Zoetic Cavern props

N

Nightstalkers

Guest
Gotta give props to this little beauty. Adding morph to a land makes it the most hillarious little 2/2 you can probably put out. Even though you may not need another 2/2 critter, it gives you the chance to put out a 2/2 vanilla and then morph it outta dangerous situations such as blocking.

Think of it, you get a land for 2 mana and a free one time block.




Anyone think of a way to toy with this?
 
J

jorael

Guest
I like how this makes your morph creatures more surprising. An opponent will think twice before spending his/her removal on a morph.

I'm not eager, however, to play this card in a 2/3 colored deck. Not unless you have enough mana fixing or morph creatures with morph costs that aren't too color intensive.
 
E

Ephraim

Guest
It is especially nice that the ability to turn a face-down creature face-up is a static ability and not an activated ability. You can flip Zoetic Cavern even in response to Sudden Death or Sudden Shock.

As much as I like this card, however, I'm not really sure how much it adds to a deck. In many decks, it is merely adequate in the early game. Most of the time, I would rather see sources of coloured mana. In the mid-late game, it is likewise mediocre. Aside from dodging some removal, it seems that there are better creatures that you could be playing. It does yield some card advantage in the same way that the Ravnica-block karoos give you the effective functionality of two lands in a single card. Unfortunately, I am not sure that either option is worthwhile. Three mana is too much to pay for a 2/2 creature. It might dodge a burn spell, but the creature is still gone, even though the card remains. As a land, you'd be better off with a basic. Overall, I think that I'd rather play with Llanowar Elves or Utopia Tree if I needed a mana-producing creature or a basic land if I wanted 'just a land.'

You might argue that it lets you play two lands on the same turn, but it costs you five mana to do so. I think you'd be better off playing with Teramorphic Expanse, which also thins your deck in the process.

Jorael raises a semivalid point that it makes other creatures with morph better by association. On the other hand, you could make the same argument for Foothill Guide. (Hint: I don't consider getting a colourless land all that much better than getting nothing at all.) Whenever you have multiple face-down creatures available, an opponent with a removal spell is taking a risk by targeting one of them.
 
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