Pointed Discussion

the great thing about this card was that it was (I think) the second 4 cmc to cast 5/5 creature, many compared it to Juzam Djinn when it came out. Since then other 4 to cast 5/5's have been created
Rathi Dragon and Emperor Crocodile to name a couple older ones, theres a new Juzam style sliver and there's even a 4 to cast 8/8 in red now... 4 to cast 5/5's just aren't as hard to find as they used to be...

I still think it's a great card though.

this card was the chase rare when the set came out...it actually took a while before people discovered FoW

Really good, whats one card when you have a 5/5 on the board third turn?

Inquest magazine (the source of all young Magicians' knowledge back then) boldly heralded this as the new Juzam and the best card in Alliances. Inquest was quick to lose all their credibility.

everyone went apeshit over this card the first month after alliances came out. then, they played a couple of games with it...

at the time red didn't have any really good ways to draw cards, so this card ran out of favor really fast. losing extra cards when you're playing a lot of burn basically isn't an option, AND the discard is random. RANDOM. also, necropotence was stomping all over every deck that wasn't running necropotence, drawing a shitload of cards every turn, and dropping sengir vampires on turn 3.

Put this into your red madness deck today and watch.

We all went wild over this guy (5/5 for ! 5/5 for !) and Diminishing Returns (draw 7 for ! draw 7 for !) back when Alliances first came out. And also Force of Will, though wicked combo wasn't so prevalent at the time (FoW was basically the anti-Necropotence card).

Everyone's said it already, this was hailed as the new Juzam and was THE chase rare initially.

This card is a bit like a star basketball player in college, who got drafted amid lots of buzz, going on to a disappointing pro career. It's well-documented why RANDOM discard on yourself, in a color poor in card drawing (especially at the time) is bad, so I'll talk about the other aspects of this card.

I for one actually enjoy the Erg Raiders-esque flavor of it. A bunch of barbarians you can call to your side cheaply, get riled up, but then have to appease to keep them fighting for you. Mechanically, more recent card, Cragganwick Cremator, seems to have drawn its inspiration from this famous red creature of old, instead providing a perk for the discard, instead of using it purely as a drawback. It turned a dreaded, potentially game-breaking drawback to a hope that you will discard Draco and possibly kill your opponent.

It hit $20 shortly after the set came out, hailed as the new Juzam Djinn. Just checked eBay, you can get 4 for $5 now. Meanwhile, Force of Will is now $65-70. People eventually realized the card disadvantage is too severe.

I got one of these off a kid from school for about 200 commons when I was 13. Alliances had just come out and this card was a chase rare. I immediately went to Magic night at the local game store and traded it for a Volcanic Island. This was a good trade at the time!

At the time of writing, Balduvian Horde is $1 and the Volcanic Island is $140!!

Some days I can't decide if the future or past is crazier!