Magic The Gathering Card of The Day: Nyx Fleece
Ram
Welcome back readers todays card of the day
is amazing. One of the best anti agro cards made
in quite a while. This little sheep presents a
powerful wall in the form of a 0/5 creature and
is out of range of most burn spells and can
definitely easily deter early aggressive starts
from your opponent, the gaining one extra life a
turn can add up in matches giving you more time
to stabilize. In standard this will be a
definitive anti agro card if it already isent,
some early aggressive starts just fold to this
card and gaining a few life points while holding
back early aggression is golden a definite
sideboard champion. In modern it could see play
as well it blanks early beaters and life gain
can be relevant to offset damage players inflict
to themselves. In other competitive formats I
think its just baaaaaaaad. In casual and
multiplayer I value walls pretty highly and this
gains you life at a solid rate while deterring
aggression a perfect compliment for multiplayer.
In limited its sideboard worthy or worthy of
inclusion in an enchantment heavy deck. Overall
a powerful anti agro sideboard card that will
see kitchen table and constructed play.
Today's card of the day is Nyx Fleece Ram which
is a two mana White 0/5 enchantment creature
that has you gain one life at the beginning of
your upkeep steps. This is a very solid blocker,
difficult to remove by attacking or with burn,
and slowly widens the gap in life points between
you and your opponent. Having the option to
attack is beneficial and this will see play in
White or Blue/White decks with a control theme
or designed to stall into the later stages of a
game.
For Limited this is a two mana threat
neutralizer that is difficult to deal with and
at worst can bait out a removal, but otherwise
stalls out an offense and adds life as an added
benefit. There's no real drawback aside from the
lack of offense, though it is an excellent
target for Bestow or other auras. Aside from a
pure aggro deck there is no reason not to
include this in Sealed as a very effective means
of protection and life over time. In Booster
this could be picked very early after a White
rare and is at least worth an on color pick
after removal or offensive bombs are drafted.
This little sheep is a sly one. At first
glance, I didn't think much of him. He's a
defensive creature that gains life. That has
rarely proved to be a good strategy in Magic.
But, considering he can come out on turn 2 and
safely block almost anything your opponent could
have out at that point in the game, he might be
better than at first glance. Most of the
prefered burn spells can't even take him out on
their own, and if your opponent has to burn a
Doom Blade on him, then there's one less Doom
Blade in their library to take out your actual
threats.
In addition to being a great early blocker,
what else can he do? Well, he gains you a little
life, which further helps stall aggressive
decks. The lifegain can be used to trigger other
effects - Archangel of Thune in Standard,
Searing Meditation in Modern, and Oloro, Ageless
Ascetic in Commander to name a few off the top
of my head. Further, he's an enchantment - which
could be an advantage or disadvantage depending
on the situation, but he likes being out with
Ethereal Armor or Sphere of Safety, or
triggering Eidolon of Blossoms.
In limited games, an opponent is going to
have even more trouble getting around this guy
and can be a real headache if he's left sitting
around in a long game. The number of creatures
with 5 power they will have that can punch
through his tough hide...they probably won't
have very many.
In short, the ram isn't going to win you
games on his own, but don't overlook him as a
potential cog in the machine that is a great
deck.
This is one of the best anti-aggro cards I've
seen in a very long time. And I think the rest
of this review is going to be spent trying to
come up with something to top that opening
sentence.
I mean, it's 2 mana for 5 toughness! How
often do you see something like that? Well, it's
not unheard of actually. But Nyx-Fleece Ram is
one of the best among them, and I'll tell you
why.
A 0/5 is pretty incredible in the early game,
especially against aggro decks. They're throwing
their 3/2 at you, but it's just bouncing off
your wall. Err, sheep. Bouncing off your sheep.
Even burn spells don't fare much better. 2
damage? Easy. 3 damage? Quite a few good ones. 4
damage? There are a few powerful ones that can
do it. But 5 damage? Only the very best burn
spells can do that, and not for 2 mana. Besides,
if your 2 drop gets killed by a 5-damage burn or
a kill spell, you're probably happy that it
wasn't used on your real threats.
But what happens later in the game? How
useful is a 0/5 going to be when your opponent
is playing dragons and titans and hydras?
Normally not very, unfortunately. The most you'd
be able to get out of it is a single chump
block, most likely. Or just continue to block
their weaker guy indefinitely. This is where
Nyx-Fleece Ram starts to pull ahead of the
competition. Because Nyx-Fleece Ram is
constantly working on your behalf. Every turn it
is helping you to not lose the game, and the
best part is that you don't have to even do
anything. It's an aggro deck's worst nightmare,
as their goal is to bring you down as fast as
possible, before you're even able to cast your
big threats and turn the tide.
But if you cast this on turn 2, and say it
stays around until turn 7, it's gained you 5
life. That's nothing to sneeze at. The problem
with life gain is that it doesn't do anything on
its own. A card that gains you life and does
nothing else isn't usually worth running, as
preventing your opponent from winning doesn't
actually make you win. But attached to a decent
blocker at no extra cost turns it into a real
annoyance for your opponent.
Our sheep friend here is part of an overall
strategy where you play a slower, control-style
of deck. When you play this, you are saying 'Go
ahead, do whatever you want early game. I can
block your big guy and gain life to counter
whatever damage you do get through.' Your goal
using this is to make it unscathed to the mid or
late game, where you'll play your massive
threats, or combo pieces, or whatever big thing
you've been wanting to build up to, but needed
to ensure you'd live long enough to be able to
do it. It's usefulness is really limited to an
early-game anti-aggro card. Which is a pretty
useful thing to be, even if it is limited in
scope. The longer it lives, the steeper a hill
your opponent needs to climb in order to win.
Formats that really appreciate some defense in
order to build up their board will love this,
such as multiplayer and casual. Also decent in
limited. It can be useful in constructed, but
most constructed players want to play something
to win instead of play something to make your
opponent not win.
Nyx-Fleece Ram looks right into the eyes of
the god of death and says, "Not today."
Gaining one life every turn is the kind of thing
that doesn't really sound like much. Until you
realize that it's also attached to a creature
that's very good at blocking, and that some
decks will have a whole lot of trouble stopping
it from adding up. And up. And up. And then
maybe you combine it with Ajani's Pridemate, or
Ageless Entity, or Cradle of Vitality . . .
