Pointed Discussion

Why? Just... why?
Why is this an uncommon? Why did such a cool concept have to be so bad?

Well... at least they look cool....

Well, I think its uncommon because well... Merfolk are uncommon on Ravnica?

It's also pretty cool that the rumors of Ravnica destroying itself hold some merit. Go little extinct fish, go!

Islandwalk, evolve, hexproof... SOMETHING?!

Just a bleh card... It could have been so much better faerie invaders just blows the card out of the water and they are similar...

What were they thinking when they designed this? Who thought that a 4/2 with only flash should cost 6 mana? 6 mana cards should go thump when they hit the field!

This is the kind of uncommon they put in sets to make drafters angry.

And we all thought Rakdos Ringleader was overcosted...

And here we have our laughably bad uncommon. The art is great, it's a shame it had to be used for this thing.

SUDDENLY, AND UNDERWHELMING MERFOLK APPEARS?
WHAT DO YOU DO?


>Laugh
>make fun of it
>defend the design
>run

I'm really, really disappointed with this card. I was hoping for a lot of awesome merfolk, and this is what we get? Zegana and Simic Fluxmage are great, but even they can't make up for this card.

compare to King Cheetah and realize this is horrid

Two things to note here:

1)Consider the environment this card is in and how it's meant to be played. They designed this card with this cost because they knew Evolve was in the set. No he's not worth it as a single card with just his stats and flash, but the probability of making several of your creatures larger in the process? Yeah, I'd say that he's worth it.

2)Subpar cards must exist.

I mean flash is nice for evolve creatures, but this needs a little something extra. 1.32/5.

My night will be ruined if I get this card in my Simic pack this Saturday >_<

Hey guys, at least it has Flash... Oh well, I tried to defend it.

How? How is this an uncommon? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS.

Sooooo terrible.

This isn't as bad as Rakdos Ringleader with it's anti-synergy of abilities. Flash and hybrid mana are decent enough for limited, and it still bashes for 4 and triggers evolve for most other critters. Really should've been 4/3 with islandwalk or some other small benefit though for the uncommon slot.

Hey guys, it's me.
The guy who defends casual, non-competitive cards?
Yeah, well, even I can't vouch for this.

you know, I really can't decide if I want to use this or Zegana as my 6 drop in my blue/green merfolk deck

I saw the art in one of the articles on the site during spoiler season and got so excited. "That has to be the coolest merfolk art I have seen yet!" Grabbed a play set of Master of the Pearl Trident because I wanted to use them so badly....and then I see the card. I understand sets like to have a slightly expensive blue creature to flash in for limited, and I have been saved by them on many occasions but at least they have something other than flash! Or a higher toughness, or a bigger frame all together thanks to the green. I am just sad about this really.

I think lorendorky summed it up perfectly.

Who exactly wants to play this? What format actually wants this? I can't even see a brand spanking new player wanted to put this into a deck. How did this even make it into print? Is there even ANY form of quality control at WoTC?

*L* @ First Prime. I didn't think there would be an apologist for a card this bad. Wow.

WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS?!? I was so excited for more hybrid cards, and they go and waste the uncommon slot on this trash! I almost feel insulted. Glad I wasn't stoked for lots of awesome Ravnican merfolk - other than Zegana, I can see why they nearly went extinct.

You know you're in a bad place when you make Trapjaw Kelpie look good.

This is an evolve enabler in limited formats. Towers76, someone playing a Simic deck in a gatcrash draft would want to put this card in their deck. Every set has underwhelming cards in constructed formats but those same cards can be very effective in limited. And by the way, gatecrash limited looks awesome, can't wait to play it.

This is a little dissapointing from a flavor standpoint though. Merfolk on ravnica is supposed to be a big deal. Put merfolk on an interesting card and make this limited filler a frog snake or something.

Edit: lol. Yes, yes, he is reeealy bad, all I'm trying to say is that he could make the cut as your 22nd or 23rd card in a draft, that's all. Also, it's a bad magic card, so what? Every set has them. I don't see why everyone has to freak out every time one pops up.

I'm ok with crappy cards, but you took up a simic uncommon slot for it. Whyyy

Even lands have higher pick than this.

Simic's my favorite guild, and... why did they get this while all the other guilds got much better hybrids at uncommon? I can't defend the playing of this anywhere. Not even in Limited.

is an amazing color combination, it grants flash, shroud, hexproof, card draw, flying, trample... And for CMC this is inexcusable. Major step down from Return to Ravnica. At least Prime Speaker Zegana is cool.

