Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

$2.01

Xantcha enters under the control of an opponent you choose. It's a 5/5 that must attack each combat and can never attack you or your planeswalkers. Any player may pay {3} to make Xantcha's controller lose 2 life, but you always draw the card. So you hand an opponent a creature that fights everyone else, and every activation by anyone drains that player and fills your hand. The rest of the deck adds discard, life loss taxes, goad and removal.

In the recorded games, Xantcha usually went to the player most likely to swing hard, and the forced attacks wore down other opponents. The owner turned spare mana into cards with repeated activations. Some lists added Painful Quandary or Reckless Fireweaver for extra life loss, and a few tried Worldgorger Dragon combos, which were easy to disrupt. Giving Xantcha to a player with double strike or equipment made it very dangerous. The weaknesses were clear: when the gifted player died, Xantcha came back to the command zone, and token-heavy or wall-heavy boards blunted the attacks. Land troubles stalled at least one game.