecat. 

Again a ringing endorsement. So far they likes it. But what about your unassuming bloggers [3]:

"The power of the wring flesh surprises me a little. Is it just kind of like an inverted Thunder Strike?" ~Jed
"wring flesh is the weakest kind of instant black removal, but I would still much rather it than the thunder strike. "~caruthers

Ok so now that we've done our literature review let's get down to it. What are the different modes where I may cast this spell? We've got as a straight removal spell against guys with 1 toughness. We've also got as a combat trick. Finally we've got some corner cases, involving the fight mechanic, ping effects, etc. (let's ignore those for now).

Compared to similar spells in its color

So how does this guy stack up as a removal spell, compared to the other spells in its color [4]? First a quick refresher.

The top tier. These guys can't be beat!

The rest. We're not even going to discuss Artificer's Hex.

So I'm not picking Wring Flesh over anything in the top tier. I would say that Quag Sickness is in the same ballpark. Odds are most of the time Quag Sickness will be better from a removal spell standpoint, however the versatility of Wring at Instant is nothing to sneeze at.

As a removal spell

Now that we have it nailed down in the context of its color. Let's look at the removal spell potential. Firing up the gatherer we see that there are 78 creatures [5] in the set and 21 of them have 1 toughness [6], this guy is going to kill 27% of creatures out right. For this discussion I have placed a cut on Rare/Mystic because we're talking about limited... and let's be clear, Wring Flesh is not a card that will deal with bombs. Sadly there is no cut in the gatherer for "playable" so there is some chaff in those numbers. But Turtenwald did point out several choice targets. Assuming every deck is playing two colors they are probably gonna have one or two places where Wring Flesh would be great to have.

As a combat trick

So how does this guy figure as a combat trick? From my earlier comment "in M14 there are 5 (7) common (uncommon) creatures with more than 3 power. As opposed to 66 creatures with power 3 or less. So basically you can't lose the combat." Holy cow! Everything has 3 power or less. It doesn't matter what they come at you with in the red zone. I think in this format the card is really poised to be quite impactful (is that really a word?).

As an asside I've really been trying to work combat tricks into my game. Previously I would pick Giant Growth and always leave it in the board. I just didn't know how to use them. Part of that I think has to do with how much the game has changed since I started drafting (the original Ravnica). Now combat is so vital to every game and the removal has been marginalized (although with Doom Blade and Putrefy back, perhaps not). Combat tricks when used effectively can really function as a removal spell. But it is more than that.

People expect you to play removal spells on them. It's just par for the course. They stick a legit threat and hope you don't have the Doom Blade. But in combat people just aren't as prepared. They should be expecting the tricks, looking at your mana, and planning accordingly. But still when you fire one off correctly it can just be a huge beating. Like a removal spell that is also a demoralized. I don't know maybe these comments seem a bit flighty. I'm just working these ideas out. But the point is in limited I really now want all my decks to have a combat trick in them.

Intangibles

This guy only costs one to cast and is an Instant. HUGE! Can't get better than that (go away Force of Will). It is as cheap as they come and as "play whenever you want" as they come. For me that is a solid bump in the value of the card.

Also there was that sweet time when a Villain came at me with:

++

And I was all, Wring Flesh you and block with my Child of Night. Man that felt good. He had invested 3+2+5+3 mana in that move. And I defused it with 3mana. But you're not always gonna get that lucky. I know it's a best case scenario but hey, it happened and I loved it. llusionary Armor is terrible btw. Just asking to get blown up and then have you lose the creature in combat as well.

The bottom line

If you're playing black in limited the first Wring Flesh is an auto include (unless it's christmas). The second ... maybe not. But be looking to board depending on your opponents creatures.

[1] http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-2014-set-review-black/
[2] http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/owens-a-win-m14-tricks/
[3] http://magicanotes.blogspot.com/2013/08/m14-draft-1-draft-and-deck-building.html
[4] http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&color=+[B]&type=+![%22Creature%22]&set=+[%22Magic%202014%20Core%20Set%22]
[5] http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=+[%22Magic%202014%20Core%20Set%22]&type=+[%22Creature%22]&rarity=|[C]|[U]
[6] http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=+[%22Magic%202014%20Core%20Set%22]&type=+[%22Creature%22]&rarity=|[C]|[U]&tough=+=[1]