MTG Salvation

That's made of win!

Cheers,
rant

very nice token

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!

That token gets the Azathoth Star Slayer Seal of Approval!

I played against Kiora this past weekend and didn't read the card. I thought her ult was somewhere near 9, so I didn't bother alpha striking. Turns out -5 loyalty is only 3 turns after casting. Oops.
She's somewhat weak when you are behind - I think she protects herself comparably, tho not as powerfully, to Elspeth's +1 make a guy (tho Elspeth having more loyalty is important). She is still a must handle presence on the board. If you have managed to stabilize, then she'll be churning out 9/9's in short order.

I am thinking about running this in my Modern Cube I am building. I like her abilities, but don't like her starting loyalty. After a few months of release, what are thoughts on her ranking in Simic now?

I think she's probably the 4th best card. Maybe the 5th if you need SSS as a Natural Order target.

We rotate our gold cards frequently, and found her to be top 3 for us. She brought much needed pizazz to a guild filded with lots of role player. Almost more than any walker, she is scary. Outside the red burn matchups, all you have to do is hold the fort for 3 turns, then krakens everywhere. Has worked will in bant control, a variety of midrange decks and even tempo. Tempo decks seemed and odd fit but all you need is an edge for 3 turns and those decks can handle that. I am just happy to have a car that puts people into simic.

dschumm said it for me. I think this is probably my second favourite Simic card after Snake. I stand my most of my write-up earlier in this thread as my experience hasn't differed much since I wrote it. The strategy of dropping her then protecting her for three turns seems to be her usual application.

Ya, if we ever scale back the aggro/tempo decks in Simic, I'll put her back in over Edric. But he's just too beastly if you support that deck. And Snake has always been fantastic, and Predator is really important in a fully powered cube with all 5 swords. Which is why I have her ranked at #4. She could swap places with Edric though if you don't support tempo decks in that combination.

Simic wants 2 things: creatures, and cards.

Kiora provides 1 of the 2. But she's a walker (that's not tibalt bad), and provides a different angle of approach. To bring it to a bigger picture, 5C walker archetypes or similar would appreciate her. She's not just good in Simic. She's in because she's good. Meritocracy people...

I have to admit I wasn't optimistic at first for Kiora, mainly because of the low starting loyalty.

She definitely has been playing much better than expected, mainly due to the fact that she has truly has three abilities, unlike some other Walkers.

Her ultimate is one of the best ones when it comes to actually winning the game.