Card in Review - Necrotic Ooze

Since at least the days of Weatherlight, seeing an opponent dumping creatures into his graveyard en masse is reasonable cause for alarm. Most likely, you have to worry about some or all of those creatures being brought into play, often circumventing their mana costs along the way. But what happens if reanimation isn't the plan? What if the graveyard is exactly where they're intended to stay, and you in fact have to worry about something more fearsome than any or all of the creatures there... because it's in fact all of them at once?

Necrotic Ooze has a unique take on the realm of gestalt creatures - seen before with the likes of Cairn Wanderer and Death-mask Duplicant. What's unique about the Ooze is that it only picks up activated abilities: that is, anything with a colon separating cost and effect. Creatures like Quicksilver Elemental and Myr Welder are also able to pick up activated abilities (both are also from Mirrodin... hmmm) but the Ooze's abilities are gained freely and automatically. Experiment Kraj is another ooze that can borrow activated abilities, but he doesn't do so automatically and you actually need the creatures in play: that can be a lot slower than just dumping three tasty morsels in your graveyard with Buried Alive.

Now, since Necrotic Ooze picks up any and all activated abilities in your graveyard, there are two real avenues for abuse - the first is getting exceptionally powerful abilities that might otherwise cost a lot more mana or come with a harsh drawback. The other is to create a combo out of multiple activated abilities that break the game once they exist on the same body.


Utility Ability

Perhaps the greatest assistant to get a Necrotic Ooze up and running is Fauna Shaman. Normally just a worse Survival of the Fittest, the Shaman's status as a creature is key here. She can discard creatures with whatever useful activated abilities you want in order to grab the Ooze if you don't have one yet, or just keep grabbing more useful abilities to discard if you do. And if she dies? No sweat, now the Ooze can make use of that ability in a slightly more resilient body.

An otherwise-weak card that was searching for a home, Myr Propagator's unique ability is much more useful when it's transferred to something other than a vanilla 1/1. Whatever your goal is - whether it's comboing out or making a fearsome facewrecker - the Propagator can help by spawning an extra ooze for three mana. And of course, the copies can make copies of their own, if you have the mana for it. Perhaps even better, though, is Pack Rat - it allows you to discard any useful creatures and doesn't require tapping, meaning you can still attack with all of your Oozes every turn and still make copies. It just might be harder to fuel more than one or two at a time once your hand runs out.

Many of the handy abilities you'll be picking up will likely be tap abilities - after all, they leave your mana open to play other threats or defenses, and frankly, that's just what's available. But whether you're tapping your Ooze to blow stuff up, make mana or draw cards, getting more activations as cheaply as possible should speed your gameplan up considerably. Look no further than Horseshoe Crab, who lets you untap for one mana a pop.

Tired of waiting to draw into your combo pieces? The Ooze is no slouch when it comes to card draw, thanks to Arcanis the Omnipotent (who also gives you a handy way to dodge removal at the same time.) Combine him with Horseshoe Crab and that's one blue mana to draw three cards... as many times as you want! If an Ancestral Recall on demand isn't enough to get you interested, I think you're playing the wrong game.

Since you're certain to be using activated abilities in force - unless you really want that vanilla 4/3 for four in your Ooze tribal deck - having Heartstone and Training Grounds in the mix can really help cheapen mana-hungry abilities, and the savings stack up if you use them multiple times per turn.

I Got Slimed

It would be nice to just fill your Ooze up with abilities and go to town, but only the most tunnel-visioned (and fastest) combo decks can afford to completely ignore what their opponent is doing. Sometimes you'll have to put a stop to your opponent's plans - and fortunately, the Ooze excels at targeted removal.

Visara the Dreadful and Avatar of Woe are mighty tempting, letting you Terminate any creature by doing nothing more than turning sideways. If you look to a little more obscure card, though, you can do even better - Shauku, Endbringer completely removes any creature from the game and even picks up a +1/+1 counter while she's at it. Of course, since you only pick up her activated ability, you completely sidestep that painful upkeep and can't-attack clause, not to mention the steep casting cost. Want even more? Look to somewhere even more obscure (and normally complete garbage) and Infernal Denizen has got you covered. Ignore that harsh drawback, so long as he's dead you can tap the Ooze to flat-out steal any creature. How's that for cheap removal? Combine any one of these critters with a Horseshoe Crab and you can machine gun an opponent's entire army away with ease.

