Ambush Krotiq

Creature — Insect

Trample

When Ambush Krotiq enters the battlefield, return another target creature you control to its owner's hand.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (12)

PhotogenicParasympathetic on REBIRTH OF THE STORM!

5 years ago

Hello friends!!!

Way back when, I built a mono-green storm deck, based around Jugan, the Rising Star - the deck required Paradox Engine to go off, and so was broken when the Engine was banned.

But guess what? Now, with the printing of Kodama of the East Tree, I think mono-green storm can be reborn!! Will it be good? Probably not! But will it be hilarious when it goes off? Absolutely!!

So here's what I've got:

I need a mana dork that taps for at least seven (I'm thinking Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Gyre Sage, Viridian Joiner, or Marwyn, the Nurturer) in play.

I need Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger in play.

I need Ambush Krotiq in hand.

I need Invasive Species in hand.

I need Paleoloth in play.

I need a sacrifice outlet in play.

And I need Kodama of the East Tree in play.

Tap the Mana dork, pick up a forest with the Ranger to untap, tap the Dork. 14 mana.

Use six to cast the Krotiq, putting the Invasive Species into play with the East Tree. Krotiq bounces the Quirion Ranger, Species bounces the Krotiq. Pick up something random with the Paleoloth.

Sacrifice the Species.

Recast the Quirion Ranger, put the forest into play with the East Tree. Untap the Mana dork, tap for seven, recast Krotiq.

With East Tree trigger on the stack, pick up Species with Paleoloth, then put Species into play off the trigger, bounce Quirion ranger and Krotiq.

Repeat for infinite mana (if the dork taps for more than seven), infinite storm, and infinite (whatever my sacrifice outlet does).

What I need from you all: 1) Praise. 2) Help. What other things can help refine this combo? What could serve as replacements for parts of it, in case of enemy removal?

I'm also tagging ThinkJank, as the originator of the Jugan combo, hoping they can help me out here.

Gody322 on An-Ayula-tion

6 years ago

I don't know if this is a good suggestion but maybe Savage Swipe . You definitely have enough 2 power creatures. Although I wouldn't recommend just playing a Prey Upon so I don't know. I do think however that Temur Sabertooth would be good for sure. It's not a bear but it could let you easily bounce your cheap (2 mana) bears back to your hand to get extra ETB effects. Decoction Module , Roaring Primadox , Stampeding Serow , Stampeding Wildebeests and Ambush Krotiq all have a similar effect but I don't think they are all worth playing. I also think that maybe Conjurer's Closet or Mimic Vat could be good additions. I think since bears aren't a supper strong tribe by them self your best bet is to maximize the ETB effects. (Which seems to be what you're doing.) I would say you could take out a few of the 2 mana 2/2s just because they don't do too too much and you seem to have a lot of them but I don't know. Like you said there aren't too many bears. Anyways I hope this is helpful. :)

Tzefick on New Alara

6 years ago

I agree that having a critical mass of high cost creatures can be a fundamental flaw in the Naya design. However I also stated that the line didn't necessarily have to be at power 5. It could be power 4.

Additionally Caretaker also takes CMC into account, so it functions with any creature spell that is CMC 5 or higher. That grants a lot of open space to utilize the mechanic outside the strict nature of Naya's theme.

---

Recent post: "“Wanted [the soulbond] to be a restrictive pairing” is not what I want at all. I was suggesting that creatures who pair with specific types of creatures is ground worth exploring. I think, in fact, that most of them will just be plain ‘ol Soulbond."

Earlier post: "Soulbond's biggest strike against is it's a complex mechanic. Many players like it, though. and if you can follow what's going on, it has good gameplay. I really don't know if this mechanic will ever return, but its popularity makes me think there's a chance.

So you see where I’m going with this? If X is paired with a creature with power Y or less, ...

Maybe some will be normal Soulbond, some will care about power/toughness, maybe one or two will care about beasts."

You contradict your previous statement. I can understand if you changed your mind but you make an adamant statement that you did not want restrictive pairing for Soulbond at all... whereas you previously stated that you want Soulbond that cares about who they pair with and only some would be normal, now you want the majority to be normal Soulbond.

---

How do you figure that Caretaker is played into a very different gameplay space than Exploit? Both requires a cost of a permanent on your board. Exploit is flexible in what cost it is, while Caretaker is locked and you have to play it before the benefit happens. Caretaker is definitely the weaker version of an Exploit cost due to those restrictions and setup, but I think it fits given that this kind of cost is not something that is normally within Green, so it does it worse. However because Caretaker is worse I think you can get away with granting higher payoffs.

As for breaking the color pie... No break is happening here to the color pie. Red, Green and White definitely have multiple sources of bouncing own permanents or creatures, so it is not a break of the color pie. You may argue about a break of what is traditionally Naya, but we are trying to make a new mechanic for Naya and after the conflux, Blue and Black mana have entered Naya. I wouldn't say it's a large stretch to have such a mechanic within .

