Needs X = 4 minimum to be a threat, but scales well after that. Closest analogy I could think of is Genesis Hydra.
The draw/life trigger is a cast trigger like genesis hydra, so value is gained through counter magic.
I'm interested enough to test.
I personally had a passing interest in genesis hydra as a green threat that gains value through countermagic... I tested it out, and ultimately felt it was a little too narrow and underpowered... Being unable to cheat it out, or fetch it with GSZ was a big strike against it.
I believe that Hydroid Krasis fills the same role, but is a notch or two more powerful.
At x > 9, it is arguable (both are amazing).. But in the more commonly "castable" region, the flying and trample make it a very reasonable x = 4 play. If you cast genesis hydra for anything less than X = 5, you were desperate.
I'm a pretty big fan of X spells in my cube. There are a few decks that have ways of generating absurd amounts of mana with Tolarian academy or Gae's cradle, that are in the market for a mana sink. X spells are better than very expensive ramp targets, because when those decks don't draw their broken lands, they still need ways to interact.
Hydroid's mana cost is a bit more appealing to me than Genesis Hydra's, because it's a very reasonble splash in an artifact mana deck AND in a green creature ramp strategy.. Which are the decks that want X spells the most.
Plus simic sucks so...
I like the idea of running this card along with Edric, Spymaster of Trest and Nissa, Steward of Elements from a design perspective. Since This and Nissa and go well into big ramp decks, and this can also play well with Edrice as a way to draw cards. I think it gives Simic a little bit more of a direction. What I an not so sure about is if it is too slow of a rate to be worth running.
I’m not a fan. I agree that you need to dump 4UG for this card to be even worth the price of admission, and you don’t get any real payoff until 6UG. Coiling Oracle / Shardless Agent provide more efficient value, Sagu Mauler is better at having a flexible cost, and Simic Skyswallowed is probably a better ramp payoff overall.
Cool design / flavor though, and being a cast trigger is very nice.
I’m not a fan. I agree that you need to dump 4UG for this card to be even worth the price of admission, and you don’t get any real payoff until 6UG. Coiling Oracle / Shardless Agent provide more efficient value, Sagu Mauler is better at having a flexible cost, and Simic Skyswallowed is probably a better ramp payoff overall.
Cool design / flavor though, and being a cast trigger is very nice.
It’s such a tough card to compare to coiling/shardless agent. Efficient value is not the axis he’s competing on. Especially since X spells SHOULD be mana inefficient, if the upside of the mana sink is powerful enough.
Sky-swallower/Sagu is the closest competition in simic.
they strike me as having a small advantage in deck versatility and a couple more synergies (natural order, reanimator).
But as a pure ramp target, I think they are significantly worse than the hydra. The guaranteed value on cast is a big big deal, and the upside of being able to cast it for larger X values is the kicker. It scales so well at high X values.
While it synergies less with cheat-into-play cards, it still has a very strong channel interaction.
Striped Bears is always a solid baseline for a card in my cube, and this goes up from there. I'm all about this, but I don't expect it to be better than any of the other mainstream options for those with tighter guild sections.
I am interested in testing this since Simic is so weak. I like big mana sinks in UG. I think this will probably not be good enough, but Trygon predator is so underwhelming in unpowered I don't feel remotely bad about sitting it out for a test of this guy.
Edit - Changed powered to unpowered. I imagine Predator is much better in powered lol.
[
It’s such a tough card to compare to coiling/shardless agent.
Shardless Agent sure, since that isn't necessarily a ramp card, but Coiling Oracle pulls double duty of ramp / value. The versatility that it's a hybrid of both makes Coiling Oracle a nice card in ramp, where it can be difficult to balance the ramp enablers with the payoffs. Coiling Oracle also has the benefit of being cheap Natural Order / Skullclamp / Recurring Nightmare fodder.
Efficient value is not the axis he’s competing on. Especially since X spells SHOULD be mana inefficient, if the upside of the mana sink is powerful enough.
