Crossword:17:55
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Corrections: 2

Not bad. Corrections are when I get stuck somewhere and do a check for wrong answers. It doesn't tell you the right answer, just what's wrong. I had six correction squares.

Here is a card.



Form of the Dragon was never a great card in terms of playability. It saw very little play when it was printed. Old-schooler Alex Shvartsman made a mediocre Standard deck at the time called "Bad Form" (based on a line from the movie "Hook." Why don't decks have real names anymore?) but it never really got anywhere. Eventually, it found as home as a kill condition in the Enduring Ideal deck, though that deck was never really a powerhouse either. Yet it got reprinted in 8th Edition, and even got a slot in the first From the Vault box.

But this card was, and still is. awesome. Hands down, I believe is has the best flavor of any card printed to date. You are a 5/5 dragon. You deal 5 damage a turn, you don't care about creatures that don't fly, and you have to be dealt 5 damage in one turn to die. The cost is steep, and the risk is high, but the "Moat" effect alone is fairly powerful. Plus, I'm a dragon comin' for ya! Rawr!

Here is a card.

Card Name:

Form of the Dinosaur

Mana Cost:

Mana Value:

6

Types:

Enchantment

Card Text:

When Form of the Dinosaur enters the battlefield, your life total becomes 15.

At the beginning of your upkeep, Form of the Dinosaur deals 15 damage to target creature an opponent controls and that creature deals damage equal to its power to you.

This card is not very good. It might eventually kill all their creatures, it might save you if you're very low on life. It might do these things. But it might not. It does legit nothing against a deck like Approach of the Second Sun, and even something like Temur Energy can get around the dino with tokens and such. It also doesn't win for you. You're still going to need to kill them somehow, and that's the biggest strike of all.

Zvi Mowshowitz once said that anything that costs 4+ mana has to be able to win by itself. That is actually pretty accurate for most rare/mythics that ever see play. That you have to invest 6 mana is this and it might not even have an appreciable impact on the game is just not getting there. "If you can blink it repeatedly..." But you can't. "Maybe in Commander..." Setting yourself to 15 in Commander is usually not a great idea, and this only triggers on your turn, not each player's upkeep like Sheoldred or The Abyss.

But what about the flavor? Aren't you a dinosaur? Rawr? Well, no. Obviously, being able to deal 15 to the opponent and healing to 15 every turn would be stupid, but nothing about this card makes me feel like a dinosaur. If I'm a dinosaur, why am I fighting their creatures and not the opponent? If I stomp a 1/1 creature, why am I not healing from the paper cut it inflicted? I'm not opposed to bad cards. I'm not even 100% opposed to what this card does. A one-sided Abyss can't be that bad, right? (Wrong). I am, however, furious that they called this misfire Form of the Dinosaur. I cannot understand that the team completely missed the point on what made Form of the Dragon so cool. "Hey guys, people like Form of the Dragon. Let's do it with a dinosaur!" "Great idea, just make sure it looks like Form of the Dragon but is actually unplayable!"

Anyway, really looking forward to Rivals of Ixalan. I hope I open one of these so I can set it on fire.