Wednesday, January 28, 2015

CCDD 012815: Ashtol, the Lingering Hate

Welcome back to Nephilim Week, artisans. Today's four-colored horror brings back one of my favorite keywords.




I intentionally didn't make these Nephilim fatties since I wanted them to be powerful but vulnerable, things you would want to build a deck around and be willing to cast multiple times over the course of a game with mana cost penalties. I also didn't want to use keywords, but the design for BR kept pushing me towards using counters to increase life loss per turn, and UG already had proliferate under its belt, so there we are.

While the activated abilities on the Nephilim are specifically designed to compliment the triggered ability, this case was interesting in that it actually served to give even broader definition to the card as a potential commander. I would be completely fine swapping this guy in as commander in my Experiment Kraj deck without making any other changes to the list.

8 comments:

  1. Life loss intentional so you can't shortcut with commander damage?
    I'd consider putting the counter on your turn and the life loss on each opponent's turn, if it didn't get too texty. It gets a lot stronger, but it also gives opponents an incentive to think about when they want to remove Ashtol.

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    1. Commander damage is only combat damage, anyway.

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  2. Since these are clearly designed for commander, would it be too strong it hit each opponent? Mogis is annoying, but not unreasonable.

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  3. I think this should use +1/+1 counters and maybe have can't block / is unblockable or something.

    The sad thing is thta the coolest part of this card is that it has proliferate which suggests building a deck, and then has an ability that wants to be in a totally different kind of deck. Not that there isn't (minimal) synergy, but this card is very aggressive while proliferate is very grindy.

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    1. Maybe replace "Proliferate" with "Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent this turn, proliferate" for the second ability?

      I think it might be more in tune with the aggressiveness of the first half, with the potential for a more explosive/aggressive use of proliferate that is less about a slow buildup and grind.

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  4. I love it. I think this is the best from the ones you showed so far

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  5. Swapping this guy into an Experiment Kraj deck without making any other changes might be a poor choice, as I don't imagine your manabase will be able to produce the black or red mana required to get him onto the table... (Command Tower, Opal Palace and Commander's Sphere might be in there already, and perhaps even things like Grand Coliseum, but even so.)

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    1. I realized after I posted, but yeah. The point mostly being that a commander with activated proliferate is exciting on its own without all that nonsense at that top of the card.

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