I also want to try Liliana's reaver over DD. He's out of my deck and i've mainboarded Lifebane now (3 specters / 3 Lfb).
I'd love to hear comments about Liliana's reaver. How it worked for you?
Prefer it definitely. Between it and Thoughtseize Reaver gives the deck a more controlling feel to it without losing the aggressiveness that DD can give you. Both are great against control and Demon I think is probably a little better against midrange strategies but against deck with high creature counts (tokens, mana dorks) Reaver works much better while holding the same Devotion count. Again the 3 toughness is OK but the cost to power ratio is acceptable considering how much card advantage it gives you.
Anybody else share this opinion?
Also I'm really beginning to like Hythonia the Cruel. With 3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx backing it it becomes very dangerous. Even a 4/6 PT with deathtouch can really pose problems, particularly if you have Whip of Erebos in play. I run 4 Reaver/3 Hythonia in place of DD + Rats and the deck feels la lot stronger.
I run Reaver in place of Demons in my BD build and actually prefer them. The toughness is meh but the card advantage generated is sick if you can connect with it and has great surprise value in conjunction with the Whip. I also run Hythonia( criminally underrated) in place of Rats, Encroaching Wastes in place of Mutavault and 3 Nykthos in what is an otherwise stock Black Devotion list. Plays well against everything except fast aggro. The new cards can give other decks fits especially since they're not expected.
I think abrupt decay will still get the nod over putrefy because of its casting cost and versatility and it is uncounterable.
@The Raven Watches
If veilborn ghoul could block he would be perfect as a one of. If you see him early which is rare you pitch him to lil or post again and again. If you see him late he is a recurring creature to keep pressure on. Doesn't matter how many swamps you've already pitched to lil or post early game chances are you will get to reuse him.
Agree on both topics. Putrefy will probably be played either out of the sideboard as primarily artifact removal or mainland as a substitute for Murder in the decks that are using those colors and/or need the additional removal. Veilborn Ghoul seems interesting as a way to further diversify the decks wincons which as I described would have been useful against B/W/R midrange as something extra to foil Nevermore but I question it's effectiveness against Lingering Souls for example. I'll try it in place of one Taskmaster
No, it curves out smoothly enough. Most of the spells are 2cmc with the next highest concentration being 11 3cmc, 7 4cmc, 3 5cmc and 2 6 cmc. Mike Flores' Staff of Win deck which was used as a template for this decks design runs just as many spells at the 3 cmc range as his did and performs just as well.
Putrefy is going to be harsh for sure but it can be played around by protecting Post either with Duress or baiting out removal with something that they can't afford to ignore.
This is horrible advice. I don't think the poster even looked at your list. -4 keyrunes your only other artifact source in a post deck? +2 seclusions in a 4 creature list?
The keyrunes are a good fit and needed for your list. I don't see the benefit of taskmaster over nighthawk. They both have the same toughness so they both die to searing spear and 3 power creatures. Nighthawk has deathtouch so kills anything taskmaster can chump plus netting you 2 life. They both have evasion and nighthawk doges victim of night.
Well here's the thing, I'm seeing a lot of aggro decks in my meta with 2/2 or 2/1 for P/T.
So needing to chump block things larger than the Taskmaster isn't really necessary and he's a faster clock when sometimes you just need to close a game out. If I was seeing more mono-red or burn-centric aggro I would run Nighthawk as the lifegain pseudo counters their burn and acts as a magnet for removal. If you stick a Seclusion with Taskmaster on board you can usually end the game in 3 turns. Same thing if you get an active Demon off a Rising. Keyrunes are a little slow. I like to play Dead Weight off one or Duress out of the board to help grab a little tempo but it's one of the few things that can attack alongside a Taskmaster and of course is necessary to produce Demon tokens. As a 5 mana pump spell I don't really want to see Seclusion in my opening hand as powerful as it is in conjunction with the other cards in the deck particularly Post. 2 is fine. The only thing that really messes with my gameplan is R/B/W midrange as they seem to have more answers in their deck than I have threats. I think that's where it's useful to have more than just 4 creatures and 4 Keyrunes with Seclusion (dont forget goat and demon tokens). I notice players will often Nevermore or Slaughter Games my Staves so I side one out and replace one and another card with Connections to mess with them. But Aggro is easy. Posts force an overcommitment from the Aggro player causing them to step into Mutilates with value behind them. I would like to try the Ghoul but TP and LotV force myself to pitch slot of Swamps and I'm not high on the can't block clause. I really want a Return or two in here to diversify my wincons and be a little more disruptive but space is so tight it's hard to squeeze it in. A 24th land wouldn't be too bad either.
