pokemon battle styles card price TCG: Sword & Shield Booster Box Empoleon V Empoleon V

An 8/8 Octopus is quite a cost, and there will be many games, and many opponents, that will dictate that giving an 8/8 out for free is a bad move

That's still true today

At this point it hasnt been played with by the general public, but to be honest its just looking kinda meh for a 9-mana spell

But as it looks now, it does seem like this is one of the MTG battle cards built for the original purpose of being a Commander-centric political piece

Commanders such as Syr Konrad, the Grim and Tormod, the Desecrator actually want creature cards to leave your graveyard in order to trigger their abilities, so you can benefit by delving things away to make Murderous Cut cost less mana