So, I thought this guy was a trap, but I got a chance to play with him on Cockatrice and he was an absolute house. He's bigger than Polukranos for crying out loud! Now, obviously he is bad if you can't deal with an opposing Vaporkin or if they just cast Flitterstep Eidolon, but in 3 matches I never lost him to his drawback. He ate removal, beat face, or stalled the game until I could lock it up with another fatty. Now, obviously getting blown out is a definite risk, but having a 6/6 on turn 4 (or 3... thank you, Mr. Voyaging Satyr!) is hard for most decks to deal with. Thoughts?
The downside is that the card almost definitely gets worse as the skill of your competition goes up, which means it will get less and less playable as people get used to the format. I don't really see how there's a deck in the format that's good at staving off damage, so it's just a matter of how lucky you get (or rather, how unlucky your opponent gets).
Potentially a card for siding in and out aggressively, depending on what you see, I guess? I could see this being strong against, say, RG Monsters, if that's still a thing.
Yep. I think it is very similar to master of feasts actually. When it is good it is ridiculous. When it is bad it is horribly terrible.
Biggest problem I see is that the top two colors right now both can easily deal with it at common. White has gods willing and red has bolt and lightning strike.
I would be happy to have it on the side board as I am sure there is SOME match for it, but it just isn't consistent
Eh. The upside is high enough that I won't mind terribly making my opponent use a Gods Willing (keep in mind, it only sacs on combat damage.) I wouldn't happily first-pick it, but I'd be jazzed to see it come mid-pack if I'm already green.
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Eh. The upside is high enough that I won't mind terribly making my opponent use a Gods Willing (keep in mind, it only sacs on combat damage.) I wouldn't happily first-pick it, but I'd be jazzed to see it come mid-pack if I'm already green.
The more I think about this card the better it looks.
If you curve into this guy you're in a great position to abuse him and it'll probably require them swinging out with cantrips just to kill him. Assuming you dropped a T2 and T3 creature they're losing a lot of board advantage.
If you're behind and they have evasion he's a horrible top deck. You need 10 mana to get an 8/8 reach and you still get blown out by cantrips.
If you're behind but they have no evasion or cantrips he trades with the biggest thing on the board and forces them to swing into him.
Most hands with good curves are going to win the game pretty handily. Yes, this is more absurd than many, but a win is a win regardless of how nutty it is.
Comparing this to Master of the Feast: one is functionally useless if you're in a race, the other is functionally useless unless you're in a race.
From a draft point of view it's worth looking for opportunities to take this for the sideboard, assuming people don't start taking it highly. There are a lot of flyers in this format, but mostly in White and Blue. This card is going to be way better against some decks than others for obvious reasons.
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It's only good if you're already ahead? Or if you aim to get into a staring match? If you attack with it (and even if you don't, assuming your opponent has evasive guys), then you turn removal into two-for-one. (Kill blocker, attack, giant dies.)
I guess he's some sort of lava axe for green?
(I completely fail to understand the flavor. You, planeswalker, get hit, giant dies? Is this green form of illusions? Somehow, wizards has found a worse kind of illusion and gave it to green for the lol?)
The downside isn't that massive. You're just not likely to play him when they'll go overhead with a Vaporkin or tap him down with a Heliod's Emissary. If you're competent and aren't terribly unlucky, it's possible that he's going to just act as removal of their biggest guy at worst most of the time and sometimes be much better. I'll have to see how it plays out, as always, but I've seen him a couple of times on Cockatrice and he always seemed to be pseudo-removal with huge upside in a ground game versus ground game board.
That said, if I'm maindecking him, he's coming out at even the slightest sign of cheap evasion unless I can reliably deal with it.
The downside isn't that massive. You're just not likely to play him when they'll go overhead with a Vaporkin or tap him down with a Heliod's Emissary.
Having a card sit dead in your hand is a pretty big downside. And you don't have to get all that unlucky for your opponent to just drop a flyer immediately after you play him, though I suppose that's still decent in some decks as a cheaper lava axe.
