By Green standards this is terrible. It was probably trying to be a P3K War Mammoth, but an extra point of toughness (encouraging it to block, not attack) doesn't make up for losing trample, and even if it did, Mammoth is pretty marginal itself.
Aaron_Forsythe
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(16 votes)
Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #19, 10/21/10
There is a bit of rambling I could do about how ill-equipped the design toolbox of Portal: Three Kindgoms was to attempt tackling a top-down set of such magnitude, but that doesn’t really apply to this card. Southern Elephant is a fine “design” in as much as it is as mundane as the creature it is representing.
Vanillas with interesting numbers do represent one of the finite—and most well-defined—areas of Magic design, so it always blows me away when we find one that hasn’t existed before. It took a very long time for a 4/3 to be put into a “real” set—Champions of Kamigawa’s Order of the Sacred Bell, a full fifteen years after Dr. Garfield clearly illustrated that green got better than Hill Giant at common on Day One (with War Mammoth).
The inverse of the Order—the Blanchwood Treefolk to its Spined Wurm—is this card, Southern Elephant, a card with a set of numbers that has yet to appear on a vanilla in a “real set.” Kind of mind-blowing, really. I think the card would be quite playable in limited and fits right in with even the most modern of common creature curves. I now have a new mission.
It’s interesting to note that the Portal sets did a decent job of exploring this vanilla territory. Southern Elephant’s stats first appeared on Rowan Treefolk in the original Portal, and Order of the Sacred Bell’s stats were first on Golden Bear from Portal: Second Age. That set also contained the better-than-Craw Wurm 6/4 Barbtooth Wurm, another card worth bringing to a “real” set someday.
GainsBanding
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
I'm betting on an Elephant sub-theme in Masters Edition 4.. with this one, the Arabian Nights one, Elephant Graveyard, and maybe something else I'm forgetting. Guess I'll find out in two months.
ong312
★★★★☆ (4.3/5.0)(5 votes)
It's so frustrating that the Portal 3K cards are so limited and hard to get in the US or even in English for that matter!
Sound off if you want to see them made available somewhere other than MTGO for us US players!
willpell
★★★★☆ (4.3/5.0)(3 votes)
My best friend actually has a little English P3K, I dunno how he got it. But I definitely agree that there should be more availability of the set, as it had some real gems in it.
BegleOne
★★★☆☆ (3.1/5.0)(4 votes)
"There is a bit of rambling I could do about how ill-equipped the design toolbox of Portal: Three Kindgoms was to attempt tackling a top-down set of such magnitude" -Mr. Forsythe
P3K was such a labor of love and SO AWESOME with it's limited design toolbox, it seems like it should be studied and emulated. That kind of coherent storytelling, and even its historical setting, with the top-down balance and variety it had despite its simplicity is something the rest of the game has never approached. It could be rejiggered into a whole block...
tavaritz
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
But to me a non-trampling elephant is crap. Elephants trample, they virtually cannot attack any other way. Same goes with rhinos.
Comments (8)
There is a bit of rambling I could do about how ill-equipped the design toolbox of Portal: Three Kindgoms was to attempt tackling a top-down set of such magnitude, but that doesn’t really apply to this card. Southern Elephant is a fine “design” in as much as it is as mundane as the creature it is representing.
Vanillas with interesting numbers do represent one of the finite—and most well-defined—areas of Magic design, so it always blows me away when we find one that hasn’t existed before. It took a very long time for a
The inverse of the Order—the Blanchwood Treefolk to its Spined Wurm—is this card, Southern Elephant, a card with a set of numbers that has yet to appear on a vanilla in a “real set.” Kind of mind-blowing, really. I think the card would be quite playable in limited and fits right in with even the most modern of common creature curves. I now have a new mission.
It’s interesting to note that the Portal sets did a decent job of exploring this vanilla territory. Southern Elephant’s stats first appeared on Rowan Treefolk in the original Portal, and Order of the Sacred Bell’s stats were first on Golden Bear from Portal: Second Age. That set also contained the better-than-Craw Wurm
Sound off if you want to see them made available somewhere other than MTGO for us US players!
P3K was such a labor of love and SO AWESOME with it's limited design toolbox, it seems like it should be studied and emulated. That kind of coherent storytelling, and even its historical setting, with the top-down balance and variety it had despite its simplicity is something the rest of the game has never approached. It could be rejiggered into a whole block...