Your opponent typically discards something around 50% of the time.
While -2/-0 for 1 card seems like a fair trade for your opponent against a beatdown deck, you don't have to forget that a 3/1 black flier has already 1 power more than it should have.
So you might as well look at the card like this:
1B
flying
Whenever this attacks, your opponent discards a card unless they pay 1 life.
2/1
Sure, there are the corner cases, where you have to block with it, or your opponent discards 2 cards at once.
But its also amazing due to the fact that you can discard for reanimator, so its way better then just this.
I considered dropping this card about a month ago and wtwlf convinced me not to. I gave it a last chance - it was one of those cards that never really got played. That draft I drafted reanimator and had this.
Good lordy. I dumped a Sheoldred and Baneslayer out end of opponent's turn while I had Living Death in my hand. Oona's Prowler can enable some degenerate plays.
This card is also a crazy good aggresvie card, evasive 3 power guys for 2 mana are sweet. He gets worse at closing out the game, but you should have other threats by then.
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She's solid. The discarding can be relevant sometimes, but more often than not your opponent won't be willing to throw away cards to stop 2 dmg, especially earlier in the game. I would play her in probably every black aggressive deck I drafted and any black deck that has cards better-suited for the graveyard.
I find Oona to be a fairly underrated aggro beater as well as an indispensable discard outlet. Oona is a two cost evasive creature that beats for three. Her "drawback" is that she makes the opponent discard a card every turn and still pings them for one evasive point of damage a turn. Compare this to Liliana's Specter, which is a perfectly good cube card for medium and larger cubes, but is a three casting cost flyer that beats for two and only ever makes them discard once. While the Specter is the more stable commodity (always makes them discard and always beats/blocks for two) I hope it is obvious that the Prowlers upside is enormous in comparison, while being a colored mana cheaper.
I cut this card when I went to 330 and soon regretted it. She's a roleplayer in a bunch of strong and commonly played decks, like aggro or anything running a few reanimator cards, so she ends up maindecked nearly all the time. Giving opponents access to discard has backfired once or twice though.
I can't imagine ever cutting this card. It's one of my favorite cards in the cube for all the reasons already described. I play the heck out of it in aggro decks that have 0 discard shenanigans, just because it's an overpowered evasive 2 drop. Compare it to Vampire Interloper. If you play them both on turn 2, and your opponent discards to Oona 50% of the time, they do the exact same amount of damage (on average). I like it.
Love this faerie as well. Cheap to play, reanimator discard help, evasion, wear equipment well and eventually your opponent runs out of cards and he swings for the full amount.
I'm currently cutting extraneous discard outlets in help curb reanimator a bit, which has made me realize just how many (good) discard outlets there are now. My playgroup considers reanimator / initiative to be the two undisputed top tier strategies in my cube right now, and that's been with Oona's Prowler (and its other variants like Putrid Imp) being out of my cube for a while. As much as I love a good Wild Mongrel variant, there's a real embarrassment of riches when it comes to discard outlets these days.
Black alone has a lot of great tools like:
- Entomb
- Unmarked Grave
- Collective Brutality
- Bitter Triumph
- Liliana of the Veil
- Troll of Khazad-Dum
- Grief (bins itself for value play)
Not to mention all the discard outlets that blue / red / multicolored guilds (especially Izzet) offer. Oona's Prowler is still a decent card that I feel was a bit mandatory back in the day for a critical mass of discard outlets. Nowadays discard outlets are a dime a dozen. Creature based discard outlets also get in the way of Oath of Druids / Reanimator hybrids. I used to consider that the hardest deck to build in my cube back in the day, but it's much easier to do with a lot of spell based options. A lot of the new discard outlets are generally more flexible / useful than your typical Wild Mongrel variant, IMO.
I completely disagree with people here. Oona is still insane in terms of stats for aggressive/ midrange decks that also happens to be strong for reanimator style decks, especially decks using Shallow Grave for instant speed reanimating.
However, if you want to argue that she’s not as strong as before because she’s an x/1, then I could see thst.
