Being literal makes for interesting titles, I guess. Want to hear about how busy I am these days?… Right, so let’s get right to it then! What I meant by enabling the broods was that this week we are going to look at three cards that work well – hopefully – with the mechanics from three factions from Dragons of Tarkir, namely the broods of Silumgar, Kolaghan and Ojutai. I’m playing nice and saying the names this time but to be honest the broods are so close to the former Khans and their names are so equally complicated that I don’t think they will stick much at all.
So our first card is Silumgar Shambler, and it is meant to enable Exploit. If you don’t know Exploit – check out those cards – it’s pretty simple: sacrifice a creature, get an effect. And what’s better for this than three expandable creatures? Very little, really.
Easy enough to see three creatures for 3 manas is a great deal, but I can’t imagine why it would be too good. Compared to something as simple as Hordeling Outburst or even Sprouting Thrinax it doesn’t seem so crazy, though I get that mana cost makes a difference. If anything being in the colors of exploit makes it that much better, then again same goes for Youthful Scholar.
And now on to fancier designs! First is Temur Flexer.
Let’s be clear here. I don’t care how plausible the creature is, I just love the idea. A creature whose sole role is to enable Formidable? Sounds fun. A boasting warrior with 0 and only action to raise it all the way to 8, just to do nothing with it? Hilarious.
To be honest I think this might be an ok design! Of course it can be “broken”. But does a two card 8 damage combo with summoning sickness – Fling – make it not ok? Hardly. Show me something more broken and I will believe you!
Master of Echoes. Now that is the fanciest design of all!
In case you haven’t picked it up after reading the overly complicated text on this monk, it is meant to enable Ojutai’s favourite ability, Rebound.
The idea is that right after you play a rebound spell from exile, – the second time – it will stay exile for you to cast a third time, thanks to the master. Kinda like skipping rocks! Obviously this makes for a complicated mechanic, and possibly breakable, but as far as I can tell solid and elegant enough.
Note that I have no idea how I got so lucky on the illustration, it’s like Ugin is on that sweet picture!
Good stuff? I think so. Those designs are obviously a little ham fisted, as I really tried to push the respective mechanics, but all in all it worked out fine for us. The shambler’s design was a little flat, but the space explored by the two others was really interesting. They might need some fixing but I’m happy I came out with both.
I hope you enjoyed all of this, I’ll see you next week for some more! Have a good one.
Ominous Designs 