Charix, the Raging Isle – Zendikar Rising MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

If you chose to just use Charix as a wall that’s functionally immune to red decks, I probably wouldn’t blame you – it’s all but impossible for such a deck to hit his weak point for massive damage. You’d have to be a mana ramp deck yourself to even think of casting a Fireball analogue with X equal to 17 (though I think that’s just the midgame in certain Commander metagames). He actually goes on the offense surprisingly well: his power-and-toughness-changing abilities mean he can hit even harder than Morphling did (and under a different ruleset that was way less fair about combat damage and the stack!). He also interacts hilariously with the set of “target creature must be blocked if able” cards: unless your opponent is also getting colossal creatures into play early, he’ll be drawing all the blockers to him every single turn.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander: 3/5

Big, angry crab is angry. I believe Charix, the Raging Isle has the highest printed toughness of any creature, and it even backs up its big backside with soft spell-targeting protection. In combat, it can pose a pretty big threat if you have the mana to spare, and reactivating Charix’s ability isn’t too hard to do if you need a little more pop. It’s by no means amazing, as it’s still easy to chump block and only has soft protection, but there’s a lot that the Absolute Unit of a crab can accomplish if you can support it.

Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 2
Commander: 3