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Lee Sandow |
Well, it's
finally Friday. That means this week of awful
cards is finally over. For today, we're going
to step away from Thundercharge (a set which
most people think is bad), to Rampage (which I
think is the worst). This card has interesting
combo potential, and can be fairly useful.
Let's review!
Flood Valve
Cost: 2
Civilization: Water
Card Type: Spell
• Shield trigger (When this spell is put into
your hand from your shield zone, you may cast it
immediately for no cost.)
Return a
card from your mana zone to your hand.
Flavor Text: "Open up freshwater valve 23D.
I'm thirsty."
Mana Generated: 1
Rarity: Uncommon
Card Number: 15/55
Why are we reviewing it, you ask? Well, I'll
tell you why I chose this card. People have
been playing Thrash Crawler a lot lately, namely
for his ability to return a card to your hand
later in the day. I'll discuss this more
below. This is a cheaper, though less beefy
alternative. Obviously, I'm going to be
comparing them from time to time. Let's
review...
Civilization: Yay for water!
This automatically gives this card a good amount
of versatility. Water is a commonly played
Civilization, so this can fit into any deck
using it. So, this is a good thing.
Cost: Two mana. Cheap. I like
this. You pay the cost, use the effect, and you
can probably cast/summon whatever you return the
turn you use this. HINT: Tap whatever
you're bringing back as part of the cost.
Why? You'll save a mana that way!
Abilities: Firstly, this bad
boy can be a shield trigger. This means you
won't have to pay for it at all. That's RARELY
ever a bad thing.
Ability two
is where things get fun. You can return one
card from your mana zone to your hand. This can
be really helpful late game. Did you set that
Crystal Paladin on turn one, and need him now?
Did your Bronze-Arm Tribe send that Pyrofighter
to your mana zone? Do you just NEED that Terror
Pit you were forced to part ways with? Spend
this card, and a measly two mana (one, if you
think about it, since you can tap whatever you
return), to return a card to your hand. Sure,
you lose some mana, but late game this doesn't
matter so much. Your hand size actually remains
the same, so no harm done.
This effect
is awesome! It allows you to 'protect' a card
until you need it by putting it in the mana
zone, where it is quite safe. With Lost Soul
running rampant, the hand just isn't a good
place to hold something. It also allows you to
take back a card you couldn't afford earlier.
Many of us have set our Terror Pits, Merfolks,
or Bazagazal Dragons on turn one because we
couldn't afford them. Now we can take them back
and make our opponents suffer!
Ok, now that I've reviewed these stats, let's
see how they stack up... Actually, let's do a
comparison first.
COMPARISON: Flood Valve V.S. Thrash Crawler
Like I said in
the intro, I think this card is quite like Thrash
Crawler. But which is better? Personally, I think
this card is. Don't get me wrong, I think Thrash is
a nice card, but he has some nasty weaknesses that
this card really doesn't seem to have. Sure, this
card may be useless early duel, but hey, it makes
great mana.
Thrash,
though, suffers from being a creature. He's a
blocker, which is fine and dandy, but that just
subjects him to all the blocker hate in the metagame.
Further, he is incredibly weak to Corile, which is
one of the most widely used cards everywhere.
Additionally, he is also near useless early in the
day, and best late duel. I've seen duelists *COUGHfordhamCOUGH*
who re-summon this over and over and lose most of
their mana. This also hurts your tempo, as it might
set you a mana behind.
The main
problem with thrash is that his effect is
mandatory. If you want to summon him, you bounce a
card. Plain and simple. A reason I like Flood
Valve better is because it is OPTIONAL. If you
don't want to lose a mana, you don't have to play
the card. But sometimes, circumstances will FORCE
you to play thrash as a blocker. Then you're out of
luck.
Let me wrap
this comparison off by saying this again. Thrash is
a nice card in the hands of someone who knows how to
use it. I just personally think the versatility of
Flood Valve makes it better.
THE REVIEW
Constructed overview: I've said
nearly everything that needs to be said about
this over the course of this review. BUG decks
might like this card, control might like this,
and any deck that's using blue could stand to
try it out. I personally really like it, and
plan to play it at nationals. Cheers! 4.5/5
Limited overview: Less useful
here, but still good. You can retrieve that
fatty you had to set early on, or just use it to
get another creature to swarm. The main reason
I don't rank this card so well here is because
Rampage is a rather poor set to draft from. If
you are doing this set in combo with something
else, I might try this. But still, tread
cautiously. 3/5
Next week: What's a pirate's favorite kind of
card? A block-arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
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