I love the idea of plunking this card down in
the middle of a game without paying his casting
cost and suddenly having a giant creature in my
weenie beatdown deck. The key with this card is
to NOT think about playing him on turn one, when
you have only one land in play, but to play him
later in the game when he is more impressive.
This card was carefully crafted to eliminate the
ONLY problem I had when I first heard about this
card. I was thinking, in what kind of beatdown
deck am I really going to (a) have multiple
green cards in my hand and (b) really want to
remove them from the game to put Allosaurus
Rider into play? The answer is elves. As soon as
I realized this card would be a good finisher in
an elf deck, the next thing I thought was "gee,
it's too bad Allosaurus Rider isn't an elf..."
Almost immediately, one of my friends (who can
read) jabbed me in the arm and showed me that
Allosaurus Rider IS an Elf (Warrior). Perfect
for constructed, although only in a couple of
decks. In limited, Allosaurus Rider is a
powerful card in Coldsnap drafts. If this card
had been printed in the Ravnica block, he would
be much less interesting, since the power of
Ravnica favors green the least. In Coldsnap
limited, you need any better than average edge
you can get, and Allosaurus Rider can be that
really good beatdown creature. Basically, it
works like this, in constructed, the Rider is
good because you don't pay his casting cost, and
in limited, the Rider is good because you DO pay
his casting cost.
It remains to be seen how strong this card is.
Once players get to use him in constructed
tournaments, we might see some different things
about it. For now, I have to put him in the
"decent" pile. He's not super, but he's far from
terrible. The rider can obviously cause some
late game problems for your opponents as well.
In the Coldsnap preview Podcast, Randy Buehler
mentioned that the Allosaurus Rider is one of
the cards we could expect to see in tournaments.
I can't say I agree with that. He's lacking a
couple things to make it decent. First of all,
it lacks evasion. Secondly it lacks some ability
to defend itself from hostile spells. Both of
these qualities are exemplified in a recently
reviewed card, Simic Sky Swallower. Sure, you
won't be casting SSS for free, but it's going to
survive a lot longer than this guy. Still, this
can be a mighty draft bomb in a format where
removal often cares about the size of a
creature.
Really fun to play in limited enviroments. This
thing just gets uglier each turn. The alternate
casting cost of removing 2 green cards in your
hand instead is kind of nice. Though playing it
early does mean it will be much smaller. So the
trade off is there. Not for constructed, though
I could see some casual players having fun with
this Elf.
Constructed - 1.5
Casual - 2.5
Limited - 3.5
The Antman
Allosaurus
Rider- Rare- Coldsnap
While many people are iffy on this card, I
personally like it. I can easilly see this thing
in a G/U control and/or critial mass type deck
that uses ohran viper to help against the card
disadvantage, and cards like Sakura Tribe Elder
and Kodama's reach to get a bunch of land out
quickly, with things like voidslime and runesnag
to protect him from the plethera of kill spells
out right now. The one problem with him though
IS that plethera of kill spells. Who wants to
spend 2 cards from their hand just to get this
card killed by a simple putrefy or mortify?
Ratings:
constructed- 3/5 Just because he doesn't cost
you any mana doesnt mean you should play him
early, which is the mistake of many players
limited- 4/5 many games get a lot of mana out,
and most of the time you will probably hardcast
him, which isnt hard in limited
casual- 4/5 fun fun fun, now we can do something
with those decks made to get all your land out
Final Thought- Only play him if you can protect
him, I dont have much more to say than that...
