Vanilla creatures are not "Coasters" of any sort. In fact, they find quite a lot of use in many decks as cheaper attackers. You mention that Dragons are vanilla creatures, and yet they find their place in a lot of decks thanks to their sheer power. Well, many of these very same decks use these Vanilla creatures as cheaper, faster attackers. Cockatrices and Horned Frogs find their place in Mono-Life Rush decks; Flesh Spiders are used in Death decks when Ivory Dragons just can't be played. I used solely Abominations in my very, very early mono-Entropy deck to pretty good results; many people can attest to the effectiveness of Phase Recluses and Abyss Crawlers as cheap, strong attackers.
Simply put, vanilla creatures form a cheap basis on which damage is based around.
Guess we disagree on the effectiveness / enjoyment of Vanilla creatures and that Cockatrice is a target for an existing card reworking.
To me:
- Emerald Dragons are Horned Frogs are better power to cost.
- Cockatrice isn't needed in a Vanilla Nature
- The Mythos of the Cockatrice is its Petrifying Gaze
- The Life element could use a control effect, even if off element.
- Petrifying gaze could be that control effect.
- There is no loss to the game by removing the vanilla nature of a cockatrice
Emerald Dragons are not Horned Frogs simply because Horned Frogs cost 2
and Emerald Dragons cost 10
. This means that you can play Frogs faster, making them very useful in many speed decks. You're arguing that creature cards must fall into 1 of 2 categories:
1) They must have a high damage to cost ratio (Dwagunz).
2) They must have interesting and powerful skills.
Well, this basically negates the very CORE, the very BASIS of our card game. NORMAL cards. Creatures that are THERE, that attack, and that are done with it. These cards are the foundation of creature cards; neglecting them will cause chaos upon our game of Elements.
Yeah, I was surprised that Cockatrice couldn't Petrify either when I first saw it.
Oh well, nothing we can do about that.
