Even compared with the mythic Temur Apex, who can hit all spells and never "whiffs" by hitting land, I almost like this better for a dedicated mutate deck, seeing how the benefits for this guy scale upward with each mutation.
The fact that it's an Elk is seriously going to tilt some people, though.
I'm very tempted to think of these a lot like auras or equipment, maybe the Bestow mechanic is the cleanest historical example. As such, compared to auras, let's say that this gets thrown on top of a stack thats already mutated once and is a 4/4 (Frog into Gem Destroyer, as an example). Now, I normally wouldn't love a 4G aura that grants +2/+2 and does nothing else, but a 4G aura that grants +2/+2, finds the first two permanents in your deck and puts them directly on the battlefield? That I would play. Now, granted that's kind of a top part of the curve (all 3 creatures are common but it is 3 cards) example but it's a good one. Now, there's a risk with his ability that you may put a mutant onto the battlefield when you want it on your hand, but that highlights the other difference between these guys and auras/equipment. Worst case scenario, they are still creatures whereas an aura or an equipment is often a dead card without a body. Finally, compared to Bestow - which does give you a body when it's not an aura, these are costed much more fairly than any bestow effect was.
The massive RNG of this effect already bothers me badly.
If you are "miss" you get a land , if you hit you get like a extra free spoiler.
----
Its the kind of "coin-flip" that will decide the winner of a game, and having such randomness is the worst kind of gamble that can happen to a Spike player (its the most salty lose, and totally unnecessary to have that in the game).
----
On further inspection, the set has a pretty unhealthy boost to power and thoughness of creatures.
5 mana just gets a 6/6 now , sure ...
Balancing kicked itself in the balls with this set.
The massive RNG of this effect already bothers me badly.
If you are "miss" you get a land , if you hit you get like a extra free spoiler.
----
Its the kind of "coin-flip" that will decide the winner of a game, and having such randomness is the worst kind of gamble that can happen to a Spike player (its the most salty lose, and totally unnecessary to have that in the game).
----
On further inspection, the set has a pretty unhealthy boost to power and thoughness of creatures.
5 mana just gets a 6/6 now , sure ...
Balancing kicked itself in the balls with this set.
Regarding the body - a 6/6 vanilla for 4Gis not really noteworthy. For the random element of the mutate effect. Expect it to be a land most times (that's what the stats say) and every now and then you get something more. This is green doing a thing it's done for a long time now and a fairly weak version of the effect (compare to Genesis Hydra, Genesis Wave, Vivian's Arkbow, Collected Company. The thing that makes this card unique in the history of the game is that it triggers on each mutation, but even that's not that weird, we could have seen "whenever this creature becomes enchanted" or constellation, and not even blinked. Good card is good, but it's something without precedent.
Regarding the body - a 6/6 vanilla for 4Gis not really noteworthy. For the random element of the mutate effect. Expect it to be a land most times (that's what the stats say) and every now and then you get something more. This is green doing a thing it's done for a long time now and a fairly weak version of the effect (compare to Genesis Hydra, Genesis Wave, Vivian's Arkbow, Collected Company. The thing that makes this card unique in the history of the game is that it triggers on each mutation, but even that's not that weird, we could have seen "whenever this creature becomes enchanted" or constellation, and not even blinked. Good card is good, but it's something without precedent.
A not rare with that sizes is absolutely noteworthy.
5 mana 6/6 is what you would expect from a rare (and we get plenty of those in this set).
For an uncommon that has no form of drawback at all, this is above expectations and this kind of card could very well be Rare in lots of sets.
Regarding the body - a 6/6 vanilla for 4Gis not really noteworthy. For the random element of the mutate effect. Expect it to be a land most times (that's what the stats say) and every now and then you get something more. This is green doing a thing it's done for a long time now and a fairly weak version of the effect (compare to Genesis Hydra, Genesis Wave, Vivian's Arkbow, Collected Company. The thing that makes this card unique in the history of the game is that it triggers on each mutation, but even that's not that weird, we could have seen "whenever this creature becomes enchanted" or constellation, and not even blinked. Good card is good, but it's something without precedent.
