What about Cold-Eyed Selkie?
Same thing as a Shadowmage Infiltrator, but with a smaller ass.
Thigns I really Like:
Ashling - 4/4 for 4 mana in Black with the ability that if you hit someone they are Edicted but you choose the creatue. Do we need another strong 4/4 for 4? This one is in a non-standard color (black) from the usual. Let's take a look at the 4/4s for four and see.
STIGMA LASHER - Find a place for it, love it, and use it for years. It will never, ever, ever, ever get replaced. I love it!
Duerger Hedge-Mage - the Hedge mages are almost like the new Battlemages. Take out an artifact AND an enchantment AND have a 2/2 out, all for three mana? Seems like a good deal if you beleive in can be reliably used.
Overbeing of Myth - Drawing cards is good, and having a Maro too ain;t a bad combo.
Spitting Image - A reubale Clone allows you kill legenadry creatures or make creatures, and retrace is really nie on this
Ward of Bones - It's a dick card, no question, but its a good Dick card.
What about Cold-Eyed Selkie?
Same thing as a Shadowmage Infiltrator, but with a smaller ass.
Ashling - no evasion, good ability... almost, but not quite
Stigma - yeppers
Due guy - he would require further examination. The mana base may not support his full use as mountain are light. As such, he may not be that great.
Overbeing - not guaranteed big, maro sucks, no evasion sucks, a honden is cheaper and we still don't use that.
Splitting Image - Expensive clone with reuseability? Even Vesuvian has never made the cut. I don't see retract making this worth the use. We've got enough kill methods that even the nastiest legend is no big.
Ward of Bones - Strong Potential, CC may hold it down
Selkie - Love it!
Other stuff:
Endless Horizons - Land Search, Mana fix, extra card to hand every turn, low likelihood of being hit with enchantment removal = gold!
Hallowed Burial - another Wrath variant. However, I think this is well worth the extra mana and the space. Nothing survives this!
Hateflayer - Okay, here's an example of a hot creature with no evasion. I'd easily pay 7 mana for this guy. He is well worth inclusion. Likely to biff two critters per turn!
Cauldron Haze - Nice wrath save, however may linger in the hand just waiting for the opportunity to be great. Even as a one creature save it may be worth consideration.
Divinity of Pride - stronger than overbeing. Most likely still isn't needed.
Unmake - Woot another rockin' removal spell, it's a maybe
Sapling of Colfenor - Worth consideration. Can be fetched out with that forest or treefolk search card. Indestructible. Good on defense, interesting on offense.
Rise of the Hobgoblins - wtf?! Weird. Lots of Critters! hmm....
Snakeform - Lol! No, but lol!
That's it.
Snakeform - Can kill an Akroma or a DSC for 3 mana at instant speed? You're GOING to have SOMETHING to kill a 1/1 out. Draws you a card too? Not for essentials, but I'll put it in my 250?
Ward of Bones - I can already see some silliness with Greater Gargadon and Balance!
Selkie - Yeah ... okay ... But needs SOMETHING larger in the ass (heh heh).
Hallowed Burial - I like this a bunch! Can't recur creatures from the bottom of your library!
Rise of Hobgobs - Not bad. A new poor-man's decree of justice, but as a permanent it has the chance of bounce, removal till end of turn, etc. As a "comes into play" ability, not a "when you play the spell" ability ... this can be abusable. May not be ESSENTIALS tho.
Hateflayer - You can easily get this guy out for way less than the cc (recursion, etc) ... way too many ways to pump ... he could get silly in a hurry!
Overbeing of Myth - Eh. Can be good, but not great outside of a dedicated deck. Not Essentials.
Cauldron Haze - Like Cauldron of Souls, but a single use? Not bad at all for the cc! It can be put on a stick too ...
Ashling - Not bad, ability you choose, but it's targeted ... Boo! No other way to print it tho.
Spitting Image - Clone with reusability? Not bad. A tad expensive, but not bad. For my Chaos 250, but not the Essentials.
Divinity of Pride - Better in a dedicated deck. Not bad. May not be Essential tho.
Endless Horizons - Not bad as long as you don't go too nuts with it. Probably guarantees you to get out 4-5 lands with it. You won't miss those, they prob won't kill it. Remove ALL you plains, someone will kill it just to be funny (or a dick).
I just don't find that the Selkie needs a bigger ass if he's swinging with islandwalk.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Agreed. I like that Shadowmage is a 1/3, but that extra 2 toughness rarely matters.Originally posted by cmorndorf:
I just don't find that the Selkie needs a bigger ass if he's swinging with islandwalk.
Eh ... it's just too easy to kill. Not that a 3 tough is all that much harder, but it allows more tricksy things like surviving a single use of pestilence or other things like fire/ice. It's not required to have any more than the 1/1 body but it would make it much nicer ... that's all. I guess it depends on the meta. The other groups I play with run a lot more jank like pestilence, pyrohemia, and other stuff that deals 1 damage to all creatures and/or players.
Psst.... how often does someone play pestilence? I haven't seen that in years. Fire/Ice may target it, but only if it's blasted that player a couple times. In that case it would've gotten a couple cards making it still worth it. In addition, it hits more reliably than Shadowmage. In a jank group, that would be an issue, but I can't even recall the last time I've seen a pyroclasm. It's your job to teach the group not to play jank! Improve your meta!
Oh, and please please never bring said grodie Ward of Bones combo to my table!
I agree with your assessment of Rise of the Hobies... it remains to be seen if it would be useful as a one-off plus the occasional first strike bump. Bouncablity does give it a whole different flavor than Decree.
I do ... but I can't gift them EVERYTHING. They're poor starving college students that can't afford lunch for the day, let alone magic cards! It's just a group to get some janky beats in on what's usually an off-night (Tuesday). They actually come up with some really good decks sometimes! It's fun watching them evolve into better players of the game ... even if they have a crappy cardpool. I do make suggestions, but most of the time it runs into "can't afford new cards" responses. I've even been trying to get them to draft my extra BOXES of cards (morningtide & shadowmoor) at COST ... still not good enough. I keep all my extra commons and uncommons in a big box for them to take for free (not just the jank) ... I gift low $, but playable rares when I have extra. I often give them WAY more benefit in trades. I do my part ...
You should dig through those commons and slap together of packets of highly playable cards. There's no excuse for running jank when there's a ton of good commons and uncommons. Screw the rares! Sure they can take a good deck and turn it into an amazing deck, but you can build an amazing deck without them. Perhaps you should introduce them to peasant magic. 3 uncommons only, everything else must be common. That's as hard as it gets. It has the additional benefit of taking away the have/have-not gap.
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