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Editor: Yaro Starak. Wednesday 9 October 2002.
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 Card Review: Ixidor, Reality Sculptor
Face-down creatures get +1/+1.
"Reality has exiled me. I am no longer bound by its laws."
3/4
Expansion: Onslaught
David Chapman
Ixidor, Reality Sculptor has two uses. One of them is
useful, the other is quite useless.
Firstly, you should ignore the ability that gives face
down creatures +1/+1 unless you're playing the Type
I cards that morph imitates. It would be a great
ability except for one thing - it's symmetrical. Thus,
you're weakening a lot of your morphs by unmorphing
them and strengthening your opponent's army to boot.
The whole point of cards like Infest and Swat is to
handle morphs, and Ixidor stops their use. Good if he's
playing them, but bad if you are - and if morph is good
enough to justify playing Ixidor, you should be playing
such cards.
His second ability, the ability to turn morphs face up,
is the good one. It has several important ramifications
in the set:
1) Some morphs are very expensive. Getting your
Krosan Asskicker 9/9 for 4U is a bargain.
2) It allows you to play with morphs that you could not
normally reveal. While I wouldn't actually *play* such
morphs in my deck in the hope of drawing and resolving
Ixidor, that doesn't mean you can't steal your opponent's
morphs and turn them against him.
3) There are certain morphs that are better left morphed.
If you know what a morph is - by means of Spy Network,
for example - and would rather have it as whatever it is
than as a 2/2, you can neutralise the threat. Good examples
of this are Battle Rampart, which can attack as a 4/5 once,
and of course Ebonblade Reaper, which you don't want
morphed when it attacks.
I can see a U/R deck utilising Ixidor, Backslide and Break
Open to horrendously manipulate morph. The ability to
reuse Blistering Firecat is enough by itself to worry me.
Whether or not it is a viable strategy I cannot say as yet,
but I don't think the card can be ruled out just yet.
Value: As a legend, you rarely need more than 2 copies.
This will pretty much halve Ixidor's value. I don't expect
to see him trading for more than £4 unless a deck built
around getting him into play first takes over the format.
David
Daniel Merrifield
"The name's Morph, Mr. Morph."
Ixidor, Reality Scupltor says to many casual players out there "I am Mr. Morph,
use me or suffer!" and that's what will happen if you don't build a Morph deck
using him.
Now for the match type analysis:
Limited: A 3/4 for 3UU isn't bad for a starting point. However, his "Mr. Morph"
qualities may not be so useful when you don't know if you're going to open any
creatures with Morph.
Constructed: Type 2 - I can see a lot of Morph decks forming when this guy is
released! Also, the decks that do form around him, won't be generic either. This
guy works well with another Onslaught card, 'Dream Chisel'. It makes sense,
considering Ixidor himself created the Chisel. Dream Chisel allows its
controller to play face-down creatures for 1 less, and it only costs 2
colourless itself!
If you can't see the combo here (3 Dream Chisels + Ixidor), you aren't thinking
straight! Anyway, this guy may not be a versatile as the other legends, but can
just as easily be abused beyond belief.
I love this guy personally, and believe he has great potential as a power card.
I'd rate him an 8 out of 10 with a value of $7.
Remember "The name's Morph, Mr. Morph!"
Daniel
Jason Street
As a Type 1 creature Ixidor is pretty much a clunker, since you can just
ramp up your mana (Think green here) and go to town turning things over
anyway. His Crusade ability makes him a little more interesting of course,
since you could say "Oh well I'm going to play a deck that kills you with
face down creatures."
Actually that's a pretty interesting idea on its own.... A bunch of Islands,
Morph creatures, Ixidor and whatever else you want - You're just not allowed
to use his ability to turn creatures over because that's TOO EASY. Hell, to
make sure you don't forget slap down a Cursed Totem, it's not a bad card
anyway since it stops Gorilla Shamans, Dwarven Miners and anything else with
an activated ability. Play it with white and you can have Army of Allah or
Glorious Anthem (Or both) along with all the other fun toys you might need
to support your creatures.
"What's the point?" I hear you all cry? Well, it's good to be original. It's
also good to see people's faces when you play something silly like this and
make it work. You also only have to score four Ixidors for this since you
can use common creatures, rather than having to round up a horde of the
harder to get morph cards. Of course if you have expensive chase rare ones
(The money is on Blistering Firecat to take out the title) there's nothing
stopping you using them in this sort of deck - cue more flabbergasted
expressions when you don't use it in quite the way people think.
Oh, and there's nothing to say you can't switch in the middle of the game
when things are going badly by sacrificing your own Cursed Totem and go to
town with things like Dwarven Blastminer or even just a Krosan Colossus.
It's just not as stylish.
Price? Probably $8 because people just have to have those new "trick" cards.
I'd be happy to pay that if I had a pile of cards to use it with already,
but don't go buying him unless you've got the Morph creatures you want to
use already.
Jason
Limited
With a total of 45 morph creatures in Onslaught (9 of which are blue) chances are you will have one or two in your draft deck. Ixidor is only really useful if you have at least 6 morph creatures as you want to outnumber your opponent with your face down creatures. Green has a lot of creatures with a high morph cost making Ixidor ideal for a U/G build so he can morph your fat creatures faster than your opponent.
He is not a first pick in draft as you would always want removal over him, but if you open Ixidor in your second or third Onslaught booster and you are playing blue and have a few morph creatures already then take him.
Constructed
Even though type 2 is in a transitional phase at the moment I don't think Ixidor will have any impact. He literally forces players to play morph creatures which are not as efficient as Wild Mongrel or Psychatog. Onslaught block constructed will be a different story as there will be decks built around this guy. Again I think the best deck for him will be U/G morph beatdown utilising all the big fat creatures like Krosan Colossus and Towering Baloth and tricky creatures like Riptide Entrancer.
As far as is worth I can't see him going for more than $7. Until next time.
Dan
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Ixidor, Reality Sculptor (Rare)
Dan Turner