The flexibility of being creature or Aura is
nice, and the fact that it lives on a a creature
after its wearer dies is nice, but really it's
just a big creature. Easy to kill, and probably
not even that big really. A dedicated mill deck,
or a deck in a multiplayer group, might enjoy
it, but that's about it.
Today's card of the day is Nighthowler which is
a three mana Black creature or four mana aura
with Bestow that has or grants power and
toughness equal to the number of creatures in
all graveyards. This is a fairly solid
card in a mono-Black sacrifice build, but really
shines in library destroying themes or in
Multiplayer. The low cost for the creature
and more importantly the Bestow make this a
serious threat and one that will be popular
across formats.
In Limited this a very strong card that works
very well as a topdeck and in the later stages
of the game, but also can be a reasonable threat
fairly early with enough Black mana to play it
and active graveyard filling. The double
Black is the only small drawback as it requires
more than a minimal splash to be reliably
played, though Black is strong in the set which
makes it less of a problem. The low
casting cost for Bestow should make that the
primary usage of the card and combined with
evasive threats this is a game winner. An easy
first pick in Booster and solid foundation for
including Black in Sealed with even a reasonable
pool.
Nighthowler was the Theros Game Day foil. It
looks really nice! The card’s abilities are nice
too. Most people seem to be overlooking the new
Bestow ability. Turn 3 Master of Fates. Turn 4
Bestow Nighthowler on the Master and listen to
your opponent sigh. Nighthowler can be great in
any deck that has Black mana, but I can really
see Nighthowler being awesome in a MIL deck.
This creature seems to be the most powerful in
limited play. I ran into it a few times at the
Theros Pre-Release and it was hard to deal with.
The only problem with this card is that it has
no Evasion at all. This means that it can be
blocked by anything!
Did you ever look at some other creature and
say "I wish this could be a Mortivore too"?
Yeah, me neither. Still, I feel that giving a
random other creature such a boost does have
potential - especially since when someone kills
the random other creature, you're left with a
Mortivore. That's something that we used to call
"card advantage" on the playground. If you're
going to be using Nighthowler mainly as a
creature itself, its mana cost is in a good
place to be played late and leave mana up - I'm
a big fan of that sort of versatility.
