Avacyn Restored had a subtheme involving
flickering, and this creature is like the lord
of that theme. Six mana may be a relatively high
cost, but when you actually get basically
unlimited flickering of whatever value creature
you choose plus the Navigator as a 5/5 that
can't be killed by anything as long as you have
two mana up, it feels a lot cheaper. It's even
hard to stop it with something like Squelch or
Rimewind Cryomancer because the cost is so long
and they can do it again in response. Despite
that, the requirement of having another creature
makes it somewhat less desirable for traditional
control decks, but it can be absolutely
dominating in slower casual settings or
Commander.
Today's card of the day is Deadeye Navigator
which is a six mana Blue
5/5 with Soulbond that allows it and the paired
creature to each blink for two mana. The
mana cost on this is fairly high, but with it in
play alongside a target that has a major enters
or leaves play ability the game should be almost
won. Options include two mana countermagic,
tokens, destruction, and bounce which can all
leave an opponent with few options. It
works best with a deck built to support it and
stall into six mana, though having two creatures
with low cost blink effects is disruptive even
without support.
In Limited the format has many enters play
effects and this can be a dominant first pick in
Booster that is easily supported with later
picks. For Sealed this works well as the
top card in both mana cost and finisher
potential for even a halfway decent Blue pool
and should not be sidedecked unless the pool
leans too far into another direction to manage
it.
I keep hearing horror stories about this in EDH.
I haven't played against it so I'll assume it's
good in EDH, and pretty much.... unplayable
without ramp elsewhere. Sure, let's go with
that.
