Card of the Day Home

Decks to Beat - Tournament Winning Decks!

Card of the Day - A single card reviewed by several members of our crew.  Updated 5 days per week!

Card Price Guide

Featured Writers  
Judge Bill
DeQuan Watson
Ray Powers - Monk's Corner
Jeff Zandi
Jonathan Pechon
Chrstine Gerhardt
Jason Chapman
- on Peasant Magic

Deck Garage
Jason's Deck Garage

MTG Fan Articles
Deck Tips & Strategies
Peasant Magic
Tourney Reports 
Featured Articles  
Single Card Strategy

Magic Quizzes & Polls

Community
Message Board 
Chat
Magic League

Contact Us

Pojo's Book Reviews

Links

 


Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Frankenstein's Monster 
The Dark


Reviewed August 5, 2004

Constructed: 1.625
Casual: 2.38
Limited: 2.38

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 


Chris
Gerhardt

* game store owner in CA, ShuffleAndCut

You gotta love the way they used to over explain things on the older cards. Thank God they simplified it now.  Just know the rules, and then you don't have to have everything explained to you.  Anyhow, that's all I'm going to say on the monster.  He's interesting, and you can see some combo potential there.  Be sure to read up on this week's cards in Judge Bill's article this week.
  
Constructed: 2
Casual: 3
Limited: 2

   Current Price:
Frankenstein's Monster - The Dark - $3.62


Judge Bill

*Level 2
MTG Judge

*game store employee

Thursday - Frankenstein's Monster
 
For an explanation on some of the rules of this card please see Tuesday's column.
 
A wacky creature, to be sure. For each creature you remove, you get to add 2 to the power and toughness of this card (in any combination you want). A neat little trick, except that if you bounce this guy, you lose all the benefits you've gained.
 
Why not just play something like Living Death instead? In any format.
 
Again, I've not played a limited format in which it's been included, so I can't give it a rating there.
 
Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 1.5
Jonathan
Pechon


2 Grand Prix Top 8's

Multiple Pro Tour appearances

Frankenstein’s Monster

 

While Frank can put dead fatties in your boneyard to good use, he’s especially vulnerable to bounce and can be really bad if you haven’t managed to get something into the yard.  He can be decent in a deck focused around him, but there are much better ways to abuse those circumstances (like reanimation).

 

He’s a bit more fun in casual play; I’d definitely make it a point to have this around if you happen to be entering into a Halloween-themed tournament.  Other than that, you’d still be better off reanimating things than trying to play this guy, unless you really feel like reciting lines from Young Frankenstein each time this guy turns sideways to attack.

 

Once again, Dark never really made any sort of impact on draft, but since there was rather little bounce, this seems like it should be pretty good in the late game.  Once again, though, you are actually busting and drafting Dark packs…BLECH.

 

Constructed:  2.0

Casual:  2.0

Limited:  3.0


Jeff Zandi

5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran

Frankenstein’s Monster

This rare Summon Monster card from The Dark was never particularly popular.

If this card was reprinted today, it would probably be made a Sorcery card with a wording like “when this resolves, remove any number of creature cards from your graveyard”. This card is very clumsy to play with, although certainly very creative. This Monster has never been reprinted, and I doubt it would ever be. If this card were available in a future limited format, it would probably be pretty good, giving you the potential for a very large creature for a cheap cost (although you can’t get much from it early in a game). I’ve never seen this card used in constructed, I guess it would be some low-mana deck with lots of small creatures that you can cast for one, two or three mana, probably a mono black deck.

CONSTRUCTED: 2.5
CASUAL: 3.0
LIMITED: 3.5

Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge

Frankenstein's Monster

 

I really can’t think of any graveyard oriented creature worse than this guy. Lhurgoyf? Amazingly better. Mortivore? Stunningly better. This guy just doesn’t have what it takes to play with the big boys. But he will still make it into any Halloween Theme Deck anyone makes; so let’s give him some credit for that.

 

Constructed:                 1

Casual:                         3

Limited:                        2


DeQuan
Watson

* game store owner (The Game Closet - Waco,TX)

Frankenstein's Monster - Thursday

This is one of the most poorly worded creatures in the history of Magic I think. You can choose to give him a +2/+0, +1/+1, or +0/+2 counter for each creature you remove from the graveyard when he comes into play. Otherwise, he's an 0/1. He's double black in the casting cost, which doesn't help either. Truthfully, you are better off playing with Sutured Ghoul.

Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 1.5
Limited: 1.5
Paul
Hagan
Frankenstein's Monster --

This card amuses me, but only because I can't quite figure out whether or not it is good. It seems like you don't want to play it in your constructed deck unless you are basing your entire strategy around it, and even then, why not play Sutured Ghoul? It can be expensive and unreliable, and you definitely don't want to see it early. At the same time, for casual play, it can't be too awful running a creature that can potentially be a monster (no pun intended) later in the game, when you have built a large pile of destroyed creatures in your graveyard. I can't quite rate this card high for either format, but I won't dog it, either.

In limited, I might play the Monster, just because it has potential of being huge later. His inclusion in my deck, though, depends on what other black cards I have.

Constructed Rating: 2.0
Casual Rating: 2.5
Limited Rating: 2.5


Andy
 Van Zandt

Frankenstein's Monster

Well, they've done away with odd types of counters for only the +1/+1 type,
and this card is probably a good example of why. A reasonable fatty in
late-game limited, he's fairly sub-par nowadays. If he could hit your opponent's yard, he'd be much more interesting.

constructed 2
casual 2.5
limited 3 
 

 

 

 

Pojo.com

Copyright 2001 Pojo.com

   

Magic the Gathering is a Registered Trademark of Wizards of the Coast.
This site is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast and is not an Official Site.