The Best of the Sticker Sets (for TAV)

The infamous sticker sets. Milennium, Inquisition, Chaos, and Conquest. Fan-created and approved for tournament play by Wizards of the Coast (before they stopped caring about Spellfire - or acknowledging its existence - at all). Some people love the sticker sets, some hate them. But whatever your opinion, some of the cards are just plain cool.

Dispel Illusion (Inquisition, 83/99) is one of the best sticker cards printed for Standard, and I'd say it's probably the best single card for the Antigonish Variant.

TAV is a fast-paced, sometimes brutal format, filled with instant-kill cheese. Fortunately, some cards can cut the cheese with the best of them. Dispel Illusion is a fantastic cheese-cutter. It has several awesome uses.

1 - When attacking in TAV, and your opponent blocks with a lower-level champion, you are already in trouble. In all likelihood he or she is going to hit you with an instant-kill card. With Dispel Illusion in hand, let them. After you get a good look at the Loup-Garou, the Haymaker, the Mindkiller, the Noble Djinn, the Ambush, or whatever nasty surprise they toss down, Dispel Illusion makes the card "go away" before the effect happens, as if it had never been cast. Furthermore, the opponent can't use it again until next turn. Hope they had a backup plan! ;)

2 - When defending, same deal. You get a peek into their hand, as it were, and yet the revealed card does no damage to you. You can continue the battle and be more prepared for that card next turn.

3 - At any time, you can use Dispel Illusion to stop an event or spell. Don't like the look of that Caer Allison? It's gone until next turn. Wish coming at you? Not so fast, it's back in your opponent's hand. Cleric just been sacrificed to bring out Sirrion? What a waste, cleric is still discarded but the big demon goes back to the opponent's hand! Fun stuff.

4 - Opponent needs one more realm to win. He or she tries to play it. Game over, right? Not so fast! Dispel Illusion stops them from playing it and they can't do so again until next turn. You get another turn of life to raze a realm*!(*Unless, as was pointed out by an astute reader, the opponent had a second land in their hand. Oops!)

So it's basically a counter card that stops events, spells, allies, unarmed combat, realms, any card in the game from being played. This thing is better than Enter Darkness Together, better than the Genie Bottle, better than a 4th Edition Dispel.          

Dispel Illusion is the single best card in TAV. It has to be in any deck with spellcasters, period. 

Next time: Mithas!