This is horrible advice. I don't think the poster even looked at your list. -4 keyrunes your only other artifact source in a post deck? +2 seclusions in a 4 creature list?
The keyrunes are a good fit and needed for your list. I don't see the benefit of taskmaster over nighthawk. They both have the same toughness so they both die to searing spear and 3 power creatures. Nighthawk has deathtouch so kills anything taskmaster can chump plus netting you 2 life. They both have evasion and nighthawk doges victim of night.
Well here's the thing, I'm seeing a lot of aggro decks in my meta with 2/2 or 2/1 for P/T.
So needing to chump block things larger than the Taskmaster isn't really necessary and he's a faster clock when sometimes you just need to close a game out. If I was seeing more mono-red or burn-centric aggro I would run Nighthawk as the lifegain pseudo counters their burn and acts as a magnet for removal. If you stick a Seclusion with Taskmaster on board you can usually end the game in 3 turns. Same thing if you get an active Demon off a Rising. Keyrunes are a little slow. I like to play Dead Weight off one or Duress out of the board to help grab a little tempo but it's one of the few things that can attack alongside a Taskmaster and of course is necessary to produce Demon tokens. As a 5 mana pump spell I don't really want to see Seclusion in my opening hand as powerful as it is in conjunction with the other cards in the deck particularly Post. 2 is fine. The only thing that really messes with my gameplan is R/B/W midrange as they seem to have more answers in their deck than I have threats. I think that's where it's useful to have more than just 4 creatures and 4 Keyrunes with Seclusion (dont forget goat and demon tokens). I notice players will often Nevermore or Slaughter Games my Staves so I side one out and replace one and another card with Connections to mess with them. But Aggro is easy. Posts force an overcommitment from the Aggro player causing them to step into Mutilates with value behind them. I would like to try the Ghoul but TP and LotV force myself to pitch slot of Swamps and I'm not high on the can't block clause. I really want a Return or two in here to diversify my wincons and be a little more disruptive but space is so tight it's hard to squeeze it in. A 24th land wouldn't be too bad either.
In the last four weeks I've placed in the top eight each time and twice in the top 4 at my local FNM with this build. The deck is powerful and wins games out of nowhere. I was running Nighthawks of course before but after some testing concluded that between Post and Seclusion you have plenty of Lifegain. Taskmaster soaks up removal very admirably and is a faster clock than Nighthawk which, while powerful, is slow at closing out games. I am going to try Master of Cruelties in it's place however. That card should push this deck into the limelight. I was also running Dead Weight before over Searing Spear as well but was having problems with Dimri Rade and just liked the ability to toss a Spear and SiB at my opponents face for the win too much!
I tried, but you can't build a deck depending upon early Lichs with SB cards and disposable artifacts. Most artifacts are jank. Even Prism should be cut to a bare minimum, sided out against heavy aggro decks (those same decks that would best profit from early Lichs).
True. However one possibility would be Inquisitor's Flail. Lich doesn't care if opposing creatures are doing double damage to it. Rakdos Keyrune would fit in well here also because it has first strike and doesn't care about combat interaction with most creatures. Gloom Surgeon too but I wouldn't personally go there as I don't wanted to get milled that much. But yeah, I would start experimenting with Flail in a Lich build. Turn 2 Flail into turn 3 Lich into turn 4 equip, swing for 10 with 2 mana left over for removal or whatever.
I think the reason seclusion is strong in this deck is because the threats we play are so hard to deal with - tusk, goats and simic keyrune. With searing spear and selesnya charm being so popular rakdos keyrune would feel like a liability here.
Agree. However removal issues are somewhat mitigated by having an active Post in play. So it's at least manageable. The 6/2 first strike/lifelink is too attractive to pass up on the black red keyrune.
I think the reason seclusion is strong in this deck is because the threats we play are so hard to deal with - tusk, goats and simic keyrune. With searing spear and selesnya charm being so popular rakdos keyrune would feel like a liability here.
