FALLEN EMPIRES

If not for the Reserved List, I think this would have been reprinted by now.

The original Moonglove Extract. I wouldn't say Aeolipile is way better, just different. The total cost stays the same.

For anybody who doesn't know, this is on the Reserve List. What.

Faster than Cursed Scroll a lot of the time. Pins down a man-land well enough for only 1 mana. Can deal the last 2 points of damage in a game easily. Gets around Mother Of Runes easily. Its usually a removal spell since so many creatures die to 2 toughness. Although the scroll is repeatable if youre playing with Dark Confidant you don't often have an empty hand. Its got value to it in many ways and in a black or red-creature deck has enormous value against people hosing you.

This is part of Fallen Empires's cycle of super weakened "boons" (after the Alpha ones). So weakened that they are almost unrecognizable as based on that original cycle. This one was lightning bolt.

The scariest thing about this card is that it was a rare in Fallen Empires.

The beauty of Aeolipile is that it can be put in any deck ever. Being able to get rid of a big percent of pesky critters is a nice touch.

Compared to the other (generally terrible) artifact boons in Fallen Empires, this card benefited from the fact that Lightning Bolt was over powered (and, unlike Ancestral Recall, WotC hadn't recognized that yet.) So even a severely nerfed version of it is still useful, especially as an artifact.

Actually, the power behind this card was the fact that if you ran Mono White or Mono black back in the day and someone had a Pro White or Pro Black creature such as White/Black Knight, Order of Leitbur/Ebon Hand, white and black removal didn't work so this got around that problem. White weinie and mono black black discard with Hippies and pro white were being played a lot. Ah the good old days.

Shock in a bottle. Aeolipile is decent even by today's standards. Red has more efficient direct damage, but Aeolipile's strength is that it can be used in virtually any deck.

i deal 2 damage to your tolarian academy, this is the best rare EVER

@Radagast: the Reserved List does forbid exact functional reprints, although they can come very close (see Moonglove Extract)

As this is on the Reserved List, I feel as though they shouldn't have copied it so blatantly with Moonglove Extract. It sets a disturbing precedent, just like how Plague Sliver is a slap in the face to the Juzam Djinn crowd.

Not great, but not bad. It was useful for knocking out Hypnotic Specters and "pump Knights" which were threats for their time. As for the reserve list, they could always reprint stuff with different names... I see no reason to forever deny the game classic cards (or variations of them) just because somebody once shelled out big bucks for a card. This is a trading card game, not the stock market.

@ GainsBanding - the Aeolipile might have been part of a cycle of weakened boons, but you gotta admit, that unlike the other four, this one was actually quite playable. Also, I disagree with Implements of Sacrifice being a weakened Dark Ritual; it appears from all angles to be much more like a ultra-nerfed Black Lotus. And to all of you talking about the "Reserved List", I have one word for you: Proxies. And two more words for you, actually: Casual Play.

It's easy colorless removal you can toss into literally any deck. Something this versatile wasnt a silly rare back then, especially since few creatures besides walls had high enoigh defence to survive one of these.

Quite a bit better than Moonglove Extract IMO; since it's on a payment plan. I may use this as a 1-of to use early game and with Academy Ruins. Yeah; it's 6 mana for 2 damage; but sometimes you have to close out the game in a different way because Control vs. Control can be like that. Cursed Scroll's 3-4 mana repeating is reasonably conditional and has a lot of hoops to jump through if you're behind. If you have Red, consider pyrite spellbomb.

Not the best art of the 4 for this card.

Now that we have Steady Progress and more proliferate stuff, this is very nice.

Say hello to my nipple!

Is That Martha Washington ?

This is to Aeolipile as Healing Salve is to Lightning Bolt.

"The Medics strike of 165AR caused armies to use almost anything to heal their wounded. Thus even the worst healing methods became valuable."

Rather useless, even for its time.

Props for flavor.

To the guy saying "this way rare?": actually it wasn't. At the time of these cards, the rarity system was more complicated. You had like "common 1, common 2, common 3, uncommon 1, uncommon 2, uncommon 3" and so on. I think the "common" and "uncommon" referred to the sheets they were printed on, and they number how often the appeared, or something like that. So common1 was less common than common2. If I remember it correctly, people later roughly considered uc1 and uc2 to be rare, uc3 and c1 to be uncommon, and c2 and c3 as common. But in some sets were also more rarities. So saying "this card was rare" is probably a bit dumbed down, since it could have been a rare rare or a common rare. :)

Practically useless, there are billions of ways doing the things that this card does better. But you gotta remember how old this is.

Wow, this is what passed for a rare in 1994? 3 mana to gain 2 life? (and not even at instant speed like Healing Salve or Nourish..) Where would that be useful?

"(...) For them, Balm of Restoration was that much more valuable." -Sarpadian Empires, vol. I This could also refer to Wizards back then in 1994 - this card would at most make a poor uncommon slot these days..

Terribad.

Yea, just cant say anything nice about this one, sorry.

Looks like Martha Washington with a bong to me.

Healing Salve wasn't very good. This was even worse.

Fallen Empires, most useless set in magic. Even back then I remember being disappointed at the cards I was getting in these packs. And you can still buy a pack from this set for less than $4. That shows you how much it sucked. Not sure why they even put this out, Legends had good cards, Revised and 5th edition had good cards.

You think that's bad? I once found an entire booster box of it on sale for £80. Was tempted for the Hymn, but then I realised I'd get so much awful stuff. There are a few things that are OK, but when you get stuff like this AS RARE... I can't even use the 'But it's an old card!' argument that I use for older stuff that's allowed some leeway. This is just awful.

Get a Soldevi Adnate instead....

dfeyder isn't TOO far off though- I like the idea of putting this, Culling the Weak, and Dark Ritual all in the same deck. No, you can't quite 'chain' them together, but just in general putting lots of mana producers in the deck could produce something nice-looking :) You would want to target something else with Culling, though..

@dfeyder - Not really, Culling the Weak is a decent card, but you can't sacrifice this thrull for it's ability and for Culling the Weak, so it's still BlackBlackBlackBlack. Honestly, killing off an Ornithopter, Kobolds of Kher Keep, or any power =1 creature while Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker is on the board would be better. @donjohnson - Soldevi Adnate is definately a decent card, but they serve two different purposes. This guy is more like a one time "free" boost of mana. It and Blood Pet are good for setting up something in the mid game. Soldevi Adnate is more for the later game and casting big spells like, Consume Spirit. Though, I do prefer that Soldevi Adnate can turn a Darksteel Colossus (that I hopefully Master Transmutered in) into 11 Black mana.

This is not the best example of the black theme of sacrificing creatures for black mana, nor is it the worst. It certainly compares with Blood Pet and is better than Blood Vassal. Don't forget to check out Priest of Yawgmoth which is the granddaddy of black mana producing sacrifices. And although Cull the Weak is very cool, good ol' overprinted Sacrifice is quintessence on the theme.

thrull+ culling the weak is win.

howling mine has almost the same art.

The problem with lands like this and their potential combinations with Doubling Season / Gilder Bairn or Proliferate is that you still have to spend mana to get mana. Usually, getting a net gain isn't worth it unless you have an Variable Colorless cost worth paying. But if you're patient, I suppose it wouldn't be bad.

This is part of a cycle of "storage lands" from Fallen Empires which are all plagued by their slow, slow speed. At a time when land destruction was so rampant and cheap, this could easily set you back very very far. To give you some idea of how slow these lands are, note that they all enter the battlefield tapped, and then require you to tap to remove counters. To get more benefit than a simple Swamp, you'd need to invest 4(!) turns. Compare this to the oft-reprinted Ebon Stronghold, and that cycle of lands, from the same set, which provide a little optional burst after they come into play tapped. This card is overshadowed by one of the most powerful and game-defining spells of all time: Dark Ritual. It's simply faster, simpler, and less prone to destruction than this land. It's just way too slow for most black decks, even for its day. It's also sub-optimal because you need to choose to untap it during your untap phase to use it, thus no longer gaining counters. Good luck surprising anybody with your Terror when you do that. Here's the storage land cycle for the curious: Black: Bottomless Vault Blue: Sand Silos Green: Hollow Trees Red: Dwarven Hold White: Icatian Store

"Hey Grum-gol." "hey what?" "what's dat?" "what's what?" *points* "Dat black cloud on de horizon." "Oh, thats just de thrull rebellion takin place."

I lol'd. I wish the search function was working so I could take a look at all of Kryptnyt's comments. :P

Despite his errata, he still can't block Cardpecker.

A friend of mine used to call this version of the art "Chinese Orcs". Unfortunately this has stuck with me throughout the years, and every time I see this I think that. As for the creature, this is playable card. It's not a huge drawback for a creature whose main function is to attack in the first place. It's reasonably costed for its power, and is playable for a set that featured such luminaries as Goblin Flotilla and Homarid.

Great art. A card that was almost intended for Lord of the Pit alone.

Of course in the old days, wherever this was, Lord of the Pit and/or Minion of Leshrac wasn't far behind. For today? Hm... Doubling Season + Mass Polymorph. You can quit paying the upkeep after you're done with this. Sure, a G/B/U deck would be an odd combo, but if it works, do it. Then you can throw in all kinds of big, high-mana cost creatures in trade for all the tokens. Just don't put a Phage the Untouchable in there. For all the beating its reputation has taken over the years, a fair bit of Fallen Empires stuff combos nicely with newer stuff like proliferate and Doubling Season.

Great card, the upkeep is a bit of a pain. Still, very useful for providing a non-stop flow of black creatures to be sacrificed to various spells and beasts. Try it with Soul Exchange and watch your armies come back to life even stronger than before!

A little overpowered there, Demiajor? Awakening zone is your answer to that, except that it costs (2G) instead of (B), and the eldrazi spawn make colorless mana. And it's still kinda broken.

This is the only way I've been able to use hecatomb. Then I wised up and replaced it with Death Pit Offering. Attrition and Mind Slash work with this too.

Face like an angel, body like a *h-urk!*

A perfect fit with Ebon Praetor.

Everyone should know the combos to this card.

Great card to go with creature sacrifice. I like it with fallen angel and thrull champion..

No Doubt one of the few overwhelmingly useful cards from Fallen Empires, even more impressive, one of the ONLY cards reprinted after the fact,lol. And we must always remember Fallen Empires will forever be remembered as the birth Set of the two most prolific unique creature types of the game. Thrulls, and Saporlings! To be reprinted, and expanded upon in card after card through just about every set made since;) But as for this card, it is the first part of the best MTG player pick up line ever..."hey baby, want to come to my Breeding Pit and see my Shivan Dragon?"

A laudable combo card that allowed so many early sacrifice-based decks to work. I recall using it myself in a green-black deck that used Skullclamp (yeah, I know) and various other cards that required sacrifices. Pretty much outclassed, nowadays, but it's still not BAD and worth playing if you can't get your hands on any alternatives.

It has one advantage over Awakening Zone, and that's how it interacts with Teysa, Orzhov Scion or Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Suddenly, each thrull has "when this creature dies, turn it into a 1/1 white flier, or pay 2 life and each opponent sacrifices a creature."

I'm sitting reading the comments for what people use with this card. And it's like reading the black section of my brother's G/B sacrifice deck. Breeding pits, Lord of the Pit, Ebon Praetor, Minion of Leshrac, death pit offering, soul exchange and even hectacomb. ... That deck annihilates me so much... Thrulls and thallids should not unite... A great card in it's day, and still extremly useful to this day. Wtih fecundity, the corner stone of that deck.

Back in the day: this + anything = #HOLYCOWIMADEACOMBO

Surpassed by more modern cards, yet still not that bad if you have the mana to spend. Sure, Bitterblossom, Awakening Zone, etc. are better, but this card can also fill a role in some crazy Commander deck that needs lots of tokens.

The original art - for this card, the best art. As to combos, there are a couple of cards that remove your upkeep phase, Doubling Season makes more lovely Thrulls, and, yea, all the other combos as well.

I love Lord of the Pit ^-^ with Breeding Pit if only I had a Bitterblossom or a Token generator like this: (B) Enchantment At the beginning of your upkeep, put a Black Rose - Creature Token (Black) – Thrull Plant - 0/1 (Defender.) (T, Sacrifice Black Rose: Add B to your mana pool.) good luck in everything to all ^-^... bye. Demia JOR time.

Helps if you have something that reduces mana costs of activated abilities.

Great card if you draft FE (as in the Masters Edition drafts on MTGO), since it completly screws up combat math. Also, unlike most other prevent-damage-guys, it can be used the turn it comes into play, and can prevent damage dealt to several creatures and/or players at the same time. Outside of limited, rather crappy though. 4 stars for limited, 1 for constructed decks (a pity there is only one rating).

It works better than you might expect.

@A3kitsune Training Grounds

Samite Healer

that's too good :D faked red cross, hilarious!

Very strange mount.

I expected combat medic to be able to fight and kill a creature . . or something . . 0/2? really?

Even with Training Grounds this isn't that great, without it its nearly worthless until very very late game when the victor has already essentially been determined.

I can't help but love this art- the badass medic riding that strange beast- the copyright-defying "Red Cross" symbol (yes, that is copyrighted. All the video games that use it are doing so in spite of the legal implications), the sense of motion. The card is not too horrible, though the lack of power hurts its. Still, in limited, this could totally save your buns.

Does less damage than insidious bookworm

Went obsolete with Battlefield Medic, although I could see you maybe running one of these as an auxillary if you have a very instant-low deck.

What a piece of crap. A real waste of cardboard. SHAME!

Obsolete and underpowered even for its time.

Not bad. Keeps creatures alive.

Zero power! What, has she taken the Hippocratic Oath?

It's overpriced to use, but I still recall getting a bit of use out of this card back in the day.

Incredible way to prevent all damage to you multiple times a turn.

This was a major PITA in it's day. So many ways to do ridiculous dmg, it's been outclassed by powercreep...smh.

Guys... Miracle.

While the other four cards in this cycle were printed with "Sacrifice ~ to do something", this one had the sacrifice in a sentence by itself. So, in Oracle-updating it, WotC could have chosen not to move the sacrifice to the cost, enabling some synergy with Voltaic Key, Clock of Omens, or Mind Over Matter.

Magic Conch Shell, will I ever get married?

Hooray for extremely attractive green-haired girl! She can blow my conch anytime

This is part of Fallen Empires's cycle of super weakened "boons" (after the Alpha ones). So weakened that they are almost unrecognizable as based on that original cycle. This one was ancestral recall.

its not 2 cards, it simply replaces itself. that nets 0

ALL HAIL THE MAGIC CONCH OOLOOLOOLOOLOOLOOLOO

Oh, hi, there, Zeetha!

"awesome powers".

Looks almost like Alfons Mucha's artwork. Almost.

Three mana, two cards. Not bad.

Yeah, this is a lot of work for little gain.

Ancestral Recall had to REALLY be dumbed down...

I somehow remember this card being more common than a rare (though I know about the wacky rarity system back then). In any case, 3 mana to draw 2 cards then put one back on top of library, it's fair though discard would have been better I think.

I like it. Same utility as Brainstorm, while also gaining artifact synergy.

Rare that feels like a common...

Modern mages are a bit on the dim side, huh.

Read this a 'Crotch Shell" the first time :/ 2.5/5 Stars

Part of the Boon Cycle from Fallen Empires, which were callbacks to the powerful 1-mana instants from Alpha. The tradeoff for these being artifacts and therefore being accessible to all colors was a hit to their effect, and an additional mana cost. These cards were: Aeolipile - Lightning Bolt Balm of Restoration - Healing Salve Conch Horn - Ancestral Recall Elven Lyre - Giant Growth Implements of Sacrifice - Dark Ritual This one may be the best of the bunch, though Aeolipile saw lots of play too. It provides any deck with a costlier Brainstorm, which is itself a very powerful card. As previously mentioned, this is extremely powerful in conjunction with Miracle cards, and other topdeck-matters strategies, like Coiling Oracle and Riddle of Lightning.

Actually does not suck :) Just does not rock. :(

For such an intimidating-looking artifact, it does very little. I guess you can use it with Keeper of Tresserhorn?

Great against stall decks like fog engines when combined with sanguine bonds; or decks that revolve around damage mitigation, such as thunderstaff or the urza's armor. (Your no damage dealing creature is now gaining you life instead of doing nothing) The only minuscule issue I can see is the sacrificing.. Other than pretty decent card. The 'oshi-' button it offers for any deck that uses 0 costing artifacts is nice as well.

Another victim of power creep: Darksteel Relic overclasses it! Seriously, in the early days were made several cards for every basic game effect, and life gain is one of these. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the most useless of them.

A relic of the era when life-gain on its own was considered devastating. Had this thing just given the target lifelink when sacrificed, it still would have been weak, but at least usable in some fashion..

When homelands was released, I tried to put this in any deck. I thought "0 mana? What a bargain! Great art too!". :P Actually the card is horrible of course. The only good thing is that 0 mana cards are often parts of combos, but there are better ones than this.

Combo with Storm Crow.

Is it possible to rate a card lower than 0.5? Quite arguably the card with the worst art quality-card quality ratio, or possibly even the worst card ever printed (in the worst set, at that. ouch.) Its *only* saving grace is the 0 cc, and there are much better free artifacts out there. @Weretarrasque (nice DD ref, btw)- the thing is huge, like a skyscraper- notice the forked lightning at the top? If it were small, those arcs would be much fatter and less forked (sorry- special FX is my day job ;-)

Man, I just can't get ANY sense of scale on this thing! Anyway, it sucks. It just sucks. Don't use it, don't buy it, old cards aren't always worth something, newbies.

Would combo with some thrulls, such as Necrite or mindstab thrull. That said, they'd still only give you 2 health, which for 0 CMC is great, except that it costs you a card. Meh...

I let out a little sigh every time I see this card in my older collection.

Geez, this is painfully bad. Like, there is absolutely no use for this piece of crap whatsoever. Anything it could do, another card already does better.