Got more worries than creatures? No problem, Demonic Hordes lets you take out lands and Minion of Leshrac can get either. Glissa Sunseeker can pick off artifacts, so long as you're spending mana elsewhere, and Nullmage Advocate can nab artifacts or enchantments if you don't mind giving your opponent some of his weakest cards back. Don't mind spending a little mana? Ethersworn Adjudicator can decisively wipe out creatures or enchantments, and even brings a pricey untap ability, and Hoard-Smelter Dragon can take out artifacts while pumping the Ooze's power and still leaving it free to attack. Viashino Heretic requires mana and tapping, but he throws in some damage which is still useful even against indestructible artifacts. Wickerbough Elder has perhaps the cheapest way to take out artifacts as well as enchantments, but you'll need to combine him with an ability that puts counters on him.

If you're using Myr Propagator or Pack Rat to get some extra Ooze tokens, Qasali Pridemage allows sacrificial lambs to cheaply take out artifacts or enchantments, and Necrotic Sliver is a little pricier but allows you to destroy any type of permanent.

Form Voltron

If you want the baddest creature around, then forget about keyword abilities and raw stats. The Ooze knows that any problem can be solved by paying on demand, so long as you have the right things in your toolbox.

Morphling, the original pile of abilites-on-demand, makes for a great starting point. Flying, untargetability, and pumping either stat is already enough to lean on. It also saves space in your deck by coming with the Horseshoe Crab's handy one-mana untap ability. Even with no other creatures in the graveyard, the Ooze will be one mana less and have one more power over Morphling. Its green cousin, Thornling, is handy for bringing Haste, Trample and Indestructibility to the table. Torchling isn't as helpful, not bringing anything that isn't done better by some other creature, but you can include all three for thematic purposes. The latest addition to the 'lings, AEtherling, doesn't have as many abilities, but they're doozies: unblockability and flickering on demand will keep your Ooze safe and your opponent on a fast clock. And hey, if your opponents are okay with a single silver-bordered card lurking in your deck, Greater Morphling truly has anything you'll need.

Lunar Avenger and the more recent Multiform Wonder let you pay for handy keyword abilities if you're dabbling in +1/+1 counters or energy counters, respectively. Windreaver has a handy quartet of (mostly-defensive) abilities, and Butcher of the Horde can turn your spare creatures into useful abilities on your Ooze (especially if you're sacrificing critters with activated abilities of their own.) Either Urza's Avenger or Jodah's Avenger can trade size for abilities, which is especially useful if you include some ways to pump the Ooze's stats.

A fistful of keyword abilities is nice and all, but it will take more than that to trample over your foes. Sometimes you need raw power, and fortunately the Ooze has a variety of ways to pick that up, too. Feral Animist gets you a way to double his power with each activation, the Ooze helpfully starting with twice as much power as well. If you have Training Grounds out, then you're set, as it's just 1 mana to double his power each time. Heroes' Bane costs one more mana per activation and requires green, but it adds to toughness as well and makes the boost permanent. Adding on Solarion gives you a cheaper way to keep doubling those counters, especially with a Horeshoe Crab in the mix, ensuring you can fuel the abilities from Lunar Avenger as well. Likewise, Electrostatic Pummeler gives you a way to increase the Ooze's size if you're already using energy counters for Multiform Wonder. Thriss, Nantuko Primus doesn't require any sort of counters and is only one mana per activation: with Horseshoe Crab or Morphling, that's two mana to give the Ooze +5/+5 each time, and the boosts can also be spread out among your other creatures however you like. Don't feel like paying any mana? That's fine, Phyrexian Devourer finally has a use, as the Ooze inherits his ability to eat cards from your library to grow without gaining the stipulation that he goes splat once he's too large. Mill like mad and get as big as you want.

