So, I've been looking for a card to counter Oko for a while now that can be played in a Cavern human list. Could this be that card? It's a bit high on the curve, but I was wondering what people thought.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/commander-2020/38015-slippery-bogbonder
a 4 drop to soft-counter a 3 drop is probably not that great. it depends what you are protecting, but oko's failure mode of just making 3/3s for its controller is still a problem if your plan is to play 4 mana 3/3s, especially if they guess that you're holding up 4 mana for a trick like this and don't let you use it to counter an activation.
sylvan safekeeper is something you can cavern human that stops oko activations, but I'm not sure how much keeping your guys from being turned into 3/3s is what matters vs an oko; it'll depend on the deck.
alternatively, mirran crusader has protection from oko
I cannot express what a nightmare that card is going to be in EDH. In any other format I imagine you just want to use natively hexproof things for this strategy but it's going to be so obnixious.
Wait are abilities "counters" now? Do old creatures with Flying now enter with "flying counters"?
I haven't paid attention to Standard at all recently and it looks like I missed a massive rules change.
There are new counters that give abilities in this set. Abilities still also just come printed on the card, as well as temp buffs from effects. The use of counters was more so to reduce the need to memorize things without cards as well as so they could make new cards that interact with counters slightly differently.
@BlindTherapy From experience, The "turn your guy into a 3/3" ability of Oko is the killer for creature-based cavern decks. Like a Knight of the Reliquary getting "Elked" is just so painful. Sylvan Safekeeper only stops the ability ONE time. It can also easily be Wren & 6ed. That's the reason I don't love Mother of Runes either.
For the mana, I think Thrun is just better. 4/4 for 4, hexproof, regen, and can't get countered (just like cavern ability grants). Not human, but GG isn't hard to get and you are looking for the bonus off cavern-naming-human which Thrun has naturally anyway. The only plus to this, I think, is flash...but for being chumpable by a mox-turned-elk, this card seems worse than Thrun - even in humans.
@thewhitedragon69 said in [C20] Slippery Bogbender:
For the mana, I think Thrun is just better. 4/4 for 4, hexproof, regen, and can't get countered (just like cavern ability grants). Not human, but GG isn't hard to get and you are looking for the bonus off cavern-naming-human which Thrun has naturally anyway. The only plus to this, I think, is flash...but for being chumpable by a mox-turned-elk, this card seems worse than Thrun - even in humans.
The idea is to give hexproof to your real bomb like knight or kambal. Thrun is just a 4/4 that gets chumped. That is why it sucks in my opinion.
@protoaddict it’s so that we can place certain counters on card types other than creatures. Lifelink on a Pestilence, for example.
Why not play Mirran Crusader if your biggest worry is Oko? BUG is almost drawing dead against a resolved Mirran Crusader.
Most of the time we are facing BUGr or UGR and not strictly BUG, and each of these decks have access to Lightning Bolt. I have tried Mirran Crusader, and while it's occasionally good, I don't think it has enough firepower across all the xerox variants out there to have staying power. I hope that helps clarify my thoughts here.
@stormanimagus Knight ALSO gets chumped. Knight is also susceptible to grave hate or being plowed/okoed prior to getting hexproof (like when you cast it and don't have 7 mana available to shield it with this card). A 4/4 beater that trumps oko elks, requires no set-up, relies on no other cards in any zones, and can't be killed is not bad at all.
Kambal is just a different effect altogether, but it's also not great vs a lot of decks. Vs BUG, hollowvine, dredge, or aggro shops, Kambal is meh at best. Thrun is solid in many situations. Kambal is good vs PO and jeskai, but jeskai will have no trouble removing Kambal - and if you are waiting to get to WBG4 to play kambal and protect it, you already lost.
Thrun may be too slow of a threat altogether for vintage, but I'd still say if you were going to pick a 4 mana threat that answers Oko (and has far more upside in general), you go with Thrun over Bogbender.
More than likely, you pick Veil of Autumn over either of these and just win by playing good cards.