Wow. I was going to use Sorrow's Path for firewood but I somehow like this card even less.

>Must be one of the worst cards in the game.

Bad design.

A free artifact is always a good thing to keep around. Plus the "Is not blocked" clause can be pretty relevant if you go in for an alpha strike and your opponent smugly exiles your biggest card with a Path to Exile or the likes, since your creature won't be doing any damage from the graveyard or outside the game you might as well activate this sucker and gain the life you'll need to start over from your failed play. I'd suggest it in a {R} {B} Megatog/Atog Artifact Sac deck with some Kill-Spells, Burns, and a few Disciples of the Vault. Ramp up your mana with some Myr and other trinkets, Smite down all their blockers and then sac artifacts like crazy and go in for a huge hit with one of your Atogs while leaving one of these on the field. If the Atog hits, you win due to the combined damage from the attacker and the damage from your disciples, if they smite the Atog you can activate this sucker and gain a ton of life and use it to give you enough time to get another setup ready. Not a terrible card, just a bit more situational than it ought to be.

I don't see what the deal is here. It's a free artifact, which helps any artifact deck, and can help you gain life when you need it. Serra Avatar, anyone? 4/5

"Black creatures tend to be over cost because of Dark Ritual." You're going to have to provide some sort of evidence supporting this idea, otherwise I just don't buy it. Green and white get the most efficient creatures; it's in their share of the color pie. Because black has continued to get inefficient creatures long after Dark Ritual has left even extended, I think it's safe to say it's just a consequence of the color pie. If Dark Ritual was really the motivation for nerfing black, wouldn't they also have cut the efficiency of black non-creature cards, too?

this won't change the CMC of the card, it will just add 1 black to the CC, the same way if you kicked a spell Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder wouldn't put out extra thrulls from the kicker cost. But Eppek is right, this wasn't a bad card in Fallen Empires because 4/4 creatures were a rarity, so just playing one made you a force to be reckoned with. Same mindset as Vizzerdrix.

Not horrible back in the day, but certainly not great either. The fact that it was a Thrull helped, as you could sacrifice it and take advantage of some Thrull shenanigans when you needed to get rid of it. 2/5 for retro flavor.

For 3B, this still makes some sense to me. You need to go into 2BB before I start expecting a (minor, not major; no power creep, please!) boon.

Decent back then. A 4/4 black creature for 3B was pretty solid. Sure, it wasn't a Juzam, but still, it could beat face. Obsolete by today's standards.

In the day, I mean back in the day, you could rock the house with a Derelor in the 5 color green deck.

When Derelor was first printed, it was not regarded as crap. Many players were willing to accept the drawback of more expensive future black spells just to get out a cheap 4/4 body. Nowadays, we expect our 4/4's for 4 to have HELPFUL abilities, but this was not the case in Fallen Empires.

Back in the day this card was amazing, playing a multi-color deck, it's 1 B in the CC was nothing, but a 4/4 creature was huge as it wouldn't die from a single lightning bolt, and would require an opponent to use either dedicate a large amount of mana into fireball/disintegrate or use more than one card to kill it, since it couldn't be terrored. Only Swords to Plowshares would kill it, and at the time people didn't want to give opponent life

@hovercraft, even without dark ritual, black has always been efficient. erg raiders, juzam, stone throwing devils, hypnotic specter, order of the ebon hand, knights of stromgald, black knight, ihsan's shade, and nightmare were all being played during black's heyday - from the early years up til the banning of necropotence. i don't see how you can say that black creatures are overcosted in general unless you're talking about baron sengir.

Donate.

Not sure what you guys are going on about.. Only comparable card to this is Ashling, The Extinguisher which is Legendary and not a Thrull. This is the same tribe with Blood Pet and is way faster than you are all giving it credit for. Black creatures tend to be over cost because of Dark Ritual. Any creature that is not over cost like Phyrexian Negator will have a horrible drawback. Juzám Djinn is only 1 power and 1 toughness greater and is worth $200 in addition to dealing you damage every turn. In a race, Derelor is about as good as a Juzam. The tradeoff of not dealing it's controller damage, and being a thrull instead of a.. nothing really.. has it's advantages for sure. Since black decks empty their hand very quickly even if you are playing Dark Confidant Derelor really has no drawback. It is much more easily worked around than you're all assuming. Also, Ashenmoor Gouger cannot block nor does it splash with Wasteland . Derelor is in fact compared to other black creatures one of the better choices you could decide to throw in a deck.

i agree with Eppek_the_Goblin

This actually works better with Endrehk, as he makes more thrulls based off of casting values. Almost looks like they were made for eachother.

I played when this was printed and this was unusable garbage even then. One of the worst to ever hit the printing press..0.5/5

I remember running a deck where I would Slight of Mind this card into another color, then Donate it to my opponent; if they didn't play black, one of their colors was completely shut down. Eventually I just moved on to donating Illusions of Grandeur instead.

Thrulls should get a tribal creature in a new Sarpadia set that is similar to Bosk Banneret.

Not bad, I'm also a sucker for old flavour. To all those currently naysaying: please note that this card was in the original Sligh decklist. You know, the deck that was the genesis of RDW.

Those giving one- and two-star ratings aren't aware of the card in historical context. They're used to a world where Deadbridge Goliath (2GG 5/5) is Standard-useless even before Polukranos existed. As I have cast more Derelors in Standard ("Type II") tournaments than anyone on the planet, I shall defend it. in the first days of Standard (1995-96), the consensus best creature was Chronicles' reprinted Erhnam Djinn, a 4/5 for 3G that gives an opposing creature forestwalk each turn. Even then, Derelor was lightly regarded by the masses. The flavor text, essentially broadcasting "this is a bad card", didn't help. But it was a 4-power 4-drop with a back end out of Bolt and Incinerate range whose biggest downside was that it loses a fight with Erhnam itself. Derelor was best in precisely the same scenarios as Erhnam: as a splash, possibly as the only black cards in your deck. An Erhnam cast off a Karplusan Forest or Barbed Sextant has no downside (and possibly even upside, as you can give forestwalk to a small creature and then block - 'oops, no forests'); a Derelor has no downside if you've got no other black cards to cast. You wouldn't put it in monoblack Necropotence, opting for Sengir Vampire or Ihsan's Shade instead. You put it in, say, GW Erhnam-Geddon and cast it off Birds and Cities of Brass (while possibly fulfilling most of your Fallen Empires quota; the first PTQs mandated 5+ cards from all legal card sets). What's more, in tournaments, creatures have a short life. They get countered, removed (Swords was legal when Derelor was), or die in combat. If your Derelor (or Erhnam) dies, drawback gone; you didn't have to sacrifice something, pay life, etc. to cast it. Your next Derelor costs 3B, not 3BB, and your other black spells revert to their retail price. My successful 1996 Standard deck was a mostly red midrange deck with 4 Derelor and 4 Erhnam Djinn (plus a Balance) splashed off pain lands, a few Cities, and 4 Barbed Sextant. Derelor and Erhnam had no downside other than the 1 damage you often take summoning them. My 1997 Standard was also mostly-red midrange with a threat base of 4 Derelor, 4 Wildfire Emissary, and 4 Hammer of Bogardan. Stupors were the only other black cards. They cost 3 and got played the turn before Derelor if I drew both. Ergo, no drawback. In September 1997, Tempest was released, showing the world once and for all that 2/1s for 1 and unblockable 2/Xs for 2 are infinitely more powerful than Erhnams and Juzams (pure-size, no-ability 4-drops), and Derelor and friends were consigned to the dustbin of history. Erhnam and Sengir were reprinted in Odyssey block in 2002 and never got a whiff of Standard play. But in its day, Derelor, 'the black Erhnam', was a great card which saw a fair amount of play and deserved more.

Haha, this is somehow rated more than one whole star higher than Medicine Bag! (2.231 vs 1.143)

Backwards Phyrexian Vault

Well, at least the art is beautiful... @HuntingDrake: It's a rare, it must be better! :D

This card did actually seem almost useless until there came to be so many ways to play out of your graveyard. And now with so many more creatures with Deathtouch and more spells that destroy creatures, regeneration can make or break a game. My favorite way to regenerate remains Fortitude and Broken Fall or Molting Skin as so many creature and spell abilities activate on number spells cast or enchantments in play. However when I am not playing green, this card IS the way to go for regen, ESPECIALLY when you have many ways to return your graveyard to your library or you want cards in your graveyard fast!

Note that the Oracle text changes the functionality of this card. As written on the card, discarding the card is part of the effect, which would still occur if you had no cards to discard. As re-written for Gatherer, the discard is part of the cost and necessary for the effect to take place. This change makes the card far, far, less useful for Madness decks. It wouldn't be broken with it's orginal functionality, so the change seems unnecessary.

I hope you're joking, this card is laughable at best. there are better options for regen, and also discard.

Rather worthless since the discard is random. Otherwise, it could have been used in some sort of wonky graveyard-based engine.

I hear Tibalt collects these things. He uses them to regenerate his bruised ego.

Why is the creature type not Dwarf Spellshaper? This is totally a proto-Spellshaper.

clearly we are not worthy of +1/+1 counters. Oh wait.

According to one of those rules/ tips cards from shadowmoor, +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters react to each other the same way matter and antimatter would: by destroying everything on the field. Just kidding, they cancel each other out and are both removed. No more no less. I'm glad they discontinued +1/+0 counters and the like.

if your opponent uses Lesser Werewolf to put +0/-1 counters on your creatures, and you put a +0/+1 counter on it, do they both get removed? Anyway, this card is mostly bad-ish.

started playing during Ice Age, so Fallen Empires was pretty fresh back then. It was still scoffed at, as I recall. Yeah, the set doesn't have too many cards still seeing play these days. But I love the flavour in these old sets! The fatalism, the desperation of the various factions on Sarpadia can be felt thru the cards. Just look at this card's flavour text, for example. The gloomy atmosphere matches that of Myth: The Fallen Lords. Give me story telling like this any day over that Bruckheimer-esque Eldrazi crap.

I'm so glad they only do +1+1 or -1-1 these days. I don't agree with their decision to never do both in one set though.

Terrible. Had it given out +1/+1 counters, it still would have been weak, but at least playable for its time. Now, it's just a slow and clunky joke.

In fact it's the ONLY proto-Spellshaper!

Meh, weak. Also, a rare. Does not feel very rare to me.

So close to greatness, or at least playability. Between the discard, the mana, and the tap, the activation cost is clearly too high. If any one of the three elements were removed, I think the little guy would have had a chance. If the discard element was removed, this guy would have been pretty good, in a Thallid sort of way. Superior in flavor and mechanics to Dwarven Catapult.

Organizer Orc 1R 1/2 Summon Orc 1: Put the very last discarded card back into your hand. This ability only applies to the most recently discarded card. "Humber may not be very good at crafting, but we sure do like that he saves our tools and has us reuse scraps... on second thought... Maybe that is a craft?"

More comfortable than fireball when killing your opponent's two 1/1s or two 2/2s. or 3 1/1s. Or one creature. Pretty much anything else? Might need to shape the battlefield with other burn spells. It's not awful, but it's worse than fireball mostly because you can't hit the player directly.

Overcosted against multiple creatures, it's only redeaming feature is that it can hit untargitable creatures.

Poor Dwarves. Is it any wonder they were basically wiped out?

The stupid man's fireball. Originally used so you didn't have to pay FB's targeting cost. .5/5

Worse than Fireball, and why is a catapult not an artifact?

It's an instant so it is useable for some quick removal during an opponents turn

To be featured in the upcoming From The Vault: Mathematics

Blaze!!!

Coming in tapped without any counters really hurts these guys. If just tapping for R without putting a counter on first were an option (which could be balanced with their etb tapped clause) then these guys might see more than niche use in proliferate and X spell based decks. Rosheen Meanderer appreciates them anyways.

This is part of a cycle of "storage lands" from Fallen Empires which are all plagued by their slow, slow speed. At a time when land destruction was so rampant and cheap, this could easily set you back very very far. To give you some idea of how slow these lands are, note that they all enter the battlefield tapped, and then require you to tap to remove counters. To get more benefit than a simple Mountain, you'd need to invest 4(!) turns. Compare this to Dwarven Ruins, and that cycle of lands, from the same set, which provide a little optional burst after they come into play tapped. This is an extremely slow land, and red does not typically benefit from games that go the distance. It does, however, allow for you to store up lots of mana for a giant Fireball or Disintegrate, but the math involved makes it quite a stretch. Also, it's a good thing there wasn't much of a limited scene during this era, since black got Order of the Ebon Hand and Hymn to Tourach, while red got...Goblin Grenade and...Dwarven Soldier?! Here's the storage land cycle for the curious: Black: Bottomless Vault Blue: Sand Silos Green: Hollow Trees Red: Dwarven Hold White: Icatian Store

The problem with lands like this and their potential combinations with Doubling Season / Gilder Bairn or Proliferate is that you still have to spend mana to get mana. Usually, getting a net gain isn't worth it unless you have an Variable Colorless cost worth paying. But if you're patient, I suppose it wouldn't be bad.

Save for a large X-burn spell in a deck where most cards have costs of between 1 and 3. Red's not heavy on card-drawing, so you should be top-decking fairly quickly.

Decent card if for no other reason than it doesn't require any input (other than leaving it tapped) to charge it up.

Just like Cheesecake Factory, too much wait time... 3/5.

The cute red counterpart of Icatian Lieutenant. It used to be tech with Dwarven Warrior in the last century. Magic has lost its innocence a long time ago but I'm not the one to whine about it.

Tribal dwarf FTW!!!!!!!!!!!

Surprised it wasn't a "Summon Lieutenant" or some silly thing so it couldn't buff itself. Badly overpriced and since Dwarves basically died out in Magic ages ago (sadly), it has no home now.

@NARFNra: Why use Training Grounds when Heartstone would have the same effect AND allow you to keep your deck mono-red?

Flavor pity points.

Dwarven Lieutenant was never playable. The Fallen Empire dwarves were never playable. They were never tech. They were never even mediocre. I think I remember Dwarven Warriors and Dwarven Weaponsmith being played (not to any great effect, not to any great extent, I just think I saw them played at some pount), but never did I see a single FE dwarf in action. I know I never played them and I played just about every FE card I could find an excuse to play.

Sadly, this would be usable if it cost {R}. If you use with Training Grounds, you've successfully used it to make a sucky card mildly usable. Dwarf Tribal I guess. EDIT: @Tiggurix Training Grounds can come out two turns earlier and doesn't put a drain on your mana. It's also an enchantment, which is rather harder to remove. Additionally, it has better synergy with any other creature abilities you may want to have. I understand it will limit the number of red mana you can pump into him, but it makes it easier to run the deck as a whole.

Ehh.... The problem I see here is that Red decks prefer to run quickly, while this card comes into play tapped. I supposed you can sac it later for RR, but is it really worth it? Not terrible, but not that great.

Probably the best in the cycle since red is the most likely to need a quick mana boost to power a game ending burn spell.

While not the best one of these in the set, this is still pretty nice. 3.5/5

Lands like these are an obvious trade-off, and whether or not it is useful for you should be determined by your personal play preferences. But there's one problem: they're non-basic, which is almost always a liability, and limits synergy with other cards. Yet you could also argue that they prevent landwalk, so... Whatever. Take it if you like it.

Moria!

It wasn't a matter of hosing orcs as much as an attempt at some fun flavor. Not sure how well it turned out on either front.

Technically not terrible since back than a 2/1 red creature for 1R wasn't that bad. It's ability is just plain awful. If only it worked against Goblins as well! But since Dwarves and Orcs are both basically extinct in Magic today, I guess nobody really won this ancient war.

I wish more animosity were present between creature types. The whole dwarf / orc feud didn't really pan out, I think, because they were in the same color. Maybe goblins and elves and vampires and clerics or something.

2 mana 2/1. Which will never be blocked by orcs. Decent anyway.

Did orcs really need hosers?

I like this art the best.

5 stars. If you are wondering why, you have not seen the Rankin-Baas animated version of 'The Hobbit', and you need to put down your Magic cards and go watch that right away. Or if you are too lazy to do that- The dwarf on the right looks like Thorin OakenSHIELD (shape of the nose is same as in cartoon!) crossed with Nick Fury. Hence 5 stars.

If you're going to play a card just to counter Orcs, you should aim a bit higher than 2 extra toughness.

Regarding the flavor text, unless the peril is Orcs or Changelings, these Dwarves arn't going to be of much use.

Oh God, this art is terrible D: That dwarf looks lame and that dragon-thing looks more like a kitty, playing...

Too bad it doesn't get bonus against Goblins... Also horrible art. 1,5 / 5 from me.

This card is probably just a two star, like its a Coral Merfolk, but the flavor pushes it to a 2.5, which it might be anyway comparing it to a "regular" two mana red creature.

It beats Goblins of the flarg /:-)

good for a antigoblin card, but really how often are you gonna play agaisnt goblins. Not really worth the sideboard, and there is much better two drops out there

What's really sad is that it doesn't work agaisnt Goblins, which is the red tribal type most people are scared of?!

Dwarves vs. Orcs, 2014 Duel Deck.

If your running red and you wanna goblin hate, Pyroclasm is probably better at that.

Remember when all of red's cards hated each other? They got over that and hate blue now.

I always knew the Easter Bunny was up to no good!

This is one of my favourite cards. Surely one of the best artworks in Magic. The Praetor is deciding whether the blue creature in the middle (a merfolk?) has to go to Heaven (you can see the way to Heaven above the city in the background, which represents the earthly world) or to Hell (the way to Hell is the chasm with fire and lava beneath the city). The two other creatures are an agent from Heaven and an agent from Hell, which are contending with each other for the merfolk (or whatever it is). They no more make artworks like on Magic cards, to my sorrow... Concerning the playability of the card, for modern standard is of course bad, but in 1994 a 5/5 trampler and first-striker was worth 6 mana and an expensive upkeep; moreover in a set like Fallen Empires, with a Thrull sacrificing theme, this card fits perfectly also from a flavorful perspective.