Looking at my CubeCobra history, Oona's Prowler was my cut for Troll of Khazad-Dum back in late July. Since Jan 2022 to the time I cut it, Oona's Prowler has only had 3 showings in my 3-0 archive. In 1/3 of that time, Troll has 6 showings, and Bitter Triumph has 7 showings in even less time than that. So yeah, can't say I exactly miss Oona's Prowler either.
Oona is still insane in terms of stats for aggressive/ midrange decks that also happens to be strong for reanimator style decks, especially decks using Shallow Grave for instant speed reanimating.
Shallow Grave is definitely a strong use case for it, especially when doing the OG Eldrazi trick. As good as they are, Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance were actually my first cuts in an attempt to curb reanimator. Shallow Grave is especially strong, but cutting those allowed me to get rid of the logistical baggage of graveyard order matters.
Looking at my CubeCobra history, Oona's Prowler was my cut for Troll of Khazad-Dum back in late July. Since Jan 2022 to the time I cut it, Oona's Prowler has only had 3 showings in my 3-0 archive. In 1/3 of that time, Troll has 6 showings, and Bitter Triumph has 7 showings in even less time than that. So yeah, can't say I exactly miss Oona's Prowler either.
If you’re using Oona purely as an entomb outlet, then I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a weak performer. However, in my experience, she’s both a strong black aggro AND reaniamtor enabler which makes her ideal for cube
I agree with Alan here. I find the base stats great in aggro and being a black discard outlet is still fairly rare imo. I still really like it as a role player that fills multiple archetypes and allows me to include stronger, more focused cards, while this is the glue that holds everything together. The only way I can see cutting it is if they print a black aggro creature that rewards you for discarding (black inti would have been bonkers).
It's hard for me to see Oona's Prowler as the glue that holds everything together when black aggro / reanimator are thriving for me without it, and its numbers were so low when it was still in my cube. I'd argue it was was a key part of the glue back in the day, but now it's pretty supplementary at best for me. I often see it wheel really late / go as the last pick in various cubes, not just mine. Oona's Prowler is the best black aggressive creature that's also an efficient discard outlet, sure. But there are also a lot of other options for this outside of black now like Inti / Malcolm / Suspicious Stowaway / Charming Scoundrel / Occult Epiphany (if you want to count that) / etc. And a lot of those loot / rummage to boot where Oona's Prowler doesn't.
One thing I forgot to bring up earlier is that being a symmetrical discard outlet has been an increasing liability for it. The combination of reanimator being one of the indisputed top decks in my meta alongside my playgroup often taking reanimator spells (Reanimation / Animate Dead / Necromancy / From the Catacombs) for value plays / to hedge against the reanimator matchup has really exacerbated the drawback of Oona's Prowler.
Totally agreed it could be cut and no one would ever notice. Maybe a better way to describe my view is that it is a card that could be replaced if a good replacement comes along. To me it is still a strong role player that doesnt seem out of place in either aggro or reanimator, and black is still a bit lacking on good discard outlets imo. Filling both roles allows me to devote other slots to more niche, but powerful cards. If there’s a more exciting card to play I think it’s a totally fine cut though, but there are still a few black cards Id like to cut before it. Also, before bitter triumph, the only black discard outlets I ran at 2 cmc or less was collective brutality/thoughtseize (and I’d rather thoughtseize my opponent than myself). Unmarked grave, entomb and troll are all great, but I still like a few actual discard outlets in case I draw my atraxa. Having cards in other colors is nice too, but there is something to be said for having this effect in black. Also, it lets you hold your discard till the last second which I find to be pretty valuable. I’m sure it’s time will come soon enough, probably when they print another low cmc black card that rewards you for discarding, but I’m still waiting for my black inti. I think it’s a reasonable cut, but personally I still like it.
I also found Oona’s Prowler’s 3 power attack to be very relevant against opposing planeswalkers/ pressuring your opponent’s life total.
It allows you to provide some pressure to oko/teferi to ensure your fatties aren’t bounced/ elked.
the second problem I’ve had with reaniamtor is I’ve found the deck could consistently put out a fatty turn 3 and AT best they win on turns 5-6, given how slow the clock from Wurmcoil Engine/ my battle sphere can be. This is often too slow against decks such as storm for example where the extra power from Oona is relevant.
