Today’s creature appears to be somewhat lackluster and wasteful.  The silent skill ability is certainly an intriguing concept but in Gankloak’s case it doesn’t appear as if the benefits are worth the wait.

 

Gankloak, Rogue Commando

 

Cost: 3

 

Race: Human

 

Civilization: Fire

 

Type: Creature

 

Rules Text:

·         Silent skill (At the start of each of your turns, if this creature is tapped, you may keep it tapped and use its ability.)
Each of your fire creatures in the battle zone gets "double breaker" until the end of the turn. (It breaks 2 shields.)

 

Power: 2000

 

Creatures with a silent skill ability are typically something to be feared.  They usually come with effects that are extraordinarily powerful, which is why the silent skill effect allows the opponent to have a chance to deal with the threat.  Here’s the way it works… you summon the creature and deal with the summoning sickness.  Then on the next turn you attack (or do something that causes it to tap). Then at the beginning of the following turn you get to set off the effect.  During this period of time, your opponent has 2 full turns to deal with the silent skill threat and stifle your strategy.

 

When we factor this 2 turn setback with Gankloak’s cost it becomes evident that Gankloak’s effect does not trigger until turn 5 at the earliest.  On top of that, the effect is decent but seldom game-winning.  By the time you reach turn 5 it’s likely that you only have a few weenies on the field that would be inheriting Gankloak’s effect.  If this is the case then you’re probably doing some form of rush, which makes Gankloak useless because by turn 5 your opponent should be down to 1 or 0 shields anyway.  Obviously this creature is for anything but weenie rush.

 

We also need to factor Gankloak’s weak power of 2000.  While Gankloak is tapped, it would mean that almost any creature would kill it by attacking and prevent the effect from ever happening.  We would obviously need blockers to protect Gankloak, but this would mean that a 2^nd civilization would need to be added to the deck.  Keep in mind that Gankloak’s effect only works with fire creatures.  The only good thing this card has going for it is the fact that it’s a human.  Fortunately humans have a great assortment of evolutions that would go well with this effect but it’s still nothing worthwhile.

 

If you want a better way to give your creatures double “breaker”, I would suggest looking no further than Snake Attack.  Snake Attack will catch the opponent completely by surprise.

 

The Good:  It’s another human… at least there are decent evolution creatures out there.

 

The Bad:  The effect is certainly not worth the wait.  Just use Snake Attack.

 

The Ugly:  This card (and all copies of it) will catch fire in your toaster.  Pease resist this temptation, no matter how much you hate this card.

 

 

Constructed Rating: 1.5/5 – I’m not going to give it the worst rating just because this creature can evolve into decent evolutions.  I’d still prefer to go with better humans.  If you want the effect so badly then use Snake Attack.

 

Limited Rating: 2/5 – I guess the creature is cheap enough to be useful.  The effect has not made a noticeable difference when I actually try using it..

 

 

Please feel free to post your comments, questions, and/or objections on the Message Board and I’ll be more than happy to respond.  Happy dueling!