"Thing in the Ice: Oh that thing."

"Thing in the Ice: Oh that thing."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Insanity seems to be contagious in Innistrad. Normally when sane people find what seem to be an 80 foot monster encased in ice , those said sane people normally turn the ship around as fast as they can and pray that the winds take them far away from the thing.

On Innistrad it seems like when you find something that could potentially smash your ship into little bits without breaking into a sweat the normal thing to do is to put hooks on it and pull it into warmer waters where the ice eventually thins out and the thing in it breaks free from its Icy prison to  , well , eat something. A ship full of people seems like a tasty snack for starters.

Now that our minds are filled with visions of Sea Monsters (a welcome break from the visions of Eldrazi swarming everywhere) we look to this card that seems to me would have a great potential but would probably be relegated as a second stringer.

So the flip card can be cast as Thing in the Ice for 2 mana. What you get is a defender with a solid 0/4 frame that could ward off small early aggressors. What you also get is the potential to sling spells and get a 7/8 Kraken Horror for free!

So The Thing in the Ice comes with 4 Ice Counters on it and every time you play a sorcery or instant you get to remove 1 Ice Counter on it. The Kraken emerges when the Ice Counters are gone. 

I can see control players casting this early for defense. Be simply content on controlling the game with a counter here and there. A spell to draw cards once in awhile and boom! A 7/8 Monster which at this point could wreck havoc at the mid game.

In Modern  , Spells like Gitaxian Probe allow you to transform this card even faster. No mana needed at all and you could just have those Islands untapped for when you really need them.

Another thing that came to mind is another creature that also released another Kraken. Vampire Hexmage. No need to wait longer just sacrifice her , cast an Instant or Sorcery and you unleash your beast. The thing is you need to go U/B which is not such a bad thing because you now have another set of sorcery and Instants that could help you in the removal and hand disruption department.

While this new card may not have the same survival rate as Batterskull or Pearl Lake Ancient it will still be welcome since it can match up with the Non-Legendary Eldrazis very well.

All in all I will still be playing this thing. I hope it likes me.

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Thanks Ramon Alivio for the comment!