I'm On a Boat

Ahhh, Arabian Nights. On the whole, not really that awful of a set. Most of the cards don't hold up much to modern standards of power creep balance, but that's okay, because it was young and stupid when it came out.



Spike can take a cursory glance at this set and squee over the Djinni and Efreet that have drawbacks that are, as we say in the biz, "totally worth it" in constructed play. They can look at some of the other cards and see mediocrity and, in some cases, unplayability.

Oh shit, Desert's going to ruin Magic! We need an answer, STAT! With blankets and everything!

But Spike doesn't get nightmares from humped mammals that essentially read "your creature doesn't die from combat damage this turn". Spike gets nightmares from cards even less playable. Behold, Merchant Ship.

I'm not sure exactly where to start on this one. It's a 0/2 for U, which means it's useless without a good ability. So that means... this one is useless. Seriously, look at that wording.

"If Merchant Ship attacks and is not blocked, you gain 2 life."

Exactly how often is your 0/2 that does literally nothing when blocked (except probably suck it up and die) going to not be blocked? Especially when it provides extra incentive for your opponent to block it, because it provides a positive effect for you. So your opponent throws one of their 347302947203 Goat tokens in front of it at negligible cost, and you're now out a blocker and don't get your 2 life.

Worse, I haven't even mentioned both drawbacks. The first one isn't very applicable, since you'll probably be playing some sort of Island in your casual Human tribal boat-themed deck in an attempt to avoid splurging for shock- and fetchlands while simultaneously losing every game of Magic you ever play with it.

Hah, nice Terror, sucker, I'm not even playing artifacts or enchantments! Now feel the wrath of my Pirate Ship as I attempt to attack into your monoblack deck!

No, the real kicker is the second drawback. Not only will you not be able to gain life, because this will be blocked if at all humanly possible, but you probably won't even be able to attack in the first place. I can't stress that enough. So aside from worrying about whether or not your opponent has blockers, now you have to worry about whether or not their deck was constructed to allow you to actually make use of this waste of ink in the first place.

Somebody call X-ibit, because there needs to be some serious pimping for this ride to be at all considerable.