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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
Daily Since November 2001!

Hoard-Smelter Dragon
Image from Wizards.com

Hoard-Smelter Dragon
Scars of Mirrodin

Reviewed Dec. 3, 2010

Constructed: 3.00
Casual: 3.10
Limited: 4.67
Multiplayer: 3.38

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all of our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Hoard-Smelter Dragon

Six mana for a 5/5 flyer is pretty sweet for Red, but only fitting for a Dragon. What really makes this interesting is that it's basically a repeatable Demolish, plus a power boost every time you use it. Once this guy hits the table, all you really want to do is blow up your opponents artifacts one by one and them smack him upside the head as hard as possible.

The downside here is similar to that of Oxxida Scrapmelter we talked about Monday. No, there's no danger of destroying your own artifacts, but Hoard-Smelter and Scrapmelter both lose a lot of their luster when your opponent has no artifacts to destroy. Without Hoard-Smelter's smelting, it's worse than Shivan Dragon, who has long been established as "below average by Dragon standards". It's amazing in Limited, where the odds of an opponent having no artifacts is miniscule, but outside that, this may be a sideboard card.

Constructed-  2.5
Casual- 2.75
Limited- 4.75
Multiplayer- 3.5


David Fanany

Player since 1995

Hoard-Smelter Dragon
 
In an era of titans and Baneslayers, dragons have to adapt or die, in both a flavor sense and a game sense. In Scars of Mirrodin, they are putting their aptitude for destruction to good use. Hoard-Smelter Dragon has developed an interesting riff on the classic spell Detonate, making your opponent's fancy expensive artifacts work for you. He has potential for 60-card decks as a metalcraft breaker, and is pretty ridiculous in limited formats, considering how many decks are dependent on the mana Myr.
 
Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Hoard-Smelter Dragon which is a six mana 5/5 Flying which a four mana destroy target artifact effect that also increases its power until end of turn.  This is a very impressive effect if your opponent has a higher cost artifact available which may place this as a bit of a sidedeck option for another dragon if your deck is running one.  There may not be many opportunities to play this with the cost, but as an alternative to Shivan with it out of Standard rotation this works fairly well, but other options do exist.
 
In Limited this is a card that will win the game unless there is an immediate answer or multiple options for stalling it available.  The destruction and increased power effect are both even more valuable in the format while a 5/5 Flying body make it a top choice already.  This is a card you change your deck to include and it should always be picked first in any pack in Booster regardless of previous color choices. 
Strider Harness and Golem Artisan are good choices to draft once this is in your pool as they offer Haste or Trample if the opponent happens to have an extra Flying available on defense.
 
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 5.0
Multiplayer: 3.5


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