This is a very cool card. Just when I get a
little hot at WOTC for printing so many reprints
and near reprints, a card like Volcano Hellion
comes along and reaffirms the creative energy of
Magic’s card designers. This card is probably
just too weird for constructed, however. In
limited, Volcano Hellion is not exactly a bomb
rare, certainly not a must-hit first pick, but
is a big body for a cheap price that can solve
some problems while it creates some new ones.
Namely, how much damage do you wanna take and
how much mana do you wanna pay for echo.
At the very least, for 2RR you can kill a big
creature and enjoy a blocker for a turn.
This card
is crazy. It can deal any amount of damage.
Zero? Sure. Ten? Sure. A billion? Sure. Of
coures, it deals that damage to you, but that's
just something to figure out how to get around.
This is a Johnny card without a doubt. It might
be packaged like a spike card - it's cheap and
large and deals damage when it comes into play -
but figuring out how to use it to deal a billion
damage to your opponent is the real challenge of
this card.
Hm. Not my favorite card. 2RR for a 6/6 is
pretty sweet. On turn 4 (or 5, I guess),
hopefully your life total is high enough as to
make this Echo cost prohibitive. It does serve
as removal, as needed, bumping off a critter,
making his echo more affordable and providing a
6/6 beater all at the same time. I'm still not
convinced. It wouldn't surprise me to see this
show up in a good deck (perhaps some sort of
Suicide Rakdos), but I'm not holding my breath
either.
Constructed - 2
Casual - 1 (I wouldn't want to hurt myself so
badly in a group game just to hit one creature)
Limited - 3+ (removal + fat body)
Aethereal
Volcano Hellion
Now this is interesting, as it lets you fry just
about anything on the board if your life total
is decent when you play it, then you can just
pay the echo of 4 (assuming you drop this on
turn 4 and drop to 4 life) and start the
beatdown. Like yesterday's card, though, I don't
see where this will fit in. Dropping to 4-5 life
on the fourth or fifth turn of the game is not
really a great situation to be in, especially
against a Boros deck.
In casual, it's a big guy but there are better
choices.
In limited, uh, probably not. You'd have to be
at 8-10 life for him to be worth it.