Toss in a Leech Bonder and start moving those counters onto your opponent's stuff

So many counters to keep track of.

This is one of my favorite Magic artworks ever!!! It's too bad there doesn't seem to be a wallpaper-sized version on the web. Also, the name just dissolves on your tongue. Speak after me: Ebonnnnn Praeeeetor!!

Praetor tribal!

Not that bad, and pretty solid for its time. And the artwork is just wonderfully strange!

@Pontiac: "Damn long ears tryna steal Jesus' holiday..." If you can get thosw -2/-2 counters off...3.5/5

My brother runs a savage green/black thrull/thallid deck, and this (with Lord of the Pit) is the finisher. Breeding pit makes him get bigger every turn, and the first strike/trample combination helps him deal with the "low" 5 toughness. Looks epic too, perfect fallen empires flavour. I love it. 4.5/5

Quite possibly one of the most bizarre pieces of artwork in the game's history. Probably worked fairly decently back in the day, but you can find much better, now.

The artist (Randy Asplund-Faith) painted a more detailed version: http://www.randyasplund.com/pages/fantpg/darkJudge.html Apparently the rabbit is a Pookah(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pookah)

So...how many thrulls have been printed?

In all seriousness, a 5/5 trample & first-strike for 6 is not that bad. I can see this as being in a token-generator/Nantuko Husk/Phyrexian Ghoul deck (the 0/1 tokens from Breeding Pit count as Thrulls and, if sacrificed to Ebon Praetor, will give it +1/+0 counters every turn) as an alternate way to win. Mediocre even in the right deck though. 2.5/5

Does anyone else see a big bunny rabbit on this card?

The original Praetor. Forget New Phyrexia.

Dude, Lizard, I see it, too! What the f%(#???

does'nt matter when you combo this card with thrull champion's and image crafter's to sac your opponents creatures to him or just let him die cause he sucks and still keep your opponents creatures :p great fun around the kitchen table

what is this i don't even

And now it's actually a Praetor. Yet I'd rather use Sheoldred, Whispering One...

BlackBlack Dat Praetor creature type. \___/

Lands like these are an obvious trade-off, and whether or not it is useful for you should be determined by your personal play preferences. But there's one problem: they're non-basic, which is almost always a liability, and limits synergy with other cards. Yet you could also argue that they prevent landwalk, so... Whatever. Take it if you like it.

That is definitely just a charred pile of rubble what is this stronghold of which you speak?

I like this 'Thrulls torched the place' art better then the other art for this.

The only Stronghold good enough for my deck is Volrath's Stronghold.

T1: This, Memnite T2:Swamp, Dark Ritual, Hatred Pay all but 1 of your life and swing for the win!

SUPER-SICK. 5/5

In most cases, I'd rather have cabal coffers; however, this is still pretty good. This allows you to set-up for a big spell; and, since black has access to so many powerful, under-costed spells, your not in that bad of a situation when it leaves the field. I think the whole cycle deserves a reprint.

I really like this card. It's a swamp that comes in tapped, and you can get an extra mana once when you need it. It seems pretty balanced to me. Although, if you are REALLY are worried about tempo you may want to consider something else.

There are plenty better things you could do for 1Green. Not to mention green one-drop enchantments.

This worked awesome in the Elvish Hunter/Spore Flower decks of Fallen Empires. One of my favourite archetypes.

FE is highly under-rated. This is one of the cards giving it a bad name. .5/5 because I can't go any lower...the worst card in the game.

Jiminy Christmas, green shouldn't pump toughness in order to survive a blocking assignment. Green should be putting down an 8/8 on turn 4, with a Giant Growth or two in hand, and snarling, "Go ahead, attack me -- I dare you." If blocking is actually an issue for you in green, might I advise Tinder Wall, Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Roots, or Vine Trellis -- all of which are much more versatile and will actually expand your mana pool rather than costing you 3GreenGreenGreen to give one of your blockers +0/+3 until end of turn. Awful. Can't believe it wasn't reprinted in Homelands. 0.5/5

A terrible way to waste mana. Green always has something better - except in this set and Homelands.

Elven Fortress 2.0: Elven Deep Wood -land. (Rare) Counts as a forest. Comes into play tapped. When Elven Deep Wood comes into play return a forest you control to owner's hand. Tap: add GreenGreen to your mana pool 1Green: Blocking creatures get +0/+1 until end of turn. Blocking elves get an additional +1/+0 until end of turn. "Finding yourself deep in elven territory can be one of the best defenses an explorer can have... provided the elves like you." -Useful in multiplayer games. -The name lends itself to puns :) (Feel free to steal this idea Wizards)

Well, you can play it in multiplayer decks and use it for politial stuff.

Art rules on this one. Still, its pretty worthless.

Never was good, but it's quite sad post-M10.

Decent with Doran, the Siege Tower, otherwise fairly sucky.

This card is just pure crap. +0+1 for TWO mana??? ROFL

Sweet art, terrible card.

Well, it's cheap to play, though only giving +0/+1 for {1}{G} isn't the best. Anyone have a use for this in the current Vintage/Legacy setup? Other than casual, which will more often than not use cards that cost under 200 USD.

Universal wonky firebreathing for Doran decks.

mesa enchantress

This was considered good back in the day when the only cards were this, and atog. That was it.

Not even a situational card... Most abilities with a 1and any color mana are too expensive to be worth it from what I've played...

my original variation of my elf deck used this. needless to say the elves didn't die to damage, but neither did my opponents.

This card was the first card to have the word "stupid" in its flavour text. That should count for something. The card sucks, although I suppose it could be useful in a Doran, the Siege Tower deck.

When FE came out, I loved the flavor of the cards, and I tried really hard to make an Elf themed deck with FE and tried to make Elven Fortress work. Tried. However, one minor overlooked aspect is that it doesn't specify that the +0/+1 has to go to creatures you control. This makes it slightly of increased value in multiplayer games -- and if you worked hard at it, a mild combo with toughness specific spells, abilities, and effects.

This is part of Fallen Empires's cycle of super weakened "boons" (after the Alpha ones). So weakened that they are almost unrecognizable as based on that original cycle. This one was giant growth.

I wonder if it would have worked this way: Elven Lyre Casting Cost {2} Artifact {2}, {T}: Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. At end of turn, sacrifice Elven Lyre. Just so that you have a chance to activate it multiple times through untap effects, and then at the end of the turn you sacrifice it. Seems like an interesting card design. The original is a little impractical for my tastes, however.

Not terrible, if at common, but again, as stated above, the whole point of Giant Growth is to surprise your opponents... yeah.

Pointless. The fun of Giant Growth is that nobody saw it coming. This has no surprise value.

I dunno, this would surprise me if it were played in a mono-blue deck. Not as much as someone playing Giant Growth in a mono-blue deck, mind you.

May do a nice healing job in a fungus deck. Got one lately NM (I'm trying to collect the FE Edition just for fun). Will definately test him out.

I put one of these in my Saproling deck for backup (in case someone tried souping all of my tokens) so I could just sacrifice them all to gain 2 life for each. I like this card (not the greatest, obviously, but it's still fairly decent). I give it a 3.5

With the addition of time spiral and all the new saproling cards this card actually got to be pretty good.

Saprolings were the best part about FE. Still... why is this rare?!?

Great way to tie down big things or tap ability critters.

Green pseudo-removal? Amazing!

And Emrakul, the Aeons Torn never bothered anyone again...

A decent green way to lock down a target.

official "lore" reason for the blue-skinned elvish scout, elvish hunter, and elvish healer is that it's "just warpaint" but I actually like the idea of blue-skinned elves myself. kind of wish they'd go back to experimenting with unusually colored elves.

I wouldn't read too much into it; Mark Poole has problems drawing a straight line. He probably just botched the art. As for the mulitple versions of card art, that was just the way they did things in small expansions.

Green-skinned elf. Or is she? Her ear looks like a human ear. Which raises the question; are the multiple versions of many Fallen Empires cards a legacy of cards removed from the set after their art was commisioned? Was Fallen Empires originaly ment to be a lot bigger? Was this art originaly intended for an Elf creature, or did Mr Poole draw her under the belief that she would be a human, or an orc, or something?

fails to cancel

"So, how's that archery practice going? I know you've been working hard at- OH MY GOD, DEAR, RUN AWAY! THERE'S A GIANT POUTING HEAD BEHIND YOU! RUN, I SAY!"

Worth reprinting. Preferably with this artwork.

looks like the front of an early 90's movie,novel or t-shirt

Seems more like a {W} mechanic. I agree on the reprinting request.

Best art of the 3 versions. Nice combat trick, should be reprinted.

As expected, rated much higher than the other two versions! :D

It also works well with the no-damage-requirement deathtouch of Venom, Thicket Basilisk, and ***atrice (which, not so incidentally, also worked well with Lure, which also works well with this!) This was worth using in any Lure deck, since it worked so well with several of your other cards. With that said, I'd usually rather just drop an Regeneration on the creature in question, especially since lure decks generally used Verduran Enchantress and the like. Also note that it can be used during the end-of-combat step, after damage is dealt, functionally giving a creature Vigilance.

Elves should be barely-clothed fair, cute, whimsical little forest damsels. This is prototypical.

She is hot.

taunting elf + this = unblockables?

@Thaviel: yes, I do believe that is the case. I use those two in combination with Winnower Patrol and Wirewood Pride to make big dents in my opponent's life total.

This + Lure = win, methinks.

Try Reconnaissance.

Ebony Horse's trick, cheeper, and on a creature.

Gustcloak Savior is better, because it's stronger, flying, and it's ability can be used as many times as you want. The only downside is that you can only trigger it when your creature becomes blocked, but there aren't very many situations where you want to remove a creature from combat if they're not going to block it.

No gap? Players receive priority during the first strike combat damage step, after first strike damage has been dealt. It'll work just fine.

It's Blanka!

So if I put lure and venom on a creature, attack with it, then use Elvish scout to remove the damage and untap him, does my opponents creatures still die from the venom?

What a badass dude he is, rock star tattoos and all.

Now that there is no gap between first strike and normal damage, you can't pull out a first striker after he does damage but befor he receaves it.

IT'S A TRAP!

Various Silly combos? Hah, NOBODY ever expects me to be a danger in multiway with my Sunglasses of Urza, Farrelite Priest, and Thornscape Familiar, until they see me lay down my Grinning Ignus SEVEN BILLION times in the same turn, following it up with a one-mana 7000000001/7000000001 hasted Storm Entity. Gives me the game every time, 5/5

Actually, I logged in today to post the same comment as WrathofShane. I really want to like this guy- in monowhite, there is no other ability like his. However, WHEN would you ever need a white mana converter when you already have access to two white mana? White has the worst mana dumps, and you shouldn't be playing something as color-heavy as Reya Dawnbringer in a multicolored deck. ...I still like this guy. I just wish he was as useful as Initiates of the Ebon Hand or Bog Initiate.

Interesting this dude is uncommon, but the Initiates of the Ebon Hand are common.

If you wanna turn colorless mana to white, better go with green for Skyshroud Elf.

Infinite colorless mana with Ashnod's Altar, and three Karmic Guides, thow in a Farrelite Priest if you want white mana.

Useful in various silly combos, but that's about it.

It should have been 2/3 rather than 1/3; its ability is situational enough that it belongs on a creature with a cost-appropriate body. Also, I like the flavor text here -- in that it emphasizes that, yes, these guys really do deserve to be called white. Later sets, when they want to get all grimdark, have an unfortunate tendency to present outright evil white factions.

Why would they make a white mana filtering creature, and then make it have WhiteWhite in its casting cost? Would make more sense to cost 2White imo.

U-B-E-R I remember abusing this in my Shadow Horsemanship Soldier deck during multilayer games.

Sounds like fun if it's enchanted on an unblockable critter.

Surprisingly good on something as simple as a wild griffin.

White direct damage is a rarity, so this has its uses.

I remember putting this on ornithopters to basicaly shock critters my opponent controlled. Good times.

A surprisingly decent card and a way for white to repeatedly kill creatures.

A miserable failure I had high hopes for 1/5.

Colin Farrel's mantle? not for me.

Invisible stalker for repeated lightning bolt vs creatures. Seems like a decent deal.

ARISE CHICKEN! CHICKEN, ARISE!

Could do with another creature type, but what fits? They are not really Rebels, nor are they Rogues exactlly. Well, Rogue might work, but it's not an exact fit. Rebel Rogue?

With the help of Dwarven Warriors or Whispersilk Cloak, this is an optional white Lightning Bolt when it attacks. That's really not too bad, and gets exponentially better in multiplayer games, especially when you bargain with opponents to let it through in order to bolt another player's creature.

Look at the art, then check out the printed creature type. Don't exactly match up, do they?

Summon Terrorist

If that is a Townsfolk, I cannot fathom what their soldiers look like...

Think you've got enough knives there, buddy?

Not bad for its time since white had trouble killing specifc creatures.

It's Dhalsim from Street Fighter 2.

What a terrible choice in creature type... Either way, the card is decent.

I shudder to think what would happen if he tripped.

Hide CommentsOnly show me comments rated: >= 5.0 stars. A little too expensive, but dropping 3 damage on a creature of your choice is VERY useful in a multi-player games. If you use something like Whispersilk Cloak to make this guy unblockable, he can be a royal pain in the *** for your opponent. 3/5

This guy is a walking lightning bolt, not half bad. Gaussgoat's got it right too, multiplayer and whispersilk cloak is epic win, especially seeing as global -1/-1 drops won't kill it.

Arrgh...Fallen Empires text...so painful...eyes...burning Card's 'k, I suppose.

I am a big fan of stuff like this and Lichenthrope.

Too bad it was Bolt bait AND Incinerate would soon follow. Had it been a 5/4, I think it would have seen some serious play. While overpriced by today's standards, this thing was huge for its time and its ability was free, though you couldn't use it that often.

PROTIP: When playing against red cast this to force your opponent to cast lightning bolt.

Creepy f*cking artwork. 5/5

Narrow but powerful.

You've gotta remember that the Thallids add a spore counter on themselves every turn too. This is just icing on the cake and a way to get the ball rolling.

Muste have for any Thallid-deck.

Don't forget about changelings. Oh wait.

Got 2 of them in my Fungus Deck. Great effect i you got Thelon of Havenwood out and want to pump up a strong fungus like Sporesower Thallid :)

6 green mana for 1 saporling... not that impressive. Thelon of Havenwood makes this card good tho... if your opponit lets you get both out at once.

I find this card hilarious, as it does nothing at all outside of a fungus deck. It's even more useless than Darksteel Relic.

Why is this so highly rated? It's useless in 99.99% of green decks.

@Kefra: It was always able to save goblin kings. Note that while the creature you sacrifice has to be a goblin, the creature you regenerate does not -- back in the day, that was very important (and was part of the reason this was so good), since your kings didn't count as goblins. It doesn't matter now, but it's still a nice thing to note if you happen to have some non-goblins in your goblin deck.

You can see on this card Uthden Troll, Llanowar Elves, and Jedit Onajen.

Despite the 0 power this is a MUST-HAVE for goblin tribal decks. Red regeneration is really rare and now that Goblin King (and the newer Goblin lords) count as Goblins, these will let you sac one of your grunts to keep your pumpers on the battlefield. Even in non-Goblin decks, enough creatures have the Goblin type to make this viable...at worst it sacrifices itself to regen something once, and until then can serve as a blocker (2 toughness!). 4/5.

@TAGVoar You're an idiot. 1) You cannot respond to costs. Tapping Elvish Piper is a cost, therefor you cannot respond by tapping her first. Counter to that, they can activate the ability before the regeneration resolves. 2) Regen only taps the creature when it's actually regenerated. Until the Piper would die, it just sits there. It won't cause instant tapping. Please know your rules before leaving comments like that. On the other hand, this is a great card. It optimizes on Goblin expendability for a nice effect.

Hilarious art- I love the references to other cards, as well as the ludicrous flavor of a goblin stitching people back together.

(Card Rating: 3.5) This was the first card I ever opened in a pack of Magic cards. At first glance, the card seems rather unplayable because of the 0 offense. Don't let it fool you, this card can be nasty for an opponent playing red or against creatures without trample. In two-headed giant, this card's ability shines by being able to regenerate your partner's important creatures. You can block two attackers with two of your small goblins, but only lose one of your goblins. I use 2 Goblin Chirurgeons in my favorite casual multiplayer black/red deck to keep important goblins such as Wort, Boggart Auntie alive. I also use Knucklebone Witch, Boggart Shenanigans, and Goblin Sharpshooter to benefit from the goblins going to the graveyard. I EVEN used him once to regenerate an opponent's Child of Alara in a multiplayer game when it blocked a m@ssive creature of another opponent. Their plan was to destroy my goblin horde; however, they forgot about the infamous Chirurgeon! He equates to instant speed nuking when combined with Boggart Shenanigans and other goblins. (Posted By: Misago)

I just like the fact it can sacrifice itself. Talk about being dedicated to one's work!

thats a llanowar elfs head

I stumbled upon this guy in a friend's old box of cards and fell in love! I put this in my goblin low-cost bombardment deck. This guy+Raid Bombardment is great! The best part is, if you are playing against a cheating green deck with something like Elvish Piper, before they tap the piper to play Emrakul you sac a goblin, and regenerate her. So unless they have an untap, she stays locked down. Not to mention if you are playing with the cornerstone creatures, like the Goblin Chieftain he becomes a 1/3. I love this guy!

It may be Jedit Ojanen, or it could be the eagle-tiger in Natural Selection.

If you're feeling dead I'll be your reanimator I've got the way to bring you to life A superior existence with no one to control you Where you can always do what you like Let me give you some green color and you will ask for more You will see that you never felt this way before Party without limits, have sex and don't be blue Freedom is eternal for you, you, you!

