In a lot of my articles, I talk about the value of defense and flying the radar. Not every situation calls for that, not every deck wants that, and not every player is going to want to do that every game. There comes a time in every multiplayer game where you have to try to win, instead of trying to survive, and that is what today’s article is about.
This article will be in the style of Finding Silklash Spiders and Finding Cho-Mannos.
Today, I will be using Guiltfeeder as the template and seeing what cards can stack up. If you are going to swing and dole out some damage, why not try to kill in as few hits as possible? That’s where Guiltfeeder comes in. It has evasion, it causes loss of life, and it can kill in one or two swings.
I have created a trio of elements to rank a rank with a 1-5 in each category.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit:
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit:
Tilt:
Tilt includes things like casting cost, other abilities, and so forth. Ideally, we want a creature high in each of the three categories.
Here is how I would score Guiltfeeder:
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 3
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3
Tilt: 4
I rate Guiltfeeder as 10. Later in the game, he can very likely kill in one hit, but there are times early and mid game where you are losing just 2 or 4 life a turn, or even 10 or 12 life a turn. Fear is a good way to evade people, but it can be stopped by every deck with an artifact creature and/or Black creature, and that’s a lot of decks.
In terms of Tilt, there are some strengths here. First of all, Guiltfeeder’s life loss dodges things like Circle of Protection: Black and Worship. It will nail an opponent. Because of that, it is immune to things like Maze of Ith and Kor Haven. Its life loss comes well before damage is dealt and therefore you can attack someone and kill them before combat is over, and then just end combat early for them.
Guiltfeeder is going to be one of the best options here, but there are a bunch of others. Let’s see what we can find.
Your Guilt is Too Much for Me
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 5. Phage is the only creature guaranteed to kill in one hit, and thus should be the only 5 I give out today.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Phage has no evasion, and no one will ever forget to block her.
Tilt: 2. The ability to off opposing creatures with a super deathtouch is great. It doesn’t even allow for regeneration. On the other hand, that disadvantage is just flat out nasty, and it prevents most people from playing Phage at all, outside dedicated Phage decks.
Total Score — 8. Everybody loves Phage, but you have to understand that you roll the dice when you play her.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 3. There is basically a 50/50 chance of being able to kill with this. Is your life total higher? Is theirs? (Or they are the same, which gives you a slight edge in the odds, and not a true 50/50).
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Without any evasion, and with a big ol’ body, Serra Avatar is not getting a hit in easily.
Tilt: 2. It has no disadvantage, it’s just big. For a simple 7 mana investment, you can get a creature of significant size. Later in the game it can be a bit of a wimp if you’ve taken some hits. However, it also does not shrink as people die like a lot of the next few creatures, which is nice.
Total Score — 6. Not a high score, but it has a lot of combo potential with cards like Sneak Attack and Angelic Chorus. It’s probably not worth its high price these days, but them’s the breaks. There are going to be several of these very large ground pounders with few or no abilities that stick with them. Thus, the only thing to differentiate them is how often will they have high power, and what’s their casting cost. Let’s look at a few in a row right now.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 2. It’s always at least a 7/7, but you have to have out a few more creatures before it can really start to work. It’s also easy for a player to lower its size by killing your other creatures.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. It has no evasion at all.
Tilt: 2. It’s not a great option, but it is a good adjunct to other strategies.
Total Score — 5. Not a very high score at all, and I hate the idea of a big creature that encourages your opponent to destroy your other creatures. I think this is the worst of the traditional powerhouses.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 3. It’s one of several monsters that scales down in size the closer the table gets to a duel, but in any sized table at all, it is by far big enough to kill in one hit.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. It has the same disadvantages all the others have
Tilt: 2. Unlike some other options, this is a cheap 5 mana, so you don’t have to worry about having the mana to drop it, and that gives it some interesting power.
Total Score – 6. There’s not a low of power with this creatures that scale down, but they have good casting cost and high power/toughness in the right place. We’ll take a look at some more of these.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 4. Unlike Vorrac and some others, this is almost always going to be big enough to kill, and even with just two or three players, it should still be at 20+ level. You can also control it and make it a lot bigger with the right cards and deck.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Same weakness as before.
Tilt: 2. Like the Vorrac, a 5 cc is great.
Total Score — 7. This is probably the best of the vanilla ground pounders.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 2. It can be a player killer later in the game, no question. However, it does not scale up as high, as quickly. A Lord of Extinction can be a 20/20 or more by the 5th or 6th turn. This will be a 2/3. As players die, it drops in size quickly.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Same weakness as before.
Tilt: 2. Four mana is nothing to sneeze at, and I see them on the board for a lot longer than the flashier Vorrac or Lord of Extinction.
Total Score — 5. The Lhurgoyf is an attractive package, but it lacks abilities and power, and scales down horribly to a 7/8 or 4/5 as you kill off players.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 2. Same as Lhurgoyf
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Same as Lhurgoyf
Tilt: 3. Regeneration is great, and now you are talking. That allows it to survive removal like Rend Flesh and Chill to the Bone or Day of Judgment or combat death. In a day when people may be slogging with a lot of 8/8 and up creatures, it may be nice to have a beater that can regenerate. Even when it’s smaller, 4 mana for a 6/6 or 9/9 regenerator is really hot.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. Even with a lot of lands, he is often never more then 10/10 or 12/12. On the other hand, he can easily be bigger, and Abe’s Deck of H&J has seen 20, 25 or more from them easily.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Same problem as before.
