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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day

Daily Since November 2001!


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 Necropolis Fiend
- Khans of Tarkir

Reviewed Sep. 16, 2014

Constructed: 3.25
Casual: 3.75
Limited: 4.07
Multiplayer: 3.38

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale:
1 - Horrible  3 - Average.  5 - Awesome

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Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Deck Garage

Necropolis Fiend

This one bears the watermark of the Sultai clan, who are green, black, and blue. It also bears a new recurring mechanic: Delve! Are the Sultai clan all about dumping dead cards into their graveyard and feeding it to monstrosities like this? Well, they're green, black, and blue. You tell me!

Nine mana would be far too expensive for a 4/5 flyer with an activated ability, but of course, they don't expect you to pay nine mana for it. You could get this out as early as Turn Three if you're willing to Tome Scour yourself to do it, and Turn Two if you're lucky enough to be going second and your opponent hits you with Glimpse the Unthinkable on their Turn Two. The tension is that the Fiend's activated ability also consumes cards in your yard. If you force the Fiend out too early, it's "just" a 4/5 flyer. If you wait until you've fattened your graveyard, or just choose to spend more mana on it, you've got plenty of ammunition to kill your opponent's creatures with -X/-X effects. The question is, are you in a game state where you need repeatable creature kill or a big flying Demon?

Constructed- 4.5
Casual- 4.5
Limited- 4.75
Multiplayer- 4


David Fanany

Player since 1995

Necropolis Fiend
 
If you'd told me that there was going to be a huge flying demon with delve in Khans of Tarkir, I would have gotten excited because I thought you were talking about Tombstalker from Future Sight. Still, this card is a pretty interesting one, if only because the delve keyword (and its imitation in the activated ability) manages to not actually reduce the associated costs by all that much. I could actually see you holding him until the very late game so as to be able to use his tap ability to kill everything on the other side of the table - risky in itself because nine mana is pretty outlandish anywhere outside of Rise of the Eldrazi or Elvish Piper.dec, but hard to come back from for anyone on the receiving end.
 
Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5

Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Necropolis Fiend which is a seven mana Black
4/5 with Flying that can have the mana cost lowered by one colorless for each card you exile from your graveyard.  Also, it can be tapped for X mana and X exiled cards to give target creature -X/-X until end of turn.  A 4/5 with evasion as a possible two mana play is very strong and could be a nice addition to a self-mill deck if the cards aren't needed for other effects.  Without support it enters play later in the game where more mana would be available, which reduces the impact noticeably.  Overall the somewhat odd timing issues combined with the support opposing nature will keep this from just being added to existing decks, but it may see play in a more specialized build with this as the focus.
 
In Limited this is a great creature to have in the midgame as a 4/5 evasive with a somewhat flexible casting cost.  The removal can be useful, though having enough cards after casting this can be situational.  A very reasonable first pick in Booster and while it is not self-sufficient enough to force Black in Sealed it is an easy inclusion when already running the color.
 
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.5

Mattedesa

Deck Garage

Necropolis Fiend
 
The delve cards are a bit tricky to evaluate. I can't help but see that immense 9 mana casting cost in the corner. With the delve mechanic, it will almost always been considerably cheaper - perhaps as little as 2 black mana if you exile 7 cards from your graveyard. A 4/5 flier for 2 sounds amazing, but that's only going to happen late enough in the game where you've been able to dump 7 cards in the graveyard. A very dedicated delve deck could probably do that fairly quickly, but is it worth it?
 
Further, the Fiend's special ability costs you more cards in the graveyard. Knocking out another creature is no joke, but it is quite an investment of resources to tap your big flier, exile stuff from your 'yard, and pay X mana. 
 
In the end, I think it's a quite solid card, but I don't know that it's going to break any formats. He's possibly very good in draft, but making him worthwhile in a constructed deck it going to be a little trickier. If you don't have much (or anything) in your graveyard, you have nothing but a grossly over-costed creature.
 
Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3


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