Dramatic irony at its finest. Reading Unhallowed
Cathar's flavor text kind of makes me wince a
little, especially imagining the look on
Thalia's face when she sees Unhallowed Cathar
clawing at the gates. But as a card, Loyal
Cathar is a decent inclusion in any white aggro
deck. A 2/2 with vigilance makes a valuable
attacker because it doesn't require you to worry
about leaving blockers up. The fact that it
transforms when it dies also means that you can
"fight without fear" *gulp!* as you don't have
to worry about losing the creature. Though a 2/1
that can't block does feel like a step down from
a 2/2 with vigilance, it's still a very nice
feature. For one, it becomes black instead of
white, which will come in handy if your opponent
has pro: white creatures or Sword of War and
Peace. Second, it gains the Zombie creature
type. I doubt a Zombie deck would run Loyal
Cathar, but the fact that it isn't a Human
anymore means a Moonmist can't transform it
back. Though now that I think of it, I'd almost
rather the other side be a Human. But most
importantly, having a Loyal Cathar on the field
means that in the event of a board wipe, you get
a 2/1 back and your opponent gets nothing. And
since most good board wipe effects are in white,
you can run your own board wipe fearlessly with
this guy on the field. Which is good, because
with him out blocking your opponent will have to
overextend and play more creatures to get caught
in your Wrath. Either that or they blow two kill
spells on this guy.
This card is, without a doubt, the saddest
mini-story I have ever seen told through the
medium of Magic art and flavor text. The most
terrifying thing about zombies is the way they
corrupt people who were once your friends, and
make you fight against people who should have
been helping you. That's before you even get to
the fact that Constable Visil became the thing
he was most afraid of, and the way a ghoulcaller
made Thalia (and, indeed, Avacyn herself) into a
liar. Does it compound the tragedy to know that
this multi-layered black cosmic joke makes for a
much more desirable card in our world of
tabletop battlefields and FNM? Should we feel a
pang of guilt every time this card transforms?
Where will we find another two-cost white
creature that is as resilient as this? Can we
live with ourselves knowing that one of the few
hedges in Standard against the fact that Doom
Blade costs two mana for some reason comes at
the cost of a man's soul?
Today's card of the day is Loyal Cathar which
is a two mana White 2/2 soldier with Vigilance
that returns to play at the end step after it is
destroyed transformed into a 2/1 zombie soldier
that can't block. A 2/2 for two with
Vigilance isn't bad, so adding card advantage
makes this playable in soldier decks even though
the double White keeps it from being easily
splashed or as effective in multicolor decks.
For Limited the double White is a more
noticeable drawback and the card advantage isn't
as useful when the initial 2/2 might not enter
play until the later stages during which smaller
creatures are often needed for blocking.
Even with that any deck with enough White can
benefit from playing this as a possible
sustained offensive threat, especially if
combined with an equipment. In Sealed a
primarily White deck should always run this and
in general any deck with more than a splash of
White should use it as well. For Booster
it should be a later pick when any creature in
color is viable, but multiples should be avoided
if the deck is not primarily White.
Welcome to a new week
of card of the day reviews here at Pojo.com. We
begin looking at Dark Ascension this week,
starting with Loyal Cathar/Unhallowed Cathar.
Loyal Cathar costs two white mana and is a
common 2/2 white creature human soldier with
Vigilance. When Loyal Cathar dies, return it to
the battlefield transformed under your control
at the beginning of the next end step.
Unhallowed Cathar is a black creature that is a
zombie soldier, and is a 2/1 that cannot block.
Dark Ascension is a set filled with amazing
cards, right down to the commons. The Loyal
Cathar is no exception. Seeing how he can begin
in play as a 2/2 Vigilant creature, he is able
to lay down some damage and hang around to
block. Then in the event of death, he returns
and still is able to deal 2 damage, but loses
his ability to block.
Not too shabby when you consider no matter what form he
is in, he is a soldier, and that means ample
cards are out there that benefit. And that is
just for the soldier side. As a human, there are
still cards that pump him from Innistrad and
coming in Dark Ascension. And once he becomes a
zombie, there are tons of things zombies can do.