I'm sure he's sideboardable, but there are too many ways to get damage through in this format for me to feel entirely comfortable maindecking him.
He's not sitting dead in hand just because they have a flier. Do you not want to remove evasive things you can't deal with anyway?
I think it really depends on your deck, though. Pair green with blue's tempo plays, and this guy gets in once, maybe twice, and at that point the opponent is on life support because he can't afford to send in multiple attackers.
He's not sitting dead in hand just because they have a flier. Do you not want to remove evasive things you can't deal with anyway?
How do you mean?
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He's not sitting dead in hand just because they have a flier. Do you not want to remove evasive things you can't deal with anyway?
How do you mean?
Generally when people talk about the downside of maindecking a potentially dead card, it's because it literally won't be used. Like maindecking enchantment removal will occasionally be stranded all game, so it's effectively a mulligan. This is slightly different. It may be dead for a turn or two, but you should be able to remove the flier or deal with it at some point or you're probably losing to it anyway. It can certainly be dead more than you'd like against some decks and will definitely be sided out regularly, but when I've seen it so far in testing, it's either eaten my best guy or been something I had to deal with quickly. I've never played with him, though. Maybe times when you want to drop him and they have an active Vaporkin or Wingsteed Rider you can't remove, block or deal with will be more common than my experience leads me to believe. We'll see.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
Not necessarily, though the cases where he's good and when you aren't already firmly in control of the game are pretty specific. They have to have all ground, non-evasive guys, or any evasive threat is killable before they get to swing. If you have more ground guys than them, you're in a good spot. Even if you they have more than you, they'll have to suicide one into your Giant in order to get one guy through. But they can't always do that without taking a huge risk, and you can take advantage of that by building a deck that has some nice tricks that work on D, as you can walk your opponents right into your defensive trap.
What I find funny is that this Giant dude is absolutely terrified of Impetuous Sunchaser.
You're completely screwed if you play this guy and they have, like, a Vaporkin. My initial impression is that this is sideboard only for matchups versus ground decks.
If they already have Vaporkin out and you can't handle it, you mean. Even if they play an evasive creature the turn after you drop this and you can't answer it, you still got a cheap Lava Axe or made them sac their worst guy. That's hardly the end of the world. I fail to see how it's a win-more card. There are plenty of board stall situations involving green decks where you're certainly not ahead, but this will still stick for a bit.
...plus stratus walk, aqeuous form, and nimbus Naiad. Playing this card against blue is just asking for trouble imo. I'm currently in the camp of "trap/niche sideboard card", but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise once I see it in action.
Enchantment removal is actually a pretty good comp here, insofar as the question is: Do you maindeck this guy and sideboard him out aggressively against flyers or do you keep him in the sideboard and put him in against decks that haven't shown you much evasion?
I don't think it's either a trap or a bomb. I think it's very efficient and large with the possibility of being removed for free... however, it's not like Green has no removal, or that you'll be mono-green, or that you won't be playing fliers/spiders of your own. I think it'll be often maindeckable, but will require some rolling of the dice to play. Don't forget that once you get to six mana, he can protect himself against fliers, too. Ultimately, I think he's obviously swingy, but if the worst case is that he's a dead card and the best case is that you have a monstrous fatty (no pun intended) out turn 3-4, I don't think it's across-the-board incorrect to maindeck him.
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I think this should definitely start in the side and come in. It's true that there's a lot of flyers and flying isn't even the only form of evasion; there's actually quite a few intimidate creatures and even a handful of unblockables in the block. I'd also be afraid that even barring the chance of losing him before he gets anything done he might have to hang back and never attack even when facing nothing but fellow non-evasive face beaters because he dies to any kind of crack back. He feels sort of like a creature version of phytoburst. I have a feeling if you have a pack where the pick is between him or crystalline nautilus, you'll pretty much always want the nautilus. And i'm not even convinced the nautilus is any good yet.
