by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 06, 2009

The progression of the size of a magic the gathering creature in association to its cost is really pretty simple to figure. The numbers may alter up a bit for green and down a bit for blue, but in general for every point of mana you pay you will get an additional 1/1 with adjustments for abilities. This becomes less strict as the price goes up, and so you are far more likely to see a 6/6 for 5 mana that a 2/2 for one. This also means that if your opponent isn't using any type of accelerate and he plays the largest creature he can each turn that each turn he is going to have a creature that is +1/+1 of the turn before and there is a strong value in a creature which can grow at that same rate because if you can get ahead in the race you can easily stay ahead.

Veteran of the Depths is an uncommon merfolk soldier from the lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering that has the potential of being able to get +1/+1 every turn allowing it to scale up with the general progression of of creature grow. It costs one white and three colorless though, meaning that it comes into the game just a little behind.

The way that it gains counters is simple enough. Each time that this creature becomes tapped it will get a +1/+1 counter.

The most obvious and easiest way for this creature to become tapped is for you to attack with it, and because the counter is put onto it immediately this means that you will basically have a 3/3 creature the first time that you can attack large enough that it has a reasonable chance to survive that first attack.

Beyond the simple progression of creature growth though there is the maximum size of creatures that most decks have. In limited the largest creature that you are likely to see, outside of decks that use tricks to put them into play is a 7/7, but it is far more likely you will see 6/6 creatures, especially against green and one of the values of this card is that by the time that your opponent is likely to have put the creature out this is getting near large enough to fight with them and they will have very little choice but to block him.

The cost of this creature makes it less useful than it should be, but even as a 2/2 for four mana its ability gives it potential.

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