Hoarding Broodlord – March of the Machine
Date Reviewed: May 22, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.0
Casual: 5.0
Limited: 5.0
Multiplayer: 4.0
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
One of the interesting things about recent sets, with their expanded “deciduous” mechanics and their flavor callbacks and their revisiting places for Commander decks and other settings, is that the association between specific mechanics and specific worlds is not as strong as it used to be. There are exceptions – Alara and cascade, for example – but it’s no longer astonishing to see a dragon from Tarkir using a mechanic that debuted on Ravnica. And this card makes it worth your while, enabling a couple of different minigames. There’s the one where you just use black Thallids and a bunch of their tokens to power it out; there’s the one where it finds something to help stabilize or clear its path (or just a land to bluff the opponent with, if you’re particularly brave!). There’s also a curious feature of its wording, where you can cast things exiled by other cards – the designers are still being cautious about that ability, but it does counteract things like Soul Partition and Elite Spellbinder. Generally, if you can cast the Broodlord, you could just cast the partitioned or bound card for its increased cost anyway, but it’s an area of design to keep an eye on . . .
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
While dragons are mostly red, you occasionally get one that’s a different color, and they look to earn their keep. Hoarding Broodlord is very black, a sort of pseudo–Demonic Tutor with upside, with the upside of keeping the card out of your hand in case you’re facing hand disruption. For eight mana, a 7/6 with flying and a Demonic Tutor is…okay, but nothing special. Rune-Scarred Demon was okay, but always more of a Commander/Casual card.
Of course, the thing that makes the swoopy dragon is convoke, and this rarely is just a turn 8 play. Putting this out on turns 4 or 5 is a lot more plausible, and while a turn 4 tutor is suboptimal, this is a tutor stapled to a body with great, big, long wings. The ability to convoke to cast that spell is powerful, and it also has a lot of things it plays well with, like foretell and red’s “impulse draw” effect.
I think Hoarding Broodlord is a deceptively potent card; it’s both a threat and another threat, a card that furthers both your current board state and your forthcoming one. He’s not for every deck, as eight maa is a bit of an ask even with convoke to help, but there’s a lot to like, and he helps to show how swooping is, has been, and always will be bad.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5 (finds your next best threat and is a threat on his own)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.5 (tutors are always great in Commander, and this has a lot of things it plays well with if you get creative)
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