This might be my favorite card in the whole set,
or at least one of them. I love dragons (every
color needs flying creatures!). I love 4/4
creatures. I love drawing cards in ways that are
more interesting and fair than "End of turn, I'm
so far ahead lolol" (every color needs more of
those, too!). And don't be fooled into thinking
he competes with Thunderbreak Regent at this
cost - the whole point of that card is to get
you to play more dragons at one time!
Today's card of the day is Avaricious Dragon
which is a four mana Red
4/4 with Flying that that adds an extra card at
your draw step with the drawback of discarding
your hand. This is an excellent top of the
mana curve play for a mono-Red burn/evasion
build that benefits from the speed with no real
risk of discarding anything. Outside of that
very specific full aggro design the drawback
would keep it from nearly any other deck, so it
should see some play competitively in a
dedicated build only.
In Limited the card advantage and 4/4 for four
evader outweigh the drawback if the mana curve
is kept on the lower end of the format. For that
and the risk of letting another player possibly
build around it this should be a first pick in
Booster. In Sealed this requires a fairly
complimentary pool of lower mana cost and solid
Red cards to make it worth playing, but the
strength should motivate the build towards Red
whenever possible.
Hm. At first, you see drawing cards as a great
opportunity. Then, you realize that you won't be
playing anything short of creature effects on
your opponent's turn. No kill spells, no
counters, no burn, nothing. That, is a huge
drawback not a lot of people have thought about
yet. Sure, in multiples, you're drawing an extra
2-3 cards a turn, but it's tricky to win a game
effectively at sorcery speed.