True, but depending on the effect, many X spells can still be extremely useful even if it's not the most efficient. Earthquake / Rolling Earthquake for 1-2 mana can still be very useful, and Walking Ballista for 2 mana can still snipe early game threats like Birds of Paradise / Dark Confidant / Pack Rat at 1 / etc. Variable damage is very contextual to X scenario. On the other side of the coin, this is never useful at X = 1. Variable card draw is extremely cut and dry because it's not efficient regardless of context until you hit a certain number.
1UG: 1/1, only useful for fodder / chump blocks.
2UG: 2/2, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (3-cmc Filigree Familiar territory without any of the synergy)
3UG: 3/3, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (same as above)
4UG: 4/4, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life (starting to break even with bigger Cloudblazer without any of the synergy)
5UG: 5/5, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life
6UG: 6/6, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life (this is a decent payoff)
7UG: 7/7, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life
8UG: 8/8, draw 4 cards, gain 4 life (now we're talking)
1UG: 1/1, only useful for fodder / chump blocks.
2UG: 2/2, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (3-cmc Filigree Familiar territory without any of the synergy)
3UG: 3/3, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (same as above)
4UG: 4/4, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life (starting to break even with bigger Cloudblazer without any of the synergy)
5UG: 5/5, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life
6UG: 6/6, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life (this is a decent payoff)
7UG: 7/7, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life
8UG: 8/8, draw 4 cards, gain 4 life (now we're talking)
It's a shame because if you shifted all those CMC values down by a single mana, the card starts to look VERY playable. Wizards decided to play it safe for this card, thus we wont be seeing it in cube unfortunately.
I’m a bit surprised by tentativeness on this board. I personally think this card is fantastic and want to try it out immediately. I’ve heard the arguments on every card like this before: not blinkable or recurrable, not elite at any point on the curve, not a good candidate for cheating into play, etc. I get it, yet every time the X spells are better than we give them credit for, and we still disrespect them.
I’m going to cast this as a 4 and 5 drop a lot, and I’m going to be happy with it. No, it’s not Mulldrifter at that point. Yes, it’s still a 2-for-1 that impacts the board and makes good use of your turn. At any point past that, this card is fantastic in just about any situation. It’s a massive threat that gets you value no matter what, and more importantly, gives you time to make use of that value. Compare this to a traditional super-ramp card like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Sure, Kozilek is a better 10-drop, but it’s not that much better. And this is a card you can play all the way on down the curve no matter how much ramp you have. I’d happily play it in any UGx deck planning to reach 6 mana at some point. In my experience, that’s a lot of decks.
Also, what do you have to lose? Simic has like 1 1/2 cards that are actually worth the slot, and there’s very little worth playing in one of the most popular Simic archetypes, ramp.
Compare this to a traditional super-ramp card like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Sure, Kozilek is a better 10-drop, but it’s not that much better.
Kozilek is a Cheaty Face (Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack / Show and Tell / Eureka) / Channel payoff. I think it's much better than this.
Also, what do you have to lose? Simic has like 1 1/2 cards that are actually worth the slot, and there’s very little worth playing in one of the most popular Simic archetypes, ramp.
I still like the other tier 2 Simic options much more.
[
It’s such a tough card to compare to coiling/shardless agent.
Shardless Agent sure, since that isn't necessarily a ramp card, but Coiling Oracle pulls double duty of ramp / value. The versatility that it's a hybrid of both makes Coiling Oracle a nice card in ramp, where it can be difficult to balance the ramp enablers with the payoffs. Coiling Oracle also has the benefit of being cheap Natural Order / Skullclamp / Recurring Nightmare fodder.
Efficient value is not the axis he’s competing on. Especially since X spells SHOULD be mana inefficient, if the upside of the mana sink is powerful enough.
True, but depending on the effect, many X spells can still be extremely useful even if it's not the most efficient. Earthquake / Rolling Earthquake for 1-2 mana can still be very useful, and Walking Ballista for 2 mana can still snipe early game threats like Birds of Paradise / Dark Confidant / Pack Rat at 1 / etc. Variable damage is very contextual to X scenario. On the other side of the coin, this is never useful at X = 1. Variable card draw is extremely cut and dry because it's not efficient regardless of context until you hit a certain number.
