Pointed Discussion

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh. Not a very exciting rare land.

It's good in that you get a nigh uncounterable hellion with haste, but I would highly suggest proliferating that second counter.

Ugh. This must have been a killer in playtesting, because this looks severely nerfed.
Assuming no Proliferating or other shenanigans, that's 3 turns and for a 4/4 hellion with haste. If it was a man-land or if it didn't sacrifice itself, it would have been so much better.

it shouldn't sacrifice itself. even flavorwise, having a hole that spews out hellions makes sense.

Wierd....random...land...doing stuff...

WANT! :D

As someone who loves playing mono red and avoids creature based play I think this card could be quite useful. Not excellent, but having even one of these in your deck as opposed to zero could win you some games.

Well, here's a way to think about it:

A 4/4 creature with Haste that can't be countered and can be played with 3 lands on the field (ignore the turns).

I dunno, I think this may be more dangerous than people think.

Can help you out if you are getting mana flooded and have nothing better to spend it on. If not at least you get some generic mana out of it. If you're in red there are worse cards you could take. I don't see it as anything spectacular though.

I could see the ability as a late game fail-safe option for Red Deck Wins if it becomes a deck anytime soon. I honestly think people are too greedy about what a utility land should do, and a land that can put your extra mana to use and pop out a finisher in a pinch is good in my book.

I can see alot more use to this then some people think. As a mono-red deck, the largest problem you get into is drawing/running out of a hand, while this does eat up 2 mana a turn, if you don't have anything else better to spend 2 mana on (Which again, Mono-Red, it happens more then you'd like) It could be a nice addition to your attacking force, and heck, even if you don't have/want to use the mana to put a counter on it, it still generates mana. Its a nice Utility Land that if you don't feel like its the time to put a Counter on it, you can still just generate a Colorless mana.

4/5

Yeah...your opponent will see this coming. Most likely they will wait until you've dumped 3RRR plus a land into it and then they just kill your token.

Hellion Crucible + Crucible of Worlds? Coincidence?

@ Trygon_Predator: I agree. It seems like either the {R}s or the {1}s in those activation costs weren't there initially. Especially since this takes up a land you could be tapping for three turns worth of mana, so the hellion really costs you {6}{R}{R}{R}.

Only produces colorless mana, takes 6RRR over 3 turns to activate then costs you a land, and all you get is a 4/4 with haste?

Sure, it's quite a bit of mana if you think about it, but look at it like this: You split it between three turns, you do it at instant speed, and you should only do it with leftover mana. It's a mana sink that turns into a Hellion. There's nothing wrong with that.

Plus, have you seen the art? The art justifies the card.

Another awesome gem in the not so vast hellion collection. It can also make for a great late game suprise attack if your opponents ignore it.

This land has many uses. You also don't have to use the haste. You can use the hellion as a surprise blocker.

POPULATE hasted tokens that don't sacrifice? Awesome.

Pretty good with crucible of worlds

In plenty of mono-red decks, this is better than Mountain #24, and that's really the only standard that it has to meet to merit inclusion in formats where better lands aren't around. Keep in mind, nothing is forcing you to ever pay the cost. You would only ever pay it if there were nothing more productive to do, but sometimes, EOT, you've got 3 spare mana and so it costs you nothing. Having played with it, I can say most games I never made the hellion, but the games I did, I was very glad it wasn't another Mountain. In the games where it just tapped for mana, it wasn't worse than a Mountain; if all the other lands are Mountains, you aren't going to get color screwed. A land that doesn't enter tapped and does something other than produce mana is worth a look.

I'd also note that I thought sacrificing it was just worse than a comparable man-land, but it isn't necessarily. Once activated, you never have to pay again, but a man-land requires payment for each attack and block. And not sacrificing itself would be ridiculous. Compare to Vitu-Ghazi or Moorland Haunt, which create 1/1s and have stricter requirements for activation. An ETB untapped land that makes unlimited 4/4s, even over a three turn incubation, would be too good for these activation costs. It would be an inevitability machine in any control deck that produced R.

