Grievous Wound was yet another flashy MTG Duskmourn spoiler that got the attention of the Commander community. Putting this on a player is pretty much a death sentence. Not only can you not gain life, but each time you lose life, your life is halved.
Most ‘enchant player’ Auras intended to target opponents in the world of Magic: The Gathering gain the ‘Curse’ subtype. There are some Commander synergies with the Curse subtype, meaning that any new MTG Curse card is a new card for that Commander strategy.
Yet, despite Grievous Wound being a textbook Curse card, it is not a Curse. The MTG community has questioned the reasoning behind this during the Daily MTG where this was revealed. Following this, even MTG’s Head Designer, Mark Rosewater, has been on the receiving end of questions.
Why isn’t Grievous Wound a Curse?
- Mana Value: 3BB
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Enchantment – Aura
- MTG Sets: Duskmourn
- Card Text: Enchant player. Enchanted player can’t gain life. Whenever enchanted player is dealt damage, they lose half their life, rounded up.
Commander players are rightfully losing their minds over Grievous Wound. This is a literal death sentence to an enchanted player who cannot deal with it quickly, which is quite flavorful. Even one damage ends up halving your life total. With such a powerful tool being introduced, it’s no wonder that Curse Commander players want to add it to their arsenal.
When discussing this question in the Daily MTG show, it was just stated that the design team went back and forth on making this a curse or not. Ultimately, they decided for it not to be a Curse. Little context was added past this point.
On Blogatog, however, Mark Rosewater adds two interesting tidbits to the conversation that could give some more color to the decision. Firstly, Grievous Wound was actually originally supposed to be part of a mechanic which never saw the light of day. Termed ‘injury’ by Mark Rosewater, it was eventually decided that the ‘injury’ mechanic would not be used in Duskmourn.
Thanks to this mysterious mechanic, Grievous Wond was never designed to be a Curse in the first place. Even when the ‘injury’ mechanic was scrapped, this continued to be the case, despite the formatting fitting. We don’t know much more about what the ‘injury’ mechanic was originally supposed to do.
“The card started as part of a mechanic, called injury, that we didn’t use in the set, so I think we saw it through that lens (as an injury rather than a curse).”
Mark Rosewater
Keeping Duskmourn Separate from Innistrad
Another aspect of set design for Duskmourn was making it feel distinctly different from the plane of Innistrad. Known for its spooky atmosphere evoked by Vampires and Werewolves, Innistrad also has a horror theme attached to it, just like Duskmourn. As a result, Wizards of the Coast set design has stated multiple times that they wanted to make Duskmourn feel different from Innistrad.
Some examples that highlight the differences are that Duskmourn is a more technologically advanced plane than Innistrad, and there is a distinct lack of Werewolves and Vampires in the set. It was mentioned in the Daily MTG that only two Vampires should appear in Duskmourn.
Curses also happen to be an Innistrad thing. For this reason, the separation between Innistrad and Duskmourn may have had an impact on the decision to keep Grievous Wound from being a Curse.
“I don’t know whether or not they talked about it being a Curse in set design, but I do know there was a conscious attempt to keep Duskmourn separate from Innistrad, so that might have had a role.”
Mark Rosewater
Flavor
Players also believe that the flavor of Grievous Wound would make less sense if the card was a Curse. Getting a Grievous Wound may make you want to curse, but there’s no reason why this action would actually be a curse. A Grievous Wound is perilous, but there are no mystical aspects to it.
“I love the flavor of it, so making it into a generic curse might’ve made the card worse for me.”
singerofw
“An actual, physical grievous wound is not a curse”
luckbuck13
At the end of the day, whether you want this to be Curse for Commander or not, the eventual decision made was that Grievous Wound would just be an Aura that could enchant players. Even if the card is not a Curse, Grievous Wound should see a ton of Commander play regardless.
Read More: MTG Two-Mana Uncommon Sweeper Sees Massive Reprint in Duskmourn
