As the best path in the undercity is inherently aggressive, and the first effect you get is searching for a basic land, initiative is generally at its strongest on cheap cards. Even though this is a 4-mana source of initiative, the issues are somewhat negated as green decks can both use extra lands and can easily ramp this creature out on turn 3.
On top of being a good beater for aggressive green decks, this card doubles as a ramp enabler. It taps for 2 and guarantees your next land drop, thus if it survives, you always have 7 mana available during your next turn, even if you lose the initiative! If you really need to find a fatty, you might even select the scry 2 -path of the dungeon, though the value there is still in general lower than the two +1/+1 counters. Oh, and the vigilance nicely lets you get free attacks in while tapping for mana.
The potential fail case on this card is very real though. If this gets killed and your opponent attacks and takes the initiative, you might never be able to take it back, as green decks don't tend to play many cheap aggressive creatures and green creatures rarely have haste (and the ones that do, mostly Questing Beast and Caldaia Guardian, compete for the same green 4-drop slot). Thankfully, the 4 toughness protects this card from most red removal, and "aggressive matchups where you are on the draw" make up only a small amount of your matchups.
Even with the very low floor, this seems to me like one of the best 4-mana green creatures. It has great flexibility, working well both in ramp decks and in aggressive midrange. Pod decks find value in the mana fixing from fetching a basic land and perhaps can utilise the +1/+1 counters to reset a Kitchen Finks. The only green decks that really cannot play this are the Oath of Druids / Selvala's Stampede decks, but then again no low-cost creature fits those decks.
I really like the white one (cheap, protects you) and red one (5 power and trample to keep initiative plus free topdecks) on paper and you made a good case for this one too. I think these effects have to go into aggressive decks but green is frequently a part of those in our cube, and this could also be a win-con/enabler for ramp decks, albeit risky against aggro as you point out.
This card is pretty good since it just does so many things. To me this does a lot of what Oracle of Mul Daya wants to do. Assuming your opponent doesn't steal initiative, this has such a higher floor than Oracle since it guarantees you find at least one basic land, sets you up for 7 mana the following turn, has a way better body, and can just steal the game with initiative. I might give this one a test if I can find a slot for it, would be nice to have more than one initiative card.
Yea I like this, I think I want to try this over Garruk Relentless but I'll have to talk to the group since we're still deciding on some cuts from the last set's cards.
Can I just say I hate that the templating on this card is "Add GG" then "Add six G." Why isn't it "Add GGGGGG"?! That would look so much better.
Interesting point - seems to have been the templating since a while, Castle Garenbrig for example. Cards adding five or less mana are using that many symbols, though, judging by the 2021 printing of Seething Song in Commander: Strixhaven.
Can I just say I hate that the templating on this card is "Add GG" then "Add six G." Why isn't it "Add GGGGGG"?! That would look so much better.
It's because of Kaladesh/Energy. While it's nice looking to have GGGGGG in a vacuum/isolated card, it becomes extremely confusing when you've got cards with EEEEEEEE and cards with EEEEEE next to each other, and you're trying to parse quickly exactly how much energy you need. So when you need to create more than 5 of a resource, they short hand it because that many symbols in a row can be hard to read.
As the best path in the undercity is inherently aggressive, and the first effect you get is searching for a basic land, initiative is generally at its strongest on cheap cards. Even though this is a 4-mana source of initiative, the issues are somewhat negated as green decks can both use extra lands and can easily ramp this creature out on turn 3.
On top of being a good beater for aggressive green decks, this card doubles as a ramp enabler. It taps for 2 and guarantees your next land drop, thus if it survives, you always have 7 mana available during your next turn, even if you lose the initiative! If you really need to find a fatty, you might even select the scry 2 -path of the dungeon, though the value there is still in general lower than the two +1/+1 counters. Oh, and the vigilance nicely lets you get free attacks in while tapping for mana.
The potential fail case on this card is very real though. If this gets killed and your opponent attacks and takes the initiative, you might never be able to take it back, as green decks don't tend to play many cheap aggressive creatures and green creatures rarely have haste (and the ones that do, mostly Questing Beast and Caldaia Guardian, compete for the same green 4-drop slot). Thankfully, the 4 toughness protects this card from most red removal, and "aggressive matchups where you are on the draw" make up only a small amount of your matchups.
Even with the very low floor, this seems to me like one of the best 4-mana green creatures. It has great flexibility, working well both in ramp decks and in aggressive midrange. Pod decks find value in the mana fixing from fetching a basic land and perhaps can utilise the +1/+1 counters to reset a Kitchen Finks. The only green decks that really cannot play this are the Oath of Druids / Selvala's Stampede decks, but then again no low-cost creature fits those decks.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
That Lay of the Land-->Crystal Ball-->Strike It Rich strapped to a Worn Powerstone in ramp decks looks pretty good, all attached to a relevant blocking body. And in midrange and aggressive decks it's a Lay of the Land-->Earthen Arms-->Lava Axe. Looks explosive and versatile.
Add on the fact that sometimes you'll get to Reach Through Mists/Two-Headed Zombie-->souped-up Turntimber Symbiosis, this can represent a huge in game impact, especially when backed up by a Deranged Hermit or any of the other wide range of good blocking bodies in green.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
Interesting point - seems to have been the templating since a while, Castle Garenbrig for example. Cards adding five or less mana are using that many symbols, though, judging by the 2021 printing of Seething Song in Commander: Strixhaven.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms: