The theme of Theros is top down design. Which means that we will see a lot of cards that are inelegant from a mechanical perspective, but very flavorful.
This card looks like a mechanical mess: Enchantment type tacked onto an artifact, static ability that has nothing to do with the activated ability, activated ability is a wall of text of unrelated, non-synergistic abilities. But the flavor ties it all together: The gods and their belongings are otherworldly and therefore enchantments and Nylea is the goddess of the hunt (deathtouch for attacking creatures) and the four seasons (four activated abilities, each representing one season).
I knew nothing about Nylea when I saw this card. The static ability made sense to me instantly, since the green goddess was obviously the goddess of the hunt. I was wondering about the heap of activated stuff though, until someone pointed the four seasons connection out. After that, I loved the card and thought that it was a cool design.
Spring: Time of growth, +1/+1 counter on creatures, everything is getting alive
Summer: Time of the volatile storms, tension in the air, which are affecting flying creatures more, 2 damage to them
Fall: Time of harvest, reap what you sow, +3 life
Winter: Time of hibernation, during winter, everything lies dormant under the ground (graveyard), only to get active again in the next year (library)
To be fair, I don't like the summer design too much either, but I think this card makes sense, just as imo Thassa makes sense, but this set's design so far seems to split the opinions.
Agreed. The summer ability is the least fitting. Would be better suited for winter. But the current winter ability is quite fitting. Speaking of the winter ability: I would have preferred it if it would allow you to target cards in any player's graveyard. That would have made the card interesting as a reanimation hoser that is not useless against non-reanimator decks.
Flexibility is great in cube. And this card has a lot of it, even if half of it works best in aggressive green decks. That doesn't mean just aggro decks though. Faster midrange decks would profit from it, too. Giving mana elves deathtouch can sneak in a few more points of damage, for example. Even with all this flexibility, I am not sure how good this card would be in cube though. A card with lots of minor abilities is harder to evaluate than a straightforward card with one powerful ability.
I appreciate the top down design of recent sets to a degree, but it's also frustrating considering it promotes narrow design when cubes want the most versatile cards available. This is a poor example of that, as this card is absurdly versatile.
I'd had a good think about this card and it may be worth testing. Not only is it versatile, but I think the deathtouch clause was being underrated. You can attack with aggro with impunity into a midrange or control board which would otherwise have you beaten easily. Not to mention it's even better with first strikers, so G/X or G/R would love this. The life gain is super sick in the mirror match too. I think it could be a nice addition to a few green achetypes at once.
I will be testing this as well. I'm more excited about the deathtouch than the activated ability. Together it seems like a good package. We'll have to test and see.
It seems like a hybrid between mediocre planeswalker activations with an upkeep cost and a Trading Post that doesn't double as an enabler. I think it'll be a fine card for grinding out advantages over the course of a long game, but with only 2-3 activations, I don't think it'll be worth it in the average game. I'll be passing at 450.
I often wonder what it would take for the BG 'Rock' decks to be non-terrible in practice (they always look great on paper); is this a step in the right direction?
I often wonder what it would take for the BG 'Rock' decks to be non-terrible in practice (they always look great on paper); is this a step in the right direction?
-AA
I don't think so. Rock wants to play its 4 and 5-drops on curve pretty much every game, so leaving 2 mana open all the time for this effect seems like a losing proposition in midrange BG.
I often wonder what it would take for the BG 'Rock' decks to be non-terrible in practice (they always look great on paper); is this a step in the right direction?
-AA
We have found that the key to making these decks work are cards that are either good against both aggro and control, or great against one without being crap against the other.
I played this in three different decks tonight and it was just ok. Sucks to finally dig in and realize that your creatures only get deathtouch when they attack. That was never really relevant. Combat confusion due to the counters was fun, I gained a little life, and put some cards on the bottom of my library. More often than not, none of that mattered over the course of the game and I was mostly upset that my blockers didn't get deathtouch. I am going to continue to test it but it isn't looking promising.
I played this in three different decks tonight and it was just ok. Sucks to finally dig in and realize that your creatures only get deathtouch when they attack. That was never really relevant. Combat confusion due to the counters was fun, I gained a little life, and put some cards on the bottom of my library. More often than not, none of that mattered over the course of the game and I was mostly upset that my blockers didn't get deathtouch. I am going to continue to test it but it isn't looking promising.
cuttups, I've found the same thing.
More often than not, I used the card to gain some extra life, or to put some stuff on the bottom of my library.
The "random +1/+1 counter" was cute, but I had seen a few "lightning/dead" in response, just to force me to use 2 mana.
For the ramp decks in green, I found this a bit underwhelming, while red/green it was cool, but I usually had something relevant to play turn 4 and 5, and even 6, that I just used the deathtouch to squeeze in the damage.
I'd like to see it in a green aggro deck, where it can push some more damage through with the deathtouch ability when your opponent doesn't want to make bad blocks, and where it can also be a sort of mana sink when you run out of gas.
Reading the reviews here is somewhat disappointing. I was hoping the Bow would be better. I was looking at my Green noncreature spells, and I found it somewhat boring. Some ramp, some tutors, a couple pump spells and planeswalkers. I was hoping this card would be a permanent that really affected helped green mages - dare I say, a first pick level green noncreature permanent (or at least top 5 in a pack).
I don't know what you are talking about. Bow of Nylea has been amazing in Theros draft. Was quickly dubbed "The Green Jitte" around here. While it is obviously a lot less powerful than Umezawa's Jitte, it still feels like a fair Jitte. Fair meaning that is is very strong, but not broken in limited.
In the context of cube, fair probably only means decent. Still, after drafting and playing it, I got a lot more respect for this card than I initially had. Not sure how it will perform against control, but in creature-heavy match-ups (aggro and midrange), it should do quite well. Will definitely test it in my 600 cards cube.
After testing it out, it proved to be much worse than I thought it would be. The initial cost plus subsequent activation costs proved to be WAY too expensive for the cube, and it interrupted the rest of the curve, which green always has a play for.
My meta is a little slower than most cubes I think, but the bow has performed really well for us.
The last deck it was used in was a green ramp deck with natural order. And each mode came in handy over the course of a few games, even the put target cards from graveyard on bottom of library - that in particular was a really clever play where that ability was used to put a viridian shaman back on the bottom of the library so they could natural order it back into play to kill an opposing jitte. It was an expensive play (and one I don't think will be common), but the bow was an all-star in that game because of how key it was.
So, any additional data on this card? It is amazing in THS limited, but I am still skeptical regarding its performance in cube. People who have been testing this: is it good? If so, what kind of decks want this card, and how many of its 5 habilities have been useful enough to justify the inclusion of this card in cube?
The theme of Theros is top down design. Which means that we will see a lot of cards that are inelegant from a mechanical perspective, but very flavorful.
This card looks like a mechanical mess: Enchantment type tacked onto an artifact, static ability that has nothing to do with the activated ability, activated ability is a wall of text of unrelated, non-synergistic abilities. But the flavor ties it all together: The gods and their belongings are otherworldly and therefore enchantments and Nylea is the goddess of the hunt (deathtouch for attacking creatures) and the four seasons (four activated abilities, each representing one season).
I knew nothing about Nylea when I saw this card. The static ability made sense to me instantly, since the green goddess was obviously the goddess of the hunt. I was wondering about the heap of activated stuff though, until someone pointed the four seasons connection out. After that, I loved the card and thought that it was a cool design.
Agreed. The summer ability is the least fitting. Would be better suited for winter. But the current winter ability is quite fitting. Speaking of the winter ability: I would have preferred it if it would allow you to target cards in any player's graveyard. That would have made the card interesting as a reanimation hoser that is not useless against non-reanimator decks.
Flexibility is great in cube. And this card has a lot of it, even if half of it works best in aggressive green decks. That doesn't mean just aggro decks though. Faster midrange decks would profit from it, too. Giving mana elves deathtouch can sneak in a few more points of damage, for example. Even with all this flexibility, I am not sure how good this card would be in cube though. A card with lots of minor abilities is harder to evaluate than a straightforward card with one powerful ability.
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Also Trample gets much better with deathtouch and there are quite many tramplers in green.
I'm just not sure how good it is overall, but it is certainly worth testing.
-AA
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-AA
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I don't think so. Rock wants to play its 4 and 5-drops on curve pretty much every game, so leaving 2 mana open all the time for this effect seems like a losing proposition in midrange BG.
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We have found that the key to making these decks work are cards that are either good against both aggro and control, or great against one without being crap against the other.
This card seems mediocre against both.
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cuttups, I've found the same thing.
More often than not, I used the card to gain some extra life, or to put some stuff on the bottom of my library.
The "random +1/+1 counter" was cute, but I had seen a few "lightning/dead" in response, just to force me to use 2 mana.
For the ramp decks in green, I found this a bit underwhelming, while red/green it was cool, but I usually had something relevant to play turn 4 and 5, and even 6, that I just used the deathtouch to squeeze in the damage.
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
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In the context of cube, fair probably only means decent. Still, after drafting and playing it, I got a lot more respect for this card than I initially had. Not sure how it will perform against control, but in creature-heavy match-ups (aggro and midrange), it should do quite well. Will definitely test it in my 600 cards cube.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
The last deck it was used in was a green ramp deck with natural order. And each mode came in handy over the course of a few games, even the put target cards from graveyard on bottom of library - that in particular was a really clever play where that ability was used to put a viridian shaman back on the bottom of the library so they could natural order it back into play to kill an opposing jitte. It was an expensive play (and one I don't think will be common), but the bow was an all-star in that game because of how key it was.
So I'm a fan right now.
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