by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 24, 2009

Sometimes the game of magic becomes something that is a little too serious. In all the tournaments and world tours and rush to see spoilers for the new set you can become so wrapped up in the competition that you forget that it is first and foremost a game designed to have fun. On occasion wizards of the coast with create a mechanic that is, while useful, more about fun than anything else. Most recently that was the warriors and cowards mechanic. In which cowards can't block warriors.

There are a quite a number of warriors in the game, but unless you count changelings there are next to no cowards and so in order for this mechanic to matter you have to have some type of way to make creatures cowards. That is where Boldwyr Intimidator comes into play. A uncommon giant warrior from the morningtide expansion set of magic the gathering. It is a 5/5 creature that costs two red and five colorless and has three abilities.

The first of these abilities really is only set up for the second two, this reads "Cowards Can't Block Warriors". This is an ability though, as without this cowards could in fact block warriors.

The next ability costs one red and says "Target creature becomes a coward until end of turn." This mean that if you have more red mana than your opponent has creatures, and are willing to spend it then Baldwyr Intimidator is unblockable. In addition to this though all the other warriors you have are also unblockable which is where the third ability comes into play.

This costs one red and two colorless and reads "target creature becomes a warrior until end of turn."

This third ability is a useful enough ability as with enough mana you can make your entire team unblockable, but the truth is that it is probable not going to be used a lot. The reason for this is that there are already plenty of warrior cards in magic the gathering that you can fill out your deck covering nearly every tribe and ever color. And that leads to the real strength of this card.

As A 5/5 creature it is useful enough, but at seven mana it comes into play about the turn that you would want to end the game. And there is nothing stopping it from allowing you to do that if you have enough mana. Assuming your creatures are warriors this can easily begin to turn the opponent's creatures into cowards even while it has summoning sickness and making it impossible for your opponent to block with even one creature may be enough to let you make the alpha strike you need. So while this is a bit too expensive to be a great card, it is a fun card and one that would be very worth picking up in limited.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.