A not rare with that sizes is absolutely noteworthy.
5 mana 6/6 is what you would expect from a rare (and we get plenty of those in this set).
For an uncommon that has no form of drawback at all, this is above expectations and this kind of card could very well be Rare in lots of sets.
Not sure what I did wrong with my link to Scryfall, but it seems it was turned off at some point.
So, I went back and took another look at Green's creatures and I have to agree, once you take rarity into consideration. There've been 2 creatures that meet all three conditions (P/T, cmc and rarity) and one of them is an Innistrad werewolf so it doesn't *really* count and the other has Champion which is a fair drawback. So yes, this is indeed a new thing. I don't know how unbalanced it is in the current meta as "is big" isn't really relevant card text in a world where (as you said) pretty much everything has that text, but this is indeed new efficiency. Now, should it have happened? It seems that all of the other cards that have CMC >=5 and P/T >= 6/6 have some other form of wackiness (i.e. Gigantosaurus's 5 Green Pips or Nessian Boar's legendary status or weird combat impacts. So a vanilla 6/6 for 5 actually feels fine at uncommon, after all Green is the color of Timmy creatures. Should this be considered vanilla, probably not and, in the end, I'll concede it's probably not well balanced at uncommon. I'd be 100% fine with it at rare and will quite happily take it at uncommon even if I do only mutate it once into an extra land drop.
What the.... that is gonna be bonkers in commander with Sensei's Divining Top like cards
Heck if you look on further inspection it’s missing the word “nonland” so lands get hit too
Even compared with the mythic Temur Apex, who can hit all spells and never "whiffs" by hitting land, I almost like this better for a dedicated mutate deck, seeing how the benefits for this guy scale upward with each mutation.
The fact that it's an Elk is seriously going to tilt some people, though.
All in all, I think mutate is a win for me.
If you are "miss" you get a land , if you hit you get like a extra free spoiler.
----
Its the kind of "coin-flip" that will decide the winner of a game, and having such randomness is the worst kind of gamble that can happen to a Spike player (its the most salty lose, and totally unnecessary to have that in the game).
----
On further inspection, the set has a pretty unhealthy boost to power and thoughness of creatures.
5 mana just gets a 6/6 now , sure ...
Balancing kicked itself in the balls with this set.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Regarding the body - a 6/6 vanilla for 4G is not really noteworthy. For the random element of the mutate effect. Expect it to be a land most times (that's what the stats say) and every now and then you get something more. This is green doing a thing it's done for a long time now and a fairly weak version of the effect (compare to Genesis Hydra, Genesis Wave, Vivian's Arkbow, Collected Company. The thing that makes this card unique in the history of the game is that it triggers on each mutation, but even that's not that weird, we could have seen "whenever this creature becomes enchanted" or constellation, and not even blinked. Good card is good, but it's something without precedent.
A not rare with that sizes is absolutely noteworthy.
5 mana 6/6 is what you would expect from a rare (and we get plenty of those in this set).
For an uncommon that has no form of drawback at all, this is above expectations and this kind of card could very well be Rare in lots of sets.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Not sure what I did wrong with my link to Scryfall, but it seems it was turned off at some point.
So, I went back and took another look at Green's creatures and I have to agree, once you take rarity into consideration. There've been 2 creatures that meet all three conditions (P/T, cmc and rarity) and one of them is an Innistrad werewolf so it doesn't *really* count and the other has Champion which is a fair drawback. So yes, this is indeed a new thing. I don't know how unbalanced it is in the current meta as "is big" isn't really relevant card text in a world where (as you said) pretty much everything has that text, but this is indeed new efficiency. Now, should it have happened? It seems that all of the other cards that have CMC >=5 and P/T >= 6/6 have some other form of wackiness (i.e. Gigantosaurus's 5 Green Pips or Nessian Boar's legendary status or weird combat impacts. So a vanilla 6/6 for 5 actually feels fine at uncommon, after all Green is the color of Timmy creatures. Should this be considered vanilla, probably not and, in the end, I'll concede it's probably not well balanced at uncommon. I'd be 100% fine with it at rare and will quite happily take it at uncommon even if I do only mutate it once into an extra land drop.