Welcome to today's Pojo exclusive promo card,
Hellkite Igniter! Wizards of the Coast sure like
to give us the Dragon previews, don't they?
Well, I have no doubt that this Dragon is going
to shake things up. Why am I so confident, when
Mordant Dragon had no such impact? Because
Hellkite Igniter has haste. Haste is just about
the most relevant ability you can put on a
Dragon, after flying. This allows the Igniter to
come out of nowhere and start laying the
beatdown.
More importantly, I feel that the Igniter
provides the lynchpin to a deck type that has
showed a glimmer of promise but always been just
out of reach, or at least it provides the deck
with a suitable reward to reach for that might
motivate more people to play it. I'm talking
about the red metalcraft deck.
Metalcraft has appeared on plenty of decent red
cards-- Galvanic Blast and Kuldotha Phoenix
being the most obvious-- and plenty of other red
cards in Scars of Mirrodin have encouraged
artifact-heavy decks, but Hellkite Igniter
really makes the deck a force to be reckoned
with. The Igniter doesn't actually have
metalcraft, so you'll never feel like you need
to get that third artifact on the table before
you cast it. As long as you have 5RR, it's a
good time to cast the Igniter. But it's
firebreathing ability counts artifacts. If you
have one, it's worse than standard firebreathing.
If you have two, it's just about as good. But
the Igniter's +X/+0 really gets efficient and
powerful when you have-- you guessed it-- three
or more artifacts, the same as metalcraft. But
the Igniter goes one better, and actually
rewards you for having MORE than three artifacts
as well, if you can get them. So stuff your deck
with Iron Myr and Prophetic Prism, with
Spellbombs and Equipment. You'll need all the
baubles and trinkets and treasures you can get
to make Hellkite Igniter burn as brightly as
possible. And isn't that what Dragons are all
about? A hoard of treasure and a plume of fire
in the sky?
You (meaning any denizen of a fantasy world) are
supposed to be afraid of dragons. They're
powerful magical creatures with fire breath
and teeth like dinosaurs, and usually one of the
oldest species in their secondary world. It's
easy to become jaded as a Magic player; we've
all seen really cool dragons hit the table and
immediately get answered by Doom Blade or
Volition Reins. It makes me happy when I see a
dragon who even the most cynical player has to
fear. Haste is arguably the best keyword for a
dragon to have, often giving it the element of
surprise, and against anything other than
ShatterVariants.dec, it should be surprisingly
easy to have enough artifacts to make Hellkite
Igniter lethal in one shot. Yeah, nine mana and
everything, but you used to pay about that much
for a lethal Banefire or Urza's Rage. And this,
arguably, is inherently way cooler because it's
a dragon. It's time to learn to burn, people.
Magic The Gathering card of The Day: Hellkite
Igniter
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
Hellkite Igniter an interesting rare dragon that
is our pojo preview card. In standard this card
won't see much play its expensive and requires a
heavy commitment to artifacts.
In extended and eternal this won't see much play
due to high cost. In casual and multiplayer this
card is good it provides a good attacker and
combine with artifact ramp to reach its true
potential. In limited if you draft a lot of
artifacts its fantastic, its a big flyer though
so it could be a bomb. Overall a powerful casual
and multiplayer dragon
i am anxious to build decks around.
Today's Pojo exclusive preview is Hellkite
Igniter which is a seven mana
5/5 Flying with Haste that can gain +X/+0 until
the end of the turn equal to the number of
artifacts you control for two mana. This
isn't bad if you happen to be running a Red
artifact deck of some sort, but that's a fairly
unusual concept currently. The
cost of just two instead of paying for each
+1/+0 is potentially impressive, but it may not
be a factor often. To take full advantage
of it with Haste would cost nine mana which is
far too much without some kind of effect to
bring it into play below cost. The
relatively high cost and somewhat offbeat usage
keeps this from being a bigger impact before
seeing the rest of the set, so for now this is
unlikely to see much play in serious builds.
For Limited this is a major threat once it
enters play with or without artifacts as a 5/5
Flying with Haste. If artifacts are
available and the cost can be paid it is easily
a game winning card and is likely to be one of
the best cards in the format. Having only
two Red in the casting cost and one for the
effect makes this easily playable even in a
multicolor deck and it should be a first pick in
likely any Booster draft. For Sealed it
may be a bit much to splash Red just for this if
your pool is really weak in the color, but
strongly consider working Hellkite Igniter into
your deck with whatever cards best support it.
Today’s Card of the
Day is a special Pojo.com EXCLUSIVE, and here
there be dragons! That’s right boys and girls,
our preview card is an amazing dragon coming in
the new Mirrodin Besieged set. The card is
Hellkite Igniter, a 5/5 for five generic mana
and two red mana. He has flying and haste. But
his other ability is by far one of the coolest
I’ve seen yet. For one generic and a red mana,
he gets +X/+0 where X is the number of artifacts
you control.
This guy is sure to light things up fast. In constructed, he
will be pumped in no time at all. He is a sure
fire addition to any halfway decent Metalcraft
deck. And chances are, if he goes in the said
Metalcraft deck, he is going to become its
champion. There is no disputing how much of an
impact this guy can make as soon as he hits
play. The problem is getting him out in time for
him to make the impact. But, loading a deck with
artifacts to accelerate mana only means once he
hits, he hits harder.
In casual or vintage formats, I have two things to say,
Mycosynth Lattice. Turn EVERYTHING into an
artifact. How about that for a pump? Everything
you own, including the dragon, would pump him.
And, in vintage, how easy would it be to then
Soul’s Fire, Rite of Consumption, or even Fatal
Frenzy. Even in standard, Distortion Strike
could guarantee this fatty hits home.
I definitely see decks being designed to exploit his pump, and drop
him in standard by turn five at the latest. He
is sure to start blazing a trail through
tournaments the day of the prerelease.
Speaking of which, make sure all of you get to your local
prerelease and launch parties to get your hands
on Hellkite Igniter and all the rest of the
amazing cards coming out in this awesome new
set, as well as the special promos for the
faction you decide to represent.
