From: "MoxNorm" Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.misc Subject: The Ubiquitous Man O War (long) Date: 21 Aug 1997 17:43:06 GMT The Jellyfish or Man O War, (MoW) is showing up in decks everywhere, especially seen in, but not limited to Mi/Vi/We format. I thought it might be interesting to take a good look at the broad affect this card has had on the game. Firstly, the realm of the creature enchantment. Always a dubious option in a tournament deck, now rendered even more so by MoW. Anyone playing an Empyrial Armor deck will agree with this. The opponent doesn't need disenchant in their deck, just the jellyfish. Play the MoW, enchanted creature returns to hand, armor goes to graveyard, they net a 2/2 creature and thats' card advantage. Second, Revealing the ugly side of creature casting costs. How good is a creature once you have to cast it over and over? Keeping in mind that for decks using the MoW there are usually 4. Your opponent is going to force at least a couple of your creatures back into your hand before the game is over. The Jellyfish really puts the hurt on when bouncing the following cards. I also think that it has rendered these cards if not, non tournament worthy then at least marginally so, (you're welcome to disagree). Some of them of course were not worthy before and are even less so now. Green Blue Black Fungus Elemental Ovinomancer Ashen Powder Mwonvuli Ooze Dance of Many Hidden Horror Fallow Wurm Mire Shade Rogue Elephant Purraj of Urborg Bull Elephant Ravenous Vampire Fungusaur Skulking Ghost Gold Artifacts Warping Wurm Chimeras (never build 'Voltron' now) Asmira Holy Avenger Phyrexian dreadnought Lord Of Tresserhorn Phyrexian Warbeast Moutain Titan Viashivan Dragon (if you sac drakes to summon it) Red White Lava Hounds Errand of Duty Balduvian Horde Wall of Resistance(if you manage to get tokens on it) In most of the above cases when the creature is bounced to your hand the results are loss of counters. Many however reveal the ugly side of creaure casting costs. These are loss of life and the sacrifice of creaures, lands or the return of lands to your hand. Examples: a) Lava Hounds- to recast after MoW bounce another 4 mana (total 8) total life loss 8! b) Bull Elephant- to recast after MoW bounce another 4 mana (total 8) total return of lands to hand, 4. Assuming you played 1 forest to cast the elephant then you still have a 3 turn land deficit compared to opponent! As you can see MoW has rendered this cards useless in current play. Never before in a stand alone block has a red elemental blast been needed so badly, (at least Ice Age had Pyro). So whats' the answer? Its' fairly obvious that high casting cost or severly detrimental cards should be avoided. Cheaper creatures with no summoning sickness, 'protection from' creatures or possibly ones that can't be targetted. Unfortunately there are no decent protection from blue creatures, Windreaper Falcon is only a 1/1 an easy bolt bait. I think the biggest thing is to remember that of all the creatures in your deck, some of them you will have to recast. You have to ask yourself, "how badly will this hurt me if I have to replay it?" If the cost is too high then cut it from your deck. Thanks for reading. -- MoxNorm gillis@ptbo.igs.net My next article will be 'The Ertaitog Deck and Why I'd like to see Eater of the Dead Reprinted'.