1UG: 1/1, only useful for fodder / chump blocks.
2UG: 2/2, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (3-cmc Filigree Familiar territory without any of the synergy)
3UG: 3/3, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (same as above)
4UG: 4/4, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life (starting to break even with bigger Cloudblazer without any of the synergy)
5UG: 5/5, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life
6UG: 6/6, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life (this is a decent payoff)
7UG: 7/7, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life
8UG: 8/8, draw 4 cards, gain 4 life (now we're talking)
Yeah, I agree with this point. compared to a card like Walking ballista, or Devil's play, it's cheaper X costs are much worse. Sniping a mana elf or a dark confidant can be an effective use of 2 mana.
This card is embarrassing at low X's compared to anything else of comparable fixed mana cost, in almost any context.
However, it scales at the high X's quite well. Flying/trample creatures get WAY better the bigger they get. Each additional point of mana on this card has a considerable additional effect. Much more so than the X cards that are decent at low CMC's.
On Hydroid, while the X=2 mode is inefficient, there are game states where having the option of casting a 4 mana 2/2 flying etb draw 1 is a big deal compared to doing absolutely nothing. (IE Imagine if you had a Simic sky swallower stuck in your hand along with other 5+ mana creatuers). It's a much better "fail state" than comparable cards like Genesis wave, which does effectively nothing until at least 7 mana... It's typically a full card of value better than genesis hydra at X=2.
Reminds me of sphinx's revelation in that respect. While I rarely win those games im spending 4 mana to draw 1 card and gain 1 life... That option can mean the difference between winning and losing.. that value is hard to quantify.
Part of the reason Sphinx's revelation was slept on during spoiler season, was over dependency on comparing it's payoff to draw spells at comparable fixed CMC's.
Compare this to a traditional super-ramp card like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Sure, Kozilek is a better 10-drop, but it’s not that much better.
Kozilek is a Cheaty Face (Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack / Show and Tell / Eureka) / Channel payoff. I think it's much better than this.
I wouldn’t vouch for this card if I thought it were solely playable in ramp. I can think of a lot of Bant and Sultai midrange decks where I’d have loved to have an effect like this. It’s not an unfair card, just a fair one that is very good at going over the top.
Man, if the text read "round up" instead of "round down" we'd have a winner. Even so, I see the merits of this creature and I feel like it would be a fine inclusion. It just sucks that you lose value at 3 and 5.
Couple small points, but I think this is the most/2nd most powerful target in cube that recruiters can fetch in big mana decks.
I also love that it's not cloneable/fracture identitiable. I have a pet peeve of playing a big monster only for my opponent to clone it.. I put in multiple resources to ramp or combo into the creatures, my opponent just payed a few mana and matched my output.
If it were "round up" instead of "round down", I think it would actually be quite good, and I don't even think it would be broken. Why wizards :(.
As it stands, it's not going to cut it.
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Hydroid Krasis has been testing very well for me as a mana sink. Green/U ramp decks, Artifact ramp decks that can splash green and U/channel decks.. It's never gotten cut from these decks, and made multiple strong appearances.
Not in a "OMG this is way more powerful than anyones imagined kind of way"... But very similar to my prediction earlier in the thread. Given Simic's shallowness, I am close to 100% this will stay in my cube for a long while.
If you don't trust me, at the very least, I urge people to pay attention to the card going forward. I also have a history of owning up to when my predictions fall short from testing when my opinion is contrary to the forums (Angel of Sanctions, Mission briefing).. So take that's for what its' worth
Is the card too narrow? Almost every other fatty/ramp target in my cube is also playable in the unfair cheaty archetypes like (Tinker, Sneak/Show/Breach, and reanimation). Do you feel like your cube has benefited from having card that is exclusively good in rampy decks? I used to run Worldspine Wurm and Blightsteel Colossus to give ramp some unique targets but ended up cutting them to make my top end creatures viable in various other strategies.
