Bad. Bad bad bad is my thought on this guy. The payoff for saccing a creature is you MIGHT get to do 5 damage, gain a life, and scry 1? And you need to be able to sac another creature to block? Yeah, if you have gravecrawler and another zombie it's fine, but the floor on this one is even more do nothing than the floor on the green one.
The only one of these gods I am remotely interested in the red one, and maybe the green one.
Spending three mana and a card to do nothing unless you (likely) spend more mana and sacrifice your creatures seems steep. You need to be in a board state where sacrificing bodies is profitable/non-detrimental, and at that point you're throwing cards to try to get swings with Bontu in. Even with tokens/Bloodghast/etc., the payoff of swinging for 4 or having a big indestructible blocker isn't sufficient to justify the card's inclusion.
The only real upside to this card aside from the reach it provides is that it discourages opponents from spending removal on blockers for fear of turning it into a blocker.
Welp, all the Gods are a miss for me. I'm more interested in Plague Belcher than this for black 3's. I can see this being fine in B/x stax, but that's not a huge archetype in my cube, and even then, an Ophiomancer type card would be better. It's a easy pass with all the other insane stuff we've seen from this set. I really was hoping for some neat God inclusions, but the green one is the closest to playable, and I'd rather have Tireless Tracker back in my cube than that card. Shame on you, WotC. And shame on your cow.
This is awful. Thank god we got a good black 5 with Liliana. The gods are a mess except Hazoret.
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Eek. I prefer Defiant Salvager as a sacrifice outlet, and that's not a good sign. This is okay in a cube with a lot of token strategies and heavy cannibalism theme, and it attacks pretty well with something like Awakening Zone, but the payoff isn't great, and there are other things that work better in those strategies. Even in a giant cube like mine, I prefer something like Smothering Abomination in this slot.
I actually think there's a good bit of power here (threat of activation is very potent). Unfortunately it's wrapped up in a package that demands a highly dedicated aristocrats deck, and it's not a big enough payoff to be a real build-around. Disappointing, although I hope it shows up in constructed. The art is awesome, and I love the flavor of a Crocodile God.
Good card for constructed and commander but just difficult to make happen in cube since you will need huge amounts of tokens and sac outlets. Real shame but black got lots of other interesting cards so that's ok. I like it more than Kefnet.
This seems like a pretty solid enabler for the aristocrats deck. An indestructible sacrifice engine that can scry and provide the drain life trigger seems like exactly what those decks are trying to do. The creature mode is almost secondary. Animating into a 4-power menace creature is pretty good too, especially if it's almost incidental to the rest of the strategy. It represents a lot of damage with each activation, and in a deck loaded with token makers and recursive critters, this seems solid.
I run all the aristocrat package ans this doesn't interest me at all. 6 mana for 1 life drain, scry 1 and an hypothetical 4 damages is not good. If you have another sac-outlet outhere, then maybe you could manage to block with it the turn it ETB. Does this make it good enough? I don't think so. And since when a 4 power menace creature (even for 2C) that requires you to spend 2 mana and a card to attack is good? Maybe if the activation cost was free or was costing only 1 colorless mana, maybe we could talk about it.
I wish it just had the blood artist triggered ability, even it it was only on your side. So many cards I like better than this. probably rather play carrion feeder or greater gargadon or other sac outlet. Cards like bitterblossom and bloodghast are already doing amazing. Turning my bitterblossom into a 5/6 menace scry once per turn with an upkeep of 1B is not exactly game breaking.
With the green God I need another creature but both get to attack or block. This way it is only one way. If it could attack when any creature dies this turn it could be sexy in a heavy removal deck, but there has to be better sac outlets than this.
Why does WOTC suck so bad at making God cards? They've made 20 of these mythic rares now and based entire blocks around them, which have been been barely playable in standard, with almost none of them breaking into cube either.
Why does WOTC suck so bad at making God cards? They've made 20 of these mythic rares now and based entire blocks around them, which have been been barely playable in standard, with almost none of them breaking into cube either.
