If yesterday's card was a super-enabler for ETB
abilities, this is the counter. A two-power
flyer for three mana is a solid creature on its
own, and the fact that it can counter ETB
abilities will sometimes be super-handy. A lot
of other times, though, it will barely do
anything at all. And if you're holding back on
this waiting to counter an ability, you're
missing out on swinging for two in the air.
Remember: if you've got this on the table, your
opponent can't trigger any ETB abilities, so he
may hold them back in his hand. Just because you
can't see any being played doesn't mean you're
not hurting the other guy's strategy.
I like that we're starting to get some more
hippogriffs in Magic. I mean, I know that
they're just "horse-griffins," but look at how
adorable this guy is! I'm sure some readers are
probably wishing he'd been in M11 when Titans
were new, but the fact is that the
comes-into-play-trigger trope of Magic design is
not going away any time soon, and he's only
going to get better. Flash means that a lot of
decks will think they're safe when they're not,
and his stats mean you're not unhappy to just
play him early and go to town. My Hunted Horror
deck is rather wary right now.
Today's card of the day is Hushwing Gryff which
is a three mana White
2/1 with Flash, Flying, and creatures entering
the battlefield don't cause abilities to
trigger. This is a mediocre creature aside
from the final effect as a low toughness with
Flash isn't ideal for defense and only two
power, even with evasive, isn't impressive
offensively. The effect works well for
sidedecking against specific builds if building
around it in the maindeck is factored in, but it
likely won't be popular even in that role.
The very specialized nature will prevent this
from seeing much play and overall it is going to
be kept to a few metagames barring a shift in
current formats to very trigger oriented
designs.
In Limited this is a three mana 2/1 with evasion
and Flash, which makes it playable if only for
the early game surprise threat on the opponent's
turn. Not really a great first pick in
Booster as the effect isn't key in the format
and removal or bigger creatures will have more
of an impact. In Sealed this is worth
including when running White and aside from the
low toughness it doesn't have any major
negatives.
Creatures entering the battlefield can sometimes
have a big effect. In Standard alone, a quick
search on Gatherer shows several pages of cards
with "enters the battlefield" in their text. A
lot of them are pretty good, too: Angel of
Serenity, Archaeomancer, Armada Wurm, Banisher
Priest, Brain Maggot, Burning-Tree Emissary,
Fanatic of Mogus, Gray Merchant of Asphodel,
Lifebane Zombie...and I'm only halfway through
the list and only listing ones I've personally
played with or against. That's not to mention
all the evolve and constellation triggers that
might happen with enchantment creatures, and all
the crazy abilities people use in Commander,
Modern, or other formats. With Flash, you can
stop any of these abilities on the spot and keep
any more from happening until they deal with
your Gryff.
The downside is, that sometimes this guy is just
a 2/1 flying for three mana. But with flash,
even that's not completely terrible - especially
if you have some way to pump him up. For this
reason alone, he's a decent pick in limited.
I expect to see this card in a lot of sideboards
in the future as he messes up a lot of game
plans for your opponent.