I suppose it depends on how often your decks fall into a cheaty category, but it might be worth considering that your Gx ramp decks have felt obliged to be married to cheaty cards simply because they haven’t had access to flexible mana sinks like this. Most of the time pure ramp can be inconsistent and a slave to drawing the right payoffs at the right time, but this is a card you can play at basically any point to keep your engine rolling. I’ve been very impressed with it in standard testing so far, and I can’t wait to cube with it.
Also, I don’t think this card and Sneak/NO/etc decks are mutually exclusive. Often those decks will still run plenty of ramp to hard cast their fatties as a backup plan, and I’m sure some of those decks would have room to include something like this as a pure value card.
I suppose it depends on how often your decks fall into a chesty category, but it might be worth considering that your Gx ramp decks have felt obliged to be married to cheaty cards simply because they haven’t had access to flexible mana sinks like this. Most of the time pure ramp can be inconsistent and a slave to drawing the right payoffs at the right time, but this is a card you can play at basically any point to keep your engine rolling. I’ve been very impressed with it in standard testing so far, and I can’t wait to cube with it.
Also, I don’t think this card and Sneak/NO/etc decks are mutually exclusive. Often those decks will still run plenty of ramp to hard cast their fatties as a backup plan, and I’m sure some of those decks would have room to include something like this as a pure value card.
This fits Natural Order decks pretty well since those tend to inherently ramp with mana dorks / NO fodder. This CAN fit in Sneak Attack / Cheaty Face decks, but it's very important to note that Hydroid Krasis conflicts with Oath of Druids / Selvala's Stampede. While Cheaty Face decks do often have a ramp component, that is usually the Plan B.
Is the card too narrow? Almost every other fatty/ramp target in my cube is also playable in the unfair cheaty archetypes like (Tinker, Sneak/Show/Breach, and reanimation). Do you feel like your cube has benefited from having card that is exclusively good in rampy decks? I used to run Worldspine Wurm and Blightsteel Colossus to give ramp some unique targets but ended up cutting them to make my top end creatures viable in various other strategies.
In my cube, It hasn't been too narrow. It's been main decked over half the time it's been in testing (about 8? cubes). ~75% of my green decks are ramp focused and many of them can splash blue.
Im of the opinion that ramp decks and cheaty archtypes should have a variety of targets to chose from. There's a lot of consistency issues that they face and I try to reduce that where I can. Because there are only a few competitive show and tell/sneak attack type effects printed, the decks that build around them are going to be inherently inconsistent in drawing those spells. Having a lot of top end for ramp/combo decks to chose from, increases their consistency on one of the few axis you can increase it. Because the combo/ramp decks only need between 4-6 payoff targets, you don't have to overload your cube with fat creatures to give them plentiful options... Just give them a bit more than they need.
Sometimes a ramp deck ends up with no cheat-into-play effects, sometimes it ends up with multiple. A deck containing say Natural order and Sneak attack, will want a very different top end configuration than a deck with say Channel and Eureka. I like to include enough fatties that you will be able to get a good top end configuration, no matter what combination of enablers you have... Also early in the draft, you won't have to worry about passing say a Hornet queen to take a sylvan library, since you will be reasonably confident you can get enough fatties in the later packs.
Hydroid krasis' real payoff is with the broken lands (Cradle/Tolarian academy) and with channel... But it's also totally fine in anything where ramping is the primary way of putting things into play... which is the most common form of green deck that shows up.
Needs X = 4 minimum to be a threat, but scales well after that. Closest analogy I could think of is Genesis Hydra.
The draw/life trigger is a cast trigger like genesis hydra, so value is gained through counter magic.
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I personally had a passing interest in genesis hydra as a green threat that gains value through countermagic... I tested it out, and ultimately felt it was a little too narrow and underpowered... Being unable to cheat it out, or fetch it with GSZ was a big strike against it.
I believe that Hydroid Krasis fills the same role, but is a notch or two more powerful.
At x > 9, it is arguable (both are amazing).. But in the more commonly "castable" region, the flying and trample make it a very reasonable x = 4 play. If you cast genesis hydra for anything less than X = 5, you were desperate.
