Vintage's Best Creature

[forests failed you]

A few years ago there was a vote on this subject.  I would be very interested to see how the format has changed since that time.  If I recall correctly it was right after Gen Con 2004 when the last poll for best creature went up.  Feel free to discuss why you picked the specific creature you did, or other creature related banter.


Vote for the best creature in modern vintage.

Cheers,

[Cross]

At the moment it seems like goblin tokens are the best.

[UR]

Well ofcourse I had to vote for my new love: Phyrexian Dreadnought.

[unknown.root]

Without a doubt I would go with Dark Confidant. The guy is freakin' nuts.

[Polynomial P]

Dark confidant gets my vote hands down. People have tried to abuse him in every single archetype, from aggro-control, to stax, contol, and combo.

[Jacob Orlove]

At the moment it seems like goblin tokens are the best.

Yeah, Empty the Warrens is currently the best "creature".

[Mr. Nightmare]

At the moment it seems like goblin tokens are the best.

Yeah, Empty the Warrens is currently the best "creature".

I checked to see if that was an option even before I read these.  For real.  Barring that, Chris Pikula.

[jeblucas]

I voted for Goblin Welder. Every now and then WotC prints something just so amazing on face that it seems difficult to believe. Dark Confidant, while amazing, actually strikes me as "fair". Same goes for Meddling Mage. Welder has never appeared to be fair to me, it just so fundamentally breaks the rule of "one must pay for one's spells" that my mind boggles that it made it past the development cycle in that form (they didn't even add "play this ability only when you could play a sorcery"). Even if the CMC was or it would still get played in Vintage.

That said, Xantid Swarm is another amazing creature in this same vein. Crazy undercosted, stunning pseudo card advantage.

[Hi-Val]

T A R P A N !

[Klep]

Doug, that's a dirty lie.  It's obviously Noble Panther.

[kirdape3]

Remember kids, it decks Keeper!

[Gekoratel]

Other - The Wumpspot

[Smmenen]

I would vote for either Goblin Welder or Colossus. 

[wethepeople]

I don't believe I see Mountain Goat on the poll selections, but, I guess Dark Confidant is OK.

[Dxfiler]

Dark confidant gets my vote hands down. People have tried to abuse him in every single archetype, from aggro-control, to stax, contol, and combo.

They key word in your statement is 'tried.'  Confidant has yet to become utterly ridiculous in vintage.  Confidant decks simply haven't put up the numbers near anything with goblin welder or meddling mage in it.  I think confidant is a fantastic card, but it can randomly bamboozle you, which puts it behind both mage and welder for me.

There are pretty much 0 drawbacks to mage and welder.  Both of those cards have constantly shown up in a multitude of different decks and are constantly showing up in the top tables in one form or another.  I think welder is the outright more powerful card, but I consider meddling mage to be much more abusive.  The difference is welder can be good for anyone, and Pikula only really shines in the hands of a good player.  For that reason alone I'd vote for meddling mage.  Factor in that I have a giant man-crush on it and it's a no contest for me personally.

Meddling Mage all the way baby.

- Dave Feinstein

P.S. Where's the kird ape?  = (

[kirdape3]

Meddling Mage isn't even the best creature in my current deck.  That's either True Believer (yaaaaaaaaaaus) or Jotun Grunt, who simply is a 4/4 for W1 with Vanishing: 4 or so.

[Methuselahn]

True Believer is garbage.

Goblin tokens are the best right now.

[technogeek5000]

ur missing 4 1/2 creatures here

1# Jotun grunt
2# Vinelasher kudzu
3# Nimble mongoose
4# Wild mongrel
(Bird Sh*t FTW)

Also im kind of scared to see a few there... Juggernaut, morphling... not nearly as good as the four above

[M.Solymossy]

Hands down Dark Confidant

@  Fienstien: you should have said Savannah Lions, it's almost as valid as Meddling Mage.    You're the only compitent Fish player that has not yet realized that dark confidant alone makes your deck that much greater.  Dark Confidant is the backbone of SS, Urbana Fish, Nicalo Fishalo, and was the CORE of the IT sideboard.  All of those decks have had a great deal of success.   I've seen workshop aggro decks perform well with Dark Confidant (Its Raining Men anyone?) I've seen Stax do well with it (GWS Stax, as well as a fortitude of other stax decks), and Combo has abused Bob QUITE well.

Keep good extended creatures our of the "vintage creature" thread.

[Smmenen]

Hands down Dark Confidant

@  Fienstien: you should have said Savannah Lions, it's almost as valid as Meddling Mage.    You're the only compitent Fish player that has not yet realized that dark confidant alone makes your deck that much greater.  Dark Confidant is the backbone of SS, Urbana Fish, Nicalo Fishalo, and was the CORE of the IT sideboard.  All of those decks have had a great deal of success.   I've seen workshop aggro decks perform well with Dark Confidant (Its Raining Men anyone?) I've seen Stax do well with it (GWS Stax, as well as a fortitude of other stax decks), and Combo has abused Bob QUITE well.

