Pointed Discussion

This ability should have been playable during any player's upkeep or at least your opponent's upkeep.

Wow, I forgot how bad this card was. At the time, I kept trying to look at it from different angles... but no, they thought of everything. Useless.

If you're afraid your opp may buff up one of his critters this could come in handy, other than that, nadda.

Wow! Completely useless!

It is pretty much useless, but its an important part of the history of Magic, since it were the first creature having an ability that does what shroud does.

Whenever I use this I just completely forgo the last line of text in its ability so I can use it as removal protection.

Uninteresting card, but part of the power balance of the time.

Art is excellent though

The last line is what kills this card. Otherwise, it would have been very good for its time.

There's a reason this guy's ability costs UU.

The inclusion of "play this ability only during your upkeep" is the difference between a 1.7 rating and a probable 4.5 rating.

When I first re-read him here, I'd forgotten about the last clause, and was wondering why such a good card got one-and-a-half stars. Then I noticed and oh wow. What on earth were they thinking? What could this card possibly be used for? Even if your opponent had instant-speed removal, they could just use it in response to you activating him.

Now I remember why Fallen Empires was considered such a terrible set at the time. It did have a few cool cards and even a few neat concepts (it used token creatures a lot better than they had been previously, and was the first set with actual cost-effective playable token generators), but it had a huge number of cards that just sucked, too, especially in blue.