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I've only ever had one intimidate creature, Cavern Lampad, played against me in the very large number of TTT, BTT and even Cockatrice JBT drafts I've done. Maybe he won't be worth maindecking, but he's only really going to be consistently bad against UW, RW and UB.
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RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
The downside is that the card almost definitely gets worse as the skill of your competition goes up, which means it will get less and less playable as people get used to the format. I don't really see how there's a deck in the format that's good at staving off damage, so it's just a matter of how lucky you get (or rather, how unlucky your opponent gets).
Potentially a card for siding in and out aggressively, depending on what you see, I guess? I could see this being strong against, say, RG Monsters, if that's still a thing.
Biggest problem I see is that the top two colors right now both can easily deal with it at common. White has gods willing and red has bolt and lightning strike.
I would be happy to have it on the side board as I am sure there is SOME match for it, but it just isn't consistent
Eh. The upside is high enough that I won't mind terribly making my opponent use a Gods Willing (keep in mind, it only sacs on combat damage.) I wouldn't happily first-pick it, but I'd be jazzed to see it come mid-pack if I'm already green.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
The more I think about this card the better it looks.
If you curve into this guy you're in a great position to abuse him and it'll probably require them swinging out with cantrips just to kill him. Assuming you dropped a T2 and T3 creature they're losing a lot of board advantage.
If you're behind and they have evasion he's a horrible top deck. You need 10 mana to get an 8/8 reach and you still get blown out by cantrips.
If you're behind but they have no evasion or cantrips he trades with the biggest thing on the board and forces them to swing into him.
I fought my mates sealed this morning and he went:
T1: Forest
T2: Golden Hind
T3: Swarmborn Giant
T4: Flash in Fleetfeather Cockatrice
T5: Monstrous the Giant.
T6: Monstrous the Cockatrice.
Now not saying that's a stupid hand with a great curve but if I don't drop a T2 evasion creature I need to beat past a 6/6 on T3.
Comparing this to Master of the Feast: one is functionally useless if you're in a race, the other is functionally useless unless you're in a race.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
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MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
It's only good if you're already ahead? Or if you aim to get into a staring match? If you attack with it (and even if you don't, assuming your opponent has evasive guys), then you turn removal into two-for-one. (Kill blocker, attack, giant dies.)
I guess he's some sort of lava axe for green?
(I completely fail to understand the flavor. You, planeswalker, get hit, giant dies? Is this green form of illusions? Somehow, wizards has found a worse kind of illusion and gave it to green for the lol?)
That said, if I'm maindecking him, he's coming out at even the slightest sign of cheap evasion unless I can reliably deal with it.
He's not sitting dead in hand just because they have a flier. Do you not want to remove evasive things you can't deal with anyway?
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
How do you mean?
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Generally when people talk about the downside of maindecking a potentially dead card, it's because it literally won't be used. Like maindecking enchantment removal will occasionally be stranded all game, so it's effectively a mulligan. This is slightly different. It may be dead for a turn or two, but you should be able to remove the flier or deal with it at some point or you're probably losing to it anyway. It can certainly be dead more than you'd like against some decks and will definitely be sided out regularly, but when I've seen it so far in testing, it's either eaten my best guy or been something I had to deal with quickly. I've never played with him, though. Maybe times when you want to drop him and they have an active Vaporkin or Wingsteed Rider you can't remove, block or deal with will be more common than my experience leads me to believe. We'll see.
Not necessarily, though the cases where he's good and when you aren't already firmly in control of the game are pretty specific. They have to have all ground, non-evasive guys, or any evasive threat is killable before they get to swing. If you have more ground guys than them, you're in a good spot. Even if you they have more than you, they'll have to suicide one into your Giant in order to get one guy through. But they can't always do that without taking a huge risk, and you can take advantage of that by building a deck that has some nice tricks that work on D, as you can walk your opponents right into your defensive trap.
What I find funny is that this Giant dude is absolutely terrified of Impetuous Sunchaser.
It's uniquely bad versus UW.
Standard: UBR Grixis Control
Modern: U Merfolk
Commander: UB Wydwen, the biting gale
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge