Pointed Discussion

Interesting, brutal, and pure evil. A 10/4 on turn four can mean disaster for the opponent, but is it worth paying the additional costs? The answer is yes. Lets review this in a checklist form: 1) Pay two life - its a small amount that shouldn't effect the player too much, 2) Sacrifice two creatures - by turn four the player should easily have at least two meek creatures that they can throw away, and 3) Target opponent draws two cards - actually that can be hazardous, allowing the opponent card advantage usually is never a good idea, but it isn't the end of the world (or game). The result of these price's: a 10/4 with regenerate. Almost all the time this is effective, except for when the opponent plays non-regenerating removal; essentially turning the Tresserhorn into a big easy kill target. Also without any evasion the Tresserhorn becomes vulnerable to meek chunp blockers that prevent the owner from damaging the opponent. Although black does have a lot of removal and evasion spells that can allow for the Tresserhorn to deal massive amounts of damage. So to conclude, the player sacrifices a little and as a result gains a lot. Definitely worth it.

Stifle to counter his trigger when he comes into play to make him a 10/4 with regenerate and no downside?

Wow, can anyone say EDH?
that would be a wicked general with all the unearth and token generation effects.
throw some shroud on that baby and you got something going

how come i've never heard of this beast until now? what an awesome dude.

10-4, good buddy!

A 10/4 regenerator for 4?!?! YIKES.

Sure, he is suceptible to bounce and removal just like anyone else, but it is going to a quick game unless someone comes up with an answer for him very quickly.

4.5/5

Oh, so very tempting.

ok snaxme seriously im sick of every good card having some1 comment saying swords to plowshares, terminate, path to exile and all that stuff. no kidding its part of the game every card no matter how amazing has a way to get rid of it that doesnt mean every1 has to call it a worse card because of it. yes tresserhorn isnt as good as it once was back in the day with all the crazy newer cards out there but hes still a 10/4 regen of 1 for 4 mana. thats pretty good. and hes a sick looking card and i love just owning 1. his drawback isnt even that bad either. if they dont have any of those removals u can get a 10 power creature out with regen on turn 4!

...and right after you drop this bastard, he gets (your choice of):

-Pathed
-Swords to Plowshares'd
-Terminated (with EXTREEEEEEME prejudice)
-Cruel Edict'd (you won't have many more creatures in play if you're running Grixis colors, pal)
-Damnation'd or Wrath'd

And I could go on, but I have better things to do.

Fact is, although he's (somewhat) awesome,he also incurs a LOT of card disadvantage. And there's just too much removal that can take care of him, and you'd be left with less 2 critters, less 2 life, and you just gave a Divination to your opponent. So if you insist on running him, be sure to pack a couple of counterspells. Or shroud enchantments.

3/5, because, although his drawback is absurd, it's 10 power on a 4CC in grixis colors.

EDIT:@Diabloboy

It's very true that everything has an answer, but you just have to weigh the pros and cons, and in this case, the cons outweigh the pros.
...but you could Stifle the bastard and get a 10/4 regen with no cons on turn 5 instead of 4. Building around cards and finding a way to play the unplayable is part of what makes Magic so damn fun ;)

Considering how all the cards of the time, ice age/empires/etc were awful, i would have been fine with letting my opponent draw 2 of their awful cards and sacrificing 2 of my awful creatures to get this rape stick.

these days, not so much.

majinmonkey: I run an EDH deck with this guy and use discard, drawing, and recursion to support him. Yeah he can get removed but the deck has many more options that are just as deadly including all but 2 of the Specters.

i know the odds of this opening hand are really low, but
Turn one, swamp/mountain->Manaforge cinder
Turn two, swamp/mountain-> use the ability (if needed) to convert to black and drop Festering Goblin
Turn three, swamp/mountain-> Once again, use the ability to Underworld Dreams
Turn four, island and drop Lord of Tresserhorn, sac the cinder and the goblin, take out a weenie with the goblin's ability, pay the two life willingly, knowing that your opponent's only gain was drawing two cards, which caused them to drop two life as well. The Cinder makes mana-fixing excellent. Even if you don't get the cinder/dreams/goblin, Lord of Tresserhorn still kicks your opponent in the face and is worth the drawback. Also he's black so he's just a little bit harder to remove. No Doom Blade or Dark Banishing him :D

Notice how nearly all the removal everyone's bringing up that can deal with this guy was printed years later. It's not his fault that Wizards needed power creep to attract new players and help their bottom line. In his own day, he was immune to every black removal, and if you cast Swords to Plowshares - well, ok, I guess I'll just have to gain 10 life. The only other cards I can think of off the top of my head that could kill him were Reprisal, Exile, Fissure, and Wrath of God, only one of which was ever played by anyone. The biggest threat was actually from blue, since Unsummoning him was just as bad.