Tilt: 1. A bit too hard to make into a player killer. I just look at him as really big, and occasional a pk, rather than a reliable one.
Total Score — 3. Not a strong pk at this point.
Molimo, Maro Sorcerer
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. Same problem as Dakkon
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3. Trample makes this much better than Dakkon and some of the other creatures we’ve been seeing recently.
Tilt: 1. Trample McGee here is good, but he cost some serious mana and has the same size issues as Dakkon.
Total Score — 5. What a difference trampling makes.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. Multani is often just an 8/8 or 10/10 or 14/14. People who fear Multani can dump their hands to reduce his size. He also scales down as there are fewer players in the game.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Same Issue as Dakkon and others — easily blocked.
Tilt: 3. Shroud is really strong, and although it’s not trample strong, it prevents Multani from just getting a Terror to the face. He has to get blocked, and barring something like Cho-Manno or Indomitable Ancients or Drudge Skeletons, he is eventually going to get through.
Total Score — 5. There are better options out there that can hit more often, but he’s got a good casting cost and threat margin.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 4. If you’ve got the mana, the Colossus has the kill. The only thing keeping her from a 5 is the mana issue.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 2. Pro from Black gives it some evasion, but just a bit.
Tilt: 4. It’s got a great casting cost, can be a real problem in the early game, and doesn’t care how many players are in the game, just how much mana you can pump into it. Let’s not forget that she’s immune to Black removal.
Total Score — 10. Now we’re getting somewhere. There’s a great score and a great creature. This gal used to cost $18 and he costs less than 2. You should get a set today.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. Umm, ick.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3. Yay Trample!
Tilt: 1. It hurts too much. You always seem to draw it against Capsize Boy.
Total Score — 5. It’s not even that good, the life loss is huge barring a life gain deck.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 2. It’s hard to set up, but once you do, you are going to keep it up without too much of a chance at a scale down barring a Tormod’s Crypt style effect coming your way.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1.
Tilt: 2. It’s cool, and people won’t see it, and it has some built in protection for its size unlike those that scale down or invite you to kill my other creatures.
Total Score — 5. It’s a bit out of left field, and I really appreciate that.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 3. You can play one and make it huge and enough to kill, but after that, the others suck, and you have to wait until you have a nice stocked graveyard.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3. Look who has trample!
Tilt: 1. Say hello to any form of bounce, in addition to any form of creature kill.
Total Score — 7. As a player killer, it can get quite high. We’ve all probably killed with a Sutured Ghoul at one point in time or another, and you can easily build a deck around it. It’s nice.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 0 — It never gets high enough
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3. Flying!
Tilt: 0.
Total Score — 3. It’s a poser. Nightmare is a great creature, but it is not a player killer.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. You have to do some serious work, but it could be a player killer in the right deck.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3. Flying ftw!
Tilt: 1. Cheap in the right deck, but all of this includes “in the right deck” and that lowers its usefulness.
Total Score — 5. “In the right deck” of course.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. See Broodstar above
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3!
Tilt: 2. Unlike Broodstar, it gets bigger as you use its ability to make more snow permanents, and it includes opposing snow permanents, so if your opponents play snow covered lands in decks in order to play Skred, or because they look nice, this really dials up in power.
Total Score — 6. Rimefeather Owl is better than you think.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. We’ve all seen it get up there but it takes a few turns.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 3. Flying!
Tilt: 3. Unlike some other cards, the V Zombie gets more powerful the longer it is in play, whereas many cards start shrinking as people know how to handle them by taking our graveyards and such. This can never be played, and then just serve though.
Total Value — 7. It’s a great card.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 1. Have to build up like V Zombie.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. No evasion
Tilt: 0. It’s not a pk
Total Value — 2. It may not be a player killer, but it can make player killers. Note that Taurean Mauler has the same issue, but gets counters even slower so it doesn’t count either.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 3. It scales up in power very quickly, and you can play creatures to do it if no one else is helping out your giant.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1.
Tilt: 1. Again, it takes a bit of time to build up, but in one turn around the board, it should be 15/15 or so if people are not changing their play.
Total Value — 5. It’s solid, but can get killed, and doesn’t grow as fast in trios and duels.
Likelihood of Killing in One Hit: 2. Slightly better than Dakkon and Molimo. Just untap, draw, play a land, and swing with Maraxus for a lot.
Likelihood of Getting in a Hit: 1. Another vanilla ground pounder.
Tilt: 1. I hate that he shrinks as you use stuff, and often shrinks too much if you want to tap out. Maraxus is a harsh master.
Total Score — 4. He’s in the vanilla group category. He’s okay, and a nice change of pace, but has issues you can’t get past.
…
Alright, well today we looked at 21 creatures and at how well they may or may not stack up against Guiltfeeder and its awesomeness. Only Chameleon Colossus did as well as Guiltfeeder on the score — racking up 10 points as well. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed today’s article and find the right creature to serve death to your opponent.
Until later…