MTG Salvation

You don't need to be that heavy in blue to make it good. The UU you need to cast it will get you a lot of mileage from the activated ability. X/X/u, where it's hard to land it is the only time you wouldn't want to run it.

With a lot of mana sinks in this format, it's queer they put this in KtK. I'm not a huge fan of it. But I think it would be better appreciated in other formats that don't have a drawn out board of grounders.

Will always pick a Windscout over Scion.

I struggle rating Pearl Lake Ancient. It always does something, because nothing can block it well, but then again everything can chump it. I don't have a good feel for how often the game ends before 7 mana. Certainly you don't want to run the Ancient against an aggro deck. I'm really not sure because it's been good when I've seen it in play but that's true for most 7+ drops. The question is whether they're good enough to justify the risk that you're dead before you can play them.

I don't rate Pearl Lake Ancient very highly when I see it. It's big, and Flash is nice, but it never gets through for damage. And in many situations, I'd rather have Woolly Loxodon.

It does have a very spicy interaction with Master the Way however. Someday I'd like to pull that off.

I like Pearl Lake Ancient a whole lot and would gladly take it P1P1 over any common and over all but a handful of uncommons (or maybe just a couple of uncommons). It does not work well in a quick win aggressive deck but I rarely play that type of deck anyway. I don't consider it a bomb but I am glad to open one.

I ran this card once; the text box is awfully jumbled and I forgot that it couldn't be countered, which caused my only match loss of the night. Why something that big has prowess I will never understand.

I think that ranking it similarly to Wooly Loxodon is fair. It's a good card, and would be a bomb if it wasn't a 7-drop.

What puts Pearl Lake Ancient over the top powerful in my view is that removal only delays it as it will be returned to hand and cast again later. I like Wooly Loxodon a lot as a common but one Smite the Monstrous, Kill Shot, or Rise of the Serpent (all commons) and the loxodon is toast whereas the ancient lives to fight another day. The ancient costs more (compared to unmorphing the loxodon) and does not morph, so the loxodon is better in those respects, but once you get an ancient in action then it's very difficult to deal with unless you can outrace it (which is true for most other creatures including the loxodon) or mega-block it and hope that your opponent doesn't have a trick to punish multi-blocks. And flash can make it a great ambush.

For 7 mana something better have a huge impact on a game to make it worthwhile and in my view the ancient has enough of a huge impact. I don't classify it as a bomb, though, because there are many better rares and a small number of better uncommons in my view.

Enh? As much as I like giant creatures, it dies to hateblades and other stuff I'm bound to run into. Tusked Colossodon does pretty much the same thing for less mana, and I can get those ~10th pick.

Comparing Pearl Lake Ancient to Tusked Colossodon is misleading in my view. Pearl has flash, 7 toughness, and a form of hexproof (not quite, but similar), all of which are very valuable, the colossodon is much worse. Yes both are blocked by deathtouch creatures (so just don't attack with it until you can get rid of the deathtouch creature) but so does almost every other non-evasive creature.

I miss big blue fatties with trample.

Quote from Hardened »

I miss big blue fatties with trample.

And Islandhome. And being undercosted. It's like the hosers to blue reside in .... blue.

Quote from NFLed »

What puts Pearl Lake Ancient over the top powerful in my view is that removal only delays it as it will be returned to hand and cast again later. I like Wooly Loxodon a lot as a common but one Smite the Monstrous, Kill Shot, or Rise of the Serpent (all commons) and the loxodon is toast whereas the ancient lives to fight another day. The ancient costs more (compared to unmorphing the loxodon) and does not morph, so the loxodon is better in those respects, but once you get an ancient in action then it's very difficult to deal with unless you can outrace it (which is true for most other creatures including the loxodon) or mega-block it and hope that your opponent doesn't have a trick to punish multi-blocks. And flash can make it a great ambush.

For 7 mana something better have a huge impact on a game to make it worthwhile and in my view the ancient has enough of a huge impact. I don't classify it as a bomb, though, because there are many better rares and a small number of better uncommons in my view.

If all you're going to do is consider them in play, then Emrakul is the greated limited card of all time.

The difference between 7 mana and 6 mana means the loxodon affects the board 2-3 turns faster than peral lake. You can't gloss over that like it's nothing.

Yeah that's the main sticking point with Pearl Lake Ancient. At 6 mana it would be a great card. This format has almost nothing in the way of ramp since it's unlikely that you're playing banners, so a spell that isn't likely to be playable before turn 8 or 9 at the earliest has a strike against it.

I would certainly draft and play the card, but it would have to be a middling pack for me to first pick it I think.

Quote from NFLed »

Comparing Pearl Lake Ancient to Tusked Colossodon is misleading in my view. Pearl has flash, 7 toughness, and a form of hexproof (not quite, but similar), all of which are very valuable, the colossodon is much worse. Yes both are blocked by deathtouch creatures (so just don't attack with it until you can get rid of the deathtouch creature) but so does almost every other non-evasive creature.

Meh. There's what? One commonly played counter in the format? (Temur Charm)

Keeping 7 mana open for the flash is... Not terribly surprising.

They're both giant finishers for when you've cleared out all of the good answers or giant blockers to gum up the ground. Sure, 2 toughness is nice. Sure, prowess and flash and uncounterable are all nice. I'm just not sure that they're nice enough to warrant the extra mana/turn - but more importantly I don't think it's worth picking highly since there are commons that are readily available that do almost the same thing.

I don't feel that its Wins Above Replacement is particularly high.

This dragon can't fly... boooooooo.....

I feel obliged to post my last draft deck here, since it featured p1p1 and p3p1 Pearl Lake Ancients, and it's like the perfect PLA deck (apart from not having Master the Way ). I drafted this at GP Strasbourg day 2 and went 3-0:

I want to like it, but the Loot effect costs too much mana for this format. It is great in grindy matches, but those are generally Sultai decks, which have better cards to not need to splash a fourth color.

It is okayish as a Horned Turtle, but you are not (in almost all cases) going to win by attacking with this creature. I either would like its costs on the Loot ability reduced or swapped colors.

All true, but it has done some fine turtling for me.

I don't think I've ever put this in a deck. For three mana I'd rather play a morph (even a not-especially-good one). There are lots of playables in this format so it's usually not hard to find something better.

I have honestly never played against it and the one time I tried to play it, it underperformed. I can imagine the format having turned out slightly differently and this having been quite a good card, but turtle decks are just generally not red and so this doesn't really have a home.

I do not like Bloodfire Mentor because there are plenty of better things to do with 3 mana, and 5 toughness does not survive against enough of the morphs to make it a good wall, whereas 6 toughness would be a decent card in my view. By comparison, Archer's Parapet is a decent card in a green-black deck because it can be played on turn 2. If my deck had a lack of creatures which could survive a 4 power attack and I was not playing an aggressive deck, or if I was scrounging for a 22nd playable, then I would probably play this mentor but otherwise I would leave it out.

Deceptively playable. U/R will sometimes be too aggressive to want it, my deck last week certainly wouldn't have run him, but in a midrage or control build he's a house. Great in a topdeck war.

5 toughness blockers are good in KTK. Red is pretty good in KTK. But I'm not interested in a Red 5 toughness blocker, because Red wants to be attacking and playing tempo spells to get ahead. I mean if you put Arrow Storm and Bloodfire Mentor in the same deck, you're not really trying. You need to pick a strategy, and Red Control is not well supported because the removal is lacking. (Bring Low is the Lightning Strike of this set!)