**EDIT: To clarify my point, the trumping of his regen powers is BUILT INTO his mechanics! Since the sac is an ETB/CIP effect rather than a cost, it CAN be interrupted by a bolt, unsummon, terror/doom blade (if they aren't black), etc. of one of your two little dudes! NOT cool!**

************
I own two of these and the more I think about it, the more I realize how much this guy sucks. Blue and/or white control decks will give him a wedgie and a swirly and then stuff him in a locker thereafter.

To add to Snaxme's list of this guy's worst nightmares:

ANY cheapo blue bounce:
Unsummon
Boomerang
Into the Roil
Peel from Reality

And EVEN WORSE than blue bounce...
Otherworldly Journey
I think that card seriously gives this guy bed-wetting night terrors. A single Otherworldly Journey on him and suddenly you're down three or four creatures (one of which is probably him) and four life. You've also put your opponent ahead by four turns. In other words, OJ on this guy means you probably lose.

It's just hard to justify him anymore. Even his "cheap" 4cmc is of three different colors. It's easier to play three colors these days, but it still makes it that much less likely that you'll be swinging with him on turn five.

Finally...regeneration? Not only does regeneration get trumped by a good percentage of removal spells these days, but consider this...

Let's say you're playing him early after getting two other creatures out. You put him on the stack confidently because his toughness puts him out of range of your opponent's Lightning Bolt and you've got an extra untapped swamp in play to regenerate him if he gets Flame Slashed. But OOPS! The bolt your opponent put on the stack after you played him wasn't meant for him--it was aimed at one of the little guys you planned to sacrifice when he came out! Damn, now he's one of the guys you have to sacrifice.



Sorry, but these days, he's about 1.5/5. If they swapped his regen for first strike and shroud and then changed the sac/life loss CIP effects into additional costs instead (sac 2 creatures and PAY 2 life--opponent card draw can still be CIP), then he'd be epic. As he is, he's, at best, someone for your sideboard to go to toe-to-toe with a mono-green deck's fatties. I'd love to see a improved tribute to this card in some future set a la Korlash, Heir to Blackblade's tribute to Dakkon Blackblade.

so cool, 10 power for 4 mana

IT'S NOT A DRESS!! IT'S A SMOCK!!

A jem found in a pile of worthless rocks.

2 life and 2 creatures is a small price to pay for a 10/4 regenerator. Of course, he dies to Flame Slash, Path, Swords, Wrath, Damnation, DoJ..well, you get the idea. Oh, and he can be countered.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but, Isn't Lim-Dul the lord of Tresserhorn? This guy does not look like Lim-Dul, more like of of his servants.

I can't help but love this guy - he's a goddamn 10/4. I mean, what's up with that. The fact that he's a cheap regenerator and only costs 4 mana is just more enticing.

Furthermore, his unwieldly drawbacks only add to his charm, like the old-school demon cards. It takes smarter playing and involves the weighing of, and planning around, risks. It adds strategizing and depth to the game. Much better than "Durr, I have 5 mana so I'll play Baneslayer Angel and attack with it a lot. Me likes chockomut ice cream."

Long live the ki- er, lord!

@snaxme What is your favorite creature cuz i bet i can find half a billion ways to instantly kill it the second it hits the field. this card is beautiful btw

I attacked for an unnecessary amount of poison counters with this guy today. He's the general in one of my EDH decks.

Lord of Tresserhorn + Tainted Strike + Psychotic Fury = :D

I laughed so hard when i pulled it off!

use in multiplayer formats but don't let him make you the bad guy!

Easily my favorite card. I just wish I could finally figure out what to use in a UBR deck. It's stuff like him, Prince of Thralls, and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker that make me want to abuse that color combo.

And Terminate, don't forget Terminate. And he's also at the PERFECT curve for your opponent to Corrupted Conscience him the turn after you play him, isn't that neat? Gee, I bet you didn't see that big 2-hit wonder of yours pimp-slapping you to 10 poison counters in one hit, did you?

Run this guy with Stifle to remove that big drawback of his entirely.

I heard this dude screams curse words at the mother of his children. And he will totally wreck your room and not even clean it up.