It's still not as bad as Numai Outcast. I think.

I'm only going to try to defend this card because I think it will be a Challenge to. :)
Yes, I'm THAT much of a Johnny! B| Challenge Accepted!: Defend this card's Existence. :P


First, I think it's good to start with the strong position that Merfolk, as a Creature type, are uncommon on Ravnica, so complaining about the Rarity doesn't help my opponents. My job is to explain why a card that -must- be a G/U hybrid Uncommon for Creative/Flavor reasons, was allowed to have stats this bad.

Well. Flash is a strange ability. It can make cards very very good when you give them Flash, but the value you get from it is only on casting. It's not like many combat mechanics, or even like Cipher, which give you (potentially/theoretically) lots of benefit after the casting. Flash makes a card more powerful by enough to necessitate at least a mana or more charge, but often cards with Flash feel overpriced because once you've cast them....you sometimes think you'd rather just have cast them at sorcery speed for less.

That said. 6 mana for just a 4/2 is Terrible. it's obviously Terrible. So why permit it?

I think Power Creep. This card is Anti Power Creep. Every set needs a couple cards (seriously no more than a small handful, 5 or less), that lower our expectations of what cards should do. This allows them to slow down the effects of Power Creep, by printing cards that are Better than Deliberately Weak cards, but still fair.

Each set needs to have a Best Card and a Worst Card. It's just reality. If the Worst cards were always Mind Rots, Divinations, and Giant Spiders-- i.e. "last year's acceptable Core Set filler", then we would find the rate of Power Creep acceleration would be a lot faster than it is. The Weakest cards we are WILLING to play should not be the Weakest Cards there are. That would mean we'd have a very fast series of obsoletions.

The Primordials. You know what I thought when I saw them? I thought AHA! These are Weaker Titans! Timmy will now measure Big Honking Stupid things as Primordials? No, he remembers Titans clearly enough, but if in the next set some more good cards get shown that compare favorably with Primordials but not with Titans, that will be another successful layer of messaging sent to Timmy that he should expect weaker-than-Titans for most of his good cards.

Merfolk of the Depths is telling us that Wizards wants this to be "About as weak as we can possibly make an uncommon card" so that future Weakest Uncommons or Weak Flash Creatures compare favorably to Merfolk of the Depths.

My argument for the Existence of this card is: Necessity. Because somebody has to suck the most when the cards can be evaluated so quantitatively.

Really, Wizards? I go and blow my money on a playset of Talrand and Master of the Pearl Trident expecting Merfolk to be big in Simic, and get only Simic Fluxmage, Zegana, and THIS? Really?! Ugh. I am disappoint. Can I give this 0 stars? Please?

Rather playable at cmc 4. Cmon wizards why waste a perfectly good merfolk slot? 0/5

rating it .5 raises the rating? This card is seriously a piece of crap.

This just beat out razor boomerang!
Merfolk of the Depths is officially the worst card in the game.

EDIT: Dammit not the worst anymore! Rate DOWN, people! We need the merfail to beat out the
bad-arang!

At least Trapjaw Kelpie had the decency to come back....

This has a ways to go to match the truly bad cards like Break Open. This is a perfectly respectable, if a bit boring, card on the face of it. Its only flaw is just that it's overcosted. That still leaves it a lot better than a card that's just plain bad.

Beware the deep ones...

Overcosted {8}

Cumulative upkeep— Pay 1 life.

{100, T}: Overcosted gets +1/-1 until end of turn.

3/3

That awkward moment when R&D puts the intended converted mana cost into the colorless mana cost slot.

This card is so utterly, unbelievably f**king bad. My group regularly holds Zombie Goliath as the worst card in the limited pool, but this has replaced even that. A guy played it against me at the prerelease and I literally laughed in his face.

I'm sorry, but when I first saw this card I was like all of you; hating this card and cursing it's uselessness. When I played with it at the prerelease however, my mind changed.

It is meant for limited. It's a surprise blocker that usually pumps your Evolve guys. It swung several bad combat situations in my favor. Is it expensive for it's use? yes. Though it definitely doesn't deserve all this hate it is getting. For sealed and draft, it's a nice inclusion for simic decks and I guarantee it is a solid pick that will cycle through the table during drafts.

2 1/2 stars.

In mono-green, Yeva, Nature's Herald is strictly better.

Yeah well they can go right back into the sinkholes they came out from.

I suppose 1.0 is the right rating, if you save 0.5 for the truly bad cards (like SonorhC's example, Break Open), but it still seems high for a card that could've been awesome (at least for mostly casual players like me).