I'm a pretty big fan of X spells in my cube. There are a few decks that have ways of generating absurd amounts of mana with Tolarian academy or Gae's cradle, that are in the market for a mana sink. X spells are better than very expensive ramp targets, because when those decks don't draw their broken lands, they still need ways to interact.
Hydroid's mana cost is a bit more appealing to me than Genesis Hydra's, because it's a very reasonble splash in an artifact mana deck AND in a green creature ramp strategy.. Which are the decks that want X spells the most.
Plus simic sucks so...
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http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Cool design / flavor though, and being a cast trigger is very nice.
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It’s such a tough card to compare to coiling/shardless agent. Efficient value is not the axis he’s competing on. Especially since X spells SHOULD be mana inefficient, if the upside of the mana sink is powerful enough.
Sky-swallower/Sagu is the closest competition in simic.
they strike me as having a small advantage in deck versatility and a couple more synergies (natural order, reanimator).
But as a pure ramp target, I think they are significantly worse than the hydra. The guaranteed value on cast is a big big deal, and the upside of being able to cast it for larger X values is the kicker. It scales so well at high X values.
While it synergies less with cheat-into-play cards, it still has a very strong channel interaction.
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Edit - Changed powered to unpowered. I imagine Predator is much better in powered lol.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
Shardless Agent sure, since that isn't necessarily a ramp card, but Coiling Oracle pulls double duty of ramp / value. The versatility that it's a hybrid of both makes Coiling Oracle a nice card in ramp, where it can be difficult to balance the ramp enablers with the payoffs. Coiling Oracle also has the benefit of being cheap Natural Order / Skullclamp / Recurring Nightmare fodder.
True, but depending on the effect, many X spells can still be extremely useful even if it's not the most efficient. Earthquake / Rolling Earthquake for 1-2 mana can still be very useful, and Walking Ballista for 2 mana can still snipe early game threats like Birds of Paradise / Dark Confidant / Pack Rat at 1 / etc. Variable damage is very contextual to X scenario. On the other side of the coin, this is never useful at X = 1. Variable card draw is extremely cut and dry because it's not efficient regardless of context until you hit a certain number.
1UG: 1/1, only useful for fodder / chump blocks.
2UG: 2/2, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (3-cmc Filigree Familiar territory without any of the synergy)
3UG: 3/3, draw 1 card, gain 1 life (same as above)
4UG: 4/4, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life (starting to break even with bigger Cloudblazer without any of the synergy)
5UG: 5/5, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life
6UG: 6/6, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life (this is a decent payoff)
7UG: 7/7, draw 3 cards, gain 3 life
8UG: 8/8, draw 4 cards, gain 4 life (now we're talking)
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It's a shame because if you shifted all those CMC values down by a single mana, the card starts to look VERY playable. Wizards decided to play it safe for this card, thus we wont be seeing it in cube unfortunately.
I’m going to cast this as a 4 and 5 drop a lot, and I’m going to be happy with it. No, it’s not Mulldrifter at that point. Yes, it’s still a 2-for-1 that impacts the board and makes good use of your turn. At any point past that, this card is fantastic in just about any situation. It’s a massive threat that gets you value no matter what, and more importantly, gives you time to make use of that value. Compare this to a traditional super-ramp card like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Sure, Kozilek is a better 10-drop, but it’s not that much better. And this is a card you can play all the way on down the curve no matter how much ramp you have. I’d happily play it in any UGx deck planning to reach 6 mana at some point. In my experience, that’s a lot of decks.
Also, what do you have to lose? Simic has like 1 1/2 cards that are actually worth the slot, and there’s very little worth playing in one of the most popular Simic archetypes, ramp.
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Kozilek is a Cheaty Face (Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack / Show and Tell / Eureka) / Channel payoff. I think it's much better than this.
I still like the other tier 2 Simic options much more.
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Yeah, I agree with this point. compared to a card like Walking ballista, or Devil's play, it's cheaper X costs are much worse. Sniping a mana elf or a dark confidant can be an effective use of 2 mana.
