This card is a huge mystery to me. I think some of this was explained in a "Card of the Day" on magicthegathering.com, but I'll repost and elaborate.
For one, when he first saw print, he merely turned Merfolk of the Pearl Trident into a 2/2. No other Merfolk existed, and he didn't pump other copies of himself.
Secondly, he is the only 2-drop true lord (one that gives +1/+1 to his friends), which is extremely aggressively costed... yet he is mono-blue, the least likely color to get aggressively costed creatures.
Third, he himself does not get Islandwalk. WTF? He is the freaking master of the sunken city, and yet he can only show his friends, or other copies of himself how to become unblockable.
Still, all of these weird attributes can't stop this guy from being one of the scariest creatures to hit the Legacy battlefield.
Posted By:
T-101
(2/21/2010 11:23:00 PM)
An amazingly aggressive and efficiently-priced creature, considering that it's Blue. For some reason cheaper than it's Goblin, Elf, and Zombie contemporaries, which never made any sense.
Posted By:
Weary_PSI
(10/13/2010 3:01:49 AM)
@ Black Albino
The timeshifted cards in Time Spiral had old frames, in Planar Chaos they had frames of darker colours, and in Future Sight they all had funky frames.
At any rate, what's the likelihood that you'll get 2 decks facing each other, both playing Merfolk (outside of Lorwyn limited, perhaps)?
Posted By:
Master-Crimson
(6/29/2010 11:56:27 PM)
@Guest1527662776
"For one, when he first saw print, he merely turned Merfolk of the Pearl Trident into a 2/2. No other Merfolk existed, and he didn't pump other copies of himself."
remember, when it was first printed, there was no restriction to playsets in magic, so you could run a deck with like 8 to 10 of him, 20 islands and 30 of the regular merfolk. basically meaning a field of say 3-4 of those 1/1s, becomes a field of 2/2 island walkers
Posted By:
Havens
(5/10/2010 7:32:52 AM)
Under his rule, each Merfolk adopts a pet gharial.
Posted By:
HuntingDrake
(2/2/2014 12:09:49 AM)
This card is weird. Only the TimeShifted version technically has the Merfolk subtype printed on it.
I think I'd get sick of explaining an errata to people whenever using another version of this card.
Posted By:
Evermint
(8/25/2010 11:41:51 PM)
Well, not exactly no reason - in the mirror, he makes the opponent's merfolk unblockable too. But otherwise, a great card that came back just in time for Lorwyn's powerful merfolk decks.
Posted By:
Equinox523
(5/15/2009 8:05:34 AM)
I had a mono-blue casual deck for a while that had this guy in it and no other merfolk. A 2/2 for 2 is a really good buy, even without his ability.
Posted By:
Zetan
(9/26/2010 12:53:25 PM)
The creature type "Lord" doesn't exist any more. ;-)
Posted By:
SinDas
(8/21/2009 3:30:16 PM)
It's a good card if only you are running Merfolk. The fact that it's abilties are for all other Merfolk is a double edged sword, but still a good overall card and the fact it was Time Shifted helped in Standard for a while.
Posted By:
PaladinOfSunhome
(5/20/2009 4:46:01 AM)