So... I wasn't expecting a common from Kamigawa that was spoiled in the final card dump to be discussed in the context of cEDH on reddit.
Here we are, though, and I'm still not sure what to make of this.
What this card is:
In short, this card is the mana leak to the counterspell that is disallow, having a more flexible cost but letting 3 mana save the target. Like Disallow, this card lets you answer spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities (AKA Thoracle).
On the other end, you can think of this card as a more versatile trickbind that trades a level of certainty and an extra mana for the ability to actually affect spells.
While the surprise factor is more important for counters opponents can pay their way out of, being an artifact creature will occasionally be useful if you need to fetch interaction with a treasure mage or if you have the ability to bring it back to hand repeatedly
What this card is not
This card is not cheap. 3 mana is the highest end of what people can ever afford to pay for interaction in cEDH and you really need to be leaning hard into dodging opponent tricks for this to be worth the cost.
This card is not a Thoracle Killer. If your opponent is using a thoracle combo that involves exiling/milling their library instead of putting it into their hand, this may have a chance. Otherwise, opponents with red can guarantee that deflecting swat will be available and decks with black could use thoughtseize or unmask to raid this card from your hand before going in for the kill.
This card does not fully avoid Autumn Veil or Allosaurus Shepherd (though those effect fail to defend activated/triggered abilities).
This card certainly isn't a 5/7 creature with Ward 3. Get that ridiculous thought out of your head. Almost any deckbuilding decisions made while thinking of this card as a creature that may at some point enter the battlefield is bound to lead you astray. This won't magically make primal surge work better. Putting this card in your deck with the intention of reanimating it (even with Goblin Welder) is frankly kind of silly. This card would take 8 turns to kill a single player on its own. Just forget that it's a creature unless you are adding it into your hand from your library/grave.
So, what are your thoughts. Is the Crab something to experiment with or is it a flat-out dud?
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So... I wasn't expecting a common from Kamigawa that was spoiled in the final card dump to be discussed in the context of cEDH on reddit.
Here we are, though, and I'm still not sure what to make of this.
What this card is:
What this card is not
So, what are your thoughts. Is the Crab something to experiment with or is it a flat-out dud?