Agree. However removal issues are somewhat mitigated by having an active Post in play. So it's at least manageable. The 6lo/2 first strike/lifelink is too attractive to pass up on the black red keyrune.
Btw how does Connections work out for you in testing? I generally prefer a Staff in there. I think when you see the incremental advantage gained with a Staff and Post online together with the ability to ping 1 every turn it's power becomes more evident. Sure you're only running one but I think Staff is the stronger choice. What do you think?
Interesting list, I'm also going to change SiB for Prism as i found SiB tricky and inefficent especially while being on draw and not casting anything T1.
However I'm curious how do you deal with undying/returning creatures since you don't play creatures and your draw engine seems rather weak. SoN are great but don't you run out of gas struggling to survive before gettin them?
HA, I don't deal with them very well at all. At the same time Zombies aren't a major player in my area nor do I see Strangleroot Geistat all. It seems like most of the people who had been previously playing B/r Zombies have made a shift to RDW and Rakdos Aggro. If Zombies were to become prevalent again I would definitely pack 3-4 Pillar of Flame in my sideboard. I would also lean towards using them if I saw a lot of Thalia but that isn't really the case either. When I do wind up playing them I usually just try to stall until I can get a Curse in play backed up by Staff game 1 then board in Severs and Cremates. Sometimes it's enough but it's still weighted towards them. I basically ignore the matchup and use removal that I know will be effective in the vast majority of instances. Instant speed is huge right now.
As for Staff I love them in concert with Trading Post. You have lots of artifacts to sac to it for draw and against fast aggro I find myself using the gain 4 feature by discarding SoN a lot only to grab it back again later. I wish Prism had the clause where, like Wellsprings did, you get a card when it hits the graveyard as well. I don't want to run 4 Prism for fear of choking on them. 3 feels right but unlike SiB they draw into land only about half the time. I might go back to them in a shell where I'm using Nighthawks and Posts together but right now the lifeloss is just doing red-based rush decks a favor.
It's all experimental still. Apart from the Post/Staff synergies which seem vital to the deck the rest can still be honed to some degree.
@bonerfleximus... I like that build you have. The lifegain is absurd! And I'm thinking the Hexproof on Simic probably does the lionshare of the work for you and a lot of people underestimate Post but they go a long way to protect your Keyrunes. Nice find. I'll try the deck out as well as mess around with Seclusion in B/r. I get a sick feeling when I look at Thragtusk. I'd rather find ways to beat that card than have it beat me!
Note: Just saw 61 cards in the list I posted earlier. There should be one less Rakdos Return
I went ahead and pulled the Nighthawks. Not because they aren't useful for soaking up a burn spell which they do a fine job of. My experiment is to see, with all the early removal, if Post is adequate enough to hose burn/rush strategies. I don't see an abundance of Reanimate so I might pull Severs and a Cremate for the VNH but I like how this is set up. Cremate is still effective against Snapcaster targets and once I show my opponent playing blue/white control a creatureless deck they might pull mass removal as I sideboard in the Knights for the second game.
This is one deck that doesn't mind discarding cards to either Liliana or Post and the utility from these cards is often enough to keep you in a game that has stalled out. An army of goats make excellent chump blockers or Pike holders later in the game. Discarding cards (lands or artifacts that can be recurred later) become virtual counterspells against decks that use burn for reach. The deck feels a little like Black Market. Some people will prefer SiB over Prism but it does a fair impersonation of the Wellspring/Post combo from last year.
So I know this is a borderline combo deck but here's my submission to MBC. I've been having very suprising results in a competitive meta with this deck. Several people I play with are qualified for pro tour, have top 16'd SCGOs, and Day 2'd GPs.
The basic premise:
Gain board control through removal / sweepers (basic MBC stuff)
Stabilize with thragtusk, trading post, or homicidal seclusion
Close out the game with Homicidal Seclusion + any creature (keyrune is great here)
The deck curves very nicely going from Mutilate into Thragtusk, Keyrune into Seclusion/Thragtusk, or Trading Post into Seclusion. Any of those lines will often stabilize and there's plenty of early removal to keep your opponent from winning.
Once you have a keyrune or Trading post + seclusion, control/midrange decks have no way to profitably trade so you will inevitably win.
