This is an interesting card. Its growth rate
and, later, token production, is on the slow
side without card-drawing spells and effects,
but at the same time, the fact that you always
draw one card each turn gives it a degree of
inevitability - if an opponent doesn't kill it
before it gets going, the Skulker will either
beat them to death, or leave behind a horde of
tokens that will beat them to death. It has both
offensive and defensive applications, and as
such I expect there will be at least one role
for it somewhere.
Today's card of the day is Chasm Skulker which
is a three mana Blue 1/1 that gets a +1/+1
counter whenever you draw a card and when it
dies you put X 1/1 Blue tokens with Islandwalk
into play equal to the number of
+1/+1 counters. This is an excellent card with
even minimal support,
though am aggressive card drawing theme plus
something to add evasion or turn an opponent's
land into an Island is very beneficial. Overall
this will see play across formats as an easy to
use and very efficient threat that can get very
large or fill the board with tokens.
In Limited this is an easy first pick in
Booster that can be splashed into a another
color if needed. The easy and more or less
automatic increase in size each turn combined
with the safety net of tokens makes it a game
ending creature more often than not. In Sealed
this should be splashed even if Blue is the
weakest color in the pool as outside of a
topdeck situation this is almost always a useful
card to have. If possible the secondary color
should offer some way to sacrifice or destroy
your own Skulker if necessary as a swarm of
tokens is often harder to manage than a single
non-evasive one.
The latest in a long line of cards that
accumulate +1/+1 counters, many of which play on
the legacy of Quirion Dryad. This one bears more
of a resemblance to Lorescale Coatl, and
benefits for it. While old Quirion asked you to
run a multicolor deck with what surely must be a
sub-optimal mana base, this card asks you only
to draw cards. You do that once a turn, like it
or not, and most cards that make you draw more
are already good because of it. This is
definitely a card your opponent has to answer
quickly, not just because it gets bigger over
time, but because the bigger it gets, the more
Squid tokens you get when it does die.
I also find it interesting that the tokens have
islandwalk, but the Skulker itself doesn't. If
you're playing blue, how big can you let the
other guy's Skulker get before you CAN'T kill it
for fear of being swarmed by unblockable tokens?
CAN you kill it before then? Can you bounce it
and make them start over?