Ability costs 0. Its a 1 drop goblin. Can save your goblin king when your tapped out, 4/5

That hand sticking out of the barrel... haven't I seen it before...?

He just looks so Jim Henson to me.

This is not bad at all, blocking 1/1 creatures all day and regenerating any creature for R.

I don't understand why this card is bad. Its awesome in so many ways, from flavor to playability.

Bordeline playable but sooo cool.

good stuff, sac a token and save your big baddy, all wraped up in a nice one mana 0/2

I love how the goblin getting his leg sawed off doesn't give a single, solitary F***. And yeah, this could help a casual goblin deck, for sure. If a mass-destruction effect hits, you get to keep half of them!

They should reprint this goblin.

I can't think of a more gorey card.

Dan Frazier illustrates a very morbid scene.

"What would you like sir? A freshly-cut leg or a deep-fried head?"

When I first started playing Magic, my friends and I went for big, 5-player games. Everyone was using every card they owned, and therefore playing with all 5 colors in a single, giant deck. As a result, landwalk creatures were, literally, unstoppable. Moor Fiend was particularly good. I had success with Goblin Flotilla, simply because of its Islandwalk. Your Island Sanctuary will not keep you safe from the mighty flotilla!

yea i agree eppek. if nothing else fallen empires is good for flavor and mechanics.

Pfff. All the other colors hate blue, just not as much as red and green :P

Yet another example of how much red hates blue

Landwalk would've made more sense early on if there were more landwalkers who walked opposing colors' lands. They should've done that more in the old days.

Great flavour on this card. The name, art, type, ability and flavour text all fit with each other quite well. It goes along with the theme that Goblins are dumb/incompetent, but can still get the job done. The drawback is only relevant if one doesn't give them islandwalk, but really, there's no reason to play this card if one isn't playing against blue.

i checked it is the only red islandwalker

Excellent flavor and unique mechanics don't make Goblin Flotilla particularly play-worthy, but they do add another dimension to this card that makes it better than average.

Without a doubt, the best islandwalking goblin in Fallen Empires. Patrick Chapin said it so you know it's true.

The card itself states that they are exceptionally poor sailors; how can you pretend that a poor thing is represented by a good card? This card HAS TO be bad. Period!

It would be interesting if there WAS a ranged version, as the flavortext suggests, allowing your goblin to survive, while either costing more or doing less. That being said, such a version would be completely ignored, as this card is basically perfect for what it does.

Best Flavour text of the three.

Borderline broken, especially with Boggarts. Hell, Fodder Cannon was bad enough! Thankfully, recursion on this is somewhat slim, given the nature of most Goblin decks. Still, hurts like a mother.

Only 2.9? This deserves a much higher rating.

kah-BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Strictly better than Reckless Abandon in a goblin deck.

So THAT'S what happened to the Dwarf tribe in Magic!

This is a legendary burn spell responsible for many of red's wins during the Fallen Empires era. You can come out of the gates blisteringly fast by sacrificing your little 1/1's, before tapping out and launching a Fireblast or two for the win. The fact that 4 of these is usually fatal alone makes it worth consideration, for one measly mana.

I always thought this came from the Visions set. I have a ton of Fallen Empire cards. Maybe I might have afew of these :)

Forget Goblin King and Goblin Wizard, this is the card that made goblin decks feared. With The Dark, goblins became the first true tribe capable of a decent theme deck. Fallen Empires introduced several new tribes and beefed up the goblins with some powerful cards such as this and Goblin War Drums. At instant speed for one mana, this thing is a true wrecker. You were happy to draw this card in almost any circumstance. Plus, this card was just massively fun to play, blowing up some pathetic 1/1 goblin to take out your opponent's best flying creature when they finally get it on the table in turn 5... or to win the game altogether as a finisher. Ron Spencer does it again. His goblins from this time period were the best. Angry, mean, spiked, vicious, and wild. And the art perfectly captures the effect: huge bomb with very short range!

Always amazing in goblin decks.

SimicGuildmage: Use with Artificial Evolution. Still horrible. I guess that's the reason why Hivestone is not that playable as well. ( I hope you're not bugging every tribal non-Sliver card with such senseless comments. )

the first generation of terrorists

One of the very few cards out of fallen empires that are worth more than toilet paper. 4 of them in a deck and a bunch of goblins could spell trouble for the opponent.

This and 4 of the FE Spencer Illustrations have Ron's buddies' names in the artwork. This one has Mike in the artwork at the top side of the spear.

Use this to turn Kiji-Jiki, Mirror Breaker into Kiki-Jiki, Baneslayer Breaker. Too bad they didn't errata this to make it a goblin tribal card. It really should be.

Unplayable with Slivers. Horrible.

@ Zestu: Except that it wouldn't. You can't sac more than one goblin to increase damage potential. If i misunderstood you theory, my bad, but yea. You'd need three of these to get 15 damage.

Heh, nothing like popping 2 or 3 of these off at a time and watching your opp's eyes bug out.

Just 1 measly kuldotha rebirth plus 3 of these = 15 damage for a total of 5 but possibly only 4 cmc (3 for the 3 grenades, 1 for Kuldotha rebirth & 0-1 for the artifact you sac'd for the rebirthing. Wowsers!!!

Excellent with Kuldotha Rebirth. A potential 15 for RedRed on turn 2. Do like. Edit: @Bastian: I think I meant to type 13. Swing in for 3, then postcombat cast both Grenades. Or I may have miscounted. Unless we have three Memnites on the ground turn 1. Which could be a top-deck hand. But I didn't mention it, so I doubt I was thinking that. Still, Fireblast and Reverberate for 8 still pales in comparison, and sets your curve back (Tap for RedRed, sac the Mountains for Fireblast, then Reverberate with floating mana). I'm sticking to my theory that this could be the best Burn combo available. Best in Standard, without a doubt.

Stupid good. Any Goblin deck needs 4 without question.

One of the best cards ever costs 2 red to deal 5 damage one for Goblin Grenade and one for a goblin so sac.

Very good in Goblin decks, but nothing else. 4/5

So, is this card creepy now, or what??

The very defintion of what Goblins are good for - blowing stuff up.

Could definitely be useful in a deck with cards like Ball Lightning. A fairly simple and reliable way to give evasion, and it doesn't really matter on the drawback!

Combine with Krark's Thumb and Chance Encounter, in a red weenie (i.e., Goblin) deck. Funny stuff. Bad by itself (I give it 1.5/5) but as part of an alternate win-condition engine, it's pretty good.

Maybe with Viashino Sandscout and Viashino Sandstalker? You control both abilities, which both trigger at the beginning of the end step, so you can choose which order they resolve in. Viashinos come back to your hand, no kite crashing. Still a bit much on the mana department, seeing as you have to replay them and pay for the kites each time.

@Radagast One could play this as well as a card that wins games

One could play this, or play cards that win games.

lol i love the flavor on this

Dump all your mana into giving your goblins evasion for an alpha strike, and considering this is a 2 drop you know it saw competetive play. Also, the fact that it checks toughness and not power really matters, a flying Lightning Elemental might be just what you need to close a game.

Using this with Ball Lightning is cute, but... Cobbled Wings.

The best art of the set, really befitting the flavor text. Also, this card rocks.

Great with stalking tigers and charging rhinos. Or just familiar ground, make your deck unblockable!

cplmontana: If you mean in any set, Giant Growth probably has more. In the same set Basal Thrull ties with it.

Dobbs! You Coward!

There are TONS in Fallen Empires that ties, man.

Just ANOTHER under-rated bomb from FE...plus the art is RKF.

4 Versions? What non-land card has more than this? Make that a challenge. Most versions of a non-land card printed. Find it.

what a hum-drum card.

Antiquities has a few cards with 4 versions just in that set, as well.

Not bad, and it really got the ball rolling on the notion of creatures that can't be blocked by a single opponent.

Drums, drums in the deep....

It's good that almost all of the good Fallen Empires cards were commons.

You could also use it in red/white with soldiers, or blue/red with merfolk. Or I guess there's always red/red, with, you know, GOBLINS.

Definitely useful, particularly in decks wit a bazillion 1/1 creatures. This deck in a red/green combo with elves, or black/red with zombies... yikes.

wow, this is a common? Pauper EDH here it comes.

Poison.

Seeing as how you made that comment before Scars was released, good call, Kit.

Goblins.

Familiar Ground

Why does this ONE version of this card have such a low rating?! I mean, it definitely isn't the best art or anything, but jeez...

I like the flavor of this card, mainly in the flavor text. Serra Angel and Sea Serpent references (both iconic cards) make this card, with a halfway decent mechanic, a solid 4 for me.

Serra Angel skulls??? :O Must have been a Goblin Grenade...

I dun wanna werk I jus' wanna bang on me drum all day.

Hehe, just get a 1/1 cheap deck and they're all un-blockable

(Card Rating: 3.5) Due to the fact that this card's ability is not increased by having more than one in play, this card is best used as a "one of" in a goblin deck. I use one of these in my personal favorite casual multiplayer black/red goblin deck. Because I am also running one Demonic Tutor and one Vampiric Tutor, I occasionally have the ability to search out this card if necessary. I use cards such as: 4 Knucklebone Witch, 2 Boggart Shenanigans, 1 Goblin Sharpshooter, and 1 Wort, Boggart Auntie to capitalize on sending goblins to the graveyard. I also included 4 Mogg War Marshal to provide the fodder needed to use the heavy activation cost. This card is very helpful when being attacked by creatures without trample. You are able to block the creatures, then sacrifice the blockers to produce more goblins. A major drawback and another reason this card should be only a "one of" in a goblin deck is that it requires 2 goblins for the activation cost. It is not the card you want to see after a board wipe and an empty hand. If you want a more "stable" version, try Weirding Shaman. Even alone, it can beat face or sacrifice itself to it's own ability. (Posted By: Misago)

One card infinite goblins generator.

In the old days there was no rarity colorcode on cards. You needed to know. Main sets didn't even have set marks before sixth only expansions did. First set to have colorcodes was Exodus.

Simple, effective, and still good in Goblin decks today.

Always referred to this as 'Goblin Meat Grinder'. Won me a lot o' games with Goblin Grenade. 4/5

cool card but why is the set symbol black for fallen empires? i received 6th editon and fallen empires from a friend and i thought i had something special. any thoughts?

I take it that this card confirms that goblins generally give birth to triplets. That explains why they're so disposable, at least!

I take it that this card confirms that goblins generally give birth to triplets. That explains why they're so disposable, at least!

Good for death effects and enters the battlefield effects with goblins.

I love the flavor of this card - the two "parent" goblins are driven to their deaths by their litter of three gob-lings. Gamewise, this was much better when damage could be put on the stack, so two chump blockers could be exchanged for three tokens. Modern times bring quite a bit of support as well, such as Dragon Fodder and Siege-Gang Commander. A surprisingly playable Fallen Empires card.

Fallen Empires actually did pretty well for goblins. This, Goblin Chirurgeon, and of course Goblin Grenade all became staples of goblin decks for a long time to come.

FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

Good friends with Captain of the Watch. If they're ever actually in the same deck.

yeah, but it is good card to slip into a soldier deck.

It may be 6 cast, but it has a non-mana ability AND a decent statline. No amount of chump burn cards are going to bother this guy.

He lives on in Gaze of Justice.

Reusable white removal is always a good thing, and this guy isn't easy to wipe out, either.

Strictly the best mustache in Mtg.

gaze of justice in avatar form. very nice! 6mana is a tab bit high tho.

More like moustache of justice.

Why is he Chinese?

Craaaap. Expensive craaaaap.2/5.

Pretty decent FE rare- not a phrase you will hear often, I assure you! Reusable kill is always pretty good, just remember to wait to activate the ability until after you block! Must have rocked the house in limited.

So in the flavor text we have an expy of Oliver Cromwell talking like he's Icatia's own Travis Bickle! This is how MtG should be! "One day a flood will come and wash all the Thrulls away..."

4/5 in it's time, 3/5 because of green's mana ramp. THe W, U, B versions are ridiculous though.

Lands like these are an obvious trade-off, and whether or not it is useful for you should be determined by your personal play preferences. But there's one problem: they're non-basic, which is almost always a liability, and limits synergy with other cards. Yet you could also argue that they prevent landwalk, so... Whatever. Take it if you like it.

It comes into play tapped because if it didn't, you could have two mana turn one. That's not a good thing.

It can easily give you 3 mana on turn 2, so it's always worth considering.

An interesting land during the time of Fallen Empires, could be used to give you a little oomph in the mana department. Certainly out-dated now days. It's closest equivalent is probably Hickory Woodlot, a bit more effective in the short run. 2/5

Those Are Some Ugly Ass Trees

Lame. Why should it come into play tapped? It's cards like these that gave Fallen Empires a bad reputation.

Thor is at the 40 ... the 20 ... he is going all the way ... TOUCHDOWN!!!!

Justice is way better.

Tokens, and Painter's Servant. maybe throw a Justice in for good measure.

Looks like the cover for a bargain-bin NES adventure game. Even the Oracle text is open for interpretation. You could argue that 2Red will negate the whole effect or 2Red needs to be paid for each creature. Edit: Oh, my mistake. Missed that word. Carry on. :-P

Honestly this card should give also give all your creatures Haste as long as you have a Shaman creature in play.

Um, wait... so, you can sacrifice your creatures to prevent red attackers from dealing damage unless they spend some red mana. There's another way to stop attackers from dealing damage - BLOCKING! And, if you do that, you have a chance of killing the opposing creatures and your blocks can't be negated by spending 2R.

This card had it's uses - if you were on the short end of the creature stick at the time, you may not have enough creatures to block or your creatures would die from blocking. If you were going to lose a creature anyways, might as well prevent as much damage as possible. Also, it only prevented attacking red creatures from dealing damage, it had no effect on damage they received. So you could block, kill their creatures but keep yours safe. 2/5

I guess it's an auto-include in any deck about changing colors. Either the color word on the card, or the colors of the attacking creatures. White can easily create tokens, so that you can sac some if you want to. But you won't have to most often, since your opponent would be stupid to attack into that. After all,this card prevents the damage of the attackers, but not the damage of the blockers, allowing you to easily kill the attackers, without losing creatures or life. I like the story too, that the card tells. About sending a white creature to a lone suicide mission, in order to save the country, and thwart the evil opponents plans. Unless said opponent spends far more resources into chaotic magic.

The art seems to suggest black creatures, not red. Oh well.

Interestingly, this card's color identity is white + red, so you can't play it in a monowhite EDH deck.

You know, a non-color-specific reprint wouldn't be a bad thing.

one of the only decent blue cards from fallen empires

This card isn't that great too early. Dark ritual is 100% better in terms of speed. In order to really get any use out of this you need at least 3 islands on the board, and even then, it only produces 1 extra. Having 5 islands out brings it up to speed and while not so good at first, a blue mana ramp can win games, dropping a sphinx or leviathan.

Did you just say it's "no dark ritual?" Seriously this card is bonkers. Dark ritual is a pretty good one turn of acceleration, dropping High Tide means you should have just won the game, the amount of mana this produces is pretty nuts. Ritual is a tempo gain early, this is a degenerate win condition.

Agree this card is bonkers. I do believe dark ritual is better though, overall. This is certainly one of the best cards from FE, but I think the best is probably Hymn to Tourach, personally.

it's no dark ritual, but this is actually a pretty useful card. @gilgiga, they're reasonably-similar mana-producing spells. high tide is late game and dark ritual is good at any time. however, dark ritual is literally useful in ANY deck, whereas high tide absolutely requires the entire deck to be built around the use of it. you can't just throw high tide into any deck with islands and expect it to work. no one played this card for years until free spells came along, and that says more about free spells than it does about high tide. it requires the deck to run almost all islands AND the rest of the deck has to be composed mostly of cards that can abuse high tide: stroke of genius, free spells, thawing glaciers, etc. throw 4 dark rituals and the mana to cast them in a similar deck, or any other for that matter, and they will still work perfectly. you could never say that about high tide, and that is why it is an inferior card. look at the comparison of mana produced by each card - with 1 island in play, high tide gets you 0 mana. with 2 islands, 2 mana. with 3 islands, 4 mana, with 4 islands, 6 mana. you need at least 4 islands in play in order to get any sort of juice out of it, whereas dark ritual produces 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively. with 2 dark rituals in hand, it's crazy.

What! Off-Color-Wheel Antics?! Oh, Early Days of Magic!

The problem Gasimakos is that building around a card DOES make it better or worse. No one will tell you Emrakul, Progenitus, or heck Dream Halls are bad cards unless they're idiots, but they're also cards that require a specific "build around me" status to work very well. Just because this can't be thrown into EVERY blue deck for *maximum* effect doesn't mean that it can't be thrown in for pretty-darn-good effect. Further, unlike Dark Ritual, High Tides stack in a beautiful way. You tap for 1, then play high tide. Tap for 2, play two more. Now the third island produces more mana than the original 3 islands you had! I have a mill deck that goes off TURN 3 because of High Tide shenanigans. All it takes is a single untapper and a draw engine and you'll run into other untappers of various kinds. Further, it's trivial to create infinite combos with this card: ((Earthcraft + any 1 creature) OR Argothian Elder OR Juniper Order Druid OR Krosan Restorer OR Ley Druid OR Magus of the candelabra)+ freed from the reel OR pemmin's aura = infinite mana. Even better, things like Twiddle become Rite of Flames, Dark Rituals, or even better. Dark Ritual literally has no cards that cause infinite combos so easily and is nearly ALWAYS a card disadvantage. High Tides into a draw engine such as Brain Geyser can easily net 2+ cards (plus the others you had to use) resulting in card advantage, and that's without abusing it. WITH abusing it you fill up your hand, dump it, fill it, dump it, etc and you'll quickly get to your wincons as you do. Even better, once you do, you likely have yet even more untappers, protection, and the mana to cast those wincons right off. Further, enemies only have a slim opening to reliably counter the set of cards you'll play and if they screw it up you have the mana to counter their counter and go right back on doing what you were. Rewind works wonderfully for completing this once you're floating enough mana.

