Pointed Discussion

Why is this rated so low? Nice combo with Familiar Ground.

(EDIT) @InternetNinjacy: I guess you're right. By modern creature power standards, this is well behind the cards you mention as well as Terra Stomper. Maybe if they made the mana cost , took out the activation cost for his power and also gave him haste?

Flavor should have been:
"PLAYING the nodorog"
--Gruul expression meaning
"making a really big mistake"

Familiar Ground is a good combo, but meh. A 4/4 unblockable in green? Just swing with a 9/9 trample. Kill something and deal damage. You have to splash red for this, so even worse. This just isn't that great, by no means is it bad. But for 6:

Primeval Titan, Rampaging Baloths, and Vigor are three cards I managed to find in 20 seconds just looking in green with CMC 6. I didn't even mix in red. I think that is most of the reason this isn't looked at well.

Now if it were blue, that would probably change alot.

@Paleopaladin - I would play that.

yes maybe unfortunately, but 4/4 even with evasion is not the thumbs up for 6cmc anymore

Very overcosted, and its ability is off-color and not even that useful. Your opponents are more likely to have multiple creatures if they're playing aggro, or be playing control where they'll just Unsummon/Doom Blade/Counterspell your guy.

Although this guy's so lame he just might make it through all of that.

Here we have people comparing a common to mythic rares and cards that if mythics had been around at the time might as well have had been mythic.
One less mana cost and remove the activation cost and you'd have a pretty nice uncommon. But as it is, it fills the common slot very well. Would I like to see a stronger version of this? Yes, at a higher rarity level.

If this were printed today, it would probably be one mana cheaper, and would be an average common: probably solid in casual/Limited (depending on the rest of the set it's in) and generally not of any use in Standard or eternal formats. We wouldn't usually expect it to be, either. So to compare it to cards that are good or even staples in non-Limited formats is somewhat disengenuous. Here are some more appropriate comparisons from recent sets:

Rubbleback Rhino
Grizzled Outcasts
Vastwood Gorger
Pathbreaker Wurm
Sentinel Spider
Fangren Marauder
Alpha Tyrranax
Garruk's Packleader
Howlgeist
Spinebiter
Stingerfling Spider

These were all at least playable in their Limited environments (and some were legitimate bombs). This would be about middle of the pack in power level for a top-of-the-curve creature in green, or slightly below-average if reprinted in a core set: sometimes just okay, sometimes quite good, sometimes cut from your deck altogether.

Bottom line - I won't ever be looking for copies of this for one of my EDH/casual decks, but I can respect its niche in the game.

I'm pretty sure "petting the nodorog" is a Gruul expression meaning something that's unprintable in a PG-13 game environment.

@Paleopaladin

By the time this card came out, there had already been Gleancrawler and Silvos, Rogue Elemental. Gruul Nodorog was underpowered even when it came out.