Get ready for the gold rush (at least you won't
need pickaxes or dynamite this time around).
Ethercaste Knight has a lot going for him - I
like the synergistic design of any exalted
creature who's also good on defense. The cost is
very specific, but it generally seems worth it
as few things can get past him in the early
game. Just watch out for Molten Frame!
-Balding
for just over 5 years
-Playing MTG for just over 10
Ethercaste Knight
Simple and elegant. It's nice to start off the
reviews of the new fully multicolored set with
this little guy. A good investment for 2 to be
sure. Nothing extravagant. However, if the
exalted decks start showing up somewhere, I
would expect this guy to be in them as he sets
you up for a good early blocker with a toughness
of three and gives your 1st round exalted
creature a boost.
This card is nice in its simplicity. There's
nothing tricky here. It's just a solid creature.
A 1/3 creature doesn't seem that strong, but it
can be put to good use as a blocker more often
than not. It's got a low casting cost. It also
has Exalted. It's a solid bang for your buck.
It's a card that could get squeezed into those
last few slots of your limited deck, but I'm not
sure where it belongs in constructed.
I think this will go nicely into Exalted decks.
The main problem with Exalted is that the +1/+1
bonus has to be better than not attacking with
the Exalteds themselves. Cards like Akrasan
Squire and Ethercaste Knight are perfect for
this, since on attack they're just 1/x's but the
creature they give their 1 point of power too
might be a Rhox War Monk or Jhessian
Infiltrator. Not attacking with the Knight also
lets it block, which as a two-mana 1/3 it is
very good at, perhaps even able to clog up
opposing aggro decks. As an Esper card, unless
you have a lot of cards that care about
artifacts, you probably don't really want this--
especially when you could have Tidehollow
Sculler or Strix. Maybe if your Esper deck is
all about accelerating into a Sharuum the
Hegemon or a Sphinx Sovereign...?
