About the snake, well Push, Path and Bolt can kill it. One of the snake's appeal is its ability to stop Mantis Rider and various UW Spirits.
yes and same is true for most of the creatures played in modern.
i've been playing with X-cmc creatures for along while to speed up vengevine: "T2: BTE > Gather the Pack > X-CMC Creature to trigger vengevine" and i really like that tech. if i evaluate the X-CMC available to me with this function then they would all be the same but i still want to have the extra utility i can get from playing them. stonecoil serpent provides a good body midgame that can't be chumpblock and has reach that may be valuable in some matchups. it can't be bounced by reflector mage / dodges kolaghans and trophy / blocks mantis rider, the value is there.
It is a dangerous game to pitch cards that way, but I have dabbled in this thought experiment before.
And another card to consider if this is a gameplan being considered: Bone Picker.
(Another card worth considering in a build like that is Wild Cantor. Like an X=0 creature, it acts as a 'dark ritual' of sorts to power out Bone Picker. It also does the color fixing, getting us into black mana even off a basic forest or mountain. And it does a lot of the above things too - it can be effectively-zero-cost creature 1 of a two-creature turn to recur Vengevine).
Another card worth considering in a build like that is Wild Cantor. Like an X=0 creature, it acts as a 'dark ritual' of sorts to power out Bone Picker. It also does the color fixing, getting us into black mana even off a basic forest or mountain. And it does a lot of the above things too - it can be effectively-zero-cost creature 1 of a two-creature turn to recur Vengevine).
no, the difference of wild cantor vs the X-CMC creatures is the P/T potential of X-CMC increases as you accumulate lands while wild cantor is still a 1/1. imagine you're on topdeck mode and you topdeck a stonecoil serpent with 3 or 4 mana available, that's a 3/3 or 4/4 with reach/trample, then imagine that again if that's wild cantor.
Edit: btw i like the idea of wild cantor + bone picker and mighy try that in a BR vengevine shell
yes and same is true for most of the creatures played in modern.
i've been playing with X-cmc creatures for along while to speed up vengevine:
"T2: BTE > Gather the Pack > X-CMC Creature to trigger vengevine" and i really like that tech. if i evaluate the X-CMC available to me with this function then they would all be the same but i still want to have the extra utility i can get from playing them.
stonecoil serpent provides a good body midgame that can't be chumpblock and has reach that may be valuable in some matchups. it can't be bounced by reflector mage / dodges kolaghans and trophy / blocks mantis rider, the value is there.
Other Tricks with X-CMC Creature:
And another card to consider if this is a gameplan being considered: Bone Picker.
(Another card worth considering in a build like that is Wild Cantor. Like an X=0 creature, it acts as a 'dark ritual' of sorts to power out Bone Picker. It also does the color fixing, getting us into black mana even off a basic forest or mountain. And it does a lot of the above things too - it can be effectively-zero-cost creature 1 of a two-creature turn to recur Vengevine).
no, the difference of wild cantor vs the X-CMC creatures is the P/T potential of X-CMC increases as you accumulate lands while wild cantor is still a 1/1. imagine you're on topdeck mode and you topdeck a stonecoil serpent with 3 or 4 mana available, that's a 3/3 or 4/4 with reach/trample, then imagine that again if that's wild cantor.
Edit: btw i like the idea of wild cantor + bone picker and mighy try that in a BR vengevine shell