On its own it doesn't seem that strong, but looks like an enraged Kit Fisto, so cool.
Lord_of_Tresserhorn
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(4 votes)
"Now, my minions, rush forth and stop the Nazgûl!!"
XTwistedsoulX
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(6 votes)
I like how the waves die down if he does. Cool card all the way.
Murmeldjuret
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(4 votes)
Rite of Replication first thing to hit my mind.
SpaceMagic
★★★★☆ (4.0/5.0)(5 votes)
The latest addition to the moderately loved line of "WHAT UUUUUUUUUUUUUP?!" mythics.
Avensai
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Probably wants to see play in a red-blue deck along with Young Pyromancer, another Elemental-token producer. There are sadly too few mono-blue permanents in standard right now to try running it in a straight-blue build.
.Blaze.
★★★☆☆ (3.2/5.0)(3 votes)
This doesn't really seem mythic rare. The effect of making guys and also buffing them is something we've seen a decent amount at rare. Yes, this has a higher power level, but that isn't enough to make it mythic. Still, the flavor is nice.
Also, this could never work with Young Pyromancer. Side from him being Red, the cards that make Pyromancer good don't do anything for this. The two halves of the deck will likely conflict to much.
Taudisban
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I like the random Pro Red. That was a nice touch on an already strange card.
zzxyyzx
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This card single-handedly makes me feel better about playing Nightveil Specter.
Umbric
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Not strong on it's own but defiantly good with other things, Spear Of Heliod comes to mind or another copy of him out. Mythics don't have to be $20 and over the top powerful like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Geist of Saint Traft or Voice of Resurgence. I'll give it 4/5, good flavor, cool art, protection from red is relevant, but still Merfolk tribal isn't a thing really, should be a 2/2 and still be good yet not over the top.
NARFNra
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
The math of kicking said Rite on this guy is funny.
((Previous Devotion +5)*5) tokens. So for example, with only a single Master out, you get 30 more 1/0 tokens with +6/+6. Nasty.
Domak
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
R/U aggro with Purphoros, God of the Forge. With only two blue devotion prior to him being played, you're dealing 8 damage to the face with 4 creatures entering the battlefield that can all be buffed by Purphoros.
Shame, making the tokens 1/0 prevents you from abusing flicker effects unless you can buff them in other ways.
Dabok
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Wow. Talk about POWER....this guy sure has it.
I also like the "risky side" of this. I mean he's without a shadow of a doubt very strong, since he can potentially add a lot of 2/1 tokens into play as he comes (excluding himself). But the thing is, his tokens gets killed without him, so it actually makes this card quite balanced.
But yes, you construct your deck around devotion to blue with Thassa, God of the Sea and this guy, and I can definitely a sort of blue aggro doing quite well.
pedrodyl
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(1 vote)
More like Master of Games, amirite?
sweetgab
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
People think he is risky. I don't. Say if he gets Doom Bladed and you lose your army of seven 2/1s. What did you pay for it? Four mana. Suppose you played another creature instead, like Polukranos. It gets Doom Bladed. In both cases you spend a single card and four mana, they spend a card and two mana. So you're not worse off playing with Master of Waves (i.e. no risk).
In cases where they don't have the Doom Blade (presumably because they're RDW or Gruul/Naya/Selesnya aggro), you're putting 6 or 8 or even 14+ points of power for four mana. This card has major upside when things work in your favor, and still trades 1-for-1 when they don't.
Fiddlestickderp
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Want to keep the tokens after he dies? Splash green and play Master Biomancer.
Garruk_girl
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Play blue/green. Master Biomancer and Progenitor Mimic. The Progenitor continues to make token copies of this guy, each popping out more tokens, and then making them all go up. Throw in a few populate cards, and you can have all these elemental tokens jump up in power VERY quickly.
GhostCounselor
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I'm definitely going to be testing this in Legacy Fish as a two of. Yes, you can get your Aether Vial to four and he's much better then Merfolk Sovereign, Coralhelm Commander, or any other fringe fish that might make it in that deck. With all the Lords and Master of the Pearl Tridents out on the field, this guy will make a lot of elemental tokens, and will pump your Mutavaults when they're turned into creatures. To me, it seems like he might just be worth the playtest.
Not mythic. Or at least, he wouldn't be if he didn't have protection from red.