The only tough matchup I've found is the Esper mill decks floating around. A significant portion of the sideboard is dedicated to that matchup. Another matchup that's about 50/50 are the golgari aggro decks (Kibler or G/B zombies) because of all the recursion but the matchup improves drastically post-side.
I tried a more jank timmy versions of the list using demonic rising and/or volatile rig but they were too inconsistent to be good and often win-more or kill myself trying. This is what I have come to after trimming off all the dead weight and streamlining as much as possible:
There is some definite legitimacy to this sort of deck. While I'm not totally sold on the idea of using Homicidal Seclusion in testing my own build I've noticed some definite synergy between Trading Post and Staff of Nin. So far the lifegain from Post has been more consistant than that of VNH (although I do run both). With a Black/x control deck well stacked with early (and correctly metagamed) removal building into Post it does give fast aggro fits. I've been playing with Mike Flores' Staff of Win deck with Trading Post included and it does very well; my only loss coming to a U/W Flash deck that succeeded in stalling me out long enough to deck myself with multiple Staves in play (I've since added one Elixir of Immortality to prevent this). I've gone away from Sign in Blood due to heavy aggro meta in my area and replaced them with Prophetic Prism which synergies with Post well and smooths out the mana base. I'll post the exact list when I have time but has anyone else had success with Trading Post?
So we know Orzhov rune already (1/4 lifelink).
I can't say I'm disappointed, wasn't expecting anything better.
Still rakdos' is better but it might be useful against blood artist/geralf's messenger matchup if u dont wanna kill geralf's and lose 2 or more life
Seems like a lot of mana and tempo loss for a 1/4 lifelinker though. The 4 toughness seems superfluous also when most removal will have a hard time removing it anyway. At 2/3 lifelink it would have been better.
Prefer it definitely. Between it and Thoughtseize Reaver gives the deck a more controlling feel to it without losing the aggressiveness that DD can give you. Both are great against control and Demon I think is probably a little better against midrange strategies but against deck with high creature counts (tokens, mana dorks) Reaver works much better while holding the same Devotion count. Again the 3 toughness is OK but the cost to power ratio is acceptable considering how much card advantage it gives you.
Anybody else share this opinion?
Also I'm really beginning to like Hythonia the Cruel. With 3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx backing it it becomes very dangerous. Even a 4/6 PT with deathtouch can really pose problems, particularly if you have Whip of Erebos in play. I run 4 Reaver/3 Hythonia in place of DD + Rats and the deck feels la lot stronger.
Agree on both topics. Putrefy will probably be played either out of the sideboard as primarily artifact removal or mainland as a substitute for Murder in the decks that are using those colors and/or need the additional removal. Veilborn Ghoul seems interesting as a way to further diversify the decks wincons which as I described would have been useful against B/W/R midrange as something extra to foil Nevermore but I question it's effectiveness against Lingering Souls for example. I'll try it in place of one Taskmaster
No, it curves out smoothly enough. Most of the spells are 2cmc with the next highest concentration being 11 3cmc, 7 4cmc, 3 5cmc and 2 6 cmc. Mike Flores' Staff of Win deck which was used as a template for this decks design runs just as many spells at the 3 cmc range as his did and performs just as well.
Putrefy is going to be harsh for sure but it can be played around by protecting Post either with Duress or baiting out removal with something that they can't afford to ignore.
Well here's the thing, I'm seeing a lot of aggro decks in my meta with 2/2 or 2/1 for P/T.
So needing to chump block things larger than the Taskmaster isn't really necessary and he's a faster clock when sometimes you just need to close a game out. If I was seeing more mono-red or burn-centric aggro I would run Nighthawk as the lifegain pseudo counters their burn and acts as a magnet for removal. If you stick a Seclusion with Taskmaster on board you can usually end the game in 3 turns. Same thing if you get an active Demon off a Rising. Keyrunes are a little slow. I like to play Dead Weight off one or Duress out of the board to help grab a little tempo but it's one of the few things that can attack alongside a Taskmaster and of course is necessary to produce Demon tokens. As a 5 mana pump spell I don't really want to see Seclusion in my opening hand as powerful as it is in conjunction with the other cards in the deck particularly Post. 2 is fine. The only thing that really messes with my gameplan is R/B/W midrange as they seem to have more answers in their deck than I have threats. I think that's where it's useful to have more than just 4 creatures and 4 Keyrunes with Seclusion (dont forget goat and demon tokens). I notice players will often Nevermore or Slaughter Games my Staves so I side one out and replace one and another card with Connections to mess with them. But Aggro is easy. Posts force an overcommitment from the Aggro player causing them to step into Mutilates with value behind them. I would like to try the Ghoul but TP and LotV force myself to pitch slot of Swamps and I'm not high on the can't block clause. I really want a Return or two in here to diversify my wincons and be a little more disruptive but space is so tight it's hard to squeeze it in. A 24th land wouldn't be too bad either.
