Don't drop this on turn one, you're just setting
your land development back. The sacrifice is a
big drawback, unless you're running Knight of
the Reliquary or Grim Discovery, but a 3/2
shroud for one mana is nice. Nice enough that
you could wait until you've played out your
hand, then drop it now that you're set for lands
and it won't be outclassed by what your opponent
has dropped in the interim (probably). The
shroud keeps your opponent from 2-for-1'ing you
with a kill spell (getting your creature and
your land with one card), but it also stops you
from using Giant Growth and the like. This is a
tricky card to evaluate, but I think if you
can't somehow exploit the land sacrifice, it's
just not worth running.
Here's a philosophical question for the weekend:
how many drawbacks does this card actually
have? For every game you lose because you can't
target it with Rancor and don't win fast enough,
you'll win one game where your opponent's
Echoing Truth or Terror never had a valid
target. I like it.
Today's card of the day is Scythe Tiger a 3/2
with Shroud for one mana with the noticeable
drawback of sacrificing a land when it comes
into play. The 3/2 is solid, especially
early, but the loss of a land is a fairly major
penalty depending on the deck. Getting an
impossible to target creature out can be a huge
benefit against decks with only targeted removal
options, but mass destruction or even decent
blocking can stop the tiger cold. In a
deck that is based on fast offense without much
to build up to this is a good fit, but the low
toughness prevents it from hitting the top tier.
With Constructed, Casual, and Multiplayer this
can find homes in certain decks such as a Knight
of the Reliquary build as an easy way to get a
land into the graveyard. Suicide Green
might show up somehow and make use of it as
well, but otherwise mana acceleration and some
larger threats may be the way to go.
In Limited the loss of a land is problematic,
but such a severe threat on the first or second
turn is impossible to ignore. Your style
of play really determines the value in Booster
and Sealed, but I see this as a higher end
choice. In Sealed the pool is quite
limited and if playing Green some kind of speed
is likely to be available to help compensate for
the sacrifice of a land. With Booster you
can use this for early offense and more
importantly prevent an opponent from doing the
same.
Think of your other cards and what can stop
Scythe Tiger in the first few turns and if you
have little or nothing it should be drafted
quite early on.
