MTG Salvation

A Lure effect would've been so much more flavorful and useful on this creature than deathtouch is...

"If Gitrog Monster blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn" would have been so much more appropriate and flavorful.

Quote from steve_man »

Quote from TheTennesseeFireman »

Is the downside really even that bad? It's a lot less punishing than something like Smothering Abomination, since you'll almost never have to sacrifice itself and the Exploration ability means that you're not really going to be stuck on mana if you have lands in hand.

Th drawback is bad because getting to 6 is important to get your Titan / Wurmcoil engine that your typical BG midrange deck wants. The Exploration effect makes no sense on a 5-drop because it's only useful when you're flooded or have a Crucible effect.

It's very likely that you get flooded when you're drawing multiple cards per turn, as this card has you do (along with many other BG engines). That exploration effect might actively help you ramp towards that titan, since you can deploy another land on the turn you drop this; it's not going to keep you off 6. And when you get to the later portions of the games, cycling lands from play is something you're going to actively want to do. The only situation where the drawback is annoying is when you're on 5 lands and have all spells in hand... in which case you can just cast some of those spells instead if you're that worried.

In any case, if you play your giant 6/6 deathtoucher and it lives through your next upkeep, you're probably not in bad shape anyway.

Quote from TheTennesseeFireman »

Quote from steve_man »

Quote from TheTennesseeFireman »

Is the downside really even that bad? It's a lot less punishing than something like Smothering Abomination, since you'll almost never have to sacrifice itself and the Exploration ability means that you're not really going to be stuck on mana if you have lands in hand.

Th drawback is bad because getting to 6 is important to get your Titan / Wurmcoil engine that your typical BG midrange deck wants. The Exploration effect makes no sense on a 5-drop because it's only useful when you're flooded or have a Crucible effect.

It's very likely that you get flooded when you're drawing multiple cards per turn, as this card has you do (along with many other BG engines). That exploration effect might actively help you ramp towards that titan, since you can deploy another land on the turn you drop this; it's not going to keep you off 6. And when you get to the later portions of the games, cycling lands from play is something you're going to actively want to do. The only situation where the drawback is annoying is when you're on 5 lands and have all spells in hand... in which case you can just cast some of those spells instead if you're that worried.

In any case, if you play your giant 6/6 deathtoucher and it lives through your next upkeep, you're probably not in bad shape anyway.

If I am going to make any use of this cards drawing ability I am going to need a lot more mana than 6. Even if I have fetches and minor mill effects I am drawing about 1 land a turn. You play this on curve you will plateau at 5 or 6 mana and oftentimes slide down to 4. And if my midrange grind deck only gets to 4-7 lands in the long game when I have tons of spells in hand it won't work out.

Best bet is playing this with about 8 lands out and crush the long game from there. That is why being 5 mana is a waste. It might as well be 8, and make the land sac optional, possibly activating lure and trample.

And the green mythic is absolute garbage. Oh wizards.

I'm excited about this. It's a draw engine. It supports landfall. It fuels delve. It combos with LFTL/Crucible. And it's a giant poisonous frog. What's not to like here?

I'm gonna test it because it's cool FROG HORROR!! and good enough to make decks. If non combo fast bond ever comes together, this is a reasonable pay off card. We got two cards in this set. STILL don't think it'll work (I've tried so hard it's comical) but I'm always watching.

I like switching my guild section up every once and while for variety, then return to the staples after a couple months.

I built a rough draft of an "optimal" cube deck for the frog, and goldfished it a bit to see how good the deck felt.

Obviously it's difficult to tell when goldfishing (getting your curve disrupted effects the flow of the deck quite a bit), but uninterpreted, the upside on gitrog's value generation is bonkers.

When you have a couple engines going with it, the effects stack beautifully.
I know this is semi magical christmas land but (zuran orb/gargadon) + oracle of mul daya + gitrog is ~draw 4 cards a turn + SELECTION on the draw 4. Between sacrificing fetch lands , putting the lands from the top of your deck into play, sacing lands with the outlet to draw a card off of gitrog and filter the top of your library.

Tireless tracker/courser of kruphix felt phenomanal with him too.

I think gitrog will be a central piece of any sort of exploration/fastbond archetype going forward.

I know titania has similar payoff (greater?) with heavy synergy, but titania in a deck that doesn't break her, is so much weaker of an engine. She's contingent upon these other cards, while gitrog's a lot harder to kill (black mana symbol + high toughness) and filters through the deck to find the things that accelerate his advantage (much more relevant if you only have a couple synergistic cards)... Also, his value generation doesn't leave him vulnerable to wraths the way titania does. Attacking on a different axis than his huge body already presents.

