by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 01, 2010

Arbiter of Knollridge is a rare white giant wizard creature from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs 6 colorless mana and 1 white mana to cast Arbiter of Knollridge and put it onto the battlefield. This creature has a toughness of 5 and a power of 5 with vigilance and an ability that reads When Arbiter of Knollridge enters the battlefield, each player's life total becomes the highest life total among all players. This is a interesting value and it works well with cards that let you pay life for a variety of effects because otherwise there is not as much value in this card if you are not willing to lose life in some way.

There are some effects in which the cost of a card matters more than others. This does not mean that less expensive is not always better than more expensive but cards that counter a spell matter, remove a creature are generally far more important to be expensive than those which do not really interact and this has some interesting points. This card is really going to be better the longer you wait to play it, especially if you are not trying to do damage early. For example if you are playing giants who are not going to put out creatures very early you can gain something for getting your life back, otherwise this card could be a very small bonus.

In constructed play this card is really designed to play when your opponent has a lot more life than you. This is a very specific type of deck because the problem is that you can not really count on your opponent having more life than you if you are planning to attack them. One possibility is to use this in a millstone style deck. The problem is that if you're not playing creatures there are far better ways to gain life especially if you are going on a long time. This limits the value a lot.

In draft and sealed deck play this card has quite a bit more value because unless you are considerably higher in life than the opponent this is a 5/5 creature and the cost is not as big of a deal and if you are behind the life gain will help a lot. The second is more important because if you're ahead you can hold off using this card without too much fear.

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