Alara Saprolings

~ Today on Wizards, Mark Rosewater previewed another new Shards of Alara card, 'Mycoloth' which should be getting a lot of attention from players with Saproling decks.

Mycoloth, 3{G}{G}
Creature - Fungus, Rare
Devour 2 (As this comes into play, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This creature comes into play with twice that many +1/+1 counters on it.) At the beginning of our upkeep, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play for each +1/+1 counter on Mycoloth.
4/4


Devour is an ability somewhat similar to that of the 'Legions' keyword ability 'amplify'. We have already seen devour with the previously previewed card Calera Hellion. This Jund shard mechanic allows your nasty critter to get pumped by feeding it other available critters and from the Orb of Insight results, we may expect 7 of these creatures. Some have already complained about the 5 mana cost of this card but I should think that a 4/4 with this sort of ability is reasonable.


MaRo had suggested coupling Mycoloth with Doubling Season which would not only allow twice the counters being placed on Mycoloth but also generate twice the volume of tokens being generated . . . sounds lethal if you are able to keep Mycoloth out of harm's way.



This is an effective straight-forward combo. Other suggestions floating out on 'teh internets' include the following . . .

* Pumping a trio of Saprolings with Incremental Growth, and then perhaps playing a Bramblewood Paragon to give them all trample.

* Playing Vigor to provide a safety blanket to Mycoloth as well as piling on additional +1/+1 counters on it to kick the Saproling generator into high gear.

* Yet another suggestion was to play Gilder Bairn and using its 'untap' mechanic to double the number of counters on Mycoloth. This sounds effective as well but will probably see more use by devious players pumping loyalty counters on their Planeswalkers.


Until next time, keep those MTG brain juices flowing . . .