Wait...you're comparing it to Dark Ritual? One mana for three or one mana for 2 x the number of Islands you control (minus the one for this card)... Combine this with one of the blue cards that untaps your lands when you cast them (Peregrine Drake, Cloud of Faeries, Great Whale, etc) from the Urza block (or, god forbid, something later on...perhaps Bear Umbra) and use it to power some big nasty spell...my favorite finisher is a High Tide-powered Stroke of Genius to deck the opponent.

This card is absurdly strong; it's one of the reasons that I refuse to play against one of my friends' blue decks. Doubling your mana at instant speed is kind of a good thing. Ritual is great; this is broken.

One of the coolest sleeper cards ever. Was totally ignored when FE came out.

I managed to make a Merfolk Combo deck much like the Elf Combo Deck, except that it used this + permanent untappers and fallowsages to play my deck out consistently by turn 5, then win with a) infinite merfolk tokens, b)decking the opponent, or c) brainfreeze.

Just ANOTHER under-rated card from FE... I played this when it first came out, kicked ass with it, and was still told it was 'too situational'. Now look at y'all. good for ya. Put the pipe down, and cast more than one in a turn. See how why it poops on on Dark Ritual now?

Now watch in horror as I cast two homarids on turn four!

you mean watch in horror (for half an hour) as I force you to draw 60 cards on turn 2?

People are saying this card is not as good as Dark Ritual, well, how does a Turn 2 infinite Brain Freeze sound? Turn 1: Island *Insert cantrip here* Turn 2: Island, High Tide, Cloud of Faeries, Cloud of Faeries, Ghostly Flicker, Archaeomancer, Ghostly Flicker *Goes Infinite* Brain Freeze

"with 1 island in play, high tide gets you 0 mana. with 2 islands, 2 mana. with 3 islands, 4 mana, with 4 islands, 6 mana." gasimakos: actuall high tide give you mana equal to the number of islands you control (other than the one used to cast). you are correct about the mana you have, but the mana it gives is less than that. half of that. blurrymadness: many cards are good because you build decks around them, but there are no decks built around black lotus, or actually any of the power 9- they are so powerful because they are used in so many decks, because they are so versatile and you don't need the deck to be around them. oh, and infinite combos are really not the thing cards should be measured by. there are many bad cards that can be used for infinite combos. heck, obelisk of undoing can be a part of some combos... does it make it good?

Can be useful for spells that require 4 or 5 green mana in their casting cost.

Might be good with a little help from Gilder Bairn...

The problem with lands like this and their potential combinations with Doubling Season / Gilder Bairn or Proliferate is that you still have to spend mana to get mana. Usually, getting a net gain isn't worth it unless you have an Variable Colorless cost worth paying. But if you're patient, I suppose it wouldn't be bad.

The lowest rated of the FE storage lands, since green has the least need of it.

This is part of a cycle of "storage lands" from Fallen Empires which are all plagued by their slow, slow speed. At a time when land destruction was so rampant and cheap, this could easily set you back very very far. To give you some idea of how slow these lands are, note that they all enter the battlefield tapped, and then require you to tap to remove counters. To get more benefit than a simple Forest, you'd need to invest 4(!) turns. Compare this to Havenwood Battleground, and that cycle of lands, from the same set, which provide a little optional burst after they come into play tapped. This land is simply much to slow for green, a color that is dependent on dynamic starts and flooding the field with creatures a vast majority of the time. Furthermore, even in those days, green had little problem generating insane amounts of mana, from Fastbond to Llanowar Elves to Wild Growth to Channel. Here's the storage land cycle for the curious: Black: Bottomless Vault Blue: Sand Silos Green: Hollow Trees Red: Dwarven Hold White: Icatian Store

I saw the storage lands are some of the most underrated lands. sure, they're slow, and not optimal, but think of it as a mini upwelling. If you play this on turn 1, and play regular lands afterwords, as long as you remember put the mana counters on it, you can fuel a big spell easier, when you need it. Sure, most people hate 6 CMC and higher cards, but I feel thats wrong. With this, you can easily bring out big cards sooner. With doubling season, this becomes crazy. X spells will LOVE this card, especially green. while green already has good accel, this is great 'suicide' mana, for a hail mary play, like a big fireball.

Non-Magic players have the best commentary on Magic ever. When explaining to a female friend what this did, she said, "...so you're telling me, this creature has a period? It's gets weak and strong on a regular cycle?" Oh, Homarid. I love you. Magic just ain't the same these days...

Ready to face my HOMARID ARMY at HIGH TIDE? no, didnt think so. Amusing that in the flavor text the homarids annihilated the merfolk. so... print many moar homarids, and less merfolks.

One of the best flavours in the games. Homarid has only one weakness: Old Fogey

Homarid 2.0 2U Creature - Homarid Homarid 2.0 enters the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a +1/+1 counter from Homarid 2.0. If you can't, put two +1/+1 counters on Homarid 2.0. 1/1

This is goin' straight into my Chimney Imp/ Stormcrow / Wood Elemental deck.

I'd rather just play, you know, a 3/3.

Is this card really important enough to have 4 different artworks?

It's a very interesting card. Unfortunately it's really weak.

Fun mechanic, good for people who want to play an entertaining, light-hearted game. The fact that it's potentially a 3/3 for 3 AND in blue of all colours, is absolutely magnificent.

WHY?!

Crab People...

Blue shouldn't get creatures this strong.

Four stars for flavour!

Doubling Season, now it's a permanent 2/2 that makes you waste time putting counters on it.

5/5 just to screw with data

FragNut is trolling. It would be playable for UU, but the fact that it gets weak before it gets big kills it.

I think "high tide/low tide" would have been sufficiently flavorful. The added flavor of passing through "middle tide" twice per cycle is not worth the added back-bending. . . Especially when there's a Pacifism on him. Could have even utilized old-fashioned +2/+2 counter technology. Man, these things predate Phasing. In Terrible Cube, I've killed these once with Release the Ants, once with Mage il-Vec, and also laughed myself silly to see one blessed with Battle Mastery.

Play Homarid? Why not Zoidberg?

I think it's supposed to be the whole ebb/flow rise/fall of tide thing. While this would be fine, it's way too overcosted. Should just cost {U}

This mechanic is interesting and has potential. Too bad its stapled onto limited fodder.

I did a Fallen Empires draft at my LGS recently. This card is freaking unstoppable. The only reason I was able to win was with my endless army of 0/1 thrull tokens from Breeding Pit. My opponent decked himself. I couldn't kill Homarid, so I made him deck himself instead. That games lasted about a million turns. Homarid, man. Homarid at High Tide was just too much.

High tide is cool, but what if you take your Homarids EVEN HIGHER? Put out two Homarids. When one's at three and the other's at two, Fate Transfer them. You now have five tide counters on a Homarid; His ability should remove them, but it triggers when he has /four/ counters. The counters will increase every turn, until the tide is so high the world is flooded. Homarids rule!

I would really love to see a set that based itself upon the continent of Sarpadia and all the strange species that won out in the end. The story could be told through an explorer's standpoint. There would be a characters like Sisay and her crew that would delve into the wilds of Sarpadia. The place would be overrun with all manner of strange and powerful thrulls, homarids, and thallids. It would also hold many buried treasures from the empires that had fallen. And there might be a couple outposts of grizzled orcs and dwarves that had *GASP* joined forces and adapted into one society that had learned to live in cohabitation with all these strange new creatures. Now that would be a new take on dwarves and orcs wouldn't it? If they had adapted to become the best of friends over the years in order to survive the same circumstance. (Wizards: Feel free to take this idea and run with it.) I would like to see a card named: Droning Queen Summon Homarid Casting cost: U She is a 0/1 that gives all other homarids +2/+2. So the other homarids in this set would have meh casting costs too, but with a queen on the board they are much stronger. With two queens on the board they are really strong and the queens are actually 2/3's then. Some kind of flavor text about how alone they are nothing but together they are powerful and how the dwarves and orcs saw this and learned from it. It would also be nice to see an artifact that costs 2 and for 1:(no tapping) Turn target Camarid (a juvenile Homarid) into a Homarid. Yeah, this would make a really cool set.

Crab Battle!!!

Yeah, the "add counters, then remove them" is a fantastic mechanic that I wish they implemented in more cards. That said, Homarid sucks and gets points only for nostalgia and hilarity.

Homarids need to make a comeback, but with better abilities. That would make me super happy.

O-o?? This card confuses me, I thought I understood this game.

The card's name should have been "Ignore me completely". You can tell by the fact that it's a 1/1 for 3 for 1/4 turns, with no other abilities of note.

I really like the mechanic, but you'd think that they would put the mechanic on a playable card, right?

Card of the Week #4 (1 day late) Previous Card - Skyshroud Condor Oh yes. Homarid indeed. Oh how I love the random card button. So, what exactly can you do with a 2/2 for 3, that sucks 1/4 the time and is meh 1/2 the time and is decent 1/4 the time? You could suggest they make this card a 3/3 to be playable, OR you could play it anyway, because it is in fact a homarid. I'm going to go with the latter suggestion. So I'm going to play with Homarid. Yes that card from Fallen Empires. Yes that is in fact one of my favorite blocks. So what if it's bad. So flavorful! So much art! God I love that about fallen empires. I recently went out of my way to buy a play set of thallid from fallen empires, one of each art. They are that cool. I want to do that with Homarid, because this card is so cool. In case you are wondering, my favorite Thallid art is the Ron Spencer art and my favorite Homarid art is the Quinton Hoover art. Alas, I appear to have digressed for a few sentences, so back to playing a Homarid in a deck. And by that I mean an EDH deck. Where would you play Homarid in an EDH deck. You wouldn't look for the general whose strategy it would fit under, you would create an EDH deck just for Homarid, and just for the beautiful flavor in that beautiful four fold art package. So let's make a deck list for Homarid EDH, it will have to be mono blue and have to have all the Homarid and Tide counter cards. Lets start the list Homarid Homarid Shaman Homarid Spawning Bed Homarid Warrior Tidal Influence How beautifully short! But what does that say on Homarid Spawning Bed? Camarids? Lets get every other card that references those things to held add bulk and flavor. Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII Yep, thats it. Alright, so for this Homarid deck we have 6/100 cards. This is fun. No, lets find a general. A mono blue General. What are some good options, and why? Chisei, Heart of Oceans - Counter manipulation that compliments the Homarid ability and an Ocean flavor Keiga - It is the "tide" star Lorthos - The "Tide"maker It probably doesn't matter, but I'm going to roll with Chisei, because I like counter manipulation. So, we have 6 cards and a general and I'll leave 35 cards aside for land base. That makes 42/100 cards. So Homarids, they come from the ocean, they use lots of counters, tidal flavor, cyclical flavor. I can roll with this. Lets get some more tidal flavor. Dream Tide High Tide Inexorable Tide (Also provides cool counter manipulation) Keiga, the Tide Star Lorthos, the Tidemaker Parallax Tide Rushing Tide Zubera Sliptide Serpent Stormtide Leviathan Tideforce Elemental Tideshaper Mystic Tidespout Tyrant Tidewalker Tidewater Minion Tidal Bore Tidal Courier Tidal Flats Tidal Kraken Tidal Surge Tidal Visionary Tidal Warrior Tidal Wave That makes for 65/100. Now we have three glaring needs. First off, there's quite a bit of krakens, leviathans, etc, so lets throw in a Quest for Ula's Temple, for giggles, which makes 66/100. Second, we need more counter bearing cards and counter messing cards. Third, this is ocean themed, we need more Island matters cards, like island walk and such. Lets start with a list of possible counter bearing cards Aquitect's Will Chronozoa Coral Reef Floodchaser Giant Oyster Halimar Wavewatch Iceberg Illusionary Terrain River Kelpie Steady Progress All descent counter bearing/manipulating blue cards that fit into the Homarid theme and flavor. This will make 76/100. Now a list of more island matter cards. Benthic Behemoth Deep-Sea Serpent Dreamwinder Fishliver Oil Flooded Shoreline Floodgate Harbor Serpent Island Fish Jasconius Hammerhead Shark Giant Shark Devouring Deep Dandan Jokulmorder Kukemssa Serpent Leviathan Lingering Mirage Manta Ray Marjhan Piracy Charm Sea Monster Sea Serpent Sea's Claim Seasinger Segovian Leviathan Serpent of the Endless Sea Slipstream Eel Slipstream Serpent Spreading Seas Thing from the Deep Vodalian Serpent That Brings our count up to 105/100, which means we'll need to cut five cards. Lets cut the fish, as they don't complement Quest for Ula's Temple. Say goodbye to Island Fish Jasconius Hammerhead Shark Giant Shark Devouring Deep Dandan Alright That brings our count down to 100/100 cards. Now lets find a mana base. I want at least 20 Islands. Actually I'd make them Snow-Covered Islands just to confuse our opponent. So what lands should be run besides basics? Let's take a look. Coral Atoll Halimar Depths Reliquary Tower Sand Silos Saprazzan Skerry Svyelunite Temple And the Rest are Snow-Covered Islands. Now you can always tweak to your liking. More counters, less Leviathans. More Proliferate when it comes out. find some good artifacts to throw in. Whatever you want. But if you really want to run Homarid EDH what you really have to do is have a really cool play group and convince them to let you run Homarid (this card) as your general. If you can do it, I say you run Homarid EDH, and be hailed in all places.

Homarid is just so poorly designed. It starts as a 1/1 but the bottom right corner tells you its a 2/2 if that's the first thing you look at. It should have been printed as a 1/1 that gets a +1/+1 counter every upkeep until all the counters are removed when it gets a 3rd counter. That'd be much simpler than this. If it was printed in a set with -1/-1 counters instead of +1/+1 counters it could be printed as: Homarid 2U Creature - Homarid Homarid enters the battlefield with three -1/-1 counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a -1/-1 counter from Homarid. IF you can't, put three -1/-1 counters on it. 4/4

so.. has anyone ever seen that Yo Gabba Gabba episode where the Shrimp-Crab thing takes everyone's drinks and doesn't share? This is that! (or that is this?)

It's got a spear! They've figured it out! And you'd better run from that thing if you ever see one in real life!

Need a unique fantasy race that lives in the water and hasn't been done before? Why not Zoidberg?

These pieces of crap wiped out the merfolk? The merfolk on this plane must have been weak. Really, really weak. No, weaker than that. Even weaker. Keep going. More. No, more. Look, we're talking chimney imps and wood elementals for superiors. They were weak!

Flavorful, but bizarre and mediocre at best. No one wants to catch this thing as a 1/1.

This card brings forth my love of wacky Counters, and boy, Tide Counters have to be the wackiest yet. 3 for a 2/2 that spends half its time even worse and the other half of its time mediocre just isn't worth bothering with, though I'm sure there's some crazy counter-management combo that could be used to keep it at its best. Best thing to do is summon it hoping your opponent gets confused by the constant counter flipping and changing effects.

Back in the day, managing all of the counters on this card made players really crabby.

Sacrifice him to Culling the Weak Put out Phyrexian Obliterator! COOOOMMBBOOOOOO (come on, it sucks.)

Bouchart, the phrase "if there are four counters on" is ambiguous. It can mean "if there are exactly four counters on" it, or it can mean that it is true that there are four separate counters on it. If there are five or six tide counters on it (say, due to Doubling Season), then there are still at least four separate tide counters on the card, and all are removed. Which why cards are good to say "exactly" when they mean exactly.

Ebb Tide Homarid 2U Creature - Homarid At the beginning of your upkeep, if Ebb Tide Homarid has less than two -1/-1 counters on it, put a -1/-1 counter on Ebb Tide Homarid. Otherwise, remove all -1/-1 counters from it. 3/3

The Legendary.

da-da chum da-da-chee

If there are more than four tide counters on it, it's just a 2/2 creature with a bunch of useless counters.

i do not think there was a single homarid without a drawback that made them almost useless. i'm sure it is possible to build around that, but why bother when there are much better cards available that are easy to get?

CRAB PEOPLE!

A whole lotta of text for what amounts to a complex and useless tribe - yeah!

Fixed Homarid 2U Creature - Homarid At the beginning of your upkeep, if Fixed Homarid had two or less +1/+1 counters on it, put a +1/+1 counter on Fixed Homarid. Otherwise, remove all +1/+1 counters from it. 1/1

For some strange reason, this card reminds me of the number i. i^2=-1 i^3=-i i^4=1

He appears to be trying to pick his nose.

Worst art ever, on best card ever!

@jsttu: XAFVEU, the Merciless Legendary Creature- Homarid Demon Flying, Haste, First Strike, Protection from Protection. Bad Cards you own can't be exiled. At the beginning of your upkeep, put a tide counter on XAFVEU, the Merciless. At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice a creature or pay 7 life for each tide counter on XAFVEU 7/7

"You have the physique of ATLAS!" "Thanks, I work out." "MAKE POSES WITH ME!" *eyebrows*

They wanted to give him some more ability's, but there was no room on the card left. They wanted to create this interesting tide mechanic that fit the flavor of High Tide and Low Tide. They had to give it a 2/2 body, because only green is supposed to be good with creatures. And boy, when that high-tide hits, you have a 3/3 for 3 in blue, overpowered.

@ Verlande: Magic has plenty of its own fantasy races: Vedalken, Kor, Metathran, Orochi (snakefolk), Moonfolk, Viashino (arguably close to lizardmen, but whatever), Phyrexians, etc. It's just that the fantasy standbys are the most popular. I love this card, it's adorable- a lobster with a little staff! I want to hug it to bits!

Huh. Am I the only one who finds it odd that this Homarid is far more effective against Return to Ravnica's merfolk then it ever was against its own block's?

An interesting card. Good synergy with Leviathan when you run out of ways to use it.