FaltonOV
★☆☆☆☆ (1.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Guys. This is what you do. Splash white (the scry lands or fastlands or whatever lands you want, just get 4-ofs of all of them). Drop this guy, doesn't matter the devotion you have. (yet) Play Gift of Immortality. Game. Set. Match.
Xycolian
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
-Belongs to two great tribes. -Buffs the tokens they summon. -ETB effect that is abusable with things like cloudshift, turn to mist, etc. -Doesn't die to lightning bolt, or any other targeted red spell. -Not legendary, so you can clone it and/or run four copies.
Pretty solid card for a splashable 4 CMC I'd say.
Kelptic183
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Works well with Godhead of Awe. With a Godhead out, the tokens will be 2/2s that don't die even after Master of Raves here dies.
JimmyNoobPlayer
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Won a match against this guy with a mono-red deck last night. : ) Sided-in Homing Lightning worked pretty well, even though that could've gone much worse for me. (Young Pyromancer's tokens are also named "Elemental".) But, I think my opponent just fitted him into a blue-white control deck without building it around the Master. He didn't have a lot of high-devotion permanents like Nightveil Specter, and he didn't use Purphoros, God of the Forge. I think if I see Purphoros on the field with islands and blue devotion, I'm gonna start to sweat. I'm going to splash a color in my red deck specifically to deal with Master of Waves.
nemokara
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
To those saying it shouldn't be a mythic rare, remember that blue is by far the weakest color at token-producing. Every other color has multiple options for a variety of token strategies: soldiers, goblins, elves, squirrels, zombies, etc., each with a sizeable pool of cards to choose from to support it. Meanwhile, there are only about 20 cards EVER printed that a mono-blue deck can use to produce multiple tokens:
Many of these are slow/expensive, require you to have a bunch of creatures already, have some other awkward requirements that must be met, or are just flat-out bad. Others are nice but are a better fit in a multi-color deck or in a supporting role in a non-token strategy (which would also be the case for any of the colorless token generators I can think of).
So for color-pie reasons alone, this is deserving of its rarity. I kind of like it. At first glance it's not crazily powerful, but it's splashy and creates a niche that wasn't really there before. I like the additive effect of having multiples out. I'll be interested in seeing how effective it is in multicolor decks.
NicknameAL
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Before THeros - Dublin, 5$, now after when it was a playset in all of the top 3 decklists, 15$. I feel bad for you guys who sold him at 5 :P
delta474
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
This guy single handidly won the Pro Tour.
SirLibraryEater
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
And the Bant populate-lovers rejoiced.
Majikthise
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Look into the Zameck Guildmage first ability ( : This turn, each creature you control enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.) Not only gives you a huge power bump, but removes a lot of the fragility of the tokens. Not bad for a two card combo for .
And at the same point in the curve is also Master Biomancer for a less intensive boost on turn five.
On turn six with six devotion (reasonable) that's seven 3/2's on the table for a total of 21 power that don't die to lord removal.
andoroth
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Looks like Massare Wurm counters this card pretty well
MasterOfWaves
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(4 votes)
This card might not look like much, but he is a house in a mono-blue deck.
EDIT: A deck won the protour with me as the win con
brandon9795
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This like the merfolk piledriver. It has a lot of potential.
Dreadboring
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Would be a balanced hard if you received tokens equal to half of your devotion, rounded up. As it stands, this card ends games if you can't immediately remove it. Sick, sick finisher that dodges most ways to burn it. 5/5 easy.
Mode
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Devotion-related ETB triggers are really powerful. This guy is useful early in the game and can get even better later. Flicker effects work great with those Devotion triggers as well.
Say you have a playset of him in a Merfolk deck, you can't go much wrong with including a singleton Ghostly Flicker. Those three mana might not even save him (or another copy of it) when cast in response to removal, but can also give you half a dozen elemental tokens for one flickered Master of Waves in the process.
SWFTWLF
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
I'm glad nobody has apparently noticed the obvious Simic tie-ins with this card like we all have on Facebook.
That's going to make this thing hurt so much more in UG Standard.
EDIT: Touching on something @Garruk_girl said here, there is another advantage to copying Master with, say, a Progenitor Mimic - the cloned token includes its mana cost, AKA it's natural devotion. This means you can get extra devotion each time it creates a Master token, so therefore an extra Elemental. So many Elemental and Merfolk-ish tokens to be had by like 3-5 turns that it begins to become a problem if not dealt with quickly.
