Pointed Discussion

This is very good if you manage to play it with prowl

If you don't play this for prowl then you're an idiot. 3 mana, 5/3, and remove 3 cards in an opponent's library from the game. Use the prowl cost for god's sake! D:<

Ya but with a goblin deck usually the games about over by the time you could really use this.

Wow, did you just Mind Funeral me? Well, guess I'll just get rid of the rest of your win condition! These kinds of cards are great against combo decks. But pretty poor against tribes, since these days, every creature in a tribe deck is a lord of some sort, with +1/+1 for all his peeps.

I cannot stress the awesomeness of this card. I'll use it with mark of eviction with my rogue deck and gleefully dismantle their deck 3 cards at a time. "oh let me just "relieve" you of this card. Oh this ones a bit dangerous for little kiddies like you don't you think? Nah you won't be needing this one for sure" What could be more fun? Great threat remover.

by the way goblinrunner09 could you kindly give us a deck list of this goblin deck you supposedly have that ends the game on turn 2? I know goblin decks are fast and what not but i don't think their that fast. I think you exaggerate but feel free by all means to prove me wrong.

the only time to play this is with prowl. but when you do, you get a 5/3 for 3 mana and sift through opponents library see what they have AND remove their 3 best cards. staple in my rogue deck.

This card stops being cute and funny, and becomes utterly horrifying considering that there's urban legends about earwigs crawling into people's ears and laying their eggs in someone's head.

The artist has never seen an earwig in their life, have they?

@goblinrunner09:

Really? You usually beat your opponents on turn 2? With goblins?
5 power for three mana is great. A Jester's Cap effect makes it awesome.

@Need:

He didn't say that goblins usually win BEFORE you can play this. He said that the game is just about over by the time you could use it, meaning that the game is already heavily in your favor. Here's a little overkill:

T1 goblin lackey. T2 swing (19) drop in siege-gang commander, play goblin piledriver. T3 play goblin chieftain, swing with three 3/3 tokens, a 2/2 lackey, a 3/3 siege-gang, a 2/2 chieftain, and a whopping 14/3 piledriver. That's 30 damage on that turn, 31 damage dealt in total, and it makes the earwig squad look like a waste of precious mana.

Too much? Ok, how's this: T1 lackey. T2 swing (19) drop in piledriver, play second piledriver.) T3 chieftain, swing with a 2/2 lackey, a 2/2 chieftain, and two 8/3 piledrivers, coming to a total of 20 damage on that turn.

Ok, ok. ONE last example, if you still think that's too much.

T1 lackey, T2 swing and drop in goblin warchief, then play goblin matron, fetching a piledriver. T3 play piledriver and, hell, we'll go with cycling a gempalm incinerator to wipe out a blocker. Why not?

That swings for 11 on T3, 12 damage in total.

Tell me, in any of these scenarios, where would it have been better to play the earwig?

In summation: Earwig squad may have been ok in lorwyn standard at the time, but on the whole, it's nothing but a lower class wannabe goblin when compared to all the others that see play.

Really great use of the Prowl mechanic. A 5/3 for 3CMC that auto-Jester's Cap your opponent. Turn 2: Oona's Blackguard, Turn 3: Swing with Blackguard, Drop this bad boy (now a 6/4) and proceed to search your opponent's library (gaining you the advantage of knowing exactly what kind of deck you're facing) and picking three gems to send to their graveyard, granting your not facing a Dredge/Reanimator. But you'll know whether you are because you just rifled through their whole library, and in that case just put their valuable cards in there. Beautiful!!

@Polski
Instead of listing Goblin Lackey three times, you should have put in something about Empty The Warrens. Surely i've seen enough games end on turn one thanks to that card.

Yeah, I don't want these guys anywhere near me.

the ability is cute but remember, it's a 5/3 on turn 3

You guys seem to think that this card should be put in a Goblin deck. That is incorrect. This guy kicks the most ass in a Rogue deck, where you can get him in very quickly with Frogtosser Banneret and Prickly Boggart, and augment him with Oona's Blackguard.

To be sure, he's cut out for an entirely different type of deck than the turn-3 win Goblin aggro decks that you guys were outlining, in which, I agree, he would simply gum up the works. He's best in a more controlling but still aggressive Rogue deck that may not win on turn 3, but will still win powerfully and inexorably.

I've had an opponent fold because he didn't want to sit through a second earwig drilling.
Excellent in Rogue tribal with unblockable/evasive creatures.

I like the fact that these guys are playable even without the prowl... I wonder if I want to lose some more friends by putting a copy in my flicker deck...

Alternate text, "Destroy target combo deck, it can't be regenerated" when combo'd with Invisible Stalker.
4/5 Stars

Very good for the prowl cost. I love 5/3s for 3; they're somewhat common and almost always pretty neat. I wish this had just been a comes into play effect though; then flicker effects would make him hilarious.

EDIT: Note that they're called Earwig Squad probably because they search for the earwigs and use them for torture or some such. Remember those tales of Earwigs nesting in your ears/brain? That's why it's killing spells from the opponent's library; this guys collect them and plant them on the planeswalker. It only happens with prowl because the guy who attacked/got through planted the earwigs.