Do I really need to say why a 5/6 flyer for 1UU
is a good choice? I shouldn't. But the
additional cost here is the talking point. You
have to have three dead creatures to cast the
Ruinator, and you need to exile them. If you
can't get three creature cards into your yard by
turn three, then the 5/6 flyer on the turn your
opponent's casting Cultivate is not going to
happen. You could run some cards with which to
mill yourself, but if your deck is about dumping
cards into your own yard, then the temptation to
run reanimation spells will run contrary to the
Ruinator, who wants to exile those cards where
you can't get them. Also, you run the risk of
milling away the Ruinator itself, defeating the
purpose of milling thyself.
You could simply wait until your early-game
creatures have died. Skaab Ruinator is certainly
big enough to be the late-game cleanup hitter,
standing shoulder to grafted-on shoulder with
Sphinxes and Dragons. But if your opponent runs
bounce, then the Ruinator may be too unwieldy to
function properly, as you'll need to restock
your graveyard with each recasting. How many
creature cards does an average deck have in it?
Probably not more than 15 or so in Limited,
Constructed tops out at 30ish but may run far
fewer depending on the strategy. And generating
tokens won't help-- your deck has a certain
number of cards in it, and there's not really
any way to get exiled cards back into your deck
or graveyard.
This is definitely going to generate some
dramatic tension in the months to come. Keep
your eyes out for this one, especially if your
opponent is playing blue and seems all too
willing to chump block.
I'm actually a fan of all the skaab creatures
from Innistrad. They look really cool, they add
a different angle to blue than the very
well-travelled "counter and draw" model, and
they remind me of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
and that makes me smile. Skaab Ruinator is the
most efficient in terms of cost to power, but it
might actually be harder to cast than the
Goliath (6/9 trample for six), considering there
aren't too many ways to get three creature cards
into your graveyard in the first two turns.
Granted, it doesn't always matter too much - a
creature as powerful as this one is hard to beat
at any stage in the game. When you add in the
times you actually do get lucky, perhaps with
something like Hedron Crab or Dream Twist, Skaab
Ruinator becomes a very powerful choice for any
aggressive deck including blue.
Today's card of the day is Skaab Ruinator which
as a three mana 5/6 with Flying is a very
impressive creature for the cost, though it
requires three creatures in the graveyard to be
exiled which greatly influences the deck design
to accommodate it. With proper support of
creatures and a method to get enough of them
into the graveyard this being low cost and
reusable if destroyed makes it one of the bigger
threats around.
Even with the two Blue in the casting cost a
Blue/Black build can efficiently run it and it
is likely at least a few variations on the
concept will be making the rounds.
For Limited this is a huge bomb in a creature
heavy deck and should not be too difficult to
cast during the game considering the average
length of games and number of creatures in any
given pool. Normally a double Blue on a three
cost creature is an issue, but as this is more
of a middle to late game threat with high power
and toughness that is less of a concern. An easy
first pick in Booster that can be supported by
library destruction if available and works in
any Sealed build using a decent supply of Blue
mana. There is little chance of an opponent
being able to handle a 5/6 with Flying
repeatedly which makes Skaab Ruinator a top
finisher and can actually make up for a fairly
weak pool by itself.
Welcome to the final card of the day
review for this week at Pojo.com! To close our
week out, we are looking at Skaab Ruinator.
Skaab Ruinator is a mythic blue zombie horror.
Skaab Ruinator is a 5/6 with flying for only one
generic and two blue mana. As an additional
costs to cast him though you must exile three
creatures from your graveyard. However, you may
also cast Skaab Ruinator from your graveyard.
This guy is just nuts. For starters,
there are plenty of ways to drop creatures into
your graveyard, especially in blue and in
Innistrad. So either getting him and/or enough
creatures to cast him shouldn’t be that hard to
do. Which means that Skaab Ruinator should see
play rather fast. But what’s worse is once he is
there, he is a 5/6 flier. Luckily he doesn’t
have trample, so holding him off until you draw
a kill spell, or other lockdown spell is
completely possible. And believe me, the
lockdown would be the better of those choices,
since using a kill spell is a wasted effort,
since he could be again cast from the graveyard.
My favorite thing about Skaab Ruinator is
vintage play, or casual play. It is completely
possible using some luck to drop both Skaab
Ruinator and Demon of Death’s Gate turn three
(sooner if you REALLY lucky). Three sacrifices
to the Demon of Death’s Gate, and then so long
as you’ve dropped two Islands, or some other
lands that produce blue mana, and any other
land, you would be able to cast two huge fliers
early game, and laugh at your opponents futile
attempts to survive. Because really, how would
you handle that? Best you could hope for is a
Day of Judgement next turn to get away from
that, but if you don’t drop it, the Skaab and
Demon could well end you, and in vintage, there
may be a Force of Will lurking just for the well
timed Day of Judgement.
Regardless of format, or how utilized,
this guy could be a game changer. If your
opponent is running a mill deck, I’m sure you’ll
be delighted as your cards fill that graveyard.
If they aren’t you’ll just have to mill yourself
to fill it for this gruesome abomination.
No matter what, your opponent will have
to think fast, or be ruined, by Skaab Ruinator.
Welcome back readers today’s card of the day is
an interesting graveyard based creature. A 5/6
flying creature is nothing to sneeze at, even
with the requirement you need to exile three
creatures from your graveyard. The ability to
recast this creature over and over is icing on
the graveyard cake. In standard this card will
most likely see singleton play in Birthing Pod
decks running blue as a nice beater that can be
recast potentially off of your sacrificed
creatures that accumulate in your graveyard.
Also I could see some sort of standard dredge
deck intent on dumping creatures and other
things into the graveyard and going to town I
could see a deck like this emerging. In extended
and modern there has to be a place for a new
Dredge deck that can feature this and/or
Vengevine and worry about stocking its
graveyard. In eternal formats it could see
fringe play in legacy it is a big beater after
all, in vintage I suspect it’s too slow. In
casual and multiplayer the person who uses their
resources most effectively wins and if you
aren’t using the creatures in your graveyard for
anything this is the perfect use of depleted
resources. It can survive fighting with a lot of
5/5 flying angels and dragons making it an
effective attacker and blocker making it a
resistant creature. In draft it requires two
blue mana but it is a recurable bomb and
obviously goes as a first pick or relatively
high. Overall this is a fantastic creature with
built in recursion and a beefy body begging for
graveyard decks to include him.