Selesnya222
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
awesome card but illness in the ranks oh nooo
Ferlord
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
With this and True-Name Nemesis, Legacy Merfolk have a few new toys to play with :3
absreim
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
One thing I like of its protection of red is that it might encourage Modern decks to play removal other than just red burn spells and terminate.
casualhorror
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The hate rating on this card is astounding. This is in no way a 3.6 with rounding up. The card does what it does and it is good at it, but imposes some fairly heavy deck building restrictions as well. As in restrictions that actually matter unlike Delver of Secrets. I'm somewhat joking here, but Delver's restrictions more restrict the type of deck as opposed to both the type of deck and the overall quality of the cards. Also, this card is beautifully designed. It has a block mechanic but instead ofmerely being pushed till it is playable the block mechanic actually bleeds flavor as well, it solves the issue of itself being too good against spot removal in an incredibly elegant way, and did I mention flavor? it has flavor in spades.
Comments (47)
Also, this could never work with Young Pyromancer. Side from him being Red, the cards that make Pyromancer good don't do anything for this. The two halves of the deck will likely conflict to much.
((Previous Devotion +5)*5) tokens. So for example, with only a single Master out, you get 30 more 1/0 tokens with +6/+6. Nasty.
Oh dear.
I also like the "risky side" of this. I mean he's without a shadow of a doubt very strong, since he can potentially add a lot of 2/1 tokens into play as he comes (excluding himself). But the thing is, his tokens gets killed without him, so it actually makes this card quite balanced.
But yes, you construct your deck around devotion to blue with Thassa, God of the Sea and this guy, and I can definitely a sort of blue aggro doing quite well.
In cases where they don't have the Doom Blade (presumably because they're RDW or Gruul/Naya/Selesnya aggro), you're putting 6 or 8 or even 14+ points of power for four mana. This card has major upside when things work in your favor, and still trades 1-for-1 when they don't.
Splash white (the scry lands or fastlands or whatever lands you want, just get 4-ofs of all of them).
Drop this guy, doesn't matter the devotion you have. (yet)
Play Gift of Immortality.
Game. Set. Match.
-Buffs the tokens they summon.
-ETB effect that is abusable with things like cloudshift, turn to mist, etc.
-Doesn't die to lightning bolt, or any other targeted red spell.
-Not legendary, so you can clone it and/or run four copies.
Pretty solid card for a splashable 4 CMC I'd say.
Curse of the Swine
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Stolen Identity
Talrand's Invocation
Talrand, Sky Summoner
Havengul Runebinder
Undead Alchemist
Call the Skybreaker
Lullmage Mentor
Rite of Replication
Sharding Sphinx
Fable of Wolf and Owl
Spitting Image
Notorious Throng
Chronozoa
Dovescape
Followed Footsteps
Day of the Dragons
Wall of Kelp
Homarid Spawning Bed
Many of these are slow/expensive, require you to have a bunch of creatures already, have some other awkward requirements that must be met, or are just flat-out bad. Others are nice but are a better fit in a multi-color deck or in a supporting role in a non-token strategy (which would also be the case for any of the colorless token generators I can think of).
So for color-pie reasons alone, this is deserving of its rarity. I kind of like it. At first glance it's not crazily powerful, but it's splashy and creates a niche that wasn't really there before. I like the additive effect of having multiples out. I'll be interested in seeing how effective it is in multicolor decks.
And at the same point in the curve is also Master Biomancer for a less intensive boost on turn five.
On turn six with six devotion (reasonable) that's seven 3/2's on the table for a total of 21 power that don't die to lord removal.
EDIT: A deck won the protour with me as the win con
Say you have a playset of him in a Merfolk deck, you can't go much wrong with including a singleton Ghostly Flicker.
Those three mana might not even save him (or another copy of it) when cast in response to removal,
but can also give you half a dozen elemental tokens for one flickered Master of Waves in the process.
That's going to make this thing hurt so much more in UG Standard.
EDIT: Touching on something @Garruk_girl said here, there is another advantage to copying Master with, say, a Progenitor Mimic - the cloned token includes its mana cost, AKA it's natural devotion. This means you can get extra devotion each time it creates a Master token, so therefore an extra Elemental. So many Elemental and Merfolk-ish tokens to be had by like 3-5 turns that it begins to become a problem if not dealt with quickly.
edit: I also wouldn't be surprised if this card's design was inspired by Sengir Autocrat.