Garruk, Apex Predator - 5BG
Planeswalker - Garruk
+1: Destroy another target planeswalker.
+1: Put a 3/3 black Beast creature token with deathtouch onto the battlefield.
-3: Destroy target creature. You gain life equal to its toughness.
-8: Target opponent gets an emblem with "Whenever a creature attacks you, it gets +5/+5 and gains trample until end of turn."
Thinking that it may be too expensive at 7 mana, but... thoughts?
(also nice flavor win with the reference to the emblem on the opponen being a possible nod to Curse of Predation.)
Total side note but I like how people are discussing running this over itself.
Well, it has to be said that Kolaghan is clearly better than Kolaghan. Considering what BR decks usually want and how stiff the competition in this guild is, there is no way that I would run Kolaghan over Kolaghan! Kolaghan might make it in as the sixth guild card or so. Kolaghan on the other hand ranks several places below that.
It was so funny to me when they described this as a downgrade to the original Zurgo during the Pax East panel. I was thinking if this is a downgrade, they should really "downgrade" all legendary creatures. Haha.
My deck designing is quite concise at this point:
1. Come up with deck idea
2. Realize this idea is somehow fundamentally similar to another deck I have or that is commonly played in my group
3. Decide I don't want to disassemble one of my existing decks
4. Give up and do nothing
I don't see the point of this new shroud mechanic. It's strictly worse than Hexproof. Threshold is pretty bad too, Delirium is a much better mechanic and probably easier to activate.
Otherwise this card is a pretty neat guy. Dodges removal and grows into a Primal Huntbeast. 3/5
Sick. I want to add this since the black is easily splash-able in any green ramp deck. Problem is that this is pretty much only played in ramp, but it looks like THE best 7 drop to ramp into.
This is one of those times I'm glad my cube still has some janky budget cards. A lot of cubes' Golgari sections are probably too tight to find room for a 7-drop planeswalker, but I don't think I'll mind cutting Gleancrawler to make room for this.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
could you just run him as a green "creature" card in the 7 drop slot? He's clearly great for ramp and the black splash shouldn't be that hard to find? Just a thought...
A seven mana card needs to do way more than this to compete in my golgari section. I cannot see this being good in my 360, but if I were at a larger cube size he may be testable.
I just like how anti-planeswalker he is! He'll kill everything you love and hold dead, be it creature, planeswalker or yourself! With so much removal packed onto a planeswalker they couldn't make him cheaper to cast than this. Like others have said, he would definitely have been too easily a pick straight away. Now he is just a nice card that has flavor that can be appreciated. I like flavor a lot.
Also the art is awesome. I can imagine him hacking through a door in the Shining. 'Heeeeeeeeeeeere's GARRUK!'
Ugh 7 mana. Stone unplayable in anything outside of super ramp/eureka type shenanigans. This is a hard pass for our cube.
Edit - Not stone unplayable, but even in some kind of control shell this isn't really what you want to be doing for 7 mana, you want something that is gonna end the game. He's no karn, that's for sure.
I don't see how he's no Karn. I mean he's worse than Karn because Karn is colorless and this guy is Golgari, but he is arguably just as dominant if not more so when he's in play. The question is whether or not there are cuts people want to make for this guy, and I would say that there are probably not any good cuts in most Cubes. However, my Cube is 720 cards with an unbalanced guild section, so I may try to wiggle some things around to give him a spin.
I think this card is very similar to Nicol Bolas in the decks that want him and his power level. The thing is though, Nicol Bolas gets to cheat his way into the cube by being a 3-color card. I'm not sure how I would justify a normal Golgari card that is generally much more niche and less useful than the other guild cards.
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An accurate description of myself:
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You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
I'm going to cube this Garruk for a few months just for the fun factor. He's the kind of card that reminds me why I cube in the first place: the stories and memories.
As for his raw power level, I can't say for sure that he's worse than Karn. He deals extremely well with all the most problematic permanents in the cube and wins the game on his own just as easily. Unlike Karn, his plus abilities are always relevant as well. He can be weak to swords and hasty attackers, but having the -3 ability gain life is a nice touch for a deck that wants to go to 7. The problem, of course, is that he's in a competitive guild section. I'll probably have him replace Nicol Bolas in the "stupidly uncastable but awesome control walker for whatever 5-color control brew wants it" slot.
People just need to stop running perfectly balanced guild sections All these guild sections basically qualify hybrid and multicolor cards as the same when they couldn't be any more different. Life/Death shouldn't compete with this Garruk. People also don't take into account that certain colorless cards play better in certain color combinations. Thran Dynamo is certainly not a Boros card for example. I would argue that my multicolor section is unbalanced on paper but MORE balanced in an actual draft because I try to take those other factors into account.
