Invasion Card Spotlight: Skizzik

David Price

Skizzik Creature-Elemental Rare Kicker (You may pay an additional as you play this spell.) Trample; haste (This creature may attack and the turn it comes under your control.) At end of turn, sacrifice Skizzik unless the kicker cost was paid. 5/3 Illus. Ron Spencer 169/350

I'm no stranger to creatures with Haste. Ever since I played my first pure red beatdown deck, a deck featuring Ball Lightning, Viashino Sandstalker, and Lava Hounds, to a 6-0 finish in the 1997 US Nationals, I've appreciated the potential power of these cards. The deck was designed to run over an opponent as quickly as possible with a combination of cheap red weenies, burn, and more expensive creatures with haste. It often didn't matter if the creatures died at the end of the turn, like with Ball Lightning, as long as they got their damage in. Even before I used these red creatures, I learned to appreciate that type of card by playing with Yavimaya Ants from Alliances, a 5/1 trampling creature with haste for 2 mana with a cumulative upkeep of . Sometimes it would surprise the opponent and would deal five points of damage, other times it would trample over a little blocker for only a few points of damage, and often it would come back for more the next turn. Yavimaya Ants is quite a remarkable card and Skizzik, the new Elemental from Invasion, seems to carry on in the same tradition.

Skizzik employs a new game mechanic called a Kicker. The caster of the spell has an option of whether or not to pay the Kicker cost at the time of casting. Naturally, if the optional Kicker cost is paid, the spell turns out to be even stronger than it would be otherwise. In the case of Skizzik, the Kicker makes it so that you have almost two different creature cards in one. If you pay only one red and three generic mana, Skizzik is a 5/3 creature with trample and haste that dies at the end of the turn, much like Ball Lightning. Whether or not Skizzik receives lethal damage, it is doing at most 5 points of damage to the opponent in this mode and it won't be around the next turn. On the other hand, if Skizzik's Kicker cost is paid, making it cost two red and three generic mana total, it is a 5/3 creature with trample and haste that must be dealt with like any other creature or it'll keep threatening the opponent. In this mode, Skizzik is like a souped up Gerrard's Irregulars from Mercadian Masques. With such versatility and power in one card, it would be shocking if it didn't see tournament play.

So how will Skizzik fit into the new Type 2? With Urza's Saga, Legacy, and Destiny rotating out of the Standard environment, this creature will surely fill a void left by Viashino Cutthroat from Urza's Legacy and Keldon Champion from Urza's Destiny. Both of these cards have been popular in red beatdown and burn decks over the past several months. Their function was to catch the opponent off guard and deal a quick five or six points of damage, possibly threatening the opponent further if he or she failed to find an answer for them. The base casting cost of both of these creatures is four mana and Skizzik is no different. In some sense, Skizzik is the cheapest creature of the three to keep around and the most threatening if it stays. Keldon Champion had Echo, meaning that the owner had to pay an additional four mana on its next upkeep if he or she wanted the creature to live, while Viashino Cutthroat had to be cast turn after turn in order to continue doing damage, as it returns to the owner's hand at the end of the turn. That one extra red mana to pay Skizzik's Kicker cost seems quite cheap by comparison. In addition, Skizzik is a 5/3 trampler, superior in many ways to the 3/2 first striking Keldon Champion and the 5/3 Viashino Cutthroat. Finally, Skizzik requires less red mana than the other two, making it more well-suited to multicolor decks while not diminishing its usefulness to mono-red.

Not only will Skizzik be a powerhouse in Constructed, but it'll certainly be good in Limited. Gerrard's Irregulars, Skizzik's feeble brother from Mercadian Masques, almost always sees play in decks that use red mana. In particular, the Irregulars shine with tricks like Ramosian Rally and damage prevention like Orim's Cure, and I can't imagine a limited format where Skizzik wouldn't be a welcome addition to any deck using Mountains. Since Skizzik is rare, however, it won't likely be a defining card in the environment. Showing up rarely in Sealed Deck and Draft, it will be more of a treat than a staple.

I don't like to use the term, "the new Ball Lightning," an often heard phrase since the everyone's favorite red haste creature was removed from the basic set. While sometimes the phrase seems appropriate, it is never totally accurate. The fact of the matter is that Skizzik, like the similar creatures that came before it, is not a simple remake of an old card. It may be reminiscent of such favorites as Ball Lightning and Yavimaya Ants but it has unique qualities including a new game mechanic that gives it definite strengths and weaknesses compared to its predecessors. There is no doubt that Skizzik will be a strong addition to both Constructed and Limited. We may have to wait and see what else Invasion brings, however, before we can determine whether it will return Red Beatdown and Red Burn decks to their former glory or whether its less stringent red mana requirements will bring about a renaissance of aggressive Green/Red and Black/Red decks.

Tomorrow: Gary Wise takes aim at Samite Archer.