Is Scorpion God Good?

Pioneer forum

Posted on April 30, 2020, 12:30 p.m. by TriusMalarky

So, I was looking through all the Gods on the Gatherer, and it pulled up The Scorpion God. Is he playable in Pioneer?

Also, how good would he be with Nest of Scarabs? He'd generate tokens if he's attacking your opponent's creatures, but he can target your tokens and be able to draw a card for . Seems possible, but it could easily be too little to late.

Thoughts?

RNR_Gaming says... #2

No. He's too slow of engine to get off in comparison to other things that exist in the format. The majority of the time he'll be a 5 mana do nothing and you'll more than likely die on the crack back if you try and play him on curve.

April 30, 2020 3:45 p.m.

Argy says... #3

It depends what type of deck you are using it in.

Slower cards CAN be played in Pioneer, if they are in a Control shell.

If you want removal anyway, as per your suggestion, try it in a Rakdos Control shell.

May 1, 2020 10:19 a.m.

Argy says... #4

The best thing to do with new ideas is build them, test the hell out of them using some/all of these decks:

Pioneer Gauntlet

then adjust.

If you can't make enough adjustments to make the deck viable against the current top decks in the meta, then abandon the idea.

You'd be surprised how often original ideas actually work, but you need a bit of skill in building.

May 1, 2020 10:22 a.m.

TriusMalarky says... #5

I know how often original ideas work, they're my whole gig :)

I often get 2nd at FNM with crap ranging from 8-rack control to Minecraft combo/landfall/ramp. That's on top of my more normal stuff like elves and stompy. Verdurous Gearhulk is pretty good when played t3.

That said, it's hard to tell whether Scorpo here is good. He's obviously a 1-of in some sort of Jund midrange deck, or in //X control deck. It's whether he's good enough as a removal/card draw engine for 5 that I'd like to know.

May 1, 2020 10:49 a.m.

PitaGryphon says... #6

The Scorpion God wouldn't trigger Nest of Scarabs just by attacking and being blocked, which is what i assume you mean by "attacking your opponents creatures".

that being said, i agree its too slow. even if you were to use it in a control shell (basically meaning grixis in this case) there would be better ways to draw cards, like Opt.

May 1, 2020 1 p.m.

psionictemplar says... #7

PitaGryphon I'm pretty sure he means using the ability of The Scorpion God on an opponents creature.

As far as adding to the topic goes, I haven't played the pioneer format yet to really contribute on whether it could be good. My initial thoughts are that it would be best against small creature decks, but by the time it would start killing their creatures off it would probably be too late. If you do keep a deck like that's creature count low, then The Scorpion God is probably just a beater like any other sizable creature. So my guess is probably not that good, but it can't hurt to try if you have the time/ability to test it out.

May 1, 2020 10:03 p.m.

TriusMalarky says... #8

So, I guess it's not competitively playable. But, is it good for newer players to run as a 5-drop? It's pretty cheap in $$, but is it nice to recommend it to a newer player as a decent intermediate beatstick?

May 2, 2020 10:21 a.m.

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