Looking forward to testing to see if this comes together in practise. Very excited after goldfishing.

I had opposite results in playtesting. Not even remotely close to good enough, IMO. It was in a BG deck with both Crucible AND Loam, and it was a Spiritmonger that was worse in combat and basically cycled a card every turn. Safe pass. At least until we get more engine cards that work with it, and the Loam decks become a much more consistent beast in this format. Significantly worse than Titania, which says a lot because this is a gold card.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I had opposite results in playtesting. Not even remotely close to good enough, IMO. It was in a BG deck with both Crucible AND Loam, and it was a Spiritmonger that was worse in combat and basically cycled a card every turn. Safe pass. At least until we get more engine cards that work with it, and the Loam decks become a much more consistent beast in this format. Significantly worse than Titania, which says a lot because this is a gold card.

I trust your results/conclusions and haven't played with it yet, but to be a proper engine it has to be crucible/loam + fetch lands. Without the fetch lands crucible/loam dont do anything really with him.
With fetchlands, it can't possibly be as you described. It's simple mathematics. He's drawing up to 2 cards a turn by himself in addition to the value loam/crucible is generating.

I guess your testing may confirm my fears that's it's too difficult to get enough engine pieces together in a deck to make it really pay off...

Curious if I'll have dramatically different experiences in a double fetch land cube or only a minor difference.

If you have him and a Crucible together at the same time with a fetchland, it's good. Almost as good as Titania is in that same scenario. But without the Loam/Crucible, it's simply not good. Whereas Titania at least "goes off" with one fetch/strip effect in the 'yard.

I'm sure running double the number of fetchlands increases its value.

Gitrog really depends on how much of the cube synergizes with it. I think you might need the full lands package and a pretty good package for graveyard strategies like retrace, discard outlets, looters, etc. With a high enough density of interactions, its probably amazing. In a general goodstuff list though it might struggle to do a Spiritmonger impression.

If it was non-legendary I would have some fun with Spitting Image.

This guy was really bad tonight. Definitely close to getting cut. He really needed trample. Even if he was just a 5/5.

He's a really fun dude, but unless you're playing him in a format/deck where you can go off the turn you cast him or reasonably expect him to survive, he's still just a dude, sadly.

Just want to bump this thread to see where people stand on the big frog a year later. How much more support would you need before you run it?

Never tested this card, or really was even aware of it, however now that we have Ramunap Excavator, it seems kind of sweet.

I so wish that the lands.dec pieces were concentrated in a color pair or even a shard. I hate that the pieces for it are spread in every color combo. Obviously the deck would be base green, but parts of it want to go into white for Land Tax, Geddons, Balance, and Knight of the Reliquary. Blue is good for draw and discard. Black's good for discard and Braids shenanigans. Red's good for Greater Gargadon and things like Daretti. It's like blink in that there is support across all colors, but at least blink is obviously concentrated in white and blue. The lands deck seems to lack that firm foundation. But then I suppose since you'll be recurring all your lands, it's more feasible to play 3c or more.

I want this package to be good, and I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on adding Knight of the Reliquary, Titania, and perhaps Gitrog, but space is limited at 450 and I'm planning to add power shortly, so it'll get even tighter.

Quote from MikePemulis »

I want this package to be good, and I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on adding Knight of the Reliquary, Titania, and perhaps Gitrog, but space is limited at 450 and I'm planning to add power shortly, so it'll get even tighter.

Have you considered slightly increasing your cube size? Could solve your problems without the size change being too noticeable.

I've added Titania, Life From the Loam, and The Gitrog Monster with my HOU update. I was already running Knight of the Reliquary in my GW section. We haven't gotten any cube nights in with this update yet, so I can't comment too much on it's performance yet. I was happy to pull the trigger on this support, though, and I'm excited to see how the decks end up looking. With that said, it should be noted that I also am at 555 in size and have five slots devoted to each guild. I don't think I would be able to make room to support this at 450 if I only had three or four slots available there.

I added the frog a few months after it came out. People have played it (turns out black doesn't have many 5 drops) and enjoyed it. Not sure it's a permanent inclusion, but I saw it draw three cards in a turn so I think it's gonna stay for a while.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I think it has more to do with fully supporting an archetype it can shine in than anything else. If you play a Titania/KotR aggro loam package, this card will probably fit just fine.

The problem with that deck wasn't that it was missing legendary frog horrors ...it's that it was missing more Crucible/Loam land recursion engine cards.

Any positive testing for this KoTR/Titania/Gitrog package now that we have another Crucible effect?

I haven't been re-testing it, no. But I know that several other cube managers are.