I have no doubt that this card will be prized by
a certain subset of Magic players, though not
necessarily because of its quality. Lots of
people like to play Tribal decks, but some
people find themselves drawn to quirky, unusual
Tribes. I still remember my early attempt at a
Golem deck back in Mirrodin block... before the
Great Creature Type Update, when many creatures
that are now Golems were just an "Artifact
Creature". For a tribal deck to be viable, there
need to be at least a few good cards that
properly reward you for using the tribe in
question. Or at the very least, there needs to
be a critical mass of tribe members that are
good enough on their own, centralized to within
a few colors, and don't have any glaring
conflicts in their abilities. But that doesn't
stop people who decide that they like a specific
tribe so much that they want to build a deck
around it. And for those people, we have cards
like Call to the Kindred. These "wild card
tribal" cards encourage tribal decks, but they
don't care which tribe you're using. Much like
Adaptive Automaton and its ancestor Brass
Herald, plus the Morningtide cycle of Distant
Melody, Pack's Disdain, and so on, it's pretty
clear that this card will always have an
audience.
But is it any good? Well, it's an Aura that's
not a removal spell, and we know how that
usually ends up, but this one generates card
advantage if you can keep it around until your
next upkeep. It also drops creatures onto the
field directly from your library without you
having to pay for them, raising hopes of what
you could cheat out, and how early. Enchant an
Eldrazi Spawn token and get Ulamog, the Infinite
Gyre? Got your attention yet? And don't forget
that this is all happening in the color of Scry,
so this isn't the long shot it may sound like--
even in a format like EDH, where obscure tribes
inevitably have to run every available member
just to meet a quorum.
Again, surely this effect is green (cf.
Summoning Trap)? I suppose you could just break
down and play it alongside the green effects . .
. hmm. I suddenly had a vision of a Kiora Atua-style
deck, where you enchant a Kraken Hatchling with
this and get a Tidal Kraken the next turn.
There's nothing like a new way of cheating huge
monsters into play to make me forget momentarily
about possible color pie violations, and I
suspect a lot of people are going to adopt this
in our new creature-based blue overlords.
Assuming they're not freaked out by that art -
it reminds me a lot of the classic Star Trek
episode "The Mark of Gideon."
Welcome back readers and todays card of the day
is an interesting enchantment, like most
enchantment it doesn’t provide card advantage
and when your opponent kills the creature you
were going to enchant you just feel bad and
waste cards. In standard and extended and modern
and legacy and vintage I don’t feel this makes
the cut for a constructed playable card too much
inherent disadvantage in enchantments like this
and not enough competitive tribal oriented decks
that could use a card like this in constructed
formats. In casual and multiplayer this has a
chance of seeing play it faces some of the same
problems but the ability to cheat creatures into
play is worth trying out some decks may be
better suited to it than others making it an
interesting niche choice in casual and
multiplayer especially in decks with tribal
themes or perhaps enchantment themes. In limited
if you draft heavy tribal be it zombies or blue
white humans this could be an interesting choice
but definitely not a first pick or high value.
Overall a card with some casual applications and
some interesting non competitive interactions.
Today's card of the day is Call to the Kindred
which is a four mana Blue aura that enchants a
creature to allow you to play a creature with at
least one matching type from the top five cards
of your library at the beginning of your upkeep.
If combined with Hexproof in a dedicated tribal
deck this is a very impressive advantage that
can keep a game in your favor against nearly any
deck. Without Hexproof the two for one of
destroying the creature will be the top priority
of any opponent.
Overall this is a powerful card in the right
deck, but not something to be added to just any
design if anything near the full potential is
desired.
For Limited getting multiple creatures with the
same type is usually difficult, though the
Human, Spirit, and Zombie types should be common
enough between Blue and a neighboring color.
With luck in a Sealed pool this should be
playable and worth using as even one extra
creature lets you break even while more can win
a game. In Booster drafting a theme deck
can be a big advantage after this as a first
pick, but if the table or packs don't cooperate
it can be a dead card left in your sidedeck.
The risk is worth taking as the biggest concern
of using Call is removal which is far less
common in the format.
Welcome to the
Card of the Day section here at Pojo.com. We are
continuing our look at Dark Ascension, and close
out this week with Call to the Kindred. Call to
the Kindred is a rare enchantment aura that
enchants a creature. Call to the Kindred costs
three generic and one blue mana. Call to the
Kindred says that at the beginning of your
upkeep, look at the top five cards of your
library. If you do, you may put a creature card
that shares a creature type with enchanted
creature from among them onto the battlefield,
and then put the rest of them onto the bottom of
your library in any order.
This card is insane, period. The fact that there has
been such a push for tribal decks means that by
looking at the top five cards of your library,
you very easily will find a creature type in
common with the enchanted creature. And to
ensure it, enchant a changeling! Then you are
guaranteed to find one! Yes there are no
changelings in standard, but that just makes
this even more of a Modern based or Vintage
based card. Put it on some lowly Eldrazi, next
thing you know, Emrakul! Or, on a changeling,
all the sudden, Karthus, in a dragon deck. Very
useful, just depends on how you would like to
use it.
