We end on a card that's been buggling me. Whenever I mention the Spiritualist to players, they think the card is fine... good even. But, noone plays it. I've tried running the card myself, and, let me tell ya... it ain't no Rogue Elephant.

I'm planning to increase this creature to a 2/3, but there's this little snag. While the card is very bland in limited, it could be a wrecking house in standard. Notice how the card asks you to return a forest to your hand? Notice how it doesn't ask you to sacrifice the Spiritualist if you don't? Yeah. Non-basic lands for the win. It wouldn't take much to make this card the best aggressive 1-drop ever printed.

I say that my sets are only to be drafted, but whenever I look at someone else's designs, comment on something, then hear them say "My sets aren't for drafting", I get a bit annoyed. Grr. I figure, I owe it to the people out there who aren't that big on drafting to not kill their fun, just because I thought something was fair in a draft.

Which brings me back to this guy. If no one hates him, should I just leave him alone?

Well - I must be the exception then; I look at this and instantly think "No."

It's like the anti llanowar. Poison your mana supply for a creature that isn't, by green's standard, very good? I guess it's a last-pick creature, if you really don't have any other creature to run.

Oh, there's ONE circumstance I might run this - a red aggro deck that doesn't actually have any forests in; but uses other sources of green mana. But even THERE it isn't that good a turn-1 drop, and why would you not just use a plain old grizzly bears on any other turn? Maybe if he had haste? That'd be less wrecking that 2/3.

Oh, WOW. Goblin Guide. Right, so why would I ever run this guy in preference?

Edit: Actually, they're kinda similar. But I think most players would prefer un-mana-screwing their opponent (and getting an oddly blue peek into their upcoming cards) to setting back their own mana by a turn. They're kinda comparable though. This is certainly a fair card; and I would like to see what happened if I drafted 5 of them and went for a green aggro deck. But "Ok, I draft all the cheap creatures and hit you a lot" isn't a very fun draft strategy, though it is often effective.

@jmg: I see your point. This is very bad in Limited and very good in Constructed (assuming the Constructed environment has any playable nonbasics that tap for ). Tricky.

­Rogue Elephant was quite format-defining in its day, but Scythe Tiger sank without a trace despite being arguably better.

@Vitenka: Goblin Guide was stupidly good, and ain't getting reprinted any time soon. Each set needs some aggressive cards, including some aggressive one-drops. Next question?

Scythe Tiger is a good point. I'm jumping this to 2/3. I'm no fan of making a card for Modern that is better than Kird Ape, but at least it probably wouldn't break anything.

This is now an interesting comparison to Kor Skyfisher. I think the power level is pretty much spot-on now.