A 4/4 for four mana is nothing to complain
about, even in green, the color that considers
that the baseline. When metalcraft is active,
however, this is an 8/8 trampler. Remember, many
artifacts are fairly cheap to cast, some costing
as little as zero. Also remember that some of
them are mana accelerants, which could put you
on 2GG before turn four. What we have here is a
potential for a 8/8 trampler on turn three,
possibly earlier. Tricky to do, and an untimely
Naturalize might leave you charging into an
unwinnable fight (or at least unable to push any
trample damage through), but very few opponents
are prepared to defend against an 8/8 trampler
on turn three unless they happened to have a
kill spell in their opening hand.
Another card with definite potential. With all
the equipment and mana artifacts just around the
corner, you'll soon be spoiled for choice in
terms of cards to keep the Brigade at maximum
stats. Even if some joker put Granulate or
Shatterstorm later in the Scars of Mirrodin
block, you'd be left with a 4/4 creature. Hard
as it may be to believe, there was a time when
4/4 creatures for four mana had actual
drawbacks.
Magic The Gathering Card of The Day: Ezuri’s
Brigade
Welcome back readers today’s card of the day is
definitely a departure from green, a creature
that gets along quite well with artifacts. For
four mana we get a 4/4 creature unimpressive but
with metalcraft we get an 8/8 creature with
trample. First my thoughts on metalcraft,
artifacts have traditionally been the most
broken and easily abused cards, having to
control three of them in an artifact block is
not really a drawback. In standard I could see
this card as well as the other green cards that
utilize metalcraft in some sort of aggro deck
shell. In extended this remains to be seen, an
8/8 creature with trample requiring some hoops
to jump through. The fact is the hoops are not
prohibitive so it may see play. In eternal it
doesn’t fit into stompy, it’s not an elf, and
it’s not Tarmogoyf so it will not see play. In
casual and multiplayer players have accesses to
a plethora of artifacts broken and just solid
cards. Put this guy in a deck with artifact
lands and Skullclamp and elves and watch your
friends give you dirty looks. In limited it
requires heavily drafting artifacts but since
this is the plane of Mirrodin, that’s not a
problem.
Today's card of the day is Ezuri's Brigade
which is a four mana 4/4 with the new Metalcraft
mechanic. Requiring three artifacts on the
battlefield is a bit demanding if they are
creatures, but using equipments or less
vulnerable options can help. With the
condition met the 8/8 with Trample is quite
nice, but Green can offer some other options to
a different a deck. For a dedicated
Green/Artifact deck based on the Metalcraft
mechanic this can be a very powerful strong
early threat, but otherwise doesn't fit in well
elsewhere.
In Limited Ezuri's Brigade should do a bit
better as a four mana 4/4 is a bit ahead of the
curve and there is a large selection of
artifacts to work with far less removal to
disrupt it. The double Green may make it a
weaker first pick in Booster, but the color does
have methods for fixing and the set has Myr to
potentially add another source early on.
With a good draw this can be a turn four 8/8
with Trample which is hard to ignore and really
shouldn't be passed on to someone else.
For Sealed the pool will help determine whether
or not Green is worth running, but this is a
strong card that can win games if supported and
not dealt with quickly. It requires quite
a bit of pieces lining up to work, but is worth
including even if it doesn't hit until later in
the game.