Well here's the thing, I'm seeing a lot of aggro decks in my meta with 2/2 or 2/1 for P/T.
So needing to chump block things larger than the Taskmaster isn't really necessary and he's a faster clock when sometimes you just need to close a game out. If I was seeing more mono-red or burn-centric aggro I would run Nighthawk as the lifegain pseudo counters their burn and acts as a magnet for removal. If you stick a Seclusion with Taskmaster on board you can usually end the game in 3 turns. Same thing if you get an active Demon off a Rising. Keyrunes are a little slow. I like to play Dead Weight off one or Duress out of the board to help grab a little tempo but it's one of the few things that can attack alongside a Taskmaster and of course is necessary to produce Demon tokens. As a 5 mana pump spell I don't really want to see Seclusion in my opening hand as powerful as it is in conjunction with the other cards in the deck particularly Post. 2 is fine. The only thing that really messes with my gameplan is R/B/W midrange as they seem to have more answers in their deck than I have threats. I think that's where it's useful to have more than just 4 creatures and 4 Keyrunes with Seclusion (dont forget goat and demon tokens). I notice players will often Nevermore or Slaughter Games my Staves so I side one out and replace one and another card with Connections to mess with them. But Aggro is easy. Posts force an overcommitment from the Aggro player causing them to step into Mutilates with value behind them. I would like to try the Ghoul but TP and LotV force myself to pitch slot of Swamps and I'm not high on the can't block clause. I really want a Return or two in here to diversify my wincons and be a little more disruptive but space is so tight it's hard to squeeze it in. A 24th land wouldn't be too bad either.
4 Demonic Taskmaster
Spells
4 Searing Spear
4 Victim of Night
3 Sign in Blood
3 Dreadbore
4 Mutilate
Artifacts
4 Rakdos Keyrune
3 Trading Post
2 Staff of Nin
2 Homicidal Seclusion
1 Demonic Rising
Planeswalkers
3 Liliana of the Veil
Lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
15 Swamp
3 Slaughter Games
4 Duress
3 Cremate
2 Rakdos's Return
1 Pithing Needle
2 Underworld Connections
In the last four weeks I've placed in the top eight each time and twice in the top 4 at my local FNM with this build. The deck is powerful and wins games out of nowhere. I was running Nighthawks of course before but after some testing concluded that between Post and Seclusion you have plenty of Lifegain. Taskmaster soaks up removal very admirably and is a faster clock than Nighthawk which, while powerful, is slow at closing out games. I am going to try Master of Cruelties in it's place however. That card should push this deck into the limelight. I was also running Dead Weight before over Searing Spear as well but was having problems with Dimri Rade and just liked the ability to toss a Spear and SiB at my opponents face for the win too much!
I will continue to play this through rotation.
True. However one possibility would be Inquisitor's Flail. Lich doesn't care if opposing creatures are doing double damage to it. Rakdos Keyrune would fit in well here also because it has first strike and doesn't care about combat interaction with most creatures. Gloom Surgeon too but I wouldn't personally go there as I don't wanted to get milled that much. But yeah, I would start experimenting with Flail in a Lich build. Turn 2 Flail into turn 3 Lich into turn 4 equip, swing for 10 with 2 mana left over for removal or whatever.
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Agree. However removal issues are somewhat mitigated by having an active Post in play. So it's at least manageable. The 6lo/2 first strike/lifelink is too attractive to pass up on the black red keyrune.
Btw how does Connections work out for you in testing? I generally prefer a Staff in there. I think when you see the incremental advantage gained with a Staff and Post online together with the ability to ping 1 every turn it's power becomes more evident. Sure you're only running one but I think Staff is the stronger choice. What do you think?