Roaring Primadox , Stampeding Serow and its brother Stampeding Wildebeests , Temur Sabertooth , Ambush Krotiq , Invasive Species are some of them. Not bouncing a creature but bouncing none the less; Quirion Ranger Scryb Ranger I based these on mono green cards, but there's obviously a lot of others with other colors within the Nayan color pairing. Stuff like Fleetfoot Panther or Horned Kavu , Shivan Wurm . Red green had a lot of this stuff in the past. As far as I recall it was not a particularly liked mechanic in my LGS mostly because your opponent could interact with the "cost" and kill your only bounce target, so you had to bounce the creature itself. This was also back when creatures wasn't as pushed as they are now. Also having Caretaker as an optional cost that can't be interacted with and granting a benefit could make Caretaker work where the Red Green bounce for an undercosted big fattie failed.

Again; this is not a color pie break.

---

While I agree that Soulbond as a gameplay mechanic is more flexible in its core form, as it just requires a Soulbond creature and any other creature, I think Soulbond as a design mechanic is a lot more restrictive than you realize.

As for what decks are fun or not, I'm not going to go into that discussion. I would say most decks that are competitive are pretty linear in my eyes, because that is what makes them consistent and good.

---

Naya is exactly about the circle of life and normal predation to survive, not for sport like it may seem on Jund. I wouldn't say there's a bond between the gargantuans and their worshippers, as the gargantuans are the prime dangers to the humanoid inhabitants on Naya. The beasts prey on the populace and rampage through the jungle, destroying settlements.

I think for the gargantuans, it's more a tolerance thing. Like when a crocodile rests and opens its mouth to let birds eat out the scraps and clean for them. The crocodile doesn't care for the birds, but there's a symbiotic relationship that benefits both. I wont call it a bond. And certainly not one of the soul. That's why I called it a flavor break.

Thank you for the sauce on the popularity. I recognize that Naya is the least popular of the shards according to WotC's data. However it doesn't say that the mechanic is disliked. Shards of Alara fell into the top of the 25-50 percentile, which WotC classifies as a "liked" position, with the 0-25 percentile to be "disliked". They said some shards (like Esper) broke through the 50 percentile into the "popular" category.

So unless Naya is a vast outlier on the bad end, I don't think it's correct to say that Naya was disliked. Since they positively mentioned Esper to break the category but nothing else, I think it's safer to assume that Naya fell within the 25-50 percentile and is considered "liked, but not popular". You only know that Naya was the least popular of the shards. The rest is speculation.

And this speculation and personal bias is exactly why I kept going with this argument - which I reckoned was lost from the start. From your first post it is pretty clear that you don't consider the ideas applicable, so at first I wanted to know what thought went behind that, also to know what I might not have considered. From thereon it became clearer that some personal bias was present more than thought through criticism. I want people to argue with facts, and not use personal bias and present it as facts.

I don't mind you not liking my suggested mechanic and what it builds on. And if you have some factual or anecdotal evidence that supports a broader consensus which you claim to present, then I'll have to reconsider my position and revalue my viewpoints.

I thank you for our little discussion, but I think it is past time to end this.

SynergyBuild on Arena "Modern"

6 years ago

Boza Really? Do you know how many Flying Men and vanilla 3/2s for 3 have been made?

Tons of random gain life taplands, vanilla creatures, or creatures with... trample or reach (or both like Archweaver , yeah that'll take days to code).

But SynergyBuild, tons of spells are in this game... like Firebolt or Advent of the Wurm , or complex multi-lined creatures like Ambush Krotiq .

While I understand there are complex cards, perhaps replacement effects like dredge, etc. could be difficult to make (but once done the code can be copied over from Darkblast to Golgari Thug ), and the mythics and walkers that need voices and animations can be difficult to get, but a vast majority are super easy to make. 50% could be done by just putting art and the keywords on the cards. Random discard spells, burn, countermagic, card draw, ramp, tutors, fatties, dorks, taplands, duals, etc. could all be so easy to make and the other 50% would just be cards with keywords like Battalion they'd create and copy between everything.

Ruffigan on Preposterous Rhinoceros - Pauper EDH

7 years ago

One of my favorite interactions in mono-green is using Rancor, Broken Fall, and Whip Silk in conjunction with Humbler of Mortals to give everything trample consistently. I saw you have Crowned Ceratok but thought I'd throw it out there. I'd also consider Ambush Krotiq and Ancestral Statue to reuse cheap ETB creatures, though it does reset their counters. I think your ramp looks fine, with the recursion and hexproof spells you already have I don't see Guardian ever becoming prohibitively expensive.

CharonSquared on Myo-Juice and-Jin

8 years ago

Assuming you want to actually get the divinity counter on Myojin, look at Ambush Krotiq, Roaring Primadox, Stampeding Serow, Stampeding Wildebeests, and Temur Sabertooth.

legendofa on $10 Mana Ramp Ultra Budget

9 years ago

I'm liking your deck, and I'm definitely going to add a couple Pelakka Wurm to my $10 Mana Ramp. One thing my deck is doing a little bit more of, though, is work on ETB effects with Hornet Queen, Acidic Slime, and Ambush Krotiq. I think I let my preference for control-type decks wander in a bit too much... Definitely taking some ideas from here!

NixTheThird on

9 years ago

Ambush Krotiq was actually on my first draft for a while. Still considering it, but I wanted more big flashy effects... because fun :P