It's such a shame too - the art is awesome, the flavour text is a clever way to bring Merfolk back into Ravnica, and there is so much potential for a 6-mana creature with flash at uncommon.

Ultratog1028 mentions potential value in limited, but even in limited a 6-mana combat trick is too obvious to actually 'trick'. 6 mana is enough to cast almost any card you could possibly have, so leaving up the 6 but still having a card in hand is a huge giveaway.

Even by restricting our choices to: creature + evolve worthy + no rares, and ignoring the bonus mill effect, at the top-end of the curve Mind Eye Drake gives us better evolve (with its 5 toughness), a better blocker, AND evasion, for less mana! And the following are even better:
* Sapphire Drake
* Leyline Phantom
* Adaptive Snapjaw
* Nimbus Swimmer

This card really is a dud... sadly, too, because when I look at it I WANT to use it.

So overcosted it makes Tangle Spider look good! Or Havenwood Wurm!

Probably done because this is quite the combat trick in Simic decks. That said, if you aren't playing plenty of evolve creatures in your limited deck: stay away from this card.

This is a bad card for 6 mana, but you have to look at the rest of the G/U cards in the set to realize that very few of them have a power of 4 or higher. This card is meant to be yet another scary way that a Simic deck can deal with attacking creatures by instant speed evolving your blockers, or you could use it after your opponent has declared blockers to give all of your attacking evolvers +1/+1. Still not good, but that's what this card is for. Deserves slightly better than the 1.034 it's rated at now. :)

A lot of the times when I see low ratings on cards, I try to justify them (such as in the case of Welkin Turn or Cancel, which are severely underrated). But these guys... they're just so bad. So, so so so bad. Especially when cards like Ambush Viper exist to occupy essentially the same position.

.5/5

Such low toughness for a six-mana creature, in this set..?
I keep waiting for the official announcement that Evolve was accidentally left off the card as it went to printing.

Honestly? I just keep thinking about all the 1cmc split mana creatures in RTR that were all sweet, and waiting for the gatecrash ones to be spoiled.

Looking through the gatecrash spoiler and seeing this occupying that same slot? When Simic should have had the best of that cycle? I am disappoint.

Well, I think this is very interesting.

This makes lots of sense, when you think about it. I mean, what makes a creature go extinct? It's usually because they haven't adapted to the evolving world around them and are falling behind. If you found a reservoir of Dodo's living deep below ground, how long do you honestly think they'll survive?

Cards like this and Viashino Skeleton, as bad as they are, at least have the decency to make some logical sense.

And regardless, having a creature that can help evolve your stuff out of nowhere isn't that bad, really.

It'd just be more acceptable if it cost 5 or was a 6/1.

Worst uncommon in the set. Worst uncommon... ever? Worst card ever?!

What is so disappointing about this card isn't just that it is a bad card, it's that it is a bad card in the hybrid mana slot. This could have been a staple card to build around; merfolk are a tribe that should be getting some decent building blocks in standard between Ravnica's Simic and Theros & with just a small amount of design tweak, this could have been a solid card in a UG Merdeck. Not to mention it is a waste of some really good artwork as well.

I just can't help but compare it to other flash cards in Standard right now; Nephalia Seakite is a common that costs 2 less, has evasion, and could trade with this card. I'm not expecting Restoration Angel at the uncommon slot, but dropping 1 or 2 off the cost, giving it Islandwalk or some sort of "pay X to make unblockable" would have made this card playable.

Next, on the DeVanilla project, where we take overcosted vanilla cards, and inspire them with unique mechanics.

For Merfolk of the Depths, I'd give:
If you started the game with 60 or more cards in your library, Merfolk of the Depths costs 2 less to play.

When a card is still kinda lame for two less mana, you really wonder whether or not you need to stop buying boosters.

Compare Boon Satyr. This is overcosted by about 2 mana.

In Standard, Skyline Predator is a much better choice for flashing an Evolve trigger, because it flies and has better survivability. The only reason that this would ever be better, is if you have happen to have Master of the Pearl Trident in play. They should have given this thing hexproof or an 'enters the battlefield' effect.

Combos with Aquus Steed.

Edit: ...and then dual-devotion gods were announced.

Worldbuilding card. You're not supposed to look at the stuff between the art and the flavor text. :P

...It doesn't even EVOLVE?
0/5 distressingly bad uncommon for Simic, jesus

This guy's weapon of choice is the legendary... Razor Boomerang!

1/5 Stars