While not the best card around, this has a lot of potential with Coat of Arms.

I just like the fact it creates something other than Homarids, despite the name. Are Camarids the juvinal name for Homarids? That would be like sacrificing a "tiger" card to put "kitties" into play... talk about flavor winning over sanity, but whatever. At least this thing was a good way to eat all those awful, huge blue creatures that existed back then: Sea Serpent, Island Fish, Elder Spawn, Leviathan, etc.

Not as terrible as you'd expect for something pertaining to homarids.

I built a deck around this and Mass Polymorph when 2011 came out. Basically the deck gets Avatar of Will, Errant Ephemeron or Maelstrom Djinn out, sacs it for a pile of tokens, then Mass Polymorphs the tokens into crazy stuff like Progenitus, Stormtide Leviathan, or... whatever you want, really. For a while I just polymorphed into and Elder Spawns, just for the lulz / thematic cohesion. It is a Spawning Bed, after all. You can speed it up with Show and Tell, and it's even possible to go sort-of-infinite by mass polymorphing into Great Whale, Palinchron, and Snapcaster Mage (to recur Mass Polymorph). So. Much. Fun.

Actually pretty nice card out of fallen empires. And it reminds me of crab people from south park. Any kind of +1/+1, maybe glorious anthem, becomes really nice with this. Coat of Arms becomes extremely deadly. A nice way to go is to keep 3 mana open and respond to single target removal with this ability.

Steal your creature, turn it blue, Sac it, get tokens. 5 outta freakin' 5.

Need a Sleight of Mind here.

Combos with-- ALL HAIL LORD SCORNFUL EGOTIST!

This card is replaced by Giant Crab.

The art looks like something Ultraman would fight. Since the ruIes wording was a bit confusing when i first got him, I was fine using him as a 5 for a 3/3 that looked like one of gozillas cronies.

That sea serpent got out and out owned.

Hey there, another creature which is now named identical to its creature type!!

Fail art.

Homarid Warrior is a poor card for the fact that for five mana, it is a 3/3 creature that you give shroud and it doesn't untap for the next turn.

This is the linchpin of my Zoidberg deck.

@enemy_tricolor Thats the best theme deck i've ever heard LOL "Now the Rubber Bands on the Other Claw!!"

A master spear-fighter.

If you find the idea of a spear toting crab hilarious, you can try to make a deck around these guys. Otherwise, steer clear.

IT DIES TO REMOVAL! Oh, wait.... Oh my god, this has to be the best creature in the game!

Hey there, another creature which is now named identical to its creature type!!

It's simple. Just do an advanced search for Subtype m/~/. "m/.../" indicates a regular expression, and the tilde is an alias for cardname.

You're thinking of lobsters, this is clearly an homarid

Laughable by today's standards, but shroud was still new at the time this was printed, and they had no idea how to price it.

I wonder if it turns red when you play Boil

Hey there, another creature which is now named identical to its creature type!!

This isn't a Homarid, it's clearly and imposter in a lobster suit!

I thought the Homarid Club was more exclusive, turns out any old crustacean can have one...zing!

Zoidberg is pleased.

Mind Rot cries itself to sleep at night knowing it can never measure up to this card. Fearsomely powerful disruption.

No kidding! Fallen Empires is almost entirely horrible creatures and equally horrible enchantments. The very few sorceries/instants include this monster, Goblin Grenade, and Dwarven Catapult which are the only two removal spells of any kind!

Aaaah. I still laugh at my friends discard deck for not running these.

Devastating card from an absurdly underpowered set.

I thought this card was banned for years, still think they shouldn't be run in casual, just too nasty.

Hey, Fallen Empires has it's fair share of playable cards. Fungal Bloom Goblin Chirurgeon Goblin Grenade Goblin War Drums High Tide Hymn to Tourach Icatian Javelineers Icatian Infantry Night Soil Order of Leitbur Order of the Ebon Hand Of course, there are very few STELLAR cards in there.

I couldn't even play mind rot knowing how utterly inferior it (and just about every other discarder) is to this beast. How is it that Fallen Empires could see this printed, in the same set as the likes of Homarid

your right about that claov. too bad this card aint legal in standard so i guess were stuck with mind rot.

my favorite art of the 4!

by far my favorite card. 5 stars. this is up there with mind twist. @bonerot, i agree. i really liked fallen empires. i try to work order of the ebon hand and order of leitbur into my decks now and then because the artwork kicks so much butt and they're underrated. first strike, pumping, and protection from blah. so awesome. hymn to tourach is insane though. look at the top 8 vintage decklists from any time between 1995 and now... this will be in one of those decks. and it's from fallen empires. so weird.

Best art for a Hymn to Tourach -- the printing for Fallen Empires doesn't even do the original art justice (because it's less colorful on the card). There's a computer-wallpaper sized version of the art on Etsy: http://ny-image3.etsy.com/il_fullxfull.117627307.jpg

Even the fastest decks can't ignore this pearl. I like to compare this with Counterspell.

4.5/5 for dippy art. Unparalleled effect.

...MOON MOON?

This, Order of the Ebon hand, and Soul Exchange made playing black so awesome in Fallen Empires. You even had a Basal Thrull sitting around just so you could sacrifice it to play this card when all your lands were tapped and your opponent thought they were safe.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Short-Sleeve/dp/B007I4HHES/keywords=three+wolf+moon+t-shirt

My favourite turn 1 play when running discard is a zero drop creature (like phyrexian walker or something), culling the weak, and two of these. my opponent usually doesn't recover from that.

Best Discard spell . . . .period.

If you don't cringe when you see this... you've obviously never played against it.

One of the few cards I can honestly say I like from Fallen Empires...

I like how this was a common, but Derelor was a rare. Oh-ho, this block...

Absolutely brutal. This card is here to kill your hand and chew gum, and it is all out of gum.

Hands down the best card of the set.

excellent card, and I got the 4 arts. P i sses people off when they get duress at first turn, then this, then a nice hypnotic specter then abyssal specter, with thoughtseize, etc.Black can be so mean :-)

This is up there with Mind Twist for utterly brutal discard. I once got two boxes of fallen empires for twenty bucks off a classmate, and I'm still a bit baffled by the fact that almost every playable card in the set is at common: I own at least four playsets of this and Goblin Grenade, and pulled just one copy each of (rare) chaff like Goblin Flotilla and River Merfolk. If it had been the reverse, I would have been so much less pleased with my purchase.

hymn to tourach, sinkhole, necropotence, dark ritual. ah, those were the days.

One of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful, discard spells ever created. A set of these fired off an early game Dark Ritual effectively ended the game.

Top 5 card in this set. Cheap, ugly, pain without payback. hate black, love this card.

How is this legal in any duel format? Because it's not a combo, I suppose? Just VERY high power?

I like this Hymn's art the most. Great sense of movement and sinister feel to it. You just know that mage is about to make you discard a Jace.

two in your opening really makes people hate you

True story: A friend was playing my vintage black deck which has four of these bad boys in it. I played my mono-black vampire deck. Here's how the first two turns went: Opponent T1: Swamp Me T1: Swamp, tap, Vampire Lacerator Opponent T2: Swamp, tap, Hymn. He picks... two Bloodghasts Me T2: Swamp, two Bloodghasts, tap, some Vampire (I can't remember because I was still laughing) The rest of the game was unmemorable. Good times. Moral of the story: Even 5-star cards have a bad day. Oh, and huzzah for Quinton Hoover.

est art of the card, Discarding at random is just unfun though... 5/5 Stars

when i first saw this i fell in love, thus started a beautiful friendship. Whoever disagrees with the power of this card should try this: on turn two of a game look at your hand and think about how many things could go wrong for you if you get hymned. YOU UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE DARKSIDE!

R.I.P. To Quinton Hoover. His Hymn to Tourach art is easily one of my favorite arts in the game. He had a way of making this card feel genuinely pure evil. Maybe cause those card is genuinely pure evil.

Tourach seems like he could have been a pretty tough customer. Dude was just a normal wizard and prayers to him rival the strength of Elder Dragons and Planeswalkers alike.

every time i play this card it ALWAYS discards the two cards i want to get rid of lol this card is just soooooooooo good i have never been dissapointed after playing it

My favorite hymn artwork

One of those "classic" good Magic cards that defines the game.

I agree with those who like this hymn artwork best. I mean, it actually looks like people engaged in some cultist chanting ritual.

incredible artwork and by far the best straight discard in the game. two cards for one at only 2 mana AND the discard is random. you can't beat that. if discard worked with any deck, this would be a 5. discard is kind of like land destruction, though... doesn't always work with every type of deck. however, this should absolutely be in any black deck that can use discard in any way. 4.5/5

Fallen Empires didn't actually have any Rares, only Commons and Uncommons. The rarest cards were U1 Uncommons. Hymn was merely a common, but it is totally awesome. This is the best artwork for this card. Its very evocative.

when is wizards ever going to have a legit return to the sarpadian empires?

I worship at the altar of Tourach.

The absolute best discard ever... nothing can replace it. also because its cheap at the store i buy it from

Hymn to Tourach sounds like a Vulcan holiday song. But yeah this really is my favorite and in my opinion best discard spell in Magic.

The only booster of this set I ever got a hold of, had this baby inside. Dont even remember seeing a rare (remember two uncommons at least), but was pretty happy at this even if it is a common (no high tide though). That plus some collector traded one elf I got (not the rare) for a few other cards, and considering that I got that for only +2 euros more than a normal pack at the time of kamigawa block, I think I got a good trade.

I think it's time to reprint this puppy. Perhaps in From the Vault: PWNED!

The whole thought of this card reminds me of the beginning of the book Homeland by R.A. Salvatore. In it Matron Do'Urden is attacking a rival house and she uses the primal magic of giving birth to Drizzt to launch a devastating spell. This spell is like that: Devastating when the game is just beginning.

The staple of all true discard decks. And one of the only useful cards from FE.

"What the heck is up with this art?" They're not having dinner... they're playing a card game. I wonder what game it could be.

In my play group, this card is semi-restricted (we won't run more than 2.) Getting hit with one of these is one of the worst feelings in the world. What the heck is up with this art, though? Some elf getting wasted on ale while a flamboyantly dressed villain cackles at his drunkenness. Bizarre.

My favorite art. An easy 5/5, and IMO should be banned. Opponents scooping after a turn 1 or 2 Hymn is not uncommon. I had to remove these from my pauper deck to give my friends a chance.

I like this art. I can't say that I prefer it to the other arts, but this scene gives me some strange giddy feeling at the moment when I see it. I get from it a sense of knowing but uncaring evil. Like, I can sit here, across the table from you, and smile at you pleasantly, and know all the while that I'm about to be the cause of your unending torment. ... ... But I don't care...

Desperately needs a modern reprint. Two cards. At random. A square kick in the jimmies if ever there was one. 5/5 hands down.

you guys are totally misunderstanding what's going on in this artwork. the one dude in the hat is casting hymn to tourach, brandishing his cards. the dude with the green and red deck is about to get his ass handed to him by the followers of tourach, all of those shady ass dudes in the background, but he doesn't know it yet. he's all "dude, what does this one do again?" PWNED!!!!!!

ossibly the worst art on a magic card ever, ironically adorning one of the best cards ever. It's a song so dark and disturbing that it drives anyone that hears it insane, and he draws two guys having dinner? I traded all of this version for the Quinton Hoover version when I was a kid.

Should have been Hymn to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter! Then it would kill all dinosaurs on the battlefield too.

This card needs reprint art in a VERY bad way-- I hope it's not Reserved.

This art is awful 3/5 Stars

most people who see this card for the first time are cool with discarding two cards till they find out its at random then they usualy say "that card is bulls***"

A staple in Dinosaur Hunter decks.

While this artwork is interesting, this is easily my least favorite art for this card. I strongly prefer the Quinton Hoover version, With the Liz Danforth art being a close second. They both actually resemble evil, ritualistic hymns. This resembles, well, an elf getting smashed. I guess that's arguably pretty evil, though.

@DarthParallax, MRK1: This is getting a reprint. From the Vault: Twenty.

Laguz, your attitude disappoints me! I got four of this version simply because this Hymn is a drinking game. Only this time, the game is real!

This is easily the most sinister art on a magic card ever. There is no need for overt grotesque horror because the art tells a story much more chilling.

This was my favorite white weenie back in the day. Banding and first strike are both good, unlike Benalish Hero or Tundra Wolves which only have one, and cheaper than Pikemen. Of course, you have to pay to get either ability, but that's OK, since both are only useful occasionally (though on those occasions, they're great). It's cheap and it's flexible.

Banding was remarkably useful, but it was absolutely confounding to deal with.

For those who do not understand banding or whine about it, it was a fantastic ability. Was it a bit convoluted, sure, but it definitely kept a super big creature from rampaging someone with small creatures. This is definitely a good 4 star card - minimum.

No it wasn't. Banding was awesome ability.

Thank god they got rid of banding. Horrible, horrible ability.

I'm glad it has firststrike.

Not bad if you have a few power- and toughness-boosters.

So much effort to get it to do something, but at least it was a 1/1 for W with abilities.

I happen to love banding, It was a cool ability if a bit tricky to use and understand.

No wonder Icatia was utterly defeated. A typical infantry man had a p/t of .33333.

had to chuckle at the ruling "creatures in the same band must all attack the same player or planeswalker." hey, i'm sure it's happened once or twice in the history of casual magic. banding is not at all a bad ability, it was just an overly-ambitious rule for alpha. if they'd waited a few years and called it something more flavorful ('fellowship', or 'bloodbond', or 'unity' maybe) you'd all be spouting a million combos that would create third turn wins using it. i suspect wotc will eventually come up with a simpler, slightly more powerful version. sadly, this will not make my tolaria any more desirable to anyone.

Banding was a cool ability, but it was definitely convoluted. It would have been so much simpler to make it something like "Banding - tap: target creature gets +X/+Y, where X is this creatures power and Y is this creatures toughness." (They tried to do this to a small extent, see the comments on infantry veteran, but it wasn't done very well). They could have kept a lot of the same functionality with abilities like "sacrifice this creature: regenerate target creature this creature banded with this turn". Things like camel would still work: "prevent all damage dealt by deserts to creatures this creature banded with this turn". Sure, this misses out on the evasion loss, damage allocation, and things like first strike, lifelink, etc, but those just added to the confusion. Everyone understood a band could deal the sum of everythings power in damage. They didnt get that you could put more than lethal damage on your 1/1 banding to save the rest of your band and hose trampling or that they could block an entire band as long as they could block 1 thing or that you needed all but 1 bander on offense, but only 1 bander on defense. Banding had so many of its own rules that it needed to either be an extremely common ability or be simpler. As a somewhat rare ability in one color, it was just too confusing to keep. Sure, you understood it, but your opponent didn't.

HERE COME THE HUNKS!

Banding is underrated.

With all the power- and toughness-bonuses both White and the Soldier tribe get, this ain't bad.

Holy cool art Batman!

Ranger of Eos anyone?

I LOVE banding. It's better than Horsemanship AND Shadow!

Well it only costs only W so it's better than Eager Cadet at least...

Damn, that is one badass soldier! :O

This was my favorite Infantry art back when I had three of them that I played with. It still holds up today.

Very playable 1-drop, still a good creature even today. 3.5/5

That Icatian wall fragment's got to be quite a collector's item nowadays.

Actually not a bad one drop. People just don't know what banding is apparently.

You're telling me that these three could die to a Sanctuary Cat? No wonder Icatia fell.

"What's that you're writing Jim?" "It's my latest work. Want to hear it?" "Sure." "Ahem... Never surrender! ...That's it. But I think it gets the message across, don't you?" "Stick to soldiering Jim."

I disagree A3K. Paying 1 more to have both abilities static is worth it IMO. A turn later, but better.

Better then Pikemen.

New players underrate this thing so hard. Taking away that early birds of paradise or noble hierarch before they get to use it could win you the game by itself. The number of powerful one-drops that this thing kills is staggering. Silly art though. The headpiece these fools are wearing doesn't make any sense, the guy on the Benson art looks like he's got down syndrome, and Beard's art is fairly boring.

Reprint this for M11 please! Also @FragNutMK1: I do believe Mother of Runes is the best 1-drop for White. And to thaviel: It's a bloody SOLDIER for crying out loud. Odds are it'll be a 2/3+ after using it.

Only better one drop for white is the Soul Warden...which this thing can kill.

omg use humble

This was oneof my first cards, but my brother took it back because he needed it for his soldier deck.

I don't know of any other white creatures or spells that can unconditionally deal damage to any target. good card

I'm gonna be "that guy" real quick. OMG PROLIFERATE YEAH! /being "that guy"

A 1/1 for W that can ping something once? Sure, why not. Terrible art, however, but that was typical of Fallen Empires.

A member of that most exclusive of clubs, "Usable Fallen Empires Cards".

This card is my personal favorite from Magic's early period. I got laughed at for playing this card, which was justified, but only because I didn't know how to use it then. You can use its instant effect to kill Lotus Cobra, BoP, Prodigal Pyromancer, Bloodthrone Vampire...or you could have, if they had put it in M11. In a soldier deck, it then forms an extra body to block or attack with. Kirschner's Art is by far my favorite. I remember reading an article in the Duelist about the artist, and his philosophy on art was to create an image that was absent of any preexisting frame of reference. Benson's version is less imaginative (and she my favorite artist) and Beard went in a Greco-Roman direction. Also, the shadow halo effect is less obvious on the Fallen Empires original.

uhh..huh.. and then you have a 1/1 for 1..thats rather lame.

Nice ability for a one-drop, good with gateing creatures, counter-adding.

I love this. I use it to kill Dragonmaster Outcast in vintage.

I like javelin counters! They should do more cards like this with 'ammunition' style abilities. A modern revision of this card would probably restrict its targets to "attacking or blocking" creatures as white prefers. A better home for the mechanic would be on a red goblin.

