"Underworld Rage-Hound: Down boy Down."

"Underworld Rage-Hound: Down boy Down."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

One of the first things that caught my eye when they were previewing the Escape mechanic is this 3/1 for 2 mana red creature. It is a good boy.(As far as Elemental hounds go at least)  And you can't keep a good boy down. It just keeps on escaping. 

Underworld Rage-Hound is an aggressive creature that attacks each turn when able. Sure it is a bit squishy at 3/1 but death doesn't bother it all that much since it can just come back later on in the game.

Imagine this scenario , you have been running a Rakdos deck that looks at opponents hands and makes them discard or burn all their small blockers with burn spells. You can get early damage but sometimes aggro decks run out of steam and their opponents get to stabilize and aggro players who have no access to decent draw spells end up doing nothing.

Not so with the Underworld Rage-Hound and Escape. All of a sudden for the price of 4 mana and exiling 3 other cards from your graveyard you now have a 4/2 potential finisher. This is assuming that your burn/removal spells have taken all of your opponents blockers and your discarders have wiped their hands of any future blockers.

Another benefit of Escape is that you more confident of Mass Sweeping even if it destroys your own creatures. The upside is that you can still access your creatures via Escape and if you play it right your opponents would not. A Bojuka bog might ruin your day but it might very well ruin your opponents day as well. Always makes sure that it is the later.