The first ability seems to have a lot of
potential, but in practice I'm not convinced.
Are the creatures in your graveyard that much
better than the ones you've got in play? They
are if you have a token engine, I suppose, but
black doesn't get a whole lot of those. Black
does get creatures like Reassembling Skeleton,
though, which could be traded up repeatedly, but
at five mana per activation, you really need to
be playing Casual to make that work. Constructed
is just too fast, and Limited has nothing worth
comboing with it. The second ability is also
nice, but at seven mana you're spending an
entire turn just to make the Champion your draw
for next turn, and then spending THAT turn
recasting the Champion, and then the NEXT turn
you can use its ability again. And as a 4/4 for
4BB, you're not running it for anything but its
ability. This is a combo piece, plain and
simple, and the combo it builds is a slow,
grindy combo. You need a slow format to make
this worthwhile, and "kitchen-table Casual" is
the only one I know of that's slow enough.
Speaking of trope-based design, which Greek myth
or creature exactly is this based on? Or are we
going to admit that tropes alone can't actually
support a whole block? (Now watch Mark Rosewater
tell a story about this card next week and
totally embarrass me.) Regardless, any kind of
setting that can acess a lot of mana will want
to take a look at this guy - both of his effects
are certainly very powerful, and even if you
never use his mass resurrection ability, there
are certain decks that simply can't beat a
creature that keeps going back to the top of
your library.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
a mythic skeleton. Champion of Stray Souls
for competitive environments is very slow and
very expensive. Requiring sizable mana
investments and having to survive to use his
ability is just too much to ask for in
competitive environments. True he does have the
ability to resurrect himself but at a high mana
price tag and the cost of your draw step. This
guy is just too big and unwieldy to touch any
competitive environments. In casual and
multiplayer this guy is amazing being able to
bring back powerful creatures and also having a
decent sized 4/4 body is nothing to sneeze at.
Where this card really shines is in commander
decks heavy on the sacrificing theme as this
allows you to regrow value creatures or just
huge powerful creatures and provides a sacrifice
outlet, and a recurable body with a somewhat
hefty requirement for recursion. In limited this
guys a 4/4 for six which is ok, and if your deck
has enough tokens or truly powerful creatures
its something to consider. Overall a powerful
casual and multiplayer card that helps fill a
useful niche.
Today's card of the day is Champion of Stray
Souls which is a six mana Black 4/4 that for
five and tapping can sacrifice X other creatures
to return X target creature cards from your
graveyard to the battlefield and for seven
Champion can be put on top of your library from
your graveyard. The second effect is a bit
weak and a slow form of regeneration that
weakens tempo without card draw support and is
mostly a last ditch kind of play. The
first effect is excellent when combined with
enters or leaves play abilities, or token
creation to use as sacrifice targets. The
cost to play Champion is a bit high to use
competitively, but in Commander or more Casual
settings one or two solid uses of the effect
should win just about any game. Supported
with cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel,
Abhorrent Overlord, Mogis's Marauder, and cards
to add them to your graveyard this is a viable
and effective deck concept.
In Limited the mana cost is reasonable, but
having enough targets to make the best use of
the effect is more problematic. Even
exchanging one or two creatures for larger
threats or strong enters play abilities is
enough to make this worthwhile and the 4/4 body,
aside from being a possible sacrifice, is a
decent size for the format. The
situational power still makes it a first pick in
Booster and worth including in a Sealed deck
using Black as the primary or secondary color.
D(jk2m2389/8nRIb8xmVD_EN.jpg)