Combolicious

Getting the biggest, baddest boy around is pretty fun, but doesn't it feel a little bone-headed? Surely all of these activated abilities working together can achieve something a little grander than an unblockable 40/40, no? If you'd rather leave fat creatures to the Timmies, and comboing out is more your style, there are no shortage of ways for the Ooze to accommodate.

A myriad of abuses came to light when Shadowmoor brought us the dreaded Untap symbol (something which you may have noticed has yet to reappear. Go figure.) While Horseshoe Crab might provide a cheap way to untap, the untap abilities give you something for your mana while they're at it. Easy example: Palladium Myr (or Fyndhorn Elder, or Argothian Elder, or Greenweaver Druid, or...) combined with Pili-Pala means infinite mana in any colours. Plug in a Spikeshot Elder, Scholar of Athreos or Dimir Guildmage and you can kill your opponent on the spot.

Another gift from Shadowmoor are the various abilities dealing with -1/-1 counters. Perhaps the most open-ended is combining the abilities of Devoted Druid and Morselhoarder: put a counter on the Ooze to untap it (remember, you can do this even if it's already untapped) then immediately remove the counter for one mana of any colour. Rinse and repeat and that's another pathway to infinite mana. The thing is, the Druid is already very useful even without the combo in place yet (mana acceleration is appreciated, as is a mana-free untap for the Ooze.) Even if infinite mana never happens, combine her with Quillspike for infinite power and toughness.

Since you'll probably want to run a discard outlet, consider the unassuming Civilized Scholar. If the Ooze borrows his ability, you can tap to loot a card, then untap and transform if you discarded a creature card - but hold on, the Ooze doesn't have a reverse side, so it can't transform! That means he just gets to untap, ready to use its tap abilities again. Sounds nice, but how can you guarantee having a creature to discard every time? Look no farther than those dreaded Dredge creatures: special mention goes to Golgari Brownscale, as it will gain you a massive amount of life at the same time. Tap to draw a card, skip the draw to dredge instead, then discard the Brownscale you just returned to untap the Ooze again. This is a very simple way to mill your entire deck - after which you can use any combination of activated abilities from your graveyard, seeing as the gang's all here!

So you can earn arbitrary amounts of power or mana through the Ooze, but how about something more devastating - such as turns? Line up Anthroplasm and Sage of Hours in the graveyard and you can pay five mana for five +1/+1 counters, then immediately remove them to take another turn. Want something less substantial, or just flat-out more convoluted? Dump Patron of the Moon in the graveyard with Ghost Town and Amulet of Vigor in play. You can tap the Town for one mana, bounce it for free, then use the mana to slap it right back in play with the Patron's ability. That's infinite landfall, if you want a real Rube Goldberg Machine!

For perhaps the most stylish "instant win," have the Ooze borrow Mirror-Mad Phantasm's ability. So long as there isn't a second Phantasm lurking in your deck, the Ooze will shuffle itself in and look for a card that isn't there - after all, you're trying to find something named "Mirror-Mad Phantasm," not "Necrotic Ooze." Once your entire deck's dumped in your graveyard, pay for Unburial Rites' flashback to bring back Laboratory Maniac. Sounds complicated, but it's really only a two-card combo: the other pieces just have to be somewhere in your library. Of course, if the Maniac already happened to be in play, so much the better!

A Yooze for Ooze

Here then, for your consideration, are a couple deck exploring the different avenues I outlined earlier for use of Necrotic Ooze. The first seeks to make an unstoppable combat monster that bulldozes your foe with raw muscle. The second merely assembles an infinite mana combo and blows out your opponent(s) with an arbitrary amount of damage or card draws.

Whether you're putting a gooey frankenstein's monster of abilities-on-demand or sticking a series of otherwise-unassuming abilities together into one gamebreaking whole, Necrotic Ooze offers a fun and unique vector - and one somewhat out of the colour pie, at that! - for creative deckbuilding. One must always appreciate any card that creates new use for older and traditionally worthless cards!