When you look at Tasigur here, it's easy to have
your attention drawn to his intricate activated
ability, such that your first attempt to use him
in a deck is heavily slanted towards making use
of it. That's understandable - it's basically
repeatable card drawing, and its apparent
fairness is mitigated by the fact that many of
the cards you choose for that first attempt will
attempt to give your opponent no good choices.
But there's even more to him than that. Over
time at least as many cards will stay in your
graveyard as will return to your hand as a
result of his ability - they fuel other cards
with delve, or maybe your card pool extends back
to the likes of Genesis and Wonder. And if all
else somehow fails, he's a 4/5 and you probably
only paid about two mana for him. How many cards
can say that?
The number six card of the year is Tasigur, the
Golden Fang which is a six mana Black 4/5
Legendary with Delve and for four mana with two
of that Blue or Green you put the top two cards
of your library into the graveyard then return a
non-land card of an opponent's choice from the
graveyard to your hand. This is a card
where Delve is a very solid benefit to get the
most out of the activated ability as it limites
the opponent's choices. Even supported
with Delve other effects may be needed to
maximize each activation, so it takes a fairly
dedicated deck to reach that level if that is
the goal. The other option is to focus on
the self-milling and card advantage, though with
the added choices for an opponent it is only
efficient in the long run. Overall this is
a card with a great deal of potential that will
see some play in current formats, as a possible
one mana 4/5 and for the four mana reusable card
advantage.
In Limited this is a potential low cost 4/5 at
worst and possible card advantage at best which
makes for a fairly easy first pick in Booster.
The single Black in the casting cost can allow
this to be splashed into Green or Blue decks
with minimal dedication to the color and the
effects make it well worth considering, provided
there is not an excess of Delve in the pool
fighting for the same graveyard resource.
A card I wish was higher on the list, and at the
same time, got a bit more love in other formats.
At it's base, it's boring. At later points or as
in a self-mill, it's effectively a 1 drop 4/5
with a recursion option. Is it perfect? Nah, but
it's still really solid.
