Courtesy of the Magic the Gathering Twitch stream,, check out Core Set 2021‘s planeswalker hunting menace — Sparkhunter Masticore!
Stats wise, a three-mana 3/4 is generally pretty strong, and having to discard a card as part of the casting cost isn’t necessarily a drawback in some decks.
Protection from planeswalkers.
As we all know, planeswalkers are very strong in almost every format, so having the ability to dodge cards like Teferi, Time Raveler is very important.
1: Sparkhunter Masticore deals 1 damage to target planeswalker.
At first glance, this ability seems underwhelming, but take note that this ability can be activated for only one colorless mana and it can be used any number of times, based on how much mana you have.
3: Sparkhunter Masticore gains indestructible until the end of the turn.
So Sparkhunter Masticore not only dodges planeswalker abilities, but can also live through most removal spells, making it hard for traditional control decks to deal with.
Overall, Sparkhunter Masticore seems underwhelming on the surface, but digging deeper reveals it has a lot of tools that make it a potentially dangerous Standard card.