This card is embarrassing at low X's compared to anything else of comparable fixed mana cost, in almost any context.
However, it scales at the high X's quite well. Flying/trample creatures get WAY better the bigger they get. Each additional point of mana on this card has a considerable additional effect. Much more so than the X cards that are decent at low CMC's.
On Hydroid, while the X=2 mode is inefficient, there are game states where having the option of casting a 4 mana 2/2 flying etb draw 1 is a big deal compared to doing absolutely nothing. (IE Imagine if you had a Simic sky swallower stuck in your hand along with other 5+ mana creatuers). It's a much better "fail state" than comparable cards like Genesis wave, which does effectively nothing until at least 7 mana... It's typically a full card of value better than genesis hydra at X=2.
Reminds me of sphinx's revelation in that respect. While I rarely win those games im spending 4 mana to draw 1 card and gain 1 life... That option can mean the difference between winning and losing.. that value is hard to quantify.
Part of the reason Sphinx's revelation was slept on during spoiler season, was over dependency on comparing it's payoff to draw spells at comparable fixed CMC's.
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I wouldn’t vouch for this card if I thought it were solely playable in ramp. I can think of a lot of Bant and Sultai midrange decks where I’d have loved to have an effect like this. It’s not an unfair card, just a fair one that is very good at going over the top.
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I also love that it's not cloneable/fracture identitiable. I have a pet peeve of playing a big monster only for my opponent to clone it.. I put in multiple resources to ramp or combo into the creatures, my opponent just payed a few mana and matched my output.
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As it stands, it's not going to cut it.
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
Easy pass imo
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https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Not in a "OMG this is way more powerful than anyones imagined kind of way"... But very similar to my prediction earlier in the thread. Given Simic's shallowness, I am close to 100% this will stay in my cube for a long while.
If you don't trust me, at the very least, I urge people to pay attention to the card going forward. I also have a history of owning up to when my predictions fall short from testing when my opinion is contrary to the forums (Angel of Sanctions, Mission briefing).. So take that's for what its' worth
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Also, I don’t think this card and Sneak/NO/etc decks are mutually exclusive. Often those decks will still run plenty of ramp to hard cast their fatties as a backup plan, and I’m sure some of those decks would have room to include something like this as a pure value card.
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This fits Natural Order decks pretty well since those tend to inherently ramp with mana dorks / NO fodder. This CAN fit in Sneak Attack / Cheaty Face decks, but it's very important to note that Hydroid Krasis conflicts with Oath of Druids / Selvala's Stampede. While Cheaty Face decks do often have a ramp component, that is usually the Plan B.
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In my cube, It hasn't been too narrow. It's been main decked over half the time it's been in testing (about 8? cubes). ~75% of my green decks are ramp focused and many of them can splash blue.
Im of the opinion that ramp decks and cheaty archtypes should have a variety of targets to chose from. There's a lot of consistency issues that they face and I try to reduce that where I can. Because there are only a few competitive show and tell/sneak attack type effects printed, the decks that build around them are going to be inherently inconsistent in drawing those spells. Having a lot of top end for ramp/combo decks to chose from, increases their consistency on one of the few axis you can increase it. Because the combo/ramp decks only need between 4-6 payoff targets, you don't have to overload your cube with fat creatures to give them plentiful options... Just give them a bit more than they need.
Sometimes a ramp deck ends up with no cheat-into-play effects, sometimes it ends up with multiple. A deck containing say Natural order and Sneak attack, will want a very different top end configuration than a deck with say Channel and Eureka. I like to include enough fatties that you will be able to get a good top end configuration, no matter what combination of enablers you have... Also early in the draft, you won't have to worry about passing say a Hornet queen to take a sylvan library, since you will be reasonably confident you can get enough fatties in the later packs.
Hydroid krasis' real payoff is with the broken lands (Cradle/Tolarian academy) and with channel... But it's also totally fine in anything where ramping is the primary way of putting things into play... which is the most common form of green deck that shows up.
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