This guy reminds me slightly of Plated Slagwurm... A big guy with some cool perks but too big to see play and not good enough to serve as a Tooth target.
I honestly believe that this is the most interesting card to come out of BoK thus far, particularily in terms of constructed. Many of the best decks of the past have been built around or involving cards with seemingly balanced effects that can be turned to great advantage by a wise player.
EDIT: I forgot to conclude my arguement with examples! Think Wrath (obviously)... Suphuric Vortex, etc
"Scoop" refers to conceeding a match, i.e. "scooping up your cards". The implication is that this card is so good that, upon it entering play under an opponent's control, a player will conceed on the spot because he views the game as unwinable.
Actually, I would maintain that the only reprint which hurts Tooth more than oxidize hurts affinity is Sowing Salt. Extraction is already legal, yet tooth lives; Quash isn't particularilly good when Boseju is in play; and Eradicate is only helpful after they cast a tooth and nail, and casting spells after 2x Titan or Titan/Kiki-jiki resolves is somewhat difficult. Especially when they do it on turn four. And as far as Sowing Salt is concerned, it has to (obviously) go into a red deck, a matchup already difficult for Tooth (RG-Land Destruction or Ponza, that is), thereby affecting the metagame very little (i.e., Tooth still beats the decks it beats now and has a tough time against the decks it often loses to now). And if that doesn't convince you tooth-skeptics, i leave you with a quotation from earlier in this thread:
Quote from ButteBlues19 »
Don't expect Tooth and Nail to die because of a couple of 4 casting-cost sorceries that are nigh-to-unplayable thanks to the tempo we're forced to play at because of Affinity.
If everything went by the "If a hoser's printed, a deck will die." rule, Affinity would have died with March of the Machines and Hum of the Radix.
I really don't understand this type of conclusion:
i do believe that T&N decks will be doomed if the reprints come. so now i have to dispose of my T&N deck!!!
Yes, it will die.
It seems to me to be panic of a rather unsubstantiated nature. Now, you may be right and i may be wrong (see above post regarding my thoughts on Tooth after BoK), but if you think tooth will die, tell me why! Many of the arguements in this thread appear akin to the following logic:
FACT: Oxidize is really good artifact destruction!
FACT: Affinity is an artifact-heavy deck
CONCLUSION: Affinity scoops to oxidize
See how this logic is flawed? The same thing applies to Tooth and these reprints
Affinity is a whole lot more broken than I think alot of people realize. While it might be as simple as
You want to beat affinity ? Play green or black or red or the three in the same deck
at FNM or against alot of the people who play with ravager on Modo, a good affinity player who has practiced with his deck and understands it* will win a good percentage of matches even to hate-filled decks, and even a subpar affinity player can get a draw that just says "oops, I win". Destroying affinity, therefore, is going to be extrememly difficult no matter what cards are printed, and none of them that have shone up so far seem likely do do that.
*Admittedly difficult; Affinity is one of the trickiest agro decks of all time; I've seen alot of players miss an on table kill because they didn't do the math right... stupid math:p
I think a lot of people are looking at this card the wrong way; while you are correct that it is less than ideal for WW (since you want to have something more agressive to do on your first turns), the place where this card would really shine would be a W/x control deck, where he becomes one of the best possible walls around; play him on turn 1, and from then on you have 5 toughness worth of meat to block anything coming at you in the early game and, with even with only 2 power, most early drops won't be able to survive this encounter. As a slight additional bonus, any time an opponent does attack, you gain 2 life. Now, there are no W/x control decks in current T2 (so much so that this format seems almost 4 colour+artifacts :slant:). However, it is at least potentially possible after BoK and could be a welcome addition to the metagame.
EDIT: Lol wow it took me sufficient time to type this that someone has already mentioned the control aspect. Nevertheless, i think my point stands.
I agree with your logic on putting them at the end of the block; if they do exist now or at any point in the future, that's the logical place for 'em.
