I went for Erdwal, but Alpha would be my second pick. I think Erdwal is pretty underrated. A 2/1 haste who if he gets through, is a 3/2 t3 growing every turn is not bad at all.
The biggest problem I have with using a card like this is the prevalence of Vapor Snag in the format.
Its best use would be I think, on hexproof creatures (dungrove/stalker/geist/thrun/etc...). That being said, getting the morbid trigger, a hexproof creature out, and resolving this isn't the easiest task and requires a very specific deck set up.
For such a strategy, I think Increasing Savagery would be your best bet. It costs a lot more, but its far more reliable and powerful if you get it off on a hexproof creature.
As above, I just don't see him being playable outside of Limited, he simply has too many drawbacks.
- His 1 toughness means he dies to pretty much any non-doomblade removal.
- His activated ability not only costs too much (3B), but requires a human sacrifice.
- Not viable with Necro Ooze/Havengrul due to prohibitive activation cost.
- Royal Assasin doesn't see play, and hes pretty much better in almost all regards (negatives are he costs B more to cast, and he can only kill tapped creatures, but hes much more mana/card efficient and works better with Ooze/Lich).
So who has tried him out yet? I'm really interested to actually hear some genuine accounts of how he plays.
I have (in both a monoblack aggro deck, and a black/splash red aggro in standard).
He is pretty strong. The ETB/LTB triggers net you at least 4 life loss, and with your strong 1 drops, by the time he even swings, your opponent should be around 12-14 life.
What I've noticed most is that in general (besides oring and celestial purge) people don't want to remove/trade with him. They try to play around him/race you/kil other creatures, which generally has led to him accruing a lot of damage every time he hits the board. The most common way people I see dealing with him is to trade with a 2 power creature, then to use targeted removal on him (which still is 2-1 CA for you).
His biggest issue is facing a blocker with over 4 toughness, but at his 3 CMC, this tends not to be an issue for a few turns after he drops, and as long as you have removal (you are playing black anyway) even that isn't a big issue.
I don't mean to be a huge downer for those fans of the card, but there are plenty of popular answers out there. Indestructible is not what it used to be.
That being said, while it may have been good a year ago, chances are, itll be good next year too. Why? Because most of the stuff that deals with Ooze is in the Scars block.
Outside of scars block, you have Tragic Slip, Tribute, Lil, and Oring as possible answers (from your list). 3 of those require a black deck, which generally has no problems killing any kind of creatures anyway. And as far as oring goes, green is not known to have problems dealing with enchantments. Also, green doesn't generally have huge problems with sac effects either, since they tend to run mana dorks.
He will most likely see play when Scars rotates. The best hoser for him is Tragic Slip, which will be his natural counter most likely, which in all honesty, is pretty fair.
White got a lot of good stuff in DKA, no questions, but I think as far as "gets the most", out of DKA is black. Black is pretty underplayed and under represented in standard, and the push with BW tokens, as well as MBA/zombies/etc,,, is why black gets my vote for getting the biggest boost from DKA.
They will see play but they will need to kill it right then otherwise next turn a lord will be coming into play which will give it +1 putting it out of the range of those spells.
Unless they counter/kill the lord of course.
I'm just not liking this card to be honest, it just isn't very good.
Hes the first "playable" 2 CMC zombie, but that being said, hes still pretty bad.
Hes pretty much worse then Diegraf Ghoul, you are trading 1 tough for intimidate, and in a format with gutshot and tragic slip likely seeing play, that isn't a good thing. The fact that he costs 1 more mana, ugh.
I think I'll just keep my 2 drop for removal/double 1 drops in my MBA deck for now.
The high end of the curse curve has filled up fine. And it will be a viable strategy if they print more 1-3 CMC curses in Avacyn Restored. As of right now? Its far too slow.
I think in constructed, shes a bit slow for what she does/is. A 5/5 flyer for 6 is pretty mediocre, and her ability requires creature deaths, which is in of itself, pretty slow.
