Crystalline Giant

Artifact Creature — Giant

At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose a kind of counter at random that Crystalline Giant doesn't have on it from among flying, first strike, deathtouch, hexproof, lifelink, menace, reach, trample, vigilance, and +1/+1. Put a counter of that kind on Crystalline Giant.

Discussion (12)

jonno.scott on Protect the Facts

2 days ago

Oh Akroma, Vision of Ixidor also works well with Crystalline Giant, and is historic for Jhoira's Familiar, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, etc. Just food for thought.

dsdude3021 on Giant Conjuring

5 days ago

Saccox, it's more of a Flameshadow Conjuring deck + giants, but I get your idea. Mana ramp is the most important part of getting this deck to work and it doesn't help that red is such a weird 'ramp' color. I might drop Crystalline Giant,Marauding Raptor, or Stinkdrinker Daredevil if I get better alternatives for ramp. Maybe in Kaldheim?

I'm also mostly limiting my search to find mana sources built on creatures, since Flameshadow Conjuring. I may prefer a great tribal mana rock if it were cmc 2, since it would get my 3rd turn up to my key cards of cmc 4.

Optimator on Giant's Deck

2 months ago

Some of the newer Common giants are a lot better than the older ones in your list, so if you feel like dropping the $0.25 on them, here they are:

Shatterskull Charger is decent. Might not be a bad idea to have some lower-CMC giants in the mix so you don't get run over early.

Cragganwick Cremator is certainly a card that exists. Not great, but better than some of the commons in your current list. Probably not worth running but it's not garbage.

Bulwark Giant is tolerable.

Crystalline Giant can become a huge threat. Worth considering, actually!

Council Guardian is cute

Rumbling Sentry is meh

Wayward Giant is almost cost-effective

Ravenous Giant is Juzam Djinn. Might be worth running for the lolz.

Enraged Giant is playable. We can do better I bet.

Fleshpulper Giant is probably playable

Tzefick on Sword of Life and Limb

2 months ago

I find it a bit amusing how not two months ago there was posted a thread specifically dedicated to brew card ideas for the remaining 3 Swords of X and Y and then this shows up.

DemonDragonJ I would agree that having three abilities would break the pattern.

Personally I think the life gain is already covered by Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of War and Peace. One static, one dynamic.

There is already token generation with Sword of Body and Mind.

Personally I think the Sword should do something a bit different than that. Please keep in mind that the Swords have generally been designed to be beneficial to most colors and multiple strategies - hence why a Sword like Sword of Body and Mind is generally considered the worst/most niche, closely followed by Sword of War and Peace. The latter because it doesn't affect the board and lifegain is... only relevant in certain situations. If you make a token generator + Populate effect, it works by itself but is generally not useful for many decks.

Take a Sword like Sword of Truth and Justice. It plays well by itself by enabling its own scaling when you have multiple creatures. However you can also utilize the Proliferate on poison counters, -1/-1 counters, planeswalker loyalty counters. It has built-in support for multiple strategies.

A card like Sword of Sinew and Steel is more niche, but it has some very powerful removal effects to compensate. In addition the protections are very on-point in protecting against most targeted removal and all of red's board wipe repertoire.

Tokens for the sake of tokens is often not that impressive. That's why I would suggest to aim for something else than basic token generation.

If you are hellbent on the token generation I would consider granting a different incentive:

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Alternative A Show

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, you may create a 1/1 green saproling creature token. If you do, then create a copy of a token you control. If you don't, create a Treasure token."

Hmm... I checked the wording on Populate, and for some reason WotC opted to make it copy only creature tokens. The word does make more sense to be used in tandem with creatures but this feels like a missed opportunity.

This grants purpose outside token strategies by giving you the option to opt for just a Treasure token and the swing after, if you kept the Treasure token, you can get another with the copy effect. Because there's a condition on getting some of the effects, I think it'll pass the "only allow 2 effects".

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Alternative B Show

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token. Until the beginning of your next turn, the first spell you cast has Convoke."

This effectively grants you a mana dork (with indirect haste) AND it plays well with broad strategies that is not necessarily token strategies. It grants potential chump blockers to certain decks that can double as mana - alas only for the first spell after the trigger. The card could be buffed a bit by granting convoke to the first spell each turn until your next turn - granting you more flexibility and use of its ability.

I don't think it has the same power level as Sword of Feast and Famine but it is somewhat closer to its power level, which I don't think is a bad place for a Sword to be in.

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If we're being honest, most of the swords don't see play and those that do are mostly Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Fire and Ice. I've seen a fair bit of Sword of Truth and Justice as well. I think hitting around that spot would be ideal.

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If we aim for something else than basic token generation, we could aim for some tech options.

Delve deeper Show

Scout ahead

Green has the ability to look at what's to come and grab specific cards, with cards like Commune with the Gods, Commune with Nature, Commune with Dinosaurs, and many similar. White has had this effect as well, as seen in Acclaimed Contender, Board the Weatherlight, Courageous Outrider, and Militia Bugler. White's piece is more conditional and limited, whereas green is more flexible.

