Allosaurus Shepherd – Double Masters
Date Reviewed: July 6, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.25
Casual: 4.50
Limited: 3.75
Multiplayer: 4.00
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
There are a lot of layers to this card, more than you might guess from just glancing at it. You can play the Shepherd just because he’s an Elf, and you might need a critical mass of those and further find that the uncounterability and late-game ability support both the aggro and combo versions very well. You can play him to support the aforementioned aggro plan – even in a non-tribal deck, where he himself can come down early and turn into a devastating threat if he stays on the table. You can play him in a different style of deck completely, and essentially care only about the uncounterability for your green spells. With such versatility – and how easy it is on average for green decks to come up with the mana to activate him, and/or incidental elves – it’s no surprise that he’s one of Jumpstart‘s most in-demand cards, and probably just as well for some players and/or collectors that there’s going to be more copies of him out there.
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
Commander [EDH]: 4/5
Allosaurus Shepherd quickly became one of the chase cards of Jumpstart back when it came out, commanding up to $100 price tags. And it’s not hard to see why: it’s in a powerful and popular tribe (Elf) and does something for the deck that’s very valuable and hard to replace. Rendering all your green spells uncounterable is huge, since a lot of Legacy Elves revolves around chaining together green spells into horrifying monstrosities. While it doesn’t stop every answer, most decks won’t run those answers, and being able to say “lolno” to a Force of Will is well worth the price of admission. If that wasn’t enough, it does have a secondary ability to bump up your Elves’ normally anemic baseline stats, and turning your army of 1/1 creatures into an army of 5/5 creatures is a good way to push a game towards its end.
Allosaurus Shepherd does a lot of little things for its deck, but it does them well. It turns off one common way to disrupt the deck without compromising its core strength, and it gives you a way to push damage through in the late game. The only real downside to it is that it’s a 1/1 with no protection, which isn’t unanswerable, but seeing as how it’s as cheap as many of the answers to it would be, is that really a downside?
Constructed: 4.5 (it goes in one deck, Legacy Elves, but it’s excellent for the deck)
Casual: 5
Limited: 3.5 (it can be a good way to try and close out a game, but it’s not phenomenal without a lot of friends)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
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