One thing I forgot to bring up earlier is that being a symmetrical discard outlet has been an increasing liability for it. The combination of reanimator being one of the indisputed top decks in my meta alongside my playgroup often taking reanimator spells (Reanimation / Animate Dead / Necromancy / From the Catacombs) for value plays / to hedge against the reanimator matchup has really exacerbated the drawback of Oona's Prowler.
I have been back and forth on this card.
It flys, has 3 power, and is a discard outlet. I have been surprised how often my opponents will take 3.
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But its also amazing due to the fact that you can discard for reanimator, so its way better then just this.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Agree. It does so much. Though if you don't support reanimator, it isn't as great, though I still think it's good.
Good lordy. I dumped a Sheoldred and Baneslayer out end of opponent's turn while I had Living Death in my hand. Oona's Prowler can enable some degenerate plays.
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Wtwlf once again sums up exactly how I feel about a card.
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Black alone has a lot of great tools like:
- Entomb
- Unmarked Grave
- Collective Brutality
- Bitter Triumph
- Liliana of the Veil
- Troll of Khazad-Dum
- Grief (bins itself for value play)
Not to mention all the discard outlets that blue / red / multicolored guilds (especially Izzet) offer. Oona's Prowler is still a decent card that I feel was a bit mandatory back in the day for a critical mass of discard outlets. Nowadays discard outlets are a dime a dozen. Creature based discard outlets also get in the way of Oath of Druids / Reanimator hybrids. I used to consider that the hardest deck to build in my cube back in the day, but it's much easier to do with a lot of spell based options. A lot of the new discard outlets are generally more flexible / useful than your typical Wild Mongrel variant, IMO.
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However, if you want to argue that she’s not as strong as before because she’s an x/1, then I could see thst.
Looking at my CubeCobra history, Oona's Prowler was my cut for Troll of Khazad-Dum back in late July. Since Jan 2022 to the time I cut it, Oona's Prowler has only had 3 showings in my 3-0 archive. In 1/3 of that time, Troll has 6 showings, and Bitter Triumph has 7 showings in even less time than that. So yeah, can't say I exactly miss Oona's Prowler either.
Shallow Grave is definitely a strong use case for it, especially when doing the OG Eldrazi trick. As good as they are, Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance were actually my first cuts in an attempt to curb reanimator. Shallow Grave is especially strong, but cutting those allowed me to get rid of the logistical baggage of graveyard order matters.
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If you’re using Oona purely as an entomb outlet, then I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a weak performer. However, in my experience, she’s both a strong black aggro AND reaniamtor enabler which makes her ideal for cube
It's hard for me to see Oona's Prowler as the glue that holds everything together when black aggro / reanimator are thriving for me without it, and its numbers were so low when it was still in my cube. I'd argue it was was a key part of the glue back in the day, but now it's pretty supplementary at best for me. I often see it wheel really late / go as the last pick in various cubes, not just mine. Oona's Prowler is the best black aggressive creature that's also an efficient discard outlet, sure. But there are also a lot of other options for this outside of black now like Inti / Malcolm / Suspicious Stowaway / Charming Scoundrel / Occult Epiphany (if you want to count that) / etc. And a lot of those loot / rummage to boot where Oona's Prowler doesn't.
One thing I forgot to bring up earlier is that being a symmetrical discard outlet has been an increasing liability for it. The combination of reanimator being one of the indisputed top decks in my meta alongside my playgroup often taking reanimator spells (Reanimation / Animate Dead / Necromancy / From the Catacombs) for value plays / to hedge against the reanimator matchup has really exacerbated the drawback of Oona's Prowler.
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It allows you to provide some pressure to oko/teferi to ensure your fatties aren’t bounced/ elked.
the second problem I’ve had with reaniamtor is I’ve found the deck could consistently put out a fatty turn 3 and AT best they win on turns 5-6, given how slow the clock from Wurmcoil Engine/ my battle sphere can be. This is often too slow against decks such as storm for example where the extra power from Oona is relevant.
Yah that's definitely a problem.