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Treasure generation

White has had treasure generation through taxing with Smothering Tithe. Green is the ramp color. The Sword could possibly create a treasure token.

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Keyword hoarder

White is usually the keyword hoarder, so what if they started being generous? With the introduction of keyword counters from Ikoria with something like Crystalline Giant, the Sword could have a trigger that spreads its keywords to another creature.

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, if equipped creature has flying, you may put a flying counter on target creature. Do the same for deathtouch, double strike, first strike, hexproof, lifelink, menace, reach, trample, and vigilance. The rest of the ability..."

By itself this doesn't do anything, and usually that would be a deal-breaker as an effect on this card. However I think there are enough Swords that are conditional on something else to get their effect. Usually not something that is particularly difficult to attain. Like Sword of Light and Shadow require a creature card in your graveyard to make use of half its effects.

This ability would also make it stronger in White, as White already has keyword soup creatures where this effect would be very strong, and even more so in Boros. You could use cards with the keywords themselves, equipment or auras that grant it or use buff cards that grant it temporarily. The latter can even be used in tandem with the Sword to permanently grant the equipped creature those keywords.

There are a few evergreen keywords missing, most notably indestructible. But there's also defender (could be used in a Arcades, the Strategist or similar deck to dish out defender counters) and haste (usually wont make a difference after combat step) - yes yes, there's also Flash but who cares when it's on the board. So a way to increase this ability's power could be to include indestructible at the very least.

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Enchantment removal

I went in a big fat circle around this one, as I really don't think enchantment removal should be given on a repeatable colorless source like this. I know Sword of Sinew and Steel does it against artifacts and planeswalkers, and if I'm being frank it would be pretty easy for WotC to throw a Demystify on a Sword and something else and call it a day. However I really hope that wont be the case.

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Brought back

Brought Back but as a delayed trigger without target (to enable that you get back something you lost during combat damage step).

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, at the beginning of your end step you may return a permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield if it was put there from the battlefield this turn."

It can be utilized much in the same way that Brought Back can. For instance to get back fetching lands or ETB-heavy creatures.

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Land ramp

This one kinda feels like it's impeding on Sword of the Animist's territory, but it is part of green's color pie. It could be differently implemented like:

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal up to one land card and up to one creature, aura, or equipment card from among them and put them into your hand. You may play an additional land this turn."

This is more a soft-ramp that can fail. Instead of granting additional land drops it could just put a found land onto the field tapped.

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a land card from among them and put it onto the battlefield tapped. You may reveal a creature, aura, or equipment card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order."

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Anyway, that's at least a little brainstorming on what else those two colors have to offer.

alkymyst on Keyword Kraziness

3 months ago

Hey there! This deck looks sweet! In the way of recommendations, Crystalline Giant seems like it would be awesome in this deck. Chariot of Victory and Haunted Cloak both give you lots of keywords, notably a few that don't show up in white that much, and Concerted Effort would help you keep some keywords on all your creatures during your opponents turns. This deck looks very fun and awesome! Notably, Worldslayer always makes me happy (and it actually has synergy in this deck!). Very neat!

Mannu_1978 on Giant Invasion

4 months ago

Hello

For the moment with your current list, I would replace the 4 calls (or do play foulmire knight) and 1 shadowspear with 4 removal and one extra giant because they are usable too late.

Say 4/3 Heartless Act, 1/2 Tectonic Giant or even Crystalline Giant. If we keep the Real Cloaked as the main/only board wipe more giants makes more sense.

Maybe cut 1/2 trolls to lower the curve (and add more control or giants)

calls -4 => Heartless Act +4

Shadowspear -1 Midnight Guard -1 => Crystalline Giant +2

Trolls -2 => Tectonic Giant +2

I know it's situationnal but I like Witch's Vengeance as a wiper too. Depending on post rotation aggro play I will consider it, at least in sideboard.

I hope we'll get some polyvalent removals in the next extension (to replace mortify at least). I don't like as there are now too many creatures with an enormous value (often immediate). That's why it's hard to play with a midrange deck "poor" on removals (lol for mardu..) and why "buff" or retrieval cards are questionable against removals...

gimmeseven on Card creation challenge

5 months ago

Reassembling Gearhulk

Creature - Construct

Reassembling Gearhulk enters the battlefield with +1/+1 counters on it and gains counters from creatures in all graveyards

The rules text is off, but I'm going for a Crystalline Giant sort of thing)

Challenge: Toxic Deluge, but in white

ShiltonCDXX on Azorius Artifacts

7 months ago

The Ozolith works wonders with Stonecoil Serpent and Crystalline Giant why did you remove it again?

How did you plan on abusing it with Emry? Yes you could cast it from GY bur that's not really abuse it's just recursion.

I apologize if I'm missing something but this deck is begging for The Ozolith back.

You could try adding Witch's Oven as a way to pile counters onto The Ozolith if your opponent isnt killing them.

I may make a version of this to go along with my one. +1 hope it does you well.