MTG Salvation

I remember the Zen Tooltip card for Allies had "Ally (which rhymes with 'Shall I')" on it for some reason. I like to call them Shall Is on occasion just for that. Makindi Shieldmate is maybe the worst ally. It's only 'maybe' because Joraga Bard exists, but that guy is actually kind of cool in a way and nice utility when you have a lot of large creatures.

Ally tribal is fun and surprisingly effective at times. But this is one of the weakest ones. Defender kills it.

Ally Tribal has the same issue Slivers does: Everyone should be killing your creatures constantly, because if they aren't, they deserve the super obvious bad thing that's going to happen with exponential scaling. I'd pretty much rather have any Changeling or clone-effect over this guy.

Questing Phelddagrif



I've seen this, and the daddy, played occasionally as a group hug deck. My issue with these types of cards is that there is no such thing as group hug. When you play group hug, you are using the guise of helping out other players, but you're in the game to win. At least when you're not playing a hug deck you're being honest at the table with your intentions. Yes, there are true outlier players who don't actually care about winning (or worse, want to win), and I dislike those players even more because they are essentially just trolls who are there to screw with the game at no benefit to themselves.


Edit: At least today's card helped me finally know how to spell Phelddagrif, which I never took the time to do before now. Also, the promo card is really sweet:

I am one of those outlier players. I play my group hug deck because my meta is full of slowpokes (not slow game play, but the turns take FOREVER, and usually are pointless). I really don't care about winning when I play the deck. I just enjoy big splashy plays. Of course, my deck does lead to 20 minute crazy ass turns. But as long you are doing something cool or important, I'm OK with it.

I actually prefer this card over normal phelddagrif, because I can fill people's hands without sending him back to my hand.

I really, REALLY hate group hug. I like the game's winner to be decided by their own merits, not by whoever the grouphugger decides to throw most resources at.
That said, the art for this thing is amazing and DAT PROMO...

Another group hug hater here. Its my least favorite EDH archetype, falling even behind chaos decks. Unless someone else is playing a general/deck which is obviously more threatening, I typically target group hug players from the start.

I think this card tends to get type-cast as "group hug only" card a little too much, despite the fact that in a more traditional bant deck, it's actually a reasonable threat. His greatest downside is that his effects get worse as your number of opponents dwindle. Giving a free card just to get flying is painful, but it's difficult to beat the rate he offers for Protection from Black & Red (especially when it also gets to act as evasion itself).

its surprisingly good; if theres a problem permanent, you could use the U ability to help a player who could vampiric tutor-search an answer-then draw into it or just help smash through whoever is most likely able to draw into an answer.

or if another player is about to get knocked out of the game, but they have say an aura shards that can deal with a bunch of irritating enchantments, the hippo tokens are good for that.

it CAN be an amazing card, but it takes a bit of patience and sideways thinking to really push it over-the-edge-good

There are lots (and lots) of good reasons to play a card like Questing Phelddagrif without ever being Group Hug / Kingmaker. You can 100% only be trying to win and still have many valid reasons to use this card. Think creatively.

Yeah, I don't see group hug in this guy. I see "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and use this to empower whomever is trying to take out the strongest deck at the table. After that's done, sac this sock puppet to Birthing Pod and fetch Lavinia of the Tenth, because there's a new sheriff in town!

I've often wished for a kingmaker artifact. Sort of like Staff of Domination or Obelisk of Alara but with the changed wording of "target player may..." For when you really want to play God and micromanage the game, before turning your wrath on your formerly grateful flunkie...

I used to be in that camp where I play Group Hug (With Zedruu at the time) and wondered why I was always targeted so much for doing so.
After seeing Big Flying Purple Hippo in action a month or so later, I quickly realized on the other side of perspective that group hug just makes that one good deck get out of hand quick.

Hostile Realm



I suppose there is some political usefulness to this card since you can target an opponent's creature during someone else's turn, but most times you're just going to be using this to sneak damage in, and there are many better options for doing that. As such, I give this card a rating of meh.

I like that its a solid effect on a permanent type that some playgroups won't mess with (keyword being some).

I would personally only consider it in some kind of hardcore "lands matter" deck, like if Genju of the Realm was suddenly legal it would be nice and flavorful.

It might see play if it wasn't an aura and let you prevent multiple creatures from blocking using multiple lands. As is this is the dirt worst limited fodder.

The good news is that it is repeatable and not horrifically over-costed, and will practically last forever when playing against some playgroups.
But if you want to use it the turn it activates, you have to tap 4 lands.
Tiny leaders tech? Pauper?

