This is pretty much the perfect Timmy card.
Huge? Check. Cool abilities? Check. Totally
shuts down your opponent? It's unblockable as
long as the defending player controls a land, so
check. Hard to kill? Well, it has eight
toughness and can't be blocked, so kind of
check. Opponent must kill it in two turns (give
or take) or lose? Check.
Multiplayer puts a new wrinkle on this. When
this hits, nobody can attack anybody without a
flyer or islandwalker. That means the guy with
the army of Squirrel tokens is now useless
because he can't swing with them and can't use
them to block any creature that can still
attack. It also means you've got an unblockable
8/8 and nobody else does, so they'll all want to
gang up on you, but they may not be able to
actually attack you. They'll be digging for a
kill spell no doubt, but you could easily take
out somebody before someone finds one. The
question is: once the Leviathan dies, does the
rest of the table decide "threat dispatched" and
go back to what they were doing, or do they gang
up on you in the hopes of taking you out before
you drop a second one?
I have a soft spot for all the old-school Magic
cards that depicted sea monsters, even the ones
with crippling disadvantages. Since people first
started telling stories, the sea has been viewed
as an alien realm on our very doorstep, teeming
with mysteries and forces beyond our ability to
comprehend. In my opinion, it took until
Stormtide Leviathan for that aspect of the sea
to be truly expressed in a Magic card, and I
welcome it. Yeah, it's expensive, but it can
basically take over a game if you can protect it
from certain undercosted removal spells that
won't be named (and you should be able to -
you're in blue, right?). It's criminally
underrated as a reanimation target, too, as it
basically turns off the main pre-sideboard
answer to such strategies (namely, race race
race).
Today's card of the day is Stormtide Leviathan
which is an eight mana
8/8 Blue with Islandwalk that makes all lands
Islands in addition to their other types and
prevents creatures without Flying or Islandwalk
from attacking. This is a very powerful
card to use as a finisher in a stall and control
theme and the theme works well against the
primary drawback of cost and typical removal
options. With minimal support this can easily
win a game in two attacks and it definitely has
the potential to be seen in some competitive
builds as well as many Casual ones.
For Limited this is a very impressive, if
unsplashable, bomb that will win games with
relative ease once it hits the field. An
amazing topdeck that shuts down most offensives
and puts a clock on the opponent in a single
move. A clear no pass first pick in
Booster, but with the three Blue in the cost
requires a fairly solid pool in Sealed to be
part of a reliable design.
