Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and The Loregoyfs, check out one of the strongest removal spell printed in years from Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths – Heartless Act!
Recent Standard printings have given us cards like Fatal Push, Cast Down, and Assassin’s Trophy, but Heartless Act could prove to be one the of the best removal spells ever printed.
Destroy target creature with no counters on it.
Remove up to three counters from target creature.
While new cards from Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths that promote keyword counters and +1+1 counters could dampen the impact of Heartless Act in future Standard environments, at the moment, this modal card kills almost everything.
Besides a huge Hydroid Krasis or riot creatures from Gruul, Heartless Act deals with all the top creatures in the format from Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, Kenrith, the Returned King, Mayhem Devil, and even the creatures Nissa, Who Shakes the World creates. It’s actually easier to just list the creatures it doesn’t kill.
Heartless Act also makes an impact on older formats. When looking at Modern, very few creatures dodge this new Doom Blade variant. Excluding cards with indestructible, Heartless Act only comes up short against large Walking Ballistas, Scavenging Oozes that have already activated, and Humans that benefited from +1+1 synergies. Of the top decks in the format, Heartless Act will always have some target to take down. It’s even flexible enough to hit small things like Sakura-Tribe Scout and giant things like Primeval Titan.