I've become super impressed with "target creature can't block" effects recently, between the mono-red one drops deck that was in Standard for a second and trying to support aggro in my Cube. That said, an effect that is good in 40- and 60-card isn't guaranteed to translate well to EDH and this is an example of one that just doesn't. Even better cards that carry this effect (Naya Charm, for example, which blanks all blockers and has other effects) don't really see a ton of play, so this is solidly trash, I think.

If you want a repeatable way to mess with combat steps that you can use on other players' creatures, play Rogue's Passage or something.

Quote from Life1ess »

It might see play if it wasn't an aura and let you prevent multiple creatures from blocking using multiple lands. As is this is the dirt worst limited fodder.

See? This is where people get confused. Auras that benefit the enchanted creature are bad. This one doesn't even enchant a creature. And land destruction is usually sorcery speed. So unless you put this on something that has two card types (Dryad Arbor, usually a good card, really falls short here.), it's generally safe. Even in an environment that's heavy on the Armageddons and Jokulhaups and Catastrophes. That leaves individual land destruction, and other lands are far bigger targets for that.

Now, is it good? I don't know. It lets you play politics.

Nah, I don't care that it's an aura per se. Rather I mean that my suggested version - "tap a land you control: target creature cannot block this turn" - makes more sense as a global enchantment than an aura.

Quote from Darcykun »

I've become super impressed with "target creature can't block" effects recently...

I don't know about this in particular, but I slotted in Boros Battleshaper for fun and he actually was taking over games, control over combat is almost like having repeatable removal... and he is more subtle than just that so people don't want to remove him when a sphinx or titan could be waiting in the wings.
Hostile Realm though? It's pretty crap. Play Icy Manipulator. Tapped creatures can't block. (Go away, Masako.)

Quote from Life1ess »

this is the dirt worst limited fodder.

This man summed it up pretty concisely.

Quote from Kryptnyt »

I don't know about this in particular, but I slotted in Boros Battleshaper for fun and he actually was taking over games, control over combat is almost like having repeatable removal...

You kind of just sold me on Boros Battleshaper as an interesting card.

Ryusei, the Falling Star



Well, at least this isn't the worst dragon out of the cycle, but it'll never be Kokusho the Falling Star or Yosei, the Morning Star. Heck, it's not even Keiga, the Tide Star. But at least it isn't <insert green dragon's name here>, which I don't even know what it does. *Googles.....* Yeah, that's pretty bad for Jugan, the Rising Star.

Hey hey hey, don't diss Jugan, he's pretty good in uh...you know, that one deck...and erm...that other one deck...you know the one...and uh...yeah.

Anyway, Ryusei. He's definitely not the worst mono-red dragon either, being able to act as a boardwipe of sorts. Being a 5/5 flier isn't poor either. He's just not particulary spectacular, but I've seen him used, and I've seen him actually do work, mostly against token armies. I even daresay in EDH he does more work than Yosei unless you go for a complete lockdown style deck. But he's not exactly fantastic, no.

Quote from cryogen »

Ryusei, the Falling Star

Well, at least this isn't the worst dragon out of the cycle, but it'll never be Kokusho the Falling Star or Yosei, the Morning Star. Heck, it's not even Keiga, the Tide Star. But at least it isn't <insert green dragon's name here>, which I don't even know what it does. *Googles.....* Yeah, that's pretty bad for Jugan, the Rising Star.

I disagree. I think Ryusei is actually the worst of the five dragons. 5 damage to all nonflying creatures is... meh at best - it feels like it misses the marks of dealing with correct threats on the board for a mass removal effect. It's probably not dealing enough to deal with the singular big threat on the board, does nothing to that army of fliers on the opposing board and chances is that token deck was indestructible to begin with. But the most annoying thing is that while you still can control when to trigger the effect (sacrifice outlets), removal simply means your opponent can also control the effect as long as you're still waiting for the correct time (which may backfire on you even, depending on the deck.)

If I wanted mass removal, I'll probably take stronger, more controllable options.

Jugan, on the other hand, while a lot more narrow in application, only has the requirement on having another creature. He works a lot better with +1/+1 counter modifiers, which are a lot more common than damage amplifiers in deck themes. The only time an opponent is inclined to destroy it is when you have no other creatures, whereas with Ryusei, it's basically anytime they can get an advantage over any other player with minimum losses on their side.

Either way, both of them aren't the top 3 of the 5 dragons though.