It's nice to see Portal cards break into more
mainstream Magic. It's also nice to have the
standard giant-blue-creature-with-huge-drawback
be something a little easier to play than
Leviathan. Returning all your other creatures to
your hand seems bad, but it's actually not so
much. It lets you recycle comes-into-play
effects, and it works even if you have no other
creatures. It also works well with Teferi,
allowing you to save your other creatures with
it. I only wish it had trample, or some other
ability.
Constructed- 2.5
Casual- 3
Limited- 4
David Fanany
Player since
1995
Denizen of the
Deep
I guess technically an 11/11 for eight mana is
efficient, but without an evasive ability
there's not much to recommend it over a cheaper
creature. Greater Good was possibly the best
card in Standard to interact with cards like
this, but it's no longer in the format. The
other thing I can think of is Pandemonium: not
only do you get to deal 11 damage with the
Denizen, you can replay any other creatures you
might have had to deal even more damage.
In limited play, Denizen of the Deep is
playable, but not much more than that. An 11/11
is hard to block, but losing all your other
creatures for a turn (or more, depending on how
much they cost) could hurt.
Constructed: 1/5
Casual: 2/5
Limited: 2/5
Arcane
Denizen of the
Deep
Constructed: Even if this wasn’t out at the same
time as some of the best creatures that Blue has
had access too (Teferi, Venser, Arcanis, Aeon
Chronicler) this still wouldn’t be that great.
It can set you back too much on tempo returning
any other creatures you had only to have it
destroyed by really common removal. Add to the
fact that it doesn’t even have any form of
evasion (c’mon not even Trample?) and this is a
pass.
Casual/Multi: You know I could get over the fact
that this doesn’t have evasion, or the
degenerate ability but there’s one aspect I
can’t get over that makes me really dislike the
card: it’s a serpent. The casual player in me
loves my leviathan decks (even if they are all
bad) because sometimes you just love playing
with fat, but the fact that this creature
doesn’t even fall into the same tribe as Blue’s
typical fat monster species just leaves me
disappointed. For shame Wizards, for shame.
Limited: Boards in limited tend to get clogged
up with each player trying to sneak out an extra
creature or extra bit of evasion to push through
and win the game. To trade most of your board
position to put out an big 11/11 that can be
chumped by an other creature isn’t worth it
really. The only way I could to change my mind
on this is if you have a lot of removal and have
kept your opponent’s creatures to a minimum (in
which case you shouldn’t need an 11/11 anyway)
or if you have a lot of come into play effects
like Nekrataal or Kavu Climber, etc to make use
of.
Constructed: 1
Casual: 1
Limited: 1.5
Necro
nomikron
MTG Rules Advisor
Denizen of the
Deep:
This one is hard to review. I don't know what to
think of it. It's a powerful card, to be sure,
but has a big drawback, and no evasion. I'm
currently leaning towards this being pretty bad
in all formats. You can't really use it as your
finisher in constructed, due to no evasion. In
casual and limited, you leave yourself open to
an attack once you drop it... So, pretty bad.
