The first ability is why we're all here. Get
your creatures in there for damage, be it with
flying, protection from X, or just having more
attackers than they have blockers, and you'll
get to draw extra cards to ensure you have the
resources to keep doing it. The Bident itself
offers a means of clearing blockers... by
forcing them all to tap out attacking you. This
is far from ideal, as it means you need to have
Walls to protect yourself or end up eating the
damage, and it won't even clear blockers that
have vigilance, were cast post-combat, or can
untap themselves somehow. But you don't have to
get every one of your creatures through for this
to be a draw engine. Even one little 1/1 flyer
sneaking in there will do it. More attackers
getting through is just better, for all the
usual reasons.
Anybody - game designers, tabletop RPG players,
amateur historians, whatever - who says that
polearms "aren't badass" needs to go play
Assassin's Creed: Unity, equip Arno with a sword
staff or bident, and get in some fights. I'll
wait.
Everybody back yet? Good. Considering the bident
was a weapon of surprising subtlety, capable of
pinning enemies' weapons to the ground or
prising them out of their hands, Thassa's is
suitably tricky. Chances are, most decks are
playing it to turn all their creatures into
Thieving Magpies, which can be devastating, and
won't want to make their opponent attack them.
Then again, you can use it to set up certain
combat-related abilities like Void Stalker,
which are undeniably powerful but sometimes just
sit there because the opponent doesn't want to
attack when they see it. That may often be more
relevant in limited, but it's not nothing.
Today's card of the day is Bident of Thassa
which is a four mana Blue enchantment artifact
that is Legendary with whenever a creature you
control deals combat to a player you may draw a
card and for two mana it can be tapped to force
opposing creatures to attack that turn if able.
While the effects are decent, they only support
each other in a few situations and designing a
deck to take full advantage of the the tap
effect can be a bit trying. Overall it is
not a bad card and the draw effect is quite nice
with Blue's evasive creatures, so it can see
some play across current formats.
In Limited this is a little on the weak side
with the double Blue and situational second
effect, though the card draw is useful if
triggered a few times. In Sealed it can be
played when using Blue anyway, but isn't
compelling enough to force the color. In
Booster it is a mediocre first pick for the
possible card advantage, so removal or strong
creatures are likely the better choice in most
packs.
I really wanted the Bident to be good. It's
decent in the blue devotion deck as it has lots
of creatures and likes the two blue mana
symbols, but there are so many ways to draw
cards in blue, that it just doesn't stand above
the rest. It does help keep pressure on if you
can get creatures through, but blue isn't
necessarily the best color for that. I'd rather
play a basic draw spell and get 2 or 3
guaranteed cards for the mana instead of
spending 4 on this in the hopes of getting a
creature or two through for damage. If this were
any other color, it would probably be much more
popular.
In limited, however, any way to draw more cards
is worth picking pretty highly.
