For Krakens, we have Kraken Hatchling. For
Leviathans, we have Inkwell Leviathan. For
Octopi, we have Lorthos, the Tidemaker. And for
Serpents, we have Shoal Serpent and Serpent of
the Endless Sea. I may be forgetting a few, but
that's just covering Standard. None of them are
really very good, but I suppose if you can get
them for free once a turn, even Shoal Serpent
starts looking pretty sweet. And this thing can
start putting out free sea beasts as early as
turn four with some lucky topdecks, but it's
more likely to take until turn five or six, or
later. Too late for a free Kraken Hatchling to
make a difference, but not too late for a
massive Leviathan or Serpent.
There are some cards that do one thing, and
some cards that do many things. The Quest for
Ula's Temple is one of the latter. Wanna win the
game? Put Tidal Kraken into play. Wanna make
people smile? Put Lorthos the Tidemaker into
play. Wanna really confuse your friends? Put Bog
Serpent into play. Wanna have fun? Do all of
these, and some more besides.
Constructed:
Who knock over the fish bowl. Good thing they
limited to 4 creature types. Dropping a Inkwell
Leviathan or that big Octopus can really turn
the game around.
Casual & Multiplayer: If you run alot of creatures for a big multiplayer you will be dropping
creatures at the end of everyone's turn and hope
nobody plays Wrath of Dang it!
Limited:
Will there be some worthy creatures to use this
in Worldwake only draft? The chances of getting
Lorthos, the Tidemaker are very slim in sealed
deck.
Overall a great card for multiplayer.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 3
Multiplayer: 4
Limited: 2
Later
Miguel
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno
Today's preview card is Quest for Ula's Temple
which unlike most other quests has the built in
effect to trigger the counters it requires for
itself. Revealing three creatures allows you to
play a Leviathan, Octopus, or Serpent or a
creature that counts as all creature types such
as a from Lorwyn/Morningtide Changeling. Of
currently known cards there are twenty-one
Serpents, twelve Leviathan, and two Octopus
types of which only seven are legal in the
Standard format. This is not a particularly
large pool, but the choices are generally fairly
powerful and can make an impact if played on the
fourth turn of a game.
Naturally some deck modifying cards like Ponder
and Sage Owl would assist greatly in speeding up
the activation of the quest's effect.
For Constructed, Casual, and Multiplayer the
best choice in Standard is probably Inkwell
Leviathan with Nemesis of Reason or Kederekt
Leviathan depending on your overall strategy.
Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Serpent of the Endless
Sea, Shoal Serpent, and Steelclad Serpent all
are limited in effectiveness when played earlier
or require other cards for maximum effect. This
is not a particularly bad card, but requires
quite a bit of work compared to the more
flexible Elvish Piper and the timing of creature
placement at an end step is limiting. This is
more of a Casual flavor than anything seriously
competitive, barring really noteworthy new
creatures in the upcoming sets. In Extended
style decks a noteworthy card for an Ula's
Temple deck may be Grozoth which is a fairly
obscure rare from Ravnica that can search your
library for any number of other nine mana
casting cost creatures and put them into your
hand. As three other Leviathan types are nine
mana this gives a few options for the deck, but
each has a penalty attached. The potential for
fetching any number of the twenty-seven
different nine mana creatures in Magic has some
play for combination that require powerful
creatures in hand or a large number of cards.
With Limited this card is borderline useless
unless by chance you happen to get several of
the listed creature types in your pool. Seeing
your top card seconds before you draw is only
really useful if you have some effect that can
change the top card before your draw phase which
is unlikely. Overall this is a rare that can
safely be passed in Booster almost every time
and kept in the sidedeck for any Sealed games.
