Much like Ulamog, Kozilek's title has changed
this time around, though I don't know if his
character really has. That, of course, is
assuming that terms like "personality" have any
meaning in the context of Eldrazi in the first
place. A Great Distortion sounds superficially
less menacing than a Butcher of Truth, but on a
scale as large as that of the Eldrazi, it
probably adds up to more or less the same thing
in the end.
Most of the discussion so far is probably going
to be about the new orthography in his mana
cost. I do like that we now have a way to
differentiate generic mana from colorless mana,
even if it does make him less strong in
mono-green ramp compared to his previous
version (it can't be paid with ten colored
mana). Although, come to think of it, a
colorless repeatable counterspell effect might
be something that it's worth stretching your
mind around the new symbols for - mono-green
ramp can deal with planeswalkers using any
number of creatures, but discarding a copy of
Conclave Naturalists to counter End Hostilities
is beyond price.
the new <> cost (IE: colorless) makes this a
little tricky to hard cast, but the idea, as a
whole makes the game messier. mana fixers which
add any COLOR don't work here. Painlands have a
bit more value, as do some other colorless
enablers, though the inclusion of a colorless
land base makes the curve even trickier. As for
Kozilek, it's a big beater with a draw to 7
function on the cast which hurts it a bit in
terms of playability. menace is a slightly
strange inclusion but flavorwise it makes sense.
Odds are you won't be using the counter ability
often even with the drawing. It's a nice try,
but I still don't like this card. sure, it might
get played, people have decked worse. but with
the new un-fixable (As of this writing) mana
type, unless there's some killer colorless
spells (And don't call devoid, we're into
spoiler season for OGW and still haven't seen
anything that makes that relevant) this
experiment in tinkering with a new "color" might
just blow up in wizards' face.
