Tarkir: Dragonstorm has been out for a little while now, and the set is really starting to prove itself. Cori-Steel Cutter is absolutely dominating in Standard, while Rakshasa’s Bargain is delivering surprising results in older formats. It looks like the set is a hit on all fronts. Last weekend, Tarkir: Dragonstorm snagged another major win. In an MTG Modern League, the shiny new Lasyd Prowler proved itself a great addition to the Dredge decks in the format.
As with Cori-Steel Cutter, this was a card that got limited press prior to release. In practice, it turns out a beefy creature with a scaling graveyard effect is a pretty sweet deal. Real play in Dredge is a fantastic start, but Prowler looks to have potential far beyond that. Don’t be surprised to see this card on a range of tables very soon.
Lasyd Prowler MTG
- Mana Value: 2GG
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Creature – Snake Ranger
- Stats: 5/5
- Card Text: When this creature enters, you may mill cards equal to the number of lands you control.
Renew — 1G, Exile this card from your graveyard: Put X +1/+1 counters on target creature, where X is the number of land cards in your graveyard. Activate only as a sorcery.
Lasyd Prowler is the kind of card you could take back in a time machine to completely blow the mind of an MTG player from a decade ago. A 5/5 for four mana with multiple upsides is peak power creep. The wildest part is that a card this good didn’t raise so much as an eyebrow during preview season.
Looking at it afresh in the light of the full set, it’s pretty special. The stats are obviously great, letting it take on Sheoldred in combat for as long as she remains in Standard. The self-mill ability here is fantastic too. Prowler lets you mill cards equal to the number of lands you control, which should be four at the very least. Four is about the going rate for strong self-mill right now. Overlord of the Balemurk and Cache Grab both see regular play, after all.
Granted, Prowler doesn’t offer card advantage like this pair, but it does scale up to mill more as you play more lands. Milling five or more with a single trigger is Dredge territory, and we all know how powerful those cards are.
This huge mill potential also supports Prowler’s Renew ability nicely. For just two mana, it adds counters to a creature equal to the number of lands in your graveyard. In a dedicated deck, this can be a massive buff for the mana invested. The fact that it works from the graveyard is excellent, too. This means you can mill Prowler with one of your self-mill cards, perhaps another copy of itself, and still get good value out of it.
A New Edge For Dredge
It didn’t take long for an MTG deck to find a use for a card as powerful as Lasyd Prowler. In Saturday’s MTGO Modern League, MahfuzVanGogh piloted a Dredge list running the card to a 5-0 finish. While they only ran two copies of the card, MahfuzVanGogh noted on Twitter that Prowler “was INSANE and won me multiple games.” That’s some serious endorsement right out of the gate.
Typically, Dredge decks such as this win by going wide. They mill most of their cards with Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Thug, then swarm the board with recursive creatures like Bloodghast, Narcomoeba, and Prized Amalgam. Combined with free burn damage from Creeping Chill, this is generally enough to end games quickly. It does leave Dredge vulnerable to board clears, however, since it doesn’t tend to run ways to grant said board Haste.
This is where Lasyd Prowler comes in. Since you’re milling most of your deck in Dredge, that Renew ability can easily add double-digit stats to whatever creature it targets. The deck plays a surprising number of evasive creatures, too, which can make great use of this buff, becoming game-ending threats in an instant. Psychic Frog is particularly good here, since it can also grow via its own ability. It’s not hard to engineer Psychic Frog kills alongside Prowler, with Frog gaining Flying by exiling just three cards from your ‘yard.
By building up one huge creature, a lot of common Modern removal becomes less effective against Dredge. Your opponent will struggle to wear down an 11/11 Narcomoeba with just Phlage triggers and Goblin Bombardment, after all. The fact that Prowler offers this extra angle of attack without even needing to be cast at all is excellent.
On The Prowl
A 5-0 Modern League result is already better than most new MTG cards get. That said, Lasyd Prowler has the potential to go further yet. Current Standard is packed with great graveyard synergies and self-mill cards, and this is just another excellent piece for those decks to try out.
In Golgari Self-Mill, for example, you can set up Prowler early via Overlord of the Balemurk and Dredger’s Insight. Then, in the mid-game, you can grant a huge buff to one of the deck’s evasive creatures. Both Hollow Marauder and Huskburster Swarm are staples in the deck, and both do very well with an extra +5/+5 or so on top. In this sense, Prowler could perform the same role here as it does in Modern.
In addition to being a payoff for the deck, Prowler is also an excellent enabler. As I mentioned above, milling four or more on a body like this is a solid rate indeed. The fact that it comes on an above-rate body is notable too, since it lets you make up for the tempo lost early on on your Overlord/Insight turns.
Outside of Golgari Self-Mill, the card could also make a name for itself in the Sultai Teval lists we’ve seen cropping up. These decks also appreciate both sides of the card: they want a lot of cards in their graveyard to fuel Delve nonsense, and they like majorly buffing Teval to crack in for a huge Lifelink swing. While success in either of these decks is far from guaranteed, I’d be surprised if players didn’t test Prowler out in them at least.
