I'm a big fan of "draft changer" rares and uncommons. The sort of cards that, by themselves, pull you down a new road and style of play. Words of Wilding was supposed to do that, keeping you on Hellbent, and dumping 2/2 bears into play. Unfortunately, there's a problem. It's a bad card.

I never really examined the words. But the truth is that most cards in your deck are better than Grizzly Bears, and the reduced cost means nothing. I suppose the words aren't all bad... If your deck can draw an absurd amount of cards in one turn, you can instead choose to have an absurd amount of bears. Sounds reasonable. But probably won't happen in a draft.

So this card currently has a stamp on it that says [Candidate for Termination]. I thought about upping the cost by and making them 3/3s... but I could probably do better than that. Heck, Centaur Glade would probably be a better rare in this set.

This seem fairly limited use. I guess if you've seen the top card and know it's land, maybe? But it doesn't get past that draw.

What's the intent here? Edit: Oh, ok. That's the intent. Hit reply before yours was up :)

Hmmm, it does interact with hellbent. But if you're using it for that, it's more like "Forgo every draw EVER." For which you'd better give me more than a grizzly each turn. Make it let you move past that card; and it would at least interact with stuff that examines the top of your deck, or your graveyard.

It works very well with stuff like "Draw 3, discard 3". But even that's pretty limited use.

Agreed. Thinking about the card was a good idea. Adding it was a bad one.

I'd have thought Words of War might be a better candidate for helping hellbent. Shock costs less than Grizzly Bears, but is useful at more stages of the game.

Words of War is certainly the go-to. I think I avoided it because that card has gotten it's day in the sun, and shadowed Wilding in the process... but I suppose there was a good reason why Wilding was shadowed...

Was Words of Wilding now something completely different, but taking up the same mindspace. It's probably too cheap, but it won't come online the turn you play it, and you won't get real value out of it until the fourth turn. Plus, it might as well say ": Put a 5/5 green beast into play", since, for many decks, there wouldn't be a better play anyways.

The gain 5 life thingy is an escape clause, because skipping your draw phase forever would suck if your opponent played a The Abyss style card. I also made it "gain 5 life" since you would only really be tempted to do that if you were going to die anyways... though I find it annoying that players might target you so that you sacrifice your cool enchantment to gain 5 life and not die.

The flavor text is new too. It makes me happy.

Nice card. Reminds me of Dragon Roost.