As it is, all it probably is good for is adding a bit of reach for mono-red, but it's a source of reach I won't turn my nose up at unless a better utility land is available. The options right now are Cathedral of War, which is good in some decks but not mono-red, Ghost Quarter, which is pretty good and is the only one that can make R, albeit by destroying your own tapped Mountain to get another untapped, Haunted Fengraf, which could be better or worse depending on your creatures but is inconsistent, Reliquary Tower (yeah right), Rogue's Passage, which doesn't fit in mono-red, and Seraph Sanctuary, definitely not mono-red. Of these, Hellion Crucible is the only one that can deal damage and even win a game with only two other lands for help, and imo best advances the average mono-red strategy.

I won't say this is a great card. What I will say is that there exists a format and a set of 59 cards such that this is the optimum 60th, and so for someone's deck, it's the right card. (I'll make no argument that it's the right deck for that format, of course.)

Oh, and one more thing. Does Think Twice cost 3UU to draw two cards? Does Figure of Destiny cost 11 for an 8/8? No. Costs paid over multiple turns are not comparable to the total. Comments about it costing 6RRR for a 4/4 are way off base, especially considering this is not a spell, this fills a land slot.

I've been trying this over Stensia Bloodhall and/or Nephalia Drownyard as the utility land of choice in my Grixis Control deck, and I have to say it's been working really, really well.

Anyone else notice that the token for this wasn't printed with haste? I'd actually missed that is had haste the first time I played with this.

I'm disappointed with how low it's rated, to be honest. You can play it early and not be behind at all (unless you have a lot of R RR RRR costs), and it gives an aggressive red deck some longevity and ability to break away from a tight game on the board. Don't underestimate how much a hasty 4/4 can be in an aggressive deck.

I run as a 2-of in Grixis Control standard. It hasn't caused me color issues yet, and it's a nice backup plan. Makes Thragtusk easier to deal with (kill Thrag, stall out the 3/3 with your 4/4), and in general there seem to be a lot of 3/3 or less creatures in Standard right now. I think I've won at least 2 games over the past 3 tournaments solely from Hellion Crucible damage. Don't underestimate this.

What a bad rare. It's not the worst ever but it's pretty bad. Three turns and six mana for a 4/4 token with haste?

For three turns and what is effectively , you get... a 4/4 haste? Really? I understand it's a mana sink and all, but come on. It doesn't even have trample. Your opponent will gladly trade with this thing given half a chance. As a lover of RDW, I have to say that this is quite underwhelming and, in most cases, not worth the effort. 0.5/5

@Continue
That's a rather harsh rating/analysis. The card may not be very good, but keep in mind that it is still just a land slot. If your land base is already really simple (all mountains for RDW), you can easily replace 1 land with this, and the odd time it comes up, it could win you the game.

I like this card because it gives you one more trick up your sleeve. Your opponent can't ignore it because it could be a threat to them later, but you can ignore it because it's just a land to you. Build up the counters when you have spare mana, and then when you have nothing to play, or just need a tiny bit more damage, you have the option.

4/5

EDIT
@Sago
Not really. That's a gigantic waste of crucible of worlds. If you're running that card, you are at least in modern, and in modern, it works better with fetchlands or something like tectonic edge.

If you move to legacy, you can combo it with wasteland and lock your opponent out of mana.

Completely worth the slot in my two colour standard decks, makes some sense in WUR control (Opponent didn't provoke any actions? Add a pressure counter!) and well... Is gonna be filling a slot in all my commander decks featuring red. It's unfortunate 4/4 hasted hellions aren't an option for Trostani.

Even if it's not doing that much work, I simply love lands like these that have bonus effects too much. My friends would be extremely confused if I wasn't playing around with my land more than my other cards.

I don't know why people give this card so much flak, sure you sacrifice the land for its ability, but it's not like you have to pay mana every turn, I use it in one of my mono red decks and it works fine, never clogged never directly made me lose and sometimes I get a sweet 4/4 haste token, I fail to see how this card is as bad as people are making it out to be.