Welcome all to the Daily Dose of Ravnica Allegiance, where I'm ending this week off with some major destruction.
Today I'm looking at some destructive creature cards that range from dealing one damage per turn to clearing the entire battlefield (except for itself, of course). There's nothing more satisfying in Magic than destroying something of your opponent's. After all, no matter what else happens to your creature you still got to destroy something with it. Some players may prefer to hold back and wait for the right moment to strike, but others barge through the door without asking.
And today, we barge through the door.
I want to start things off with a Giant Gruul Wurm, specifically Ravager Wurm:
I call this the Wurm of many choices. Your first choice is whether you want a 5/6 creatures or a 4/5 creature with haste. This will be battlefield dependant, and it could also hinge on the other choice you make. If you want to fight, the size you make Ravager Wurm could affect your decision.
As a card with multiple decision points it’s very well designed. The ability to destroy a land with a non-mana activated ability seems narrow, but there are a couple good targets in Standard right now. The first is Spires of Orazca to make sure your Wurm gets through for damage. There's also Treasure Cove. Ravager Wurm won’t stop your opponent from getting their three treasures, but it will stop them from using those treasures to draw cards. Finally, and maybe most importantly, is Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. This card has been a staple of control decks for a while now and it would be great to be able to use Ravager Wurm to get rid of it.
Usually each set, there's some sweet new Demon creature for Black that sometimes has some sort of drawback. But this time, the partial drawback can mostly be used to your advanteage. Let's take a look at Spawn of Mayhem:
This Demon has value written in three different spots across the card. First off, you get a 4/4 Flying, Trample creature for just four mana. Trample doesn’t often come into play when it comes to flying creatures, but it will make it harder for pesky Thopter tokens to block it. Even if Spawn of Mayhem stopped with that, I'd be happy with it. But don't worry, there's more.
Forget casting it on turn four, thanks to its Spectacle cost you can play it for only three mana. It shouldn’t be too hard with black to have an early creature that damages your opponent. Now for the best part, it deals one damage to each player during your upkeep. Being able to get +1/+1 counters if you're low in life is great, but where it really shines is that it turns on the Spectacle cost for all your other spells. Don't even worry about attacking to get that damage in. Spawn of Mayhem is here with free damage to take down your opponent while fuelling your spells, and eventually itself.
And finally, here comes a Rakdos creature that is ready to destroy... all... creatures. Except for friendly Demons, Devils, and Imps of course. Here is Rakdos, the Showstopper:
Speaking of Demons, Rakdos is a large, nasty one indeed. You start off with a 6/6 Flying, Trample creature that will crush and fly over almost anything your opponent brings to the battlefield. However, the best part is the opportunity to destroy a bunch of creatures in the best way possible: Flipping coins.
Is this card Standard playable? I don’t think so.
Would I play it in Limited? Heck yeah!
There will be times where it will hit none of your opposing creatures and all your other creatures, but that's just the price you pay for a card as crazy as this. Most of the times, no matter where its path of destruction leads, you're still left with a solid creature after its done.
These are three cards that I would consider bombs if you open them up in your Limited pool during Prerelease. All three can win a game quickly by taking over through sheer destruction. With plenty of heavy hitters in Ravnica Allegiance, I'll have to keep my eye out for the proper removal to deal with them in Limited.
Thanks again for reading the Daily Dose of Ravnica Allegiance this week. Join me next week for some more sweet previews as the Ravnica Allegiance hype ramps up with more new cards.
