This guy is full of tricks! Thelonite Hermit
should only be played as a face down creature.
You would think this would be obvious, because
as a four casting cost 1/1 Elf Shaman that gives
Saprolings +1/+1, you would think his appeal
would be pretty low. That’s what I thought, too,
until this past weekend’s PTQ, where a dude
played Thelonite Hermit not once, but twice
straight onto the board face up to help power up
a couple of Saprolings he was making with his
Thallids. As far as Morph creatures go,
Thelonite Hermit is pretty strong, but not
necessarily a home run as far as I am concerned.
The only way I am likely to play this card is in
Time Spiral limited formats, where surprising my
opponent by turning him face up causes him
serious problems. In constructed, the Hermit
will very likely find a popular life in some
fairly complex combo decks where the ability to
create four creatures by simply flipping over
one face down creature will lead to some
degenerate capabilities of some kind or another.
This card would be a lot more useful if you
didn't have to morph it to use it's ability. It
pretty much means that it's pretty much a six
mana investment for a 1/1 creature. Outside of a
Saproling deck, I can't see myself playing this
guy.
A reference to Deranged Hermit of days past,
this guy is marginally better since he can come
into play morphed, then flip up as a combat
trick. But as for the +1/+1 bonus, I wouldn't
count on that. The Hermit is just too killable
to last long. But the fact that you can get five
creatures for one card is pretty awesome.
Deranged Hermit produced 4 1/1 tokens and made
them bigger, just like this guy. And if you
wanted to keep him around, it cost you a grand
total of 10 mana. This guy's going to cost you 8
mana to get the same effect. The difference -
and the reason for the discount - is that you
don't have a choice in the matter. Sometimes you
didn't want to pay the echo cost on Deranged
Hermit. If you want the tokens out of this guy,
he will cost you the full 8 mana. 3 to play, 5
to unmorph. Far from being a bad deal, this is a
very strong card. Deranged Hermit has a problem
in that it boosted Squirrels and Squirrels
aren't commons sights. Not until Odyssey did
Squirrels become a real force. Saprolings, on
the other hand, are all over the palce. And this
guy boosts them all up. Deranged Hermit has been
described as a 9/9 for 5 mana. This guy might
even be better.
Saprolings? Honestly, I was thinking of a Husk
deck rather than a Saproling deck when I thought
of this one, although the Hermit should work
well in both. A worthy addition to those
Selysnya Token decks some of you out there have,
and even better in those Husk decks. Try it out
with Doubling Season- fun times for all! But
otherwise, nothing fancy to write home about.
Constructed: 2.8
Casual: 4
Limited: 3
KC MetroGnome
Thelonite
Hermit
This is one that I wasn't as familiar with. In a
casual Selesnya or other Thallid deck, this is
pure gold, giving you bigger thallids as well as
a quick four extra creatures to use for your
convoke spells. Probably not going to make a big
splash in constructed, although if a deck were
to pop up that wins with Saproling Tokens, this
could easily fit the bill as a sorcery speed
+1/+1 or an instant speed +1/+1 plus 4 extra
attackers, although it probably won't have the
surprise effect that a green morph of Onslaught
block would have had (if you're playing
Saprolings, and you have a face-down creature,
don't fool yourself into thinking you're going
to surprise your opponent with this). In
limited, if I was already green, I might take
this and try to pick a few thallids here and
there through the rest of the draft. I wouldn't
go green for it, though, unless I got it very
early.
Constructed - 2
Casual - 5
Limited - 3
Aethereal
Thelonite
Hermit
A remake of Deranged Hermit. Obviously this is a
card you morph into play, as it is crap if you
just play it as-is. You end up paying less total
for this than you do the Deranged Hermit, and in
the meantime, you get a 2/2 that hopefully won't
get burned off the board. The fact that this
makes and boosts Saprolings makes this a
potentially strong candidate in Ghazi-Glare type
decks, with all the Saprolings they can make.
In casual, I'm sure this will get comboed with
Vitu-Ghazi and other Saproling generators for
lots of token madness.
In limited, he can help you win a creature race,
but paying 8 total for a 1/1 is awful. The
Saprolings make up for this, however, so play
him if you're green. I think I'm underrating him
a bit here actually, so take my rating for
limited cum grano salis.
Today's card is
Thelonite Hermit. He's a 1/1 but unlike the 1/1
from earlier in the week, I think this guy will
have a better use in decks. With all the
saproling creatures that you can spawn from
Selensya from Ravinica, and with the spore
counters and saprolings that you can produce
with all the fungus from Time Spiral, I think
this guy will fit right in. Plus add in the
fact, that when you turn him over you get 4 1/1s
that automatically beomce 2/2s aren't anything
to sneeze at.
Here's the verdict.
Constructed: 3.7/5 Put him with the right
saproling producers and you can have a swarm on
your hands.
Casual: 4/5 Again, if you make a saproling deck
this guy is key.
Limited 2/5 He doesn't belong in this format,
there's no real way that you can guarantee that
he'll be effected. In sealed deck or a draft,
he's just a 1/1 that can make more 1/1. I'd
pass.
Cyrus Huang
Throwback to
Deranged Hermit blah blah blah anyways the
review that no one reads because it's on the
bottom of the list:
Constructed: People are only going to put this
guy in crappy saproling or thallid decks. If you
haven't seen them before, saproling decks run
stuff like leyline of the meek, doubling season,
scatter the seeds, fists of ironwood, and
finally off with Hour of Reckoning. It's a token
(sorry) idea but far from competitive because
decks based on 1/1's are not good. Thallid decks
will pop up, but they'll just be all of the
thallids in standard thrown together in one deck
(and of course, they'll be terrible).
This guy is terrible because:
-Extremely narrow (and the only deck he fits in
sucks)
-Way too expensive for such a narrow effect (8
mana)
-Fragile (I shock him and you just spent 8 mana
for 4 1/1's or I just kill him before he even
morphs)
1.5/5
Limited: Hey he's actually really good in
limited though. Thallids are very playable and
he goes along greatly with any you got. Even
without support, paying 8 mana and getting 4
2/2's is a very game changing effect, especially
when you can pop them out as surprise blockers.
The creature advantage you get from this card is
so nice that there's no reason not to play it if
you're going green. When you get that many
creatures out, you can usually just overpower
your opponent and alpha strike every turn.
4/5
