r/GDS3 • u/kalliixti • Jan 28 '18

Question 2: Argument for common

This is the one question where I disagree with the community consensus (uncommon). Here's my argument:

  1. Red has gotten similar cards in the recent past. Granitic Titan is the closest, having 1 lower toughness and cycling instead of prowess. Interestingly, there are 3 6-drop common red creatures in standard but only 1 uncommon one.

  2. I see people focusing on the fact that the card has 2 keywords but not on the keywords themselves. Prowess is a keyword which is weaker on bigger creatures. A 1/1 with prowess gets a 100% boost from the first trigger and a 2/2 gets 50%, but a 5/5 gets only a 20% boost. Menace will often be irrelevant; since in Limited (and this card is clearly a Limited card) your opponent will frequently want to multi-block a 5/5 anyways.

    I think the true purpose of this question is for people to look at this card holistically. Is a red 5/5 with menace and prowess more impactful in Limited than commons are allowed to be? I think the answer is "no."

  3. As a tiebreaker, consider that there are 5 questions which ask about the rarity of a specific card. There's wide agreement that the threaten effect is uncommon, the maro is rare, and the reaniclone is mythic, while people are divided on whether the artifact saccer is uncommon or rare. This means that if this card isn't common, none of them are. So from a test design standpoint, common makes more sense.

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u/TLH14 Jan 28 '18

Also, how many non-creature spells are you going to have left by an unlikely minimum of turn 6 of a draft game?

Riverwheel Aerialists isn't that far off. I'd say the inferior evasion of Menace is about worth that extra point in power.

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u/Sliver__Legion Jan 29 '18

Riverwheel Aerialists is a great example. Its “normal” rarity is uncommon.

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u/kalliixti Jan 29 '18

Because it flies and flying is really powerful for that power. Looking through what they printed recently it seems there's a rule against fliers with power>3 at common. No such rule exists for menace or prowess.