Designing a god is challenging since they're indestructible stat monsters (for their cost at least). They'd be able to push them more if they were printed in non-standard legal sets. For now, at least the gods will always have a home in EDH. My only wish for the gods was to have more pushed non-red 4-cmc gods, haha.
Why does WOTC suck so bad at making God cards? They've made 20 of these mythic rares now and based entire blocks around them, which have been been barely playable in standard, with almost none of them breaking into cube either.
Designing a god is challenging since they're indestructible stat monsters (for their cost at least). They'd be able to push them more if they were printed in non-standard legal sets. For now, at least the gods will always have a home in EDH. My only wish for the gods was to have more pushed non-red 4-cmc gods, haha.
I get that it's challenging, but they just keep swinging and missing. Seems like they would have been better off designing these for EDH special products and pushing the power level a bit, rather than throwing in watered down versions that flame out in constructed and cube.
Interesting point someone made on the spoiler thread of this card: this is the only god you can't "turn off" once it becomes a creature.
i.e. once a creature dies on your side, Bontu will be able to attack or block, whereas for the other gods, you can "turn them off"
red god -> make the draw cards (the worst to do to)
blue god -> make them discard cards
green god -> kill the 4+ power creature
white god -> kill a creature so they have less than 3 other creatures
I don't know how relevant it will be to helping this card out in a cube format, but it's something to consider.
Why does WOTC suck so bad at making God cards? They've made 20 of these mythic rares now and based entire blocks around them, which have been been barely playable in standard, with almost none of them breaking into cube either.
To be fair, half of those gods are two-colored, meaning that they would have to be in the top five cards of that combination to even be considered by most cubers. I will say, these gods really don't do it for me like the other monocolor cycle, though. They are a bit uninspiring this time around.
I also think this is pretty bad. Good sac outlets are the ones that are free to activate, so that you can churn out value any time without having to keep mana open. With this one you have to pay 2 and do it pre combat and better at most once per turn. I get that this is a sac outlet and a blood artist and a beater all in one card, just not particularly good in any of those roles.
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Steep cost to activate, but sac outlets are hard to come by. Thoughts?
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The only one of these gods I am remotely interested in the red one, and maybe the green one.
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The only real upside to this card aside from the reach it provides is that it discourages opponents from spending removal on blockers for fear of turning it into a blocker.
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Also wildly unplayable in a deck without multiple recursive creatures.
Would have really liked the clause to be "if a creature died" , so at least removal turns it on
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Still works well with Ophiomancer, Bitterblossom, and other token generating planeswalkers. Probably not enough though.
To me Rhonas is the #2 god at best, but I think Hazoret is leagues above it.
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Not sold on the gods, but let's see. I remember Purphoros not being considered before but now is a common inclusion.
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With the green God I need another creature but both get to attack or block. This way it is only one way. If it could attack when any creature dies this turn it could be sexy in a heavy removal deck, but there has to be better sac outlets than this.
Designing a god is challenging since they're indestructible stat monsters (for their cost at least). They'd be able to push them more if they were printed in non-standard legal sets. For now, at least the gods will always have a home in EDH. My only wish for the gods was to have more pushed non-red 4-cmc gods, haha.
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I get that it's challenging, but they just keep swinging and missing. Seems like they would have been better off designing these for EDH special products and pushing the power level a bit, rather than throwing in watered down versions that flame out in constructed and cube.
i.e. once a creature dies on your side, Bontu will be able to attack or block, whereas for the other gods, you can "turn them off"
red god -> make the draw cards (the worst to do to)
blue god -> make them discard cards
green god -> kill the 4+ power creature
white god -> kill a creature so they have less than 3 other creatures
I don't know how relevant it will be to helping this card out in a cube format, but it's something to consider.
To be fair, half of those gods are two-colored, meaning that they would have to be in the top five cards of that combination to even be considered by most cubers. I will say, these gods really don't do it for me like the other monocolor cycle, though. They are a bit uninspiring this time around.
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My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.