Unfortunately you might be right about the lack of anything enemy coloured in CoK; WOTC tends to have a huge thing for allied colours to the annoying exclusion of the five other combinations. However, it still possible I think that these would be printed, both as a move toward more colour emphasis as well as a gift to those who have been waiting for something like that for a long time. If the later is the case, no set makes more sense for some sort of enemy colour aid than Betrayers
After reading the BoK introduction, one quote in particular stuck out in my mind:
So who are the Betrayers of Kamigawa? In a sense, everybody is. As the war heats up, there are spirits turning on spirits and humans turning on humans. Alliances are tossed aside for momentary benefits and longstanding rivalries become full-blown blood feuds.
This is at least vaguely reminiscent of the alliance of enemy colours during Apocalypse, so it is at least vaguely possible that similar (though almost definitely not identical) lands could be printed in Betrayers. If this were the case, it seems likely that they'd be the less-than-optimal "does not untap" variety like in CHK, but nevertheless, the flavour is definitely there to see something like this.
The reprinting of the Eradicate cycle in BoK certainly seems at first glance quite ominous for Tooth and Nail. After all, Tooth is fundamentally a combo deck, the goal of which is to amass 7GG as quickly as humanly possible and then do something really broken with it. Thus removing from the deck any piece of that combo, whether the mana or the namesake card itself, is incredibly attractive to those of us who dislike facing down 11/11 trample indestructibles on turn 4. Nevertheless, R&D will have to go alot farther than Eradicate & Co. to hose Tooth or even create a sizeable disturbance in its match-ups. The reason is primarily one of context. Let us consider:
In order to do any good, the new Betrayers cards must be inserted into a good deck; simply running around with a 4 color "Tooth Destroying Wonder" isn't going to win you a lot of games. In the current T2 environment, there are several Tier 1 or 2 decks playable at the tournament level.
The first, of course, is Affinity. Anyone who says that their deck beats ravager "all the time" is either delusional or at best playing against sub-par affinity players. Nevertheless, Tooth with a suite of artifact hate and platinum angel wins with a fair degree of consistency. Furthermore, this match-up will barely change with the printing of Betrayers; Ravager is hardly going to slow itself down by siding into sowing salt when it could just kill you absurdly fast.
That having been said, there are only 2 decks that consistently kill Tooth in the current metagame: KCI and R/G land destruction. Ponza is, at least against Tooth, strictly worse than R/G due to its lack of Witnesses and Plow Under, a difference which is usually sufficient to allow a T&N victory. Blue-anything has a fundamental problem with Tooth in that, due to Boseju, its win condition is uncounterable. Black, of course, has Extraction, but this has not slowed T&N down significantly due to, as has been afore said, the later deck's ability to drop a huge threat (e.g. Sundering Titan) even without its namesake card.
Thus the problem with the new cards becomes evident; MB or B/G, even with the addition of Eradicate, isn't that much better against Tooth; Eradicate is only good against resolved threats, and anyone who thinks they're going to be casting that after a titan or two has been dropped is likely to be sorely disappointed. Quash faces the same problem as any other counter, and thus won't really change the match-up severely; Tooth players will simply play around counters the same way they always have, then cast Tooth off a Boseju. Finally, Sowing Salt, the best of the cycle against Tooth, will by necessity go into R/G, a deck which already has a favorable match-up against Tooth*. Furthermore, the addition of even more LD doesn't prevent the Tooth player from, say, siding into green beatdown (possibly with the addition of Iwamori after Betrayers) and simply killing you before you play the Slogger. Finally, KCI faces the same general situation as Affinity and would find it difficult to splash for any double colored spell even if it was worth the consistency loss.
Therefore, Tooth and Nail is not doomed, nor will it even suffer with much consistency in the new T2. The only possibility I see for a significant "screw Tooth" format is if someone were to construct a Tier 1 or 2 B/R deck capable of beating Affinity consistently, surviving Plow Unders from green decks, and shutting down Tooth before a Titan can resolve. Its theoretically possible of course, but I have yet to see anything like a workable execution.
*Or Ponza/BigRed/RDW, of course, but the same arguement applies; Tooth has a number of sideboardable outs, and running Sowing Salt in the main is unlikely since it, well, isn't good against any other matchup.
Ninjutsu is the Japanese spelling for the term... its pronounced so that it sort of sounds like "ninjitsu", but that's just because (in what's pretty much an over-generalization :p), "u"'s tend to be under-emphasized in japanese.
