Welcome to the Daily Dose of Zendikar Rising. Today I’m going to be talking about four powerful new rare creatures that just happen to be what you need to have a full party. If you haven’t heard, the Party mechanic in Zendikar Rising involves getting four different creatures that include, Wizards, Rogues, Clerics, and Warriors onto the battlefield at the same time. Your full party is here in Esper form, ready to fight and take down your opponent. Each of these creatures is strong, but together they form the full party you are looking for!
Let’s start off with a Wizard that is hoping to have a full party. Here is Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate.
Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate
Even if you never do anything with this card, you get a 3/3 Flying creature, but its best ability is at the very end of the text box. Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate saves your team from any removal spell that I can think of including mass sweepers. Sometimes you can give them Indestructible, but they still get exiled. Other times you could give them Hexproof, but a sweeper comes in and destroys them. This will allow you to choose whatever you need based on the situation presented to you. In my opinion, the lockdown ability when you have a full party is great, but it will be tough to get a full party onto the battlefield at the same time.
Never have you wanted to put a creature into your sideboard like the brand-new Legion Angel.
Legion Angel
Just by itself, it is a 4/3 Flying creature for four-mana which is slightly above average. If you can turn one card into four though thanks to its ability, you are looking at sixteen power of creatures for the cost of only one card. There are a couple of decision points that you must think about for this card. First off, you must save some sideboard slots for this card. Most players were used to doing something similar with Companions last Standard season, so it shouldn’t be an issue. The next decision point is figuring out if you should go one in the main, three in the sideboard, or two in the main, two in the sideboard. Having only 1 in the main means you can chain four together turn after turn, but the chances of drawing that one copy is less if you only have 1 copy in your main deck. Having a 2/2 split means you can still gain 2 cards and have a better chance of drawing one into your hand.
Have you ever wanted a Tarmogoyf-like creature with Flying. Here is Nighthawk Scavenger.
Nighthawk Scavenger
This card has a ton of keywords on it, and they’re all great. At worst, this is a 1/3 creature that can kill anything on the battlefield during combat, but most likely it will be a four or five power creature with evasion and Lifelink. Black shouldn’t have any problems adding some cards into your opponents’ graveyard thanks to cards like Thieves’ Guild Enforcer. At this point, you will have at minimum four cards into your opponents’ graveyard on turn three and have Nighthawk Scavenger up to three or four power already. This is a creature that also gets better the later the game is when graveyards start to grow.
Finally, we are missing the Cleric needed to form a full party. Here is Taborax, Hope’s Demise.
Taborax, Hope's Demise
This card seems like a combination of three different cards at once. It has a Lifelink ability of Dreadhorde Invasion, where it needs to grow large before gaining the ability. It can gain +1/+1 counters when your own creatures die like Unruly Mob. Finally, it can draw cards like Midnight Reaper if they happen to be Clerics. Is there anything more this wonderful 3-drop creature can do? I can see this being played in the right kind of deck like a Sacrifice deck. This creature would have loved Cauldron Familiar still being around, so it will have to find some new friends to play with instead.
There are so many ways in Zendikar Rising that you can achieve full party status, but these are four of the best creatures that can help you get there. Thanks again for reading the Daily Dose of Zendikar Rising. Join me again tomorrow as I send off the week by looking at some more sweet new cards.
