Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, take a look at an aggressive black creature from Kaldheim — Skemfar Avenger!
![](https://storage.googleapis.com/scg-static/articles/2021/01/497a502f-skemfar-avenger.png)
While it immediately gets compared to Midnight Reaper, Skemfar Avenger has a few key differences. Being a two-mana 3/1 has it slanted as a much more aggressive variant of the classic creature that protects you against removal like the before mentioned Midnight Reaper and Grim Haruspex, but it also doesn’t trigger when it dies, making it much weaker.
Whenever another nontoken Elf or Berserker you control dies, you draw a card and you lose 1 life.
To leverage Skemfar Avenger’s ability, your deck needs to be tribal and aggressive. You can also build a deck with it around the sacrifice theme, taking advantage of a card like Village Rites, to make sure you get the benefit before it’s removed.
What do you think of Skemfar Avenger? Is it good enough to see as much play as Midnight Reaper or too different to truly compare?
Kaldheim is currently scheduled to release on February 5. You can check out our official Kaldheim Preview Gallery here.