This week was my turn to pick the cards. We’ll be reviewing three of the cool new Evolutions from Thundercharge, starting with this massive behemoth...

Valkrowzer, Ultra Rock Beast

Type: Evolution

Civilization: Fire

Race: Rock Beast

Mana Cost: Six (6)

Rules Text:

Evolution - Put on one of your Rock Beasts.
Water stealth (This creature can't be blocked while your opponent has any water cards in his mana zone.)
Double breaker (This creature breaks 2 shields.)

Flavor Text:

“I liked him better when he was dormant.” -Tropico

Power: 9,000

Rarity: Rare

Set: Thundercharge of Ultra Destruction

Power/Cost: Back in the day, many solid Evolutions had a 6:8 power to cost ratio. Now quite a few of them are sporting better 6:9 ratios to make up for weaker Race lines. Valkrowzer fits into the second template. All considered the Big-V has great beatdown tools like a strong body, lack of summoning sickness, and the standard double breakage. Not a bad Evolution body at all.

Civilization/Race: Nine Rock Beast creatures have been released to this point. The best four of those are probably Meteosaur, Blazosaur Q, Cratersaur, and Magmarex. They have another capable evolution, Doboulgyser, in addition to Valkrowzer. The Rock Beasts are arguably Fire’s second best Race, behind the Humans and a hair ahead of the Dragons (for now).

Effects: Valkrowzer is simply a watered-down version of the beloved Crystal Lancer. His race is slightly less formidable, thus the extra bit of power. While Lancer is a sure-fire unblockable, Valkrowzer will be able to bypass blockers at least 50% of the time via his Water Stealth status. The only downside to this is that he becomes slightly overcosted when your opponent is not running water (though that isn’t very often). Big-V can also wreck havoc on your opponent’s shields two at a time, which comes in handy.

Limited: 2/5

Very rarely will an evolution work well in the draft format. Valkrowzer only has one possible Rock Beast as bait, so you should try to stick with better options.

Constructed: 3 /5

While not godly, Valkrowzer (try saying that five times fast) is certainly worthy of casual play. The Beast could work well in many different deck combinations.