Yes. The creature cannot "be destroyed", but it can be sacrificed. Think darksteel citadel in KCI
EDIT: I forgot to conclude my arguement with examples!
It seems to me to be panic of a rather unsubstantiated nature. Now, you may be right and i may be wrong (see above post regarding my thoughts on Tooth after BoK), but if you think tooth will die, tell me why! Many of the arguements in this thread appear akin to the following logic:
FACT: Oxidize is really good artifact destruction!
FACT: Affinity is an artifact-heavy deck
CONCLUSION: Affinity scoops to oxidize
See how this logic is flawed? The same thing applies to Tooth and these reprints
*Admittedly difficult; Affinity is one of the trickiest agro decks of all time; I've seen alot of players miss an on table kill because they didn't do the math right... stupid math:p
EDIT: Lol wow it took me sufficient time to type this that someone has already mentioned the control aspect. Nevertheless, i think my point stands.
Unfortunately you might be right about the lack of anything enemy coloured in CoK; WOTC tends to have a huge thing for allied colours to the annoying exclusion of the five other combinations. However, it still possible I think that these would be printed, both as a move toward more colour emphasis as well as a gift to those who have been waiting for something like that for a long time. If the later is the case, no set makes more sense for some sort of enemy colour aid than Betrayers
This is at least vaguely reminiscent of the alliance of enemy colours during Apocalypse, so it is at least vaguely possible that similar (though almost definitely not identical) lands could be printed in Betrayers. If this were the case, it seems likely that they'd be the less-than-optimal "does not untap" variety like in CHK, but nevertheless, the flavour is definitely there to see something like this.
Please speculate accordingly!
In order to do any good, the new Betrayers cards must be inserted into a good deck; simply running around with a 4 color "Tooth Destroying Wonder" isn't going to win you a lot of games. In the current T2 environment, there are several Tier 1 or 2 decks playable at the tournament level.
The first, of course, is Affinity. Anyone who says that their deck beats ravager "all the time" is either delusional or at best playing against sub-par affinity players. Nevertheless, Tooth with a suite of artifact hate and platinum angel wins with a fair degree of consistency. Furthermore, this match-up will barely change with the printing of Betrayers; Ravager is hardly going to slow itself down by siding into sowing salt when it could just kill you absurdly fast.
That having been said, there are only 2 decks that consistently kill Tooth in the current metagame: KCI and R/G land destruction. Ponza is, at least against Tooth, strictly worse than R/G due to its lack of Witnesses and Plow Under, a difference which is usually sufficient to allow a T&N victory. Blue-anything has a fundamental problem with Tooth in that, due to Boseju, its win condition is uncounterable. Black, of course, has Extraction, but this has not slowed T&N down significantly due to, as has been afore said, the later deck's ability to drop a huge threat (e.g. Sundering Titan) even without its namesake card.
Thus the problem with the new cards becomes evident; MB or B/G, even with the addition of Eradicate, isn't that much better against Tooth; Eradicate is only good against resolved threats, and anyone who thinks they're going to be casting that after a titan or two has been dropped is likely to be sorely disappointed. Quash faces the same problem as any other counter, and thus won't really change the match-up severely; Tooth players will simply play around counters the same way they always have, then cast Tooth off a Boseju. Finally, Sowing Salt, the best of the cycle against Tooth, will by necessity go into R/G, a deck which already has a favorable match-up against Tooth*. Furthermore, the addition of even more LD doesn't prevent the Tooth player from, say, siding into green beatdown (possibly with the addition of Iwamori after Betrayers) and simply killing you before you play the Slogger. Finally, KCI faces the same general situation as Affinity and would find it difficult to splash for any double colored spell even if it was worth the consistency loss.
Therefore, Tooth and Nail is not doomed, nor will it even suffer with much consistency in the new T2. The only possibility I see for a significant "screw Tooth" format is if someone were to construct a Tier 1 or 2 B/R deck capable of beating Affinity consistently, surviving Plow Unders from green decks, and shutting down Tooth before a Titan can resolve. Its theoretically possible of course, but I have yet to see anything like a workable execution.
*Or Ponza/BigRed/RDW, of course, but the same arguement applies; Tooth has a number of sideboardable outs, and running Sowing Salt in the main is unlikely since it, well, isn't good against any other matchup.