This thing can be used to reanimate anything; it has the same converted mana cost as Breath of Life, and as far as white reanimation goes that's about as good as it is going to get.
It's useful. You can use spellshapers or tireless tribe to get the big stuff (Iona, Blazing Archon) into your graveyard. The biggest problem with it in mono-white is trying to stack your graveyard and just trying to draw the right big stuff to reanimate, but it can be done. If you splash blue you have a lot more ability to draw and discard when you need to, and you can aim for Jin-Gitaxias as your reanimation target.
Not a viable legacy strategy, but this guy could be a quality component of a fun tier 2 or 3 deck if you play around with it. It's a lot of fun to have a bunch of equipment on him and be swinging for lots every turn, and your opponents doesn't want to kill it because something even nastier is in the graveyard waiting to come out.
Posted By:
BegleOne
(6/2/2011 6:37:51 PM)
@mrredhatter: I have to respectfully disagree. Mistmoon Griffin is a far better choice than Mtenda Griffin in a griffin tribal for a variety of reasons.
First, Mistmoon puts the creature directly into play, effectively replacing himself and keeping your creature count the same. In contrast, Mtenda puts himself and target dead griffin into your hand. So you'd need to recast both, tying up your time and resources. Additionally, Mtenda's ability is only playable during your upkeep (a major disadvantage of the card), keeping you down 1 mana for the turn.
Second, while Mistmoon only works with your top creature card, that card doesn't have to be a griffin. So tribal support cards like Griffin Rider will work just fine with him, but would not work with Mtenda.
Posted By:
ChumleyX
(2/8/2012 8:50:49 AM)
DacenOctavio: Resurrection is what you're thinking of.
This... is interesting. Creature recursion as a death trigger is always welcome. That's utility right there.
Posted By:
psychichobo
(11/26/2012 4:09:06 PM)
Mtenda Griffin is gonna be the better choice in a Griffin deck.
Posted By:
mrredhatter
(10/3/2009 2:21:26 PM)
Wait. . . does White have Zombify!?
Posted By:
DacenOctavio
(8/18/2011 10:45:38 AM)
Nice combo with Child of Alara: Child dies, kills this, it then resurrects your top creature card. Even better if those are your only two creatures!
Posted By:
LordRandomness
(7/25/2013 1:17:20 AM)
@ DacenOctavio: White had Resurrection BEFORE black had Zombify.
Posted By:
Tiggurix
(9/27/2013 12:25:42 PM)