­Swamp + Claws of Valakut

Well, that's most of an easy mash. s/mountains/swamps/ But what do we replace first strike with? Deathtouch is probably blacks most obvious keyword; but then the additional power mostly goes to waste. (What, they're NOT going to block your +6/+0 creature? Riiight.)

Intimidate? That's... how politely can we say "Really freaking good"? Would have to up the cost, I feel.

But it feels the most natural thing to do, so. ­Gruesome Deformity and Vow of malice suggests that Fear is actually overcosted nowadays; so I'll not up this too far.

Probably ought to have granted flying; to suit the name (and the iconic +1 per swamp creature)

Strange how giving it flying would have made it so similar to Armored Ascension. You're probably better off not having done that. Though, I must ask, did you think of lifelink?

Threw it away as being too white, ironically. Green would get trample. Blue would get screwed; as usual. (Seriously, can blue have a keyword ability other than flying, please? Hexproof does not count, as it should not be.)

"Enchanted creature gains flash"

­:D

That's red again ;)

V: MaRo has repeatedly bemoaned the absence of blue keyword abilities for cycles like this.

One of the more interesting proposals on this thread on the topic was "Sabotage": "(Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, look at the top card of that player's library. You may put that card into its owner's graveyard.)"

They're playing up the vampiric flavour of lifelink recently: I think more black cards have had lifelink in the past couple of blocks than white cards.

Somewhat horrible to be hit with early on; but then, poison isn't very nice either; and if you can kill someone with it you've killed them by damage three times over...

Yeah; I like that. Will yoink next time a mash needs 'and then make it blue'.