Rampaging Ferocidon – Magic: The Gathering Card of the Day

Rampaging Ferocidon

It’s easy to look at a guy like this and just say that he’s clearly “pushed for constructed”. But dinosaur enthusiasts will recognize him as based on the Troodon, a relative of the deinonychosaur family which is widely believed to have been the most intelligent dinosaur. In fact, many paleontologists also believe that if not for a once-in-an-eon asteroid strike, Troodon’s descendants might have been the ones reading about Magic cards on a reptilian version of Pojo.com, and perhaps anticipating an expansion themed around strange prehistoric mammals. So yes, it makes sense if he’s going to be good in constructed.

As such, I’ll skip over the most blatant measures of his efficiency for the moment, and point out that Rampaging Ferocidon is a massive threat in a number of different scenarios where red decks sometimes struggle: against opponents who gain lots of life, and games with more than one opponent. He goes further than slow down a Soul Sisters deck and actually damages them for trying to play on, and he is a repeatable source of damage in multiplayer environments where it’s not viable for opponents to stop or delay their gameplan just because he’s on the table (and risk being run over by a third player).

Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 5/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
EDH/Commander: 4/5

Rampaging Ferocidon

Dinosaur of Punishment, pretty much. Rampaging Ferocidon thrives on the misery of everyone, pinging when creatures come into play and stopping life gain. And this is on a decently-costed body,  a 3/3 with menace for 3 mana.

It seems like it’s an answer to the grindier, more attrition-inclined decks, stopping their life gain and hordes of tokens, and that Dinosaurs tend to be bigger and more concentrated makes this less “symmetrical” than it reads. But if you put down the Ferocidon, you want to end the game quickly…and while it can help with being an evasive attacker, it’s only a 3/3, which is a touch fragile and a bit easy to double block.

Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander: 4.25