Hey Mode: He does cost XBB; as long as you can conjure yourself up a Dark Ritual.
Posted By:
PhyrexianLobbiest
(7/7/2010 6:02:59 PM)
Have a this card and a combination of these: Dark Ritual, Culling the Weak, Songs of the Damned, and/or Cabal Ritual. And you have enough mana to end the game :) Personally I just use Consume Spirit instead of this card.
Posted By:
VegaSecureA
(9/25/2010 2:28:45 AM)
This card is as powerful as I want it to be. Yes, he's an Important Legendary creature- Yes, he's a bit overpriced.
The definition of Power Creep is wanting every White Legend to be Akroma Angel of Wrath and Vengeance and Justice and Retribution, every Blue Legend to be Arcanis, Lord of Scrolls, the Mind Sculptor, every Black Legend to be the 6th son of the 6th son of the 6th son of Griselbrand, and so on and so forth.
He's powerful. He's older now. He's not really quite worth reprinting as a Mythic. But he's nice. He's still useable. And he's pretty old to still be useable. I feel like with the mechanics they chose for him, they costed him as aggressively as they dared. Almost always when they enter with X +1/+1 counters they have to start at 0/0 to be not seriously messed up. Check Thromok and Mikaeus the Lunarch.
Could they have kept him as is and taken one black mana off, or else let you gain the life they lose? Just..maybe...but I pre... (see all)
Posted By:
DarthParallax
(8/3/2012 10:06:42 AM)
This guy's a lot of fun. I use him as my general in an EDH deck that runs Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun, Extraplanar Lens Nirkana Revenant, Cabal Coffers, and Magus of the Coffers. It's always hilarious when this guy hits the board as a 30/30 or greater. Well, hilarious to me, anyway, especially if I follow up the next turn with an equally big drain spell like Exsanguinate.
Sure, it's easy to see him coming, but you'd be surprised how often people forget about him. Not to mention that Cavern of Souls set to Wizard or Human makes countering him a very difficult proposition.
Posted By:
SirMalkin
(10/13/2012 9:34:39 PM)
Rakdos, Lord of Riots is buddies with this guy. Mana Reduction is applied after the value of X is chosen. So you could choose 9 after dealing 9 life loss to the opponent, and just pay BBB. Opponent loses another 9 life and you have a 9/9 fatty.
Posted By:
Singe
(10/14/2012 5:24:45 PM)
just like every other black card, this guy just got sooooo much better with the addition of crypt ghast. He goes from expensive and unplayable to probably coming out as like a 5/5 for 4 mana and you opponent loses 5 life. nice
Posted By:
Smoke_Stack
(2/9/2013 11:21:43 AM)
He would love to work with the Simic Combine. Think of the possibility with that Biomancer.
Posted By:
JB_Xyooj
(3/4/2013 7:03:56 AM)
My EDH deck uses Wound Reflection, Exsanguinate, loads of mana producers and this as commander to completely wipe out my opponents. And it still feels really fun!
Posted By:
Lifegainwithbite
(5/23/2013 7:58:20 AM)
I'm curious: when the ETB ability is on the stack, and more +1/+1 counters are placed on Maga, are those counted?
Example: You cast Maga, X is equal to 5. You have Death's Presence and a Splinterfright at 10/10. If you were to sacrifice the Splinterfright and put the +1/+1 counters on Maga before the ability resolves, would the targeted player lose 15 life, or just 5?
Posted By:
Windoozleshocky
(3/31/2014 7:47:46 PM)