HA, I don't deal with them very well at all. At the same time Zombies aren't a major player in my area nor do I see Strangleroot Geistat all. It seems like most of the people who had been previously playing B/r Zombies have made a shift to RDW and Rakdos Aggro. If Zombies were to become prevalent again I would definitely pack 3-4 Pillar of Flame in my sideboard. I would also lean towards using them if I saw a lot of Thalia but that isn't really the case either. When I do wind up playing them I usually just try to stall until I can get a Curse in play backed up by Staff game 1 then board in Severs and Cremates. Sometimes it's enough but it's still weighted towards them. I basically ignore the matchup and use removal that I know will be effective in the vast majority of instances. Instant speed is huge right now.
As for Staff I love them in concert with Trading Post. You have lots of artifacts to sac to it for draw and against fast aggro I find myself using the gain 4 feature by discarding SoN a lot only to grab it back again later. I wish Prism had the clause where, like Wellsprings did, you get a card when it hits the graveyard as well. I don't want to run 4 Prism for fear of choking on them. 3 feels right but unlike SiB they draw into land only about half the time. I might go back to them in a shell where I'm using Nighthawks and Posts together but right now the lifeloss is just doing red-based rush decks a favor.
It's all experimental still. Apart from the Post/Staff synergies which seem vital to the deck the rest can still be honed to some degree.
@bonerfleximus... I like that build you have. The lifegain is absurd! And I'm thinking the Hexproof on Simic probably does the lionshare of the work for you and a lot of people underestimate Post but they go a long way to protect your Keyrunes. Nice find. I'll try the deck out as well as mess around with Seclusion in B/r. I get a sick feeling when I look at Thragtusk. I'd rather find ways to beat that card than have it beat me!
Note: Just saw 61 cards in the list I posted earlier. There should be one less Rakdos Return
4 Searing Spear
3 Dreadbore
4 Devour Flesh
2 Rakdos' Return
3 Mutilate
2 Curse of Death's Hold
Artifacts:
1 Elixir of Immortality
3 Prophetic Prism
4 Rakdos Keyrune
1 Runechanters' Pike
3 Trading Post
4 Staff of Nin
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
Lands:
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
15 Swamp
3 Slaughter Games
2 Cremate
1 Rakdos Charm
3 Knight of Infamy
2 Sever the Bloodline
1 Mutilate
1 Dreadbore
2 Appetite for Brains
I went ahead and pulled the Nighthawks. Not because they aren't useful for soaking up a burn spell which they do a fine job of. My experiment is to see, with all the early removal, if Post is adequate enough to hose burn/rush strategies. I don't see an abundance of Reanimate so I might pull Severs and a Cremate for the VNH but I like how this is set up. Cremate is still effective against Snapcaster targets and once I show my opponent playing blue/white control a creatureless deck they might pull mass removal as I sideboard in the Knights for the second game.
This is one deck that doesn't mind discarding cards to either Liliana or Post and the utility from these cards is often enough to keep you in a game that has stalled out. An army of goats make excellent chump blockers or Pike holders later in the game. Discarding cards (lands or artifacts that can be recurred later) become virtual counterspells against decks that use burn for reach. The deck feels a little like Black Market. Some people will prefer SiB over Prism but it does a fair impersonation of the Wellspring/Post combo from last year.
Thoughts?
There is some definite legitimacy to this sort of deck. While I'm not totally sold on the idea of using Homicidal Seclusion in testing my own build I've noticed some definite synergy between Trading Post and Staff of Nin. So far the lifegain from Post has been more consistant than that of VNH (although I do run both). With a Black/x control deck well stacked with early (and correctly metagamed) removal building into Post it does give fast aggro fits. I've been playing with Mike Flores' Staff of Win deck with Trading Post included and it does very well; my only loss coming to a U/W Flash deck that succeeded in stalling me out long enough to deck myself with multiple Staves in play (I've since added one Elixir of Immortality to prevent this). I've gone away from Sign in Blood due to heavy aggro meta in my area and replaced them with Prophetic Prism which synergies with Post well and smooths out the mana base. I'll post the exact list when I have time but has anyone else had success with Trading Post?
Seems like a lot of mana and tempo loss for a 1/4 lifelinker though. The 4 toughness seems superfluous also when most removal will have a hard time removing it anyway. At 2/3 lifelink it would have been better.