What a great card this was, and still is. Being a soldier makes it all the crazier.

Compare vs Mogg Fanatic, which can activate the turn it comes into play (or while tapped), but doesn't stay in play afterwards as a 1/1; also, of course, this is in a color where direct damage is harder to get. Anyway, this card is very useful. There's all sorts of annoying one-toughness creatures out there worth trading its token off with.

Radagast wins. That's a white Tim, and with proliferate and flicker effects these days it's better than ever.

You kill all the things I hate, let me bump you up to four stars.

Insane clown javelineers, at least this art. These guys are powerful in a deck that runs a lot of recursion cards, like Lifeline. Strong tribe, as well. A solid 4.5.

Use Phyrexian technology to give him more spears.

So manly.

gotta love humble

Good creature, even better with a way to add counters or a way to return him to hand.

best art version

Good even without counter-making tricks. This version has the best art.

Snipe those Dark Confidants! Actually, this card sees a slight bit of play in legacy because it can snipe Bobs, BoPs, Noble Hierarchs, Grim Lavamancers, Llanowar Elfs (practically all elves in fact), and Goblin Lackey, to name a few.

An unconditional 1-shot pinger for white. At common this is very good.

aww has my name in the card name, they got me

Wonderful flavor, this guy isn't a very good javelineer though, he can't retrieve his spear! He can collect them with proliferate, though. Which is kind of weird.

Giant Fan from a Dark Depths onto this for SO MANY JAVELINS YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM.

Dude sees (occasional, but well deserved) play in both Legacy and Vintage. One of the underrated gems of Fallen Empires.

Many soldiers have first strike, so no need to buff toughness.

I think he'd be fine if he was a 2/2 with the same ability. He can, after all, pump himself.

This was the very first soldier-tribe boosting card, wasn't it? It's usable, but a bit overpriced to activate.

This guy would be great if only his ability costed just one white, or gave +1/+1, even. As is, he's just mediocre.

Marginally better than its Dwarven cousin since Soldiers are not yet extinct.

lol i thought the exact same thing Bluehero, than i read your comment..2.5/5 cuase its a solider and gives solider buffs..

I wonder if I could switch my lifemoney account to a more aggressive, high risk high reward moneychanger. Flip a coin, get 2 on a heads and nothing on a tails. Or maybe a safer mutual fund? Half a Counter per round, but without the 3 life initial cost? Hmmm. Maybe one of those Roth IRAs I've been hearing so much about. Oh! Right. Trading cards. uhm... This is a weird one. Rather silly, gotta wonder why he has 2 Toughness other than Blubber Armor... And I mean... Seriously. It's an Investment Banking Magic Card featuring a scowling fat guy. I would be inclined to think this guy was an Unglued if he weren't so unpleasantly drawn.

If you happen to be a wealthy person then you, of course, know to pair your standard account with a Gilder Bairn option. Honestly, though, if you are just going for 1 mana cost white cards you will probably be FAR better off with Ghost-Lit Redeemer.

icatian money changer with doubling season, awsome

Martyr of Sands is just better. Proclamation of Rebirth + Martyr is kind of like this + Doubling Season, but cheaper, faster and more potent.

This card is so bad it's awesome.

I wish he had a class type. Would "Human Merchant" be so bad? :/

Look, it's Ben Franklin!

To more accurately reflect the banking philosophy of today, it should be errataed to this: "Icatian Moneychanger enters the battlefield with three derivative counters on it. When Icatian Moneychanger enters the battlefield, it deals 3 damage to you. At the beginning of your upkeep, put a derivative counter on Icatian Moneychanger. Sacrifice Icatian Moneychanger: You lose 1 life for each derivative counter on Icatian Moneychanger. Activate this ability only during your upkeep."

This guy is tougher than you think. He can resist the blast of a rocket launcher!

I want to searing blaze this thing so badly. You lose 6 life and you're down a card, trololol

I like the part where Fallen Empires.

Awesome flavor. But it sucks. :(

So this guy is the 1%? Seriously, he sucks. But at least he's cheap!

No use for this garbage. i tried for so long and lost too many times. One of the worst cards EVER printed in magic. A Lightning Bolt to the head as part of the casting cost, one counter a round and three rounds to break even, and a sac required but only during UPKEEP? Did you hate us, WoTC?

I love the flavour of this card, but let's face it, you're better off with Golden Urn on the first turn.

Why does this seem racist to me?

Let's see... he's an investment banker who starts out by stealing a solid chunk of money, and then he promises great returns... sometime later... if conditions are right. If not, you lose. Yep, I'd say this card is painfully accurate. Useless, yes, but accurate!

MMMMM Richer!

Hey-sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. The worst goddam omelet you ever had in your whole life. No wonder you almost had to beg people to buy Fallen Empires boosters.

He'd be pretty good if he wasn't so easy to kill/get rid of, or if you could get the life back anytime instead of just your upkeep.

"I promise you this will have a great payoff if I'm not thrown in front of some rampaging attacking creature before then."

I was gong to read the text but honestly, I'm sure it's not worth it. And WHAT is up with that insanely ugly white mana symbol?

Without timing restrictions this would be a very solid card. With timing restrictions it's clunky removal bait.

If his sacrifice ability could be used at any time, you could at least chump-block with him and get your life (and a little extra) back. As he stands, he was unplayable, even at the time he was printed.

Sheesh. No wonder Jesus had to throw these guys out of the temple 2,000 years ago. Jesus should'a thrown out the guy who designed this card, too. Okay, that last remark was pretty mean. I was jus' jokin' there, guys.

Doesn't believe in compound interest :(

While you're wasting time with banking, your opponent will be smashing you with real creatures. A waste of time and mana, albeit a somewhat interesting one.

With doubling season this isn't a have bad card because that is one mana to gain 6 life.

@Ace8792: Actually, it's only a net gain of 5 life, since it deals 3 damage to you when it enters the battlefield, and since you can only activate his ability during your upkeep, when he'd get another 2 counters. 8 counters - 3 damage = 5 net gain of life. However, it's at sorcery speed, requires a turn of waiting, and is vulnerable to removal. tl;dr version: bad card, don't use it.

he exchanges money at a profitable rate

Rating this abomination of a card more than half a star is a sin against the universe.

Remember, kids: life is money.

Without timing restrictions this would be fantastic. Anyways, this artwork is interesting.

Wizards has realized that life gain is only good when paired with something else, like damage, a decent sized body, or in copious amounts for very little mana. This card is everything good life gain is not: it hurts you first, it has the potential to be killed (in which case you Lightning Bolted yourself for nothing), it is quite slow if you want to net even 3 life, and the fact that its ability can only be used during your upkeep makes it useless in combat as well. Sure, it's cheap, but its uselessness in battle makes it a liability more often than not. Interestingly enough, you could think of Cathedral Sanctifier as an evolution of this idea. While not amazing, it is much better than this card.

I clearly need glasses, I looked at the name and saw "Iced MonkeySinger"...

These comments are truly stupid. @thaviel: You can't chump block and gain life with it. @ttian: Your name has two t's. @zoah: Nope. @psyklone: It was printed with three different arts. You can only have four of a card with the same name in your deck, art is irrelevant. @Radagast: It comes with 3 credit counters, read the card.

I like the concept, not the execution. Mana for counters would have made much more sense.

Radagast: Are you dumb? It comes with three counters. RTFC.

You can get your life back +1 next turn... if he's still alive.

1 mana isn't much for a little chump block life gain goodness

Hmm... the art looks like Cubism... */2 for the art.

icaTIAN i'm on a card yay!

Apparently this was printed 3 times as a common in the same set. So, you can have 12 copies in a deck. Whatever you can make a judge believe is legal. Theres also a black creature that the rules say is red.

@ Henrietta - what's stupider than many of these comments is the fact that the M:tG community actually rated this thing higher than 1 star. Astonishing. I like the way they often used Drew Tucker's art for the worst, most pointless cards out there, though. Other than his version of Plateau (from the Alpha/Beta/Unlimited set), his pictures either look like a poor man's Picasso, or like someone sneezed all over a canvas. Oh, and check out my little comments on the 1st version of this card. :-)

Wonderfully pointless - and look how many lines of text they took up to do it. This card basically says: "Take 3 damage when it comes into play. If this bum survives until your next upkeep, you can get that life back... if it lives longer, you might get 1 life per turn if this crud card survives until your next upkeep." Against any deck with creature kill, this thing is often a Bolt to your own face, and even if it does live, it's not worth it. The sacrifice only during your upkeep part is really what kills this card, IMHO.

Of all the cards for Drew Tucker to do art on, why did they choose this one?!? I'm not the biggest fan of Mr. Tucker, but I can see where his art would work... a friggin' bureaucrat probably isn't near the top of my list.

What is up with this art...

Drew Tucker: with the right card your artwork is amazing. But this time I have to give you a FAIL.

Force Bubble

Banding was an amazing ability. It made blocking much harder for your opponent. A 5/5 banded with a simple 1/1 will deal 6 damage if unblocked. But you can't just choose to block with a 6/6 creature and hope to kill both of them, in fact no block will let you kill the 5/5, you have to remove the banding creature before blocking and before damage is dealt. When blocking it was great too - My opponent could be attacking with a 20/20 trampling creature, but one banding creature blocking it and I can assign all the damage to a single creature and all the damage is assigned to that one creature (you didn't need to have more than 1 creature blocking to assign combat damage).

@ Scottevil912 Almost completely correct. Banding was indeed a great ability, and often a poorly grasped one. However, I'm pretty sure that if you're blocking a trampler with a banding group, trample damage will carry come through if there's more than enough to kill every single blocking creature. You can however choose to divide the damage up so that each of your blockers takes just enough damage to survive, and allow the rest to carry over to yourself. That way, youv'e minimized the damage you're taking, and kept all of your creatures alive as well.

Too high CMC

@DrJack I'm actually pretty sure banding nullifies trample--trample allows attackers to assign damage to their opponent, but the whole thing with banding is that the defender chooses how damage is assigned. So if you blocked a 10/10 trampler with this and a saproling, you'd say "I could kill both of them and assign the last 5 to myself, but it makes more sense to put it all on the saproling instead, which I can do because banding is awesome."

"I F**king LOVE being soldier!" "Calm down, man..."

Banding was seriously overrated.

No idea what happened when they priced this thing. I mean, seriously, it's an Ironroot Treefolk that gives up +1/+1 for Banding, which is a losing deal - and the Treefolk themselves were pretty bad for the time. Compare it to Serra Angel and weep a bit.

HORRIBLE card. @Kael_Hate: Banding was seriously under-rated! Banding vampire decks were ridiculous...

This could go quite well with new Theros card Phalanx Leader.

It's so weird to see Foglio (K or P) art depicting soldiers, especially on this card. The flavour text indicates everyone is about to die, 300-style, totally overwhelmed. Then there's that one dude/chick on the left who's grinning like they just got laid before the battle and everyone's jealous.

It's true, an enchantment is easier to kill than a 1 toughness white creature. You heard it here first.

Ah, Drew Tucker, I don't know what to make of your art. Your style makes some cards actually look cool. Like this one. Then you paint things that look like what I leave in the toilet bowl the morning after All-You-Can-Eat Taco Nite, like Necrite.

Gerrard's Battle Cry is way better.

You can't kill this guy with a disenchant.

Expensive, but if you have the mana, why not. And it's a 1/1 for W with an ability.

AND an uncommon...I have never played one of these. Not on accident, never. I have tons, and they just sit in my box, mocking me for my foolishness of ever owning them...Really though? After Blessing, WTF would want this POS?

At least it counts as a cleric for all your Onslaught/Odyssey decks....

Not bad. It's a human and a cleric, those are two relevant creature types. With one mana, you can play him early on and get some damage through (especially if you have some equipment). While his ability makes sure he is also useful late game, capable of pumping any creatures power and toughness at instant speed, as often as you got mana. 3.5 from me. Would be still playable today, in casual and limited.

icatian-bat-riding-dude

he's the goddamn icatian batman

The real problem with the art is it shows the Scout flying when it dosn't have flying.

All the other Icatian Scouts are humans. Phil Foglio missed the memo. If there were a movie about Icatia, this guy would have to be the comic relief CGI character.

I prefer Advance Scout.

that doesn't look like it's from icatia

I always thought this guy always looked like he was just wasting time watching ants.

"They all look like ants from here, don't they?" "They ARE ants, man. They ARE ants."

"Of course I'm not a spy! The enemy has spies. I am a Scout." Said the spy to the pyro.

Nice flavor text, good art.

"I could crush you all like bugs..."

Artwork and flavor text are really good, and to me the card also is: granting first strike to one of your creatures AT INSTANT SPEED can also mean saving one of your creatures in combat. OK, it's not one of the best cards in Magic, but it's a common 1/1 one drop, and there are far worse...

First strike is a pretty sweet ability, nice take on tundra wolves. 3/5

...but also not ununuseful.

Not unuseful.

the le reddit r/mtg army and its leejun loves this card! 5 stars if you agree!

;-;

Noble Steeds

Orc hordes? Geez, must have been pretty pathetic to fall to that...

Not awful, but having to pay mana really makes it bad. Without the cost it at least would have been mediocre but as it is, I'm not sure anybody ever bothered with this one.

If you play intelligently you pretty much give all of your attackers first strike. Why? Because with mana open and high enough power attackers, your opponent has to sacrifice creatures to block them because you *will* pay if he does. The threat of paying is 95% of the effectiveness of this card. That said, the fact that Field Marshal just *gives* all of your creatures first strike makes this not terribly useful.

It's nice that people in these far-off ancient worlds showed no bias against women serving in the military. It took us until the 20th century.

It's not terrible - which makes it positively great be Fallen Empires standards. Still, it's never going to show up in a constructed deck and no one sane plays Fallen Empires limited.

Couldn't this card have had its activated ability with the tap, but without the White?

Advance scout is probably better, and still not that good.

Banding might have survived longer if there were more creatures like this that gave special bonuses to creatures in the same band, especially if they gave stat boosts. I can imagine first strike and banding working quite well together, but a four-mana 1/1 should have a better ability than this.

@Kryptnyt: What wordy is in word 'banding'? I have rulescards from various expansions telling for example what 'proliferate' means. The explanation is not longer than the explanation of 'banding'.

If this guy was 2/2 he would be a 5/5, i still love banding and I wish they used it more just like this card. Sadly, Camel is the only other creature with banding that shares abilities to my knowledge.

They need to bring banding back, it was a great mechanic that only imbeciles didn't understand.

Ugh, what a complex and costly mess of a card. Not worth it.

I love Banding but I'll play a Knighthood before I spend four mana on this chump.

This was pretty damn good when it 1st came out, and prob. my fave from the set. CMC was too much, but sharing an ability was UNHEARD OF then. 3.5/5

its not too hard to understand to bring back, just too wordy to fit on the cards. I was dissapointed to find no banding in Time Spiral block though. @Tavaritz If they brought banding back, they'd have to have some reminder text, just like any other new ability they come out with. The reminder text on banding is really, really wordy. Just look at the oracle reminder text.

See, this is why Soulbond was a really good idea. Banding that isn't impossible to understand.

The idea here is cool, but it's poorly implemented. Five mana could get you an Serra Angel, for heaven's sakes. They overvalued First Strike here, too. It should have cost three mana and granted first strike to a defensive band, too; or, alternatively, it should've given +1/0, +2/0, or even +3/0 to anyone in a band with it on top of the first strike.

The Masque block storage lands are so much better than this, if you had something to untap it you could get storage counters. A much more intuitive way of doing it, and the land is open until end of turn.

This is part of a cycle of "storage lands" from Fallen Empires which are all plagued by their slow, slow speed. At a time when land destruction was so rampant and cheap, this could easily set you back very very far. To give you some idea of how slow these lands are, note that they all enter the battlefield tapped, and then require you to tap to remove counters. To get more benefit than a simple Plains, you'd need to invest 4(!) turns. Compare this to Ruins of Trokair, and that cycle of lands, from the same set, which provide a little optional burst after they come into play tapped. This one might be more playable than some of the others, due to white's combination of cheap quality creatures like Savannah Lions and White Knight, and its propensity to stall and control the board in the early days of Magic. Land Tax could allow you to fetch tons of lands, while you continued pumping out creatures, holding the white mana for a big Akron Legionnaire or Elder Land Wurm or whatever bloated white fatty people used to use in the lategame (I know, I was joking about when Serra Angel was considered too powerful to be printed). Here's the storage land cycle for the curious: Black: Bottomless Vault Blue: Sand Silos Green: Hollow Trees Red: Dwarven Hold White: Icatian Store

The problem with lands like this and their potential combinations with Doubling Season / Gilder Bairn or Proliferate is that you still have to spend mana to get mana. Usually, getting a net gain isn't worth it unless you have an Variable Colorless cost worth paying. But if you're patient, I suppose it wouldn't be bad.

This is way better than the more modern Calciform Pools and it's ilk. This doesn't require you to bank mana, it just gives it to you.

Chunky and hard-to-use. No reason to use this, either.

Decent card if for no other reason than it doesn't require any input (other than leaving it tapped) to charge it up.

For the color that loves to stall, this is a requirement. For the long drawn out spell combo, likewise. Stall deck: 5/5 IRL 3.5/5

At least it has great art.

Even if it is easy and accurate to say that Fallen Empires was a weak expansion, it is very difficult for one to deny that it was a very flavourful set.

A bit more costly than it should be, but it was still an interesting card.

CITIZEN TOKENS - Y U NO BE HUMANS NOW?? *rant*

Look to cards like Increasing Devotion to see how badly this has been obsoleted. Still, it occupies its own historical niche in the game.

Quick answer - Nostalgia. This was definitely printed to compliment Hand of Justice, and that relationship is timeshifted as well with Gaze of Justice and the aforementioned citizen-makers.

Very flavourful, interesting concept. Would have been better as an instant though.