Moral of the rant: don't stifle your creative potential with arbitrary Cube rules. You'll completely pass over even testing potentially cool cards like this Garruk!
I'm pretty impressed with what Garruk does this time around. His 3 "primary" skills are all very relevant and are incredibly good at protecting himself. 7 CC is a very high price to pay and that may ultimately be his demise but I doubt they could have pushed it with a 6CC. At 6CC he would be pretty devastating.
I'm going to be trying him out to see how often he's relevant and I'll decide if he makes the cut.
My initial impression is that he is much better then Vraska the unseen, her +1 was cool and all, but it rarely was worth using. Garruk will always do something relevant when you play him, whether he is removing permanents, gaining you life and removing permanents, or making removal tokens, he does things. Vraska does things once every 3 turns.
I'd say the tradeoff of constantly doing relevant things while having an actually threatening ultimate are worth the 2 increase in casting cost.
Hilariously, if you are just playing this Garruk to remove things, Vraska does it way better. And Vraska is a very underwhelming planeswalker. If you want to make creatures, older Garruks were WAY better at making them. If you want to kill non-creatures, Vraska is way better at doing it. I mean this combines removal and creature generation into one 7 mana package, but it just comes off as a poor man's Karn. And then you have to question why you are paying 7 mana to make a 3/3 creature or kill a permanent. Karn could threaten a game winning ultimate very quickly had a huge amount of loyalty. Garruk does not pack on the loyalty compared to the mana cost. I think this was done because this was a core set planeswalker, but if you are dropping this much mana on a walker, you kind of expect something dominating. Nicol Bolas and Karn pass this test. Garruk fails. It's got a lot of tools, but they all come off as very underwhelming.
I think this could see some play in a ramp deck, but I honestly think there are better options for this. Like 6 mana Garruk
Uh oh, someone's laughing at my Gleancrawler. OK, you probably shouldn't replace your Maelstrom Pulse or Pernicious Deed with it, but it's played surprisingly well in my cube. On top of being a solid trampling fattie that dodges a lot of non-white removal, that ability gets a surprising amount of card advantage from combat trades, it brings back ETB creatures with echo, and it's amazing with Birthing Pod. Plus, even as an HHH hybrid it can still go into a lot of decks a straight up gold card can't.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
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Planeswalker - Garruk
+1: Destroy another target planeswalker.
+1: Put a 3/3 black Beast creature token with deathtouch onto the battlefield.
-3: Destroy target creature. You gain life equal to its toughness.
-8: Target opponent gets an emblem with "Whenever a creature attacks you, it gets +5/+5 and gains trample until end of turn."
Thinking that it may be too expensive at 7 mana, but... thoughts?
(also nice flavor win with the reference to the emblem on the opponen being a possible nod to Curse of Predation.)
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Perhaps it can be the fourth Golgari card pushing out Lothleth Troll, but I am not putting him in my cube.
thats my cube
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Also the art is awesome. I can imagine him hacking through a door in the Shining. 'Heeeeeeeeeeeere's GARRUK!'
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Edit - Not stone unplayable, but even in some kind of control shell this isn't really what you want to be doing for 7 mana, you want something that is gonna end the game. He's no karn, that's for sure.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
As for his raw power level, I can't say for sure that he's worse than Karn. He deals extremely well with all the most problematic permanents in the cube and wins the game on his own just as easily. Unlike Karn, his plus abilities are always relevant as well. He can be weak to swords and hasty attackers, but having the -3 ability gain life is a nice touch for a deck that wants to go to 7. The problem, of course, is that he's in a competitive guild section. I'll probably have him replace Nicol Bolas in the "stupidly uncastable but awesome control walker for whatever 5-color control brew wants it" slot.
Cubetutor Link
Moral of the rant: don't stifle your creative potential with arbitrary Cube rules. You'll completely pass over even testing potentially cool cards like this Garruk!
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
I'm going to be trying him out to see how often he's relevant and I'll decide if he makes the cut.
Give Zaliki a CardI must have all the cats!
I'd say the tradeoff of constantly doing relevant things while having an actually threatening ultimate are worth the 2 increase in casting cost.
thats my cube
I think this could see some play in a ramp deck, but I honestly think there are better options for this. Like 6 mana Garruk
Uh oh, someone's laughing at my Gleancrawler. OK, you probably shouldn't replace your Maelstrom Pulse or Pernicious Deed with it, but it's played surprisingly well in my cube. On top of being a solid trampling fattie that dodges a lot of non-white removal, that ability gets a surprising amount of card advantage from combat trades, it brings back ETB creatures with echo, and it's amazing with Birthing Pod. Plus, even as an HHH hybrid it can still go into a lot of decks a straight up gold card can't.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.