@megapossum, i agree. it's also my favorite color combo. i have a deck that i use with this dude, sol'kanar the swamp king, gwendlyn di corci, and a bunch of creatures and staples like hypnotic specter and stuff. it definitely stomps. this guy is particularly awesome when i stick him with invisibility. that's obviously not going to win me any tournaments, but it's fun.

I was like "this sucks"...until I saw the power

Torpor Orb kills every other grixis deck out there, but makes this guy just incredible.

only drawback that actually matters in edh is the card draw. in his colors, sacking two creatures is a combo starter, not a drawback

I never thought of the word "Manly" in conjunction with a magic card... until I saw this guy.

Nothing says I don't give a rat's A$$ like sac 2 creatures, let your opponent draw 2 cards... I mean what you gonna do? Bring it. He's the hardest hitting beefcake at any mana cost up until 10. He's toting a Battleaxe that's heavier than he is. At to top it off, his power/toughness is the trucker code word for "h3ll yeah".

This guy heard all the Chuck Norris jokes, then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "This guy must be one h3ll of a pu$$y."

Let's not forget that R/B/U is the BEST color combo for stealing your opponent's creatures. Who says his hit's play effect is a drawback? Sac their stuff to it, and cry about how your mean old card made you pay a whopping 2 life.

He is great with kingfishers and oculus threw them in my EDH deck with him and invisiility and it works rage wonders.

This card has been my favorite card in magic since I started back in Alliances.

It's kind of bad now but it was really, really bad back then. Everyone had incinerates, reprisals, swords to plowshares, boomerang, unsummon, or more insultingly they had regenerators like will o' the wisp or drudge skeletons.

I made a deck with him when mirage was out and I lost everygame that he hit the table and won every game where I didn't draw one of my two copies of LoT (casual games not tournaments). This was the first card that clearly demonstrated the concept of card advantage to me. If you cast this guy you probably just handed the game to your opponent.

He's actually better now than he was before. There are way more multi-colored lands and there are a ton of good cheap creatures that do something when they die. There are a lot more ways to kill him but there are also a great many ways to protect him. Now you can give this guy shroud or make him unblockable or give him infect and he's frightening.

I now have him as my commander in an EDH deck. He's still a horrible card but he certainly makes for fun times. I once put whispersilk cloak on him and he ate three opponents for the win.

@Justice1337 - I think your post should be his flavor text

It's like a mini Cruel Ultimatum to yourself! Except, then you win the game.

If I'm going to use Torpor Orb, Stifle, etc. to negate creature drawbacks, then I'm going to use Phyrexian Dreadnought. I don't think his regeneration ability makes up for: being susceptible to chump blocking, costing 4 times the CMC, having 3 colors in his casting cost, having 2 less power, being legendary, etc. I believe he's rated slightly too high at the moment. I think a rating of 4 would be more realistic.

I'm using him as an EDH general at the moment, and it's probably my coolest deck. It's full of token generators (Dragon Fodder, Army of the Damned, Bloodline Keeper) and creatures who like to die (Solemn Simulacrum, Ryusei, the Falling Star, Noble Benefactor).

It also utilizes the Shadow Rift/Tainted Strike combo, which can also be used on Charmbreaker Devils. Bottom line, he's a fun general to build around. A bit of a challenge to mitigate the obvious drawback, but therein lies the fun.

Psychotic Fury,
Torpor Orb, and
Basilisk Collar.
Just to be sure

@atali; The flavor on this guy is that he was built from the flesh and bone of a dozen Kjeldoran heroes and sits in Tresserhorn telling stories about how he mangled and ate Lim-Dul's enemies back in the day, waiting for his master's return. He also likes to sing old Kjeldoran battle hymns when he's feeling melancholy. Oh, and Tresserhorn is a fortress built over a bottomless pit on the ruins of the Monastery of Gix.

So you have two creatures out, you play him, and in response they unsummon one.

We call that Fail. XD

Dies to Ramirez DePietro.

Bloodrush Wrecking Ogre for an instakill.

Playing him on his own is not a bad idea at all, if your facing decks that cant deal with regeneration.
So decent sideboard card to this day.

I do sort of miss the day when huge creatures had huge drawbacks.

Polar Kraken!

The EDH general of:
Red: Haste and Pandemonium
Blue: Unblockability and shroud
Black: Kill all that gets in the way.
If you cannot play this card FOR his "drawbacks" I think you are playing a different kind of URB.

10/4, good buddy.

I ran him in a Nekusar, the Mindrazer EDH, and in one game I had Nekussar, Grave Pact, and Underworld Dreams all out in play before dropping him. Suddenly his drawbacks had attached to them: "each opponent sacrifices two creatures and loses two life."