Techno Totem is such a cool name.  You could just name a band after this guy.  Unfortunately when you look at the artwork you can’t see any speakers and it’s just an image of a dilapidated, winged robot that can barely keep itself together.   What we have here are the side effects of too much “break” dancing.  Haha.  Get it?  *Acknowledges all the sneers*

 

Let’s hope that the stats keep this guy in tact.

 

Techno Totem

Cost: 4

Race: Mystery Totem

Civilization: Light/Nature

Type: Creature

Rules Text:

·         This creature is put into your Mana Zone tapped.

·         While this creature is tapped, each of your other creatures has “power attacker + 1500”.

·         Instead of having this creature attack you may tap it to use its tap ability:

o        Choose one of your opponent’s creatures in the battle zone and tap it.

Power: 5000

Wow…  This guy is an interesting uitility card.  Let’s first take a look at its power to mana cost.  For only 4 mana you get to summon a power 5000 beatstick.  Ooh, I like this guy already.  However, this creature is a dual civ creature, which limits him to only certain types of decks.  It also has to come into the mana zone tapped, which isn’t always the best thing when you need to take things up another level. 

 

Fortunately the designers worked very hard to make this guy enjoyable and gave it two very welcome effects.  The first effect gives all of your other creatures power attacker 1500 when this creature is tapped.  The effect is somewhat like Barkwhip’s, except it adds 500 less power and the boost does not stay on your creatures during your opponent’s turn.  On the plus side it powers up all of your creatures (not just Beast Folk) including other Techno Totems.  Just imagine stacking two of these guys and swinging with a 4000 power Essence Elf!  That’s hot!

 

The next effect allows us to tap one of our opponent’s creatures when we tap our Techno Totem.  Sometimes it’s hard to choose between using this effect and attacking because this creature hits so hard.  It is a wonderful effect nonetheless and turns this guy into the perfect utility card for L/N decks.  For only 4 mana you get a power 5000 monster that can grant you infinite Solar Rays.  By now if you still think this guy isn’t worth it then just compare it to Chen Treg, Vizier of Blades.  Techno Totem is almost the same card except cheaper, stronger, and potentially overwhelming once it is tapped.

 

What we’re witnessing here is a form of field control that doesn’t require us reduce the number of cards in our hand.  Nature already has highly overpowered creatures and light does just as nicely with blockers.  Just tap your opponent’s creature and attack with your 5500 power Quixotic.  Still laughing?  Then watch what happens when a 9500 power, 3 mana Trench Scarab takes out your little Bolmeteus.  Of course Trench could take out Bolmeteus anyway but the 9500 power makes it all the more delicious.

 

The Good:  Great power for only 4 mana and fun field control effects that do not require you to use cards from your hand.

 

The Bad:  The dual civ aspect limits this wonderful card to only certain decks and most W/D/F duelists will never know how much fun this card is to play.  It’s also a 4 mana card, which is good and bad.  It’s good because it’s cheap but it’s bad because I’d rather play a Magris for that much mana.  It’s also unfortunate that the +1500 power also goes away after attacking.

 

The Ugly:  It’s a cylindrical, winged robot with one appendage and it’s falling apart! 

 

Constructed Rating: 3.0 – When you put together a deck based on this guy it is incredible!  But that’s basically the only deck he’ll ever make it into.

 

Limited Rating: 4/5 – If you have the mana to play this guy then you’ll pretty much stay on top.

 

I hope you enjoyed the review