I'm not really seeing it. Orzhov has a ton of great options for aristocrats these days, such as Cruel Celebrant, Pitiless Pontiff, Hidden Stockpileand Cartel Aristocrat. While this new card is an interesting engine, it's mana intensive, requires a huge board, is narrow to aristocrats, and is easy to deal with. I've been finding that high board synergy decks really prefer sticky finishers when possible, and a card which is a 2/2 base and needs to connect just isn't that. I also think that this card's specification of sacrificing creatures is too narrow. If it cared about creatures you control dying or sacrificing permanents in general, it would actually be pretty servicable. It would either be a good engine for any aggressive deck that take the risk to splash for it, or it could have cool synergies with Fetchlands or Clues/Foods/Treasures. As is, though, this card looks too narrow and too fragile to compare well to it's fellow aristocrats, even in most low power formats. It's just heavily mediocre.Sigh said:
Dear lord WotC our orzhov sections were already tough picks
Repeatable +2/+2 at instant speed is pretty strong, and repeatable scry is pretty strong. That offers enough boost that you probably only need to sac one-two times per turn at most (one sac is a 2 mana 4/4 scry 1 gain 1). The sac-trigger ability also doesn't need that card to do the sacrificing, so I think its a pretty good card.
In my case from a WB(R) recursive weenies deck, where it's not as applicable because the creatures come back. Bloodghast is not going to be a permanent sac, same with Bloodsoaked Champion, adorned pouncer, or the token from usher of the fallen etc. etc.
Like if you include Goblin Bombardment, you don't typically ask "are creatures worth less than 1 damage to a target?". It's not usually the dynamic of how that type of card operates. The deck was built with the inclusion of Bombardment in mind, and the format was provided with the proper supporting tools to help with that deckbuilding, and there will be a situation where the answer is 'yes' due to that.
Just like any aristocrat, these cards don't typically get shoved into a format without support.
I think the comparison to Goblin bombardment here doesn't quite match. Bombardment is a powerful because it is a damage source that doesn't require interaction through combat. It just hurts the opponent. Even though it becomes insane when it's in an aristocrats deck, you don't need any special support for it to be decent. After all, if you can hit the opponent down to 4 or 5 life, you can sac your board to bombardment to win the game on the spot. Cowheadfriend doesn't allow for this ability because it has to actually connect with the opponent (or be Flinged) in order to close out the game. As a creature, there's a much larger window of interaction for it to be dealt with, and it also pushes players towards being in a dedicated sacrifice strategy.
A closer comparison would be Nantuko Husk.
A closer comparison would be Nantuko Husk.
This reads kind of hostile. I mean I get removal isn't as sexy as some of the other cool cards in the gold section, but calling it boring because it's primary function is simple interaction is a bit much. Removal is what keeps potentially annoying cards in check, after all.
I'm sure you didn't mean anything negative with this comment, but I think you're dismissing a lot of the cool nuances of removal selection in Cube design.
Technically she's the last of the original 4 sisters, the new angel Avacyn "destroyed" her after she made some sort of pact with an Archdemon, the details of which are largely unknown.
I like this card more than I should. Decent body for rate, cool ability that could provide card advantage, and a bit of a hoser attached. I'd honestly be up to test this if she were a 4 mana 3/4 or 4/4. As is, I'm afraid 5 mana is just a bit too much for a Baneslayer for my Cube because I didn't balance my removal to make 5 mana baneslayers viable.