Plus, she doesn't work well with token decks (since it requires a non-token creature in the first place) and isn't a spirit (so she doesn't get tribal benefits).
I don't think its as good as Sea Gate, but its not terrible. The extra mana and less ability to block impacts its usefulness though. Its more aggressive then Gate, but that really isn't a good thing.
Its best use would be I think, on hexproof creatures (dungrove/stalker/geist/thrun/etc...). That being said, getting the morbid trigger, a hexproof creature out, and resolving this isn't the easiest task and requires a very specific deck set up.
For such a strategy, I think Increasing Savagery would be your best bet. It costs a lot more, but its far more reliable and powerful if you get it off on a hexproof creature.
- His 1 toughness means he dies to pretty much any non-doomblade removal.
- His activated ability not only costs too much (3B), but requires a human sacrifice.
- Not viable with Necro Ooze/Havengrul due to prohibitive activation cost.
- Royal Assasin doesn't see play, and hes pretty much better in almost all regards (negatives are he costs B more to cast, and he can only kill tapped creatures, but hes much more mana/card efficient and works better with Ooze/Lich).
I have (in both a monoblack aggro deck, and a black/splash red aggro in standard).
He is pretty strong. The ETB/LTB triggers net you at least 4 life loss, and with your strong 1 drops, by the time he even swings, your opponent should be around 12-14 life.
What I've noticed most is that in general (besides oring and celestial purge) people don't want to remove/trade with him. They try to play around him/race you/kil other creatures, which generally has led to him accruing a lot of damage every time he hits the board. The most common way people I see dealing with him is to trade with a 2 power creature, then to use targeted removal on him (which still is 2-1 CA for you).
His biggest issue is facing a blocker with over 4 toughness, but at his 3 CMC, this tends not to be an issue for a few turns after he drops, and as long as you have removal (you are playing black anyway) even that isn't a big issue.
That being said, while it may have been good a year ago, chances are, itll be good next year too. Why? Because most of the stuff that deals with Ooze is in the Scars block.
Outside of scars block, you have Tragic Slip, Tribute, Lil, and Oring as possible answers (from your list). 3 of those require a black deck, which generally has no problems killing any kind of creatures anyway. And as far as oring goes, green is not known to have problems dealing with enchantments. Also, green doesn't generally have huge problems with sac effects either, since they tend to run mana dorks.
He will most likely see play when Scars rotates. The best hoser for him is Tragic Slip, which will be his natural counter most likely, which in all honesty, is pretty fair.
Honorable mention would be white.
White got a lot of good stuff in DKA, no questions, but I think as far as "gets the most", out of DKA is black. Black is pretty underplayed and under represented in standard, and the push with BW tokens, as well as MBA/zombies/etc,,, is why black gets my vote for getting the biggest boost from DKA.
I'd say
1. Black
2. White
3. Green
4. Red
5. Blue
Unless they counter/kill the lord of course.
I'm just not liking this card to be honest, it just isn't very good.
True, I misread that. That being said, a lot of the current token generation is spirits, so my point still stands somewhat.
Yea you can use her with human tokens, but meh, I doubt she will see play.
Hes pretty much worse then Diegraf Ghoul, you are trading 1 tough for intimidate, and in a format with gutshot and tragic slip likely seeing play, that isn't a good thing. The fact that he costs 1 more mana, ugh.
I think I'll just keep my 2 drop for removal/double 1 drops in my MBA deck for now.
There wasn't enough/many good curses
The problem curses post-DKA is:
There aren't enough/many good cheap curses.
The high end of the curse curve has filled up fine. And it will be a viable strategy if they print more 1-3 CMC curses in Avacyn Restored. As of right now? Its far too slow.
Plus, she doesn't work well with token decks (since it requires a non-token creature in the first place) and isn't a spirit (so she doesn't get tribal benefits).