Keep good extended creatures our of the "vintage creature" thread.

I have to agree with Feinstein.

Aside from Aggro-Control which deck has really taken Confidant and ran with it?  Almost everyting its played in is considered inferior to another design of the same basic archetype.

Don't get me wrong, Confidant is a fantastic card, but hardly the best creature ever. 

I also think that Confidant is too slow to be good at the highest level of competitive Vintage unless you are playing Fish (EDIT: Or a hate deck).   

Goblin Welder, on the other hand, is utterly insane.  It's anti-countermagic, it's a mana generator, it's one mana, and its an engine as well as a combo part.  He's great in control, stax, and combo (belcher).   He's really ridiculous. 

[M.Solymossy]

How can you consider a creature that needs something else to work the best creature in vintage?  I've played slaver a LOT and there are MULTIPLE times when Goblin Welder just doesn't DO enough.  You need other things for it to work.  Dark Confidant is pure card advantage at the cost of life which as we all know is perfectly fine 90% of the time.     I mean yes, I agree that goblin welder is absolutely ridiculous, but it needs other things for it to work.  That is the same reason I didn't say Xantid Swarm.

[Smmenen]

What?  Confidant doesn't need somethign else to work?

Yes it does.  It needs time.

In my view the average vintage game is only a few turns long per player on average.    Confidant doesn't even recoup the card used to play him until a turn later and doesn't start generating card advantage until a turn after that.   That seems more conditional to me than the chance that your opponent will find somethign to do with Welder.   

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

Hands down Dark Confidant

@ Fienstien: you should have said Savannah Lions, it's almost as valid as Meddling Mage. You're the only compitent Fish player that has not yet realized that dark confidant alone makes your deck that much greater. Dark Confidant is the backbone of SS, Urbana Fish, Nicalo Fishalo, and was the CORE of the IT sideboard. All of those decks have had a great deal of success. I've seen workshop aggro decks perform well with Dark Confidant (Its Raining Men anyone?) I've seen Stax do well with it (GWS Stax, as well as a fortitude of other stax decks), and Combo has abused Bob QUITE well.

Keep good extended creatures our of the "vintage creature" thread.

Meddling Mage can be argued as one of the reasons the fish Archetype is even viable. Meddling Mage is the savior in many matches that would be an auto loss like Oath for example.

It's been proven by countless people piloting U/W aggro that Dark Confidant isn't as hot as Pikula. I know as an aggro control player I feel that Meddling Mage is a much more devastating tool to wield over Dark Confidant.

[M.Solymossy]

Urbana doesn't play Meddling Mage.  It beats oath.

[Sextiger]

I am disappointed to see no Trinket Mage on the list. Trinket Mage is just simply amazing.

[LotusHead]

Goblin Welder.

Bob is great, Bob is good, but it just doesn't put stuff into play like Welder does.

Welder is just unfair.

[Meddling Mike]

I think this question might be too subjective to really have a definitive answer, pretty much all these cards only work in certain decks. Without fat things to weld goblin welder is pretty useless, even my beloved Meddling Mage requires you to run white and wouldn't really make much sense without pals to help him chip away at your life total, I wrote an article about confidant in Vintage and I made the contention that he needs a deck that's not going to win right away, yet not take so long or have so many high casting cost spells that he kills you. The "Best Creature" really depends on what deck/archetype you're playing. If we're defining "best" creatures as creatures that have the biggest impact on the game state then something a bit more expensive like a Sundering Titan, Darksteel Colossus or an Akroma would probably be higher up on the list.

Maybe if some more definitive criteria were given?

[OfficeShredder]

I was going to make a joke about goblin tokens, but I'm about 27 posts too late 

Dark confidant sees play in TMWA,, and meddling mage doesn't, so confidant does have SOME advantages (like, isn't blue.  blue is so lame in vintage)

I'm going to have to vote for squee, simply because I'm sure R&D thought he would be an overcosted 1/1 when they made him.  And now he's a draw engine!

[Norm4eva]

Exalted Angel.
I don't play decks that can't support Tits McLifeGain.
She's great WITH Mana Drain, because she only costs >= 2WW.
She's great AGAINST Mana Drain since they get 0 for Draining her.  I already Mage'd their FoWns so FEH
I'm not surprised she's not on the list, because she does not show up in decks anymore :( But for a time she was pimp shit.

EDIT: Actually I voted for Ichorid, because regardless of losing to hate or this or that etc etc... there's not another deck in the world that runs the way it does.  It plays more 'free spells' than virtually any other deck and doesn't inherently generate card disadvantage while doing it, because Ichy and Co bounce back.  It's like Squee only you don't look like a cheese dick for having 3 in play.

[Akuma]

Goblin Welder, end of story.

It was stupid in 2004, it's stupid now.