I realize the mana cost on this is high but it makes 4 tokens. There is a card that makes spirit tokens from Eventide.. but this does give you 1 more token that the eventide card wont bring you, its way easier to cast, and 4 chump blockers is not easy to deal with for todays decks.

One of the original token-generators. A decent card back in the days when things like Crusade were powerful, now it is probably a reach for the bum-rush white deck. 1.5/5

i don't get why they kept this creature type and even printed it on the cards Icatian Crier and Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII. it's neither a profession nor is it a species, isn't it? townsfolk also got changed to human. so why didn't they change these to human as well, or at least changed townsfolk into human citizen instead?

So..."Implements of Sacrifice" are used to sacrifice themselves? How paradoxical.

Is sending this card to the graveyard really a sacrifice?

@GainsBanding... "weak boon cycle" I've never noticed that before! So that explains Balm of Restoration, Elven Lyre, Aeolipile, and Conch Horn!

She looks like she gave herself a hair cut with the bowl from Implements of Sacrifice.

She reminds me of my third grade teacher... knife and all.

Situationally, this is better than Dark Ritual. It's hardly acceleration, but it's mana fixing. So it's more like a pale, pale, pale shadow of Black Lotus.

This is part of Fallen Empires's cycle of super weakened "boons" (after the Alpha ones). So weakened that they are almost unrecognizable as based on that original cycle. This one was dark ritual.

Yet another reason why for most Magic players, Fallen Empires is pretty much Forgotten Empires.

Yet another reason why for most Magic players, Fallen Empires is pretty much Forgotten Empires.

Not the most versatile card, but I use it for casting Channel in a mono-red burn deck. Awesome.

"hideous"

Rather pointless... Dark Ritual this is not.

Astrolabe is a slightly improved version of this. It won't get you a 4 drop on turn 3, though.

Looks like Black Lotus is still the only card strictly better than this. Pentad Prism is usually better, though.

I like how the woman on this card looks just so... mediocre. She's not really that attractive, nor is she hideous. She looks just like some average, overweight 40-something-year-old woman. Not exactly the kind of individual I'd expect to see on a Magic card, lol.

I have one of these in my rare (but not powered) cube. It isn't an early pick, but it's useful for a few situations. This is especially nice in 3 color decks to fix you into that Wood Elves or Borderland Ranger you can't quite get to on a bad opening draw, or for mono/two color decks that have splash situations. In other instances, it can become just a simple thing that for one turn gets you an additional mana. Not the best card ever, but still decent.

Soccer Mom says, "It's time for the bloodletting now!"

"...NO! You were supposed to use them to MAKE a sacrifice, not sacrifice the implements themselves!"

That's either one stoopid good tat or one creepy gene mutation.

"Sir, you really don't need to do that, you can just have the Mardi - - OH MY GOD YOUR CHEST, JUST TAKE THE BEADS, TAKE ALL THE BEADS!!!"

This card has helped me get Nicol Bolas out so many times.

not mono but multi! you get as much black as you need but without the lands being the right colors!

I agree with the flavor text.

one for an 1/4?? That's amazing even without the swamp producer. EDIT Woaaah that border threw me off. I now realize it is a 1/1. He's not so great anymore.

first and best card for mono black

first and best card for mono black

Strangely has nothing in common with Order of the Ebon Hand.Also, @inmypants22: wtf.

@Zoah: Good job spotting a joke there. Anyways, it's black mana fixing, which isn't quite what I want to play in most B decks, but could have been ok at some point.

not to mention the art is weird and creepy, which is totally black.

Useful if you want to run Drain Life in a Black/Green ramp deck. Very limited in its appeal, but at least it has a use.

Helps you go infinite if for some reason this requires lots of black mana and all you have is lots of off-colour mana? Much like Orochi Leafcaller.

I can picture the Ebon Hand putting up "Help Wanted" adds to recruit mana-producing elves.

best card in mono black deck

Re: Art O_O

Why mono black? You will only have swamps anyway.

I think they stole these critters from Shadowmoor... Another case where multiple artworks showing different creatures prevented the creature from getting the Human subtype later on. On the other hand, you can say the Ebon Hand were equal-opportunity employers, whereas the Leitburians and Farrelites were racist bastard humans-first organizations. :P

Pretty darn good card back in the day along side the Urza lands from Antiquities. Tapping one Urza's Tower for 3 B mana still has a happy place in my heart.

Interesting how the different art on common card thing that FE did threw a monkey wrench into the great creature-type update. Now we don't know what race these guys are- just "Clerics"

I love this art. Looks like the guy in front is shocked to find a human intruder disguised as one of them.

VERY cool art, looks like silhouette in the background! i like the flavour that if you demand too much of your followers they will die for you!

A staple in casual W/B cleric decks.

@Weretarrasque: Where do you think all that Black that Order of the Ebon Hand uses comes from?

Strangely has nothing in common with Order of the Ebon Hand.

the le reddit r/mtg army and its leejun loves this card! 5 stars if you agree!

The ability is narrow, but not too much so, and it's the kind of narrow that applies to what you're running, which just means you have to pay attention during deckbuilding rather than getting lucky on what your opponent is running. It's a 1/1 for 1 that does a decent job of mana fixing, if only one way. Obviously not to be used in {B}{G}, where you have much better options, but there are other colors to pair with. It only explodes if you're going hog wild to wash everything for a Drain Life.

I really like the art by Liz Danforth here. I don't really understand what's going on in the picture and that is what intrigues me.

Picture the tense situation in Fallen Empires limited. Your opponent has just used High Tide to summon the infamous Deep Spawn on turn 5. What are your removal options? Necrite? Too situational, and your opponent has been pumping out chumps for the last few turns with Homarid Spawning Bed. Goblin Grenade? The unstoppable lobster shrugs it off! Your only hope is this crappy card. That this would've been the best option should say something about Fallen Empires in general. This is just about the closest it comes to removal. But seriously, Mystic Restraints has the same casting cost. So does Control Magic, for that matter.

Darksteel Colossus i got a present for you lol.

i have like 12 copies of this card..... it annoys me each time i see it.... at least your opponent cannot reduce the casting cost

I want to play this card with a deck full of proliferate shenanigans, just for the yucks.

Rather worthless, even back then, since Control Magic was far more powerful and had the same casting cost.

Three net counters, you say? Sounds like it's a... *puts on nerd glasses* Merseine Prime! AWWWWW YEEEAAAAHHHH!

this art is the best

How many cards are strictly better than this? All of these keep a creature tapped, no questions asked: 1999 Dehydration - Blue lighter 2003 Frozen Solid - 1 cheaper, kills when damaged 2004 Mystic Restraints - flash, taps right away 2009 Paralyzing Grasp - Blue cheaper 2010 Bonds of Quicksilver - Blue lighter, flash 2011 Claustrophobia - 1 cheaper, taps right away 2012 Encrust - 1 cheaper, enchants artifacts, shuts off activated abilities I reckon Blue or 1Blue would be a fair price. Narcolepsy/Curse of Chains is still stronger, but not against e.g. Visara.

Don't even know what to say; this is beyond facepalm. I suppose the art sums this card up pretty nicely.

Is that a nude merman?

I don't know if that's a merman or not but it is naked...The CMC is far too high for the temporary nature of this enchantment...

They had the perfect chance to draw a half-naked woman netted and they messed it up. Plus other spells do the same with no side effect and even lower casting cost.

Better with proliferate... but useless since there are spells for half the cost that do the same thing with no draw back.

@Enelysios: While I agree there are better things, not completely useless. Enchanting a creature with a high CMC may set your opponent back 2/3 turns. Then, when he finally thinks he has his creature back you can Mind Control it (if mono blue) or Doom Blade (if not mono blue) it just for the fun of it. It will not win the game but it's always nice to cut out all hope for your opponent.

Or, instead of using this costly and silly card, we could spend the same amount of mana and cast Control Magic and take the creature and use it to beat up its controller. Yep, typical Fallen Empires silliness.

Three net counters, you say? Sounds like it's a... *puts on nerd glasses* Merseine Prime! AWWWWW YEEEAAAAHHHH!

What? Why?

Could be used with proliferate... Yeah there are things that deal with it permanently for 2Blue, but giving them the false hope to sink mana into it might actually work out.

It's becasue the "Any play may activate this ability" caluse lets anybody use it (if it were restricted to opponens only then you would'nt be able to use it yourself, not that it would come it in any game I'd ever play) normally cards like this would grant the effect to the creatue, but the effect had to be on the aura so it remains functionally the same (for cases where you might cast Humble on the creature or saomething) Basically just another card with ardwards prinded wording making the oracle text even worse.

Confusing and useless! Fallen Empires to the max! Later, in Homelands, they simply did away with the confusing part of the design and stuck with useless. There are a pile of blue cards out there that do a better job of tapping down a creature, but what I like is how this thing compared to Control Magic which was in print at the same time... Yeah...

The oracle text reads, "Any player may activate this ability, but only if he or she controls the enchanted creature." Um... Wizards? That's not what 'any player' means. That's what 'enchanted creature's controller' means.

Three net counters, you say? Sounds like it's a... *puts on nerd glasses* Merseine Prime! AWWWWW YEEEAAAAHHHH!

Why is this rated so low? It isn't bad at all. Permanently Tap something unless your opponent pays its mana cost 3 times? Pop it on a titan or something equally large and you probably wont have too many worries for a couple of turns

Pretty complex for a common, a very clunky old mechanic. Nonetheless can still help lockdown the field...i guess. {2}{U}{U} is a hefty cost for the effect though, and at sorcery speed. Yikes. Although it's functionally slightly better with the proliferate mechanic, since you can pile on the 'net counters' I enjoy that the original text refers to the enchantment ability as a fast effect.

Ugh, dat face D:

Looks like a changeling!

This little guy is a bomb in limited

This is a pretty sweet card. Three mana for a 2/2 isn't great, but if it gets through, it's quite devastating. Plus the art is awesome.

Some days you can't get rid of a bomb!

This card is a very good card for cube drafting and decent in EDH.

I'm so glad that creatures that do wonky things when hitting a player no longer have the annoying drawback of having to give up the damage to get the effect. That's what made so many cards like this underplayed or utterly useless. At least this guy can get you some card advantage, but still, compare him to a Hypnotic Specter, which while admittedly very good, was just an uncommon back then.

I like this art best. This card is pretty sweet. Works well with the newer land Rogue's Passage.

As for the card itself, this is not too bad considering the times. With Dwarven Warriors and like effects, this could get through and potentially knock out a big chunk of an opponent's hard. This is all fun and games, but with a Megrim (Liliana's Caress for you newer folks) on the board, this is 6 life AND discard. Fallen Empires had a little subtheme of "damage OR effect" from attacking creatures, and this one is not a terrible trade some of the time.

Funeral Charm and Unearth work very well with him. Non-targeted discard is a big deal and so is non-dead discard (as he's still a 2/2 chump, trade, or attacker if you don't need them to discard.) Trying him in a pox deck. The sheer number of plays with the above cards and dark ritual make it easy to obliterate someone's hand and mana base before they can do anything. If you T1 or T2 smallpox and discard this guy, you have the mana to unearth him; they likely don't have the mana, nor a blocker, and now they need a 1-2 mana answer and have to hope you don't have creature kill in your hand. Very powerful..

I love this fallen-empires fashion of having 4 different editions of the same common card to chose among. So vorthosianly delicious .

Damn, badass art. :O

Very happy to see there was many arts available, this art is easily my favorite.

That is some of the most badass art I've ever seen on a Magic card. Also, the card isn't dreadful, for something made in Fallen Empires.

Best Artwork in set. It's actually a meaner card in use than theory. Love/hate this one much.

Whispersilk Cloak or some other sort of evasion, and you have a really annoying card, especially in a multiplayer game. In fact, you could say that you'd want to keep one of these handy for a discard deck.

the artwork is kinda creepy...i mean look at it, it has no freaking body and is walking on tethered arms. but then again, most thrull artworks from old cards are somewhat creepy^^ i'd like that one more if it wasn't for the "either combat damage or trigger effect"-clause, another typical feature only older cards have.

A 2/2 for {1}{B}{B} is nothing spectacular, but the additional ability will likely have your opponent topdecking, since (in most cases) the earliest this guy will swing is turn 4 (assuming you never miss a land drop, and don't have any mana acceleration, summon him T3, then swing T4). Even then though, your opponent has to find a way to deal with him, either by blocking or by wasting a removal spell on him (which against a {B} creature can be hard to come by). My only criticism is the fact that using the ability negates the combat damage, this is a mechanic often seen on older cards but it still isn't as threatening to have this guy come through unblocked and deal 2 damage or that player discards three cards, instead of dealing 2 damage and that player discards three cards. Works well with mechanics that make him unblockable, such as Goblin Tunneler, or Whispersilk Cloak as other players have mentioned.

The artwork leaves an impression to say the least. Not a bad card mechanically either. 4/5

Well, it's not a Hypnotic Specter, but it can force a serious discard early in the game. Probably saw some play at the time.

that's actually sutton

Play him turn 1 with Dark Ritual. Hypnotic Specter might be a better choice for turn 1, but forcing them to discard 3 cards on turn 2 does have its appeal.

This card in the same format as Dark Ritual is no joke. Discarding three cards so early in the game is a real backbreaker.

Really not a big fan of Drew Tucker's art. Maybe cool for some people though.

It hits any creature, which is a rarity among black cards. It forces your opponent to leave something back to block, and if you can remove that, then this guy can get in and take out whatever big black creature they have. It's also a 2/2 for 3, which, while not outstanding, is still kinda OK.

Definitely the sight. Thanks, Drew Tucker.

Wtf am I looking at.

Drew Tucker is pretty cool. I don't see him doing any cards today, but Drew and artists like him did a lot to make Magic flavorful before the story lines were so prevalent.

You will most likely never see thrulls like these in the light of day. With the budget crap cards i made in a black deck, it was going fine until i changed it around and added these stupid thrulls that have an effect if not blocked and sacrificed. It failed miserably. Necrite is pretty bad, and should deserve even less stars. I would give it a 1.5 for effect but the rest is just crap, except weird art, gotta love the nostalgia factor. 3 mana for 2/2 ain't helping either.

It's a creepy zombie/construct assassin, and we get a paper-mache love scene? The Tuck sucks.

Drew Tucker is a badass! Returned in Time Spiral block and a litte in Lorwyn (Curse of Chains, Deathbringer Liege, Eternity Snare, Viscid Lemures)! While I don't love abstract paints, I absolutely love watercolor, so I think Drew is outstanding for being an artist that uses a technic not seen everyday in a Magic card, resulting in a crearly distinguible sign among a hundred of other artist that looks similar each others! I'd like to see more Drew Tucker arts in the future (and Richard Kane Ferguson, too)

Blind Zealot

Horrible artwork on this version. Given how Black already had a zillion ways to kill creatures, this card doesn't cut it.

Amazing art. Seriously, very interesting style.

"Kiss me, you fool!"

Oh my gosh, if you look at the top right corner you can see a face. And then you will realize those weird hats on the thrulls are actually the hands to its robes. Drew Tucker is a genius.

Not as bad as people make it out to be. There are repeatable shadow granting engines: -Shadow Rift -Phyrexian Splicer -Dauthi Trapper -Dauthi Embrace While Blind Zealot is easier to use most of the time, there are also Flying granting engines, Whispersilk Cloak is a thing, etc.. What matters here is that it's a Kill spell with legs, much like Shriekmaw (but backwards.) This means it can perform an aggro role until it needs to kill something.

Oh... My... God. I can't decide whether I love or fear the art on this guy...

@Dragon_Whelp Welcome to Black.

mmm. Tongue-blood has excellent flavor.

Could be that his blood is poisonous to anyone but himself.

It's undead knife and jelly time! Undead knife and jelly time! Undead knife and jelly time!

The "is not blocked" clause holds it back, but at least its a deterrent for attackers. And it can be gravedigger back and whatnot. 3.5/5 As for the art, its very dark and solid. The card feels like an assassin thrull, 4.5/5

Back in the day among my circle of friends, Ron Spencer was one of our favorite artists, especially his black and red cards. Along with the immortal Richard Kane Ferguson, we loved opening any pack with one of his cards, good or not. I think this was a slightly above average card for its time. Several thrulls had abilities that activated when not blocked, so one of them was bound to get through and do some damage. A pretty unreliable form of removal, but definitely fun in a thrull deck.

Predator?

I like to imagine this guy bursting out of the monster's chest when he kills it.

an early example of post-modern flavor text

And now we have Blind Zealot. Same cost, size, and rarity but you get to keep the damage AND it has evasion but it only loses the anti-regen clause. Gotta love the Creep.

This dude looks like an early version of the Phyrexian Negator and Phyrexian Obliterator. It was actually pretty good when it was printed. People played vanilla 2/2 for 3 mana back then ( i.e. Grey Ogre ) and this at least gave you some removal potential. Esp vs. black decks (mono colored was the way it was back then) where Terror was the key removal. Plus this Cpl. Dobbs guy sounds like a real joker- talk about being afraid? See Goblin War Drums - you are a coward Dobbs.

Probably one of my favorite pieces of art in Magic, period. Kind of inspired some creatures from a book I never finished. 5/5 for the art alone!

The "is not blocked" clause holds it back, but at least its a deterrent for attackers. And it can be gravedigger back and whatnot. 3.5/5 As for the art, I love it. Feels like I am in an amazon or something and a headhunter is about to assassinate one of my creatures. 5/5

"Ever been to a Turkish prison, kid?"

Nice way to prevent the black player from reanimating.

Fairly gross name, considering Nightsoil was a polite way of referring to what came out of chamberpots. AKA, urine and feces.

Genesis, eat your heart out!

Aged well.

I believe Daanz is providing an insightful critique of not the mechanics but the art.

Looks like a muddy Dan-Dan. Great card though!

Top 5 card from FE. Grinding your opponents graveyard for 1/1s for 1 is too efficient to be ignored. 5/5