Why is Merfolk Skydiver's Ability So Expensive?
General forum
Posted on Oct. 21, 2019, 10:05 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
When Merfolk Skydiver was revealed, I was excited that it would be a replacement for Viral Drake in my Atraxa EDH deck, as it would lower the deck’s mana curve, but I then saw that its ability costs , which is too expensive, in my mind. Given that its initial casting cost is a one-time payment, I decided to keep Viral Drake in my deck, since the higher cost of Merfolk Skydiver ’s ability would accumulate over time, but I see no reason why the skydiver’s ability could not have cost and still have been balanced.
What does everyone else say about this? Why is Merfolk Skydiver ’s ability so expensive?
BlackSirius says... #3
Honestly in my opinion its a 2 mana flier that comes in with a +1/+1. The fact that you can proliferate for a cost is pretty awesome. I don't think when they made it that they had infect in mind, but the fact that the set it came in had amass. So if it was a cheaper cost to perform the ability alot of army zombies would be pretty beefy. Mark Rosewater said that when they make a set they keep that set only in mind. They make sure the abilities match the story and colors that it goes with.
October 21, 2019 10:54 p.m.
why not run both, add in more creatures with activated abilities and then run Training Grounds Heartstone effects? it is also just more to activate, for the chance to lower your average cmc, be on a body that opponents are far more likely going to let live to proliferate. In fact outside of drake being your only infect creature the skydiver just fits the deck better, early game it is very doubtful you want to use the ability over casting a spell, and for the turn it comes down the total cost to activate it is 7 instead of 8 mana and you would more likely proliferate a minimum of a +1/+1 counter.
October 22, 2019 12:34 a.m.
CrimsonChaos says... #5
Since you're running Simic colors to use that one, another good support card to cut back on creature ability costs is Biomancer's Familiar . It's a cheap card to both purchase and cast, and is basically a creature version of Training Grounds . Sure, the Grounds are a bit cheaper to cast and also harder to remove, but it's also a pretty pricey card, so the Familiar is a reasonable alternative. Combine with the Heartstone and BAM! Easy Proliferate for the measly cost of a blue and a green.
October 24, 2019 3:10 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
CrimsonChaos, that card is awesome, but I do not have a sufficient number of creatures in my Atraxa deck with activated ability to justify it being in there.
Demarge, perhaps I shall start a thread to ask which creature is better for my deck.
enpc says... #2
Proliferate is always going to be expensive for a repeatable ability. While it doesn't break planeswalkers, it's generally the first thought with the ability. And the idea that there is an effect which can accelerate an entire board of walkers is something that you don't want costing 2 mana to do.
And if planeswalkers were everybody's first thoughts, infect was everybody's second. The idea that once you have tagged a player (short of a handful of cards that can eat infect counters), you could just finish off a player by dumping a bit of mana into an ability seems kind of broken.
But it's the fact that proliferate lets you do both of these at once. it's a very powerful ability and I don't think it's unfair to have it cost 4 or 5 (in general).
Sure, in this case the mana cost is more/harder but as you pointed out, Merfolk Skydiver is cheap to play, comes in as a potentially a 2/2 flier for 2 mana and can permanently buff itself/other creatures with counters on them. Looking at the set that it falls within (and the abundance of +1/+1 counters), 5 mana seems balanced for an uncommon.
October 21, 2019 10:23 p.m.